The return period here are for 1 ursury lombard, meaning that its the absolute bottom case, adding more lombards and getting advance lombards decreases the time it takes, effectively increasing the rate of profit.
if you are taking the maxed possible for lombards, the period is 13s
so using your own VS example the factory would only be producing 185.9 VS (and even then it would require a -500 res investment first to get a higher rate) which is actually lower then the lombards profit rate ( though arguably less efficient since its more food heavy)
that doesn’t happen, lombards don’t give you disproportionally more return the more deposit you put in, all it does after ursury is give you a buffer to decrease micro.
lets put it this way, in the ideal super micro intensive world you are just making sure that there are 250 of each res invested in the lombards, contiually cycling 250 of each res generated and keeping the profits. these lombards would function the exact same as though you are inputting 5000 of each res.
so the lombards are in effect, generating a net amount of res as though they were a factory after the innitial investment and the more lombards you have, the faster you gain these profits and ineffect, increasing the rate of profit
they are not factories, they are not allocatively efficient since they can’t focus on a single res and are predominantly food returns but in terms of pure returns, they are comparable
cause we know that ursury is supposed to be increasing the yield for gold.
so the strange bit is that why after ursury a food investment is also giving us more wood then proportionally invested, a first glance at the text would imply that it should only affect gold.
So the strange part is not just that the gold numbers are off then we would expegt but that it is also giving a an additional 50-55w aswell. I don’t think this is a bug either and I think if you note the actualy effect of ursury is increasing the yield for the gold generation it becomes a bit clearer.
Yield in the game in effect increases the amount of res total res you gather, but crucially it doesn’t increase the rate at which you gather them by. This means that what it does is make your res lasts longer.
So imagine the lombard after you invest in say 250 food. What the lombard is doing with the food can be imagined as adding in 2 working vils. Each vil is taking out 1 food each second and adding 1 wood and 1 gold to your stockpile. So over 125 seconds the 250 food is consumed you get 125 w and 125 g
If you are increasing the yield for the gold vil , as with the effect of ursury, what it means is that for the gold vil, you are taking away only 0.8 food everytime you are generating 1 gold.
The effect sounds fine and you will be getting more gold since the rate the food investment is consumed is decreased. But since there is also a wood vil still working they are also affected, since if the food investments last longer, they also get more more food to convert to wood as well, increasing the wood you get from the investment.
After checking the lombards in the file, this is also why there is a food profit, the lombards have a built in 50% yield increase on conversions to food, this balances out the increased food rate (ie, for every 1.5 f that is generated from say wood, you only take out 1 wood from the investments.
What this does mean though is that modeling the lombards is too complex using just the innitial numbers on paper, you will need to account for the rate at which the investments are consumed and the fact that each res invested is being converted into 2 different res and are consumed at different rates. I’m trying to model the res generated at every second to see if this is correct and atleast rough testing so far tells me this is accurate.
This model also predicts and I think it checks out that after ursury, say you invest in 250 of each res, the gold investment should run out before the wood and food investment, because ursury makes those 2 investments last longer but the gold one is depeletd at the original rate
What you want from a historical stanpoint has nothing to do though with the mechanical side of the game. And the mechanical side IS that italy is a european nation with nothing approximating a secondary factory whilest somehow also beeing an economic leaning civ supposedly and trading that with worse units f.e. royal guard mortars and culverins. Which is reflected in the winrate for italy after the last batches of nerves for gimmick builds.
IoW either the lombards are capable of replacing the second factory where we wouldn’t be having this discussion or it beeing needlessly obstuse and unclear and comparativly lackluster and we are having this discussion.
And I repeat: while your formula for converting to VS may be valid for the resources invested and the time it will take for the player to reinvest not in the initial resources, but in the accumulated profits, it then has no bearing on the calculation of net profitability from the moment you exceed this threshold of reinvested net profit.
Firstly, because you don’t take into account the exponential conversion speed depending on the number of Lombards you’ve built and the Lombards Advanced card. If I follow your reasoning VS = VC (conversion speed), then when you calculate Lombard profit with your formula, you must take it into account, because conversion speed would then be synonymous with production’s rate. With your formula, however, you are confusing conversion speed with production speed. Lombards convert first and mostly, and then produce profits. Villagers don’t convert, they only produce. So if I were to take your reasoning the other way round, and link the production speed of the villagers to the conversion speed of the Lombards, in order to define what the conversion speed of the villagers is in order to know whether villagers convert faster (which is what you’re inferring with your formula on the production speed of Lombards, even though it’s not their primary function), you’d have to calculate the time it will take your villager(s) to stop producing food and, for example, to produce wood and gold, reaching 400 gold and 400 wood (if you send the Sienese financers in your lombards, in order to lighten the calculation).
