Research rate in the early game?

[MkLh]

either 100% or 0%.
100% when researching, get currency to build wealth if overexpanded, that works much better than cottage.

Until you want those cities to build something else...

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

either 100% or 0%.
100% when researching, get currency to build wealth if overexpanded, that works much better than cottage.

Not sure this is good advice. You need to specify further!
100% researching until expansion forces you to lower (sometimes down to 0%! but better if not all the way down) all while researching towards either Aesthetics or Alphabet (depending on your neighbors and level) using scientists in libraries. If Aesthetics, trade for alphabet. Then, you can "build" research in a hammer heavy cities while teching currency. Then you can "build" wealth while researching CoL. Then build/chop/whip courthouses in your furthest cities.

Of course, make sure to cottage green tiles while this is all going on.

That's the most general strat I've got for getting a decent to great research rate early on. It works on most maps/difficulties I've played. Of course, cookie cutter strats are never 'great' or 'fun' exactly. But if you're worried about science/expansion pre-1AD, this is a good bet IMO.

 

[Memphus]

I usually play on noble with little success (i've only once managed to squeeze out a space race win).

My question is: what is the best BPT and research rate in the early game (Ancient/Classical) to stay competitive in the tech race. I seem to waver between 50%-70% and usually fall into the middle of the pack near the medieval era.

Any help is appreciated. keep in mind this is noble and not immortal/deity.

50 per turn until currency is just fine. Sometimes not teching at all works too.

The secret is to react to whatever the other players do (or the AI). And then surprise them.


Oh wait Noble? No reacting here, set the pace.
Make sure you have 2 workers per city, and your tech rate will be fine.

 

[cabert]

the biggest problem is to tech right (= what you need) and trade for the rest asap
the second biggest problem is to expand enough, with enough workers

 

[Antilogic]

Without going into too many map-specific conditions, I'm not concerned if my beaker rate falls to 20% in the early game. So long as I can get Currency and Code of Laws, I can recover. Using specialists through libraries is a great way to try and offset the "slow" tech slider research rate.

I know some people say that you have only overexpanded if you hit 0% and can't turn a profit, but I've never had the gut to try it.

 

[kinghippo423]

After several tries in my new Noble game start, I can't even have over 50 at 1AD and I must be honest I really feel like a dumbass. I tried 4-5 times the same setup over and over again to try different approches and line of play without any success. I always play with random civilization on and this time I got RAMESSES II (Spiritual, Industrious).

At 1AD, I always have 6-8 depending on lots of factors and can't even have a good science rate. I realise that it's not a uncommon problem since lots of beginner players like me have the same problem. I had few game that I had a "decent" science rate at 1AD like 80-90 but I'm guessing it's mainly because of the Financial trait of my civs or just a lucky start with lots of goddies. Also I had a good science rate when I have The Pyramids for obvious reasons but it's not always possible to built it, specially without stone and even without stone it's fairly easy but the long built will force me to slow down my development.

Also, I see members talking about specialists in the early game with libraries but I feel that turning population into specialists seems a bad choice since every population is key and without a high happyness cap I can't have those specialists most of the time. I got only 2 luxuries by 1AD. Not a whole lot.

I try to apply the basics things I've learned on this forum by having good amount of workers or never have population working an unimproved tile (I won't name all for them lol) but still having trouble to have a good start in most of my start (50%+). Challenging yes but a little fratrating.

 

[Memphus]

On your next start post the save and a screenshot.

We can go through the first 50 moves together. That will get you a good enough start to easily win the game (and have a good tech rate)

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Also, I see members talking about specialists in the early game with libraries but I feel that turning population into specialists seems a bad choice since every population is key and without a high happyness cap I can't have those specialists most of the time. I got only 2 luxuries by 1AD. Not a whole lot.

The early specialists deally is usually for 1 of 2 things:
1) Get a Great Scientist either for bulbing then trading for techs or Academy
2) Continue being able to research decently while the commerce slider drops because of heavy expansion.

I usually get my first few scientists going for option 2 but results in option 1 as well. If you run 2 scientists in, let's say, 2 cities, they are providing 14 per turn (thanks to library +25%) along with whatever you get coming in from the low science slider. So you can still tech towards Alphabet (spies/build research) or Aesthetics (great trade bait on higher levels). On Noble, teching towards alphabet is superior because you will have it long before the AI and you can "build" research along with running the scientists to tech towards currency and CoL (major economic recovery techs) while finishing your initial expansion. By the time currency comes online, you want to have a few cottaged cities for pushing your slider back up.

On Noble, the economic crash shouldn't be too much of a problem, though. Remember to build workers (have 1-1.5 per city) and have them improve resources in the cities BFC first, then lay cottages down on green tiles.

