ask noobium

[noobium]

New question;
How much libraries should i run at certain points. For example what %libraries should i run with;
a) 100bpa
b) 500bpa
c) 750bpa

it has nothing to do directly with bpa, it has to do with when the effects are (a) equivalent to other buildings in your province taken together or (b) useful for their own sake.

(a) is usually applied to farms only, since the other types you'd either want to maximize outputs, or other buildings do better. (b) is usually for channeling science, since it stands alone for wpa and improves your rune production as a bonus. Technically, if you invest roughly even levels in everything, the rule of 1% libs per 100 bpa generally holds true, but libs don't replace certain building types. An attacker can usually play without libraries and lose very little, if they need land for hospitals and whatnot. Generally though, libs are for provinces with a strong magic affinity, which should be a lot of provinces in war kingdoms. I'd want them for Undead, Avian, Human, and the t/ms. Orcs have crap science and want a lot of other buildngs. Dwarves really like the reduction buildings (wt, gs, hosps) that libs can't replace, and libs ignore their BE bonus anyway. For an attacker, you'd probably build them for the free farmland and minor econ buff, but wouldn't bother rebuilding them... and attacker land is so volatile that you really can't micro in libs. t/ms should swear by them if they can hold on to worthwhile sciences, especially Elves.

Using libs in war as a chained province has some utility, mostly for the huge +wpa - but spellcasting is still a crapshoot due to nw penalties, and there are much better building strategies to use post-chain.

If you have super good sciences, like 400+ bpa in everything, then libs are pretty obvious regardless of race or role, but they're still not replacing a lot of building types. Having the better numbers is usually worth it for a/t/ming, assuming you give no ****s about amnesia or learn attack.

[Dipa]

Question : How much thieves should be sent for each sabotage ops?

TIA

[noobium]

Question : How much thieves should be sent for each sabotage ops?

TIA

It's based on how much of a given resource is present. The figures I get from plugging numbers into Angel and what I can recall from experience are roughly (assuming ideal nw range):

Rob vaults: 1 thief per 765gc (no relations, cap ~5% of total stock), 1 thief per 600gc (war, cap about ~14% of total stock)
Rob granaries: 1 thief per 300 bushels (no relations, cap ~31.5% of total stock), 1 thief per 240 bushles (war, cap about 46% of total stock)
Rob towers: 1 thief per 85 runes (no relations, cap ~21.3% of total stock), 1 thief per 60 runes (war, cap ~36% of total stock)

Kidnap: 1 thief per 5.5 peasants (war, cap 4% of total stock). There is also a hidden 50% gains penalty for kidnapping someone with low peasants/acre, this needs to be tested but it's been shown to exist. Don't bother outside of war, the gains are too terrible to waste your stealth, and the cap is like 1.4%
.
Nightstrike (soldiers): 1 thief per 5 soldiers (war, cap 13% of total stock)
Nightstrike (defspecs+offspecs): 1 thief per 5 specialists (war, cap 0.55% of total stock). Defspecs and Offspecs are affected by the same cap; add the number of defspecs and offspecs to determine the cap you're trying to reach when kiling specs.
Nightstrike (elites): 1 thief per 4 elites (war, cap 0.3% of total stock)
Soldiers, defspecs, and elites are killed on the same operation, but have seperate caps for each. I am not positive how the presence of one affects kills for the other, and I'm pretty sure these values are off, but they are close to what you should be sending to reach cap. By the way, NS doesn't care whether the troops are at home or out.

Steal Horses: 1 thief per 1.8 horses (peacetime, cap ~6.3% of stock), 1 thief per 2 horses (war, cap 6.8% of stock). The damage inflicted is twice what you take for yourself. Only horses at home can be stolen.

Arson: ???, approximately 3 thieves per target acre I think gets the cap on gains. It's not very strong though. Barren acres are included in basic arson if I'm not mistaken, so your gain will be constant but reduced by whatever % is barren.

Sabotage Wizards: ???, damage is based on how much mana the target has. In my rough experiments a while back, sending 2 tpa (target's acres) tends to get good returns at high mana levels, and it takes 16% of the target's mana in one op (so naturally, not worth it if your target has less than 32% mana).

Assassinate Wizards: Formula is in the guide somewhere. Cap is around 1.4% of the target's wizards, but since you can't see wizards outright, you'll either have to calculate the target's wpa or send until you find the cap.

Incite Riots: ??? but sending 4*target's acres is usually enough to get good duration on riots. The returns on this op have a significant random factor, with the lower end about half of the upper end. However, sending under the cap will have a linear effect. Practically speaking, you shouldn't waste your stealth on anything other than a long-duration Riot, since it's purely a holding action. Riots is surprisingly easy to land in my experience.

Propaganda: ???, has no known cap but the gains are highly random. Usually, sending 4*target's acres gives a significant portion of the target's specialist troops. Offense and Defense specialists are targetted seperately. Most people just send all for the best gains, but if you need to conserve tpa it's fine to send 3-4 of your tpa in order to limit losses and improve success rate. A Propaganda that takes defense specialists is incredibly strong, as I have observed props 5-6x as effective as a nightstrike; therefore, you have a reasonable chance of coming out ahead using Propaganda instead of NS when targetting defense. Propaganda is incredibly hard though, and thief losses are higher with the more difficult ops. You can only propaganda troops at home, so usually elites are an empty gain unless propping a t/m.

[Dipa]

Thank you. This will be helpful a lot. *screen shot*

[2Utopian]

Propaganda:Usually, sending 4*target's tpa gives a significant portion of the target's specialist troops.

I know what you tried to say, but you should revisit this formula :D I wondered who was proping me with 20 thieves.

[noobium]

oops, brainfart again. fixed. ^_^

[Fire]

Why do you try steal meeps thread?

[noobium]

Because I'm a dirty, dirty poacher.

[Gidoza]

Why do you have a happy sunshine avatar when you're a dirty, dirty poacher?

[Fire]

:O oh no...

Your display picture makes you look so cheery and clean.. This saddens me ='(

[Gidoza]

Why do you have a happy sunshine avatar when you're a dirty, dirty poacher?

It's because he knows the glory of the sun and is using the avatar to draw him to better and more noble ways.

[Fire]

Ahh look at that it's basically a double post

[Gidoza]

Ahh look at that it's basically a double post

And by Fire, which the sun is.

[noobium]

Why do you have a happy sunshine avatar when you're a dirty, dirty poacher?

Someone in wsk told me my gloom level was too high, so I needed a little sunshine in my life. Now I'm a happy camper.

[Fire]

Just dirty is all