To do this, we’d need to define a theoretical basis according to which one: Lombard = so many villagers plus the conversion time for one Lombard with 800 resources and that of the villagers in order to arrive at this amount. But you can see that this is completely irrelevant. Because in doing so, you’re overlooking the fact that villagers produce, not convert, which is what you do with Lombards, whereas they convert first, which is another function and value, and then produce a trickle of profits, which can initially be calculated with your VS formula if you take into account the fluctuating conversion speeds of Lombards. But that’s still impertinent, because you’re modelling a productivist model on the Lombards, which is that of the villagers: that’s forgetting the primary function of the Lombards. Of course they can make a profit, and this becomes resource production, but initially it’s just a complement to conversion (which doesn’t have the same function, and therefore not the same value, as your villagers’ production), which becomes self-sufficient once your initial investment has been recovered. Because, let me remind you once again, Lombards first convert, then produce! Villagers only produce, so you can’t calculate a profit from resource’s conversion rate on the basis of its production rate. Your formula is in fact truncated or incomplete.
My point here is simple: Lombards aren’t as useless as the players think. They’re very useful at ages 2 and 3, but that indeed at age 4, as you unlock a bunch of resource-gathering upgrades, you have less need to convert your resources. But that’s when I say they can be a complement to the factory, that with the Usury card, they can produce an interesting trickle of food, especially if you deposit resources thanks to your cards. Your formula would perhaps be more relevant at age 4, in the sense of wanting to produce with lombards, but resource conversion, while perhaps less frequent at this age, is still useful, and in any case, if you want to produce, you first have to convert… Comparing a Lombard to a factory at age 4 shows its limitations, as it’s also forgetting that you can use your Lombard as early as age 1.
Then how do you explain the percentage interest rate on wood that seems out of line with other rates, with the Usury card? I won’t have time to do any more tests these days. If you find something interesting, let me know.
But I don’t expect anything from a historical point of view, I’m just explaining why the choice was made to have a single factory with the Italians. Because the economic golden age of the Italians in the aoe3 period corresponds to the Renaissance (Lombards). I wouldn’t call it a decline then, but rather an industrial and economic backwardness of the Italians, compared to their neighbors, who were more in the industrial era. This is surely what has guided the economic conception of this civilization.
So what I’m saying is that a second factory would run counter to the historically coherent conception of the Italian economy by its developers.
Rather, I’d say it’s you who, from a PVP point of view, since you seem absorbed by their low win rate (which I’m not questioning), expect you to add a second factory for Italians. In other words, because their win rate is lower than the others, you’re calling for the Italian economy to be standardized, under the pretext of rebalancing, while a second factory would completely get broken the Italians’economy in age 4…
First of all, I’d suggest a series of changes to the functioning of Lombards.
I have explained the simple model in the post, effectively since ursury is making it so that the rate at which your food invesment is being consumed to be turned into gold, it means that there is more food leftover that can be turned into wood.
this however can only be effectively modeled if you are willing to build a sheet to model the interaction at each second
The problem is that wood and coins are slower to gather, so more often than not it’s not worth to invest them until the super late game when you have an abundance of them, but it’s hard to get to that point, and a factory is just overall better and easier to use.
The way I use lombards is by investing food as it’s faster to gather, and then using lombards for getting faster wood and gold, that are then converted into musks or pavisiers.
Still, lombards both in the early and in the late game are too complicated to use for the more casual player, and the effort that they require it’s not paid off for what they gives back…
When you compare with similar buildings like duch banks, or even african markets, lombards are unnecessarily complicated to use, and both micro and macro intensive. Right now they are useful only thanks to the investment cards and the uffizi.
Lombards might become useful with advanced and usury cards in super late game treaty but even then they’re worse than a factory. For 99% of games they have no use other than to trickle resources and xp from the cards you send that make direct deposits into the lombards. Outside of that perhaps you trickle a bit of food just so you get the xp but if that is your aim then advanced lombards card actually makes that worse as it reduces the amount of time you get xp per deposit.
Excellent analysis, this post really clarifies why Italy is quickly drained of coins and its food quantity remains constant in treaty. Actually, I think the developers overestimated the power of the Lombards. I also don’t know why there are people saying the post-truth that Italy is a civ focused on the economy with a bad army, if in economic terms this civ is bad and one of the most annoying in terms of micromanagement.
