Here's my strategy: just get wheelbarrow when you're housed

spirit goes there and puts up all those graphs and tables and equasions and stuff that fills math shaped holes to get to a useful and plausible answer whereas everyone else is just like "huh... twenty minutes i guess"

These videos are so good that I keep watching them and I don't even play Age of Empires.

"Tamerlane advances to the feudal age." "Spirit of the law advances to the math age."

"Unless they can show you prettier graphs than mine" Math porn. WINK WINK EYEBROWS UP UP

By this amount of research you have put in this games, you actually our Grand Master with PHD majoring AOE2 teaching us as degree student

Finally!!! I've been waiting for this video for so long! i'm surprised that it is at 44-46 villagers, thought it would be earlier great vid

or play as viking and forget about this :p

Something to consider, if you're doing an archery rush you might skip hand cart until later as you don't need food as much

Love the videos. But the Force is more reliable.

It might be a good idea to have at the end of your more complex videos a screen with bull it points saying the main things that we take away from all of this math

Thank you. It's really helpful to know that the break even point for a regularly balanced economy is at about 46 vills. I think you forgot that 3 villagers also cost house space, which means you need to inculde 3/5 of house building costs, which should favour getting wheelbarrow a bit earlier. Apart from that, think it's smart to get wheelbarrow before buiding forward a forward castle as the advantage of wheelbarrow kicks in when villagers need to walk larger distances. It's also good to get when you're in feudal age and want to get to castle age and have spare wood for wheelbarrow. Researching wheelbarrow saves 100 food compared to creating 3 villagers so you can click up earlier without idling your TC, and your castle builders take less time to reach the opponents base. Though now I learned it's probably better to build extra farms instead if my population is still low.

why wasn't my math teacher like this?

1:16 Spirit of the La Hire triggered confirmed. "What would you rely on, the force????!!!!!" 111111111111

I love this video. The attention to every detail is amazing.

I often ask people what question would they most like to ask me about Age of Empries 2. And by far the most common answer is "what are you doing in my house".

Here's a couple instances he left out. 1: if lumber camps are more than 4 or 5 tiles away from trees because you have been too busy rushing to micro villies and build more lumber camps(100 wood per camp ;) and 2: the faster walking speed is great to have earlier on if your villagers are on the rush ie: building towers, walls, various barracks on enemy base during feudal age and they need to outrun enemy villagers or soldiers as they get chased around and around. Also if you get stuck feudal while opponent fast castles, wheelbarrow will help villagers attack onagers more effectively because that 10% walking speed & outrun teutonic knights if he happens to make those. Just a little something to think about. But except for those couple of oddball cases wheelbarrow is best put off until mid-late castle or until ~46 villagers.

Hey Spirit, At 4:50 in the video you accidentally multiplied: (% on gold)(increase in FOOD rate) as opposed to what I believe you meant to write, increase in gold rate. Awesome video! Keep up the great work!

Your lumber & mining camps - along with your farm placements - are more optimal than I see in most games (even pro games). Once the battles start it's common for the lumber camps to not be replaced and the distance villagers are walking to increase, thus improving the efficiency of wheelbarrow. The other point you missed is that villagers must be defended. The more farms you have the harder your base is to defend. Wheelbarrow gives you efficiency without the cost of becoming more vulnerable.

"Peer reviewed" 😂 Love the literal interpretation

So sum up to video, reach the castle age, build two TCs, hit 45/46 vil with those TCs, then upgrade wheelbarrow at one TC and other TC continue to produce villagers? Am i right ?

Excellent video. About 2 minutes in I was all ready to come to the comments saying "What about the contributions of the villagers working the research time ((1*2/3)t+(1*1/3)t) where t is the research time + the higher cost of the wheelbarrow". I knew it wasn't a huge thing but then you factored it in right at the end, ggwp :)

I'm a few years too late but another thing to consider is the fact that the efficiency added by wheelbarrow which will last for the remainder of the game, won't cost additional houses, whereas any further efficiency at the cost of villagers is truly at the cost of: each villager, 10 wood (1 population worth of house), and the villager time taken to build a house (time spent not gathering resources). -> TL;DR: Actual villager cost = (50 food) + (10 wood) + (0.2* house creation time villager "idle").

I've always researched it as soon as it's available, the same as all other techs that increase resource gathering in some way because my calculus was that its bonus gives you the most over the long-term the earlier you get it.

This guys has a new subscriber!

Half a minute into the video and I can’t help click "like" because that casual line about the "math-shaped hole in your heart" is just genius!

