Whats a good BPT target for 1AD

[Lazteuq]

I guess the title says it all. I'm just wondering how many beakers per turn you think is a reasonable goal to have by 1AD, sort of like the "6 cities" guideline. I'm talking about the rate with the slider at a sustainable place, not necessarily 100% science, and I'm thinking of a pretty high difficulty level, like Immortal

 

[diegobueno]

hey, good question, i also want to know about this,

remember that pyramids give you access to representation early on
and that is a burst on your tech rate,
with representation +academy +library, every scientist add 10,5

the great library adds 2 scientist for no food cost
1 super scientist add 15,75 , but you wanna make some academy on the wealthiest cities,
unless your land is bad and you run a buro capital (i tend to do this, is a bad habit )

i tend to make a library on every city even on the crappy ones, but i play on monarch,
maybe the pros can give some advise on this topic

 

[georgjorge]

If I can get 130-150 sustainable BPT / 220-250 BPT at 100% science by 1 AD I am satisfied (playing on Deity). Such a rate means I won't fall too far behind the tech leaders and - if I go that route - have a decent shot at Liberalism. Note that you are often able to sustain 100% science for some time by selling techs for cheap.

Of course, in the early to mid game, how many bulbs you get from great persons can be almost as important for your research as beakers per turn. So another decent measure of progress is how far along your chosen tech path you are at 1AD. When going for a tried-and-true Cuirassier breakout via Lib you should probably have at least Civil Service, possibly Paper in already.

And sometimes your rate will be much lower but you will either have expanded to 10 cities by that time, or have a big army ready to strike. That can work as well as long as you have some means to get your beakers up in the medium term.

@diegobueno: I wouldn't call Bureaucracy a bad habit, it is a very powerful civic choice though not so much with Representation scientists. IF you build Pyramids (which you shouldn't probably do even half the time) then running Scientists in many cities can be a good strategy. But if you have Pyramids and strong food then you want to run Caste System for some time anyway so no need to build a Library everywhere. And unless you have more than one city with A LOT of food then making more than one Academy in your best research city isn't a good choice either.

 

[diegobueno]

@diegobueno: I wouldn't call Bureaucracy a bad habit, it is a very powerful civic choice though not so much with Representation scientists. IF you build Pyramids (which you shouldn't probably do even half the time) then running Scientists in many cities can be a good strategy. But if you have Pyramids and strong food then you want to run Caste System for some time anyway so no need to build a Library everywhere. And unless you have more than one city with A LOT of food then making more than one Academy in your best research city isn't a good choice either.

my bad habit is to create a few small towns around my great Capital and to join all the Great Person to my buro city, I'm learning the hard way from monarch, although from a noble, it becomes less effective.

positive to note, that when you are less than 100% science (100-0) even so still researching at an acceptable rate

 

[georgjorge]

Just asking: do you know about the difference between commerce and wealth/research?

You get commerce through cottages, trade routes etc. Then, commerce is transformed into either research or wealth (you can adjust how much with the slider).

Great Persons don't give you any commerce, they give you wealth or research directly. So does building Wealth or Science in a city.

Bureaucracy increases the commerce of a city by 50%. That means that it doesn't increase the research from a scientist or merchant that you settle in the city.

The broken thing about Bureaucracy is that it's bonus is multiplicative, where almost all other bonuses are additive. If you build buildings for 100% increase in research you only get

100% + 100% = 200% research.

But because Bureaucracy is applied to commerce (and not to science) the commerce is multiplied by it first, and then the research is multiplied again through buildings. So with 50% increase from buildings + 50% increase from Bureaucracy you get

150% * 150% = 225% research.

Wow, that turned out a very long explanation...and if you already knew that it's a bit pointless

Bottom line: Bureaucracy is strong with cottages and not so strong with Pyramids + specialists.

 

[Lexicus]

Indeed. Any strategy in which your science intake is spread throughout your empire is not going to be very good for Bureaucracy. The greater the proportion of commerce (edit: proportion, that is, of your whole empire's commerce output) produced by your capital, the better Bureaucracy is.

I play on Emperor, my science numbers a bit lower than jorge's at 1AD - usually around 180 bpt at 100% research in 1ad.

 

[Lazteuq]

Thanks for the inputs, I guess I'm not far off. Interestingly, I was just playing a game last night where I did almost exactly what diegobueno said: I built the pyramids with Stone, then used the Great Engineer to rush the Great Library in my food-rich capital. With Bureaucracy, my Capital was producing like 60% of my research! The problem now is I'm at around 130 bpt when not in a Golden Age, and increasing that is going to be a challenge over the longer term. I was playing on Immortal, but I'm not very good at that level yet.

 

[diegobueno]

Just asking: do you know about the difference between commerce and wealth/research?

yes sir i know the difference, but wait, bureaucracy increase the commerce 50% and trade routes are commerce, so 50% plus? thats a lot of science
and that means cottages are strong on buro capital

 

[elmurcis]

yes sir i know the difference, but wait, bureaucracy increase the commerce 50% and trade routes are commerce, so 50% plus? thats a lot of science
and that means cottages are strong on buro capital

Reason why GLH and Harbor is strong with Bureau capital. 4 trade routes with 5 commerce each (possible at time when get to CS with multiple islands) that turns into 6 commerce each (after Harbor is done). Now get 50% Bureau bonus - 36 commerce. Now get through Library+Academy --> 63 beakers/turn with only trade routes Reason I play Archip maps on Deity with no-tech trading Can keep teching speed just because of Bureau capital. After add some 12 cities, at 1 AD 300 beaker/turn is normal thing

 

[Lazteuq]

The main tradeoff I see with having such a bureaucracy intensive economy is that switching to vassalage for a military build up will really crash your research rate.

 

[Fippy]

Economy = rather overused term in Civ, imo

Basically you take what you can get, Bur. only "costs" CS a tech with other nice benefits anyways. When keeping that in mind early, cottages are worth more for your Cap.
A city that helps growing them close can be very useful as well.

Pyras can be so strong cos of all the good things that using rep scientists brings, with libraries they are 7.5 beakers every turn (no slider needed).
Like adding gold mines everywhere, no cottage growing time..great people points for bulbs to advance even faster.

So i need good reasons for not building them with stone, rather than reasons to build them

 

[diegobueno]

Economy = rather overused term in Civ, imo

Basically you take what you can get, Bur. only "costs" CS a tech with other nice benefits anyways. When keeping that in mind early, cottages are worth more for your Cap.
A city that helps growing them close can be very useful as well.

Pyras can be so strong cos of all the good things that using rep scientists brings, with libraries they are 7.5 beakers every turn (no slider needed).
Like adding gold mines everywhere, no cottage growing time..great people points for bulbs to advance even faster.

So i need good reasons for not building them with stone, rather than reasons to build them

my first scientist is for an academy and every person gives you 10,5 even on slider at 0%, no mention that representation boost the great library and every other super specialist like great generals or even the free priests from the temple of arthemis