Help with science

[itsa95thing]

Hi im new to the board this is my first post. Im a first time Civ player and love Civ III, I like how its more involved than most othere games where you just build a army then go kill everyone I like that there are other ways to do it Ive played a few games on the 2 lowest dif levels and I have won every posible way but with space race. My Question is I see people saying they get a new tech every 4 turns I can only for part of the second age, heres what I do I build librarys , universitys and ,wonders that giv science bouns then try to have at least one or two scientist in every city i also use democracy as my form of gov when going for a Science civ so what am I doing wrong. I also noticed your city gets science points my top one had 98, then three had around 48, after that it tapered on down. I also had like 9 or 10 citys its on a small map with three other civs so what should I do.

Thanks in Advace to all that help.

 

[Bamspeedy]

My Question is I see people saying they get a new tech every 4 turns I can only for part of the second age, heres what I do I build librarys , universitys and ,wonders that giv science bouns then try to have at least one or two scientist in every city i also use democracy as my form of gov when going for a Science civ so what am I doing wrong.

Having those scientist probably is hurting you (unless they don't have a tile to work on as a laborer). I find it more helpful not to use scientists at all until you get hospitals and your city is very large. Scientists add just one beaker to your science output. If they were working a tile that is roaded and making say 3 or 4 gold off of it, then if your science is at 50%, then you would have at least one, if not two or more beakers of science.

To get techs every 4 turns you need several large cities. How many cities you need depends on the size map your playing. I build all the improvements in all of them, not just the science ones.

1. Marketplaces, banks, etc. = more money =more for science. 2. Happiness improvements = more citizens to works tiles = more money for science.
3. Courthouses to cut corruption (not needed in your capital of course).

Of course try to figure if some of your cities actually need some of these improvements, so your not wasting money on upkeep costs. Like if you have a city in the mountains or desert that only has a limit of two people, many of those happiness improvements aren't really worth it except for the culture. Some people make this tech/4 turns by selling off old techs that the AI doesn't have for a ton of gold (sell one tech to ALL the other civs on the same turn), so that you can set your science rate to 90 or 100 %.

 

[Beam]

May I suggest Forbidden Palace at a suitable location? And luxuries combined with marketplaces are great!

 

[Vampir226]

Just in case, you adjust the science rate in the Domestic Advisor screen (press F1). I would definitely not use scientists until your cities are at least above size 20. Otherwise, production and trade gathered aid much more in science.

Vampire

 

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy



To get techs every 4 turns you need several large cities. How many cities you need depends on the size map your playing. I build all the improvements in all of them, not just the science ones.

1. Marketplaces, banks, etc. = more money =more for science.

I agree with most of your post here, but for these points. I found that Marketplaces & Banks increase only your tax revenue in each city (i.e. the coin that goes to your treasury), not your science contribution or overall income. You won't help your science by building these, but by building them, you can make more money & therefore afford to buy science from other civs.

Therefore, I wouldn't necessarily buy all the improvements. If I had a normal 100% science rate, I don't bother with banks because my tax rate is 0.

Check out this thread where I posted my investigation.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15040

To address the original question, I haven't played many games yet, but I find it hard to win the space race on lower levels. You can't do all the research yourself & need the computer players to be very productive (i.e. higher difficulty levels) & discover quite a bit to progress the game along.

 

[Bamspeedy]

To address the original question, I haven't played many games yet, but I find it hard to win the space race on lower levels. You can't do all the research yourself & need the computer players to be very productive (i.e. higher difficulty levels) & discover quite a bit to progress the game along.

Not true. Well, at least on huge maps, anways (perhaps the research rate isn't set properly on certain size maps). On Chieftain I was always researching Future Tech before 2000 A.D. (this was before I was doing the tech-selling/trading technique that I learned here). And in the game I just got done playing (Warlord), I traded techs until I had just entered the Middle Ages, then stopped selling the techs and researched them myself (didn't want to give away techs that had wonders, Sun-Tzu's for example, and be in the rat-race to finish them). Sold some older ones for money (like when I was almost complete with the wonder for that tech) and about half way through the Middle Ages I was getting techs every 4-5 turns with my science rate at 50-60%. Won by culture though in 1860 A.D., I was about halfway through the Industrial Age.