Screenshot of the Day #34: Free Electricity

[Thunderfall]

Usually when you allocate nothing for research, you get "--" in the places that show how many turns it would take to research the current advance. In today's screenshot, however, the research time is 1 turn even though science is decreased to zero percent.

I decreased the amount of resources to Science in order to get more money. And ... I got Electricity free.

http://www.civfanatics.com/sotd/sotd34.jpg

Thanks to DanBDD for the submission.

[cracker]

This screen shot just emphasizes the built-in design flaw that does not coherently account for the impact of scientists in the game. With the science slider set to zero percent there can still be lost scientists out there in the cities and towns and they will cause research to progress. The tech advance is not free because somewhere there is a town that is providing support to keep a scientist alive.

If we look at the screen shot for comparison, we see the taxmen accounted for in the upper left but scientists get applied to the top end research cost of the tech as a whole and also applied against the max turns research limit.

It is a good idea to practice and learn the nuances of adjusting the science slider and reassigning a few specialists when tech research is important to your game.

There is no free lunch.

[slothman]

Hopefully they will add specialists to the list to tell you excactly how much science, etc. you are generation. Now you have to go through every city to figure it out.

[dirtywhiteman]

Although its true that, somewhere, a city is producing a couple extra beakers, I disagree that this is a flaw or a problem with the game. This is the same deal as the luxury slider being used when you can't afford the lost worker citizen to have an entertainers.

Although I haven't tried this... in theory you should be able to set your tech to 0 and have a scientist in a city so you can get the 40 turn advance. You might as well if you are in a position where you can't advance faster than that anyway.

The scientists and the science slider are two different parts of the game; all the slider does is set what percent of city trade will be converted to beakers for your tech advance "pool". The scientists each add an extra beaker into your tech pool, per turn. They are just two different ways of filling up the pool, I don't think they should be related (I think that was the general idea of the last 2 posts).

[MSGT John Drew]

I think this screenshot does not deal with scientists at all. I've had several of these occurences and it is because:

1. You were researching a tech and a turn before you completely research it, the AI researches it first and barters it around to the other AIs.

2. What then happens is that the beakers that have been accumulated is now more than what the B]highly-depreciated[/B] tech now costs. You can then completely research the tech next turn even with 0 science and 0 scientists.

Ex:
Unmodified cost of tech - 5000 beakers
Accumulated beakers - 4900 beakers
Depreciation of tech (rediscovery) - let's say 200 beakers
So you have actually went over the cost of the tech (by 100 beakers).

[WillJ]

MSGT, I am pretty sure that you will always need at least one scientist even if you have essentialy already researched the tech due to the AI discovering it and bartering it around. If that does happen I think that if you have 0% science it will say "in --- turns" if there are no scientists. If you have 1 or more scientists and it occurs, you can have 0% science and it will say "in one turn". I've never seen it myself; I have just heard it. And that is most likely what is going on in this picture.

[MSGT John Drew]

I'll look around in my save archive for something that deals with this event. If only DanBDD could post the save...

[RufRydyr]

I've also seen the govenors change the 'extra' workers from taxmen to scientists or back depending on their whim. It would be nice to have more control over it.

[ProPain]

I've never experienced the sudden depreciation which allows )% research. Would be great to see a save game of this.

[/quote] Although I haven't tried this... in theory you should be able to set your tech to 0 and have a scientist in a city so you can get the 40 turn advance. [/quote]

I have done this and it works. Great for techs like monarchy which seem to take 40 turns no matter the slider % at the beginning of the game.

[royfurr]

Originally posted by RufRydyr
I've also seen the govenors change the 'extra' workers from taxmen to scientists or back depending on their whim. It would be nice to have more control over it.

No Offence intended, RufRyder, but you do have control. Although you might not like the effort.

I NEVER use the govenors. EVER. Relying on the programs ability to decide what to do is a quick slide to Hell.

[royfurr]

Originally posted by ProPain
I've never experienced the sudden depreciation which allows )% research. Would be great to see a save game of this.

Although I haven't tried this... in theory you should be able to set your tech to 0 and have a scientist in a city so you can get the 40 turn advance. [/quote]

I have done this and it works. Great for techs like monarchy which seem to take 40 turns no matter the slider % at the beginning of the game. [/QUOTE]


I think your on to something here ProPain. I often do the same, that one Scientist is a cheap investment compared to the Tax income it frees up relative to using $$$ on Research. This, however, is only so, I think, early on in the game. Later, its NOT the best way to go ... I think, anyway. The trick is finding where the transition takes place. Ah, the game has a lot of decision points like that. Good!

[Dragoten]

Is there anyway to see how many beakers a tech costs and/or how many you have accumulated towards that tech?

[RufRydyr]

Originally posted by royfurr


No Offence intended, RufRyder, but you do have control. Although you might not like the effort.

I NEVER use the govenors. EVER. Relying on the programs ability to decide what to do is a quick slide to Hell.

True. I just hate to risk cities going into disorder. I'm an ICS lover, so with 100, 200, or more cities I'm just not willing to try to manage them all myself. I guess I'm just whining about the governers.

[RufRydyr]

Originally posted by Dragoten
Is there anyway to see how many beakers a tech costs and/or how many you have accumulated towards that tech?

Well you can make a pretty educated guess by sliding the science slider around and clicking on a different tech.
Once one of the AIs discovers a tech and starts trading it (giving it away) to the other AIs the cost really drops so it can be tricky, though.

[WillJ]

Originally posted by Dragoten
Is there anyway to see how many beakers a tech costs and/or how many you have accumulated towards that tech?

Nope, I don't think there is a real way. I miss that from Civ 2. You pretty much have to play around with it a lot and do some testing, which I think someone has actually done before. But in most cases I think being able to see how many turns it is until researching that tech and other techs is enough.

[Pi Seti]

Does each scientist provide the same concrete number of 'science' points regardless of your civilization's circumstances? If so, it doesn't seem they'd theoretically be very effective in, say, Modern Times research projects unless you had fifty million of them. I usually just have taxmen in my cities.

[WillJ]

Originally posted by Pi Seti
Does each scientist provide the same concrete number of 'science' points regardless of your civilization's circumstances? If so, it doesn't seem they'd theoretically be very effective in, say, Modern Times research projects unless you had fifty million of them. I usually just have taxmen in my cities.

Each scientist produces one beaker each turn, not very much at all. That beaker is unaffected by corruption or by science enhancing improvements and wonders. Usually scientists are a complete waste since turning a citizen into a scientist takes away the benefits of that citizen working a terrain square. In fact, sometimes turning a citizen into a scientist will actually lessen your scinece research (if the terrain square produces more than one beaker of commerce per turn). However, if your city has awfully high corruption and waste, making a citizen a scientist or taxman may be better than having it work the terrain square.