Analysis of Scientist city

Hi! this is my first post on civfanatics. I've been around for quite a while reading articles and am glad that I finally have something to contribute.

I've done an analysis of the beaker output of scientist cities. People seem to be locked into the cottage spam, so I'm curious to see if going the scientist route is a viable option.

My analysis is in the word document attatched. Just to warn you, you may have a hard time understanding of my analysis unless you have a solid footing in algebra and know a little calculus.

But for those few hardcore math types who like to know if if they're getting the bang for their buck, take a look!

View attachment scientist city calculations.doc

If people find this useful, maybe I'll try to analyze cottages too.

Oh, and if someone would be willing to make an excel format of the final equation so that it can be useful to people, I would be grateful. My excel skills are sub par

Well Good Luck and Good Civin

Thanks for your contribution. Good to see people bringing in fresh new articles and not discussing the same old tricks. Im starting to think that scientist + food cities with a bit mix of mines (if you have food resources) could be better production cities with quite a good science instead of the normal cottage spam cities. Both are good but the productive + science person city could be better in war times.

You did a lot of math there, to develop formulas for the output of a city given some deeply unrealistic assumptions (all grassland, no happiness or health limits), and a clearly suboptimal use of land.

Look, this isn't hard stuff. A specialist scientist eats two food and produces 3 lightbulbs. Even at the very beginning a cottage produced two food and one coin; it pays for itself foodwise and it generates commerce. Once it gets to three coins (30 turns, IIRC), it dominates the scientist in all ways except GPP. Then... it goes to 4 coins. Then you get Printing Press (5 coins). Then Free Speech (7). Then Universal Suffrage (add a production).

Wreck its more complicated than that. If your on quick game speed and none philosophical you will in 67/3 = 23 turns have acess to say a great scientist that can net you a max of about 1000 beakers or an academy that can give you huge amounts of beakers or a scientist that can do the same.

So just a basic example would then be a scientist will in 23 turns have generated 23*3 + 1000 beakers for you. Thats 46 beakers a turn.... Way better than a single cottage..

Wreck said:

You did a lot of math there, to develop formulas for the output of a city given some deeply unrealistic assumptions (all grassland, no happiness or health limits), and a clearly suboptimal use of land.

Look, this isn't hard stuff. A specialist scientist eats two food and produces 3 lightbulbs. Even at the very beginning a cottage produced two food and one coin; it pays for itself foodwise and it generates commerce. Once it gets to three coins (30 turns, IIRC), it dominates the scientist in all ways except GPP. Then... it goes to 4 coins. Then you get Printing Press (5 coins). Then Free Speech (7). Then Universal Suffrage (add a production).

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Your right about my assumption about happiness and health. Unfortunately I don't have the know how to take account for them.

I dissagree with your analysis though. You're comparing one cottage to one scientist, but using optimal civics for the cottage and not the scientist. That doesn't make any sense.

Here's how I would compare ONE cottage with ONE scientist, both which start being worked on the same turn both utilize optimal technology / civics.

Cottage-> Printing press + free speech
1 * 10 + 2* 20 + 4 * 40 = 210 <- First 70 turns
C = (210 + 7X) (%Research)


Specialist -> Representation
70(6) = 210 <- First 70 turns
S = 420 + 6X

We'll be very generous and say that you manage to run at 100% science the whole game... which is not likely.

210 + 7x = 420 + 6x
x = 210

210 + 70 = 280

therefore... on normal speed it takes 280 turns for ONE cottage to surpass the output of ONE scientist if they both begin being worked on the same turn. It takes much longer if you arn't running at 100% the whole time.

Even this is a simplification and this is just ONE cottage vs ONE scientist.. without taking city growth and population into account. My initial analysis attempted to do that.

The problem is that unless you know a shortcut to biology you have to be comparing one scientist to two cottages.

or did i miss something?

oh and financial trait make cottages even more lucrative.

