Best use of Great Scientists?

[beezany]

Just finished a diplo victory with 7 total scientists: one academy before Education, two academies before Scientific Revolution, one to bulb Plastics, three to adjust timing of Oxford and Rationalism. There's actually quite a bit of tech after Plastics in a diplo game. Another 2-3 bulbs would probably take care of it, but the Mayan Long Count makes it tough to collect more scientists.

 

[Matthew.]

The other surprising thing I found is that early academies are a lot more effective than I expected.

Not much past perhaps the first one or two, no? The effectiveness is limited by max turns, and for science that is going to be ~250 or less (minus the time it takes to get uni's with specialists, so more like 150 turns). You can stretch the effectiveness of academies further with observatory and free thought policy (I'm assuming these multiply academies base yield, but can't recall off-hand) but you will still end up passing the break-point well before public schools. Once schools are up it would take a huge number of turns for an academy to pay for itself in beakers.

I vaguely recall a post by tommynt claiming he doesn't settle GS's once he passes T130 or so. I think for Joe Average (me) that time could be pushed back to T160ish, but I doubt anything past that is going to result in quicker science victories.

 

[tetley]

I'm surprised the Freedom finisher hasn't been mentioned. That one thing--how/when/if you pick the Freedom finisher--I would think impacts several aspects of your strategy, and not just for the academies: you can plant a few Great Prophets and then faith purchase GS.

Anyway, for me, I never do peaceful science victories. My priority is for a fast Dynamite, and then the game tends to be a cakewalk from there. Flight can also be a big deal in land games.

 

[Jaybe]

When I get a GS:
I pull out the calculator & multiply my current science/turn by 8 for bulbing; compare
academy yield * city multipliers (usually neglecting any future increases), divide it into the bulbing yield to give number of turn equivalence;
and determine how close to end-of-game the result is.

Since I prefer to stretch out the number of turns before winning, my break-even point is generally 80% of game length.

----
Did you know that bulbing yields 8 turns of science yield regardless of game speed? I've recently moved from epic to marathon, resulting in even more academies.

 

[Browd]

I think that is the most common rule of thumb - stop planting GSs about the time you get schools, get to labs as quickly as possible, and start bulbing 8 turns after labs are up and fully staffed.

All global and city-specific science multipliers (NC, universities, observatories, labs, Rationalism policies) apply to academy yields.

 

[Browd]

I'm surprised the Freedom finisher hasn't been mentioned. That one thing--how/when/if you pick the Freedom finisher--I would think impacts several aspects of your strategy, and not just for the academies: you can plant a few Great Prophets and then faith purchase GS.

OK, if you are going for a dawdling science victory (post turn 300?), but it would be an unusual circumstance to find yourself generating enough culture to complete Freedom and Rationalism in a faster (sub-t.250) science game (i.e., working no artist slots).

 

[tetley]

It's possible to pick Freedom finisher instead of Rationalism finisher. I'm getting warmonger science victories, and towards the end I'm getting 5-turn techs in the endgame, so even the 2 tech Rationalism finisher is not that much better than bulbing a GS. The double academy yield doesn't quite make up for the 2 techs, but it does go part of the way, and when I plant early GP's and finish Freedom, I am able to buy faith buy GS and GA's and get a perpetual Golden Age--which when going wide, that matters.

 

[Matthew.]

Whether Freedom is finished or not I don't think it matters. Freedom is an Industrial era tree which implies schools will be up. Even smaller empires will be generating too much science to justify planting an academy at that point.

A OCC next to a mountain may be able to justify it, but without running the numbers I suspect if Freedom did result in more beakers in such a scenario, it would be a very small bonus.

Edit: This response was purely in regards to the academy vs. bulb scenario, meaning Freedom wouldn't change the outcome of the point in which planting GS's is no longer beneficial. Otherwise I agree that the Rationalism finisher isn't particularly great if you have huge science due to dominating the map. Although it would mean giving up Order's 25% on factories, which would benefit large bulk science from wide-domination better than the Freedom finisher.

 

[tetley]

Freedom is Renaissance, not Industrial (the same as Rationalism). My argument is that the # of beakers alone is not enough: the goal is to win the game, not just produce beakers. Freedom gives you GPP, culture, and Golden Ages (which means a lot going wide). Schools can be rush-bought at a good gold-to-hammers ratio, and a wide empire in perpetual GA is swimming in it.

