Science is fundamentally unbalanced and unbalancing.

1) A personality is explicitly balanced off of science [sage]
2) Two buildings are balanced off of science [libs, schools]
3) Several races, buildings, and personalities are implicitly balanced off of science [every income modifier in the game]
4) The proposed implementation of Undead is explicitly balanced off of science [-20% science effectiveness penalty]

So now you wonder, "well Zauper, what's the problem with this?"

It begins here:
1) The justification for removing science caps was to disincentivize pumping, and encourage 'an age-long commitment'
2) This was furthered with the move from purchaseable science to science 'drafting'
3) However, these measures have failed to achieve their goal; now the goal is to spend as much of the age as possible pumping science, and those kingdoms who choose to not do this are penalized
a) if you are prepared to fight, your draft is higher and thus your income lower, lowering the amount of science you can purchase
b) if you do actually fight, the amount of science you can purchase is capped, even in a world where you had the income to purchase more science
4) Since many of the functions of the game are balanced around science, the difference between me at 1% income science and you at 70% income science is drastic, and fundamentally alters the way that everything else in the game interacts.

My proposal:
Make science purchaseable again and cap the bonus affects.

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Originally Posted by Zauper

1) A personality is explicitly balanced off of science [sage]
2) Two buildings are balanced off of science [libs, schools]
3) Several races, buildings, and personalities are implicitly balanced off of science [every income modifier in the game]

So now you wonder, "well Zauper, what's the problem with this?"

It begins here:
1) The justification for removing science caps was to disincentivize pumping, and encourage 'an age-long commitment'
2) This was furthered with the move from purchaseable science to science 'drafting'
3) However, these measures have failed to achieve their goal; now the goal is to spend as much of the age as possible pumping science, and those kingdoms who choose to not do this are penalized
a) if you are prepared to fight, your draft is higher and thus your income lower, lowering the amount of science you can purchase
b) if you do actually fight, the amount of science you can purchase is capped, even in a world where you had the income to purchase more science
4) Since many of the functions of the game are balanced around science, the difference between me at 1% income science and you at 70% income science is drastic, and fundamentally alters the way that everything else in the game interacts.

My proposal:
Make science purchaseable again and cap the bonus affects.

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As you have pointed out, it's about choices. You can pump for a fight and go after the kd who is trying to sciwhore since they will, by your argument, have much less army. The real solution, imo, is to not give good kd's long cf's so they can pump in safety ...

If you pump for fighting then you can just steal books and let some other sucker pay for your books.

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Originally Posted by Landro

If you pump for fighting then you can just steal books and let some other sucker pay for your books.

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I was going to say that... :)

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Originally Posted by UtopiaNub

As you have pointed out, it's about choices. You can pump for a fight and go after the kd who is trying to sciwhore since they will, by your argument, have much less army. The real solution, imo, is to not give good kd's long cf's so they can pump in safety ...

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Fundamentally flawed argument: they will only (briefly) have far less army due to the scaling nature of the science benefit, and with purely stacked defense and forts/stance, they don't need as much military to stay safe (as they don't need offense, and thus they can depress their nw, making them hard to get gains from in the first place)

Landro:
Again, fundamentally flawed argument; you cannot "steal" books. You have to attack for them, learn gains aren't particularly good, sage has innate protection against learn gains, as do schools. So not only do they scale the bonuses in an unbalancing manner, but they're protected against your strategies to counter them.

Additionally there's the stacked defense/NW point from the first part of the post. It applies here.

Nothing says you have to let a kd pump sci in the first place. If you let a kd pump unmolested of course they get an advantage from that.

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Originally Posted by UtopiaNub

Nothing says you have to let a kd pump sci in the first place. If you let a kd pump unmolested of course they get an advantage from that.

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1) See above. (lol, already answered)
2) This argument presumes a 1v1 nature to the world -- it doesn't exist that way. Why did any kingdom on the server last age manage to pump ridiculous science? Were they CF'd with every other kingdom on the server? Were they ignored by other kingdoms? Did they have other kingdoms protecting them? Were you perhaps otherwise occupied (another war?)

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Originally Posted by Zauper

My proposal:
Make science purchaseable again and cap the bonus affects.

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I support this.

good one zauper, finally one of the oldies suggested to make science purchasable again

I've also suggested that science be purchasable, since the current age long process doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by Palem

I support this.

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wtf palem, i suggested it on the thread i started and you didn't support it then

Science absolutely needs to be capped...

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Originally Posted by silent_killer

wtf palem, i suggested it on the thread i started and you didn't support it then

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What thread?

my thread

You didn't want science capped though.

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Originally Posted by Zauper

2) This argument presumes a 1v1 nature to the world -- it doesn't exist that way. Why did any kingdom on the server last age manage to pump ridiculous science? Were they CF'd with every other kingdom on the server? Were they ignored by other kingdoms? Did they have other kingdoms protecting them? Were you perhaps otherwise occupied (another war?)

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You realize that diplomacy is a part of this game right? If a kd can get cf's with every threat and subsequently sci pump, seems to me they must be really good at diplomacy. You remove sci or cripple it significantly and you're just taking one more piece of variety out of the game and forcing more kd's to choose the same cookie cutter setup. At least with the system as is, a kd has to use diplomacy and make an extended investment to get good sci, as opposed to how it used to be where kd's would just fw for a week and pump so much sci they never needed to think about it again.

I'd rather have more choices than less