Both building similarity is they spawn unit units for free case closed, but is it? Well I decided to calculate the total cost and spawning time of both Summer Palace and Dojo before any card is being used, and compare the result between each other to see the resource/second it generates.
I can’t believe that a single wonder can lose against a unique building that have 2 build limit and can be created again if destroyed by explorer. Summer Palace most valued unit is Ming Army 3 Qiang + 3 Keshik at 2.94 resource/s which is much lower than 3 Yabusame which valued at 3.71 resource/s at Dojo.
There is some tech and card that influences the spawning rate, for Summer Palace it is:
Banner School (Age2, Build Time +23%)
Acupuncture (Age3, Build Time +15%)
While for Dojo it is
Bakufu (Age3, Build Time +10%)
Kamidana (Age4, Build Time +33%)
If the Mass Cavalry and Standing Army church tech also affect the train time, then Dojo would get even more value, still 2 unupgraded Dojo each spawning 5 Ashigaru is equal to 1.5 upgraded European Factory at age 3. The only limiting factor why this card isn’t in deck because Japanese already got many good Age3 card in deck.
Nice post very interesting. Worth noting that you can have the summer palace from age 2 whilst a dojo can’t even start training until you hit age 3 and then send a shipment so I don’t think it’s a big deal that they train faster.
Agreed. The summer palace is slow but you can get it in age 2 so it kinda has to be or it would be busted. Unless it speed up production a tiny bit every age up.
That’s why I also include the Confucian Academy there, so when only Summer Palace and Confucian Academy in equation, looks like both wonder got almost the same value with one being slower because it produce artillery in age2. This data also makes me thinking that for Chinese itself, in age 3 onward Summer Palace should be set to either Forbidden or Imperial Army since both give the most total resource
The difference between them is quite small, if you worked it out in villager seconds they are probably all very similar as wood takes longer to gather than coin. The only notably less value unit appears to be yabusame from the dojo. The dojos themselves have been slept on for a long time, I’ve had 1 in deck since the patch where they got buffed to be rebuildable. It’s hard to fit 2 in when playing 1v1 but I can usually get 1 of them in most games which pays for itself quite quickly especially with the age 4 upgrade.
Chinese units are kinda cheap by design and the reverse is also true for Japanese units so a cost comparison between the two is kinda not that good.
Each are kinda good in their own civs but comparing between them is harder.
dojos also kinda provides no tempo when its needed the most which is in age 3 you will need to spend a shipment which takes 40 seconds to arrive and then atleast another 2 mins before a unit batch pops out so that is about 3 mins which your opponent could just punch you in the face with an unit shipment. Even with this math its kinda bad compares to just sending crates since that is 1k res in 40 sec and you would need to survive for atleast 2 unit batches so about 6 mins for it to be better then 1 crate shipment
tempo on the other hand works well in the summer palace’s favour since you used to build it to get to age 2 and so it started working much earlier and usually the first batch comes out right at the point where you need to defend a push or as part of your own push timing so its impact is much greater.
iirc most pro sets summer palace to either territorial or even keep at old han not really for res reasons but just to get units as soon as possible for the overwhelming push since china’s goal is the deathball mass
the forbidden army is the like the 3rd best when you want to mass cavalry and do double sided armour timings
Completely agree with you and it gets even worse, because those cards cards only improve the building speed production by way less. The ‘’+‘’ symbol in this context means it taking longer, the ‘’-‘’ is the speed reduction (quicker). So this card only helps to reduce the train speed of the Summer Palace by only a mere 7%!!!
5% for acupuncture
People pointing out that it is available since Age II but the thing is even if you build it in Age III or Age V it is not any better. Compared to the Dojo that has the option to be upgraded in Age IV for better train time.
Finally, they never bothered to update the wonder and make it possible for it to train banner armies from the castle as well. In TAD this wasn’t an option because those armies came with flamethrowers.
