In a previous thread, I did an exercise on how to optimize a Q10 planet for research. You can find that thread here: https://forums.galciv3.com/464985/page/1/#3547506

The quick summary: The planet was optimized over 75 turns by first building an Entertainment Building, followed by all labs. The slider was adjusted to all social until every building was built, and then set to 100% research. For those who haven't seen the exercise, that's right, no factories and no farms was actually more optimal.

The results were:

50 turns - 1,643 cumulative research
75 turns - 3,184 cumulative research

So now I want to take that same planet, and see how various tech choices optimize the results. Specifically, how do various tech specializations compare.

10% research vs -10% research cost.

If we just add in 10% more research we get:

50 - 1,678
75 - 3,251

Now compared to a -10% research cost (meaning research labs are now 23 manu instead of 30).

50 - 1,900 (13.2% better)
75 - 3,440 (5.8% better)

Summary: -10% cost is the winner!!!

The results make sense, but I was actually surprised that the -10% cost was still a better choice even over a 75 turn span. Getting those labs quicker makes a big difference. Now at some point, the 10% more research will win out. When does that occur?

If I continue to stretch the turns out, it "turns out" (pun!) to be a very long time. Even at 355 turns (when many games are long over), the -10% cost still has a 1% cumulative gain.

I will do a few more of these in the future, but we will leave this one for debate to start.