In depth look at EC I wanted to do for a while.

You must have made some error in your calculation. ECs have the highest Atk/(training time) in the game. Ye, they even beat clubs.

Also, the size bonus does not apply to the number of units, but rather the total Attack power of your OFF army.. so its not correct that you rather want 3 EIs than 2 ECs to get advantage of a ”Horde Bonus”.

Yes ECs are expensive, but if you can afford it you can enjoy training ECs with the knowledge of that you are training the unit with the highest atk/time in the game.

Quote from Scorox

You must have made some error in your calculation. ECs have the highest Atk/(training time) in the game. Ye, they even beat clubs.

Also, the size bonus does not apply to the number of units, but rather the total Attack power of your OFF army.. so its not correct that you rather want 3 EIs than 2 ECs to get advantage of a ”Horde Bonus”.

Yes ECs are expemsive, but if you can afford it you can enjoy training ECs with the knowledge of that you are training the unit with the highest atk/time in the game.

you are right but when calculating with the hero weapon it is better to have 3 EI than 2 EC

Quote from Bryfer#NO

you are right but when calculating with the hero weapon it is better to have 3 EI than 2 EC

Better in what way? What I meant there was just that the "Horde/Size Bonus" does not have anything to do with the number of attack units. Hence the choice of 3 EI vs. 2 EC is not affected by that. I think the most useful way to this about the EI vs. EC comparison is this:

EI's are better in: Atk/Cost (including crop upkeep), More suitable for Ghost hammers due to their speed, Better at farming due to speed and capacity.

EC's are better in: Atk/Production time ... and having #1 Atk/Production time in the game makes them a really Great OFF unit.

First: I didn't check your numbers. Whether they're correct or not is irrelevant, because you're asking the wrong questions. It is completely irrelevant, whether EC are better than clubs in terms of any offensive point. You do not have the decision between EC and clubs. You have the decision between Imperian + EC + Ram vs. Club + TR + Ram.

• Roman EC hammers (with that I mean Imperian + EC + Ram - this will count for analogue cases in the following aswell) are the second best hammers in the game, in terms of attack force per time. And attack force per time is the one single stat, that is relevant for hammers in most cases. You want to train hammers quickly, because unlike defense you can't put two hammers together to fight as one.
• There may be an exception for WW hammers, their supply might be hard, so you might want to look at supply aswell, but wait, roman EC hammers excel at fighting strength per crop consume, being the best hammer in the game in this term.
• That one does not build EC as defense unit should be crystal clear. I will not explain in depth why, it's just obvious, they suck at deff. But so do most offensive units. EC just don't suck completely as def, so some people build them as def, whyever.
• You also don't really want to farm with horses if there are so many farm spikers around, like I heared it in com to be the case. One could opt into training EI in a support village for farming only, but that's another topic. So their carry capacity doesn't matter that much. Maybe a bit, if one is taking the risk of being spiked, but farming with Imps should be better there. Can't speak from too much experience here though, I always opted into either a support village with farm-EI or into a tertiary off with EI (EI's attack force per time is only a few percent below EC's, so it felt okay-ish to do so for a tertiary).
• Troop speed from off units is mostly irrelevant, you usually send your rams with them. Maybe if you want to bash clubs or a clubhammer you send EC only, but that's ... rare. But yes, that point is somewhat valid, EC's speed is bad.
• Resource costs don't matter too much aswell, EC off costs roughly 8% more than an EI off, but that's only around 2k resources per hour. You will be able to afford this anyway, also your hammer's supply will quickly cost way more than it's production anyway.

EC hammers excel at the one important off stat, and this is what counts, which make them a very good off unit. Other stats are ... interesting to read, but compared to attack force per time kinda irrelevant. Especially for the main hammer, like I mentioned, for a secondary or tertiary hammer one can opt into EI for farming.

By the way: You CANNOT make ANY conclusions without HDT. HDT is THE building for romans, if you train roman off, you ALWAYS have one. Calculating without one is useless. Also, calculating with level 0 units is nonsense, for the very same reason. You always upgrade your hammer to level 20.

