That was directed at Dharan right lol. I thought it was pretty mean too. I really should have paid more attention in calculus and algebra lol. I put more into sports, and now I am having a hard time crunching all these numbers into my empty head lol.
Be nice DharanYou're entire post just proved how little you know on the subject.
Be kind, guys... we can make people quit the game when we crush their ideas...
"There's no Knowledge that's not Power."
Actually my post was kind (for me anyway). I didn't call him dumb or stupid, I just said he didn't really know what he was talking about, which was an unfortunate truth. I was at work and couldn't spend the time required to explain why it was so erroneous, but I think Zauper pretty much covered it.
S E C R E T S
This is an interesting discussion.
I'm not sure on what I think is a better system. But I just thought I'd present an interesting analogy. Consider real life. In life we are presented with options with decisions we must make. Do we save money? Spend it? Get a balance? Ultimately, you do what you want to. And to me, it's the same in utopia. Sure In real life you aren't competing directly but who is to say you are In utopia? I don't think the top warring KDs are competing with the farmers. So in my opinion the disadvantage argument is false. Each KD has different goals. Different objectives. If a KD wants 10 war wins then their science won't be so good. If a KD wants 1, then it'll probably be better. But my point Is why should they have an equal playing field? Just because you may wish to war shouldn't mean therefore the game needs balancing in order to compete with those who want to pump. If we cap acres, then we could also say let's cap acres. If those guys grow huge we can never get them down. We should cap growth so we can all compete. Sorry, but it's a void argument.
Purchasing science is also false. What's the difference? Consider it from a mathematical perspective. There is no difference other than purchasingeans science goes up instantly with cash spent, whereas with drafting it goes up the same level over a period of 24 hours. The argument of plunder or stealing is void. If you pump at a rate which equates cost and income, it is almost identical to purchasing science. And Bishop is right. It'd encourage fake warring like mad.
The fact is, there's a lot of different angles to consider this. It's true that a KD pumping has an advantage. Bur thats their choice. They sacrificed WWs. Would you prefer competing with all or having 8 WWs? It's a trade off. A decision you have to make. Just like everything in life.
The point made in this thread is that it's a false choice. The KD that pumped science is at a SMALL disadvantage at the beginning of the age, but then has an advantage for the rest of the age. If you wanted to stay a small KD that went for WW, science becomes even more powerful because all age your acres barely go up, so you're just getting higher and higher BPA, meaning that when you war a KD that is your size but hasn't been pumping science, you have more pop, more money, more combat gains, and more TPA/MPA.Originally Posted by Murkey
1) Like Hanoumatoi indicates, given that a WW kd is flat acres all age, an early pump is a substantial advantage for them.
2) WW kds are largely irrelevant to the conversation, because they fall under:
Why? Because they largely rely on ghetto bashing, and there is no true competition -- there is no incentive for top WW kds to compete directly with eachother through a conflict, the way that there is for honor and nw/land kds.If you forgo an advantage that large, against an equally skilled kingdom, you will lose.
Can you win? Sure, if you're fighting idiots. In which case you can really be running whatever you want and still win.
3) Any time you do directly compete, if one of your competitors scipumps, you have to as well in order to be able to.
4) Your analogy falls flat, because it doesn't hold true in other areas of the game. Military is capped. Spending money on military now doesn't create greater returns later.
5) "If we cap acres..." -- this argument is silly
a) As I've pointed out, there are several things in the game that are capped (military, peasants, built acres)
b) Everything in the game is a function of acres -- science, military, etc. Capping acres thus would make no sense.
c) This is a false dichotomy; i) you can bring them down, ii) it doesn't require age-long pumps to send one up, and iii) growth IS capped, there IS an explorepool rather than limitless explore, there ARE limits to how much you can dice, there ARE bottomfeeding penalties that prevent you from hitting down on provs 1/3rd your size for good acres.
