So now you that know the basic units and gameplay of AOE III, it’s time to get a bit more intricate on specific units and whatnot. The first one is the 8 European Cities’ main economic buildings for the first Age: the Discovery Age.
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-Town Center-
The Town Center is the most important building of the Discovery and Colonial Age. If you are going for a rushing tactic, this is the first building you want to destroy. And if you’re going against a rusher, you better protect this building. This building is where you get your shipments, Age up, and build settlers. As we all know, Settlers are the units that gather resources to support a colony – thus, the more settlers you have, the bigger your economy is. This is why keeping a continuous stream of settler production from your Town Center is vital for Booming or Turtling success (or even Rushing).
Aging Up is another extremely important attribute that the Town Center is unique for. Once you hit 800 food, you better Age up as fast as you can using the Town Center so you can get to the Colonial Age – the Age where you can build military units for pillaging or defending.
Lastly, Town Centers act as the spawn point of the ever-useful Shipments from our Home City. To get to the Home City, one clicks on their nation’s flag in the lower part of the screen. If you have a Shipment, you can send one by clicking on the appropriate card. And when the queue finishes, the thing you wanted appears right at your Town Center and a sound alerts you that it has arrived. The 2/3 Villager shipment is extremely important to making it to the Second Age in time, and the subsequent military shipments are absolutely key to most rushing techniques.
After a lot of matches, you may feel that the Town Center actually isn’t much. After all, Settlers don’t need the Town Center to gather resources, right? You can still keep a military without the Town Center. However, you will find that if your Town Center is gone, then you will face several huge issues:
-You can’t Age Up. If your opponent attacked you while you were in the Discovery Age and defeated you, you have absolutely no way to get the Colonial Age and thus get an army.
-You can’t build Settlers. Once the TC is gone, every Settler killed is irreplacable. After you only have a couple Settlers left, it will be impossible to fight back with a sizable military.
-You can’t get shipments. Once the TC blows up, and if you have no Outposts, there is no spawn point for cards, and thus you cannot use them. This cripples all hope for “back-up” support.
And to make matters all the worse, the first Age you can start BUILDING Town Centers is the Fortress Age. So, you will always be TC-less once it’s gone in the Colonial Age. The only exception is the Portuguese, who will get a Town Center Wagon every time he/she Ages up.
-Market-
The Market is another extremely useful building in the first two Ages, especially to reach that golden 800 food pile faster and save yourself seconds of breath. If you have any excess Wood in the First Age, a Market would be a smart idea. And, if you’re going Booming or Turtling, it’s highly encouraged and basically required.
So what’s so great about the Market? Well, first off, you can buy and sell resources. How does this work? In most cases, you can sell 100 of either Food or Wood for a smaller amount of Coin. You can also buy 100 of either Food or Wood using a greater amount of Coin. Is this good or bad? For a Booming or Turtling society, it may be the shortcut to the Fortress Age. For example, if you had 2k Food, 1k Wood and 500 Coin, and you sold 500 wood and 500 food to the market, you would come up with enough money to Age up. That saves the time you have to wait for your villagers to gather 500 coin in resources.
The other, and more important benefit is economic improvements. Need your villagers to gather Food faster so they can reach the 800 food mark early? Well, get the Hunting Dogs improvement, and your villagers will be gathering 20% faster. Need a faster Wood production? Why, just throw your hatchet away and grab a Gang Saw; it’ll make things 20% faster as well! In addition to these wonderful, gather-improving upgrades, you have bonuses to your Settler attack and HP. For Boomers or Turtlers, the HP bonus is an extremely vital and important improvement; in case of a rush, your settlers have more HP to seek refuge in the TC.
-House-
Fairly straightforward. The House costs 100 Wood and supports 10 population. If you are over population or at the population limit, then you cannot build anymore units. That includes Settlers AND military units. So, it is a good idea to use most of your starting Wood building 1 or 2 Houses.
The British have a special type of House called the “Manor House“. This House costs 35 more Wood (for the mathematically challenged, 135 Wood) and takes longer to make. However, once completed, you get a one-time muster of 1 Settler. That means that whenever you finish building a Manor House, a free, extra Settler spawns from it.
-Bank-
The Bank is a unique Dutch building that separates the civilization from the other seven. This Bank, once created, will give the player a small, free trickle of Coin. This amount of Coin is probable to about 1-2 Settlers on Coin, but easily stacks up and supposedly multiplies in speed as more as built. Although there originally is a build limit of 4 Banks, with shipments and improvements, you can get up to 10 Banks.
The letdown to the Bank, though, is the ridiculous amount of resources it costs to create it. It costs 350 Food and 350 Wood to make. Because you want to use your first 800 Food on Aging Up, it’s difficult to get a Bank early on. And that means that you probably will only be able to build Food/Wood military units early on (the Dutch do not have Crossbowmen; they only have Pikemen). However, once multiple Banks are created, you will find that you need absolutely no Villagers on Coin because the trickle rate is so fast.
-Livestock Pen-
The last economic building for use in the First Age is the Livestock Pen. Like the name suggests, it is a pen designed to fatten livestock faster.
What counts as livestock? Sheep are the most common forms of livestock, although livestock also includes cows and llamas. Any animal that you can move (that is under your control) is considered livestock. So, once you have selected your livestock, simply task them to the Livestock Pen, and they will fatten much faster. Livestock Pens can also build Sheep. There is also an improvement for making livestock fatten faster.
Why would one want livestock? Well, for one, livestock do not run away like wild animals do when being killed. Also, the gathering rate for livestock is 3 times faster than that of wild game. This makes Livestock a common Food “investment”, like a good stock in the stock market – it starts out without anything, but when fattened, you get more benefit than any other Food source.
Although the Livestock Pen and the Bank are less commonly found in the First Age, all economic buildings are extremely important and worth defending, especially your Town Center. There are various ways to defend your buildings and settlers:
-Build Outposts. Outposts are buildings with an attack that can garrison settlers. These are important when your settlers are gathering in an unprotected area.
-Minutemen. Minutemen can be trained once in a batch of 6 through the Town Center for a small price. They are very powerful but lose HP over time.
-Defenders. Defend your settlers with military and your buildings with ranged units.
Overall, the best option is the creation of Outposts; however, they do cost 250 Wood.
And those are the economic buildings of the First Age!
