How to boost science

[mslama]

To get reasonable research speed I MUST use specialists - scientists. Base value of science in city is very low and even if I build some science city improvements - there is no differrence in city science output. Any idea how base science is calculated?

[Pedrunn]

By my experience the best is to maximize the sliders. Will be easier to maximize them if you have a big imcome from trade. Although gold from trade does not gives scienc it give you a support not to have negaive gold imput.
SEcond the buildings and wonders.
And the last specialist. See this thread http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=46855 and you will note that mostly people do not use specialists to give gold but mostly to give food. Although having some specialist or a sicentific city (lost of science building and specialists) is not out of question.

Of couse, by my experience.

[Pedrunn]

How it is calculate?

First of all you must know the difference betweew gold and commerce.
The amout of Gold is listed in the top right corner of your screen and it can be used to rush buy, buy stuff from diplomacy, increase regard, perform some of the orders, etc.
But commerce is the amount of gold a city harvest from the tiles in it radius. Each city has its commerce amount as you see in the City Manager. And you can maximize its amout throug the commerce buildings and tileimprovements.
The commerce can be transformed into gold or science according to the slide in the National Manager. Wich trully give info in the about commerce and the result is the amount of commerce the turns into gold.
The slide is very important to decide it you want to increase gold or science.
Eg. when set at 70% this mean that from all the harvesting from the city 70% turns unto sciece ooits to reseach advances while only 30% actuall turns into gold.
You must know that Trade does it only gives gold (not commerce) so it does not increase the Science imput.

PS: Take a look at questions 20, 21 and 27 of the FAQ for further information:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38633

[mslama]

I always set slider for science to maximum as currect government allows.

[Eagle]

What I usually do is put tile improvements.

I put the trading post, shopping mall or nature reserve tiles around my cities.

For science I don't use specialists, I use those for food or production.

The percentage for science is always on max for me.
The main slider for commerce might be shifted one step, but mostly I put the production slider one step up and compensate the unhappiness with buildings.

I also make sure that I have all the wonders that increase the science output in a city or my empire.

[Locutus]

The thread which I linked to in Q27 of the FAQ is very important here, I'll repost it to make sure you don't miss it: it's here. This thread explains, among other things, one very important but easy to overlook detail: buildings in your city have an upkeep in commerce. So the more buildings you have, the less commerce is available for science.

Note that banks/city clocks/etc increase your gold output and academies/universities/etc increase your science output but there are no buildings that increase your commerce output. So a Bank will cost say 4 commerce in upkeep (don't know the exact amount from the top of my head but it's something like this), while it gives you e.g. 20 gold in return (depending on city size, terrain, etc). So if your science setting is 50%, 2 commerce that would without the Bank go to science, are now spent on a Bank, so the amount of commerce going to science will actually decrease when you buy a Bank. From a science point of view, you really want to build as few buildings in your cities as possible (except for science buildings of course). Also, building commerce tile improvements (tile imps, harbours, etc) is *very* important to keep science high, and having a few scientists in some/all of your cities also helps a lot.

[mslama]

Thanks. Now it is clear to me . So far I did not pay any attention to Commerce tile improvements because I saw
I have enough gold output. So it is possible my net Commerce output to Science is very low => my base science output is very low. I also found that I can lower wages (It makes citizens unhappy - yes it is understandable) but of course it increases Commerce output => Science output.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by mslama
Thanks. Now it is clear to me . So far I did not pay any attention to Commerce tile improvements because I saw
I have enough gold output. So it is possible my net Commerce output to Science is very low => my base science output is very low. I also found that I can lower wages (It makes citizens unhappy - yes it is understandable) but of course it increases Commerce output => Science output.

Rather than increasing commerce output, it increases commerce surplus, just as having having surplus food increases your growth rate. [I found it counterintuitive at first that feeding your citizens more reduces growth rate, until I grasped the surplus concept.] I think you can keep tabs on your actual science output via F6, but I'm not entirely clear on what those numbers mean.

My thanks to Locutus for emphasizing this. Sometimes I have to read something more than once--and to hear it in different words--before I really grasp it.

[Locutus]

You're welcome

[mslama]

If maximum city size is 60 workers the question is am I able
to fully cover all tiles in maximum city area? I did not have time to count tiles in every city radius:

Start is 1 + 8 + 12 + ...? It needs fixed width font.

[mslama]

Even if I count simple 9x9=81 tiles for maximum city
and 60 max city size it means that outer tiles are never fully utilized. Is it true? Should we increase max city size then?

On the other hand what if number of avalable tiles is less that city size -eg. cities are close to each other? All tiles are fully used and some workers are silently left on vacation - unemployment??

[Locutus]

mslama,
In the original game, you need 6 workers to cover the first ring. If the city grows to 7, you get a second ring. This means that each worker collects 1/6 of the total resources of the first ring. So if you have 3 workers in the field, 3/6 = 1/2 of all resources in the first ring are collected. If you have 6 workers 6/6 = all resources are collected. For the second ring the same story: there are 12 tiles and 12 workers (city grows at 18), so every worker collects 1/12 of all resources in the ring (note: this is NOT the same as each worker works 1 tile: *all* tiles are being worked, just not all at maximum efficiency). I explained this in somewhat more detail in the thread I linked to above.

[mslama]

Yes I understand that. What I wanted to know is: You have some max city population and some number of tiles: If max city size is < number of tiles you cannot 'fully=100%' utilize all tiles regardless system they are used.

Eg. 40 tiles max city 30 in ctp2 you just utilize all tiles 30/40=75%. In civ2 it was 'all or nothing' so it would be 30tiles by 100% and 10tiles 0%.

Another question: Is inner ring utilized by 100% whenever
population exceeds 6?

BTW numbers are confusing in innermost ring there is 8 tiles except city tile. There is 6 workers. Percentage utilization steps by 1/6 regardless number of utilized tiles.
Am I right?

For second there is 12 additional tiles.

[Locutus]

Eg. 40 tiles max city 30 in ctp2 you just utilize all tiles 30/40=75%. In civ2 it was 'all or nothing' so it would be 30tiles by 100% and 10tiles 0%.

Exactly, this is how it works.

Another question: Is inner ring utilized by 100% whenever
population exceeds 6?

If you don't have specialists working in the city (farmers, labourers, entertainers, scientists), then yes. So with 7 workers, the 1st ring is worked at 100% effieciency and the second one at 100/12 = 8.33%. If this city would have 1 entertainer, then the 1st ring would still be worked at 100% but the second ring at 0%. If the city had 2 entertainers, the the 1st ring would be worked at 100 * 5/6 = 83.33% (and the 2nd ring at 0% of course).

BTW numbers are confusing in innermost ring there is 8 tiles except city tile. There is 6 workers. Percentage utilization steps by 1/6 regardless number of utilized tiles.
Am I right?

This is correct. For the second ring there happen to be 12 workers for 12 tiles, so here it's as you would expect. Third and fourth ring are different again though (but I don't know the exact numbers - I think something like 16 workers for 18 tiles or so). Note that some mods 'fix' this: IIRC in both MedMod and Cradle 8 tiles = 8 workers, a much more sensible system, IMHO.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Locutus,

There's one point he raised that you didn't answer: if 81 tiles are in the city radius (for example), why not have a max city size of 81. IIRC there is some reason that max sizes over 60 cause problems (and IIRC Martin has a workaround).

-- Hermann