An Economic Analysis: Human vs Drauga

[Inigo Montoya]

Drauga:
Settlers 30
Village 100
Town 100
Woodmill 75
Wood Trade 95
Blacksmith 100
Iron Trade 130
Barter House 125
Total Costs = 755
GPM = 81 (Also ends up with 4 W and 5 I)

Human:
Settlers 30
Village 100
Town 120
Woodmill 75
Wood Market 95
Blacksmith 100
Iron Market 130
Market 125
Bazaar 155
Total Costs = 930
GPM = 117

The Drauga take 9 minutes to pay off their investment, then make 70% of the income of the Humans. The Humans only take 8 minutes to pay off their total cost of 930.

I think it is clear that if you want to make one settlement site an economic powerhouse, the Humans are the way to go. GPM is the key factor.

*Note, these numbers were generated from memory and I haven't actually tested them yet. Please correct any errors you see.

[morpheus133]

I'm not sure if the numbers are right, I will check them later. Regardless I dont think this is a realistic portrayal of how the two races will build. You have to build some sort of troops to lair with, and you have to take into account how much longer it takes for humans to get the extra money to build everything you suggest. Right now i would rather have exports over barter house for drauga as well.

[Mistwraithe]

The missing link in the analysis is the 4 wood and 5 iron which Drauga have. At face value that is worth 39 income which would make the Drauga income actually higher than the Human income AND they have had to shell out 20% less money to get there.

Now gold in the hand is worth more than resources so taking the resources at face value might be slightly rough. But Morpheus is also correct, you will need some troops, no way around that. If you need enough troops that the extra resources are used then the Drauga situation is clearly superior. If you don't need that many troops and therefore the Drauga would have unused resources sitting around then the Human situation becomes more feasible and even slightly better (though still not clearly superior IMO because sooner or later things will change and you will need more troops and the Drauga resources come back into play).

So in a game between two fairly passive players/teams I would imagine humans do fine. In a competitive game where everyone is optimising their troop/econ abilities and probing hard for advantages then I think the humans are at a clear disadvantage to the Drauga.

[Inigo Montoya]

Yes, you need resources. And you need companies. But I'd counter that everyone needs gold too. And if you are in need of increased GPM, humans are the best. Think of it this way - you have a settlement site and sufficient forces for the time. You want purely to maximize your economy with this one settlement site. Should you use a human settler or a drauga settler? Clearly humans are the better choice for eco-whoring.

[morpheus133]

But eco whoring will not win you many games considering how much money you get from lairs and how much experience you gain as well as scouting, ect. There are no elites to work towards for the eco build, and techs are nice, but very expensive even if you have a huge economy. remember the whole point of an economy is to get troops, and if you can buy really pricey troops, but can't support them then that significantly dillutes your economic advantage. GPM for humans seems good, til you see how much their buildings are, their troops are, and what you get for the money spent on those troops. to make up for the MUCH higher costs of stuctures and units compared to Undead they need alot better econ than they currently possess.

[Kaedrin]

Keep in mind resources on a map can directly help a human settlement generate cash that much faster. Their market upgrade is nomially soso with a +40 (-3s, -3i, -3w) but if you have a few mines then you more than ofset the resources lost and generate pure cash.

More resources on a map help Drauga support more units, but doesn't help them generate even larger amounts of cash. Think of it more as humans need to abuse the environment to survive. :P

[Xentropy]

Originally Posted by Kaedrin

More resources on a map help Drauga support more units, but doesn't help them generate even larger amounts of cash. Think of it more as humans need to abuse the environment to survive. :P

Thank you! I mentioned that very thing in another thread. Humans get the most out of mine types other than gold by far. Almost anyone else will build gold mines and leave their other mine spots alone because they're already +everything so why bother. Humans sit -everything constantly, and while their superior export ability (thanks to the incredibly powerful and underrated bazaar) gives them enough gold to pay for that -everything, mines translate into pure cash. I think anyone who thinks the human economy is weak should try engineers earlier in their build; they might be surprised. (Nonupgraded wood mine, for example, costs about 80 gold to build. +10 wood translates directly into +30gpm since humans are almost definitely going to be at -10 or lower wood if they're building enough bazaars, which if they're not they're going to lose anyway. Under 3 minutes to get your money back on the mine is pretty solid.)

[Mistwraithe]

I agree that mines would help Humans more than other races.

Realistically though, do the other races just run around with lots of positive resources? If so then why? Is the unit limit quite restrictive so they can't recruit enough units to use the resources? Or is it that the people talking about this haven't played enough competitive games online? For example, does Vincent Pai run around in game with positive resources or is it only players offline or players who are less experienced who do?

[Xentropy]

Ok, let me rephrase. Less negative? More positive with a lot of mines built? I don't know. The point is that with the same area of the map, a Drauga player will either be running around with +30 of everything or not bother building his mines. A human player in the same position will build the mines, still have -10 of everything (would've been -40 w/o the mines), but +300 gold compared to the Drauga because they can export larger volumes more effectively.

