Science shortage on King Level

[Sasha590]

I recently started playing at level 5 and found myself falling behind in Science no matter how many campuses and related buildings I built. I was being "out scienced" by 2:1 despite spies confirming that the opposition had no more campuses than I had.

I built "Campus Research Grants" but they didn't seem to add any science (what gives with that?) although they did give Great Scientist points.

Am I missing some major technique? I'd really appreciate any advice you might have.

 

[Buktu]

Are you getting Campusses with decent adjacencies (either naturally or build yourself)? Do you use cards to ramp up your science?

 

[Archon_Wing]

You need to post one of your games.

Science is hard to get because the only way to get it is mostly to build more campuses. And that usually means you need some more cities.

 

[vortical42]

I recently started playing at level 5 and found myself falling behind in Science no matter how many campuses and related buildings I built. I was being "out scienced" by 2:1 despite spies confirming that the opposition had no more campuses than I had.

I built "Campus Research Grants" but they didn't seem to add any science (what gives with that?) although they did give Great Scientist points.

Am I missing some major technique? I'd really appreciate any advice you might have.

Campus grants (and all the equivalent projects) provide great person points rather than directly boosting yields. Don't sleep on GP if you are going for science. Some of them provide powerful abilities and work like wonders where only one civ can have each one. As for falling behind in raw science there are two things to look at. First, how does your population compare to theirs? Each city produces a base level of science based on population so if your are behind on pop your are going to be behind in science as well. You also need to take a look at city states. Each science focused city state provides bonus science to every city of an empire they are friends with. If the AI has envoys in multiple science CS and you don't that is going to give them a huge advantage.

 

[Buktu]

Campus grants (and all the equivalent projects) provide great person points rather than directly boosting yields.

To make this clear Campus Research Grants provides science per turn while its running and Scientist points when its finished. The science per turn from the project is tied to your cities production though so if your cities have low production you won't notice a big change when running these. Iirc you get 15% of your production as science, so if your cities has 20 production you just get 3 science per turn from it.

Good point with Scientists and city states in the rest of your post

 

[Vargas1]

As @Archon_Wing said, the real question is how many cities you have - if you only have 3 cities while the AI has kept expanding, then you're going to be behind.

 

[Victoria]

Am I missing some major technique? I'd really appreciate any advice you might have.

From my experience in answering similar posts the main issue is you are building them too early.
Start the game, get a settler or 2 out, place campuses but do not finish them. Then get some army or improve some land while you get to Early Empire or building ancestral hall then pump settlers like crazy including chopping them in with Magnus.
The whole idea of the first 70 or so turns is to get as many cities as possible by war or peace. Then develop the cities, your science will shoot up really quickly, especially if you chop.
Have a look at the link below for a chopping example, it is a bit out of date but still a very important major technique/set of techniques.
Also have a lkook at the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder and uderstand the importantance of scence City States.
I aim for 100 science by T100 but less is OK as long as its not too much less and you can see it improving soon. My record in a game was 260 by T100 but that was just wierd and lucky, you will see many good players on say 80 science at T100 but 200 by T110-120, it is around this time you are buyig libraries and chopping in universities.

An RV is a bit simpler, you really do not need many cities but you do need to concentrate on your victory (just like any victory in civ)