Research in the Middle Ages

Kool Keith

Warlord
Joined
Dec 21, 2005
Messages
284
Location
Metro Detroit
This just kills me.

I generally do well in the Ancient Age, getting out of their by 800--500 BC.

But when I get to the MA, my research sputters. Theology, for instance, always takes me like 15-20 turns to research.

What do I need to do to improve this?

Any generic recommendations? (Aside from keeping your unit costs down.)
 
Build aqueducts where applicable and grow your cities making sure that there are roads on every worked tile. Also, markets in your core allow you to lower your tax slider a bit thus raising your science slider a bit unless you need lux slider for your growing cities -- which is a good thing -- more tiles working = more commerce = more science.
 
Try changing goverment.
 
Middle Age techs are more "expensive" than Ancient Age ones, generally. I.E. you must spend more beakers to learn them. So to research at the same pace, you have to start generating more beakers. In order to do that...

1. The Golden Rule of Civ3 is: Population = Power. The more land you grab, the more cities you have, the bigger those cities are, the more people you have in your empire, the more commerce you are going to generate. Also, more indirectly, the more cities you have the more military units that will be covered by base support, thus, your army will cut into your budget less, freeing up more money. if you have 50 cities, even at 50% research you can generate a lot more beakers than a 7-town nation, even if that 7 city nation has its science slider at 90. To give you a rough unscientific illustration :)

2. Road your tiles. All of them eventually and in due time, but first build roads on the tiles that your citizens are working, and to connect all your cities to resources (especially luxury) and to each other. Also, if you happen to have any hills with gold on them, gold may be only a bonus resource but if you can road it and get a citizen working it, it will generate a lot of gold.

3. It probably goes without saying, but, make sure you're in Republic. :)

4. The more luxuries you have, the less you have to have your luxury slider cut into your budget.

5. Marketplaces and Libraries can help, but don't just build them willy-nilly, because each one adds 1 to your mantainance costs. They add 50% to your tax and 50% to research respectively. So for example, let's say you have a city that generates 20 total coins per turn, and your slider is set up 4-4-2; you're generating 8 gold, 8 beakers, and 4 luxury per turn. A marketplace and a library will make the total 12 gold and 12 beakers. The marketplace will also generate happy faces which might let you adjust your slider to 6-4-0 (or 4-6-0 since you want to generate research). Now, if a town is corrupt, or small, maybe it's only generating three or four total coins per turn. It'll be something more like 1 gold, 1 beaker, and 1 luxury (rounded off). 50% increase on that isn't much, and with the maintainance cost of the buildings is a break-even proposition [even worse if you weigh the turns spent building those buildings].

There's threads and articles in the war academy that break this down and explain it even better than I do and go into greater detail, but you can hopefully get the gist of things from what I'm saying.

But raw population quantity, getting your science slider as high as you can, and generating as many raw coins as you can are all going to have a bigger impact than a bunch of libraries will.
 
Well, the elephant in the room is Libraries. Kind of costly (production), but maybe they're what you need. Also, scan the map for commerce (press ctrl+shift+M and look for gold, luxuries, and rivers. Make cities with these tiles a priority.

Another commerce goldmine is coastal cities, a lot of players naturally try to minimize coastal tiles in the city radius, since they are not too productive, but you will get a big bonus from the extra commerce.
 
Thank you all for your responses. :goodjob:

Middle Age techs are more "expensive" than Ancient Age ones, generally. I.E. you must spend more beakers to learn them. So to research at the same pace, you have to start generating more beakers. In order to do that...

1. The Golden Rule of Civ3 is: Population = Power. The more land you grab, the more cities you have, the bigger those cities are, the more people you have in your empire, the more commerce you are going to generate. Also, more indirectly, the more cities you have the more military units that will be covered by base support, thus, your army will cut into your budget less, freeing up more money. if you have 50 cities, even at 50% research you can generate a lot more beakers than a 7-town nation, even if that 7 city nation has its science slider at 90. To give you a rough unscientific illustration :)

2. Road your tiles. All of them eventually and in due time, but first build roads on the tiles that your citizens are working, and to connect all your cities to resources (especially luxury) and to each other. Also, if you happen to have any hills with gold on them, gold may be only a bonus resource but if you can road it and get a citizen working it, it will generate a lot of gold.

