Perfect lumber camps every time (Aoe2)

[@JD-qq8fz]

We'll see how the 8 year lumber camp video refresh meta pans out over the next couple years

[@felixcroc]

See you all in 2031

[@Nysyarc]

Personally I think he should make multiple accounts and test refreshing every 4 years, every 2 years and even annually. There just isn't enough data to suggest that 8 years is definitively the most optimal refresh period for lumber camp videos.

[@clayprice924]

that’s a lot of work 😅

[@riaz8783]

You know Spirit of the Law takes his data visualizations seriously when he points out a non-zero y-axis start.

[@AlphaSections]

You probably won't get this reference from Xenosaga but, "Give us the Y-Data!!"

[@YellowVillager]

@@AlphaSections 11

[@MC-yt1uv]

Non-zero Y axis seems to be one of the most common ways to mislead with data, so I am glad he pointed it out. It will be something like car crashes increased in the city last year, with the axis starting at 500 and seemingly doubling when it jumps to 501.

[@bradmyst1339]

Spirit of the laws, the real hero of this game. All this information is so helpful.

[@md.nasiruddinprotul1315]

Dude, you put sooo much effort in these videos... hats off

[@diegovarela8097]

Last time I was this early, Aztecs still started with free loom

[@4_dennyfauzulhakim479]

They don't anymore??

[@IndexInvestingWithCole]

That must be like 10 years ago or something lol

[@diegovarela8097]

@@4_dennyfauzulhakim479 sadly no :(

[@lopud_vn]

@@4_dennyfauzulhakim479 They no longer have free loom, instead of that they got +50 gold :)

[@scintillam_dei]

DE is cartoony, and they ruined the conquistadores by making them hunchbacked and weak. Not worth playing.

[@danielmorton9956]

I would drop the 4th order term. At 75^4 it contributes ~-127 versus 1054 for 75^3. It is likely overfitting, but it doesn't really matter for this. In general 4th order + fits are avoided without special cause. I would guess that parameter is not stable over the increment and is just correcting for the last point. It kills the extrapolation here as it means the stockpile goes down past 750 or so.

[@HaBBiSiFy]

I was also surprised about the 4th order term, wasn't very math-y from Spirit!

[@florianapunkt8775]

Actually, you don't really need to do all the trendline shenanigans at all. Just subtracting each datapoint from the following one gives you how much wood was collected in the time in between measurements. If it was not 1 minute already, you would now divide by the timespan in between the measurements. Depending how good you are at pausing the game at every minute, you could then also use arbitrary timestamps and time deltas between measurements. But that's maybe for the next video :D

[@danielmorton9956]

@@florianapunkt8775 The drop-off is discrete, and regressions allow for approximations and statistical variance. I guarantee it would yield different results based on different delta t's. That is a differential look and assumes the rate is constant in time. If you are averaging them at the end regardless, you might as well do a regression, since you are just doing a zeroth order regression.

[@cvx007]

I can already see myself overthinking my lumberjack placements in the next game. :D

[@deoskipsbasics]

Hi, just found out about your channel, I really appreciate the experimentation you do to justify your answers, as someone who never played aoe2 in depth until a couple of days ago, this is really helpful and easy to understand

[@JJBeauregard1]

I'll assume 2 camps in Dark Age are more efficient but not enough to immediately offset the cost of the second camp. That's fine though because I always saw the second camp more as a safety play for when you get raided early so to not lose your whole wood income if you are attacked. That's why I never build the two camps on the same wood line and stick to one if my map is bad and a second wood line would be too far away.

[@aoe4fun1]

u should consider 1 lumber camp whenever u have a back wood line, especialy when it has plenty of trees.

[@michaelreid274]

Plus, also, those wood villies can be temporarily repurposed to build walls, houses or barracks walls etc in the correct spot and have less walking time if they're spread out. (In fact that is often a question I have in my head, even if I have two back woods am I better on the average with at least 1 forward woodline to save repurposing other food villies etc with longer walk and reaction times to aggression)

[@djjazzyjeff1232]

@@michaelreid274 walking time is massive especially early game and especially if your opponents actually know how to play the game.

[@camdendexter]

Would it make sense to maintain 1 lumber camp only until the ~14 minute mark, spinning up a second would maximize efficiency then?

