Why 80

[spamely]

What exactly is 80% BE such a revered cutoff. why do people not settle with 70 be or strive for 90-100?

[Fenleone]

Some ppl do settle for 70% BE and others do strive for 90-100%. The 80% BE that people sometimes talk about is more a simplification for people who are less familiar with the game mechanics. People talk about 80% BE normaly because an effective military draft rate with a reasonably sustainable econ can be achieved easily enough with ~80% BE without needing to highly develop sciences (ie. low to moderate sci levels) or do any other builds that might require a slightly more in depth understanding.

To run a 70% BE (high military draft, low peasants) for example you would likely either have to survive off of more plunders or aid from your KD mates.

To run at a 90-100% BE you would need higher sciences (combination of pop and tools sci likely) to keep that same effective military.

[Palem]

It's just a matter of personal preference. The cut-off point for concern needs to be somewhere, might as well be 80 for some people.

[inventio]

BE is a trade-off between the size of your army + WPA you can maintain and the efficiency of your buildings + income. I imagine that some eons ago some ambitious Utopia player calculated the best cut-off point.

Utopia is like North Korea now that I think about it.

[nooblet]

Your province probably isn't going to remain at 80% BE constantly - usually even without sciences I (used to) wind up with 85% BE pre-sciences, and only dropped to 80% during war against my will. Basically, when your BE does fall below 80%, it usually indicates a problem with your province's economy. Of course a growing province, particularly a province growing fat in war without being fireballed/nightstriked/etc, is going to have much better BE even without sciences, and this can be used to your advantage if a player thinks well on their feet.

I usually just keep drafting at all times, up to 70% of my population - after a certain point, losses in battle will outstrip what you draft, so continually drafting means you'll usually have fresh troops in the pipeline, or can send the soldiers to aid a kingdom-mate. In practice the DR doesn't go far over 65%. This usually means a BE in the low 80s before science.

[Ethan]

I've done some fairly complicated and complete simulations on human sage provinces, and have found that having 35-40% pes was giving me optimal numbers. Which was *not* 100% Base BE, despite my expectations at the time. It *was* higher than most people quote, and so you'll see me normally stop at a 60% DR even for my full war build. (My "waiting pump" is usually around 55%.) Although I admit Faery has forced me a bit higher than normal.

Please note that this was the point where I got optimal MPNW - drafting past this point, especially for war prep, often makes sense because your OPA/DPA go up even as your MPNW goes down a little... you "overdraft" intentionally so you'll "grow into your army", or have troops to kill, etc. Static analysis is useful, but it isn't the whole story. Knowing the optimal static point gives a good reference however - intentionally "missing" it for a specific dynamic goal is a lot easier where you know where the static optimal is...

The short of all that is... I don't think 80% BE is the correct point. Certainly not *after* science, since that means a <75% base BE... even with no homes, that is just too low. 8.375 pes/acre means you've got too little income and will fall behind in the science race. 85% Base BE seems like a much better target to me.

[inventio]

I used to go for 85% BE and 60% draft, but found that for war it wasn't exactly the best scenario as I was getting pushed around by more "pumped" provinces.

There are advantages to being at full war build OOW, since you can plunder and learn, and if you 95+ OPA faeries are yours for the picking. Otherwise, just draft up in prepation for a war.

[Luc]

BE is a trade-off between the size of your army + WPA you can maintain and the efficiency of your buildings + income. I imagine that some eons ago some ambitious Utopia player calculated the best cut-off point.

Utopia is like North Korea now that I think about it.

I very much doubt the 80% number comes from any such calculations. It's likely just followed from that people generally run about the same draft and end up at 80%, see that their prov works ok, and then proclaim that to be the right thing to do.

I've done some fairly complicated and complete simulations on human sage provinces, and have found that having 35-40% pes was giving me optimal numbers. Which was *not* 100% Base BE, despite my expectations at the time. It *was* higher than most people quote, and so you'll see me normally stop at a 60% DR even for my full war build. (My "waiting pump" is usually around 55%.) Although I admit Faery has forced me a bit higher than normal.

Please note that this was the point where I got optimal MPNW - drafting past this point, especially for war prep, often makes sense because your OPA/DPA go up even as your MPNW goes down a little... you "overdraft" intentionally so you'll "grow into your army", or have troops to kill, etc. Static analysis is useful, but it isn't the whole story. Knowing the optimal static point gives a good reference however - intentionally "missing" it for a specific dynamic goal is a lot easier where you know where the static optimal is...

The short of all that is... I don't think 80% BE is the correct point. Certainly not *after* science, since that means a <75% base BE... even with no homes, that is just too low. 8.375 pes/acre means you've got too little income and will fall behind in the science race. 85% Base BE seems like a much better target to me.

I've also done some fairly complicated optimizations. I don't believe we have the same playing style at all, so we likely value different things, but my optimized builds never ever ended up with higher than 80% BE after science. BE has always been overrated by a lot of people. What most of those people have in common is that their builds are fairly fragile, relying on things such as peasants, which are very easy to take away for anyone with a sense of strategy in this game. That build works ok as long as you stay away from the stronger kd's in the game, and if you're not very active with your playing (switching builds smoothly, aiding within the kd, plundering etc.).

