Making the most of Anarchy

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Disclaimer: If this has been covered by the more learned members of the CIV community please disregard.

Coming from a SMAC playing/posting background, I wrote on those forums what seems many moons ago extensively on the benefits of usage of non-worker population points in favor of using specialist citizens. The main benefit in this genre of games is that specialized citizens allow contributions to cash and/or science independent of efficiency/corruption loss. Whats more regardless of the city's status the specialists contribute. This means in time of starvation, discord, etc. you still receive the benefit of the specialist.

Knowing this one can make the best of those times that you inevitably transition to advanced government types (Assuming your not a religious faction/civ) Since you still recieve benefits of tax men for coin and scientists for beakers you'll want to convert as many citizens as possible during the 4-8 turns of anarchy.

A variety of options are available. Assuming you have granaries and/or pyramids with half full boxes of grain you may want to convert entire populations and risk starvation of a pop point or two. (my preference)

Alternatively you may wish to only convert enuff pop points to allow either adequate food and/or remove enuff pop points from the equation to allow no riots. (this to my mind doesn't take enuff advantage of the specialists. I'll risk a few pop points lost knowing I can add back using settlers or workers)

I do have a few questions that perhaps the CIV community may be able to help with. It's commonly known that the slowest discovery rate is 32 turns/tech. That being known, if you have but 1 beaker/turn you still discover a tech every 32 turns even if it might require 80 beakers to discover the tech normally. Suppose anarchy lasts 8 turns if you use only one pop point as a librarian does this mean approximately 1/4 of the beakers for the tech are taken care of? If so you have essentially bought 20 beakers for the cost of 8 beakers and you can weight your specialization then towards taxmen vs. sceintists. Does anyone know if this is the case??

Anyway just my 2 coin

Og

[Excelsior]

Re: Making the most of Anarchy

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I do have a few questions that perhaps the CIV community may be able to help with. It's commonly known that the slowest discovery rate is 32 turns/tech. That being known, if you have but 1 beaker/turn you still discover a tech every 32 turns even if it might require 80 beakers to discover the tech normally. Suppose anarchy lasts 8 turns if you use only one pop point as a librarian does this mean approximately 1/4 of the beakers for the tech are taken care of? If so you have essentially bought 20 beakers for the cost of 8 beakers and you can weight your specialization then towards taxmen vs. sceintists. Does anyone know if this is the case??
Og

No, I don't think so. You'll still only have 8 beakers, it is just that you get the tech after the maximum turns have elapsed, regardless of your total beakers. That's my understanding, anyway. Post patch, it is 40 turns maximum per tech, BTW.

[Skanky Burns]

If you researched 8 beakers worth during an anarchy, then it would count only as 8 beakers. 24 turns to go @ 1 beaker/turn.

Say you increase your research level to 2/turn.
8 + ( 2 * 24 ) = 48 out of 80
You have only researched 48 beakers worth, but still get the tech in 32 turns.

Say you increase your research level to 3/turn.
8 + ( 3 * 24 ) = 80 out of 80
No you have researched the full 80 beakers worth, but still only get the tech in 32 turns.

Ok, now we increase the research level to 4/turn.
( 80 - 8 ) / 4 = 18 turns.
Its only now that we actually see any difference in speed of researching. Rather than the maximum 32 turns, we have gotten the tech in 26 turns ( 18 + 8 ).

Note: The post-patch research cap is now at 40 turns. This actually gives you a reason to devote more than 10% to science in the ancient period.