Which is more efficient?

[Xellos-_^]

You need gold to do research. So my question is.

is it more efficient to:

have the cities produce gold and then up the research rate

or

just have the cities do research?

 

[Nials]

Usually it's more efficient to produce Wealth because that will allow you to up the research slider and since you most cases will have more science multipliers, you will get more that way.

However, if for some reason you have more gold multipliers, build Research.

 

[say1988]

It depends.
When building research or gold, you don't use commerce multipliers (libraries, banks, etc..) but hammer ones (i.e. forge).
So if you have more multipliers for beakers (which is almost always the case for me) you are better off building gold, but if your gold multipliers are better, build research.

 

[PureE]

also remember that wealth can be used for more purposes, as well as stored. Building research restricts you to using that research NOW and for research only. Building wealth means you can stockpile, and you can always up the slider later when you have a gold buffer, or use it for emergency upgrade or builds, or in a trade.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

You need gold to do research. So my question is.

is it more efficient to:

have the cities produce gold and then up the research rate

or

just have the cities do research?

Depends on your terrain. If you started in a tundra setting with very few rivers, you can't build cottages, so the research slider becomes useless. In this situation, your best bet is to get from specialists.

 

[azzaman333]

Generally building wealth and raising the slider is better.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Usually it's more efficient to produce Wealth because that will allow you to up the research slider and since you most cases will have more science multipliers, you will get more that way.

However, if for some reason you have more gold multipliers, build Research.

Short, simple, correct. Go with this.

If for some reason you DO manage to have more gold multipliers (this is quite rare), then build research. However, the science buildings are cheaper and prioritized more in games where the outcome is in doubt, so almost always you'll want to build wealth to push the slider.

Best is keeping the slider at 0 while building science buildings then bumping it up. I usually only build wealth when:

1) I'm out of things to build -----> typically a hammer city and I'm in a period of the game where I've locked diplo to such an extent I don't need units (!). You need to know your stuff to skimp on units though.

2) Desperation warmonger capturing of 15 cities by the early ADs. Building wealth in such a scenario is inefficient, but it's a heck of a lot better than striking and getting owned by itty bitty crap civs when you have no units. If you don't have currency, extort alphabet from somebody and build research your way to currency (and possibly CoL).