How can I increase scientific output?
- Thread starter CivGuy61
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welcome to the great debate!!
science research is a tough gambit to figure out. there are multiple schools of thought about doing a "cottage based econ" or a "specialist based econ"
frankly there is a ton of information out there about both of them. to be quite honest if you want to get the hang of it I would recommend starting with a "financial" civ and focus on cottage spamming all grassland tiles (except where you need to farm or watermill to offset lack of food for mines etc.. lots of research available already) if you build the cottages in the ancient times they will greatly pay off in the long run. you'll end up with cities running 8+ cottages a piece.. seriously pays off in the late game where towns can add a hammer and extra commerce etc.
one school of thought also adds a single gp farm into your mix. put the great library in a city that has ample food resources. run cottages sure but you also want to run scientists as well. as they produce great scientists, put an academy up in the city. it should also have a library. once you get to build universities do so and put oxeford in your great library city to highten its research even more. it is possible to get a single city over 250 beakers PER TURN and several more cities over the 100bpt mark.
best of luck
NaZ
science research is a tough gambit to figure out. there are multiple schools of thought about doing a "cottage based econ" or a "specialist based econ"
frankly there is a ton of information out there about both of them. to be quite honest if you want to get the hang of it I would recommend starting with a "financial" civ and focus on cottage spamming all grassland tiles (except where you need to farm or watermill to offset lack of food for mines etc.. lots of research available already) if you build the cottages in the ancient times they will greatly pay off in the long run. you'll end up with cities running 8+ cottages a piece.. seriously pays off in the late game where towns can add a hammer and extra commerce etc.
one school of thought also adds a single gp farm into your mix. put the great library in a city that has ample food resources. run cottages sure but you also want to run scientists as well. as they produce great scientists, put an academy up in the city. it should also have a library. once you get to build universities do so and put oxeford in your great library city to highten its research even more. it is possible to get a single city over 250 beakers PER TURN and several more cities over the 100bpt mark.
best of luck
NaZ
CivGuy61 said:Hi guys I'm starting to play on Noble now and I keep getting outresearched by the AI. What's the deal? How can I create scientific output? Build more cottages?Or is the AI cheating? Prolly so. heh.
The AI is not cheating but they could be trading among themselves. Are you trading with them?
The reason they are out-researching you is simply that they are making more beakers per turn
... so what can you do about that?Expand your empire by war and run more cities, even if costs rise as long as new cities increase income more than the costs you get more total beakers. Don't be locked to some particular % of the science slider... 10 cities at 60% research rate will probably outperform 5 at 90%.
Grow your cities, so that they can run more cottages or feed more scientists from farms. Each city will then produce more base beakers. You will need to increase the happiness and health of your cities and that fits in well with the war option. As your empire expands you capture more resources and that lets your cities get bigger too.
Finally, make your cities more efficient at turning base beakers into final beakers. Build a library in a city and the beakers are increased by 25%. Once a city is certain size it becomes the easiest way to improve output. If you already have 10 cottages then adding a library is like adding 2 and a half more cottages. In your best city (probably your capital) if it produces 30 beakers in the early game you can build a library, a couple of monastries and an academy the beaker output is nearly doubled.
So in summary, increase the number of cities, make them bigger and make them more efficient.
patagonia
Emperor
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An alternative strategy to produce a lot of beakers - or in other words, create a super-science city:
In an SE space win yesterday, my capital (Berlin - playing as Frederick (Cre/Phi) on Vanilla) was producing just over 1000 beakers/turn by the end of the game - without using Caste System to get additional scientist specialists.
The theory behind using a "super science city" is that with the Oxford national wonder, one city produces a significant amount of your empire's beaker output anyway, so this approach looks to maximize the benefit of that.
If you want to try it out, I'd suggest a One City Challenge game. They're the best for learning about more extreme forms of city specialization and very quick to play too.
- Build Pyramids in the capital.
- Farm tiles/develop food resources around it.
- Build a library.
- Either build the Great Library there by hand or use the GE from the Pyramids for it if you've got one.
- Switch to Representation and hire scientists to work in your library.
- Use the first GS for an academy.
- Settle all subsequent GS in this city as super-specialists.
- Build all remaining science multipliers (monasteries, university, Oxford, observatory and lab).
- Recruit as many scientist specialists as possible and settle all the GS you generate.
- Watch the beakers mount up.
In an SE space win yesterday, my capital (Berlin - playing as Frederick (Cre/Phi) on Vanilla) was producing just over 1000 beakers/turn by the end of the game - without using Caste System to get additional scientist specialists.
The theory behind using a "super science city" is that with the Oxford national wonder, one city produces a significant amount of your empire's beaker output anyway, so this approach looks to maximize the benefit of that.
If you want to try it out, I'd suggest a One City Challenge game. They're the best for learning about more extreme forms of city specialization and very quick to play too.
That's one way to do it...
Another thing I noticed is that soon after the all-important Bronze Working technology, you need to get Pottery quickly to start on your cottages early. I'm playing a Monarch game as Elizabeth now, and by starting on cottages earlier, I am leading on the GNP graph by a wide margin.
