Research Agreements

[Vordeo]

This is a thread to discuss research agreements. Haven't seen a thread on this, so apologies if there's already been one.

First, a quick overview: Research agreements (unlocked with Philosophy) are basically deals between you and another civilization where both of you contribute an amount of gold (it increases with each age, I think?) and receive a random technology in 25 turns.

• Civs seem very willing to sign these (provided they have both the cash and Philosophy. I've encountered civs unwilling to open borders that were more than happy to sign research agreements.
• The random technology is chosen amongst the techs you can research at the time.
• If both of you go to war with each other before the deal ends I believe the deal is cancelled and you both lose the cash (though I'm not 100% on this).

Now, in the game I'm currently playing, I had a research pact with Ramesses. On the very turn it expired, right after we both got our techs, he declared war on me. Now this had me wondering: does having an active research agreement discourage the AI from declaring on you (as it'd waste the AI's cash)? It's happened to me once, so this isn't proven or anything, but it would make sense, and would be very helpful for players pursuing peaceful victory options.

Anyone had similar experiences?

Also, what are people's strategies on research agreements? I personally take every agreement I can, but the alternatives of rush buying and bribing city states are also pretty potent.

 

[Sable]

I found Research Agreements to be a bit of a wash. Sometimes civs would offer them to me before attacking me or an allied city-state in order to drain my resources. Of course, if they're low on cash it screws them pretty heftily too.

Generally when I'm playing a civ with a lot of gold, those Research Agreements come in handy. The tech's hardly "free," but 250 gold or so for a tech isn't bad considering how time-intensive they can get. I usually agree to Research Agreements if I'm a) in a Golden Age with lots of disposable income or b) have at least 150 gold left over after the Research Agreement. Otherwise, it depends on the situation. I've agreed to Research Agreements even when I was pretty low on funds since the offering civ's military was at least an era behind mine.

 

[Hyspasist]

I think in tandem with the "Ignore Happiness" strategy that's cropped, Research Agreements could be played up more than they are. It hinges though on your fellow agents having the scratch to get into one with you.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I found Research Agreements to be a bit of a wash. Sometimes civs would offer them to me before attacking me or an allied city-state in order to drain my resources. Of course, if they're low on cash it screws them pretty heftily too.

It's a dick move on my part, but I often sell a luxury resource for a lump sum on the same turn I declare war. They can't upgrade with money they don't have, and wardecs break resource trades.

Also, if someone has just under the research agreement threshold, and you're just wallowing in cash, you can always float someone a gift to make them agreeable. I prefer doing this to someone who's behind, #1 should always help #3 against #2.

 

[Aaroc]

Actually, as soon as a research agreement is finished, whether by wardec, or by letting it run the full 25 turns, you receive a random tech. I was just attempting to go for the Gandhi achievement on a tiny map and the very turn after I signed a research agreement with Siam, he declared war on me, ending the research agreement and granting me Iron Working.

I think that ending a research agreement early will give your units a combat penalty, though. I don't really know because I quit that game. My military was pretty nonexistent at the time of wardec.

 

[Vordeo]

Actually, as soon as a research agreement is finished, whether by wardec, or by letting it run the full 25 turns, you receive a random tech. I was just attempting to go for the Gandhi achievement on a tiny map and the very turn after I signed a research agreement with Siam, he declared war on me, ending the research agreement and granting me Iron Working.

I think that ending a research agreement early will give your units a combat penalty, though. I don't really know because I quit that game. My military was pretty nonexistent at the time of wardec.

Ah, really? That's interesting, I'll experiment when I get home.

Would be pretty abusable in multiplayer, that. Research pact, declare on each other but don't attack, take peace the next turn, repeat ad nauseum.

 

[Zhahz]

It's situational for me and I prefer doing them with civs who aren't near me and/or who haven't expanded a lot. I'd rather not push the more advanced civs ahead even more - better to smack the underdogs along and hope the get caught up some.

 

[DonRuggio]

Research pacts require some thinking on your part too. Ideally, you need to some how plan ahead so that by the 25-30th turn of the pact your choice of random techs are the high and advanced ones. In a game I am playing as Ramesese Wonder Builder II - i have cash to throw away, so every non-war civ and I have a pact. This means that in a recent set of turns, I was getting Modern era techs as random, putting my science well ahead of the curve.

It therefore makes perfect sense to keep the pacts running so that out of your available techs, you will get a decent high level tech in your pocket.

It can also help you battle out the weaker and less advanced civs preparing you for the larger wars.

 

[kaltorak]

Now, in the game I'm currently playing, I had a research pact with Ramesses. On the very turn it expired, right after we both got our techs, he declared war on me. Now this had me wondering: does having an active research agreement discourage the AI from declaring on you (as it'd waste the AI's cash)? It's happened to me once, so this isn't proven or anything, but it would make sense, and would be very helpful for players pursuing peaceful victory options.

Anyone had similar experiences?

It has happened to me too. A couple of times. I think you may be right, since it looks too much of a coincidence.

 

[Brons]

The tooltip says the cost depends on the most advanced civ. So I was wondering: do you both get the same tech? And is that tech chosen from the techs the most advanced civ can research? That could make it quite disastrous if you're the advanced one.

 

[mzprox]

I would like to know wheteher they attack after the agreement expired or we get the tech when they breat the pact by declaring war.

Once they killed a civ which had a research pact with me and i got a tech in the same turn. So in that case it seems you won't lose the tech. A confirmation of this would be good.

 

[DanaLea]

I think I read somewhere that there is also a 15% increase in research while the pact is in effect? Can anyone confirm this?

