AoE2 Eco Upgrades

[@krotenschemel8558]

An interesting thing about wheelbarrow is that it takes rather long to research, that means, when I expect to need to micro a lot, I pick it up. So, for example, when I'm scoutrushing, as soon as the scouts are about to hit the enemy base, I go for wheelbarrow, so I don't need to bother with my villagers comming out. Whether that's economically sound may be one thing, but I think generally the aspect of "freeing up some attention" is important, yet hard to quantify.

[@creepy3ric]

good point!

[@the1onesquirrel9]

Thats really smart and Im going to keep it in mind going forward. thanks!

[@jefffinkbonner9551]

That’s some smart game sense there. Tho you could scout rush with auto scout

[@youcanthandlethetruth5433]

I do that too

[@fibonachos4810]

Love this Idea but do you really have the food floating that early?

[@Greywander87]

Gold and stone upgrades can also help you grab neutral gold and stone. If an area is contested, you might only have a limited amount of time to mine it before another player rolls in and takes over, so faster mining speed would translate directly into more total gold/stone gathered, _and_ also deny that gold/stone to your enemies. If you expect the game to drag on to the trash wars, denying your opponent gold or stone can give you as much of an edge as getting more for yourself. Forcing your opponent into trash units while you're still fielding non-trash can give you a big advantage, as can shorting your opponent one castle or a couple towers.

[@benjaminparent4115]

Trash wars are pretty rare in the most common competitive settings, in solo play the game is over before trash wars in most case and in team you generally trade, and the advantage of mining contested ressources to deny them to your opponent only pay off when he mine out is part of the map. Before he was barely denied anything, because the time he couldn't mine on that patch of ressources, is still time he can mine elsewhere on the map, so his total gold count is not really impacted until he run out of gold tile.

[@QuintemTA]

This is a good point, I had a similar thought. In matches that drag out in 1vs1 being able to deny resources by gathering them is valuable. It's probably more relevant at lower ELOs or rare case scenarios (I've had two matches drag on for 2 hours each at 1050-1100 ELO ). Also for people that play on large maps or with treaties enabled what better way to attack your opponents than mining out the maps resources.

[@mbvglider]

I agree that it helps grab neutral gold and stone, but I kinda feel like most people aren't contesting neutral resources until mid-game when I don't think 15% gathering rate is going to make the difference, whereas advancing faster and having better or more military units or defensive buildings will definitely make the difference. I think you should grab these upgrades when you are otherwise unable to use your resources and have a surplus. It's 350 resources to grab the two upgrades, which you could spend on another production building and/or more scouts. I feel like having more scouts earlier in the game can help you secure neutral resources way more than having 15% gathering rate.

[@DogMeat-]

Less military =/= Map control. On top of that you send your villagers to more vulnerable spot and you might lose game there.

[@superstar5042]

And this is the reason why pure numbers cant be applyed in game. There is a lot of various situations that cannot be simulated by just math. Also if you have banked food/wood and still needs gold why cant you make this ipgade without "ok there is about 3k gold on map... so would my upgrage be worth of it or should i just save food/wood... ok lets bring calculator for this"

[@resurgam_b7]

I've only ever played AOE2 twice in my life, I don't own it, I don't anticipate ever buying it, and I have almost no interest in the competitive scene it offers, but I'm still fascinated by SOTL's in depth analysis of the fundamentals and his concise presentation of the statistics and their impact on gameplay. I feel like even though his videos are almost exclusively focused on AOE2, the topics he discusses and his methods for valuing tech and units by how quickly they pay for themselves or comparing how much of the enemy's resources you can drain against how much you've spent, translates well to most other 4X strategy games and has made me better at Civ 5, Stellaris, Stronghold and even games like Frostpunk and X-COM. Keep it up good sir, I look forward to your future videos!

[@kotzpenner]

Absolutely same here, it's so fascinating! Not to forget his awesome soothing voice and the great channel name lol

[@icecoldchilipreppers]

wow lol. good for sotl.

[@LeaderOfTheRedNinjas]

You should totally give it a go next time you're wondering what wondering what new game to play. It sounds like you'd enjoy a lot a play style of sitting back defensively, building a large economy in the optimal way and then striking out with a huge army. Math aside, it's more responsive and direct feeling than newer RTS's, which is why we enjoy it.

[@96Logan]

Just do some ai matches and fiddled around with it, you don't need to be competitive. I got the game 6 days ago after playing aoe3 for 15 years (mostly just horsing around with friends in scenerios or against ai, but some competitive). I can't believe I dismissed it all this time.

