Didn't know where else to post this.
I know most people on this site will already know what they’re doing and won’t need to read this post. I’m just putting it up somewhere. This applies mainly to booming, but is good to know for arena in general and possibly for other closed maps like Black Forest.
Economic Upgrades:
You only need to get Bow Saw and Wheelbarrow before clicking up to Imperial. Everything can be done AFTER the click.
Bow Saw boosts the overall wood income rate in your economy. Wood is needed for TCs, farms, economic buildings, military buildings, siege units and some upgrades like ballistics. If your Fast Castle build order is half decent, Bow Saw should be easily affordable at the very start of Castle Age. By the time the second villager come out of your TC in Castle Age, you should have it. Unless you've gone up to Feudal on less than 26 population and you’re doing an Edie style 1 TC rush, Bow Saw should be clicked as soon as it becomes available. Even if you’re rushing, if you can afford it in and around building monasteries and siege workshops, get it. The cost of 100 wood may slow the rush slightly, but it will make life easier in the long run. It’s a fine balance.
Wheelbarrow theoretically improves your entire economy, but farmers will benefit the most, so overall food income rate improves. If you’re doing 1 monastery and a couple of TCs, or you won’t be producing food heavy units like Conquistadors until the Castle is built, then a good time to get this is at the 2nd TC as soon as it’s built. The cost of 50 wood is almost irrelevant on a wood heavy map like arena where you already have plenty of lumberjacks working hard. The 175 food is what may delay this upgrade. In certain situations 175 food is quite a lot in early Castle Age. The main thing is that you don’t idle your TCs just to get the food for Wheelbarrow. Villager numbers are more important. If you can’t afford to research it early on, don’t wait. Concentrate on building more farms and come back to it a little later.
Why shouldn’t you get Hand Cart, Heavy Plow, Gold Mining or Stone Mining before clicking up to Imp?
Hand Cart – Yes it’s a big boost and a great upgrade to get but it costs more than double the total resources that Wheelbarrow does. It’s enough food for 6 villagers and enough wood for 3 farms. It’s 30% of the food you need to go Imp. Click it shortly after you've clicked to Imp. If you want to improve food income rate without spending the extra food and slowing your Imperial time down, then your aim should be to get 30 farms up and running as quickly as possible. That seems to be the critical mass of farms at which food income starts to increase rapidly.
I’ve watched recs of top players using spectator overlay. One player had 4 TCs and a relatively early hand cart, roughly 3 or 4 minutes earlier than his opponent who just had 3 TCs and wheelbarrow. I paused the game at the point where the 3 TC player finally got hand cart (AFTER he’d clicked to Imp) and looked at the total amount of food gathered. The guy with the 4 TCs who had hand cart for a lot longer only had 274 food extra. The key metric? They both had 37 farms. I've seen this on a number of recs. Total number of farms seems to be the most important thing for rapid food income, not upgrades.
Heavy Plow – This does nothing to improve food gathering rate, and nothing to improve the total amount of food gathered, well it does sort of, but the effect isn’t that great. This upgrade decreases the frequency of having to spend 60 wood on rebuilding farms. It only begins to pay for itself once the first farm that was built with it has 251+ food gathered from it i.e. it passes the point where a farm with Horse Collar would usually expire and need rebuilding. Even then, it’s only given you back 60 wood. For the cost of 125 food and 125 wood, you’d be better off making 2 more villagers and building 2 more farms. A more extreme example of this is Crop Rotation. It’s almost pointless.
Gold Mining and Stone Mining – They provide a 15% boost to gathering rate. Talking purely in percentage terms, that’s like saying that these upgrades will make 20 miners do the work of 23 miners. Not exactly a huge boost. If you’re not making many military units and you don’t have any relics in the monastery then you need about 10-12 gold miners to go Imperial in under 30 minutes. Clearly you have the 2 gold miners from dark age, and when you add the extra miners is up to you, but the point is that the 100 food you spend on this upgrade further delays your Imperial Age time for very little payoff. Ironically if you have actually have 20 gold miners, then you won’t need this upgrade to assist you in getting 800 gold faster. If you want faster gold or stone income without spending the valuable food, then you should simply reassign existing villagers from wood, and possibly get them to build an extra mining camp or two to reduce walking distance.
