How science works and why there IS a 4 turn cap

[regoarrarr]

Okay - I did some more researching. I started a new game on a tiny map, and purposely did not research Pottery, which has a tech cost of 2. That should have taken 32 beakers, but even though I was able to get up to 21 beakers a turn, I never reduced my tech costs under 4 turns.

So I think the reports (including mine) of researching a tech in 3 turns or less were anecdotal, i.e. viewing the remaining turns per tech after a turn had already passed.

What I'd like to see is a screenshot of the popup the game gives you right after you finish researching a tech. The one that says, our wisemen / sages / scientists have finished researching blah, what should we research now. If someone could post one that lists off an advance in 3 turns or less, then I will believe that there is in fact a 4 turn cap.

If I see a screenshot (or even someone posting that they saw this particular screen with 3 turns), then I will believe that, and then we'll have to re-think the science model. Until then, looks like there's a 4 turn / tech cap, which may lead science players as well as OCCers to re-think their strategies

[jack_frost]

Alright. I've done some thinking about all this. I am wrong.

In order to actually MAX out on income, the ideal way to go is 0% science. What you need to do is...every turn check every civ for new tech. If they have it, buy immediately (before they get a chance to trade it themselves), and trade with everyone else.

You will lose some income, but should come out of it in ideal shape.

The one arguement against this strategy is: you will allow one of the other civs to become quite powerful - you adding to his income.

The thing is, it won't add much if you don't let him do the trades. They'll only get trade from you. Everyone else will still be getting raped financially by you. And you should grow economically much faster since your huge income can complement your production easily.

This depends on the untested theory (I'm pretty sure it happens like this, would explain the huge lag during your turn when upkeep happens): that upkeep happens for everyone at once, then you go first in a turn. If the computer can consistantly trade with one or two other civs before you get in on the deal, I don't think this would work very well.

---

One way to go if you fall behind on tech, and have a useless city somewhere from war or what ever. Just trade the city to who ever will pay most for it (including offered tech), then use the income to pick up what ever techs you need.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
There is special case code for city trading. If you just throw in a city to a trade, the AI will usually go to ("will never accept"). The only way to effectivly trade cities is by clicking the "what will you give me for" button. Either accepting, or rejecting, and moving on.

This is a pain in the ass, but I'm assuming stops (some) potential abuse of city trades.

Its something I do sometimes instead of razing the city (if its far away from cap/fp and doesn't really offer me any advantage except population score).

[jack_frost]

Also note 0 science with heavy trade can still allow you a technological lead when you need it. Just switch to 100% science when needed. If you allow for maybe 15 turns at 100% science you should be able to immediately gain maybe 5 turns advantage when you hit the tech you want. Specially if you are screwing with the tech leader. You can use that 5 turns + switching from another wonder or something. To help guarentee completion.

[jimb0v2]

I'm positive there is a 4 turn cap.

[Plutarck]

What I do is go Commercial King until usually the middle-ages, after which I go the route of Science King when I can research new techs in 5 turns or so.


No one has mentioned it, but there is a simple way to decide which way is best.

First, see how long it would take you to research a tech. Now flick the slider down to 0% and see how much money you can make in that amount of turns.

Often in the ancient age it would take me 12 turns to research something, but I can make enough money to pay for the next advance in less than 6 turns. And that is NOT counting the money I may or may not get from shopping it around to the other civs.

If you do it right it's not at all hard to end up using 4 turns of gold to buy an advance that would have taken 12 turns to research, and all the other cash you just made goes straight into your pocket!


However, there is one other thing that hasn't been taken into account. While it has been said if you wait for the AI to trade the tech around so that you end up getting a lot less/no money for it if you try and trade it on your own, remember that you can also buy it alot CHEAPER once the AI has shopped it around!

You can also do double-tech trades, where you wait for a civ that wants a tech you have and obtains a tech you want, you just trade them tech for tech, and maybe a little extra gold to make the deal go through. Then you trade BOTH new techs all over the place and get a very nice pack of gold.


What I do is start the game and start exploring and hopefully find another civ. Either I will put 100% into science and get pottery 4-7 turns earlier than I could otherwise (which I often want very early, which is unconventional) or just go minimum % and get it in 32 turns.

Then I often resist the urge to trade my techs for the AIs techs and just give them gold, during which time I am behind in the tech game intentionally (but I trade for Communications ASAP). However during this time the AI does it's intial trading game, and I'm backwards in science but way ahead in gold. Then I buy off everything my neighbor has for gold, then it's usually a good idea to go to war with them and give them a good crippling, after which you get back all the gold they got from you from negotiating peace every 20 turns (maybe going to war between times if neccessary).

Also remember: Military matters WAY more than culture does in trading. A superior military spells lower trade costs while an inferior one means you'll be their a$$-puppets to get at their techs.


Since I like playing as Egyptian currently that gives me a golden age which usually ends as I enter the middle ages, and with all the units I've built I transition gracefully halfway through the middle ages into full on science. I may not neccessarily switch to democracy as I probably will just go to war again anyway and having a big military is SO important if you trade anything at all, but now I'm jumping out ahead in technology in leaps and bounds, trading techs ONLY if the AI has one of it's own to trade. I still have plenty of pocket-change because you have to remember that you can not use gold for anything but science in Despotism, and switching to Monarchy early is often a BAD idea (odd, isn't it?) because you can't use forced labor anymore.

By the middle of the middle ages I easily have a 20 turn tech lead on Regent level, and during my Golden Age if the war wasn't too taxing I use my best few citys to build wonders and use forced labor to build temples everywhere, maybe marketplaces, and maybe libraries before switching to Monarchy, which gives me the lead in Tech, Culture, and Military, not to mention Happyness is a lot easier to manage with martial law and all those temples.