[@RobBCactive]

I have 2,500hrs in both RTW and Stellaris, have been learning and playing AoE2 DE lately, it's fun and I am enjoying the shorter games but there is a lot to learn. BTW from what I have seen of most min-max ideas is people over focus on cost value micro and forget opportunity costs, as well as the diminishing utility of excess resources. So in this video the opportunity of increasing military as fewer vills collect faster is ignored, but much of the game is about transitioning first In RTW hiring "expensive" mercs and immediately taking a town that you can develop is better than value based penny pinching by building facilities and training pops and missing out for years as resistance grows stronger. In Stellaris people happy to leak resources on market fees, won't accept slots can be redeveloped if necessary for small mineral build costs so use a fallacy on pop payback when they aren't consumed but are redeployable.

[@The_Room_2_Doggys_Revenge]

little correction with the tribute calculation : if you send 100 res, it'll cost you 130 (100 x 1,30). Your ally still receive 100. If you pay 100, they receive 76-77 (100 / 1,30), not 70.

[@TheeDrMoseley]

if i remember correctly i think the old games when you sent 100 food, they'd receive 70ish food by standard. instead the game now automatically charges you the extra 30% when you send someone 100. That's maybe why he still referred to those numbers.

[@Cysubtor_8vb]

Been playing Definitive Edition for about a week now and the quality of life improvements over HD was noticable immediately. It's also nice to be watching these vids while being up-to-date again 🤣

[@Darfail]

Omg wait til you really start to learn the kinds of tasks you can queue, so much time and effort saved

[@WSOR6604]

Welcome home

[@danielmerhi4456]

Ahh i see you are a man of culture as well, it was off 50% on steam so I bought it too recently.

[@btafan11]

Too bad it breaks after ever garbage update. Unusable trash software

[@chimchu3232]

I was blown away when I first played it. Haven't played in 5 or 6 years, now there's so many civs and the graphics look amazing

[@matthiasvandekerkhove3594]

The caravan tech also makes your trade carts less vulnerable to raids, because they are so much faster than before.

[@EliasHasle]

Yes, and that seems to me like virtually the only reason to go caravan *before* making ten(ish) trade carts. Otherwise, it would simply be uneconomical. PS: On a second thought, I should think more thoroughly over this and do some math before concluding. Every trade cart is an investment too, that does not pay back immediately in the first place. And sometimes, food is more abundant than wood. And market time is a resource too.

[@zekleinhammer]

I think what you are buying with, for example, the gold upgrade is the ability to do double stable knights with fewer villagers on gold, or to let you save up gold for armor, monks, etc. Break even time isn’t as important as the opportunity cost at the beginning involved in saving up resources, and the flexibility afterwards to redistribute villagers, increase production, or pay for upgrades.

[@zekleinhammer]

For example, how many food gold and wood villagers do you need to run double stable knights and one tc, considering wood for farms and houses. And how is that number affected by the various upgrades. I think this would be an interesting way to do math.

[@javierangelelli1915]

@@zekleinhammer Yes! I was just thinking that. 5 lumbers with the first wood upgrade are equivalent to 6 without. So if you have that and the enemy doesn't its almost as if you have a 1 or 2 villager lead.

[@mbvglider]

15% isn't really that much, though. We're talking about the difference between 7 vs. 8 villagers. If you're able to get to Castle Age faster and get a second TC producing more consistently by skipping the gold upgrade, then you're doing just fine. You can always get that upgrade later in Castle Age. There's just no hurry for it.

[@mbvglider]

In general, IMO, you should always prioritize clicking up to Castle rather than getting this upgrade. Once you've clicked Castle, then get it whenever you think it's appropriate.

[@Real_MisterSir]

The thing is, you could just also save the cost of the tech and sell a bit at the market, which would equally allow you to run double stable knights for a good while before the break-even point would have been reached. I find that often the market is a slightly safer and more flexible bet instead of trying to save a villager or two on gold by teching into a decently expensive upgrade that you may or may not require (now gold is often always beneficial in the long run but less so with stone etc).

[@jayce8978]

Double-bit axe is considered super strong because in feudal age besides creating a villager at your only TC you can't do much. In castle age you can choose between more TCs and more vils or eco upgrades. In feudal it's the only way of getting a better eco without having to wait for potential farms to expire.

[@MantisAoECivilisationConcepts]

So glad that SOTL is part of this amazing community

[@CG-eh6oe]

Few more things to consider: -Eco upgrades make it possible to reduce the amount of villagers on a certain ressource, e.g. you only need 10 instead of 13 on gold if you get the mining upgrade. This further increases vill efficiency, as there is less bumping. Therefor, gold and to a certain degree wood upgrades are a bit better than you painted them here. -Guilds is really undersold here. Imagine getting guilds just before you sell 5k food at normal prices...you get an amazing deal. Basicially, whenever you can afford to get guild in a game that will get long, but market isnt sold out yet, you very easily get lots of gold for it.

