Age of Empires 4: Resources Age of Empires 4 guide, walkthrough

On this page of the Age of Empires 4 tutorial you will find information about the game's resources.

Last update: 08 December 2021

The following page of the guide is devoted to resources in Age of Empires 4. You will learn how to collect and store resources.

Age of Empires 4 features 4 types of resources necessary to produce units, construct buildings and research new technology. Collecting as many materials as possible is essential to creating a strong economy that will ensure your victory.

The amount of collected raw materials is displayed in the lower left corner of the screen. All materials can be stored in the Town Center but specific resources have their designated warehouses.

Hovering over a building, or a unit or technology icon, as well as the workers' available actions will tell you how many resources are available.

You can sell food, wood and stone and buy them for gold at the Market.

• Food
• Wood
• Gold
• Stone

Food

Workers can harvest food in several ways:

1. By working on farms;
2. By killing the sheep previously brought by a Scout;
3. By killing wild animals, such as deer and wild boar. Only the Abbasid Dynasty and the Delhi Sultanate can't obtain food from wild boar;
4. By picking blackberries;
5. By fishing.

Food is stored in Mills, which you can upgrade in e.g. higher resource gathering speed (for workers) or higher carrying capacity (also for workers). Fish can also be stored at the Docks.

Always put a new Mill near wildlife, and farms right next to the mill.

Wood

You get wood by cutting down trees and storing it in Lumber Camp. This building should always stand near the forest; if your workers cut down most of the trees in its area, destroy the Lumber Camp and build a new one closer to the trees.

The Lumber Camp has a number of upgrades which will make the workers chop wood faster and increase the amount of wood they bring in.

Gold

Gold can be obtained in several ways:

1. Extracted from gold mines;
2. Brought by Traders via the trade routes. The trade route should go from the Market, located in your settlement, to the Trade Post. Once you find a Trade Post, it will be marked on the minimap as a white icon of a roofed building. The Market will be unlocked when your settlement advances to the age II;
3. Sacred Sites bring in a steady income of gold. You can read more about this on a separate page of the guide: Sacred Site - What is it?
4. Religious buildings generate gold. Relics brought to religious buildings give a bonus to the generated gold. You can read more about this on a separate page of this guide: Relics - what are they?

Gold is stored in the Mining Camp. It should always be built close to the found mine. The upgrades purchased there will allow your workers to collect the material faster.

Some unique buildings, bonuses and systems of particular civilizations allow you to generate additional gold. The Chinese have The Imperial Official that collects taxes from all buildings within his range. The Rus, on the other hand, also collects gold by killing wild animals.

Stone

You get stone in the quarry. Just like gold, it is stored in the Mining Camp. You will need this resource primarily to build stone walls and Keeps.

If you start the game from age I, you won't need too much stone at first. However, it is worth hiring at least 1 worker to collect this material, as it will surely come in handy later in the game.