There’s nothing wrong with clicking these upgrades immediately AFTER you've click to Imp, but doing them beforehand doesn't always make sense.
In the rec I referred to earlier with the 37 farms, the 4 TC player was desperately trying to boom to Imp to get trebs, conscription and military upgrades, but he clicked Hand Cart, Heavy Plow, Gold Mining and Stone Mining before the click to Imperial. He also did Town Watch (which didn’t really make sense). Why, if you’re trying to get to Imp quickly are you spending 700 food less than 2 minutes in the Castle Age? That’s 70% of what you need to go Imp! He lost the game.
It’s not set in stone, but the above is why I tend to only get Bow Saw and Wheelbarrow in Castle Age. They are the two upgrades that actually have an immediate, significant and positive effect on my entire economy once the researches have completed. The others either don’t have any noticeable immediate effect, or, in the case of Hand Cart, simply cost too much.
If you want faster food then you need MORE farms in a tight, efficient layout with a few well-placed extra mills. Food cost = ZERO.
If you want more gold or stone, then you need MORE miners and possibly 1 or 2 more mining camps. Food cost = ZERO.
Food cost is ZERO, because I've assumed that all newly created villagers and going to wood and that these new farmers and miners are just existing villagers being reassigned from wood.
A couple of other learning points.
4 villagers building a TC is only about 12-15 seconds quicker than 3 villagers building a TC. I’d much rather keep that 4th villager on wood. All the extra wood gathered during the build time will be way more valuable in terms of rapidly building farms than getting a TC up half a villager quicker.
2 villagers on a deer under the TC = 106 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
3 villagers on a deer under the TC = 116 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
4 villagers on a deer under the TC = 122 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
More than 2 villagers on a deer doesn't get you much more food. Better off hitting berries, building a farm or doing something else.
I know most people on this site will already know what they’re doing and won’t need to read this post. I’m just putting it up somewhere. This applies mainly to booming, but is good to know for arena in general and possibly for other closed maps like Black Forest.
Economic Upgrades:
You only need to get Bow Saw and Wheelbarrow before clicking up to Imperial. Everything can be done AFTER the click.
Bow Saw boosts the overall wood income rate in your economy. Wood is needed for TCs, farms, economic buildings, military buildings, siege units and some upgrades like ballistics. If your Fast Castle build order is half decent, Bow Saw should be easily affordable at the very start of Castle Age. By the time the second villager come out of your TC in Castle Age, you should have it. Unless you've gone up to Feudal on less than 26 population and you’re doing an Edie style 1 TC rush, Bow Saw should be clicked as soon as it becomes available. Even if you’re rushing, if you can afford it in and around building monasteries and siege workshops, get it. The cost of 100 wood may slow the rush slightly, but it will make life easier in the long run. It’s a fine balance.
Wheelbarrow theoretically improves your entire economy, but farmers will benefit the most, so overall food income rate improves. If you’re doing 1 monastery and a couple of TCs, or you won’t be producing food heavy units like Conquistadors until the Castle is built, then a good time to get this is at the 2nd TC as soon as it’s built. The cost of 50 wood is almost irrelevant on a wood heavy map like arena where you already have plenty of lumberjacks working hard. The 175 food is what may delay this upgrade. In certain situations 175 food is quite a lot in early Castle Age. The main thing is that you don’t idle your TCs just to get the food for Wheelbarrow. Villager numbers are more important. If you can’t afford to research it early on, don’t wait. Concentrate on building more farms and come back to it a little later.
Why shouldn’t you get Hand Cart, Heavy Plow, Gold Mining or Stone Mining before clicking up to Imp?
