AOE-II Is killing the dock with vills on nomad worth it?

[[KoBHV]venivero]

Basically the title. In 2 of my recent games I build my TC, close to the enemy dock. After I killed the (not walled in) dock vill, i used 2-3 vills to destroy the dock. It was already a few vills into the game, and I could produce vills and fishing ships more or less without problems. I think I just got to feudal a bit later because of it.
So now i wonder is this worth it? It probably depends on timing and other factors, or it might over all be a stupid idea 11.

 

[King_Marv]

you can calculate it - will 3 vills gather more than 150 wood in the time they kill the dock ? I’m pretty sure they do. So not worth it.

 

[Lightysword]

When did you manage to kill the dock? Timing wise and how long did it take you?
IDK, it sounds very conincidently. I feel like if you happen to tc right next to the enemy its an interesting strategy, but scouting the enemy dock and then moving everything there sounds a bit sus to me on paper.

 

[DerEsser]

you can calculate it - will 3 vills gather more than 150 wood in the time they kill the dock ? I’m pretty sure they do. So not worth it.

Well, you can extend the calculation a bit. The other player needs to send one vill to build another dock and his fishing ships will be idle until they are relocated. So you gain more than just the 150 wood cost of the dock.
But the extra damage is still not worth enough in most cases, I think. The walking time of the villager to build the dock should be similar or even smaller than the walking time of your own villagers, therefore I would say you lose more than your opponent in that regard. Regarding the idle time of the fishing ships, here it depends: How many fishing ships does he already have? Where will he relocate his fishing ships? Even in the worst case where they have to travel to the opposite of the map (if we assume they are on the outer ring), they will be at the new location in under two minutes I think (haven't tested myself, but my gut feeling says it shouldn't take more than two minutes to go around an 8 player map).

In general, I would agree that it might be justifiable in certain situations, but those are more the exception than the rule. For example, if you destroy a dock with almost no fish left, your economic damage is very low. And relocating the fishing economy is quite easy.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Villager DPS against buildings is 3, and a dock has 1800 HP with no melee armor in dark age. So it should take 600 villager seconds to kill dock.

The dock cost 150 wood, and the Lumberjack gather rate is somewhere around .35 on Nomad, so it takes around 425 villager seconds to gather enough wood to build a dock, and 35 villager seconds to build it. So guaranteed total damage is around 460 villager seconds of resources. Add in some idle time for his villager and the fishing ships to relocate and maybe you get to 600 seconds worth of resource damage

But you also have to think of your own villager idle time to send 3-4 villagers to kill his dock and walk back etc. If you aren't right next to his dock, this walking time will be high

So is it worth it? Probably not.

 

[b1gwalt]

Villager DPS against buildings is 3, and a dock has 1800 HP with no melee armor in dark age. So it should take 600 villager seconds to kill dock.

The dock cost 150 wood, and the Lumberjack gather rate is somewhere around .35 on Nomad, so it takes around 425 villager seconds to gather enough wood to build a dock, and 35 villager seconds to build it. So guaranteed total damage is around 460 villager seconds of resources. Add in some idle time for his villager and the fishing ships to relocate and maybe you get to 600 seconds worth of resource damage

But you also have to think of your own villager idle time to send 3-4 villagers to kill his dock and walk back etc. If you aren't right next to his dock, this walking time will be high

So is it worth it? Probably not.

It's more damaging than that. Let's say your opponent recognises the dock is being destroyed requires a new one to be built. A new dock costs 150 wood so they will probably have to start saving up for that rather than build fishing ships out of the existing one. Assuming you kill the dock villager as it says in the post, I would imagine you are now at least 1 vil + 1 fishing ship ahead of your opponent. I'm presuming that you pull the vills to attack at a time where you can sustain production of your own eco. So you're definitely much closer to the 600 seconds number that you mention.

As for the idle time, if your TC is close enough to the enemy dock to pull this off, it is very likely that you will have less far to walk to the shore than your opponent does.

As another point, if you kill their dock, to save idle time they will have to build a new one as close to their TC as possible, or take a hit on walking time. So you actually get some good scouting info from that, because if you can find the dock, you also can make a good guess on the TC and vice versa. This is especially important because they obviously know where your TC is already.

So yeah, I think while it's pretty marginal in terms of raw numbers, overall you end up the exchange at least 1-2 eco units ahead + map knowledge + you get in their head a bit.

