Going wide, but staying ahead in science... How do I do it?

Something I've noticed among the AI recently is that, they'll be able to have a huge empire with 20 cities, yet be able to keep up with me in science. I have trouble keeping up with science with 4 cities let alone 20.

I know the AI cheats; but they can't be cheating that bad. There must be something I'm missing.

So I want to know, what strategy can I use to go wide and keep up with Science like the AI?

Do I have to have a huge population? Do I have to use religion? Should I go commerce and spam trading posts?

Just looking for a way to go wide and stay ahead in tech really.

I really feel like we've already explained this to you a couple threads ago, but I'll give you another chance:

basically, population = science. You get one science per person in your empire before modifiers. The only exceptions are specialists, and occasionally tile yields but population remains the biggest factor by far. Since wide empires tend to reach higher total populations than small empires they do BETTER on science, not WORSE provided you actually develop your cities and don't leave them as crappy 1-2 pop with no science buildings. So yes, wide AI do good at science. They aren't cheating other than having some perks that make happiness easier on them (aka it is easier on them to GO wide). Going wider results in better science provided you can develop those cities.

Now, what you may have heard is that each city has a science penalty. This is true, but I've found the penalty to be paltry most of the game. On standard: 5% increase in base tech cost, On large: 4%, on huge (best for wide and what I play) only 3%. This sounds bad until you realize most of the game the base science cost on techs is tiny. In the beginning techs cost very little (30-100 beakers). What is 5% of 50 science? only 2.5 science How many turns do you typically work on a tech? Let's say 8 to be generous. so 2.5/8 = 0.3 beakers. So in the ancient era, a city will overcome the science penalty just by being founded with population 1. The penalty worsens as techs cost more, but you also have tools to make your cities grow faster and more buildings to increase the base science yield (library, university, public school, observatory, research lab) . So basically, cities are worth it most of the game and will often be producing more science then they cost you just 10-20 turns later. The exception might be the atomic and information eras as tech costs are quite large and the city probably won't produce more than the penalty they cause until after the game will end via science victory.

I don't know what version you are playing but here is a rough estimate of the average cost of techs per sub-era that I looked up when I was first considering this question last year. I saw tech costs really skyrocket around start of industrial so this tends to be the point when you want to start thinking carefully before you found new cities and focusing on growing them quickly if you do.
(from 2011, higher end-tech costs have been added for BNW update)



So through most of the Classical, even if you are teching so well you're getting them every 5 turns, you're losing less than a beaker a turn by founding a new city and the new city immediately provides that so spam as many of these early cities as you can. Medieval the cost goes up a little, but 3 pop and a library typically puts you positive again. Quite easy. Renaissance is still pretty easy to overcome the penalty. Industrial it starts getting serious losing you, on average, 25 science per turn after founding. This is still easily overcomeable but keep in mind you'll lose some beakers until that new city grows up a little and has 2 science buildings.

A good rule of thumb that I use is I just build all the cities I can until about mid-industrial era. I've found any cities built after this time take a bit longer to overcome the penalty and often require a trade route and a lot of gold-buying of buildings as there are so many different ones starting around this time. If you put a lot of effort into growing them you could probably make them science positive even if they were founded in the Modern Era before the game ends, but it takes a lot of effort and gold and you lose science for a while so cities in the modern are probably just break-even--in my opinion not worth it. Save the gold for spaceship factories or CS's.

So there's the low-down. You're welcome to do whatever you want, and probably won't respond to this, but this is how the science penalty works, and as I said, it is very tiny. New cities are worth it most of the game. The bigger issue is happiness which the AI do cheat on a bit, however, they also aren't as effective at getting alternate sources so just do a lot of lux trading and go for the appropriate tenets for wide and you'll be fine. I found Order to be the best ideology for late-game settling. You can pick a policy that starts you off at 4 population automatically, and get extra smileys out of science and production buildings which you'll be building anyway. It results in about 7-8 extra happiness per city potentially.

Happy empire building!

danaphanous said:

I really feel like we've already explained this to you a couple threads ago, but I'll give you another chance:

basically, population = science. You get one science per person in your empire before modifiers. The only exceptions are specialists, and occasionally tile yields but population remains the biggest factor by far. Since wide empires tend to reach higher total populations than small empires they do BETTER on science, not WORSE provided you actually develop your cities and don't leave them as crappy 1-2 pop with no science buildings. So yes, wide AI do good at science. They aren't cheating other than having some perks that make happiness easier on them (aka it is easier on them to GO wide). Going wider results in better science provided you can develop those cities.

Now, what you may have heard is that each city has a science penalty. This is true, but I've found the penalty to be paltry most of the game. On standard: 5% increase in base tech cost, On large: 4%, on huge (best for wide and what I play) only 3%. This sounds bad until you realize most of the game the base science cost on techs is tiny. In the beginning techs cost very little (30-100 beakers). What is 5% of 50 science? only 2.5 science How many turns do you typically work on a tech? Let's say 8 to be generous. so 2.5/8 = 0.3 beakers. So in the ancient era, a city will overcome the science penalty just by being founded with population 1. The penalty worsens as techs cost more, but you also have tools to make your cities grow faster and more buildings to increase the base science yield (library, university, public school, observatory, research lab) . So basically, cities are worth it most of the game and will often be producing more science then they cost you just 10-20 turns later. The exception might be the atomic and information eras as tech costs are quite large and the city probably won't produce more than the penalty they cause until after the game will end via science victory.

