Best civs for science?

[Vitruvius]

10 allies are not enough for diplo, this is not what I mean. You need to take 2 additional policies instead of something else. After the opener, consulates early game is very useful, especially with Greece, so you basicly need to invest two more.

The 25% bonus applies mostly in the very late game, as you need a lot of time to create these allies. So you have to skip something, so you invest there. What do u skip?

Rationalism? No
Order at least until LVL2? No

If you have so much spare culture, so you take this policy, you should already be far enough ahead, so you are gonna win SV regardless ...

Cultivating CS relationships as Greece is so easy you barely need to lift a finger. You don't even need consulates.
Rationalism doesn't give as much science as Scholasticism. You are killing two birds with one stone with CS alliances. 25% applies at any time. Deity CSes have huge science.

 

[bhavv]

If you're not filling Patronage as Greece or Siam, you're doing something wrong.

Id take a mix of patronage and rationalism after filling tradition, and eventually fill them both, its not that hard to do, you can also ally cultural city states first to help with policies throughout the game.

 

[Gliese 581]

Just don't vote for yourself. And go for Science victory.

The sad state of diplo cheese right there.

 

[dragonxxx]

If you're not filling Patronage as Greece or Siam, you're doing something wrong.

Id take a mix of patronage and rationalism after filling tradition, and eventually fill them both, its not that hard to do, you can also ally cultural city states first to help with policies throughout the game.

That depends on the no. of cultural CS in the game. You ally these regardless, I am just not sure how much science you get out of the deal. And the 25% more influence with gold gifts is basicly a waste when you play with Greece.

Can anyone send some screenshots with actual data? I wanna see how much science you actually get from that. As I am pretty sure, that its not worth it early game.

 

[Vitruvius]

Assuming 15 pop CS with libs and university. That's 27 science. You get a quarter which is 9. If you have 5 such allies, you are getting 45 science. You will need 450 science yourself to get 45 science from opening rationalism. Not to mention you also get food, culture, happiness and units from these CS allies. In the mid game when you don't have a lot of science yourself, CS science could potentially contribute a quarter of your total science output.

 

[dragonxxx]

Well, your math is clearly wrong here ...

27/4 = 6.75

So if you have 5 allies like that you will get 33.75 BPT. And that only if the city is THAT big. Half of the CS in the map are under 15 even on turn 300. If they have limited space and not enough farm land, this simply never happens.

And if they have good farming land (a lot of fresh water grassland), they grow to 15 around turn 200. 33 bpt in modern era hardly makes any difference. For the remaining around 100 turns you get 3300 beakers, thats what, 1/4 of the cost of Internet???
Probably when they grow, you can make it to 1/2 Thats FAR worse than what rationalism opener offers, and its only 1 policy, and here you need 2 + opener.

I agree - there might be games, where you open this early, and somehow you get many easy allies in the very early game, several cultural CS, and you keep allies with no effort. In this case, this might be OK (especially if you go for CV, as you would generate significantly more culture).

 

[tetley]

I can only speak from experience, not data, but when I picked scholasticism my science went up a lot. I wished I had picked it sooner.

One point might be that Greece is not a science VICTORY civ. They're a diplomatic victory civ who happens to get good science. Their diplomacy basically consisting of killing anybody who doesn't like them.

 

[Acken]

Scholasticism is a good policy but rarely worth taking before rationalism opener and secularism.

The problem isn't that scholasticism is bad, it's good with multiple CS but rationalism offers better options at turn 110 to 150.

If I went patronage with extra policies between tradition and rationalism, it will help me ally as many CS as possible during that 110 to 150 period. After which, having multiple allies you will want to invest into scholasticism. This is even helped by having cultural allies and winning the world fair in this period.

 

[budweiser]

Scholasticism is a good policy but rarely worth taking before rationalism opener and secularism.

The problem isn't that scholasticism is bad, it's good with multiple CS but rationalism offers better options at turn 110 to 150.

If I went patronage with extra policies between tradition and rationalism, it will help me ally as many CS as possible during that 110 to 150 period. After which, having multiple allies you will want to invest into scholasticism. This is even helped by having cultural allies and winning the world fair in this period.