[@MaryamMaqdisi]

@@camdendexternot necessarily, the main takeaway is whether you have enough wood for everything you need, if you have a spare 100 wood and you can defend a second camp then it’s a good idea

[@petrnevecny1440]

Great video, this is how high quality youtube content should look like. I expect another lumber camp efficiency video in 8 years!

[@melissagrenier2200]

This video has helped me think of two ideas to improve my gameplay. 1. Refresh lumber camps slightly less often. I usually refresh them as often as possible just to feel like I'm doing something. They end up looking like this 3:45 2. Instead focus on seeking out new wood lines to keep splitting up lumberjacks as my vil count grows during those times that I'd be making unnecessary lumbercamps. The second one I was already starting to realize but the first I didn't know was suboptimal.

[@paterson90]

It's Friday, SOTL posted a new AoE2 vid, today's gonna be a good day!

[@scintillam_dei]

Today a Cambodian almost murdered me for nothing.

[@SirQuantization]

Great video! Regarding the first 5 vills on the treeline I just shift+queue all of their targets and the 5th vil chops a 3rd tree further along. Super efficient.

[@hybralisk]

This is a wonderful video and excellent coverage of an interesting topic that I've always wondered about over the years in AoE games since day 1. Thanks for providing such thorough coverage on so many topics, and doing a great update like this!!!

[@FluffyFractalshard]

man i dont even play age of empires but your videos are just so wholesome i keep coming back to them. i've probably watched your civ overview-playlist 5 times already :D

[@gustavchambert7072]

I think one important question was missed here. The question of how the two inefficiency factors of number of villagers per camp and camp placement frequency interact. Spontaneously I would guess that a large group of villagers will see their efficiency reduce slower, or maybe even increase slightly, as the distance between the woodline and the camp increases, due to less bumping. I'm not sure if this would be enough for, say, 15 villagers to make it more efficient to place camps less often, but it certainly seems possible. I very, extremely, unequivocally seriously demand that you make an addendum video to explore this burning question before the wood chopped in the making of this video runs out and we have nothing to burn!

[@pokeybit]

Doesn't hurt to say please.

[@magnus6785]

It is scheduled for the next lumber camp video in 8 years from now 😄

[@gustavchambert7072]

@@magnus6785 perfect! I'll mark it in my calendar xD

[@fidrewe99]

I've investigated this question for the case of gold mining, no upgrades. It was only with 12 workers or more on an 8 tile gold mine when a 1 tile gap to the gold became more favorable than no gap. At this point the total efficiency for gathering all of the gold had already dropped by 19% compared to 1 miner only. So the increased walking time outweights the reduced pumping due to villager dispersion, unless the number of miners becomes impractially large. For chopping wood you have to factor in lumbercamp renewal cost, less crowing because of more chopping space and more significant overchopping (therefore more frequent walks) due to less ressources per tile, but in total, I expect the outcome to be similar.

[@gustavchambert7072]

@@fidrewe99 I expect the same, tbh, but it would have been cool to know :)

[@Padsoldier]

For the question at 9:01 - during the test where you built the Lumber Camp directly against the woodline, did you observe any villagers get trapped or blocked by the others? It might be useful to run the same test a few times to see how likely villagers trapping each other is, and how much of an impact it has.

[@colummccrudden101]

I think he took that into consideration at the start?

[@mathdantastav2496]

@@colummccrudden101 he calculated amount of wood in bank, trapped villagers do not collect wood, so yes, it was taken into consideration. What I think padsoldier is trying to say, is that it might be a bit luck based how often villagers get stuck, so u should take the test several times to see the avarage, since u can just end up beeing lucky if u only do it once

[@bluerendar2194]

@@mathdantastav2496 tbf some of the other tests where that could be an issue, there were some nice, fairly linear trends, suggesting this randomness is not that much

[@suddenllybah]

Given the build is done on pause, I imagine that he perfect plays the lumber camp install

[@colummccrudden101]

@@mathdantastav2496 Very valid point, i forgot about the ''villager tries to cut out of reach wood'' even small code changes would change all of that lol

[@danielobrien5255]