 

[cabert]

There is something wrong with the "use scientists to research because the slider is low".
If you put those citizens on cottages instead, you get more commerce, and suddenly your slider isn't necessary so low anymore...
So it all boils down to getting those great people in time. it's still important, I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you managed a few priest wonders, you can leave it for a while, more so if your slider is low indeed (because an academy wouldn't help much). An early priest is always welcome.

 

[Grey Fox]

Those cottages will take longer to produce the same amount of research though. The point with those scientists is to get the research NOW as well as getting a Great Scientist or two.
4 Scientists is 14 after all. 4 Hamlets on rivers is only 12 Commerce or 16 commerce if Financial. And if you manage to have the slider at 50%, which is unlikely in this scenario, that would still only be 8 and 10 if financial. And that was at 50%, the slider would probably be at 0% getting gold for binary research after you got your acadamy down.

Not that you shouldn't put off working cottages. Cottages are very important.

The best here is to work cottages in your capital and the scientists elsewhere.
All you need is a size 3 city with one 4+ food tile, or a size 4 city with two grassland farms.

 

[bestsss]

standard thing is past writing: 0% slider, build library, hire 2 scientists, get great scientist, build academy in the future oxford city (preferably).
100% slider.

 

[cabert]

4*3=12
to feed 4 scientists, you need 8 food points.
If you are lucky to get 1 pig and another food resource and you are willing to stop growth, you can count 6 citizens for those 12 beakers (note that it's beakers and not commerce).

If you use 1 pig + 1 special to grow to size 6 and only scientists, it will take quite a while to get there.
So I guess you use other food tiles to get the citizens in the first place.
All the time you grow, you get no beakers.

Now compare this to raw output from 1 food special + 5 cottages (rivers are your friends of course). It very much a sure thing that 2 or 3 cottages have become hamlets by the time you have your 4 scientists up.
So at size 6 you could very well run 3 hamlets and 3 cottages (2 of them being plains, because you don't want to grow).
3 river hamlets = 3*3 = 9 commerce.
3 cottages = 3 commerce + 2 hammers.
total 12 commerce + 2 hammers.
Which is more than what you got from your 4 scientists. Thus I'm not convinced by the raw output of scientists.

Now if you're saying you want that great scientist early, then I can see the point.

 

[bestsss]

cabert, the point is that you can get the scientist quite early and build an academy, the cottages don't come even closer.

 

[Grey Fox]

total 12 commerce + 2 hammers.
Which is more than what you got from your 4 scientists. Thus I'm not convinced by the raw output of scientists.

12 commerce is not more research than what you are getting from the 4 scientists. It's the same, but only at 100% science slider.
Beakers from scientists are also multiplied by libraries. Building Research or Wealth is added on top however.

This is about a temporary boost in research. To get you to that short term goal quicker.

 

[cabert]

12 commerce is not more research than what you are getting from the 4 scientists. It's the same, but only at 100% science slider.
Beakers from scientists are also multiplied by libraries. Building Research or Wealth is added on top however.

This is about a temporary boost in research. To get you to that short term goal quicker.

I had 2 more hammers with cottages
The thing is that you have less commerce, which could be used to pay for maintenance of further cities or for units outside your territory, when you use scientists.
There is no temporary boost. That is just not true.

@bestsss, I agree that having an academy soon can be great if you didn't over-expand.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I had 2 more hammers with cottages
The thing is that you have less commerce, which could be used to pay for maintenance of further cities or for units outside your territory, when you use scientists.
There is no temporary boost. That is just not true.

Dude. It's simple and has worked in almost every game where I had a lot of room to expand. The more cities you lay down to get good land before the AI claims it, the lower your slider must go to pay for the maintenance costs. At some point in the REX, the slider can be as low as 30% in a decent REX.

Without those scientists boosting temporary research to allow Aesthetics (trade bait for Alpha) or Alphabet (depending on the AIs met), the research bar will read over 75 turns many times (marathon). In my most recent game as Asoka, I had to drop the slider to 20% and I was looking at over 100 turns for Alphabet. So I ran 5 scientists, 2 in the capital (floodplains & irr corn), 2 in the second city I built and 1 in a distant city with chopped library. It drastically reduced the turns to research to around 35.

I continued working the scientists in the 2 ancillary cities and switched my capital to hammer/cottage tiles and built research to get Currency. There in lay the major economic recovery and then I built cottages over the farms and stopped working the scientists since the science slider was able to rise to 60% without losing gold and I traded some cheap techs for decent gold, so the slider went up to 90%.

But until those econ recover techs are in, cottages and even commerce resources (like gold) don't do much for research. Since all 30 your empire is bringing in only sees 30% for research (or 9 per turn) instead of say 5 from reducing commerce tiles worked in favor of food and + 15 from scientists totaling 20 (over 100% increase). In my Asoka game, my empire was only bringing in maybe 20 b/c of whipping infrastructure. So that's only 4 per turn without the scientists!

