Mystic Pond

The mystic pond, a Rampart structure, produces 1-4 of a random Resource except gold on day 1 every week.

Requires: Village Hall

Cost: 2.000 Gold, 2 Wood, 2 Ore, 2 Crystal, 2 Gems, 2 Mercury and 2 Sulfur.

Discussion

Mystic Pond is a poor investment when compared the construction cost to payback time. As the Pond generates range of 1 to 4 resources per week, it means that the average resource production is 2.5 per week. This means that even if the cost of gold is left aside, it takes approximately five weeks for Mystic Pond to break even. If considered that with nine Marketplaces basic resource value 125 and magical resource value is 250 , it means that the construction cost converted to gold is 4500 . While the value of randomly produced resources is about 520 , it means that the payback time is approximately nine weeks (or 8.64 to be exact). The payback time is also about five weeks, if resources are bought from one marketplace at the cost of 2500 per basic resource and 5000 per magical resource. In comparison, by using the same method of calculation to any one of the Resource Silos, their payback time is always the same, approximately four weeks (3.21 rounded up).

This leads to conclusion, that Mystic Pond is only useful in two situations:

1. It counts as an additional building so it will increase the damage output of arrow towers in a siege,
2. If the map is incredibly resource poor, meaning there are no mines or very few mines available and very limited amount of resources lying on the Adventure Map.

Finally, even if the map lasts for more than few months, Mystic Pond is still an inadvisable investment. This is due the fact that in order to profit from the Pond it should be constructed as early as possible, and typically at that point of the map there are several more important targets for the gold and resources (e.g. creature dwellings or creatures).