When Should You Build A Livestock Pen?

[deleted_user]

I think I've built a pen for 3 sheep before

Concurrent Virginia company and 2 dock boom

[Kaiserklein]

So each sheep still nets 15f over hunting (250-150-135).

Yea each sheep nets 15f in the scenario I described. But that was a very quick approximation. Through more thorough calculus, Inter found 4.5f, not 15f. And to get a more accurate estimation we'd need to take too many factors into account. Either way, the point is that you net almost nothing; even 15f is ridiculous.

What about improvents for livestock? Which hint gather rate are using there? What about cows?

The fattening rate improvement available in the pen was mentioned by Inter. Getting that just means you're going to net this 15f/4.5f/whatever 1 min earlier for each sheep. So it's still shit. And it's exactly the same for homecity fattening rate cards.
The only card that would make a difference is the 300% livestock gathering card, since it would reduce by a lot the opportunity cost: when gathering 250f, instead of missing a potential 135f from hunts, you'd miss only 30-40f, so you would now net roughly 100f per sheep. However, that card is available to a couple civs only (brit, iro and china I think), and shipping one card + paying for the pen + paying for the sheep is a huge investment.

The hunt gather rate used was steel traps without taking walking time into account. If you do take into account the walking time (with good herding) and consider you have no market upgrades, the hunt gathering rate is probably around 0.8 f/s, so your vils would net around 50f per sheep (because the opportunity cost would be ~100f instead of ~135f). It's still not very exciting, and not super realistic because a large majority of civs will have steel traps or at least hunt dogs by that time.

Cows are pretty efficient to train, or at least, much more efficient than sheep. Here you would net like 500f - 270f (opportunity cost with steel traps) - 80f = 150f per cow. Sadly though, it also requires a card (which some civs don't have) to do that, and still need to wait 6 min for the cows to be fat. So I really doubt it would be worth it.

Anyway, this is pretty irrelevant, since this is what you said about shipping livestock cards: viewtopic.php?t=13169&start=25#p277917

[Garja]

To me 15f on top of the generating food out of nowhere is already significant, to be fair.
Anyway, the reason why I dont trust/take too much in consideration pure math is because there are just too many factors to make a perfect model. Making conclusions out of math alone is usually bad.
For example, just walking time alone for hunting is already huge in comparing gathering rates. 15 vills moving to the next hunt can easily be -100% gathering rate for 30 secs. That would correct the hunt gathering rate in the long run by at least 0.2 and not just 0.04.
Market+hunt upgrades is about the same as livestock pen + selective breeding.
There are several cards that can help the livestock boom: +gathering rate, +fattening rate, 7 cow shipment, 15-20 sheeps (in fortress), card that unlock cows/llamas training. Also refrigeration and eco theory boost the gathering rate of livestock so when hunts run out livestock is still affected by those cards.
So once again, it's not really about the efficiency itself. It's just that you can't rely exclusively on herdables from the start. Unlike for hunts you need to tailor a specific strat for it or just use it as an alternative to mills. I think in this last case livestock is underrated.

Oh btw yaks fatten at a much faster rate than any other animal.

[spanky4ever]

tbh the livestock Pen is very good - on many occasions - for some civs - and frankly for most civs if the hunts are bad, or if the cows/sheeps/lamaes they can catch are plenlyfull.
There is just no way you can make a spreadsheet out of this, and draw a final conclution that its bad, (or good).
What I think is this; there is prolly to little Pens being made, even for high ranked player. Not sure about the super players we have but I have seen Aiz using it with luck. I have also watched streems with 3v3, where the Pens have been the winning points.

