Libraries Age 67

[bombdigie]

Anyone know a good bpa level to make this building work this age? It was a no brainier with sage last few ages but now, curious. Anyone do a little math on this yet?

[jmiedema]

I always thought the general rule for non sage was 1% libs for every 100 bpa you have but not worth it until you have at least 500bpa. That is old school math though.

[RedPanda]

I follow the thumb of 500 total BPA to even start to think about it, and after that then it depends on each science category and how you invested in them.

If you got junk investments then 0 libraries even if you have 500 total BPA.

[noobium]

Libs are mostly for wpa, since no other building mods wpa. The other bonuses are nice, but there are buildings for stuff science won't affect, like barracks and gs, and those buildings are pretty important for attackers. tg, forts, banks, and thief dens all do a lot more than libs in their area of specialization.

For thief-mage or superthief/mage libs are kind of a no-brainer.

There are other uses for libs, for instance if you tank godly or expect BE to tank, and libs are useful for pump once homes/banks max out.

[Cry0]

Libs are mostly for wpa, since no other building mods wpa. The other bonuses are nice, but there are buildings for stuff science won't affect, like barracks and gs, and those buildings are pretty important for attackers. tg, forts, banks, and thief dens all do a lot more than libs in their area of specialization.

This

[feast]

1% for every 200 bpa but really only after you are 600 bpa or higher. And like noobium said if you have a high magic science it's better. Even undead benefits more than most non mystics because they have higher "important" sciences and their generally crap be that doesn't effect them is nice. Had heard about using 1% libs only if it replaces 1% of land equally but that is flawed as it boost your economy as a whole while providing higher mods. In the end use sparingly I say.

[2Utopian]

Anyone know a good bpa level to make this building work this age? It was a no brainier with sage last few ages but now, curious. Anyone do a little math on this yet?

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[Palem]

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[StratOcastle]

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Essentially what I'm learning is that if you don't do math, things become obvious anyways and you can eyeball all.

I don't do math and whatever I did was relative to the environment. For instance, I just restarted and built a faery cleric. Explored. Set science to active. Built a lot of guilds.

Then I got in trouble when an undead guy grabbed acres from my waffer thin defense. I counter with a simple ambush and cast PF which lands on the first try. I'm good. I'm not sure what the math calls it ;-)

[s0830887]

Essentially what I'm learning is that if you don't do math, things become obvious anyways and you can eyeball all.

I don't do math and whatever I did was relative to the environment. For instance, I just restarted and built a faery cleric. Explored. Set science to active. Built a lot of guilds.

Then I got in trouble when an undead guy grabbed acres from my waffer thin defense. I counter with a simple ambush and cast PF which lands on the first try. I'm good. I'm not sure what the math calls it ;-)

Scrap the math man. People are obsessed with it. Generally I understand why, considering how heavily this game relies on mechanics, and how everyone is competing to get that edge. But many people vastly underestimate how big a role intuition plays in this game. I have probably half a dozen players in my KD that I would say are exceptional players, and only two or three of them ever talk numbers.

[2Utopian]

Essentially what I'm learning is that if you don't do math, things become obvious anyways and you can eyeball all.

I don't do math and whatever I did was relative to the environment. For instance, I just restarted and built a faery cleric. Explored. Set science to active. Built a lot of guilds.

Then I got in trouble when an undead guy grabbed acres from my waffer thin defense. I counter with a simple ambush and cast PF which lands on the first try. I'm good. I'm not sure what the math calls it ;-)

I have no idea how your random anecdote has any bearing on the virtues of using math, nor do I have any idea how this is a reply or rebuff to my post.

You successfully ambushed a province therefore math and or efficiency is not valuable Q.E.D?

Math almost certainly calls whatever you do inefficient, but who really cares? You stand for the notion you can do well enough and have fun without min maxing and this is true, but most of the people asking questions here are seeking information on becoming better at min max province management or the math behind mechanics. My post was simply poking fun at the OP specifically requesting math and receiving a bunch of what you refer to as slop in reply.

[StratOcastle]

I have no idea how your random anecdote has any bearing on the virtues of using math, nor do I have any idea how this is a reply or rebuff to my post.

