When to Research Wheelbarrow (outdated)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- One of the most request video topics ever - I'm going to finally sit down, pull out my calculator, and find out for you guys the optimal time to research wheelbarrow :) For science!
All of my tests are looking from a town center research time point of view, and not at the cost of the technology, as I did in the Paladin upgrade video. Finding an agreeable villager distribution was probably the hardest part of doing this, and I'm sure there will be some different opinions, which I'm open to.
Given the surprising results, and how much they conflict with conventional wisdom in the AoE community, I'm willing to take another look at this issue in a future video based on viewer comments.
Game: Age of Empires 2 Forgotten Empire expansion
Patreon: www.patreon.com/SpiritoftheLaw
Here's my strategy: just get wheelbarrow when you're housed
John Fist Ha! Someone knows how its done lol
+John Fist i wait until 50 villagers
+iSCP173 I get loom when I fuck up my sheepard macro in the opener and dont have enough food to keep bulding vils.
What if you are Huns?
then you dont get wheelbarrow
spirit goes there and puts up all those graphs and tables and equasions and stuff that fills math shaped holes to get to a useful and plausible answer
whereas everyone else is just like "huh... twenty minutes i guess"
Wish i could double like this comment. Also i relorted you for porn cause I'm on my android and I fat fingered the reply with the report button.
That clock-based approach is the least reliable, as different players on different maps and civs are doing different things at different times...
These videos are so good that I keep watching them and I don't even play Age of Empires.
+lvkool I don't actively play anymore, but I keep watching his videos too.
It's funny because I rarely play AOE2DE and if I play I just play 1-2 rounds. But I do improve for some reason because of all these videos I'm watching. Even tho my practising is very little.
xD
same
"Tamerlane advances to the feudal age."
"Spirit of the law advances to the math age."
"Unless they can show you prettier graphs than mine"
Math porn. WINK WINK EYEBROWS UP UP
That sentence was pure art
6:35 bottom right
By this amount of research you have put in this games, you actually our Grand Master with PHD majoring AOE2 teaching us as degree student
Finally!!! I've been waiting for this video for so long!
i'm surprised that it is at 44-46 villagers, thought it would be earlier
great vid
MrUlf1337 yeah, most people did. I think some heads blew up haha
It might be a good idea to have at the end of your more complex videos a screen with bull it points saying the main things that we take away from all of this math
KingMurkow wait, you want my videos to be MORE like a university lecture?? haha
+KingMurkow you mean bullet points right?
or play as viking and forget about this :p
Something to consider, if you're doing an archery rush you might skip hand cart until later as you don't need food as much
Hi
wat, civ boi
Love the videos.
But the Force is more reliable.
Gregório Dias hOW DARE YOU SIR ! Take it back
Gregório Dias The fact that you used the word "MORE"makes it even more cringeworthy. You've got to be trolling.
U mad?
Gregório Dias If you're trying to say "the force" is more reliable than math, then you're out of your mind.
***** The force is not strong in this one
1:16 Spirit of the La Hire triggered confirmed.
"What would you rely on, the force????!!!!!" 111111111111
Here's a couple instances he left out. 1: if lumber camps are more than 4 or 5 tiles away from trees because you have been too busy rushing to micro villies and build more lumber camps(100 wood per camp ;) and 2: the faster walking speed is great to have earlier on if your villagers are on the rush ie: building towers, walls, various barracks on enemy base during feudal age and they need to outrun enemy villagers or soldiers as they get chased around and around. Also if you get stuck feudal while opponent fast castles, wheelbarrow will help villagers attack onagers more effectively because that 10% walking speed & outrun teutonic knights if he happens to make those. Just a little something to think about. But except for those couple of oddball cases wheelbarrow is best put off until mid-late castle or until ~46 villagers.
I often ask people what question would they most like to ask me about Age of Empries 2.
And by far the most common answer is "what are you doing in my house".
Thank you. It's really helpful to know that the break even point for a regularly balanced economy is at about 46 vills. I think you forgot that 3 villagers also cost house space, which means you need to inculde 3/5 of house building costs, which should favour getting wheelbarrow a bit earlier. Apart from that, think it's smart to get wheelbarrow before buiding forward a forward castle as the advantage of wheelbarrow kicks in when villagers need to walk larger distances. It's also good to get when you're in feudal age and want to get to castle age and have spare wood for wheelbarrow. Researching wheelbarrow saves 100 food compared to creating 3 villagers so you can click up earlier without idling your TC, and your castle builders take less time to reach the opponents base. Though now I learned it's probably better to build extra farms instead if my population is still low.
