Episode: 4550
Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 7
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4550/hpr4550.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:46 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4550, for 2026-01-09
Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 7"
The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:14:48
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "We continue our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V."
hello this is a hookah welcome to you the hacker public radio and another exciting episode
in our ongoing series on computer strategy gaming and we're still in civilization five
and the topic for today is science and how to get a science victory how to use science in
general for whatever victory types you're going for so everything having to do with science now
in most respects it's not all that different in Civ five because science has been the science
victory has been part of civilization from the very beginning and it has been more of an
evolutionary change compared to revolutionary most of the texts are the same as in previous versions
there is a tech tree that is pretty similar and you need to keep up in science for any victory
condition you are thinking you may want to just beat your enemies into submission and if so
look at our previous episode about war and combat but if you're using chariots while they have
tanks you aren't going to have success it's also obvious that if you're going for a science victory
you really need to focus on science now many of these tips should be followed for any victory
condition but should be mandatory if you're drawing for a science victory now the mechanics of
researching technologies is that you have to accumulate a certain amount of science to discover a new
technology but this amount goes up over time so you have to continuously be looking to increase your
output of science to keep up for instance one of your first texts would be pottery which is a cost of
35 science but in your capital city you get three science from your palace and let's say of a
population of two so you're getting five science per turn that means you will research pottery in seven
turns but the education tech costs 485 science astronomy costs 780 science
scientific theory costs 1,650 plastics 4,700 particle physics 6,000 these are all key
texts to advance your science to a science victory so you can see that you need to be continually
increasing your generation of science now to start with population equals science you will get one
science for every point of population that does not however mean you need to have a lot of cities to
get there four to five well developed cities are quite sufficient and adding more cities can
cause unhappiness problems since higher population itself can cause unhappiness there is no good
reason to add to the problem now the next boost you can give to science is by building city improvements
the first which comes early in the game is the library which is available once you research writing
a library boosts the science output of the city by one science for every two citizens
so roughly a 50% increase but it's rounded down in any case building it early pays off
because advancing through the tech tree is a process of accumulating science the earlier you can get
these boosts the better the other population base boost is the public school which is available when you
research scientific theory which also boosts science by one for every two citizens and also offers a
specialist slot for a science specialist and since more population means more science the grandary
available when you research pottery is a good building just because it does grow your population
now there's one other building worth mentioning which is the observatory available when you discover
astronomy it doesn't depend on population but on location you have to have a city that is located
directly next to a mountain to build this but it adds 50% to the science output of the city
mountains are otherwise useless unless you're playing as the ingas but if you want a science boost
and happen to see a good location the ideal spot is an isolated mountain that is not part of
a mountain range so you don't lose out on your farming and mining production and if you can put a
city right next to that mountain it can be a big boost now then there's also specialists you can at a
certain point take some of your citizens out of the farming and mining and turn them into specialists
but you have to have a slot for them and those slots come in buildings as well we've already mentioned
public schools providing one slot universities available when you discover education
provide two slots as well as boosting the city output of science by 33%
the other science building which comes late in the game is the research lab available when you
discover plastics which adds another special a slot plus four science and then adds 50% to the
science output of the city now it comes pretty late in the game so it's not going to be much of a
help for most of the tech tree but when you have to research the space techs and you're going for a
science victory you know those space techs are very expensive and so building the research labs
becomes really important for that now wonders the first one if you're going to go for a science
victory that you want to try for is the great library it gives you a free library in the city that
builds it plus three science per turn and a free tech now use the free tech to get an expensive tech
like philosophy if it's free why not get as much bang for the buck as you can now the
Oracle provides one great person point per turn towards a great scientist so that can be helpful
hang gardens provides plus six food per turn which will help boost your population
and a free garden which boosts your great person points by 25%
leaning tower of Pisa increases your rate person points by 25% in all cities plus a free
great person of your choice when you build it. Borsland tower gives you plus 50% from research
agreements plus a free great scientist and the Hubble Space Telescope provides two great scientists
a free spaceship factory in the city where it was built and a plus 25% production for spaceship
parts now all of the above are world wonders which means you're in competition with other players
