Commerce <> beakers?

[lange17]

I decided this morning to try to analyze the beaker counts for various starting positions in order to determine which positions lent themselves to trying to beat the AI to which religions. In doing so, I ran into something I don't understand so I figured I'd ask here.

I build my capital on the first turn. It has a palace (+8 commerce) and it's on a river so it's getting 1c from its center square and 1c from the river square it is working. I'm on 100% science so that's 10 commerce turned into 10 beakers, and when I look at the F2 screen that's exactly what I see. The religious tech options are meditation (192b) and polytheism (241b). These should take 20 (192/10 rounded up) and 25 (241/10) turns respectively, but mousing over the icons tells me they will take 15 and 19 turns respectively. When I end the turn and then check the science progress bar, I find that I actually got 13 beakers that turn and not ten. This explains the 15 and 19 turn-counts, but I can't figure out where the extra three beakers are coming from.

This test was on Monarch level. Other levels have different beaker counts required for the given techs, but the mystery 3 b/turn are there on both levels I checked (Monarch and Deity.) Any ideas?

[Aeson]

On Quick you get +1 beaker per turn even at 0 actual beakers. On Epic it's +3.

They are just free beakers. Not sure what to call them, or why exactly they are included.

[Mylon]

I think these are a handicap bonus. Something you get for playing on a certain difficulty.