How fast to expand?

[elmurcis]

game still round down if total empire beaker number is xx.50 (if I run 2 scientists for GS, I get 6 +25% = 7.5 beakers.. but thats 7 beakers actually.. than I better choose to have 2 cities with 2 scientists each.. thats 15 beakers and precise number )

And I love heavy REX - almost always I crash my economy.. if there is beautiful land, I must get it for any price.. still I have plan how to recover and use that huge land.. and if my plan actually works, I get back into research lead around renesaince era (until that all job is to keep my empire alive and avoid big wars)

 

[damerell]

You're right; I switched a number around in there. Was trying to do it in my head. More shame to me. Thank you for pointing out my mistake. However, this style of on/off research is very popular, and I do not think it is simply a fad. It may have been a coincidence that my research rates seemed to go up when I started using this method and I just understood some other aspect of the game better, but I believe that binary research has value outside of masking your true commercial capabilities in multiplayer. How precisely it works escapes me at present. Perhaps it's related to how things work when you Libraries in some cities but not all cities.

No. It does overcome some rounding errors in the very early game, but the real use of it (although personally I see it as cheesy and tedious micromanagement, so I don't bother) is twofold. Suppose we have a ten-turn cycle where we could either run the slider at 70%, producing 700 beakers (which we need for our next tech) - or at 0% for 3 turns and 100% for 7 turns, also producing 700 beakers.

Now suppose we are building Libraries during that ten-turn cycle. In the binary research world, more of the beakers are produced after the Libraries are ready - resulting in more output for the same commerce input.

Also suppose on turn 5 we suddenly change our mind about what tech to research. With the slider at 70%, 350 beakers are already committed; in the binary research world, only 200 were committed, meaning the newly desired tech is effectively closer.

 

[vanillasine]

To the OP, (as not to spoil it for anyone):

Spoiler :

Nobles Club CXIII: Washington, which is up on the first page, is a very good exercise in controlled expansion. you might look at what some other people did in there and compare. If you've never tried it, see some of the other games from previous seasons too. it helped me alot.

 

[Htadus]

My problem in playing at Prince level is how fast to expand without crashing the economy. At Prince level or for that matter any level, crashing economy means different things to people. For me it is getting down to about 20% Science slider as long as I can build Libs, CH's and maybe Markets. My adversaries always seem to have built more cities than me. This map really did not have a good settler factory, but you also had several forests available and could have chopped a few more workers and settlersI build 2 cottages in every city and work sea tiles as well but my gold to research rate is always dropping. That is part of the game and to be expected. Just dont be afraid of it. Instead have a way out of it like Libraries, CH's and such. Even though I have space to expand, if I try to catch up with the number of cities, my economy collapses. It takes 40 turns to grow a village into a town, just to get 1 gold more and by this time the city maintenance and inflation increases faster, I reckon. How do you cope?

Just accept it as a way of the game and plan to recover from it. Everything will fall into place. I played your save without using the whip or really chopping much. Only thing I did was got greedy and got Civil Service from the Oracle. This game could have been more advanced if I used the whip and chop more aggressively and built the Mids for representation. Take a look. The tech path to develop you surrounding and a worker first is a natural must for a good game. So agriculture, AH, the wheel and Pottery immediately followed by BW would have been nice. Or start with BW and get your worker to do some chopping may have worked also.

 

[Apricottage]

No. It does overcome some rounding errors in the very early game, but the real use of it (although personally I see it as cheesy and tedious micromanagement, so I don't bother) is twofold. Suppose we have a ten-turn cycle where we could either run the slider at 70%, producing 700 beakers (which we need for our next tech) - or at 0% for 3 turns and 100% for 7 turns, also producing 700 beakers.

Now suppose we are building Libraries during that ten-turn cycle. In the binary research world, more of the beakers are produced after the Libraries are ready - resulting in more output for the same commerce input.

