Economy and Citizen-Soldier Movement Speed

[Philip the Swaggerless]

Some people complain that this game favors army compositions featuring a majority of ranged units and minority of melee units.  Well guess what?  Ranged units are also better for your eco, so all the more reason to spam them nearly nonstop!

Is the fact that Skirmishers have a significant eco bonus factored into the balancing of this game? 

They dash from the CC to the woodline like it's an olympic race!  Whether its moving from an exhausted woodline to the next one or returning from a battle to gather resources again, their speed is a significant economic bonus.  As they gather they continue to have an advantage economically because they go back and forth to the drop point faster.  Slingers are slower than skirmishers, but at least in early P1 it helps that they don't require as much wood.  But archers...

Archers lose fights 1v1 to every citizen-soldier in the game.  An all-archer army loses to all-skirmisher and all-slinger armies.  If it's not bad enough that they're the worst ranged unit in combat,  they are also worst ranged unit economically.  I understand that if they are faster than the other units they could just kite the enemy all day since they also have more range, and that's undesirable.

I've thought of some ideas that might help to mitigate this effect

• Units carrying resources all move at the same speed.  Not a complete fix since it only works for half of the journey between the resource and the drop point.
• Archer combat buffed ((increased damage or accuracy) or skirmishers/slingers nerfed)) so that even if archers are weaker for eco their superior combat ability makes up for it.
• Increase gather rates or carrying capacity of slower units.
• Less wood cost for archers (50 Food + 48 wood) and maybe also some other slower units.

Maybe not all but some combination of these things could even the playing field for archer civs.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Philip the Swaggerless
Changed proposed wood cost for archers because test demonstrated skirmisher's movement advantage not as economically drastic as I first thought.

[JC (naval supremacist)]

actually,  slingers are perfectly mid-way between archers and skirmishers on : range, speed, and attack. That's theory.  But in practice, while slingers can use their bigger range to escape quick enough inter-bumping skirmishers ; archers move just too slow to move away in time (at least on long distance)  . Its seems that slingers occupy a really tiny piece of land and bump in each other very few.

In my opinion, slingers should be the fastest unit moving but providing less damage than archers (which is reality quite obvious). So rather than making slingers simply a mix between archers and skirmishers ; rather make archers the best ranged ; the slingers the fastest and the skirmishers the most harmful.

To summarize

> Now its :  (1 is the best , 2 middle,  3 the worst)

        skirm sling archer
speed    1    2    3
range    3    2    1
attack    1    2    3

> it should be

        skirm sling archer
speed    2    1    3
range    3    2    1
attack    1    3    2

Edited December 6, 2018 by JC (naval supremacist)

[soshanko]

17 minutes ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

In my opinion, slingers should be the fastest unit moving but providing less damage than archers.

slings throw rocks and historically a sling shot is more powerful than arrow bc sling rocks are heavier than arrow.so slings should damage more. if the enemy is not in proper formation.

archers carry a bow and arrow container also sometimes a small shield, minimum armor, secondary weapon and helmets .So archers should be slower and cost heavy than slings.

3 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Less wood cost for archers (50 Food + 40 wood) and maybe also some other slower units.

as a third point arrows needs a piece of metal for its head and also professional craftsmanship so the archers should be cost heavy.

I would rather propose

           . a metal cost for archers(reduced wood to 30! and 10 metal!),

           . increased armor

           . secondary weapon to fight in mele combat.

Edited December 6, 2018 by soshanko

[JC (naval supremacist)]

4 hours ago, soshanko said:

slings throw rocks and historically a sling shot is more powerful than arrow bc sling rocks are heavier than arrow.so slings should damage more. if the enemy is not in proper formation.

archers carry a bow and arrow container also sometimes a small shield, minimum armor, secondary weapon and helmets .So archers should be slower and cost heavy than slings.

 except on the head, i dont see how a stone can really kill you (and an helmet can protect well vs stone) And, I prefer to receive a stone on the shoulder than an arrow in the eye or in the belly button    :D . The stone was quite light, while the arrow and even more the javelin were more heavy and had more pierce effect.  Seriously, making slingers more harmful than archers is a strange decision.   The slingers were the most light, cheap and  less honorable unit. They had basicaly no protection and were very mobile.