[@suddenllybah]

I think the payoff time is good for stack ranking techs, but I don't think it captures how you should use your new economic capacity. for example, it may make more sense to get wood upgrades and divert wood villagers to gold, than to get the gold upgrade. (wood upgrades are more impactful, and wood is not a resource you aren't going to need to be invested in somewhat.

[@djjazzyjeff1232]

Why favorite thing about your videos is because unlike following a build order, you do a good job of explaining the "why."

[@Khotgor]

The farm bit doesn't seem to take into consideration that the added bonus of farm delay isn't just that the farms take longer to receed, but the food gained from the farm's cost makes it worth grabbing it on their own; being able to increase the wood conversion into food is one of the main reasons why getting the Farms is good, especially in maps where Wood is less abundant than the seemingly infinite black forest.

[@suddenllybah]

how do you translate that into payoff time? map resource effeciency is hard to translate into that.

[@lfishl22]

guess the idea comes up from previous farm upgrade video/analysis, take a look first

[@RobotShield]

I’d argue that it does or is at least implied. If you reseed your farms earlier you’re using your wood faster. If there’s less wood on the map you’ll run out of wood faster and therefore have less food. Farms in this way are thought of as producing food per minute rather than food per farm. So then it’s just a case of how fast you’ll use all your wood.

[@DEClimax]

at 12:19 the video says basically that

[@kavinh10]

i just like thinking of horse collar as saving 20-25wood 4mins from now. if u get it early it's obviously more efficient but 75food 75 wood for a payout of 25ish wood 4 mins from then is pretty steep especially since food is by far the most valuable resource during feudal

[@flavvsdasilver6442]

Stoneshaft mining is an indirectly offensive tech in that its utility is in stealing your opponent's stone as fast as possible.

[@HistoricalWeapons]

if only we can have some real life eco upgrades

[@TheSummersilk]

They exist, called low taxes.

[@Epicepicnessess]

@@TheSummersilk But muh free shit and gibs. :c

[@gnochhuos645]

man idk if being able to chop a tree 15% faster will lead to a 15% increase in wage at mcdonalds

[@michasokoowski6651]

But man... we do... Steam engine for example was one of the biggest ones.

[@TheSummersilk]

@@gnochhuos645but anything you need to buy at the market made of wood will be cheaper!

[@gosphor2826]

Preparation for Burgundy civ overview video, right? I hope so.

[@Tocaraca]

You keep skipping over the fact that Guilds applies to the market for all of its prices, not just the bottomed out ones. So if you research it at the beginning of imperial age when nobody has mass sold wood or food yet, you change the exchange from 70 gold per 100 res to a whopping 85 gold per 100 res, or potentially even more if you or the opponent had been buying food (or less likely wood) in feudal/castle age. That changes the payoff time significantly.

[@accipitermagna7104]

he covered that in the Guilds video, but yes that is a fair argument

[@Weldedhodag]

try and bottom that shit out ASAP if you think the game is gonna drag on to screw over your opponent

[@TheWozbo]

Hey sprit, for each of these upgrades, should we consider the cost of the additional villagers you *dont* have to make, as a part of break even? If something gives you “2 villagers” it kinda feels like that’s 100 food you are getting back vs making more villagers and putting them on wood. Curious to hear your thoughts.

[@TheWozbo]

I feel like this misses that a part of the valuable limited resources you have (arguably until mid castle) is town center time. You gain effectively more villagers, at a certain time point that you can’t just make immediately.

[@benjaminparent4115]

@@TheWozbo Ooh saving time center time is really good point.

[@suddenllybah]

saving town center time is exactly why getting the feudal wood and farm upgrades are easy pick-ups once you get there, and why the villager capacity and speed upgrades are often delayed till castle. You don't have to forgo adding villagers to get them, and adding villagers expands your economy as well. I remember doing some math to show that basically, you age up in AoE not for economics reasons until you can get to castle and have resources banked to make town centers, because losing town center time to age ups is not possible to make up with feudal econ upgrades. this is why part of the reason boom (i.e. making the biggest economy possible) tries to skip feudal age. Obviously, once you hit castle, having spent like 5 minutes of TC time just aging up is pretty easy to offset with triple the TCs you have accessible.

[@neophyte_DQT]

For Stone Shaft Mining, the main use I find for it is if I really need some of the neutral stone, but it is unsafe to mine. Maybe I don't have any castles nearby, or I know the enemy is raiding a lot. The slightly faster stone mining speed should let me grab a bit more stone before the villagers get raided off of it

[@endlessgalaxyz]

And then you get knocked off it & that upgrade spent is wasted for the rest of the game so only grab the first upgrade

[@retroschrott1560]

i want to point out that heavy plum gives your vils also a carry capacity of +1 - not quiet like wheelbarrow, but you can click it i.e. if you went as archer-flank straight for castle age without wheelbarrow in feudal (and want a fast imp transition)

[@thagikaagrajith]

Gold mining upgrades maybe theoretically not worth but when you pick it up it actually means you will grab all the gold on a certain area of a map as fast as possible reducing the chance of getting raided while mining in a considerable distance or even getting all the gold on the map you can as fast as possible since at the end you will give less chance for the opponent to take over your gold and mine it for themselves

[@talmagejones]

I loved understanding the logic behind the techs. I always want to know when things are most efficient to get and why techs are best researched at certain times. Spirit, thanks for all you do to keep improving the community!

