Research agreement questions

[He-Who-Hunts]

First of all I play on Emperor/Immortal

I've recently read somewhere that RA's are not worth it on the higher dif settings and that a player should save cash for buildings/CS, how true is that among current Emperor+ players?

Furthermore when would be the best time to start/stop using RA's if indeed I should use them?

Thanks!

Edit:
This is for a science victory btw, forgot to include that in the body.

 

[consentient]

Use them when you're behind, but shortly after Education you should not be behind, if you're playing optimally. On Emperor, I'm always the first to Renaissance, and on Immortal a good portion of the time.

Save the cash for buildings/units/CS, etc.

 

[z284pwr]

Use them when you're behind, but shortly after Education you should not be behind, if you're playing optimally. On Emperor, I'm always the first to Renaissance, and on Immortal a good portion of the time.

Save the cash for buildings/units/CS, etc.

Definitely agree.....and don't forget that on Emperor and Immortal the player seems to have to fun both sides of the agreement since the AI never has money.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Basically use them while they're affordable. You should overtake the tech lead as late as starting the Modern era. Once they start asking extra for RAs, that should be a good sign you're well ahead in tech race

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

Is it advisable to build the porcelain tower tower regardless of your tech status? or is it a build only of you are behind?

 

[Sessy]

a wonder for a scientists and 1GS point is not very efficient, compare it to the later Hubble. I would only do it if you have a bunch of RAs, and on deity you usually do. for a powerspeed SV 2 waves of RAs are quite useful.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

Ok, build the PT if I am behind and spam RA until I am ahead, if I am already ahead ignore RA & PT? That's what I've gotten from the comments if anyone wants to correct that.

Last question on the matter, when should I stop planting GS and start saving them for end game bulb? Right now I start saving when the industrial era starts, should I be saving earlier?

 

[Sessy]

think about how long your game is roughly going to be. for example, the first scientist you get at T120 (except for babylon or maya) will generate 180 turns of beakers (let's say it's on average 20), so in total you get 180*20=3600 beakers. a scientist bulb once beakers have plateaued can easily reach 7000 beakers.

but people still argue that you can plant the first one because it will help you reach key techs slightly faster.

RAs are still useful with an AI that is wide, because their tech rate might be slow but the bpt might be really high due to science penalties for more cities.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

Quick question: when do beakers "plateau"?

 

[Sessy]

there's a fixed number of things you can do to maximize science output per turn, buildings, policies, specialists etc. the maximum is usually when you have science specialists all locked with secularism policy, and research labs in all core cities for the last 8 turns.

as per your question about specialists, it's always good to run science specialists when the growth of the city isn't too slow and you don't have enough pop, and your happiness is > 0. IMO all cities should focus on growth by default, this means manually assigning citizens to growth tiles and setting city to production focus. and for a science game I'd run any specialist that gives science, so sometimes I even work merchant slots if I know I won't create a great merchant.

a good combo you can try with powerful specialists is korea, secularism policy, freedom ideology, and statue of liberty.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

Is it advisable to run scientist specialist in my science city? Should I concentrate on growth in that city run specialist ASAP?

 

[stormtrooper412]

I generally staff science specialists in all cities as early as I can if it doesn't make the cities stop growing, which it usually doesn't. A rule of thumb in this situation is that once a city has 9-10 pop, get the specialists in

 

[Acken]

The further you get into the game, the better gold gets, especially once you start to get things like mercantilism, skyscrapers and Big Ben. Also the ratio of hammers per gold gets better even without those discounts.
In a RA you'll get science based on the weaker partner (often the AI) so RAs have a tendency to become weaker RELATIVE to your current science rate the more advanced you are compared to AIs. Also RA cost more as time progresses.

This means that if you have a tendency to be on par with the AI in your tech rate, then RAs are worth it. It means also that RA are worth more early than late. And it's always worth it to sign a RA with a very strong AI like Sejong or a runaway. Finally rushing a building in a city gives you science depending on how good the city is. While tall 4 cities games can really benefit from rushing a university, a wider 6-7 cities game should do RAs instead of rushing universities in cities that cannot fill the slots.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

ah makes sense, is there any kind of tell for letting you know when not or when to sign an RA?

Do you use an eye test, like what era they're in + score + empire size or do you have a specific graph number you look at?

 

[Acken]

You look at how much their tech score is and how big they are. Also experience... for example Mongolia usually is a terrible techer while Sejong has good bpt.

 

[beetle]

...so in total you get 180*20=3600 beakers. a scientist bulb once beakers have plateaued can easily reach 7000 beakers.

I don't think you can just count beakers. It's beakers relative to the tech costs, so “turns of science” is a better relative metric. If you bulb a GS at the end of GA mid game, that nets you as many turn as waiting for Research Labs. Plus you are getting to techs sooner, starting to snowball sooner.

 

[Sessy]

I don't think you can just count beakers. It's beakers relative to the tech costs, so “turns of science” is a better relative metric. If you bulb a GS at the end of GA mid game, that nets you as many turn as waiting for Research Labs. Plus you are getting to techs sooner, starting to snowball sooner.

Can you explain why bulbing at the end of a GA is better? I understand your point about getting to key/science techs faster through bulbing, but then again it's not exactly 8 turns of science, and if it's significantly better to bulb sooner, we'd be bulbing way earlier than the convention. In the end you might have saved 7 turns to get plastics by burning a scientist, but you'd also lose out on 8 turns after that. If you have more than enough scientists to bulb through late game, then I'd agree with you.

 

[Browd]

Golden Ages have no impact on beaker production, so there is no benefit in timing GS bulbs with GAs.

Because GAs provide a culture boost, there is great benefit in timing Great Writer bulbs with GAs.

 

[beetle]

Golden Ages have no impact on beaker production, so there is no benefit in timing GS bulbs with GAs.

Holy crap! Well that explains something I have been doing wrong for a while!

 

[Browd]

Yeah, Golden Ages give a +20% bonus to production, gold and culture, but not tourism, beakers or faith (or any other yield I might have overlooked).