A New Way To Build Banks

[JiaHoJian]

Hello folks,
I am currently playing Dutch in AOE3: TAD, I am interested in finding new ways to play this game.
There is a more efficient way to build banks. The idea is based on an existing interaction between the bank wagon and the bank foundation.
If we order a villager to build a bank, when the villager hammers on the bank's foundation for once, we immediately drag the villager away and make him gather resource instead, then we select a bank wagon and order it to complete that foundation, the bank wagon will help build the bank and it does not disappear, it can move on to build its own bank.
Due to the fact that a bank wagon builds 3 times faster than a villager, we can use this trick to speed up the construction of the four Dutch banks at colonial age.
It takes a bank wagon 10 seconds to build a bank, and it takes a villager 30 seconds to do so.
Here are the approximate timings when we finish building the banks if the order of the shipments is 3 villagers→700 wood→bank wagon.

"normal build order"
first bank completed at 4:05
second bank completed at 5:05
third bank completed at 5:45
fourth bank completed at 6:05

Now let's use the bank wagon trick. Firstly, we do the same things as usual, we send 3 villagers and age up when we have 15 villagers, then 5 villagers on food, 10 villagers on wood. Once we have 350 food and 350 wood, drag two villagers to build a bank and finish building it, and then just like the normal build order, we send villagers on food and gold. When we age up to colonial age, collect the 400 wood and send the bank wagon shipment. Order a villager to build a bank, once he hammers on the foundation once, drag him away and send him back to gather resources. When the bank wagon shipment arrived, order it to help build the unfinished foundation. When the second bank is done, we immediately use the bank wagon to build another bank. Finally, we send 700 wood and then use the resources to build the fourth bank. Assume the timings of everything except building bank are the same as the approximate timings mentioned above. We complete our first bank at 4:05 as usual, this is also the time when we age up to colonial age. We send the bank wagon shipment at 4:05, it should arrive at 4:45, and then help finish building the second bank roughly at 4:58 if we take the moving time of the bank wagon into consideration. After that, we use the bank wagon to build its bank, it should be completed at 5:08. The 700 wood shipment should arrive at 5:50, we can complete the fourth bank at 6:25 using 2 villagers. All four banks are completed. Here are the approximate timings of the bank wagon trick.

"bank wagon trick timings"
first bank completed at 4:05 (same as normal build)
second bank completed at 4:58 (7 seconds earlier means 7*2.75≈19 extra gold)
third bank completed at 5:08 (37 seconds earlier means 37*2.75≈101 extra gold)
fourth bank completed at 6:25 (20 seconds later means -20*2.75≈-55 extra gold)

We will have about 19+101-55 = 65 extra gold produced from banks if we use the bank wagon trick. Furthermore, it also saves the villager seconds that are spent on building the second bank. This trick works both in EP and RE. I think this trick is a huge deal.
What do you think? Is this build order better than the original?

[gibson]

Well it's better cause you're also not wasting vil seconds building the bank but I still don't think it's worth it

[Thrar]

Your description makes sense. I don't know Dutch builds well enough to say anything about the specific numbers.

The tradeoff seems to be that the benchmark build you're comparing to receives 700w at 4:45 plus gather time. Your proposed build gets that wood about 1 minute later. Since you're spending 350w of that on a bank, what is the remaining 350w typically used for? Houses? Military building? Trade post? Market?

In exchange for the benefits listed, your build gets those 350w roughly 1 minute later than usual. Thoughts:

• Is that fast enough for housing before you hit 20 villagers?
• For a semi-FF or a colonial build, do you need the military building earlier to start making units? Does that mean this build mainly applies to a naked FF?
• Against a very aggressive opponent (Aztec, Russia, Iroquois) you might be in trouble without a military building for that long. Can you reliably gather the wood and get the building plus houses up past 6 minutes with them pressuring you?
• A trade post gives around 1.5 XP per second (depends on map). If you spent the wood on a TP that's 90 XP in 60 seconds. The gold and VS savings are probably worth more, but how much more?
• 350w converted to VS is just slightly less than the cost of market plus hunting dogs plus steel traps. How much does 30% faster hunting get you in 1 minute?

[Frost Bite]

Easier way to select cards: Press control to select the cards, in that way there is no need to click an option that appears whenever you select a card.

