Gold, Beakers, and Deficit Research

One point,you don't have to do that test at sliders of 0 and 100%, any two values will work

True, but from a development point of view I came up with it by comparing 0 and 100% to the ideal slider rate, and only afterwards saw it was the ratio of the average commerce multipliers. This is the order of presentation in the article too.

It's a worthy point though, and if I ever get around to reorganizing the article I'll mention it.

Quechua said:

(...) As an extreme example, say you have a library, university, observatory, and laboratory in each one of your cities - but you have almost no gold multipliers...just a bank in one city. In that city with a bank, a merchant will produce 4 gold (rounded down) while a scientist will produce 6 beakers. But since the beaker-per-gold ratio in your empire will be very close to 2, the merchant will help your research rate more than a scientist.

Click to expand...

Great article. But this part is highly counter-intuitive. Shouldn't I rather hire scientists, even if that means spending fewer turns on deficit research?

Nice article, I am voting some stars for you =)

Here is a different way to think about what you wrote... Say a building or a trait or resourcetrading is bringing to your empire. It compensates some portion of your total expenses; thus, allowing some commerce to be spent directly into research instead of funding your costs.

Usually in early phases of the game, up until 1AD-500AD, there are few markets or grocers built, but almost all cities have libraries up. Then, for example a resource trading compensating 50 per turn of your expenses, in effect creates 50 x 1.25(library effect = 62.5 per turn.

When you build Courthouses in almost every city in your empire, since usually city maintenance makes up for 50% of your total expenses(data taken from my recent games), then you are effectively translating the 50% of gold you spent on your expenses into at the 50% x the empirewide average multiplier rate.

Same can be said about Organized trait cutting civic costs by half... The amount of you save is translated into by multiplying the freed up commerce by the empirewide average multiplier. Similarly, the freed up can be translated into through multiplying by the empirewide average multiplier.

You have used the word "ideal" to describe the equilibrium for the research slider rate. I prefer to use "equilibrium of the research slider" when no profits are made.

morchuflex said:

Great article. But this part is highly counter-intuitive. Shouldn't I rather hire scientists, even if that means spending fewer turns on deficit research?

Click to expand...

No, you should hire a merchant and get 4 gold, that you will transform into 8 beakers through deficit research. If you hire a scientist you just get 6 beakers.

jesusin said:

No, you should hire a merchant and get 4 gold, that you will transform into 8 beakers through deficit research. If you hire a scientist you just get 6 beakers.

Click to expand...

Mhhh... I'm definitely not that good at maths.
So, if I understand correctly... 4 gold is less (in itself) than 6 beakers, but gaining 4 gold through a merchant allows me to reduce my deficit by 4 gpt, thus allowing me to convert 4 additional commerce to beakers, earning me 8 beakers (because my cities have +100% science multipliers). Is that it?

morchuflex said:

So, if I understand correctly... 4 gold is less (in itself) than 6 beakers, but gaining 4 gold through a merchant allows me to reduce my deficit by 4 gpt, thus allowing me to convert 4 additional commerce to beakers, earning me 8 beakers (because my cities have +100% science multipliers). Is that it?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the basic idea. It's more difficult to apply that reasoning when the other cities may also have gold multipliers, or don't all have the same beaker multipliers. That's where the beaker-per-gold ratio comes in.

Really the issue is do we want to get beakers locally, or get do we get beakers indirectly by freeing up commerce in our empire as a whole?

Here's another maybe counterintuitive example... We have a library in every city, but our capital also has an academy and a market.

It's actually better to run gold in the library cities, and send more commerce in the capital through the academy. It is also wrong to choose merchants over scientists in the capital, even though it has the only gold multiplier in the empire. (ignoring possible strategic exceptions of course)

@VirusMonster,
Thanks for the vote. 'Equilibrium' maybe is a better term. I think I picked 'ideal' originally because that slider rate usually isn't achievable in practice.

