Which Civ has the best economy?

[Maldoeg]

>_

[Kawaii bisexual vampire-chan]

My vote:

Early game - Mongol. Can't beat 50% hunting bonus.
Overall - Mayan. 20% longer resources becomes very cumulative the longer the game goes.

Then again, these are the 2 civs I play the most so I could be biased.

[Dots]

depends on what your looking at.
mayans have longer lasting stone/gold (early game sheep/boar/deer/berries)
vikings get automatic handcart and wheel barrel which is a nice boost in fuedal and castle.
spanish get 33% trade bonus and all economic researches (i think)
koreans 20% faster stone miners
celts 15% wood cutters
turks 15% faster gold miners
aztecs vils carry +5 resources so less walking time = better eco
brits faster working sheepers (not very good for long term but good short term in dark)

i mean its really well balanced. No single team has the biggest advantage over the others.

[D3rp]

vikings

[Dalv]

yeah, vikings for sure

[Leston]

You need to ask more precisely.

There are economic advantages that cause effect on a limited time/ressource like british sheperds, mongol hunters or frankish berry-pickers. They are exactly worth the ressources you can additionally collect with the same amount of manpower/time.
Compared to a bonus-neutral civ, british sheperds on 8 sheep can collect 150+ additional ressources.
Mongols on 2 boar + 4 deer makes a plus of 3-400 ressources, not counting an additional mill for deer or probably long walkways. Keeping that in mind, the advantages reduces to 2-300+, depending on map circumstances.

These bonuses seem to be of little worth, but they cause effect in the first minutes of the match, granting a remarkable advantage (due to very low eco this time) to get started better and probably support successful early aggressions such as fast feudal rushing.

Other economic advantages last over the whole length of the match like celtic woodcutting or turks´ goldmining. They cause minor effect in the dark/early feudal due to less %-bonus and because food is the main ressource then. You just don´t cut that much wood in dark age.
It also depends on the benefit of the explicit ressource: Woodcutting bonus will help you booming when reaching castle age with the need of building town centers and a lot of farms. Faster gold mining is relevant when you need a lot of gold in times of massing your army or paying expensive upgrades.

The viking free wheel-/handcart is something special: While affecting all workers remarkably, both techs are available for all civs. Getting them instantly with no research time (blocking the tc) and no cost when reaching feudal/castle age as vikings makes them a very dynamic economic factor. When feudal rushing, you can´t afford wheelbarrow at first, when heading for fast castle age, it will delay your castle time. It will cost you a few villagers you could have produced instead anyway, so the economic advantage at first is more or less zero (It´s said, wheelbarrow is worth researching for 35+ villagers, handcart 50+). Same goes for handcart in castle age: You don´t want to block your then only tc with a quite long and expensive tech research when you should boom instantly. If you are in military engagement, you don´t want to spend your ressources on that anyway.
So, these free techs boost your economy for free when feudal rushing or give you an instant booming advantage when reaching castle age (you even reach fast castle with more ressources due to free wheelbarrow). If you use these advantage-"chokepoints" well to gain advantage over your opponent, it will give you an advantage lasting the whole match. If not, not.

There is another factor in economic advantages: Economy is not only about income, but also about spending your ressources.
Cheaper fishing boats as malay allow you to start pumping boats parallel to villager produktion rd. half a minute earlier, granting you effectively 1 more boat. You need 2 villagers less on wood to maintain boat production, too. As result, from ~3rd minute on you have permanently an additional income of ~50 resources per minute when doing a water start as malay.
Also, the upgrade costs for different units differ widely, just compare paladin and arbalest, or different unique units.
Chinese have cheaper techs, some civs pay less for specific units and so on.

All in all there is the one strategical fact to mention: AoE2 is not an eco simulator, it´s not about a booming contest. It is about military dominance to win the match. Of course, military needs economy to be paid, and disturbing opponent´s eco is always a good idea to gain advantage. But every economy is only worth as much as the military it supports. Also, time is the most relevant factor. Attacking your opponent with a bunch of archers rd. 13:xx probably will win the game, the same attack 2 minutes later isn´t worth the effort. Same goes for post-imperial massed paladin flood.
So, every economic civ advantage needs to be transformed into a military advantage, now or later, to be a value.

[Maldoeg]

thanks for such a great reply, even if it has been 3 years!

[Experienced Noob]

With the new civs:

Khmer -- don't need to build buildings that aren't necessary. For example on BF, you don't need to make smith/market, saving you 325W pre-Castle Age. Since wood is so important to booming that's a big advantage. It streamlines any other strat too.

Malay -- can build something like 5 extra villagers over another civ while achieving the same Castle Age time. That's a huge advantage. They also have the cheap FB bonus.

Burmese -- Free woodcutting techs not only means you save the cost of the techs, which is pretty significant, but you also have them a couple minutes before everyone else.

I think these are up there with other big eco advantage civs.

[Leston]

Agree on that.

Khmer are good for a insane early tower rush. Reaching feudal 8:00 with pop 16+scout+loom, instantly towering the opponent with 4 villies (one tower after the other oder every 2 parallel) while keeping on producing villagers at home after reaching feudal is at least offline vs ai no big deal.
For fast castle: Going feudal that early won´t allow you to gather enough food to click castle short after, you have just too less workers while transition to feudal. Mining 150 gold (given you do loom) will make a mining pit necessary, you don´t want to walk all that ways. Mill for deer and/or berries isn´t avoidable, too. You could skip the lumbercamp at first, as you don´t need wood for the two feudal buildings, the stragglers are sufficient (thinking of 5 houses + 2 camps, having 200 initial wood needs just 125 wood to be cut). But whats up when you reach castle age? You want to boom? Need a lot of wood. You want to go knights? Need wood for stable (no need for barracks first) and building farms before reaching castle age. Building a blacksmith to give your knights +1/1 is a good idea, too. So, you have to chop a lot of wood anyway, making a lumbercamp necessary at least right after castle click. Market makes sense in team games on open maps to get cartography asap.
So, you could skip the feudal buildings (and additional 2 villies) for a minute faster castle, but will come out with weaker economy. Don´t know if it´s worth it.

As you say, malay water start is strong, faster age research, too. As you say, it allows to build a few more villies with the same feudal/castle timing. Using it for faster age progress doesn´t work that well, you just have too less resources then to start your actions.

Burmese: I don´t think the free lumber upgrades are that strong. For feudal rushing they come too late, and there is no other economic bonus to support it. For fast castle, this upgrade usually is the first thing I do after clicking castle age. Same is for 2nd upgrade, doing it right after reaching castle age anyway. Keeping in mind that they are developed fast and not that expensive, this bonus seems to be quite moderate to me.

[Experienced Noob]

re: Burmese

1st wood tech is 100f 50w, second tech is 150f 100w, so that's 250f 150w saved. Takes a villager about 5 minutes to gather 100 of a resource, so 400 resources saved is pretty significant IMO. The imperial tech is very expensive too.

[Night]

I wish we could go back to the time these comments were sent.

[Imperator]

Originally posted by Night:

I wish we could go back to the time these comments were sent.

I would like to go back in time, to when I bought the original AOE2 CD.