Hunting

Which unit is best for hunting based on the ratio of crops usage to cash obtained because you get more money per calv but uses 4 times more crops compared to inf

I have not yet done any tests to zero in on this particular question. As far as I know, you should be getting a ton of gold with either one of those units if you go full crop with them.

Keeping in mind that you can have 4 Sword per each Cav, that is a lot of Overburden right there on the second fastest unit in the game. Next time I loose a good chunk of my Cav, I'll build some Swords just to test it out.

I'll likely start with 2,500 Cav in one city vs 10k Sword in another for a couple of days.

If results seem a bit indeterminate, I'll double those numbers to 5k vs 20k. Don't think I'll go as high as 10k vs 40k, though.

...any of those will take a long time to build. Infantry is slow to train... Ugh

As for this test the oasis lvl seems to affect the amount of cash gained

I would go with as many Calvary as possible and hunt for 8-10 hours. Anymore than that, then your troops will get tired and drop a lot of the gold.

As for this test the oasis lvl seems to affect the amount of cash gained

The only thing that matters when it comes to oasis hunting is that the oasis you choose has not been recently hunted. If the oasis has been, you will receive either nothing at all, or a much reduced hunt. I've hunted for 8 hours on all oasis lvls and types, and my best gold hunt was from a lvl 0 oasis (21,000). Ive also had 0 money unsuccessful hunts on every single oasis and type. So I'm willing to say that i've tested this and it's true.

In terms of the original question, I have not tested the best/ most efficient ratio, but the general concensus in my alliance is to do 5k-5k-5k-5k for 8-12 hours. This way you don't loose your entire army if someone takes your sub or crops your forces while your asleep!

If anyone else has found a better or more effective way please let me know!

As for this test the oasis lvl seems to affect the amount of cash gained

Indeed! Oasis level has nothing to do with Hunt results. The only things that affect Hunt results are:
- Total units used (the more the better)
- Total Speed used (unit's + yours + tech, renders more Gold and sligtly improved treasure chances)
- Total Fortune (renders improved treasure results)
- Total combined Overload (unconfirmed)
- Time spent hunting (ideal times being between 8-12hrs)
- Fresh Oasis (chances that your hunt renders no results are increased if a previous hunt took place within 24hrs)

The 5k-5k-5k-5k sounds like a pretty bad settup since you are wasting so much crop consumption in slow units. Speed is essentially the only Hunt related stat that you can drastically improve via selecting the fastest unit possible, spending attribute points, getting max lvl equipments, and maxing technology. That army has a really high speed negative per crop consumption. Using 50,000 crop on a unit with base speed 50 is not a very wise decision when it comes to Hunt results.

Hands down the best units for this are Swords (Speed 150) and Cav (Speed 300). What I don't know for sure at this point is if the speed is added to one big collective, or if the speed is only factored in at max unit speed.

Meaning, I dont know if 300+45+20% (Cav) is the best the game would recognize for Hunts, or if it will add the individual speed of all units together. If it's the former, all hunters should stick to Cav. However, if it's the later, a Sword army will have MUCH more speed than a Cav.

1 Cav (300 Speed) = 4 Sword (600 Speed)

So like I said, I won't really know the answer to give you until I test this myself.

Inf's give the best bang for your buck in my experience. I don't think you are losing a whole lot by going all cav, but don't build archers or cat's to make your hunts more fruitful.

The biggest factor is finding a square that hasn't been hunted for a few days. For this reason I now favor 12 hour hunts as opposed to 8 hour hunts, so I don't burn through too many squares around my cities too often.

Theories I have not been able to prove:
Speed increases the probability of getting treasure.

Theories I have not been able to prove:
Speed increases the probability of getting treasure.

I can help you there.

Untill recently, I was settup with an Inf/Cat army. Throughout this time, I never got a treasure result better than a Gemstone (which I got only once).

I now switched to a full Cav army using the same crop consumption. Since I switched I have gotten 1 L10 ring, 3 Gemstones, and a large amount of assorted treasures of lesser level within a single week in addition to greater Gold results within short periods of time (12k+ in 5-6 hours).

My Fortune was 20+10, and Speed was 145+max tech on both builds. The only thing that changed was the actual army composition.

I think this alone proves that Speed does play a big role on hunt results in general, but the difference margin for treasure results is much smaller than that for gold.

Theories I have not been able to prove:
Speed increases the probability of getting treasure.

I can help you there.

Untill recently, I was settup with an Inf/Cat army. Throughout this time, I never got a treasure result better than a Gemstone (which I got only once).

I now switched to a full Cav army using the same crop consumption. Since I switched I have gotten 1 L10 ring, 3 Gemstones, and a large amount of assorted treasures of lesser level within a single week in addition to greater Gold results within short periods of time (12k+ in 5-6 hours).

My Fortune was 20+10, and Speed was 145+max tech on both builds. The only thing that changed was the actual army composition.

I think this alone proves that Speed does play a big role on hunt results in general, but the difference margin for treasure results is much smaller than that for gold.

It seems you have more experience w/ a large cav army hunting. I saw similar gains, but I just haven't seen enough treasures as of yet to discount just getting lucky. Good to know!

-K

3 gemstones?!?