Evaluating my peaceful SV progress

beetle said:

I am still on GnK, and I understand RAs were devalued in BNW. But even at 2 turns of science, the RA calculation still beats rush buying (although its much closer). You do not need 6 friendships, that could be 2 rounds of 3 RAs. The big difference I see is turns. Those 4500 beakers could take 60 turns, whereas your 3000 beakers took only 15 turns! But I think the limiting factor is gold, and if that is the case, then 4500 beakers in 60 turns is better than 3000 beakers in 15 turns.

Well, that is why I am asking! Those people who buy all their universities and public schools are doing so many other things better than I that I don't see any hard conflict. But those expert players can usually so objectively explain their habits, I am confused as to why my rough math doesn't seem to warrant this particular practice.

Click to expand...

In G&K, the base output of an RA (before Porcelain Tower and Scientific Revolution) is based upon the two partners' combined beakers generated over the 30 turns of the RA. Your base output of a G&K RA (see details below) will always be greater than your base RA output in BNW, except where you are the RA partner who is producing the lower amount of beakers -- in that case G&K RAs and BNW RAs will have the same base output.

G&K research agreement math:
RA beakers = n% * (min(a/3, (a+b)/6)

where

a = sum of your beakers over RA length
b = sum of your RA partner's beakers over RA length
n% = RA modifier % (base 50% + 25% from Scientific Revolution + 25% from Porcelain Tower)

Using the same numbers from my earlier example, if a = 6000 beakers (average of 200 beakers/turn) and b = 3000 beakers (average of 100 beakers/turn), the base RA output (without Porcelain Tower or Scientific Revolution) for you will be 750 beakers and for your RA partner will be 500 beakers, which represents 5 turns of average beaker production for your RA partner and just under 4 turns of average beaker production for you. In G&K, your beakers/turn are the upper limit on your yield from a research agreement, while in BNW the limit is the lower of the two RA partners' beaker output (and, as noted above, if you are the partner contributing the lower amount, the G&K and BNW yields will be the same).

Whoa, big discussion goin here

Well the thing is - gold has more value early, so before you get universities up, you rarely have much gold for RA's, as there is plenty of other stuff you can do with it (like buying tiles). So when you have the gold to afford em, you only get 2 turns worth of science in return, and that only in case the other guy doesn't get the funny idea to backstab you meanwhile.

I have not played GnK, so I have no idea what was it like, but I read here in the forums, that the whole game is completely different, so the whole discussion seems rather pointless. I see how different the game is with and without the fall BNW patch, I can only assume difference is way bigger if we take out BNW out of the equation ...

250/300 gold + embassy for RA early game seems a lot for so low gain. For that money you can buy several good tiles from your 2nd and third ring, that will give you more science long term, get some food buildings in low production cities, get happiness if you are on the edge, or get a mercantile friend CS ... That besides the obvious purchases of universities (I rarely ahve so much gold, that I can buy more than 1 or 2 of these even with good GPT ...).

I know. I just came back from work and was like, 61 replies now!! WOW!! Yeah, I stated that RA are decent, but they are not as good as raw science. Building a wonder, and a lot of people praise the PT for being a fantastic wonder, and I honestly don't see it. +50% in research agreements. So, that thing that you are able to essentially get 4 times a game on average, you get +50% more of your opponents tech? Nah.

Honestly, from my experience, civs on Deity do not become friendly and it is not wise to become friends with as many Civs on Deity as possible. Same with Immortal, not all that wise, especially when trying to just focus on food and science. Emperor and below, the amount of beakers are already too pitiful to build a wonder to savage every drop of it.

My main issue with the people praising the PT on BNW, is that I doubt they even changed their strat at all. Regardless of how much you like RAs, it is worth it to put off that rationalism finisher until ready to buy GSs with faith. So, if that bonus is really that good, than why not get that side of the tree asap? Why wait? Why not build the WC instead that allows that bonus by timing the writers guild and specialists right?

