Buying advances?

[vranjesevic]

I would like to mention that I have opened a topic in strategy section of Civ3 forum - "Civ3 - Diety winning and few questions" (loose quote). If you have really good imput about winning on the hardest settings - it is the place to put it (or look for it)!

What are your experiences with buying advances for gold pieces through the course of the game, especially on higher levels?

Is it cheaper to collect taxes and buy advances that to actually spend money on research? This iw very important question for survival on diety level.

 

[StormFront]

I tried the approach of doing max tax instead of science. You end up getting loads of money to buy advances, however the higher the advance, the more it costs. Also, you miss out on research that others didn't do for you. If they don't research gunpowder, you don't get it. So I think both ways are viable, and it comes down to what you prefer.

 

[vranjesevic]

Say that you have 30 tax, 10 spent on luxuries and other, that leaves net 20 to spend on science and/or treasury.

For example:
after 20 turns: 20*20 = 400 gold
or 1 advace (let's assume)

If instead you go to someone and offer, say, 200 gold for that advance - you have 100% better return on your investment!!!!

Those numbers are just an example, NOT real numbers. I am asking if anyone had played long enough to figure it out.

 

[vranjesevic]

I think that few have realised how important is this question:

Is it cheaper to develop or to buy advances?

 

[Suvorov]

Originally posted by vranjesevic
I think that few have realised how important is this question:

Is it cheaper to develop or to buy advances?

Turning that around, is it effective to maximize your level of advances and make up for the gold shortfall by selling technologies? Bearing in mind you have the advantage of having technologies that no one else has.

 

[xoque]

Suvorov makes a very good point.

I for one don't want to be the stupidest Civ out there, with other civ's always having better units before me. Research is a must to get the cutting edge units that you storm everyone with while they are stuck with worse units.