Building off the OP from here and my own comments in the thread
TLDR - Each worker (vils or livestock) on the hacienda applies marginal % reduction upon the current spawn rate of vils or Soldado - with a decay for each marginal worker
For vil spawn - each vil reduces about 10%, reduces to 5% by the 20th vil , cows or other livestock that shares the build limit are worth 1/3rd of a vil and sheeps and goats are 1/5th (with the same decay rate)
Vils spawn are affected by shipments such as Medicine & Marvelous New Year, but its a reduction of the base rate, not the marginal rate.
Soldado spawn are more complex - Each worker group (Vils, Cows, sheeps) have marginal decay for their own group, ie you should be mixing them together and not just have 20 cows working on a single hacienda.
Soldado Spawn decay happens at a much greater rate for vils, the most optimal worker spread is 13 vils + 7 cows, with a spawn rate of about 15 seconds (which is only 3 seconds more then having 20 vils on the hacienda) while saving you 7 vils.
A non vil option is 13 cows +7 sheep and 13 sheep + 7 cows, with both hacienda spawning at about 30 seconds
TLDR TLDR - 13 vils + 7 cows
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an additional discovery:
U can actually get 7 haciendas as spain with the sudanese natives

In order to saturate these 7 hacidendas, you will effectively need to have your entire eco +livestock dedicated to ■■■■■■■■ out soldados at max efficiency, with a combo of
2 (13 vils 7 cows)
1 (14 vils 4 cows 2 sheeps)
4 ( 15 vils 5 sheeps)
which requires…100 vils
But fear not
on maps like dafur, you can also get berber vils which normally have lower work rate on mills and estate but is a normal vil for the purpose of soldado spawn
which means you will have 104 vils in total meaning you will have 4 vils to spare to do other things like not ■■■■■■■■ our soldados
It’s not that efficient unless you’re playing treaty, or a very late age3, it’s more like a transition to mills card, but even Refrigeration seems better, that’s just 2 mills/plantations, which is good tho, but in 1v1s at a decent level your enemy will be knocking at your base when you get the haciendas built.
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It’s not a bad card, if 1 is used as a plantation and 1 a mill it’s worth 2k wood. Also gives a lot of xp when built. and 2 haciendas is 2 mills and 2 plantations.
Not worth it if you just need 1 mill though which often happens as mines usually last till later in the game.
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when combined with marvelous year card, you can have effectively a 3-5 tc boom while still being able to make units if you have spanish gold or just unit shipments, its arguably very potent
104 vills is too much,i generally have 30 vills and the rest only military units and cannons…
but then ur soldado ■■■■■■■■ rate is so low…
Nothing happens, total for when you can create soldados, you are up to the top of military units …
Actually this shipment is designed to train soldadoes, not settlers. You can even do some FI builds and produce industrial soldado (stronger than highlanders!), together with heavy cannons and 8+7 lancers.
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Of course, that is, the haciendas for the only thing they serve is to generate soldados at all times…