science pump at start of age?

[jason87x]

Hi. I haven't really played Utopia in forever, and I'm noticing how much things have changed (a lot!). But to do a science pump at start of age or start of province, I've considered a few strategies. Of course when age 49 comes, I might have to tweak (or change completely) my strategies, but I am asking for a foundation on this. I could very well be a monarch next age too. I know for now my personality will be Sage, that's a given. It's pretty much a buff to everything. Oh as far as role... A/t/m (emphasizing the 'A').

One idea: DE

to pump defspecs in prot:
explore whatever (or not maybe, or should I? to how much?) then build...

50% banks
30% armouries
10% guilds
10% farms

after I have enough defspecs (12 per acre so 60 dpa) the science pump...
also not training thieves at the moment

50% banks
30% schools
10% guilds
10% farms

how long should the science pump be? a week?
well after the science pump...

what about an optional elite pump step? after I have my pop sci up and such I'll need to train expensive leets, even though they're weak.
Or should I go with offspecs instead? And of course I would get at least 2 raw tpa and hopefully 1 raw wpa (is 10% guilds throughout the age enough to keep 1 wpa?)


finally...

20% tg's
20% forts
20% rax
20% libs
10% guilds
8% farms
2% dungeons

will this work? I would use 20% rax to get down to 12h attack times, hopefully a little less for some wiggle room, only attacking 2 rounds per day. Should forts be replaced by gs? What about stables?

[Luc]

50% banks is overkill. At that point you've hit the cap for income bonus. Also, as a DE, you'd benefit more from having additional guilds and use ToG.

Btw, there's no way at all you're gonna be able to run DE as A/t/m. They're weak enough as A/m as it is. You'll just be bad at everything instead.

If you're starting late and want to play catch up, pick a real attacker race and learn your way to science. There are lots of juicy DEs sitting on lots of sci that are hittable even though they try to turtle (that is if you actually go attacker and aren't afraid of getting some offense).

[Blip]

First I think that I should say that I really would advise against trying to pump like this. I tried to pump sci hardcore when I joined mid-age a while ago and overall it was not very successful. The problem comes form the fact that your bpa/hr is based on your land size so even if you pump a lot at 400 acres then all of that sci is effectively minuscule compared to if you had grown first and then pumped. Yes you end up as a really buff small province but the(my) goal and real fun in this game is getting large.

Now for some help.
You really would not need that amount of banks. I think you hit the +% to income after 37.5% or something at 100BE. After you max the income bonus you would just be getting that small amount of gold per bank. So you could either get additional guilds or try to maximize the effects for arms or schools. Also I personally run only enough rax so that I can get under 12hr attack times in war and since you get 80% attack time reduction in war. Also hospitals are a vital part of any offense so you should drop the amount of rax/tgs/forts into some hospitals.

[jason87x]

Well I already have a prov going this age. I was really talking at the start of a new age, say the next one. Though how we change our strats will of course depend on what game changes are made, but game changes like this aren't usually that drastic from one age to the next (for the most part). True I understand that having a lot of science at a small land size is pointless, would it be better to explore/easy hit up to 1000 acres instead? I do want to keep 60 dpa for the most part. Banks at 100% BE max out at 50% land use like anything else, a higher BE (say after science pump lol) would push that threshold down? And of course I would be investing in science all the time too... Extreme during a pump, is it practical to be attacking though and through both income sci and income anyway and would it be possible to keep a fast science rate (like Rushed or Intense) during attacking? And does sci spending only come from daily income, or can you use money generated from ToG and theft to put towards it? or does sci just stop once the actual income drops below whatever?

And yes, I can see the value of hospitals. If i'm a frequent attacker at least some of them should be used. I'm not sure yet of the exact rax %, 20% was just an estimate. The actual value will depend on BE and whether it's war and whether i'm attacking on the island or off. Besides I want a little wiggle room so the time should be under 12 hours because I can't always be online at the exact same times so that flexibility is great. I'm an avian warrior now and oow attack times are 10.5 or so hours, flexible enough for me to attack twice every day.
What other race ideas should I use? Gnomes for their fun things? Dwarf just for the +20% BE? Or is a high BE like that useless? For some reason quite a few people are saying just that. Idk if i still want to use Avian because of attack time, but the 8 pt elites are nice. Orcs, isn't their crap def spec hurting them, or are most of them semi-suiciders?

[Bishop]

You can run active sci pretty much constantly without worry about what it does to your income. Anything else and you will notice the drop, so if you are trying to grow your acres and/or army you wont be able to go much over active. If you are sitting static then intensive/rushed are easy to reach without investing a lot more land - extreme takes about 30% banks and 25% schools (if i remember right) as a sage to reach.

However, its not clever to pump a lot of sci when you are really small. Its not useless, as once you have good sci its fairly easy to keep it topped up, but its not as efficient as reaching a larger size and pumping then. You can either run lots of banks and schools to run extreme, or some banks and schools and run intensive and learn provinces (i would choose this). That way you keep your rebuilding costs to a minimum.

Its too early to decide on race for next age - things can change so much that its impossible to predict whether a race will be good.

[jason87x]

I'm beginning to think halflings are a much better choice than say DE?

[jason87x]

Well yea I'm pretty much debating between Halfling Sage and Avian Sage. But why are avians doing awful this age? I looked on the land charts and there was only ONE above 2000 acres, and just barely. What happened to what was the best attacking race out there? Halfers are doing much better, with a crappier elite, though that 6/5 must have use defensively. I could probably use the flexibility of having the same unit for offense or defense, I could customize the amount of off sent out compared to how much def I want based on if they would retal. And with an all elite defense (or mostly elite) I could have a little immunity against NM, which seems to get used quite a bit on me. Plus stables makes them 7/5 which is almost the horseless 8/3 of Avian. Hmm maybe I'm answering my own question. I guess attack time is Avian's only real advantage, and halfer sort of has that one too with QF.

But anyway... assuming halfer sage...
build strat (after science pump around 1000 acres...) (want critique of...):

5% towers
4% farms
1% dungeons
15% libs
15% gs
15% tgs
15% guilds
10% stables
20% rax + land rotation

the 20% rax includes the land rotation error, so rax will usually be around 10%. I want to attack twice a day and I will be using QF. Also, should I lower guilds to 10% and raise tg's to 20% ?

[Coke]

Pumping at low acres is very ineffective. Hence why some KDs perform land drops. Pump Sci at higher acres then get razed to lower acres to make sci much more effective.

[jason87x]

well...

maybe I could do instead of a science pump... just maintain my science instead while attacking? (btw finding good learn targets right now is quite challenging. and plus sages the really good science targets all have reduced learn gains anyway so is learning really worth it?)

if Halfling Sage
(after leets built up)

9% farms
1% dungeons
10% guilds
10% towers
15% schools
15% banks
10% rax
15% tg's
15% forts

or will I need some homes in there because of high TPA and some WPA?
maybe Human Sage is better because of more efficient military units?

[Coke]

it's pretty hard to get really good sci if your planning to attack throughout the age w/o a period where you stop and just go into pump mode (become fat). It's not impossible, just hard.....what bpa were you aimming for?