Quote from Be2-e4

First: I didn't check your numbers. Whether they're correct or not is irrelevant, because you're asking the wrong questions. It is completely irrelevant, whether EC are better than clubs in terms of any offensive point. You do not have the decision between EC and clubs. You have the decision between Imperian + EC + Ram vs. Club + TR + Ram.

• Roman EC hammers (with that I mean Imperian + EC + Ram - this will count for analogue cases in the following aswell) are the second best hammers in the game, in terms of attack force per time. And attack force per time is the one single stat, that is relevant for hammers in most cases. You want to train hammers quickly, because unlike defense you can't put two hammers together to fight as one.
• There may be an exception for WW hammers, their supply might be hard, so you might want to look at supply aswell, but wait, roman EC hammers excel at fighting strength per crop consume, being the best hammer in the game in this term.
• That one does not build EC as defense unit should be crystal clear. I will not explain in depth why, it's just obvious, they suck at deff. But so do most offensive units. EC just don't suck completely as def, so some people build them as def, whyever.
• You also don't really want to farm with horses if there are so many farm spikers around, like I heared it in com to be the case. One could opt into training EI in a support village for farming only, but that's another topic. So their carry capacity doesn't matter that much. Maybe a bit, if one is taking the risk of being spiked, but farming with Imps should be better there. Can't speak from too much experience here though, I always opted into either a support village with farm-EI or into a tertiary off with EI (EI's attack force per time is only a few percent below EC's, so it felt okay-ish to do so for a tertiary).
• Troop speed from off units is mostly irrelevant, you usually send your rams with them. Maybe if you want to bash clubs or a clubhammer you send EC only, but that's ... rare. But yes, that point is somewhat valid, EC's speed is bad.
• Resource costs don't matter too much aswell, EC off costs roughly 8% more than an EI off, but that's only around 2k resources per hour. You will be able to afford this anyway, also your hammer's supply will quickly cost way more than it's production anyway.

EC hammers excel at the one important off stat, and this is what counts, which make them a very good off unit. Other stats are ... interesting to read, but compared to attack force per time kinda irrelevant. Especially for the main hammer, like I mentioned, for a secondary or tertiary hammer one can opt into EI for farming.

By the way: You CANNOT make ANY conclusions without HDT. HDT is THE building for romans, if you train roman off, you ALWAYS have one. Calculating without one is useless. Also, calculating with level 0 units is nonsense, for the very same reason. You always upgrade your hammer to level 20.

Great post. Cover it all. Except maybe that EIs makes the best Ghost Hammer in the game. This balance between movement speed and atk/time is great.

Quote from Pacifist001

If you check the wiki 3 EI.s will get +45 ATK +45 DEF from the weapon, meanwhile 2 EC-s will get +40/+40 that is what I meant as a horde bonus. That might seem insignificant but quickly piles up.

Look at it this way. 27/24, 36/32, 45/40 are all 1.125, meaning EI-s get 12.5% more increase from hero weapon. This is even more true during the early game when Romans dont have enough resources to raise the Horse Drinking Pool to max level.

Aha, I thought you meant the "Size Bonus" when writing "Horde Bonus". My bad.

But still, even when accounting for the Hero Weapon ECs have about 12% larger Atk/time than EIs. So even the extra buff from Hero Weapon EIs gets compared to ECs do not help them to get better than ECs in terms of atk/time.

Another thing to consider is that a EC + Imp army make maximum use of Bandages. So if you are a heavy gold spender and Duke/King .. EC + Imp may be a viable option for continuous attacks... even if your activity in terms of raiding is not good. One should have in mind that a poor raider usually reach the maximum upkeep they can afford rather quickly as Teuton .. so for none-farmers and non-King/Duke Romans are a venue for reaching a rather strong OFF army.

You are wrong.
Be2-e4 is right.

Simple as that. I will not argue about it, true is true. Sorry.

Quote from Scorox

Better in what way? What I meant there was just that the "Horde/Size Bonus" does not have anything to do with the number of attack units. Hence the choice of 3 EI vs. 2 EC is not affected by that. I think the most useful way to this about the EI vs. EC comparison is this:

EI's are better in: Atk/Cost (including crop upkeep), More suitable for Ghost hammers due to their speed, Better at farming due to speed and capacity.

