- Villager's cost gold.
- 50 Villager limit.
- Can build banks that generate gold at 2.6/sec (350f/350w).
- 8 Bank limit.
- 50 extra pop cap for military.
At first glance, it seems that replacing villager's with banks, allowing the Dutch to field a larger army is a great bonus. This is until we focus on the drawbacks that make this possible. As later calculations will show there is no free population space, any civilisation can stop expanding their economy at a breaking point which will draw them level or above the Dutch gathering capabilities. To keep things simple all the comparisons are based on normal settlers. Ottoman's slower economy is supposedly balanced with a stronger military and French settler's will prove even more efficient than gold villager's.
BUILDING VILLAGERS
Apart from Ottoman and French, every other civilisation excluding Dutch pays 100f for settlers. Dutch pay the equivalent but in the form of gold. The basic gathering rates of a single villager collecting food and gold are roughly:
FOOD - (Huntable) ~ 0.78/sec
GOLD - (Gold Mine) ~ 0.60/sec
So in terms of expanding each economy, it takes this long for a villager to gather enough resources for another villager:
0.78 x 129 Seconds = 100.62 Food
0.60 x 167 Seconds = 100.2 Gold
This roughly leaves 40 seconds or so difference which can depend on many factors such as walking time, distance away from TC, distance to the next source etc. However from this we can see that food is already much more efficient for the basis of an economy. Faster queuing of villager's and the larger abundance of food on the map plays a great part in seperating both economies.
Food also can be herded closer to the TC while gold mines are not always next to the town center. Assuming there are at least 8 huntables in a herd that works out as:
8 x 400 = 3200 Food; whereas gold mines are only 2000 gold. So we can take it for granted that expanding a food economy will be much quicker than the gold one. If games were an all out boom, that is another 12 villager's more and much faster. Although currently the game is all about Age3 FF and getting access to more powerful units, though still it shows the food civ will continue to expand much quicker.
BANKS
It is obvious from the overlook that the Dutch gold economy is lacking due to gather rate and the sparseness of gold mines nearby increasing villager travel time. I believe this is where banks come in to reduce the gap between the two economies.
The food economy already has the advantage with:
- Faster queuing.
- Quicker gather rates.
- More food on the map that can be manipulated (moved).
Banks make up for:
- The lack of nearby mines, allowing for a constant supply of gold.
- Closes the gap on the number of villager's produced in the food economy, as banks count as 4 villager's built at once.
- Increases the Dutch's gold gathering capabilities.
This makes perfect sense now as banks were intended to help the Dutch catch up due to the lower gathering rate of gold. At the same time, giving the civilisation some uniqueness and distinct advantages including:
- Constant unraidable gold supply (artillery doesn't raid).
- Only civ with a gold based economy.
- Field larger armies late game with a bigger military pop available.
BANK STATISTICS
Now lets take a look at some of the stats of banks to help us understand how well banks allow Dutch to close the gap on food fueled economies. The gather rate of banks is 2.6g/sec which roughly translated is 4 villager's gathering gold from a mine with the first gold upgrade.
Here are the settings for both scenarios:
~ Bank
2.6 x 60 Seconds = 156 Gold/min
~ 4 Villager's (1st Upgrade)
0.66 x 60 Seconds = 158.4 Gold/min
There isn't much difference between the two. Let us just say the extra 2 Gold/min is traded for a safe, constant supply which is certainly an effective tradeoff. Now for the setup costs (using the total resources as the comparison):
~ Bank
350f/350w = 700 resources.
