It isn’t huge. 5 Cisterns early on will delay any significant attack that will deal a killing blow by 20 minutes.
If they have 2TC, you’ve pretty much lost if that was your strategy. If the Cisterns were spawning for free, then that’d be different. But, they each take ages to make (excluding the walls), and force lots of walking time.
No matter how you look at it, the Cisterns are better as a supplement than any form of main eco. Their real benefit, which are the unit production, research speed and damage reduction, are best not forced as well.
If you wanted to double your production early on, getting 150 wood to make another building is far better. Otherwise, progressively gaining more production speed as you naturally place down Cisterns just seem better as well.
Basically. If you’re going to go aggressive with Byzantines, then this strategy will hamstring you in the long run. If you’re going to go for a more eco oriented game, 2TC is much, much better.
I’m not convinced you read any of my posts or have data to the contrary?
The initial cost of cisterns plus walk time plus build times is LESS than the intial cost of a 2nd TC? Also the return on the level 5 cistern will outpace the return of the 2nd vanilla TC for 6+ mins. All this is to say if your opp goes for 2nd TC and you go fast level 5 cistern you’ll have more resources to leverage early than him. The game is all about momentum and leveraging. Cistern offers a window of opportunity vs 2nd TC.
Would there be someone test which build between fast cistern or fast 2TC is better?
Test 2 player, both Byzentine ; each use each build and see who reach castle or imp age faster.
Or play 2 times and use stopwatch and show result.
You dont need 2 players. You can do it yourself vs AI EASY. and surrender at the exact same time per game and use map seed to generate more or less the same spawn per BO testing.
Then go to the total resource tab and add it all up and subtract the costs of 2nd Tc and 2nd TC villagers vs the costs of cisterns and aqueducts and WB.
Lastly most my comparisons are between cistern vs VANILLA 2nd TC civs, like English or Delhi or Japan or China2* or Rus 2nd TCs.
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Imo a legit legit buff for cisterns would be the 25% buff also applied to build speed. Then you could better afford to delay your feudal age up micro to start setting up cisterns earlier because you would be able to slam down landmarks. Another idea would be to grant 7% walk speed exclusively at level 5 cistern which would help recoup walk time building th cistern network and continue to contribute to your overall eco efficiency.
But the utmost straightforward patch would be to discount the cistern and aqueducts costs. Cistern cost would start at 50 but only grow by 25 stone per cistern to a max of 150 per at 5th cistern and beyond. Plus aqueducts would go from 2 stone per section to 1 stone per section. These 2 changes would make the early cistern build fly by other eco builds!!
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That 7% movement speed would also help them run away from raids. chase rams with akritoi defense against a feudal age timing push. Could even use it to flank enemy siege in the castle age. Get to an enemy keep or white tower drop faster.
Patch notes are out and byzantine just tot nerfed… nerfed trade nerf landmark nerfed cataphracts…but got 50 more stone to start…
They nerf the Byzantines, and did nothing for the Grand Winery.
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Byzantines didnt need any nerfs but buffs
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It’s clear to me the devs want to push the FC byz meta??
Bc they gave us the exact amount of stone necessary to build a close 2nd cistern and aqueduct without having collected any stone!!!
Which means you can be at level 3 cistern and in castle age with gulp action!!!
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Does your equation take into account the 150 food per minute needed to keep up production on the 2nd TC?
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yes thats the -50x (k+1)/.66
stands for 50 food times (total count of villagers from 2nd TC + 1) / nominal gathering rate
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I think there’s debates on builds - but while having 50 stone is better than not, I’m not convinced it meaningfully helps the “fast Cisterns play”.
I.E. You can gather say 50 stone at the outset and get a quick 2nd Cistern (100+50+24 from standard buildings). But by my calculations this is going to cost you around 100~ resources not gathered elsewhere. (i.e. 5 vils to stone and back, 1 vil making 2nd Cistern and aqueducts then going to some useful resource.)
Since Cisterns are only about a 4% resource gain, you won’t recover this quickly enough.
I.E. your average number of “working vils” from 1 minute (when you can realistically expect to throw down and link the second Cistern) and say 2.40 (getting late for an age up imo, but certain matchups may be more forgiving) is 11 vils. 1138/60100 seconds=697 gathered resources in that time with some rounding (ignoring the benefit of level 1 Cistern). Boosting this by 4% is just a 28 resource gain. So you are 70-80 resources adrift. This almost certainly means a delayed age up. You’ll eventually make these back but its not clear this is a major tempo boost.
