tech hole

[PaganPaulwhisky]

originally posted by Willem
You need to look at the total beaker value. The amount of beakers that can be applied to a tech by a GS is limited. However an Academy will keep adding it's contribution throughout the course of a game.

I don't think you are quite getting my point. I realize that an academy will provide more beakers overall. What I was trying to say, is that getting a tech much earlier than normal by lightbulbing it can be strategically more valuable than the extra beakers from the acadamy, especially if you plan to end the game early. First of all, if I end the game at, say , 1400 instead of 1900, the academy output is drastically reduced.

Second, for example, if I lightbulb two techs along the path to steel, I will have given myself a 20+ turn advantage with my cannons and grenadiers. This can be the difference between my opponents having only longbows for defence vrs. them having knights or possibly cavalry/rifles. This will make a huge difference in my ability to capture cities quickly. This kind of situation can apply to any number of techs. The ability to jump to certain techs ASAP is strategically more important to me than having extra beakers added up over the course of several thousand years.

[Willem]

To you it's a more valuable approach, but the original post involved getting better results from tech research. That's the idea I was responding to.

[Ijuin]

I would use my first Great Scientist for an Academy in my capital and then cash in all the later ones for the beakers.

Let's look at the various multipliers:

Library = +25%
Observatory = +25%
University = +25%
Laboratory = +25%
Academy = +50%
Monasteries = +10% each
Oxford = +100%

Let us assume that we are looking at the Renaissance Age, so Monasteries are obsolete and Laboratories are not yet available, but your capital has all of the other buildings listed.

This gives us about +225% science from buildings.

Now, let us suppose that your capital is getting 30 base commerce from the terrain plus 12 commerce from trade routes (with a harbor), plus the 8 commerce from your Palace, and that you are running Bureaucracy. This results in 75 commerce. Add the 225% bonus from buildings and you get 244 science (at a 100% science rate).

Now let us say that you have the Great Library, which gives you two Scientists, and you have two additional Scientists assigned, and you are running Representation. This gives you 24 base science from specialists, yielding 78 science after the building bonus.

Thus, you can see that with a relatively small base commerce (50 in this case), you can still get over 320 science from your capital.

***

Now, let's max out everything. Let's say that your city has 20 Towns in its radius (with all tiles worked and no surplus food left over for specialists, and with no base commerce besides what the Towns provide), that you have Printing Press, that you have a Financial leader, and that you are running Free Speech instead of Bureaucracy (+2 commerce from Towns). This gives you 8 gold per Town, plus 1 from the city square, plus 8 from your Palace, for a total of 169 gold. Of course this is even higher if there is a river in your city radius.

Assume that you are running Free Market and are getting 20 commerce from trade routes. This makes 189 base commerce in your city. This results in over 640 science per turn from your capital. Add in the two free scientists from the Great Library (for a boosted 39 extra) and you have about 680 science from your capital.

[joncnunn]

I would agree; grassland forests within your city raidi generally shouldn't be massively choped; they are needed to provide the hammers so you can build the science imporvements in a reasonable amount of time.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

That is not necessarily a good idea.

For starters, a city probably doesn't have enough pop to work all the cottages in its fat cross at that stage. It is much better to maintain a good growth (at least 4 food surplus) and add cottages in stages.

[joncnunn]

Note that the Monstary science benifit goes away under 1.51 with Scientific Method; following which it's sole remaining benifit is missonaries.

[Urban Ranger]

I thought that's always the case?

[joncnunn]

I was being super specific in case 1.61 changed how obsoleting Monstaries changed things (it didn't)

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I thought that's always the case?

[drsparnum]

If you're behind in everything (technology, population, military strength) it will be tough to catch up. However, if you're behind in tech now because you dropped science, built a huge army, killed someone and now control twice as much territory you can most definetly catch up.

Once the population of your newly aquired territory gets back to normal, and you quell resistance and build some courthouses/granaries and libraries in them, you'll catch up. There's a saying about motorcycles: There's no replacement for displacement. Meaning that no matter how many features and gizmos that you have, having a bigger engine is still the biggest factor. To me, in Civ, there's no replacement for population.

I'd start by researching techs that improve your economy/research over ones that improve your military. If your military is big enough, you can even build research in those cities that just don't have any other good buildings to build and you already spread any religion you founded via missionaries into everyone of your cities and your neighbors whom you've got open borders with.