AoE3 French Treaty Guide

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AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by _NiceKING_ »

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âś” RE Patch
âś” Treaty Patch

French OPness is a combination of CDB, Fur Trade and awesome MILITARY combo featuring the nearly almighty Gendarme, fast training artillery [RE], strong skirmishers and best natives. They are no doubt the best/op civ in treaty on land on RE.

BOOM

Age I
As soon as you start, put 3 vils on food crates (each on separate crates), the rest on an animal, so you can queue your first villagers at 8 seconds or so.
Try to find wood/gold treasures around the map with your scout and Explorer.
Put 3 villagers on wood after they finish with the crates, new villagers to wood too so you can get market and the first market upgrade for hunting [hunting dog] as fast as possible.
Then gather enough wood for a house, get the first mining upgrade and switch all villagers to food.
Send Food or Wood Trickle Card
Queue up to 16 villagers
Age Up with 400 Wood.

Aging to II
Second card is Economic Theory.
Distribute your villager on food/gold to gather 1200 food/1000 gold for direct Age III after Age II. Get the first wood upgrade in market.
Age Up Very Fast
Aging to III
Collect Age II 400 wood crates
Most villagers on wood to prepare for 2 Town Centers, 3 villagers on food for continuous villager training in Age III.

Age III

Build 2 more Town Centers.
Send Refrigeration card.
Research market second hunting, mining upgrade.
Distribute your villager on food/gold to gather 2000 food/1200 gold for Age IV.
Use Age Up with 1000 Gold.

Age IV

Send 2 FACTORY cards, build, put them on wood and upgrade wood production rate in factory right away.
Tweak your villager distribution to get 4000 food/4000 gold for Age V.
Use Age Up with 2000 Gold.

Aging to V
Research all market woodcutting upgrade.
Build a mill and upgrade it.
Build a church, buy Mercantilism for 2000 XP to send all the mill upgrade cards.

Age V

Build Capitol right away, upgrade wood/food.
Build more mills as fast as possible, put 7-8 coureur de bois villager on each of them [for max gather rate].
About 10 villagers on wood for walling, military base and unit upgrade.
Start walling and then build the rest of your houses, 2 arsenals and at least 3 each of barracks, stables, and artillery foundries as you will need them for fast upgrades later.
If you have cards, always save 1 and send the rest for Faster Cavalry Training/Thoroughbreds [Training Faster/Cheaper Gendarme]/Cavalry HP/Attack.
Send Furtrade card at ~35 minute.
Start to upgrade Training Speed in Church, Gendarme, Skirm, Culverin, Horse Artillery, Mortar and Arsenal as fast as you can.
Send more vils to wood if needed.
Build a plantation and upgrade it to prepare for the future use when you run out of furtrade gold.
Note:
[RE Only] French Church card gives a unique upgrade in Church for 10% boost of gather rate but building cost also increase 50%. Not beneficial in my opinion because you still need to build a lot of forward base after treaty. But worth mentioning in case you want to try it out.

FIGHT

Skirms+Cuirs+Artillery(horse art, culvs and mortars)+natives is a great combination vs most civs. Vs France, you want to add goons/musks vs cuirs. Vs Sioux and Aztecs do not make any artillery except mortar.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, BETTER LEARN OTHER CIVS TOO.
They might not be as strong as French but it would be very satisfying to know they have just got this victory because of your superior skill and not just because your civ is meant to defeat all other civs.

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[spoiler=Videos]Boom

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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Gendarme »

_NiceKING_ wrote:the nearly almighty Gendarme

:love:
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Gendarme »

_NiceKING_ wrote:Against strong mass anti cav infantry like Samuarai/Doppelsoldner/Musketeer/Halberdier, add extra Horse Artillery to your Skirm-based army.

Don't Gendarmes shit on all of them, except Doppelsoldners? Samurai anti-cav multiplier is shit, and musketeers and halberdiers have no area damage and get rekt by the Gendarme area damage.

And can you explain why one should have 7 CDBs on each mill? And is it the same for plantations?
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by _NiceKING_ »

Gendarme wrote:
_NiceKING_ wrote:Against strong mass anti cav infantry like Samuarai/Doppelsoldner/Musketeer/Halberdier, add extra Horse Artillery to your Skirm-based army.