Purchasing science allows you to immediately invest rather than having to invest over a period of time. It allows you to adjust things exactly how you want them to be with your economy, rather than being held to rigid science-draft rates. It allows you to invest what you steal or plunder, it allows you to invest at a flat cost ratio, rather than having to lose money over a period of days if you happened to come across a gc surplus.Purchasing science is also false. What's the difference? Consider it from a mathematical perspective. There is no difference other than purchasingeans science goes up instantly with cash spent, whereas with drafting it goes up the same level over a period of 24 hours. The argument of plunder or stealing is void. If you pump at a rate which equates cost and income, it is almost identical to purchasing science. And Bishop is right. It'd encourage fake warring like mad.
etc.
Also, I still haven't heard an argument for how it encourages FW any more than the current system, or why my fix wouldn't... fix it?
1) There are no WW charts.The fact is, there's a lot of different angles to consider this. It's true that a KD pumping has an advantage. Bur thats their choice. They sacrificed WWs. Would you prefer competing with all or having 8 WWs? It's a trade off. A decision you have to make. Just like everything in life.
2) As I mentioned above, WW competitions are largely irrelevant because they revolve around ghetto bashing with no true competition
3) Science pumping for a month (or more) is not prohibitive to winning 8 wars, assuming that you are capable of baiting sufficient ghettos into war with you (which is what WW kds do anyway)
4) I'm not sure how it's done anymore, but back in the day, WW kds would frequently trade their resources (like their pumped science) for wins.
DECAYING Science .... With a Cap, purchasable science, and buildings that produce science points this will shorten if not rid this "sci-pump" ...
If i remember correctly ... back in gen ... decaying sciences worked too well, no one had science ... and an age later the building that produced sci also worked too well, everyone was running 50% home and bank at the half age point so everyone was pumped by then ... if we combined them together ... it will work.
Military sci should go back to OME sci ... BE sci should go back to shorten building times ... I have seen too many non Dwarf non Artisan have over 120% BE ... odd
Last edited by Darkz Azn; 17-03-2011 at 14:12. Reason: odd
I suggested a war chart system that would address some of this (specifically, ghetto bashing and thinking you're awesome). i.e. war better kds, get better score.
I'm going to be as nice as I can, and then I will quit this thread.
Zauper, all you are doing is telling other people how their opinions are wrong and yours is right. You're just taking what they say, listing it in bullet point and saying "Nope, you're wrong" a dozen times. That's not constructive, and it doesn't foster an engaging, dynamic discussion that would help solve this issue.
If you want to change science, fine, suggest a change. But no matter how many times you tell people they are wrong, it's not going to change their opinions, because you cannot possibly prove the correctness of an OPINION. And that's all any of us have: an opinion. This thread is becoming a huge waste of time because you aren't discussing anything, you're just telling people that they are wrong, and you are right.
Well, I'm sorry, but I have my own opinion, and others do here as well. And I'm entitled to it. And it's an opinion, therefore, it's not wrong, no matter what you say. I would recommend that you stop posting bullet point lists telling people why they are wrong, and work constructively to find a good solution to the issue.
My opinion is that it is a tradeoff. The time you spend pumping is time you could spend doing other things. If you pump more, you'll be bored, but have better science. If you pump less, you'll have less downtime (which probably means more "fun"), but worse science. It seems others here share this opinion. For most people, running science at the level needed to achieve significant gains isn't possible unless you're in pump mode. An age of steady acreage growth but only "Active" science allocation won't result in what many would consider "good science".
If you think others have an advantage over you because they have better science, well, you're right, they do. Just like someone with 5 TPA has an advantage over someone with 1 TPA. But that doesn't make it unbalancing. It's my opinion that something being unbalanced means that there is a direct advantage to it but no logical counter. If you have a different opinion of balance, you should say what yours is.