So far, the only thing I have seem, is this forces me to get the small techs I wouldn't normally research (horseback riding) so I can get a decent tech as the free one. (I rarely need HR)

-dana

 

[Moshu]

I think I read somewhere that there is also a 15% increase in research while the pact is in effect? Can anyone confirm this?

According to the manual, page 114, "for the duration of the Agreement, each civ gets a bonus to its research.".

However, yesterday I kept checking my total research points and did not see any increase after the agreement. The 15% value is in my mind also so must have seen it somewhere but... does it work?

 

[shriekingwillow]

The 15% bonus you're thinking of was the way research pacts were originally going to work, each civ getting a 15% bonus for the duration of the agreement. It was changed to the way it works now with the free tech, but the manual must already have been produced or just not updated.

 

[Vordeo]

The tooltip says the cost depends on the most advanced civ. So I was wondering: do you both get the same tech? And is that tech chosen from the techs the most advanced civ can research? That could make it quite disastrous if you're the advanced one.

Think it's chosen at random from the techs each civ can research. AFAIK it's just the cost that is actually affected by this, so you could be getting something like Rifling while you're research partner gets Optics.

Also, for some reason, I think that after I made peace with Ramesses (after he broke the research pact) the pact seemed to start up again? I'll check again later, was a bit drunk last night.

 

[Sable]

Actually, as soon as a research agreement is finished, whether by wardec, or by letting it run the full 25 turns, you receive a random tech. I was just attempting to go for the Gandhi achievement on a tiny map and the very turn after I signed a research agreement with Siam, he declared war on me, ending the research agreement and granting me Iron Working.

I think that ending a research agreement early will give your units a combat penalty, though. I don't really know because I quit that game. My military was pretty nonexistent at the time of wardec.

Huh. That must've been patched, because I remember an early game of mine where breaking a research agreement with Elizabeth via war declaration cut us both out of the research agreement. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention

 

[Syiss_]

I'm fairly sure that the intended mechanic is if you go to war with someone who you have a research agreement, you both lose your money and the agreement is canceled. I think also if a civ you had an agreement with dies you are supposed to lose the agreement and money as well, but maybe not. It would be silly if you could get an instant free tech by signing an agreement with someone whos about to bite the dust. To be fair , civ's about to die rarely have enough money laying around for that, but still.

As for the usefulness, I find that for at least the first half of the game, my money is usually better spent on rush buying and paying off city states. This is partly because I usually have a lot of low level techs that I skipped over, and it would be a huge waste if I got them as the free tech. Later in the game, because the cost doesn't scale very well with the cost of research and I've usually got spare cash laying around, they can be very useful. I'm planning a peaceful science victory game where I rely heavily on trade posts to generate cash (and science, when I get the social policy for it) to pay off maritime city states and buy research agreements. Because you can make so much money late game (esp if you save up some golden ages) you can literally afford to have research agreements active with every single civ and 2-3 maritime city states. I doubt there is a faster way to speed through the last 1/3rd or so of the tech tree. Problem with science victories in this game though is how much dang production you need to build spaceship parts (I suspect you need like 3 dedicated production cities to get the parts built in a reasonable amount of time).

 

[Bibor]

During the course of the game (say 350 turns on average) one can have 10 research agreements with any other player at best (Philosophy takes time). Lets say a tech takes around 15 turns to complete.

Thus, your tech pace gets a 50% boost if you sign agreements with one partner, or doubles if you do it with two. Trade agreements cost 300 gold on average (250-350) so that's basically 10 GPT for a 50% increase, 20 GPT for a double increase.

And as for backfilling and "oh bummer I got a free tech that takes 4 turns to research" situations, you have to plan your tech pace according to your agreements. That is, clean up the crap techs before the agreement matures. For this reason, I like to do a technological BOOM when I get caravels -- I sign up 3-5 tech agreements simultaneously and backfill everything before 30 turns are due.

Warmonger economy differs greatly from others. A warmonger has better research, more GPT but smaller cities and sizeable inefficiency. Since money is not a problem, warmongers benefit greatly from reseach pacts (focus on military techs, backfill with agreements on economy ones).

I just won a cultural victory and same rules apply, basically. Due to low upkeep costs and greater returns from buildings, cultural civs have more personal (i.e. non-puppet) GPT and research, but need to be ahead in the tech pace to grab the crucial wonders.

I'd say trade agreements are a triple-edged sword (Kosh is awesome). If you do them your civ suffers a gold drain, if you don't do them you have money to do other stuff, and AIs do them all the time so you're basically forced to do them often.

 

[CornPlanter]

And as for backfilling and "oh bummer I got a free tech that takes 4 turns to research" situations, you have to plan your tech pace according to your agreements. That is, clean up the crap techs before the agreement matures.

This.

So far I find the agreements very, very useful. You just need to plan them. I had some doubts before, but now I really like the new "science trading" system. Not that it couldn't be improved, but it's already better than Civ4 had. It's useful but not as abusable.

I think even donating the money for the agreement to some loser AI is a good idea. Spending 800+ to get a free tech is not that bad. I don't care if some non factor gets his Chivalry for my money if I am getting Computers to help me compete with other, not so backward AIs. I guess it's better than signing it with strong AIs so that they get Computers too if you see what I mean. At least @ King level it works.

 

[Vordeo]

Thus, your tech pace gets a 50% boost if you sign agreements with one partner, or doubles if you do it with two. Trade agreements cost 300 gold on average (250-350) so that's basically 10 GPT for a 50% increase, 20 GPT for a double increase.

Starts off around 160ish, IIRC, so it's pretty good early game. Also, has anyone gotten a tech off the agreements that they were currently researching? Don't recall it ever happening to me, personally, except for 1-2 situations where I had only 1 tech available to research.

Also, research agreements sounds like they'd be very interesting in MP games.