Usefulness of advanced farms and advanced mills (mostly the mills)

[entropy008]

Other than spacial limitations, is there any reason NOT to build only normal mills? Despite the description when selected, advanced mills are not more efficient.

The cost to run a normal mill is 6 gold at 30 energy.

The cost for advanced mill is 30 gold at 50 energy.

That's a 500% cost increase in terms of upkeep for a roughly 60% gain on energy. IMHO not worth it and so far have had anything but spacial limitations.

Roughly the same argument can be made for advanced farms, ESPECIALLY if one takes the food-wonder (gives 800 food). Crystal Garden I think its called.

[amordron]

Advanced mill are conisdered by many vets the bane of everything that is TAB. Forget they exist. There the most asked for thing to get buffed. They cost literally 3x the amount of gold per energy. Its better to get powerplants and use ALL the wood income you got and buy your wood from the market even with only a single market than use advanced mills.

All other adv buildings are only ~1.2x the cost witch is not bad. remembering of the top of my head from last I did the math awhile ago.

Advanced farms are not bad once out of space but I havent seen a single mission they where needed for all of them you can get with just farms. Yes the wonder is more effective than advanced farms. Even in survival where it costs twice as much.

The setup costs for advanced buildings are painfull thou taking to much to set themup to boot.

[F0URSHEEP]

Originally posted by amordron:

Advanced mill are conisdered by many vets the bane of everything that is TAB. Forget they exist. There the most asked for thing to get buffed. They cost literally 3x the amount of gold per energy. Its better to get powerplants and use ALL the wood income you got and buy your wood from the market even with only a single market than use advanced mills.

All other adv buildings are only ~1.2x the cost witch is not bad. remembering of the top of my head from last I did the math awhile ago.

Advanced farms are not bad once out of space but I havent seen a single mission they where needed for all of them you can get with just farms. Yes the wonder is more effective than advanced farms. Even in survival where it costs twice as much.

The setup costs for advanced buildings are painfull thou taking to much to set themup to boot.

I only got halfway through the campaign, maybe you could find use for the advanced building (except for advanced mill) in the later mission?

[amordron]

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

Originally posted by amordron:

Advanced mill are conisdered by many vets the bane of everything that is TAB. Forget they exist. There the most asked for thing to get buffed. They cost literally 3x the amount of gold per energy. Its better to get powerplants and use ALL the wood income you got and buy your wood from the market even with only a single market than use advanced mills.

All other adv buildings are only ~1.2x the cost witch is not bad. remembering of the top of my head from last I did the math awhile ago.

Advanced farms are not bad once out of space but I havent seen a single mission they where needed for all of them you can get with just farms. Yes the wonder is more effective than advanced farms. Even in survival where it costs twice as much.

The setup costs for advanced buildings are painfull thou taking to much to set themup to boot.

I only got halfway through the campaign, maybe you could find use for the advanced building (except for advanced mill) in the later mission?

Ive beet by 100% of the campaign on nightmare and used the in exactl one mission the final one. Advanced farms. Before knowing the wonders dont need the tech first effectively halfing there cost. So for that one mission would of used that. Even than normal farms would of worked I just made 2x the pop I needed on that mission to overbuild my defenses even more (it wasent't needed) but was worried.

Advanced quarys can be good yes but the time it takes to pay back there setup cost the missions are not long enough to get there so getting the market and buying the resources with gold I needed ended up being "better" esp as gold with the gold from kills perk (there is 530k zombies on nightmare to give you idea how much gold you get, 2 per kill) lets you swim in gold to buy resources.

Also used powerplants on that mission for the first time no other one did I only basic mills with the power given perk for them and the energy cost reduce for other stuff.

Thats sicne in the last mission I literly massed them. Had 6-7 layers of them on every wall to buy time for units to move aroudn and support it was not needed as could of just spilt my forces. But dint no what was coming as first time I did it.


In apoc I think ill use the food wonder on some missions only as will need more troops for the double pop (and will have 1M zombies so the gold per kill will be broken by all hell). So will want room to place more soilder centers. Advanced farms doubt it still as need to get to iron tech to use them and thats annoying slow.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

I only got halfway through the campaign, maybe you could find use for the advanced building (except for advanced mill) in the later mission?

I'm at about 66% and there are a couple of maps that are pretty cramped and I wish that I had advanced mills and farms when I did them. A map called, iirc, "The Lowlands" springs to mind. It was doable without them, but would have been way less of a hassle simply because space is the real enemy on that one.