[@connormako1987]

After watching the wheelbarrow/handcart video I felt like I had a perfect understanding of when the tech is optimal. I could pro games and tell who was getting at the right and wrong times objectivly. While I know this wasn't the goal of this video (00:30) I would love a video that helps me understand the eco techs as intimately has the handcart video helped me understand handcart.

[@giacomov.5120]

The gold and stone upgrade are also useful to "steal" the neutral resources

[@Weldedhodag]

or steal your opponents resources after you drop a castle in their base

[@mubashirulmoula1798]

Can we have a part 2 explaining how civilization bonuses, especially Sicilians and Poles change the farm upgrades?

[@derPandre]

I love eco upgrades so much, so satisfying xD Thank you for the video

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

This was good for seeing how my vill placement on resources should look, too!

[@forsakenquery]

On the eco upgrade lines - There is a lot of debate even among pros about which Burgundian early Eco upgrades are worth it and when. A full analysis of this would be a really interesting video.

[@firockfinion3326]

Little error at 6:08 of having, "gold miners" on screen instead of, "stone miners".

[@PeterWhittam]

Spirit of the Law: the king of alternative perspectives.

[@AlfonsoCabrera90]

I think that the best way to improve the mining technologies is that also increase the efficiceny of the exploited resource. Per exemple, the second mining tech add 1 additional stone per each 10 that is displayed. So if you want to get the most from the ores is better to rush them as soon as possible to get a bit if extra resources while also increasing the collection rate.

[@forsakenquery]

They don't add resources to the pile (unless you're Mayan or Pole), they drain them faster.

[@AlfonsoCabrera90]

@@forsakenquery I didn't say that the techology would add, I said that to the civilizations that researched that tech should get an efficiency bonus that, exemple, every ten units that the villager get they mine 1 additional that is not from the ores but as a bonus. That's because SoTL showed that the last mining upgrades are mostly useless.

[@altasar7]

Thank you for your work Spirit Of The Law! :)

[@ottokarl5427]

Interesting question to play around with: As a rule of thumb, in a "maxed out" situation, you should have between 100 and 120 villagers (maybe even between 120-140, so lets just pick 120). How much villager would you need to have if you never picked up any upgrades? So in short, how many villagers (or rather how much supply) do the upgrades save you?

[@DaemonPrimarch]

I'm curious to know how the stone mining techs interact with the Poles gaining gold from stone miners.

[@joelcarrizales2435]

For every 2 stone Poles mine, they get 1 gold. Slightly faster Stone Mining results in half as much of an increase in their gold bonus.

[@shannonmikko9865]

I'm really glad you touched on Burgundians because I've been wondering about that. Great video as always Spirit ^_^

[@Cynndora]

Always found it weird the more expensive late game techs are worse than the early stuff.

[@shukterhousejive]

It's a combination of scale (you should be getting up at least 80 vills after Imp) and the idea that if a game is going long then the player with the tech will outproduce their opponent, even if the margins are slim. Also, don't forget that AOE2 was created before the concept of a courtesy GG from a losing player, the devs assumed that one player would have to obliterate the other (or grind out relics or wonders) so crop rotation would pay off in far more games

[@Greywander87]

At that point, though, your economy is much stronger, so a few hundred extra food or wood isn't as much of a barrier as it was in Dark or Feudal Age.

[@tomascanevaro4292]

It's literally just inflation in-game. Spirit did a video about this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXnFgWCsmrejoZY

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@shukterhousejive fuck a forfeit, I've had it happen multiple times where somebody got so pissed that I didn't give them their forfeit that they actually tilted themselves and lost, although that was rocket league 1v1s which are a little more random than AoE2. AoE is a game of stamina as much as it's a game of strategy.

[@captain_malaria]

​@@tissuepaper9962this is a really dumb comment, congrats

[@henriqueoliveira2840]

Great content as always. ps. I posted this before watching.

[@kleebl00d84]

Regarding Caravan: In a 256x Match i found this to also effect the amount of gold per trip. Reserching it ~10 times rises the amount of gold for one trade cart/ship significantly, leading to absuldely high numbers for even higher research numbers like 40k gold per trip.