Don't Gendarmes shit on all of them, except Doppelsoldners? Samurai anti-cav multiplier is shit, and musketeers and halberdiers have no area damage and get rekt by the Gendarme area damage.

And can you explain why one should have 7 CDBs on each mill? And is it the same for plantations?


Yea, Gendarmes with skirms shit on all of them but I feel like extra horse art will not hurt.

7-8 settlers (not just CDBs) on mill/plantation bump less into each other on mills/plantations so they gather slightly better. Also your villagers may get stuck in a plantation/ mill. It actually happens quite often and with 7 or even less villagers per mill the probability that some villagers could get stuck is minor. Moreover, you get extra XP for building more of them.
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Gendarme »

So, 1 CDBs on each mill/plantation (let's ignore build time and cost for mills) would be better than 2 CDBs on each mill/plantation? And how do you arrive at 7-8? You just notice that they don't bump a lot when they are 7-8, so it's "fine", or are there any calculations?
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by stronk »

Could someone explain the decks for treaty FP? I am quite confused about some cards and have a couple of questions: should food trickle be in my deck in nats? Do I need the church card? What about that card that makes CDBs walk faster and so gather faster on mill? When do I need explorer card? Maybe Wood card? Wood trickle? So many cards that seem good. Remember only talking about TR FP
give that guy a manual
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Lukas_L99 »

stronk wrote:Could someone explain the decks for treaty FP? I am quite confused about some cards and have a couple of questions: should food trickle be in my deck in nats? Do I need the church card? What about that card that makes CDBs walk faster and so gather faster on mill? When do I need explorer card? Maybe Wood card? Wood trickle? So many cards that seem good. Remember only talking about TR FP



Decks are more or less preference concerning a few cards (also the ones you mentioned):

-I personally use food trickle out of nats and send exotic hardwoods in natives cause you will have to chop more wood for the incans, so I think 20% faster gather rate for wood has a bigger effect than 1.25 wood per second.
-Church card for France is kinda useless on the patch, it ships you grenadiers, enables them in your foundry, makes your CDB move faster and gives them more HP.
-The card which makes CDB move faster has almost no effect, I remember a treaty 3v3 where 2 equally skilled French players were playing on a team, one sent the card+had the 25% speed treasure and the other had neither. Scores at 40 were the same (probably 20 points difference), don't send it.
-Explorer card for all civs is kinda new meta, you will get a 3k HP dog with no counters (good to send it to your opponent's cannons) and your explorer will also do more damage and get a little tankier
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by stronk »

Lukas_L99 wrote:
stronk wrote:Could someone explain the decks for treaty FP? I am quite confused about some cards and have a couple of questions: should food trickle be in my deck in nats? Do I need the church card? What about that card that makes CDBs walk faster and so gather faster on mill? When do I need explorer card? Maybe Wood card? Wood trickle? So many cards that seem good. Remember only talking about TR FP



Decks are more or less preference concerning a few cards (also the ones you mentioned):

-I personally use food trickle out of nats and send exotic hardwoods in natives cause you will have to chop more wood for the incans, so I think 20% faster gather rate for wood has a bigger effect than 1.25 wood per second.
-Church card for France is kinda useless on the patch, it ships you grenadiers, enables them in your foundry, makes your CDB move faster and gives them more HP.
-The card which makes CDB move faster has almost no effect, I remember a treaty 3v3 where 2 equally skilled French players were playing on a team, one sent the card+had the 25% speed treasure and the other had neither. Scores at 40 were the same (probably 20 points difference), don't send it.
-Explorer card for all civs is kinda new meta, you will get a 3k HP dog with no counters (good to send it to your opponent's cannons) and your explorer will also do more damage and get a little tankier
thx for advise
give that guy a manual
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by charlemagen »

Wood trickle is better than food trickle imo
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Challenger_Marco »

@INcog upload all these treaty guides to strategy wall would be nice!
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by dicktator_ »

Treaty has its own strategy wall :)
viewtopic.php?f=176&t=8956
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by iNcog »

yep
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by ocemilky »

Lukas_L99 wrote:
stronk wrote:Could someone explain the decks for treaty FP? I am quite confused about some cards and have a couple of questions: should food trickle be in my deck in nats? Do I need the church card? What about that card that makes CDBs walk faster and so gather faster on mill? When do I need explorer card? Maybe Wood card? Wood trickle? So many cards that seem good. Remember only talking about TR FP



