gold

I believe it is one gold per physical little spinning thing on the map... I may be wrong however... but that means on crucible  the gold/artifact flag with 2 spinning things will give a 2 gold/second advantage! ( at least i think there are 2 on that one...

it's 2g / mine / tick.  Last I recall, the ticks were a little over a second.  Cur1 adds 4g to this at the same rate.  Cur2 adds 2g to that at the same rate.  So on cataract, your gold goes up in increments of 6 until you get cur1 which makes it 10.  12 w/ cur2, 14 w/ cur 3.

Under a second... under a second... .9 seconds = 1 tick. 

awesome, so currency isn't a benefit per mine, just an overall benefit then?

correct. 

Incidentally we figured out a while ago that Currency I is the only cost-efficient level of the upgrade if playing less than a long 4v4.  I keep seeing experienced players buying Curr II in 2v2 or 3v3 - unless you are playing 90 minute games you are wasting your gold. 

Ke5trel, I have to disagree with you on the Curr2 thing. The 2 gold is per person. So that's effectively 6 gold per .9 seconds. That means curr2 has paid for itself in 9.29 minutes. And that after that, it is giving you a solid advantage.

Also, does curr not have an effect on gold from creeps?

edit: I divided the .9 here when I should've multiplied. The total time is 7.5 minutes and not 9.29 minutes.

@Pfizzyhead: Currency doesn't affect gold gained from creeps.  And on Curr II and III let me quote:

I'm sorry but his math is wrong. The math is simple (I'm a tax lawyer so I live for this stuff). Assuming all other variables remain the same (because you have to have controls).

Forget about how much gold was collected and spent until you reach rank 5 (and you have your 3,000 to spend) because those are all sunk costs economically speaking and this is an economic evaluation.

Now, assuming only one gold mine...And 3 players. You need to determine the amount of time it will take to recover the expenditure for the team. That is going to be 3,000 divided by three players at 1,000. Further divided by the 2 gold per tick which is 500. Multiplied by the tick being .9 seconds at 450 total seconds to recover the expense. Divided by 60 (the number of seconds in a minute) is 7.5 minutes.

If you do not expect your game to go over this amount of time then you are correct. But if it goes over by even .9 seconds, then you are benefiting. I expect many players will have 3,000 gold very close to when they hit the war score five point. If the game is competitive, then the race will be to see who can afford giants first. The team who gets curr2 will definitely get there first if all other constants remain the same.

edit: further analyzing his proposition of 3.33 minutes per war rank. You will be benefiting from the cost of curr2 and be better off at war rank 8.

edit2: This is also assuming there is only one gold mine. Divide the time by the number of mines possessed.

I have no head for this cerebral plain division stuff ^^ so if you are still game to run some calculations a couple of questions:

You are saying that all things being equal the Curr 2 team breaks even at War Rank 8 in a 3v3, right? 

What's the gold profit margin between rank 8 and 10? I.E. what's the budget advantage with buying giants?

When would a Curr III team break even?

All things being equal, with primal's setup, what would the gold difference between teams be after 30 minutes?

Thanks for taking time to look at this

Actually, if you hold three gold mines, you break even before you leave rank 5, assuming you got it when you started rank 5.

Here is the simple factor that should decide things for you. If you have curr2 and the other team doesn't...and both of you possess three mines. Then every demigod on your team will have a 1000 more gold than the other team every 2.5 minutes.

With this analysis, not only is curr2 good, it should be mandatory.

EDIT!!!!: but I am unclear if Rawrrr is right or if the other poster is...if it is 2/tick/mine then that is very different than 2/tick regardless of the number of mines.

agreed Pfizzy,  unless I know the game is going to end quickly somewhow, like its very unbalanced, I usually go for curr2.  In typical well balanced games I've played, their gold tower is down by now and I try to go lock their gold flag as soon as i can after purchasing curr2.  (on cataract, im speaking).  With 3v3, thats alot of extra gold.  On 4v4, I feel that gold is about as important as creeps.

Just want to make it clear that my calculations require that the curr increase be per gold mine. If they are not per gold mine, then it is an additional 1000 gold per 7.5 minutes....which is still huge, but not quite mandatory for a win.

If this is the correct calculation and you get curr2 immediately at war rank 5. Then at war rank 10, you are ahead by 3,666 gold as a team. Unfortunately you can't put your money together to buy giants, but this means that an individual dg is 1,222 ahead in the race to buying giants.

