[Endoperez]

Also, your Master Smiths will be your most common mages. Your most common researchers. If you build lots of fortresses, which you probably could as your units are more expensive in resources than gold, it could be feasible to make many fortresses and labs and just build insane numbers of Master Smiths. Drain helps to get points elsewhere. It's not total immunity, but worth it. If you are still skeptical, take Drain 2. It gives other researchers just -1, and doesn't hurt your main researchers.