With the train logisitcs techs being as good as they are, I honestly doubt I will ever find myself wishing for advanced quarries.

[F0URSHEEP]

Originally posted by amordron:

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

I only got halfway through the campaign, maybe you could find use for the advanced building (except for advanced mill) in the later mission?

Ive beet by 100% of the campaign on nightmare and used the in exactl one mission the final one. Advanced farms. Before knowing the wonders dont need the tech first effectively halfing there cost. So for that one mission would of used that. Even than normal farms would of worked I just made 2x the pop I needed on that mission to overbuild my defenses even more (it wasent't needed) but was worried.

Advanced quarys can be good yes but the time it takes to pay back there setup cost the missions are not long enough to get there so getting the market and buying the resources with gold I needed ended up being "better" esp as gold with the gold from kills perk (there is 530k zombies on nightmare to give you idea how much gold you get, 2 per kill) lets you swim in gold to buy resources.

Also used powerplants on that mission for the first time no other one did I only basic mills with the power given perk for them and the energy cost reduce for other stuff.

Thats sicne in the last mission I literly massed them. Had 6-7 layers of them on every wall to buy time for units to move aroudn and support it was not needed as could of just spilt my forces. But dint no what was coming as first time I did it.


In apoc I think ill use the food wonder on some missions only as will need more troops for the double pop (and will have 1M zombies so the gold per kill will be broken by all hell). So will want room to place more soilder centers. Advanced farms doubt it still as need to get to iron tech to use them and thats annoying slow.

Truly, by the time you get your hand on foundry, your expansion rate wouldn't keep up with your economy and resource production. You would have excess resources to build some advance building, you want to build so much but the research will be slow and bottlenecked at your single foundry.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

I only got halfway through the campaign, maybe you could find use for the advanced building (except for advanced mill) in the later mission?

I'm at about 66% and there are a couple of maps that are pretty cramped and I wish that I had advanced mills and farms when I did them. A map called, iirc, "The Lowlands" springs to mind. It was doable without them, but would have been way less of a hassle simply because space is the real enemy on that one.

With the train logisitcs techs being as good as they are, I honestly doubt I will ever find myself wishing for advanced quarries.

Just place hunter huts INSIDE your farms. You lsoe 1 tile of space in your farm but gain 11-15 from the hunter hut as much as 22 with the hunter hut perk. So for giving up 4 food from the farm you gain a ton. This trick alone solves almost all food pop issues. Do the same in mill areas. Hunter huts are even more gold effective than farms to boot. Mills same thing place them in a X formation and than mix your housing between them AFTER the mills this is more space effective than mixing them randomly.

Doing the above plus taking the reduced energy to cottage/stone house perk and + energy supply to mills and even tight maps I had a good amount of space still.

[entropy008]

Originally posted by amordron:

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

I'm at about 66% and there are a couple of maps that are pretty cramped and I wish that I had advanced mills and farms when I did them. A map called, iirc, "The Lowlands" springs to mind. It was doable without them, but would have been way less of a hassle simply because space is the real enemy on that one.

With the train logisitcs techs being as good as they are, I honestly doubt I will ever find myself wishing for advanced quarries.

Just place hunter huts INSIDE your farms. You lsoe 1 tile of space in your farm but gain 11-15 from the hunter hut as much as 22 with the hunter hut perk. So for giving up 4 food from the farm you gain a ton. This trick alone solves almost all food pop issues. Do the same in mill areas. Hunter huts are even more gold effective than farms to boot. Mills same thing place them in a X formation and than mix your housing between them AFTER the mills this is more space effective than mixing them randomly.

Doing the above plus taking the reduced energy to cottage/stone house perk and + energy supply to mills and even tight maps I had a good amount of space still.

This is what we call a "pro gamer move."

[amordron]

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

Originally posted by amordron:

Ive beet by 100% of the campaign on nightmare and used the in exactl one mission the final one. Advanced farms. Before knowing the wonders dont need the tech first effectively halfing there cost. So for that one mission would of used that. Even than normal farms would of worked I just made 2x the pop I needed on that mission to overbuild my defenses even more (it wasent't needed) but was worried.

Advanced quarys can be good yes but the time it takes to pay back there setup cost the missions are not long enough to get there so getting the market and buying the resources with gold I needed ended up being "better" esp as gold with the gold from kills perk (there is 530k zombies on nightmare to give you idea how much gold you get, 2 per kill) lets you swim in gold to buy resources.

