MaidenFair
Chef - Head Philologist
Okay, @Darielle, you asked for it! I didn't want to take over @JerseyMeeko76 's post, so I'm starting a new thread. There are a couple of caveats: 1) it took me longer than expected, so I've only done the Human Marble Manufactory so far in the spreadsheet. Eventually I'd like to do all the race/good combos (probably each in their own spreadsheet) but that will take a lot longer. 2) I did not run the calculations beyond Woodelves, since the next upgrades for Marble are in Elementals which adds Sentient Goods, and I don't know what that might do to the supply/demand levels for T1 goods. Plus I got tired of copying numbers. 3) This uses calculations based on only regular (non-magic) residences and building tab culture buildings, with no allowance for culture/pop buildings or other event/magic/one-time-only type buildings. This of course means that the Per Square values of many calculations will be different in actual cities but since the numbers would change in an even proportion to each manufactory level, I think the ratios represented here are still accurate, and therefore the basic math is still pertinent.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-lFrM-Cz8Kpu1fwN-VsKGiGNew2wddhkF3WkO/pubhtml
In case my spreadsheet organisation is unclear, here's the long-winded explanation section: it's well-known that to calculate the true space cost of a manufactory, you have to take into account not only the manufactory space but also the people and culture required by the manufactory itself, and then again the culture required by the residences that you needed for the manufactories. This makes for a complicated formula of the *actual* footprint of a manufactory. As you can see, I put tabs in the spreadsheet; the ones at the end are mainly information to provide the formulas on the other tabs something to draw from but I thought it would be good to make those visible too, in case it isn't clear what base numbers I was using. Most info is pulled from the official Wiki and ElvenArchitect, with a few culture-related numbers coming from inspecting my research tree and building menu.
The first tab, labelled 'Chapter Specific Footprint' is all the math showing each manufactory level's efficiency, based on using the residence and culture numbers that become available at roughly the same time as the building itself, i.e., a level 15 manufactory which becomes available in Chapter III used Chapter III residential/cultural numbers, while a Level 16 manufactory which becomes available in Dwarves used Dwarves residential/cultural numbers. Based on these numbers, with the upgrades of manufactories and residences/culture buildings proceeding at the same pace, it looks like the manufactories get more productive per square with every upgrade (until there's a dip in Woodelves, which oddly has its most efficient manufactory as the first upgrade, with each successive level losing efficiency). This is probably the math most players look at when they are thinking about the efficiency of upgrading.
However, if we switch over to the 'Orcs Footprint' tab, it becomes a different story! On this tab, I ran all the same calculations, except that I only used the residence and culture building numbers from the Orcs chapter, regardless of manufactory level. This is useful for the concept of upgrading residences and culture buildings as those become available, while not upgrading the manufactories at the same pace. On this chart we can see that the Level 14 manufactory (available already by Chapter 3) is the most efficient, outperforming the Level 19, for example, (the last available upgrade before Woodelves) by more than an extra 8.5%! It's the same on the 'Woodelves Footprint' tab, which runs the same calculations again with only the residence and culture numbers from Woodelves. Here the comparison doesn't initially look quite as stark, with the first Woodelves upgrade being *almost* as efficient as the Level 14 but since the Woodelves numbers then drop off a cliff, the final upgrade available in Woodelves is significantly worse than the Level 14 manufactory which continues to be the best, on a square-for-square basis, of all the levels available.
While I don't have the spreadsheets ready for anything else at the moment, this has been the trend through all the buildings I have checked so far, both Elf and Human, with the most efficient level ranging mostly between 13 and 15 for any given manufactory. Basically, as you continue to upgrade the residence and culture buildings so that they get more people and culture per square, the earlier manufactory levels become relatively more and more efficient, since they have a smaller ratio of people and/or culture to production to begin with than the later manufactories do. Even by Dwarves, the several-levels-back production is noticeably better per square than the available most-upgraded manufactory levels, and by Woodelves it's almost a 10% difference. Now I did spot-check one of the later chapters (17 or 18, I can't remember which) randomly a few weeks ago, and that was more productive again with chapter-upgraded manufactories and culture/pop, with better numbers than anything Woodelves or below had shown, so at soooome point they do get more efficient again, but it seems to be quite a ways in. At the very least, there are 5 chapters (from IV to Woodelves) where it creates a loss in production to keep upgrading the manufactories.
The only downside I can see to starting out with this production method is that MM spells aren't as useful, since you are using them on lower production buildings. To partially offset that however, I think the Mountain Halls is actually slightly more useful on many small buildings than on 1 or 2 larger ones (possibly due to rounding; I don't have the data on hand to prove this one at the moment but when I ran the numbers for myself earlier, it came out to my satisfaction, so I think I'm right in saying that). Of course, as was very logically pointed out to me by @Iyapo1 when I showed her the first inklings of this data several months ago, applying this in an already established higher-level city might unbalance coin production (not as many residences needed), or affect certain wonder's effects or uses (fewer coins for using in the wholesaler with a high-level BTG, for example, or reducing the effect of the Thermal Spring of Youth by having fewer residences, less population return from a Golden Abyss because of having a lower working population, etc.). However, I think if a player starts out building a city with this method in mind, all of those can be accounted for ahead of time and still create a more efficient city (more space to play with!!).
I didn't seem able to leave visible comments on the document for sharing, so here are a couple of edited notes that were originally comments: Levels 16 through 19 on the 'Chapter Specific Footprint' tab are using Dwarves numbers because that is when those upgrades become available but since they don't actually get upgraded again until Woodelves, there are also Fairy and Orc culture/pop numbers which would make these more efficient than is currently shown.
