What determines how soon the Science Advisor appears?

[stwils]

I am puzzled. Sometimes the Science Advisor first appears after a few turns and gives me a choice of what to research.

Other times I have played and build two militia and moved them all around before the Science Advisor ever appears.

Sometimes I can go to the Science Advisor and see that we are not researching anything! It is just blank. (The things we got at the beginning of the game are there, but there is nothing being researched.)

I have played around with the tax/science rate. That has an effect once we start researching something. But I don't think before.

How do you make sure you are researching something right from the beginning of the game?

It does not seem to have anything to do with what level I am playing on. Sometimes on King, the Science Advisor appears right off, and other times on King the wait for his appearance seems endless.

I've tried to find it in the manual, but it doesn't seem to be there.

stwils

 

[barron of ideas]

Adjust your tax and luxury rates downward, to zero if necessary, so that there will be some number of turns shown until your next project researches. Use F5 to peek at the situation, or F6 to see how many lightbulbs have accumulated toward your current project. If you run 100% tax, there will be no research, or 100% tax and luxuries, as research is whats left over.

If you can work fish, roaded/railed or river tiles so you have more commerce, you can speed up your research. Libraries, universities and some great wonders also help research. If you don't have any "free" commerce, you won't do any research, and the advisor won't bother to let you chose a project if you "aren't researching."

 

[stwils]

I'm talking about at the very BEGINNING of the game. Sometimes there are more than 20 or more turns before the Science Advisor first appears and we start the FIRST research.

Other times it is right away.

So sometimes at the game's beginning for 20 or 30 turns we are researching NOTHING. I don't know what to do about it.

Then out of the blue, the Science Advisor appears with a choice.

Why?

stwils

 

[cliff]

If you don't work a river square or a roaded square in your first city you will only produce 1 trade arrow until your second city is founded or a road is built. If you choose to spend that only trade arrow on taxes you will not be researching anything and the science advisor won't appear. To make sure that you get some research done at the very beginning, adjust your science rate to above 50%.

When you do have a river square to work or a fish square, you will produce some lightbulbs also when the science rate is 50% and the science advisor will appear right away.

 

[barron of ideas]

After you build you first city, hopefully where you can work a fish or river tile, and generate commerce from the beginning, change you tax rate to zero. This will bring up the science advisor as you will be generating lightbulbs with the commerce and the game will want to apply them to some project. If you leave the tax rate at 50% (the default rate the game starts with, it will take a long time to generate lightbulgbs, probably not until after there has been population growth and you pick a tile to work that has commerce.

Try the no tax approach. It isn't foolproof, if you can't work any tile to generate commerce, you won't get any lightbulbs and the advisor won't visit you to ask what project to work on.

 

[stwils]

Thanks. I'll experiment a bit with that and see if I can get the Science Advisor to pop up sooner.

stwils

 

[stwils]

You all are right!

I played around starting the game several times and building on different type squares. If I didn't have an arrow tile that was being worked (like on a river) no Science Advisor until I somehow worked on a tile with an arrow. (I also adjusted the Science/Tax thingy.)

Same with shield tiles. If I built a city and there were no shields, I couldn't produce anything until I moved a worker to a shield bearing tile.

I wonder why I did not know this.

Anyway, thanks all!

stwils

 

[dogma]

Originally posted by stwils
I played around starting the game several times and building on different type squares. If I didn't have an arrow tile that was being worked (like on a river) no Science Advisor until I somehow worked on a tile with an arrow. (I also adjusted the Science/Tax thingy.)

You can fine-tune this a bit more. The first time trade arrows are transformed into lightbulbs the Science Advisor appears and all lightbulbs in the F6-reservoir vanish. Thus, two of them is overkill and only one is sufficient. Usually my first city has two arrows and I leave the tax rate at 50% until the second turn, when it is put to the 100% that Civ1 allows even in despotism. Of course this whole operation results in merely one single gold coin, but for centuries (if not millennia) this one gold coin happens to be my whole treasure, and I do not lose my first library right after building it just because I forget to adjust the tax rate

 

[Eli the Lich]

I played many time with 0% for long times always got money from somwhere (vilage, enemy) and can always build and sell Barack untiill the discovery of " Gunpowder "than i move to 10 to 20 % tax when I got to move up I make Revolution

 

[gems]

I am Fully agreed with Eli the Lich. Lightbulbs :grad: are more important in the game than Coins!

 

[Ronald G]

0 % tax and 100% science is my fave. I get money from sold aquaducts and cathedrals

 

[karsten]

Yes I do that a lot too. A real lot. Sometimes I tend to do 70 S- 20 T - 10 L. But that fails. Anyway w\once you have tax immediatly build marketplace and bank for some extra money. But i agrree too. Science is better than tax.