How do you take into account money comming in from other civ (tribute/trade)?
I realise that it is net of any commerce bonuses, but if say 10% of your income (when slider at 0%) comes from external sources, surely this will affect your net beaker cost, particularly if that foreign income rose to say 40% of income.
At what point in your calculation of beaker cost do subtract the income gold?

edit: to clarify..... If you don't subtract gold income at slider 100%, you possibly won't be running deficit, whereas if you do, you will be running deficit.

Darkheart said:

How do you take into account money comming in from other civ (tribute/trade)?
I realise that it is net of any commerce bonuses, but if say 10% of your income (when slider at 0%) comes from external sources, surely this will affect your net beaker cost, particularly if that foreign income rose to say 40% of income.
At what point in your calculation of beaker cost do subtract the income gold?

Click to expand...

Gold coming in from external sources is no different than domestic gold. Both can be considered as potential beakers. Don't worry about separating your net income into maintenance, tribute, shrine income, etc, only the net effect matters in any calculations I do here.

Darkheart said:

edit: to clarify..... If you don't subtract gold income at slider 100%, you possibly won't be running deficit, whereas if you do, you will be running deficit.

Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure I'm understanding your question, but maybe this helps... If you are running a surplus at 100% it is as if the ideal slider rate is above 100%, and you can't actually run deficit research. However, if you suddenly take on more net maintenance (maybe by dropping a gpt deal), you can convert whatever surplus gold you made during those turns into extra beakers above your new ideal slider rate. Foreign income is not the issue here, the ideal slider rate is.

I see...thanks

and yes...the maths do work

A slight modifier --at 0% research you still get a single beaker per turn. Very early in the game, this single beaker a turn can be significant. It's an additional justification for alternating 0% and 100% research. Another reason is to be able to take advantage of special events by having gold in your treasury.

Hi,

great read, very well-written.

However I am a little confused as to the actual application of the process.

What exactly is the "golden mean/ratio", how do I put your theory in practise, when researching?

Say I am trying to research code of laws....

can you please provide me an example as to how to determine the best way to gauge what my research slider should be set at it....?

Sorry for being dense.....

I just cant understand what is "deficit research".
Ok, we set 100% gold, get some gold and then set slider to 100% and get minus to gold but big science. But if multipliers was equal for all these turns - we'll get the same result...

Deficit research is simple - if you are losing money at a slider level, but have enough money to cover it, you are doing deficit research.

Ie, early in the game, you've popped a hut and have 54 gold in your treasury and you are research Iron Working at 100%. You settle your second city and all of a sudden, you have -2 gpt. If you keep the slider to 100%, you are doing deficit research.

Where this becomes interesting is if you are about to add a lib or oxford or something to a high commerce city.

Aless133 said:

I just cant understand what is "deficit research".
Ok, we set 100% gold, get some gold and then set slider to 100% and get minus to gold but big science. But if multipliers was equal for all these turns - we'll get the same result...

Click to expand...

Simply put 'Deficit research' is called so because you are researching while your net treasury is in deficit (i.e. negative gpt).

Also just want to say, a nicely done article and for a maths guy like me (Uni studier of) like the maths work and the explanation of.

Gabranth said:

However I am a little confused as to the actual application of the process.

What exactly is the "golden mean/ratio", how do I put your theory in practise, when researching?

Say I am trying to research code of laws....

can you please provide me an example as to how to determine the best way to gauge what my research slider should be set at it....?

Click to expand...

1stly no such thing as a stupid question... only stupid answers << hate that saying but... its true.

Basically in depth calculation of beakers to gold and idea research rates can help you improve the rate at which you can tech (or I should say, maximize you research time). However, you would need to be constantly crunching numbers and calculating what if scenarios for each turn (and multiple scenarios for that turn) with things like "what if I built a University here?" or "what if I built a Market here and a Observatory there?". Barring that you could just follow the simple advice of dropping your slider for a couple of turns just before building a breaker multiplying building (like libraries, Universities, etc.) and raising it after to burn' off that extra gold you just earned and doing the opposite for gold multiplying buildings (like Market, Grocer, etc.).

