So, is this really that surprising?
I thought it had been long "known" that defensive villages were much more useful to the account as a whole because (unless you're using SP/HC because you're going that route), they can maintain constant queues, push other villages, mint coins etc. very easily, while offensive villages cannot.
In fact, if memory serves, a defensive village will be capable of holding rax/HQ constant or nearly so with 0 farming, so all resources farmed can be put into coins or other, more useful endeavors. A quick calculation says that (20 [villages] * 117 [per hour at L10] * 24) = 56K and change, around 2 coins per day, whereas in an offensive village all of those resources would be going toward a constant LC queue.
Now Zardy, you cry, "You love HC", and a well build Sp/HC build will complete around 580 hours before a sp/sw build (depending on population)! Thats 24 days. 24 days you get with the Sp/HC or offensive village where all of your income is going to farming. And that's half right, an offensive village will likely kill itself off, but more importantly, you're investing in the off or Sp/HC. With a sp/sw defense, I get the resources *now*, I can use them now, I can get coins *now*, I can make additional ennoblements *now*, I can do THINGS *now*. I don't want to wait for 3 weeks to get resources for coins, I want to be able to continue the spree of nobling now, I want to live outside of my means because I'm a skilled player and I can handle having 5 full villages and 20 half-finished ones instead of 20 finished ones and 5 new ones.
I'd bet that after 50 villages or so, player growth is going to be almost entirely independent of organizational pattern and depend almost solely on farming, but by that point players 1 and 3 will be lightyears ahead of 2 and 4 because they didn't wait for things in the future, they took full advantage of their resources now.
Or in other words, a noble is worth much more than an equivalent number of resources of LC.
