What rules do you like to play with?

[antimony]

You get a small research bonus for every met civ knowing the tech

Technology Research Explained - CivFanatics

Research. It's the fundamental way of advancing in life and in Civ IV, and a necessary part of making your way up the food chain in Civ IV from doormat to winner (whether via space race, diplomacy, conquest, or culture). Unfortunately, it's also the way to figure out how research actually works...

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[Core Imposter]

I had forgotten that, but it sounds familiar.

What a splendid game they made.

 

[antimony]

Note that you can edit that in the XML as well. In the formula for the research bonus from # of Civs known with the tech, there is a factor of 0.30, meaning it is always less than 30% bonus to research rate even if all other Civs know the tech. That factor is defined in Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml as TECH_COST_TOTAL_KNOWN_TEAM_MODIFIER, it's set to 30 but you can increase it if you want Civs to "catch up" faster for example.

 

[Core Imposter]

Awesome tip. Thanks again. I really appreciate it.

 

[ArchGhost]

Low Sea levels + an additional AI. Everybody comfortably hits like 10-15 cities unless they get boxed hard, it makes end game empires more imposing.
otherwise everything standard

I'll play any map script that eliminates "islandly" crapola because I find hopping them tedious and barb galleys are OP as hell. But most often Fractal or Pangaea, or I used whatever custom script tool came with my installation to remove Archipelago/Big and Small/Medium and Small from the map pool and play random.

Also like to play Earth18, 18 civ duel, and 18 civ/huge/marathon for different feels every now and then.

 

[mycophobia]

Trying out a standard size map but with only 4 total civs, the barbs are kind of crazy lol. They keep killing my fogbusters and then coming out of the woodwork to bug my cities faster than I can get more out because no one's out there despawning them. So it's like an elongated expansion phase in which I'm having to fight a really noncommittal war the whole time. Wonder how the AIs are handling them, I've met Kublai via one of his scouts but I can't get very far beyond my core cities to see where he's at. Just got horses hooked up so I'm hoping it's about to get easier

 

[Lennier]

Trying out a standard size map but with only 4 total civs, the barbs are kind of crazy lol. They keep killing my fogbusters and then coming out of the woodwork to bug my cities faster than I can get more out because no one's out there despawning them. So it's like an elongated expansion phase in which I'm having to fight a really noncommittal war the whole time. Wonder how the AIs are handling them, I've met Kublai via one of his scouts but I can't get very far beyond my core cities to see where he's at. Just got horses hooked up so I'm hoping it's about to get easier

Sounds like the GW is an "I win" button under these conditions.

 

[mycophobia]

Sounds like the GW is an "I win" button under these conditions.

It would be, but I'm playing Vanilla!

 

[mycophobia]

Finished the game. Space race with 3 turns to spare lol (Prince difficulty). I kind of bungled my economy, I still haven't wrapped my head around how the various sources of commerce add up (cottages, specialists, building wealth/research) but I'm going to pay much closer attention to it starting much earlier next game. Like I understand these systems on a basic level but I'm not clear on what to run and when in a given city, situationally speaking. I also didn't expand as fast as I could've; I still had a pretty significant lead on land area for the majority of the game and ended up with 14 cities, only one of them taken by force from barbs, who incidentally picked a really good spot and I was able to build all but two spaceship parts in it.

Anyways, the pros of running roughly half of the default amount of civs for a standard map size are that the ~115 turn expansion phase of getting up something like 8 cities now seems to be approximately doubled in length, and that's my favorite part of the game by far. The increased barb activity from the overall lack of spawnbusters on the map means some military engagement is required, but nothing like the diplomatic and logistical quagmire of an offensive war with another AI civ. I might try this with raging barbs next.

The cons are that you can really only do this in Vanilla, or in the expansions with GW modded out. Otherwise you either have to build it which makes for a kind of cheesy win, or you let an AI build it and the barbs come pester you more. Even without it in the game it's definitely easier than with the default amount of civs due to the increased space for near-unhindered expansion, and just by virtue of having less competitors. Finally, the role of diplo is greatly reduced because scouting is harder and there's just less other dudes to meet. It took a really, really long time for me to get any foreign trade routes in my cities at all, though that's more on me due to not building any galleys for a long time; I guess I just forgot to do that

Overall I really liked playing this game and am looking forward to starting a new one later on today. Either I'll move up to Monarch or turn on raging barbs.

 

[mycophobia]

Back to standard settings (w/ no tech trading) but this time I'm only enabling Time, Conquest and Domination as victory conditions to make it literally impossible for me to turtle up with my 10-15 cities and tech peacefully to space, AGAIN. Can't help myself. Even if I want to turtle up I'll have to spam wonders to keep up in score for the Time victory I think, so at least I'd be doing something different. But no, I'm gonna wipe some folks out for real this time.

 

[mycophobia]

This is the longest I've ever spent on one game lol, getting up to 7 hours. I took out Monty with cavs and have amassed 20 cities and have a small score lead, nowhere near domination limit though and there's still a little over 100 turns left so anything could happen. I'll take this time to mention I've never won any military flavored victory in all of Civ 1-4 and this probably won't be the first. Julias declared on me and I tried to rush him with tanks but that doesn't work terribly well, at least not as well as the cav rush did, guess you kind of need siege with those. Cavs are really good, until you wait too long and they're not anymore. I think, however, that I am about to become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds. Or at least the shatterer of Rome.

