Ra blocking

[faron]

I realize there are probably a lot of threads already about ra blocking but I have yet to find one that relates to the latest updates, can someone point me to the latest one
thanks very much
faron

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

I am not sure what you mean by ra blocking.

 

[faron]

from what i understand its when you partly research the sciences you do not want so when your research agreements are finished the bonus science will go to the tech you actually want, i am probably wrong though

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

ah, Research Agreement lol

Last time I'd checked, there is no way you can choose what tech that you and the AI is researching for. Kinda a stupid feature if you ask me, but it isn't annoying though.

 

[Mallow]

You don't have to block anything any more. Now to be sure Your technology boost (RA) goes where You want, You have to select more then one technology You want to research. That way everything that is left over from the finished RA will go to the next technology You have selected.

 

[Martin Alvito]

If you see someone referring to RA blocking post-patch, what they probably mean is closing off areas of the tech tree that branch undesirably.

For instance, one early-game strategy is to leave The Wheel unresearched and push the rest of the tree into mid/late Medieval in order to realize large amounts of from RAs many turns earlier than you otherwise might.

Since you now have control over exactly where RA tech goes (and can queue up techs using the tree to direct overflow), there isn't a need to partially research techs in order to avoid getting them from an RA.

 

[faron]

so if i single click on a tech i am after, say it says it is number 5 on the list and i need to research a,b,c and d first and i get half way through a and finish my research agreement the extra beakers will go to b and not some other techs
hope that made sense

 

[Martin Alvito]

Correct. For instance, it's common to do that late in the game to pick up Metallurgy, Rifling and Dynamite in a single 5400 RA.

 

[faron]

how many ra's do you need to do that?

 

[faron]

i just tried out sticking to one scientific line, i had access to 3 techs which were only 50 beakers each and navigation 1265 beakers (i think it was) which i was researching and finished an agreement, so if i am supposed to get 50% of 1400 beakers divided by 4 or thereabouts i should get 175 beakers, i only recd about 60 beakers, am i looking at this correctly or has there been changes to how agreements work

thanks for any help
faron

 

[Martin Alvito]

how many ra's do you need to do that?

One.

The way it works is that it takes the median value of your unresearched techs, so in your example you're going to get 50 beakers and not the mean (average) of the unresearched values.

If you're going for a Diplomatic win, what you need to do is beeline Electricity (GS/Oxford are popular for Electricity itself) and research Fertilizer, then use Research Agreements to open Refrigeration, Telegraph and Radio. You now have four 5400 techs open and only two other unresearched techs, so the median is 5400 and that's the value you get if you have the Porcelain Tower and took Rationalism. Then you just start hammering away at the bottom of the tree.

If you're going for a Space win, you can't do any better than 4500 RAs unless you waste a tech opening Refrigeration - which doesn't really help.