Also used powerplants on that mission for the first time no other one did I only basic mills with the power given perk for them and the energy cost reduce for other stuff.

Thats sicne in the last mission I literly massed them. Had 6-7 layers of them on every wall to buy time for units to move aroudn and support it was not needed as could of just spilt my forces. But dint no what was coming as first time I did it.


In apoc I think ill use the food wonder on some missions only as will need more troops for the double pop (and will have 1M zombies so the gold per kill will be broken by all hell). So will want room to place more soilder centers. Advanced farms doubt it still as need to get to iron tech to use them and thats annoying slow.

Truly, by the time you get your hand on foundry, your expansion rate wouldn't keep up with your economy and resource production. You would have excess resources to build some advance building, you want to build so much but the research will be slow and bottlenecked at your single foundry.

More soldiers centers always keeps up with your gold production. While can always dump gold into other resources at the market to get more houses vs going iron tier. The prob with iron tier is by the time its build and the tech is done I can have 5+ soldier centers pumping out units and have the map clear. Save the final missions last 3 where I did make iron tier for titans as using them to take the big guys was helpfull.

Thing with advanced buildings its not jsut the gold cost but the energy cost. A advnaced farm goes from 4 energy for 62 food to 30 energy for 124 double food but massive jump in energy. Witch than needs you to give up space for the mill so its not double space effective. Its onyl slightly more space effective as the mill takes up just as much land and the 22 extra energy vs jsut making a farm is basically a full mill. THOU if low on grass land the mill can be made not on grass. But the campaign is made around having enough grass for your needs.

If anything the food/power wonder is vastly more effective than advanced mill/farm and dosent req iron tier.

[amordron]

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

Originally posted by amordron:

Just place hunter huts INSIDE your farms. You lsoe 1 tile of space in your farm but gain 11-15 from the hunter hut as much as 22 with the hunter hut perk. So for giving up 4 food from the farm you gain a ton. This trick alone solves almost all food pop issues. Do the same in mill areas. Hunter huts are even more gold effective than farms to boot. Mills same thing place them in a X formation and than mix your housing between them AFTER the mills this is more space effective than mixing them randomly.

Doing the above plus taking the reduced energy to cottage/stone house perk and + energy supply to mills and even tight maps I had a good amount of space still.

How about sparing a little point taking +20% cottage/fisher food production? It wouldn't really make up to advanced farm but would be more cost-effective.

The +20% hunter hut perk is really good and worth taking. As mentioned in my farm example hunter huts are more effective than farms before that perk with it there hands down the best food option. Witch you should be massing even inside your farms. The fisherman one is more meh as vary few missions have good amount of water but as you got spare points it not bad but I wouldent get till much later on. As even the water based missions its not needed on.

[F0URSHEEP]

Originally posted by amordron:

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

Truly, by the time you get your hand on foundry, your expansion rate wouldn't keep up with your economy and resource production. You would have excess resources to build some advance building, you want to build so much but the research will be slow and bottlenecked at your single foundry.

More soldiers centers always keeps up with your gold production. While can always dump gold into other resources at the market to get more houses vs going iron tier. The prob with iron tier is by the time its build and the tech is done I can have 5+ soldier centers pumping out units and have the map clear. Save the final missions last 3 where I did make iron tier for titans as using them to take the big guys was helpfull.

Thing with advanced buildings its not jsut the gold cost but the energy cost. A advnaced farm goes from 4 energy for 62 food to 30 energy for 124 double food but massive jump in energy. Witch than needs you to give up space for the mill so its not double space effective. Its onyl slightly more space effective as the mill takes up just as much land and the 22 extra energy vs jsut making a farm is basically a full mill. THOU if low on grass land the mill can be made not on grass. But the campaign is made around having enough grass for your needs.

If anything the food/power wonder is vastly more effective than advanced mill/farm and dosent req iron tier.

How about Academy of Immortal? Are you using it? It's usually first or second wonder I build in apocalyspe survival mode. I want my mass soldier army flood over the infected.

[amordron]

Originally posted by F0URIVIAN:

Originally posted by amordron:

More soldiers centers always keeps up with your gold production. While can always dump gold into other resources at the market to get more houses vs going iron tier. The prob with iron tier is by the time its build and the tech is done I can have 5+ soldier centers pumping out units and have the map clear. Save the final missions last 3 where I did make iron tier for titans as using them to take the big guys was helpfull.

