RedKnight
05-27-2004, 18:53
Us grognards have ways to know whether a farm or trade building will be worth it. I thought of another mnemonic that I'm finding pretty useful.
You can readily see how many years it will take a farm or trade building increase to pay off, by dividing the number shown here for the target (next) level by its current income:
20% Farm: 3K
40% Farm: 6K
60% Farm: 10K
80% Farm: 20K
Merchant: 5K
Merchant Guild: 7K
Master Merchant: 10K
Example: You have a 20% Farm making 200/year (current income), and wonder how soon it will pay off to upgrade to a 40% Farm (the target).
6K (target numerator, for a 40% Farm) / 200 (current income, from your existing 20% Farm) = 30 years
It's pretty easy to remember: Farms 3, 6, 10 & 20K; Trade: 5, 7 & 10K. With these simple numbers, and rounding off your current income, it's pretty easy to do in your head.
Also use the trick that e.g. ~330 is about a third of a thousand, so 10K/~330 is 3 times 10 = 30 years.
It doesn't matter what your acumen or taxes or number of trade ports or other modifiers are - only that they stay the same. If they go up, you do better; if they go down, you do worse. This is true regardless of how you compute it.
The time needed to make the building is not included in the result... everybody knows what it is, and it would need a messy two-term equation to include it.
Has anybody posted something like this before?
For any noobs that don't know: You can see what your 0% farm income is (if there's also other stuff in the province confusing the issue) by hitting the Economy coins button and holding the cursor over the name of the province in question.
DETAILS
This approach simplifies (collapses) some of the fixed values in the game.
Example: a 20% Farm provides 20% more than the current income, and it costs 600. How soon will the extra fifth pay off? (Notice: Current income is the variable to be solved around, and doesn't need to be stated.)
Years = Cost / Profit from the enlargement = 600 / Profit
Profit = New Income - Current Income
For going from a 0% Farm to a 20% Farm:
New Income = (New%/Current%) * Current Income
= (1.2/1.0) * Current Income
= (6/5) * Current Income
Profit = New Income - Current Income
= ( (6/5) * Current Income ) - Current Income
= (6/5 - 1) * Current Income
= 1/5 * Current Income
= Current Income / 5
Years = Cost / Profit
= 600 / ( Current Income / 5 )
= 5 * 600 / Current Income
= 3000 / Current Income
Since New% and Current% are fixed for a particular level, the numerator can be figured for each level. For the 40% Farm, it's 6*1000 (it adds a sixth; 1.4/1.2), 60% is 7*1500 (adds a seventh), 80% is 8*2500 (adds an eighth). The actual figures are: 3,000, 6,000, 10,500, and 20,000, but the 10,500 rounds to 10K pretty well.
The first merchant building (Trading Post) is its base value (think: 0% Trade), Merchant adds 20%, MG is 40%, MM is 60%. For them, the numerator is: Merchant: 5*1000, MG 6*1200, MM 7*1400. Actual values: 5,000, 7,200 and 9,800, but they round to 5, 7 and 10K pretty well.
The units of the numerator are dollar years (actually, florin years)... I wonder if we have a loan expert on board who's seen units like that before?
Bon appetit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
You can readily see how many years it will take a farm or trade building increase to pay off, by dividing the number shown here for the target (next) level by its current income:
20% Farm: 3K
40% Farm: 6K
60% Farm: 10K
80% Farm: 20K
Merchant: 5K
Merchant Guild: 7K
Master Merchant: 10K
Example: You have a 20% Farm making 200/year (current income), and wonder how soon it will pay off to upgrade to a 40% Farm (the target).
6K (target numerator, for a 40% Farm) / 200 (current income, from your existing 20% Farm) = 30 years
It's pretty easy to remember: Farms 3, 6, 10 & 20K; Trade: 5, 7 & 10K. With these simple numbers, and rounding off your current income, it's pretty easy to do in your head.
Also use the trick that e.g. ~330 is about a third of a thousand, so 10K/~330 is 3 times 10 = 30 years.
It doesn't matter what your acumen or taxes or number of trade ports or other modifiers are - only that they stay the same. If they go up, you do better; if they go down, you do worse. This is true regardless of how you compute it.
The time needed to make the building is not included in the result... everybody knows what it is, and it would need a messy two-term equation to include it.
Has anybody posted something like this before?
For any noobs that don't know: You can see what your 0% farm income is (if there's also other stuff in the province confusing the issue) by hitting the Economy coins button and holding the cursor over the name of the province in question.
DETAILS
This approach simplifies (collapses) some of the fixed values in the game.
Example: a 20% Farm provides 20% more than the current income, and it costs 600. How soon will the extra fifth pay off? (Notice: Current income is the variable to be solved around, and doesn't need to be stated.)
Years = Cost / Profit from the enlargement = 600 / Profit
Profit = New Income - Current Income
For going from a 0% Farm to a 20% Farm:
New Income = (New%/Current%) * Current Income
= (1.2/1.0) * Current Income
= (6/5) * Current Income
Profit = New Income - Current Income
= ( (6/5) * Current Income ) - Current Income
= (6/5 - 1) * Current Income
= 1/5 * Current Income
= Current Income / 5
Years = Cost / Profit
= 600 / ( Current Income / 5 )
= 5 * 600 / Current Income
= 3000 / Current Income
Since New% and Current% are fixed for a particular level, the numerator can be figured for each level. For the 40% Farm, it's 6*1000 (it adds a sixth; 1.4/1.2), 60% is 7*1500 (adds a seventh), 80% is 8*2500 (adds an eighth). The actual figures are: 3,000, 6,000, 10,500, and 20,000, but the 10,500 rounds to 10K pretty well.
The first merchant building (Trading Post) is its base value (think: 0% Trade), Merchant adds 20%, MG is 40%, MM is 60%. For them, the numerator is: Merchant: 5*1000, MG 6*1200, MM 7*1400. Actual values: 5,000, 7,200 and 9,800, but they round to 5, 7 and 10K pretty well.
The units of the numerator are dollar years (actually, florin years)... I wonder if we have a loan expert on board who's seen units like that before?
Bon appetit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif