A.I Civs and their research rates

[malfuriouspete]

Don't know if this has been discussed before, if it has, my apologies.

Anyone have some ideas of how the A.I sets its research, culture, and espionage rates? Do they set research at 100% for the entire game or do they actively change the values if they are running a gold defecit.. or the A.I can never go bankrupt or they fancy making their cities produce more culture?

I start at 100% research but as the game goes on I have to lower it by some amount so I don't lose all my gold and go into the red.

Once a civ gets big enough, I think its pretty difficult to keep research at 100% unless they founded a few religions and spread them to other cities as well as building the holy temples to give them the +2 gold per city... but I don't know

oh, and one final question. On the main game screen, a hammer, gold or beaker icon under the city name represents that city as being the biggest producer of said item.. what does a star represent in the same place? I have a city, not my capital, that is sporting a star icon but I couldn't find what it means in the manual. Like that city should be the new capital or something? I'm not sure

 

[Lone Wolf]

Versallies/Forbidden Palace.

 

[AndrewN]

As far as I am aware the AI does need to change its science rate. At higher levels the costs they have are reduced but they are still there.

As for your own rate don't worry about keeping it at 100%, after all 50% of 100 is more than 100% of 20. Expansion and land is more important and I have crashed my economy many times before it recovers. For really large empires it is impossible to have the science rate at 100% even with shrines, don;t worry about it.

 

[Joshua368]

If you have enough espionage to explore inside AI cities you can see their research rate and what their sliders are set to in the top corner. They certainly have to lower it to pay for costs... sometimes when I've captured a shrine or powerful city or something I'll see they have lowered their science slider all the way to 10% to compensate.

 

[Skallagrimson]

100%: expand ASAP
60%: should consider expansion
40%: may consider halting expansion
30%: should really really consider halting expansion
0%: the game will stop expansion for you by nuking all your units

 

[Iranon]

10%: expand if there's any decent land left!
0% and losing gold: Time to ask yourself if you need to slow down or whether pillaging/conquest/extortion/sale of resources can pay for further expansion