Question about Rogues and TDs

[Sonjira]

Consider a Rogue running 20% TDs at, let's say, 80% BE. The effective TD percentage will then be 20 * 0.8 (Diminished Building Effectiveness) * 0.8 (BE) * 2 (Personality bonus) = 25.6% TDs.

Thieves' Dens: Lower Losses in Thievery Operations by % * 4

My question is: will the thievery loses in this case be 100% lower? (Actually it will be 25.6 * 4 = 102.4% lower, but obviously this would be capped at 100%, otherwise you would gain thieves).

Also from the wiki:
Percentage-based buildings: Unless otherwise specified, these buildings have a maximum effect of 25 times the number listed below. With normal building efficiency, this maximum is reached by dedicating 50% of your land to that building.

So for a maximum effect of 25 times the number listed (% * 4), this would mean that a Rogue with enough TDs won't lose any thieves. Is this correct, and if so, do you think this is overpowered? A Rogue can do massive damage by sending all thieves on every single OP without fear of ever losing them -- like the Undead bonus of no offensive loses.

[Chromemagnonman]

100% max benefit from td's...so yes.. and potentially...losses still doesn't mean effective... just cheaper to constantly op.

[Sonjira]

Thank you, Chrome.

I've another quick question: is the way I calculated the effective TD% correct?

For instance, say at 80% BE, will 20% TDs for a Rogue be equivalent to--

Option (a) 20 * 0.8 (Diminishing Building Effectiveness) * 0.8 (BE) * 2 (Personality bonus) = 25.6%, or
Option (b) 20 * 2 (Personality bonus) * 0.6 (Diminished Building Effectiveness) * 0.8 (BE) = 19.2%

The Diminished Building Effectiveness in option (a) is calculated based on 20% TDs (each only 80% effective), whereas in option (b) it is based on 40% TDs (each only 60% effective). In other words, is the diminished building effectiveness incorporated on the base TD% or on the personality-modified TD%?

[Danzig]

Each ops maximum damage is capped. So there comes a point where for an example sending 5k thieves does the same damage as sending 15k.

[Ordray]

I don't know why, but Angel's calculation for the losses is capped at 95% I don't know if that is there because someone found out that 95% was the maximum limit or what...

[Palem]

The game calculates your bonus as if you had twice as many built as you actually do, so it SHOULD include the DBE effects as well.

So your option b is correct.

[utopia_doc]

Ummm the Wiki formula is Base Effect * BE * % of building * (100% - % of building), so assuming 20% with double Rogue effects would it not work out as:

(4 x 0.8) x 40 x 0.6 = 76.8% lower losses

[Hooah]

need to bookmark this thread bc I know op is going to be useful later. good question :)

[Sonjira]

Thank you for the replies, that clarifies things nicely. I was calculating the effective TD% incorrectly in my first post.

With the correct formula for getting the effective TD%, I performed some calculations, and based on those I have a question. Please scroll down if you don't want to go through the numbers.

Case 1 (ideal, static scenario):

• 100% built land
• 100% BE
• Semi-decent sciences (50% crime and 5.5% tools)

The Halfer/Rogue will need to build 19.2% TDs to have the equivalent of 25% TDs (and hence zero thief loses). The overall TPA modding factor for this case (including racial, TD, and science bonuses) is 3.675 (so, 5 raw TPA will give 18.4 mod TPA, etc.)

Case 2 (more realistic, war scenario):

• 80% built land
• 80% BE
• Same sciences as case 1

In this case, the maximum for effective TDs is reached at 25.0% TDs, which gives an effective value of 16.89% TDs. Thievery loses in this case are reduced by 67.6%. The TPA modifier is 3.16 (5 rawTPA will give 15.8 modTPA, etc.)

Comparison between Halfer/Rogue and Halfer/Sage
modTPA
Interestingly, the Halfer/Sage has a slightly higher TPA modifier in both cases. The science effects (both crime and tools) for the sage are assumed to be 1.5 times those of the Rogue (this is a separate, very basic calculation, which tells us that a sage will have roughly 1.5 times the science effects as a non-sage, for the same gold investment.)

Assuming the same percentage of TDs built for both personalities-- in case 1, the Halfer/Sage has a TPA modifier of 3.68, whereas it is 3.41 in the second case. In other words, the sage science more than makes up for the lower effective TD% compared to the Rogue, even at relatively low science levels. The difference is even more pronounced at higher science levels (calculations not shown).