I really think the balance should be

       skirm sling archer
speed    2    1    3
range    3    2    1
attack    1    3    2

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I've wanted a shuttle speed element for templates for a long time, but it was dismissed as unnecessary. 

[Guest]

You are really underestimating the speed and size of a sling projectile.

Not to mention the fact that blunt force trauma would probably be more deadly against a heavily armored foe.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Guest

[Sundiata]

In battles, there are a lot of variables, and failing to take as many of them into account results in these awkward situations where "slingers" outperform "archers". 

I'm not denying that experienced slingers could outrange most archers, or that sling bullets aren't potentially lethal, but there are some important variables to take into account. 

There is a huge difference between the flimsy self bows generally used in Western Europe, and the recurve and composite bows generally used in the East. Like, a really huge difference. There is also a huge difference between highly experienced slingers and rookies that simply couldn't afford anything better than a sling. 

The second thing everyone seems to forget is that slingers need much more space to operate than archers. Slingers sling the rocks around before launching the projectile, and therefore obviously need a large radius of free space to operate in. Archers could be easily packed in tight formations, even rows of archers without risking injuring each-other. This means that dense archer formations could fire clouds of arrows, whereas slingers need open ground and space to operate. Archers can even fire from from cover like bushes and trees/forests, whereas slingers literally can not. 

[Gurken Khan]

@SundiataWhile you might be completely right, how would you translate that into units stats?

(I have no idea how the damage of those three weapons would compare, or how they should be balanced.)

Spoiler

I believe that's slinger ammo (lead?) and says 'catch'.

[soshanko]

2 hours ago, Sundiata said:

The second thing everyone seems to forget is that slingers need much more space to operate than archers. Slingers sling the rocks around before launching the projectile, and therefore obviously need a large radius of free space to operate in. Archers could be easily packed in tight formations, even rows of archers without risking injuring each-other. This means that dense archer formations could fire clouds of arrows, whereas slingers need open ground and space to operate. Archers can even fire from from cover like bushes and trees/forests, whereas slingers literally can not.  

yes agree with Sundiata. slings should be on more lose formation while throwing rocks. there should be more space.

but at speed of running they should be faster than archers because they are lighter. they should cost less because they can collect their weapon from anywhere. as they are in lose formation, they also should take less damage and as they getting weapon from anywhere they must be able to throw in higher rate than archers, and archers should fire less if there is a less stock of arrows but they can collect arrow thrown from enemy if enemy have archers.

4 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

 except on the head, i dont see how a stone can really kill you (and an helmet can protect well vs stone) And, I prefer to receive a stone on the shoulder than an arrow in the eye or in the belly button    . The stone was quite light, while the arrow and even more the javelin were more heavy and had more pierce effect.  Seriously, making slingers more harmful than archers is a strange decision.   The slingers were the most light, cheap and  less honorable unit. They had basicaly no protection and were very mobile.

making anyone unable to fight I mean injure enemy is enough to get an upperhand in the real battle. so killing enemy is not necessary. lul.

4 hours ago, (-_-) said:

You are really underestimating the speed and size of a sling projectile.

Not to mention the fact that blunt force trauma would probably be more deadly against a heavily armored foe

I am agree with you. thanks.

Edited December 6, 2018 by soshanko

[Sundiata]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

how would you translate that into units stats?

That's the main question... I'm not a hero at unit stats, at all. Hyperrealism isn't feasible, so I don't have problems with abstractions. They should just kind of make sense. I think it makes sense that slingers move faster than other units, and I don't have a problem with the extra range (although this shouldn't be exaggerated). 

In an ideal world, slingers should automatically spread out when attacking in some sort of a loose formation, but without working formations this seems kind of difficult to achieve for now. It would do a lot to mitigate the massed slinger spam tactic which is definitely overused. So it would be a nice long term goal to keep in mind when reworking formations. 

For now, I just think that slingers should have slightly less health, and deal slightly less damage than archers to compensate for their range and speed. Slightly...  