3. It probably goes without saying, but, make sure you're in Republic. :)

4. The more luxuries you have, the less you have to have your luxury slider cut into your budget.

5. Marketplaces and Libraries can help, but don't just build them willy-nilly, because each one adds 1 to your mantainance costs. They add 50% to your tax and 50% to research respectively. So for example, let's say you have a city that generates 20 total coins per turn, and your slider is set up 4-4-2; you're generating 8 gold, 8 beakers, and 4 luxury per turn. A marketplace and a library will make the total 12 gold and 12 beakers. The marketplace will also generate happy faces which might let you adjust your slider to 6-4-0 (or 4-6-0 since you want to generate research). Now, if a town is corrupt, or small, maybe it's only generating three or four total coins per turn. It'll be something more like 1 gold, 1 beaker, and 1 luxury (rounded off). 50% increase on that isn't much, and with the maintainance cost of the buildings is a break-even proposition [even worse if you weigh the turns spent building those buildings].

There's threads and articles in the war academy that break this down and explain it even better than I do and go into greater detail, but you can hopefully get the gist of things from what I'm saying.

But raw population quantity, getting your science slider as high as you can, and generating as many raw coins as you can are all going to have a bigger impact than a bunch of libraries will.

I get the whole pop = power thing. REX has been preached constantly here. But I am now starting to believe there is a give-and-take to this. In my current game there are no other civs for miles and miles (or is it tiles and tiles), and I could keep expanding seemingly forever.

But I wonder if there is a point at which rapid expansion actually slows down your progress to some degree. If I have my core cities as settler and worker factories, is there a time when that actually slows me down and it would be better to focus on making that core strong? How early should I have my core cities at size twelve?

For instance, if I have, like, ten towns, but my four best cities are two settler factories and two worker factories, this is obviously keeping those cities under population 7. Now, I can keep jamming out settlers and build cities that will provide at most a couple of GPT in the short-term, or I can build some aqueducts and get those towns up to size 12, which would theoretically provide me with much more GPT and ultimately quicker research. What's best?

I understand that these are generic arguments, and as always, "it depends," but I am curious as to what some players think.

For the purpose of this discussion, I am thinking particularly about Monarch level. I always win, but I am trying to get those victories in fewer turns.

Oh yeah, I almost always go for the Republic slinger, so I am out of Despotism by about 1200 BC. :crazyeye:
 
^^^I guess the answer would be balance. If you have 2 settler factories and two worker factories then after about 8 more turns you will have 4 more settlers and can afford to take one of those settler factories and let it grow, you could even pump workers into it from your 2 worker factories to get it up to size twelve in like 6 turns then set the tiles for max production. A few turns after this you could probably stop building workers in one of those cities and grow it as well. Make sure the cities you pick for growth have the highest commerce potential -- rivers, gold, luxs, fish, whales, ect... These are your core cities so corruption is low which is the other key to getting the most out of your large cities.
 
I get the whole pop = power thing. REX has been preached constantly here. But I am now starting to believe there is a give-and-take to this. In my current game there are no other civs for miles and miles (or is it tiles and tiles), and I could keep expanding seemingly forever.

No, never stop rexing :D
Just, at some point, start producing settlers from your corrupt town instead of your core. If your enemies are nearby, you'd need your core to build units anyway, so its the same either way!

Sure, it takes 30 turns to build a settler, but you should have 30 of those corrupt towns by now, if not more, making it roughly 1 settler a turn, if not more...
 
I get the whole pop = power thing. REX has been preached constantly here. But I am now starting to believe there is a give-and-take to this. In my current game there are no other civs for miles and miles (or is it tiles and tiles), and I could keep expanding seemingly forever.

Are you playing with fewer than the default number of AI? I used to do that, and I'd have a wonderful developed core and a huge suburban area, but just getting within range of fighting my neighbors became a major problem. Playing with the default number solved that issue promptly. :)
 
Research in the MA does take longer than the AA but by then you should have met all the other AI. I trade my way pretty quickly through the MA. Choose either the top or bottom of the tech tree and just go that direction. Make a bee line to either military tradition or demo, depending on where the AI is going.
I don't think I have researched Theology myself in a long time.
 
