From this thread you'll find out
1.) How lousy the Koreans Cavalier is, even more-so than popular belief
2.) If Unique Cavalry units are effected by the persian cavalry bonus
3.) How effective the Persian +2 attack vs archers cavalry bonus is
4.) How useful the Goths infantry +1 attack vs buildings is
5.) Some facts about buildings that you might have not known about
6.) Which is faster for a japanese player to use, fishing traps or to farms
7.) Which is more effective for a japanese player to use, fishing traps or farms
8.) How effective the Saracens +3 cavalry attack vs buildings is
9.) How useful the Saracens foot archers +1 attack is
10.) If the Turks hidden stone mining bonus really exists
11.) Some tests to get you thinking

1.) "Just how lousy is the koreans cavalier anyway?". Most people at AOKH knows that the koreans cavalry is by far the worst in the game. But how bad do you ask? Here's a test between a FU Mayan Elite Eagle warrior vs a FU Korean Cavalier

Test 1
Cavalier wins with 3 out of 120 HP left (Eagle Warrior attacking first)
Test 2
Cavalier wins with 16 out of 120 HP left (Cavalier attacking first)

Hard to believe huh? A 20 Food 50 Gold unit can almost take out a 60 Food 75 Gold unit that bad. Here's how an Aztec Eagle Warrior pans out

Test 1
Cavalier wins with 35 out of 120 HP left (Eagle Warrior attacking first) That's 29% of the Cavaliers origional HP left, leaving about 17 food 21 gold of performance left.
Test 2
Cavalier wins with 52 out of 120 HP left (Cavalier attacking first) That's 43% of the Cavaliers origional HP left, leaving about 25 Food 32 gold of performance left.

Yikes! As you can see 40 more HP is much more useful than +4 attack for Eagle Warriors in case you were wondering. So a Korean Cavalier can almost cost effectively beat an Aztec Elite Eagle Warrior, but does horrable vs a Mayan Elite Eagle Warrior.

Now for something really humorous, a Japanese champ vs a Korean Cavalier

Test 1
Cavalier wins with 29 out of 120 HP left (cavalier attacking first)
Test 2
Cavalier wins with 16 out of 120 HP left (Champ attacking first)

And finally to take the cake, 2 Spanish Villagers with Supremacy vs a Korean Cavalier

Test results
Cavalier won with 15 out of 120 HP left! (all attacking at the same time)
Isn't that nuts? As for the the korean Cavalier, I give it the worst unit award. It's a complete joke for its cost.

2.) "Does the persian Cavalry bonus affect Tarkans and Cataphracts?"
The answer is no. But interestingly enough the vikings, celtic, and japanese infantry bonus work for every infantry UU unit in the game. So I guess ES didn't see it fit to let Cataphracts or Tarkans reap in the persian team bonus to aid them.

3.) "How useful is the Persians cavalry bonus against archers?"
Many might not think that the +2 attack bonus is really worth anything. But for the bonus, just subtract how many wacks it takes to kill a foot archer by 1 and that's how much the persian cavalry bonus aids you. So lets say it takes 4 wacks from a cavalier to kill an arb while it takes only 3 wacks from a Persian cavalier to do the job. Here's a list of units at the bottom where this theory doesn't work

A Paladin takes 3 wacks to kill an Arb, HC, and Elite Skirmisher
A Persian Paladin takes 3 wacks to kill an Arb, HC, and Elite Skirmisher

A Cavalier takes 4 wacks to kill a Elite Chu Ko Nu
A Persian Cavalier 4 wacks to kill a Elite Chu Ko Nu

A Paladin takes 3 wacks to kill an Elite Jannisary
A Persian Paladin takes 3 wacks to kill an Elite Jannisary

A Knight takes 15 wacks to kill a War Wagon
A Persian Knight takes 13 wacks to kill a War Wagon

A Cavalier takes 16 wacks to kill an Elite War Wagon
A Persian Cavalier takes 14 wacks to kill an Elite War Wagon

A Paladin takes 14 wacks to kill an Elite War Wagon
A Persian Paladin takes 12 wacks to kill an Elite War Wagon

There You have it, the list of all the exceptions to the -1 wack to kill for a persian heavy cavalry rule.

4.) How useful is that gothic +1 attack vs buildings anyway?

