Science is fundamentally unbalanced and unbalancing.

[ostrichfarmer]

1. Steal science sounds nice.

2. Btw, I think learn attacks is a valid way of getting science. Current science system is fair I think. Warring kingdoms will find other warring kingdoms more or less same amount of bpa. Land/NW whore will find other Land/NW whore more or less science same amount of bpa. And both categories cares nothing about the other categories.

3. Sage is also ok this age, they have sciences boost and that's it. Nothing else. We can make science attack on them and gain huge science, and the sages doesn't hurt as much (but still hurts) because the % loss aren't that much.

Conclusion, I think current science system is already ok. I vote for no change.

[E_Boko]

I know science isn't capped now but the exponential cost acts almost like a cap. I know I'm not the most active science pumper but I'm no where near 20% pop. I'm between 9 and 12 normally with all the growing.

[Zauper]

A cap might be ok, but purchasing won't happen. There is already too much incentive to sit in fw, not going to allow people to farm sci in it also.

While science drafting is frankly an inferior system, this could work, given the following conditions:
1) The caps be set at a reasonable level.
2) The science drafting system be improved to make the caps reachable

Why? We all know that people will continue to pump science, Bishop. If you set the caps at 500 BPA in each category, it won't do anything to fix it. If the caps were... 100 in each category? Given 7 categories, that's 700 BPA, or 9 and change days from 0 BPA to cap. So.. 150 BPA in each category for a cap would be reasonable, if you were to reduce the cost of science generally -- somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2, generally. This would leave you with two options:
1) Truly being 'committed' to science, by being able to and running a decent sci rate all age in order to get and maintain caps
2) Pumps to cap science.
Rather than the status quo, where instead you have to be committed to pumping science.

Also, you could fix the "stock gold in FW, then buy the minute you're OOW" issue with purchasable science by delaying the return to normal science prices by say 12 or 24 hours, giving them the same exposure to plunder/rob ops.

On a sidenote, obviously the rate at which science scales per BPA would have to be adjusted in order to maintain balanced personalities and buildings, such that the cap provides an appropriate bonus that makes sage/libs competitive without being overpowered. But that's easy to do, because you can calculate the exact bonus of each.

My problem with the current science system is that it encourages sitting around and pumping for weeks on end, which is boring. Anything we can do to get rid of a 2-week boredom pump is a good thing :) On the other hand, if you make it too easy to get, everyone will have it, and it will be pointless. So ... I dunno. I can't say how to fix it, but removing science sounds bad, and the current boredom pump system is bad too.

Capped system solves this.

Edit: I don't agree with the poster who says it is unbalancing though. It *is* a tradeoff in it's current state.

Really? What's the tradeoff? If you don't have it, you are disadvantaged. If you have it in substantial quantities, sage/libs are overpowered. etc.

What I think might help is to discourage the higher rates (3 BPA / hour "Extreme", etc.) and encourage more of a longer-term commitment to incorporating it into your economy. Maybe have a bonus on science the longer you keep it on a certain setting? Kind of the way OME goes up really slowly if you set your wage to 200%?

1) It takes 48 hours. That's not slow, in the context of a 3-month+ long age.
2) Why wouldn't this make extreme more profitable? Keep it on extreme for a month, and it would go up to 9+ books/hour? You just made the gap larger, not smaller.

That way, it encourages someone to set it to "Active" or whatever and leave it there - thus making Science a long-term commitment (which is what I think the devs wanted) and also discouraging pumps (because maybe 2+ weeks on Active give you the same benefit of the first hour of "Extreme"). I dunno - just a thought off the top of my head.

See above.

We're also heading into our 7th war and all the good players in kd have great sciences with but a single sci pump in all age (1.5 weeks of pure sci). Sure, if you want 2k bpa or more you need serious pumping, but 1k+ is good enough to compete vs most kd's.

1. It doesn't let you compete vs those with 2k+
2. You're probably a static kingdom.
3. As before -- full SOTs/SOSs if you're going to make this claim.

- Add an op/spell that can steal science books in normal relation.

My friend makes a province, runs high thieves, pumps science, drops thieves, I mass rob science from him, rinse and repeat. Too abusable.

2. Btw, I think learn attacks is a valid way of getting science. Current science system is fair I think. Warring kingdoms will find other warring kingdoms more or less same amount of bpa. Land/NW whore will find other Land/NW whore more or less science same amount of bpa. And both categories cares nothing about the other categories.

This is a silly argument. "Well, we don't need to worry about competing with people with more bpa than us, we can just ignore them" .... until they start razekilling you to pick a fight, right?

I know science isn't capped now but the exponential cost acts almost like a cap. I know I'm not the most active science pumper but I'm no where near 20% pop. I'm between 9 and 12 normally with all the growing.

Case in point.

[Kayani]

Edit: I don't agree with the poster who says it is unbalancing though. It *is* a tradeoff in it's current state.
Really? What's the tradeoff? If you don't have it, you are disadvantaged. If you have it in substantial quantities, sage/libs are overpowered. etc.