I'm a few years too late but another thing to consider is the fact that the efficiency added by wheelbarrow which will last for the remainder of the game, won't cost additional houses, whereas any further efficiency at the cost of villagers is truly at the cost of: each villager, 10 wood (1 population worth of house), and the villager time taken to build a house (time spent not gathering resources).
-> TL;DR: Actual villager cost = (50 food) + (10 wood) + (0.2* house creation time villager "idle").
nice man!
Houses cost 30w, not 50w?
Your lumber & mining camps - along with your farm placements - are more optimal than I see in most games (even pro games). Once the battles start it's common for the lumber camps to not be replaced and the distance villagers are walking to increase, thus improving the efficiency of wheelbarrow. The other point you missed is that villagers must be defended. The more farms you have the harder your base is to defend. Wheelbarrow gives you efficiency without the cost of becoming more vulnerable.
why wasn't my math teacher like this?
I'm late to the party but loving this!
What's really interesting is that if we make some simplifications and assume 2 villagers per minute can be made, and no age advance times, then the magic 46 villagers will be ready at about the popular 23 minute mark! I'd say that further cements your maths as being in the right ballpark
Half a minute into the video and I can’t help click "like" because that casual line about the "math-shaped hole in your heart" is just genius!
I love this video. The attention to every detail is amazing.
Excellent video. About 2 minutes in I was all ready to come to the comments saying "What about the contributions of the villagers working the research time ((1*2/3)t+(1*1/3)t) where t is the research time + the higher cost of the wheelbarrow". I knew it wasn't a huge thing but then you factored it in right at the end, ggwp :)
Hey Spirit,
At 4:50 in the video you accidentally multiplied: (% on gold)(increase in FOOD rate) as opposed to what I believe you meant to write, increase in gold rate. Awesome video! Keep up the great work!
I've always researched it as soon as it's available, the same as all other techs that increase resource gathering in some way because my calculus was that its bonus gives you the most over the long-term the earlier you get it.
I always had the mentality that anything that increases production should be done immediately; therefore, I’ve always done it immediately when it became available. This video was super interesting!!!
"Peer reviewed" 😂 Love the literal interpretation
I think one wild card that's separate from the economic implications is the villager speed - it can help you build walls faster, avoid raids, build a forward more quickly, etc. so it might be worth getting earlier if you plan to go for a forward base or castle drop
This guys has a new subscriber!
I think there's something else very important to consider with wheelbarrow. Anytime that your villagers are going to be traveling a long distances while harvesting, the effect of the wheelbarrow is further enhanced. So if you build a mining camp between some stone and gold, about two tiles from each, and set your villagers to gathering it all, the wheelbarrow will pay off far faster than if the camp was directly adjacent to one or the other.
desmos!
"I'll never subscribe."
0:07
"Hmm, guess I'll subscribe.
Hello, Spirit Of The Law. Very neat video and really good explanations. I congratulate you for making really good videos that make very clear explanations of the game’s mechanics with solid math backing them up.
However, I feel there is a point to Wheelbarrow that you didn't mention, and that you should address or at least take into account for its importance because it DOES make a difference. Wheelbarrow increases villager movement speed by 10%. This doesn’t only affect how fast villagers collect, it also affects how fast they run away from danger.
That means that if your villagers are being attacked, they can get to the TC 10% faster than without wheelbarrow. I think you should make a test if having wheelbarrow increases the chances of villagers surviving rushes due to being able to run back to the TC 10% faster.
If your farms near a mill or if your Gold Mine is Scout-Rushed or Archer Flushed, or your Woodline suddenly has several archers/crossbows/knights harassing it, does wheelbarrow increases the number of villagers that can survive because they can move faster?
What I’m saying is, maybe the villagers moving 10% faster makes a big difference on if that villager is going to get back to the TC in time before the knight attacking it kills it, or if lacking wheelbarrow dooms that villager to death. Lacking that 10% movement speed might let the knight land an extra hit.
I think you should take this into consideration for quantifying Wheelbarrow’s importance, or try to test it.
A. Anderson Thanks. I think I mentioned something about the speed and explained that wasn't the focus of the video, which was trying to separate the anecdotes from the real math, but I think I cut that part to keep the time down. I thought a concise answer was better than a long one with a bunch of caveats, especially one like the villager speed. Getting wheelbarrow at 30 villagers over 3 more villagers is approximately equivalent to killing one of your villagers from a resource collection standpoint. Unless you're SURE it's going to save at least one of your villagers every time, that doesn't seem like a great idea to me to do it for the villager speed, but as always, I'm just here to do the number crunching :)
Or having a faster moving villager while feudal and building towers & things on enemy base? Being 10% faster could mean the difference between a failed rush & a decisive victory before opponent can even reach castle.