This reminds me a little of the Penny problem: how many pennies can you get in a 10 by 10 Square? 100 if you place them in a grid so they're all neatly in a line I.e. 10x10 105 if you actually put alternate rows in between the gaps, so a row with 10, then 9, then 10.... 106 if you do a mixture of both, due to the fact approach two generates the extra row by row 6 or 7, (I.e. you'd have 6 rows in the grid, but 7 this way), but any subsequent rows is actually not fully utilising the space left, hence using the normal 10 pennies in a row approach for the remaining space. Therefore, could you apply similar logic here? E.g. in the extreme build order, would it be more beneficial (in the long run) to simply delay that extra lumber camp until minute 13? I.e. a compromise between not wanting to lose that initial wood vs long term gain? Or would that actually put you further behind due to paying the lumbercamp off? Alternatively, in your first few tests, would it be better to wait 20-30 minutes before building a 2nd lumber camp, before moving to a per-tile basis?

[@mauer1]

not really. you would drop the 100 wood anyway just at the 13 minute mark instead of right away. if you have a hyper economical start and can get to castle age until 14 minutes then it would be worth it because you would then add town centers instead of lumber camps. seeing as this is not realistic the most common approach in using the 100 wood to make more army sooner is the way to go. because if you can kill a couple villagers of your opponent you can then add the second lumber camp, you will still drop in wood but in relation to your opponents 2 lumber camp approach you would still be ahead because you have more villagers overall now.

[@danielobrien5255]

@Mauer01 did think that as I was writing but thought I'd ask anyway. 😄

[@alexanfung]

SOTL just used 10 lumberjacks, but in real situation you will keep adding vills on it after castle age, so you must open up another, or multiple camps.

[@mauer1]

@@alexanfung after castle age you also adding town centers. Also you approach the 20 minute mark where the 2nd camp would have given additional wood already.

[@Muenni]

Of course you'd spent the 100 wood anyways. The question is: Can you get more out of building your military up 6 minutes earlier than the less in wood by postponing the second camp from minute 7 to 13? And if you can, is 6 minutes earlier 100 wood investment into your military the optimal payoff, i.e. should you postpone your second camp to the 13 minute mark or maybe even later? Hard to answer, of course, because it's dependent on the effectiveness of your raiding.

[@ArthurNiculitcheff]

You should revisit the berry one too, I'm really wondering how many berry vils should portuguese use now with the bonus

[@DannyRiley-vx9se]

3.141592654 vills.

[@MadnessTW]

I've been wondering about that since Survivalist will tell you it's very important to make 2 camps. Turns out it's not as catastrophic as expected to have 1, but I can stomach being behind for 7 minutes. Thank you for this timely upload.

[@mauer1]

well the second lumbercamp will get you bonus wood over your opponents 1 lumbercamp after the 14 minute mark.

[@valger3652]

Main idea of 2nd lumbercamp in dark age - if woodline will be under pressure, player dont lose wood income. In closed maps for standart fc build 2nd lumber overall not needed.

[@mauer1]

nah the second lumbercamp will have produced 100 extra wood when you hit castle age (usually) you wanna be aggressive with only one lumbercamp so the opponent doesnt get the opportunity to harass you at your one lumbercamp

[@theflusteredloli4811]

An “optimal time period between refreshing old videos” would be a wonderful April fools video 0:17

[@Ryougi]

I remember watching that first lumber video! It's what got me hooked on your vids. Keep on truckin SotL!

[@suddenllybah]

Hey, I did the (should you multi build) lumber camps question, ages ago on reddit, and we both got the same answer. That's great. particularly since you did it experimentally.

[@suddenllybah]

To add to it, having your villagers work properly after a new camp is installed is worth it.

[@NeblogaiLT]

Good video. In my build, I was normally using just a single lumber camp, and then a TC on wood at minute 20. But from the tests here, it is clear that it is worth it to build a second lumber camp, as by minute 20 that will pay for itself twice!

[@mauer1]

yeah you would need to be able to get a consistent castle time of 14 minutes to make sense of not going the second lumber camp in a economical approach. getting a quick attack in to kill of villagers makes much more sense to off set the bonus the opponent will get at 20 minutes.