I don't think in depth discussions about sling bullet damage vs arrow damage are necessary for now, considering the large variety of bullet sizes and shapes, as well as the large variety of bows and arrows. Some arrows shot from some bows would hardly penetrate an adult body wearing no armor at all, and could be easily pulled out by hand. Other types of arrows shot from certain composite bows would knock a grown man in full armor off his feet, and would be nearly impossible to remove from the body once it penetrated (barbed). So there is a lot of wiggle room/room for interpretation/discussion. Could even be tied to the specific civs. Iberian slingers for example were legendary, while some slingers in other cultures are barely mentioned by anyone. Same goes for the archers. Archery, like slingers were a pretty universal unit, but are hardly mentioned or used by some, while they form the bulk of the armies for others. I think in the long turn, this should all be civ-specific. For now, a very simple and modest nerf for the slingers seems in order. 

 

Edited December 6, 2018 by Sundiata

[Sundiata]

And this:

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I've wanted a shuttle speed element for templates for a long time, but it was dismissed as unnecessary. 

Different units already have different gathering rates. Such wide differences in shuttle speeds as well just compounds the issue, so it would be really good to be able to adjust the speeds in the templates. 

Edited December 6, 2018 by Sundiata

[LordGood]

I tried increasing footprints in PA for slingers to force looser formations, increasing obstruction makes it impossible to garrison them. I also gave them ridiculous spread. This won't stop them from bunching up though. Functionally they perform in PA as 'skirmishing archers'. They have unreliable DPS and low health and armor, but can choose their fights and have a faster projectile speed.

[soshanko]

can not sling get a bigger radius while throwing? I mean fat like 10x. but not in pic but when it comes to collision?

there is also another idea like used in terra megna mod. building transfers into moving cart. can not slings transfer into somekind more radius thing? in programming not in look. may be for the width they look like separed.

lol.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

And this:

Different units already have different gathering rates. Such wide differences in shuttle speeds as well just compounds the issue, so it would be really good to be able to adjust the speeds in the templates. 

Different units have different gather rates?

About shuttle speed in the template, I would set it to the same for all units. The point would be that it is controllable in the template so that you can have a uniform shuttling speed for citizen-soldiers (probably the speed of your slowest walking infantryman) while maintaining that they can have differing regular "walk" speeds (fast moving slingers, slow pikemen, etc.). 

Since it's controlled in the templates, you could have techs or bonuses which modify this shuttling speed, but don't affect normal walking rates. 

Edited December 6, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Loki1950]

6 minutes ago, soshanko said:

can not sling get a bigger radius while throwing? I mean fat like 10x. but not in pic but when it comes to collision?

there is also another idea like used in terra megna mod. building transfers into moving cart. can not slings transfer into somekind more radius thing? in programming not in look. may be for the width they look like separed.

lol.

That is exactly what LordGood said he did but it did work at all as the units could not be garrisoned just increasing there footprint has no effect as the pathfinder ignores said footprint and they clump up.

Enjoy the Choice  

[Philip the Swaggerless]

On 12/6/2018 at 4:30 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Different units have different gather rates?

Assuming the information in the in-game civ structure trees is accurate, the only soldier that does not have 0.6 Food 0.8 Wood 0.5 Stone 0.5 Metal gathering rates are the Skritiai Commandos which I personally am okay with because their combat ability makes up for it.  And then also each soldier type has slower rates as they rank up.

I did an experiment hoping to show how much the movement speeds affects wood gathering.  The results were less drastic than I expected.  I created a scenario where you start with a CC, a storehouse next to an oak woodline (28 trees - total 5,600 wood), some houses, 2 soldiers, and enough resources to build 20 additional soldiers.  To make it somewhat realistic I created soldiers in batches of 5.  I set the gathering point for all to the same initial tree and did not micromanage which trees they cut.  I then recorded how long it took for the last soldier to drop the final piece of wood for each unit type (except Skiritai Commandos and Clubmen).  I repeated each unit type twice and got the same results.  Here they are:

Skirmishers (12.6 Walk) - 09:39

Slingers (10.8 Walk) - 09:51

Archers (9.9 Walk) - 10:01

Swordsmen (9.4 Walk) - 10:19

Spearmen (8.5 Walk) - 10:20

Pikeman (7.2 Walk) - 10:53

Women (9 Walk, 0.7 gather rate) - 10:13*  I got 10:13 the first time, the next two times were 10:23-ish but the final woman kept walking back and forth and wouldn't go around the women in front of the storehouse.

Here is a minute by minute breakdown of how much they gathered.  The last number in parentheses for each unit type is the time at which they had deposited all 5,600 wood.

