Port Eco Theory analysis

[forgrin]

Google sheets link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sJ/pubhtml


Was curious about how valuable eco theory actually is for Ports, assuming a 1-TP 5 huss semi ff on a 200w start.
Assumptions:
- 200w TP start
- 1 TP 5 huss semi-FF
- No treasures are collected
- Constant vill production, from as many TCs as possible. In my experience it is pretty much impossible to 3 TC pump vills in early fortress without dying, but this is a theoretical calculation.
- 100% perfect gathering rates (not realistic)

These assumptions are quite favorable to eco theory as they assume the best possible gathering situations.

Key Points:
- Value upon clicking up to fortress (roughly 8:00) is ~270w (~540vs).
- Compared to 1k wood shipped first in Fortress, the difference is ~1025vs after gathering is accounted for (with 1k wood superior). This advantage diminishes over time.
- Assuming 3 TC vill production, the breakeven point is at approximately 13 mins, around 3:30 after 1k wood is gathered. In practice this breakeven point would be somewhat later. I have included a 2 TC vill production scenario in Fortress for comparison, the breakeven point comes approximately 1 vill cycle later at around 13:30.

Tl;dr: Eco theory is pretty decent if you don't need the shipment until ~13 mins.

[dutchdude117]

awesome analysis, this is the kind of stuff i love

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

Very nice ! 13 minutes is a long time in a real game though - especially if you run out of hunts.

I've also be wondering lately at what time port eco catch up compared to say Germany, France or England (in term of vills and iin term of ressources gathered.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It's always hard to simulate Age of Empires but your analysis doesn't take into account the snowball effect (eco theory will allow constant vill production or chopping for an extra TP), and you can't really compare eco theory and 1k wood... If you go for a TP start, you send eco theory, period.

Now, if you don't build a TP in age 1, I haven't done the maths but I would skip it as 600c or 700f is usually better.

[forgrin]

Very nice ! 13 minutes is a long time in a real game though - especially if you run out of hunts.

I've also be wondering lately at what time port eco catch up compared to say Germany, France or England (in term of vills and iin term of ressources gathered.

Yes, it's quite interesting to see that, at the point when you receive your first fortress shipment and have ~35 vills, eco theory is still only worth about 425 wood (850 VS), roughly 7 mins after you've sent the shipment. Makes you think about, considering that most of Port's VS are spent on food gathering, whether spice trade is actually a much stronger option. I'll see about running the numbers on that tomorrow.

I can do some comparisons to other civs, but I do need the build orders. Germany and France should be pretty straightforward, Brits might be a little tough to model because of manor houses. If you can give me a BO with timings + how many manors and when, I can write the numbers up. Once you have the villager progression modeled, it's pretty easy to calculate the theoretical VS of gathering.

[forgrin]

It's always hard to simulate Age of Empires but your analysis doesn't take into account the snowball effect (eco theory will allow constant vill production or chopping for an extra TP), and you can't really compare eco theory and 1k wood... If you go for a TP start, you send eco theory, period.

Now, if you don't build a TP in age 1, I haven't done the maths but I would skip it as 600c or 700f is usually better.

I put a new section in the doc for you (bottom right).

You can have constant vill production without eco theory, in my experience, playing without eco theory, and i'm a 2nd lieut. It has no effect if you're getting raided/belled because it's entirely dependent on your vills gathering in the first place.

Additionally, eco theory does not really facilitate an extra TP. Look at the numbers; assuming ALL vills on wood during transition (and while training your first vill in 2 somehow), the extra wood eco theory gives you is.... 49. The extra food eco theory gives you before aging up? 82, which you don't really need as you can get idle-less 14v with one small food treasure no problem.

Now I don't think the card is trash, it's definitely good. The maths say that it scales hard. But if you think it's doing anything important before ~8 mins, you're kidding yourself.

[Black_Duck]

It's always hard to simulate Age of Empires but your analysis doesn't take into account the snowball effect (eco theory will allow constant vill production or chopping for an extra TP), and you can't really compare eco theory and 1k wood... If you go for a TP start, you send eco theory, period.

Now, if you don't build a TP in age 1, I haven't done the maths but I would skip it as 600c or 700f is usually better.