The logical counter to someone having better science than you is to get better science yourself or learn attack them a bunch of times. If we had a race with a 25 offense and 25 defense elite that cost $700gc, had 6 NW, and no other hindrances, that would be unbalanced, because there's no possible counter to that for the other races. I suggest that you take a very thoughtful and open-minded re-evaluation of the concept of balance. Science is one of the few systems in the game that is perfectly balanced, since everyone can achieve the same benefit for the same cost. The only exception here is the Sage personality, but that is a different discussion.
I agree with you that there are problems to the current science paradigm, but balance isn't it. If balance was the issue, than your solution of capping it wouldn't solve what you claim the problem to be, because according to your argument, someone with science, capped or not, would still be "unbalanced" when compared to someone who doesn't have science.
Your proposition is to (basically) remove the choice by placing a cap, so that it's like the other aspects of the game. I train my 500 BPA or whatever, and I'm done, because I hit the cap. Just like I trained my 80 DPA and then I'm done because I've hit the draft cap.
In my opinion, the current system rewards "boring" pumps, and I feel that's a bad thing. But it also provides a choice and an avenue for customization/differentiation of your province, and I feel those are good things. I suggest that we don't remove the choice, but focus on ways to get rid of the "boring" aspects of a pump or make it less enticing.
I don't like the idea of a cap, but as I was writing all of this, one thing that came to mind was not to cap each science category, but to cap total BPA. That way, you could still customize/differentiate your province from the others. If you wanted to put all of your BPA into pop sci, you could. Or you could distribute them evenly. You wouldn't even really need to change the current science formulas.
If we find no solution other than a cap (and that would be disappointing), then I suggest you cap total BPA rather than each category individually.
There are several issues with this post, and this is the first one: I'm going to make an argument and then run because I know I'm wrong!
If they were expressing an opinion, such as "I like x", that would be an argument. However, they are not expressing an opinion, they are stating that they disagree with a fact. If I said "the sky is green", would I be expressing an opinion? No, and I would be wrong. If you disagree with the conclusions that are stated quite simply in the topic of the thread, then you can discuss why the principles that lead there are wrong. Failing to do so admits that the topic is true, and thus your "statement of opinion" really comes contrary to a fact and falls short.Zauper, all you are doing is telling other people how their opinions are wrong and yours is right. You're just taking what they say, listing it in bullet point and saying "Nope, you're wrong" a dozen times. That's not constructive, and it doesn't foster an engaging, dynamic discussion that would help solve this issue.
I did.If you want to change science, fine, suggest a change.
It's a good thing that they aren't expressing an opinion, then. (see above).But no matter how many times you tell people they are wrong, it's not going to change their opinions, because you cannot possibly prove the correctness of an OPINION. And that's all any of us have: an opinion. This thread is becoming a huge waste of time because you aren't discussing anything, you're just telling people that they are wrong, and you are right.
What I am doing is articulating why they don't understand the factors that lead them to be wrong.
I'm glad that you have opinions. That doesn't mean you're correct.Well, I'm sorry, but I have my own opinion, and others do here as well. And I'm entitled to it. And it's an opinion, therefore, it's not wrong, no matter what you say. I would recommend that you stop posting bullet point lists telling people why they are wrong, and work constructively to find a good solution to the issue.
Other things like what? Other things that I *can't* do if I pump science? Such as?My opinion is that it is a tradeoff. The time you spend pumping is time you could spend doing other things.
Ah, so the "tradeoff" is "fun" vs "boredom". So your argument has nothing to do with the competitive nature of the game. Interesting, yet completely irrelevant.If you pump more, you'll be bored, but have better science. If you pump less, you'll have less downtime (which probably means more "fun"), but worse science. It seems others here share this opinion. For most people, running science at the level needed to achieve significant gains isn't possible unless you're in pump mode. An age of steady acreage growth but only "Active" science allocation won't result in what many would consider "good science".
Except I can train 5 TPA at any time (or built WTs, cast CS). I can't gain substantial science at any time.If you think others have an advantage over you because they have better science, well, you're right, they do. Just like someone with 5 TPA has an advantage over someone with 1 TPA. But that doesn't make it unbalancing.