 

Minutes	1min	2min	3min	4min	5min	6min	7min	8min	9min	10min	11min
Skirmishers	80	410	1,030	1,800	2,550	3,280	3,970	4,650	5,270	(9:39)	~
Slingers	60	390	980	1,720	2,470	3,190	3,850	4,520	5,140	(9:51)	~
Archers	70	370	970	1,710	2,480	3,180	3,820	4,450	5,060	5,593	(10:01)
Swordsmen	60	390	1,000	1,720	2,420	3,100	3,750	4,380	4,970	5,478	(10:19)
Spearmen	50	370	940	1,680	2,400	3,070	3,690	4,310	4,900	5,440	(10:20)
Pikemen	30	350	910	1,570	2,240	2,900	3,530	4,110	4,680	5,220	(10:53)
Women1	110	520	1,210	1,900	2,610	3,280	3,890	4,530	5,100	5,532	(10:13)
Women2	110	520	1,210	1,880	2,620	3,260	3,900	4,510	5,080	5,541	(10:23)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As expected, it is the case that the faster the walk speed the faster the wood collection.  (The women are an exception because they are created faster.)  However, much of the difference occurs towards the end of the woodline when more walking is required.  So for the first 5 minutes the difference is at most 80w among the ranged units.  Pikemen, though, even in the first 5 minutes pikemen are at least 160w behind other melee units.  As the game goes on though the effect does become more pronounced.  The end times in the data are important as they show how long it takes to catch up.  It takes longer to catch up as the game goes on.  For example, at minute 1, skirmishers are ahead of slingers by 20, but the slingers actually make up the 20 within 1-2 seconds.

Real game factors

 - Due to path-finding, the workers move in unpredictable ways that can be inefficient.  So faster units can randomly under-perform (as can slower units).

 - These results do not take into consideration soldiers moving from gathering to defend from a rush or to go on a rush and go back to gathering.  On the one hand, if defending with archers instead of skirmishers the archers have longer range and would not have to walk as far from the resource to attack the invader.  So theoretically they can get back to gathering faster.  On the other hand they deal damage slower and may have to fight longer, especially against spear cav.  In fact, the enemy rush could force the weak archers to garrison in the CC.  It is not obvious to me if archers or skirmishers would get back to wood gathering sooner.  Seems like it would depend on the enemy unit composition.  I bet defending with slingers would turn out the best.  Obviously melee units that have to chase the enemy down while walking slower would lose the most gathering time.

If you go on a rush units with faster walk speeds will get back to gather faster.

 - Also, it is important to keep in mind that the faster you have resources, the faster you can produce more units, the faster you can gather more resources, and so on.  This means that in a real game where you are continually producing units the advantage will increase non-linearly if you have faster workers.  So you get more workers sooner, and the new workers you get are again faster moving than the opponent's new workers when he gets them.

So how big of a deal is it?

Does it matter if archers cutting wood for 10 minutes are 22 seconds behind skirmishers cutting wood for 10 minutes?  It doesn't seem that bad looking at the data on the chart but it would feel bad if you were trying to build a ram and had to wait 22 seconds for the wood.  Entering a battle with a hero or a siege unit can have a big impact on the outcome.  And again, because of what's discussed above in real game factors, the advantage/handicap will be more than just 22 seconds worth of gathering.  And if for some crazy reason instead of archers you made mostly melee units you'd be worse off yet economically.

At the end of all of this I ask:

Do we really want a game where you are both economically and militarily incentivized to produce mostly ranged units instead of melee? 

If archers must be worst of the ranged units economically, shouldn't archers have some other advantage to make them viable?

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Philip the Swaggerless

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I like your analysis, but this paragraph is key:

 

Quote

 - Also, it is important to keep in mind that the faster you have resources, the faster you can produce more units, the faster you can gather more resources, and so on.  This means that in a real game where you are continually producing units the advantage will increase non-linearly if you have faster workers.  So you get more workers sooner, and the new workers you get are again faster moving than the opponent's new workers when he gets them.

This is the "real world" difference that's not accounted for in your analysis (to give you credit, you admit this). The different movement speeds for shuttling compound the economic impact shown in your data.

Now, previously, some folks said, "Let's just give every soldier the same walking speed. That should solve it!" which I think is not a comprehensive solution, and the "combat balance" of the game, so much as it is, takes into account these walking speeds, so if you did that then the balance would be off again. No, I think the best, comprehensive solution is to have a ShuttleSpeed element for the unit templates. We can set all gatherers to the same ShuttleSpeed, something like 6.5 for the base game. Doing this then removes this problem.