It's harder on Monarch of course, but it's still totally doable.

The highest levels of difficulty require only special specific strategies to dominate in Civ3 because the insane bonuses they have to give the AI to keep up.

If I hear about how great the AI is one more time I'm going to puke. Nothing against the programmers of the AI, but don't give credit where it simply isn't due. It is above average only when graded on a curve where most other games have MORONIC AI. It is simply an average AI that expands constantly, which gives it the illusion of complexity when it simply isn't.

A Good AI in a Good Game will not use one single strategy to play. The AI does use that one strategy, so take your pick as to which isn't Good.


Now MOO2 had Good AI, IMHO. It's wonderfully resistant to abuse on the higher levels and will prefer to be exterminated than to be made into an a$$-puppet, just like a real human player.

You can tell your playing against a computer in Civ3 if for no other reason than it can't figure out that you're a lying rat-bastage.

[Capt Dizle]

You can get tech in three turns if you start at four and your tech production increases during the 4 turn period. You get it by bumping up on turn three of the four. But it doesn't happen that often.

[Capt Dizle]

Or maybe it has nothing to do with my tech production increasing. Probably has to do with the tech being discovered by an AI civ during the period I am researching it.

I have never been able to get 3 turns from the start. You have to micromanage your tech. Set it to the lowest 4 turn. Adjust it the next turn. Then when you get to turn three, jack it up. Sometimes you can get from 2 turns to one, which would be three turns total. But thats rare, I have had it two or three times in my current game.

Its not really that important. Far better to figure out what the AI is going to research and then trade.

Always sell every new tech to everyone. This finances your research.

Very important to distribute techs that reveal resources. First, look and see where they are. If you see that one AI has multiples of a strategic resource that you lack, trade the tech to it and then trade for the resource.

[madmario]

I often have the oppotunity to get 3 turn techs in the middle ages (and for some reason, only in the middle ages, I believe).

In tough games, I often get gold/turn contracts from the AI any way possible (rights of passage, but also technologies, etc), and boost my research based on that.

I notice it when the science advisor pops up and says "hey we discovered this" and from there I go to the advisor screnes (immediately... I don't wait) and when I click on the domestic advisor, sometimes I can set my science to 90% or 100% and get offered a three turn tech -- however, it is so financially devastating that I almost never take it. Yes yes yes it is possible. I will include it in two save games when I have a chance.

I only remember it happening in the middle ages. I have won on monarch but have not tried emperor or deity yet.

It could be that it is only possible to get a tech in three turns if some other civs have the advance already...

-mario

[scientific civ]

Re: What about scientific civs??

Originally posted by jonasf
They are supposed to get cheaper techs..... I'm just wondering exactly HOW MUCH CHEAPER????

Also the cheaper city improvements.... How much cheaper are they?

just ask me that. scientific's got all the answers.

[MustPost]

It is also important in trading not to accept a tech that you are currently working on if there is another option available. During my last game I made a trade to recieve my current research choice with only a few turns left on it when there was another tech I could have gone for. Basically I wasted all of the beakers that I had used to get the tech. This also means that switching research can be very costly.

Im not sure if this is true, but it seems like the AI will sell u techs for cheaper if your partially/mostly done with the tech their giving you.

[Starlite]

Earlier posters were talking about the dependence of research time on how many other civs already have the tech. Putting two and two together:

The more civs there are, the less impact your own discovery of a tech will have on how easy it is for others to discover.

As someone else pointed out, if you trade away a tech, it's usually wise to give it to everyone. Though if there's lots of civs, two of them having a tech won't make it that much easier than one civ having it.

Frankly, though, although everyone's tech trade and micromanagement strategies are very clever, I'm disappointed that they work. One of the things I liked about Civ2 was that research strategy was only about which order to get the techs (at least, the way I played). My attention was then allowed to focus on city development and empire planning.

[David Weldon]

Yeah, they tried but there's still an incredible amount of absolutely unnecessary micro-management in CivIII.

Here's one example relating to science:

Why don't they just make it so that the turn you get a tech, the remaining beakers are converted to gold?

I wouldn't want them to be carried over, or anything "complicated" like that because it may be exploitable, but right now it is very important to turn down the science slider as you approach a discovery to make sure you're not wasting any gold. I posted on this in the first week and I've seen at least 3 different threads since then with the same idea. It has a big enough impact that it's worth doing, and yet it would be so easy to accomplish the exact same thing without micromanagement or possibility of exploitation by just doing this one simple code change.

I would much rather have them do that then add the absolutely useless city govenor stuff that they spent time on...

[TrainWreck20]

[QUOTE]I'm positive there is a 4 turn cap.

I researched two techs in a row in 3 turns each, but it was during my 'golden age'. Not sure if that had any effect other than what would be expected.

Also, I counted turns to make sure it was really 3, not just saying 3.

[korn469]

well i am virtually positive that there is a 4 turn rate cap when you are not in a golden age

i was doing some play testing and to speed up the game some i set the tech rate in the editor (its on the world sizes tab) to 1 where it is normally 80 for tiny, 100 for small 120 for standard, 140 for large, and 180 for huge, but there was still a four turn rate cap, though i didn't pay attention during a golden age, but that would be the only time when it is less than four from what i've seen

[David Weldon]

I originally thought so, but I was bullied into thinking it might be a soft limit by so many posters on these boards. I'll never read here again! Oh, wait....

That's a great test, Korn, thanks for the final confirmation!