It personally isn't worth it from my perspective. I won't turn down a simple RA if offered one and I got the cash with no immediate buy priority (cs to get ally, science building, factory etc.) but the Wonder just falls flat. Hell, if there was a civ that actually as a description stated

"GAINS 200% MORE FROM RESEARCH AGREEMENTS" Like Switzerland would be good for that, not only would they be considered a below average civ, but they wouldn't even be considered for science victories.

To the poster of this thread:

Skip the shrine first in the cities besides capital unless you are the Mayans, and let us know how this game ends up working for you. Take screenshots say every 50 turns using F12 with steam and let us give you any areas that we feel you could have done differently and we could also see where you have improved. Also, share with us how you played this game differently than you did the last.

"I'm now having more difficulty with this growth + happiness; it's in the early game so I don't have the gpt to buy city states. I almost need every happiness building I can get (like Colosseum)." quote

- I'm sorry poster, but can you explain this? This is probably the most critical thing and a huge setback for science wins. If you need, you can settle onto the luxury resource itself. Also, trade luxury for luxury with other civs. Give a screenshot and put it as a reply to this thread specifically when you switch into negative happiness. It really shouldn't be an issue having 5 happiness at least throughout, so lets start here. If you need, do a 2 city start followed by NC, buy the library in second city, so very early NC, than after NC hard build 2 settlers and buy the workers.

A big key is that you don't need GPT to buy city states. Just do quests for them. One citystate will hate you in the beginning, but the rest are open for quests. Clearing a barb camp is probably 50 influence it think (maybe 40), but that alone makes you friends.

Tell you what, post the first 100 turns in a game. Get a screenshot every 25. If you go red, take the shot then.

beetle said:

Three public schools makes a huge difference! But let’s net up the beakers:
200 bpt x 15 turns = 3000 beakers.

But what if that gold had been spent on RAs? Is 6 RAs at 3 turns per RA okay? To get that many, some of them were early, so how about figuring they mature when your empire is averaging only 300 bpt.
300 bpt x 3 turns per RA x 6 RAs = 5400 beakers.

300 bpt x 2.5 x 6 = 4500 beakers (using Browd's example)



Please do report back! Again, I assume that I am missing something here.

Click to expand...

What you're missing is that rush-buying science buildings doesn't just get you 15 turns of more science. It gets you more science for the rest of the game.

It sounds kind of ridiculous when I put it like that. Of course you would get science buildings even if you didn't purchase them. But what I'm saying is, when you rush-buy a science building, you don't just gain a few turns of extra science. You also get to build other things with the hammers you would have had to spend on the science building.

So, in your above calculation, you also need to add the value of 15 turns worth of hammers (times three cities) to the top half of the equation. Those extra hammers are probably valuable enough to tip the scale in favor of the top half of the equation.


My personal opinion: Research agreements are ok. They're really good in some situations, but I think they're actually more important for non-science victories. The reason for this is that their value will usually be capped by the AI's science output, not yours. After a certain point, getting more science doesn't increase the output of RAs. Thus, RAs are proportionately a lot more of your science when your science is weak than when it is strong. If you're already way ahead of the AIs in science, there's a good chance that other things will be better uses of your money than RAs. If your science is bad (maybe you have weak land and won't be able to get big cities), then research agreements are much more high-impact.

fallout3dc said:

To the poster of this thread:

Skip the shrine first in the cities besides capital unless you are the Mayans, and let us know how this game ends up working for you. (....) It really shouldn't be an issue having 5 happiness at least throughout, so lets start here. If you need, do a 2 city start followed by NC, buy the library in second city, so very early NC, than after NC hard build 2 settlers and buy the workers.
(..)
Tell you what, post the first 100 turns in a game. Get a screenshot every 25. If you go red, take the shot then.

Click to expand...

Thanks, this sounds like a great offer. For now, I think I just have to play more games to get used to the mechanics, but I'll try the "always >=5 happiness" challenge as my next game. On of my flaws indeed has been to research whatever I liked instead of something I needed for my luxuries.