As for the example of the Code of Laws (CoL) you asked for, there is no best way to research it. Lets say you gain 5 gpt at 0% beakers then loose 15gpt at 100% and it would take 8 turns at 100% to finish it, then you could leave your slider at 0% to accumulate the gold to get CoL at 100% in the 8 turns (assuming the beakers you do get at 0% does not change the lenth of time to research the tech at 100%, for simplicity). This would take 24 turns to accumulate the gold + 8 to research the tech meaning 32 turns total. Lets say then that at 60% you loose/gain 0gpt but you would find that the time to research CoL would be 32 turns as well. So unless you can change the beaker to gold ratio by building more libraries or gain more gold in your kitty by pillaging or trade of AI, or increasing your commerce (cottaging working other tiles) or building commerce multipliers, it makes no difference as to how fast you can research CoL.

Hope that helps

I hope their 2 and half year agony of not finding answers is finally put to an end.

On serious side: you might check dates so you don't dabble in the dark arts of necromancy in the future

BTW, welcome to the forums!!! There are many interesting discussions and questions to be answered in S&T forums if that's your cup of tea.

Kewko said:

As for the example of the Code of Laws (CoL) you asked for, there is no best way to research it. Lets say you gain 5 gpt at 0% beakers then loose 15gpt at 100% and it would take 8 turns at 100% to finish it, then you could leave your slider at 0% to accumulate the gold to get CoL at 100% in the 8 turns (assuming the beakers you do get at 0% does not change the lenth of time to research the tech at 100%, for simplicity). This would take 24 turns to accumulate the gold + 8 to research the tech meaning 32 turns total. Lets say then that at 60% you loose/gain 0gpt but you would find that the time to research CoL would be 32 turns as well. So unless you can change the beaker to gold ratio by building more libraries or gain more gold in your kitty by pillaging or trade of AI, or increasing your commerce (cottaging working other tiles) or building commerce multipliers, it makes no difference as to how fast you can research CoL.

Hope that helps

Click to expand...

I have often found that in practice, don't know why, it's often a little faster to research with just a little deficit. In your example I would perhaps go with 70% research. I think it's because the cost of a tech seldom is evenly divided into turns and the smaller the contribution per turn the closer the gold converted is to the beakers needed. Ofcourse whatever you spend over that you'll have gained in the next tech so it evens up just like you described. But if you plan to stop teching for a while after the current research it can gain you a turn or two and some gold not going 100%.

I don't understand why people are so negative about "necromancy" (apart from RL ofc ). This was a good thread and if it hadn't been bumped I would never have seen it.

Someone told it has to do with letting a chance from the OP user to answer back and if it is too old, that one might have passed away from Internetz.
We should be open-minded with those necrophiliac...they are like this. It can't be helped.

I can see that. However, typically you have mods and such (talking in general here, not just about this site), tell users to search instead of posting new threads about previously discussed topics. Then you have the same mods be critical when threads get bumped/necro'd. It's a bit odd.

That's a tangent though. Maybe my question would fit in this thread, as it's related to vs In my recent games I barely built any markets or banks, preferring multipliers instead. However, this article seems to indicate that it may be better to use gold multiplier buildings instead as it can be more effective. That contradicts with what I have believed so far. Especially as you get to the end of games (particularly with space win the victory goal), multipliers have nigh on zero meaning, because you start building wealth/research everywhere and run the slider at 100%

How do people usually play this, in normal games, do you put up (many) markets and banks, or do you prefer to get up science buildings and then build wealth or other things instead?

The big exception as I see it, is a holy city, where you get straight gold anyway, independent of the slider, so here you want market, bank and perhaps also Wall Street.

(This could of course be an example of the necro problem mentioned, because the author is probably not active any more, but I hope for replies anyway )