I'm late to the party but loving this! What's really interesting is that if we make some simplifications and assume 2 villagers per minute can be made, and no age advance times, then the magic 46 villagers will be ready at about the popular 23 minute mark! I'd say that further cements your maths as being in the right ballpark

"I'll never subscribe." 0:07 "Hmm, guess I'll subscribe.

I always had the mentality that anything that increases production should be done immediately; therefore, I’ve always done it immediately when it became available. This video was super interesting!!!

"Don't believe them unless they can show you prettier graphs than mine." Solid science. 10/10 would try

Can't deny it, your tone of voice is great and also how you explain with math makes it so easily to understand.

desmos!

"I wouldn't rely on Math..." HERESY!!!

Hello, Spirit Of The Law. Very neat video and really good explanations. I congratulate you for making really good videos that make very clear explanations of the game’s mechanics with solid math backing them up. However, I feel there is a point to Wheelbarrow that you didn't mention, and that you should address or at least take into account for its importance because it DOES make a difference. Wheelbarrow increases villager movement speed by 10%. This doesn’t only affect how fast villagers collect, it also affects how fast they run away from danger. That means that if your villagers are being attacked, they can get to the TC 10% faster than without wheelbarrow. I think you should make a test if having wheelbarrow increases the chances of villagers surviving rushes due to being able to run back to the TC 10% faster. If your farms near a mill or if your Gold Mine is Scout-Rushed or Archer Flushed, or your Woodline suddenly has several archers/crossbows/knights harassing it, does wheelbarrow increases the number of villagers that can survive because they can move faster? What I’m saying is, maybe the villagers moving 10% faster makes a big difference on if that villager is going to get back to the TC in time before the knight attacking it kills it, or if lacking wheelbarrow dooms that villager to death. Lacking that 10% movement speed might let the knight land an extra hit. I think you should take this into consideration for quantifying Wheelbarrow’s importance, or try to test it.

All those things that fill the math hole... In your heart. Touched me deep.

I always appreciate the math and the different perspectives rather than the 1 answer. Good stuff! :) It's good to know that my instincts are on the right track. I usually wait till i have a 2nd TC up and am starting to put down lots of farms before I get wheelbarrow, so that I don't have to stop villager production.

Hey Spirit, I think you made a little mistake in this video. In the formula you are adding 3 villagers to every ressource, so its +9 in total. I used the same formula but only added 3 villagers and the numbers changed significantly. For an even distribution (+1 to every ressource) the graphs meet at only ~15.4 vills. I got the highest number of vills when I added all 3 to wood but still its only around 20 vills. Of course it always depends on the strategy but it seems to me that it's worth getting it much earlier than this video suggests. Keep up the great work tho, you're my favourite channel on KZfaq!

Excellent work, thank you very much. Another good video to do would be whether and at what point do the Gold Mining and Stone Mining techs have any benefit vs more villagers. :)

one of your best so far. really like it. i thought i'd leave this mindless like this time, even though it has not too much content, because i think you might enjoy it.

Great video! The only thing that I find missing from this analysis are the intangible benefits of increased villager speed. This can come in handy when micro-ing villagers to quickly wall off an area, or to move them to safety in case of raiding. I think that could change the analysis a bit.

I love your videos. The detail and explanation is top notch. I know these videos are old to you now, but I’m just getting back into the game and the info has been phenomenal. You are appreciated. 👍🏾

I think there's something else very important to consider with wheelbarrow. Anytime that your villagers are going to be traveling a long distances while harvesting, the effect of the wheelbarrow is further enhanced. So if you build a mining camp between some stone and gold, about two tiles from each, and set your villagers to gathering it all, the wheelbarrow will pay off far faster than if the camp was directly adjacent to one or the other.

Great work man, I'm a physics student and when I look at your way of solving these kinds of problems from the edge of the math and the force, I feel that I've met my soul mate xD I absolutely love the analitic way you're taking during solving any aoe2 problem

I think one wild card that's separate from the economic implications is the villager speed - it can help you build walls faster, avoid raids, build a forward more quickly, etc. so it might be worth getting earlier if you plan to go for a forward base or castle drop

I don't really play AoE2 much, but I love into how much detail you go on these topics. It kind of makes me want to play it again from time to time. :3

Very well done. I thought you were going to leave out the cost of wheelbarrow until the end, then you got that and villager opportunity cost.

