The "Mad Scientist Trick"

[nbarclay]

In the AU 501 game, I reached a point where I could research a tech at 90% in five turns and wanted to try to get it in four turns at 100%. First, I tried rushing construction of some libraries and universities in outlying areas, but that alone wasn't enough. With three turns left on my research (trying to get it down to two), I went to all my outlying cities with high corruption levels and few improvements and turned anyone I could without going into negative growth into a scientist. With enough scientists on the job, my research time went down from five turns to four. I call this the "mad scientist trick" because it involves "hiring scientists like mad" all over the outskirts of the empire.

Granted, the micromanagement involved is a bit absurd, and it's even worse if you can't get enough scientists and have to give up and set some back to their previous jobs. (That happened to me too, when I tried the tech earlier.) And it does set back growth in cities that give up food to get scientists. But if you're desperate enough to speed up a tech (and, in the process, all the other techs that follow that one), the trick can sometimes work.

Nathan

[JimiD]

Is this not a valid use of high corruption cities, which are high in food and low in production?

The times I have done this I wasnt sure if it helped (since I never did nearly enough to get a readable result as described - very poor at MM). However it felt like an exploit: the research from the city is lost to corruption, but the research from a scientist is not, presumably this bonus applies to taxmen as well.

Is there not a 'how to make best use of cities beyond the OCN' thread, and if not, is this the start of it (too much history to find razing cities intuitive).

Get them to size 6 and WLTK (may be harder in C3C with less luxuries, but since I am on PTW, what do I care), aim for maximum food, and support as many specialists as possible. actually WLTK is not important after all, and nor is size 6, and nor is the version of Civ 3

(this illustrates why I post rarely).

James

[Harovan]

The version of Civ3 is very important on the use of specialists, considering that taxmen produce two gold and scientists three beakers per turn per default, and with civil engineers (2 shields, non-military projects only) and policemen ("un-corrupting" 1 commerce and "un-wasting" 1 shield) there are 2 more kinds of specialists in Conquests.

High food (all irrigated+RR'd) and massive use of specialists is a good way to get conquered land halfway productive now.

[Cort Haus]

If, or rather when, at war during the mid-game in C3C - if you have say 5 size 10 cities that need 'starving down', making them all scientists for 3 beakers per pop each turn can contribute huge amounts of science.

A fair bit of clicking each turn, but it's there for the taking ...

[:) Smiley]

This reminds me of Xinning in Civ2, how does it compare?

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
If, or rather when, at war during the mid-game in C3C - if you have say 5 size 10 cities that need 'starving down', making them all scientists for 3 beakers per pop each turn can contribute huge amounts of science.

A fair bit of clicking each turn, but it's there for the taking ...

I am actually in the process of starving down several captured metros in my current game. I will try this and see if it really helps my science. Thanks.

[JimiD]

'The version of Civ3 is very important on the use of specialists'

Thank you, I stand corrected...

[badams52]

Ah, yes. That's the same trick I used in the game I played where I didn't build ANY improvements in my cities back in vanilla civ. All cities that were fully corrupted, and there were tons of them without courthouses, FP, etc, I grew to size 6 or 12 if they were on the river and turned all the extra food into gold.

For the size 12 I remember having anywhere from 5 to 7 taxmen and the size 6 having 2-4 taxmen. Gave me lots of gold that otherwise would have been lost to corruption.

[CerberusIV]

Yes, one of my earlier C3C games was with the Sumerians. Thanks to some irrigated RR'd floodplain with cities on rivers I had 2 or 3 cities where four working citizens were able to support 8 specialists. Very useful compared to the negligible output they would otherwise have had.

[CerberusIV]

I tried scientists in captured cities I was starving down. It does seem to work most of the time and was a useful contribution.

I then tried a few civil engineers but this was less effective, perhaps because every time a citizen starves the citizens are reset and they all turned into entertainers. This didn't seem to affect the scientists so much.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Smiley
This reminds me of Xinning in Civ2, how does it compare?

Not quite, because in Xinning you altered starving periods with periods filling the food box to avoid pop reduction, while Cort Haus meant to starve a city down with the goal of pop reduction (to get rid of foreign citizens).

[bongo]

I'm not familiar with the term 'xinning' but I also remember alternating a city between civil disorder and full production to build stuff faster. I doesn't work in civ3 though.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I hadn't realized that the output from Specialists was corruption free. I will have to utilize this more often.

[Arrian]

I used to use taxmen when starving cities down, but recently I tried using scientists, and due to the fact that I had recently captured several large enemy cities, the science output was enough to shave 1 turn off a tech and allow 4-turn research on another running 10% less science that otherwise. Good stuff.

-Arrian

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

If you have scientists in a recently captured city and the city is still rioting due to resistence, do the beakers from the scientists still count?