Books and Scholars
On persistent worlds, knowledge is written down instead of handed out. Nobody can craft anything they haven’t studied, research is written into books, and the world only leaves the Stone Age when someone discovers the way out. This guide covers studying, researching, writing and copying books, and the scholar’s trade.
This applies to persistent worlds such as Gaia and the regions connected to it. Round maps such as Civilizations & Nomads still use the faction Research tree. The node names, prerequisites and prototypes in that guide’s node reference are the same here.
Contents
- Getting started
- Studying
- Research benches
- Writing and copying books
- Scholarship
- Practice
- The scholar’s trade
- Teaching and apprentices
- Tips
Getting started
The world starts in 5000 B.C. and has no clock: it moves into a new age only when someone finishes a capstone chapter (the prototype nodes, such as Bronze Working), and every player is told when that happens.
- Found a faction. The founder receives the Stone Age master book, which holds every Stone Age chapter, and a pencil. Nobody knows those chapters yet.
- Study the chapters you need. Hold the book, use it and press Study beside a chapter. Each chapter needs its prerequisites first, so work through the book in order.
- Craft what you’ve learned. Crafting checks your own knowledge only. Your faction’s research and the world’s age don’t unlock anything for you.
- Research new chapters at a research bench, then study them like any other chapter.
Pencils, paper and blank books can be crafted by anyone from the start, with no knowledge needed. They are made from wooden planks, which anyone can cut from logs with an axe or by hand. For a new character’s first steps, see Your First Day. Parchment is cut from a dry hide with a sharp tool (four sheets per hide) and works like paper. In the Stone Age a sheet of paper is called papyrus; it is the same sheet. Sheets clipped together in a paper bundle can be used straight from the bundle. See Parchment for the whole hide route.
Studying
Studying a chapter takes 1 minute in the Stone Age plus 30 seconds for each later age, and you keep it until you die. You can study from a book in hand, from a loose chapter page, or from a book lying on a research bench. Studying needs no scholarship, only the chapter’s prerequisites.
You can stop studying at any time: walk away, put the book down or get interrupted, and the part you already read is kept. Next time, the chapter shows how far you got (for example Continue: Iron Tools (40% read)) and studying it only takes the time left. Your progress belongs to you, not the book, so you can continue from any copy of the chapter, after a restart or in another region. Recipe manuals work the same way.
Using a research book in hand opens its window. Alt-click does the same for a book lying next to you. Its chapters are sorted for you: first the ones you can study now (Ready to study), then the ones whose prerequisites you still need (Needs groundwork), then the ones you already know (Known). Each row shows the age, the discipline, how long studying takes and, when it is locked, which chapters to learn first. Type in Find a chapter to search by chapter, recipe or discipline, use the buttons under it to show one group, and click a row to see its groundwork and the recipes it teaches. Examining a book shows the same three groups. Recipe compendiums sort their chapters the same way.
Death wipes everything you know, both chapters and scholarship. A new character starts with nothing, so keep your books safe and your scholars alive.
Research benches
A research bench costs 8 soft wood. Benches belong to nobody: anyone can use any bench, and a bench holds only the work in progress.
- Put a book on the bench, click a subject in the bench window and press Research this here. The research is written into that book. Take the book away and the unfinished work goes with it.
- Stay beside the bench. It only makes progress while someone within one tile knows every prerequisite of the subject and holds a writing tool (see The scholar’s trade).
- Speed it up by using samples on the bench: existing examples of things the subject unlocks. Capstones also need their prototype before the chapter is finished.
- When the research is done, the chapter is written into the book. It teaches nobody, not even the researcher. Whoever wants it still has to study it.
The first time anyone finishes a capstone chapter, the whole world moves into the next age.
Losing an age
An age lasts only as long as its capstone is written down somewhere. If every book, loose chapter page and recipe manual that holds the current age’s capstone is destroyed, and no capstone of a later age survives either, the world falls back one age within about ten minutes, and every player is told. If the age before it has lost its capstone too, that one goes next, a little later. The Stone Age is never lost.