Okay, what is the logical counter to massive science?It's my opinion that something being unbalanced means that there is a direct advantage to it but no logical counter. If you have a different opinion of balance, you should say what yours is.
Aha:The logical counter to someone having better science than you is to get better science yourself or learn attack them a bunch of times.
The logical counter to better science is that you get better science, leading to the multiple month long pumps that are the issue with the current system. I'm glad you cleared that up for us.
I still haven't heard anyone express an argument for how learn attacks are a counter to massive science -- are you going to learn me while I'm sitting on 100-150 DPA and low nwa (aka you get no gains)? Are you going to learn me while I'm protected due to my schools/sage personality? etc.
I suggest you realize I understand the game before you attempt to insult my grasp of its balance. In fact, it's pretty clear that you don't understand balance because the issues with science are obvious to those that do.If we had a race with a 25 offense and 25 defense elite that cost $700gc, had 6 NW, and no other hindrances, that would be unbalanced, because there's no possible counter to that for the other races. I suggest that you take a very thoughtful and open-minded re-evaluation of the concept of balance.
So you agree with one of the first points made in the thread: science is unbalanced because there are things explicitly balanced off of it (sage, undead) and it is limitless? Wonderful, we've agreed that there's a problem.Science is one of the few systems in the game that is perfectly balanced, since everyone can achieve the same benefit for the same cost. The only exception here is the Sage personality, but that is a different discussion.
Everyone cannot achieve the same benefit for the same cost, because the cost is different based on the rate at which you purchase it. Also because some people have benefits that allow them to purchase it more easily. Also because some races are more prone to allowing for high-defense strategies to allow them to pump science without being bothered, while others are not. etc. In an ideal world, where you didn't have to be concerned about anyone hitting you, there would be few differences between the races. But there would still be some. Human's income bonus would allow them to purchase more science than an avian, for example. Dwarves BE bonus would allow them to purchase more science than an avian as well, due to better efficiency on their schools.
It would solve the problem because the issue is the uncapped nature of science. Capping science solves all of the problems associated with science neatly.I agree with you that there are problems to the current science paradigm, but balance isn't it. If balance was the issue, than your solution of capping it wouldn't solve what you claim the problem to be, because according to your argument, someone with science, capped or not, would still be "unbalanced" when compared to someone who doesn't have science.
Like I said before, it's not an issue of the "haves" and "have nots" (i.e. I have science, you don't, or I have military, you don't), it's an issue of the "haves" and "have mores" (i.e. I can't run 120% of my pop as military compared to your 60%, but I can run 60% pop sci to your 6%)
What choice is removed? There is no choice. Except perhaps the "choice" to give your opponents an advantage by allowing them to get more science than you. Is that the choice you're referring to?Your proposition is to (basically) remove the choice by placing a cap, so that it's like the other aspects of the game. I train my 500 BPA or whatever, and I'm done, because I hit the cap. Just like I trained my 80 DPA and then I'm done because I've hit the draft cap.
So after all that time defending the current system, you agree that it's flawed because it encourages you to spend the entire age pumping. Interesting. Sorry, science is mandatory, and thus not an avenue for customization or differentiation.In my opinion, the current system rewards "boring" pumps, and I feel that's a bad thing. But it also provides a choice and an avenue for customization/differentiation of your province, and I feel those are good things. I suggest that we don't remove the choice, but focus on ways to get rid of the "boring" aspects of a pump or make it less enticing.
What happens to someone who's at the BPA limit and gets hit. Do they lose science? How do they determine which books they want to be effective? Can I then pump past the BPA limit, choose to use my BPA-capped books in military for gains, then swap to thievery for my thief ops, swap to channeling for my magic ops, and then swap back to population before the hourchange?I don't like the idea of a cap, but as I was writing all of this, one thing that came to mind was not to cap each science category, but to cap total BPA. That way, you could still customize/differentiate your province from the others. If you wanted to put all of your BPA into pop sci, you could. Or you could distribute them evenly. You wouldn't even really need to change the current science formulas.
