Demographics: GNP question

[urusai]

Okay, I've been reading through the CS Slingshot threads (mainly 'Beyond the Veil') and noticed that GNP was brought up a number of times. Now, I apologize if this has already been asked (I did use the search function, but searching 'gnp' turned up nothing) but.. how is it related to research, and how do I raise it? I've seen Velociryx mention that if you have a comfortable GNP lead that you don't need to set your research slider so high. I know it has something to do with cottages, correct? Anyway, any other insight would be appreciated.

[Willem]

It's very simple. GNP is the amount of gold your empire is producing, and gold translates into your research rate. The more you have, the more you're able to research. So if you're well in the lead in that area, you can ease off on your slider somewhat and still have a high research rate. And Cottages are what produces the gold for the most part, though resources like Gold or Dyes contibute as well. Having lots of Markets, Banks etc. helps too.

[drank]

I would also like to see some confirmation of what GNP is measuring. Here's my best guess....

I believe GNP is measuring the total commerce across your whole civ. That is, if you went into every city and counted the amount of commerce on each tile, the total would correspond to GNP. The problem with this in-game measure is that it's only a weak proxy for "total science spending", which is what Vel is using it for.

Specifically, it doesn't tell you: (1) what percentage of total commerce is allocated to science, (2) what bonuses are applied to science beakers, (3) how much non-commerce science (beakers from specialists) is generated.

When Vel says that his GNP is double his closest rival, so he can run 50% science, I think he's saying that his rival can run max 100% science, so he can run 50% and get the same beakers per turn. He's implying that the bonuses from (2) are probably comparable, and the beakers from (3) are negligible, for both civs.

These assumptions are good in a lot of cases, but you'll certainly see them break down. Play an OCC game where you use mostly specialists + Representation for your science. Your GNP will be in last place, but you'll be tearing through the tech tree faster than any AI.

Personally I wish they would just have a direct measurement for "total science" similar to how you can compare "power" directly on the graph.

[johnmcd]

I liked the old 'Literacy' proxy for scientificness.