Its a bit like aging up with 1 vil. Its economically optimal for most civs (some are a bit more complex). But against several, you are potentially just going to die due to being so far behind getting military buildings and units up.
With a build that is say “age up ASAP, then on to stone” you’ll be in a position to throw down Cisterns 2, 3, 4 etc a bit earlier (as you are 50 stone ahead) - but I’m not sure that will represent a meaningful tempo gain.
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I’m working on some number right now for “fast 5” and one for a 2 cistern into standard feudal macro.
With the 50 additional stone you do not have to mine any stone at all and you’ll get just enough stone via building your must have building to establish a 2 cistern at 4min 20s. (100 cache + 8x [ 2houses + 1 mine + 2 cisterns] + 32 landmark stone = 2 cistern and 14-22 Stone aqueducts connection).
In this specific case the investment is only the walk and build time which you can estimate to 106s (build plus walk time= 20+20+9x4.12[segment building] + initial walk time round trip 7x4).
I think it is safe to ASSUME that cistern 1 build and walk time cost would have absolutely been paid off by 4min20. So all that is left to pay for is cistern 2 and connecting aqueduct build and walk time which estimates to 14s initial walk roundtrip + 4.12s x 9 sections of aqueduct + 20s cistern build time ~72s.
Next, lets get a better estimation of our gathering buff. Most resources we’re gathering from (sheep gold stone straggler trees and berries*) are 1 tile or less from a resources depot. This means our steady state gather rates are 10res/[10/.75 + 2tiles/1.125walk_speed ] or better. And assuming the 10% aura even covers all our villagers… then those villagers gathering rates goes from 0.66 to 0.719, ~8.7-8.9% increase.
Next lets assume we can sustain the 1 tile or less for the amount of time it would take to recoup our 2 cistern network build time investment . The math suggests we’d recoup that build time& walk time in less than 40s!!!
Works out to +2vils and counting worth at 6mins for free. That’s not GG but being effectively 2 villagers ahead of some civs comparatively at the 6min mark CAN up the tempo,no?
Actually its Huugeeeee!!!
THIS FREE 2ND CISTERN 4min20s build outpaces 6min vanilla TC for 9 whole minutes!!! I think 9mins is enough time to be economically ahead of 6min 2nd TC and at LEAST be more disruptive than the 2nd TC guy!!
Another good thing about the +50 stone is that sometimes berries, deer and gold will be in sub optimal positions on a players start. So if someone wants to mill a food source in the Dark age or Early Feudal, but their cistern is already built on their gold. They can build a second cistern on the food source as well. With some spawns a player can get their food/stone/gold with one cistern placement, but the wood-line is out of the aura. The player can build the second cistern on the wood-line sooner or take an early 2 cistern build into consideration when placing their first one.
Okay this math assumes you can maintain 1 tile radius from resources depot which is unrealistic after a while. However what is more realistic is 1TC play with deplete nearby resources slower than 2TC play. So assuming nominal gathering rates for the 1TC cistern play is more realistic than the 2nd TC for a longer period of time.
My brain is slow, I’m not sure why it took me so long to see this.
Here we go!!! . Straight 5 cistern IS NOT the play!! Instead the play is free 2 cistern into immediate feudal eco upgrades!!! Why? Bc differing gathering buffs apply multiplicatively! So the 10% buff from cistern times 15% from double broadaxe equates to 26.5% active gathering buff. This is a better buff than going from 10% cistern buff to 15% cistern buff!!! And the cost is similar!!! Double broadaxe cost 150 resources and 3rd cistern costs 150 stone ( plus aqueduct and walk time and build time). Yes the one eco upgrade won’t effect all your vilagers but depending on your macro the majority of your villagers will be on food and wood or food and gold.
Secondly the more you build the cheaper the additional cisterns will cost, making the transitions natural and FREE!!!
Check this projection out!
2nd TC cost about 1556 villager-seconds to gather resources, walk times and build time, assuming the TC placement will be put on gold and efficient stone gathering rate is 0.703 and wood gathering rate is 0.66 and walk times are between 5 and 8 tiles one direction.
Compare the vanilla 2nd TC thing to the 2 eco upgrades and 2 cisterns, both being accomplished at the 6min mark!
K=+28 means the 28th 20 seconds with reference to the 6min starting point. Aka 15min 20s into the game is when a 2 cistern 2 eco upgrades nominal economy will fall behind a 2nd vanilla TC if both are established at the 6min mark.