Thing with advanced buildings its not jsut the gold cost but the energy cost. A advnaced farm goes from 4 energy for 62 food to 30 energy for 124 double food but massive jump in energy. Witch than needs you to give up space for the mill so its not double space effective. Its onyl slightly more space effective as the mill takes up just as much land and the 22 extra energy vs jsut making a farm is basically a full mill. THOU if low on grass land the mill can be made not on grass. But the campaign is made around having enough grass for your needs.

If anything the food/power wonder is vastly more effective than advanced mill/farm and dosent req iron tier.

How about Academy of Immortal? Are you using it? It's usually first or second wonder I build in apocalyspe survival mode. I want my mass soldier army flood over the infected.

I did not use it. When I did my run dint no wonders dint need to be teched before building in the reasurch centers unlike survival. So judged it as the same as getting 100 soilders so if 100 soldiers dint get vet status of it not worth it. Most missions I cleared with approx 100 units (total units used over the campaign was 5000 45 missions so about 100 per mission avg). While with 500k zombies to kill most missions esp after getting the -20% vet perk 80% of my army was vet at the end.

Since than learned it is only half the cost in camapign so it should be mathed at if 50 units turn vet. In witch case since only on avg 20 units would of been made vet per mision still wouldent be worth to me. OUTSIDE of the final missions. Knowing what I know now i would of used in the final mission and prob 2-3 others.

In apoc ill get it earlier and use more as im planning to start a campaign tommrow and ill prob be going 15 vs 5 soilder centers a mission for an army of 200-300 a mission. due to the large gold per kill. I plan to get gold per kill running even before train. So in this run ya ill likely be using it more. Prob also the food wonder to support the extra troops in the later game. as thats going to cost me a extra 100-200 food + food for workers so around 400-500 more food so basicly that wonder will counter it. Using the gold per kill to pay for it.

For lower diffs I wouldent bother as the gold to kill would be worse so would be hard to justify the cost. Even playing some maps on lower diffs to play around since the patch that I can replay you really feel the loss of gold per kill in lower missions with low pop.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Originally posted by amordron:

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

I'm at about 66% and there are a couple of maps that are pretty cramped and I wish that I had advanced mills and farms when I did them. A map called, iirc, "The Lowlands" springs to mind. It was doable without them, but would have been way less of a hassle simply because space is the real enemy on that one.

With the train logisitcs techs being as good as they are, I honestly doubt I will ever find myself wishing for advanced quarries.

Just place hunter huts INSIDE your farms.

Oh, I did. I may not be a god tier TAB player but I'm not a total noob either.

Originally posted by amordron:

plus taking the reduced energy to cottage/stone house perk and + energy supply to mills and even tight maps I had a good amount of space still.

Those techs would have been helpful to have too, but I didn't have them. It was the first really space constrained map I played in the campaign so it wasn't on my priorities list at that time.


Really, just having one of these options would have made that map much less of a hassle -
Advanced mills
Advanced farms
Power Plants
Reduced Energy Consumption on houses

Any one of those would have resulted in a fairly substantial space savings, but I didn't have any of that stuff so I just had to make do.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

Originally posted by amordron:

Just place hunter huts INSIDE your farms.

Oh, I did. I may not be a god tier TAB player but I'm not a total noob either.

Originally posted by amordron:

plus taking the reduced energy to cottage/stone house perk and + energy supply to mills and even tight maps I had a good amount of space still.

Those techs would have been helpful to have too, but I didn't have them. It was the first really space constrained map I played in the campaign so it wasn't on my priorities list at that time.


Really, just having one of these options would have made that map much less of a hassle -
Advanced mills
Advanced farms
Power Plants
Reduced Energy Consumption on houses

Any one of those would have resulted in a fairly substantial space savings, but I didn't have any of that stuff so I just had to make do.

Ya I actively avoided every map that sounded tight on my run till I "had" to do them to get as much tech as possible. The energy reduce to houses is rather strong in later missions. To give an idea 2000 pop with cottages is 250 houses. So thats a saving of 9 mills witch is a rather good amount of space.

Take the wonders over the advanced stuff is my main advice the advance stuff is jsut not worth it. Hell most iron tier is not till the final few. But you can do without them even with other perks. Basicly jsut grab what every one is easy to get.

To your other comment I'm by no means a god tier player I just like to think I know well enough. I do think im on the upper end of players thou.