I had a discussion along these lines yesterday and people just don't get it. So what if the cottage is marginally better in the long run. Early on is where the game is won or lost, and the beakers from scientist specialist are NOT their main appeal. The specialist is there for GPP's nothing else. Great scientist make acadamies which add 50 percent to city science, pop one in your cottage town, better yet generate multiples and put them in all your cottage towns. Beakers from specialists and Pyramid/Representation specialist bonus is just icing on the cake. GPP's are where its at. There is an incredible synergy between Financial trait/cottage spam and generating Great Scientists. Philosophical Trait just makes it better letting you pump your scientists earlier in the game, set your acadamies up earlier, even before your cottages are at full potential.

If you want to calculate something check out how much science a city puts out over a game with an academy and how much without.

We aren't talking about hordes of specialists taking away from possible cottages, we are talking about ONE town, a GPP Science farm, with as many science specialists as buildings will allow and two free from Great Library if your lucky. If it is a floodplain town you are losing less than a handfull of cottages.

evYl said:

If people find this useful, maybe I'll try to analyze cottages too.

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It would be very useful for proving that cottages are better.

Wreck said:

A specialist scientist eats two food and produces 3 lightbulbs.

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Nope. It produces 3 beakers and 3 GPP. The GPP are more important than the beakers; they are the reason for scientists (or, for the most part, all specialists).

Even at the very beginning a cottage produced two food and one coin; it pays for itself foodwise and it generates commerce. Once it gets to three coins (30 turns, IIRC), it dominates the scientist in all ways except GPP.

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That's like saying a cottage dominates a farm in every way except for the food!

theres no denying a gpfarm has its uses but his article focused on the science that it produces and not the gp scientists.

evYl said:

I've done an analysis of the beaker output of scientist cities. People seem to be locked into the cottage spam, so I'm curious to see if going the scientist route is a viable option.

Click to expand...

to me that sounds like hes thinking of a scientist city as an alternative to the cottage spam city not as a gp-scientist farm. that's why the discussion is focused on science output and not gpp's.

I think Scientist cities make a usefull addition when going for a cultural victory. In order to get your three main cultural cities to Legendary Culture as soon as possible, you'll usually set your Science to 0% and Culture to 90-100%.

The Cottages will now be generating Culture, which is usefull in your main cities, but not that exciting in other cities. However, Scientists will still be generating three to five beakers.

(I'm suddenly wondering whether it could work out to have your main cities be "Artist Cities"... An artist with the Sixtine Chapel generates six Culture, and three GPP towards a Great Artist... Might work)

Your right about my assumption about happiness and health. Unfortunately I don't have the know how to take account for them.

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It's easy.

Happiness sets an upper bound on the size of your city (and what you can get out of it). You can compute exactly how much stuff per turn you can get out of your city. This is much simpler than what you've done!

But if you really want to look at what happens before you're at full size, then everything you do before then is an investment cost.

E.G. if my city has a happiness limit of 16, and a health limit of at least 16, I can, in the end, work 10 farms and 6 scientists.

So, each turn my city spends at size 2 working 2 farms costs me 6 scientist-turns. (But, I'll grow in 6 turns!)

But, each turn my city spends at size 2 working 1 farm and 1 scientist costs me 5 scientist-turns. (But, I'll grow in 24 turns!)

Working the two farms costs me 36 scientist-turns. Working 1 farm and one scientist costs me 120 scientist-turns. It is clearly better to work the two farms.


So, you can simply say my city produces 6 scientist-turns per turn, and has always produced 6 scientist-turns per turn... but I spent 48 scientist-turns to grow 1-->2, 36 scientist-turns to grow 2->3, 30 scientist-turns to grow 3->4, et cetera.


Incidentally, this was a big actual error in your analysis: working a farm at size 1 and a farm+scientist at size 2 is not an average of +2 food per turn: it takes 30 turns to grow to size 3, 8 of which you're getting +3 FPT, and 22 of which you're getting +1 FPT. Net result is an average of just over +1.5 FPT.

Oh, another error: at size three, working 2 farms and 1 scientist is a net of two food per turn, not three as you've listed.

