Faster troop production

As you may have noticed, it is actually cheaper to recruit a level 1 soldier, and then train him to level 8 (or your desired level). It takes less resource. It may seem like it takes more time, but since you recruit AND train at the same time, the total production once you have a pipeline going is actually faster.

Level	Recruiting	Training to level 8
1	8:38	14:56
2	9:38	13:21
3	10:38	11:46
4	11:50	9:50
5	13:22	7:24
6	14:48	5:07
7	16:35	2:17
8	18:01

Take a look at the chart above (your mileage may vary), that is for one of my cities for mounted crossbowman (Cav4). It takes 8:38 to recruit a level 1, and then 14:56 to train a level 1 to level 8. But it takes 18:01 to recruit a level 8.

You may think it is faster to recruit level 8 straight up. But if you consider that you can recruit level 1 while you are training another level 1 to level 8, then the output is a level 8 every 14:56 instead of every 18:01. That is 20% more soldiers per troop in the same given period.

But wait, that is NOT the optimal. The production rate is actually the larger of the 2 numbers in a row. So the optimal in the case above will be to recruit a level 3, and then train him to level 8. In that case, a soldier is produced every 11:46. That is 53% more production than straight up recruiting.

So, I have show you how to do it, you will of course have to plug in your own numbers, as everyone's scenario is different. In fact, it could be different in every city.

Now, there's yet another twist. For those whose military rank is General or higher, you actually get 2 cavalry lines. So you actually need to half the recruiting the time when doing your optimization. For me, that means I should be looking at this table instead :

Level	Recruiting	Training to level 8
1	4:19	14:56
2	4:49	13:21
3	5:19	11:46
4	5:55	9:50
5	6:41	7:24
6	7:24	5:07
7	8:17	2:17
8	9:00

That means, my optimal production is recruiting of level 5 and then training them to level 8. This yields 21% more production than straight up recruiting (not as big a gain for those with only 1 queue). This also applies to players with lower military ranks, but using soldier queue specials.

For those with 2 queues and using soldier queue to get a 3rd, you will have to divide by three. And the gain will be even lower. For me, if I use soldier queue to get a 3rd queue, the optimal will be to recruit level 6, and the gain is 17%.

To get the faster production, it is some work. You will have troops sitting in the pipeline that are of lower level and consuming food. But considering that you will be using less food for the production, and you only need to keep 200 troops in the pipeline (for 2 queues, and daily maintenance), it should be more efficient, even from the resource view.

So here's how you do it :
Build level 5 for first day.
On second day, continue building level 5, but start TWO upgrade queues for all level 5 soldiers.
On 3rd day, one of the upgrade queue should have completed, and you start a upgrade queue, while also continuing to build level 5.
Repeat 3rd day procedure, and you're in the zone for pipeline production.