Footnote To History

[The Beatles]

We all know the formula (Kewima's) that says which troop is best to mass: OP per dollar. I'll list the OP/DP table for reference:

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Troop           Price       OP     DP
-------------------------------------
Mice             $400        2      2
Squirrels        $800        3      5
Hares           $1600        5      4
Otters          $2400        7      6
Ballistas       $3200       10      5

Ignoring for a second food and troop costs, let's see how much OP you get for $1,200,000. That's <span style='font-family:Courier New'>1,200,000/$price * $op</span>

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Troop         OP/$1.2M
----------------------
Mice              6000
Squirrels         4500
Hares             3750
Otters            3500
Ballistas         3750

We can easily see that Mice are the best bet, then Squirrels, and Otters are the worst. However, now let's look at it in a bit more detail. Suppose for a moment we ignore Standard Attacks, for which this calculation was ideally suited. Let's think about your enemy. Suppose he spends $6,000,000 on his troops, and buys $1,200,000 worth of each. This is just <span style='font-family:Courier New'>1,200,000/$price * $dp</span>. Now let's look at the DP he will be getting for each troop:

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Troop           Amount   Def. Points
------------------------------------
Mice              3000          6000
Squirrels         1500          7500
Hares              750          3000
Otters             500          3000
Ballistas          375          1875

Now, how many of your troops are needed to break those? Let's assume for now that an OP equal to their DP breaks. And how much will those troops set you back? Here's the results:

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Troop           Amount               Cost
-----------------------------------------
Mice              3000          1,200,000
Squirrels         2500          2,000,000
Hares              600            960,000
Otters             429          1,028,571
Ballistas          188            600,000

[<span style='font-family:Courier New'>1,200,000/$price * ($dp/$op) * $price -> 1,200,000 * ($dp/$op)</span>]


For your convenience, I've sorted the relevant tables.

First Approach:

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Troop         OP/$1.2M
----------------------
Mice              6000
Squirrels         4500
Hares             3750
Ballistas         3750
Otters            3500

Second Approach:

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Troop             Break Cost
----------------------------
Ballistas           $600,000
Hares               $960,000
Otters            $1,028,571
Mice              $1,200,000
Squirrels         $2,000,000

Mice come out pretty low in the second estimation, don't they? It appears that Ballistas have indeed become the big "attack troop", but even then good old traditional Hares will be less than half the cost of Mice.


A final word: this isn't to discredit Kewima's approach. But I think you can all see that there are ways to look into this deeper, and I am indebted to Kewima for first pointing out the whole issue. Also, I hope this answers your question of a few days ago, Zephyrus.


PS Supplementary table: Food and cash consumed by 1,000,000 of each troop type.

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Troop               Cash               Food
-------------------------------------------
Mice             $62,500          1,000,000
Squirrels        $31,250          2,000,000
Hares            $15,625          4,000,000
Otters           $10,417          6,000,000
Ballistas         $7,813          8,000,000

[Alcaline the Badger]

*Stares oddly into space because he doesn't pay attention to formulas...*

[The Beatles]

Then listen up, because I didn't write many formulas. The tables show it all. It's best to mass in troops in this order:
1. Ballistas
2. Hares
3. Otters
4. Mice
5. Squirrels

[Ruddertail]

So, Ballistas are the best bang for your buck?

Edit: Sorry, didn't see you had laid it out simply.

[The Beatles]

Yes, but isn't it surprising how the order is reversed?

[Alcaline the Badger]

Yea, it is. Well, I'll be sure to build up on squirrels then cause everyones going to go for ballistas *laughs*. What exsactly is a ballista anyway?

[The Beatles]

It's a kind of catapult; read the Redwall books.

PPS The results don't apply to RWL because of their 2/1 Rat thing. So for them the order is: Rats, Stoats, Skiffs, Weasels, with Rats and Stoats being neck and neck.

[Alcaline the Badger]

I like the 2/1 thing on RWL, I'm not big on the 1/2 for mice.

[Ruddertail]

It's 2/2 for mice here.

[The Beatles]

It was one of the main attractions of the game when oldies came back in the very first incarnation. The 2/2 I mean.

[Veranor]

I like the 2/1 thing on RWL

It's just back and forth trading.

2/1 means there's really no way to hold your land unless you have huge amounts of land compared to attacker (or the attacker is not nearly as good).

[Alcaline the Badger]

Oh, I see I always thought it was 1/2.

[Ruddertail]

Huh? Land doesn't matter. Number of mice matters. Unless were talking about two different things...

[Gen. Volkov]

Well towers.... if you have much land you can have many towers.

[Zephyrus]

There are reasons nothing's extinct.

ballista = anti-turtle, not good against troop masser because of squirrel opposition
mouse = quick power, whee
squirrel = unpredictable, addition to anti-standard guard
otter = sturdy and unpredictable
hare = standard long term power

Ballistas seem fun, but if you're using them against:

1. Guard masser. Well, you'd use hawks, seeing as they should lack them. So ballistas aren't too good here.
2. Troop masser. You'd have to fight the icky squirrels, with nice high DPs, and you'd lose quite a bit. Why not hawks again.
3. Pure hawk masser. Do these guys ever really defend anyways?
4. Single troop masser. See above.