Best use of Oxford?

[Merenptah]

=> Astronomy (if your city is next to a mountain)

=> Acoustics (otherwise)

No point in delaying it any further. As others have pointed out:

1) You get +3 Science that adds up over time

2) You open up the Renessaince era earlier (to start Rationalism tree sooner)

3) Turns saved of researching a particular tech is more meaningful than just looking at beakers saved (in other words, no point saving it for Particle Physics since it will probably take a similar number of turns to complete as Acoustics now)

 

[Browd]

I'm not convinced this works where you don't have enough gold to rush buy every university you need (which often means it is only useful in an OCC game).

Factoring in the number of turns it takes to build Oxford after your universities are up, if you have to hard build even one university, you're probably better off going straight to Acoustics (likely fewer turns).

Of course, your calculus should also factor in how long before you can take your next policy (assuming you want to go straight into Rationalism) and what other earlier techs you skipped along the way. So for example, maybe its 17 turns to your next policy (watch out for Golden Ages and cultural CS quests), your last university will come on line in 6 turns, Oxford will take 10 turns, and you desperately need to tech Iron Working or Machinery or Chivalry or whatever. In that case, Oxford to unlock Acoustics (or Astronomy) may make good sense.

Also on a water map, where frigates and privateers may be important to your strategy, its fair to ask whether you would be better off hard-teching to Astronomy (while you hard build your last universities) and time Oxford to unlock Navigation.

 

[budweiser]

So many uses for it. Better early than late. It can be tough to get all th euniversities in place fast to enter renaissance. I usually use it to get scientific method and industrial age faster.

 

[Mesix]

When going for Science, I generally build Oxford to get Plastics as early as possible and then rush buy Labs for as many cities as I can (generally 3-4).

I use the Rationalism finisher to get Rocketry and Satellites on one go as soon as they open up. After I get the Rationalism finisher, I burn any GS to bulb multiple SS component techs and use a GE to rush Hubble (2 more GS). By the time Apollo finishes in my highest production city, I can build all 6 SS components in parallel.

 

[Manlius]

3) Turns saved of researching a particular tech is more meaningful than just looking at beakers saved (in other words, no point saving it for Particle Physics since it will probably take a similar number of turns to complete as Acoustics now)

In a culture game I would agree. Earlier opera houses at turn x mean more culture at turn x+y but this is not true for beakers.

Let's say I want to achieve a diplomatic victory. The speed of victory depends on the turn I have acquired enough (a lump sum) to start building the UN:

Scenario 1) hard teching plastics for 8 turns and bulbing globalization

Benefits:
- 8800 for the tech



Scenario 2) Using Oxford for plastics

Benefits:
- 3475 for the tech
- 9 as a permanent per turn benefit (200% Bonus included) which sum up to a few hundreds at the end of the game. 630 if you keep playing 70 turns (which appears rather long)
- 8 Turns of higher output for earlier research labs. Maybe something like 1200


Thus scenario 2 yields 5305 . The central point is that science output is population dependent and scenario 1 will be only 9 bpt behind scenario 2 when 8 turns have passed and research labs are up. You do not accelerate the growth of your science output with earlier modifiers and bulbing a later tech should therefore be clearly superior.

That being said, apparently I frequently use Oxford for plastics. And the rationalism finisher for rocketry and satellites. But this has more to do with timing.

You do not "save turns" with Oxford!

 

[Browd]

You haven't factored in potential additional/earlier GSs with earlier plastics. One additional GS will save 8 turns -- one additional tech (more or less).

 

[Manlius]

You haven't factored in potential additional/earlier GSs with earlier plastics. One additional GS will save 8 turns -- one additional tech (more or less).

You're right! In 8 turns you could get 40 additional GS-points in a city. If you're 40 points short of an additional GS in the end, earlier would have been better.

Edit: Although thinking about it... you'd be producing 21 GS points per turn in that city. Delaying the scientist by 2 turns. So you would need 1748 bpt in the above example to compensate the beaker loss. Later is still better.

