Stacking tech bonuses: does the AI understand this?

[46852]

First time player of RI, long time Civ4 fan here

Really enjoying the approach of this mod, and breezing through my first play on Monarch/Scandinavians. I've grown used to building "supercities" in Civ4, and I took this path in RI also. My capital started churning out wonders, and to my surprise, I seemed to beat the other civs by building most of the wonders I wanted. Since there's no wonder limit, the capital naturally became my GP farm also.

After a while, I noticed my capital would additionally be my research focal point, due to the surrounding cottages and gold deposit. I also found out there were new wonders that could be built by great scientists only, that granted +40% research, these were naturally placed to the capital also.

Now, in 700AD, the capital is a pop 20 all-around supercity, with 360% percent bonus to research, settled scientist and other leaders, 9 built wonders and 6 scientist-built wonders (granting the science bonus). It's generating a whopping 520 science/turn (at 65% rate) with 50+ gold and some espionage on the side. I'm beginning to wonder if I needed the other 12 cities at all

I'm running quite far ahead in the score/production/power charts, and I had to resort to the world builder to see how well the AIs are actually doing, since I'm clearly going to give them a good whooping eventually.

I noticed that most of the AIs big cities generate only 100-200 (mostly around 100) combined science and gold per turn. That's really nothing compared to my 600+ science. I'm guessing the AI has trouble building specialized cities, and stacking the correct bonuses on cities, most importantly science.

Some thoughts:
Some kind of wonder limit might be useful, although I understand this is a difficult change to work on since there are sooo many wonders in RI. Especially the wonders built by great scientists seem like an easy way to specialize cities toward science without restrictions. The AI doesn't seem to be too keen on building these, while I've accumulated six science multipliers in one city! Are these buildings meant to pace the science game, or are the bonuses unintentionally large and too easy for the player to abuse by stacking?

Currently I'm heading to renaissance era in 750AD, with no beelining whatsoever, and very little tech transfer help from the AI (I'm the workhorse in that department!). Is that a tad too fast for Monarch/Realistic speed?

 

[Shuikkanen]

The key balancing factor is that science wonders go obsolete after a while. Your ancient era wonders will obsolete around the turn of the Renaissance (I forget which tech exactly since I haven't played in a while, Enlightenment or Critical Thought iirc, whichever came first.)

The AI does build science wonders in my opinion. I'm not 100% sure but if it gets a Great Scientist, and a wonder is available, it will build it. The key here is getting the scientist. The AI usually builds the first couple, since it seems to build libraries quickly and uses those to run scientist specialists and thus it has 100% chance of hitting great scientist in the beginning. Whereas I often rage at the random number generator for granting me artists or merchants no matter how much I try to prioritize points towards great scientists -- but that's the price of building lots of wonders. You get more great people, but less control in what you get. Sometimes you get really lucky, though.

 

[46852]

Yes, I noticed some of the buildings would become obsolete, but actually Critical Thought only discontinues most of the buildings, and 5 out of 6 of them will still be giving bonuses until Physics which is really far away in the future. Well, not that far with my great science bonuses

+40% + a random perk seems quite powerful for a Great Work of a scientist, compared to the +4-30ish science/turn settling them gives. I checked that at 200AD my capital had 40ish commerce, out of which maybe 25 was converted to science. Add to that maybe 18+ for running 3 scientists (Great Library + Cheomseongdae) This could've been even more if I wasn't expanding aggressively (lower tax rate). At that point, selecting +40% science with another random world bonus is a no-brainer over settling. On top of that, some of the Great Works of science actually boost science in addition to the multiplier bonus.

Since the Great Works of science probably are not probably needed for the AI to boost it's science (or are they so, at higher levels?), I'd be inclined to decrease the science bonus of the great works to maybe 25-30%? That would make them more comparable to settling the scientist, which although is a more permanent long term solution since they don't go obsolete and get more bonuses as time passes. If you strictly calculate short-term benefit, even +25% beats settling by a small margin.


Example: Lets you have a moderate 30 commerce and 60% science rate, with 3 scientists in city (no Cheomseongdae), you'll get around 35 science. 40% of that would be around 14 science/turn. Settling gives +3 plus any possible bonuses, multiplied with maybe 100%. That's only around 6-12 science per turn.



Well, in the end it's a small detail, but I thought the Great Works of Science really gave me an unfair advantage in this single Monarch game. I might have been lucky with the scientists though! I think I got like 7 scientists, 2 prophets, 2 artists, 3 engineers and 1 merchant before 700AD. One prophet really had to be "forced", I refused to have any scientists working during one period just to get that damn prophet out

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

The short answer is AI understands stacking tech bonuses rather well and will aim to replicate what you did given chance. There was nothing unfair about your advantage.

 

[Shuikkanen]

Also, I'd like to add that if your first RI game is on Monarch and you're doing that well, you're a helluva player! Don't count that against the AI

 

[46852]

The short answer is AI understands stacking tech bonuses rather well and will aim to replicate what you did given chance. There was nothing unfair about your advantage.

Ok that's good to know! I need to try Emperor next time to see if the AI can keep up with my super-city efforts

I have to admit I reverted to save-scumming at one point of this recent Monarch game, the Carthaginians declared a war on me at the very moment when two of my settlers were chugging along their main assault forces route, heading toward key resource locations in a race with my African brothers in Faith... mental note: scout ahead well in advance before sending settlers!