This is my bread and butter. I finish tradition 80 to 100. The next three policies (often aided by Oracle) go to Scolasticism while I quest and give aid to as many CS as I can in that period. Only then, do I open rationalism if I am going for science or I want to propel myself to Internet or Globalism. I think Secularism can wait until my cities are big enough to be working all the specialist slots. it does work, might not be the fastest, but if I am gaining the CS ally, the the AI is losing it and my power is growing relative to theirs. If I forego the Patronage tree, then I am relying solely on the power of my civ and leaving the CS alliance to the AI.

Probably wouldnt do it in a science game though unless I finished tradition really early.

 

[dragonxxx]

Scholasticism is a good policy but rarely worth taking before rationalism opener and secularism.

The problem isn't that scholasticism is bad, it's good with multiple CS but rationalism offers better options at turn 110 to 150.

If I went patronage with extra policies between tradition and rationalism, it will help me ally as many CS as possible during that 110 to 150 period. After which, having multiple allies you will want to invest into scholasticism. This is even helped by having cultural allies and winning the world fair in this period.

Well, that is exactly my point - it is not bad, but there are better things to do with the culture, especially in a science game ... Even in a culture game, getting points in aestetics faster is better than this.

 

[Acken]

I'm not sure if it's just how you turned your sentence but I don't see why someone would go aesthetics for science game.

 

[bhavv]

Maybe for the two golden ages you get from Aesthetics and the increased culture and writer and artist generation.

 

[dragonxxx]

I'm not sure if it's just how you turned your sentence but I don't see why someone would go aesthetics for science game.

No no Noone should ever go Aestetics in a science game. Fixed the sentence.
English is not native, so such things happen from time to time.

 

[dragonxxx]

Whoa, I have to take this back. This policy is indeed better than what it looks.
Started a game to see how that goes (Venice/Deity/Archipelago).

I get 36BPT from only 4 allies, 12/14/14/15 size.

 

[dragonxxx]

forgot the screenshot ...

So that one has to be considered sometimes I guess ...

 

[The Pilgrim]

forgot the screenshot ...

So that one has to be considered sometimes I guess ...

Definitely. Got over 100 bpt in my last Venice game. Another point for Patronage when you are playing as Venice(or any OCC for that matter), is that you don't generate as many natural GS as in normal game with multiple cities. So the finisher doesn't really 'hurt' you as much.

 

[Vitruvius]

Well, that is exactly my point - it is not bad, but there are better things to do with the culture, especially in a science game ... Even in a culture game, getting points in aestetics faster is better than this.

I think we were discussing about science victory specifically for Greece. They can make the most out of scholasticism because having >5 allies for them by turn 150 is very easy. Other civs may just want to do rationalism.

 

[Acken]

Id still do secularism first as greece. The question is whether or not I want free thought first... If you get school at 150, free thougth provides 0.34 bpt per pop + 0.85 per scientific slot and all of this times 1.10.
For a 85 pop on 4 cities running 3 scientific slot thatd be 43 bpt. With enough CS allies I can see it being way better, especially considering it comes way sooner if you invested into patronage before renaissance.

All of this is from my memory since I dont have the game to verify numbers

 

[Vitruvius]

This is Portugal with only 5 city states. 13/13/13/13/17 size.

 

[dragonxxx]

Definitely. Got over 100 bpt in my last Venice game. Another point for Patronage when you are playing as Venice(or any OCC for that matter), is that you don't generate as many natural GS as in normal game with multiple cities. So the finisher doesn't really 'hurt' you as much.

100 ... I had around 250 BPT from the 12 allies at the end. Well, it was a bit late - I finished it on T329, as it takes a while for the diplo if there are some conquered CS + those u buy ... But it was over 200 around turn 240, so its good thing for sure. Especially in OCC. Venice had 530BPT, the puppets roughly 200 ea. and the rest came from CS (around 1200 total). So this was like +25% on my science per turn.

I finished the whole tree, as I had never done it before to see how many GPs I get. I did that around T240 I think, so for the around 90 turns I got 3 GPs - 1 merchant and 2 writers. That from all remaining 12 CS my allies. It doesn't seem to be worth it tbh.