Well I'm going test M@As, LSM, 2HSM, and Champs for this one. All are FU for their time period by the way

A Gothic M@As tore down a Mayan Barrack 14% faster than the British M@As
A Gothic LSM tore down a Mayan Barrack with Masonry 10% faster than the British LSM
A Gothic Champ tore down a Mayan Barrack with Masonry and architecture 6% faster than the British Champ
A Gothic Champ tore down a Hunish Barrack with Masonry 5% faster than the British Champ

As you can see, the more upgrades a building gets and the higher upgraded the infantry gets, the lower the gothic building bonus is in effectiveness.

5.) Some facts about buildings

Many people don't realise it, but with each age you research into some buildings get some free HP added on. Here's a list of all the buildings that gets HP bonuses through-out each age (or you're the Byzantines)

Barracks
Dark Age- 1200
Feudal Age- 1500 (+300)
Castle Age- 1800 (+300)
Imperial Age- 2100 (+300)

Archery Range
Feudal Age- 1500
Castle Age- 1800 (+300)
Imperial Age- 2100 (+300)

Stable
Feudal Age- 1500
Castle Age- 1800 (+300)
Imperial Age- 2100 (+300)

Other buildings HP is the same though-out every age, unless you research Masonry and Architecture

6.) "Which is faster for a japanese player, to use fishing traps or to farm?"

*note* The timer started as soon as 1 food was hit and ended when the villager/fishing ships max capacity. I didn't add in any time it takes to travel to or from a mill/TC/Dock.

Feudal Age Farming w/no upgrades
For 10 food it took 13 seconds (1.3 seconds for 1 food)
Feudal Age Fishing w/no upgrades
For 15 food it took 19 seconds (1.26 seconds for 1 food)

Feudal age Farming
For 12 food it took 15 seconds (1.25 seconds for 1 food)
Feudal Age Fishing
For 15 food it took 17 seconds (1.13 seconds for 1 food)

Castle Age Farming
For 20 food it took 20 seconds (1 second for 1 food)
Imperial Age Fishing
For 15 food it took 16 seconds (1.06 seconds for 1 food)

Imperial Age Fishing
For 15 food it took seconds 15 seconds (1 second for 1 food)

So which is faster? Well, it depends. In the earlier feudal age getting as much food as possable is what you really want. So farming would be better, due to you get 1/3 less food in as it would take to fish it out of a trap, thus allowing for quicker speed (I've probably lost a lot of you by now. What I mean is, lets say you have 25 seconds. By this study you would get in 10 food from a villager and have the villager close to its next delivery. With a fishing ship how ever, you would only get in 15 food and be 1/5th of the way through your next delivery. So with the villager, in the 25 seconds you would have in just about 20 food, while with the fishing ship you would only have in 15 food and be a ways off from your next delivery. So as you can see the villager is more effective before the Wheelbarrow upgrade.)

After the wheelbarrow upgrade though, it's all up to your tastes since both are just about equal by then.

7.) "But which one gives you more food for your wood?"

Ok, this is a common question among newer players, and still baffle some of the better ones.

Farm before any sort of upgrade
175 food, 2.916 food for 1 wood (since farms cost 60 wood)
Fishing Trap
715 food, 7.15 food for 1 wood (since fishing traps cost 100 wood)

Farm with Horse Collar
250 food, 4.166 food for 1 wood

Farm with Heavy Horse Plow
375 food, 6.25 food for 1 wood

As you can see, fishing traps are a much better choice earlier on if your pressing for wood, but bring in more food slower than a villager would which is the set back. But after an upgrade or two, farming is just about as good as fishing is. So for a die hard answer of which one is better for the Japanese to use, Farms in feudal, and both in castle to imperial if your not pressing on food as much.

8.) "How effective the Saracens +3 cavalry attack vs buildings? I mean, who would use cavalry archers to attack buildings?"

Well when you're sacking a town you usually have some HCAs just sitting around waiting for villagers with nothing to do. Here's the damage results for the HCA against a barracks with no upgrades, one FU, and everything inbetween.

HCA vs a barracks lacking massonry and architecture does 5 damage per arrow to it
HCA vs a barrack lacking architecture does 4 damage per arrow to it
HCA vs a FU barrack does 4 damage per arrow to it

"Yeah, that's great and all, but who really cares?"