[@CrnaStrela]

It also helps you in the case you got attacked you will still have another lumber camp to relocate into

[@NeblogaiLT]

@@CrnaStrela And on the other hand, it will slow down my usual Feudal with MAA attack by 1 vil. Kind of encourages to do early 2-militia attack instead.

[@F0XD1E]

Wow someone who highlights their non-zero axis graphs 🙌

[@bladactania]

This is the kind of video I watch this channel for! However, I'm a little disappointed that in the first test (how often to replace the camp) you only ran it with all the upgrades. Would have been nice to see how much the upgrades affect the result. It's possible that when villagers have no upgrades and walk the slowest, leaving no gap might be better than the 1-tile gap.

[@m136dalie]

It's pretty rare to need new lumber camps before researching wheelbarrow though

[@whossname4399]

@Maxiluc can vary a lot. If you are going for archers/siege, food isn't as important relative to wood, so wheelbarrow is researched later. If I'm going scouts, I'll generally research wheelbarrow in mid Feudal, whereas with archers, I won't get it until Castle Age. That said, if you are going archers your short term wood requirements will probably be too high to refresh lumber camps that frequently anyway.

[@djjazzyjeff1232]

@@m136dalie I would argue it's not rare to need them, but it IS rare for me to actually place them before that lmfao.

[@MrFunnyXD]

aagreed i was hoping to see data on that aswell

[@deiv343]

What a video! There is no other like you on this kind of content. I admire you so much!

[@SIGNOR-G]

Now THIS is a great video. I always duel with lumbercamps positioning

[@bensosnowski1128]

I’ve never been so excited about a game I have never played. Love your videos (:

[@bigV_rulz]

I ran the test for 90 mins pausing every minute to calculate. You've got patience!!!

[@SuperMichael996]

I remembered your channel is a thing. Thank that fella who asked you for tips about starting AoE or something (that you further sent to some guy Survivalist), he has a channel too, and his video (some sort of zero to hero) got recommended to me :D 1:52 *door creeks and slams shut*

[@augustopdrocha]

Just the kind of top tier, must see content that I subscribe for.

[@deranbor]

Have been watching your videos since 2016. The point is... I have never played any of AoE games. Even so, your videos are so well made and entertaining, that they caught my eye from the first view. Keep on going, looking forward for anything new you came up with! Btw, I remember your cities skylines series, watched them as well. Would be interesting, if you make videos on other similar in various mechanics to AoE(2) games as well.

[@vmdcortes]

Love this kind of content!! Thank you~

[@scintillam_dei]

I like your last name, Cortés. Ve mi vídeo sobre la propaganda atea en estos juegos. Hoy termino de subir lo que me queda de "El Imperio español contra el Imperio mongol" aunque soy noob comparado con los de acá. Juego para estar feliz, no para ser el mejor en torneos.

[@alexanderschulte8248]

I cant believe its been 8 years since i started watching your videos.

[@davidboyeswahn4654]

I really needed this woodchopping analysis. Thank you so much Sotl!

[@MorleyGames1]

I’m a big believer in 1 lumber camp aggressive build orders. Early rushes are all about how quickly you can get to the enemy, due to the walling meta. If going for 1 lumber camp means we can have 1 less villager and do the rush more quickly then it’s worth it for sure or risk being walled out

[@Quinn_Dissglerio]

Thank your for the video. For me as player who don't care about maximum efficiency it is good to know, that every way will not cost me a heavy amount of resources. So I can play the way it makes fun for me and feels the best. Have a nice day :)

[@floydroid772]

What about 1 tile away with 10 villagers on it vs on the treeline with 10 villagers on it? I suspect a tile gap might be better the more villagers are on the camp.

[@stefanhuber1391]

You usualy don‘t place 10 vils on one camp instant, rather 3 to 4 and adding 1 by 1 later on, so there is a gap already most likely

[@pierQRzt180]

first: I love the analytic approach second: people with awesome voices should realize that they could tell the audience anything, and the audience will listen. Please make a podcast of anything interesting with your awesome voice!