I wonder also if that speed increase is a reason for the greater rise in food rate production, since when farming the villagers are constantly moving around on the farms, and usually have longer walk times back to a collection point (I build farms haphazardly).
@@timnoffsinger4147 I think that's generally what people think, yeah
Another thing to consider is that as you reach higher Elo you have more farms and you tend to have a few non adjacent farms to mills and town centers. For one of my builds I have about 14 farms at 17 mins and therefore wheelbarrow will be even more effective in this case
"Don't believe them unless they can show you prettier graphs than mine."
Solid science. 10/10 would try
There are reasons to get it before and after the 45 not considered here.
Reasons to get it before:
-Lumberjacks have to walk longer the more wood they chop, decreasing the collection rate and wheelbarrow would make it decrease slower. (or reset the decrease by paying 100 wood for a camp)
-Hunters would benefit a little (although you dont have infinite things to hunt)
Reasons to get it later is that gold and wood (if camps are close to trees) collection was faster if you just got vills at 45. Making it more efficient to wait if your priorites are gold and wood instead of more food.
Very well done. I thought you were going to leave out the cost of wheelbarrow until the end, then you got that and villager opportunity cost.
I don't know what I love most about this. Age of Empires? Math? Nerdiness? The pleasant voice? The pretty graphs? The xxx kinky snuck in at the bottom of the screen? So hard to choose.
Can't deny it, your tone of voice is great and also how you explain with math makes it so easily to understand.
Hey Spirit, I think you made a little mistake in this video. In the formula you are adding 3 villagers to every ressource, so its +9 in total. I used the same formula but only added 3 villagers and the numbers changed significantly. For an even distribution (+1 to every ressource) the graphs meet at only ~15.4 vills. I got the highest number of vills when I added all 3 to wood but still its only around 20 vills. Of course it always depends on the strategy but it seems to me that it's worth getting it much earlier than this video suggests. Keep up the great work tho, you're my favourite channel on RUclips!
I think what we see as the difference is that farming causes the villagers to move sometimes to different positions of the farm. This movement gets 10% faster but is still a small effect but miners and lumberjacks (or foragers) are not having this. This might be only a real effect if the villager does not collect while it moves to the other position of the farm, but I am unsure about that and this needs measurement.
An other thing is that maybe farms have less optimal placement than your best optimally placed lumber and mining camps which are near the resource and the difference might be because farms are big and there is a random chance where the villager will be on the field when it end farming so even the closest farms need some walking time. If you want to measure if I am right, you can measure how different the effect is on a two-circle farming vs. a farming where all farms are close to the TC and a mill - all around then directly instead of doing two circles. This means four measurements: a wheelbarrow and without it,
for both the two variations. I suspect the result is that wheelbarrow helps to smooth a players sloppyness a bit when it comes to how much their villagers are walking, but I am unsure to what extent.
TL;DR: Wheelbarrow seems to optimize walking time of villagers. Both its direct 10% bonus to speed and the extra resources the villagers carry are directed towards eliminating walk overhead. I would say that researching wheelbarrow certainly helps if you cannot micro properly your placements of the resource gathering buildings or in case you are hunting.
Now I know when to click that button. However I have some comments:
1) The impact of wheelbarrow on woodcutting might be more. By 20 minutes in the game the woodline in the starting lumbercamp might be few tiles away. Maybe a test in which the nearby trees are removed in one of the lumber camp might give a more realistic comparison of rates. (If one could copy paste 20 min towns from recorded games)
2) Since 45 villagers is well into the castle age if one fast castles, shouldn't we take into account the fact that bow-saw might have been researched.
3) We may need a completely different analysis for aztecs. They start with a pseudo wheelbarrow, so another wheelbarrow might be less beneficial.
The way I look at it, get it early, that way it pays for itself quicker.
Sure building 3 new villagers may be more effective directly, but in the long run, the wheelbarrow will have earned in more over time.
Example: Lets say you get the research instantly after getting Feaudal Age (If memory serves correctly), that is a increase to *all* your villagers, and the villages comming after.
So if you have 24 / 25 villagers at that point, it will be a lot more beneficial in the long run, for the small increase. It also means you may not need to produce as many villagers as before to have a constant upkeep of production of units.
A small increase, can be the blow between having 1 more soldier on the field or a villager. Which sounds extremely small, but 1 unit more, can be the victory point. Just depends on the units and what you are up against.
You've taken this as an analysis of resource collection. You have perhaps overlooked other benefits of faster villagers: travel speed and building speed. Travel speed has the benefit of A. villager safety as they can garrison faster if you ring a bell, and B. If you have vills crossing the map to build up on the enemy, they will get there faster. Also, with travel speed being faster, vills would walk from one building to the next faster between builds. Presumably this would increase build speed. I would like to see how much faster a villager would build a section of wall with and without wheelbarrow.
