"Enlightenment" (Exploration Science Legacy) Questions

[Navelgazer]

So, I've played a dozen or so times through the Exploration Age now, and while I feel like I have a good handle on securing Treasure Fleets (assuming that I don't get hosed on the dice roll for settling the right resources, but even then, that's what war is for), Non Sufficit Orbis (which you don't even need to go to war to complete!) and Toshakhana (Relics are easy enough to come by, especially if you pick the +2-per-City-State-Conversion religious tenet, so it's just a matter of getting enough settlements or building the right wonders to have space for them.)

But I'm still having trouble getting a handle on Enlightenment, the Exploration Age Science Legacy Path. I've only completed it once, maybe twice so far, even when actively pursuing it as my primary path. Some things I'm doing:

• Making sure to place my specialists on non-city-center tiles.
• Chasing techs/civics that raise my specialist limit.
• Placing specialists where the yield increase shown will be the greatest, and maxing out specialist limits on tiles before moving to filling different ones.
• Placing buildings wherever it shows the highest yields for them (except in cases of unique quarters.)
• Buying buildings to build over low-yield rural tiles in order to place more specialists.
* Slotting social policies that lower specialist costs.

And yet still, most of the time, I'm lucky to get up to three 40+ Yield Tiles. Checking progress on the victory screen will tell me early on when one tile is at, like "33/40" yield, but I can't find any way to tell which tile it's even referring to. I just feel like I'm missing something obvious here about how to go about reliably completing this. So my questions are:

1. Is there an easy (or easier than hovering over every tile in a city every time and adding up all the yields to compare them) way to see where I should focus my efforts here, or at least track how I'm doing?
2. Is there something I'm missing in my current strategy that would help here?

Thanks!

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. No, this legacy path is one of things really suffering from UI problems.
2. Do you pay attention for the buildings themselves? They need high adjacency bonuses and you need to research techs which increase building output. Also, pay attention to policies.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Fundamentally, your ability to complete this path is dependent on your spawn. If you have an awesome spot for a science Quarter with 3 or 4 adjacent resources and a spot for a Wonder, getting the +40 yields is easy.

So, as an answer to 2.) just get luckier I guess

(Well, that + Civ and Leader choices. Confucius + Abbasids seems like a strong pairing)

 

[bbbt]

• Placing buildings wherever it shows the highest yields for them (except in cases of unique quarters.)

Specialists are based on adjacency bonuses.

You have to place 2 exploration age adjacency bonus generating buildings in the SAME quarter, and then place specialists there. If you are just looking for highest yields, you might accidentally be placing your buildings in different districts. You want the highest combo of adjacency in on quarter - even if that means one building has slightly less than it would elsewhere. I don't do too much min-maxing on it tbh, just basically place building A where it has max adjacency and then always add building B there regardless.

Then add policy cards et al that give bonuses to specialists.

Also when building warehouse buildings in earlier eras, try and put them together in a quarter. Because they don't have adjacency, one warehouse + one non-warehouse will have less adjacency.

 

[Sagax]

Specialists are based on adjacency bonuses.

You have to place 2 exploration age adjacency bonus generating buildings in the SAME quarter, and then place specialists there. If you are just looking for highest yields, you might accidentally be placing your buildings in different districts. You want the highest combo of adjacency in on quarter - even if that means one building has slightly less than it would elsewhere. I don't do too much min-maxing on it tbh, just basically place building A where it has max adjacency and then always add building B there regardless.

Then add policy cards et al that give bonuses to specialists.

Also when building warehouse buildings in earlier eras, try and put them together in a quarter. Because they don't have adjacency, one warehouse + one non-warehouse will have less adjacency.

Basically, this. Based on OP’s description, I suspect spreading too thin and not overbuilding obsolete buildings seems to be the root cause.

Also, install this UI mod immediately: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/sukritacts-simple-ui-adjustments.31860/updates

 

[UWHabs]

There's effectively 3 adjacency types you can get - gold and food needs water (coast or river), happiness and culture need wonders, and science and production need resources. To get 40 yields, you really only need an adjacency of 3, and the key is to make sure that you double up on the spots. So don't put a woodcutter, since you give up like half of your adjacencies.

If you double up, you should have 8 or 9 yields from the 2 base buildings, and another 8 from the adjacencies. If you only have +3 naturally, try to get a wonder nearby to get to the +4. Then each specialist gives you about 8 yields (+2 science, +2 culture, and half the adjacency per building, so if you double up on gold, you should get the full +4).

Then the important policy cards if you're not quite there are the one to give you bonus adjacency (I forget what they're called, but it's like "bonus from gold adjacency" or something, which basically doubles those adjacency values, and should easily get you over the mark.

Generally I try to mark which one or two tiles from each city I want to target, and I make sure that tile has the right buildings in, and I will make sure to get specialists in there even if they're not the optimal tile for it. Once we have a working map tacks officially supported or as a mod, this will help a lot for planning. But the key are to make sure to double up correctly, and then it's not that hard to get there.