[@tuxness]

Spirit of the Law videos OP as always

[@christopherg2347]

The core question boils down to: How low do you want to cap the walking distance? This is actually the same question you ask for farm placement. And probably never considered asking for Mining Camps. If you build the camps right next to each other, what you are doing is capping walking distance to 2 tiles: No Woodworker should have to walk more then 2 tiles to the next tree. Because by the time that one is chopped, a new camp is closer. If you put a 1 tile gap between the camps or camp and treeline, you cap walking distance at 3 tiles. 2 tile gap between camps or 1 between camps + 1 treeline? You cap walking distance at 4 tiles. 9:17 unfortunately, that patch of tree is too thin. By not having trees going 3, 4 or more tiles from the "camp spine", you made the distances to work deeper into the line too efficient. However, that also teaches us that you should probably not put a camp on the short side - try to put it on the longer side of a tree patch.

[@HermesGO3]

I've been waiting for this one for so long...

[@Drawliphant]

Q: whats the best equation to fit the total harvest (L) of a lumber camp over time. at first its just t/c where c is tree chop time, then over time you add walking to each trip so t/(r+c) where r is the radius from lumber camp to trees. we need to find r as a function of t so: as more chopping the walks get longer as a sqrt of trees logged so r = b*sqrt(L) where b is tree density, but L is our original equation so total lumber L = t/(b*sqrt(L)+c). This is recursive (useless) but if we solve for t we can get the inverse function for L which is t = L(c+b*sqrt(L)). It is possible to find the inverse of this function again but it is very ugly. Just fit the inverse curve to this curve by changing b and c. so to recap: time = total lumber*(coefficient a + coefficient b*sqrt(total lumber))

[@YLLPal]

6:40 "the non zero axis is exaggerating the difference..." SOL just did clearer data presentation on a trivial topic than many professionals do on important topics.

[@pspboy7]

Trust SOTL to make the most mundane concepts into really intriguing and interesting subjects.

[@florianapunkt8775]

At 1:30 you don't really need to do all the trendline shenanigans. Just subtracting each datapoint from the following one gives you how much wood was collected in the time in between measurements. If it was not 1 minute already, you would now divide by the timespan in between the measurements. Depending how good you are at pausing the game at every minute, you could then also use arbitrary timestamps and time deltas between measurements. But that's maybe for the next video :D

[@EliasHasle]

I would like to see the test at 4:00 with lumber camps zig-zagged into the forest instead of in a straight column. Also, the pattern of diminishing returns from adding lumberjacks/lumberjills to a camp seemingly indicates that each lumber camp should have even fewer than 5 villagers once the economy supports it. Maybe even just 1 or 2? The eventual economical advantage that two camps placed in dark age achieves during the Feudal age is presumably more due to shorter walking distance than due to less villager bumping. The 1-LC player will typically also place a second LC during Feudal age, countering the 2-LC player's edge. Right?

[@hbarudi]

When playing the campaigns, I usually use just one lumber camp right next to trees and they will take those trees. Sometimes I go aggressive with lumber camps but not too much when trying to cut trees to explore the map such as in Ghengis Khan #4 and #5 and in Gaja Madah #1 where there is too much wood to be able to get 100% map explored. If in need of second camp early in the game, I would just use another wood line and put villagers there...

[@Khotgor]

When you said "8 Years", at first I thought you were making a reference to the year timer that AOE2 often makes use of for things such as Wonders and Relics

[@leAleBoss]

Everyone : "oh so that's how you optimise your lumbercamps" Me : "oooh that's how you make a scout rush..."

[@willdbeast1523]

I wonder how long the payoff for the extra lumber camp takes for example with 8 vils on it and two on stragglers (or perhaps that's even worse due to walking distance from tc to stragglers)

[@zuklar]

I haven't touched AoEII in at least 2 years, but I see a video by you and: "Y'know... I WOULD like to know how to maximize my lumber in this game I don't even play anymore!"

[@dj_koen1265]

This is the content i subbed for

[@isaacwitmer5139]

The thing I think that was missed with the second camp, is that you're constantly adding more villagers. It would be interesting to see the data with villager bumping included, where you're adding some number of villagers to each camp every minute. Or was that included in the graph at 12:25 and I missed it?

[@A.V.Lucero]

SOTL, you're one of very few youtubers in my head that are "complete", meaning I've seen all your videos and I keep up with your new ones. I remember watching your old lumber camp video when it was new, and it amazes me that you've been part of my life for nearly a decade. AoE II research is a special niche which occupies that magical space between excellence and shitpost like no other and would be sorely lacking without you. Even when it's been months or even a year since I picked up the game, it's still a treat to get these videos. Keep up the good work.