Yes, making a strategy around gold with Italians is not currently interesting, as your musketeers are quite weak and you get your skirmish at age 4. I’d also say that cards like Establish Ironmonger, which improve your gold gathering rate, aren’t all that interesting when it comes to investing gold in your Lombards, as it’s a resource that drains very quickly, like food, and the more it drains, the more you disperse your settlers, which increases the risk of your adversary finding them and sapping your economy: choosing these cards will only increase your micro and the risk of your economy being slowed down by your adversary.
Now, if we go back to the gathering rates for each resource, we have :
Food : 0.84/s
Wood : 0.5/s
Coin : 0.6/s
Now, if you upgrade them with your market technologies (which you usually get at age 2), you have:
Food: 1.09/s
Wood: 0.85/s
Coin: 0.79/s
Two things, then:
Here, we can see that gold becomes the slowest resource to gather, and therefore the least interesting in terms of a strategy aimed at investing gold in your lombards.
Wood catches up with food (difference of 0.34 → 0.24).
So a strategy based around wood could pay off, knowing additionnaly that:
Wood is the longest-lasting and most abundant resource (in terms of primitive resources), requiring less micro from your settlers.
You can couple your wood strategy with the Sawmills card, which makes your trees last longer.
Your pavisiers and pikemen require wood and are, in my opinion, far more interesting units than the Italian musketeer for reaching age 3-4.
You get an interest rate of 24% and even 38% with Usurier if you invest wood in your Lombards.
By investing wood in your Lombards, you’ll get enough gold and food to get through the ages quickly (especially to age3, according to my tests).
Cards that improve the gathering rate are more interesting for wood because they are effective until the end of the game, which is not the case (to be put into perspective, depending on the length of your game) for cards that improve the gathering rate for gold or food: some of which target primitive resources and others those of your mills and plantations, never both.
You need wood on sea maps
In my opinion, one of the main advantages of your Lombards is that they can focus on one type of resource instead of your settlers, which reinforces the idea that a strategy set up with Lombards is interesting, because even though Lombards require micro, this balances out in a way, as you’ll have fewer settlers to manage. Which also means you reduce the risk of your adversary slowing down your economy, especially if you choose wood as your strategy.
We could draw the following strategy around wood coupled with Lombards as it:
Rush age 3 as fast as you can in order to get thanks to the cards better pavisiers which, assembled with your pikemen, will be the body of your army.
Start by investing the extra food in Lombards you might have at the beginning of age 2 (until you have enough settlers gathering wood and upgrades).
A good distribution of settlers at age 3 would be 15-20 settlers for food and 20-30 for wood, depending on your needs and level.
Once you’ve got a good supply of wood, invest it in your Lombards, and reinvest food in smaller quantities (to limit over-investment relative to the profits you’ll reap).
You should then have enough gold to produce a hussar/dragon net, but also artillery and upgrades.
If you get as far as age 4, choose to produce wood in your factory, and invest, if you can, slightly larger quantities of food in your Lombards.
You should also take as cards in your deck: CAPITALISM; SAWMILLS; EXOTIC HARDWOODS (not obligatory, but can make a difference); FRONTIER DEFENSE is for me an obligatory card since Architects’ get nerfed, but not everyone plays the same way; obviously the Uffizi card; CHIEST OF 700 COIN and the 1000-coin one, if the conversion doesn’t give you enough gold to move on to age 4; INFANTRY HITPOINTS, HEAVY PAVESES, STEEL BOTS and ROMAN TACTICS; ADVANCED LOMBARDS; USURY (not obligatory either). Of course also, some financers cards.
This is a strategy I’ve tried for a few games, so it’s all theoretical. It may not be viable for you at all. In any case, for those who want to or have already tried it, can post here their feedback aimed at contradicting me or confirming its interest. It could be interesting.
I’d like to remind you that I’m not trying to overestimate Lombard, which suffers from major design problems, notably in the absence of a tool that would allow the player to control his investments. I’d just like to demonstrate that a strategy can pay off up to age 3. At age 4, it will undeniably suffer aginst your adversary in possession of a second factory, as others economic’s strategies.