to build them and only one player can be successful in each case so you won't get them all
now you can sometimes rush a world wonder by chopping that is using your workers to cut down for us
for added production but you need to have high production cities to build wonders in general
there is one national wonder to focus on though and that's called the national college
now every player can build their own version of any national wonder the national college
is good but it can only be built when you have a library in every one of your cities your strategy
should be to build it as soon as possible so don't build more than three or four cities before
you get to this it gives you plus three science plus an increase of 50% in the science output
of the city you build it in yeah great scientists as you work on your science you will accumulate
great person points toward getting a great scientist someone there's also produce great
person points and all of your science specialists produce great person points as well as these add up
you'll suddenly see a great scientist appear in the early game the best thing to do is use
this great scientist to build an academy move the great scientist to any tile within your city
and create the academy there it will yield at least plus eight science but there are modifiers that
can also add to that the alternative which is better later in the game is to use the great
scientists to get a free tech discovery the reason is that early in the game that plus eight science
is very significant and it can accumulate over time combine that with things like an observatory
and a university that increase the city output and it can add up very nicely but by perhaps the
medieval era and certainly the Renaissance era you start running out of time for that accumulation
of science to add up meanwhile the text have gotten so expensive that a free tech is really the better
option now another thing you can do to increase your science is to engage in research agreements
with other players these become available once you research education and you have to have a
declaration of friendship with the other player before you can create a research agreement
you each put a certain amount of gold into the pot to fund the research and after a period of time
typically about 30 turns you each get an amount of science from it the way it is calculated is
based on the partner that produced the least amount of science during the agreement from a
science standpoint if you're head in science it probably won't benefit you to enter into the agreement
but it does build your relationship with the other player so I wouldn't avoid them all together
now if you're behind in science of course it can help you a lot another thing you can do to
build up your science is policies and ideologies now given that you should probably be building tall
like four to five cities instead of wide which would be eight to 12 cities or more it makes sense to
start out with tradition instead of liberty as your policy tree but once you get to the
Renaissance you'll want to enable the rationalism treat him as your science when you get to ideologies
you have a choice to make ignore autocracy that is not a science oriented choice
if you have three to five cities freedom is the best ideology because specialists require less food
using civil society and have reduced unhappiness using universal suffrage
with a wide strategy of more than five cities order starts looking better as your ideology
getting workers faculties will give you a plus 25 percent science from every factory
now another thing that can help is exploration generally this is a good idea for a number of
reasons but one we want to focus on here is the effect of meeting other players
now in the first place if you find other players who have researched texts you do not yet have
you can trade for them and you should do this whenever possible remember the other players will
all be trading with each other anyway so if you don't participate you simply fall behind
if you have a nice tech and can trade it to just two other players you will jump up two
texts along the tech tree and that can be huge if you hold onto it as a secret some other player
will research it and they will trade it and get the boost instead so trade whenever you can
another advantage is that when you discover that another player has a tech you don't have yet
your cost to research it goes down now that was tech trading but what about trade in general
and that's the next science boost when you set up a trade route with either another person or a city
state one of the benefits can be an increased year science the main benefit of trade routes is
money at least that's the way I play so I will start always by looking for the best addition to my
treasury but if I have two possible trade routes that provide equal amounts of money but one offers
more science then I might prefer that particularly if I'm going for a science victory
now the last thing that is going to influence all of this is which empire are you going to play
some of them are really oriented to a science victory the two obvious choices are Babylon and
Korea Babylon gets a free great scientist when you discover writing which is very early
so you should use it to put down an academy right away and it earns great scientists 50% faster
Korea's advantage comes from plus two science from all specialists and from all great
person tile improvements plus you get a tech boost each time a science building or a wonder is built in the
capital now you can win a science victory with any empire if you're careful about leveraging your
empire's strengths for instance Venice and Portugal can rake in the golden huge amounts and you can buy a lot
of stuff that way or with the counts you can generate a ton of faith and that can be used to buy
buildings and great scientists with the right social policies so this is just kind of a quick
overview of the science path and there's always more to learn if you really want to dive into
science options and get a science victory the civilization fanatic site has a pretty good strategy
guide and I've put a link to that in the show notes so this is hookah for hacker public radio
signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software. Bye bye
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