I propose that with these added benefits, some being virtually immeasurable except empirically, that perhaps an optimal vill count to get wheelbarrow would be a little earlier.
I'm going with 42.
All those things that fill the math hole... In your heart. Touched me deep.
Excellent work, thank you very much.
Another good video to do would be whether and at what point do the Gold Mining and Stone Mining techs have any benefit vs more villagers. :)
I always appreciate the math and the different perspectives rather than the 1 answer.
Good stuff! :)
It's good to know that my instincts are on the right track. I usually wait till i have a 2nd TC up and am starting to put down lots of farms before I get wheelbarrow, so that I don't have to stop villager production.
I think another wild card is the faster movement speed allows the villagers to get out of trouble more quickly, or to run faster for a forward building, might count for something
one of your best so far. really like it.
i thought i'd leave this mindless like this time, even though it has not too much content, because i think you might enjoy it.
I love your videos. The detail and explanation is top notch. I know these videos are old to you now, but I’m just getting back into the game and the info has been phenomenal. You are appreciated. 👍🏾
So sum up to video, reach the castle age, build two TCs, hit 45/46 vil with those TCs, then upgrade wheelbarrow at one TC and other TC continue to produce villagers? Am i right ?
no
yes
no and yes
Oh crap i was reading the answers of this comment just to be sure it was what I was looking for but what I found are just doubts. More doubts.
Yes, but I've seen Hera for example researching it way earlier. Don't know why though. Maybe there are some other reasons to research wheelbarrow earlier. Wheelbarrow costs 100 Food less than 3 Vills (175 Wood +50 Food vs 150 Food), so if you are short on food because of military for example, and you got some spare wood, researching wheelbarrow instead of producing vills could be the solution here. That way you can boost your eco while pumping military. But who knows.
This my math:
Resources a villager carries being 10 and then 13 after wheelbarrow.
If we research it, 3 villagers worth of carriage(or whatever the word is) is missing out.
After the research if it makes up for the total carriage of those 3 villagers that could've been created, that's the optimal time to research it.
I.e. when u have 50 or more villagers(50×3 resources in 75 seconds the villagers could have gathered). And of course atleast 2 TCs.
With the speed increase, the rates would improve by more for wood and gold depending on how far away the camp is. It reduces travel time and leads to more time actually collecting as well as the faster collecting, making the % increase over without wheelbarrow greater depending on the distance from the camp. It could be efficient to research slightly earlier if your lumber camp is further away from the treeline but not far enough away just yet to rebuild it efficiently. I can't say I think it'd make a huge difference on gold, however, though I will say that the speed increase allows new villagers to get to their resource faster from the TC.
Great video! The only thing that I find missing from this analysis are the intangible benefits of increased villager speed. This can come in handy when micro-ing villagers to quickly wall off an area, or to move them to safety in case of raiding. I think that could change the analysis a bit.
Im not sure if it has a perceptible/relevant effect or not, but I suggest (and like to know, since I havent tested it myself) that you should analyze the effect a little further, at least until the mid castle age.
My observations are:
The 3 more villagers you propose can indeed be 3 more farmers and give you more food in the meantime, but also mean the cost of 3 more farms (180 wood unless teuton, 105 if you take in account the wheelbarrow wood cost) and the early feudal its one point in the game where wood its very low in stock and needs to be expended in the buildings of the feudal age, houses for ships and military units (also 3 more villagers can force you early to make one more house, and the wheelbarrow cost no population) and the wood cost of ships themselves. You can not go directly to expend all your wood in farms.
Depending on the build order of the player, and the resources available in map, its very common to have some hunters still in feudal; mostly for deer and second/extra boars. The wheelbarrow can be the difference between carrying all the food of the boar in one trip/round, or being able to hunt deer with less villagers.
The farms are not done all instantly or at the same time just at the beginning of the feudal age. Again, it depends on the build order, but you have to at least wait for the horse collar to be investigated and the build time of the farms. And the farm villagers are added progesively from the other food sources when exhausted.
Looking back at the first point, you need to save all the wood you can for the castle age to build town centers and achieve a effective boom. 105 wood+the extra 3% production of wood can be the difference between making only one extra town center just at the beginning of the castle age and wait a while for the second or building two. Not only the food its important to boom after all.
