Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-31763506-20180616101559/@comment-2804:431:B701:4F87:D98D:62DE:36CD:B03B-20180621063111

An analysis of how the chapter 4 researches play out so far in the war:

Purity research: gives +5 Ginasta RP

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Base defense research: allows the player to get the best result during the HQ assault while sparing 325000 ProN in HQ upgrades (extradimensional foundation + wynn's shield upgrade or robin's shield upgrade,

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Unpeople transformation research: adds Dari to the harem which affects the battle with the fucklord, the impact of this is dependant on a lot of factors about the run but here's my main takeaways:

1. It is not mandatory for the best result regardless of your decisions regarding Altina and Varia (as long as Altina is still in the party that is), but it should be said that getting it will pretty much secure the best result despite any minor hiccups (such as an slightly underlevelled Simon or failing to max a few harem members).

2. In the specific case of a Reshaped Varia + Saner Altina run, an interesting issue shows up if the player chooses to not get this research, a maxed Wynn becomes necessary which forces the player to invest on the givini magic guild (it isnt too much of an issue since having either the guild or the war monument is mandatory for an optimal performance during the ardan succession crisis, but the war monument could be preferable for its larger new givini score boost and the impact on the Social variable to make it reach 40 before the crisis, this might force the player to make some other investments to make up for not having it).

Note: I could probably make wynn maxed not be necessary in my save if I gave the +5 rp from the reunion to Altina instead of Megail, but not having Megail maxed before the BoY would be such a mess for my run.

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Orc diversification research: gives you 1 'Yes' vote during the tak'kan council, but more importantly it AVOIDS 1 'No' vote during the tak'kan council, its a big deal since for every 'No' vote you need another 4 'Yes' votes to secure yourself an 80% majority, its hard to say how much this would impact one's investments but here's a couple possible results (note that I am not taking into consideration the lonely sailors, the tradesmasher, or the new givini bank since all of those are good investments on their own rights and I try to pick them at some point in the first 2 rounds anyway):

1. If you want to invest in tak'kan with the intent of increasing your income, I recommend trying to get tak'kan score to 40, this will make it so you wont have to spend any money towards getting votes, the main benefit from that is that you can invest on cee'kan shipping instead of orc pools.

hall of mental strength + booze shack + cee'kan shipping

Expenses = 1.050.000 ProN. Income increase = 275.000 ProN.

(to reach the 40 tak'kan score you will need to buy the tak'kan statues, and then get another 2 points, could be from the house rose artifacts, the war monument or the succubus band)

2. If you want to just cut expenses, you should focus on buying votes, you need to have spared the impaler.

orc pools + imp offices + hall of mental strength

Expenses = 800.000 ProN. Income increase = 25.000 ProN.

If you dont research orc diversification you will need to both get tak'kan score to 40 and buy the votes, but it's not as difficult as one would expect, its not much different from the second investment plan, you're just gonna have to get 4 points by picking 2 out of the 4 possible boosters (house rose artifacts, war monument, succubus band, booze shack).

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With an in-depth analysis, base defence seems to be the best first round research, it saves a decent ammount of money and you cant work around it if you want the best result during the HQ assault, it should however be noted that you do not need to get the best outcome in every event to get enough "fucklord confrontation" points to get the best result of the war thus far, you can miss one, and the only difference between the best result during the HQ assault and the second best result is a meager 1 "fucklord confrontation" point.

If you're willing to just have an "average" defense on your HQ, orc diversification becomes an interesting research, while it requires you to spend more money than you really need to, it allows you to replace a non-profitable investment for a profitable one, to decide if it's worth it you're gonna have to see how much money you could spare after the ardan succession crisis, and how many more rounds of investments we're gonna have, you'd need at least two to break even compared to the base defense research.

Unpeople transformation seems superflous in an optimized run, but I will admit it is pretty critical that you get the best result for the "fucklord battle", so it seems like a neat saving grace for alternative runs.

Finally, Purity research seems almost like a joke, however Ginasta points will probably be really important for something at some point, and a really paranoid person could find it pretty suspicious that the 3 other researches are not crucial for anything.

Also worth noting that until the second research is finished, we cant really affirm for sure which is the best research, there could still be more effects but this is what I got so far.