This game is so realistic, seeing that, in my experience, every newborn child is also the result of about 140 seconds of collective effort

Having to justify one's own creation is hard

hours played in AoEII: 1000 hrs hours played in Microsoft Office Excel: over 9,000 hrs

Nice video again Sotl. One more thing to mention: A town center also helps economy by making one less mill, a mining camp and a lumber camp. Also a town center is equal to one house which need some woods to support population as well as stone for guarding them like a watch/guard tower. (Edited house pop.)

A town center is also a universal drop-off point for resources. It costs less wood than building a mill, lumber camp, and mining camp separately, although it does also cost stone and obviously won't be placed as efficiently as if you built those individual buildings instead of the TC. But if you were going to build one of those anyway, you're really only out 175 wood and 100 stone. A TC is never placed in a vacuum, so most of the time you're going to be placing it next to resources that you would have built a lumber or mining camp next to anyway, and even after those are gone you can still use it for farming. So really, when compared to building both a mill (for farms) and a lumber/mining camp, you're only out 75 wood and 100 stone, or even up 25 wood if you would have built all three. And that's in addition to using it for defense and villager creation.

History fact: most European towns grew around a church or castle, followed by economic buildings such as market stalls, slaughterhouses, and banks, then finally wood or wattle-and-daub huts for villagers. Similarly Arabic and African towns sprung up around a mosque or market hub, with trade being a much more common factor for a settlement than European towns. Polynesian towns were centered around fishing and sea trade, with religious influence limited to mostly the local settlement, as opposed to the widespread organization of Catholicism and Islam. Wouldn't it be nice if instead of a town center we just built a monastery or dock?

even thought I've never played aoe2 myself, I feel like I have an understanding of the game just from watching this channel alone.

Calculating the worth of a product in workhours? *Karl Marx wants to know your location*

I guessed right! Also this went way deeper than I expected, great video as always.

Another very nice vídeo! Cheers!

This video is the kind of content that's making me love this channel. It's very scientific in the sense that it focuses on a single question and tries to analyze it in the most measurable way possible in order to get the best and most objective answer. Fantastic work, man!

Thank u for the new video! Great work :)

You are great! I really appreciate and love your work!

Your videos always put a smile on my face.

gald you are back man

Cool Video. Enjoyed it as usual! Question back: How long does it take for Spirit to do another Road to 1800? A. Bout a month B. Half a year C. A full year D. Just a little short of a lifetime

Awesome video!

Great video as always, thanks

A new Spirit of the Law video? Valentine's day came early this year :')

Your VOICE is one of the best parts of your video, Spirit of the Life.

More than any other SOTL video, this one left me with more questions than answers

I found out about this channel the day before yesterday. I've quite enjoyed your other videos, but this one is getting into economic theory so much it makes me want to reread Das Kapital :)

So great, even now years later this video is fascinating

never thought the building time is a major resources of having a new town center. GREAT VID!

Thanks for the video, I learned alot

Very good video!! :)

Love the new format sans intro!

Was the intro song forgotten or left out of the video intentionally?

Great videos :)

I stared playing this game AGAIN a few months ago thanks to you, stoped playing because I got bored, and still watching you

I haven't played AoE2 in many years, I watch all your videos as they come out. Man I love your maths

Could you do a video on the archery range? I personally struggle at times at which ranged unit I should focus on (Arbalest, HC or CA). A video with all the pros and cons of each unit in different situations would be very helpful. Keep up the good work!

Hey, it is also a Mill, MiningCamp and LumberCamp in one, you save wood by building the towncenter (if you placed it perfectly) also it shoots arrows and is an awesome defend building, better than anything that costs 100 stone. In an attack, it pays off in an instant, because you save a lot of vills 140 seconds per villager and kill enemys if you get attacked. alot of vill seconds per kill because you don't need millitary units. I know you said it at the end, but this is worth so much that it wins or loses you the game :) I don't play that much myself, but by watching others play and occasionally playing on my own, the second TC is the best thing you can go for in defending and saving res.

Bro I love your videos so much

Excellent Choice!

I miss your intro. not sure why its not included in every episode. I've also wonder why youtubers dont include ingame music to their videos. Ensemble nailed it, and I still listen to ingame music to this day. cheers, thanks for all your insight and helpful videos!