One extra point I would like to add here. Taking in account how the wheelbarrow bonus works, it may have a little impact on mining, but it may be a more significant in the wood production if you DONT make a second or third lumbercamp. The point of making extra lumbercamps its to reduce the time lost when carrying the wood between the trees and the camp, but the wheelbarrow allows them to carry a little more, thus improving the effectivity of the wood collection when there is only one lumbercamp and its getting away as the time goes. And something very important about the extra lumbercamps its that they dont make you produce more wood, only allows you to collect it a little faster. And in long terms they only end as a lost inversion with no more utility. In maps like arabia where the wood its very limited and the forest are small, one just can not throw away any wood. Maybe you should check it: the total wood in stock with N villagers, wheelbarrow and only one lumbercamp in X minute (beginning of castle age) vs N+1 villagers, no wheelbarrow and two-three lumbercamps closer and closer to the trees. For example. And no, not all civs are japs and get cheap lumbercamps... sadly.
Also, in the early castle, if you dont have the wheelbarrow when you are booming your villagers and have to wait for it to be researched, you may be an accumulated effect of less production/villager.
Last but not least, remember... between feudal and castle age exists a looong time. And I am not talking about the preparations in feudal. The castle age takes a lot time being investigated, and all that time you can not make more villagers: only look at them working. May be all that aging time its more productive with n villagers + wheelbarrow than with n+3 villagers.
Thank you and sorry for bad english. I really like your videos.
"I wouldn't rely on Math..."
HERESY!!!
I would say that I research Wheelbarrow not to have significant boost to the economy but to prepare for Hand Cart upgrade in Castle age. Both of them can do a real impact on eco though.
However, the data about handcart in the next video will be interesting. Keep on the good work!
Another way of doing the math: 3:10 shows an average increase of 1.3 res / vil / minute. Building a single villager, on the other hand, is an increase of 22 res / min. You can build 3 villagers in the time it takes to research wb = 66 res / min more. So 66 / 1.3 = 50 vils to make the immediate gain be equivalent. You could subtract a bit to account for the 40/40/20 split, which brings the average increase to 1.5 res / vil / minute vs. 21.8 for adding a vil. If so, 21.8 * 3 = 65 / 1.5 = 44 vils. But you could also add a bit to account for the extra resource cost of WB and the fact that the vils start generating resources shortly after being created. If we split the difference and say 47, we get about the same answer you did.
Great work man, I'm a physics student and when I look at your way of solving these kinds of problems from the edge of the math and the force, I feel that I've met my soul mate xD I absolutely love the analitic way you're taking during solving any aoe2 problem
I would have liked an analysis on how wheelbarrow impacts inefficient gathering routes, such as mining from gold if a mining camp is lost, or a wood line which has moved away from a lumber camp. Otherwise, this is an excellent look at the value of this tech, thanks for doing it
He did a video (a little older than this one) that compared lumber camp, mill and mining camp placements. Maybe the sustaining feudal age unit production video? Might help at understanding the walking effect. When villagers carry more, they walk less so if they are walking more after a destroyed collection point, I'd suspect that this upgrade helps their productivity.
I don't really play AoE2 much, but I love into how much detail you go on these topics. It kind of makes me want to play it again from time to time. :3
Intuition is saying: Get wheelbarrow ASAP when your resources require any excessive (objective adjective fail) walking; sparse woodlines, scattered shorefish. Otherwise just leave it until you get housed and focus on getting the villager count up ASAP.
Learning math has taught me that intuition means very little when it comes to complex systems. Always do the math!
Luckily I'm about to watch Spirit of the Law and he does the math for us :D
+Tsf Phi 0:20 YAY MATH
Wheelbarrow also get better and better when you have less time to focus on the economy , since the farther the resources building are from the building , the better it becomes. When you are trying to survive , having more "forgiving" lumber camp/mining camp can be good since villagers will move faster.
All your calculations are based on near perfect lumber camp placement and in some maps/scenario villagers has to move way more to collect wood and I am sure the 3% is increased. On perfect eco 45 villagers seems legit , but on messy eco with lots of farms (bad wood line / fewer trees than usual) I think get wheelbarrow earlier can be good (35-40 vill ?) .
Wheelbarrow also other utility than being used in a perfectly made eco. Sometimes to need to go forward villagers , sometimes you have 2 TC , sometimes you get housed or you don't have room/time to use the extra 3 vllagers.
Wow great work! Def a shake up since viper gets it super early
Useful information! I always thought wheelbarrow was tech that was meant to be rushed!
You didn't take into consideration that the villagers you make after wheelbarrow will also be upgraded, and that even if you build three more villagers instead of wheelbarrow you still have to buy wheelbarrow at some point.
Also you have to consider if you have poor lumberyard or farm placement that wheelbarrow helps mitigate the penalty. On top that the movement speed it gives helps for things other than resource collecting.
Something else to consider is that buying wheelbarrow lets you delay having to make another house for more population slightly. Although that's probably pretty negligible. You have to factor in that if you have more than one town center your village production rate isn't taking nearly as hard of a hit.
