Research vs Tax Rate Misunderstanding

[yammos]

Often you can get the same discovery time at 80% as you do at 20% - the difference being that at 80% your budget surplus might be 2 gold, but at 20% it's 20 gold!

This may seem like a rather advanteous thing but its not all its worth up to be. If your research is say at 80% and your research is going to be completed in one turn and then slide the bar down to 20% and your research is still completed in one turn of course there will be an advantage in which you will get extra gold in the next turn. However I have found that if you leave the bar higher, the gold u lose will actually contribute to the number of turns you will have for your next research.
So for example if you have it at 80% (1 more turn for completion of current research) you may have eg 20 turns till the completion of your next research while if you had your bar at 20% (also 1 more turn for completion of current research) you may find that you will have 30 turns till the completion of your next research.
Conclusion this tactic of changing the tax bar if you still have the same number of turns for your current research SEEMS to work but in actual fact you are just making your next research period last longer so overall there is no gain. I know that this is different in different versions.

[Willem]

I think you're mistaken. Excess Research spending doesn't transfer to the next tech. If you have a surplus at the end of researching a tech, it's lost. So you may as well put it into your treasury instead of wasting it.

[vondrack]

yammos, you may have got confused by the fact that after you finish your current research, the "next tech" research times are shown based upon your current research spendings. So they seem higher for 20% and lower for 80%, but if you adjust the slider to the same position, you will be able to see that there is no carry-over.

[HazieDaVampire]

lol, that really is a mis understanding!

[Jaybe]

yammos, do not forget that research costs are not static. They may change from turn to turn due to having been discovered by other civs. Makes it easy to jump to erroneous conclusions.

[bobbo008]

the whole tech thing, in my opinion, is just horrible. no carrying over, and a single gold can make the difference of when a tech is researched.

[Willem]

I like it myself, it gives me something to manage.

[yammos]

thanks ppl

[bobbo008]

ok, i'm playing a huge map game, and it takes about 3 minutes loading between turns. i've got one turn left on radio and just finish the theory of evolution. it finishes radio for me. then it says which tech next... i say espionage so it researches espionage automatically... the problem is... when i get to a new age and pick the next tech (playing as a scientific civ), the one i pick WONT be the one I get free... if that makes sense

[Hurricane]

Yeah, scientific civs always get the same free techs; Monotheism and Nationalism and ... can't remember what the modern area free tech was.

[aaglo]

I think that was rocketry.

[Nym]

Originally posted by aaglo
I think that was rocketry.

I think you are right.

[theNiceOne]

Originally posted by bobbo008
ok, i'm playing a huge map game, and it takes about 3 minutes loading between turns. i've got one turn left on radio and just finish the theory of evolution. it finishes radio for me. then it says which tech next... i say espionage so it researches espionage automatically... the problem is... when i get to a new age and pick the next tech (playing as a scientific civ), the one i pick WONT be the one I get free... if that makes sense

Now you learnt how ToE works: You get the tech you're currently reseraching plus the next you select. Next time, make sure that you finish researching a tech the same turn that you build ToE, since finishing the tech (and selecting a new to research) happens before the effect of ToE, thus giving you two completely free techs of your choise.

Regarding scientific trait and new ages: You get a free tech independant of what you choose to research. You will get Nationalism when enetring the industrial age regardless of whether you selected to research it or not. I have an idea (but have not checked it) that you get the tech that has the highest cost - which normally is Nationalism, unless almost all the other civs already have got Nationalism.

[Stuie]

Alternately, you can switch to a tech for which you have not accrued any research on the turn prior to completing ToE. That tech will be free, then pick another with no accumulated research, get that for free, and then switch back to the one you were originally researching (which will pick up where you left off).

[Indiana Jones]

I'm in the middle of a game (playing as the Persians) and this time the free tech I received going into the industrial age was Steam Power, not Nationalism, as has happened before.