Homes are awesome for pumped Sages.. at least if you pump properly.. and I mean key points being Pop and BE(or income depending on race). With baron bonus I ran 35-36 PPA 1-2 rounds ago.
now what 10% homes do in that case is not even the birthrate(which is an awesome boost against FBs together with LP). Simply consider the way bonuses multiply in utopia normally.
the difference is the following(10% homes, knight, 0% pop science @ 1000 acres)
25*1.032*1000 =25800 pop. its a mere 3.2% pop bonus however if you maintain a stable amount of pezzies, it does give the 800 extra troops. 0.8 unit per acre.
consider knight status, 10% homes, 5% pop science @ 1000 acres
25*1.032*1000*1.05=27090 units in total.. thats a whooping 2k extra units. and no exceptional bonusses. or almost 2 PPA now with the same amount of homes. Homes kinda increase the effect of your pop science.
without homes:
25*1.05*1000 =26250 units. nice 1250, but with running 10% homes I 840 extra. See the increased gain(ok its only 40 in this case, but if you are sage you run 10+% pop and you can count on lord status normally.. which makes it an even bigger bonus.)
so dont say that they arent as good. they are getting better!
and regarding the rest of the homes discussion:
- stabilizes your province by increasing BE
- Faster recovery
- bigger army available
downsides
- 10% forts or TG could make a nice difference. however, I always manage to squeeze in that 7-15% of homes, and it helps a lot to my experience.
And if you use more then 10-15% it becomes hard to maintain all other buildings( TG, guilds, towers, rax, whatever you prefer. I always find myself able to squeez that 10% out by lowering all buildings by 1-2%)