a. Buildings [AOK4A]

Learn about the Town Center, Houses, Mill, and Farm in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Understand their functions and importance for your civilization.

Town Center

The Town Center is the administrative heart of your settlement, akin to the Construction Yards and Command Centers in other RTS games. It is crucial for recruiting villagers, depositing all 4 starting resources, advancing through the ages, and researching technologies that enhance production units and increase building line of sight. Each side starts with one Town Center, and more can be built from the Castle Age onwards to establish extra bases. Losing your Town Center during the Feudal Age would be disastrous, though it's nearly impossible to destroy at that stage due to weak early units. The Town Center also has an alarm bell; ringing it during an attack causes all villagers to take shelter inside and fire at enemies. It serves as villager quarters, supporting 5 units of population, similar to houses. Up to 15 human units can be garrisoned inside for healing or to support its fire. As long as one villager or archer is garrisoned, it can fire arrows, acting like a mini-castle. Garrisoning more archers increases its attacking power. Its attack power and range can be upgraded via Fletching, Bodkin Arrow, and Bracer researched at the Blacksmith.

House

Houses are where your villagers and soldiers live outside of battle. They are vital for production, as building more increases the population you can support. Each house supports 5 units of population and costs 50 Wood. When attacking an enemy, targeting their Houses and production facilities is effective, as a smaller supported population means fewer units they can train. Houses are vulnerable, so build them far behind your camp entrance to avoid losing the ability to create new soldiers. Reaching the population limit means building more houses will not increase your upper limit, but building in excess is always a good idea. You will be notified when an extra house is needed. In Single Player missions, equivalents like Yurts and Pavilions may be provided, also supporting 5 units of population each.

Mill

The Mill is where wheat is ground into flour using wind power and where food is stored by your civilization. Villagers will deposit collected berries, fish, meat, or grain into the nearest Mill when their hands are full. The Mill is also where you research upgrades to improve your farms, including the Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation, which increase the food provided by farms. Always build Mills near food sources to reduce collection time. An efficient setup involves building a Mill surrounded by 8 farms.

Farm

Farms are where food is grown. Villagers collect resources from farms.