I think wheelbarrow is good a bit earlier than you suggested, but not by too long. About 35 villager population seems more reasonable to me.
You can win a game without wheelbarrow.
Why would you have a poor lumberyard placement?
indeed.
As he said you should do it earlier in a real game. So you are certainly right.
+Conrad Novakovic That's not even a thing. The collection rate of new villagers after wheelbarrow isn't going to somehow compensate for the inefficiency of the wheelbarrow upgrade time. If you upgrade wheelbarrow at 35 villagers and then get a 36th and put it to work, your economy will be literally identical in terms of production than if you had upgraded wheelbarrow after the 36th villager instead. What's lost at that point is the resources the extra villager would have been gathering during the research time of Wheelbarrow. Simply put: There is no difference in terms of resource production between two players if both have 50 villagers and wheelbarrow, and one of them got it at 35 pop and one got it at 45 pop.
The only difference is the person who got it at 45 pop has had three more villagers working than you have for that entire span of time, and unless the wheelbarrow has been doing three villagers' worth of work with your population, it's a net loss of resources with very few alternative upsides.
If you have a very heavy farming eco for feudal aggression scouts/trash, the number could be somewhat lower, but it's certainly not worth it until you've essentially dropped 8+ farms on both your mill and TC, post berries, and even then it's probably a small loss if you're sub-40 pop in villagers.
Wheelbarrow having a much larger effect for Farmers than Miners and Lumberjacks actually makes sense, since WB increases Villager speed by 10% - and Farmers *move around* while collecting. Lumberjacks and Miners (and Fishers, Hunters, etc) are stationary while collecting and then head back to the drop-off building with their load, but Farmers keep moving around while working, so the speed bonus, small as it is, is much more important for them.At least, intuitively. I dunno about the actual math, because numbers and I don't have the best relationship.
I've seen a lot of studies on this. I think every other study I saw said that Wheelbarrow increases wood/gold/stone production by about 7%, but were about the same as you on the farming increase at 13%. I think the reason for the difference of 3% to 7%, is that you typically build your 1st lumber camp at
+Mark Bray I also think that the wheelbarrow would have more effect on wood if you've cut down the closest trees.
Or if you're trying to make a mining camp work for 2 nearby mines or for some other reason you don't have optimal placement of camps and resources
Hey Spirit! Nice to See some math based videos again. I'm pretty sure you forgot something in your ecuation/expression. Getting the extra 3 vills means you get that n+3 to múltiply every rate, but it also means you get 50 secs of a vill working, and other extra 25 secs of work for a 2nd villager (both of those meanwhile researching wheelbarrow in the paralel case) and those extra 75 secs of work are denied if you Go for wheelbarrow instead. Nevertheless I didnt know if those numbers are gonna affect in more than a few decimals, in the case they dont, it could be no point on getting the formula more complex and longer. Great video btw!
Martín González didn't I include the clip where I determined it was about 27 wood if they were tasked immediately to get wood around the TC? I may have taken it out, but I thought it was there. You're right that it's a bonus amount of potential resources, and I added it to the 75 extra cost to research wheelbarrow, which is where my "wheelbarrow takes 100 extra resources" came from. Good point, though - it would have been an easy thing to overlook
Hi,
First of all, great work! I love your videos!
I know this is a 5 year old video but you said about peer review so.... lets go :) You also kind of explained that around 9:45 but one thing kept itching me the whole video.
You did all the calculations based on rate(wheelbarrow) * number of villagers = rate(not_wheelbarrow) * (number of villagers + 3) (Expression I)
Here the +3 is the fundamental part. This is assuming they all appear instantaneously, as you said in the door #1/door #2.
I think the way to go is like this: go for the difference of total resources per unit of time:
(wheelbarrow vs doing nothing / not wheelbarrow vs doing nothing)
Right after 0 seconds:
-175 wood and -50 food / -50 food (cost of 1 villager)
Right after 25 seconds:
(the same) / -100 food (cost of 2 villagers)
Right after 50 seconds:
(the same) / -150 food + rate(not_wheelbarrow)*(25/60) ( < - This is the cost of 3 villagers plus the resources collected by the villager alive for 25 seconds)
At 75 seconds:
(the same) / -150 food + rate(not_wheelbarrow)*((25+50)/60) ( < - This is the cost of 3 villagers plus the resources collected by the villager alive for 25 seconds and the one alive for 50 seconds)
Using your numbers (only gathering food :( ): -175 wood -50 food / -150 food + 19.8*75/60 food == -150 food + 24,75 food, let's round -125 food total
After that:
Now the (Expression I) start to be valid (summed to the calculated values)
All of this should bring the optimal number of villagers a little lower..
