Just please note that I am not 100% of my research. Also there is a conclusion at the bottom for people that do not wish to read a wall of text.


This is for new players out there and people that are starting new towns. Also note that this information is for people that do not plan on using prestige.

When I first started playing Architects' Office was a mystery to me. I didn't know what it was or how it really effected the game. I used to ask around but many players either didn't know much about it or did not wish to share the information. After I kept hearing some new people ask about the benefits of the Architects' Office I decided to do some research, so hopefully I can clear up any misconceptions about the Architects' Office.

The two main issues I will be covering are the construction time increase and the effectiveness in leveling up the Architects' Office.

First let me explain the construction time increase with pictures. 

It is confusing at first to understand what the time increase means, and I really did not understand it all until now. So I'm really thankful that I'm typing all of this out. On the Architects' Office description it says, "This construction time increase only affects new building orders, not existing ones."  At first I still had no idea what it all meant. So while I was leveling up my Architects' office I took some pictures.  

Its a little blurry and I'm sorry about that. This first picture shows my level 4 Architects' Office with two Architects' Office upgrades being built. As you can see here the total completion time for the level 6 upgrade (in building que) is at 22:53:22 game time. So I took this picture to see if the 1.5% will be subtracted from the level 6 upgrade that was in the building que. Basically taking off one minute from the level 6 upgrade.

Instead I noticed that it did not reduce the time by 1 minute. As you can see in the picture below, you can see that the completion time stayed the same. Then I noticed the bottom line of the description saying, "This construction time increase only affects new building orders, not existing ones."

By the pictures you can see that the time reduction in each level is only added to new building ques. So hopefully this will clear up any doubt on how the construction time works.

Effectiveness of a Level 20 Architects' Office

Ok now onto the good stuff. Lets see how effective a level 20 Architects' Office will be. The first thing to do will be to see how long it will take to level up an Architects' Office to level 20 from level 0. Just in case any numbers are off, I have rounded up, so over all you should save more time then I have written down

But for this I will not count in the demolish time since that will not matter in the end. Once you built everything you need, you wont be building anything so the demolish time wont matter much in the end. So the final total to build up a level 0 Architects' Office to level 20 is 8 days, 20 hours, 25 minutes and 2 seconds. Just to make sure nothing was slipped up, I'll just be using 9 days as a rough estimate of the time. That way  we fully know if the Architects' Office will be worth it.

So what I'll be doing is counting up the minutes starting from a level 20 lumberyard down to a level 10 lumberyard to see how much time you will save with a level 20 Architects' Office. Then I'll do the same with a level 18 and a level 14 Architects' Office to try and paint a better picture on the time difference you save vs the days you spent leveling the Architects Office. That way we can see when a level 20 Architects' Office will be most effectively used.

Just to make it clear; I am using a level 20 lumberjack because lumberjack, quarry, clay pit, and iron mine all take the same amount of time to level up. Since most other build times are longer, like farmyard, I will not be including them.

Takes 9 days (8 days, 20 hours, 25 mins and 2 seconds) to reach level 20 Architects' Office to get -30 % time reduction.

Takes 6 days (5days, 15 hours, 8 minuts and 50 seconds) to reach level 18 Architects' Office to get -27 % time reduction.

Takes 2days and 12 hours (2days, 2 hours, 4minuts, 8seconds) to reach level 14 Architects' Office to get -21 % time reduction.

So what I did was, I took the Total Time Saved from level 20 Architects' Office and subtracted it with the level 18 Architects' Office. Then I multiplied the number by 20 since most people have 20 resource plots of clay, iron, stone, and wood or less. That showed me the amount of hours I would save if I had a level 20 Architects' Office over a level 18.

I then had to find the level that would save more then 3 days worth of time to make up for the added time it would take to level up to level up a level 18 Architects' Office to a level 20 Architects' Office. I also had to add in  9 extra days over all since leveling up to a level 20 Architects' Office would eat up 9 days that could be spent leveling up the resource plots.

What I got was that a level 20 Architects' Office becomes more effective if you have level 17 resources plots or less and that it would save you more time over all to get a level 20 Architects' Office since you will most likely have other things you are building as well, like food.

I also got lucky and found out that a level 19 Architects' Office is not worth it to build, either is a level 15, 16 or 17. It could be effective but not to an extreme. A level 18 Architects' Office is only effective if you just have 20 resource plots of wood, stone, iron, clay at level 18. If you just have all your resources plots at level 19, then a level 14 Architects' Office will be worth it.

Conclusion

Since most do not like to read a block of text, I'll make it simple.

If you are starting a new town or have your resource plots under level 17 or at level 17. Then I highly recommend a level 20 Architects' Office, since you will be saving a lot of days in the end. It takes 51 days, 2 hours, and 40mins to level up 20 level nineteen resource plots to level 20.

So lets say your resources plots are all at level 15. If my math is right, you save 55 days and 18 hours just by having a level 20 Architects' Office.  That saves you an extra 5 days and 13 hours over a level 18 Architects' Office with just 20 resources plots around level 15. But most of us have more then just resources plots to level so you will save more time over the long run.

So with that said.

If you are just starting a new town, or have under 6k pop, then a level 20 Architects' Office is for you. (That is if you do not prestige build.)

-Quackers

With help from Seizureman and Sisren.

Edit: The tables did not like me and the color would not work, but that's because I brought the table over from Illyriad mail.

Also since I've been asked, Architects' Office effects all buildings not just resource plots.

What he means is (I'm sure he'll correct me if I interpret him wrongly) that whenever you build one building, you are naturally not building another. The time spent building the AO could be spent building saddlemaker (expanding kiln/whatever) and whatever benefit the AO might have on other buildings in the long run, your saddlemaker/kiln will still become productive later than it would be had you built it in the place (queue-wise) of the AO. 

With a healthy dose of newb ignorance: 

Personally I think the two proposed caveats somewhat cancel each other out, if it is advanced resource building you would be losing 'opportunity' time on, it must be considered that operating this advanced res building consumes resource, which being the concern of the first caveat reduces it's own opportunity value. If Res is indeed so short that you risk stalling the queue-at-large by virtue of prioritizing the AO, this will presumably also be the case with any AdvRes building. 

The AO, unlike most tertiary buildings is always operational until such time as it will not be operational ever again (to all intents and purposes.) Thus the earlier it is built the more efficient, assuming caveat 1 is not true.

Regardless, it doesn't seem likely (to me) that one could conceivably lose more than one gains from an AO if built at a sane point in the schedule.