Decks are more or less preference concerning a few cards (also the ones you mentioned):

-I personally use food trickle out of nats and send exotic hardwoods in natives cause you will have to chop more wood for the incans, so I think 20% faster gather rate for wood has a bigger effect than 1.25 wood per second.
-Church card for France is kinda useless on the patch, it ships you grenadiers, enables them in your foundry, makes your CDB move faster and gives them more HP.
-The card which makes CDB move faster has almost no effect, I remember a treaty 3v3 where 2 equally skilled French players were playing on a team, one sent the card+had the 25% speed treasure and the other had neither. Scores at 40 were the same (probably 20 points difference), don't send it.
-Explorer card for all civs is kinda new meta, you will get a 3k HP dog with no counters (good to send it to your opponent's cannons) and your explorer will also do more damage and get a little tankier


Super secret strat - church + vill move fast card, and if theres a 25% treasure even better. Vill Hp card and Stone Masons. That's like 400 hp courier with like 10 speed and build buildings super fast. Probably not very useful but hilarious anyway
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Re: French Treaty Guide

Post by Nathan_Drake98 »

That's a great guide, thanks!
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

Great write up in general thanks _NiceKing_ but I don't think you have the optimal deck for France in Treaty (well 30 or 40 min treaty anyway).
(This below is for AOE3/TAD btw..)

Leaving all the good tips aside I'll just focus on highlighting the five main issues:

- Fur trade card shipment is not a good idea, especially for longer treaty games.
- Food trickle sucks.
- Artillery aren't really a good idea in general either (compared to alternatives).
- The (infinite) "3 Cuirassiers" shipment card is not a good idea.
- Building upgrade cards are worthwhile.

Why I dislike Fur Trade (Food > Gold swap) Strategy - three main reasons:

1. CDBs actually produce more total resources (gold from Plantations and Food from Mills) in the long run (say with games longer than 87min) by using other home city cards (Food Silos and Rum Distillery) instead of Fur Trade and Food Trickle. (Edit: see my below post for a more detailed economic comparison)

2. The gold isn't available when you need it (until you've done the swap).
In the last 3-5min of a 40min treaty game I'm usually pretty hectic finalising my base construction, optimising CDB placements and training and positioning my starting army. If you play Fur Trade between around 35-37min then you need to still need to:
- buy all upgrades costing gold which you didn't have before: Church upgrades, Wall upgrades, Tower upgrades, Capitol upgrade, Arsenal upgrades, all Barrack/Stables/ArtilleryFoundry unit upgrades..
- delete 5 of the 10 Mills and build 5 Plantations (making sure you have enough wood (4000) for those immediately as well as all the above upgrades which also have a high wood cost).

(These are just further things to do - Granted, not a Lot of effort if you're really organised, but I'm personally lazy (as possible)! - So this alone is not really a strong point, but combined with the other points, perhaps it adds to the argument against Fur Trade..)

3. Fur Trade is effectively a 25% gold bonus (once off; its a 1.25x multiplier on your existing food stocks), but you're stuck with only food production after you've done the swap.
Instead of the Fur Trade card, you can simply swap it for the age1 +20% plantation gold production shipment card instead ('Rum Distillery'). Close enough* and also much less hassle later in the game worrying about what villagers are up to when you're busy getting ready for the first attack/end of treaty, and also later in the game: attacking and defending simultaneously on several different fronts. I would rather be able to nearly forget about my economy by that point; well as soon as possible really! (once the factories/mills/plantations resource generation ratio is about right based on your needs); if it is set up well then you can just forget about it and focus on the epic battles instead.

*caveat: this is not a straight comparison 1.25x gold from Fur Trade vs a 20% gold production rate increase (i.e. not 25% vs 20%) as:
- gold produced throughout the entire game will benefit from the 20% (0.2) gold production rate increase, whereas Fur Trade is once-off (not in Fur Trades favour for a longer game),
- the actual gold yielded from the production rate increase will depend on how many CDBs you have on plantations, and how long they're on there for (varies; depending on the game length/play style),
- food (from mills) produces better than gold (from plantations), all else being equal. So the 25% (or 1.25x) gold bonus is more like a 30 or 35% (1.3x) bonus really, based on CDBs marginal utility (more productive on Mills). (in Fur Trade's favour)