The other thing would be a methodology divergence: These calculations only show when the wheelbarrow pays itself off, not when it should be researched. This is a much harder question, because it takes into account the downside in economy in a short term for an advantage in the longer term. That depends on waaaay many other factors :)
I usually only research it when it's a long game and I have extra resources. There are other benefits though. In a real game, especially with 8 people, there's a lot of chaos going on. Ideally you'd want your resources deposit building as close to the resource as possible. But suppose it get's destroyed, or you can't quite build in the position you want (for example, a gold deposit in a high traffic are of Black Forrest). There are scenarios where your villagers may need to do a bit of walking. In the chaos of the game, it could benefit more on a long run.
One thing you forgot is the wood cost of the three additional farms you'd need. So it's not just 150 food vs 175f+50w, it's 150f+180w vs 175f+50w.
In that light, Wheelbarrow is actually cheaper. There's also the fact that Wheelbarrow starts to pay off instantly, while villagers need to first construct their farms. Realistically, you're looking at having 1 farmer for 35 seconds, the next for 10 seconds, and the third only completing its farm 15 seconds after Wheelbarrow would have been active.
There's almost no boost to mining as people place those camps right next to the resources. The wood bonus is probably better under normal circumstances as time to carry resources back increases as you chop further into the forest... without making a new camp. The farm 'pick up' point seems kind of random and ends up averaging walking half the length of the farm back.
Great video, i had always thought around 30 villagers was the sweet spot - Now i know better :)
Those are some really hot bars ;), I don't think that some one could show me prettier ones. Thanks for the vid, you put a lot of effort on them for what people msitake for a usseles topic
It is impressive how much effort you put in your videos.
So if i understand this correctly: wheelbarrow mostly effect your farmers so if you have a build order with a lot of villagers on farms, get it at 22 farmers. If you're following a regular build order, get it at 45-46 vills with 16 farmers? Great video Spirit!
My generalized strategy is get it after I feel like I have enough villagers for my age. Which usually means I'm mostly saving up to get the next age upgrade and wheel barrels are an intermittent delay in saving up and will yield me a bigger bunch of resources once the next TC age upgrade finishes.
I think your 3% bonus to wood is really undervalued. You had 3 lumber camps and all had 5 or so workers and where extremely efficient. they all had to move 1 step to turn in wood. In a real game I feel peoples wood isn't nearly as efficient as shown in the video. Luv your videos though keep up the awesome work.
TA16 I had 2 lumbercamps in the initial test for resource rate, and it ran for 5 minutes, so they weren't as close to the tree line near the end. The wood lines weren't the best, either, so I figured it balanced out a bit. I kind of have to assume decent conditions since it's on the player in the game to try to keep their economy efficient. You're right that inefficiently designed towns would benefit more from wheelbarrow, though.
Getting the wheel barrow upgrade earlier can be more efficient if you're planning on sending the next 3 villagers to food collection. Also, even if your 44 villager limit is true, most of us would be in the castle age by that time and the upgrade to wheel barrow at that point is also dependent on the next upgrade.
Gnana Prakash I doubt in a normally played game you could bring the number below 40, though. 20+ farmers before you reach 40 population would be a pretty unorthodox economy
Yes you're right :P
Spirit Of The Law Wow.. such a small difference, basically makes no difference to me, my skill level is in no way high enough to have this be a real deciding factor. On top of that.. idle villagers are much worse, and people seem to have plenty of those around all the time.
The disadvantage of going for 3 extra villagers is that you need the wood for a house and -1 villager while he is building it. Also if they are farmers, take into account the space and resources needed to build their farms.
You do make the prettiest graphs :p love the vids keep them coming plz.
Being able to carry more is more about reducing the amount of time spent walking between resource and drop off rather than straight up increase yield. In other words, the more villagers have to walk, the more valuable of wheelbarrow and handcart. So they do not make as much of a difference if the resource and drop off are right beside each other.
I loved your "old" intro, just something about preparation for your video coming :).
Now still I am glad and want watch your video, but little less then with "old" intro, I know its hard to explain and I hope somebody will understand me :(.
