Building an Economy

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome Strategies

Posted by _JaGuAr_LeaDeR on September 4, 2002.

In this write up I will be explaining how to develop a good economy with Hittite on a Hill Country map and a population limit of 200 (though it is generally the same for all civilizations and maps). If you don't know what an economy is, it's just basically collecting resources such as gold, wood, food, and stone. I will not be discussing how to build an army or how to start, if you want that, go back to the strategy page.

When developing a good economy you will want to make anywhere from 80 to 120 villagers. I usually make around 80 villagers and I can contend just fine with people who make over a 100, so it is not all about how many villagers you have. At the start it is a good idea to not to make all of the villagers, I would make 80 at the most at the start, and work my way up if necessary. This way you can make a few more elephants in the beginning.

Well that's pretty much it, but I guess I should go into specifics...

It's important to farm early in the game. I suggest you start farming around your town center(s) within the first few minutes. You do not have to farm a whole lot but some where around 8 farms is a good place to start. You may also want to put two or three villagers on berry bushes, this can give you an extra edge in the beginning.

After you have started a few farms, the next thing to start collecting is wood. I use to make storage pits next to resources but now I realize building town centers next to resources is much more effective. Often times players will send in scythes or pretty much anything and kill your working villagers, if you make town centers instead of storage pits, you can recover quickly from this. How many villagers should you put on wood? It's hard to say exactly but I would say over half of your total villagers should be chopping wood, maybe more. When choosing which forest to chop first, always pick the forest that is furthest from you. If at all possible, attempt to chop wood in your opponents area. Finally be sure to be chopping forests in multiple areas, do not have all your villages in one place.

The next resource to collect is gold. You should always mine the gold pit and all resources that are furthest from your base. RoR maps are usually unfair and give one player an extra gold pit. If you are the unlucky one and don't get the extra gold pit, make a very hard attempt to fight for it. Putting at least 10 villagers on gold mining is good but putting 15-20 is even better.

Now you can optionally mine stone. I personally am not big on making towers unless it gets into a very long game. Though it is still important to collect stone, just so your opponent can't get it. I usually only collect stone after I have collected all the gold. Some times you may have to mine stone early such as playing vs. Choson or Egyptian or if you know the other person like to make a lot of elephants such as playing vs. Carthaginian.

The last thing to do is farm more. By now you probably have cleared some forests and it's time to make good use of the freed land. Once again there is no set amount, but doubling your farms is a good start.

In closing, this will take time to master. You will have to figure out what resources you are consuming the most and will have to adjust. Do not let your villagers remain idle, make good use of the period button (to find idle villagers) and put all of them to work. Also pay close attention to your villagers, try not to lose a lot of them to your enemy. Obviously if you see catapults, scythes, etc. getting ready to attack your villagers, immediately move them out of the way and keep moving them if he is pursuing them. Another no no is using your villagers as military, DO NOT send your villagers into your opponents catapults unless you are completely out of options.