Make sure you place cities next to luxuries so that your cities won't gain unhappiness.. Unhappiness can make your production slow and your units weak.

"I think I always needs the culture to offset public opinion later on, as it's a main cause of unhappiness later.."

no you don't. You will be far ahead of everyone in tech so by the time they get into the industrial/ modern era, your about ready to go into space.

Also, it is useful as a World congress request to select world ideology as Order. This is if the world fair and science funding have already been picked yet. Use city states for allies, and if you can dip into Patronage and get down to Secularism, gaining effectively everything from them, including both science and happiness.

There is a big advantage not underlined here when rush buying science buildings. You free up a lot of turns to build something else.

RAs are very well possibly slightly better on raw bpt. Especially in the medieval/renaissance area before the human starts to really skyrocket with rationalism + school + specialists.

But when doing a comparison you have to compare:
X amount of gold for RA bpt + science building at the end of 10 turns
vs
X amount of gold for early bought building + wonder/gold/culture building at the end of 10 turns.

Obviously you can't really mathematically weight the value of an extra bank or market in bpt so it makes the comparison harder, but it's there.

Also since this is Korea it would be a good idea for people to give a try at the current gotm involving Korea.

Speaking of Korea. Korea gets a science boost when completing science buildings in their capital, but that boost does not occur if you buy it. I assume this means it is probably better to build it for Korea, but then again, the boost is pretty small, like an RA.

I find it possible to have research agreements and still rush buy educational buildings. Not sure why this discussion has taken the direction of 'one or the other' only

For me, research agreements are very useful. Especially when your goal is shaving as many turns as you can off a SV.

Uzael36 said:

I never meant to say RA's were not important, only that science buildings were top priority. I'm not sure how important they are, but they are definitely a useful bonus.

Click to expand...

Unless someone finds a hole in these rough calculations, RA should be higher priority than science buildings.

beetle said:

Unless someone finds a hole in these rough calculations, RA should be higher priority than science buildings.

Click to expand...

As mentioned before, it is far more difficult to compare. RA's have a 30 turn delay. Buildings give instant results that can snowball into further advancements. If you purchase your buildings, that gives you 10-20 turns of hammers to spend on other things that can also leap you further ahead. You can build markets and banks in that time giving you back much of the gold costs, or get you a wonder you wouldn't otherwise have. And of course, you aren't likely going to be able to get that many RA's anyway.

Acken said:

There is a big advantage not underlined here when rush buying science buildings. You free up a lot of turns to build something else.

Click to expand...

But that applies to every rush buy, and is not specific to science buildings, so it’s a wash.

Uzael36 said:

As mentioned before, it is far more difficult to compare. RA's have a 30 turn delay.

Click to expand...

I am just challenging the conventional wisdom that buying science builds gets more beakers for the gold than RA’s. No one has really refuted my rough math, much to my surprise.

I suggest you play some games and show us your results. That is the only way to over turn the conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, you are comparing G&K results, where we are all playing BNW.

beetle said:

But that applies to every rush buy, and is not specific to science buildings, so it’s a wash.

Click to expand...

That argument would make sense if we were comparing rush buying a univ to rush buying a market. But we're comparing it to RAs where it doesn't apply.

You just cannot ignore the free hammers that come out of the rush buy when comparing it to an RA that provide none. It's part of the equation only on one side, you cannot chose to ignore it

SCREW THIS DEBATE!!! I AM SETTLING THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!! I WILL PLAY 2 GAMES SUNDAY, ONE RUSHING PT AND RATIONALISM FINISHER, MAKE FRIENDS WITH 4 CIVS THROUGHOUT, (Honestly, this part sounds like it will be the most work lol) AND BUILDING ALL SCIENCE BUILDINGS. THE OTHER, BUYING ALL SCIENCE BUILDINGS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE FIRST 3 LIBRARIES AND NOT TOUCHING RESEARCH AGREEMENTS (getting Rationalism finisher in the end for the GS faith.) Will play as Maya. I will post all of the results. LET'S END THIS.