 

[hoLLo]

For me, running scientists in libraries are essential to recovering. The immediate bpt they offer is absolutely necessary for getting the recovery techs. And the best part (IMO) is that it brings you closer to your first scientist. Lately I've boiled my science goals down to three things:

1. Get an academy in the capital
2. Get bureaucracy and cottage every tile possible in the capital
3. Build Oxford in the capital

Occasionally I have to build the palace in a better location for a cottage/capital/bureaucracy, but the sooner I can get those three things off my list the sooner I have my research where I want it.

 

[kinghippo423]

But by running scientists il your cities you kill your hammer potential.
I cannot have an army to avoid enemies to ask you for gifts. I'm often in the bottom lines in the power graph.
I feel I'm taking too much time to recover from the financial crash I'm having with non-financials civs.

I've been having trouble with this 4000BC NOBLE situation.
I feel it'a terrific start with lots of possibilities but I can't have over 50-55 Beakers/turn at 1AD.

Anyone can do a shadow run to 1AD and post the save?
I want to know how bad I am and probably learning a whole lot of stuff.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dude. It's simple and has worked in almost every game where I had a lot of room to expand. The more cities you lay down to get good land before the AI claims it, the lower your slider must go to pay for the maintenance costs. At some point in the REX, the slider can be as low as 30% in a decent REX.

Without those scientists boosting temporary research to allow Aesthetics (trade bait for Alpha) or Alphabet (depending on the AIs met), the research bar will read over 75 turns many times (marathon). In my most recent game as Asoka, I had to drop the slider to 20% and I was looking at over 100 turns for Alphabet. So I ran 5 scientists, 2 in the capital (floodplains & irr corn), 2 in the second city I built and 1 in a distant city with chopped library. It drastically reduced the turns to research to around 35.

I continued working the scientists in the 2 ancillary cities and switched my capital to hammer/cottage tiles and built research to get Currency. There in lay the major economic recovery and then I built cottages over the farms and stopped working the scientists since the science slider was able to rise to 60% without losing gold and I traded some cheap techs for decent gold, so the slider went up to 90%.

But until those econ recover techs are in, cottages and even commerce resources (like gold) don't do much for research. Since all 30 your empire is bringing in only sees 30% for research (or 9 per turn) instead of say 5 from reducing commerce tiles worked in favor of food and + 15 from scientists totaling 20 (over 100% increase). In my Asoka game, my empire was only bringing in maybe 20 b/c of whipping infrastructure. So that's only 4 per turn without the scientists!

You and greyfox are both falling to smoke and mirrors with early cottages vs specialists.

3 raw beakers is not > 3 commerce at the fundamental level. Yes, you have to split the commerce into research and gold, but even if you run scientists your gold still has to come from somewhere (commerce!).

Now, early in the game there are 3 issues that can favor scientists:

1. Cap issues, making it hard to work a lot of cottages (without , non-capitol cities are pop 4, or pop 3 while whip anger wears off.). Cottages blow non-rep specialists out on a food/yield basis, especially after growing at all, but much of that food is going to go into angry citizens or whipping away the cottages this early on in that type of city.
2. The city has food, but its land is otherwise crappy for cottages. In this case, there's no sense working cottages here since you never will do so.
3. *Most Importantly* is early GPP. Great people management has a tremendous impact on the game.

I've had games where I got lazy and didn't run the scientists in the BCs much (maybe 1 city), because I started with a huge chunk of land (had 11 cities peacefully on immortal, and almost all of them were green flatland) and was on my own island (with contact with others). Other than 1 city every other one was cottaged. I got aesthetics and every other tech just fine. Actually, that game involved some navy SEALS vs rifles and wound up being an easy conquest.

But washington has a naturally boosted cap, and while I didn't have gold or gems I did have some kind of resource (I think ivory?) and was able to trade for some too which allowed ~ pop 10 cities w/o monarchy. Not hard to see how that equates to 11 cities and +30 gold/turn at 0% by 1 AD. Every map is different.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

But by running scientists il your cities you kill your hammer potential.
I cannot have an army to avoid enemies to ask you for gifts. I'm often in the bottom lines in the power graph.
I feel I'm taking too much time to recover from the financial crash I'm having with non-financials civs.

They will keep asking you for gifts, no matter how strong you are.

I've been having trouble with this 4000BC NOBLE situation.
I feel it'a terrific start with lots of possibilities but I can't have over 50-55 Beakers/turn at 1AD.

Anyone can do a shadow run to 1AD and post the save?
I want to know how bad I am and probably learning a whole lot of stuff.

I'll play this in a while. Anyhow, IMO it's useless to aim for a specific per turn at certain dates. It all depends on your current situation and how you are regarding the competition. Sometimes you have 3 per turn in 1AD but are in a dominant position and the game's pretty much won. It doesn't matter how many you have in a specific date, but if you are competitive.