[JiaHoJian]

Your description makes sense. I don't know Dutch builds well enough to say anything about the specific numbers.

The tradeoff seems to be that the benchmark build you're comparing to receives 700w at 4:45 plus gather time. Your proposed build gets that wood about 1 minute later. Since you're spending 350w of that on a bank, what is the remaining 350w typically used for? Houses? Military building? Trade post? Market?

In exchange for the benefits listed, your build gets those 350w roughly 1 minute later than usual. Thoughts:

• Is that fast enough for housing before you hit 20 villagers?
• For a semi-FF or a colonial build, do you need the military building earlier to start making units? Does that mean this build mainly applies to a naked FF?
• Against a very aggressive opponent (Aztec, Russia, Iroquois) you might be in trouble without a military building for that long. Can you reliably gather the wood and get the building plus houses up past 6 minutes with them pressuring you?
• A trade post gives around 1.5 XP per second (depends on map). If you spent the wood on a TP that's 90 XP in 60 seconds. The gold and VS savings are probably worth more, but how much more?
• 350w converted to VS is just slightly less than the cost of market plus hunting dogs plus steel traps. How much does 30% faster hunting get you in 1 minute?

Hi,
1. We age up when we have 15 villagers. A villager takes 25 seconds to train. We need to train 5 more villagers to reach the 20 population limit, so it's 125 seconds, which is 2 minutes and 5 seconds. We age up to colonial age at 4:05, if we constantly produce villagers, we will reach the supply limit at 6:10, we have enough time to collect the 700 wood which arrived at 5:50 and then build a house. Maybe we will supply block a little bit, but it's fine.
2. Yes, we have no military building until 6:20, so we have to be defensive at first. We can choose to catch up the military count or naked FF.
3. If the opponent is planning to rush us, for example, if we saw a forward villager, we definitely don't choose this build order, send 700 wood instead.
4. I haven't tried the tp opening yet. I think tp opening is best with 200 wood start, we have to build a market and then exchange the gold for wood so that we will have enough wood to build a tp and a house. Although XP is not food, wood or gold, there are some ways to convert it to villager second. For example, more XP means we will get the 700 wood shipment earlier, assume we get the 700 wood shipment x seconds earlier than the no tp opening, that's means the banks might be completed earlier and we get more gold, which also means more villager seconds. However, I haven't tried the one tp opening yet, I couldn't provide the exact number here.
5. The hunting dogs tech gives villagers +10% gather rate and steel traps is +20% on hunt, assume there are 9 villagers on food, the number of food gain that the hunting dogs tech gives us in 1 minutes is 9*0.84*60*(1.3-1) ≈ 136 food.

[deleted_user]

This is a trick that Mitoe does a lot, but it's never worth delaying a bank which could be built with villagers (I.e waiting for wagon). Taking the opportunity cost of the bank wagon being constructed sooner further makes it less impactful.

A thread awhile back also found that 4 villagers is the most efficient way to construct a bank with villagers (again, because of opportunity cost).

Hope this helps.

[Thrar]

1. Sounds fine.
2. I don't think you can "catch up" on military with one building that's supposed to be always producing. You'll always be 2 batches behind in a colonial build, or 1 minute later on your semi. If the opponent outnumbers you by 10 units, you can easily lose more than ~100 resources in lost gather time or units.
3. Combined with the above, I'd conclude this approach only works for a naked FF after short colonial boom. Would you agree?
4. I wasn't looking at a TP opening, I was trying to evaluate the opportunity cost of getting access to 350w in crates 1 minute later. If you were going to build a TP with it, that's roughly 90 XP lost, and still leaves 150w unaccounted for.
5. 350w is almost enough in VS for hunting dogs and steel traps, which is 30% combined. If 10% is 45f as you calculate, then a player building a market and getting both upgrades from 700w would miss out on 3x45f = 135f when getting bank wagon first. That seems more than the potential gold and VS savings.

I think it's interesting to question and re-evaluate commonly used builds, but it's' important to keep in mind the opportunity cost of what you do. Getting 350w a full minute later looks like a significant cost in this build no matter what you do with it (mililtary, TP, or market upgrades). A skilled player is going to spend the resources as soon as they come in, so we need to take into account what they can gain by having those 350w work for them for an extra minute.