Nice new intro! I liked the old one more but thought it could possibly be shortened.
amazing video!!! best aoe2 channel out there imo! good job! you deserve more subs
that 3% wood efficiency assumes best case scenario where the workers still haven't carved the edge of the treeline. the more trees they cutdown, the more benefit wheelbarrow should give. granted that if they are walking too far to gather wood you have other priorities over optimizing when to get wheelcart, but still, on average, i expect a bigger advantage for wood cutting than just 3%. probably way below 10%, but higher than 3.
also that extra move speed should prove essential to save villagers sooner rather than later, thus negating the advantage of going for the extra villagers in the first place, and who knows, that helps with exploration too and builders also benefit from it.
i personally think the mathematical ideal point for optimal resource gathering is actually a bit too late in practice. you're better off getting it sooner than that. probably in the mid-thirties villager population, based on your data, but that will depend entirely on the game. if you're suffering from early aggression the movespeed alone is worth upgrading asap.
i never played this game very seriously i had it installed just lying around - then i stumbled over you on youtube - watched a couple of videos and then some more xD and subbed just now (lol) - half an hour earlier i knight rushed some AI players xD. I guess you really like AOE - jesus the amount of detail you use to play this game, its crazy - great videos.
Thanks a lot! I have never been good at math, so I had always relied on force.
I LOVE the math. THANK YOU!!!
Someone has been learned.
I truly enjoy your master of the art of math (a bit contradictory, I know). Math is the corner of the universe, and what we subconsciously use to make our decisions. If you don't know the math, your gut feeling won't make the right decision.
dude your videos are just gold. Thank you!
Awesome video mate!
I just can't wait till the next video comes out. ^_^
Only time I watch 10min of someone explaining maths.
I spit out my coffee when you said 'the force' XD
I don't care about 'the math' in games, but I love how much he is into it on his channel.
In case anyone was curious, I did a quick test to see why wheelbarrow has such a huge effect on farming and smaller on other resource gathering. It seems as though the mechanic of how farmers gather isn't the same as gold/stone/wood. Gold/stone/wood seem to be gathered at a rate over time while the villager is "working." Farms do not work this way, however. A farmer will *always* gather and move four times, regardless of what that villager's carry capacity is. This means that each time the villager gathers, it gathers more. This is also why Aztec farmers are better.
+Brent Salwei I would also note that this is another case where the tooltip says that it's a 25% increase when it is actually 30%. Villagers went from gathering 10 food to 13.
great stuff love your academic style, can you do more of these videos comparing other things like for example different villager comp at dark/feudal age in order to get the fastest castle time?
This is a good video for civs with no eco bonuses. However:
Persians also create villagers and research techs in the Town Centre and Docks faster.
On Migration, Persians are good at pulling off the Fast Imperial Fast Fire Ship Rush which on Standard AoC (not AoF) is really good but like any Fast Imperial it gives you a narrow economy window. See pro prayers getting Wheelbarrow as Persians in feudal age while going into Castle Age on Migration. This is because your economy is mostly lumberjacks with no farmers at all and you're relying totally on a fish boom and possibly berries, meaning you'll have a max of 4 lumber camps. Wheelbarrow helps a ton there.
Anyway the faster Wheelbarrow research rate is good, just as good as the faster villager creation rate the persian town centre gets.
Then you get civs with specific eco bonuses.
Indians cheaper villagers save a bit more food.
Slavs farm a bit faster (8% in reality instead of 15% coz of the walking) and Aztecs farm just as fast due to their carry bonus. I'll come back to Aztecs later.
Frank Foragers and Cheap Castles, Mongol Hunt, Briton Sheep and Cheap TC, Celt Wood, Turk Gold Miners, Korean Stone Miners, Indian Fishers, Viking Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart, Japanese Cheaper drop off points and faster fishing boats, Incan free Llama and Cheap Stone Buildings and Teuton Farm bonus (which is undoubtedly the best eco bonus out of all the aforementioned meaning less villagers on wood), and the Spanish faster build speed is small eco bonus too. Although most of them will never come into action coz things like Mongol Hunt and Briton sheep will be gone before Wheelbarrow is even considered it helps since they will still be able to research wheelbarrow just as early as anyone else other than Vikings.
With Aztecs, they can get away with getting Wheelbarrow later. About 5 villagers I believe. You'll see a lot of players go for Aztecs because their early bird wheelbarrow bonus (of carrying +5 even with no villager speed increase) ontop of their +15% military bonus is what makes them powerful. They can 5 militia drush + FC and go mass xbow/monks/mangonel which crushes any Knight/CA rush a Hun Player can do depending on how much damage an Aztec Player does.
I usually research wheelbarrow very late, because I see wheelbarrow as a mostly farming tech ( farmers benefit most because of the movement bonus ) , so I go into collection specifics first, then wheelbarrow
Well lumberjacks also walk a lot, especially after the few minutes when extracting wood creates a gap between the trees and the lumber camp.
Your 3% boon to lumber is assuming a minimal travel distance between the lumber camp and the trees (aka the same distance as between a mining camp and the ore). Surely that's not always the case. Even with frequent refreshing of lumber camps you're sure to see more travel time spent on average for a lumberjack than for a miner.