Trade routes science yield too low!

[Zeekater]

Trade routes to other civilizations can give science beakers when the other civ knows more techs.
How many depends on how many techs ahead the civ is, but in the later eras this bonus becomes useless...

If you are 8 techs behind you get 4 science beakers from the trade route, which is significant at the start of the game but as the game progresses the techs get a lot more expensive and the bonus doesn't change.

So, IMO the science bonus should scale with the ages. This should help civs keep up

 

[Teholb]

If I'm getting 10-20 science at the time I make my first trade route, that one trade route will increase my science gain by 5-10% (sometimes more if on higher difficulty levels or you just somehow lagged behind). From a single trade route that costs no maintenance, and, in fact, gives me gold. That's meant to keep civs from falling behind in the science game early on, because things snowball, and the disparity, barring any random events, only gets worse.

It's not meant to be an endgame thing, tbh, and research already seems to move along at a steady pace, in my experience.

 

[Tabarnak]

More you play high levels more the early trade routes for extra science are important. In fact it's probably only useful at deity because you can outtech the immortal AI around the turn 120 if you concentrate on food trades before that.

 

[dexters]

More you play high levels more the early trade routes for extra science are important. In fact it's probably only useful at deity because you can outtech the immortal AI around the turn 120 if you concentrate on food trades before that.

Aren't those two mutually exclusive? Can't trade food and get science form it, but food increases pop of your capital which helps.

Are you saying trade food to 120 then switch to international trades?

AFAIK, science yields only occur if the Civ you're trading to knows techs you don't, which is more and more likely the higher up you go in difficulty.

 

[joncnunn]

Trade route science leakage is fine as is. (1/2 a beaker per tech missing in both directions rounded up).

And it's already a factor for me in avoiding those civs too far behind. If that leakage was increased to a full beaker, I'd have almost all my trades with city states.

 

[ahawk]

I disagree with the OP.

The scaling for science-per-trade-route is not the number of beakers, but the number of available trade-routes:

By the later-stages, you get more trade-routes, and depending on your UA (namely, Venice's) or wonders (Petra, Colossus), you get a lot more. Thus 4 beakers per route sounds weak, but if you have 10 routes all bringing in 4 beakers, that's an extra 40 science per turn.

Thus, if you were getting ten beakers per route just for being 5 techs behind or something like that, then you'd be getting +100 science total by running ten trade-routes (ten routes is not at all implausible by somewhere around Industrial). Which would be over-kill, as joncnunn said above.