Are you kidding me? What kind of nonsense is that? Of course if you don't have it you're disadvantaged - but everyone has the ability to get it, so we're all in the same boat. By your logic, Armies are overpowered. Take your statement, and insert Army for Science:

If you don't have an army, you are disadvantaged. If you have an army in substantial quantities, [warrior/TGs] are overpowered.

Sheesh. Your argument makes NO sense ;)

Why wouldn't this make extreme more profitable? Keep it on extreme for a month, and it would go up to 9+ books/hour? You just made the gap larger, not smaller.

Who can run Extreme for a month? Extreme is over 4x my current income, and I don't think I have a bad economy. I make $67k/hour at 2200 acres. The point is that you CAN'T run Extreme for a month, and so it would discourage running Extreme for short periods, because you'd lose your "Active" bonus.

I'm not saying my suggestion is great ... it was just something I came up with off the top of my head to maybe get discussion rolling. I'm not in love with it, and I'm sure it has flaws. But your suggestion of getting rid of science because it's "overpowered" is much, much worse.

[Zauper]

Are you kidding me? What kind of nonsense is that? Of course if you don't have it you're disadvantaged - but everyone has the ability to get it, so we're all in the same boat. By your logic, Armies are overpowered. Take your statement, and insert Army for Science:

If you don't have an army, you are disadvantaged. If you have an army in substantial quantities, [warrior/TGs] are overpowered.

Sheesh. Your argument makes NO sense ;)

If only armies were capped, that wouldn't be a problem.

What's that, they are capped? Well, now you don't look silly at all. (In case you don't understand this, armies are capped due to population. Science is uncapped, so there is no "have vs have not"; there's "have vs have more". If I have 10% popsci and you have 20% popsci, that's not the same as me running 60% draft and you running 120% draft, because 120% draft is impossible. Get it?)

In fact, your argument runs counter to this -- I can easily pump my military. I can't easily pump my science, which is why I have to pump it for a month+.

Who can run Extreme for a month? Extreme is over 4x my current income, and I don't think I have a bad economy. I make $67k/hour at 2200 acres. The point is that you CAN'T run Extreme for a month, and so it would discourage running Extreme for short periods, because you'd lose your "Active" bonus.

I'm not saying my suggestion is great ... it was just something I came up with off the top of my head to maybe get discussion rolling. I'm not in love with it, and I'm sure it has flaws. But your suggestion of getting rid of science because it's "overpowered" is much, much worse.

Plenty of people can and do, which is the problem that my suggestion addresses.

How do I get rid of science?

[Ironballs]

Incentivise growth one time to weaken pumping?

Obviously though I realise that all growing is wrong and should be cause for raze killing in 99% of kingdoms ;)

[DHaran]

I don't even want to get in on this because it's too complicated a subject to discuss with too many people who really have no idea what they are talking about.

[Zauper]

Ibby:
Not really a viable way to make growth an alternative to science pumping, since they can be done hand-in-hand.

I guess you could remove the caps on the explorepool? Though that has other sets of issues associated with it.

The only other alternative would be to make high-draft a viable alternative, which isn't really feasible.

DHaran: If you don't, the current crappy system wins :p

[Zauper]

This is also even more important, since the proposed changes have undead explicitly balanced around science, as well.

[Bishop]

got numbers in mind for caps?

[Zauper]

got numbers in mind for caps?

Off the top of my head? No, but I could easily crunch and show some. Back in the day, the caps were ~50% income, ~30% BE/pop, ~100% food/crime/channel, and the military one varied based on what it was. (train time vs OME vs ME).

~85% of the caps were obtained around 100-120 BPA, ~95% were obtained around 150 BPA.

[Ironballs]

Ibby:
Not really a viable way to make growth an alternative to science pumping, since they can be done hand-in-hand.

I guess you could remove the caps on the explorepool? Though that has other sets of issues associated with it.

The only other alternative would be to make high-draft a viable alternative, which isn't really feasible.

DHaran: If you don't, the current crappy system wins :p

Yeah it's not an easy path but imo there needs to be a serious re-evaluation of the whole explore area aswell. The explore pool is a massively silly idea that only exists because no one wants to bother with doing anything like trying to work on the explore costs formula.

[Zauper]

Yeah it's not an easy path but imo there needs to be a serious re-evaluation of the whole explore area aswell. The explore pool is a massively silly idea that only exists because no one wants to bother with doing anything like trying to work on the explore costs formula.

I think it's more than just the explore costs formula, the issue is that you can afford to run less military the bigger you are; the better option would be to truly incentivize conflict, and I'm not sure how you do that without making "fake gains wars" possible.

[Zauper]

With:
50% income
30% tools
30% pop
30% gains
100% food/crime/channel --

Sage is worth:
12.5% income
7.5% pop/gains/BE
25% food/crime/channel

Too much, I suspect.

If you halve those:
25% income
15% Be/pop/gains
50% food/crime/channel

Sage is worth:
6.25% income
3.75% pop/gains/BE
12.5% food/crime/channel

Probably too little. The happy medium is somewhere between them. I'd guess around 40/21/75.

[Ironballs]

It depends what you are trying to achieve really.

The majority of the people playing the game with little change and just acre swapping for 3 months at a time, that sort of thing appeals to some people but I would suggest it doesn't really make for a good game or a growing player base.