 

[dadams588]

Just play on Marathon where a bulb still gains you about 8 turns of research which is really useless... so you just keep planting scientists through the modern era. They really need to fix that =/

 

[Browd]

Freedom is Renaissance, not Industrial (the same as Rationalism). My argument is that the # of beakers alone is not enough: the goal is to win the game, not just produce beakers. Freedom gives you GPP, culture, and Golden Ages (which means a lot going wide). Schools can be rush-bought at a good gold-to-hammers ratio, and a wide empire in perpetual GA is swimming in it.

Freedom is Renaissance in vanilla, but Industrial in G&K. Although not explicitly stated, I think this thread presumes G&K.

EDIT: As I think about it, if you are playing vanilla, I would agree that the Rationalism finisher is not worth getting (+1 gold from science buildings? meh). In vanilla, it made sense to only take 4 policies in Rationalism (left hand side, with the 4th policy, Scientific Revolution, giving the 2 free techs). Shifting to Freedom made sense then.

 

[tetley]

I checked my save games, and looks like you're right. I could have sworn I started Freedom sooner. What I did was beeline for Dynamite using Rationalism. I consider Metallurgy and Fertilizer very high-priority techs. I picked just the Rationalism starter to get the 15% science bonus. Then when Fertilizer was picked, that put me in an early Industrial, which let me faith buy two GS' with 1000 faith and 1500 faith. That got me to Dynamite.

With an early Industrial, I then picked the Freedom starter to get the GPP. Then later I would faith buy artists (since you can get two for the price of one GS at this point). The two specialist SP's in Freedom synergize very well with the specialist SP in Rationalism--actually I'm going to argue picking those Freedom SP's is justified on science alone. I went wide and Golden Aged with the artists, which gave me gold which I invested in Maritime CS's. Lots of food means lots of specialists. I did the timing thing where I popped 3 Great People on the same turn.

That left me with 3 SP's to finish Freedom, vs. 4 left for Rationalism (and one of the Freedoms gives culture). So I decided to finish Freedom.

 

[T-hawk]

Has anyone considered this effect: A planted Academy itself contributes towards bulbing?

Late game, each Academy adds up to 30 beakers with all multipliers (university with Free Thought, Research Lab, National College, observatory), which itself is worth 240 beakers per bulb. So if you expect to have five bulbs in store for the end game, an additional scientist could settle and still account for 1200 beakers worth of bulbing, plus the academy's natural production. And they also contribute to Research Agreements along the way, which could be another several hundred beakers. So it might indeed be worth settling GSes a bit later instead of saving them all for bulbs.

 

[Browd]

Actually, after Atomic Theory (when most of your late game bulbing should occur), the base yield of an academy is 12, so 200% multiplier would yield 36 beakers (before taking into account the Rationalism opener).

Yes, you have to take into account the effect of the academy on later bulbs (and later RA yields) in assessing the value of an academy. But you also need to account for the possiblity that a GS strategically bulbed earlier in the game might get you a key science tech that many turns earlier.

(Not dissimilar to the calculus around when to take Oxford -- earlier for, say, Scientific Theory or Plastics, or later to get one of the last SS part techs.)

 

[joncnunn]

Yes; even if your NOT taking Freedom (which may be difficult to complete that tree & Rationalism and your starting tree before launcing the spaceship anyway), its looking to me that if your only thinking of academy or save until the end game; that academy is better.

The more interesting decision is bulb now vs academy.

And that one appears to come down to do you want ascetics as a filler policy between completing your first tree & Rationalism or not.
If you do want that as a filler, your in no real danger of being forced to pick an extra policy before Rationalism opener and so it would also be academy in late Midevil.
And it turns out that if your making any sort of effort at all towards science that the same academy for space ship victory applies for early Rean as well.

 

[JJOne]

How much science does bulbing in G&K give? Early bulbing seemed to get half a tech, late bulbing only a quarter?

 

[joncnunn]

How much science does bulbing in G&K give? Early bulbing seemed to get half a tech, late bulbing only a quarter?

In G&K it's equal to your last eight turns science output. If your science rate was fairly static over the past 8 turns; just multiply by 8, but if some major science increase just went in the previous turn it's closer to whatever your old rate (times 8) was.

I often see amount of turns per science for the next tech peak in Late Atomic / Early Information and be much lower when the last few space ship part techs are being researched.

 

[JJOne]

Thank you, does this scale with game speed or is it always 8 turns?

 

[joncnunn]

Thank you, does this scale with game speed or is it always 8 turns?

I don't know; I haven't played on Epic since G&K game out; (its related to me now preferring to play on standard size while earlier I preferred Large.)