[supahons]

it's hardly viable in nr20 for me without cards + 6-8 cowstart, idk how you can play it in supremacy
i won't try/test it in nr20 anymore without cards because of this calculation

[supahons]

When is livestock is a good option? (addendum)

* no access to water for both players
* bad access to hunt for you (indirectly makes food more valuable)
* bad access to hunt for the opponent
+ livestock on the map to start the initial boom

* own civ alternative shipment/ different BO

(worst but impactful example) the British have access to the best livestock cards
BUT also to VC (manorboom, xp+ vills) + age4 manor card = 99 vills @ ~14 min in nr20 (i let you livestock-boom for some minutes, but my eco is unstoppable)

so you probably have to compare it to

a) the lost potential

eg. 15 sheep (750f-4500f potential in 4-6+ min) - decay, - VS to gather it, slots in the pen limit 10

- (the alternative shipment) 8vills/refrigeration/15% farming/ - ~900res (for the 1000res shipment)

b) the opponents civ alternative shipment
~ sends 1000w and starts to build tcs

c) the map control and overall access to resources for you + opponent

d) the alternative card in your deck


add this to kaiserklein's list + interjections no card sheep calculation then you see that the options are very limited for supremacy/nr20

[dansil92]

I was doing some experimenting with the British potential to use livestock in supremacy- really rough build order to follow- it is based approximately on an old VC build I use vs Japan

300 wood start
Divide up vills to get vill in cue as fast as possible then 2 to wood crates, one stays on food crates and send others to hunt. Meanwhile send explorer to nearest (or best) trade site to build trading post. You wanna get that first pass of xp. Your 2 wood crate vils are gonna chop the extra wood for a manor, then to food while one builds it. First card is 3 vills, 2nd card is ranching. Age up with 500 food politician (16-17 vills).

In transition you need to gather 200 wood for a livestock pen, 100 for a market and then start your manor boom. You will have a shipment ready upon hitting colonial- 700 wood. Train 10 cows using. your age up food and a bit gathered during transition. Build a rax, and ignore your cows for the time being. Rather standard after this spamming musks or lbs, except you send fulling mills when your fattest cow is around 450 food instead of like 5 villagers or whatever card you would send normally (musk hp etc.). Task 4 vills to cows (2 per cow) and move almost all other food gathering vills to wood or coin. Research your livestock upgrade. At this point you will want to drop a second livestock pen and absorb some of that excess food to reinvest in cows (believe me you will have extra food) and some extra military buildings.

If you can make it to the 8:30 mark without dying you will be able to leverage this incredible economy by sending "stockyards" (instead of refrigeration) and continuing to keep cowing (sheep would be useless unless you can send every livestock card and in supremacy would not be worth it). It does slow your market & market upgrades and your mannor boom by about 2 initially but it didn't slow down my rax or stop me from getting out constant batches of 5 musks. On a low hunt map this might just be feasible against slightly more passive civs or very feasible against a water boom.

[supahons]

[spoiler]

I was doing some experimenting with the British potential to use livestock in supremacy- really rough build order to follow- it is based approximately on an old VC build I use vs Japan

300 wood start
Divide up vills to get vill in cue as fast as possible then 2 to wood crates, one stays on food crates and send others to hunt. Meanwhile send explorer to nearest (or best) trade site to build trading post. You wanna get that first pass of xp. Your 2 wood crate vils are gonna chop the extra wood for a manor, then to food while one builds it. First card is 3 vills, 2nd card is ranching. Age up with 500 food politician (16-17 vills).

In transition you need to gather 200 wood for a livestock pen, 100 for a market and then start your manor boom. You will have a shipment ready upon hitting colonial- 700 wood. Train 10 cows using. your age up food and a bit gathered during transition. Build a rax, and ignore your cows for the time being. Rather standard after this spamming musks or lbs, except you send fulling mills when your fattest cow is around 450 food instead of like 5 villagers or whatever card you would send normally (musk hp etc.). Task 4 vills to cows (2 per cow) and move almost all other food gathering vills to wood or coin. Research your livestock upgrade. At this point you will want to drop a second livestock pen and absorb some of that excess food to reinvest in cows (believe me you will have extra food) and some extra military buildings.