The colored horizontal lines indicate the last in a series of upgrades which become available at the same time (in essence, Chapter breaks). For each new set in the 'Chapter Specific Footprint' tab, I calculated based on the best residence and culture numbers available at the same time the manufactories became available. On the other tabs, they are still inserted at the chapter break, but are mainly useful for easy tracking across all the data.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-lFrM-Cz8Kpu1fwN-VsKGiGNew2wddhkF3WkO/pubhtml
In case my spreadsheet organisation is unclear, here's the long-winded explanation section: it's well-known that to calculate the true space cost of a manufactory, you have to take into account not only the manufactory space but also the people and culture required by the manufactory itself, and then again the culture required by the residences that you needed for the manufactories. This makes for a complicated formula of the *actual* footprint of a manufactory. As you can see, I put tabs in the spreadsheet; the ones at the end are mainly information to provide the formulas on the other tabs something to draw from but I thought it would be good to make those visible too, in case it isn't clear what base numbers I was using. Most info is pulled from the official Wiki and ElvenArchitect, with a few culture-related numbers coming from inspecting my research tree and building menu.
The first tab, labelled 'Chapter Specific Footprint' is all the math showing each manufactory level's efficiency, based on using the residence and culture numbers that become available at roughly the same time as the building itself, i.e., a level 15 manufactory which becomes available in Chapter III used Chapter III residential/cultural numbers, while a Level 16 manufactory which becomes available in Dwarves used Dwarves residential/cultural numbers. Based on these numbers, with the upgrades of manufactories and residences/culture buildings proceeding at the same pace, it looks like the manufactories get more productive per square with every upgrade (until there's a dip in Woodelves, which oddly has its most efficient manufactory as the first upgrade, with each successive level losing efficiency). This is probably the math most players look at when they are thinking about the efficiency of upgrading.
However, if we switch over to the 'Orcs Footprint' tab, it becomes a different story! On this tab, I ran all the same calculations, except that I only used the residence and culture building numbers from the Orcs chapter, regardless of manufactory level. This is useful for the concept of upgrading residences and culture buildings as those become available, while not upgrading the manufactories at the same pace. On this chart we can see that the Level 14 manufactory (available already by Chapter 3) is the most efficient, outperforming the Level 19, for example, (the last available upgrade before Woodelves) by more than an extra 8.5%! It's the same on the 'Woodelves Footprint' tab, which runs the same calculations again with only the residence and culture numbers from Woodelves. Here the comparison doesn't initially look quite as stark, with the first Woodelves upgrade being *almost* as efficient as the Level 14 but since the Woodelves numbers then drop off a cliff, the final upgrade available in Woodelves is significantly worse than the Level 14 manufactory which continues to be the best, on a square-for-square basis, of all the levels available.
While I don't have the spreadsheets ready for anything else at the moment, this has been the trend through all the buildings I have checked so far, both Elf and Human, with the most efficient level ranging mostly between 13 and 15 for any given manufactory. Basically, as you continue to upgrade the residence and culture buildings so that they get more people and culture per square, the earlier manufactory levels become relatively more and more efficient, since they have a smaller ratio of people and/or culture to production to begin with than the later manufactories do. Even by Dwarves, the several-levels-back production is noticeably better per square than the available most-upgraded manufactory levels, and by Woodelves it's almost a 10% difference. Now I did spot-check one of the later chapters (17 or 18, I can't remember which) randomly a few weeks ago, and that was more productive again with chapter-upgraded manufactories and culture/pop, with better numbers than anything Woodelves or below had shown, so at soooome point they do get more efficient again, but it seems to be quite a ways in. At the very least, there are 5 chapters (from IV to Woodelves) where it creates a loss in production to keep upgrading the manufactories.
The only downside I can see to starting out with this production method is that MM spells aren't as useful, since you are using them on lower production buildings. To partially offset that however, I think the Mountain Halls is actually slightly more useful on many small buildings than on 1 or 2 larger ones (possibly due to rounding; I don't have the data on hand to prove this one at the moment but when I ran the numbers for myself earlier, it came out to my satisfaction, so I think I'm right in saying that). Of course, as was very logically pointed out to me by @Iyapo1 when I showed her the first inklings of this data several months ago, applying this in an already established higher-level city might unbalance coin production (not as many residences needed), or affect certain wonder's effects or uses (fewer coins for using in the wholesaler with a high-level BTG, for example, or reducing the effect of the Thermal Spring of Youth by having fewer residences, less population return from a Golden Abyss because of having a lower working population, etc.). However, I think if a player starts out building a city with this method in mind, all of those can be accounted for ahead of time and still create a more efficient city (more space to play with!!).
I didn't seem able to leave visible comments on the document for sharing, so here are a couple of edited notes that were originally comments: Levels 16 through 19 on the 'Chapter Specific Footprint' tab are using Dwarves numbers because that is when those upgrades become available but since they don't actually get upgraded again until Woodelves, there are also Fairy and Orc culture/pop numbers which would make these more efficient than is currently shown.
The colored horizontal lines indicate the last in a series of upgrades which become available at the same time (in essence, Chapter breaks). For each new set in the 'Chapter Specific Footprint' tab, I calculated based on the best residence and culture numbers available at the same time the manufactories became available. On the other tabs, they are still inserted at the chapter break, but are mainly useful for easy tracking across all the data.