Why is Feudal trading considered so bad? (AoE2)

hey guys Spirit of the law here in this  video we're going to be overanalyzing a   simple question in aoe2 using significantly more  math and graphs than are strictly necessary so a   pretty typical video on this channel then now it's  well established that fishing is good on hybrid or   water maps in Dark Age and if one player or team  is fish booming and the other side isn't the side   with fishing is heavily favored in a vacuum yes  you need to pay for a dock and pay for fishing   ships up front but you have to think of it like a  second Town Center normally you're capped to 1tc   and can only make a new villager every 25 seconds  but docks give you a second economic production   building to grow your population this isn't even  considered a very long-term play but more to   supercharge your economy in the short term with a  bit of upfront investment you'd be hard pressed to   find anyone who said fishing early is not worth it  and in fact it's standard on Nomad for example to   always build a dock with one villager right from  the start unless you're hunts or you run out of   wood for a town center and was I'm sure part of  the thinking for why Hun's got to start Nomad with   a scouting horse now it's considered that large  of a disadvantage that they can't immediately dock   now contrast all that positivity with feudal trade  carts on land Maps or feudal trade cogs on water   which on the flip side are generally considered  assign someone has no idea what they're doing   online and is a brand new player making either  unit before Imperial age is a pretty big faux   paw online and even in my own experience if I see  an allies trade car rolling through my town in   feudal or even C AG I'm polite about it but deep  down I have to admit my expectations about that   teammate's contribution to the war effort drops  precipitously I might even preemptively begin   building up the humanitarian Relief Fund I know  is going to have to go their way when their town   is overrun and they're trying to rebuild behind  my base it's uncanny how a single trade car early   on can make all those thoughts go through my  head as I'm sure happens for other players as   well yet on the surface isn't this the same idea  as fishing at least the thought behind it seems   to follow the same logic where you're building up  your economic population by passing the one Town   Center bottleneck now I'm not looking to rock the  boat or put the cart before the horse and claim   I'm about to revolutionize opinions on early game  trade in fact I'm going to assume conventional   wisdom is correct and that fishing is great and  early trading is as bad as everyone assumes what   I want to look at is the why we'll approach this  by looking at the initial investment of each the   speed and magnitude of their payoff as well as  discuss the other factors to consider to hopefully   explain why these two approach to the early game  while seemingly trying to do the same thing have   such a wildly different perception from The Wider  fan base now one thing I want to set aside right   from the start is I'd suggest this is not fully  explained by a difference in valuing food versus   gold if you have a market in feudal you can easily  turn gold into food anyway so I don't find that a   satisfying explanation that holds up it's the same  thing for the idea that fishing is good because   you can start it in Dark Age whereas trading has  to wait until feudal again it's not a satisfying   answer as I I don't think everyone would pile into  trade cogs or trade carts if they were available   in Dark Age even for fishing ships players dock  uncontested Lakes on Four Lakes map in feudal age   all the time for example which generally wouldn't  be criticized so while these might be a convenient   explanation and are minor factors I don't think  they get at the core of why these things are so   different which has a much better mathematically  based argument as it turns out to start things   off here we have to consider The Upfront cost of  all three for fishing the dock costs 150 wood Plus   75 wood for each fishing ship in contrast while  markets start similar in cost to docks trade units   cost 100 Wood and 50 gold each so double the total  resources immediately that's a big strike against   them in the early game but is only one piece of  the puzzle now let's consider the resources that   each unit can generate this depends a bit on  distance and for fishing ships a nearby deep   sea fishing spot can bring in nearly 30 food per  minute while a distant one drops to more like 18   Shore fish is then even worse at just 16 ft per  minute in this setup and generally you should   avoid those as much as possible if you think about  how this plays out as well generally you take from   the nearby deep sea fish first meaning you get  that great collection rate at the start but it   tends to fall off over the next 10 or 12 minutes  as your ships are forced further away contrast   that with trade income which at least in the long  run increases nonlinearly with further trade lines   getting you more gold over time for all these  tests we'll be using a team Island 2v2 map though   a 4v4 or land map wouldn't really change any of  these conclusions trade carts and cogs generate   the same gold with equal trading distances though  ships move a bit faster so they technically get a   little more gold over time in this case as one  example the trade cart brought back 51 gold in   a little over 4 minutes giving us 12 gold per  minute and the trade Cog was closer to 15 gold   per minute for the same length it's not looking  promising for trade at this point but now let's   add in a new wrinkle of when those resources come  in and think about the inherent startup time of   fishing compared to trade we'll assume a dock and  Market are already up and consider in all three   cases how long it takes between starting to build  some units and when they can reasonably pay back   keeping in mind that trade carts are particularly  slow to create at 51 seconds each and is why many   players build multiple markets in Imperial age  when they try to ramp up trade to test all this   out I created four units at each building and  followed their respective incomes for 12 minutes   which should give us a sense of how quickly each  ramp up your economy and here's what we get at the   bottom we have the in-game time after queuing up  four of each type of unit and on the Y AIS we have   how many total resources were dropped off into  the stockpile by that point while a line graph   is maybe not technically the best choice here as  it adjusts the resources are coming in continually   I think it makes it a bit easier to read notice  that fishing is greatly outperforming trade with   a massive starting delay in trade income of course  trade units need to complete a full Journey before   you get any sort of benefit whereas the first  fishing ship fills up and drops off a handful of   food in just a couple of minutes as bad as this  looks though what if I told you this is greatly   inflating the value of trade making it look better  than it really is despite not looking great here   to begin with one thing this chart hides is that  trade units