I usually play as the Americans. While the F-15 comes too late to do much good, I usually try to build the right wonders so that my GA comes in the middle ages as much as possible. I make an early rush to Republic so that I can rush improvements and units with gold. Generally, I wait until I am one or two turns short of my next advance, then lower my science as low as it will go without waiting anymore turns. Sometimes I have been able to go from running a 25 to 30 gold per turn profit to a 250 gold profit for one or two turns. It doesn't always work, but I try it with each advance. You can build up a lot of gold, which is helpful in the early wars you are bound to encounter. I usually play warlord (easier than most of you, I know) on small worlds and if I don't declare war it's only a matter of time before someone declares war on me.

The two most important Wonders to me are the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's. Even though I play defensively (I usually win by culture or space, though i've won every way possible) I find that the Pyramids allow me to quickly build the larger cities with better defensive ratings and Sun Tzu allows me to use my excess gold to upgrade my defenders without spending time building new units. Also, when forced to go to war, I can build veterans and almost just as important I know my enemy does NOT have Sun Tzu.

Has anyone tested whether excess beakers in the turn you get your tech are wasted versus applied to the next tech?

Great question! I was wondering that myself....

Joe

yes they are wasted.

wasted... :mad: !! just do the trick and seve money

i always use such technic, but gold is alway not enough when the whole world want to kill u.

not uh, they aren't wasted, 10 beakers overall equals 10% in science, it's a bonus

Does anyone think that exccesive shields are being wasted?

eg. I want to produce a tank in a 70shield.pt city, the tank comes in two turns, where is the extra 40shields?

gone

I think they should come up with a patch or something to fix this, because in reality that just doesn't happen.

Think of it as management overhead :D

Daniel

Actually for that gold trick... do this

Start out so tech takes 4 turns. Every time it goes down, you can lower your tech funding by 10%.

So if you start out funding at 70%. In the end you'll only be funding at 40%. 10% less each turn.

=)

I've three gold ruch techniques:

Fear:
It's good on civ's with little, isolated territoties (isles are very good). Attack them with fast units and conquer 40% of their territory as quick as possible (5 turns MAXIMUM). Contact their leader and offer peace to him and when you
1.Were fast with your conquering
2. Have many strong units on his territory
you can have everything from him:
Gold, cities, workers, maps, techs.
When you have taken all his goods, destroy him in the same turn.

Maps:
When you meet another leader, change maps.
Then, explore as quickly as possible, but not everything. Just 100 or 50 tiles or so. Change maps again, but do NOT take the others map (which is uselessto you), take gold, workers or techs.
Then exploreagin, trade and so on. I have gathered 4000 gold on this way.

Selling:
Conquer some cities and sell them back to their owner (after you have declared peace).

I always do that little gold trick, and I was about to post it and ask that wasted question myself. (Then I found this.) I always was afraid it might be wasted...
But I don't see how it can be wasted. I mean, if you had science at 100%, with an advance in 3 turns, then the next turn 2, and you notice that that turn 90% has gone down to 2 also, so you lower it to 90%, how will that be wasting the next tech's advancement? (That is what you're talking about, right?) You'll still get the advance in 2 turns, just like 100%, and when you get that advance you can switch it to 100%. Doesn't seem like wasting to me... :confused:

I have a quick question, lets say your managing your city and you make 5 scientist in that city...

How much does those scientist count for your tech research? Then if you make a Library it's 50% more.

So how much do these scientist guys count...

Each scientist produces one beaker. This beaker will not be affected by anything at all (libraries, universities, corruption, etc.). Each tech requires a certain number of beakers collected over time to be researched. So a scientist helps speed it up very slightly by giving you an extra beaker every turn. How much this helps you I don't really know, because I don't know how many beakers are required for different techs. Does anyone know?
Oh, and I found out that the little gold trick mentioned by AHapka IS NOT wasting extra beakers, or at least not according to Bamspeedy in his strategy article titled "How to get to the Modern Era on Chieftian." Thanks to that article, I can now feel safe using the trick. :)
Edit: Extra beakers (like if you stay at 100% science even when 90% will complete the tech in the same # of turns) ARE wasted, and this is what makes the trick worthwhile and safe.

Well I've noticed that a tech costs say "500." Which is what future techs cost. So perhaps that is 500 beakers?

Are you talking about the cost in the Editor? I guess that might mean beakers. Hmm... pottery only costs 2...

Yes, that is the cost I'm refering too... I wish I could figure out what a beaker is... so on so on.

It would make science spending a lot easier.

The excess beakers are wasted handsomely for sure. For example, if you are paying 100 gp (50%) of your income to science and getting the tech in 4 turns, paying 200 gp (100%) won't help you get it in 2 turns. The 100 gold excess will be wasted for no reason, because the fastest possible research for a given tech is 4 turns! This 4 turn limit prevents rich civs discovering techs every turn and literally ruining gameplay.

So, mark the date when you will discover a tech and move the beaker towards maximum tax without delaying research. If you dont want to bother with this trick every turn, then wait until it is 1 turn to discovery and max out tax to 90%. Generally the tech will still be 1 turn away and the tax rate will get you huge amounts of gold.

I was running some numbers on this yesterday, on diety, astronomy cost, if i recall, 1600 beakers and has a cost FACTOR of 56). efectively, it was costing me 1000 gold to research it. It is not a 1:1 ration on cost factor. if someone takes the time to examine this, we might find great use in such knowldedge with respect to trading.