It's been fun looking at modern techs beyond the lens of "Which spaceship part does this lead to?"

 

[Luke1195]

I still haven't wrapped my head around how the various sources of commerce add up (cottages, specialists, building wealth/research) but I'm going to pay much closer attention to it starting much earlier next game. Like I understand these systems on a basic level but I'm not clear on what to run and when in a given city, situationally speaking.

Did you figure this out? Are you asking the difference between commerce and wealth here, or are you talking about something else?

This is the longest I've ever spent on one game lol, getting up to 7 hours.

My current game is at 48 hours! Have you considered playing a Marathon game before?

 

[mycophobia]

Did you figure this out? Are you asking the difference between commerce and wealth here, or are you talking about something else?

My current game is at 48 hours! Have you considered playing a Marathon game before?

More like "should I run merchants to make the slider go higher or should I run scientists to have some slider-independent research? Should I do this in all cities in which I'm running specialists or should I mix it up?" that kind of thing, though instead I've just started running less specialists and building more cottages. Though I've had to pull back on that a little bit to make room for workshops. My economy in this particular game has been quite good. I'm running US and can turn the slider off for two or three turns and put a turn's worth of hammers into some unit in each city and then rush buy all of them, then turn the slider back on. It's neat. Also in my biggest production cities I'm able to 2-turn tanks anyway which isn't too shabby.

Nah Marathon sounds like it would take way too long, and I've heard it makes the game a lot easier. I've played some Quick games before but I think ultimately the pace and difficulty of Normal is just right if you turn tech trading off.

 

[Luke1195]

"should I run merchants to make the slider go higher or should I run scientists to have some slider-independent research? Should I do this in all cities in which I'm running specialists or should I mix it up?" that kind of thing, though instead I've just started running less specialists and building more cottages.

It depends on how you are using the slider.
If you are keeping it high, like 90% research; or 40% research and 20% culture and 20% espionage; so only 10% or 20% of the remaining commerce, respectively, becomes wealth -- and you're struggling with money, then you might want to consider having more merchant specialists. That's because they will generate wealth directly, even if you have the slider up all the way up to 100% on research and 0% on wealth.
Same idea for scientists -- they generate research that is independent of the slider. So if you are keeping it low for research, like at 20% research and 20% culture and 20% espionage, so 40% goes to wealth - then you may want to consider some more scientists to counter the fact less of your commerce is going to science.
Cottages/Hamlets/Villages/Towns will always be useful to spam, because the commerce they generate tailors to the slider, and they make a lot of it!

 

[a pen-dragon]

It depends on how you are using the slider.
If you are keeping it high, like 90% research; or 40% research and 20% culture and 20% espionage; so only 10% or 20% of the remaining commerce, respectively, becomes wealth -- and you're struggling with money, then you might want to consider having more merchant specialists. That's because they will generate wealth directly, even if you have the slider up all the way up to 100% on research and 0% on wealth.
Same idea for scientists -- they generate research that is independent of the slider. So if you are keeping it low for research, like at 20% research and 20% culture and 20% espionage, so 40% goes to wealth - then you may want to consider some more scientists to counter the fact less of your commerce is going to science.

I disagree.
Commerce type science:,,,) modifiers apply to specialists, e.g. the +25% from a library also applies to the science from scientists. This makes using specialists different from building wealth/science(/culture).
Basically that means that turning commerce into wealth/science is equivalent to producing these with specialists. Also both scientist and merchants provide a base value of +3, meaning that the choice does not affect the maximal science output while not losing gold.

Spoiler Proof :

1) neglect any effects due to rounding, neglect the slider being limited to 10% changes, and neglect effects from civics (+y to all specialists do not influence this decision, same for bureau). Also fix the slider values for Culture/Espionage.
2) Assume you are running the slider at the optimal position, meaning the gold income is 0.
3) Let "s" be the science modifier and "g" the gold modifier.
3) Case 1: run an additional scientist. The additional science/turn is 3*s.
4) Case 2: run an additional merchant. The additional gold/turn is 3*g. Reduce the gold slider until it is in the optimal position. This reduces gold/turn by 3*g. Since g is the gold modifier for commerce, this increases the commerce going into science by 3. Thus the additioanl science is also 3*s.

Thus I follow 3 rules for the scientist/merchant decision:
1) If the wealth slider is already at 100% and you want gold, then merchants, if the science slider is already at 100% and you have a gold surplus (or sufficent amounts of gold), run scientists, except if you want specific great people.
2) If 1) does not apply run the specialist that gives you the -points you want.
3) If you do not want any specific great people and want to micromanage, select the specialists in a way the minimizes waste due to the game rounding down.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I guess it depends even more.
If you have Library + University in a city, then running Scientists instead of Merchants is a no brainer, hey?
But what if running Merchants there allows you to run the slider higher, when you have a Bureaucracy + Oxford capital?

