The vagaries of research

I'm on holiday, and one of the things I do on holiday is think about the game :D I'm going to regret my next turn fees as I have come up with all sorts of clever ways to mess up my position.

I'm more than a bit baffled by research times. Some things that you'd think would be really hard you can knock out quickly. Some things that seem like they ought to be straightforward apparently are very complicated.

Case in point, I've been researching unified law code in game 8 (which seems to have very accelerated research, I have 81 research advances so far).

You'd think that cutting and pasting a unified law code together wouldn't be that huge, but we're at more than 5 years of research time and still going. I hadn't thought it was that big a deal, but apparently it is far more complex than a bunch of the other things I've tried to research!

Have you all had any real oddballs that surprised you that they were really quick, or really long?

80 is very impressive. I have developed about 50 and was quite satisfied with that. Will have to work harder it seems. But at least we have unified law. The textile machines was surprisingly easy but we have researched others for years without success.

The insanely good economy of game 8 makes owning a bazillion academies doable. Doesn't help my turn costs though!

That is true, it is the only game I am in where money is not an issue at all. Built a quite a few new Academies after I received the Miscellany.

All the research thing is quite new to me.

I can see that mining advancements are quite easy to obtain, but a thing like “the unified code law” sounds like a majestic work.

How do you plan your research? It’s just casual or do you have some guidelines?

Most of the research advances are detailed in the various supplements which is where I mostly figured out what I wanted to research.

I've also researched in-period science advances to add to those, some of which I'm sure have little if any real in-game impact.

For game 8, from the beginning I visualized my king as being an early enlightment guy, with a huge interest in science, so I've just played that out by researching pretty much everything.

For most people, I think it would pay to be a lot more focused on what you want, and why you want it. It takes a huge position in a game with a smoking hot economy for you to be able to throw money at pretty much every form of research you might be interested in.

Certainly in game 10 where I play a much smaller position, my research goals have been super modest.

Ref R & D acadamies some places and positions seem to have a built in advantage over other places.

England, UDP & Italy seem to be generally good places to have a academy while it seems to help if your academy is specific and in a area linked to the trade in question.

So you want a Naval Academy in Genoa or Portsmouth rather than in Siberia or the middle of Anatolia.  While a Spanish mining academy high up in the Andes and linked to the mines may do OK.

If you are thinking about a standard Law Code I think it helps to have a large well considered University like Oxford or Paris with a legal department which can draw up the code.  You then need a printing press to distribute copies and have lots of lawyers/Judges trained in the new code to enforce it.

In G7 Spain since its not run by Bourbon Despots has respected local criminal codes but the legal department of the University of Padua was able to draw up a code of commercial law in a couple of years.

Some positions can just introduce a new law code on a whim but others really need to get the agreement of their Parliaments etc before its introduced.