You successfully ambushed a province therefore math and or efficiency is not valuable Q.E.D?

Math almost certainly calls whatever you do inefficient, but who really cares? You stand for the notion you can do well enough and have fun without min maxing and this is true, but most of the people asking questions here are seeking information on becoming better at min max province management or the math behind mechanics. My post was simply poking fun at the OP specifically requesting math and receiving a bunch of what you refer to as slop in reply.

I keep forgetting we don't like each other :-D

I wasn't rebuffing your comments, just observing that "close IS close enough". I guess it's ok to mention I've seen formulas, can't figure them out but get the gist. Then I mock up some slop, and must say, did better than the guys supposedly following the formula. And I'm talking about the big stuff.

The guys that know the numbers are not going to readily share formulas is my guess,..or simply aren't interested in answering a question they've already answered. If you then assume they won't share everything you use the evidence given to complete the circle. In fact, I think the question was answered based in the bpa posts.

But has it ever turned the tide for anyone here? Sure. If they all prescribe to convention. My point is that I observe convention and make my own conclusions. I don't follow convention verbatim because it's a proven source of failure in the face of unpredictability. Like being fat is bad. That's not true, but most guys buy the entire line because it's true when opponents are using similar logistics and following similar strategic doctrine.

The depth of the question in Utopia is, can you defeat a conventionally and logistically superior opponent? I can say yes on many and most occasions. I contend that most kingdoms in Utopia fight colonial style and get fancier as you climb the charts. To task, I've never seen a rogue target libraries with GA. At that point we tend to see a raze. What are you when 80% of your acres are razed? You have to be confident in that circumstance.

All said, I apologize if my words offended you. I'm not here to answer the math, I'm here to put it in perspective.

How?
When?
Where?
Why?
What?

Equal attention to these questions often yield the best answers. I can't overstate "equal".

[noobium]

The math for what libraries give a province with a given sci level is easy enough to calculate. How those offerings compare to other buildings you could build is much harder to calculate. I assumed people had the brainpower to plug in their own science levels to know what libs are doing, my mistake.

So let's assume pretty decent science levels for mid-age, if you've been actually protecting your books and playing as a war kingdom...

alchemy - 121 bpa
tools - 256 bpa
housing - 256 bpa
food - 121 bpa
military - 256 bpa
crime - 256 bpa
channeling - 256 bpa

And let's assume your race is Avian, which is quite relevant (since you can and pretty much have to make use of your land differently from Orcs or Undead in order to play to your strengths)

11.25% libraries = +20% science effects, roughly
or,
+2.67% income
+2.76% building efficiency
+1.88% maximum population
+9.36% food production
+1.54% military efficiency
+9.8% thief effectiveness
+9.8% magic effectiveness and rune production

We would also assume your goal is to have as much wpa as you can expect to raise in a limited time, so the theoretical cap on rWPA would be something like 3-4. Something like that would be preferred if you're going libs. We would use the thief effect bonus to drop rTPA to what it would be with 2 raw and no libs, even though I wouldn't do that, and that space save would be put towards maxpop.

The income part is roughly equal to having 1.5% banks, though this isn't particularly relevant.
The building efficiency bonus is entirely dependent on your other buildings, it isn't a flat "+2% land". It does however add to the strength of buildings that would otherwise approach harsh DBE effects, if you cannot max out your BE.
The housing bonus is worth about 4.5% homes, aside from the BE effects. Homes are pretty crap for the capacity alone
Your base max population/acre (Lord rank) is around 28.5 pop/acre. Let's assume you increase this to 31 by building and filling 20% homes, requiring 7.75 bushels/acre to feed. Never mind that food is easy to aid, let's say your goal is self-sufficient food production. Your basic farm requirement would be 6%, dropped to 5.4% with the libs. So another 0.6% land saved.
The military efficiency bonuses are worth roughly 1.5% tg and forts each.
The extra tpa shaves off 0.17 rTPA, or about 1.5% homes worth of extra population.
Presuming you would build 10% towers at war start (and I wouldn't really want to do that), the extra channeling science is worth another 1% land in towers.
The BE effects on all of these would add another 0.5% land or so with these buildings being given. The BE effects on your other buildings might be worth about 3% land otherwise.

