100% research all the time?

[woeihggeotihg]

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum and I registered because it seems to be a really nice forum

I got a problem, namely I cannot keep 100% research all the time because it costs too much. In the ancient time it is no problem to keep research at the peak but the further I come the more problems I get in keeping it.

How do you deal with it? I want to be the nation that is most advanced but I cannot handle it. Is there a special trick not to get out of money?

I hope you could help me.

 

[need my speed]

You don't, 100% of 10 is less then 10% of 1000. You don't need to keep the slider at 100% (it is advised to put it to 10% by much), as long as you build Libraries and such or use scientists.

 

[Lanzelot]

You can maintain 100% research during the initial stages of the ancient age. But after you have a granary and a barracks and a couple workers/military units, you need to pay for these things. Also once your towns get to size 5-6, you need to set the luxury slider to 10-20%.

So usually in the second half of the AA and the beginning of the middle age, I am running like 60-80% research, not more. (Even in a fast research game.) The exception is, if I am lucky and can make a few good deals with the AI to get their gold, and can hook up 2-3 close by lux resources.
And once in a while, if I can capture a barb camp for 25g or sell a neighbor one of my out-dated techs for 30-40g, I can go at 90% for a short while, until my gold account is empty, and then I need to set it back to like 60-70% again.

Then in the beginning of the middle age, a couple of things change:

• you should have 3-5 luxuries hooked up by then, so the luxury slider can be set back to 0%. (If you have a bad start with no luxuries, you need to set up a few MAPT deals for fishing for war happiness. See I.Larkin's strategy article "War Happiness Works" for how this works. Basically, one far away AI declaring war on you is as good as a luxury...)
• Your neighbors have become reasonably productive, so you should be able to start getting gpt payments or large sums of gold for your techs.
• You have enough towns so that you no longer pay unit upkeep for your workers and military.
• You have switched to Republic meanwhile. (You have, haven't you...? )

All this allows me to switch research back to 100% (if I'm going for a reseach game like spaceship or diplomatic victory).

But basically the main trick for a fast reseach game is not to be at 100% research all the time. The trick is to make the best use of your trading opportunities!

Lanzelot

 

[woeihggeotihg]

Thanks for your posting, but two questions:

1) Where can I find the luxury slider?
2) In what extent ist the republic better than waiting for communism? Normally, I maintain despotism as long as i have not researched communism. (but i never get to communism by the way :/ )

 

[Snarkhunter]

Thanks for your posting, but two questions:

1) Where can I find the luxury slider?
2) In what extent ist the republic better than waiting for communism? Normally, I maintain despotism as long as i have not researched communism. (but i never get to communism by the way :/ )

Communism is hundreds of turns away & all that time you are losing lots and lots of commerce, plus paying the irrigation penalty & crippling the growth of your towns, thus delaying your research, thus making Communism even further off, thus. . . .

I don't see the attraction of Communism myself. But if it's what you want, you should still get out of despotism ASAP & build up a decent empire while waiting for it to pop up. then take your lumps in the revolt (unless you are religious).

The lux slider is in the top window of the advisorheads that pop up when you open that button in the top lefthand corner of the screen. Research slider is there as well. Sorry, I don't remember what F key it is, as I rarely use anything outside of those screens, other than F7 to check on who is building what wonder where.

kk

 

[vmxa]

F1 is the one for sliders. One of the reasons getting to Republic is better than waiting for Communism is that Commie is an optional tech that is th third age. It has many draw backs, it uses pop to rush. It requires another optional tech that I often do not research, Nationalism.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Thanks for your posting, but two questions:

1) Where can I find the luxury slider?
2) In what extent ist the republic better than waiting for communism? Normally, I maintain despotism as long as i have not researched communism. (but i never get to communism by the way :/ )

1. Luxury slider is at F1 as VXMA says, and also on the top of the domestic advisor screen. Remember to check it the turn or two before research completes. If you can drop the percentage and finish research in the same # of turns, do it. Unlike Civ IV, there's no overflow. Don't worry if you can't do 100% research all game. If you can, I'd be worried.

2. Sorry to state the obvious, but one of your first objectives should probably be to get out of despotism. Even if you're going commie (why?) an early Monarchy or Republic will really help your game.

2b. One way the forums helped me was I had a Democracy fixation. For a fairly peaceful game, Republic is good enough. 2 Optional Techs, 1 of them very expensive and additional anarchy. Commie has the same problems, except it comes later so you get the benefits for a shorter period. What's the cost of 2 optional techs and anarchy - 20 turns or so? If you want the military police, consider Monarchy. The empire-wide corruption means you have no core cities.