To each their own, but high BE builds have never been especially strong, and people really should work on their own ideas before buying into the 80% BE minimum hype. The game can be played in lots of ways, so don't listen to other people all the time. Often as not, they don't really know what they're talking about, especially here in this forum (not aimed at anyone in particular, but you all know we have some complete tools around). Most people have NOT done any real simulations or calculations, but rather just go with their gut feeling (often based on incomplete game knowledge) and then attempt to teach their strategy to others as well.

Note: my perspective is warring. Obviously if you're going for the charts, you'll be running high income strats with rather high BE if you can.

[inventio]

I very much doubt the 80% number comes from any such calculations. It's likely just followed from that people generally run about the same draft and end up at 80%, see that their prov works ok, and then proclaim that to be the right thing to do.

I never said 80% was the magic number. I'm aware any such calculations would have to be tailored to individual provinces.

[Ethan]

I ought to add a note in response to Luc - I mostly agree that BE isn't that important. I expected it to matter more than it did, and have adapted to a slightly higher DR after I got my results. I believe the difference in our findings stems from what we consider acceptable minimum income. My results suggested that (until war starts, at least) banks aren't as good as peasants. That buildings TG/Forts instead of banks, and drafting lower gave a lower NW/A with similar military numbers, providing a better MPNW. This is compounded by the fact that I have always run a high income province - your simulation probably assumed around 1/2 the hourly income mine did. (Though some of that was human sage, which had income and sci bonus.)

While I find the income good, I know I overvalue it compared to the norm. (I suspect I overvalue it against the ideal as well, though less so.) But that is the big advantage to lower DR - lower banks gives more room for TGs, gives NW free offense. The BE increase is also important, but less important that the freed banks. BE is usually just easier to notice, and so gets more attention.

[citadela01]

I'll often draft to a point where few fb's will push me into negative income if I have time for it (I almost never grow oow except when recovering after a chain).
Peasants, income, high be ... all those things are nice to have but in war they dont mean much. Troops, thieves and wizzards do. Economy based builds are just too fragile to be worth anything.
Analyzing and optimizing province for opnw is again not very usefull, in wars its all about total offense you are packing and beeing able to keep it for as long as posible.

For playing oow its a diferent story, but it amounts to same in the end imo. Any1 can grow into top of his own KD with a bit of inteligent targetfinding and will hit the wall there from bottofeeders. Having optimum opnw/dpnw will not help here, quite the oposite ... contrary to the popular belief high nwpa targets make crap botomfeed targets due to a low gains based on % of their acres. Nice economy boomers with lowish nwpa are best bottomfeeding targets.

All this aplies for ppl not going for charts obviously, if you are chasing nw and are constantly growing you want high economy setup with low draft.

[Nobody]

economy funds dragons
economy kills dragons
dragons are important in war

[Luc]

economy funds dragons
economy kills dragons
dragons are important in war

economy is also among the easiest things to "kill". if your strat revolves around having a good economy (meaning having a lot of peasants), what do you do when you get your peasants fireballed/kidnapped/massacred/overpop'ed? you'll be sitting on worse army and at best a marginally higher income.

as i said before, such strats only work if you're up against weak opponents. i try to stay away from strats that are too easy to counter, and there are several ways to kill someone's peasants.

[Ethan]

Several ways to kill someone's troops too - but I agree with your basic point on that. Econ is much more temperamental, and you can have the rug pulled right out from under you if your opponents notice what you are up to.

I do think ToG+TW+WPA mod makes it a lot safer for Faery to do - since your econ is partially in place of damage (or, think of it as turning econ into damage when war starts), you can shed pes if a chain starts... and the WPA mod means they won't usually try to FB run. However, static defense and the worst attacking raw power in the game (a very little bit worse than elf) give arguably even larger problems to the faery attacker.

BTW, is mass really a threat? I just took 8 mass + 4 learn hits in under a day (I'm clearly the wave target), and 12 hours later I'm almost at max pop again and am drafting fast back to target. If those had been land hits I'd be about 1/2 my size and fighting to stay out of chained territory. Neither kingdom is great, so maybe something else would happen now if our opponents were better... but that didn't even hurt that much?! TPA is good for straight attacker (was A/t or A/t/m), magic is probably enough for Chasity still... 12 hits and mostly I'm just down to 35 dpa is all.

I do think a critical question is "how hard is it to stop my strat", because if you are doing well, that's what the other kingdom needs to do. Either containment, or disablement. Seems like econ makes containment harder, but disablement easier - even if the work is the same the ops are easier to do. (FB vs. MS+NM, kidnap vs. NS/Prop) So it might, at top levels, help direct where the chains go (or where they ought to, at least).

[Nobody]

kidnapping replenishes peasants fairly quickly, as does L&P, assuming no storms or chastity.

@Luc
you are in favor of easy. It is easier to play the style you do, than it is to play as I do.

@Ethan
I take it those were OoW massacres ? Massacre + Chast + Storms in war hurts, a LOT.. maybe not so much against an a/m but when you loose 8k thieves to 6 massacres, your thievery potential is severely diminished. (go from 5 raw, to 2 raw TPA in 6 hits, and tell me how well your thieves perform for you!)