 

Quote

Assuming the information in the in-game civ structure trees is accurate, the only soldier that does not have 0.6 Food 0.8 Wood 0.5 Stone 0.5 Metal gathering rates are the Skritiai Commandos which I personally am okay with because their combat ability makes up for it. 

That's because Skiritai are basically Elite Citizen-Soldiers from the get go. They also have a high Walk Speed. 

 

Quote

Do we really want a game where you are both economically and militarily incentivized to produce mostly ranged units instead of melee? 

Yeah, we shouldn't want that. So, let's all get on board with ShuttleSpeed!  

 

Quote

 If archers must be worst of the ranged units economically, shouldn't archers have some other advantage to make them viable?

One of the byproducts of throwing out hard counters is now you have 3 ranged infantry units with no clearly defined roles (their stats are just slightly different and players just figure out which one has the best stats and spams those), so that now you have side issues like this economic question. Let's have ShuttleSpeed so the economic consideration is removed and players can choose units based on their combat prowess and strategy, and not be disincentivized by shuttling speed. 

Edited December 9, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Philip the Swaggerless]

9 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yeah, we shouldn't want that. So, let's all get on board with ShuttleSpeed!  

 

One of the byproducts of throwing out hard counters is now you have 3 ranged infantry units with no clearly defined roles (their stats are just slightly different and players just figure out which one has the best stats and spams those), so that now you have side issues like this economic question. Let's have ShuttleSpeed so the economic consideration is removed and players can choose units based on their combat prowess and strategy, and not be disincentivized by shuttling speed. 

I agree that ShuttleSpeed is the best place to start with this.  The elegance of it is that it addresses the economic issue across all soldier types.  Then combat balancing issues can be addressed separately.

To clarify, when you say ShuttleSpeed, do you mean that units travel at the same speed while carrying resources?  Or would the unit also travel at ShuttleSpeed as soon as you command them to gather a resource?  Either option would be an improvement from what he have now.  The first option is a no-brainer and should definitely be included.  However, it would only partially address the economic issue because it be active for one way of the trip, and not from when the unit leaves the CC/Barracks.  The second option would even things out better for different unit types, but could be circumvented by players micromanaging (you could shift+click near the resource and then shift+click on the resource). Such micromanagement could become obligatory for high-skill level games and feel cumbersome. It would have the effect of widening the gap between expert and non-expert players which might not be desirable.  I guess we'd have to think about whether or not it's worth it.  But I can think of no gameplay/balance objection to having ShuttleSpeed active while units are carrying resources.

[faction02]

I would like to suggest into alternative options that uniforming units speed to improve balance. I doubt that removing units differences would make the game more interesting. I personnally think that balancing the game should be about giving options to players to deal with a specificity rather than removing them.

For example if you want to maximize the productivity of your soldiers, you could build a barrack near your minerals and use this particular one to produce the slower soldiers of your army. Those will then collect only minerals as the walking distance for this particular task is constant and usually smaller than for wood. To reduce the economic  disadvantage of walking speed, players could build more dropsites, use elephants or the carrying tech. Those tech still remain largely unused by a large number of players even when wood is sparse.

Also, in early game, most civ don't offer the choice between different ranged units. So the economic advantage that might offer one ranged unit with respect to another plays no role in the way players will act once the game has started. It only affects balance accross civ which seems to be a different issue. Archers are definitely at a disadvantage with respect to other ranged units but taking off their economic disadvantage would still not solve their problem. Giving them some advantages as also suggested by Philip the Swaggerless would make more sense. About the question of speed, I think that raising the speed of melee units with respect to ranged units remains interesting.

One reason to prefer ranged units over melee units is that during a fight, they are much more effective in killing. Ranged units can also be more easily managed, you basically just need to group them behind their meat shield and press H to be sure they target the closest units. Melee units are more tricky, the closest units is sometimes a bad target for them. All of them might be running toward the same unit which is either isolated, either moving in the opposite direction. Melee units used offensively can spend a good amount of time walking around during the battle before dying while still ranked I.  Increasing their speed slightly might give them a chance to kill something before dying.  Currently, only swordmen seems to make sense as a weapon on the battlefield in the absence of cavalry units. They are the only melee unit that can get decent kills, other units are too slow and weak. Many civ do not have any and metal scarcity often is a good reason to keep them out of the battlefield. Raising melee units speed could also potentially reduce slightly the problem of rams too fast to catch.

