I have always been wondering how useful Mongols' early economic bonus of 50% increase in hunting rate can be. So I have conducted some tests and calculations and below is my findings.
1. Boar hunting
Suppose normal civs need to have 7 vils collecting food from a boar (which is a standard situation)
Mons can choose to have 5 boar hunters and yet collect more food from the boar even at a faster rate.
Here is the result of some tests:
Average food collected from a boar by 7 vils for a normal civ: 297 food
Time taken: 106~107s
Average food collected from a boar by 5 vils for Mons: 300 food
Time taken: 100s
Let's do some simple calculations based on the above findings:
For 7 vils to work for 107s, that will be 749 vil secs
Normal civs will spend all 749 secs in collecting the food from a boar
While Mons will only spend 5x100=500 vil secs to collect roughly the same amount of food
Hence, Mons save 249 vil secs, i.e. 498 vil secs for two boars
So, Mons’ hunting advantage on boar is roughly about an additional 500 vil secs.
That's roughtly equivalent to 170+ gold/stone or 165~170 wood
Or in terms of military units produced, it will be two extra scouts/militias
This is an obvious advantage but not really unmatched.
2. Deer hunting
Suppose Mons send 4 vils to build a mill and hunt 4 deer.
If the deer are about one and a half screen distance away from TC (about 30~50s spent on the way), on average it takes about 5min to 5min 25s (300~325s) for 4 vils to walk such distance and build a mill and finish collecting food from 4 deer. The amount of food collected from 4 deer is on average 500~505.
So, is it worth hunting deer? Especially when the vils have to walk a long distance and build a mill which costs 100 wood?
But if you choose not to hunt deer, you can only get this 500 additional food from farms, which is time consuming and costs wood.
Alright, let's compare deer hunting with farming then.
You will need nearly 3 farms to produce the additional 500 food available in 4 deer.
Suppose instead of sending 4 vils to hunt deer, you have 3 vils farming for food, the 4th vil can do whatever you want to assign him.
3 vils to collect 167 food from each farm will take:
15s to build a farm each
525s to collect 167 each
That will be 540s.
Let's see how much additional vil secs can be utilised in that 540s besides those spent for 500 food:
Scenario A: 4 vils hunting 4 deer with 1 mill built
About 5min 10s (310s) spent to get 500 food.
After that 4 vils can then do other work for 230s each, totalling 920 additional vil secs
Scenario B: 3 vils to farm and 1 vil doing any other work
About 540s to collect 500 food by the 3 farmers
The 4th vil will work for 540s, i.e. 540 additional vil secs
Scenario A will give 380 more vil secs and save 80 wood, which is equivalent to 240~250 vil secs.
Conclusion: Scenario A can allow Mons to have 620~630 more vil secs to utilise!
That is almost equivalent to 200 additional resources if all the extra vil secs are used to chop wood or mine.
So, deer hunting is definitely beneficiary to Mons and a better option to get 500 extra food than farming.
Together with hunting boars, Mons will have about 1100+ additional vil secs to use in the early ages provided 4 deer are hunt and they are about one and half screen distances away from TC. That will be enormous advantage! (That’s about 350 units of extra resources, about 5 more archers…and if you choose to chase deer by scout, you save another 500 vil secs, together that will give you roughly enough resources to train 4 more knights once castle age is reached!)
If you happen to be very lucky and have more than 4 deer near your base, you are probably going to have the best economy to FC if you hunt them all.
But perhaps you may have another question: if your luck is gone and there are only 3 deer, is it still worth hunting them?
Hunting 3 deer will give Mons around 375~378 food in 4min 10s to 4 min 35s (250~275s) given the same conditions as in Scenario A above.
Assume in another Scenario C where 2 out of the 4 vils go farming and the other 2 do whatever job you want to assign. The two farm will produce 350 food (slightly less than 3 deer) in 565s.
And we have here a Scenario D which is similar to Scenario A except that there are only 3 deer to hunt now.
Do the similar comparison again, we have:
Scenario D: 4 vils hunting 3 deer with 1 mill built
About 4min 20s (260s) spent to get 375 food.
After that 4 vils can then do other work for 305s each, totalling 1220 additional vil secs
Scenario C: 2 vils to farm and 2 vil doing any other work
About 565s to collect 350 food by the 2 farmers
The 3rd and 4th vil will work for 565s, i.e. 1130 additional vil secs
Scenario D will produce 25 more food and save 20 wood while give 90 more vil secs.
Thus, 3 deer may still be worth hunting even though the advantage is now rather small.
However what I have shown here in this thread is only in theory with the assumption that the player can fully utilise every vil sec and do not have any idle village at any time. If there is idle time for any vil, the economic advantage by having additional vil secs will be compromised. The more idle time you have, the smaller the advantage will be.
Nonetheless, it still seems that deer hunting is an irresistible option for Mons especially if you plan to FC and focus on early econs. It seems to be very good tactics for a Mons pocket player to hunt deer. I just wonder does this have real effect in practice? Also, by compromising 3~4 minutes of scouting for chasing the deer to TC/mill beside forage one can save vil travelling time and 100 wood for mill. Is it a good and necessary move for Mons playing as pocket? Are there any other objections for Mons to go hunting deer? Like easily harassed by militia; deer are too far away etc?