Build Time = < ~ 4 Villager's 400f + 150 Upgrade = 550 Resources Build Time = 25 Seconds/Villager Ok, so with 150 resources setup difference let us look at some calculations to show how long each method takes to become profitable, taking into account the benefits a bank brings to counter the bigger cost and higher gathering time for the wood. As I want to keep the comparison simple we will look at the total of gathered resources to match the cost of setup: ~ Bank 156/min x 4.5 Minutes = 702 Gold ~ 4 Villager's 158.4/min x 3.5 Minutes = 554.4 Gold So if you can take better care of your settler's, the cheaper setup will bring in more benefits than building a bank. Taking the 150 resources extra to get the bank and the 150 or so extra gathered makes 300 resources extra for the food economy player to spend to their advantage. FF strategies further increase this advantage as raiding is rare to non existent/effective early on and the game is about shipping units and clashing in a battle. This makes 8 banks x 300 = 2400 resources extra for them to spend if the Dutch player goes on to build the full limit of banks. So with the current trend of gameplay Dutch are falling behind majorly. This is where shipments again play an even more important part as the food economy speeds past the gold economy. To get access to 99 villager's there is only an original cost and housing cost. You get 4 banks to build to begin with then have to use 3 shipments to access the other 4 and also sacrifice military speed for a +2 bank limit from the church. Again to the age of FF, you won't be building more then 1-2 banks in Colonial before advancing to even stand a chance of competing with an eqully skilled player, who is putting to good use the extra resources he has with his faster, more efficent food economy and better more poweful shipments. SHIPMENTS As the game is currently all about using free shipments to beat your opponent, speed is key combined with a weak economy to get access to these shipments quickly. Dutch economy falls down even more as they have to use 3 of these shipments just to enable them to maximise their economy even before the cost. So you have used 2 banks at most in Colonial. This means the 3 cards you will use are the equivalent of Age3 shipments. You could even say banks 7-8 are Age4 shipments which completely annihilates the Dutch economy. For arguements sake lets say they are Age3 shipments. For simplicity I will calculate the extra advantage as resource shipments. Age3 3 x 1000 resource cards = 3000! Age3+4 1 x 1000 resource card = 1000 This added to the deficit from the setup costs difference is 5400 resources. Assuming that 2 of these cards could be played in Age4 this could add up to 6600! It roughly takes 265 villager seconds to pay off a bank and start making profit. Think of how many villager seconds a food economy that has 99 villager's gains over the gold economy with these extra shipments and a cheaper setup cost. 265vs x 8 = 2120 Villager Seconds This is just for the 8 banks you may use to TRY and equal a food based economy. Try catching up if they ship 1000 wood or something similar. So whether it is 5400 or 6600 resources deficit, most Dutch player's can't afford to waste shipments on the extra banks allowing them to build at least 6 of the banks just to compete with the free units and mercenaries being produced by your opponent. FF Age3 Warfare So the most powerful strategy at the moment is definitely the Fast Fortress. Getting to Age3 as soon as possible to make use of powerful units to overwhelm your enemy is difficult to counter in Age2 so the only option is to advance as well and try and counter fire with fire. Now I don't think the situation could get any worse for the Dutch economy as we are already miles behind but wait it does! Not only do Dutch not get access to Jaegars arguably the best mercenary in the game, they don't have very strong Age3 shipments. While economies are weak from around 13 villager's to 17 or so, mercantilism is used a lot in combination with free units and mercenaries. While these shipments battle it out, with most villager's collecting gold for mercs or the mercantilism tech itself you have to balance your economy for building houses continuing to build units to supplement your army. Going back to the original calculations we already know food gathers much more quickly than gold. Dutch's main units combined with mercenaries of their own = extremely gold intensive. Banks eventually kicking in help for the lack of gold mines available nearby, but they are so behind due to the wasting of shipments and setup costs for their economy it is impossible to compete with an equally skilled player. (Note: This is comparing Dutch with the strongest civlisations in the game, I'm sure the other weaker civlisations are in the same boat but not extensively as this in economy, but in other areas). So you have so many villager's gathering gold and so many on wood but for instance let me suggest both economies have 5 villager's on their expanding resource which is either food or gold, which would normally work out as more once you have upgraded your gathering rates: 0.78 x 129 Seconds = 100.62 Food x 5 Villager's = 503.1 Food Back comes that 40 seconds difference, now with weak economies the food economy is again shown to be able to expand a lot quicker. This is even more so possible now the Dutch army is very gold intensive, especially with falconet's. This leaves the Dutch player to make another sacrifice to build villager's to keep up with the food player's better economy or to forget that and continue to build military units to compete. Even at a slower rate the food player will be able to expand as unit shipments provide cover for cannons which don't cost food allowing them some opportunity to continue expanding their economy. With their extra 3 shipments the food player doesn't need to enable them to maximise their economy, they could have shipped in wood or gold or even more units. Giving them a more powerful army, more cannons and more map control. Allowing you less natural gold as Dutch and making you rely more on a deficit in banks that is already keeping you behind economically. This leads to your economy being harassed earlier giving them a further advantage, especially if they have Jaegars and an anti-cav unit. CONCLUSION Without an economy already suffering being able to field more units would be a great advantage, though somewhere along the line the Dutch player has to compromise. The food economy player can field just as large an army by finding the breaking point between these Dutch compromises = uniqueness in no advantage whatsoever! From the beginning to the end of the game Dutch are always behind. Meaning any equal skilled battle is enormously in your opponent's favour. People who don't play Dutch and say dutch have a great economy are insane. Even when FF isn't a prominent strategy if it gets fixed in 1.05 and extra starting resources give Dutch a quicker start. In some way or another the basis of a gold economy will still suffer major blows. -Kyle
158.4/min x 4.5 Minutes = 712 Gold
2 x 1600 resource card = 3200
Setup cost difference = 2400
0.60 x 167 Seconds = 100.2 Gold x 5 Villager's = 501 Gold
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