If you can make it to the 8:30 mark without dying you will be able to leverage this incredible economy by sending "stockyards" (instead of refrigeration) and continuing to keep cowing (sheep would be useless you can send every livestock card and in supremacy would not be worth it). It does slow your market & market upgrades and your mannor boom by about 2 initially but it didn't slow down my rax or stop me from getting out constant batches of 5 musks. On a low hunt map this might just be feasible against slightly more passive civs or very feasible against a water boom.

[/spoiler]

Then your opponent sends 3v/4-5v/Crates, while you've spend all the resources/cards and can't rly use them for ~5 min. This is too risky and only will work if your opponent ignores you completely and can't boom. If your opponent scouts this then you've lost and against a schooner boom on a watermap you won't have a chance with this. Some players will probably just thank you and ff against this and send skirms/falcs. Then you have some nice cows but probably lose.

[dansil92]

[spoiler]

I was doing some experimenting with the British potential to use livestock in supremacy- really rough build order to follow- it is based approximately on an old VC build I use vs Japan

300 wood start
Divide up vills to get vill in cue as fast as possible then 2 to wood crates, one stays on food crates and send others to hunt. Meanwhile send explorer to nearest (or best) trade site to build trading post. You wanna get that first pass of xp. Your 2 wood crate vils are gonna chop the extra wood for a manor, then to food while one builds it. First card is 3 vills, 2nd card is ranching. Age up with 500 food politician (16-17 vills).

In transition you need to gather 200 wood for a livestock pen, 100 for a market and then start your manor boom. You will have a shipment ready upon hitting colonial- 700 wood. Train 10 cows using. your age up food and a bit gathered during transition. Build a rax, and ignore your cows for the time being. Rather standard after this spamming musks or lbs, except you send fulling mills when your fattest cow is around 450 food instead of like 5 villagers or whatever card you would send normally (musk hp etc.). Task 4 vills to cows (2 per cow) and move almost all other food gathering vills to wood or coin. Research your livestock upgrade. At this point you will want to drop a second livestock pen and absorb some of that excess food to reinvest in cows (believe me you will have extra food) and some extra military buildings.

If you can make it to the 8:30 mark without dying you will be able to leverage this incredible economy by sending "stockyards" (instead of refrigeration) and continuing to keep cowing (sheep would be useless you can send every livestock card and in supremacy would not be worth it). It does slow your market & market upgrades and your mannor boom by about 2 initially but it didn't slow down my rax or stop me from getting out constant batches of 5 musks. On a low hunt map this might just be feasible against slightly more passive civs or very feasible against a water boom.

[/spoiler]

Then your opponent sends 3v/4-5v/Crates, while you've spend all the resources/cards and can't rly use them for ~5 min. This is too risky and only will work if you opponent ignores completely and can't boom. If your opponent scouts this then you've lost and against a schooner boom on a watermap you won't have a chance with this. Some players will probably just thank you and ff against this and send skirms/falcs. Then you have some nice cows but probably lose.

Oh I know- 3 vill, vc, 700 wood 600 wood 5 vills would be better greedy build by far and lets you use your resources quicker, this was mostly just an experiment to see if it had any viability at all

[supahons]

Maybe there is a good fun/troll build for supremacy, but in a competitive game it's probably too bad/ or will only work on certain maps/MU

7cow/15 sheep standard cards, exception TWC+TAD civs

Civ:
Indians, Japan - different eco
Aztecs, Dutch, French, Sioux, Port (llama) - have the cowcard
Germans (+uhlan), Russians (20 sheep), Spain (llama), Otto (20 sheep) - 2 cards
China (waterbuffalo, saiga, goat card), British, Iro - 3+ cards

Ideal map:
Starvation map, Navajo tp, no water, livestock on the map

potential Maps:
Texas, Mongolia
ESOC - Parallel Rivers, Gran Chaco, Pampas Sierras, Bengal

