Eco theory vs musk attack card

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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by watching »

Dsy wrote:Theory card wasnt originally part of the age of empires 3. It came with tad or twc. It wasnt on nilla.
So they made an age1 card which is better than age2 combat cards. Its not a big deal just wanted to point it out. However you cant really skip any cards to send either of them so it doesnt really matter.

No it's not better stop being so stubborn. In sup age 2 attack card is way better when you are at that point. Inferior army will loose you the game, unless you ff and age 3. But then it means you will have to rely on crates and it will be useless aswell. You need to understand that "better" means what is more effective to win you the game. Not what might be better on paper but actually way worse if you consider many other factors like map control.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Dsy »

Use age 2 combat card instead of eco then... Thats your problem, not mine.:D
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Poland pecelot
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by pecelot »

Darwin_ wrote:
Dsy wrote:Eco is a long run card however its still better than age 2 combat cards. Thats my point...

I think that it is blatantly inferior honestly. There's a reason its an age 1 card...

It's not relevant at all.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

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Post by Mitoe »

Disregarding the fact that Brit doesn't have eco theory as many people have already pointed out, there are a few more reasons why economic upgrades are (usually) not as good as military upgrades in supremacy.

First, I'd just like to point out that cards like Eco Theory, Spice Trade, and Furrier actually used to be meta a few years back, during the AS Fanpatch days. It just wasn't that bad when you could send it early on AS New Great Plains and sit in your base until 15 or 16 minutes without leaving. This was also kinda before people started using TPs to their full potential, so games tended to be a bit slower overall, more drawn out Colonial musk/huss wars. However, once people actually started using TPs, and people could squeeze more shipments into their builds, the length of the game decreased as well as people started hitting their power spikes earlier, which meant these economic cards that take a long time to pay off became less and less viable as the meta evolved, until they were essentially removed from every deck.

Now that we're also no longer playing on AS New Great Plains with it's loads of hunts, map control is way more important. Where you might've been able to have 15,000+ safe food on Great Plains, now you may only have 8,000-10,000 on other maps, usually less by the time you actually have the freedom to send something like Eco Theory. Even if you just compare it to a villager shipment, it's actually just really bad, because that 10% upgrade only goes off of the base gather rates.

Let's assume you have some common vill distribution for musk huss with 50 vills, let's ballpark that at around 30 vills on food, 5 on wood, and 15 on coin. Let's also assume you have all of the essential market upgrades for this distribution, Steel Traps, Gang Saw, Placer Mines. If you were to convert the value of your current economy into unupgraded vills it would look something like this:

30*1.3
5*1.1
15*1.1

39 + 5.5 + 16.5 = 61 unupgraded vills

So if you were to add Eco Theory onto this, it would be about an ~8% economic increase, and that percentage will actually continue going DOWN if you get more vills and especially if you get more market uprgades.

And on top of this, to be equivalent to a Colonial shipment in resource value you have to wait for your villagers to gather about 7,000 - 8,000 resources, and then more to actually start paying off compared to another card, which will take about 3-4 minutes with a 50v economy, maybe longer if your vills need to walk between resources in the mean time.

And well, even though Brit doesn't even have this card. Hypothetically if you DID send it instead of musk attack or musk hp in a forward base vs forward base situation, you're going to just lose your forward base because you can't actually win fights anymore, thereby losing map control and requiring a 400-600w investment into new military buildings. Eco Theory becomes instantly useless in this situation. Even if you don't forward base, you still can't send Eco Theory until your 4th Colonial shipment, because the raw number of vills you get from 700w 600w and 5v is just better value at that point in the game, and by the time you send it you will have very few safe resources left to you, and will have to try to push out of your base with less units or less upgrades on those units, a near hopeless task, assuming your opponent isn't a monkey. Your opponent, meanwhile, could be safely spreading out his vills across the map to reduce walking time and idle time throughout the game, increasing his efficiency, or doing something like establishing the TP line with stagecoach (which would be worth so much more than eco theory, and pays off far more quickly).

The only time an eco card like this is viable is if you're really far ahead and want to try to enlarge that lead while your opponent struggles to catch up, and tbh with you military upgrades make it way harder for your opponent to get back into the game than economic upgrades do anyway.

Also lots of civs send unit upgrades, what? Russia sends Boyars and Cav hp, India sends camel upgrades, Dutch sends infantry upgrades whenever possible (they'll even send their age 2 upgrades while they're in age 3), Iroquois sends infantry upgrades, Sioux happily sends cav upgrades, Japan loves their upgrades too... Even civs that don't usually send their colonial upgrade cards like France or Germany usually send cav combat if they have a decent mass of units in fortress. There's a reason people have these cards in their decks over economic upgrades, and that's because they're simply more impactful than economic upgrades by far.

P.S. I can't believe I wasted so much time writing this poorly-articulated post.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Jaeger »

Mitoe wrote:Disregarding the fact that Brit doesn't have eco theory as many people have already pointed out, there are a few more reasons why economic upgrades are (usually) not as good as military upgrades in supremacy.

