Thor's fast heroic will be much easier to achieve than Odin's and less map reliant. So I wouldn't just dismiss it that easily. Granted, Odin has better reasoning for a fast heroic since he can get uber jarls.
Now, on the upgrades issue. This one is understandably slightly confusing, but it's fairly simple. Thor's dwarves do indeed benefit from econ upgrades. However:
Regular dwarves gather food/wood at a rate 20% slower than regular villagers. Let's say that this rate is 8 if a regular villager's rate is 10.
Thor's dwarves start the game off with a technology already researched, which increases their gather rate by 25%. So they gather at 10. However, when you research normal technologies, they are still calculated as x% more than 8, not x% more than 10.
So when I research handaxe, a villager gets 10% more than 10, which is 11. The dwarf gets the 10% increase calculated from 8 though and has a resulting gather rate of 10.8.
Also keep in mind that dwarves build at 17 seconds while villagers build at 14. So a player who trains dwarves ends up with less econ units than one who trains villagers in the long run.
The dwarf build is potentially very powerful in how few resources and little management it requires, but in theory is less powerful than a conventional buildup. In practice, I would say for anyone except a very good player it is still practical to do, but then people will err towards Odin and Loki for their more obvious military bonuses.
If you have perfect micro and management, then thor can be safely ditched as useless. If you like the easier setup he grants though, the disadvantages of the dwarf build aren't substantial enough to make it ineffective because you save so much efficiency.
TheShædøwDåwn
If you're like me, then it's possible you're a clone generated from my stolen DNA. I suggest you turn yourself in for destruction immediately.[This message has been edited by TheShadowDawn (edited 04-15-2003 @ 09:24 AM).]