Gold and Lumber equivalence

[xyzier_24]

Just a simple question; Based on Melee maps,
How much gold does 1 lumber costs?
Or
What's the equivalence of gold to lumber?
Or
How much gold can I get from converting 1 lumber?

I need this to balance the gold and lumber costs.
I hope you guys understand my question, I'm not good at elaborating.
Just this one simple question.

 

[Death Adder]

I'd take a rough guess at gold being worth a bit more than twice as much as lumber (on average) in terms of building costs.

But for units it's probably more like 3 to 4 times or more.

p.s. a way to get a rough idea would probably be to measure how the goldmine income compare to the lumber income per each worker.

I think you get gold something like 2 or 3 times faster, but then again you can only have 5 workers for max potential per goldmine.

 

[Chaosy]

I think they are fairly equal. Because you gain gold a lot faster, but you don't need as much lumber since a unit costs 25 lumber and 125 gold. Same goes for buildings most of the time at the very least.

 

[xyzier_24]

@Death Adder Yeah. I think the best way to get costs is to measure how fast 1 worker can gather and transfer 10 gold from g.mine to t.hall, and another 1 worker to gather and transfer lumber from tree to t.hall, with the tree having the same distance to the t.hall with the g.mine. But I just have to guess the value using this one.

Damn I hope someone knows the exact value.

 

[The_Silent]

You can only have a limited amount of workers harvesting gold at a time, but have as many harvesting lumber as you want (Well, 1-2 per tree in the map, anyway). Also, everything costs gold, not everything costs lumber. So I would say lumber is worth less than gold.

 

[Death Adder]

I think they are fairly equal. Because you gain gold a lot faster, but you don't need as much lumber since a unit costs 25 lumber and 125 gold. Same goes for buildings most of the time at the very least.

You just explained how they are very unequal. xd

You need and earn more gold than lumber, so one gold is worth less than one lumber...

How much gold can I get from converting 1 lumber?

From your example of 125 gold and 25 lumber, lumber is worth 5 times as much as gold lol...

 

[Chaosy]

They are equal in the sense of how much is needed and how quick it is gathered. (unless you want 50% of your food cap to be workers)

 

[Death Adder]

They are equal in the sense of how much is needed and how quick it is gathered. (unless you want 50% of your food cap to be workers)

Yes, they're equal relative in terms of how much you need compared to how much you get.

But if you say they are equal value that would mean you trade 1 gold for 1 lumber, would you?

 

[Chaosy]

It'd say it was 3-4 gold per 1 lumber for units and maybe 2-2.5 gold per 1 lumber for buildings.
Though that's unrealistic in a melee map, you should never have that much lumber.

 

[Death Adder]

It'd say it was 3-4 gold per 1 lumber for units and maybe 2-2.5 gold per 1 lumber for buildings.
Though that's unrealistic in a melee map, you should never have that much lumber.

Yeah, that's my rough estimate as well. But like you said it's not realistic so it's hard to gauge.

Somehow I feel like 1-1.5 gold to lumber would be appropriate, but idk.

The thing is also, you don't use as much lumber later on, right? so it also has a different value later on in the game than early on.

 

[xyzier_24]

Though that's unrealistic in a melee map, you should never have that much lumber.

What do you mean by this?

The thing is also, you don't use as much lumber later on, right? so it also has a different value later on in the game than early on.

I'm making an Altered Melee map, and thinking of making a race where lumber is more important than gold so this one will use much lumber even in late game, so I really need to know this. Also for the maximum cost of unit.

edit:
ex. Troll Headhunter costs 135 gold and 20 lumber (suppose 1 lumber=3 gold), then the total cost is 195
altering the cost would be like 165 gold and 10 lumber something like this

 

[Death Adder]

I'm a really bad noob at wc3 melee but doesn't most lumber go to buildings and upgrades? Since ideally you're not supposed to lose any units, especially not the more high tier ones that usually cost more lumber.

But like I said I'm pretty damn bad at melee (and wc3 micro in general) so don't take my word for it.

 

[xyzier_24]

For me, I'm bad at balancing.

I hope someone passes by and give me the exact value.

 

[blancfaye7]

You can only have a limited amount of workers harvesting gold at a time, but have as many harvesting lumber as you want (Well, 1-2 per tree in the map, anyway). Also, everything costs gold, not everything costs lumber. So I would say lumber is worth less than gold.

I'd like to highlight this. It is way too variable; especially regarding each race's way of gathering. The get the real equal cost, you must take into consideration the race's gathering method, and their unit and structure costs. I think (for melee), the race defines the ratio.