 

[joncnunn]

UN is a bit different in G&K vs space race as there's a lot fewer techs to research with UN.
So there should be many more turns going for space race victory for the additional beakers from Oxford to pay for itself.

And also the very last tech going for space ship is usually listed as 8 turns by the time I get research it. Around the time of Plastics, I often see a tech I have all prereqs for that is listed as 12 turns.

So it's looking to me like Oxford (and Rationalism finisher) should be used earlier on those 12 turn techs.

 

[Manlius]

UN is a bit different in G&K vs space race as there's a lot fewer techs to research with UN.
So there should be many more turns going for space race victory for the additional beakers from Oxford to pay for itself.

And also the very last tech going for space ship is usually listed as 8 turns by the time I get research it. Around the time of Plastics, I often see a tech I have all prereqs for that is listed as 12 turns.

So it's looking to me like Oxford (and Rationalism finisher) should be used earlier on those 12 turn techs.

The problem is that later turns have a higher value than earlier turns and you are loosing the additional 4 turns saved on the next techs again. Let's say you pop a 12 turn tech and spend the next 12 turns researching another tech. If you hard tech the first tech your population will be already higher when you finish it and the second tech might only take 11 turns. There goes your first turn saved and so on.

You could make a point in bulbing fertilizers since it accelerates your growth but I doubt it is worth it.

 

[joncnunn]

The problem is that later turns have a higher value than earlier turns and you are loosing the additional 4 turns saved on the next techs again. Let's say you pop a 12 turn tech and spend the next 12 turns researching another tech. If you hard tech the first tech your population will be already higher when you finish it and the second tech might only take 11 turns. There goes your first turn saved and so on.

You could make a point in bulbing fertilizers since it accelerates your growth but I doubt it is worth it.

Again going for science where the needed tech path is much broader than UN: After having gotten the 12 tech for free (and much earlier than you would have otherwise as chances are you wouldn't manual research it yet), you research the cheaper techs instead of next in that line, during which time your beakers per turn increase and by the time you get to that next tech in that line it's turn count has decreased.

 

[Manlius]

Again going for science where the needed tech path is much broader than UN: After having gotten the 12 tech for free (and much earlier than you would have otherwise as chances are you wouldn't manual research it yet), you research the cheaper techs instead of next in that line, during which time your beakers per turn increase and by the time you get to that next tech in that line it's turn count has decreased.

If you need that techs go for it but you are just researching at a feel good pace. Either you research:

slow-fast-fast-fast-bulb
or
bulb-medium-medium-medium

 

[Matthew.]

I often need to make a point to burn those bonuses early, else they go wasted. It has been a very long time since I won by science, but I believe my last win time was around T254 and I still had Oxford, both Rationalism free policies, and two GS's. Wasn't really paying attention and some how I had burned through the last few techs really fast.

It seems to me that the largest jump in science is just after public schools. I haven't done the math, but I'm assuming it is because public schools add to the base science before multipliers, and the science polices tend to unlock around the same time. Based on nothing at all except for rough guesswork, it seems like the best time to start burning all the free beaker stuff would be 8 turns after public schools. Go from university-level science straight up to research labs with planned economy in a very short amount of time.

 

[Halcyan2]

I usually save Oxford for the end game, even though the extra +3 beakers would be nice.

Part of it is that during the Medieval/Renaissance, I am still building a lot of wonders, so fitting Oxford in the queue means I might lose out on wonders I want (that's more of a playstyle issue).

However, the most valuable thing to me about Oxford is the timing advantage. You can choose exactly when you want that free tech. When you are in the final sprint, it's often hard to figure out exactly how far away you are from finishing the final techs. I always keep a calculator on hand for Civ V and use it A LOT, but with GS bulbing and RA's, you often can't determine exactly when you will finish researching. Being able to perfectly time Oxford at the end is really helpful (since you can also prepare hammer overflow, and/or influence your cultural rate).