I put a new section in the doc for you (bottom right).

You can have constant vill production without eco theory, in my experience, playing without eco theory, and i'm a 2nd lieut. It has no effect if you're getting raided/belled because it's entirely dependent on your vills gathering in the first place.

Additionally, eco theory does not really facilitate an extra TP. Look at the numbers; assuming ALL vills on wood during transition (and while training your first vill in 2 somehow), the extra wood eco theory gives you is.... 49. The extra food eco theory gives you before aging up? 82, which you don't really need as you can get idle-less 14v with one small food treasure no problem.

Now I don't think the card is trash, it's definitely good. The maths say that it scales hard. But if you think it's doing anything important before ~8 mins, you're kidding yourself.

50 wood in transition isnt bad especially when youre tight on res. Not to mention youre up slightly faster, have slightly more food etc. Its all a snowball that you seemed to have ignored.

[forgrin]

It's always hard to simulate Age of Empires but your analysis doesn't take into account the snowball effect (eco theory will allow constant vill production or chopping for an extra TP), and you can't really compare eco theory and 1k wood... If you go for a TP start, you send eco theory, period.

Now, if you don't build a TP in age 1, I haven't done the maths but I would skip it as 600c or 700f is usually better.

I put a new section in the doc for you (bottom right).

You can have constant vill production without eco theory, in my experience, playing without eco theory, and i'm a 2nd lieut. It has no effect if you're getting raided/belled because it's entirely dependent on your vills gathering in the first place.

Additionally, eco theory does not really facilitate an extra TP. Look at the numbers; assuming ALL vills on wood during transition (and while training your first vill in 2 somehow), the extra wood eco theory gives you is.... 49. The extra food eco theory gives you before aging up? 82, which you don't really need as you can get idle-less 14v with one small food treasure no problem.

Now I don't think the card is trash, it's definitely good. The maths say that it scales hard. But if you think it's doing anything important before ~8 mins, you're kidding yourself.

50 wood in transition isnt bad especially when youre tight on res. Not to mention youre up slightly faster, have slightly more food etc. Its all a snowball that you seemed to have ignored.

1- sorry I wasn't clear, 50w is a rough calc assuming all vills on wood between 03:05 and 05:15, so not realistic. Considering you have to gather food to queue a vill plus gather the 275 coin for HD + ST + queue huss, it would be more like 30 wood at most. Plus if you gather 170 extra wood for a TP you're delaying ST and queuing your huss slower/potentially not getting 5 out, I bet you lose a lot of efficiency there.

Also just in general, these numbers are extremely generous to eco theory. They assume constant, uninterrupted gathering and never missing a chance to queue a vill, plus double/triple queuing whenever possible. I'm giving eco theory every excuse to be good here.

[duckzilla]

Should any civ actually send three villagers?

Assume that your first shipment arrives at 2:30 and your first fortress shipment (1k wood) arrives at 10:00 and is collected instantly. That leaves 7:30 minutes = 450 seconds of gathering for the three vills to get an advantage over the 1k wood. Chopping wood, they can gather 675w in the meantime, rendering them 32.5% worse than the 1k wood shipment. The break-even point is 13:30.

Shipping eco theory seems to be a better choice than sending three villagers would be, because 1. vills need houses and 2. eco theory scales with every new vill trained.

[japanesegeneral]

This thread makes me want to have Journals of AoE3 science. I think this examination would pass the peer review, since the analysis is quite well done. Though this does not give any advice to gameplay it does give indications, which is all it should.

[japanesegeneral]

Should any civ actually send three villagers?

Assume that your first shipment arrives at 2:30 and your first fortress shipment (1k wood) arrives at 10:00 and is collected instantly. That leaves 7:30 minutes = 450 seconds of gathering for the three vills to get an advantage over the 1k wood. Chopping wood, they can gather 675w in the meantime, rendering them 32.5% worse than the 1k wood shipment. The break-even point is 13:30.

Shipping eco theory seems to be a better choice than sending three villagers would be, because 1. vills need houses and 2. eco theory scales with every new vill trained.