Also suppose on turn 5 we suddenly change our mind about what tech to research. With the slider at 70%, 350 beakers are already committed; in the binary research world, only 200 were committed, meaning the newly desired tech is effectively closer.

Makes sense. Thank you for explaining. All I'm personally aware of is that I got much, much faster tech around when I started using binary research.

 

[RJM]

pepe26 pointed out that the major benefit of binary research went away with one of the patches. But there is still a small benefit. You get 1 from research when the slider is set at 0%. Not spectacular, but sometimes useful during the ealy game. Setting the slider to 0% does not lose commerce, but stores it as . It can be worth doing when building anything that muliplies . But it can delay discovering a technology by 1 turn. If that technology (eg currency) gives a major benfit, it is worth not running at 0% just to get the technology a turn earlier. In theory, it is worth setting research at 0% while building any multiplier, but after the early game it's likely that the cost of delaying a tech will be too high. However, it's often worth doing it for the final stages of building Oxford.

 

[Bellringer]

Hello everybody. Here are my views.

Tweaking the Slider: My calculations for adjusting the science percentage are as follows:

Say we produce 125 commerce per turn. Compare results if we have a Bank or Observatory.

a) Slider is set at 80% science for 4 turns. We get:
125 x 0.8 x 4 turns = 400 beakers
125 x 0.2 x 4 x 1.5 for bank = 150 gold
Total 550 units
b) Slider is set a 0% for 2 turns and 100% for 2 turns. We get:
125 x 2 = 250 beakers
125 x 2 x 1.5 = 375 gold with Bank
With Observatory it is 375 beakers and 250 gold
Total 625 units with either improvement.
c) If you had Observatory instead of Bank and went steady at 80%:
125 x 0.8 x 1.5 x 4 = 600 beakers
125 x 0.2 x 4 = 100 gold
Total 700 units
Usually we have a lot more multipliers for science than for gold. So unless you need gold in an emergency, steady as she goes seems better than On-Off. Also, it seems that rushing to build more cities and lowering the science rate is not a good option.

Strategy. I am expert at building the space-ship and have never tried any other option. I have developed a spreadsheet which helps to plan the production of the space-ship parts and I can beat the AI by several turns with it. I tried to upload it for the use of others but it seems that Excel spreadsheets are not accepted for uploading. Any suggestions?

Game, I have advanced to 350AD with 6 cities and Monty and Alex have appeared on the scene. My last city down south is successfully blocking Monty's galleys from encroaching. So I will wait until my research rate recovers rather than rushing to build more cities. My score is now higher than that of those two, whereas earlier it was badly lower. So the expert advice from all of you is working!

Thanks and keep posted.

 

[Izuul]

IMO, binary research is primarily to lessen the chance of putting beakers into a tech and then getting beat to that tech by the AI. The longer that you can delay your tech decision, the more informed it will be when you have to make it.

As mentioned above, it can also be good to turn research off and bank gold for a few turns when close to getting a big research multiplier online.

 

[Yudishtira]

Strategy. I am expert at building the space-ship and have never tried any other option. I have developed a spreadsheet which helps to plan the production of the space-ship parts and I can beat the AI by several turns with it. I tried to upload it for the use of others but it seems that Excel spreadsheets are not accepted for uploading. Any suggestions?

I'm surprised there's any problem. Perhaps you could 'zip' it with WinZip/WinRAR/whatever?

 

[Nials]

CFC only accepts a limited number of file formats for uploading. As Yudishtira pointed out, you can always make a zip archive.

 

[Bellringer]

Htadus

I studied the game you sent me at 1AD and compared it with mine. Here are some salient comparisons:

Mine Yours
Score 484 586
Cities 5 7
Gold 24 72
Trade income 4 30
Troops 11 7
Wonders 0 2
Workers 5 5
Techs 20 24

Other items like Goods, Crops, Land, Population are slightly less in mine than yours.

