Gathering food in Age of Empires has more or less been the same throughout every game. You select a villager, find a food source, and assign the villager to harvest that food source. There are multiple ways to harvest food, though, and not everyone knows all the options they have.
Food Sources
Option One: Berry Bushes
This is the first option you have in the game to harvest food. To gather berries, select the villager you’d like to assign to the task, then alt-click (default is right-clicking) the berry bush you’d like them to harvest. This is a great method to harvest food, but there is a finite amount of food resources in each berry bush.
Option Two: Farms
This is usually the primary method of gathering food in the game. Whereas other methods require you to find the resources on the map, this one allows you to harvest right next to your Town Center or Mill.
Select the villager you’d like to use to farm. Then, in their build menu (default hotkey Q), select the farm (default hotkey A). From there, select where you would like the farm to be built. The villager will automatically start building it and gather food from the farm when it’s complete.
Note: Only one villager can be assigned to each farm.
That’s everything you need to know about gathering food. There are other options available for getting food, but they don’t rely on gathering. For example, you can go hunting, fishing, or build alliances with other colonies to establish a trade route.
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