Scientific Development in the Anicent Era

[CygnusZ]

As I'm sure we've all noticed, using expansionistic techinques was made harder with CivIII. It takes a few turns to get that second settler out now, and that extra worker is mostly only good for roads under depotism.

There's no doubt we need the roads though. Technology develops at a snails pace in this era! I'm not sure about you all, but I ended waiting 32 turns for Monarchy and Polytheism. It's too much time to wait for what should be simply advances.

Of course, this calls for alternate stratedgy. It seems to me that the most logical progression for the early era, if you're playing builder or hybrid style, would be to jump for the optional advance of literacy. That way you could at least build a library and get some additional research. Even then though, it seems like a long journey of 20 turn technology advances to get to monarchy.

The other idea I had was going for the Golden Age's at the start. One of the firaxian's mentioned that this was a good idea. I've gotten one golden age so far, and it was all that it was hyped of to be. Heck, an English city even defected to my side! Trade was rasied so that helped too.

Anybody else have any idea's how to overcome early game tech stagnation?

[Sarxis]

Slider bars.

[nlmalph]

Anybody else have any idea's how to overcome early game tech stagnation?

Expansionist civs have a big bonus in this area, the scouts and the increased chance of getting tech from goodie huts means you can get a lot of your tech for free.

As the other person mentioned, I raise my science rate a lot as well, but its still remarkably slow.

[albiedamned]

From my very limited experience (I'm on my first real game after a couple false starts, and I've just made it to the middle ages), here's what I can offer:

Definitely make sure to bump up your science rate right away to as high as possible without losing money. Use your worker not only for building roads, but mine alll your grassland to increase production. Even if you have fresh water and can irrigate, it won't do you any good for a long time since Monarchy and Republic are far up the tech tree. You can always replace your grassland mines with irrigation later if you want.

And the most important thing for getting tech going is to expand as quickly as possible, but try to do it in a ring around your capital. Corruption is horrible, but keeping your cities close to your capital mitigates it somewhat. Don't build any workers at first since they cost you pop points, and you need those points to build settlers. Try to time your settler production so that the settler is ready on the same turn you grow to size 3, if possible.

Anothet tip: if you're not religous, then go for Ceremonial Burial very early. The borders of your capital will expand on their own due to the palace, but the only way for your borders to expand in other cities is by building a temple. You can also build a library, but Literature is far up the tech tree. And forget about building a wonder in the early expansion phase.

Other very important techs are The Wheel and Iron Working, so that you can see the location of the Horse and Iron resources. Even if they're not in your territory, it helps to know where they are.

[Grunthex]

I have some serious questions with the science rate and the way it works.

For example: Beginning of game, fouind city. No rivers around, no trade resources. Total trade: 1, allocate to science. Time to develop Bronze Working: 32 turns. Ok, 32 science, right?

Immediately set science rate to 100%. 3 turns later, a road gives me an extra trade, also going to science. Domestic advisor shows 2 income, 2 science. Great! Time to research? Still 29 turns.

Ok, so I just need to end turn, right? No. Goes down 1 at a time. 3 science: Same thing. NO INCREASE. I'm going to do some more experimenting with this, but at the moment, it looks like when you start a research, it figures out how long it will take you based on your current science, and increasing it does... NOTHING!

I know it's 4 am, but am I crazy? Can anyone else confirm this?

[Sarxis]

Grunthex- I know what you are talking about. I too have noticed this phenemona, but I am not sure exactly what is going on.

I will take a closer look at it next game.

[Sava]

Perhaps it is part of the game at that point. I think they might have put a cap on the science rate early on to force people to worry about expanding. I always felt it was too easy to climb the tech tree and have tanks before 0 AD, even on deity. If it keeps a realistic flow of time, I'm all for it. Remember in 4000 BC, there were no scientists. Some cultures did not even have a written language.

[Sarxis]

Yeah, but it would be nice to let us know that our extra research is being wasted.

I am not sure at all how research is supposed to work early on.

[CygnusZ]

Yes... I'm also certain there is a cap. Poking around the editor I found that:

Bronze Working has a "cost" of 3
Monarchy has a "cost" of 24
Literature has a "cost" of 10

Pretaining to the issue of cost... it either is the integer itself (unlikely), or a multiple of it. The other possibility is that it is the base integer multipled by set constant and then some more added on by each technology learned.

Here's my guess:

Technology rate= Cost*10+# of techs

Why? Because Bronze Working takes 32 turns to develop at the start. If we say that the tech rate is capped then we are working off a base of exactly 1 point of science. This works if cost*10 is the actual science rate. Then, we can put two on the tail end of the equation because each civilization starts with the 2 technologies.

32 Turns = 3*10+2=Happy Happy Spearmen

I'd be interested if anybody agree/disagree with this formula. Also, if somebody would like to help try to figure out how the cap works it'd be helpful info.


Problem Though -- Hmm, the whole cap thing though is such an attempt to slow down the pace of the game. What's the point though of even developing a civilization based upon the principle's of science if all those resources go down the drain?

[albiedamned]

I would consider it a major flaw in the game if it's really true that the number of turns to discover a tech is fixed at the time you start research, regardless of additional science points you add during research.

If this is the case, then the best strategy would be to maximize science output just before starting research, then swing to 0% science until the next discovery. I can't believe there is such an obvious flaw in the game - this requires some more experimentation. Unfortunately I'm not home right now to try it.

[albiedamned]

A friend of mine just thought of a possible explanation as to why increasing your science doesn't seem to bring down the time to the next discovery. Perhaps the game is doing you a favor. Maybe the actual time to get that first discovery should be much more than 32 turns, but the game caps it at 32.

I plan to play with this when I get home to see if I can figure out what is going on.

Dan or anyone from Firaxis, if you wanted to chip in here and explain, I'd appreciate it greatly!

[rah]

I do think you guys are hitting max. I played with some different starts and when I had good trade squares to work I would change which square was being worked and it did change the number of turns to develop the next tech.
Think about rounding. 50% of one currency probably rounds up to 1 science beaker. Even if you switch to 2 currencies, it still rounds to 1 science beaker and you wouldn't see any change.
At 60% it would round the same.


RAH

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by rah
I do think you guys are hitting max. I played with some different starts and when I had good trade squares to work I would change which square was being worked and it did change the number of turns to develop the next tech.
Think about rounding. 50% of one currency probably rounds up to 1 science beaker. Even if you switch to 2 currencies, it still rounds to 1 science beaker and you wouldn't see any change.
At 60% it would round the same.


RAH

Grunthex did specifically say he was setting science to 100%.

[rah]

Sorry, I tried to answer everyone at once.

BUT I did change workers and it did effect the turns to discovery.
So something must be different. It also changed when I changed the sliders. But at the time I had 5 or 6 currencies.

[HalfLotus]

It takes FOREVER to get to Monarchy. Try playing with a civ that has 1 or 2 pre-req's for Monarchy or Republic. I ended up going straight for Rep. my first game. Build roads everywhere. They give commerce bonus on all tiles I think. Once you get to Monarchy, the tech rate picks up.