Hey Spirit, pls make a video on siege towers!!

Amazing job, l am impresed with you using a spreedshet.

yeah but you might want to add a initial travel time,maybe the cost of attention, maybe the cost of securing additonal space, and surely the cost of camps.. im realy inspired by your video though and i am looking forward to see more stuff like this!

not exactly the video i needed, but definetly the video i wanted !

Great video! One subject I'd love to see a "Spirit of the Law Clinic" on is those key "first seconds" (and then first few minutes) of the game. For example... am I better hitting "H-C-C-C" first to get villagers queueing, or quickly grabbing the existing villagers and getting a house going so I don"t get housed as soon as the first villager finishes -- is there a difference in getting that first villager out most quickly or in avoiding the most amount of time being housed in between the first and second villagers? I"m guessing that both of those things are more important that (a) getting the scout moving, (b) getting the sheep over to the TC, and (c) having somebody build that traditional second house that I don"t actually need yet but efficiently uses the villager time before I have the sheep found/organized, but I then I don't know the relative tradeoffs of those three things either. Another question that seems valid... should I be grabbing ALL THREE villagers to get that key first house done (the one that de-houses me) even though it's nominally less efficient of a villager's time than having one of them build the second house, because it critically cuts the time I am housed at the TC, making the second and third villagers (and hopefully all the other ones) appear more quickly? And is there stuff you can show us about whether it's important to get that key first sheep into a perfect "sweet spot" under the town center, or is "close enough good enough" at least for the first sheep to get villagers going. Etc, etc, etc. And then should I give the scout a circular waypoint order or be manually switching back and forth. Etc. How near does a deer need to be to my TC or Mill for sending e.g. four villagers to hunt it is better than having them on berries/sheep, faster than farming, etc. I bet you could do a whole video on the first five minutes of the game! Maybe more than one!

awesome!

When I see that SOTL uploads a new video, I close anything I do, like the video first and start watching

My prof also gives an option of "All of the above" and "None of the above" too. This option drives me crazy

spirit of the law you are great❤❤❤💪💪💪

I had it in my gut I said about 7min to 10min as I had the feeling that's when my economy started to prosper, thanks that you confirmed my feeling.

A smart video given the increasingly popular one town center strategy.

Hi, I would suggest considering the following factors as well: 1. Town Centers provide 5 housing. A house costs 25 villager seconds + 30 wood (approximately 60 seconds) = 85 seconds. 2. The additional farms would have been built eventually, so you could either disregard the farm cost or adjust it by a factor of 0.6 as an opportunity cost. 3. Town Centers are optimally situated between trees, and a stone/gold mine, also serving as a mill afterwards (at least half a mill until trees/mines are cleared). It becomes a full mill once all wood/mines are cleared post-TC, if we want 90%+ farm efficiency. This item should be considered as an opportunity cost as well, given that we might not want to build a mill, lumbercamp or mining camp at that moment, So applying a factor like 0.9 here would be appropriate. I pick as high as 0.9 here because we'd really need new lumbercamps, mining camps at the beginning of Castle Age anyway. I didn't multiply by 0.9 here here because i'm a bit lazy after this long comment. Based on building cost and time: a) 1 building (lumber camp/mine): 35 seconds build time + 100 wood (about 190 seconds) = 225 seconds. b) 1.5 buildings: 345 seconds. c) 2 buildings: 450 seconds. d) 2.5 buildings: 560 seconds. e) 3 buildings: 665 seconds. This adjustment would reduce the payoff duration. For option a (225 + 85 from house ≈ 300), the payoff time would be 6:40. For option e (665 + 85 from house = 750), it would be 5:50. Considerations: 1. If you think we don't need additional lumbercamp/mining camp/ mill at that moment you can lower the opportunity cost. 2. We might make seperate calculations for: a) Chinese (15 housing) - moderate. b) Sicilians (100% faster TC built) - significant. c) Spanish (30% faster TC built) - Important , but it also reduces the value it adds as an economic building. d) Huns (No house) - minor. e) Berbers (faster walking villagers) - just for fun f) Britons, Bulgarians, Incas, Malians: Less resources for TC. g) Lithuanians: 100 food ( 100 * 60./ 23.975 = 250 seconds saved) h) Tatars: 2 sheep (200 food, can delay farms). i) Japanese: Nearly halves the economic building benefits mentioned, costing 50% less wood. j) Armenians / Georgians: Decreases the opportunity costs of economic buildings thanks to mule carts, but I think it's still applicable since at the starting of castle age, you would need additional mule carts anyway. k) Romans: 5% towards everything positive and negative in the calculation, so it wouldn't affect much (except for villager creation time farmer's gathering rate, which could be neglected) l) Persians and Hindustanis: You've already covered them. m) Poles: I wouldn't place my farms around a tc as Poles, as I love the folwark + farm duo. I'd expect you to more MATHY , my dear friend :)

