On average one normal villager will gather at a rate of around 0.78 per second for walking time and shooting.
With a hunting upgrade one normal villager will gather 0.858 per second.
Market and Hunting Upgrade Costs 150 wood and 50 gold all up. This is equivalent to 300 seconds + 83 seconds gathering time = 383 seconds of one villager idle time.
Let's say you get rushed at 6:00 and are forced to stop hunting.
Let's also assume you have 8 Villagers hunting for 6 minutes of the game. This is 60 x 8 x 6 x 0.858 = 2471 food with upgrade. Without upgrade this is 60 x 7 x 8 x 0.78 = 2246 food, or 225 food difference. Without an upgrade this is only equal to 288 seconds of villie gathering time, thereby not repaying your debt but costing you about 2 minutes of villie gathering time.
Now on the other hand if you rush and manage to hunt for 10 minutes.
Assuming you have 8 Villagers hunting for 10 minutes of the game. This is 60 x 8 x 10 x 0.858 = 4188 food with upgrade. Without upgrade this is 60 x 8 x 10 x 0.78 = 3744 food, or 444 food difference. Without an upgrade this is equal to 569 seconds of villie gathering time, big time repayment of about 3 minutes gathering time.
So in due course it looks like the best way to use the hunting upgrade is in conjunction with a rush to ensure you don't get rushed thereby negating the effects of your upgrade. If they get hunting upgrade and don't rush then they lose 2 minutes while you gain 3 minutes hurting them severely. Of course they could try building towers to stop a rush though as expert comp rushes have shown towers aren't very effective either.
Of course, if you knew the other guy had a market and got hunting dogs, you could do a 4:00 rush and without hunting upgrade actually get a better eco because they can't hunt and lost time with the villie seconds. smile.gif
The statistics don't have time to build market, time to research and that so it's a bit more severe than the results show but the results overall should still say the same message.
I upgraded the rush time to 7:00 and I added two villagers for a different scenario. I also made the times slightly more accurate for a second comparison.
If you want slightly more accurate times then consider the additional building time of a market for 15 seconds and the research of 20 seconds for hunting dogs. Assume you also spend 5 seconds unpacking crates. This adds 5 + 15 + 20 secs hunting unupgraded.
So now you have to pay back 403 idle second times. With 10 Villies hunting for 7 minutes = (10 x 60 x 0.858 x 6.5) + (10 x 60 x 0.78 x 0.5) = 3346 + 234 = 3580
For non-upgraded at all, 10 x 60 x 0.78 x 7 = 3276. This is a 304 difference of food.
304 difference = 389 seconds which means you still haven't paid back your debt.
This further proves my hypothesis that basically ONLY if you plan on hunting for a long time is it worth it getting hunting dogs. This is all based on the short-run as if you get wood and gold upgrades then the market building cost is shared among all 3 costs thereby making 7 minutes with 10 villies actually cost-worthy, though then you have to ask yourself how long will the average aoe3 game really last?
So what do you guys think? Am I a complete idiot or do I make a valid point?