Automation lane
Research
Research is the lane where a cheap decision costs you most, because the points do not come back easily.
Spent against the goal
Research is valued like everything else: by how much time it removes from what the town is working towards. A research that unblocks the unit the goal is built around outranks three cheaper ones that unblock nothing, even though the cheap ones look like progress.
The queue has already spent the points
Your available points are what the Academy and Library have produced, less what you have spent — and less what is standing in the research queue right now. A bot that counts only completed research queues two researches it can afford one of, and finds out at the second one.
The Academy level the goal implies
If a goal's outstanding research costs more points than the town will ever produce at its current Academy, nothing in the game's requirement tree says so. The town simply stops, and waiting does not fix it, because points do not accrue on their own.
Grepobot works out the lowest Academy level at which that bill becomes payable and adds it to the goal, so the one building that unsticks the town is proposed instead of a silence.
The research it argues against
Booty looks like free loot and is not: it swaps your farm villages onto a doubled cooldown table in exchange for more per claim. For a player claiming by hand that is a clear gain. For a bot already claiming on cooldown it nets a few per cent, most of which runs into the daily ceiling anyway — so the points go elsewhere.
What it does not do
- It never resets research. There is no reset in the bot at all, because a reset is a decision about a town's whole future, and it costs culture points.
- It does not research everything. Nothing outside the goal's own dependency path is ever proposed.
The rest of what it automates
- FarmingClaims every farm village on its real cooldown, takes the trades worth taking, and keeps going while the tab is in the background. Free, no subscription.
- BuildingAuto build that raises what your town's goal needs next, including the warehouse and farm levels the game's own requirement tree never mentions.
- RecruitingKeeps the barracks and harbour working towards the army your goal needs, splitting a unit count into as many orders as the queue will really take.
- CultureRuns festivals, plays and victory processions towards your next town slot, choosing the celebration that pays and stopping once the slot is covered.
- QuestsCollects finished quest rewards across the whole account, and decides the daily login bonus rather than just taking it, so nothing sits uncollected.
- Divine powersCasts the god powers that pay for themselves in resources, scored against favour rather than wood, and spends the inventory items you already hold.