Age of Empires Online Material Production and Purchase Guide

Age of Empires Online Material Production and Purchase Guide by doombaby69

Welcome to the Material Production Guide! This thread is a compilation of information regarding crafting/construction materials.
Note: This thread is not aimed at experienced players, it is aimed at the flood of newbies soon to be flooding this forum. Though if you see any errors or feel something is missing shout it out.
Materials are used for all crafting recipes items and production and construction of several structures.

FAQ:

What is in this guide? 
This guide is all about materials: How to make them, where to buy them, and what to pay for them.

Why should I bother with material production?
Although the initial buy-in is substantial for a low level city, it will save you money in the long run and possibly become a potent revenue stream for your city. Furthermore, it may help speed the progress of your other cities if you have multiple ones.

How long will it take before producing my own materials start saving me gold?
It isn’t instant gratification, but it will show more sooner than later.

Why can’t I produce material X?
A.) You do not have the facilities or the recipe
B.) It is a quest reward only material.
More detail later on.

How long before producing materials helps me make gold?
This one is pretty much up in the air, odds are you will not make much with common or uncommon materials, and this is heavily reliant on finding recipes for producing rare or epic materials.

How long do materials take to make?
Common: 15 minutes. Uncommon: 30 minutes. Rare: 2 hours. Epic: 6 hours. Per workshop per unit.

Which Workshops should I make?
For a new city, I’d recommend at least one of each basic workshop, with the remaining at your discretion. Later on you may specialize production for what rare and epic recipes you have, but it is inadvisable to specialize prior to getting those recipes.For the Advanced Workshops,*shrug* pick, as the limit is not high enough for you to make one of each.

What if I want to change workshops?
You can.  Pack the unwanted workshop back into a blueprint, and build the desired one. Note that you will lose ALL of the materials used to build the removed structures. Early this is not something you should be doing. Later one, don’t hesitate if you’ve got good reason.

Basic Workshops

General Information

Getting the Blueprints

All basic workshop blueprints are purchasable at the Construction Store in your home city. You do not start out with a Construction Store, but you can buy the recipe at the General Store for 50 gold and get going from there. Alternatively, you can visit a different player’s city and buy the blueprints from their Construction Store (if they have one) for your own use. They all cost 100g apiece. You can rely on loot for the blueprints but this is not recommended, as they are not common and odds are you won’t get the structures you want.

Getting the Materials

The paradox: You need materials to get materials! If you are a treasure hunter you should get the vast majority of the materials you need through grabbing that treasure. There are also repeatable quests that give materials as a reward. Most expensively, you can purchase them at your home city’s General Store.They are not expensive, but the cost will quickly add up if you rely on this too much. Of course, you can purchase the materials from other players, but it is rare for players to sell common or uncommon materials due to low profit margin.

Getting the Recipes

You start out with the recipes to produce all common materials. You can purchase the recipes to produce uncommon materials at the basic workshops in Mycenae (Greek) or Nubia (Egyptian).  They sell for 50 gold each, and you will only need them once. You can also occasionally get them as loot, but this is not recommended as a strategy due to rarity.  Rare and Epic recipes must be found or purchased from other players; there are no NPC shop sources as of yet.

The Limits

No, you cannot cover your city with material production. You can build 2  basic workshops in a free city and 8 in a premium one. There are no level/experience/story progression limitations.

Production

A workshop can only produce one type of material at a time (it does NOT make common and uncommon simultaneously!), and production will cease when its hopper is full at 100 units. For common materials that takes a little over a day, others much longer.

The Workshops

Production items have been color coded for convenience.

Logger’s Workshop

Material Cost: 37 Pine Planks,  27 Copper Ingots, 15 Animal Hides

Materials Produced:

Pine Planks, Oak Planks, Ebony Planks, Guaycan Planks
Skinner’s Workshop

Material Cost: 37 Animal Hides, 27 Pine Planks, 15 Grain

Materials Produced:

Animal Hides, Leather, Fine Leather, Artic Fox Furs

Farmer’s Workshop

Material Cost: 37 Grain, 27 Pine Planks, 15 Copper Ingots

Materials Produced:

Grain, Olive Oil, Spices,  White Honey

Mason’s Workshop

Material Cost: 37 Stone Blocks, 27 Pine Planks, 15 Copper Ingots

Materials Produced:

Stone Blocks,  Granite Blocks, Concrete Blocks, Obsidian Blocks

Smelter’s Workshop

Material Cost: 37 Copper Ingots,  27 Stone Blocks, 15 Pine Planks

Materials Produced:

Copper Ingots, Bronze Ingots, Iron Ingots, Pure Gold Ingots

Advanced Workshops

General Information

Getting the Blueprints

The blueprints for the Advanced Workshops are for sale in Nubia (Egyptian) or Mycenae (Greek) for 200g each, at the same store that sells the recipes for the uncommon materials for the basic workshops.

Getting the Materials

All the materials required for the Advanced workshops can be produced at the basic workshops. Alternatively, there is loot, other players, and NPC shops at Mycanae or Nubia. Note that they are significantly more expensive than the common ones.