A good rule of thumb that I use is I just build all the cities I can until about mid-industrial era. I've found any cities built after this time take a bit longer to overcome the penalty and often require a trade route and a lot of gold-buying of buildings as there are so many different ones starting around this time. If you put a lot of effort into growing them you could probably make them science positive even if they were founded in the Modern Era before the game ends, but it takes a lot of effort and gold and you lose science for a while so cities in the modern are probably just break-even--in my opinion not worth it. Save the gold for spaceship factories or CS's.

So there's the low-down. You're welcome to do whatever you want, and probably won't respond to this, but this is how the science penalty works, and as I said, it is very tiny. New cities are worth it most of the game. The bigger issue is happiness which the AI do cheat on a bit, however, they also aren't as effective at getting alternate sources so just do a lot of lux trading and go for the appropriate tenets for wide and you'll be fine. I found Order to be the best ideology for late-game settling. You can pick a policy that starts you off at 4 population automatically, and get extra smileys out of science and production buildings which you'll be building anyway. It results in about 7-8 extra happiness per city potentially.

Happy empire building!

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Alright thanks man. So from what I got in that post, if I go wide I should just make sure I have a huge population? I might try that. I may just try getting a lot of happiness so I can have a huge population and see how that works.

So what I'll try is to use religion, policies and whatever to get lots of happiness. Then I'll try to focus on growth also.

My biggest problem I think, is that when I went wide I wasn't growing the population that much.

That being said though, how can I keep my wide empire happy enough to grow?

Religion is the easiest way early-game to support a wide empire. Take a nice belief like +2 happiness from temples and build or buy the shrine/temple in early cities. This will build your faith up too if you end up getting a nice religious building like pagodas and will allow you to buy a lot of them which is also excellent for happiness/culture/faith.

later, taking order is very helpful.

Social policies are good too. A tree like patronage is excellent mid-game as it provides an influx of resources and extra luxuries by allowing you to keep more CS alliances. It also allows the Forbidden palace which gives a nice reduction in population unhappiness.

There are other ways too but no sense listing everything as it sounds like you know. If you want an easy wide game you might start with India. They can grow a lot more with the same happiness since their population only raises unhappiness by 0.5 instead of 1 per growth, later after taking Order you will have no problems keeping everything happy and will grow very fast, just periodically buy/build the right buildings and keep the ball rolling.

I added a bit more info in the above to help you decide when you would like to stop building, but I've found you don't really have to worry much about the penalty hurting you until around the industrial as it is so small.

The best strategy is probably to try and grab a lot of early spots, don't settle so much you are stuck with a ton of really low-pop cities. If your new settling is forcing you to stop growth in your best core cities that is bad. You want your whole empire to be growing for most of the game so that's one way to tell if you are expanding too fast--if you are, you will suffer a bit in science later when techs get a bit more expensive like you've experienced.

Agreed, but to add to it, what I've found can make a dent is the +15% growth rate and +15% production, taken in that order if you found your own religion can ramp up science quickly, but you also need to focus on generating happiness fast.

What is wide? How many cities?

I notice when I build cities real quick the AI "thinks I am building cities to rapidly" and they all DOW me and overun my empire.

Well I tried the growth strategy as suggested; but it doesn't seem to work. In my current game as Indonesia I've got one city with a pop of 21 and the others all having a pop of around 10. The right side of rationalism is filled. Almost every city has a lighthouse, granary and aqueduct. Research agreements with all my friends. Universities and Public Schools in all cities.

But as expected Napoleon is way ahead in tech with 15 cities.

I think the AI just cheats. I mean Napoleon hit the modern era in like 1867.

Wide is too hard because you'll never be able to keep up with the ridiculous AI bonuses.

CivAddict2013 said:

I think the AI just cheats. .

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And I think you just don't have any clue what you're doing and that you're, as always, drawing false conclusions while you're once again not providing any savegames, so they can tell you what you're doing wrong.

CivAddict2013 said:

Something I've noticed among the AI recently is that, they'll be able to have a huge empire with 20 cities, yet be able to keep up with me in science. I have trouble keeping up with science with 4 cities let alone 20.

I know the AI cheats; but they can't be cheating that bad. There must be something I'm missing.

So I want to know, what strategy can I use to go wide and keep up with Science like the AI?

Do I have to have a huge population? Do I have to use religion? Should I go commerce and spam trading posts?

Just looking for a way to go wide and stay ahead in tech really.

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Actually, on Science the AI only needs 85% of normal science (which is a bigger discount than a human would on settler). It's much needed as Catherine and a few other high expanion flavor AIs science rate would be abysmal without it.

