Does it worth to go 100 food ?

[Meeds]

Hi guys,

I realized something, at 80 food you mine 7 gold, at 100 food you mine 4 gold. So basically, it means that you will mine the exactly same amount of gold with :

• 4 mines @ 80
• 7 mines @ 100

3 extras mines, needs 15 workers, so basically, you can only have an army 5 food higher, which is almost nothing ?

Or with:

• 3 mines @ 80
• 5 mines @ 100

you also almost earn the same amout of gold (3*7=21, 5*4=20) so in this case, you only need 10 extra workers, so you can have a 10 food higher army, which start to be not negligible.

However, more expos means more expos to harass for your opponent.

More generally, when facing a 2v1, I always wonder whether it is a good idea to go 100 food with more expo to be able to have a better map control, or is it better to stay 80 with less expos to defend.

What is your opinion on that ?

[DarKNeSSCaLLs]

Such a broad question, the economical penalities are very steep for going into high upkeep and this is precisely the reason why majority of good players will stop mining while in this phase.

If you do go 100 food, it's recommended you not only have a plan for what you will do with it, but also how long you will be on it - you do not want to be 100 food for very long unless it is end game and mines are drained, or it is 1v1 and it does not matter and you want to end the game.

If you're asking the differences between 80 and 100 food, it's dependant on race vs race and army compositions. For orc the difference can be quite significant, just because casters/kodo use up a lot of our food, the extra 20 food being used for pure offensive can make a large change in battle - Maintaining 80 food can be somewhat difficult for battles as a result. For a UD though (for example), this difference might not be as noticable - which is why a lot of UD players abuse 80 food mass mining.

Also, don't think of it as "I'm 100 food so I need more mines to maintain my economy". Having this mindset will lead to you getting teamed easier, your food count matters little compared to the number of expansions you are running in the minds of your opponents - Just as long as you maintain your upkeep wisely you'll be ok.

[FML|Renaud]

The only time you should be constantly at 100, is if you are not mining any more
Otherwise, you should only be going 100 food in small burst.  Some players actually stop their peons from mining during those bursts, that depends on the situation, but at the very least you can stop mining from your main gold mine.

What I mean by bursts:
-You are at 50 with 3 mines, then go directly to 100 (still with 3 mines) and quickly kill someone who is not prepared, then take his mines and go back to 80 (you can also go back to 50, but that might be very risky if you don't mass tower)

-Right before a battle, go to 100, fight, win the fight easily with your 20 food advantage, then keep on playing at 80 food (if you are lucky you will have lost about 20 food during that battle)... this tactic is especially good for the evils orcs who can just pump 10 extra bats and suicide them

[Meeds]

Thank you guys for your quick reply

I just learned lot here, I guess watching replay does not help for everything, I never realized this kind of details (stop mining, not staying long at 100)
If you look at P6 game, lw was almost 100 all game with 4-5 mines and almost constantly less than 1k gold against 2 players with 12k gold. I guess he should have used more the chat but I really respect LW as a respectful player for that, ie not abusing chat or manip.

Link to P6 :
http://www.ffareplays.com/parse.php?file=S17P6