That's leaves Phoen, which grabs 13 wood per trip vice the 10 wood a normal vill grabs. But after a few games, I'm wondering if this is really faster, at least in the beginning. I've been playing with Assy and Hittie a lot lately and they seem to do a good job of grabbing the wood.
A forest tree has 40 wood. For a Phoen, this is 3 trips of 13 and one trip of 1 (unless you have time to micro each vill on that last trip and send him to another tree. I know I don't)
So in 4 trips the Pheon grabs what? 40 wood.
How many trips does it take an Assy ot HItt to grab 40? You got it: 4 trips.
When looking at 75 wood strags it's a little different.
Pheo grab 75 wood in 6 trips (6x13 = 78)
Assy/Hitt take 8 trips, so there's a definite advantage here.
This is all through stone, before you can get market upgrades. It's usually this way through tool as well, since most (not all) won't spend on the woodcutting upgrade until they've already hit the Bronze button.
By the time you're 4 or so minutes into the game, your straggler trees are gone and you've pitted by a forest. This means you're grabbing 40 wood trees: 4 trips regardless of which civ you pick. And it's going to stay 4 trips until you get that first upgrade on your way to bronze.
So what I'm saying is, that for the purposes of getting quickly to bronze, with a good econ and a lot of wood, I'm not sure Phoen is as good as they're supposed to be. It's not until after you get that first upgrade that they start to pull away from the other civs. Add to this the Assy speed, which comes into play once the trees start running away from the pit, and I don't think you'll fall too far behind.
Now once you start getting upgrades, no doubt Phoen is better:
13+2=15x3=45 with the 1st upgrade, Phoen takes only 3 trips to strip a 40 wooder.
10+2=12x4=48 So Other civs still take 4 trips, or one more than Phoen.
But then the next upgrade comes:
15+2=17x3=51= 3 trips to strip a 40 wooder
12+2=14x2=42 = 3 trips
Back to even
Then of course you have to take into account multiple vills.
10 Phoen will bring back 130 wood
10 of any other will bring back 100
So in mass, Pheon definitely bring in more wood. But Assy walk faster and their chariots and archers fire faster. And most 1v1 games end in Bronze, where I think Assy has an advantage.
Also, I'm old and slow. If I play Assy, I target my strat to build me a buch of chariots and attack. Phoen has too many options and I get confused Just talking out loud I guess. What's the feeling around here for 1v1 games? Assy or Phoen? Or even Hittite? What's the experience of other players for grabbing wod with teh various civs?