Villager gather rates

[wicked_assassin]

is the card for building cards + guild something a must in supremacy?

[deadhanddan]

you referring to germantown farmers and guild artisians cards? if so then yes , they absolutely rock

[Aaryn_GenD]

[quote=""deadhanddan""]you referring to germantown farmers and guild artisians cards? if so then yes , they absolutely rock[/quote]

100% right dan, my alltime-favourit, lategame having 20 SW on 2 plantations, and regular 60 settlers

but in a 1v1, german town farmer+guild artisans is not a must-have, as those games rarely reach indust and even if, are over 2 or 3min later

in team games it is, especially if you know everybody wil play conservatively

so which cards did you mean right now wicked??

take a look here and tell us

German Card list

[wicked_assassin]

those dan named

[Aaryn_GenD]

ok good then, that's what i meant too :-)

[Lost_my_hope]

As much as I like Settler Wagons, maybe using the two required cards for a good SW economy for other things (like getting refrigeration and royal mint earlier) and spending the wood for mills/SWs on two additional TCs will fetch comparable results. The inconvenient thing about Germantown Farmers is that you will not be likely to be able to train more than ~10 because you start with 3, ship 2, ship 3, and likely also an additional 2. Now, if you also send the Team 2 SWs, there's only 8 left to train. Provided that you don't get raided, of course
I'm still taking the SW route though. The good thing about them that hasn't been discussed yet (I think) is that they train relatively fast. A settler wagon is trained much faster than two villagers are.

[wicked_assassin]

aren't they also more effective? like lesspathfinding problems?

[Lost_my_hope]

I think they bump into each other more when working on a mill or plant because they're bigger, but I'm not sure about that =P

[Aaryn_GenD]

the main reason why SW are so good is..

you need only half of the plantations you'd normally need with regular settlers
- 20SW on 2 plantation is the same as 40 settlers on 4 plantations
- guild artisans!!!!!!!! 35% is ALOT, that's like turning your 40pop SW into 54 settlers, imagine, 54 settlers just needing 2 plantations instead of 6....

you can still get your refrigeration, royal mint, textil mill, etc. i suggest dumping the land grab card in this case

about this bumping into each other theory on mills/plants, that's the biggest crap ever, just a bad rumour., the only loss you get from it is in the 1%area, so always put max people on your mills/plants, DAMNIT investigated that and came to these results

btw, i suppose the best time to get those SW is while aging to industrial or slightly after industrial

[Lost_my_hope]

I think it was NaturePhoenix that was the only one that put 7 vills on mills/plants lol. i read about it too, it's really insignificant so put 10 on them unless you want to create the impression that you're super pro. Maybe on the long run when you have nearly infinite resources anyway

[IndyBrit]

Despite all my noobness, I actually do the 7 guys per mill/plant. As I recall it was a significant difference in net gather rate - 8% or some such. Of course, as Brits, I always have planty of wood, but... that's similar to using an economic theory card.

[IndyBrit]

This thread
http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/for ... &st=recent

Showed 7.5% more efficient (using the more reasonable view of the disputed numbers, in that the 10 vils actually collect more total food).

I don't know the source of the test or whether it is valid, I'm thinking about repeating it myself. However, if the 7.5% is real, then I'd say this is definitely worth doing. The 500 villie-second cost of a mill (say 250W with Land Grab) is paid off (say 3 mills with 28 vils versus 4 mills with 28 vils) in 162 seconds. Without Land Grab things start to look a little different (260 seconds), but in any event when you have the extra wood due to error or whatever reason it seems you should do it.

Again, if the 7.5% is real.

[Aaryn_GenD]

i bet the 7,5% are wrong, DAMNIT is a much more reliable source for this than some random Heaven Gamer

[IndyBrit]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]i bet the 7,5% are wrong, DAMNIT is a much more reliable source for this than some random Heaven Gamer[/quote]

OK, I don't trust DAMNIT or some random Heaven Gamer. And, I'm a geek. So, I ran a test - 7 vils on a mill for 60 seconds 3 times, and then 10 vils on the mill for 60 seconds 3 times.

7 vils gathered: 195, 195, and 205 food, for 0.46, 0.46, and 0.49 rates
10 vils gathered: 278, 281, and 293 food, for 0.46, 0.47, and 0.49 rates

As they say in MythBusters, this Myth is Busted. Thanks for saving me some wood going forward, but I have to tell you the Mill Builder's Union is going to be filing an official protest.

[Sporting_Lisbon]

And one day, H2O came with that math that it requires aprox. 45 minutes for this glitch to cover up the extra expense in wood necessary for this food/coin gathering boost. And then I never had 7 vills on mills from then on, only when there are too many mills/plants.