So why is my Gold so much less than yours? You get 30 gold from trade routes (14 internal+16 foreign) and I get 4 internal only. Why? Game does not allow me to connect to the foreign trade network so how do I do that? I have not built villages in my capital and second city as I thought I would specialise my capital for specialists and the second city for production, so that is a big loss also. How many cottages do you recommend per city?

How do you defend 7 cities against barbarians with only 6 warriors? Archers and even axemen appear near various improvements. You have 69K soldiers against rival best of 119K so what if they attack?

I wonder if you can play further and show me how you can tackle Monti.

Thanks.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I would assume he is spawnbusting, the idea being to keep the barbs from ever appearing in the first place.

 

[damerell]

Makes sense. Thank you for explaining. All I'm personally aware of is that I got much, much faster tech around when I started using binary research.

But coincidence is not causation. Perhaps you were more generally improving your standard of play then; because now that the rounding issues do not dominate, binary research will at most squeeze out a modest number of extra beakers.

 

[Shaandore]

Hello everybody. Here are my views.

Tweaking the Slider: My calculations for adjusting the science percentage are as follows:

Say we produce 125 commerce per turn. Compare results if we have a Bank or Observatory+library.

a) Slider is set at 80% science for 4 turns. We get:
125 x 0.8 x 4 turns = 400 beakers
125 x 0.2 x 4 x 1.5 for bank = 150 gold
Total 550 units
b) Slider is set a 0% for 2 turns and 100% for 2 turns. We get:
125 x 2 = 250 beakers
125 x 2 x 1.5 = 375 gold with Bank
With Observatory it is 375 beakers and 250 gold
Total 625 units with either improvement.
c) If you had Observatory + library instead of Bank and went steady at 80%:
125 x 0.8 x 1.5 x 4 = 600 beakers
125 x 0.2 x 4 = 100 gold
Total 700 units
d) With Observatory + library and 4 turn 100%
125 x 1.5 x 4 = 750 beakers = 750 "units"
, but there is no point in this kind of comparison:the gold and beakers are not the same kind of units (because of multipliers).
Usually we have a lot more multipliers for science than for gold. So unless you need gold in an emergency, steady as she goes seems better than On-Off. Also, it seems that rushing to build more cities and lowering the science rate is not a good option.

Strategy. I am expert at building the space-ship and have never tried any other option. I have developed a spreadsheet which helps to plan the production of the space-ship parts and I can beat the AI by several turns with it. I tried to upload it for the use of others but it seems that Excel spreadsheets are not accepted for uploading. Any suggestions?

Game, I have advanced to 350AD with 6 cities and Monty and Alex have appeared on the scene. My last city down south is successfully blocking Monty's galleys from encroaching. So I will wait until my research rate recovers rather than rushing to build more cities. My score is now higher than that of those two, whereas earlier it was badly lower. So the expert advice from all of you is working!

Thanks and keep posted.

There is in fact no difference with going binary or normal research in beaker/gold output on the long run if your multipliers are fixed. Eg. in a 100 turn period, you pay 1000 gold in maintenance, and the rest of your commerce is going through your scinece multipliers.

The difference comes from the way multipliers are added. Let's assume that you are building your first library in your capital, which is your only city, and has 10 commerce. The library gets built in 2 turns.
50% slider for 4 turns gets you
40 gold and 20 + 20 x 1.25 = 45 beakers
0% for first two turns and then 100% for two turns gets you
40 gold and 40 x 1,25 = 50 beakers
You basically ran more commerce through multipliers.
We produced the same amount of gold, but 5 more beakers with binary research. Thus binary is clearly better. Same applies when building universities and Oxford after Education. Running 0% slider until those get built is a good idea.