Further, a pro-Fur-Trade person might argue that it saves wood only buying mills (400 wood) compared to plantations (800 wood). But if you have also opted for the food trickle card with fur trade (as in many examples people do) then simply get the 'land grab' card instead: 40% reduction in price (wood cost) of mills and plantations.
e.g. Say you had 10 mills with 7 villagers on each (apparently there's less bumping = high productivity with only 7 instead of 10 (max) CDBs on each): that's 4000 wood total (10x 400). If you use the land grab with 5 mills and 5 plantations its only 3600 wood total ((5x 400 + 5x 800) x 0.6), and they build 75% faster too.
Also: it won't save you wood at all if you plan to produce more gold (on plantations) eventually anyway!
(e.g. depending on the length of the game: you might burn through that initial ~150K of gold gained from Fur Trade, so you'll have to build plantations later anyway - in which case it will actually cost you MORE wood in total as you have built those 5 extra mills (building 10 mills first then deleting 5 and building 5 plantations after Fur Trade, vs building 5 mills and 5 plantations straight up. This only amounts to 2000 more wood in total (from the 5 extra Mills: 5 x 400) but it still counts for something..)


Why Food Trickle sucks:
The Food Trickle card is worth about ~3150 food (gold) at when Fur Trade is played (1.5/s for 35min from the start until Fur Trade is played/sent).
However, a better way to look at it is by comparing Food Trickle with say the Food Silos card, using a marginal production rate analysis:
Food Silos is + 15% (or 0.15) food/sec/CDB, so, the calcs:
0.84 (base Mill gather rate per CDB) x 0.15 (Food Silos) x 40 (CDBs on Mills) = 5.04 extra food/sec --- This is more than 3x as good as Food Trickle which is only 1.5 Food/sec.
Obviously, with Food Trickle you get some extra food early in the game, since Food Trickle starts from time 0. Whereas Food Silos only kicks in when you have CDBs on Mill food production. While this counts for something, I still think Food Trickle sucks as in any game longer than say a 10min treaty it doesn't yield nearly as much food, since its only 30% as good as Food Silos (with 40 CDBs on Mills). (1.5/5.04 = 30%)


Why artillery are generally not a good idea:
1. they're too slow, in general.
2. they are only 'active' in a small area of the maps (say compared to instead having multiple units: which together cover a larger combined map area if spread out).
3. they take up too much population space (4 to 7 pop spots). For 6 population I'd rather have either: 2 cuirs (6 pop), or 1 cuir + 3 skirms (6 pop), or 6 musketeers (6 pop), or 3 dragoons (6 pop), or 6 petards (6 pop) (depending on the place, purpose, and counter units etc), than a single artillery in almost all cases.
4. you don't need any artillery home city cards if you don't use artillery!: focus on economy or other unit improvements instead.
5. less micro-management of precious (expensive) artilery to worry about. This is especially important if you're playing against several humans in a team game, or say 7 expert allied AI players.
6. by not using them you will save a lot of resources (especially wood; which is the slowest gathering resource); not only from not buying them, but also from not having to do all the upgrades through to Imperial for the various artillery units. (these upgrades combined add up to quite a lot of resources!)
7. for anti-artillery: use cuirs instead.
8. for anti-ship: use ships/towers. (French have some great sea /ship cards too (not shown as this is for land maps)).
9. for sieging an enemy base: use (low/zero pop) siege units! (e.g. petards, huron mantlets)
10. for base defense: use a combination of towers, skirms, musks, goons, and cuirs (you can build 13 towers in total with Extensive Fortifications; with 65% total HP bonus (see below). (Alter your unit ratio's depending what units is attacking you; i.e. aim to counter them).

Why using petards for siege (building attack) is usually better than artillery:
1. they can spawn instantly! (with the right cards, namely: Fencing School, Engineering School, and the Church 'Standing Army' improvement).
2. they do a huge amount of damage quickly (2000 siege damage); with a few/several you can ground any building/wall almost instantly.
3. they only take up one population slot so you can have say 6 at any time instead of a single artilery. They die, spawn more straight away and so on..
4. they're relatively cheap (for the damage they incur): if you lose one or two they cost a lot less than say losing an artillery.