On Monarch level, I am always the tech leader by the end of the AA. There is no one to trade with in the MA.

I usually beeline to Navigation or MT, depending on the game, perhaps with a quick pit stop at Chivalry.

I figure if it takes 15-20 turns to research a tech, I would like to at least shave off 5 turns per tech. That way, I will be hitting MT or navigation 25 turns quicker, which would be huge.
 
You guys all beeline to one of the further techs?
I actually like to prebuild a wonder, and then research Theoogy (or something) and get the Sistine chapel. That's an awesomely powerful wonder if you've got cathedrals in all your metropolises, and I always do. I hate it when one of the other civs steals it. Sun Tzu is also important, but if you are militaristic you can afford to build barracks in all cities before you capture it.

Speaking of which, quick question: when Sun Tzu is built do all barracks auto-sell? I aways sell them manually, so I don't know, probably not because there is a possibility of re-capture.

Anyway, after getting the Sistine chapel, I generally go for cavalry, those guys dominate.

Of course it depends on the situation, if I needed totrade over ocen tiles, I might go for magnetism.
 
You guys all beeline to one of the further techs?
I actually like to prebuild a wonder, and then research Theoogy (or something) and get the Sistine chapel. That's an awesomely powerful wonder if you've got cathedrals in all your metropolises, and I always do. I hate it when one of the other civs steals it. Sun Tzu is also important, but if you are militaristic you can afford to build barracks in all cities before you capture it.
Metropolises? What are those? :lol: Cath are useless and so Sistines is even more so. Markets are way better for luxury purposes and even they aren't essential.

Speaking of which, quick question: when Sun Tzu is built do all barracks auto-sell? I aways sell them manually, so I don't know, probably not because there is a possibility of re-capture.
No. They don't auto-sell.

Research in the MA does take longer than the AA but by then you should have met all the other AI. I trade my way pretty quickly through the MA. Choose either the top or bottom of the tech tree and just go that direction. Make a bee line to either military tradition or demo, depending on where the AI is going.
I don't think I have researched Theology myself in a long time.
The key to trading in the ME is to understand which techs the AI likes. Its favourites are Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy. Choose one or two trading partners and make sure you get the prerequisites into their hands. Among other things, this means that you should be researching Theology.
 
Sometimes you can't get your hands on all the luxuries, that's when I build cathedrals.
 
Sometimes you can't get your hands on all the luxuries, that's when I build cathedrals.
Certainly you can. Even if you don't have them yet, that's still not a reason to build expensive junk. For the cost of a temple and a cath, you can build three cavs and go out and get those luxes. Multiply that by all the cities you build this junk in. Add 7.5 more cavs in exchange for the game's most useless wonder and you have one helluva army.

You still haven't answered my point about metropolises. You shouldn't have such things. Your core should be built CxxC or a bit looser, giving each city about 10-12 tiles to work. Outside, your build should be even tighter. On top of that, metropolises come about 12 techs after Theology. If you want Sistine's, capture it.
 
The key to trading in the ME is to understand which techs the AI likes. Its favourites are Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy. Choose one or two trading partners and make sure you get the prerequisites into their hands. Among other things, this means that you should be researching Theology.

To tell the truth I probably meant Education as the tech I always get in trade but I still tend toward the lower end of the tree.
I find in my games, at least on emperor, I can get to Invention and Gunpowder before the AI.
If I find myself way behind the road to Military Tradition I do take Theology and the high road.
It seems that Printing Press is almost always there for me and then Demo is also good trade bait.
 
I find in my games, at least on emperor, I can get to Invention and Gunpowder before the AI.
Certainly you can. You should be out-teching the AI big time by this period. A beeline to MT often makes sense when playing a military game. You might even shut down research altogether when you get there.

However, it's not the best way to tech fast through the ME. This requires letting the AI research the techs it wants to and getting the others yourself. On top of that, you'll want Ed for unis.
 
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