That said, I suppose those considerations are limited to No Trade Trading games, in the old school meta.
And to emphasis the old school aspect of it, T-hawk from Realms Beyonds (I believe he might have hung around these corners too back in the day?) had a few interesting takes about it way back then:
Specialists
Banks

I believe that nowadays Tech Trading on means that except for the early game, you should always have your slider at 100% research, and that you should never run specialists unless in a Golden Age (or getting your very first Great Scientists for bulbs)?

 

[Luke1195]

I disagree.
Commerce type science:,,,) modifiers apply to specialists, e.g. the +25% from a library also applies to the science from scientists. This makes using specialists different from building wealth/science(/culture).
Basically that means that turning commerce into wealth/science is equivalent to producing these with specialists. Also both scientist and merchants provide a base value of +3, meaning that the choice does not affect the maximal science output while not losing gold.

Spoiler Proof :

1) neglect any effects due to rounding, neglect the slider being limited to 10% changes, and neglect effects from civics (+y to all specialists do not influence this decision, same for bureau). Also fix the slider values for Culture/Espionage.
2) Assume you are running the slider at the optimal position, meaning the gold income is 0.
3) Let "s" be the science modifier and "g" the gold modifier.
3) Case 1: run an additional scientist. The additional science/turn is 3*s.
4) Case 2: run an additional merchant. The additional gold/turn is 3*g. Reduce the gold slider until it is in the optimal position. This reduces gold/turn by 3*g. Since g is the gold modifier for commerce, this increases the commerce going into science by 3. Thus the additioanl science is also 3*s.

Thus I follow 3 rules for the scientist/merchant decision:
1) If the wealth slider is already at 100% and you want gold, then merchants, if the science slider is already at 100% and you have a gold surplus (or sufficent amounts of gold), run scientists, except if you want specific great people.
2) If 1) does not apply run the specialist that gives you the -points you want.
3) If you do not want any specific great people and want to micromanage, select the specialists in a way the minimizes waste due to the game rounding down.

The boosts from libraries, markets, etc. applies to commerce-generated research/culture/espionage/wealth, just as much as it does for specialists.
I agree the type of Great People points you want the city to run should be a factor to consider as well.

 

[mycophobia]

Those boosts also apply to building wealth/research/culture in Vanilla. I think the switch to having your net hammers apply to it without those boosts instead in Warlords/BTS is one of the more insidious balance changes that has resulted in the typical advice of "don't build most buildings, build wealth instead" being dispensed all the time. And of course it is good advice in BTS; why waste the hammers on a building when you can convert all of them into gold per turn without any downside? It really hurts the concept of city specialization I think.

 

[Core Imposter]

First of all, the meta has always been in momentum play. This is how one wipes out whole aspects of the game such as culture and resource scarcity and happiness - none of which impact the game in concept and theory. The option of unrestrained warfare eliminates the nuance of play. Solve an unsatisfying meta by rule change. Very simple.

Not so simple however is discovering if adding complexity complicates strategy or just adds to drudgery, this is groundbreaking work. Entropy is scarcely modeled, passively by inflation but one can supplement this by rule.

 

[pmarc]

1) neglect any effects due to rounding, neglect the slider being limited to 10% changes, and neglect effects from civics (+y to all specialists do not influence this decision, same for bureau). Also fix the slider values for Culture/Espionage.
2) Assume you are running the slider at the optimal position, meaning the gold income is 0.
3) Let "s" be the science modifier and "g" the gold modifier.
3) Case 1: run an additional scientist. The additional science/turn is 3*s.
4) Case 2: run an additional merchant. The additional gold/turn is 3*g. Reduce the gold slider until it is in the optimal position. This reduces gold/turn by 3*g. Since g is the gold modifier for commerce, this increases the commerce going into science by 3. Thus the additioanl science is also 3*s.

Yes, but the "g" and "s" gold multipliers that apply to specialists are the multipliers at that particular city, not the effective multiplier from your empire (i.e. the gold to beaker conversion rate by moving the slider).

That old article is still relevant.

Gold, Beakers, and Deficit Research

In this article, I hope to clarify the research value of gold. The discussion won't involve any hidden game mechanics, and it may already be well understood by experienced players. Still, we will give an unambiguous answer to certain key questions. Can you cut research times by clever...

forums.civfanatics.com

"As an extreme example, say you have a library, university, observatory, and laboratory in each one of your cities - but you have almost no gold multipliers...just a bank in one city. In that city with a bank, a merchant will produce 4 gold (rounded down) while a scientist will produce 6 beakers. But since the beaker-per-gold ratio in your empire will be very close to 2, the merchant will help your research rate more than a scientist. This will be true in any city that has better gold multipliers than your empire-wide average (unless the beaker multiplier there is also much higher than average)."

If you do not care about specific great people points, run scientists in cities that have higher science multipliers than the average city, and merchants in cities that have lower science multipliers or higher gold multipliers than the average. I think that means, even if you're not at 100% science, it's always better to run scientists in your academy city. If you're at 100% science, it might net you more science to run merchants in your low science multiplier cities and switch some high production cities from wealth to research.