[@LightGreenCorona]

Hey Spirit, avid longterm watcher of your videos and huge AoE2 fan here. Since Shiftclick was introduced with DE, I wondered what would be the optimal order for the first few trees to be chopped and how much of a difference it would be. You are experienced to do such testings and maybe consider this as a valuable topic for a video. In general, the first Lumberjack should start at the very nearest tree, but from that on it is less clear what the nearest tree is, even more so considering the addition of more Lumberjacks.

[@misteral9045]

If Spirit is still making Aoe2 videos in 2031, I will be a very happy lumberjack.

[@MrJacobhobbs]

In late game, where gold is generally more valuable than wood... Does the suggested lumber camp refresh time change when you consider the Vietnamese Lumberjacks getting a gold trickle? Can you do gold trickle with different lumber camp refreshments

[@ijhuana]

Very relaxing !

[@Natedawg1998]

New Spirit Video: drops Day massively improved

[@veidt3764]

It is a fascinating topic for sure. But the truth is that most players (myself obviously included) have not the time during a game, to manage their wood economy so accurately as shown in this video. I myself build generally two lumbercamps, just because i don't want that all my woodcutters can be raided at the same time.

[@konradpyszniak976]

Now I cannot wait to see a video about the mine camp

[@stapablo21]

Great video Sotl!

[@Iam2lazy2register]

in aspect that was missed is which shapes of the wood line are ideal to put the camp. Should it ideally go into a pocket if possible, a reverse pocket, a inner corner or outer corner or a straight woodline. usually there is a bit of flexibility for the micro placement

[@neildutoit5177]

at 7:25 "and that's not even including any walking time" by "walking time" I assume you mean the walking time from where they're building to the tree. Isn't a counter-consideration the fact that they save having to walk 8/9 tiles for the trip to the far lumbercamp and back because they now have one right there for the next drop and auto drop what's on them?

[@Dtx479]

Have you tried other orders of polynomials or only 4th order in the fit at 1:58? And if yes, how do you justify your choice?

[@SpiritOfTheLaw]

3rd order gave an R-squared of 0.99 and 4th order brought it up to 1 (obviously it's probably 0.995 or something). That was the extent of it, tbh.

[@ageofstrange657]

@@SpiritOfTheLaw Greetings, Spirit of the AoE2 Math gods. I don't want to be annoying because I already asked you about this before, but... what do you think of making a series about the scenario editor units, discussing their introduction, stats, historic background and most importantly their visuals? I couldn't think of anybody else better suited for this task 11

[@Dtx479]

@@SpiritOfTheLaw Thanks for the clarification - keep it up! :)

[@BaronVonScrub]

One benefit of the one-space-away-placement would be against drushes and scout rushes. You lose 4% efficiency if left open, BUT you save about that much wood on quickwalling them in, and end up with far more efficient pathing and less stuck vills than having them try to squish past each other and walls to get to the camp. That's the one exploration I think was missing from this; I'd have loved to have seen walled-in+no-gap vs walled-in+gap and how the wood stockpile compares over time.

[@user-fp5dw4ff3d]

Can't wait to use this info vs the standard difficulty ai. Might finally get a win against it!

[@doid3r4s]

Please, Spirit! Giff us another part of the wonder series!

[@niki75]

Me: Build a lumber camp at the start of game and just never touch them again because I'm playing against the AI and have set the handicap at 160% lol

[@scintillam_dei]

Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer since all computers are mere puppets being programmed by the real intelligence pulling the strings. Kermit can't think. He just ACTS as if he could.

[@chiralvandal]

130% here lol. I just can’t beat ONE hard AI unless I have the handicap.. or a teammate who will save me from those archers and skirmishers.

[@christopherdecock703]

Why build one? They can drop off the wood at the starting TC.