And if you're still not convinced: why not just use the Huron Mantlet siege units for attacking buildings: with the infinite home-city shipment card you can have 20 of them cheap (2000 gold for 20 = 100 gold each). Also the OP Cuirs are actually pretty reasonable siege units in their own right too! (86 siege damage with the Advanced Arsenal hand cavalry building attack upgrade (66 x 1.3)).


Why the (Infinite) 3 Cuirassiers card is not a good idea:
Yes it's infinite (can be sent unlimited amount of times) and in the late (treaty) game you will very quickly have more experience points than you can possibly spend on home city shipments, once all of the one off upgrade cards have been sent. And yes they're free units (yay!), with a reasonable value (3 x (127gold + 127food): 762 resources worth). But. Big but. It takes 9 population slots away from your maximum (200) while you're waiting on the card to arrive! (i.e. when you don't even have the units at hand to use). This is worse than it sounds. Looking at a slightly (but not so) extreme case: Imagine you have enough experience points that you can almost continually ship these free units: that means your in-field military is constantly 7.5% smaller than it could be ALL the time! (3 Cuirs: 9 pop /120 total military pop = 7.5% (assuming you've still got 80 CDBs taking 80 of the total 200 pop slots)). I would rather have the infinite 300 wood shipment card (if you really want to spend all of your home city experience!), or, better: another military upgrade card (which, in one sense can also be seen as continually 'free units'; as they make your existing units (and all future ones) last longer, (from say more HPs) and it doesn't take up any precious population space; hit point cards effectively add to your total population).


Why building upgrade cards are worthwhile:
- Improved Buildings: gives all of your buildings (including towers and walls) 40% more hitpoints. This not only makes your defenses and base last 40% longer when under seige, but is also effectively a wood bonus too as you will need to spend 40% less wood on rebuilding. (Which is super expensive (wood-wise) if you have elected to use Code Napoleon (church improvement): all buildings are now 50% more expensive). Also, walls will have 8700HP (instead of 7500HP: 3000 baseHP x (1 + 1.5 + 0.4) = 8700 with this card), which helps delay a wall breach by 16% (8700/7500).

- Extensive Fortifications (which _NiceKING_ has got in his home city card deck, above): boosts your towers by 25%HP and allows you to build 13 total; which is great to allow a better base coverage with your towers; and also; remember to get your units shipments (e.g. Huron Mantlets) sent to your forward most tower: I usually build one in a forward base to save the long walking time these seige units have otherwise from your main TC).

- Stonemasons: CDBs build buildings 65% faster. This is almost CRUCIAL if you have to rebuild your base while you're actively under attack. Or even for walling and forward base building purposes throughout the game. (Since it speeds up building creation there's much more chance you'll actually finish building it before your CDB(s) die(s). This also means less time constructing buildings and more time collecting resources with the CDBs..


Here's my preferred deck for 30 or 40 min treaty games, playing as French (for land-focused maps anyway; with or without natives); against either AI or human players. (I've used it against both human players and vs 7x Expert allied AI with a 100% resource handicap each, using usual tactics). Note that it's actually a rather good deck for TEAM games too; with 3 good team cards in there to help your team-mates too :)

Hopefully this helps someone playing French in Treaty, much as the tips and tricks I've picked up along the way on here helped me :) - including from _NiceKING_, amongst others.

Typical (approx) card play order for this deck (40min treaty):
Economic theory > Exotic hardwoods > Royal Mint > Refrigeration > Cigar Roller > Food Silos > Rum Distillery > Factory > Robber Barons > Stonemasons > Extensive Fortifications > Thoroughbreds > Riding School (~EoT) > Improved buildings > Fencing School > Cavalry Combat > Wilderness Warfare > Native Warrior Combat > 20 Huron Mantlets > Hand Cavalry Combat > Team Hand Cavalry Attack > Team Ranged Infantry Attack > Team Improved Native Warriors > Advanced Arsenal > Edict of Nantes > 20 Huron Mantlets (again, and again... )