Nobody forgets anything when an age is lost. Anyone who still knows the lost capstone can write it from memory into a book, and the world returns to that age at once. A region connected to a mainland never falls below the mainland’s age.
The bench window
- Books on the bench shows both books and their chapters. A chapter you can study is marked, and clicking any chapter opens its details.
- You have lists what you are holding (writing tool and blank sheets) and your scholarship.
- Currently researching shows the progress bar, a checklist of what the work still needs (a book, a researcher beside the bench, light, an instrument), a warning when supplies have run out, and roughly how long is left at the current pace. Stop researching halts it; the unfinished work stays in the book.
- Find technology searches by subject, recipe or discipline. The buttons under it show only what is Ready to study, what you Can research, what is In progress, what is Known or what is Not yet open to you. Switch between Tree and List to see the subjects as rows or as the tree.
- Click a subject for its details: the groundwork it needs (click one to jump to it), what researching it needs and whether you meet each point, how long studying, researching and writing it take, what it leads to and the recipes it unlocks.
- The buttons in the details do the work in one click: Study this chapter, Research this here, Add to queue, Copy into the other book and Write it from memory. In the list view each row has its own Study or Write button.
- Queue up to 12 subjects. When one is finished the bench starts the next one that is ready.
Writing and copying books
Books are ordinary items. They can be traded, lent, hidden, stolen or carried to another region, and they also still work as journals.
| Action | How | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Write notes | Use a pencil or pen on a book and choose Contents to add a page of your own writing. Use the book in hand to read it. | Instant |
| Write from memory | Put the book down next to you, hold a pencil or pen and Alt-click the book, then press Write beside a chapter you know. At a bench, press Write it from memory in the subject’s details. A blank sheet of paper, papyrus or parchment is taken from your other hand, your bags or a paper bundle you carry (taking one off a bundle needs a free hand). | 2 minutes in the Stone Age, +1 minute per later age; costs stamina |
| Copy at a bench | Put two books on a bench, open a chapter and press Copy into the other book, or press the Copy all … chapters button under a book to copy everything the other book lacks, one after another. Hold a pencil or pen and have blank sheets on you. You don’t need to know the chapter. | Same as writing |
| Rip out a page | Hold the book, click the chapter in its window and press Tear this chapter out. A chapter becomes a loose page that can be studied on its own. | 2 seconds |
| Bind a page back in | Use the loose page on a book. | 30 seconds |
| Print a book | Put the book in a printing press as the original and a blank book as the copy, then use the press. It prints the pages, title and every finished chapter, using one sheet of printing paper per chapter. Load printing paper by using blank paper, papyrus, parchment, a paper bundle or a paper bin on the press. Unfinished research isn’t printed. | 25 seconds |
Recipe manuals and recipe compendiums take written notes too: use the book and choose Read the notes or study as usual. Binding manuals together keeps their notes. Research chapters only go into ordinary books, and a manual with notes in it can’t be carried to another region.
A bench holds up to two books. Research goes into the first one; Write research into the other book swaps them.
Scholarship
Research trains six disciplines, from 0 to 100: Basic Mathematics, Engineering, Natural Science, Medicine, Agriculture and Military Science. The Scholarship tab in the side panel shows your level in each discipline, the latest age you can research in it, your title, your master and your apprentices; the bench shows what each chapter needs.
- Stone Age research needs no training. Each later age needs 12 more levels in the chapter’s discipline, plus half that in Basic Mathematics. A Bronze Age chapter needs 12 and 6; an Imperial Age chapter needs 36 and 18.
- Skill above the requirement makes research faster, up to twice as fast.
- You gain skill by working at a bench, by studying chapters and by writing them. Work far below your level teaches you less, and half of what you learn also goes to Basic Mathematics.
