I was doing this little project for my own use but thought I would share. I know a lot of people out there dont like the homes topic so just read no farther and dont post replys. I'm not interested in your flames.
As I was working with the 'homes are good or bad' forums a few ages ago, I started to build an excel file to see what happens as I change building, races, personalities, and draft rates. It worked for me like the old utopia prophet program. But as I continued to work with it, I found the biggest effect of homes came into play with draft % and not so much with race or personalities. So I wanted to find a formula for calculating number of homes necesary to countact the loss in BE from higher drafts. Then I wanted to see if it was worth building homes vs not building homes. In almost all cases, its worth it UNLESS your running lots of building that dont need BE (ie libraries, dungeons or stables).
Anyways, the formula is: H=(A+.06W+.6VP+.6VPD+1.5APD-1.5AP-.45dBE) / (1.48-.48D)
or
Number of homes=(Acres+.06*Wizards+.6*number of vacant acres*population+.6*vacant acres*pop*draft%+1.5*acres*pop*draft%-.45*number of dungeons*BE) / (1.48-.48*draft%)
I also placed the excel file on goggledocs for community review or personal use.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...8203;QtcC1DMEE
or to download as a excel sheet:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3W...U9NMkhpaVV1VEU
I tryed to make the document as accurate as possible but income is usually within by +/-1% and NW is more like +/-10%. But the homes and BE (what I really wanted) are almost dead on. There is also a small calculater to see if homes are for you. Just read the first page first and then play with the numbers.