Specializing a city for science

[narmox]

Hello all,

Here's a strategy I've been using successfully in my last 10-15 games on Noble difficulty to shoot ahead everybody (standard map, 7 civs) in science, at least until the end of the Renaissance.

All you need is to specialize one city for science. This is usually my capital simply because it's the most developped city early on.

Requirements:

- a city with lots of food and at least 5 citizens (that's usually where I start to hire specialists), the more the merrier.

- a Library in that city (so you need to disover writing ASAP).

- any other wonder or civic that allows more specialists (and more importantly science specialists) to be hired. Pyramids is a good bet too, since it will give an extra 3 beakers per specialist with the Representation civic. This strategy doesn't depend on any wonder though, they just give a nice boost.

- any other improvement (monastery, university, etc) can be added as time goes on.

Alright. So you got your size 5+ city with lots of food, health, and a library. Good. Hire a science specialist, more if you can and if your city supports it. If your city is small, leave some food to grow, you don't want to cap its size now.

Wait.. wait.. wait.. (well don't jus wait, keep developping your civilization) Until you get a Great Scientist. Use him to bulid the Academy in your science city. That will increase science by 50%.

Afterwards, every Great Scientist you get, add him in that city as a super specialist. This will give 6 beakers, but the academy will increase that to 9 (with Representation, that would be 13! I haven't actually checked those numbers during gameplay cause I'm too busy playing not calculating, so hopefully I'm right. Either way it adds a lot!). Hire more normal science specialist whenever you can or need to.

I've only tested once or twice using the Great Scientists to build more academies and each time it seemed better to just add them to the city, since the other cities won't be producing much science at all till much later (use the other cities to produce military units, wonders, settlers, workers, or other buildings, since you will need them in case your opponents come for you).

Pretty soon, by the end of the classical or early medieval era, your science city will be outputting 100+ beakers per turn! You'll easily outresearch your opponents that way, for a while, until they catch up. If you've fallen behind, you'll catch up pretty quickly too.


Now what I need is to learn how to specialize cities for commerce and hammers

 

[Heroes]

Afterwards, every Great Scientist you get, add him in that city as a super specialist. This will give 6 beakers, but the academy will increase that to 9 (with Representation, that would be 13! I haven't actually checked those numbers during gameplay cause I'm too busy playing not calculating, so hopefully I'm right. Either way it adds a lot!). Hire more normal science specialist whenever you can or need to.

I've only tested once or twice using the Great Scientists to build more academies and each time it seemed better to just add them to the city, since the other cities won't be producing much science at all till much later (use the other cities to produce military units, wonders, settlers, workers, or other buildings, since you will need them in case your opponents come for you).

Well, if you use a great scientist to build an academy in another city, it will increase its beakers by half of its base commerce, which could be easily > 13 gpt. And this benefit is always there, no matther whether that city is building military or whatever.

 

[narmox]

yes but these other cities won't create as much science as the science specialized city.

Science specialized city creates, I dunno, 20 beakers (with al lthe specialists) let's say, add 10 for the academy.

Other city creates maybe 12 beakers, add 6 for academy.

Which will benefit more from the Great Scientist? Consider that the sicence one will have a library, maybe university and monastery that will increase the super specialists's output.. And it's an easy choice (and this makes me realize my numbers were wrong in the initial post, but the conclusion was still correct IMO)

 

[narmox]

what I mean is that it'sb etter to add the super specialist that will increase science output by 9 or more ,than add an academy that will increase science output by like 6 in a science poor city.

Nothing wrong with making more than one science city though! I just think it's better to use other cities for other stuff

 

[playshogi]

That's an interesting idea for the use of your Great Scientists. They also produce 1 hammer which makes the choice not so easy for a town with borderline commerce of about 20. On the other hand, you might want the extra 4 culture points in that borderline town you get by building an Academy. To make a really powerful science city, plan on building lots of cottages.

 

[Dairuka]

Yup Shogi.

However you should be building a lot of cottages anyways.

 

[Heroes]

yes but these other cities won't create as much science as the science specialized city.

Science specialized city creates, I dunno, 20 beakers (with al lthe specialists) let's say, add 10 for the academy.

Other city creates maybe 12 beakers, add 6 for academy.

Which will benefit more from the Great Scientist? Consider that the sicence one will have a library, maybe university and monastery that will increase the super specialists's output.. And it's an easy choice (and this makes me realize my numbers were wrong in the initial post, but the conclusion was still correct IMO)

We are comparing 2 ways of using a great scientist: adding to the science city as a super specialist, or building an academy in another city.

A super scientist specialist creats 1 base hammer and 6 base beakers. These 6 beakers can be multiplified by library, university, oberservatory, laboratory (each one for 25%), and of course academy (50%). Therefore, the max income is 6*2.5=15 beakers. Certainly, lab is quite late, so don't count on it, which makes the result 13.5 beakers.

Another academy adds 1/2 of the base commerce of that city. So if the city has > 27 base commerce, an academy is more profitable. Is 27 base commerce hard? Not if the leader is financial, e.g. a coast tile will generate 3 base commerce!

 

[ToadFaerie]

SMAC/x was the game for specialized science cities. Without crawlers to go fetch money (or energy, as the case may be) for your city, it's not as beneficial to have a science city.

But it is nice. I had a game where one city was generating approximately 75% of my research. It was to the point that I didn't build +science buildings in any other city because the return was so small. Not developing my other cities like that kept my research about 20 turns ahead of the AI on noble. 2 research cities would have dominated the AI, but at what cost? That would be one's 2 most productive cities not building units or missionaries.

Whether to build a super science city depends on the map, and your victory strategy. I had a start where my capital had 2 grassland/gems and 2 grassland/hill/gem, all on river. A science/income city was a given there. Another game had a freshwater lake, and no other source of commerce. Would be insane to try a science-city in that game.

 

[petey]

I think that the way that the game is set up with all the bonuses, specializing cities really makes a lot of sense. A super-science city can easily carry the research for your entire civ and free up other cities to pursue different areas and spit out military units.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Great tips. Thanks!

 

[Dairuka]

Just remember one important thing. Keep this city extremely well defended.

If you put all your eggs in one basket, and that basket is stolen; how many eggs do you have left?

 

[Shillen]

You're weakening your city by using specialists. You're much better off having your city work cottage tiles than hiring specialists. I've had a city generating 450 beakers per turn before with cottages (and that's not with a financial civ or it would have been much higher). Sure a high food city with lots of specialists is good for generating great people, but I'd use a different city for that because that's not maxing the science in that city.

 

[eldar]

I got a non-financial city (Rome, or was it Mecca?) up above 750 beakers / turn. Basically using this strat. Also built Oxford Uni, National Epic (to increase GP production). No/few Scientists though. Just kept merging my leaders, and using Representation.