Hi. I am going to make a big topic about mechanics in game. I will try to post very detailed information about that. I hope I will surprise some expert players. I will add new informations every week, two weeks, month... we will see. Let me know if you see mistakes. English isn't my native language. Let's begin.
1. Economy
1.1 Food Production
1.1.1 Farms
At the beginning some basic information about Farms:
Cost: 60W (Teutonic cost 40W)
Built Time: 15s (Spanish built 30% faster)
Hit Points: 480 (+10/+20/+30/+40% in Dark/Feudual/Castle/Imperial Age for Byzantines)
Armour/Pierce armour: 0/0 (most of buildings gain +1/+1 every age. Farms doesn't)
Food:
- standard: 175
- horse collar: 250
- heavy plow: 375
- crop rotation: 550
Chinese team farms has 45 more food.
Size: 3x3 tiles but vills works only on four left bottom tiles that's mean food producion speed depends on farm position. Farmer walking randomly on those four tiles, sometimes they needs walk longer distance to drop food, sometimes not. Thats why if you want to test something with farms you need make a lot of test.
Interesting facts: You can heal your farm using monks but it cost wood. If you are out of wood you can't heal farm anymore. You can capture enemy farm using villagers.
Let's talk about some more detailed facts. Look at the picture.
First column shows the average food production speed. All cycle of farming is included (building farms, droping food and come back to start position - center of the farm). I tested onlt those civs. Why results are so different? I dont know why Mayans farmers work slower but here is discussion about this: http://www.aoczone.net/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=103478 . Anyway, Mayans should be good farmest because resources last longer. Mayans farmers works 2.4% slower than regural civs.
Aztec's farmers are the best in dark age. It's because villagers carry +5 more food. Aztec need drop food only 12 times while Hun need 18 times. Aztec's farmes works 13% faster than Huns. Chinse farms got 45 more food so they don't need to rebuild farms as many times as other civs. Difference is really minor, almost 1% faster work rate than Hun.
Third column show how much food should produce one farm but the reality is different. You could not see a difference when you make a test with one farm, even ten might me not enough but when you make many tests, gather tons of food you will see a difference. I don't know why but it is what it is.
Now the most important thing about farms.
As I said before food production speed depends on farm location. Some farms are more efficiency than others. The picture shows that. Numers says how much faster is farm compared to the slowest one. The best farm is 16% faster than the worst one. You don't see farms? The center farm tile is the one with number. If you still don't see farm, take a look at the next pictures. This ones show best and worst wariety of farm placement: http://oi61.tinypic.com/15d077p.jpg Difference between best and worst option is only 2,284%
Tested on 1.4RC game version, the latest version was available at 01 August 2014
1.1.2 Berries
To be honest nothing interesting I can say about berries. From one forage bush we can gather 125 food. Aztec's vills carry +5 food and Mayan's resources last 20% longer - good bonuses but Aztec's bonus is totally useless with berries. With perfect mill placement and good vill micro Aztecs and Mayans are 1% faster than regular civs.
In almost all standard maps each player has guaranteed 6 forage bushes. Berries can be distributed in 31 different combinations/variations - no rotation included. I hope I didn't miss anything.
Look in the picture 1: http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ij2pfo.jpg
Let's see at the example no.13 A & C. Difference between them for 4 vills are 112 man-seconds (196-84). That's mean one vill from A can be idle 112 seconds and they will finish work at the same time.
Look in the picture 2: http://oi59.tinypic.com/29qjsq9.jpg
There are 31 variations of berries distribution and perfect mill placement for 4 vills. Few examples was really surprised for me. 3rd and 4th look almost the same but mill is in the different position. 30th has two equal mill positions. Two vills start in the empty space between mill and berries in 2nd, 15th, 21st, 24th and 27th variation.
Average food speed production for regural civ, perfect mill placement and 4 vill working at the same time is: 19,75 food/min.
Note: All pictures tmade for Huns but it should be not difference between other regural civs. Tested on 1.4RC game version, the latest version was available at 04 August 2014.
2. Units
I am going to make a huge table with units ?relationship? (maybe it's a bad word but can't find better one). I am going to test every unit vs every unit.
Here is a table: http://oi60.tinypic.com/35chhts.jpg
It's very ugly table so far but at the end it's gonna be shiny
How to read it? Let's see at the first marked tile. There were fighting Mayan Arbalests vs Elite Skrimishers. After the battle 14,71% of based units were still alive. Skrimishers won (orange colour - unit on the left won, green colour - on the top won). Second tile is Hun's CA vs Arbalests. After a battle 4.12% of Arbalests were still alive.
Units with no civ addnotation are just regural full up'ed units (Turk got full up'ed CA, Vik got full up'ed Arbalest, etc.)
How I tested units? This is really important thing. I tested units with the same price and all units were in post-imperial age, for example 33 Arbalests vs 21 CA or 40 Byz Eskrim vs 36 Mayan Arbalests. Max amount of units was 40. For every pair of units I made 8 battles, they were fighting each other 8 times. Games were played on voobly and everytime it was patrol vs patrol and line formation vs line formation.
What if after the battle 10 of 40 Cavarly Archers were still alive but heavy wounded? Let's say eveyone had 15HP. I counted like that: 15*10/80=1.875 that's mean after the battle 1.875 units were still alive and it's 4,69% of based amount.