I would say that I research Wheelbarrow not to have significant boost to the economy but to prepare for Hand Cart upgrade in Castle age. Both of them can do a real impact on eco though. However, the data about handcart in the next video will be interesting. Keep on the good work!

Now I know when to click that button. However I have some comments: 1) The impact of wheelbarrow on woodcutting might be more. By 20 minutes in the game the woodline in the starting lumbercamp might be few tiles away. Maybe a test in which the nearby trees are removed in one of the lumber camp might give a more realistic comparison of rates. (If one could copy paste 20 min towns from recorded games) 2) Since 45 villagers is well into the castle age if one fast castles, shouldn't we take into account the fact that bow-saw might have been researched. 3) We may need a completely different analysis for aztecs. They start with a pseudo wheelbarrow, so another wheelbarrow might be less beneficial.

Wow great work! Def a shake up since viper gets it super early

You've taken this as an analysis of resource collection. You have perhaps overlooked other benefits of faster villagers: travel speed and building speed. Travel speed has the benefit of A. villager safety as they can garrison faster if you ring a bell, and B. If you have vills crossing the map to build up on the enemy, they will get there faster. Also, with travel speed being faster, vills would walk from one building to the next faster between builds. Presumably this would increase build speed. I would like to see how much faster a villager would build a section of wall with and without wheelbarrow. I propose that with these added benefits, some being virtually immeasurable except empirically, that perhaps an optimal vill count to get wheelbarrow would be a little earlier. I'm going with 42.

I don't know what I love most about this. Age of Empires? Math? Nerdiness? The pleasant voice? The pretty graphs? The xxx kinky snuck in at the bottom of the screen? So hard to choose.

I think what we see as the difference is that farming causes the villagers to move sometimes to different positions of the farm. This movement gets 10% faster but is still a small effect but miners and lumberjacks (or foragers) are not having this. This might be only a real effect if the villager does not collect while it moves to the other position of the farm, but I am unsure about that and this needs measurement. An other thing is that maybe farms have less optimal placement than your best optimally placed lumber and mining camps which are near the resource and the difference might be because farms are big and there is a random chance where the villager will be on the field when it end farming so even the closest farms need some walking time. If you want to measure if I am right, you can measure how different the effect is on a two-circle farming vs. a farming where all farms are close to the TC and a mill - all around then directly instead of doing two circles. This means four measurements: a wheelbarrow and without it, for both the two variations. I suspect the result is that wheelbarrow helps to smooth a players sloppyness a bit when it comes to how much their villagers are walking, but I am unsure to what extent. TL;DR: Wheelbarrow seems to optimize walking time of villagers. Both its direct 10% bonus to speed and the extra resources the villagers carry are directed towards eliminating walk overhead. I would say that researching wheelbarrow certainly helps if you cannot micro properly your placements of the resource gathering buildings or in case you are hunting.

There are reasons to get it before and after the 45 not considered here. Reasons to get it before: -Lumberjacks have to walk longer the more wood they chop, decreasing the collection rate and wheelbarrow would make it decrease slower. (or reset the decrease by paying 100 wood for a camp) -Hunters would benefit a little (although you dont have infinite things to hunt) Reasons to get it later is that gold and wood (if camps are close to trees) collection was faster if you just got vills at 45. Making it more efficient to wait if your priorites are gold and wood instead of more food.

Useful information! I always thought wheelbarrow was tech that was meant to be rushed!