Getting the Recipes

Advanced Workshops do not produce any common materials. You start with all the recipes for the uncommon materials at the Advanced Workshops.  Rare and Epic recipes are acquired in the same manner as before-loot or bought from players who did not want them.

The Limits

2 in a Premium city, 0 in a free city.

Priority

While they may seem fancy, they are actually much less useful than the basic workshops; you will not need materials from them nearly as often as the basic workshops.You should probably be at full capacity for basic workshops before making advanced ones. The materials they make do show up in crafting and mid to late game structures, but not nearly in the quantity of those of the basic workshops.

The Workshops

Toolmaker’s Workshop

Materials Required: 32 Oak Planks, 22 Bronze Ingots, 12 Leather

Materials Produced:

Work Tools, Precision Tools, Archimides Tools

Weaver’s Workshop

Materials Required:  32 Leather, 22 Oak Planks, 12 Olive Oil

Materials Produced:

Wool Cloth,Cotton Cloth, Silk Cloth

Gem Cutter’s Workshop

Materials Required:  32 Oak Planks,22 Granite Blocks, 12 Bronze Ingots

Materials Produced:

Garnets,  Gemstones, Flawless Diamonds
Alchemist’s Workshop

Materials Required:  32 Bronze Ingots, 22 Granite Blocks, 12 Olive Oil

Materials Produced:

Resin Vials, Bitumen Glue, Philosopher’s Stones

Scrivener’s Workshop

Materials Required: 32 Oak Planks, 22 Leather, 12 Bronze Ingots

Materials Produced:

Scrolls of Lore, Vellum Scripts, Illuminated Codexes

Purchasing Guide

This is just a list of Npc prices for goods to help you newbies from getting ripped off. The listed NPC prices are the MOST you should pay unless you feel like being generous. I will not attempt to set an advised player-player trade price at this time. The Vendor Prices are the LEAST you should charge as a seller before vendor sale is more profitable.

Basic Workshop- Common Materials
Grain, Stone Blocks, Pine Planks, Animal Hides, Copper Ingots
Purchased at: Any player city General Store
Price and quantity: 15 gold for ten units (1.5 gold per unit, 150 gold per stack)
Vendor Sale Cost: 10 gold per stack, 0.1 gold per unit

Basic Workshop-Uncommon Materials
Oak Planks, Granite Blocks, Leather, Bronze Ingots, Olive Oil
Purchased at: Nubia or Mycanae
Price and Quantity: 35 gold for 10 units (3.5 gold per unit, 350 gold per stack)
Vendor Sale Cost: 20 gold per stack, 0.2 gold per unit

Basic Workshop-Rare Materials
Fine Leather, Concrete Blocks, Iron Ingots, Ebony Planks, Spices
Purchased at: Cyprus
Price and Quantity: 200 gold for 5 units (40 gold per unit, 4,000 gold per stack)
Vendor Sale Price: 80 gold per stack, .8 gold per unit

Note: I am surprised the price was set this low. Players were paying 2-3 times this easily before Cyprus was introduced.

Basic Workshop-Epic Materials
Guayacan Planks, Obsidian Blocks, Pure Gold Ingots, Artic Fox Furs, White Honey
There are no NPCs that sell them at the time being.
Vendor Sale Price: 240 gold per stack, 2.4 gold per unit

Advanced Workshop-Uncommon Materials
Work Tools, Resin Vials, Wool, Garnets, Scrolls of Lore
Purchased at: Argos
Priced and Quantity: 50 gold for 5 units (10 gold per unit, 1,000 gold per stack)
Vendor Sale Price: 30 gold per stack, .3 gold per unit.

Advanced Workshop-Rare and Epic Materials
Rare: Precision Tools, Bitumen Glue, Cotton Cloth, Gemstones, Vellum Scripts
Epic: Archimedes’ Tools, Philosopher’s Stones, Silk Cloth, Flawless Diamonds, Illuminated Codexes
There are no NPC shops that sell rare or epic advanced workshop materials at this time.
I do not have the vendor sale prices for these materials, but if they follow trend then
Vendor Sale Price, Rare: 120 gold per stack, 1.2 gold per unit
Vendor Sale Price, Epic: 360 gold per stack, 3.6 gold per unit

Non-producible Materials

There are some materials you cannot make and are only availible as quests rewards.
The most common are Delphi Limestone, Giza Limestone, and Mozaic Tile.
Giza Limestone is only obtainable by Egyptians and Delphi Limestone only by Greeks. The tile is accessible to both.
All three of the quests for the items are repeatable, but there is a 12-hour delay from when you complete it to when it is availible again. Essentially, they are “daily” quests. Each completion gives 2 units of the item type desired.

There are also materials only availible via the Crete add-on:
Cypress Wood, Knossos Marble, Minoan Tools
None of them can be produced, purchased, or traded; you must complete Crete for these materials. The demo mission does not give any materials. “The Elite Meet in Crete” gives 20 units of ONE material of your choosing. Running a 10-round mission regardless of difficulty or map gives 2 units of ONE material of your choosing. Twenty rounds gives 5 units, and 30 rounds gives 10 units. You can opt instead of receiving the Materials to receive a Cretian Wonder blueprint.