(Note this is 100% of the economic cards out of the deck first, the order for the rest will depend slightly on the type of game (1vs1, or team etc), your strategy and how many cards you can get out before the End of Treaty (EoT); e.g. if you have a trading post gathering XP points etc.
Having the Stonemasons shipment out early will allow you to build your base quickly and therefore with less CDBs (taken off of resource gathering).
If you're playing 1vs1 you might want to have the Edict of Nantes out for you starting (siege) army (otherwise, if you need to pump units off the bat this might actually be a disadvantage as these otherwise 'over-pop' units take up 27 military population spaces; and if you're needing to defend your base, i.e. not sieging with them, this is bad! That's 9 less Cuirs you can spam out..). Otherwise, if it's a team game, you will be better off sending the Team cards earlier; as their overall effect is multiplied by however many team-mates you have.
As a guide: consider how many of that type of unit you have (or intend to have) and then go with the card which is the most effective based on it's overall impact.
e.g. If you have 30 Skirms and 20 musks the "Team Ranged infantry card" (+15% attack) might be slightly better than another card, such as 'Team Improved Native Warriors' (+15% attack & +15% HPs). The latter card is effectively a +30%, but say you only have the 20 Huron Mantlets native warriors out then this will only affect 20 units (50 x 15% > 20 x 30%).
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by deleted_user »

Fur Trade is OP bruh
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

deleted_user wrote:Fur Trade is OP bruh


Yes it certainly is! But what I'm actually saying is that it isn't really as OP as possible!; French post-imperial upgraded resource production rates are well and truly OP though!

Edit: I did a detailed (economic) comparison on both: see below..
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Cometk »

the base gather rates for mills and plantations are different though. mill is .66 and plant is .5

so do 0.66 x 2.55 (you forgot 50% imperial upgrade and 10% eco theory) = 1.683 food p/s
vs 0.5 x 3.1 = 1.55 gold p/s

food still gathers faster. and in addition to that, you can send many more military shipments before 40 using fur trade than you can if you have to send a bunch of plantation upgrade cards
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

Cometk wrote:the base gather rates for mills and plantations are different though..
.. in addition to that, you can send many more military shipments before 40[min] using fur trade than you can if you have to send a bunch of plantation upgrade cards


Thanks! - That's really helpful, I didn't know what the base gather rates are. (EDIT: I've edited this section now I know the CDB base gather rates).

(Regarding military shipments before end of treaty: I only need a few anyway really: usually the Thoroughbreds, Riding School and the 20 Huron Mantlets (seige units) for my initial army; I do most of my military upgrades after end of treaty (as experience is gathered very quickly from battle); focusing instead on my economic and building upgrades before end of treaty).

(I have left out the Capitol +50% production rate upgrades (food/gold/wood) which only come in Imperial age (when Capitol is built): usually around 22min into the game or so: which is ~13min before the Fur Trade card will be played (usually played at about 35min or so), so it will have an impact but only partially since its only for say 13min. I also left out the +10% production rate upgrades (Church upgrades/Edict of Nantes: Code Napoleon) as I usually play this after my entire base has been built (usually at end of treaty); otherwise buildings are too expensive (50% higher wood cost) and you need to divert CDBs from Mills/Plantations to collect more wood instead.)

With the base rates I can now work out the overall gather rates and actual resource amounts (estimates: not allowing for any CDB walking, bumping/pathing, and idle times, and human laziness!).

Comparison with and without Fur Trade HomeCity card:
Lets have a quick look, at numbers (using _NiceKING_'s above deck; with French CDBs (obviously!)):


WITH FUR TRADE (and Food Trickle HomeCity cards):

- Pre-Imperial CDB Gather/Production Rates:
(i.e. without the Capitol +50% food/gold production rate, but with Eco Theory +10% and other selected home shipment cards, and all Mill/Plantations building upgrades):
Food (CDBs on Mills): 0.84 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.15 + 0.20 + 0.15 + 0.3) = 0.84 x 1.90 = 1.596
Gold (CDBs on plantations): 0.62 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 0.62 x 2.4 = 1.488
Wood, for comparison (CDBs on trees): 0.62 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 0.62 x 1.9 = 1.178

- Post-Imperial CDB Gather/Production Rates:
(include an extra 0.5/s for gold/food/wood from Capitol) gather/production rates (shown as base rate x combined multiplier):
Food: 0.84 x 2.40 = 2.016/CDB/sec
Gold: 0.62 x 2.9 = 1.798/CDB/sec
Wood: 0.62 x 2.4 = 1.488/CDB/sec