 

[Jesusfreak]

Like others said, don't wait for communism.

Communism is for when you've just finished conquering somebody and you want to be able to actually use the land instead of having it rot in corruption (oftentimes, depending on how large your territory is, the cities will be at 90% corruption even with Democracy). Communism puts all of your cities as if they were about 1/4 of the map away from your palace, if I understand correctly (EDIT: Which I don't understand correctly, see below) (see the "Everything you wanted to know about corruption" article in the War Academy), which is really good for far away territories, but not so good for your other cities.

EDIT: Here's the article: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/corruption_c3c.php
The distance corruption for communism (and any government that has the "communal" trait for corruption, which is only communism in the regular game) goes like this:
((Map Height + Map Width)/4)/4
So if the map was, say, 400x400 tiles, every city would get the same amount of corruption that it would get if it was 50 tiles from your palace. I THINK that's how it works.

 

[AsheMorgan]

One thing that makes me take ANY government type as soon as I can is that your workers don't improve as quickly on despotism. I want to say it's at 50%. Democracy gives a 150% effectiveness bonus, but monarchy and republic both put effectiveness at 100%. For my play style, I like to get the drop on my opponents by being much better developed than they are.

 

[Jesusfreak]

I'm pretty sure workers work just as fast under despotism as they do under monarchy/republic (the only govt in the regular game that slows workers down is Anarchy, if I recall). However, their improvements usually aren't as effective under despotism.

 

[Hellfiredoom]

I've used Communism in the past when I played Conquest games on larger maps, and research was not as important as unit production. I could get corruption down to an average of 10% in ALL my cities, which is very acceptable. That's all towns, regardless of distance from the core. That in combination with no war weariness, and the ability to use obsolete units as MPs make it a nice government for extended conquest games. So Communism does have it's place in the game.

 

[AsheMorgan]

Whoops, you are correct, sir! Anarchy IS the only system with less worker eff. I stand corrected.

 

[need my speed]

But Facism increases their efficiency, 150% if I remember correctly. And, I'm not sure, but I think another government also increases (less) their efficiency. Perhaps Democracy.

 

[Hellfiredoom]

Fascism is twice as fast, Demo is 50% faster. Anarchy is 50% slower.

 

[need my speed]

Yeah, that was it.

 

[GamezRule]

To the original question, doing that would bankrupt you.

 

[woeihggeotihg]

Ok, now I got that research stuff.

So communism is in theory useless? Fascism/monarchy for war and democracy/republic for economic and diplomatic victory?

 

[Snarkhunter]

Ok, now I got that research stuff.

So communism is in theory useless? Fascism/monarchy for war and democracy/republic for economic and diplomatic victory?

It's not that simple. I'm certain it is possible to concoct situations where any of the governments are the right choice. The question is how frequently do you encounter them & how relevant are they if you tend to play one style, one VC all the time.

What is true is that communism/fascism/democracy, etc, are going to require researching optional techs, several optional techs, and that will usually slow down your overall research effort. And unless you are religious trait, you will have a long period of anarchy just when you have/need your productive capability the most. So for most games at most levels, these aren't especially useful things to do.

As for warmongering, you can do that quite effectively in Republic. You can even fight relatively long wars in Republic. However, the closer you come to AW-style, probably the better monarchy is for you. I also doubt you need democracy very often for a diplo or SS victory--republic does just fine here, too.

But as I said, you can find situations where each of the gov types are useful.

kk

 

[AsheMorgan]

Researching communism, even if you don't switch, can still be somewhat useful, especially if you have a lot of corruption and war weariness, as it allows you to build police stations in your cities. I like to add them to my towns a little further out from my capitol along with a courthouse. It of course costs a little bit in maintenance, but adds a little extra protection against corruption, and there's less chance of a revolt due to war. (In the towns they're built in, anyway )

 

[Lanzelot]

Republic is fine for short decisive wars as well! War weariness does not set in for a long time, unless you have high losses in terms of units and towns.

I never use Democracy, because the difference to Republic is normally too small to justify a second period of anarchy. (At that time the anarchy period will be much much longer than if you switch governments in the ancient age. In my opinion the lost production&commerce during a long drawn anarchy can never be compensated by the benefits of the new government. It may be different for a religious civ, though.) And also it requires researching 2 optional techs, which are normally not needed.

And I never use Fascism, because every city looses 2 inhabitants, when you switch into Fascism! In a large empire this is a serious setback, from which it is quite impossible to recover... Also I think your research output is reduced by a certain factor. (Don't remember exactly and didn't find it in the war academy.) And finally, cities with a majority of foreign citizens don't produce culture.
You really need to have a lot of units to really compensate for all these drawbacks...