If we find no solution other than a cap (and that would be disappointing), then I suggest you cap total BPA rather than each category individually.
Can you, or anyone else, articulate a reason why so-called "choice" is good in science, but bad elsewhere? If not, where are your suggestions for creating alternative systems that are truly viable alternatives to a focus on science?
If you don't want to get razekilled, then why not pump? Because pumping is boring? Then don't pump. If you can have both war and pump science at the same time, what's the point of having science then? Everyone will be the same ~more or less. Current science system gives your kingdom a chance to decide. Decide to pump, or not to pump. Furthermore, science does not dictate war win or not. If a kingdom at a reasonable size with higher science than your kd start to pick a fight, why not just retal with learn attacks? If a kingdom wants to razekill you, they will razekill you with or without science, it has nothing to do with your science. If they are stronger than your kingdom because they pump more, than they deserve it because well, they sacrifices "war fun" for it. I assume your kingdom is not as strong because you choose to war more, so then deal with it. That is called "tradeoff", you can't have both.
UtopiaNub, the NAP's all the top kingdoms have with each other for the first half of the age have nothing to do with diplomacy its just standard operating procedures these days and its a large reason why the number of players have been slowly dwindling. All the strong active kingdoms nap one another then bash on the ghettos (new players). In turn all the new players who spend their first two weeks of the game getting raped by the SKs quit and so do some of the returning players in ghettos as well.
On a side note one of the main reasons science was changed to drafting was to avoid the fake war pumps that SKs have a much easier time pulling off than anyone else. this suggestion dose nothing to prevent that from happening again so in essence you are suggesting trading in a new minor problem for an old major one.
odd ... Decaying sciences work!!!
maybe changes the BE sci back to Building times and have libraries be affect by BE instead of being 100% rate ...
Last edited by Darkz Azn; 18-03-2011 at 03:30. Reason: odd
If you can war, and have a military, then what's the point of having a military then? FYI folks -- what ostrich is saying here is an opinion: "It's ok for things to be unbalanced"
No, this is not the decision. The decision is whether you want to be competitive or not.Everyone will be the same ~more or less. Current science system gives your kingdom a chance to decide. Decide to pump, or not to pump.
Answered before -- if you give up a substantial science gap to another kingdom, then you will lose unless they suck. If they suck, then it doesn't matter what you do.Furthermore, science does not dictate war win or not.
Learn attacks are inefficient, and you would quickly discover why that's a fail strategy if you ever bothered trying it against a half-decent kingdom. (As a hint, it has to do with you losing 15% of your land each wave without having any incoming acres)...plus the inefficiency of learning a sage with schools.If a kingdom at a reasonable size with higher science than your kd start to pick a fight, why not just retal with learn attacks?
They can only do it if they are stronger, and having science makes them substantially stronger in a way that can't be countered aside from getting more science yourself.If a kingdom wants to razekill you, they will razekill you with or without science, it has nothing to do with your science.
We're back to the opinion part: "You can only have fun or be competitive". And here I thought the game was just supposed to be fun. Silly me.If they are stronger than your kingdom because they pump more, than they deserve it because well, they sacrifices "war fun" for it. I assume your kingdom is not as strong because you choose to war more, so then deal with it. That is called "tradeoff", you can't have both.
Not only is this false (the reason was to prevent pumps, not FWs, which backfired), but you haven't even considered my simple solution which solves this.On a side note one of the main reasons science was changed to drafting was to avoid the fake war pumps that SKs have a much easier time pulling off than anyone else. this suggestion dose nothing to prevent that from happening again so in essence you are suggesting trading in a new minor problem for an old major one.
Additionally, FWs exist currently.
I would recommend that this thread be locked. Zauper has made his points, and since there cannot be any rational discussion regarding those points (everyone else is wrong apparently), nothing can be gained by continuing this thread.
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