[@niki75]

@@christopherdecock703 Easier and faster to build a mill and a lumber camp ^^ I play Byzantines 95% of the time so I dont need gold nor stone 'till Feudal. And a single lumber camp is cheaper than a barracks

[@chiralvandal]

@John Doe maybe i'm just that bad but by the time i click up to feudal i'm at around 28 or 30 villagers, and the first military i make is a reaction to the AI sending their archers and skirms. however, will try to actually create archers first and see how that works :) note: have NEVER "raided" haha, have only ever moved out after i have close to 60-80 army

[@jarkkovahamaa7272]

4:14 you what? :D I haven't gotten to the end of the video yet but I had to comment!

[@KaletheQuick]

"Some high school calculus" That's a big oof from me, I'm 33, a former software developer, and I just started college last fall to try and get a CS degree, and I straight up BOMBED calculus. Mostly because I just couldn't do the requisite algebra. I was great at the concepts, even helping other students figure out limits and min/maxima, but I just couldn't do the exams. I'm taking it again next Monday because it's a degree requirement. Anyway your vids are always explained so well and as a game developer I love seeing the exploration of the math and mechanics here. I do hope to make an RTS one day. It would be a bit out of scope for you, but since you are so good at this, have you considered making a vid series teaching math through AOE2, or other games? Could be a good shoe in for a brilliant sponsorship. And of course I would appreciate it, I love your style! Anyway, thanks for the 8 years of S tier content, back to studying algebra

[@eliecergalvis4191]

Very, very good analysis. And that's is true, but just for 6 vills per camp, what i see. If you have more villagers the walk-time is more, and you need to replace the lumber camp before.

[@synergygaming604]

The problem with one camp anyway is that if the enemy attacks it and you can't defend it comfortably, you are in big trouble

[@cauchyschwarz3295]

The time until loss of efficiency was very interesting but maybe you could obtain the family of functions corresponding to different total numbers of villagers at the woodline. Because if you have more villagers the efficiency falls more quickly as they expand the circle quicker

[@jamsnastizz]

The tile spacing study is interesting but ultimately not useful after the 2nd time a camp is placed (an educated guess). The amount of game time that represents there is zero material/meaningful benefit of the small gains in wood RSS as a % of total eco rate, given how much your eco will be generating at that point. Just won't make a difference besides therapy for my in-game OCD. Maybe for extremely lean fast imp on closed map strategies? Even then, probably not. The dark age analysis bit that starts around 10:30 is the juicy part, and confirms, to me, the only real reason to make two camps is for pre-emptive defensive strategy, better ability to have wood intake in the event of an attack. Still, another impressive bit of analytical work from SoL

[@ph-souza]

Spirit Of The Law should be: a) part of Age of Empires Game Developer team b) game creator of his own game c) teacher and head of professional team d) my friend

[@andrewomalley2688]

Thanks for the great update.

[@daniloalves1139]

I really hope these pays you well because you deserve

[@themihajlo8004]

Can you make a new video from war elepfants and battel elepfaht and balista elepfant and sige elepfant and how to use them right

[@mathdantastav2496]

u talked about building lumber camps right next to wood, what about for berries gold and stone? Common convention is building with a 1 tile gap, and the reason I see most players say, is that on wood theres generally a lot more trees around, so u end up chopping through the first layer and keep going, on gold and berries theres generally only 1 layer, or 2 at most, and because of that the one tile gap is more efficient. I wonder if that reasoning is true, and if it does apply to wood aswell, if lets say for some reason we have a pile of 4 trees side by side, kinda like how berries are placed, and if in that scenario it would be better to build with a 1 tile gap

[@Mixcoatl]

7:58 - Not sure if you're aware of this, but some players used to do this because there (apparently) was a bug in the original AOC where lumberjacks stuck in that pocket chopped faster. Some players would even put two villagers in that pocket to maximize the effect. I'm not sure if the bug is present in the DE version though, or if it ever was a real bug to begin with.

[@scintillam_dei]

DE is cartoony, ,and they made the conquistadores hunchbacked. No way, José.

[@lucasgarcia5427]

I was wondering how did you know it was well represented by a 4th degree polinomial? Was it just a guess that fit well on the regression?

[@Snowthree]

I'm curious about the viability of bombard towers. I currently don't build them because they seem to deal overkill damage at a very slow rate; but are there any situations in which they're better than keeps? And, if so, by how much?

