Some Old Age Tests

[curtadams]

This is great, but I agree with Arralen you should do it without BoT. One idea is to set up multiplayer with each race have 100 old folks. More work to set up, but then you can just click through 48 turns once.

[NTJedi]

curtadams said:
This is great, but I agree with Arralen you should do it without BoT. One idea is to set up multiplayer with each race have 100 old folks. More work to set up, but then you can just click through 48 turns once.

I also agree with Arralen where this test should not use Burden of Time since we are not 100% positive no other side effects and different calculations exist with this spell active.

[calmon]

Ok, i remade the Tests 1-3, now without 'burden of time' and the results are different!

All Start in Turn 1 with 100 Philosophers, i checked after each full year (every 12 turns)

Test 1
All with bad scales, Death 3, etc.
Turn 13: 100 Philosophers, 73 non-afflicted
Turn 25: 88 Philosophers, 56 non-afflicted
Turn 37: 75 Philosophers, 38 non-afflicted
Turn 49: 61 Philosophers, 26 non-afflicted
Turn 61: 48 Philosophers, 19 non-afflicted
Turn 73: 44 Philosophers, 14 non-afflicted
Turn 85: 38 Philosophers, 10 non-afflicted
Turn 97: 29 Philosophers, 7 non-afflicted
Turn 109: 22 Philosophers, 6 non-afflicted
Turn 121: 21 Philosophers, 5 non-afflicted

Test 2
All with good scales, Growth 3, etc.
Turn 13: 100 Philosophers, 89 non-afflicted
Turn 25: 95 Philosophers, 72 non-afflicted
Turn 37: 87 Philosophers, 60 non-afflicted
Turn 49: 80 Philosophers, 53 non-afflicted
Turn 61: 73 Philosophers, 43 non-afflicted
Turn 73: 67 Philosophers, 37 non-afflicted
Turn 85: 59 Philosophers, 23 non-afflicted
Turn 97: 51 Philosophers, 17 non-afflicted
Turn 109: 48 Philosophers, 12 non-afflicted
Turn 121: 43 Philosophers, 12 non-afflicted

Test 3
All with neutral scales
Turn 13: 100 Philosophers, 74 non-afflicted
Turn 25: 82 Philosophers, 54 non-afflicted
Turn 37: 74 Philosophers, 40 non-afflicted
Turn 49: 64 Philosophers, 33 non-afflicted
Turn 61: 56 Philosophers, 28 non-afflicted
Turn 73: 50 Philosophers, 24 non-afflicted
Turn 85: 42 Philosophers, 18 non-afflicted
Turn 97: 37 Philosophers, 12 non-afflicted
Turn 109: 31 Philosophers, 7 non-afflicted
Turn 121: 25 Philosophers, 6 non-afflicted

So after 60 Turns (5 years) i completly lost 52 Philosophers with all bad scales, 44 with neutral and just 27 with good Scales.

So it seems 'Burden of Time' gives extra Afflictions in additional to the 1 turn=1 year feature.

[curtadams]

Great info. Age isn't as bad as I would have figured. Anyone care to figure the cost-benefit of philosopher-researchers?

[Agrajag]

curtadams said:
Great info. Age isn't as bad as I would have figured. Anyone care to figure the cost-benefit of philosopher-researchers?

Since we don't have turn-by-turn numbers, its just an approximation, but:
Death 3 got 6412 research turns
Neutral got 6832 research turns
Growth 3 got 8536 research turns
Which means that Growth 3 got ~25% more research done than Neutral.
And also Death 3 got ~7-6% less research done than Neutral.
Final result is Growth 3 bringing in ~33% more research than Death 3.

[FrankTrollman]

And if the Philosphers had been young, they would have picked up 12000 research turns instead. A Sloth 3 Philosopher picks up 8 Research a turn for 50 gold plus or minus the Magic rate.

At Magic 0, the Philosopher is a better buy over 121 turns than a similarly priced character who generates 5 Research. That's great, because you can't get characters for 50 buck who generate 5 Research who are young.

At Drain 2, the Philosopher is still beating a character with a base 5. At Magic 1 - same deal. At Drain 3, the Philosopher pulls ahead of a young character with a research of 6 - which is awesome. At Magic 3 they are still advantageous over characters with a 5 base, but it's a lot closer.

Of course, that's the 120 turn picture at Growth 3. At Death 3, the 120 turn picture is a lot bleaker. At neutral Magic scales, our Philosopher only pulls ahead of researchers with a base research of 4 - which is only a very good deal. At Drain 3 they pull ahead of base research 5 characters, and with any Magic rate at all they are only better than Research 3 characters - which is the industry standard. At that point, in the long run they are only a noticably good deal for the money (costing as they do considerably less than a normal Research 3 magician and out thinking them by a lot).

And of course, the Philosopher is researching in a front-loaded fashion and once they die of old age you aren't paying them upkeep any more.

---

So the bottom line is: Even at Death 3, a Sloth-inspired Philosopher is a better deal in the long run than any available young researcher for the moolah. And in the short run, he's just crazy crazy awesome.

People whine about age a lot, but at least for philosophers, it isn't even a deal. Those guys are still worth every penny and more.

-Frank

[Agrajag]

FrankTrollman said:
People whine about age a lot, but at least for philosophers, it isn't even a deal. Those guys are still worth every penny and more.

Not that I whine about age, but for me the real problem with old commanders isn't that you are somehow getting less for your money because they are only useful for X turns, but rather that they are unreliable. Its much harder to base a strategy around a core of casters if you can't tell if they won't randomly drop dead deep into enemy territory.