@dansil92[spoiler]Train 10 cows (change it to: find -10 sheep/goats -8 llama -6 cows/yaks on the map)
very feasible against a water boom (not feasible)[/spoiler]

[dansil92]

@supahons obviously finding the livestock is better. Why do you not think it is feasible against water? (I mean it seems nothing counters kynesie style water)

The fulling mills effectively turns a villager on livestock into 8 villagers on hunts (7 vill gain) and water booming takes a long time to pay off the resources you put into it too? Its definitely not the most competitive build thats for sure

[supahons]

only livestock, no water cards -> thx for the free 3 dock schooner boom -> gg
If you play vs a 100w fishing boat civ wihout schooners on RE then it wouldn't be so strong, but you still give up the option to waterboom yourself for livestock? Water is so strong in this game. On ESOC the fishing boat cost is reduced + less training time, so it's even worse.

[duckzilla]

The main benefit of schooner boom is the increased growth of productive capacity due to multiple sources being able to contribute to it (multiple docks + TC instead of just TC). Hence, in any supremacy game the schooner boom will be stronger than livestock.
This is somewhat different in treaty games, since pop efficiency plays a role in the long term. British fully upped livestock economy is incredibly pop efficient, since you can use 8 vills to have the output of 48 vills on mills. You basically add 40 vills worth of ressource production and end up with an equivalent of 140 vills for the pop cost of 100.

[dansil92]

I suppose it wouldn't exceed a water boom until the fish run out... maybe if training cows didn't take a card it would be a more plausible boom mechanic?

[duckzilla]

I think the card requirement for cows is alright. It gives you a further 20 "pop" of "livestock" on top of your 30 sheep. It would just be nice if sheep were cheaper (~75 food?).

By the way, the best potential economy in the game would be a british live stock + water boom. Assuming that you do not want to exceed 100 pop in order to have some space for troops, you could have 8 vills on livestock (equivalent of 48 vills on fully upped mills) + 48 fishing boats on whale (equivalent of 60 vills on fully upped plantations) + 44 vills on either plantations/mills/wood for a total of 152 vill productivity. That means, a british economy can be 50% stronger than any other economy in the game while keeping 100 pop free for units.

[dansil92]

I think the card requirement for cows is alright. It gives you a further 20 "pop" of "livestock" on top of your 30 sheep. It would just be nice if sheep were cheaper (~75 food?).

By the way, the best potential economy in the game would be a british live stock + water boom. Assuming that you do not want to exceed 100 pop in order to have some space for troops, you could have 8 vills on livestock (equivalent of 48 vills on fully upped mills) + 48 fishing boats on whale (equivalent of 60 vills on fully upped plantations) + 44 vills on either plantations/mills/wood for a total of 152 vill productivity. That means, a british economy can be 50% stronger than any other economy in the game while keeping 100 pop free for units.

Except dutch on water

Would any build actually incorporate livestock and still be efficient? I am going to have to crunch some numbers tonight after work comparing livestock to other booms

[duckzilla]

I think the card requirement for cows is alright. It gives you a further 20 "pop" of "livestock" on top of your 30 sheep. It would just be nice if sheep were cheaper (~75 food?).

By the way, the best potential economy in the game would be a british live stock + water boom. Assuming that you do not want to exceed 100 pop in order to have some space for troops, you could have 8 vills on livestock (equivalent of 48 vills on fully upped mills) + 48 fishing boats on whale (equivalent of 60 vills on fully upped plantations) + 44 vills on either plantations/mills/wood for a total of 152 vill productivity. That means, a british economy can be 50% stronger than any other economy in the game while keeping 100 pop free for units.

Except dutch on water

Would any build actually incorporate livestock and still be efficient? I am going to have to crunch some numbers tonight after work comparing livestock to other booms

I'm not even sure about that! Dutch eco without water is weaker than 100 vills. If you add 50 fishing boats, you are still weaker than the british 150 vill productivity. Especially, given that the british have the whale oil card (+35% gather rate at whales) and the dutch don't.