Research Agreements (BNW)

Introduction
"Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination" - John Dewey

Research agreements are a gold costing investment between two civilizations, which upon resolution provide a boost in beakers to both civilizations. They are useful for any fast peaceful victory, with optimal usage allowing the launch of your spaceship to Alpha Centauri well before anyone else.

• Definitions
• Basics of Research Agreements
• RA Costs
• Maximizing RA Benefits

Definitions

• Bulb - Obtain a new Tech by either expending a GS, completing the Oxford University or the Great Library, or completing the Rationalism social policy tree.
• DOF - Declaration of Friendship between two civilizations
• GS - Great Scientist
• RA - Research agreement
• Tech - Technology

Basics of Research Agreements

Research agreements become available to a civilization when it has researched Education. For an investment of gold, an embassy in each capital, and a DOF, two civilizations may agree to sign a research agreement. The length of the research agreement is determined by game speed (30 turns on Standard speed). At the beginning of the turn after the deal duration, the RA ends and an amount of beakers is provided to each RA partner, which are applied to the technology being researched, and any queued technology. For example, on standard speed an RA signed on turn 90 will provide beakers at the beginning of turn 121.

The amount of beakers provided by an RA can be increased by an additive 25% in two different ways: (1) by controlling the Porcelain Tower, and (2) by adopting the social policy Scientific Revolution. These only matter at the time the RA resolves, and getting both of these will double the output of an RA (increasing n% in the formula below from 50% to 100%).

In BNW, the base output of an RA (before Porcelain Tower and Scientific Revolution) will equal 5 turns of the average beaker generation rate of the RA partner with the lower beaker generation rate over the 30 turns of the RA. So, unlike in G&K, where it could still be beneficial to sign RAs with civs with low beaker generation, you have little incentive to sign RAs with tech laggards in BNW.

Research agreement math:


For example, if a = 6,000 beakers (average of 200 beakers/turn) and b = 3,000 beakers (average of 100 beakers/turn), the base RA output (without Porcelain Tower or Scientific Revolution) for both RA partners would be 500 beakers, which represents 5 turns of average beaker production for your RA partner but only 2-1/2 turns of average beaker production for you. Accordingly, in BNW you have a strong incentive to focus your RAs on civs that will generate at least as many beakers as you.

Resolving RAs

RA output is applied before any technology is completed, and if multiple RAs are signed on the same turn they resolve one after the other, though each may only "complete" a single technology.

If the beakers granted by an RA exceed the remaining cost of the technology being researched, overflow is applied to the next technology queued (via shift+clicking on the technology tree) or applied randomly if no technology is selected. Each RA resolving on a turn can complete at most one technology, along with an additional technology completed by standard research after the RAs resolve. Any overflow beyond completing these technologies is saved for the next turn, subject to the game's limitations on beaker overflow.

A patch to BNW severely limited the amount of permitted beaker overflow. In BNW, the size of the maximum allowable science overflow is now set at 5 turns of science (about the same as a unmodified RA) OR the unmodified cost of the last tech researched, whichever is larger. There were no limits on science overflow in the vanilla game or in G&K. As a result of the overflow limitations, it is advisable that you not enter into multiple RAs on the same turn.

If war is declared between the signers, the RA is cancelled with no refund and no beakers are provided to either party.

RA Costs

Research agreements have a gold cost that increases based upon the highest era reached among the participants. The costs at standard speed are:

• Medieval - 250
• Renaissance - 250
• Industrial - 300
• Modern - 350
• Atomic - 400
• Information - 400

The standard game speed costs are modified by 2/3x, 1.5x and 3x multipliers for quick, epic and marathon game speeds, respectively.

The AI will always be willing to sign a research agreement for this price if they have the funds. If the player is technologically ahead of the AI, the AI will require an additional 100 gold (or equivalent value, e.g., two strategic resources and 10 gold) per era they are are behind; this penalty is not modified by game speed.

Maximizing RA Benefits

If your beaker per turn output is less than your partner, then to get maximum benefit from RAs, you need to ensure that you have stabilized your beakers/turn before signing them. For example, once you have researched Education, it is better to rush buy/build universities before signing RAs, rather than sign RAs and slowly build the universities. As RAs are based upon the lower of your and your partner's beakers/turn over the length of the RA, increasing your beakers at the beginning of the RA will increase the likelihood that those increases affect the output of the RA. Any major addition of beakers/turn at the end of an RA cycle will be 'washed out' of the RA calculation due to the majority of the beakers coming from before that point.

Since being era(s) ahead of the AI increases the cost of RAs, the signing and resolution of RAs should be planned to minimize this cost. The current era of each AI can be determined at any time by going to the Global Politics section of the Diplomacy window.

Declarations of Friendship and Research Agreements

Given that you need to have a DoF with your RA partner to sign an RA, diplomacy is important. You should be careful in choosing your RA partners so that you don't end up causing more wars than you would like, although you can sometimes get away with being friends with two sides in a war and still sign RAs with both sides. The term of a DOF is 50 turns (standard speed) while the RA term is 30 turns (standard speed). This means that each DoF you sign can net you two RA cycles with a civ, as you only have to have a DoF with a civ to sign the RA; you are not required to have a DOF when the RA ends.

Breaking Research Agreements

Although you do not have to maintain your DOF for the full term of the RA, a research agreement will be broken if the two partners end up at war during the term of the RA. Neither side will get anything from the RA and the invested gold will be lost. So it is very important to ensure proper diplomacy with a DoF/RA partner during the term of your RA if you want to gain the beakers from it.

In addition, if your partner gets completely wiped out, then all deals including the RA will get auto canceled. So if your RA partner is in danger of being wiped out with 10 turns to go, it may be a good idea to rescue him just long enough for the RA to complete.

Note: Amended from vanilla Research Agreements article by vexing and the G&K Research Agreements article by MadDjinn.