[@kuanittobonoparty3560]

your footage quality is insane! better than max graphics in reality (I have fullhd)

[@michiewsha6933]

Gotta say I love your videos! So mathy and well-thought-of! Keep it up big TY!

[@j.p.691]

One of the best videos for aoe2

[@JGoffHard]

keep them coming my man. you are the best. we love you.

[@Gthelegendary]

Nice video bro, thanks for the info 🧐

[@martinxvidxb]

Hi. I'm not sure it it is worth a postproduction update, but there is a typo at 6:10. "27 gold miners" should be "27 stone miners".

[@AlessAbreu]

I am a simple man. I see a SOTL video, I press the like button.

[@w0lv]

12:37 you mean third town center, right? great video, helps me understand why sometimes its not the best choise to get upgrades immidiatly after , say, aging up.

[@DctrBread]

interesting conversation here, because there is also the comparison between eco upgrades and building a new town center with new villagers. I'm noticing that some of these actually pay for themselves faster than a new TC. Some of these even pay for themselves as fast as a villager set to farm, assuming that a villager plus 60 wood takes 5 minutes villager labor to afford.

[@shubox5040]

Happy New Year, Spirit Of The Law!

[@bare_bear_hands]

What I know is you prioritize worker speed and woodcutting, as food (no specific tech for that) and wood are used to pay for the others, so that's the most efficient route.

[@estellebright2579]

6:19 dunno if other guy picked this up, but I feel the word after 27 should be stone miners, unless I missed something.

[@Fangh44]

Thank you for this explanation ! It was clear !

[@denizumut1]

that moment when you realise Coinage icon have written "Forgotten Empires Rex" on it

[@DudeBoerGaming]

Good work as always Mr Spirit

[@Dracobyte]

Thank ypu for the tech tutorial guide!

[@tonyschrock627]

@SOTL The mill upgrades could be calculated by how much they reduce the cost of the wood to food conversion. Like, if it's 75 wood for 300 food it's .25 wood per food. Post upgrades if it's 75 wood for 600 food, that ratio drops to .125 wood per food. A net savings (or return on investment) of 75 wood over the time required to farm the 600 food. You probably thought of this already, but it seems like a reasonable way to provide a literal return on investment or payoff time-- like you did for all the other techs. Payoff time = resource cost of upgrade / ((post upgrade conversion ratio - base conversion ratio) * amount of food in farm / total time to farm all the food) * number of farmers Example values: 150 .35 .25 300 600 10 150 resources .10 10% better wood to food conversion ratio 300 food in farm 600 seconds to harvest 10 farmers Payoff time = 150 / .10 * 300 / 600 * 10 150 / .5 resources/second For this totally made up example using fake numbers, it'd take 300 seconds to pay back (or "save") the resource cost of the upgrade.

[@73n0r]

There is another dimension to the mill upgrades, especially in a long game. The cost of one farm is 60 wood, without upgrades, farming converts this into 175 food, with all upgrades it is converted into 550 food. At bottomed out prices at the market (17 gold for 100 food with guilds), 175 food can be converted into 29,75 gold. 550 food converts into 93,5 gold. So, for every 1 wood invested into farming, without upgrades you get 29,75 ÷ 60 ≈ 0,5 gold. With the upgrades it is 93,5 ÷ 60 ≈ 1,56 gold for every wood!! That's kinda of a nice deal :)

[@athada2]

Just a reminder for anyone reading that the harvest rate doesn't change. So... you don't get extra food per minute directly, just extra food per wood invested.

[@Iqdppb]

Awesome content as always! Just thinking, shouldn't trademill crane be considered an eco upgrade as the time you save building can be used collecting resources?? What about a video explaining that?

[@santiagowu5365]

I like to play vikings because of their free wheelbarrow and hand cart. It saves a lot of time and resources for either FC, or booming.

[@roym2185]

Great summary here as always. Look forward to your vids and often get a little useful tidbit to add to gameplay each time. There's no more support from 'I lick toes at night'? That was one of the payoffs for watching the full video through to credits haha. Or it changed tier so not mentioned in video (as it's in the list still)?

[@Tudsamfa]

I really hope we get a video about Keshik economy in 3 months, really diving deep in the optimal team composition of Tartars, Byz an Teutons. As well as a comparrison to the inferior Feitoria and Trade economies.

[@nathanokeefe7063]

Effishingcy. Absolutely legendary.

[@ash12181987]

I miss 'ILickToesAtnight' He was the best patron

[@reinhardruescher2134]

question: if some of your vills get killed, then it's kinda nice to know you're making "better" villagers to replace them if you have the techs. In other words, techs can't die, extra villagers can.

[@typicalKAMBlover21]

Hi Spirit of the law, I think your estimate still has a problem. At least for strategies such as fast castle, the calculation also has to include the opportunity cost of not being able to create more villagers. The resources spent on eco upgrade could have been used to produce villagers. I would suggest comparing between castle rush between taking those eco upgrades and not taking them at the beginning but towards the end.

