Science and Civics

Because these are essenitally the same in terms of mechanics it makes sense to cover them together. They are just two different kinds of research that you can do. One kind, the Science tree, is called Research in the game, but I just think of it as Science. Here you will find things like Archery, Navigation, and Animal Husbandry. Civics is where you research social advances instead of technologies. But they operate pretty much the same way. Each of them has a tree which you can peruse by clicking on a button on the upper left of the screen, and if there is a Technology or a Civic that is your goal, you can click on it, and the game will fill in all of rhe prerequisites as well and resedarch them in order. You can see a complete list of the Technologies and the Civics at the Civ Wiki. And while both of them are “researched” in some sense, the mechanism is different. Technologies are researched by accumulating Science points, and you promote this by building a Campus district and then building improvements in the district like a Library, University, and Research Lab. In addition, your Campus District will earn Great Scientist points, by which you earn actual Great Scientists. These can then be moved to a Campus District and used to give you a benefit. Some of them increase your Science output over time, such as Hypatia who will give you +1 Science per library. And since she is one of the early Great Scientists, this bonus can accumulate over a long time. Other Great Scientists can provide bonuses to specific technologies. These bonuses in effect make part of the research points needed for a technology already earned, so finishing the research goes much faster.

Civics work in a similar manner, but instead of accumulating Science you need to accumulate Culture. The key here is the Theater District. You need to build one, and it will start accumulating culture. Then you add buildings to the District. In this case, you start with the Amphitheater, which produces Great Writer points, and has 2 slots for holding Great Works of Writing. Your second level building is a choice between the Art Museum and the Archaeological Museum. You can only build one of these, so if you already have an Art Museum in your Theater District you won’t be able to build an Archaeological Musuem. Art Museums produce 2 Great Artist points per turn and has 3 slots for Great Works of Art. Archaeological Museums produce 1 Great Writer point and 2 Great Artist points per turn. But the slots are for Artifacts, and as long as you have free slots you can produce an Archaeologist to go and dig up artifacts for your museum. The final building you can add to your Theater District is the Broadcast Center. This building produces 1 Great Artist point and 2 Great Musician points per turn, and holds 1 Great Work of Music slot.

Other Science Sources

Certain Civs have unique terrain improvements that add Science. An example is Sumeria, which can build Ziggurats on tiles, and each one adds +2 Science for turn. And some Civs have unique buildings, such as Arabia which has the unique building Madrasa, which replaces the University building and adds 1 additional Science per turn (5 instead of 4). You can get Science from Trade Routes, from relationships with certain City-States, from Research Agreements or Research Alliances with other players, and from certain Wonders. Policy Cards can also add Science per turn. And some Pantheons give you Culture. For a detailed look at this consult the Science page on the Civilization Wiki.

Other Culture Sources

This is pretty similar to Science although you rarely will get Terrain bonuses to Culture. But you do have a building available right away, the Monument. This building does not require any research to be available, you can build it right away. You might want to build a Scout or two first, but then building a Monument gets your Culture going right away. And the reason to do this is that the accumulation of Culture is how you get Policy Cards and more advanced forms of Government, so it should not be something you ignore. Of course, Great Works provide Culture, that is the point of getting them. Each Great Writer, Great Artist, and Great Musician produces a Great Work of the appropriate type. Luxury Resources such as Coffee, Jade, Marble, Silk, and Amber provide additional Culture when you work them in your Empire, so looking for them when you are settling your cities is not a bad idea. Some Pantheons can give you additional Culture, as can certain Policy Cards. Some Wonders and some Natural Wonders offer bonus Culture. Again, there are a lot of details here, so if you want to dive into this in detail the Culture page on the Civilization Wiki.

Science and Culture Boosts

There is a mechanism for getting boosts to specific technologies which we call Eurekas, and a similar mechanism for specific Civics called Inspirations, and they both work in very similar ways. The very beginning technologies do not have these boosts, but they quickly come into play. For example, if you found a city on the Coast, you get a boost to Sailing. And if you kill a unit with a Slinger, you get a boost to Archery. If you want to progress rapidly through the Science tree, you would do well to pay attention to these boosts. You can see these by looking at that Technology that was boosted because each Technology will have a circle next to it to represent progress. As you research the Technology the circle will gradually fill. But if it is boosted, the circle will be partly filled already. And at the bottom of the Rectangle for each Technology you can see if there is a boost available by looking for an arrow that turns up. And if you mouse over that it will tell you what you need to do to get a boost. And if you want to see which Technologies have already been boosted, just open the Tech tree, and you will see some of them have partly filled circles. You may find a several because one the things may Great Scientists do is give you boosts to future technologies.

For Civics, the first one, Code of Laws, does not have an inspiration, but after that if you improve 3 tiles that gives you a boost to Craftsmanship. And discovering a second Continent gives you a boost to Foreign Trade. And there is a similar circle for your progress on researching a Civic, but it is purple instead of blue. But all of the Civics have the same Rectangles and you can see if there is a boost available the same way. And you can see which have been boosted in the same way by opening the Civics tree and looking for Civics where the circle is partially filled. But you are less likely to find future Civics boosted because you don’t get the kinds of boosts that Great Scientists give.

Choosing Your Next Tech Or Civic

Whenever you complete a Tech or a Civic, you will be asked to choose the next one to research. In some cases you may have a long term goal, as we have discussed, and you can open the tree, click on it, and in essence a research queue is set up with the chosen item and all of the prerequisites selected, and they will be researched in the correct order. But when you don’t have a long range objective, you still need to choose. For Techs, you will see icons that tell you what you can do with this Tech. Just mouse over the icons, and you might see that you would unlock the ability to build a certain Wonder, or perhaps build a building, or maybe some more advanced units. For example, the tech of Celestial Navigation unlocks the Ability to build the Harbor District, and the ability to build a Lighthouse. It also unlocks the ability to build the Wonder The Great Lighthouse. And as we saw earlier, once you have a Harbor and a Lighthouse you can add a Trade Route, as long as you haven’t build a Commercial Hub in the city. And if you want to get a boost, you need to improve two sea resources. So if you haven’t already improved two sea resources, you might want to send a Builder unit to do that before you start researching Celestial Navigation.

Civics are again pretty similar, but the benefits to each one are different . First, you will see that researching this Civic gives you some additional Policy Cards, and can tell which ones by mousing over the icons. Then you might find that a Wonder has been unlocked, or a certain building. You might get policy abilities, like being able to enforce your borders and grant Open Borders to another player in your diplomacy. Two things you might want to pay particular attention to are gaining Envoys to City-States, and gaining Governor Titles. Envoys matter because that is how you build your relationship with City-States. If you have more envoys with a given City-State than any other player, you will be the Suzerain of that City-State. And even if you aren’t the Suzerain, having a certain number of Envoys can give you bonuses, such as added Science or Culture. And Governor Titles allow you to recruit Governors, or to give a promotion to one you have already recruited. We’ll discuss these things in more detail later, but they should be a factor in your decision as to what to research on the Civics tree.