Villagers
Age: | Stone | |
Prerequisites: | Build Town Center. | |
Upgrade Cost: | – – – | |
Research Cost: | – – – | |
Cost: | 50 food | |
Hit Points: | 25 | |
Attack: | 3 | |
Armor: | – – – | |
Piercing Armor: | – – – | |
Range: | – – – | |
Speed: | Medium | |
Upgrade of: | – – – | |
Special: | – – – |
Description:
Villagers can be assigned different tasks (builder, farmer, fisherman, forager, gold miner, hunter, repairman, stone miner). Hunters and villagers used in combat have increased attack strength. You can create villagers at the Town Center.Researching Stone Mining increases stone mining efficiency. Siegecraft increases stone mining efficiency and allows them to destroy walls and buildings. Gold Mining increases gold mining efficiency. The Wheel increases speed. Jihad increases combat strength.
Comments
Villagers are the fundamental building blocks of the game. Without them nothing else happens. There is only one type of villager, and he can pretty much do it all. His jobs include:
– Chopping trees for wood
– Gathering berries for food
– Fishing along the shore for food
– Farming for food
– Hunting animals for food
– Mining for gold and stone
– Constructing/repairing buildings
– Repairing boats
– Killing helpless birds (RoR only)
– Attacking other units
The typical way to use villagers is to make enough of them to finance your military goals. An early attack in the Tool Age requires less villagers then a late attack in the Iron Age. Certain civilizations have villagers with certain bonuses. Note: These are Rise of Rome:The Age of Empires Expansion numbers documented in the manual. There may be differences in the actual game.
Assyrian/Yamato: | Villagers walk 30% faster |
Babylonian: | +30% stone mining |
Egyptian | +20% gold mining |
Shang: | Villagers cost 15 less food |
Phoenician: | +30% woodcutting |
Palmyran: | +20% gathering, Villagers cost 25 extra food |
Macedonian: | Villagers 4 times resistant to conversion and +1 Line of Sight |
Sumerian: | Villagers have 15 extra hitpoints |
Minoan | 25% Farming bonus |
You can increase the ability of your villagers by researching technologies in the market. Most will make them gather resources faster, and one (the wheel) will make them walk quicker.
Oddball Villager Strategies
One strange idea that works for civilizations like Sumerian and Shang is the Stone Age villager rush. Sumerians have more hitpoints, giving them an advantage in a fight, and Shang’s villagers are cheaper, giving them more villagers to fight with. The rush is basically sending out about 5 villagers at the start toward the enemy camp, and once you find them, start attacking their villagers. Once you kill a villager, make sure you click on another, since villagers don’t auto-target like military units do. This is very hard to against Yamato or Assyrian, since they can just run away. If the opposing player successfuly runs away, bust up his houses. This will stop villager production and make him chop more wood before he can continue building up. This is a very dangerous manuever, but it can be a deadly blow to a player very early on.
Angel Washizu
History
Most people of ancient times lived out their lives working to make a living, primarily as hunters, gatherers, and fishermen originally, and later as farmers and herders. The agricultural revolution that began around 8000 BC freed more and more people from the daily pursuit of sustenance as food production became more dependable and efficient. New specialists included potters, metal workers, builders, scribes, leather workers, wood workers, traders, and professional soldiers. By the end of the ancient period, food production employed less than half the population within civilized cultures.