First, I'd just like to point out that cards like Eco Theory, Spice Trade, and Furrier actually used to be meta a few years back, during the AS Fanpatch days. It just wasn't that bad when you could send it early on AS New Great Plains and sit in your base until 15 or 16 minutes without leaving. This was also kinda before people started using TPs to their full potential, so games tended to be a bit slower overall, more drawn out Colonial musk/huss wars. However, once people actually started using TPs, and people could squeeze more shipments into their builds, the length of the game decreased as well as people started hitting their power spikes earlier, which meant these economic cards that take a long time to pay off became less and less viable as the meta evolved, until they were essentially removed from every deck.

Now that we're also no longer playing on AS New Great Plains with it's loads of hunts, map control is way more important. Where you might've been able to have 15,000+ safe food on Great Plains, now you may only have 8,000-10,000 on other maps, usually less by the time you actually have the freedom to send something like Eco Theory. Even if you just compare it to a villager shipment, it's actually just really bad, because that 10% upgrade only goes off of the base gather rates.

Let's assume you have some common vill distribution for musk huss with 50 vills, let's ballpark that at around 30 vills on food, 5 on wood, and 15 on coin. Let's also assume you have all of the essential market upgrades for this distribution, Steel Traps, Gang Saw, Placer Mines. If you were to convert the value of your current economy into unupgraded vills it would look something like this:

30*1.3
5*1.1
15*1.1

39 + 5.5 + 16.5 = 61 unupgraded vills

So if you were to add Eco Theory onto this, it would be about an ~8% economic increase, and that percentage will actually continue going DOWN if you get more vills and especially if you get more market uprgades.

And on top of this, to be equivalent to a Colonial shipment in resource value you have to wait for your villagers to gather about 7,000 - 8,000 resources, and then more to actually start paying off compared to another card, which will take about 3-4 minutes with a 50v economy, maybe longer if your vills need to walk between resources in the mean time.

And well, even though Brit doesn't even have this card. Hypothetically if you DID send it instead of musk attack or musk hp in a forward base vs forward base situation, you're going to just lose your forward base because you can't actually win fights anymore, thereby losing map control and requiring a 400-600w investment into new military buildings. Eco Theory becomes instantly useless in this situation. Even if you don't forward base, you still can't send Eco Theory until your 4th Colonial shipment, because the raw number of vills you get from 700w 600w and 5v is just better value at that point in the game, and by the time you send it you will have very few safe resources left to you, and will have to try to push out of your base with less units or less upgrades on those units, a near hopeless task, assuming your opponent isn't a monkey. Your opponent, meanwhile, could be safely spreading out his vills across the map to reduce walking time and idle time throughout the game, increasing his efficiency, or doing something like establishing the TP line with stagecoach (which would be worth so much more than eco theory, and pays off far more quickly).

The only time an eco card like this is viable is if you're really far ahead and want to try to enlarge that lead while your opponent struggles to catch up, and tbh with you military upgrades make it way harder for your opponent to get back into the game than economic upgrades do anyway.

Also lots of civs send unit upgrades, what? Russia sends Boyars and Cav hp, India sends camel upgrades, Dutch sends infantry upgrades whenever possible (they'll even send their age 2 upgrades while they're in age 3), Iroquois sends infantry upgrades, Sioux happily sends cav upgrades, Japan loves their upgrades too... Even civs that don't usually send their colonial upgrade cards like France or Germany usually send cav combat if they have a decent mass of units in fortress. There's a reason people have these cards in their decks over economic upgrades, and that's because they're simply more impactful than economic upgrades by far.

P.S. I can't believe I wasted so much time writing this poorly-articulated post.


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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Mitoe »

Except that eco theory is actually equal to 5.5 unupgraded vills, and I was too stupid at the time to realize. But as if 0.5 vills makes it any better.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by WickedCossack »

Never forget 2015 tournament Kiljardi vs Garja french mirror hudson bay.

Kiljardi stomps with a 3cdb 700w 4 cdb Eco Theory build.

Yes, eco theory ... as 4th card.

4th card.

:shock:

If my memory serves me correct he repeated this build a few times.

As if that wasn't proof enough of how good eco cards are who can forget acergames classic 4 cherry wagon (yes 4) into 15% cherry boost, a build that took him into the finals of an ESOC event. :lol:

Need I say more.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Garja »

Reason why you must se d musk attack in brit mirror is that otherwise you cant pick fights. And at that point in the game you cant dodge fights.
In other MUs you can do w/e. Sometimes more units is better than stronger units so crates or 6musks might be better. Eco card and musk cant be compared mathematically.
As for French eco theory that's not bad after 4v but 700g is marginally better.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by godzillaking »

What is the difference between Port age 4 musk card shipment and the britsh's age2 one?
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by yurashic »

godzillaking wrote:What is the difference between Port age 4 musk card shipment and the britsh's age2 one?