cost twice as much as fishing ships   and total Resources with 150 versus 75 costs  per unit if we correct for The Upfront cost of   four fishing ships and four of each trade unit  you can see trade not only starts in a bit more   of a hole with 600 resources spent on four units  but after 12 minutes neither trade carts nor cogs   have even recovered their initial investment yet  though trade cogs are admittedly getting pretty   close in contrast four fishing ships have repaid  their 300 wood cost after just 5 minutes suddenly   trade cards look downright terrible and it appears  trade does not jump start your economy in feudal   remember this is without Caravan since that isn't  unlocked until Castle age so don't sour on trade   in the late game here we're just looking at feudal  H here specifically In fairness though this is may   be now inflating the value of fishing ships by a  convenient end point after those 12 minutes the   nearby fishing spots were running on fumes so  you need to move your fishing ships and make a   new dock or put them on fish traps at that point  I probably don't have to draw attention to that   fact but I don't want accusations of being paid  by the fishing industry here to push pro- fishing   propaganda there's certainly less of an argument  for fish moving forward than this implies but   that also fits with the standard perception that  fishing is largely for an early game boost with a   quick payoff for your growing economy me now I  went in expecting fishing to be clearly better   but I didn't even think it would be quite this  dramatic and it's easy to see why early trade   has the reputation it does we could stop here but  for me the big elephant in the room is the lack   of Caravan in feudal AG to that point though there  is one interesting case worth discussing that you   may have already thought of which is burgundians  do have that tech in feudal age and it even comes   with a discount I'll be generous and ignore its  research time and cost for purposes here to put it   in its best possible light throwing in that faster  movement speed repeating the test as burgundians   with their feudal AG Caravan Tech this is what  we now get amazingly trade cogs at least appear   to be catching up to fishing ships in value by 10  minutes with almost 100 more resources collected   in total by the end of the test which might have  even been a bit higher with a longer route as   those give more gold over time remember fishing  is also running out of steam at this point while   trade is now in full swing and trade cards aren't  even that far behind this is looking pretty solid   and maybe care saves the day that is until again  we consider the cost of those units and the much   lower starting point of trade suddenly trade cards  look like they're still barely breaking even at 12   minutes and trade cogs are again lagging behind  fishing by over 200 resources but let's try one   more thing and see if there's any possible way to  ever justify feudal trade if you have the perfect   allies and team bonuses obviously our best shot is  with a Burgundian player getting Caravan early but   now let's throw in a Spanish Ally they increase  the amount of gold from trade trade by 25% as a   team bonus we'll then throw in Bohemians making  the team's markets work 80% faster meaning they'll   work 80% faster at creating those trade cards  speeding at that initial time it takes for us   to get up and running for a quicker payback third  We'll add in a Bengali teammate whose team bonus   gives us 10% of our gold collected from trade  and food so we can add those resources onto the   pile as well which combined with Spanish gives  us about 37% more income than usual from trade   if this doesn't work all hope for feudal trade is  a dead as this is as much as I can possibly stack   things so let's see the results of this super team  it turns out once we factor in the cost of trade   cards even ignoring the cost of Caravan it still  wasn't enough for trade to match fishing and took   nearly 9 Minutes To Break Even in this particular  test while a longer trade route along the entire   diagonal of a map would net more gold over time if  anything that might even make the initial payback   slightly longer depending on how the numbers line  up as those first and second trips take longer to   complete again this is just experiment to see if  even in the most convoluted trade friendly setup   possible we could make feudal trade cards work and  it's just not happening especially without Caravan   though not only is trade lagging in total income  but there's that huge delay between building the   trade carts and then waiting for them to make  their full trips which are the major factors I'd   point to in why this strategy has such a stigma  now just to touch on a few other factors here   this is not the only argument against early trade  Walling in trade is incredibly expensive and time   consuming and not a reasonable thing to do on  most maps in feudal or even Castle age even if   the payback on resources was comparable to fishing  it would still be a sketchy idea anyway given you   have to protect a huge amount of the map to keep  trade units alive second I know I waved off the   argument before but we can at least acknowledge  fishing in Dark Age helps you shift villagers   onto wood where villagers collect faster anyway  and keeps you off farms for longer in a way the   earlier comparisons are too kind on trade as food  is slower to generate and worth more than gold in   the early game from a villager time perspective  and further reinforces the results we already saw   a third side Factor here is of course opportunity  cost for the 150 resources per trade unit there's   just way better things to spend those resources  on basically all eco techs at that point in the   game have a faster than 10-minute payback and  make for a better investment while fetal trade   is also going to slow your Castle time and  additional Town centers now long-term things   flip and trade of course becomes your only source  of endless gold besides relics so this isn't an   argument against Lake game trade that you do  in Imperial age to be clear Caravan plus the   increasing value of gold shifts that conversation  for an overall conclusion though as assumed from   the start an argument for early trade just isn't  there despite reasonable effort as I said the   point wasn't to question that conventional  wisdom but instead just demonstrate why with   some concrete numbers and graphs big thanks to  James Jared 2142 joxster Justin Samantha Steven   woodruff and corporate sponsor op main as well  as everyone else on patreon for their amazing   support you may have noticed none of them made  feudal trade cards yesterday and that's because   they got access to this video one day early  thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Spirit Of The Law

Views: 123,735

Keywords: aoe2, age of empires 2, definitive edition, sotl, spirit of the law, aoe2 definitive edition, new, beginner, gameplay, tutorial, guide, aoe, age of empires, tips, tricks, market, noob, feudal trading, feudal trade, trade cart, math, fishing, graphs, feudal trade cart

Id: fjKX7miPEFg

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 04 2024