 

[buxmajor]

We need SOTL

 

[LowEloNobody]

It's more damaging than that. Let's say your opponent recognises the dock is being destroyed requires a new one to be built. A new dock costs 150 wood so they will probably have to start saving up for that rather than build fishing ships out of the existing one. Assuming you kill the dock villager as it says in the post, I would imagine you are now at least 1 vil + 1 fishing ship ahead of your opponent. I'm presuming that you pull the vills to attack at a time where you can sustain production of your own eco. So you're definitely much closer to the 600 seconds number that you mention.
I never said they didn't have to build a new dock. But that dock and build time costs about 460 villager seconds of resources. You are spending a minimum of 600 villager seconds to take out the dock. So your opponent is hypothetically 120+ villager seconds ahead of you in collected resources. This is the equivalent of your opponent having an additional vil for 2 minutes

If you pull vills to kill his dock at the time in which you have sufficient vils to maintain TC production and dock production with 3-4 vils not collecting resources, then your opponent should also be at the point in which he can sustain production, and the vils that he has working (instead of attacking a dock) pay for the new dock.

Assuming you send 4 vils to kill his dock, it takes you about 2.5 game minutes to kill the dock. In that 2.5 minutes, his 4 vils that are not attacking a dock collect about 200 wood. That is easily enough to build a new dock.

 

[kw1k000000]

you can calculate it - will 3 vills gather more than 150 wood in the time they kill the dock ? I’m pretty sure they do. So not worth it.

You have to factor in these things as well

- Enemy fish is idle for a while and he has to move fish to new dock location. If fish is the primary food source then his uptime will be delayed
- Enemy has to spend 150 extra wood to make dock

So if it's not too far from tc then it's worth killing the dock

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

When would you have to start attacking the dock to not damage your own eco in the process and raze the building before the enemy advances to feudal? I do not think it's worth

 

[LowEloNobody]

You have to factor in these things as well

- Enemy fish is idle for a while and he has to move fish to new dock location. If fish is the primary food source then his uptime will be delayed
- Enemy has to spend 150 extra wood to make dock

So if it's not too far from tc then it's worth killing the dock

Let's assume your opponent made his first dock in the furthest corner of the map, and then made his new dock (after you killed his first dock) in the furthest opposite corner.
Assuming a minimum 5 tiles of water around the edge of nomad, his fishing ships would need to travel a maximum of 220 tiles in order to make it to his new dock. This movement would take approximately 175 in-game seconds.

If your opponent has at least 2 fishing ships working when you kill his dock, then you might break even assuming he chose the furthest physical docks possible. If he re-docked within 1 map-edge distance, then your opponent would need to have 4 fishing ships to make it worth it to kill his dock.

However, the point at which you can constantly produce vils and fishing ships is generally around 10 vils. You need to send 4 to kill his dock, so you need to attack his dock around 14 vils. It takes you about 2.5 game minutes to kill the dock, at which point your opponent is around 18-20 vils and has already clicked up to feudal. Given that you have had 4 vils not working, you are behind by about 150 food, meaning you will be close to 1 minute slower to Feudal age than your opponent.

Now your opponent simply makes fire galleys, to which you have no counter, and kills all of your fishing ships

So at best, you maybe break even on resources spent/denied but you likely lose water, and therefore lose the game

 

[[KoBHV]venivero]

So if the timing is right you might turn even, but it is probably not worth it in the end.
Weirdly in both games i went up to feudal faster, but that was probably because i killed the dock vill 11

 

[LowEloNobody]

So if the timing is right you might turn even, but it is probably not worth it in the end.
Weirdly in both games i went up to feudal faster, but that was probably because i killed the dock vill 11

Killing the dock vil is 100% worth it.

But if your TC is close enough to the enemy dock to attack it with vils, you are probably better off just going up faster, building a second dock next to his, and killing all of his fish.

 

[saps_]

Basically the title. In 2 of my recent games I build my TC, close to the enemy dock. After I killed the (not walled in) dock vill, i used 2-3 vills to destroy the dock. It was already a few vills into the game, and I could produce vills and fishing ships more or less without problems. I think I just got to feudal a bit later because of it.
So now i wonder is this worth it? It probably depends on timing and other factors, or it might over all be a stupid idea 11.

No.