Reading the forum and the war academy boosted my playing skills overnight, going from a shabby warlord to a decent Monarch... Emperor still takes getting used to... brrrr.
Usually I use the zero research in the beginning, but I found that a little research is still not bad. Persuing some far tech that no-one else has, still has some benifits trade-wise. But since I needed all the money I could get my hands on, I still kept the science slider on zero.
Soon enough, one of my cities started getting "oooh Its just way to crowded" and I transformed my unhappy worker into a scientist. If you have city or three doing this, you can still invent most early techs in a 24turn period, whilst trading around it like mad. I've never read any threads on this, people seem to keep the entertainers around all the time... I don't find much use for entertainers until the city is practicly bursting with rioters. Even in the ending stages, using scientists in the cities you can usually minimize waste on research, inventing stuff accurately to one or two wasted sciencebubbels and keep civil disorder non existant...
Needless to say, it means pressing F1 pretty much every turn.
On emperor, it doesn't seem like it'll work in the early stages, since you need everything you can muster in order to expand before the AI surrounds you...
But it seemed to pay off untill now.
Usually I use the zero research in the beginning, but I found that a little research is still not bad. Persuing some far tech that no-one else has, still has some benifits trade-wise. But since I needed all the money I could get my hands on, I still kept the science slider on zero.
Soon enough, one of my cities started getting "oooh Its just way to crowded" and I transformed my unhappy worker into a scientist. If you have city or three doing this, you can still invent most early techs in a 24turn period, whilst trading around it like mad. I've never read any threads on this, people seem to keep the entertainers around all the time... I don't find much use for entertainers until the city is practicly bursting with rioters. Even in the ending stages, using scientists in the cities you can usually minimize waste on research, inventing stuff accurately to one or two wasted sciencebubbels and keep civil disorder non existant...
Needless to say, it means pressing F1 pretty much every turn.
On emperor, it doesn't seem like it'll work in the early stages, since you need everything you can muster in order to expand before the AI surrounds you...
But it seemed to pay off untill now.