It depends on what you assume for the VS(villager seconds) for different resources. I made this spreadsheet a while ago, assumed a flat 20 resources per second since villagers never gather wood at an actual 30 wood per minute due to the trees getting further and walking to the trees from the tc as well as other inefficiencies like having to build additional lumber camps. I have it around 8 minutes 45 seconds. These spreadsheets are also useful for things like figuring out when to go up as Chinese for a fast castle or as Malay. I've even used it to figure out when to go up on Turbo. People used VS a lot for AoE3 so I'm a little disappointed it's not used in AoE2.

0:56 Spirit of the Law explains Marx's Labour Theory of Value...

Amazing learn

Could you please make a video on the different architectural styles for civilizations in the original aoe2 and the hd expansions? Thanks!

I guessed C. (7 minutes) I play saracens extensively and frequently go fast into second tc while being feudal rushed. I have become familiar with the 7 minute mark (~22-23 minutes into saracen fast castle) being when I can finally feel the effects of my greater economy and push back against archers, scouts, maa etc.

Great Video as always! Have you thought about making a Video on Age of Empires learning curve? And how a new player might get into the game, whats the best way to learn the basics etc. The game doesnt really have pacing like an MMO, so i would be really interested in your thoughts on that.

great topic. wanted to know that for a long time. small caveat: I dont think the 100 Stone should be added to the cost since in 90% of games in which new TCs are placed the stone comes from the starting stone so no villager time was spend there. therefore I think the payback in practical therms is a bit faster and the britons bonus is lager in comparison.

Hey, i guessed right! It's a relarively minor thing, but you didn't take into account that the new TC will generally be taking the place of one or more resource dropoff buildings. I think it would be fair to subtract the cost of say, a mill and a lumber camp.

Can you do a video about how units are spawned from military buildings? I sometimes use stables or archery ranges as walls, but occasionally the units spawn out the wrong way and get stuck behind the wall! Thank you. Great videos.

guessing correctly on Spirits tests gives a sense of pride and accomplishment

I’d really like to see a vid where you go through all of the basic technologies and all of their uses and extra information that the game doesn’t provide. And then in another vid, the unique technologies

Hey! Maybe make some video about ways to protect against raiding parties. And thank you for all the videos, I watch and reading watch them all:)

I love your videos🙈🙈

it would be nice to analyze how well does creating a new TC and sending the vills to a sole resource would fare in case of a great food surplus, like in how good is the resource conversion and how long does it take to gather a set milestone (like 200, 300, 500 of the other resource - gold is the one that comes to mind)

Got it right. Initally I thought it would be d or e but then I remembered I tend to guess these things too high in general and remembered that repaying the cost goes faster the more villagers you have.

I have wanted to know this since the first time I built my first extra tc's in William Wallace scenario 7.

Great Video! Should you have included the cost of building additional houses?

GJ. i would have trated all res as 1 collection rate average and then dive into different collection rates after. btw the graf of collection (not the cost grapf is something multiplied with (x^2+x)/2 - same formula oned when explaining why big forces beats smaller

Hmmm. Probably gonna need to update this for the Cumans feudal tc 🤔

With a well placed TC, you save a mill, a lumber camp and often a miner camp. So you save 300 wood plus the wood from a house and the stone for a tower (kinda). You should redoo the graph with those savings in mind!

Watching this video makes me feel so smart.