Practice
You can also train a discipline by hand. Hold its practice tool and use it in hand for a 45 second session. Each session costs some stamina, needs light and trains only that discipline. A writing desk beside you shortens the session, and your master standing nearby doubles what you learn.
| Discipline | Practice tool | How to make it |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Mathematics | Writing slate, or an abacus for 50% more | 2 stone (no knowledge needed); abacus 3 soft wood (Trade & Coinage) |
| Engineering | Model kit, or a drafting set for 50% more | 3 soft wood (Basic Toolmaking); drafting set 2 iron (Iron Tools) |
| Natural Science | Specimen box | 2 soft wood (Basic Toolmaking) |
| Medicine | Study bones | 2 bone (Basic Toolmaking) |
| Agriculture | Seed tray | 2 soft wood (Basic Toolmaking) |
| Military Science | War game board | 2 soft wood (Basic Toolmaking) |
Practice is a way to get started, not a way to the top. Each session teaches a little, less as you improve, and practice stops at level 24, enough to research two ages past a discipline’s first and to earn the Apprentice title. Beyond that, only research, study and tutoring teach you more.
The scholar’s trade
| Need | Details |
|---|---|
| Writing tool | You must hold one to research. A writing slate (2 stone, no knowledge needed) or a pencil works at normal speed, a crayon at half speed, and a quill or pen 25% faster. Writing and copying need a pencil or pen, and a better pen writes faster. |
| Light | A bench makes no progress in the dark. Studying, writing and copying need light where you stand too: evening daylight is enough, but at night or in a dark room bring a candle, lamp or torch. If the light goes out you stop, and a chapter you were studying keeps the part you already read. |
| Supplies | Use supplies on a bench to stock it (up to 200 per discipline). Each bit of progress uses one. Without them, the bench works at half speed. |
| Instruments | From the Imperial Age on, a chapter needs its discipline’s instrument on or next to the bench, or in a researcher’s hands. Without it the bench makes no progress. |
| Writing desk | 6 soft wood (Basic Furniture). Studying, writing and copying beside one are 25% faster. |
| Library | Bookcases within 3 tiles of a bench. Each related chapter on the shelves (one in the subject’s groundwork or its discipline) makes research 10% faster, up to 50%. |
| Discipline | Supplies | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Mathematics | Blank paper, papyrus or parchment, loose or in a paper bundle | Abacus (3 soft wood, Trade & Coinage) |
| Engineering | Material stacks (wood, stone, metal and so on) | Drafting set (2 iron, Iron Tools) |
| Natural Science | Ore or glass | Beaker or glass jar |
| Medicine | Medical supplies or grown herbs | Scalpel |
| Agriculture | Seeds or produce | Plough |
| Military Science | Ammunition or ammunition parts | Map |
Teaching and apprentices
Tutoring: stand beside someone while they study a chapter you know. They finish in two thirds of the time, and if you’re still there at the end they gain three times the usual skill and you gain some too. Selling books or tutoring is ordinary trade, so set your own price.
Apprentices: use Take an apprentice in the IC tab on a player next to you. They have to accept, and a master can have up to three. While their master is within 2 tiles, an apprentice gains twice the usual skill at a bench, and apprentices watching their master research within 2 tiles pick up a little skill too. The apprentice can end it with Leave apprenticeship, and it ends when the apprentice dies.
Titles: examining someone shows their best discipline as a title once it reaches 12: Apprentice from 12, Scholar from 40 and Master from 75, for example “Scholar of Medicine”. Use it to find someone to hire.
Tips
- Copy your important chapters. A raid on your library takes every chapter you only had once.
- Keep spare copies of each capstone in different places. If the last one burns, the whole world loses that age until someone who knows it writes it down again.
- A scribe doesn’t need to be a scholar: anyone can copy chapters at a bench.
- New to a discipline? Practise with its tool between study sessions while your stamina recovers.
- Keep a bench lit, stocked and next to your bookcases, and research with a pen at a desk nearby.
- Rip out single chapters to lend or sell, and keep the master book at home.
See also
- Research for the node list and prerequisites
- Crafting
- Character & Skills