I worked out the benefits of the science tech for VV2 - haven't a chance to do it for VV3 yet, plus the complication of the different factions, but....

(stuff about VV2 deleted).

Did a quick eyeball test - in my 3-4 minutes of checking (village with no faction chosen), an adept scientist at L1 Science produced 7 tech points for each success. A master scientist produced 9 points. After purchasing L2 Science, these values went up by ~25% (adept from 7 to 9, master from 9 to 12). Not as useful as VV2, note.

So which is more efficient? Here's a quick breakdown by number of times a villager has to be successful to complete the task (I round all fractions up):

With L1 Science, earning 50,000 tech points
-- 7,143 successes by an adept (50,000/7)
-- 5,556 successes by a master (50,000/9)

To earn L2 Science (11,000) and then 50,000 tech points:
-- 7,128 successes by an adept (11,000/7 + 50,000/9)
-- 5,390 successes by a master (11,000/9 + 50,000/12)

Faster? Probably. Tremendously faster? Probably not, although I'll note that we're not looking at the chances of success for each task. It's possible that the villagers are more likely to succeed (and earn tech points) at higher levels of science tech, so not only do they need to be successful fewer times, but they are going to be successful more often and earn points faster.

So buying both science first and L2 faction will take less time than just buying the faction; good to know. Thanks for sharing your numbers! If you have anything else to share, please do; I've already compiled the numbers on food, so any other data on the game mechanics would be helpful, and I may make a post later on all the 'hidden' mechanics I can get data on.

Strange I have L2 of science,med,alc,and leadership...And only level one of my nature.

I only have 18,000 points.

If you find a collectible put a child on it pause the game get another child unpause the game and put the other child on the collectible quickly and you'll get extra tech points. Not much, but it's better then nothing

not in vv3. only in vv2.

i tried it in vv3 but it doesn't work

This can be done in VV3 as well, the technique is simply different. [spoiler]
--Pause the game, and drop a child on the collectible.
--Then pick up another child, hold it over the collectible, and quickly unpause and drop the child AFTER unpauseing.
--If you're very quick, you can pause the game again, picking up another child, unpausing the game and dropping the child for a third pickup.[/spoiler]

I do it slightly differently, and have become quite good at getting 4 kids at once:

[spoiler]
--pause the game and drop one kid
--grab three more and take them right next to the item
--hold one of them over the item, unpause, and drop
--quickly grab the other two and drop them in
[/spoiler]

I have trouble doing that, because the screen likes to pan whenever you're holding someone even slightly off-center on the screen, making fast precision difficult.

Hmm, I haven't noticed that. The only time I fail is when I'm imprecise in my grabbing and grab dirt instead. Usually that happens if they run off too fast. I've gotten really good at it though.