Suggestions for the science system.

As we all know Abduct was removed this age, and that caused a backlash in the community.

I'm not going to suggest a total revamp at this time, and I'm not a fan of the hybrid book-scientist solution that gets thrown around from time to time... but bear with me - we can improve upon the current system.


1. Abduct attack reintroduced, with base gains reduced to ~2/3 those of Age 76. (subject to debate, maybe even 60% or half the base effect).

2. Slight bump to scientist base spawn rate, going up to 10% progression per tick.

3. Diminishing returns start right away (with the second scientist in a category), meaning science has no soft caps. Diminishing returns exponential would start with a less aggressive slope.
-3a. Base scientist effect could be slightly increased cause of (3).

4. Current Laboratory effect moved to Universities, as follows:

Code:

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Universities
Increase scientist spawn rate by %*4, capped at 100% (25x), not affected by BE.

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5. Laboratories gain the effect of the old Libraries:

Code:

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Laboratories
Increase science efficiency by %*2, capped at 50% (25x), not affected by BE.

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(subject to debate, 1.5% base effect under consideration)

7. Guard Stations go back to protecting all resources: acres, scientists and gold/runes/food alike.

8. Sage personality removed (for this age at least). Sage has always been a problematic personality that's either 'too good' or 'a waste'/extreme niche based on the meta.

9. Revelation spell asigned to Mystic, Rogue and Heretic personalities. Amnesia spell asigned to a race (Elf? - subject to debate, after race/personality changes).


With the above changes to buildings, players get more control over science; Guard Stations (that were turned into an even more circumstantial building by the recent nerf) and the currently 'placeholder building' Universities are put to good use.

By introducing early diminishing returns of science, being hit with abduct won't feel as devastating, and dedicating a high amount of time to accumulating scientists via abducting won't be as lucrative, while also keeping the option to do so.

Overall number of scientists would be higher, but their effect lower. This allows fine tuning.

I give this suggestion a big, fat +1! Even if I don't agree with every detail. This is a brilliant design principle.

This is a decent idea, the only issue i have with this and why i think a hybrid system gets tossed out is that the ability to manage 400+ scientists makes the science page suck. for example look at the human sage in my kd

I Crime I 154.7% I 40
I Alchemy I 55.6% I 64
I Housing I 27.2% I 60
I Production I 166.3% I 32
I Channeling I 279.1% I 112
I Military I 25.4% I 50
I Tools I 30.9% I 40
Total Sci: 398

the only way to really work science is to go to books or to lower the # of scientists we have. Simply making each scientist have a huge benefit w/a curve of only diminishing returns is gonna lead to lots of science on people who adbuct alot and not a lot of guys on those who dont w/out a huge difference in bonus if a steep curve and a HUGE difference if a gradual curve. Something more manageable is books....adding in a hybrid system could be a compromise. I know they seem to want a new science system, the exact ins and outs of it we'll age with age changes if they do implement something new.

The solution to that is expanding and adding the munk scientist management in the game - I mean batch management of scientists of certain advancement stage as opposed to per scientist re-assignment.

its A solution. But as you push up the # of scientists you get if you are batching them constantly your effectively going back to books....only books that have 3 level of experience.

If you remember (others who read here mostly, i know u do) the reason they went to scientists was to avoid the issue of the land being tied to book generation. They felt that simply being big gave to much of a long term advantage that couldn't be handled simply with a typical wpa advantage. Given your suggestion we might as well have it simply being books again, because the "experience" level we get right now isn't adding a ton...and batching sciensts together is effectively treating them like we treated the old books. In addition learns got removed simply because so much science was being fluxed back and forth, while DR and lower gains could help you still get massive defensive losses on a learn and permanently suffer the effects of losing science. This leads to being behind science all age from one kd learn raping you, OR you make science gains so high that you can effectively create a new prov and in 4-5 days be "competitive" with everyone and then purposefully farm science to someone...which sux making it easy to create a science farm.

I did indeed take a bit from the books system with this, w/o actually going back to books.

I'm trying to address the complaints about abduct damage mainly, while also toning down the efficiency of accumulating scientists via attacking. I don't have an elegant solution for the 'too many scientists to manage', be it 100, 200 or 400... it's deeply ingrained in the system at this point. I'd still prefer this over books, as books promote too much stagnation in the game.

yup yup. fingers crossed we just a whole new system, because while i like your suggestions they still have issues. i know David has said they want to do a rework but we'll find out if its this age or simply "soon"