More than one discovery per turn?

[dark_pretender]

Is this possible on higher dificulty levels? Is it possible playing legit or it involves some exploits and cheating?

Playing king lvl Currently, i usually go for colossus + copernicus in one of my cities +library + university and that has worked. But read in some post that one guy was getting 4 discoveries per turn before ad... So got interested.

I feel tempted to build libraries + universities in the rest of my cities. Currently have 15 cities. But i wonder if the time it would take is worth it. Specially since i usually shut down my research once i get armor

Ill apreciate if some1 explains this to me or points me in the right direction, since i have already searched the forum for "Discoveries per turn" with the quotes and didnt good results

Thanks in advance

 

[Tristan_C]

Here is how it goes:

• In the end of turn sequence the game runs through each city in its index order (up to 128 cities in the index)
• It computes everything for that city at that time, including adding the coins and it bulbs it makes to the civ's aggregate.
  
• Whenever the bulb line fills, that city completes the tech, then and there, and you immediately get the prompt to choose the next tech.
• So theory you can get as many techs in the end-of-turn sequence as you have cities, tho ofc techs are too expensive for that.

There are some ramifications for micromanagers:

• The excess bulbs produced by the discovering city are discarded- no overflow to the next tech. So if a city gets to within 1 bulb of discovery, and the next city in the index has the colossus and copernicus, that guy effectively contributes 1 bulb for that turn.
  
• If a city completes a building (plus any unit that prompts the player, I believe), it can't discover a tech that turn and the next city in queue that can, does. It does contribute its bulbs as normal... unless the pile is filled, in which case it's all wasted.
  
• Normally the index order is the order founded, but when a city is destroyed its slot in the index frees up. E.g. if Rome is destroyed then the next city founded by any player takes slot 1. F1 and F5 advisors show cities in their index order.

addendum

• Be careful if funds are low and the first one or two cities in the index cannot cover maintenance, can trigger sale of improvements even if the rest of the civ makes money.

 

[dark_pretender]

Thanks a lot tristan. I still cant figure it out how to get more than one discovery per turn hahahaha. But now i think i understand why when playing OCC and building caravans at rate of 1 per turn. It seemed to me that my research got bugged.

 

[Mize]

The city check routine Tristan described checks each city only once. So you technically can't get more than one advance per turn when playing OCC, because you only have one city to make advances. Even if your lone city produces enough bulbs to make two or more discoveries, it will only make one and any bulb overflow will be lost. What I do about this when playing OCC is I regularly check my science adviser and if I'm about to lose bulbs when making a discovery, I raise taxes accordingly.

If you're building caravans at a rate of one per turn, you can switch to a transport before the turn you expect to make the discovery. It doesn't prompt a message box and so, as Tristan said, you get both your advance and a boat to ship some of those caravans out. Of course, there are alternatives -- switch to something that requires two turns to build (at the risk of losing some shields), or give some of your miner citizens a rest and turn them into taxmen/scientists/entertainers so that the next caravan takes two turns.

 

[Tristan_C]

Thanks a lot tristan. I still cant figure it out how to get more than one discovery per turn hahahaha. But now i think i understand why when playing OCC and building caravans at rate of 1 per turn. It seemed to me that my research got bugged.

You're welcome!

If you just need advice on getting maximum trade yields there are some things:

Military tech can pretty much stop with the wheel because chariots are so imba.
Make settlers to keep cities from needlessly spawning blackshirts (this is all they do when the pop reaches the threshold), and work improved tiles.
Trade arrows are a better industrial base than shields because the tiles can feed themselves and you get the +% buildings. True story even in OCC.
Apropos, Democracy is the main goal, but the tech path is expensive so look at the world and figure out early whether to research it or build the pyramids.
Building priority in democracy cities (descending) is something like Temple, Market, Bank, Cathedral, Library, Uni.
Consider minmaxing, like beeline banking, zero the science, and spam all the banks at top speed before resuming research.
This is to say, don't start a long trek to a new tech goal until you have leveraged what you just got.
With just temple and market in democracy you can celebrate your population up for a reasonable price.
There is other stuff too add along the way that makes it possible to get huge populations easily though

Hanging
Oracle
Bank
Bach
Cathedrals​

 

[Valen]

• If a city completes a building (plus any unit that prompts the player, I believe), it can't discover a tech that turn and the next city in queue that can, does. It does contribute its bulbs as normal... unless the pile is filled, in which case it's all wasted.

There is a way to build a city improvement. If the improvement is auto-selected (right click on the Change button) you will get a newspaper headline announcing the completion of your building. If the research box is filled, you will still get your discovery. Apparently opening the city display during city check is what blocks tech discovery.

 

[Valen]

Looking at this thread again, another possible exception to the "can't build and discover" rule occurred to me. Some units (I don't have the complete list) are built "silently". After harvest, your new unit shows up ready to be commanded, but you never see it get built.
I just ran a quick test. If a city contributes the final bulbs for a discovery and builds a sail, it gets credit for the discovery.

 

[Valen]

There is an exception to the rule stating that in one turn, you can make as many discoveries as available bulbs allow.

There is a Millennium effect.
In A.D. 1, you can only make one discovery no matter how many light bulbs you generate.
The effect hits again in the year 1000.