In a "competitive game" (seems to be the local terminology for "rush fest"; if that's because the game balance is broken and rushing is the only way to win, I'd like to see some changes), a player will have as many units as he can support without going too low on gold income. Because of the way humans work, this means playing with way lower than -10 of everything most of the time. Because of the way other races work, this means playing with -5 or so of everything on average. So another race will skip the mines because to build the mine is much less useful...they'd go positive instead of staying negative so some of the mine resources would go to waste. If they could produce another group with the resources from the mine, sure, but if they're already at max, then no. And even the human could then produce another group to go back to their original negative value if they wish, but if not, they could just earn a lot more gold.

Make more sense? It's a simple concept, but I guess I'm using the wrong words. The gist of it is, the humans ALWAYS run at a huge deficit, so in effect, without a huge change to the game code, they're stockpiling ALL "excess" resources (in the form of gold NOT spent) instead of ever going positive and losing resources. It's an advantage, though apparently the vast majority find it a tiny one. Again, I think the main issue is being human requires a complete change in thinking. "Competitive" players who're used to playing the other races stop commissioning when they hit -5 across the board even though they have a lot more gold to spend. Then they see another race hit them with twice the troops and say "wtf humans suck". They could have the same amount of troops if they were willing to use that extra gold.

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally Posted by morpheus133

But eco whoring will not win you many games...

I am not a proponent of eco-whoring every game, but it has it's place from time to time. I played a game where the host had set the map to 0 lairs and he whor-d. I didn't know the lairs were set to zero and built forces looking around the map. Eventually I found a settlement site, but mostly there were support units and resource shrines. If you feel there is never a time to eco-whor-, so be it. On the other hand, if someone else wants to know the best way to whor-, humans are the way to go.

[morpheus133]

Originally Posted by Xentropy

Ok, let me rephrase. Less negative? More positive with a lot of mines built? I don't know. The point is that with the same area of the map, a Drauga player will either be running around with +30 of everything or not bother building his mines. A human player in the same position will build the mines, still have -10 of everything (would've been -40 w/o the mines), but +300 gold compared to the Drauga because they can export larger volumes more effectively.

the problem with mines is they WILL be raided if you build a bunch of them with no posts. they can be useful for any race really if you feel you can defend them. The reason they arent built alot is due to vulnerability more than anything though.

Because of the way humans work, this means playing with way lower than -10 of everything most of the time. Because of the way other races work, this means playing with -5 or so of everything on average. So another race will skip the mines because to build the mine is much less useful...they'd go positive instead of staying negative so some of the mine resources would go to waste. If they could produce another group with the resources from the mine, sure, but if they're already at max, then no. And even the human could then produce another group to go back to their original negative value if they wish, but if not, they could just earn a lot more gold.

Make more sense? It's a simple concept, but I guess I'm using the wrong words. The gist of it is, the humans ALWAYS run at a huge deficit, so in effect, without a huge change to the game code, they're stockpiling ALL "excess" resources (in the form of gold NOT spent) instead of ever going positive and losing resources. It's an advantage, though apparently the vast majority find it a tiny one. Again, I think the main issue is being human requires a complete change in thinking. "Competitive" players who're used to playing the other races stop commissioning when they hit -5 across the board even though they have a lot more gold to spend. Then they see another race hit them with twice the troops and say "wtf humans suck". They could have the same amount of troops if they were willing to use that extra gold.

Well what I am most interested in is comparing the econ of humans with another race when they are supporting an equal resource value army. It's true that when you have no troops and JUST econ humans get a higher GPM than others by a slight amount. however their higher costs across the board and lesser resource support seems to show that once you go -10 in everything your econ is no longer superior at all. If you look at the values, it's better to make a foundry at 48 gpm value if you are negative 6 or more in iron than it is to make an iron market for 36 gpm. likewise if you are -10 iron then you will get more money as a gauri or drauga with a forge upgrade giving you 56 gpm total that is greater than a human gets from a foundry or a iron market.

[Xentropy]

Originally Posted by morpheus133

Well what I am most interested in is comparing the econ of humans with another race when they are supporting an equal resource value army.

I did this on the first page of the "Opinions on Balance?" thread. With two citadels and two cities (basically a fully maxed out economy), humans are only 38gp behind Drauga AFTER buying up all the materials the Drauga produce. That includes like 28 stone, too, a resource which I have yet to see not sit + in every game for everyone besides humans, so ignoring stone the humans are ahead about 20gpm. AFTER supporting equal armies.

Grond countered that humans would never survive to 2 cits and 2 cities and posted a town/vil/vil Drauga build which I countered with a similar human build that was, again, a bit behind including stone but 4gpm ahead ignoring stone.

The humans are almost, but not quite, at parity even after repurchasing all their exported material. This is the part that the human-bashers seem to be ignoring. "But, I go way negative!" So? If your gpm is still equivalent even after going negative, how are the humans any worse off? In fact, they're BETTER off if it's entirely equal since going positive in resources is useless but correcting a large negative value into a small one is useful. Being SLIGHTLY behind parity can be balanced. The amount is arguable, I suppose. But being exactly parity and all gold would just be a HUGE advantage.

[Venarin]

Just curious, but aren't humans SUPPOSED to be better at making gold than other races?

[morpheus133]

yes they are supposed to be, and in some situations can be... once you get to the -10 in every resource this isnt the case though. Perhaps ONLY humans should be given the tweak I mentioned before where they can build 2 of any one structure in a town. That would certainly give them a different feel and alot more support capability.