As to a human, if you want to avoid cities being a net loss you need to at least build a library in every city. If you want cities to improve your science then you need to at least max out all possible science buildings in all cities under your direct control. (Better yet run science specialists as well)

Rationalism has a lot more to offer science than commerce. (It's actually a Rationalism policy that gives science to trade posts)

CivAddict2013 said:

I think the AI just cheats. I mean Napoleon hit the modern era in like 1867.

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That seems like a rather okay time to hit Modern Era.



This is an early time to hit Modern Era, thanks to tactical Oxford timing to slingshot to Modern Era when Electricity is researched so you can get Radio for free.

I managed to pull this off on Emperor with odds on my side. I'm sure you can do just as well. I used to stagger at science, but I got a lot of help with it from this forum.

If you go piety the Reformation belief "Jesuit Education" allows faith buying of universities, public schools and research labs. Very helpful for having good science.

Just make sure you have faith buying power, which you might have when going wide. Really saves a lot of hammers and gold.

Ryika said:

And I think you just don't have any clue what you're doing and that you're, as always, drawing false conclusions while you're once again not providing any savegames, so they can tell you what you're doing wrong.

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Let's talk about this logically.

Science, where does Science come from? Libraries, Universities, Public Schools, Research Labs, growth, social policies and Research Agreements.

In BNW, every time you take a city you are penalized by Science.

One of the suggestions was "Oh, just grow your population". No, that doesn't work if I go wide and try to grow my population there's just too much unhappiness.

So how is it that the AI can stay top in Science while taking out everything in his path? Because it's cheating and not just a little bit. Major cheating.

So if you have 15 cities with 1,000 science logically you would get a huge penalty.

Logically if I have lesser cities I have less than a penalty.

Everyone hates him as usual, so he can't get RA's.

I'm allied with 2 maritime city states also.

The only logical explanation is that Napoleon is severely cheating.

As far as the player is considered, Tall and Small is the best way to go for Science. The player doesn't have the huge happiness bonuses like the AI does.

Once again: Upload a savegame and people will tell you what you're doing wrong.

Ryika said:

Once again: Upload a savegame and people will tell you what you're doing wrong.

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I might do that. How do I do that?

I mean, I know it's not impossible for the player to have 15 cities and stay ahead in tech; but you would have to have almost every happiness bonus from religion, wonders and policies. You would have to work 20x harder than the AI.

What's the point of having a science penalty, if for the most part, it doesn't affect the AI?

Might as well remove it all together. After all, the AI can still have 15 cities and be the tech lead so they're not affected.

The science penalty isn't as big as you lead yourself to believe. The so-called "HUGE" science penalty isn't all that huge because it's not like for every city, a flat amount of beakers is added. It's a check to ensure insane city spam doesn't become too strong.
The real reasons small empires are considered better in general lay in different factors - less attention from war-loving neighbors, less happiness issues, less maintainance that needs to be paid. But a big empire with big cities will always outscience a small empire, provided they can keep up their gold and happiness.
Yes, the AI gets bonuses to happiness and science. But they don't freely get techs, they actually do have to research them much like you. There are tools to reign in your unhappiness. If nothing else, try playing a game with mods for a change with happiness being made into a non-factor, spam cities, and see what happens.

CivAddict2013 said:

I might do that. How do I do that?

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Save the game, then create a new post in the forum, scroll down, and click on "Manage Atachments". Go to C:\Users\<your user name>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Replays and choose the savegame you want to upload. Click upload, add some text to the post and click Submit Reply.

If your replay is too big (probably not the case), you'll need to use an external file host like http://www.filedropper.com/

CivAddict2013 said:

I mean, I know it's not impossible for the player to have 15 cities and stay ahead in tech; but you would have to have almost every happiness bonus from religion, wonders and policies. You would have to work 20x harder than the AI.

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Yes, if you go wide, you need a lot of happiness and playing wide is harder than going tall. In return you'll get much better production capacities and gpt. However, you don't have to get the happiness-wonders, a nice religion, a mercantile city state and trading of resources are usually enough to build a wide empire.

And yes, you have to "work harder than the AI". As I already said in another thread: You have a brain. The AI has not. So it gets bonuses to compensate. If you don't want to "work hard", just play on Settler.

CivAddict2013 said:

What's the point of having a science penalty, if for the most part, it doesn't affect the AI?

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It does effect the AI in the same way that it effects you. However, wide-AIs are usually stronger in science, that's not because they get bonuses, but because tall-AIs get their science from great persons, specialists and great person improvement - things the AI just doesn't handle that well - while wide AI-Empires get a lot of their science from raw population.

The penalty exists because in Vanilla wide empires were able to outtech tall empires rather easily while still having way more production.

The science penalty can get "big" when your happiness refuses to go up and your cities refuse to grow.

I have seen in multiplayer before that going wide with liberty doesn't always give a lot of science sometimes. Going wide with liberty gives you more production for power faith wonders or even culture. If you really want science, then why not try the tradition social policy with some inner trade routes and a national college. You'll most likely miss out on the score and other benefits from the liberty but you'll definitely get the science for sure....

You could get a large empire and be the first in science. of course, the 'trick' is not making the cities yourself, but taking it from the enemy
Eventually, you'll be number one, a player can't get more science than you if he's out of the game