The Portuguese shipment in age 4 also affects cassadores. No other differences. :)
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by __Uhlan__ »

Garja wrote:Reason why you must se d musk attack in brit mirror is that otherwise you cant pick fights. And at that point in the game you cant dodge fights.
In other MUs you can do w/e. Sometimes more units is better than stronger units so crates or 6musks might be better. Eco card and musk cant be compared mathematically.
As for French eco theory that's not bad after 4v but 700g is marginally better.


oh come on, when would you EVER 3v 4v eco theory in a competive 1x1 lol? You need 700c or 700w.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by gibson »

Why would you ever send eco theory as any civ besides maybe port pre late game?
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by tedere12 »

hmm lets summon @thebritish
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by deleted_user0 »

Dsy wrote:No its not how it works.
If you want to send age 2 combat cards (lot of players have it) its just better to send eco theory. However other cards much more usefull usually. This discussion is about only age2 combat card vs eco theory.


Nah its not and heres the reason, with brit in most match ups there is a point,which is usually between 30-40v with market ups, where you can spam full batches from your buildings continuesly, without needing more eco. However, you are most likely going to be contained or playing vs a player that will have a tech advantage. Its not going to matter if your vils hypothetically had better gather rate if you cant gather because your army didnt break the contain cuz it was too weak. And other civs do send unit cards when its possible and good in the mu, but many civs dont have as many good age2 ups or cant send them as early as brits, which is an advantage for brits. In any case, consider brut russia, sure if u send eco tgeory, u will gather faster but u will only burn your hunts faster but not enough to make another rax probably, so you wont really have the equivalent in more army comparable to 15% cav hp. So no, in such a case sending eco theory would probably be the worst card to send besides a vill shipment, although eco throry literally is a sort of vill shipment, but it starts worse and grows over time.

In very greedy builds there is a case to be made for eco theory, like if brit had it, it could be sent instead of 4v. I sometimes send it as french on texas if i had early tp after 4v or 700w, depending on mu. And in some greedy spain semi ffs id also send it, mostly cuz so many shipments but not that much pop so dunno what to do lol, but crate spam is usually better.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by godzillaking »

yurashic wrote:
godzillaking wrote:What is the difference between Port age 4 musk card shipment and the britsh's age2 one?


The Portuguese shipment in age 4 also affects cassadores. No other differences. :)


Is that the reason for it being an age 4 shipment and not age 2 like brits? Seems kind of dumb
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Darwin_ »

Mitoe wrote:Now that we're also no longer playing on AS New Great Plains with it's loads of hunts, map control is way more important. Where you might've been able to have 15,000+ safe food on Great Plains, now you may only have 8,000-10,000 on other maps, usually less by the time you actually have the freedom to send something like Eco Theory.

I think this is the key
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by pecelot »

yurashic wrote:
godzillaking wrote:What is the difference between Port age 4 musk card shipment and the britsh's age2 one?


The Portuguese shipment in age 4 also affects cassadores. No other differences. :)

There are some more — Ports have all the upgrades in age 4, including ranged infantry combat, whereas Brits only have the attack and HP cards, with one left for the Fortress Age. British shipments also affect grenadiers and their HP one is TEAM, but I think so is Port's equivalent. :!:
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by born2believe »

@Aizamk
Could this be the new brit BO?
Age 1 TP into 3 vills and eco theory?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by born2believe »

godzillaking wrote:
yurashic wrote:
godzillaking wrote:What is the difference between Port age 4 musk card shipment and the britsh's age2 one?


The Portuguese shipment in age 4 also affects cassadores. No other differences. :)


Is that the reason for it being an age 4 shipment and not age 2 like brits? Seems kind of dumb


It would be kinda weird to upgrade an age 3 unit in an age 2 shipment.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Zhanson10 »

The only civ I send eco theory with is Spain, because on a tp start I often have so many extra shipments that I can send 2-3 shipments before hitting age 2- given that Spain receives shipments quicker anyway
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by pecelot »

born2believe wrote:It would be kinda weird to upgrade an age 3 unit in an age 2 shipment.


What about German WWs, French Cuirassiers, Spanish Lancers, Ottoman artillery, Russian Oprichniks, Dutch Halberdiers etc. being affected by age-2 cards? :hmm:

@Zhanson10, Ports? :hmm:
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by Zhanson10 »

pecelot wrote:
born2believe wrote:It would be kinda weird to upgrade an age 3 unit in an age 2 shipment.


What about German WWs, French Cuirassiers, Spanish Lancers, Ottoman artillery, Russian Oprichniks, Dutch Halberdiers etc. being affected by age-2 cards? :hmm:

@Zhanson10, Ports? :hmm:

On a tp start, maybe
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by pecelot »

It's a mere equivalent of a vill shipment, many people send it :!:
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by _H2O »

Never thought of doing the math this way. I have said in the past that doing math you have to be careful about assumptions. You mentioned these two which are what I thought as well.

1. You assume resources are unlimited. That is to say you get the full 10% benefit (lost in walking time). It also says that you don't starve yourself by being less efficient.
2. You assume that eco theory applied retroactively. If you have 50 muskets already your eco theory arguement doesn't apply to them. Only future muskets. This is the big one that kills the benefit.
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Re: Eco theory vs musk attack card

Post by macacoalbino »

People have to understand that eco doesn't matter when you can't gather any resource due to no map control...
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