EC's are better in: Atk/Production time ... and having #1 Atk/Production time in the game makes them a really Great OFF unit.

EI weapon tier 3 as example is 3x15 attack and deff which equal +45 and EC is 2x20 attack and deff which is +40 for the same amount of crop

Quote from Bryfer#NO

EI weapon tier 3 as example is 3x15 attack and deff which equal +45 and EC is 2x20 attack and deff which is +40 for the same amount of crop

This is not enought to recover from the difference between EC and EI. EC is even more interesting about Attack/time.

Almost all you said is wrong or irrelevant.

Quote

1. Paying 36% more in total resources. (790/1220=0.64)

1.1. Meaning unless you are NPC-ing you cant queue IMPS effectivly meaning you ARE losing ATK/MIN because your IMPs wont be able to go 24/7. After 14.43 hours if I am correct(I did it in a hurry will go double check later).

2. Getting 2.2% less ATK/Crop if equiping sword.

3. 29% less speed.

4. 54% less carrying capacity.

1. You arent paying 36% more for the same time. The difference is far lower than that. You'll pay 4,4% more only.
1.1. Market is here for you, since gauls and germans are selling iron against wood.

2. Less than what ? The 11% becomes 8.8% ? And I guess you mean ATK/Time and not ATK/Crop.

3. Wrong. EC aren't 29% less speed. 21,5% less speed is correct.

4. Wrong for the same reason. 30% less carrying capacity is correct.

Quote from Pacifist001

Ok lets compare these 2 units and see what you are getting @Aillas

EI-(157.1ATK+15ATK)/44MIN=3.911ATK/MIN

EC-(232.4ATK+20ATK)/58MIN=4.351 ATK/MIN

Total difference is 3.911/4.351=0.89 for a grand total of dum dum dum 11% faster ATK/MIN.

So for 11% faster ATK/MIN you are:

1. Paying 36% more in total resources. (790/1220=0.64)

1.1. Meaning unless you are NPC-ing you cant queue IMPS effectivly meaning you ARE losing ATK/MIN because your IMPs wont be able to go 24/7. After 14.43 hours if I am correct(I did it in a hurry will go double check later).

2. Getting 2.2% less ATK/Crop if equiping sword.

3. 29% less speed.

4. 54% less carrying capacity.

You cant lie math. Math and strategy win the game. ;3

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there is a thing that you should take into account not all villages are 4446 and the oasis bonus are diferent

To be honest, I'm a little aggressive in my previous messages. It's the fact that you're talking about math while using erroneous data on the chain that annoyed me. My apologies for that.

Quote from Pacifist001

Ok lets compare these 2 units and see what you are getting @Aillas

So for 11% faster ATK/MIN you are:

1. Paying 36% more in total resources. (790/1220=0.64)

1.1. Meaning unless you are NPC-ing you cant queue IMPS effectivly meaning you ARE losing ATK/MIN because your IMPs wont be able to go 24/7. After 14.43 hours if I am correct(I did it in a hurry will go double check later).

2. Getting 2.2% less ATK/Crop if equiping sword.

3. 29% less speed.

4. 54% less carrying capacity.

You cant lie math. Math and strategy win the game. ;3

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That's what is called balance. Different styles favour different attributes and one is good with ECs, another is good with EIs.

1. As people already said, this is incorrect: off/cost: EIs offer 8% cheaper off-points.

3. IMO speed and carrying capacity aren't as important for a hammer—since we're talking about non-stop.
BTW you can use the linked tool to get accurate results

Answers in red:

Quote from Pacifist001

• First: I didn't check your numbers. Whether they're correct or not is irrelevant, because you're asking the wrong questions. It is completely irrelevant, whether EC are better than clubs in terms of any offensive point. You do not have the decision between EC and clubs. You have the decision between Imperian + EC + Ram vs. Club + TR + Ram.
  
