Hey guys, Spirit Of The Law here. in this video, I'm gonna look at a question concerning deer
Mmm, venison. What I want to know is the ideal number of villagers to use when hunting.
In general you'll see players use anywhere from two to four villagers, but I was curious to see exactly what the difference is.
Here we have some Mills with deer not too far away and different numbers of villagers taking from each deer
I'll be assuming you don't have wheelbarrow, as a lot of the time deer are taken in late Dark Age or
Early feudal age, though I will address how wheelbarrow affects the results a bit later
I'm gonna leave in any bumping that the villagers do on the way as well as wait until the very last
Villager drops their food off, since villager bumping is a real
Inefficiency you encounter when you have a lot of them doing the same tasks. Testing it out with six villagers
I get a gather rate of around nineteen food per minute, which is roughly on par with Dark Age farming
But as we try it with fewer numbers of villagers that rate goes up by around one food per minute per villager
I'd attribute that to the fact that each of the four villagers is carrying more than the six
meaning that for the time investment spent in walking
Each villager is getting longer to actually collect food. Now with three villagers
We hit a critical point where they can't collect from the deer in a single trip anymore
They can only carry 35 food each and when they fill up there should be about twelve or thirteen food left
The first trip is very efficient
But if you let them do the second trip for the last bit of food
You get an extra nine or so food for a combined 48 seconds of walking
Not a good collection rate at all.
For that reason i'll separate three villagers into those two cases
One where you micro to cut them off after the first trip and another where you let them take both trips
It's a similar thing with two villagers, though with one villager I'll include all three trips he needs to make
Putting it all together
you can see that the total food decreases as you use fewer villagers since they take longer to get the food which
increases the time for decay to steal the rest but on the other hand with more than four villagers you start to have a
Noticeable drop-off in overall collection rate efficiency. Now one thing you might reasonably point out here. Is that the deer are very close
To the drop-off points which under weights the negative impact of walking time
I'll repeat the test this time with a distance of 12 tiles instead of four. that distance might be a bit extreme
but it'll give us a sense of how
Impactful multiple long trips can be. The first thing you'll notice besides the much lower rates overall
Is that the highest Villager numbers are particularly
Impacted. A small part of that is coming from the confused bumping that happens when you have a group of villagers
All go to the same spot and then All try to drop off their food at the same time
But the bigger factor is again that each of these six villagers are only carrying about 60% of their maximum capacity
Before the deer is used up
So they're not spending as much time making good use out of that really long walk
That leads to a sharp drop in gather rate for only a bit more food. Notice that with three villagers again
You really want to cut them off before they take their second trip as there won't be enough food left over to make that worth it
if anything we're seeing the same trends as the shorter distance
But magnified meaning the further the deer are away
The more important it is to make sure that each trip brings back as close to the villagers carry capacity as possible
So now let's address the quintessential deer question of whether you should mill with two, three, or four villagers
It's pretty easy to see why there isn't a clear consensus on the question as the rates are all pretty
Comparable if the deer is close to the mill. For longer distances, It does start to matter though
first of all
I'm gonna throw out two as the best general rule since it involves either giving up about half of the food from the deer if
You stop them after one trip, or if you do let them make two trips
They just end up with the same rate as four villagers
but with a lot less food in the bank as
For whether to go with three or four villagers when the deer are close say within four tiles, the difference is modest
But when the walking distance increases what it really comes down to is whether you value the total food collected or the collection rate
Three villagers can definitely gather any faster rate assuming you only let them do one trip and leave the last twelve or thirteen food
too raw
that ensures they only carry the
Maximum they can but at the same time it seems a bit wasteful if you let them make the second trip to get the last
Of that food, though
Then three becomes significantly worse than four. Both in terms of the final food count and the collection rate overall
unless you're keeping a close eye on the three villagers and
Redirecting them after their first drop-off or if you have wheel barrow which allows them to collect the whole deer in one trip
Then I'd say four is the optimal choice
it involves less micromanagement and is a decent balance of getting most of the food while also getting
reasonably close to the ideal collection rate
Combing a bit more through the data offers another interesting question, though if grater villager numbers generally reduce gather rates
How should you split up a group of six hunters to test this question? I picked a moderate distance of just six tiles
I know it might look a little far for a mill placement, but remember deer often run away from your villagers
So I think it's a reasonable average those six villagers working together
Collect two hundred and fifty two food in a hundred and forty seconds
Which is an average of eighteen food per minute for each villager
You might think you can help yourself out by snagging another close deer on the way back to increase your efficiency
But in my case that actually lowered the rate to just under seventy in food per minute there probably are
Situations that would work in your favor, though
Like if your villagers aren't carrying very much and a deer happens to wander into their path
if
Instead I took those six villagers and split them into two groups of three it gave a much better result of twenty food per minute
that is if you stop them after the first drop off and take the
210 food if I let the groups do their second trip, I get an average of eighteen food per minute
That's about the same rate as keeping all six together
but with an extra twenty eight food rotting away this shows again that if you're going to use groups of three
There's a very clear distinction made between letting them take one trip for maximum efficiency or two trips for maximum food
Until you get wheel
barrow three villagers requires some micromanagement in order to utilize well
So what about getting
Fancy with it though and having three villagers do the first trip and then sending only one back to collect the ten or so food
Bus while the other two villagers go on to a different deer is that beating the system?
Well, not really the one villager making the second trip is only collecting ten
Which again isn't ideal. Before wheelbarrow
you'd be better off splitting them into a group of four and two if you wanted to maximize the collection rate or leave them as
A group of six if you want to maximize the total food
Splitting into groups of three gives a combination of the worst aspects of the other two options again
Though just to be confusing
After wheelbarrow groups of three give the best rate now all of that being said some of you may know there are a few
exceptions for specific
civilizations. Goths and Aztecs
For example both have bonuses that let their hunters carry more. in those cases even before
Wheelbarrow three goth or aztec villagers can carry all of the meat on a deer in one trip
Similarly vikings also get wheelbarrow right away in feudal age
So as soon as you advanced switching two groups of three should be automatic on the other hand
There are a couple of other civilizations that get extra meat out of their deer which impacts their ideal number in the other direction
For example mongols faster hunting means decay has less time to occur
so there's more meat for the villagers to take in their case four villagers is a bit better than normal because they get closer to
reaching their maximum carry capacity
It's a similar thing for Mayans who get more resources from whatever they're gathering from including deer
It works out that four villagers is perfect for them in Dark Age where by getting a little bit more food out of the deer
Than other civilizations all four villagers are basically at their maximum carry capacity
The big takeaway from all of this is unless you're one of those civilizations
If you have wheelbarrow go with groups of three if you don't have wheelbarrow 4 is fine
Unless you really don't care about wasting food and want to maximise efficiency in which case go with three
But don't forget to retask them after the first trip. That's all for this one though
Thanks for watching guys, and I'll see you next time