Science Balance Issues

[gibson1314]

Ive recently come back to civ 5 and played 1 game on prince and 2 on king and walked them. So moved up to emeror. Ive won 2 lost 1 so far. In my latest game on emperor I started falling behind in Science around renaissance era. I'm going for domination and ahead in points then all of a sudden Spain and Persia attack with artillery. They seemed to fire ahead in techs very quickly. I deliberately didn't bother with wonders and policies and just attacked and took egypts capital with 5 wonders Inc porcelin tower. Now that they are ahead research agreements are hard to find with the smaller nations who are all poor. I'm capable of holding them even tho there combined army dominates mine. I feel the game is lost as I can't now win domination victory maybe if I hang in I could bribe all the city stars I have 4 already.

On emperor Is it better to concentrate on Science with the purpose to switch to domination later on. On king I'm sure I'd have gotten away with this way of playing.

What's the best way to go about science beeline porcelain tower/research early, Tall population city's with puppets ?

Is focus on using specialist the best way I dont think im using them correctly any good threads on this?

Sorry for long thread feel I need to improve on this to progress.

 

[chazzycat]

On the higher levels it is definitely important to focus on science. There are really two routes you can take. One is to stay relatively small and peaceful. That way you can sign a lot on RAs. In that case it's important to get rationalism and the porcelain tower, and also to understand the RA mechanism in some detail. The other way is to power through the tech tree with brute population force. That generally requires a lot of cities and is accomplished via a combination of conquering, expansion, and growth. This way you don't need rationalism and PT as much and are more free to be aggressive if you want.

Either way you want to go, there are 2 things you should do that will help immensely. One is to build the national college early. There are tons of threads on that. The other is later in the midgame, staff your larger cities with universities and fill out the specialist slots. Great scientists are extremely powerful, and generally should be saved for the late game techs or high-payoff military techs. In a typical game it's easy enough to stockpile 5 or more scientists for bulbing those expensive techs.

 

[The_Quasar]

Ive recently come back to civ 5 and played 1 game on prince and 2 on king and walked them. So moved up to emeror. Ive won 2 lost 1 so far. In my latest game on emperor I started falling behind in Science around renaissance era. I'm going for domination and ahead in points then all of a sudden Spain and Persia attack with artillery. They seemed to fire ahead in techs very quickly. I deliberately didn't bother with wonders and policies and just attacked and took egypts capital with 5 wonders Inc porcelin tower. Now that they are ahead research agreements are hard to find with the smaller nations who are all poor. I'm capable of holding them even tho there combined army dominates mine. I feel the game is lost as I can't now win domination victory maybe if I hang in I could bribe all the city stars I have 4 already.

On emperor Is it better to concentrate on Science with the purpose to switch to domination later on. On king I'm sure I'd have gotten away with this way of playing.

What's the best way to go about science beeline porcelain tower/research early, Tall population city's with puppets ?

Is focus on using specialist the best way I dont think im using them correctly any good threads on this?

Sorry for long thread feel I need to improve on this to progress.

Firstly, there is quite a bit of difference between King and Emperor, and you definitely have the right ideas about what to do. Science is far more important to concentrate on, because the AI gets a much bigger bonus.

Porcelain Tower helps a lot, but is not vital at Emperor, it's more important at Immortal or Deity. Keep on the science band wagon, and you'll do fine. Don't go too wide or you'll get into happiness issues, tall is good, but whether puppeting or not really depends on the city... if the city is a really good one, I always like to annex it, lesser cities can be puppeted.

Good luck...

 

[gibson1314]

Thanks for the replies folks I think i've done the National college trick before and won that game i'll give it a go again. I'm going to pay more attention to the great scientist's also because in this game I had hardly any. I always played civ 4 focusing on science 1st and the higher levels seem to be similar on civ 5. thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[Mesix]

The key is to have specialized cities.

In every game there should be one (or more) cities in your empire which focus on science. Build Libraries everywhere because they are cheap and give you bonus for your population. In your specialized science city you should build the National College, Library, University, Observatory (requires a mountain nearby so plan your city placement), and Public School (later in the game also a Research Lab). You should have a lot of farms so that you can run scientist specialists in the city. I also like to settle early Great Scientists near the city, but other players often like to save them to bulb key technologies (three can get you from Longswords to Rifelmen in a single turn)...both strategies have their merits based on game circumstances. In most of my games, this science city is producing half or more of the research for my empire. In games where I want to go for the space or UN victories, I will have two are three science cities (only one with the National College of course).

You should also have one (or more) cities built up to produce units. Build it near an Iron resource to get the Forge. Also build the Barracks, Armory, and Military Academy. If you are planning for a domination, have a few of these cities. Build a Barracks in all of your cities in Domination games. This will allow you to build the Heroic Epic in your main military unit city and also allow you to crank out more units when necessary with your other cities.

I also like to have cities specialized for and a farm for Great Engineers to rush wonders (this is usually my capital). I won't go into detail about this though. To keep up with the AI while waging war on higher levels, the science and unit generating specialized cities are essential.