Quick question about that commerce research slider. So I have studied the way it works fairly well but there is one thing I don't quite understand. In my research people have proposed the strategy where as one is about to finish a university they put the slider to 100gold until the university is done. Why do people do this? I don't really understand? Is it because gold will become more valuable then beakers once the university is built?
Commerce, Research and the Slider
- Thread starter mmuhr
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Balderstrom
Emperor
Sometimes, you can move the slider up and down without affecting how many turns it will take to complete the new Tech, and effectively get more gold stockpiled over that time frame. Also a number of the older strategy articles and forum posts refer back to when CIV didn't have fractionalized(floats not integers) values for 
and 
CIV fractionalizes those values now, so theres less MicroManaging needed
ie +25% on 4 commerce = +1, on 5 commerce = +1.25
Prior to the change from integer to floats +25% on 4-7 commerce gave +1
and +25% on 1-3 commerce gave nada.
Thus a lot of micromanaging was required to optimize Research/Gold et al.
and CIV fractionalizes those values now, so theres less MicroManaging needed
ie +25% on 4 commerce = +1, on 5 commerce = +1.25
Prior to the change from integer to floats +25% on 4-7 commerce gave +1
and +25% on 1-3 commerce gave nada.
Thus a lot of micromanaging was required to optimize Research/Gold et al.
To add to what Balderstrom said here:
In Civ Vanilla "extra beakers" didn't carry over to a new technology. This means if you had 100 beakers left on Astronomy, and your civilization was producing 1000 beakers per turn, the extra 900 beakers would be lost. Instead, if you dropped your science down to 20% where you were still generating 130 beakers, but now generating 88 gold per turn, you'd still learn Astronomy in one turn, but be over 80 gold richer!
In BTS your "extra beakers" carry over to the new technology, so this type of micromanagement is (mostly) unnecessary. However, you do lose 1 commerce per turn by not running at 100% or 0% science due to the rounding that happens. This is a negligible amount for me.
I have no info on the Warlords expansion.
In Civ Vanilla "extra beakers" didn't carry over to a new technology. This means if you had 100 beakers left on Astronomy, and your civilization was producing 1000 beakers per turn, the extra 900 beakers would be lost. Instead, if you dropped your science down to 20% where you were still generating 130 beakers, but now generating 88 gold per turn, you'd still learn Astronomy in one turn, but be over 80 gold richer!
In BTS your "extra beakers" carry over to the new technology, so this type of micromanagement is (mostly) unnecessary. However, you do lose 1 commerce per turn by not running at 100% or 0% science due to the rounding that happens. This is a negligible amount for me.
I have no info on the Warlords expansion.
Balderstrom
Emperor
@ Kesshi, I forgot about that "losing beakers towards next tech". It's been a dogs age since I played vanilla, at most a handful of incomplete games. Mostly Warlords 30%+ and BTS 50%+
So many little (almost hidden) tweaks between vanilla and BTS, hard to remember them all!
So many little (almost hidden) tweaks between vanilla and BTS, hard to remember them all!
MadLithuanian
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
- Messages
- 5
There is another reason to run 100% gold while building Universities.
To understand lets make some assumptions to ease analysis:
1. You have no gold stockpiled
2. You have no Universities - but will complete one in each of your cities in 2 turns.
3. You need 20% of your income to cover maintenance costs
4. The commerce (and your costs) you generate is unchanged for 10 turns
If you run 100% gold for the two turns of building the Universities then you get the gold to cover your maintenance for 8 turns after you've built the Universities.
You'll generate the same base research as if you'd run 80 % science for the entire duration. However, because you're doing all of your research after the Universities complete the university research bonus will apply to all of the research you generated in this ten turn example. If you had run 80 % science the whole time the bonus would only have applied to 80% of the research you generated. This is because 20% of your research was generated before you had Universities.
Of course it's always more complicated than this - but there is real argument for generating your science after you have bonuses.
To understand lets make some assumptions to ease analysis:
1. You have no gold stockpiled
2. You have no Universities - but will complete one in each of your cities in 2 turns.
3. You need 20% of your income to cover maintenance costs
4. The commerce (and your costs) you generate is unchanged for 10 turns
If you run 100% gold for the two turns of building the Universities then you get the gold to cover your maintenance for 8 turns after you've built the Universities.
You'll generate the same base research as if you'd run 80 % science for the entire duration. However, because you're doing all of your research after the Universities complete the university research bonus will apply to all of the research you generated in this ten turn example. If you had run 80 % science the whole time the bonus would only have applied to 80% of the research you generated. This is because 20% of your research was generated before you had Universities.
Of course it's always more complicated than this - but there is real argument for generating your science after you have bonuses.
MyOtherName
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,526
Are you sure about that? I was fairly sure that this change was between Civ3/Civ4, not between Civ4 vanilla / Civ4 BtS.
MadLithuanian,
I utilize a similar technique while running Caste System + Mercantilism + Statue of Liberty in newer cities. I will produce a Temple or a Forge (or both) first depending on AP so I can run my specialist as a hammer producing specialist. Once I get all my technological buildings produced I will change my free specialists off the hammer specialists onto scientists so that I can maximize the science output of the city as early as possible.
Even if I need to produce more buildings, I'll swap to scientists to maximize the benefits of the scientific output of my buildings.
Edit:
MyOtherName,
No, I can't say that I'm sure about that. This is just information that I've read on these forums.
...but then again, I read it on the internet, it must be true!
Yes, you're right. The extra beakers have always carried over in Civ 4, ever since the game was released.
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