• You should always by all means check the numbers. In every game(and especially in Travian) numbers are the key to greater understanding and victory.
• Why should I check numbers, that are irrelevant anyway?
• Roman EC hammers (with that I mean Imperian + EC + Ram - this will count for analogue cases in the following aswell) are the second best hammers in the game, in terms of attack force per time. And attack force per time is the one single stat, that is relevant for hammers in most cases. You want to train hammers quickly, because unlike defense you can't put two hammers together to fight as one.

Correct, attack per time is important but only as long as you are able to keep producing EC-s 24/7. The more downtime you have the worse they are. If you look at EC-s the main problem is not just the fact they are more expensive. It is the fact that they dont balance out the resources to allow you to keep barracks and stable producing 24/7. (Unless you are NPC-ing, but gold only feature should not have influence on macro gameplan)

You ARE training 24/7. At least in the main hammer. If you aren't able to do so, you should consider farming or switching to def. If the supply is too huge, go farming more aggressively. Also, like others pointed out, the actual res / time cost (which is the "relevant" point in this regard) is just a few percent off. You wouldn't be able to produce many more EI either. And since you produced for a long time EC instead of EI, you have the bigger hammer now, if you train EC. And still, you're supposed to train 24/7 with 17/22/27% helmet, if you don't at least in your main hammer, you're doing stuff horribly wrong.

That one does not build EC as defense unit should be crystal clear. I will not explain in depth why, it's just obvious, they suck at deff. But so do most offensive units. EC just don't suck completely as def, so some people build them as def, whyever.

Quote from Pacifist001

Also correct, however I commented on the in game description of them, not weather or not they should be used in def(of course they should never be used in def). They are described as:

The Equites Caesaris are the heavy cavalry of the Romans. Well-armored and heavily armed, they are however slower than the Imperatoris and can only carry few resources.

This is more of a remark on how developers see them, which is in my opinion incorrect.

To be honest, developers don't seem to get the game to its fullest extend anyway. Yeah, the description is garbage. But then again, wouldn't be surprised, if clubs would be presented as top-def-unit ingame.

Resource costs don't matter too much aswell, EC off costs roughly 8% more than an EI off, but that's only around 2k resources per hour. You will be able to afford this anyway, also your hammer's supply will quickly cost way more than it's production anyway.

Again, as I said above the cost itself is not the problem it is the way that cost is combined with other units. EC-s are Iron-Clay heavy. If you are building them you are also building imperians which are also Iron heavy in terms of cost. So you will have little to no Iron, medium amount clay and no wood. Again as long as you are NPC-ing this is not a problem, but for a F2P player it is much more appealing to have EI-s which compliment Imperians better in terms of cost.

Trade with other people? Gauls, for instance, are searching for clay all live. Also, production cost is the less significant factor, if you build an hammer. Supply cost will grow far above training cost soon.

You also don't really want to farm with horses if there are so many farm spikers around, like I heared it in com to be the case. One could opt into training EI in a support village for farming only, but that's another topic. So their carry capacity doesn't matter that much. Maybe a bit, if one is taking the risk of being spiked, but farming with Imps should be better there. Can't speak from too much experience here though, I always opted into either a support village with farm-EI or into a tertiary off with EI (EI's attack force per time is only a few percent below EC's, so it felt okay-ish to do so for a tertiary).

Yeah however for a troop used primarily for offense it is disgusting to know that almost every single defensive troop in the game is able to outcarry them. Also if there are spikers around it does not matter weather you are using horses or infantry. Nobody will ever use EC-s for any form of farming. The point was made to showcase how counterintuitive and paradoxal the unit is.

It's not counterintuitive, if you think about it correctly.

From a game balancing aspect, you want different troops have different traits. And since attack force per training time is THE trait for an offensive unit, you have to cripple their speed and carry capacity to make alternative units (EI) at least somewhat appealing. In case of EI/EC in my opinion, the balance is well done, because for secondary off / tertiary off / some people also build EI only for club/scouts/oasis bashing and farming one can opt into EI without being completely screwed - like it is the case with gaul's thunder vs. haeduan, for instance.

Apart from the balancing aspect, it also makes sense in a lore-logical way. If you carry heavy armor and a heavy weapon with yourself, how are you supposed to carry a lot of resources aswell?