Hand Cart – Yes it’s a big boost and a great upgrade to get but it costs more than double the total resources that Wheelbarrow does. It’s enough food for 6 villagers and enough wood for 3 farms. It’s 30% of the food you need to go Imp. Click it shortly after you've clicked to Imp. If you want to improve food income rate without spending the extra food and slowing your Imperial time down, then your aim should be to get 30 farms up and running as quickly as possible. That seems to be the critical mass of farms at which food income starts to increase rapidly.
I’ve watched recs of top players using spectator overlay. One player had 4 TCs and a relatively early hand cart, roughly 3 or 4 minutes earlier than his opponent who just had 3 TCs and wheelbarrow. I paused the game at the point where the 3 TC player finally got hand cart (AFTER he’d clicked to Imp) and looked at the total amount of food gathered. The guy with the 4 TCs who had hand cart for a lot longer only had 274 food extra. The key metric? They both had 37 farms. I've seen this on a number of recs. Total number of farms seems to be the most important thing for rapid food income, not upgrades.
Heavy Plow – This does nothing to improve food gathering rate, and nothing to improve the total amount of food gathered, well it does sort of, but the effect isn’t that great. This upgrade decreases the frequency of having to spend 60 wood on rebuilding farms. It only begins to pay for itself once the first farm that was built with it has 251+ food gathered from it i.e. it passes the point where a farm with Horse Collar would usually expire and need rebuilding. Even then, it’s only given you back 60 wood. For the cost of 125 food and 125 wood, you’d be better off making 2 more villagers and building 2 more farms. A more extreme example of this is Crop Rotation. It’s almost pointless.
Gold Mining and Stone Mining – They provide a 15% boost to gathering rate. Talking purely in percentage terms, that’s like saying that these upgrades will make 20 miners do the work of 23 miners. Not exactly a huge boost. If you’re not making many military units and you don’t have any relics in the monastery then you need about 10-12 gold miners to go Imperial in under 30 minutes. Clearly you have the 2 gold miners from dark age, and when you add the extra miners is up to you, but the point is that the 100 food you spend on this upgrade further delays your Imperial Age time for very little payoff. Ironically if you have actually have 20 gold miners, then you won’t need this upgrade to assist you in getting 800 gold faster. If you want faster gold or stone income without spending the valuable food, then you should simply reassign existing villagers from wood, and possibly get them to build an extra mining camp or two to reduce walking distance.
There’s nothing wrong with clicking these upgrades immediately AFTER you've click to Imp, but doing them beforehand doesn't always make sense.
In the rec I referred to earlier with the 37 farms, the 4 TC player was desperately trying to boom to Imp to get trebs, conscription and military upgrades, but he clicked Hand Cart, Heavy Plow, Gold Mining and Stone Mining before the click to Imperial. He also did Town Watch (which didn’t really make sense). Why, if you’re trying to get to Imp quickly are you spending 700 food less than 2 minutes in the Castle Age? That’s 70% of what you need to go Imp! He lost the game.
It’s not set in stone, but the above is why I tend to only get Bow Saw and Wheelbarrow in Castle Age. They are the two upgrades that actually have an immediate, significant and positive effect on my entire economy once the researches have completed. The others either don’t have any noticeable immediate effect, or, in the case of Hand Cart, simply cost too much.
If you want faster food then you need MORE farms in a tight, efficient layout with a few well-placed extra mills. Food cost = ZERO.
If you want more gold or stone, then you need MORE miners and possibly 1 or 2 more mining camps. Food cost = ZERO.
Food cost is ZERO, because I've assumed that all newly created villagers and going to wood and that these new farmers and miners are just existing villagers being reassigned from wood.
A couple of other learning points.
4 villagers building a TC is only about 12-15 seconds quicker than 3 villagers building a TC. I’d much rather keep that 4th villager on wood. All the extra wood gathered during the build time will be way more valuable in terms of rapidly building farms than getting a TC up half a villager quicker.
2 villagers on a deer under the TC = 106 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
3 villagers on a deer under the TC = 116 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
4 villagers on a deer under the TC = 122 food gathered out of 140 food on the deer.
More than 2 villagers on a deer doesn't get you much more food. Better off hitting berries, building a farm or doing something else.