[@kartiksaraf4676]

I just thought of a slightly different way crop rotation helps and I am not sure if it is correct. Without crop rotation for 60 farmers you need around 10 villagers, assuming going paladins only. With crop rotation that number drops to 5 or 6 I think and thus giving you extra population space which can be a big concern in late game. Not 100% on the numbers thom just something I remember from over the years

[@UltimaGaina]

Guilds is reducing the commodity trading fee from 30% to 15%. Isn't it applicable before prices hit rock bottom? I think so. In a way, guilds is bringing other civs closer to the Saracen market. In that case, the payback might be faster.

[@Volcano4981]

I was thinking the same - Guilds definitely would pay for itself much faster if food or wood haven't bottomed out, or if you're selling excess stone. Then you can start getting ahead once the prices have indeed bottomed out. And even then, that 8000+ benchmark is often worth it in a long post-Imp/campaign setting.

[@philippledger3053]

This is such an extremely SotL video that I'm kinda surprised he hadn't made it already.

[@whydoyougottahavthis]

Finally another good video for the only game that matters! AOEEEEEE 2 also 1 is fun too

[@whydoyougottahavthis]

Also played Mythology which was fun but haven't played in over a decade, prolly never will, AoE2 or die!

[@Yeldibus]

What happened to I-lick-toes-at-night? Did the money threshold to be mentioned by name go up? Did they fall on hard times and cancelled their sub?

[@landoncore92]

Looks like they may have cancelled, I didn't see their name in the Patreon list there

[@elmanhux]

While most of the stuff sounds really reasonable I gotta disagree with the method of calculating the worth of guilds. While it is true that you raise the min price from 14 -> 17, hence +3 gold per sell the method here totally ignores the fact that it changes the start values from 70/70/91 (food/wood/stone) to 85/85/110 -> 15/15/19 more gold per sell which only declines after enough stuff was actually sold this means guilds are more worth it while prices are higher and vice versa

[@rubywest5166]

Yeah, if you're in a game where there's not much market play in Castle Age you can get a nice chunk of gold to kickstart Imperial/tank the market for your opponents.

[@dirkauditore8413]

@@rubywest5166 Nice economic sabotage that you inflict to your opponents, worsening the amount of gold they get per trade on the market. I'm gonna try to apply it more often.

[@Greywander87]

I have to keep reminding myself not to think _too_ long term, or else I'll lose in the short term. No joke, before I started watching Spirit of the Law and adjusting my strategy, I would _constantly_ find myself getting raided even by moderate AIs before I had any kind of defenses up. I was just a slow player, and mostly focused on building up my economy. Obviously I'd want to get the eco techs as soon as possible, since that would give the biggest payout over the long term. But that doesn't matter if you don't survive until then. I could take the resources I would have spent on eco upgrades and use them to train some military units instead, which will help me survive to the late game. You have to properly balance the long term and the short term.

[@Kasumi69118]

You just have to think of early towers, walls, or military units as another roundabout economy tech. A small handful of military units now, like a handful of knights will send the easier AI's packing especially if they just aggro on buildings. You don't want to be trying to make units while you're already under attack, because even a horde of trash units will just snipe your knights faster than you can make them just through sheer numbers. Also, try to run your scout through their base and just see if the AI has a bunch of military standing around and massing up. And you'll see the AI's comp too, so you won't just have to blindly make units. It's all a lot to manage, and don't feel bad if things slip through the cracks, that's going to happen. Just keep queuing up villagers and putting them to work on something until the numbers start to look good.

[@Greywander87]

@@Kasumi69118 Yeah, I've gotten much better at the game since then. My Castle Age times aren't quite as good as I'd like them to be, but they're leaps and bounds better than what they were. As for walling, what I used to do is scope out usually around a full quarter of the map (in a game with 7 AIs) and wall it off, then line the _entire_ wall with towers. Think about how much stone that takes, and how long it would take to build, even if you had the stone. Yeah, once the wall and towers were up, I was basically immune to invasions and could safely build up my force of 40 fully upgraded paladins or whatever, but I'd often be dead long before reaching that point.

[@emperorofthegreatunknown4394]

Need to pause the video to watch the intro first.

[@Dabeyoun]

Which order should you prioritize your eco upgrades? Very simple. You should always get Double Bit Axe before Bow Saw or Horse Collar before Heavy Plow or Wheelbarrow before Handcart. I hope this help you guys when choosing which upgrades to get.