Just a remark, you have 200 stone at the beginning of the game, and I often see in pro or semi-pro games that they don't built anything that cost stone except a town center. Or if they do, they gather stone for this, knowing that the 200 stone base is for built two two-centers. So, I would said that the 200 stone cost should be deducted from the town-center price for the two first TCs ;)

Great video! I would also add that a town center gives you 5 more population space (10 for the Chinese, I believe, and zero for the Huns) Not really a big factor, but I didn’t hear it mentioned here. The saved wood for a house makes a small difference.

I guess you know you're a true aoe fan when you read the title and say to yourself out loud "that's a good question" *sips coffee*

This video explains why after 5 minutes of creating two (almost simultaneously) TCs I felt I was really struggling to keep anything going.

Damn, I got it right. Nice!

I don't even play this game but I love this channel

There's another method you could use to test out the return on investment for building a town center. First you'd probably want to use the scenario editor to start on a random map without any enemies, start gathering resources and building. Someway or another you'd want to keep track of the number of villagers and the amount of resources you have at each moment in the game, which you could feed into a chart. The first time you run the test, you see how long it takes to go from the beginning of Castle Age to Post-Imperial without building a second town center, and graph out the resources and villager count along the way as well. The second time you build a second town center, and then see how the villager and resource count differ from the first time around. This should give another perspective on just how a second town center would affect your growth and the final payoff time.

Finally got one right. Not surprised they pay off so quickly. I am definitely a fan of getting new TCs early.

Would love to see you make a math video about wonder race , god it would be the most op strat once you brings the math

My prediction was right. I'm so happy and I'm not sure why.

However you get the intangible benefit of being able to garrison and protect against attacks which wasn't factored in

A. B. C. d. e. f. Why?

But you didn't cover what would happen if we take into account that you might build another TC to get wheelbarrow/handcart. I think that would give an edge to the Vikings

hay Mr law, can you do some vids on garrisoning effectiveness for castles and towers, which civs have the best bonuses for it, which are the best units to garrison for better damage output. thanks

LONG TIME NO SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BRO

This dude must be a stats professor. Entertaining and interesting to watch. Dumb question but where do you go play to get all the extra civilizations beyond the original age of empires 2 expansion set? I'm still playing the conquerors on a 10 year old PC!!!!

I might have missed it, but you did not take into account the housing cost of a villager, was that intentional?

given you have to front the food up front, the freshly made and ordered town center investment should be 1083+140, assuming constant villager production. ... also. we should probably consider housing requirements.

Also worth considering is that buildign a tc with only 10 workers has a far greater negative impact on your economy than building one when having like 100 workers. Because the percentage of your resources needed for the tc is smaller therefore the more workers/resources you have the more sense it makes to build one as you still ahve enouth resources for other stuff like tech, army or buildings (as long as you still have a way to go to your targeted villager pop)

I need to see an episode on Siege Towers. How are they used, why they should be used, that sort of thing.

Hey, Spirit Of The Law, can you make a video dedicated to begin a civilization in the best way?

Request: Calculation of how much is getting elite upgrades for conqs and chukonu is worth. Both of the upgrades have very limited effect on the units as well as the fact that chukonu from my knowledge deal with cavalier as an example better without the elite upgrade. Just curious if the logic holds, since I couldn't find a video about this by searching. Against rams chukonu elite upgrade helps for sure though.

a video on the effectiveness of counters

Did you remember to factor in the comparison cost to building a lumbermill/mine/mill and producing the villagers at another TC? As well as the potential defensive advantage from having units garrisoned inside the TC?

I'm surprised you didn't factor in the fact that the TC acts usually as two resource gathering hubs such as a Mill or a Mining Camp/Lumber camp since its usually placed next to two different resources and can always act as a Mill for farming. So this would make the cost of a TC 75 wood and 100 stone since you no longer spend the 200/300 wood and time on building 1 Mill, 1 Stone Camp and 1 Lumber Camp. Ofc it does't always work like that but I hope you get my point.

I guessed right! Yay!

Doing everything in seconds so we don't know if our chosen answer is right until the end of the video. Excellent.

SOTL I am pretty sure if KZfaq doesn't work out you would make an excellent management consultant.

Would of loved if you put Spanish town center with the explosions like you did with the villager

I know most people say 3 town centers is best, but by the time I hit castle age I feel like I already have a pretty decent amount of villagers and it's time to tone them down a bit. Maybe I just need to push castle faster then do the villager spree.

I never build more than 2 of the tower center this gonna be interesting