Originally posted by CivGeneral
*Grand Admiral CivGeneral pulls out a Sign saying "The End is near"
I am trying my best efforts to help the game
CivGeneral
Your efforts are definitely appreciated. My decision was not made casually, nor should you interpret it as a critique of your efforts. It is simply a matter of mathematics.
Code:
At this time, we could increase the science rate accordingly:
[u]Science[/u] [u]Revenues[/u] [u]Gunpowder[/u] [u]Total Cost[/u]
0% +102g 32 turns 0g
10% +92g 32 turns 320g (32 turns x 10gpt)
20% +76g 32 turns 832g (32 turns x 26gpt)
30% +61g 32 turns 1312g (32 turns x 41gpt)
40% +48g 32 turns 1728g (32 turns x 54gpt)
50% +18g 24 turns 2016g (24 turns x 84gpt)
60% +13g 23 turns 2047g (23 turns x 89gpt)
70% 0g 20 turns 2040g (20 turns x 102gpt)
80% -15g 17 turns 1989g (17 turns x 117gpt)
90% -31g 15 turns 1995g (15 turns x 133gpt)
100% -41g 14 turns 2002g (14 turns x 143gpt)
Looking at this table, there is no benefit for raising our science rate to anything less than 50% of our budget. In fact, treasury permitting, since the differences in total cost are minimal, we're better off raising the rate to 100% so that we minimize the time to research. However, doing so would cost us ~2000g to discover Gunpowder (in money that we could have earned over the time spent researching).
So what could we possibly purchase this technology for? Unfortunately (and I say that for purposes of this discussion only
), nobody has Gunpowder to offer us to compare these numbers directly, but there are a handful of civs that have Astronomy for sale. Not including Persia, China offers the best deal and is willing to sell us Astronomy for our World Map, 300g, and 80gpt. Now, keep in mind that Astronomy is approximately 17% more expensive to research than Gunpowder (cost numbers in the editor are 56 & 48 respectively), so it is safe to assume that the cost to purchase Gunpowder would be about 17% less as well.
With Astronomy costing approximately 1900g (300g + (20 turns x 80gpt)), if our ratio is accurate, Gunpowder would cost us ~1580g. The Astronomy prices will come down as more nations learn those secrets (only 4 have the knowledge now). It becomes clear to see that even if a small percentage of nations learn the secrets of Gunpowder before we do, we can purchase it from them for less than it would cost us to research it ourselves.
Also note that this comparison does not include any profit from sale of this technology. With twelve viable trading nations (sorry Japan, Egypt and Azteca) in the world, there are sure to be other nations to trade this knowledge to once purchased.
So, to summarize, it is through no personal satisfaction or willful avarice that we maintain a 0% research rate. The mathematics of the situation just do not support change at this time. In a while, after we have constructed a large number of libraries and universities, and after we have expanded our land area sufficiently that we have relatively more cities than the AI in which to produce this research, the math may bear this out differently and then we can increase the research rate. Just not today.
Oh, and put that sign away. We don't want to start a panic.