Science Balance

[MikeH]

I'm wondering how everyone splits up their science.

I'm a dwarf sage, and am currently running:

Alchemy 10%
Tools 10%
Housing 35%
Food 5%
Military 25%
Crime 5%
Channeling 10%

Right now I'm running with around 100 OPA, and around 4 raw WPA going into war. My stealth is essentially only used for intel, though occasionally for opping attackers who release too many thieves after overpop.

Should I be putting more or less emphasis on certain areas? Is there a certain point when I should just stop putting in food or thievery(since I don't really op with my stealth). Should I be pumping BE more to synergize with my 1.3 BE boost, or should I pump BE less since I already have the 1.3? etc etc

How do you folks balance science with different strats? Are the mystics still pumping Mil Sci for extra defense? If so at what rate compared to income or BE?

Really I'm just asking what other provinces run, and why!

[s0830887]

I'd be interested to see some more answers to this too.

Me (Human/Cleric warring-kd)

15% income
10% BE
25% pop
4% food
20% ME
13% crime
13% channeling

At least, until recently, when my nwpa is painfully high. I've lowered pop to around 15% and bumped military, crime and channeling up to try to maximise my nw efficiency, rather than adding more nwpa.

[neanderthal]

You should be using every bit of stealth and mana in war to help your kd and not be so self centred. They need a huge boost in sci.

[Runefire]

You should be using every bit of stealth and mana in war to help your kd and not be so self centred. They need a huge boost in sci.

Unless he means he is burning everything on intel for his KD.

I don't really have set distribution that I aim for when doing my science. I focus mainly on what the KD plan/situation is and base how I invest on that.

When we are not warring/in CF, everything mostly goes in to economy sciences. When gearing up to war, everything goes in to War, Thievery, Magic.

[neanderthal]

Read his post runefire. Other than intel he waits till attackers are chained before opping them. That's selfish 101

[dieaready]

I find spreading out science among all the areas tends to help more than just focusing in one area because of the diminishing returns. If I have 1000 BPA in a dwarf/sage, this is how I would split it up into:

155 Income
165 BE
190 Housing
70 Food
160 Military
130 Magic
130 Thief

IMO I'd pump up your BE and income by a bit first, that would allow you to push up your income and thus your sci gain. Then pump up your magic sci and put a bit more into food. Personally, regardless of race/personality, I'd put at least 100 BPA into each of the sciences other than food just to get optimal benefits before I'd start pumping specific sciences. Food sci I'd guess the optimal level is about 50 BPA as it only results in a marginal reduction in farms at higher BPA (~1-2%). BE science for dwarf is a no brainer since your BE science is effectively multiplied by an extra 30%, very broken IMO. I maxed out at 190.7% BE a couple of ages back. If you pump BE like you pumped your pop/mil science, you should be able to hit 200% BE.

[MikeH]

Yeah Neanderthal, I use every bit of stealth and mana in war. I was only trying to indicate that I rarely run ops with my stealth, only intel, so my thievery science is less important than my magic.

____

Diehard right now my science is:


Alchemy 125
Tools 128
Housing 316
Food 63
Military 303
Crime 105
Channeling 146

So perhaps I'll drop my popsci and mil for a bit, and pump up my income and BE for a bit. BE being multiplicative does seem pretty amazing, so I might as well make good use of it :)

[Jotun]

Persain - Can you make a repost of your science allocation here ? (You made one shortly before forums crashed and were reset..?)

[Thunder TA]

As a sage why are you using your stealth on intel,Thats what tacts are for.Alot betting things you could be doing to help your kd normally.

[noobium]

even investment on everything (except possibly crime/channeling) up until around 100 bpa, then sharp rise in housing/tools/military (if you are playing a full attacker). early science investment is mostly about getting books in the desired category at the right time, but after your first war or around YR3 you should have everything roughly level, unless your kingdom has some specific science plan.

there are other ways and you should think about the science you will need in the short term, because crime/channeling is really important (even for orcs) - but those sciences are only really useful for war. you don't need much more than 100 bpa in alchemy unless you're planning for growth, and food science starts to lose usefulness at 150-170 bpa.

however, the early levels of food science are very important, unless you're undead obviously. saving 2% farmland doesn't seem like much, but it's a building bonus directed towards a specific building, whereas tools is just global BE and doesn't affect capacity buildings. for dwarf, food science probably should be even with tools early on, while for non-dwarf 2 tools for every 1 food is about right.