I will save the game the second I get universities and then use that save point for the second game. Every other detail will be as close as I can get them.

I will do Emperor for the easier Allies. Immortal will give more for research agreements, but it would be tricky as hell to keep as many RA as possible coming up because the AIs on Immortal and Deity hate each other. This is the main reason why I think research agreements are weak btw. But I will see and post results.

Why rush a university if you can build it in 6 turns?
I only buy them if they take more than 8-9 turns or so. Otherwise you're wasting for 660 gold to save 6 turns of production. Note that producing the university in 6 turns equals 110 gpt. That's quite a lot. so i only rush buy science buildings in cities with low production so i can spend the other cash on RA. Both is better than one .

As for PT, free scientist is not bad, and 2 scientist points can shave off maybe a turn in scientist progress. Not to mention, it is fairly easy to build since the AI is 9 out of 10 times not smart enough to open up rationalism. So you dont have to spend an engineer on it.

Meridian36 said:

Why rush a university if you can build it in 6 turns?
I only buy them if they take more than 8-9 turns or so. Otherwise you're wasting for 660 gold to save 6 turns of production. Note that producing the university in 6 turns equals 110 gpt. That's quite a lot. so i only rush buy science buildings in cities with low production so i can spend the other cash on RA. Both is better than one .

As for PT, free scientist is not bad, and 2 scientist points can shave off maybe a turn in scientist progress. Not to mention, it is fairly easy to build since the AI is 9 out of 10 times not smart enough to open up rationalism. So you dont have to spend an engineer on it.

Click to expand...

That is how I used to do it too. Now that I buy them, I'm getting faster and faster victories. Do you know which city I prioritize my science building purchases now? The capital. While it can build them rather fast, the capital often is generating more than half my science, at least at that point in time. It is the city that benefits the most, and often you are trying to build a wonder which you don't want to interrupt. So for the most part, capital gets my first purchase, then for the rest, I take a balance based on how much science they are producing, if they are on a mountain, and how long it would take them to build it.

All I can say is my best time was 272 a month or 2 ago. My best time was t252 a week ago, before purchasing most my science buildings. Since changing, I've had t246, t244, and t238 victories. It would appear that purchasing your buildings is superior. Then again, maybe it is the fact I've been prioritizing markets and banks more so than in the past, which allow for me to purchase all those buildings.

Acken said:

You just cannot ignore the free hammers that come out of the rush buy when comparing it to an RA that provide none. It's part of the equation only on one side, you cannot chose to ignore it.

Click to expand...

There are no “free hammers” because you are paying dearly for them. The rush just gets you turns you would otherwise spent building.

I am just asking about best beaker return on gold. It seems to me that it boils down to these two:

1. Save up gold so you can rush science buildings ASAP. Leftover gold on RAs are okay, but skip RAs if they compromise your ability to rush buy science buildings as soon as they get unlocked.
2. Spend gold aggressively on RAs. Leftover gold on science buildings is good too, but don’t rush buy unless you are already working RAs with all your allies.

List conventional wisdom is clearly in the (1) camp. All the best players too! I am asking for math behind this, because it’s not obvious. Sure it feels right. Other strategies are easily justified by the numbers. Why not this one?

Uzael36 said:

That is how I used to do it too. Now that I buy them, I'm getting faster and faster victories. Do you know which city I prioritize my science building purchases now? The capital... All I can say is my best time was 272 a month or 2 ago. My best time was t252 a week ago, before purchasing most my science buildings. Since changing, I've had t246, t244, and t238 victories. It would appear that purchasing your buildings is superior. Then again, maybe it is the fact I've been prioritizing markets and banks more so than in the past, which allow for me to purchase all those buildings.

Click to expand...

Yes, you are getting better, getting faster victories. But you are improving multiple ways over multiple games. It well could just be having more money, maybe just playing better. If you were prioritizing RAs over rush buying, might your wins would be quicker still?