Thats +9minutes of momentum!! That is Hugeee. And bc the investment is relatively cheap for the cistern eco play its extremely flexible to transition into any kind of macro!!! Fedual all in; semi fast castle; or bunker down and go full boom!!!
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No, it is not. I think you misunderstand the meaning of your numbers.
That “momentum” is a commitment. It won’t turn into a second TC out of no where or put you ahead of certain playstyles. What you have as a result of this, is bought time. And the question is; for what?
To be aggressive? This is where Byzantines already struggles. Is it really a good idea to commit everything to their worst trait?
So if not to be aggressive, what else do you do with this “momentum”? Fend off your aggressive opponent? Go castle? Because if your opponent is going 2TC, you’re pretty much donezo after this short, tiny resource boom.
The point here is that pushing cysterns like you are suggesting is in of itself a commitment that strips you from doing other meaningful strategie with Byzantines. If you want to boom with them, 2TC is infinitely better because you won’t be on bought time.
Byzantines is looking more and more like Abbasid by the day. They both struggle in aggression, and end up TC booming and reacting to the opponent for the entire game until their eco picks up. The exception is that Abbasid doesn’t have to make some mad dance with Cysterns to get their bonus.
And I’ll say; thats a lame way to go. Ayyubids is objectively the superior civilization, not in terms of balance, but in design. Byzantines should not follow that route, and it is unfortunate to see nerfs that nudges them in that direction.
My latest suggestion is to build ONLY the free cisterns plus network and research 2 eco upgrades. That investment is extremely small on your overhead that you should more easily be able to leverage your eco lead over 2nd TC player. A lead that last as long as 9min.
If you can’t leverage 9 mins of an eco lead to either out tech the other guy or cause more disruptions to his eco than he is doing to you then that’s another problem.
Regardless my previous suggestion was more invested than this current one yet les invested than the 2nd tc builder and permitted 6mins of and eco lead, significant eco lead mind you. If you can’t make your lead impactful inside early mid game 6min?? That again is another issue.
Laslty byz has zero issues with being aggressive so muuch so that they nerfed hippo because it was Too good at early aggression. Prior to updates you could do the french knight like fast feudal raids using triumph and the vil damage buff better than french!¡!
technically you can still do it now just less potent after the first triumph manuever.
Here is an example of a legit counterplay to a 2nd tc Rus boomer.
Single scout bounty denial
Standard sheep gold feudal macro
5 vil build hippo
Leave 2 on gold for upgrades and place 5 as they are ques onto stragglers remainder vils will go to sheep.
Assuming you started the landmark building pre 2min15s you should be up at 3min35ish.
Que 2 horsemen then research the villager bonus tech as the 2 horsemen go over to meet up with your scout where you’ve spotted potential 2 tab prey (only need 2 strikes to kill while under triumph and vil bonus).
From this point your next steps are opened ended.
Commit to more aggression if you see an opportunity or take it slower and get your eco upgrades as you stick around posturing or posture while you semi fast castle behind the pseudo aggression. Works even better if you can snipe enemy scout bc then he has to yolo.
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I think there’s clearly scope for 2 cistern 1 base all in. With that said, I’d have thought the benefits of Cisterns outweigh eco upgrades. Not in pure eco-gain perhaps, but for the fact that you can max out fewer army buildings so your wasting less resources building that up. (And nothing is stopping you getting these eco upgrades later on)
For early game tempo being able to max out with say 2 military buildings versus the opponent needing 4 is I think quite considerable. If this was the only benefit it wouldn’t be worth it - but you are getting that 5%~ eco bonus on top for each level. So if you do go to level 5, versus level 2 its like having spent on food, wood and mining eco upgrades - but you get that production bonus on top.
And being unkind - I think at lowish level (i.e. gold/plat) rather than pro, its just easier macro. Every few seconds a spearman or archer is turning up as necessary rather than turning up in lumps.
I mean this is terrible macro - but one of the things I’ve noticed from switching from Winery Failure to Hippodrome+5 Cisterns, is that as the game goes on you will likely get some oil from berries. But by that point you are both fighting in feudal, so you can just decide which of the feudal mercenaries will have the biggest impact, and relatively quickly get them out due to that 100% production bonus. Unlike say Winery and a couple of Cisterns, where you are seemingly left waiting an age to make anything (and then due to a lack of oil you can’t make anything).