Im not sure if it has a perceptible/relevant effect or not, but I suggest (and like to know, since I havent tested it myself) that you should analyze the effect a little further, at least until the mid castle age. My observations are: The 3 more villagers you propose can indeed be 3 more farmers and give you more food in the meantime, but also mean the cost of 3 more farms (180 wood unless teuton, 105 if you take in account the wheelbarrow wood cost) and the early feudal its one point in the game where wood its very low in stock and needs to be expended in the buildings of the feudal age, houses for ships and military units (also 3 more villagers can force you early to make one more house, and the wheelbarrow cost no population) and the wood cost of ships themselves. You can not go directly to expend all your wood in farms. Depending on the build order of the player, and the resources available in map, its very common to have some hunters still in feudal; mostly for deer and second/extra boars. The wheelbarrow can be the difference between carrying all the food of the boar in one trip/round, or being able to hunt deer with less villagers. The farms are not done all instantly or at the same time just at the beginning of the feudal age. Again, it depends on the build order, but you have to at least wait for the horse collar to be investigated and the build time of the farms. And the farm villagers are added progesively from the other food sources when exhausted. Looking back at the first point, you need to save all the wood you can for the castle age to build town centers and achieve a effective boom. 105 wood+the extra 3% production of wood can be the difference between making only one extra town center just at the beginning of the castle age and wait a while for the second or building two. Not only the food its important to boom after all. One extra point I would like to add here. Taking in account how the wheelbarrow bonus works, it may have a little impact on mining, but it may be a more significant in the wood production if you DONT make a second or third lumbercamp. The point of making extra lumbercamps its to reduce the time lost when carrying the wood between the trees and the camp, but the wheelbarrow allows them to carry a little more, thus improving the effectivity of the wood collection when there is only one lumbercamp and its getting away as the time goes. And something very important about the extra lumbercamps its that they dont make you produce more wood, only allows you to collect it a little faster. And in long terms they only end as a lost inversion with no more utility. In maps like arabia where the wood its very limited and the forest are small, one just can not throw away any wood. Maybe you should check it: the total wood in stock with N villagers, wheelbarrow and only one lumbercamp in X minute (beginning of castle age) vs N+1 villagers, no wheelbarrow and two-three lumbercamps closer and closer to the trees. For example. And no, not all civs are japs and get cheap lumbercamps... sadly. Also, in the early castle, if you dont have the wheelbarrow when you are booming your villagers and have to wait for it to be researched, you may be an accumulated effect of less production/villager. Last but not least, remember... between feudal and castle age exists a looong time. And I am not talking about the preparations in feudal. The castle age takes a lot time being investigated, and all that time you can not make more villagers: only look at them working. May be all that aging time its more productive with n villagers + wheelbarrow than with n+3 villagers. Thank you and sorry for bad english. I really like your videos.

Another thing to consider is that as you reach higher Elo you have more farms and you tend to have a few non adjacent farms to mills and town centers. For one of my builds I have about 14 farms at 17 mins and therefore wheelbarrow will be even more effective in this case

Hi, First of all, great work! I love your videos! I know this is a 5 year old video but you said about peer review so.... lets go :) You also kind of explained that around 9:45 but one thing kept itching me the whole video. You did all the calculations based on rate(wheelbarrow) * number of villagers = rate(not_wheelbarrow) * (number of villagers + 3) (Expression I) Here the +3 is the fundamental part. This is assuming they all appear instantaneously, as you said in the door #1/door #2. I think the way to go is like this: go for the difference of total resources per unit of time: (wheelbarrow vs doing nothing / not wheelbarrow vs doing nothing) Right after 0 seconds: -175 wood and -50 food / -50 food (cost of 1 villager) Right after 25 seconds: (the same) / -100 food (cost of 2 villagers) Right after 50 seconds: (the same) / -150 food + rate(not_wheelbarrow)*(25/60) ( < - This is the cost of 3 villagers plus the resources collected by the villager alive for 25 seconds) At 75 seconds: (the same) / -150 food + rate(not_wheelbarrow)*((25+50)/60) ( < - This is the cost of 3 villagers plus the resources collected by the villager alive for 25 seconds and the one alive for 50 seconds) Using your numbers (only gathering food :( ): -175 wood -50 food / -150 food + 19.8*75/60 food == -150 food + 24,75 food, let's round -125 food total After that: Now the (Expression I) start to be valid (summed to the calculated values) All of this should bring the optimal number of villagers a little lower.. The other thing would be a methodology divergence: These calculations only show when the wheelbarrow pays itself off, not when it should be researched. This is a much harder question, because it takes into account the downside in economy in a short term for an advantage in the longer term. That depends on waaaay many other factors :)

You didn't take into consideration that the villagers you make after wheelbarrow will also be upgraded, and that even if you build three more villagers instead of wheelbarrow you still have to buy wheelbarrow at some point. Also you have to consider if you have poor lumberyard or farm placement that wheelbarrow helps mitigate the penalty. On top that the movement speed it gives helps for things other than resource collecting. Something else to consider is that buying wheelbarrow lets you delay having to make another house for more population slightly. Although that's probably pretty negligible. You have to factor in that if you have more than one town center your village production rate isn't taking nearly as hard of a hit. I think wheelbarrow is good a bit earlier than you suggested, but not by too long. About 35 villager population seems more reasonable to me.

The way I look at it, get it early, that way it pays for itself quicker. Sure building 3 new villagers may be more effective directly, but in the long run, the wheelbarrow will have earned in more over time. Example: Lets say you get the research instantly after getting Feaudal Age (If memory serves correctly), that is a increase to *all* your villagers, and the villages comming after. So if you have 24 / 25 villagers at that point, it will be a lot more beneficial in the long run, for the small increase. It also means you may not need to produce as many villagers as before to have a constant upkeep of production of units. A small increase, can be the blow between having 1 more soldier on the field or a villager. Which sounds extremely small, but 1 unit more, can be the victory point. Just depends on the units and what you are up against.