The libraries also affect forward income and rune production, which isn't entirely irrelevant... tho you could build libs mid-war, you will get those effects earlier with libs already in place. They're far inferior to having banks/towers in the first place.

Taken together, these bonuses accumulate to being worth 14-15% land in equivalent buildings - so about a break-even, not counting the wpa effect. As you can see, most of the extra land is in added maxpop, replacing one of the weaker buildings (homes), and in the presumed benefit of added building efficiency. If you take out the maxpop effects, the land save is less than the land put into your prov.. and maxpop is somewhat overrated. Then you're left with a mix of buildings which aren't directly linked to your success as an attacker, and a couple % of tg/forts. Whether those buildings are worth it is your call.

The biggest effect by far is the 10% increase to mWPA, which can make the difference between landing fb or, even better, LL; and the snowball effect that has is really substantial.

[bombdigie]

19.2% T/M in your example of BPA but 1522 total BPA is a little too high, the effects of Libraries are quite apparent at these levels.

Decent to have, good to build when chained, efficient at high BPA levels.

[noobium]

The point is that the equivalents for an attacker aren't all that great, even at 1500 bpa. It works better if you're prioritizing tpa/wpa, attacker or defensive, and willing to let other building types slide in the short term. Say you went with 4 tpa and 3 wpa on your hypothetical avian and you got those thieves for a reason, the effective free pop from that is like 6.2% free homes (3.5% if you just count the TPA), on top of the free homes from better popsci and the ME/income boosts.
The libs do a little better if your BE is tanked, which can happen. 70% BE is not fun. :(

It's still mostly for the wpa boost, but the extra bonuses can make them worthwhile.
If you're a t/m with 10+ combined tpa/wpa and a high priority on housing/crime/channeling, the libs work a lot better. Put the same BPA into 400 housing, 400 crime/channel, and 81 everything else and you get...

+2.24% income
+1.65% BE (who cares)
+2.3% maxpop
+8.37% food production (who cares)
+0.9% military efficiency (a grand total of 0.5% forts, whee, who cares)
+10.9% crime/channeling effect

build (mystic)
20% homes
5% farms
5% banks
10% guilds
20% towers
10% forts
11.25% libs
18.75% thief dens

5 tpa, 5 wpa, countess honor
rest defense/pezzies, blah blah blah. You get 32.77 maxpop/acre. Tweak the buildings if you like, they're mostly irrelevant but showing where the libs fit in.
The extra sci nets
more money (who cares)
more BE (who cares)
roughly 6% free homes from housing sci
more food (who cares)
more military efficiency (worth a whole 0.6% free forts, who cares)
Approx 0.55 effective free TPA (equal to effectively 11.36% free homes)
Approx 0.55 effective free WPA (ditto, though free wpa is harder to gauge in this regard)
Approx 2.3% free towers

Ignoring the WPA equivalency to homes (which is a lot to ignore), you're getting about 22-23% free buildings from the libs, almost all of them homes. With the wpa considered a capacity bonus this is around 35% More importantly though, you're getting stuff that fits into your role perfectly, you have a lot of free space and a lot more stability. It's not like you're trading off for barracks or gs, usually. You could probably omit banks from this and do fine, or trade towers for more homes if you have a way to get runes long-term.

I would say that for a t/m, libs start being useful a lot earlier than is often assumed, and total BPA is a poor metric. For attackers, they compete with a lot of other stuff you'd want, and your land, wpa, and science are not stable in war. The chief contributor to their effectiveness is high channeling, and to a lesser extent crime, paired with high raw wpa/tpa and more towers. Housing is fairly useful.
Again, this hinges on just how important pop capacity is to your province. For a t/m whose land is limited, it's a pretty big deal, for attackers that exchange acres rapidly it's far less of a deal.

A small but noticeable effect of libs is that the extra population isn't adding nw, or adding wages / train cost, unlike filled homes. Aside from the direct housing boost, it's not adding peasant income either.