Improving Science Research in the Early Game

[randyripoff]

I've been playing this game for about six years now, and I've just begun playing at Prince level (I know, I'm not very good ). I have a question--what affects the speed of research in the early game, prior to gaining libraries? Sometimes, it seems as though my research is ridiculously fast prior to gaining libraries, other times it seems tremendously slow. Is there something I should be looking for to speed up research?

 

[Michael York]

Population working trade tiles. Libraries & such only increase the trade you already have. 50% if I recall. (I've moved on to Civ 3 PTW, so I can't remember for sure)

 

[randyripoff]

I'm a little confused. What's the effect of trade on science research?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by randyripoff
I'm a little confused. What's the effect of trade on science research?

Wow, where to start with that one...

Trade arrows in your city are divided between Gold, Luxuries and Science based on your Tax Rate. Putting your citizens on squares that naturally produce trade arrows (rivers, some specials, ocean) or those you make produce trade arrows (Grassland, Plains or Desert with Roads built on them) will increase the number of trade arrows in your city. (There are other things that can get you more arrows, but I'll stick to the basics for the earliest stages of the game) Whatever percent of each city's trade arrows is assigned to Science shows up as beakers in your city screen. The accumulation of beakers is what gets you advances.

In general, more trade arrows = more beakers = faster research.

 

[SlowThinker]

See this thread:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24032

 

[Ace]

You do set your tax rate to the max for science, don't you?

 

[randyripoff]

Yes, sorry, I figured it out now.

This should make things more interesting in the future.

 

[ElephantU]

Choosing a good city site is critical to getting a lot of Trade Arrows as your city grows. Look especially for Trade Special terrain tiles with things like Wine or Gems or Gold. These have 4-6 Trade Arrows each, although their production or food harvests are relatively low. Early on you want your city to grow quickly, at least as quickly as you can provide happiness improvements to keep the citizens content. Working a lot of Forest or Mined Hills will give you good production, but your growth will be stunted due to lack of excess food and your research will be stunted due to lack of Trade Arrows.

The other way to get piles of research beakers is by using caravans to get large trade bonuses. This happens after you discover Trade, which most people put off until after making their first government upgrade. You can use caravans to move shields from one city to another for Wonder-building, too, so critical decisions need to be made about use of early caravans. The bonus payout for delivering a caravan to another civ far away is much higher than delivering to one of your own cities, but it takes longer and you lose one end of the Trade Route benefit. Once your trade system gets going you can ratchet down your Science level and rely on caravan deliveries for your research. Of course, about then you will be needing to raise Luxuries to keep bigger cities happy, and Taxes to finance building improvements and "neighbor resettlement" programs. There is no single answer for anything in CIV, you need to learn how the different elements interplay, but Trade is the most often neglected aspect of CIV.

 

[Hawkster]

Also you may need to re-assign you city workers from one tile to another - they do not always work the best combination (go to city display and try moving them from one tile to another) - you may need to experiemnt a little to find the best combination to produce food / shields / trade for a particular city especially early in the game when you have a limitednumber of workers.

I have found that doing this I can increase trade in a particular city significantly - maybe at the cost of food production but that isn't a problem unless you want the city to grow fast.

 

[Ace]

This is very important. The computer always selects the hexes that produce the most food. AND your workers are reorganized after every increase or decrease in their numbers (population growth or building a settler), so you have to check your cities every turn to get the best mix of resources. For example, the computer will always put a worker on a fish rather than on a whale. So you need to relocate the workers to fit your objectives for each city each turn. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it is well worth it. As your requirements change, you need to move your workers around to the best hexes to meet these requirements.

 

[ElephantU]

Note that the number of beakers needed increases for each tech discovery, and there is no exact figure given anywhere on the screens for how many beakers you have accumulated. It is easy to count from the F6/Science Advisor screen for the first few techs, but later on they cram together too close to count. You can tell how many you NEED by changing all Scientists to Entertainers and sliding the Science Rate slider to 0. The number of Turns it says is the number of beakers you need for the next tech. But you should get in the habit of keeping a record of how many you have accumulated at the beginning of each turn.

There are threads here and at Apolyton.Net that list exact numbers of beakers per TechNumber and give details of how to reduce those numbers by Tech Gifting your KeyCiv. It is usually InfoOverload early on, so just try it out a few times and then read the threads once you understand the basics.

 

[funxus]

Managing workers

I don't know why and when, but sometimes the computer places the workers on non-roaded grassland when there is a roaded grassland next to it, or if I have a free ocean square in a city with a harbor. It seams as if it doesn't use trade in the calculation at all

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by funxus

I don't know why and when, but sometimes the computer places the workers on non-roaded grassland when there is a roaded grassland next to it, or if I have a free ocean square in a city with a harbor. It seams as if it doesn't use trade in the calculation at all

I think I read somewhere that the AI will maximize food first, then sheilds, and finally trade so it sees a no-road sheilded grassland as superior to a roaded no-shield grassland.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

That's my understanding of it also.

The weird thing is sometimes the computer will pick an unroaded grassland shield over a roaded grassland shield, no irrigation on either of them.

 

[mardukes]

Originally posted by Ace
This is very important. The computer always selects the hexes that produce the most food. AND your workers are reorganized after every increase or decrease in their numbers (population growth or building a settler), so you have to check your cities every turn to get the best mix of resources. For example, the computer will always put a worker on a fish rather than on a whale. So you need to relocate the workers to fit your objectives for each city each turn. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it is well worth it. As your requirements change, you need to move your workers around to the best hexes to meet these requirements.

So, is there any short cut? How do you keep track of a city having added a citizen? Or do you literally have to cycle through every one often or even on every turn? AND it doesn't just find the best open square but relocates them all! That's simply a bad feature.

 

[SlowThinker]

Before a city will grow it is a good idea to remove a worker from a square with best food and move him to another square. The computer will occupy this high-food square and won't relocate other workers.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Typically check every city every turn. It's called city micromanagement and most people find it too tedious to deal with.

 

[mardukes]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Before a city will grow it is a good idea to remove a worker from a square with best food and move him to another square. The computer will occupy this high-food square and won't relocate other workers.

This begs the question. How does one know when a city is "before growing" other than examining every one.

Here is an example of where I find exception with those who so roundly decry the Call to Power interface. The CtP city status included "turns until next population" on which you could sort the report. Hence, at the end of each turn you could immediately spot the few cities that would be adding next turn. (Though I actually used it to look for next add in 3 turns so I could build just-in-time terrain improvements.)

Sorry, just had to vent.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by mardukes


This begs the question. How does one know when a city is "before growing" other than examining every one?

Agreed: Lack of a list of cities' Food Box status is up there with lack of #BeakersAccumulated statistic in my pet peeves. You find out by hitting F1 and clicking each city in turn. Its a good thing to do anyway at the end of your turn just to make sure you are not suprised by any unhappy citizens, unwanted production, or unanticipated city growth. Especially when playing Deity level...

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
Typically check every city every turn. It's called city micromanagement and most people find it too tedious to deal with.

Micro-managing, or at least keeping a basic log and quick-checking each city at the end of the turn, has improved my play so much I would not think about playing any other way. You can still beat the AI at Prince or King level without it, but once you get to Emperor or Deity you need to be paying close attention to city production and happiness.