By the way: You CANNOT make ANY conclusions without HDT. HDT is THE building for romans, if you train roman off, you ALWAYS have one. Calculating without one is useless. Also, calculating with level 0 units is nonsense, for the very same reason. You always upgrade your hammer to level 20.

If you had read the post you would have seen I did not calculate, I simply took the information from relevant site. However all of the other things apart from 1 were in fact made with Horse Drinking Pool in mind. And even then EC-s are awful. Before you spend X thousand resources on maxing a Horse Drinking Pool they are even worse. That is why I said you should always check the numbers.

Yeah, I didn't read your post, I just read the title and randomly posted some thoughts which all by coincedence refered to your post nicely. Makes sense. It doesn't matter whether you calculated them yourself by hand or whether you took them from some site, that provided them. My point doesn't change, any calculation without HDT is completely useless. By the way, I think you got me wrong. I read your numbers, but I didn't double-check them.

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Quote from Pacifist001

Ok lets compare these 2 units and see what you are getting @Aillas

EI-(157.1ATK+15ATK)/44MIN=3.911ATK/MIN

EC-(232.4ATK+20ATK)/58MIN=4.351 ATK/MIN

Total difference is 3.911/4.351=0.89 for a grand total of dum dum dum 11% faster ATK/MIN.

So for 11% faster ATK/MIN you are:

1. Paying 36% more in total resources. (790/1220=0.64)

What the fuck? Sorry, I don't find other words for this particular calculation. Saying "you pay 36% more for 11% more atk/min, because a EI costs 36% less than a EC" is wrong on so fucking many levels.

1) One EC costs 1220/790-1 = 54% more than a EI. Not 36%.

2) This doesn't even matter, because cost per minute is the relevant number here. Imagine you buy toilet paper. You need 15 rolls of toilet paper per month. A 10-pack costs $ 2.99, a 50-pack costs $ 9.99. Do you buy the 10-pack, because one 10-pack costs 70% less? Or do you buy the 50-pack, because you pay 33% less per month?

3) I still insist on comparing full offs, not only parts of them. CpM for full EC/EI offs was mentioned above by myself.

1.1. Meaning unless you are NPC-ing you cant queue IMPS effectivly meaning you ARE losing ATK/MIN because your IMPs wont be able to go 24/7. After 14.43 hours if I am correct(I did it in a hurry will go double check later).

Again, trade with other people. Also, you probably have enough production of wood, clay and iron to keep all training queues up, as soon as you have some villages, even without trading. Traiding is still recommended, though. Also, no idea how you get to 14.43 hours and even no idea what happens after this timespan.

2. Getting 2.2% less ATK/Crop if equiping sword.

So what? 2.2% from horses only is like 1% if at all in total. Also, atk/crop seems a little weird wording, because you have actually more atk, but even more supply. More crop / atk would be more fitting though. But now I'm getting picky. However, 1% more crop per atk is worth the atk/min bonus times 100.

3. 29% less speed.

True, but who cares? I understand the urge to farm and maybe bash quickly, but don't do that with your main hammer. A decent off account has multiple hammers, or at least support villages with farm units. You can build EI there easily.

4. 54% less carrying capacity.

Don't farm with your valuables horses from your main hammer. That's just ... not even near not useless. Also it's 30%, not 54%.

You cant lie math. Math and strategy win the game. ;3

Yeah ... one can't lie to math. But yours was a good try, I guess?

And while I agree, that having a bad strategy is worth more than having no strategy at all ... I will still prefer to have a good strategy and good units. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I will get on board and suggest EC might need a slight def boost, but it's not a big issue.

EI is a very cool unit for sure, and speed is perhaps a little too underrated by many here.

Having said that for the best possible roman EGH you would build with ECs.

Far more affordable as a duke or king though, as going pure EC from early is fairly prohibitive and the crop saving only chip in at level 20 HDT which makes it a tougher early to mid-game for sure.

If something has the best possible outcome in one important field (attack per time) it is not under-powered - despite the tougher resource cost.

If you like to farm and attack more EI is far better (personal flavour of course)