Pages

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Defensive Units and Their Cost

Every unit has a cost and a defensive value but which unit is worth making? Which one will actually save you from losing your castle? That is the question I will try to answer as many want to know which unit is best vs which attacker. 

Lord of Ultima is a game about building and training efficiency as well as strategy and tactics used to maintain score. In order to be the most efficient player, you must play efficiently. Whoever produces the most resources, should win, and troops are basically resources that have been converted into a unit that is able to destroy enemy resources/units. I have compiled a table to help understand the cost efficiency for each troop so that you may defend and hopefully kill off more 'resources' than you lose.


Understanding the Table: 

The cost for a particular unit is calculated by the (Wood + Stone + Iron) + (Gold x 1.75). The gold is multiplied by 1.75 because gold is worth 1.75 x one unit of resource. 

For example: A guardian costs 140 iron and 40 gold. The total cost for the guardian is 140 + (40 x 1.75) = 210 'cost'.

Given that formula, the table shows that rangers rank best vs infantry, guardians rank best vs cavalry, and ballistas rank best vs artillary AND magic. I know, you're thinking what about Templars?! They're great vs magic, too, but ballistas perform slightly better than them, stat-wise. Include training speed into the mix and you can argue that templars are better.

Anyway, take a look at "Ballista WT". These are the stats for Ballistas in a tower and with a wall level 10. Assuming such, it costs 1 resource per 1 artillary defense point. The 0.44 is the Total Cost for each Defense point. This is important because incoming attacks are unknown and stationing units that have a good (low) cost per defense point will ensure that you are defending your castle with the best units possible. All the units in deep red are not to be used for defense as they offer very little defensive value for whatever it cost to produce. You'll want to keep defensive units defending and only offensive units on the prowl to assault and siege others.

Take a look at the Ranking section on the right. The ranks are shown with #1 being the best. If you are being attacked by:

Infantry - Defend with Rangers #1, Ballistas #2, Guardians #3
Cavalry - Defend with Guardian #1, Crossbowman #2, Sloop #3
Magic - Defend with Ballista #1, Templar #2, Ranger #3
Artillary - Defend with Ballista #1, Sloop #2, Ranger #3


I hope this table has helped you understand the defensive cost efficiency per unit. It may seem that ballistas are the best but there are other factors that should be taken into account when determining the best defensive troop as this table only rates by the defense stat. Other factors are training speed, march speed, food consumption, and the ability to use a frigate for continental defense, which I will talk about next time. Coming up soon, I will talk about the Offensive Units and Their Cost. Rate, comment, and subscribe. Thank you! :]



14 comments:

  1. City guards missing

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anon, I kind of purposefully left them out. Their best defense stat would be 10+5(Wall)+10(Tower)= 25 when they have a wall and tower. They cost 100wood / 25 defense = 4 cost/ def.
    If I added a City Guard WT row, it would be 4, 4, 4, 4 for inf, cav, magic, arti. All 4's across the board is nothing too special, in my opinion, but yea, good eye. :)

    I don't make them in castles as the food generated goes all to my regular troops.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for answer. I see that important because it can provide baseline. All units below or equal are good. And if I understood math right, City Guard WT line total cost / total defense is 1.

    I don't build those in castles for same reason :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like to keep some crossbowmen around for supporting others. They're not the best overall defenders, for sure... but they're not the worst either, and they can get where they need to go much faster than other defensive units.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You might also want to consider the effect that research has on these troops as well.

    With the stats you've shown, Ballista and Sloops will be miles ahead of the others because the % gain for them means more because of their higher starting values in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ballista is 10 units, for 200 magic def (20/unit)
    templar is 1 unit, 50 def for magic (50/unit)

    Ranger is 25/unit vs magic and a guardian is 20

    Hopefully no one mistakenly builds Ballistas based on your guide here thinking they are building the "best" magic defense.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ^ Best "Cost per defense" vs. magic, not necessarily the best defense vs magic.

    When it comes down to it though you are trying to lose less resources/time than the other person so really a good in-depth comparison including training time would be best.

    Also on a side note... LoU gives gold a value of 1.5 (from the rankings --> resources area). I'd be interested to see the comparison using 1.5 instead of 1.75 as the value of gold. I'm too lazy to do it myself :)

    Epik

    ReplyDelete
  8. Do you have any recommendations on what towers to place in a city, both rez and castle? Does placement have any affect?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Interesting to see ballistas ranked higher against mages than templars. Templars have the ability to raid though, ballistas don't. So you can get some/all of the templar cost back by raiding whenever you are not under pressure.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What about War Galleon attacks?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Site de Suporte www.lordofultimabr.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Regardless of what state you call home, you should find a gay sizegenetics. As expected there may be the orthodox method of the phonebook, even so you should really go to websites online. Most them have full color pictures of gay sizegeneticss who will likely to be competent to give you a pleasant experience with an erotic gay sizegenetics. There is a websites that need be both convenient and very private. Do yourself a favor and go to one today. While concerning the hunt for an Erotic gay sizegenetics , make sure you go towards sexy sizegenetics website. There you'll look at full color pictures of any of their therapists, and be comfortable with your choice of Gay sizegenetics .
    http://buysizegeneticsonline.tumblr.com/

    ReplyDelete
  13. This table is useful as a resource, but you are right when you say there are other concerns. The biggest is movement speeds. Ballista are great if they are where you need them to be, but they take forever to move around. xbows are fast but expensive. Rangers, templar, and guardians can all be sped up with the same type of research, and guardians and rangers can be built from the same castles. If you are building a castle to defend itself and another nearby castle ballista are prob the way to go. if you want to help support your whole alliance rangers/guardians are prob the way to go since you get a versatile defense from an efficient castle and can move your troops reasonably quickly. A second castle with templar rounds out your defense.

    ReplyDelete