 

[soshanko]

On ‎12‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 11:50 AM, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Do we really want a game where you are both economically and militarily incentivized to produce mostly ranged units instead of melee? 

If archers must be worst of the ranged units economically, shouldn't archers have some other advantage to make them viable?

mele units can have more armor and hack maybe? so that they become more invincible or just a extra defence update for  mele in the armory.

archers 60 food 30 wood 10 metal is my propose.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by soshanko

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 12/13/2018 at 2:15 PM, faction02 said:

For example if you want to maximize the productivity of your soldiers, you could build a barrack near your minerals and use this particular one to produce the slower soldiers of your army. Those will then collect only minerals as the walking distance for this particular task is constant and usually smaller than for wood. To reduce the economic  disadvantage of walking speed, players could build more dropsites, use elephants or the carrying tech.

 

Okay, but do you want the player to have to consider all of this? Sure, unit differentiation is good to keep things interesting, but is this kind of differentiation really all that interesting? I would say "no", and I would wager money that most players would say "no" too.  

I would say that the player shouldn't have to consider all of this in order to make a good economy. Besides, when units are working, even though they still have their "armor" textures for easier recognition, they're really supposed to be in their "work clothes" so to speak, not really wearing any armor (which is indicated by their helmets being removed as they gather and shuttle), making their amor-based walking speeds a moot point.

That's another reason why I think we need a ShuttleSpeed element: The units are being "civilians" at this point, not wearing their armor, so why should their walk speed which is largely based on armor stats and combat balance also be their shuttle speed? These are two entirely separate "modes" for these units ("combat" vs. "resourcing").

Edited December 15, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[shookees]

Agree with shuttle speed idea - simple one dimensional (economy) balancing step in the right direction

On 12/6/2018 at 10:11 AM, soshanko said:

as a third point arrows needs a piece of metal for its head and also professional craftsmanship so the archers should be cost heavy.

not necessarily, could be a possible upgrade (+pierce/hack? dmg)

[soshanko]

15 minutes ago, shookees said:

not necessarily, could be a possible upgrade (+pierce/hack? dmg)

yeah but if archers defence upgrade added then should be a metal cost needed to add. actually I will say also adding a mele combat capability like using a knife etc.

 

[faction02]

On ‎12‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 9:41 PM, soshanko said:

mele units can have more armor and hack maybe? so that they become more invincible or just a extra defence update for mele in the armory.

archers 60 food 30 wood 10 metal is my propose.

 

 

Difficult to say if more armor would be sufficient. It would create an incentive to have more of course, but ranged units would still be more effective at making damage.

I think that a metal cost would make archers even less attractive. Metal is always a scarce ressource, it is needed for all upgrades and on some map, it might be a problem to be relying so much on it. Ptolemies have this issue too, but they also have the option of relying on stones too for sieges and slingers when metal run out. Archers would still need something more to become more attractive.

Edited December 17, 2018 by faction02

[faction02]

On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 5:13 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Okay, but do you want the player to have to consider all of this? Sure, unit differentiation is good to keep things interesting, but is this kind of differentiation really all that interesting? I would say "no", and I would wager money that most players would say "no" too.  

I would say that the player shouldn't have to consider all of this in order to make a good economy. Besides, when units are working, even though they still have their "armor" textures for easier recognition, they're really supposed to be in their "work clothes" so to speak, not really wearing any armor (which is indicated by their helmets being removed as they gather and shuttle), making their amor-based walking speeds a moot point.

That's another reason why I think we need a ShuttleSpeed element: The units are being "civilians" at this point, not wearing their armor, so why should their walk speed which is largely based on armor stats and combat balance also be their shuttle speed? These are two entirely separate "modes" for these units ("combat" vs. "resourcing").

Of course, most people don't want to consider this. I personnally do consider those details because I need to keep myself busy while other players might be rushing. That would be the way I try to build some economic advantage over those players who have less time to manage their eco.

I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, it might not even make more difference over a game than an extra cluster of berries for example. I might be biased also by my game style preferences.