[@besacciaesteban]

Guilds is great for a cheezze strat where you tank the price of wood or food early

[@andysanders262]

This vid speaks in terms of total resources spent and time to get those total resources repaid. However, I don’t think that’s the only way to look at it. For example, If you’re fast castling and you want to send a group to stone as you click up to castle drop, your main concern is getting stone quickly to drop it for a competitive advantage. The concern about the math of repaying that resource cost means way less in this instance. And collecting “resources” are not equal in this example as you cannot collect wood for instance and sell it to buy stone at anywhere near a comparable price. Indeed, you just need to Mine stone faster. There are plenty of other examples like this. As a matter of fact I’d say most games have a special circumstance that render the math of this less than ideal to follow. These SOTL videos are amazing…I’ve watched them all and they’re incredibly helpful. But you have to keep in mind game script, opponent, map, etc all in mind. You cannot boil it down to how many villagers at a certain time etc.

[@mladenlalov6756]

I just found your channel since I started playing AoE 4 after a long long brake from the from the franchise, and I've been bringing your videos since, particularly the civs overview ones. Do you plan to do civ overviews for AoE 4?

[@acole5975]

I can see stone mining being useful for tower rushes or tower focused civs.

[@demiserofd]

A cheeky trick people may not consider: Your farms may have quite a few resources banked when you get Hand Cart. Since you slowly lose ground on your farms with wheelbarrow and heavy plow, a farm that's been half gathered will probably have a nearly full food stockpile, which you can then collect at the farmer's full rate for a while. I tried it out just now, and for the last 200 food, my farmer collected at a rate of 0.43. Basically you'll get a free 15 extra food in the next minute or two per farm. Essentially it retroactively gives you hand cart for any farms that have been up for a few minutes. So my personal general guideline is to get it as soon as you have your first layer of farms around all your TCs. With even 8 villagers going around one tc, it's an effective buy when you calculate in the extra 120 food you can get.

[@besacciaesteban]

That burgundian on arena feeling when you lay your first farm with heavy plough completed 🤣🤣

[@Pheonixywl]

I think gold mining shaft is a very useful tech, it can add more vils to gold in the mid game

[@TisTheWay]

I would love to see a video on Pols and their mining stats. Especially there mining stone to get gold

[@ChiRhoXP3]

Spirit of the Math teacher

[@nemes1s_aoe]

While I agreed with the payoff-time approach in the discussion of extra TCs in castle age, I do not agree with the same approach for eco upgrades. Like you mentioned, mill upgrades are different from other eco techs as they do delay a wood expenditure rather than increase the food collection rate (The castle age farm upgrade does increase the food collection rate slightly due to +1 carry capacity). I'll give my perspective regarding eco techs that increase collection rate (This is also how I imagine celt, slav, Turk and Korean civ bonuses of collection rates). Getting the feudal wood upgrade when I've 10 on wood roughly gives me 2 extra villagers compared to not having the upgrade. Conversely, if my opponent has taken the wood upgrade and I've not and both have 10 vills on wood, then I'm essentially behind by 2 vills. There are situations (such as extended feudal age with heavy scout+archers) play when both players reach castle age with market usage to balance eco and also having surplus resources on reaching castle age. There's only so many options one can go for to SPEND THOSE RESOURCES. The player who has 4+4 knights queued in 2 stables is in a worse spot than one who reseeded 2 fewer farms to add a third stable and has 3+3+2 knights queued instead. Coming to the role of eco upgrades, here's a scenario: 1 player adds 2 extra TCs in castle age (about 6-7 minutes till he reaches ROI with no boost) on the other hand the other player stays 1 TC and gets the CASTLE AGE gold AND stone upgrades ASAP while producing military. Say P2 had 10-12 on gold when they took the ADDITIONAL gold upgrade, they now have about 2 extra vills, that they can put on any resources. Maybe P2 sends those to stone with few more new vills and hits a castle drop timing at a time when the opponent hasn't received the boost from the boom. Summary: There is this point of view of every EXTRA eco upgrade COMPARED to the opponent, effectively functioning as extra villagers on that resource. A good part of the "economy" game is about what is the total food, wood, gold collection rates are and what villager+military production can it sustain.

[@suddenllybah]

I think you are right to say that payoff time doesn't make sense to compare econ techs that make villagers more impactful directly (wood, stone, gold, speed, and capacity) to techs that do weirder stuff (guilds, and farm upgrades). I think the payoff time is still useful for comparing gold to wood upgrades, for example, it just doesn't tell you directly if the best action for increasing gold collection is to get the wood upgrade and divert wood villagers to gold, rather than get the gold upgrade directly.

