Is using weapons on troops worth it |
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KarL Aegis
Forum Warrior Joined: 20 Aug 2010 Location: New York Status: Offline Points: 287 |
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Posted: 25 Oct 2018 at 00:48 |
Everything in the game is situational.
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I am not amused.
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glumetzul
New Poster Joined: 09 Jul 2017 Status: Offline Points: 27 |
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Thanks for all the feedback, it did make a difference to clear my head on this subject.
I should add that I realise that the "cost" can be lower by hunting and gathering my own ingredients. My point was that, even if I do that, if those ingredients are valued so much on the market I may be better off selling them, or crafting the item and selling it afterwards, rather than equipping armies with them. All in all I guess that in defense it's a sensible idea to equip armies since you're likely to recover the items after being attacked. And in attack they make sense either in emergency situations where you really need that extra punch or if equipping the strongest units like Human T2 Cavalry, but even that deppends a bit on the item.
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SirBradly
New Poster Joined: 24 Oct 2018 Location: Plains of Arran Status: Offline Points: 7 |
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I agree with alot of the points Hucbold brought up.
I would also add much of it can be related to the troop type you focus on. A human player making Knights at 65 attack does get much more "point value" for the gear. Whereas an orc mass producing t1 spearmen would get very little return on investment using gear in the field. All gear is 100% recoverable within city walls so that's always worth using. Hunting and making gear is a large commitment of time. So you have to factor in how active vs casual you want to be. SB
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Hucbold
Forum Warrior Joined: 20 Nov 2015 Location: Meilla Status: Offline Points: 251 |
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I'm a big fan of having massive amounts of equipment and occasionally frightening one's enemies by using it!
However consider the following points:
1. A human T2 cav has an attack value of 65 - a terrain spear or armour adds 39 to that. T1 spears (all races) have a defence against cav value of 13 - so a terrain spear or armour adds 7.8 to that. Those figures have to be modified for terrain afterwards. So the gear is worth different values to different troop types even though they 'cost' the same - whatever your measure of cost is. 2. You can make spears faster than swords and swords faster than bows - so the 'time cost' of spears is less. 3. The terrain specific gear gives a +60% bonus so +120% is possible for all terrains except buildings. The skins needed are common (rats, dogs, bears in particular). So a person who hunts can easily stockpile the gear - my stockpiles of both weapons and armours are in 6 figures and some are close to 7 figures. 4. Some military players don't hunt - meaning they would have to buy the gear. They look at the economics of that and generally reject the idea. That's a choice. 5. To craft effectively, you needs lots of skinners and specialised smiths. That means big population cities and many military players dont like that as its harder to move them. I craft big scale - close to 3k skinners and can craft all the specialised terrain spears at rates between 80-100 per hour and armour at about half that rate. I frequently have more than 10k stuff out there to gather to craft. 6. Gear has NO upkeep per hour, whereas troops DO. 7. You don't lose all the gear when you use it - you may be able to gather some of it, depending on where the battle occurs. 8. You can transfer gear between towns as fast as you can spend pres! You cannot transfer troops. 9. When you do use gear you lose 45.5% of what you would have lost if you sent unarmed troops - and have cut the rebuild time accordingly - your enemy may be building kobolds in the desert with high sov bonuses but they'll find it hard to match that bonus (assuming its on top of miltary sov of your own). 10. Most things in Illy are, in fact, free. The only real costs are pres and your time. Crafting, on a massive scale, helps with both. The choices are yours to make. It depends what game you want to play. I am only making the point that there is a way to look at gear that makes it desirable. |
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Dungshoveleux
Postmaster Joined: 09 Nov 2013 Status: Offline Points: 958 |
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No-one manufactures by buying all the materials. The "cost" of using the materials is the buy-offer price or just below it. The sell-offer price is only what you THINK the materials are worth. The reason why most manufactured goods sell for below the sum selling cost of their components is because people are optimistic/greedy and most people regard self manufactured goods as being "free".
Edited by Dungshoveleux - 23 Oct 2018 at 19:12 |
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Llannedd
Wordsmith Joined: 28 Jun 2014 Status: Offline Points: 139 |
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There are also buildings that reduce the cost of troop upkeep, and you can have more than one of them per city. At level 20 1st building reduces upkeep by 30%, 2nd reduces by 15% (each gives half the bonus of the previous). So with 2 buildings of the same type you reduce upkeep by 45%. Similar buildings and stats exist for diplo units as well.
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General Lacesso
Wordsmith Joined: 08 Mar 2018 Status: Offline Points: 139 |
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You should also consider what you are using the army for. If it is to just hunt then there is no good reason to equip your army. Just my opinion though.
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glumetzul
New Poster Joined: 09 Jul 2017 Status: Offline Points: 27 |
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Not exactly forgetting, I'm just trying to understand how relevant that is. If a Pikeman costs me 1325 gold to train, and the upkeep is 3 gold / hour, it takes about 18 days of having him idle until he was better of not being trained at all. Or course some people would rather accept the loss rather than be unprepared, it depends on personal strategy I suppose. Nof if I add a Plainsman's Spear to him, he's 60% more effective, so instead of keeping 1000 pikemen, I only have to keep 625, so that's a 37.5% reduction in number and thus in upkeep. I could translate this as in each Plainsman's Spear saving me 1.125 gold per hour. With an initial investment of 13485 it turns out it becomes profitable after about 500 days. I get the idea of having some troops always available but 500 days of keeping them idle is a bit much. If there's a good chance that I won't need those troops in 500 days, I think I'm better off not having them at all and just training them when I need them. PS: As mentioned before, only today I realised that defensive equipment is theoretically always recovered, unless I reinforced some faraway square, so this changes my previous points, I can see how investing in defensive equipment can be a good idea for long term.
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Dessembrae
Greenhorn Joined: 21 Sep 2017 Status: Offline Points: 61 |
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You are forgetting another one of the main factors,the cost of troops per hour.
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AKA Agalloch The Rude
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glumetzul
New Poster Joined: 09 Jul 2017 Status: Offline Points: 27 |
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After a bit more research, I feel like I may have partially answered my own question. It's about the defensive items dropping back to the defender and being reusable, right?
Still, that doesn't explain why someone would use attack items, except emergencies.
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