I want to know what you guys are thinking about my calculations and conclusion. Please share your comments below. Thanks!
1. Boar hunting
Suppose normal civs need to have 7 vils collecting food from a boar (which is a standard situation)
Mons can choose to have 5 boar hunters and yet collect more food from the boar even at a faster rate.
Here is the result of some tests:
Average food collected from a boar by 7 vils for a normal civ: 297 food
Time taken: 106~107s
Average food collected from a boar by 5 vils for Mons: 300 food
Time taken: 100s
Let's do some simple calculations based on the above findings:
For 7 vils to work for 107s, that will be 749 vil secs
Normal civs will spend all 749 secs in collecting the food from a boar
While Mons will only spend 5x100=500 vil secs to collect roughly the same amount of food
Hence, Mons save 249 vil secs, i.e. 498 vil secs for two boars
So, Mons’ hunting advantage on boar is roughly about an additional 500 vil secs.
That's roughtly equivalent to 170+ gold/stone or 165~170 wood
Or in terms of military units produced, it will be two extra scouts/militias
This is an obvious advantage but not really unmatched.
2. Deer hunting
Suppose Mons send 4 vils to build a mill and hunt 4 deer.
If the deer are about one and a half screen distance away from TC (about 30~50s spent on the way), on average it takes about 5min to 5min 25s (300~325s) for 4 vils to walk such distance and build a mill and finish collecting food from 4 deer. The amount of food collected from 4 deer is on average 500~505.
So, is it worth hunting deer? Especially when the vils have to walk a long distance and build a mill which costs 100 wood?
But if you choose not to hunt deer, you can only get this 500 additional food from farms, which is time consuming and costs wood.
Alright, let's compare deer hunting with farming then.
You will need nearly 3 farms to produce the additional 500 food available in 4 deer.
Suppose instead of sending 4 vils to hunt deer, you have 3 vils farming for food, the 4th vil can do whatever you want to assign him.
3 vils to collect 167 food from each farm will take:
15s to build a farm each
525s to collect 167 each
That will be 540s.
Let's see how much additional vil secs can be utilised in that 540s besides those spent for 500 food:
Scenario A: 4 vils hunting 4 deer with 1 mill built
About 5min 10s (310s) spent to get 500 food.
After that 4 vils can then do other work for 230s each, totalling 920 additional vil secs
Scenario B: 3 vils to farm and 1 vil doing any other work
About 540s to collect 500 food by the 3 farmers
The 4th vil will work for 540s, i.e. 540 additional vil secs
Scenario A will give 380 more vil secs and save 80 wood, which is equivalent to 240~250 vil secs.
Conclusion: Scenario A can allow Mons to have 620~630 more vil secs to utilise!
That is almost equivalent to 200 additional resources if all the extra vil secs are used to chop wood or mine.
So, deer hunting is definitely beneficiary to Mons and a better option to get 500 extra food than farming.
Together with hunting boars, Mons will have about 1100+ additional vil secs to use in the early ages provided 4 deer are hunt and they are about one and half screen distances away from TC. That will be enormous advantage! (That’s about 350 units of extra resources, about 5 more archers…and if you choose to chase deer by scout, you save another 500 vil secs, together that will give you roughly enough resources to train 4 more knights once castle age is reached!)
If you happen to be very lucky and have more than 4 deer near your base, you are probably going to have the best economy to FC if you hunt them all.
But perhaps you may have another question: if your luck is gone and there are only 3 deer, is it still worth hunting them?
Hunting 3 deer will give Mons around 375~378 food in 4min 10s to 4 min 35s (250~275s) given the same conditions as in Scenario A above.
Assume in another Scenario C where 2 out of the 4 vils go farming and the other 2 do whatever job you want to assign. The two farm will produce 350 food (slightly less than 3 deer) in 565s.
And we have here a Scenario D which is similar to Scenario A except that there are only 3 deer to hunt now.
Do the similar comparison again, we have:
Scenario D: 4 vils hunting 3 deer with 1 mill built
About 4min 20s (260s) spent to get 375 food.
After that 4 vils can then do other work for 305s each, totalling 1220 additional vil secs
Scenario C: 2 vils to farm and 2 vil doing any other work
About 565s to collect 350 food by the 2 farmers
The 3rd and 4th vil will work for 565s, i.e. 1130 additional vil secs
Scenario D will produce 25 more food and save 20 wood while give 90 more vil secs.
Thus, 3 deer may still be worth hunting even though the advantage is now rather small.
However what I have shown here in this thread is only in theory with the assumption that the player can fully utilise every vil sec and do not have any idle village at any time. If there is idle time for any vil, the economic advantage by having additional vil secs will be compromised. The more idle time you have, the smaller the advantage will be.
Nonetheless, it still seems that deer hunting is an irresistible option for Mons especially if you plan to FC and focus on early econs. It seems to be very good tactics for a Mons pocket player to hunt deer. I just wonder does this have real effect in practice? Also, by compromising 3~4 minutes of scouting for chasing the deer to TC/mill beside forage one can save vil travelling time and 100 wood for mill. Is it a good and necessary move for Mons playing as pocket? Are there any other objections for Mons to go hunting deer? Like easily harassed by militia; deer are too far away etc?
I want to know what you guys are thinking about my calculations and conclusion. Please share your comments below. Thanks!