 

[Fluffball]

As mentioned it depends on a bit of luck but you generally want to plan for this from the start of the game, making sure some of your cities have tiles with as big an adjacent bonus as possible, maybe even putting wonders in places to enhance them if possible. Then placing the highest tier buildings together in the maximum adjacent tiles and adding specialists to them.

You don't really want to stack the same type of building in the same tile as one will have a lower yield than the other thus you won't get the highest possible yield.

e.g. if you stack a bank and a bazaar you only get (3+5) 8 base yields plus adjacency but if you place a bank and a hospital (which share adjacent bonuses) you get (5+5) 10 base yields plus adjacency.

The branch in general appears to have many issues with various parts registering or the conditions being either not clear or bugged.

 

[UWHabs]

As mentioned it depends on a bit of luck but you generally want to plan for this from the start of the game, making sure some of your cities have tiles with as big an adjacent bonus as possible, maybe even putting wonders in places to enhance them if possible. Then placing the highest tier buildings together in the maximum adjacent tiles and adding specialists to them.

You don't really want to stack the same type of building in the same tile as one will have a lower yield than the other thus you won't get the highest possible yield.

e.g. if you stack a bank and a bazaar you only get (3+5) 8 base yields plus adjacency but if you place a bank and a hospital (which share adjacent bonuses) you get (5+5) 10 base yields plus adjacency.

The branch in general appears to have many issues with various parts registering or the conditions being either not clear or bugged.

True, if you think you might be tight, waiting for the later buildings give you a little edge. But if you have a good river spot, you're still probably better to put a bank and bazaar than a bank and university.

 

[Evolena]

You don't really want to stack the same type of building in the same tile as one will have a lower yield than the other thus you won't get the highest possible yield.

That +1 basic yield difference doesn't matter in regards to the 2-4 Specialists each multiplying the adjacency bonus.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

How are the Specialists Yields actually calculated (the base ones, not the ones from bonuses), is it Science/Culture as base always?

 

[marius_kaparius]

How are the Specialists Yields actually calculated (the base ones, not the ones from bonuses), is it Science/Culture as base always?

+2 Science, +2 Culture as base with a cost of 2 Food/2 Happiness then (very important) half of the adjacency bonuses that apply to the tile. Picking spots with good adjacency bonuses is very important to achieve Enlightenment.

 

[Yzman]

My strategy is I find the highest non city center tiles that also show high yields when adding specialists and focus on those. This usually leaves me a bit short. I then make sure I add all of the various cards that add adjacency bonuses. Once I do this I usually trigger multiple at once going over 40.

 

[Evolena]

Beside Policies, you can also look at Attributes or City-States Suzerain bonus for bonus yields on Specialists, Buildings or Quarters.

 

[Sagax]

There's effectively 3 adjacency types you can get - gold and food needs water (coast or river), happiness and culture need wonders, and science and production need resources.

Small correction: culture and happiness need mountains and Natural Wonders. Built wonders provide adjacencies to all non-warehouse buildings and districts.

As another approach, a well-placed Machu Pikchu can single-handedly carry you to this victory. You probably won’t learn much from it, though.

 

[uppi]

• Chasing techs/civics that raise my specialist limit.

You shouldn't need to do that too hard. For a good tile, 2 specialists might be enough. 3 certainly should be. If you are putting 4 specialists on a tile to get to 40 yields, you are doing something wrong. Instead pick up a few techs which increase yields on buildings, which might push you over the line.

• Slotting social policies that lower specialist costs.

No need to do that to get to 40 yields. I don't think the costs count for the yield threshold. If you have them, slot policies which boost adjacencies, because those will get multiplied by specialists. (Not that lower specialist costs are a bad thing, especially after you have got all the Enlightenment points, they just don't help getting there)

What you can also do:

• Level up your leader to get additional science/culture on specialists
• If you have spots with good adjacencies, make them better by building wonders next to them (best if you can already identify those spots in Antiquity)
• Use Mementos which give additional yields on specialists
• If you come across any narrative events which boosts specialists, take those options
• Build Machu Pikchu - that wonder gives insane adjacencies to buildings next to it, which then get multiplied by specialists.

 

[Leucarum]

I find food/money are usually the easiest adjacencies to maximize fast. Getting water adjacencies is very easy, and keep an eye out especially for one tile islands you can connect to with buildings. Drop a couple of specialists down on one of those with food/money buildings and you get it done very fast. Not the sexiest yields but it's quick!

 

[CliffCo]

So, I've played a dozen or so times through the Exploration Age now, and while I feel like I have a good handle on securing Treasure Fleets (assuming that I don't get hosed on the dice roll for settling the right resources, but even then, that's what war is for), Non Sufficit Orbis (which you don't even need to go to war to complete!) and Toshakhana (Relics are easy enough to come by, especially if you pick the +2-per-City-State-Conversion religious tenet, so it's just a matter of getting enough settlements or building the right wonders to have space for them.)