I prefer cottage economies over specialist economies, but I second the "try a OCC" idea. That is when I truly learned how to manage a city...when your empire consists of a city, it forces you to consider how everything affects your city's production, commerce, everything.
Another thing I noticed is that soon after the all-important Bronze Working technology, you need to get Pottery quickly to start on your cottages early. I'm playing a Monarch game as Elizabeth now, and by starting on cottages earlier, I am leading on the GNP graph by a wide margin.
I prefer cottage economies over specialist economies, but I second the "try a OCC" idea. That is when I truly learned how to manage a city...when your empire consists of a city, it forces you to consider how everything affects your city's production, commerce, everything.
TheDS
Regular Riot
Um, the AIs ARE 'cheating', in that at higher levels they don't have to research as many beakers (nor do they have to build as many hammers and probably don't have to grow as many slices of bread).
drkodos
Emperor
Rathelm said:
Actually, at Noble the AI civs start with a bonus of 8 hammers in their build cue on Normal speed. There are a couple of other documented inequities that are floating around the site somewhere in some threads.
Hmm...
Overall, Noble is pretty balanced. I would say that if you properly play a cottage economy or a specialist economy and pay attention to what you are doing, it shouldn't be hard to out-tech the AI.
I'm playing on Monarch (this time as Japan), and I'm finding it difficult to keep up at times. But, I've managed to weasel myself into a good tech trading position where I get a tech, trade it to one of three civs for another one, and then go bartering among the less advanced civs with my new purchases. Overall, I'm holding my own...it's only a matter of time before the everything falls into place and the invasions start.
Overall, Noble is pretty balanced. I would say that if you properly play a cottage economy or a specialist economy and pay attention to what you are doing, it shouldn't be hard to out-tech the AI.
I'm playing on Monarch (this time as Japan), and I'm finding it difficult to keep up at times. But, I've managed to weasel myself into a good tech trading position where I get a tech, trade it to one of three civs for another one, and then go bartering among the less advanced civs with my new purchases. Overall, I'm holding my own...it's only a matter of time before the everything falls into place and the invasions start.
Part of the problem now with the specialist econ is they increased the cost of the pyramids to 500 hammers. if you are not industrialist or near stone you're pretty much screwed. the ai is sure to beat you to it so you cannot count on representation.
I'm playing a game as frederick right now and spawned next to marble instead so I'm shooting for the great library and will use the philo trait. hopefully rome will build the pyramids so when I sack them I can get the immediate boost from representation.
always a good idea to cottage up atleast a little to help suppliment research
NaZ
I'm playing a game as frederick right now and spawned next to marble instead so I'm shooting for the great library and will use the philo trait. hopefully rome will build the pyramids so when I sack them I can get the immediate boost from representation.
always a good idea to cottage up atleast a little to help suppliment research
NaZ
tomart
Chieftain
TheDS said:
Even at Noble, the AIs are trading among themselves (and only offering me rediculously one-sided trades... or am i just not good at bartering?) Seriously, patagonia's detailed advice is great (i'll be using it immediately) but when two or more civs are researching different techs and trading, you cut at least in half the time and expense for each tech! That's worth a whole lot of science-boosting... Was civ designed to make tech-trading difficult for us humans?
Well I look at trading this way. Say you get a 1K beaker tech and trade it to 3 different countries for 3 800 beaker techs. You just made 1400 beakers. Now compound the fact that on higher difficulties the computer gets research bonuses. For example the 1K beaker tech may only cost the comp 600 beakers to research themselves. If you can get them to give you an 800 beaker tech for it (800 beakers to you), you just earned turn advantage on them.
The key to really remember here is that just because it costs 1K beakers to you, doesn't mean that's what it is going to cost the comp.
The key to really remember here is that just because it costs 1K beakers to you, doesn't mean that's what it is going to cost the comp.
tomart
Chieftain
Rathelm said:
Yeah, i'm down with that. But lately it seems all the ai civs have the same one or two '1500' techs that i don't have, and they all want the '2500' tech i just researched my little heart out to get. So i can pick which one of them i trade this big gift to, and then give it away for a few hundred gold (they don't keep much ready cash around) to the others, so at least no one else gets to shop it around. But i still feel ripped off, giving a great new tech away for 40 gold. And then there's the militarily potent techs that i DON'T want them to have (which are my favorite to research...) So i often have nothing to trade. Am i missing something?
tomart said:
Then you have to leverage the benefits. For example I had a great engineer sitting around and realized that I didn't have music, but someone was willing to trade it to me for education. I sucked it up and took the hit just to be able to build Notre Dame in 1 turn in my GP farm.
Rathelm said:
first, get used to being ripped off
then start "planning" the trades.
For example:
- giving away tech A for money from civ 1,
- then giving away tech A and money for tech B from civ 2. You doubled your beaker output and earned yourself good realtions
- then bribing civ 3 vs civ4 with tech A.
Of course, you give away a good tech for just another good tech, but you also
- prevent the AIs from trading it (= earning a better advantage, while you gain nothing)
- organize diplomatic relations (civ 3 won't trade with civ 4 for a while!)
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