This is the third installment of the Age of Empires III tutorial. The first one gave a bit of common knowledge people might have wanted to know, while the second one introduced First Age economic buildings and their uses later on. This is somewhat a continuation of economic buildings, but more or less directed towards economic sources that provide infinite resources on their part. And yes, the infinite means that there is an infinite amount of resources available to gather, not that you will automatically get an infinite amount of resources.

Without further ado…

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Mills and Farms

In the medieval ages and up, most people obviously did not just hunt animals for their everyday meals. Most of each country’s edible resources came directly from agriculture, or the science of farming. Why? Because while animals were not instant food reserves; were susceptible to disease and theft; and were small in number compared to the required mouthes needed to feed everyday, farming was a fast cycle that could be grown fast and eaten fast. And while vegetables did not fill up a person as much as meat, and cultivating took longer than extracting meat from livestock, it was a reliable, constant source of food. No one could easily “steal crops” until they were fully grown.

The same thing for Mills in Age of Empires III. While the Mills do not gather faster than livestock or hunted animals, you do not have to hunt for animals and you get an infinite and reliable source of food. While hunting is generally the favorable option due to the faster meat production, when the remnants of hunted animals on the map are near your opponent’s turf, it’s time to build a Mill.

8 villagers in total can build a mill. Once built, they will all begin cultivating crops, and you’ll see that you’ll be getting a small trickle in Food. In total, 10 villagers can use the mill. So once the 8 villagers are done building the mill, task 2 more to complete the cycle. You’ll see that your food production is about the equivalent of, say, 6 or 7 villagers gathering hunted animals.

Mills have improvements that help you gather faster from the mill, such as Artificial Fertilizer. With all improvements for Mills researched, you will be gathering faster than the normal gathering rate for hunted animals.

Farms are the Native American Mills. They are practically the same thing, but more expensive and with the added bonus of the Livestock Pen (see Age of Empires III Tutorial 2). Both the Farm and the Mill can be created in the Discovery Age, although it is not advisable to do so until your hunted animals are all gone.

Plantations and Whales

Nearing the Industrial Age, plantations were usually making products used more for industrial or consumer goods, such as dye or cotton. Until slavery was abolished in their specific country, most plantations were run by a landlord and worked on by slaves or cheap labor. To sum it up, the plantation was simply the more industrial, bourgeois version of the Mill.

Plantations in Age of Empires III are somewhat similar to the Plantations in history. Instead of Food production, Plantations are based off of Coin production. They are, like the Mill, an infinite source of Coin, albeit much slower than the more commonplace Silver or Gold Mine. However, Mines are depleted rather quickly, and when there are no more Mines in your militarily-protected sanctuary, building a Plantation is the wisest choice.

Again, 8 villagers build a Plantation and 10 villagers work on a Plantation. And again, there are improvements for the Plantation to make it as good, if not better, than Mine work. Plantations, following the timeline of history, cannot be built until the Fortress Age (this is when your first mines should collapse). Plantations can be made in Age 1 for the Native Americans.

Whales are found in the water and they can only be harvested by Fishing Boats or Caravels (or the counterpart to the Caravel – for example, the Ottoman counterpart to the Caravel is the Galley and the Dutch counterpart to the Caravel is the Fluyt). They are also an infinite source of Coin. The benefit is that it is free for anyone to take it. That means that you do not have to “create” a whale in order to use it. However, you can only task a maximum of 4 boats onto a single whale, limiting its usefulness.

Shrines, Factories, and the Porcelain Tower

In the Asian Dynasties expansion, three new interesting civilizations were introduced: the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians. Interestingly enough, much of the lore, architecture and culture of the civilizations were transferred from real life into the games. For example, the Indians couldn’t eat cows as livestock as it would violate their historically religious state, and the Chinese trained units in mixed batches called Banner Armies, which really happened in dynastic China.

The Japanese-unique Shrine is an example of this. In Asian Dynasties, the Japanese cannot hunt wild animals, but they are instead attracted to the Shrines that act as the Japanese House. These special Houses generate an extremely slow, free trickle of any resource desired, but as more hunted animals are attracted near the Shrines, the trickle rate increases. This gives the Japanese a unique advantage in which they can utilize these animals for free resources while still using their Settlers to hunt other resources.

In the original expansion, there were other buildings that also generated a free trickle of any resource desired. For the Europeans, this unique building was within the Factory card. The Factory card can only be obtained in the Industrial Age through a special card. Using this card, you can get a Factory Wagon, which in turn will make the Factory for you. The Factory will quickly generate any resource desired, or slowly spawn Heavy Artillery (or if you are the Ottomans, Great Bombards). There are also improvements (such as Steam Power) located in the Factory that can help fasten the trickle or spawn rate of Coin, Food, Wood, or heavy artillery.

For all civilizations, you advance in Age by building a Wonder. One such Wonder for the Chinese is the Porcelain Tower. Similar to the Factory, the Porcelain Tower can generate any resource desired. It is about as fast as the Factory, but there are no improvements to increase the speed of it. However, if you choose it as your first Wonder, you can get the Porcelain Tower as early as the Second Age.

Sacred Fields

As said earlier, Indians cannot eat cows and thus they cannot do so in-game. However, what would be the use of livestock if the Indians do not use them? Scouts? No, just like Big Huge Games and Ensemble Studios made use hunted animals for the Japanese through the Shrine, they made use of livestock for the Indians through the Sacred Field.

What does the Sacred Field do? It’s a lot like the Livestock Pen. You can task your livestock to the Sacred Field, but instead of fattening faster, you get a free trickle of experience points. While experience points aren’t a usable resource in constructing buildings and units or researching improvements and ages, experience points are valuable in a match. After reaching a certain threshold in XP, you get a shipment from the Home City. Yes, that’s where it comes from. And, when you get enough experience, your Home City levels up, and you can pick new cards to improve your card deck even further.

Rice Paddies

Rice paddies are shared by all Asian civilizations their “Mill” and “Plantation”. In the olden days, many Asian countries lived off of rice as their main source of food (much like the Europeans relied on the potato). Thus, almost every rural family had a rice paddy. Rice was high on demand in China especially, so much of the excess rice was sold off to the government or the market for money to buy other crops or animals. Such was the ancient economy of the Asians.

In-game, the Rice Paddy is the infinite economic building for both Food and Coin. In essence, it is the combination of the Mill and Plantation for the Asians. The Rice Paddy, albeit only holding a maximum of 10 Villagers, has distinct advantages over its European counterparts: You can build the Rice Paddy in the First Age while you can only harvest an infinite source of Coin in the Fortress Age. Also, the Rice Paddy costs 400 Wood – the same as a typical European Mill, while the Mill and the Plantation combined costs 1000 Wood.

Mango Groves

The Indians have a unique economy relying a lot on Wood – like the Dutch, the Indians do not use Food to queue villagers. Instead, they use Wood to make villagers. This severely clashes with the need of Wood throughout the first minutes into the game – instead of using the valuable Wood in building military units, Houses and Barracks, you have to use it building Villagers.

While the problem is not completely solved, it is compensated with their unique Mango Groves. The Mango Grove is obtained by shipping a rickshaw via the Home City. With the Mango Grove, you have an infinite source of Wood, so you don’t have to stray too far from the Town Center in search for trees. The Mango Groves are particularly important in relatively barren maps like the Painted Desert or the Great Plains.

There are more infinite sources than simply these, but they are more difficult to encounter (such as high-leveled cards). These are the ones you will usually be using, and they are sometimes the way to rebuild a sunken economy or edge the opponent in a battle of attrition.

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