Well a normal FU HCA does a whopping 1 damage to a barrack that has zip upgrades to it. Consider that the Saracens are one of the 2 civs that have a FU cavalry archer line in the game (other is the Turks). It actually takes 9 HCAs to do the damage of just 1 paladin to a building! This is quite discouraging considering how much CAs cost. So really I would suggest that you don't build about 45 HCAs and expect to rip a town to shreads, since you'll only be doing about the damage of 5 paladins to the buildings. Though they are quite handy to annoy a TC since you can slowly wear it down and then pick off the villagers that come running from the burning TC. So don't just mark off Saracen HCAs like "those one CAs that are sort of ok, but not as handy as a Mongols!" since they are quite strong and do serve more than their initial purpose in an attack. Just don't expect miracles out of them and then get mad when they do 4 damage to a building.

9.) "How useful the Saracens foot archers +1 attack?"

Well during my testing they tore down buildings 50% faster than other civs. Now don't go thinking you'll be able to shread buildings with archers, since instead of doing the 1 damage that all archers do to buildings, you'll do 2 damage instead regardless of the buildings armor or how upgraded your foot archer is. Also for an interesting, nothing to do with anything really side note, just plain archers tend to grunt and such a lot, but as soon as they become CBM or Arbs they quit. Must be some little bonus ES threw in for no purpose.

10.) "I've heard that the turks have some sort of hidden stone mining bonus, is that true?"

In the origional AOK before any true patches and such there was a hidden bonus for the turks for 15% faster in mining stone. Well I'm sorry to say but it has been removed, either from TC, or from the newest patch, probably to make the koreans stone mining bonus more worthwhile and unique to them.

11.) And finally, I wrap up this edition of Some Things to Think About with a few unit tests of units you might have not expected but sort of wondered about once or twice

FU Persian LSM vs Spanish Villager with Supremacy
Test 1
LSM wins with 13 out of 55 HP left (LSM attacking first)
Test 2
LSM wins with 7 out of 55 HP left (Villager attacking first)

This test is to show how yet again, the Spanish villager is one of the better trash units in the game

FU Hunish 2HSM vs FU Persian LSM
Test 1
2HSM wins with 16 out of 60 HP left (2HSM attacking first)
Test 2
2HSM wins with 5 out of 60 HP left (LSM attacking first)

This tests shows that the Hunish 2HSM is indeed, the 2nd worst heavy infantry unit in the game by bairly beating a persian LSM. What's sad is that the Persian LSM is actually better for raiding towns since they only lack 5 HP to a 2HSM, but have 2 more PA than a Hunish 2HSM.

FU Saracen HCA vs FU Mongol HCA
Test 1
Saracen HCA wins with 10 out of 80 HP left (Saracen HCA attacking first)
Test 2
Saracen HCA wins with 5 out of 80 HP left (Mongol HCA attacking first)

This test shows that the mongols HCAs are not the best like people think, but are the 3rd best (Turks have HCAs equal to the Saracens) This is not saying that the Saracens/Turkish is better than the manguadi, but it's to show that they're better than the Mongols normal HCA line (not unique).

FU Spanish Archer vs FU Celtic/Frankish
Test 1
Spanish Archer won with 10 out of 30 HP left (CBM attacking first)
Test 2
Spanish Archer wins with 14 out of 30 HP left (Archer attacking first)

This test is to show that the Spanish foot archers arn't as bad as people say they are (they're only the 4th worst foot archers in the game)

FU Teutonic CA vs FU Celtic HCA
Test 1
Teutonic CA wins with 16 out of 70 HP left (HCA attacking first)
Test 2
Teutonic CA wins with 22 out of 70 HP left (CA attacking first)

This test is to show that the Teutons don't have the worst CAs out there, but they have the 3rd worst CAs out there (Frankish CAs are just as lousy as the Celtic ones)

And now the most shocking test out of all of them

FU Spanish villager with Supremacy vs FU Korean Hussar
Test 1
Villager wins with 8 out of 80 HP left (Hussar attacking first)
Test 2
Villager wins with 14 out of 80 HP left (Villager attacking first)

This test is to show that...well how lousy the Koreans cavalry line is in general.

I hope to make another issue of Some Things to Think About in the future when I actually have time (since I've cut OD out of my diet, I should have more). But I'm plaining on my next thread to be an all out Civ blowout of how good they are in each area though tests, and grade them on each area on their performance to show how good the civ really is in certain areas (and I'm not going to just study the Civs Tech trees and score them on how many techs they get, since it's pretty obvious that just because a unit line is FU in a certain area but lacking a few techs doesn't mean that it's decent. Just look at the Korean Hussar and Cavalier for instance). It'll take me a long time to make the thread though (hell this one took me 4 days), but I can assure you I will be making the thread in the future.

[This message has been edited by Sir Marf of Ans (edited 11-29-2001 @ 08:21 PM).]