And as the others said, the main advantage of binary is trades. You see what the AIs tech, so you can get a fast monopoly tech and trade it around. This is the best beaker multiplier in the game

Examples when you might not want to run binary research are:
- You are afraid from an AI demand that might lead to war
- You have a big empire, and fixed multipliers, and no trading partners

 

[pepe26]

bellringer, you cannot value 1 beaker and 1 gold in the same way as 1 unit... 1 gold is worth more than 1 beaker. thus, building wealth is more sensible than building research.

oh, i just realized shaandore already made that point.

 

[Bellringer]

What Shaandore is citing is a very special case. When you are building different buildings in several cities you can hardly keep track of things that way. Suppose you turn the slider alternately 100% and 0%. You get:
1st turn: 10 beakers, 0 gold
2nd turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold
3rd turn: 12.5 beakers, 0 gold with Library
4th turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold.
Total 22.5 beakers, 20 gold.

If you are going steady at 50%
1st turn: 5 beakers, 5 gold
2nd turn: 5 beakers, 5 gold
3rd turn: 6.25 beakers, 5 gold
4th turn: 6.25 beakers, 5 gold

Result is the same!

Why is gold more valueable than beakers, Pepe26? You can convert hammers into 50% beakers or 50% gold. You can use gold for promoting troops or again converting it to beakers with your slider, but you can never get more beakers than gold from that gold.

So I stick to my contention that you are more productive when converting at a constant rate!

 

[Soirana]

What Shaandore is citing is a very special case. When you are building different buildings in several cities you can hardly keep track of things that way. Suppose you turn the slider alternately 100% and 0%. You get:
1st turn: 10 beakers, 0 gold
2nd turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold
3rd turn: 12.5 beakers, 0 gold with Library
4th turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold.
Total 22.5 beakers, 20 gold.

Anyone in binary would do:
1st turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold
2nd turn: 0 beakers, 10 gold
3rd turn: 12.5 beakers, 0 gold with Library
4th turn: 12.5 beakers, 0 gold.
25 beakers total.

In other words people who use brain activity for result and not number juggling stockpile on money untill their have enough money to aquire tech cause:
A) you might met someone who knows tech or someone you know gets that tech. You got positive modifier form that.
B) you might build tech modifiers - see example above.
C) the situation might change - changing priorities in tech. Beakers invested in tech do decay, gold does not.
D) sitting on non round modifiers or non round [like 13 beakers per turn] causes 1 gold/beaker loss per turn. At time you settle your second city that is about 10% of output.

 

[Nials]

The difference comes from the way multipliers are added. Let's assume that you are building your first library in your capital, which is your only city, and has 10 commerce. The library gets built in 2 turns.
50% slider for 4 turns gets you
40 gold and 20 + 20 x 1.25 = 45 beakers
0% for first two turns and then 100% for two turns gets you
40 gold and 40 x 1,25 = 50 beakers
You basically ran more commerce through multipliers.
We produced the same amount of gold, but 5 more beakers with binary research. Thus binary is clearly better.

50% slider would make 5 and 5 per turn, would it not? How are you getting 40 then? Shouldn't it be 20 ? Likewise with . Am I missing something?

I agree with all of your points, though.

C) the situation might change - changing priorities in tech. Beakers invested in tech do decay, gold does not.

Are you certain about beakers decaying? I was quite convinced that only hammers could decay.

 

[Windsor]

bellringer, you cannot value 1 beaker and 1 gold in the same way as 1 unit... 1 gold is worth more than 1 beaker. thus, building wealth is more sensible than building research.
.

You are thinking Beyond the Sword. This is vanilla where gold/science from hammers goes through the gold/science buildings and not the hammer-buildings.

 

[damerell]

What Shaandore is citing is a very special case. When you are building different buildings in several cities you can hardly keep track of things that way. Suppose you turn the slider alternately 100% and 0%.

That is "old" binary research, avoiding rounding errors. It's not what is being suggested. What is being suggested is running 0% until you have enough gold to then run 100% up until the next technology pops. Under those circumstances, you don't have to keep track of anything to know that you are building Libraries and will have them out during that period.