(Of course, the Sage -- or even Rogue, for that matter -- will most likely not build 24% TDs, and will want to use some of that land elsewhere. However, to make the comparison between the two personalities fair -- and with the goal of finding whether Sage's science bonuses are superior to the Rogue's TD bonus -- the assumption of same TDs for both personalities makes sense.)

Thief loses
However, the sage will also suffer slightly higher loses on failed ops. In case 2, for example, if we assume that both Rogue and Sage build 15% TDs, the effective TD% for the Rogue will be 14.2%, whereas that for the Sage will be 8.8%. The Rogue will, therefore, suffer 56.8% lower losses, whereas the Sage will suffer 35.2% lower loses.

With this as the background, it is clear that the Halfer/Sage will be able to muster slightly better modTPA rather soon (from my experience, the science values considered in the above calculations can be attained much earlier than the middle of the age.) As the age progresses, the Sage will obviously outshine the Rogue even more. The Sage also gets loads of other bonuses as well (alchemy, food, housing, and channeling). To compensate for all this, the Rogue has three unique ops, and slightly lower thief losses.

Question: For an A/T, should I go Halfer/Rogue or Halfer/Sage? Do you think AW, GA, Prop + lower thievery loses are worth the higher modTPA that the Sage gives? I'm in a mid-tier KD (4/7 war wins in each of the last two ages). We let each province decide their own race/personality combo, and right now we have 2 Halfer/Rogues in the KD (other than me). Should I stay Rogue, or change to Sage? I played Dwarf/Sage in age 49, so would love to change to Rogue this time, but the numbers clearly favor Sage, so I am in two minds.

[loco]

Ya I would say it depends on what the kingdoms strategy will be. If you will be coordinating with other rogues to assassinate all of someones wizards so your mages can NM them to death or something then rogue would be best. If you will likely spend most of your time doing nightstrikes anyways then the sage would be better, it would save you a fraction of wizards/acre and increase pop/be income etc. It may allow you to have greater offense as well.
For halfling the lower losses could be considered less important than for other races actually because their thieves are cheaper...still not sure I want to have to train them during war, but I am not sure I have really ever done that with 600gc thieves.
But it all depends on how you can best serve the kingdom and how well you guys could coordinate ops.

[E_Boko]

Thief losses are capped at 95% less lost from a thief op so its impossible to not lose something on a failed op. Will 5% of those caught be a lot? No but you can't lose nothing. Also you did your calc wrong somewhere. You need 25% td with 100 BE to get 100% less thieves lost which turns down to 95% less.

[Sonjira]

Thank you for the good advice loco. Sage seems to be the better choice for me, considering that my KD setup is semi-casual.

E Jade, the base BE is assumed to be 100%. On top of that 5.5 tools science is also assumed. Thus, 19.2% TDs for a Rogue are equivalent to 19.2 * 2 (Rogue bonus) * (1 - 19.2 * 2 / 100) (Diminished building effectiveness) * (1 + 5.5 / 100) (Building efficiency) = 25%.

[loco]

that last calc is wrong
I don't think you would put the tools into the formula. you would have to calculate the BE including the tools bonus first (that formula has a *.5 in it so you can't really remove that part of the formula)
Hmm wait inthis case it would be ok but only because your BE is already 100% (Which is not realistic)
if you have 30 homes and 65% draft with 1.67 raw wpa, then you could have about 90%, 10% tools would then bring you up 9% to 99%. but you could only get like 56 opa that way (plus wages and generals). 20 Thieves dens would get you 95.2 thief loss reduction.

more realistic 70% draft gets you 83.5% BE. plus 10% tools =91.85% BE. Still get -88% losses and offense goes up to 65 opa plus wages and generals
(I havn't maximised offense in this build just using one I had and took out stables for more TDs, could get better by moving TGs or homes to stables or something, but I used the same for both examples)
also both of those had 12 TPA and the following sciences
Income 14% 100.0 bpa
Tools (BE Bonus) 10% 100.0bpa
Population Bonus 8% 151.5bpa
Food Production 60% 56.3bpa
Thievery Bonus 65% 117.4bpa
Mystic Bonus 50% 69.4bpa
War Gains Bonus 14% 100.0bpa
=695 BPA which is actually quite attainable as a halfling with cheap elites and thieves and the ability to steal tons of gold oow during pumps

The same build gives a sage 68.5 mod offense
I am not really sure you would want 20 TDs as a sage, put 5 into stables and get 70 opa+wages and generals=81.5 for a single attack