With the speed increase, the rates would improve by more for wood and gold depending on how far away the camp is. It reduces travel time and leads to more time actually collecting as well as the faster collecting, making the % increase over without wheelbarrow greater depending on the distance from the camp. It could be efficient to research slightly earlier if your lumber camp is further away from the treeline but not far enough away just yet to rebuild it efficiently. I can't say I think it'd make a huge difference on gold, however, though I will say that the speed increase allows new villagers to get to their resource faster from the TC.

It is impressive how much effort you put in your videos.

dude your videos are just gold. Thank you!

Nice new intro! I liked the old one more but thought it could possibly be shortened.

Great video, i had always thought around 30 villagers was the sweet spot - Now i know better :)

I loved your "old" intro, just something about preparation for your video coming :). Now still I am glad and want watch your video, but little less then with "old" intro, I know its hard to explain and I hope somebody will understand me :(.

I think another wild card is the faster movement speed allows the villagers to get out of trouble more quickly, or to run faster for a forward building, might count for something

I spit out my coffee when you said 'the force' XD

I LOVE the math. THANK YOU!!!

Another way of doing the math: 3:10 shows an average increase of 1.3 res / vil / minute. Building a single villager, on the other hand, is an increase of 22 res / min. You can build 3 villagers in the time it takes to research wb = 66 res / min more. So 66 / 1.3 = 50 vils to make the immediate gain be equivalent. You could subtract a bit to account for the 40/40/20 split, which brings the average increase to 1.5 res / vil / minute vs. 21.8 for adding a vil. If so, 21.8 * 3 = 65 / 1.5 = 44 vils. But you could also add a bit to account for the extra resource cost of WB and the fact that the vils start generating resources shortly after being created. If we split the difference and say 47, we get about the same answer you did.

One thing you forgot is the wood cost of the three additional farms you'd need. So it's not just 150 food vs 175f+50w, it's 150f+180w vs 175f+50w. In that light, Wheelbarrow is actually cheaper. There's also the fact that Wheelbarrow starts to pay off instantly, while villagers need to first construct their farms. Realistically, you're looking at having 1 farmer for 35 seconds, the next for 10 seconds, and the third only completing its farm 15 seconds after Wheelbarrow would have been active.

Hey Spirit! Nice to See some math based videos again. I'm pretty sure you forgot something in your ecuation/expression. Getting the extra 3 vills means you get that n+3 to múltiply every rate, but it also means you get 50 secs of a vill working, and other extra 25 secs of work for a 2nd villager (both of those meanwhile researching wheelbarrow in the paralel case) and those extra 75 secs of work are denied if you Go for wheelbarrow instead. Nevertheless I didnt know if those numbers are gonna affect in more than a few decimals, in the case they dont, it could be no point on getting the formula more complex and longer. Great video btw!

Only time I watch 10min of someone explaining maths.

This my math: Resources a villager carries being 10 and then 13 after wheelbarrow. If we research it, 3 villagers worth of carriage(or whatever the word is) is missing out. After the research if it makes up for the total carriage of those 3 villagers that could've been created, that's the optimal time to research it. I.e. when u have 50 or more villagers(50×3 resources in 75 seconds the villagers could have gathered). And of course atleast 2 TCs.

You do make the prettiest graphs :p love the vids keep them coming plz.

Wheelbarrow also get better and better when you have less time to focus on the economy , since the farther the resources building are from the building , the better it becomes. When you are trying to survive , having more "forgiving" lumber camp/mining camp can be good since villagers will move faster. All your calculations are based on near perfect lumber camp placement and in some maps/scenario villagers has to move way more to collect wood and I am sure the 3% is increased. On perfect eco 45 villagers seems legit , but on messy eco with lots of farms (bad wood line / fewer trees than usual) I think get wheelbarrow earlier can be good (35-40 vill ?) . Wheelbarrow also other utility than being used in a perfectly made eco. Sometimes to need to go forward villagers , sometimes you have 2 TC , sometimes you get housed or you don't have room/time to use the extra 3 vllagers.

amazing video!!! best aoe2 channel out there imo! good job! you deserve more subs

I would have liked an analysis on how wheelbarrow impacts inefficient gathering routes, such as mining from gold if a mining camp is lost, or a wood line which has moved away from a lumber camp. Otherwise, this is an excellent look at the value of this tech, thanks for doing it

Thanks a lot! I have never been good at math, so I had always relied on force.