there are some alternatives which involve prioritizing crime/channeling/housing and going a/t/m. the problem with this is that your t/m sci alone only makes it slightly easier, and it's useless if your ops aren't used to full effect. you don't necessarily need a lot of tpa/wpa to pull this off, just an ability to take advantage of vulnerable provs when they bloat... unless you're using core attackers to riot or steal ponies, none of your ops require a lot of thieves to hit cap. magic for dwarves is best used situationally, use it when your dwarf gets chained or when someone's wpa was screwed/bloated... you can just spam fb with a low success rate and hope enough ops hit, since you're not using that mana for much else. (you have like 4 raw wpa and don't have huge channeling sci tho? you really should jack up channeling asap if you're going to war soon, just saying...)

all that said... take intel when you need to take it, and if your tpa isn't great, it's okay to be a full attacker. sage really prefers to be using their stealth/mana on ops instead, but against a good kingdom, attackers are more likely to keep good science themselves and predict a sage to op. even if you are a full attacker though, you should give decent attention to crime/channeling, even if you weren't sage. most core ops are going to be determined by science levels, barring a one-sided massacre wave or really suspect pop allocation.

[Samsquanch]

As a sage, this is what I'm at currently:

** Effects Summary (Known Science Only) **
23.2% Income 140.1
16.1% Building Effectiveness 131.8
12.2% Population Limits 180.4
94.5% Food Production 71.1
9.5% Gains in Combat 169.9
96.2% Thievery Effectiveness 131.1
88% Magic Effectiveness & Rune Production 109.8

I'm a heavy attacker with 2 raw wpa and 2.5 raw tpa. 934.1 bpa total.

[Cry0]

My auto science is
5% alch
20% tools
20% housing
5% food
20% military
10% Crime
15% Channeling

Orc/War

Of course that is because my current benefits are

16%
12%
9.5%
73%
6.5%
54%
66%

respectively.

I agree with previous statement, invest in everything first to get easy gains.

I always focus on tools & housing at ~20% all age if not more from war win dumps. I find that with my typical level of draft tools & housing is more beneficial than alchemy when I run province sims. Of course, that is different if you tog etc.

Channeling always important because it helps with rune production.

[Samsquanch]

My auto science is
5% alch
20% tools
20% housing
5% food
20% military
10% Crime
15% Channeling

Orc/War

That's the percentage of books you put into each catagory, right? Cause you're missing 5% if that's the case ;).

[pathetic sheep]

That's the percentage of books you put into each catagory, right? Cause you're missing 5% if that's the case ;).

He is probably using utools. Should work fine.

Housing 35%
Military 25%
Channeling 10%

... around 4 raw WPA going into war.

The science modifier for military is 0.52.
The science modifier for channeling is 6.

6.0 / 0.52 = 11.5
4.0 X 11.5 = 46
So if you have 46 military per acre then they should be about equal. Assuming you are looking at population space. If you factor in networth then it might make sense at around 40 military per acre. But you can not possibly have that much military. So channeling science should be higher.

Same calculation for population. Fewer wizards with same mod wpa is effectively "more space". Channeling has the added benefit of obtaining "more space" without the higher networth.

People are always thinking "I am attacker I must hoard military books". Of course you should have lots of offense and defense. The channeling science allows you to fit more elites, specs and peasants into your acres. Because you have fewer wizards.

Channeling is actually more valuable than any calculation of population space or networth efficiency. It also allows you to build fewer towers. Fewer towers means more TG, hospitals, stables etc.

How do you folks balance science with different strats? Are the mystics still pumping Mil Sci for extra defense? If so at what rate compared to income or BE?

Really I'm just asking what other provinces run, and why!

I SoS and learn attack a lot. The mystics are usually not getting enough military sci and frequently have 0. When I have explained the mechanics they changed and added some military. Neglecting military sci is an error for t/m. A common error. Obviously military sci should not be as high as channeling. A large part of a mystics population will be military units.

Food sci becomes less valuable at higher numbers of books. In addition to the square root effect, the food sci bonus has diminishing return. A 50% food bonus could reduce 10% farms to 6.7% farms. That frees up 3.3% of your land. A 100% food bonus drops that to 5% farms. That is only 1.7% additional land you can use as something else.


Personally my sciences are mostly a mix of other people's science. In order to get more crime I had to hit provinces without getting an SoS. ]:)

[Cry0]

That's the percentage of books you put into each catagory, right? Cause you're missing 5% if that's the case ;).

Yea - I mis typed because I switched food from 10-5% when looking at it.. have 73% food science from learns so don't need to invest there much now =P

The gist is that I always put priority into tools and pop. As attacker I draft high and BE suffers, so tools helps that dramatically and it boosts buildings across the board. Pop, similar, lets me get more military =)