So, with Fur Trade in that 13min (post-Imperial age: post ~22min up to ~35min, with all 80 CDBs) gathered resources are:
(with 10 CDBs on wood (to stockpile, pre-treaty end), 35 on Plantation Gold production, 35 on Mill Food production):
Food: 70 (CDBs) x 2.016 (food/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 110074 Food
Gold: 0 (CDBs) x 1.798 (gold/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 0 Gold
Wood: 10 (CDBs) x 1.488 (wood/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 11606 Wood

When Fur Trade card played this 110074 food becomes 1.25x, = 137593 Gold (and food becomes 0).
So Total Gold + Food = 137593 + 0 = 137593

Note: Of course all the previous saved food pre-imperial age will get converted to gold too when Fur Trade played at say 35min: not just the food produced in this post-imperial 13min window so there will be more 'free' gold other than this above, however we'll neglect it from comparison here as pre-imperial mix up of gold mines plantations hunts and mills is too complex to model! And the main resource generation happens in Imperial age anyway..



WITHOUT FUR TRADE (or Food Trickle HomeCity cards; using Food Silos and Rum Distillery cards instead):

- Pre-Imperial CDB Gather/Production Rates:
(i.e. without the Capitol +50% extra food/gold production rate, but with Eco Theory +10% and other selected home shipment cards, and all Mill/Plantations building upgrades):
Food (CDBs on Mills): 0.84 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.15 + 0.15 + 0.20 + 0.15 + 0.3) = 0.84 x 2.05 = 1.722
Gold (CDBs on plantations): 0.62 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 0.62 x 2.6 = 1.612
Wood, for comparison (CDBs on trees): 0.62 x (1 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3) = 0.62 x 1.9 = 1.178

- Post-Imperial CDB Gather/Production Rates:
(include an extra 0.5/s for gold/food/wood from Capitol) gather/production rates (shown as base rate x combined multiplier):
Food: 0.84 x 2.55 = 2.142/CDB/sec
Gold: 0.62 x 3.1 = 1.922/CDB/sec
Wood: 0.62 x 2.4 = 1.488/CDB/sec

So, without Fur Trade in that 13min (post-Imperial age: post ~22min up to ~35min, with all 80 CDBs) gathered resources are:
(with 10 CDBs on wood (to stockpile, pre-treaty end), 35 on Plantation Gold production, 35 on Mill Food production):
Food: 35 (CDBs) x 2.142 (food/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 58474 Food
Gold: 35 (CDBs) x 1.922 (gold/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 52471 Gold
Wood: 10 (CDBs) x 1.488 (wood/sec) x 13 (min) x 60 (sec/min) = 11606 Wood

So Total Gold + Food = 110945

Straight up this is (137593 - 110945) = 26,648 resources better off with Fur Trade at this point. So Fur Trade is looking pretty good here, at the 35min into the game mark (when played). Lets see at approx which point in the game the slightly better Mill and Plantation gather rates (Food Silos and Rum Distillery) make up for the this, without having Fur Trade:

Lets say all 80 CDBs are now on either Plantations and Mills (40 on each) after the 35min mark.
(And with both factories producing wood exclusively, as with any railroad Trading post: that's 7.15 + 7.15 + 2.75 = 17.05 wood/sec (or 1023/min); should be enough wood for forward base building and main base repairing, combined with some stockpiles, after end of treaty. This should allow enough extra wood for natives purchases etc too. So we can have all 80 CDBs on Mills/Plantations where their relative utility is the highest. (best resource production rates)).

Now the marginal production rate benefit without Fur Trade is:
Food (Mills): 2.142 - 2.016 = 0.126 food/CDB/sec (or can calculate it using: 0.84 x 0.15 = 0.126)
Gold (Plantations): 1.922 - 1.798 = 0.124 gold/CDB/sec (or can calculate it using: 0.62 x 0.20 = 0.124)

40 x 0.126 = 5.04 extra food per second from 40 CDBs on Mills (without Fur Trade, post 35min)
40 x 0.124 = 4.96 extra gold per second from 40 CDBs on Plantations (without Fur Trade, post 35min)
That's 10 extra food+gold resources per second.

However, if the Food trickle card is used combined with the Fur Trade, which is 1.5 food/sec: this means the difference is 8.5 extra resources per second by not using Fur Trade (10 resources/sec - 1.5 food/sec = 8.5 resource/sec).

At which point in the game does this catch up to the 26648 extra resources from using Fur Trade?

At an marginal production rate bonus of 8.5/sec:
26648 (resources) / 8.5 (resources/sec) = 3135 seconds (or 52min: 3135/60) to break-even with Fur Trade.