Really looking forward to the Viking overview! =D

I usually only research it when it's a long game and I have extra resources. There are other benefits though. In a real game, especially with 8 people, there's a lot of chaos going on. Ideally you'd want your resources deposit building as close to the resource as possible. But suppose it get's destroyed, or you can't quite build in the position you want (for example, a gold deposit in a high traffic are of Black Forrest). There are scenarios where your villagers may need to do a bit of walking. In the chaos of the game, it could benefit more on a long run.

My generalized strategy is get it after I feel like I have enough villagers for my age. Which usually means I'm mostly saving up to get the next age upgrade and wheel barrels are an intermittent delay in saving up and will yield me a bigger bunch of resources once the next TC age upgrade finishes.

That intro animation was GREAT

Awesome video mate! I just can't wait till the next video comes out. ^_^

Those are some really hot bars ;), I don't think that some one could show me prettier ones. Thanks for the vid, you put a lot of effort on them for what people msitake for a usseles topic

great stuff love your academic style, can you do more of these videos comparing other things like for example different villager comp at dark/feudal age in order to get the fastest castle time?

I don't care about 'the math' in games, but I love how much he is into it on his channel.

I've seen a lot of studies on this. I think every other study I saw said that Wheelbarrow increases wood/gold/stone production by about 7%, but were about the same as you on the farming increase at 13%. I think the reason for the difference of 3% to 7%, is that you typically build your 1st lumber camp at

So if i understand this correctly: wheelbarrow mostly effect your farmers so if you have a build order with a lot of villagers on farms, get it at 22 farmers. If you're following a regular build order, get it at 45-46 vills with 16 farmers? Great video Spirit!

The disadvantage of going for 3 extra villagers is that you need the wood for a house and -1 villager while he is building it. Also if they are farmers, take into account the space and resources needed to build their farms.

Hey, starting to discover your channel and it's been a great help so far :) I was wondering wether you had/will make a video about the perfect time to lure boars? Thanks, keep up the good work! :)

There's almost no boost to mining as people place those camps right next to the resources. The wood bonus is probably better under normal circumstances as time to carry resources back increases as you chop further into the forest... without making a new camp. The farm 'pick up' point seems kind of random and ends up averaging walking half the length of the farm back.

XD I use hardcart when I eventually pop block myself near castle due to great house management :)

appreciate the short intro video :), no hate on the usual intro tho just not my thing.

+Spirit Of The Law You seem to be ignoring the most important part about wheelbarrow, which is the 10% extra movement speed. As we are well aware, faster units are better at avoiding arrow fire. 10% may be enough of a difference to cause an extra crossbowman to miss its attack. Which could mean a villager getting away instead of becoming a porcupine.

i never played this game very seriously i had it installed just lying around - then i stumbled over you on youtube - watched a couple of videos and then some more xD and subbed just now (lol) - half an hour earlier i knight rushed some AI players xD. I guess you really like AOE - jesus the amount of detail you use to play this game, its crazy - great videos.

I feel like you left out something that makes wheelbarrow seem better in comparison. Taking wheelbarrow essentially allows us to punt the creation of additional farms into the future. Meaning that if some of those three villagers built a farm, the cost of wheelbarrow is reduced by 60 to 180 wood. Which means that wheelbarrow is a very cost effective option than villagers at 46 villagers if you're looking to increase food production, but is comparatively worse if you're currently expanding into woodcutting or mining.

Intuition is saying: Get wheelbarrow ASAP when your resources require any excessive (objective adjective fail) walking; sparse woodlines, scattered shorefish. Otherwise just leave it until you get housed and focus on getting the villager count up ASAP. Learning math has taught me that intuition means very little when it comes to complex systems. Always do the math! Luckily I'm about to watch Spirit of the Law and he does the math for us :D

Get wheel and handcart when you are housed lmao. Best strat! Great video though thank you for the info and math work

If your being raided and losing lots of villagers and having lots of idle time would it be better to get out more villagers or research wheelbarrow? Love your videos Spirit!

New subscriber, binging this channel for the first time. I really love the new intro (New? Hah, I'm 4 years late to the party!) It's simple and effective, and short (video is overall better at keeping viewer interest, and mine for that matter!). I wonder how the intros will change over the next 4 years worth of videos lmao :)