From an amortisation point of view only, no civ should send 3v. That is one on the reason no one ships vills in tr. However that is not the only thing you should account for as diarouga pointed out. Having ressources earlier is a huge advantage. For example you could have (probably, did not do the math) additional 13 musks for 675 w which could mean the difference between loosing and winning the game.

[Kaiserklein]

Don't open with a TP in age 1 unless you 10/10 tbh. So that means don't ship eco theory

[Garja]

Actually eco theory works better without TP imo. With TP you invest res to get better shipment curve and also neutralize the effect of eco theory early on (being short on resources due to chopping wood). Just like the naked FF I wouldnt mix TP start with eco theory unless I get very favorable treasures.

[chris1089]

Sounds like eco theory is really slow

[forgrin]

Sounds like eco theory is really slow

Hey look, someone who gets it

[forgrin]

Should any civ actually send three villagers?

Assume that your first shipment arrives at 2:30 and your first fortress shipment (1k wood) arrives at 10:00 and is collected instantly. That leaves 7:30 minutes = 450 seconds of gathering for the three vills to get an advantage over the 1k wood. Chopping wood, they can gather 675w in the meantime, rendering them 32.5% worse than the 1k wood shipment. The break-even point is 13:30.

Shipping eco theory seems to be a better choice than sending three villagers would be, because 1. vills need houses and 2. eco theory scales with every new vill trained.

This is an interesting point and I think the other response addresses it well, though I do want to add something.

Proportionally to one's eco, shipping 3v is significantly more villager seconds than eco theory would be because it's early in the game and your vill numbers are low.

Having more vills also boosts the effectiveness of your market ups, etc. Eco theory's bonus is only in proportion to the number of working vills your have, no more or less. This means that eco theory just kinda sucks until you have a certain amount of vills, which seems obvious but some people seem convinced that it does some magic and gives you an extra TP in transition or something.

[Kaiserklein]

Ofc yiu send 3v lol, how is it comparable to 1000w at minute 8?

[Aizamk]

Port sending eco theory first is one of the things that makes me shake my head. I probably haven’t sent it first in over 10 years except when pretending to be someone else. You can send it when you have established map control or when you’re up to 35 villagers or so but any earlier is highly questionable.

[duckzilla]

Ofc yiu send 3v lol, how is it comparable to 1000w at minute 8?

See, that's why you are a petty Lt.General and not a proper Field Marshal.

[Garja]

Port sending eco theory first is one of the things that makes me shake my head. I probably haven’t sent it first in over 10 years except when pretending to be someone else. You can send it when you have established map control or when you’re up to 35 villagers or so but any earlier is highly questionable.

That's cause you play Ports the FF way, even with 10/10. Or you rush for which an extra resource crate or unit shipment makes more sense.

[deleted_user]

You also have to account for the opportunity cost of a colonial shipment?

[forgrin]

You also have to account for the opportunity cost of a colonial shipment?

I tried to do that by calculating the value upon clicking up to fortress (when Ports will have time to send a shipment after 700g-600g-700w). The value of eco theory at that point in the game is around 600f, so pretty mediocre.

[dansil92]

Part of the magic of eco theory is that every vill you train after it is now 1.1 vills and thus each vill pays for itself (on paper) 10% quicker. The crushing reality of course is that teching your discovery market techs does the same thing (with the exception of berries and farms/plantations). Its hard to justify.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

Part of the magic of eco theory is that every vill you train after it is now 1.1 vills and thus each vill pays for itself (on paper) 10% quicker. The crushing reality of course is that teching your discovery market techs does the same thing (with the exception of berries and farms/plantations). Its hard to justify.

Eco theory improve the base stats right ? So it is in fact worth less than 1/10 vill as soon as you research your market techs.

[Astaroth]

Honestly, a better (but obviously more annoying) test of eco theory would be something like this:

1. Decide on a couple of proper port strategies aside from atp/water (e.g. rush, straight FF, semi FF...) with a clear build order and goal (e.g. train only goons, train goon/cass, train goon/organ or whatever).
2. Perform these strategies both with Eco theory and without.
3. Pause the game at set intervals (eg minute 6/8/10/end of game) and check: how many vills, units, buildings and unspent res do you have?

Obviously there will be slight variations due to herding etc. (naturally, no treasures are allowed for this), but it can give you a rough idea of the difference in practice.