Now this is from when the Rum Distillery and Food Silos home city cards have been played: lets just say at 35min after when Fur Trade is played, for a simple comparison. So if the game is 87min (35min + 52min) long it doesn't matter if you use Fur Trade or not, they're the same at this point.
(So longer than 87min and you will get more total resources from not using Fur Trade, less than 87min you will get more from using Fur Trade.)

Summary:
If the game is going to be shorter than 87min you're better off using the Fur Trade + Food Trickle strategy (for economic reasons alone), however if it the game is going to be longer than 87min you're better of without it, and using Food Silo and Rum Distillery instead.

I personally prefer not using Fur Trade for other reasons (see above post), even if the game is going to be shorter than this 87min mark.

e.g. Assuming you're playing the Fur Trade strategy and the game goes on long enough that you need to buy 5 plantations and change production from 10 Mills to 5 Mills and 5 plantations then you've also spent an extra 2000 wood, required for the 5 Mills (5 x 400) which you no longer need.

Further, and finally, you will *only* have 2.016 x 40 x 5 x 60 = 24192 food at 40min when Treaty ends and fighting starts (after Fur Trade has been played at 35min). This seems like a lot but if you are pumping out Muskeeters and Cuirs constantly (or pumping anything really!) to defend the first attack and launch your own attack(s), then you will actually burn through this food in no time; with heaps of reserves of gold only.
e.g. I tend to burn through about 50k each of food and gold from defending the first big wave of attacks (and my own first attacks) in the first several minutes after treaty ends, vs 7 expert allied AI players with say 100% resource handicap each.. (And if you have the Factories on food/gold instead of wood, you might run out of wood for base/wall/tower rebuilding etc..)
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Cometk »

yup, wood is also .5, coin mines are .6, hunts are .84, herdables are 2.0 (except for iro aztec sioux which are 1.25 i think), fish are .66 and whales are .5

i'm unsure of berries but i think they're .66, so slightly better than mills since they don't need walking time
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

Cometk wrote:yup, wood is also .5, coin mines are .6, hunts are .84, herdables are 2.0 (except for iro aztec sioux which are 1.25 i think), fish are .66 and whales are .5

i'm unsure of berries but i think they're .66, so slightly better than mills since they don't need walking time


Cheers! - that's really helpful to know thanks :)

(Edit: but it appears incorrect for French CDBs, as they gather 25% faster; judging by _NiceKING_s below post; hence I'll use his rates for my economic analysis..).
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by _NiceKING_ »

Native Villagers

Tree: .5
Mill: .67
Plantation: .5
Herdable: 1.25
Huntable: .84
Mine: .6
Berry Bush: .67
Crate: 8.0
Farm: .5

European Settlers

Tree: .5
Mill: .67
Plantation: .5
Herdable: 2.0
Huntable: .84
Mine: .6 (Dutch Settler: .69)
Berry Bush: .67
Crate: 8.0
Farm: .5

Coureurs

Tree: .62
Mill: .84
Plantation: .63
Herdable: 2.5
Huntable: 1.04
Mine: .74
Berry Bush: .83
Crate: 10.0
Farm: .62

Settler Wagons

Tree: 1.0
Mill: 1.34
Plantation: 1.0
Herdable: 4.0
Huntable: 1.7
Mine: 1.2
Berry Bush: 1.34
Crate: 15.0
Farm: 1.0
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

Thanks for that _NiceKING_, I've updated my analysis above with those figures.

I still don't like Fur Trade! But it is good economically for shorter treaty games (just not long ones).
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Lukas_L99 »

Colonel Concrete wrote:I still don't like Fur Trade! But it is good economically for shorter treaty games (just not long ones).


It is cause you have way more resources in total. Just compare the scores you can have with and without fur trade.
In a mirror you probably would have ~200 more score (if not more) and 3-4 more military cards sent at 40.
I wonder who's gonna win there :hmm:
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Re: AoE3 French Treaty Guide

Post by Colonel Concrete »

Lukas_L99 wrote:It is cause you have way more resources in total.


Actually you don't have more resources using Fur Trade and Food Trickle (for games longer than 87min), vs using say Food Silos and Rum Distillery. See my above analysis..
(That's assuming the mirror game pounds on for that long! haha.)

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