 

[xyzier_24]

I'd like to highlight this. It is way too variable; especially regarding each race's way of gathering. The get the real equal cost, you must take into consideration the race's gathering method, and their unit and structure costs. I think (for melee), the race defines the ratio.

Okay then, so why don't use the Orc race as the race to define the ratio.

The hard part is, knowing the exact value. Let's say we have 5 peons gathering gold, and another 5 gathering lumber. No more, no less. Let's say the way to determine is by the amount of time used to gather 100 gold and 100 lumber. What would be the value?

 

[Dr Super Good]

In reality they have no equivalent value because they cannot be substituted. Lumber has an infinite gold value because without lumber you cannot build anything. Likewise gold has an infinite lumber value because without gold you cannot build anything.

If it is convertible, then it is always at a very bad ratio. This means that it is possible to convert excess but doing so is never as efficient as harvesting what you need yourself. Typically you see conversions in the form of 100 lumber to 50 gold and 100 gold to 50 lumber.

All this prevents one from running a single resource economy and forces you to balance your income based on your needs.

In practice lumber is more easy to obtain than gold since drop off points can be placed more cheaply than townhalls and there is no real limit to how many lumber workers you can have operating as opposed to miners which is limited to the number of mine sites you have access to.

 

[xyzier_24]

If it is convertible, then it is always at a very bad ratio. This means that it is possible to convert excess but doing so is never as efficient as harvesting what you need yourself. Typically you see conversions in the form of 100 lumber to 50 gold and 100 gold to 50 lumber.

All this prevents one from running a single resource economy and forces you to balance your income based on your needs.

In practice lumber is more easy to obtain than gold since drop off points can be placed more cheaply than townhalls and there is no real limit to how many lumber workers you can have operating as opposed to miners which is limited to the number of mine sites you have access to.

That's true.

Okay, so let me make something up; what's the ratio of this:
The amount of time 1 worker requires to gather 20 gold, and the amount of time 1 worker requires to gather 20 lumber.
If I'm going to base my equivalence to the amount of time required, then will it be 10:1?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Lumber is harvested slower due to sub-optimal movement distance. This is why the human carrying capacity upgrade is worth researching as it decreases the fraction of time spent moving and so increases average lumber harvesting rate.

However you do have machine like the Goblin Harvester thing which are very efficient and harvesting lumber.

 

[xyzier_24]

Okay, so if you're going to give them a ratio (as an opinion/suggestion), what would it be?
I'd going for 2.75 gold:1 lumber
because I guess gold costs have larger values than lumber costs, and gold is faster to acquire (if we'll base it in 5gold harvester : 5lumber harvester ratio).
But again, I'm too bad at balancing, that's why I don't trust myself in this values.

 

[blancfaye7]

Don't forget about Upkeep. Gold is affected by the said feature.

 

[The_Silent]

If lumber gets too valuable, there is no reason to harvest gold anymore. You just set all your workers to harvest lumber, then convert the necessary amount to gold.

 

[blancfaye7]

If lumber gets too valuable, there is no reason to harvest gold anymore. You just set all your workers to harvest lumber, then convert the necessary amount to gold.

You don't need to even find another gold mine. Just set up a lumber mill or something until all trees are taken out...

 

[xyzier_24]

But who would try to do something like that? lol

If changing a unit's cost to something like this:
Original cost is Gold cost = 135, Lumber cost = 20
Altered cost is Gold cost = 145, Lumber cost = 10
Will it still remain balanced in terms of unit's total cost? Or should it be:
Altered cost is Gold cost = 145, Lumber cost = 13 something like this?

 

[The_Silent]

I would, instantly, if it were more effective than harvesting gold. Not having to build a base for a second goldmine is a huge tactical advantage.

 

[blancfaye7]

I would, instantly, if it were more effective than harvesting gold. Not having to build a base for a second goldmine is a huge tactical advantage.

Me too.

If changing a unit's cost to something like this:
Original cost is Gold cost = 135, Lumber cost = 20
Altered cost is Gold cost = 145, Lumber cost = 10
Will it still remain balanced in terms of unit's total cost? Or should it be:
Altered cost is Gold cost = 145, Lumber cost = 13 something like this?

I will let the others answer this. I really don't know the ratio if it does exist.

 

[xyzier_24]

I would, instantly, if it were more effective than harvesting gold. Not having to build a base for a second goldmine is a huge tactical advantage.

Unless other units have increased gold cost.

 

[The_Silent]

Unless other units have increased gold cost.

If I understand you correctly, that would change nothing. Since that also affects normal gold harvesting.