Science? and other matters

[Krill]

Pre-Conquests, it was always one beaker/gold/happy face per specialist. It was only in Conquests 1.00 that they changed it.

[Rommel2D]

So it was. Too many versions of Civ I/II/III over the years to keep straight...

[vmxa1]

Scientist giving 3 beakers is of little value while researching modern era techs. It is more trouble than it is worth to try to track the beaker counts.

Just take the extra happiness or gold, both of which you can always use. You never have to change a taxman to anything due to break points as you would for science.

[Rommel2D]

I find that earlier in the game it can shave a few turns off of research time, especially when different cities are at different levels of development and the luxury slider would be wasteful in one area or another.

[joncnunn]

No it won't, scientists produce a flat 3 science beakers, regardless of all improvements [including wonders] in the existing city. (Also regardless of corruption level)

Similarly, taxmen produce a flat 2 gold, regardless of all improvements [including wonders] in the existing city.

3 is greater than 2, but extra beakers are lost, usally effectively resulting in 0 vs 2 in epic. (Some of the conquests though do feature low enough science costs for a second level of science tweaking. [Not only the science slider, but how many taxmen and scientists to absolutely minimizing wasted beakers.])

Ditto for Civil Enginners, except if your producing a military unit, the CE go on strike. [They can only be used to speed along improvements and wonders.] Also note that extra shields are also wasted and so they need to be tweaked. So I usually only use them for wonders where it is likely that having them several turns will shave a turn or two off of it.

The one specalist whose effects are effectively multipiled is the Policemen. -1 corrupted shield and -1 corrupted commerce. This is before city improvements, so the city improvements can yeild additional sheilds / science / taxes / luxaries from the non longer lost to corruption shield and commerce. Consequantely this is my normal specalist to use in the Industrial and Modern eras. There's a decent chance I'll get some benifit of it that's not wasted. (Provided there is both a wasted shield and wasted commerce without it)

Originally posted by Mace
I too rarely use scientist specialists...more likely I use a taxman or two. Having more $$$ coming in means that you can set the slider to devote more to science.

The exception to this is in a city that had, say, The Colossus AND Copernicus Observatory or Newton's. Then I might be very tempted to put some scientists there...probably would pay off better to put a taxman or two there (as I am violating my own rule, hehe) so I could adjust the slider, but hey.

[joncnunn]

I'll go further than that, Scientist giving 3 beakers in epic games is of little value reseraching anything other than an ancient era tech on most map sizes. The larger the map size, the more rapidally it's value will debrease to zero.

Originally posted by vmxa1
Scientist giving 3 beakers is of little value while researching modern era techs. It is more trouble than it is worth to try to track the beaker counts.

Just take the extra happiness or gold, both of which you can always use. You never have to change a taxman to anything due to break points as you would for science.

[Dominae]

Turning 10 Taxmen into Scientists provides 30bpt, which is sometimes enought to cut off a turn on Industrial era techs (sometimes Modern era, if you're lucky). Obviously 3bpt is nothing impressive, but in numbers (such as you get when conquering enemy territory) Scientists are far from useless.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by joncnunn
No it won't, scientists produce a flat 3 science beakers, regardless of all improvements [including wonders] in the existing city. (Also regardless of corruption level)

Similarly, taxmen produce a flat 2 gold, regardless of all improvements [including wonders] in the existing city.

3 is greater than 2, but extra beakers are lost, usally effectively resulting in 0 vs 2 in epic. (Some of the conquests though do feature low enough science costs for a second level of science tweaking. [Not only the science slider, but how many taxmen and scientists to absolutely minimizing wasted beakers.])

Why would the tweaking you mention only work for conquests? Even if scientists don't make enough beakers to bring research down a whole turn, being able to set research at (ie) 10% instead of 50% the final turn will return more cash than if you had taxmen the whole time, provided you do balance out the taxmen the final turn also.

However, if you try to shave it down to the last one or two beakers and an enemy crosses over the wrong tile...

[joncnunn]

The slider tweaking works in all Civ III games.

The taxmen vs science tweak is more of a conquests only situtation due to it being rare to have so many specalists that it would save a turn at all for all of them to be scientists at any slider position. (Cost of techs.)

Originally posted by Rommel2D

Why would the tweaking you mention only work for conquests? Even if scientists don't make enough beakers to bring research down a whole turn, being able to set research at (ie) 10% instead of 50% the final turn will return more cash than if you had taxmen the whole time, provided you do balance out the taxmen the final turn also.

However, if you try to shave it down to the last one or two beakers and an enemy crosses over the wrong tile...

[Grim Legacy]

Two instances in which I use Scientists:

1) When starving off foreign population in a freshly-conquered (and often corrupt) city.

2) When Sanitation is not available and a given city has squares that do not yield enough benefit (usually due to corruption and waste) to be more valuable than 3 beakers. Note that food is not part of the equation only in this specific case.

I tend to have a high (>50%) science rate and more libraries than marketplaces; relying on my own scientific power. Yes, that works only after subjecting and tech-extorting a number of neighbours.

[joncnunn]

Note that unless your scientists are allowed you to tweak down the slider on the last turns more than otherwise, that their beakers are going to waste.

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Two instances in which I use Scientists:

1) When starving off foreign population in a freshly-conquered (and often corrupt) city.

2) When Sanitation is not available and a given city has squares that do not yield enough benefit (usually due to corruption and waste) to be more valuable than 3 beakers. Note that food is not part of the equation only in this specific case.

I tend to have a high (>50%) science rate and more libraries than marketplaces; relying on my own scientific power. Yes, that works only after subjecting and tech-extorting a number of neighbours.

[Aqualung71]

I have to say that I agree with Dom on this (as usual )

I have often switched 6 or 7 labourers to Scientists in order to shave a turn off research, in cities that can afford the loss of food.

As jon says though, sometimes it's a bit of a gamble, but I've found more often than not that it pays off, since on that final turn you can gain more gold by dropping the slider down to minimal levels of 10% or 20%....but you sometimes don't really know until the final turn of research whether the gamble pays off.

So I don't agree that it's mainly a Conquests strategy. It often works in an epic game, even into the Industrial era.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Note that unless your scientists are allowed you to tweak down the slider on the last turns more than otherwise, that their beakers are going to waste.

Right, that's a valid caveat.

[joncnunn]

In my own game when I find the last turn can be done at 10 or 20% research, it usually means an AI just beat me out to that tech by half a turn.

[Rommel2D]

To further tweak the science slider, I sometimes check it with two turns left- to decrease the beakers lost at 10% the final turn if the AI beats me to the tech...