BIF

Join Date 09/2008

Help Me Understand Crusade Research Production

Some of the techs have some huge turns to achieve. For example, Large Scale Construction took almost 50 turns, and some lazy minor then asked me for it because he's "in dire times". This angered me so I declared war on the beggar. Okay, not really; I just told him "no". But I digress...

Has the balance been broken for research, or is this just changes I have to get used to?

I'm still struggling with the best way to have a strong research for my civilization. The best I seem to be able to do is have only a half-dozen somewhat strong research planets, or else I end up running a deficit budget, have low approval levels, or use too many citizens for science and don't have enough for workers, engineers, or administrators.

I'm trying to avoid overworking my researchers so they don't retire or die on me.

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The big thing with research, that I have noticed, is that there are a few "hurdles" you need to overcome. There were bugs in earlier versions of Crusade where some took longer for no apparent reason (ie they added a 0 to the requirements needed), but a lot of that has been fixed. There are still a few research choices under specializations that take 2x the research, but seems to be tied to the fact that it is normally miniaturization which is important.

Anyways, I think it will be the new standard as the game doesn't want you getting large and huge hulls in shorter games, I guess. But once you get them, it is such a HUGE advantage that the AI doesn't seem capable of overcoming because of the length of time required to research. Well, at least until they steal it from you.

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Are you grabbing every asteroid mine you can? They add to raw production, which gives you your base research.

Also, raise the level of your Computer core as high as you can with adjacency bonuses. Put an Antimatter reactor next to it and your base research on that planet goes up +5.

For empire-wide boosts, try the Ancient ability. With that, every ascension crystal you own gives +1 base research to every planet you own, and boosting levels of those crystals gives an additional +1 per level. Precursor artifacts also give percentage boosts to all planets.

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BIF

Join Date 09/2008

Excellent suggestions so far, thanks!

The asteroid mine thing was a blind spot for me. Looking at that now, thanks.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2410

Some techs are meant to be roadblocks for civs that haven't made it past a certain point. Large Scale Construction would definitely be one of those.

Others would include:

Tier 3 weapons techs
Tier 3 production (research, manufacturing)
Tier 3 influence techs
Tier 3 logistics techs

The idea being that to get those techs, your civilization has to be seriously powerful.

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BIF

Join Date 09/2008

Okay, thanks for the insight. I agree with it in principle. Only more gameplay will reveal whether or not I agree with the specifics, but so far I'm fine with it.

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@BIF

50 turns sounds excessive.

How much pop do you have on planets? 4 production out of 16 pop may sound low, but keep in mind it is 4 research, 4 wealth and 4 of both construction types. May help with both the money and reasearch trouble.

Apart from that it should be noted, that simple carbon based races are not good researchers (only a player unique hub with flat bonuses). Synthetics are good at it. Traits like Ancient, Slavers and Xenophobic are helpful.

@Frog

While we talking supposed game flow and roadblock techs...
Is turn 220 too early to have doomrays and quantum drivers on a 10 planet empire? The normal AI is still fielding particle beams...

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I don't know if it's been patched, but under the pragmatic ideology I'd promote a scientist to complete whatever difficult research I was working on. Like when I had just begun researching atmospheric cleansing, which normally would take 50+ turns or so, I'd just spend a scientist and get it done in one turn. It gave me a good edge in the game as I could colonize some key worlds other civs would take forever to get.

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BIF

Join Date 09/2008

Naric just made me realize that sometimes it MAY be advisable to work one or two of my people to death. Hmmmm, I hope my scientists don't decide to unionize!

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