But I'm still having trouble getting a handle on Enlightenment, the Exploration Age Science Legacy Path. I've only completed it once, maybe twice so far, even when actively pursuing it as my primary path. Some things I'm doing:

• Making sure to place my specialists on non-city-center tiles.
• Chasing techs/civics that raise my specialist limit.
• Placing specialists where the yield increase shown will be the greatest, and maxing out specialist limits on tiles before moving to filling different ones.
• Placing buildings wherever it shows the highest yields for them (except in cases of unique quarters.)
• Buying buildings to build over low-yield rural tiles in order to place more specialists.
* Slotting social policies that lower specialist costs.

And yet still, most of the time, I'm lucky to get up to three 40+ Yield Tiles. Checking progress on the victory screen will tell me early on when one tile is at, like "33/40" yield, but I can't find any way to tell which tile it's even referring to. I just feel like I'm missing something obvious here about how to go about reliably completing this. So my questions are:

1. Is there an easy (or easier than hovering over every tile in a city every time and adding up all the yields to compare them) way to see where I should focus my efforts here, or at least track how I'm doing?
2. Is there something I'm missing in my current strategy that would help here?

Thanks!

If you're on PC or Mac there's a mod called Specialist Calculator that gives you the specialist info you're wanting on a per tile basis.

 

[Taefin]

Use Mementos which give additional yields on specialists

I think I also saw a cheat code mod that you might be able to use to boost yields jkjk mementos it’s a fair item to add to a list for completeness.

I’m pretty sure the adjacency boosting policy cards are not multiplied by specialists, just adding another 1x to the combined multiplier on adjacencies (1+policy+specialists/2)x(adjacency)

 

[uppi]

I think I also saw a cheat code mod that you might be able to use to boost yields jkjk mementos it’s a fair item to add to a list for completeness.

I’m pretty sure the adjacency boosting policy cards are not multiplied by specialists, just adding another 1x to the combined multiplier on adjacencies (1+policy+specialists/2)x(adjacency)

They are multiplied by specialists. Compare these two screenshots

Spoiler :

The highlighted tile has a +1 production adjacency from the silk and a single specialist (which I put there for testing purposes). The difference between the screenshots is that I put in the +1 on production adjacency in. But the production changes by 1.5 instead of 1 because the specialist multiplier also applies to the bonus adjacency from the policy

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

You have to plan quite a lot, especially where you place your wonders in the previous ages. What I do is the following:

• Don't place warehouse buildings in the settlements you want as cities later (those with high production, or with a lot of ressources). Even thougth those warehouse could have given you some food/production, they are based on rural tiles, which will be eventually transformed into quarters... So by mid-game you will get pathetic yields, but an eternal building you can't get rid of.... Warehouse buildings are a city trap! (well, except for fishing quay, there's not a lot of buildings on water...^^).
• Wonders in antiquity are important because of the cultural legacy path. But building them is not enough, you have to place them correctly. They must not be adjacent to ressources if you can, because you want to get the most efficient adjacencies possible later (science building and production want ressources and wonders). Also putting wonders in a line can be ok, but having the in triangle formation result in a loss of adjacencies...
• Speaking of wonders, some can help you in reaching the 40 yields. For example, the Forbidden City, which give you 2 happiness and culture on fortified quarter, will for a low amount of money give you 10% of the yield you seek.
• During exploration age you have a lot of doctrines that increase the yield ajacencies of one type of ressource (money, happiness,...). This is good, because that boosts both the yield of the building, but also those of the specialists (they get half of the adjacencies).
• Select the most promising buildings depending on the tiles available. Hapinness building tends to be on the low end of yields, so don't really count on them... The best is to group culture buildings together, the same for science buildings (they have a good base yields, and easy to get adjacencies).
• Don't forget to have enough hapiness in the city, since low hapiness tends to lower yields. However I didn't look wether you need a certain treshold, or just be positive.
• You will need a lot of specialists. So a lot of food, considering that those greedy specialist eat a lot... So try not to have too many cities compared to towns, and be sure towns are correctly connected so that they can be specialized into food towns.
• The science legacy path is not a rush, its a marathon... When you get a specialist, think ahead of what building you will later unlock, and prepare. It is better to put a specialist on a tile with antiquated building if the spot has a lot of adjancencies (mostly wonders and ressources), if you have yet to build/unlock the best building to be put there (like an observatory/university combo).
• Never put specialists on a tile with a warehouse building... There won't ever be any adjacencies, it will be a loss... Better to improve a new tile to get some food/production, which can later be overbuilt and the worker recovered and transformed into a specialist!
• Unique buildings, even from antiquity, can have nice enough adjacencies to have decent yields. So you can consider them for specialist placement.