[@-Raylight]

But which eco upgrades are the best for 256x tech? 😆

[@ProperlyBasic11]

Double bit axe 6-8 times gives you ton of wood with 6-8 vils on wood and then you can put 60-80 on farms Wheelbarrow helps with collection, but can make farming tricky if used too much Caravans 3-5 times is stupidly powerful, though too much higher and you risk them getting stuck in the markets Though not an eco tech per se, loom done 5+ times means raiding is far less effective early game

[@davidkahrs3759]

I usually do ~15 Wheelbarrows. Above 20, Villagers are almost guaranteed to bug (and also hold so much food you may have to force-drop often). But yeah, depending on your map and gametype, some techs can matter more or less. Gillnets is the only way to speed up food collection, so on a map with even small ponds, it might be worth laying some Fish Traps and speeding up that gather rate. On a map like Black Forest, you could argue prioritizing wood over food, selling the wood, and buying food works, but eventually prices will be too bad. If you don't want to focus on repeatedly selling at the market, then you just have to place farms and wait for them. Food is definitely the slow resource in 256x.

[@michaelcross7665]

Double bit axe and wheelbarrow. Just remember that if you do wheelbarrow enough you'll mess with farming eco. Easiest way to get around that is to ring the town bell. They're so fast at that point they'll drop almost instantly so you can dismiss quickly as well

[@advagross3177]

Love the video!

[@m136dalie]

Surprised SotL hasn't done an in-depth video on when to pick up eco techs as burgundy yet

[@dirkauditore8413]

He will most definitely do it in due time.

[@superstar5042]

Becouse there is no right time to do upgrades (for any civ) its all very situational. And it cant be calculated just by math

[@VuLinhAssassin]

What would be the calculations for Vietnamese, as their economic upgrades do not cost wood?

[@david_oliveira71]

Oh yeah--there we go!

[@drabash]

Spirit, in your wrap up part, you forgot wheelbarrow in your 5min pay back time. Hope you didn't forget to drink your coffee while making this video xD

[@zachariastsampasidis8880]

TL Dr get all your upgrades sooner rather than later generally except for crop rotation

[@PhatChin]

Unrelated: AOE2:DE AI now uses Onagers to cut the Michi partition starting in Castle age!

[@asdfman-xg1po]

You can't get onagers in castle age tho

[@PhatChin]

@@asdfman-xg1po AI can LOL

[@asdfman-xg1po]

@@PhatChin can't wait for trebs in feudal age

[@PhatChin]

@@asdfman-xg1po LOL

[@PhatChin]

More: It's a perfect 2-tree path, leading up from AI starting TC. Only one Onager was seen doing this, and it seeming had trouble locating more trees when the line was cut. It kept firing at nothing, so I'm assuming the AI is programmed to fire with attack ground. Anyway, it was weird because I kept hearing the Onager shots and had no idea where it was coming from until I built some scout towers. AI immediately destroyed my scout tower and that seemed to break the attack ground loop. It continued to attack my base.

[@6million1]

Where is the aoe4 content? There are so many math and unexplained interactions in the game and I NEED you.

[@GoodnotGreat88]

Would love to see this for AoE4

[@FizzleFX]

10:35 you sure it *doesnt slow down how quickly stuff loses value?*

[@geodudism]

i like the effishingcy pun xD i wonder how many people noticed it

[@skaughtey7199]

I'm no expert, but the way I see it is the stone and gold economy upgrades are less about efficient payback and more about collecting contested tiles as quickly as possible. Yeah you may have idle villager time, but better that you collected that gold as opposed to your enemy.

[@ryanforgo3500]

Regarding the gold/stone shqft mining. It seem to me that in many cases it is even better to just strsight up sell the 320 rss rather than push the tech upgrsde. Especialy when rss are still worth 60/70 per 100 and "extra especially" jf you are seracens.

[@hbarudi]

I am the get as soon as you afford the tech person especially for the eco techs. Once researched, you will have the tech for the rest of the game which is usually longer than the pay off time. If anything, we can ask the devs to lower the cost of the techs to 50% their original cost and lower the cost of Burgundian to 25%.

[@terrab1ter4]

Everyone: Low Elo Legends: "Eh, I'm just going to get all the techs."

[@oyuyuy]

Not a huge fan of looking at payback times here. All payback time good for is to know what to upgrade first in case you can't afford it all. If you CAN afford it and have 30 minutes to spare, all the upgrades are worth getting asap. If you have 2 minutes before needing an army, none of the upgrades are worthwhile. The real question, how much time do you have?

[@IschmarVI]

in a game like aoe2, you don't have 30 minutes to spare. The enemy will just kill you within that time.

[@oyuyuy]

@@IschmarVI Read that one more time.

[@NottoriousGG]

Isn't there strategic value in the final stone upgrade if there is a known and disputed neutral stone deposit for the sake of exausting the resource and denying it from the enemy, one could even consider the concurrent move of, if the prices are still moderate to buyout as much stone from the market to build up enough reserves of the res for a long post-imp game where the opponent pays "with more and more of his own blood" for each castle he/she wants to build? 700 elo with 14 games ranked, working on single player campaigns in chrono order in moderate difficulty.