[@IAmBael]

I'm guessing you're hoping for a comparison video from Spirit, but until then - let's say you're playing a 4v4 on Black Forest as the Turks. You get to imp, set up trade and you obviously have Chemistry for your cannons already, and you also get Artillery for the +2 range. Now instead of getting fletching, bodkin, bracer, guard tower, keep and arrowsliths, you just get the bombard tower tech and plop down towers along your trade route. If the opponent breaks into your trade route with high pierce armour raiding units, they'll die to your towers. And more so than they would to most Keeps, for a shorter tech route. 🙂

[@markburke1396]

MBL is known for BBT's even in tournaments. But they seem to be used mostly on closed maps like BF or Arena. Arabia is too open and as a the cannon ball moves slowly is easily avoided, but in choke points they are beastly, just need a few close together to hold a position well. They can take out Onagers and Scorps effectively and Turk BBT's can even take out BBC's. The biggest issue is that in 1vs1 they cost too much gold to use.

[@CG-eh6oe]

BBT are better vs stronger units like paladin, elephant, SO. Otherwise, keeps are fine. This is why BBTs see play mostly in Teamgames, where there is an abundance of gold and therefor more of said powerunits.

[@Progeusz]

BBT are mid-late imperial age building so it would have to be a game which goes very late AND you have a lot of resources remaining, because they are very expensive. This means typical games rarely even reach the point where it's possible to build BBT, before even considering if they're good for specific situation. Buildings obviously aren't mobile so they won't be useful in every scenario. Due to their cost, you can't "spam" them easily which makes them less viable than keeps for "pushing" - instead, BBT are stellar for "holding" map position, as only trebs/bbc/rams can take them out, everything else dies easily. This is why you usually see them only in team games or some custom maps.

[@bedwarssimple7615]

I know it would have been a lot to ask but i wished SOTL would have answered the question how often a lumbercamp should be replaced with the number of villagers working. Bumping is factor that makes long distances worse. Simulary short distances can leed to blooking villagers in. @SOTL i would love to see your answer on this question and thx for the video.

[@meinebosma]

What if you have more lumberjacks on a 1 tile gap to woodline test?

[@mohamedbilal9527]

so my question would be is it not better to just go 1 woodcamp if ur trying to boom? by the 16 min mark u would all ready by long in castle age and u can allocate 4 of the vills to build a tc instead?

[@serban031]

So then, would it be best best practice to put the first 6 vils in that build order on one camp first and only after that get a second? Blending the two ideas and perhaps embracing some of the early advantage of the hyperaggro with the better long term roi of the second?

[@MaraudingManiac]

I'll expect another one of these in 8 more years, understood?

[@ajaymanoharan5496]

Interestingly detailed lat muscles on the lumberjacks

[@chrisgaming3373]

Can't wait for the next lumber camp video in 2031!

[@Lonezewolf]

Now, we must explore, the fish net with the fishing boats.

[@asemic]

please do a video on the meta mechanics of butt wiping! 2 ply? 3 ply, 4? 1 ply and fold? wipe in circles? top to bottom or bottom to top? left to right? HELP?! PLEASE?!?!!

[@ihmpall]

Meta is bidet

[@konradpyszniak976]

I would love to see how this efficiency compares in each age with/without upgrades. In theory in Imp with handcard its more forgiving to have long distance chopping. Also interestingly in Castle age People commonly build TC on woodline. As its a bigger building how many vils will be efficient number then?

[@AwesomeBob]

Would an optimal lumberjack strategy be fewer new camps to start, multiple tiles apart, and then trending to a single tile gap later?

[@thagikaagrajith]

Sotl can can you do a video to see how long the mill mining camp etc takes to pay back for its wood cost when you make a mill to get deer instead lour and such

[@Yamaazaka]

Thanks for giving me extra wood spirit

[@Kubinda12345]

A very intersting video. However it seems to me that your models for when to build a lumber camp are valid only for a generic civ. If you have a civ that has faster luberjacks (Celts), faster builders (Spanish), faster moving villagers (Berbers) or cheaper lumbercamps (Japanese) then the numbers would be much different. Perhaps you can make a similar video in the future but just with these civs and compare how it differs from the generic model?

[@martinlund9524]

If you got a big wood line is it good to place 2 campa but with like 9 tiles away from each other? How close or far away should 5 plus 5 village be from a lumbercamp and the next replacement.