Edit: Also, I don't think Curr3 is going to work out. I think it costs 4500 (I'm not even sure) and is available at war rank 7 (where in this calculation you haven't even broken even for curr2). The calculation is done the same so in this method it would take you 11.25 minutes to recoup your costs. This is a total of 18.75 minutes to recoup your total curr2 and curr3 expenses. Which would put you well past time for giants and you would be suffering.

Again, if it is per tick per mine, then curr3 would be worth it.

Hold up.  Have you been looking at this in terms of the upgrade affecting each owned mine? 

I can't look at the game right now, and I haven't looked at the mechanics for almost a year, so now I can't remember if Currency affects gold income per mine or without regard to mines at all.  I tend to think Currency upgrades income only, not mines owned, so even if no mines are owned you still see the ticks.  If someone can confirm that then we should take mines out of the equation completely. 

Once we do that is Curr 2 still cost effective vs Curr I?

edit: lol psychic link

Alouette and I are going to run a lab sometime very soon and determine the screenshot differences between just buying curr and buying curr2 and then buying curr2 and buying curr3.

On cataract we will each buy one port as oak and port to opposite flags and leave the center flag untaken. Gamesettings will set game rate to high and towers to high. We will both buy curr1 on cue at war rank 3 and then I will buy curr2 at war rank 5. Then begin screenshotting at each war rank.

Then repeat where both of us buy curr2 and only she buys curr3.

Guys it's quite simple, currency IS NOT AFFECTED by number of mines controlled, period. So in 3v3 you need 500 ticks / 450 secs / 7.5 minutes for Currency II to pay for itself (1000 gold per demigod /3000 gold for the whole team).

In the long run it could be worth its cost, but don't forget the player who buys currency II will be 3000 gold short of war gear from warrank 5, that's a lot of money and gear in that mid game stage: unbreakable boots + nimoths chest armor for example, so if you buy currency II you're behind 1100 HP, 800 mana, 750 armor and 5 HP/s of what you could be.

There's a lot of fighting/staying power in 3000 gold, i'd say only buy Curr II if you have lotsa spare money in your pocket at the moment.

The general rule is to always by currency 1 the moment it comes available.  Re: currency 2, its a pretty easy decision in 3v3 and > games, especially if you have a snipe reg on your team.  Without a snipe reg or a player on your team that is really tearing things up, then currency 2 might not be a great idea as that money is probably better spent on equipment to improve survivability or get kills. 

I definitely agree with pacov & nomilarac.  You can also look at it this way... In any situation 1 person is making the investment and gimping oneself to benefit the team.  Assuming 3000 gold investment @ .9 seconds per tick and 2 gold per tick, it takes that 1 person 1350 seconds (22.5 minutes) before they begin to receive they're ROI (personally). 

In that same amount of time the other teamates Make 3000 gold additionally each with zero investment.  In a 2v2 situation this is a direct transfer over time.  It would be more effective to drop your teammate a $3k piece of armor that he needs.

From a team perspective:

In a 3v3 situation then it still takes the investor 22.5 minutes to break even but the team pool of gold breaks even after 450 seconds which is 7.5 minutes (as stated above a couple of times)

for 4v4 it takes 337.5 seconds (5.625 minutes) for the team to break even and 5v5 = 270 seconds (4.5 minutes.)  

The person making the investment has to be a ranged attacker that doesn't rely on armor to stay alive.  As pacov mentioned a regulus is the best person to make the investment.  A tank would really be hurting their team if they got cur II regardless if its 5v5.  An ice TB that has enough mana (ie. BotS) may be a candidate since they are mostly ranged. 

j

I don't know where the confusion came from : /  The gold mines on the map have no influence on currency upgrades.  I merely explained how much gold the average Joe would see per tic on one map.

Also, that long link you gave earlier is way off.  To sum it up, he halved the gold generation from cur upgrades (30tic / min instead of 66.7 tic / min).  

Edit:  Oh nvm.. I see how there was confusion.  The OP asked specifically about mines.  I just added currency in there to explain how that worked as well since it was a related topic (gold).

I'm glad we are revisiting  

I think I will still run the lab, because I believe that mathematical predictions always have better support from practice than from affirmative declarations.

It's already been done and tested.  The last time it was tested it was noticed that the portal flags have gold mines on cataract and also provide xp for the creep wave (only works for enemy portals on the 2nd wave spawned, not neutral or your own) which makes them more valuable than the gold flag.