In Age of Economics, your goal is to maximise the power of your economy, whilst using various legal and illegal means to shut down the economies of your enemies. The only resource is gold, and the power of your economy is measured by your rate of gold income.

There are three distinct cultures in Age of Economics: the Consumers, the Corporations, and the Government. Each have different methods of gathering gold, and use different units to disrupt the enemy economy.

The Consumers gather gold by mining it, in the same fashion as the original Age games. Of the three cultures, their villagers both train the fastest, and work the hardest. Their only disadvantage is that the villagers may occasionally go on strike, temporarily shutting down your economy. (This can be stopped by researching the "better working conditions" technology, however this technology, while stopping strikes, will lower your villagers' overall gathering rate)
The consumers' main military units are the Protestor, the Hippie, the Voter and the Blacklister. The hippie is strong against Corporation units, and masses of hippies combined with a few protestors and blacklisters can devastate a Corporation player. The Voter can counter Government units, but is weak against other units in general.
The Consumers have a myth unit called "Uncorrupted Official". The Uncorrupted Official is a unit that changes its color to appear to belong to a Corporation or Government player. Because it acts in the best interests of the people, it slowly drains the Corporate or Government gold and gives it to the Consumer player. This is a myth unit because it does not exist in real life.

The Corporations units train slower than consumers, and don't work as hard. They gather gold by training Lawyers and Accountants. (This is similar to the Norse method of favour gathering in AoM) Whenever a battle occurs and units are injured or killed, corporations will gain a steady flow of gold, which is faster depending on how many Lawyers have been trained. (Consumer or Government players can research a tech called "morality" which reduces the gold income rate of lawyers).
Accountants can be sent to enemy gold mines to pillage the enemy's gold.
The Corporations other units include the Marketing official. The marketing official works in the same way as Poseidon's Lure from AoM, except it attracts enemy villagers instead of animals. It can be positioned near an arrow-firing building or military units to lead enemy workers to a brightly colored, jingle-filled death.
(Consumer players can counter the Marketing Official by training hippies, and researching the "subsistance" technology).

The Governments' units train the slowest, and work so slowly that they appear to be doing nothing whatsoever. Because of this, the Government does not use its own units to gather gold. Rather its units can temporarily convert and take control of enemy Villagers, Lawyers or Accountants. (like Priests from AoE 1, except the conversion is temporary).
The Government's main military unit is the Taxotes. The Taxotes goes to enemy towns and takes enemy gold when it attacks. (Like the bonus for Thor's Raiding Cavalry that was removed before AoM was released). It has a special attack called "GST", which instantly steals 10% of the enemy gold mine.
To stop this from being overpowered, Consumers can train Voters, which counter Taxotes. The government, however, can train Campaigners. Campaigners are similar to a "meat shield" from AoM. They distract the Voters while the Taxotes pillage gold. Corporations can research "corruption", which offers protection from massed Taxotes.