9. Changelog
10.08.2014 "2. Units" part 1 added
04.08.2014 - "1.1.2 Berries" added
01.08.2014 - "1.1.1 Farms" added
1. Economy
1.1 Food Production
1.1.1 Farms
At the beginning some basic information about Farms:
Cost: 60W (Teutonic cost 40W)
Built Time: 15s (Spanish built 30% faster)
Hit Points: 480 (+10/+20/+30/+40% in Dark/Feudual/Castle/Imperial Age for Byzantines)
Armour/Pierce armour: 0/0 (most of buildings gain +1/+1 every age. Farms doesn't)
Food:
- standard: 175
- horse collar: 250
- heavy plow: 375
- crop rotation: 550
Chinese team farms has 45 more food.
Size: 3x3 tiles but vills works only on four left bottom tiles that's mean food producion speed depends on farm position. Farmer walking randomly on those four tiles, sometimes they needs walk longer distance to drop food, sometimes not. Thats why if you want to test something with farms you need make a lot of test.
Interesting facts: You can heal your farm using monks but it cost wood. If you are out of wood you can't heal farm anymore. You can capture enemy farm using villagers.
Let's talk about some more detailed facts. Look at the picture.
First column shows the average food production speed. All cycle of farming is included (building farms, droping food and come back to start position - center of the farm). I tested onlt those civs. Why results are so different? I dont know why Mayans farmers work slower but here is discussion about this: http://www.aoczone.net/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=103478 . Anyway, Mayans should be good farmest because resources last longer. Mayans farmers works 2.4% slower than regural civs.
Aztec's farmers are the best in dark age. It's because villagers carry +5 more food. Aztec need drop food only 12 times while Hun need 18 times. Aztec's farmes works 13% faster than Huns. Chinse farms got 45 more food so they don't need to rebuild farms as many times as other civs. Difference is really minor, almost 1% faster work rate than Hun.
Third column show how much food should produce one farm but the reality is different. You could not see a difference when you make a test with one farm, even ten might me not enough but when you make many tests, gather tons of food you will see a difference. I don't know why but it is what it is.
Now the most important thing about farms.
As I said before food production speed depends on farm location. Some farms are more efficiency than others. The picture shows that. Numers says how much faster is farm compared to the slowest one. The best farm is 16% faster than the worst one. You don't see farms? The center farm tile is the one with number. If you still don't see farm, take a look at the next pictures. This ones show best and worst wariety of farm placement: http://oi61.tinypic.com/15d077p.jpg Difference between best and worst option is only 2,284%
Tested on 1.4RC game version, the latest version was available at 01 August 2014
1.1.2 Berries
To be honest nothing interesting I can say about berries. From one forage bush we can gather 125 food. Aztec's vills carry +5 food and Mayan's resources last 20% longer - good bonuses but Aztec's bonus is totally useless with berries. With perfect mill placement and good vill micro Aztecs and Mayans are 1% faster than regular civs.
In almost all standard maps each player has guaranteed 6 forage bushes. Berries can be distributed in 31 different combinations/variations - no rotation included. I hope I didn't miss anything.
Look in the picture 1: http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ij2pfo.jpg
Let's see at the example no.13 A & C. Difference between them for 4 vills are 112 man-seconds (196-84). That's mean one vill from A can be idle 112 seconds and they will finish work at the same time.
Look in the picture 2: http://oi59.tinypic.com/29qjsq9.jpg
There are 31 variations of berries distribution and perfect mill placement for 4 vills. Few examples was really surprised for me. 3rd and 4th look almost the same but mill is in the different position. 30th has two equal mill positions. Two vills start in the empty space between mill and berries in 2nd, 15th, 21st, 24th and 27th variation.
Average food speed production for regural civ, perfect mill placement and 4 vill working at the same time is: 19,75 food/min.
Note: All pictures tmade for Huns but it should be not difference between other regural civs. Tested on 1.4RC game version, the latest version was available at 04 August 2014.
2. Units
I am going to make a huge table with units ?relationship? (maybe it's a bad word but can't find better one). I am going to test every unit vs every unit.
Here is a table: http://oi60.tinypic.com/35chhts.jpg
It's very ugly table so far but at the end it's gonna be shiny
How to read it? Let's see at the first marked tile. There were fighting Mayan Arbalests vs Elite Skrimishers. After the battle 14,71% of based units were still alive. Skrimishers won (orange colour - unit on the left won, green colour - on the top won). Second tile is Hun's CA vs Arbalests. After a battle 4.12% of Arbalests were still alive.
Units with no civ addnotation are just regural full up'ed units (Turk got full up'ed CA, Vik got full up'ed Arbalest, etc.)
How I tested units? This is really important thing. I tested units with the same price and all units were in post-imperial age, for example 33 Arbalests vs 21 CA or 40 Byz Eskrim vs 36 Mayan Arbalests. Max amount of units was 40. For every pair of units I made 8 battles, they were fighting each other 8 times. Games were played on voobly and everytime it was patrol vs patrol and line formation vs line formation.
What if after the battle 10 of 40 Cavarly Archers were still alive but heavy wounded? Let's say eveyone had 15HP. I counted like that: 15*10/80=1.875 that's mean after the battle 1.875 units were still alive and it's 4,69% of based amount.
9. Changelog
10.08.2014 "2. Units" part 1 added
04.08.2014 - "1.1.2 Berries" added
01.08.2014 - "1.1.1 Farms" added