damn it, I had written so much but it is all gone now. I don't really want write everything again.
I can answer questions here.


I found this from an excel sheet, perhaps numbers I had when I finished third.

Farm Grassland 120 3,9
Sawmill Forest 10 0,3
Tower Swamp 0 0,0
Iron Mine Mountain 420 13,6
Diamond Mine Highland 324 10,5
House Grassland 390 12,6
Court House Grassland 285 9,2
Warehouse Tundra 532 17,2
Processor Tundra 1013 32,7
3094 100



Farm Grassland 140 25,92592593
Sawmill Forest 160 29,62962963
Tower Swamp 15 2,777777778
Iron Mine Mountain 37 6,851851852
Diamond Mine Highland 0 0
House Grassland 10 1,851851852
Court House Grassland 13 2,407407407
Warehouse Tundra 10 1,851851852
Processor Tundra 155 28,7037037
540 100

This is a speed strat I used when I only played like a week. You can have quite a fun with specs, perhaps even run away.

Warehouses is a must, you can't really succeed with animator without them. It is sorta your alchemies/dms. It is possible to use less of them if you run-away.

YF played a good explorer->attacker strat. Slave pits could be something to try.

You really have to keep track of your hourly offense and defense training and also think ahead many days on what top op will be, since you will never really have time to push emergency defense.

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

I seriously doubt you can do protection without exploration.
You really need to get production up as fast as possible.
I do not have faith in any animator strats that goes above 4.5k op at OOP.
Trust your hourly offense training.
Do not neglect your defense training, which means your sawmills and iron mines.

off specs and def elites > def specs and off elites.


I think it is quite possible to play a round without diamond mines, assuming you get your warehouses up.

It is going to be tempting to play without homes, but late round you really need all the workers you can possible train each hour.

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

It appears that people only want to ask and get answers via PM and MSN.

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In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

just post em all here like a Q and A on animator

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Beast mode at owning noobz on elveron
all day errr day
NOOBZ B WARNED!

risk it 4 the biscuit, but only if ur hungry

ok
your starting gold. to still build you need to leave some gold
but at hour 1 you can train 140 collectors comfortably which with 6 hour train time starts pumping out resources faster than your building, so you dont have to build any towers ever

this stacks against the slightly increased peasant growth and using the gold for exploring during this time


which do you prefer and why?

cheers

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What has nobody else done? Lets do that but different :)

140 collectors equal ~3 towers, so you'll still need some more.

Exploring is required as animator imo, to get your production up, like Kalle said

aye dont forget processors tho

Processor Tundra Increases food, lumber, iron ore, magic dust and diamond production by 2.7 * Processor% (without math 20-25% of land minimum should be these- my opinion)


in my sims my 10 towers and initial 150 collectors (13 towers as you put) were acting like 20-21

cheers for a response - what do u think now - worth initial cost or still spend on explore early?

save 10 spaces on towers & slightly bigger gains OOP

vs explore & less gains.
----------------------------------------------------------
how much do you explore? anything less than 20 isnt worth it
hmmmm curious - back to simming


on a side note i tried flaring animators
was very kool
my build ratio ~ 10farms:7:sawmills:6 processors
if you keep fertility on ALL THE TIME including when peasants are maxed you get extra food. didnt buy collectors at start but explored a bit for houses. Because you have to train every hour due to decay. Ended up almost running out of workers and peasants to train.
training 80 soldiers a turn only training equivalent of ~60 workers a turn every turn not good.

however i got above 6K+ OP
i reckon with some fine tuning i could get above 7k OP - homes would have to first thing built after OOP.
That was also with 0DM so realmies would hate me....

very kool tho, i do think they would fizzle out after second wave OOP
worth a play

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What has nobody else done? Lets do that but different :)

I would not train collectors that early, better to let your peasants grow faster and explore land.
If you have 30% processors, your 10 towers are like 18 towers.
Building or not building 10 towers is not going to determine your success in a round.


You need more processors.

If you have almost no homes or warehouses it is a simple second order equation to maximize. Assuming purely production buildings.

Total Production=(p)*(1+2.7*(1-p))
If you use zero processors then your production is at a factor of 1.
If you use 50% processors it is 1.175.

Maximum production is at 31.5% processors and 68.5% production buildings.

In terms of population and production -
1 warehouse + 1.57 home = 3.14 production buildings

So it is 2.57 vs 3.14.
So you sorta pay gold to produce more with less land, but it takes quite a while. I wouldn't go to heavy on collectors in protection.

So you just have to calculate your optimum processors when you have homes and warehouses. That you can calculate in some complicated ways.
One can for example see that 10% homes, 10% warehouses works better with 40% processors+50% production buildings than it works with with 30% processors+60% production buildings. What is really optimal, I will leave to you to figure out.
A guideline is that if your homes are equal or lower than your WH, then optimal processors is above 31.5%.

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

If your for example pick the exploration route early on, it might be that optimal processors is as low as 20% or something.

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

wicked - explore in steps
the flare food/wood animator didnt work too well

also you lost me on your equation - please provide me with the key or show me your math. i cant figure it out.


also ??? explain please. havent had my coffee

the flare build on my calcs churned out LESS food with 10 more processors and 10 less farms.

granted i was going for the brutes and not total imp value, but im still lost in your sexy equation.

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What has nobody else done? Lets do that but different :)

switching 10 farms to 10 processors results in less food, but more secondary resource production overall (counting your mills, IMs, DMs, and collectors.

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The empty handed painter on your street..
is drawing crazy patterns in your sheets...
The sky, too, is falling over you...
and it's all over now, Baby Blue.

the opposite, p=production buildings. (1-p)=processors

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

hm, do I need to explain second order equations?

Total Production=(p)*(1+2.7*(1-p))
p=production ratio in decimal. From 0 to 1. (i.e. 0% to 100%)
(1-p)= processors. i.e. what is not production buildings (100%-production buildings)


1 warehouse + 1.57 home = 3.14 production buildings

Have you even tried to figure it out?
hm, I meant 3.18 and 1.59

Collectors employed by Warehouses collect 0.4 diamonds, 3.4 iron ore, 1 magic dust each per hour; not counted as citizens.

35*0.4=14 dm = 1.4 diamond mines
35*3.4=119 iron ore= 1.08 iron mines
35*1=35 dust = 0.7 towers
1.4+1.08+0.7= 3.18

As an exercise, you could try to explain the 1.59 homes.

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In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”

I do my equation the opposite of you. I set p = processors and 1-p be production buildings (I do it this way, because I usually want to find out how many processors to build, and do not want an extra step.)

So kalle provided the formula, I'll tell you how to get 31.5%

Option 1: The Easy Way
Step 1: Graph the formula
Step 2: look at the graph

Option 2: The math way
Step 1:
f(x)=(1-x)(1+2.7x)
f(x)=1+2.7x - x - 2.7x^2 {foil}
f(x)=-2.7x^2 +1.7x + 1 {simplify}
f'(x)=-5.4x + 1.7 = 0 {take 1st derivative, set equal to 0}
1.7=5.4x {simple algebra}
x = 1.7/5.4 {simple algebra}
x= .3148148148...
Step 2:
f(.315) = (1 - .315) ( 1+ 2.7 (.315))
f(.315) = (.685)(1 + .8505)
f(.315) = 1.2675925. . . (overall % bonus)

Now this only gets you the amount of production if you are running 100% resource production buildings & processors. To make the formula work for all, you need to modify the formula a bit.

Fergy is the best!

_________________
In his last Budget as chancellor in 2007, Gordon Brown said: “We will never return to the old boom and bust.”