MyOtherName said:

Happiness sets an upper bound on the size of your city (and what you can get out of it). You can compute exactly how much stuff per turn you can get out of your city. This is much simpler than what you've done!

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One of the complicated things about the game is that happiness increases over time. Also, you can often buy more happiness, at some cost. So, you often want to grow toward the happiness limit, but you don't necessarily want to reach it as soon as possible---it may make sense to close in on the happiness limit at the time when your happiness is about to increase further.

The tradeoff between growing faster and being more productive while you grow is a complicated one.

pooLarized said:

The problem is that unless you know a shortcut to biology you have to be comparing one scientist to two cottages.

or did i miss something?

oh and financial trait make cottages even more lucrative.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's 1 scientist + 2 farms vs 3 cottages!

It's not even close. Cottages are so far ahead of scientists, it's not even funny.

You should have only one city using scientists, and it should be for the GPP, not for the (miserable) beakers produced.

DaviddesJ said:

One of the complicated things about the game is that happiness increases over time. Also, you can often buy more happiness, at some cost. So, you often want to grow toward the happiness limit, but you don't necessarily want to reach it as soon as possible---it may make sense to close in on the happiness limit at the time when your happiness is about to increase further.

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True, but I find cities commonly reach their happiness limits, so IMHO it is the most important case to consider.

The effect you mentioned is the point of the next part of my post, though -- I want to minimize the "cost" of my method of growth.

E.G. if I had a size 14 city, and a happiness limit of 16, and I have a choice between:

Growth in 10 turns, but working 4 fewer cottages than I would at size 16
Growth in 16 turns, but working 2 fewer cottages than I would at size 16

Then I should pick the latter, because it "costs" me 32 cottage-turns to grow, whereas the former "costs" 40 cottage-turns.

But, if I was aiming for my future happiness limit of 20, which happens to mean 4 more cottages, then the former is a 80 cottage-turn cost, and the latter is a 96 cottage-turn cost, and I should aim to grow faster.

Even this is a simplification and this is just ONE cottage vs ONE scientist.. without taking city growth and population into account. My initial analysis attempted to do that.

Click to expand...

Biology appears sufficiently late in the game that you really have to compare two cottages to one scientist. Alternatively you could start with the assumption the cottage has grown to a town in the intervening time (which it should have done). You've also forgotten the hammer a town generates under universal sufferage, which is the optimal civic for a cottage strategy. One town is better than one scientist, unless you are looking to farm great people. While the extra GPP's are valuable, they're only going to be of use in one or two cities. Having lots of your cities generating a few GPP's isn't very useful, so the scientist is back to just generating beakers, which it is worse at than a town.

The happiness and health issues are for me the final nail in this strategy's coffin. A science specialist city has to be larger than a cottage specialised one, which will create huge problems in the early game, and indeed mid game at the higher levels. Since this allows time for cottages to grow while you're collecting happiness and health boosters ,I don't think the science specialist approach will work except in one (or at a pinch two) cities, whose primary purpose is the generation of great people, not specifically science.

Zombie69 said:

Actually, that's 1 scientist + 2 farms vs 3 cottages!

It's not even close. Cottages are so far ahead of scientists, it's not even funny.

You should have only one city using scientists, and it should be for the GPP, not for the (miserable) beakers produced.

Click to expand...

youre right, i was thinking about the max amount of scientists vs cottages. which is 2 cottages per scientist until the discovery of biology. but that was just silly since even if happiness allows for the city to grow to the size of 31 itd take forever compared to the size 21 cottage cities cap at

dont forget settled scientists in your calculations, who also get the +3 beakers from represantation. so every great scientist adds 6 beakers to your town with no need for food.

Tomb. said:

dont forget settled scientists in your calculations, who also get the +3 beakers from represantation. so every great scientist adds 6 beakers to your town with no need for food.

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Actually, under rep, super scientists add 9 beakers and a hammer.

Actually, under rep, super scientists add 9 beakers and a hammer.

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Thanks, i didnt look up the correct numbers.