TANSTAFL No cost in research time on the current tech, but (potentially) more research time on the next because of the lack of overflow.
Wrong. You make up the lack of overflow by raising the slider higher on the next tech, which you can do since you have more cash.
Never done it myself but it just occurred to me that you can get one or more turns of delay before committing at the start of each phase so long as you have no techs available that are cheaper than 1 turn to research, by turning up the slider but not putting the beakers into any specific tech. For anyone who hasn't done that accidentally before, deselect the tech at the top of the screen and don't select another one, and you don't actually have to be researching anything specific when you click "end turn" - the beakers are put on hold towards any tech next turn. Next turn it prompts again and you can select any tech and deselect it immediately - then you'll have 2 turns of beakers banked towards any tech. The only thing that sucks is the game automatically insta-researches the cheapest tech for you as soon as you have enough beakers for it, which means you have to make a decision when you see there is any tech with just 1 turn left. But if you had say 5 techs available all requiring 10 turns, and nothing cheaper, you could run full uncommitted for 9 turns and then select at the last minute. Do any of the elite players actually take the micro that far I wonder?!
This thread inspired me to try binary research -- and I positively stomped the AI! I mean really stomped it on the way to my second highest score ever, behind only my Roman-Pangaea game (which hardly counts). I had been struggling on Immortal after taking a year off from Civ4, but this last game I cruised. I don't think that binary research can take all the credit, but I DID fly through techs and earn a mountain of money. Other than that, I used my regular tactics. It didn't require as much micromanaging as I expected either. This is purely anecdotal and probably a coincidence, but I thought I'd share. I'm definitely giving binary research another try because I want to know if it was luck or if there's really something to this.
Yeah, but I make a habit of it so that when I do happen to have built a library or something during that time, I get the maximum benefit. Doing it every time saves me the trouble of checking if I'm building anything relevant and then making a choice.
