Visual Representation of 1 dock with schooners

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

Hey all, Compared to my last 'investigation' relating to exponential sioux stats this thread is relatively shorter thankfully! Since there may be a lack of a 'subject matter expert' at the LAN final when it comes to water play I'd thought i'd have a little look into the economy of a 1 dock water play. Not too seriously though.

In this example i assume that schooners is shipped (or not shipped as given the comparison) before the dock is completed with no idle time after. Currently on EP normal boats cost 70w and train in 25 seconds compared to schooners of 50w and train in 15 seconds. I'm not taking into account the effect of sending another age 1 shipment instead of schooners for the comparison of schooners vs no schooners. I've not considered mixing in the fishing eco shipments as i'm sure shipments you will send will be game dependant.

It's quite surprising how fast the schooner economy takes off in comparison to the non-schooner dock. Looking at the 3 minute mark (181 seconds on x axis):

Schooners: 11 boats 663 food gathered (total investment 550 wood)
Non schooners: 7 boats 375 food gathered (total investment 490 wood)

Outcome: although we have invested a card and spent 60 more wood in boat creation, There is already a net gain of 288 food which does not seem alot but will continue to grow and help grow your eco at a faster pace.

Next I looked into the point at which you should research gill nets. For such a small increase in terms of percentage (+15%) I felt that there was little effect into when this is researched. The reason why this is the case is that the tech which costs 90w / 90c takes 30 seconds to research, in this time you could have 2 additional fishing boats for 100 wood.

The difference between researching Gill nets {at 10 fishing boats} instead of having 2 extra fishing ships only becomes apparent after ~8 minutes ad the difference is slight. If you researched Gill nets at 10 boats, it would take approx 6 minutes to pay off and collect 200 more food than just spamming schooner shipping boats.

The effect of Long lines (200w/200g +30% 30sec train time) is much more pronounced than gill nets and give a total gather rate increase of 45% versus un-upgraded boats. The dual-upgraded boats easily out gather the non upgraded boats even though after the research of long lines, there would be an extra 4 un-upgraded boats.

Fairly simple not too in depth look, my thoughts are EP schooners appears to be more OP than the previous state in RE. Also you should start to think about upgrading to gill nets at around 8-12 boats but then upgrade to long lines as soon as reasonably possible. (it's like steel traps on steroids for 50wood eco units instead of 100f settlers or equivalent).

I've attached the excel file if you wanted to have quick look at the graphs produced from gill nets and gill nets / longlines.

[BrookG]

Wow good job! Thanks for sharing it, I would like to see one more like that compares it with RE Schooners too.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

well Normal schooners in RE does not affect the train rate, and so mimics the yellow line for a single dock (in terms of economic potential). The only difference is that each boat costs 40wood instead of 100 wood on the RE patch. The fact that on EP the schooner boats cost only 10 more wood but train much faster (so that each single boat contributes to the economy much sooner) means that you take water with a single dock instead of building a 2nd dock for an extra 200wood which you would most likely have to do on RE. Also not building a second dock means you can build 4 extra schooner boats on the EP patch with the wood saved.

I would argue that the viability of taking water with less initial investment compared to RE makes this card on the verge of OP

[WickedCossack]

well Normal schooners in RE does not affect the train rate, and so mimics the yellow line for a single dock (in terms of economic potential). The only difference is that each boat costs 40wood instead of 100 wood on the RE patch. The fact that on EP the schooner boats cost only 10 more wood but train much faster (so that each single boat contributes to the economy much sooner) means that you take water with a single dock instead of building a 2nd dock for an extra 200wood which you would most likely have to do on RE. Also not building a second dock means you can build 4 extra schooner boats on the EP patch with the wood saved.

I would argue that the viability of taking water with less initial investment compared to RE makes this card on the verge of OP

That could make sense in isolation. However on any standard water map you should always make a minimum of 2 docks (or 1 dock and a tower) as 1 dock can't always be defended.

[BrookG]

In comparison, we would see how far ahead it actually is

[Kaiserklein]

Yes it's better than re schooners. But it's not necessarily op in the context of ep. Because of other factors, like the water being smaller, the land having more resources, the warships being weaker, etc

[Sargsyan]

Wow cool post, thanks for sharing

[Garja]

Please consider that you spend an extra card for schooners (700 resources) and have to spend more resources on boats (950w to 770w). In addition to that, more boats require more pop space so more houses. Therefore, within that time span, the net gain is about equal, or actually no schooners is even better.
In the long term of course more boats will gather more, especially with ups. However if the extra card is a 5v card or equivalent then those vills will also gather more and benefit from market ups.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

Please consider that you spend an extra card for schooners (700 resources) and have to spend more resources on boats (950w to 770w). In addition to that, more boats require more pop space so more houses. Therefore, within that time span, the net gain is about equal, or actually no schooners is even better.
In the long term of course more boats will gather more, especially with ups. However if the extra card is a 5v card or equivalent then those vills will also gather more and benefit from market ups.

the Above Point are valid as the more variables you chuck in the more complex it gets pretty quickly. I disagree with the comparison to an age 2 card in this instance as i think ports are likely to send this as card 1 and for brit a choice could be would you rather send VC or schooners if you are going for a more eco focused build. Don't quote me on the brit strategy as my mind will never reach the levels of 'Garja the Great'

The argument of the ratio of the wood spend 950 to 770w ( or 1.23:1 ratio) is a weaker argument/point. The reason being is if you take the ratio of the food gathered for schooners versus non schooners (or resources in general food/gold), the ratio value tend to be around 1.73:1 (asymptotic from above). Larger ratio of resources gathered compared to increase of resources to invest into fishing boats makes this justified. If we include an extra 100wood cost for a house this then increases that wood investment to 1050 wood or a 1.36:1 ratio. Considering that a reduction of 40% trainpoints = +67% train rate of boats, then a ratio of around 1.7:1 resources gathered ratio is to be expected.


{In addition to that, more boats require more pop space so more houses. Therefore, within that time span, the net gain is about equal, or actually no schooners is even better.} Although i think i have already justified in the above paragraph highlighting that,

The 5 vill question is an interesting point which i didn't have time to look at before hand. Considering euro civs with HD and PM researched (as you wont need to be investing into ST or Amalg), 5 vills gather 4.62 Food per sec and 3.3 coin per sec. this is very similar to 5 fishing boats with rendering plant (+30%) researched which is 4.36 food per sec and 3.25 coin per sec. My calcs suggest that sending RP on unupgraded fishing boats (gillnets and longlines) is instantaneously better then sending 5 vill when you have 23 boats. This does not factor in pop space of late game scaling with further vill/boat upgrades.

Experienced players stragtegy/experiences/build orders/scrutiny is always appreciated with these.

[Garja]

I say 700 resources because you can fish boom as French with 700w 600w. There is surely a discount factor tho, as schooners is sent few minutes earlier and thus it has immediate effect.
In general, my analysis was limited to the time frame in the graph. Obviously being an exponential curve, the schooner boom is going to be more and more beneficial as the game goes on. In fact, a 2 dock model would probably accentuate the curve and make schooners pay off quickier.
However I still think it's interesting having a comparison for a limited time frame, as saving resources makes other (not necessarily booming) option available in the short/mid term.