That doesn’t make much sense and oversimplifies a lot, as most armies in the treaty are predominantly composed of skirmishers infantry across civilizations, which obviously involves spending money. However, the Italian army is exceptional in its propensity to deplete coins faster than usual. Even with 80 villagers collecting resources, you can find yourself drained, while surprisingly, your food reserves remain constant. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that the bersagliere is expensive and weak, and that the halberdier must always be relied upon as the primary anti-cavalry unit. However, I still believe that the Lombards are a significant factor
it has the same cost structure as halberdiers and cost even slightly more in overall resources
a standard skrim cost 50f 65g, the bersagliere cost 50f 75g and their advantage speed doesnt matter in treaty mode so you are effectively paying 10g extra for the bugle and maybe auto target.
It even cost more gold then the neftenya.
and if you are also making halberdiers for your anti cav, that is also an extremely gold heavy unit which just compounds the drain.
Wait, 250 res + 250 res + 250 res are gathered in 13 secs with 5 lombards? I don’t think that’s the case.
In any case, you also need to consider the investment for the lombards, be it calculating the architect costs + time to build, or their building cost x 5. You have a time frame that you need to first surpass to REACH the factory’s 0 investment, immediate production.
That is what i am saying. The return is the same profit value x time, which is far worse than a factory, even sending 2 HC cards + building 5.
I’ m not getting your logic there:
A villager is all profit after its initial cost of 100 food… A villager isn’t consuming anything to produce more. A factory is PURE profit, compared to the lombard, as it first doesn’t require 2 HC cards to be viable, doesn’t require any deposit, doesn’t require any initial production.
Lombards on the other hand, require the villager production to work. They can’t work alone.
Now, that they convert resource is irrevelant because if I move the vills to food → wood, i have the same thing as your claiming ’ they are converting ', that is why Vill Second is still relevant. The settler isn’t a fixed entity on the map that can only gather 1 type of res, it can gather all res. So when you are ‘converting’ things, i ‘move’ the vills to produce another res… Same thing at its core.
In age 2 and age 3, you have limited time to work. Or you build all Lombards, or the timing won’t allow you to stay relevant. And if you decide to build all Lombards, you get behind (in age 2). And if you are behind age 2, well it’s a vicious cycle.
Yes cause the trickles all happens simultaneously and stack with each other so you are converting it very fast, 1 lombard with all three resources is basically converting 7 res per second and so 5 is 35 and and advance lombards doubles that to 70. So 750 res is converted in a very short amount of time, its why its so annoying to manage.
And its not like investment into a factory is costless, its 2 shipments at age 4 which is like what 3200 res and then add on the upgrade techs?
Im not saying they are super great, but they have their unique performance in italy, with how their own mechanics works ( free building, faster free building under the basilica) and the fact that its a tavern
can they be better? sure, I think ursury and advance lombards should either be combined or made into techs rather then shipments and arguably they can do with maybe a few more and their yield performance could be made more gold and wood heavy
You can take all this math, all this upfront investment of resources in, all the upfront investment of cards to send. Eventually, there’s a break-even point, followed by some profit.
But, boil it down to this instead:
Spend 100f on a vil. Get 100g back. Then get infinite gold back for the rest of the game as that vil carries on collecting gold. It’s just better to put the resources into conventional economy.
What about if you’re already investing everything you can into conventional economy? Your TC is queued, etc. Well, spend the resources you’d put into lombards getting up ages so you can have more TC’s. More economy.
To win in an RTS, you must do two things. Minimise idle time and minimise resources in your pool. If every vil is working, every TC is working, every military unit is pressuring the enemy’s econ, you win the game. That’s peak efficiency. Hoarding resources is how you lose. The lombard hoards thousands of resources and slowly gives you them back in almost the same proportions. Or, you have to hoard thousands of villager seconds in wasted cards and upgrades to make them useful.
You could make a case for them in a long treaty game as a factory substitute or as a source of wood if there’s zero left on the map. That’s about it.
If I give you £1 and you give me £1.05 back over 20 years, I make a profit.
If I give someone else £0.50 and they give me a penny back every day for the rest of time, I spend less upfront and get more back overall.
This is the lombards vs literally any other option to boom your economy issue.
Yes, you get a slight profit. But there’s an upfront cost of building the lombard to consider and a duration of time before that profit comes back. Booming conventionally is more effective.
And, it really shouldn’t be. Lombards should be useful instead of being a noob trap which slows down your econ.
Perhaps if they changed the lombards so you store resources in them and the more you put in the larger trickle you get like the french guild hall in aoe4 Guild Hall | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom That way this could potentially replace a missing factory depending on the rate and it removes the annoyance of having to constantly deposit into a lombard as it is now. Keep usury as it is so you just get more of a trickle with it for depositing the same amount of res and just remove advanced lombard card.