how to keep up in research?

[00yiggdrasill00]

so ive got my sectors focusing on research (they are respecting tile reso so i can get something out of them) and i have good leaders, but the ai is always ahead. im only on normal what am i doing wrong?

[kbmodigity]

You may be seeing advanced start empires. Or if they are overwhelming they are fallen empires.

You have to remember too that the more planets you have the more science you need to research something. Not sure what the exact math is on it. So if you have 10 planets and are making 50 of each science and another empire has 3 planets and only making lets say 40 they will actually be researching faster than you.

One way I think the AI gets alot of its science is through debris. They always seem to be at war and if they are constantly reseaching all the stuff left over from battles they can easily shoot up in tech.

I do find too that the game says that one empire is inferior/superior to another quite oddly. In one game a friend and I had in multiplayer I had something like lets say 800 fleet capacity. My friend had something like 790 yet it said he was inferior to me. Not sure how it calculates it but I find to not fully trust those comparative ratings.

[00yiggdrasill00]

mate i checked over the whole galaxy and only a few were equivalent to me, everyone else was superior. thanks for the heads up on the debries (i knew it worked but i wasnt aware of so many wars, the galaxy has seemed rather peaceful this game) and that strange way it ranks them, ive noticed that myself. its just a little shocking for someone who typicaly is ahead of the research curve is a stratergy game (even paradox ones) to be so far down no matter what i do

[Renoi]

The ai also tends to expand less, i always have slow research into the midgame, but endgame when my planets get developed i catch up. Its the payoff of going wide over tall. More planets == bigger tech penalty.

[Shahadem]

You probably colonized the tiny little ♥♥♥♥ planets. Each planet rapes your research and you can only get back what you lost by producing as much extra research as the planet took away from you. It is much harder to get progress back when it is a small planet. NEVER COLONIZE SMALL PLANETS. I know this seems like bad game design because it is in fact bad game design.

[00yiggdrasill00]

ok, so maybe avoid the small planets in future, any limit you use or advised smallest planet?. do vassels/tributaries add to my research penalty? because that could be a way to add firepower and economy without the penalty if it doesnt (and will majorly change how i play)

[Shahadem]

I only colonize size 19 and higher planets until the point where you have the level 4/5 research buildings. Of course if you don't have many size 19 or higher planets near you then you might have to settle for something smaller or save up Influence to colonize a planet FAR AWAY from your empire. Try to find one of the research enclaves who will sell you a 10 year agreement that boosts your research by 10% per year. Build obervatories on every planet that does research. Try to only hire the governors that boost research. Only hire research scientists who have 10% bonus to all research types. Give your species the trait that boosts all research by 10%. Make sure you are building research stations in space. Either devote a certain number of tiles on each planet to research or else make sure that you build extra research buildings on some planets to compensate for other planets having fewer or no research buildings.

Vassals and tributaries have no effect on research. Tributaries add to your income while Vassals are forced to send their fleets to fight in your wars and also provide additional fleet size when you select the unity perk to have vassals add a percent of their fleet size to your fleet size. Protectorates provide additional influence but will transform into vassals extremely quickly.

Usually avoid research agreements as the AI only wants to make favorable research agreements with you when you are ahead in research. Since research agreements in this game were so poorly designed they work by simply reducing the research cost of the partner who doesn't have the research that the other partner has already completed. So if you have superior research speed all that a research agreement means is that an inferior species gets to mooch off your hard work.

[00yiggdrasill00]

thanks for the tips it means a ton, its changed how i look at subject nations drastically and how i look at the worth of a planet. its all good going for the resources but if i dont have the tech to really exploit it its largely useless

[00yiggdrasill00]

though i have found that if the ai likes me i can get research agreements out of them even if they are ahead, i had some fella give me one when they had a good 20+ techs then me (yeah my situation was that bad). that said, wioth the cad system there is no way of knowing if you will actually get the techs they have as much as it makes for something different

[RandomDude]

In my best play through I mostly had inferior tech after the first empire was conquered but superior fleet power and that was enough of an edge to keep conquering.

[kbmodigity]

I find Shahadem somewhat right. Yes initially you want to concentrate on larger planets, I try to do only 15 or larger. I do this for the first 75-100 years or so its not a bad rule to go by.

I find that as you get closer to 2350 (or right around when the end game crisis can occur) you want to start building a massive fleet. In order to get your fleet capacity anywhere near high enough you need to basically colonize every world. I play at a 1.25 colonizable world game setting. I also try to prioritize getting terraforming and atmospheric manupulation as soon as I can. The more colonized planets with ports the higher your naval capacity.

Once you have those fleets, if/when the end game crisis comes with a large enough fleet you can take out some if not all of them and then send your science ships in to research their debris. That should bump you up a few notches in the research rankings.

[00yiggdrasill00]

thats a solid bit of advice, thanks.

[00yiggdrasill00]

Originally posted by RandomDude/SDu:

In my best play through I mostly had inferior tech after the first empire was conquered but superior fleet power and that was enough of an edge to keep conquering.

i get where youre coming from but my issue was im so far behind the curve i cant effectivly fight or build a competative economy, so these tips have been a god send

[galadon3]

To add some more tips:

Get the discovery-tradition tree (having it fully unlocked grants +10% research)

Get the +10% research ascension-perk

activate the research grants edict that gives one area of research +30% and -10% for the other two (you get a net-win out of that, if you produce an equal amount of points in all 3 areas). You can also counter the -10 by hiring a curator-scientist for one of the areas and (if you got one) put a scientist with a +10% Bonus to all research-perk on the other)

with the actual (non-beta) versions activate the "Encourage Free Thought"-edict, since government attraction is broken anyway the -15% on that dont matter while you get +5% research. (how good that option is afte 1.7.2. goes live and gov-attraction actually works, remains to be seen)

Always check the specialties of scientists and compare to the tech you are researching atm, if they match you get a bonus, so dont be shy shuffling scientists around between areas and science-ships.

In your position (waaay back in tech) research-agreements actually work FOR you, might be that you need to pay the AI some energy/minerals to get the deal, but it might very well worth it, since they will have way more techs you dont have hen the other way round.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Influence is usually not something that can be used, however. It´s more viable with democracies, which really float in influence most of the time due to the imbalanced mandate thingy.

Get larger borders and place outposts on valuable research spots. For militaristic empires you will want Supremacy, eventually anyway. And then the extra borders help a lot with efficient outpost use.

Finally, have a good economy so that the curator scientist and research bonus can both be used.

Originally posted by Shahadem:

You probably colonized the tiny little ♥♥♥♥ planets. Each planet rapes your research and you can only get back what you lost by producing as much extra research as the planet took away from you. It is much harder to get progress back when it is a small planet. NEVER COLONIZE SMALL PLANETS. I know this seems like bad game design because it is in fact bad game design.

That is situational. Depends on the territory you get. If said planet allows access to some 20 points of research from nearby systems, plus minerals etc, it is totally worth it.

[00yiggdrasill00]

thanks for all the advice people it means a lot