Guide: Tips and buildings requirements list to research faster

I’m about to reach the apocalypse and since I did everything I wanted I will make another hero only once space age and/or science victory is released. I guess a lot of people are not really interested about it since they struggle to even reach industrial age, this is why I made this guide to help them to reach last age by quickly being able to research 1 tech per day:
- First, do NOT make more than 4 towns (by the way I think this tip should be on a stone in gypsy tabor, but in fact I think tips in this location come way too late for beginners), because of corruption 5 towns or more is worse whatever you will do (not even counting the time needed for the new town to catch up by building harvesters and science building to the max), here is why:
Let's say you have the 6 science perks and a courthouse 9 in each town, then with 4 towns your research speed is 0.8*0.89*1.3 + 0.8*0.89*3 = 3.0616 times what you would have with a single town without perks.
Now with 5 towns it is 0.7*0.79*1.3 + 0.7*0.79*4 = 2.9309
Difference isn't big but as I said it would take weeks for the last town to even catch up. You will still be able to build new towns once you researched all you need.
- Take the 6 science perks (+ the 6 other ones when they won't show "not working") and leave you hero out of shelter, he can fish/dig though (maybe the 6 other perks won't work in that case given their description).
- If you have an analytical engine, you may think it's better to keep it for a late tech so it replace a maximum number of points, but personally I think that later techs can be researched in 1 day while the mission tech takes 3 or 4 and getting it sooner allows you to be helped by an alliance through levy.
- You may want to make a petroglyph 9 per town and not make any task before they are level 9. You may even want to make at least one level 10 if you don't mind using a blueprint, it's especially good with the hero perks boosting it by 30%.
- Keep microscopes and +25% books for when you have a research that finish slightly after you have to sleep so you don't lose hours (but first check if you can research something else instead that won't cause this issue). If you don't have items, at least you can reduce the % of science so you get more resources the next day.
- upgrading resources generators buildings is needed to increase science but the priority is to upgrade the science building as 1 level of it is almost like 1 level of every resources buildings, so unless it's 18 times longer it should be done first.
- There is a case where you can upgrade a lot of harvesters levels in a single night: when you made a new town, upgrade just a few levels the harvesters that you haven't unlocked the classical version yet, then when you unlocked it, before you sleep use the big arrow to upgrade it to level 10 (upgrade storages enough to do this first). To make it even better you can use a patton hammer to upgrade another one, together they will take 10 to 13 hours to upgrade, it's the most efficient way I found to use patton hammers.
- When you just unlocked an expensive requirement to add more research % like embassy, don't start building them in all towns at the same time: instead of having at least one town with a level 5 embassy which allows you to upgrade the science building right now you will run out of resources with like 4 level 3 embassies which won't do anything.
- If you don't mind loosing collectivism protection and built towns as close as possible, switching to monarchy with something like 6 towns should allow you to research 2 techs per day.
- Research techs in the right order, here is the list of building requirements for the science building:
4% hut 5
6 obs 5
8 stash 5 which require storages level 6 and market 5
10 altar 5. You need to have the stone storage level 8 to have enough stones to upgrade the science building
11 house 5
14 consulate 5 which require residence 5 and building pantry since it costs 6000 stones so research and build this first
16 blacksmith 5 which need garrison 2
18 tavern 5 which need 6666 food and 3333 iron
20 colosseum 5 which need temple 5 (it's less expensive to destroy altar and build temple 5 than promoting it (and it saves a blueprint), though you may want to promote at least 1 if you want to reach level 50 and even promote others if you want to make catacombs. Don't forget to destroy altars BEFORE temple is researched or you will lose time, same applies for diplomatic corps later)
21 cottage 5
24 church 5 which need town hall 5
26 embassy 5
28 opera 5
30 courthouse 5 but since it reduces corruption you may want to upgrade it to level 9 which require 9700 food so prepare a lot of food before unlocking it especially since food is the hardest resource to buy on the market. I didn't do the math but actually courthouse is that good that it might be better to unlock it before embassy. If you have extra blueprints, use it on this.
31 diplomatic corps 5 which need palace 5 (I did the math, just like altars it costs less to downgrade embassies so unless you are leader of an alliance that you want very big don't even promote one)
34 bank 5
36 conservatoire 5
38 fountain 5
not % but if you want to make museum you may want to research it before hospital
40 hospital 5 which need food stock 5 and infantry corps 5
41 apartments 5
44 delivery service 5
not % but even better: observatory which need science building at 45%
46 vault 5 which need all industrial storages including oil to level 6
48 radio tower 5 which need runway 8
50 legation 5 which need capitol 5
51 skyscraper 5 which need administration building at least level 1
54 accumulator batteries 5 which need thermal station 2 and 86490 electricity
56 logistics center 5
58 league of nations 5 which need administration building 5
not % but better: datacenter 9 which need 109490 electricity, research lab 4 and science building at 44%
60 subway 5 which need steelworks 10 and service garage 10 which need stone building 10

Thanks, Goz.  The list of building requirements was very helpful as it's something we tend to forget.  I would add that I use the analytical engine to instantly complete the tech for the library and/or seminary (depending on the number I have) because those are very time consuming and you need the higher level science building to speed things up.  

I have to say I did not think of limiting my number of towns.  Thanks for the analysis!

This is a helpful post especially for new players and just as a reference for those of us that forget all the requirements. Thank you.

The only thing I would add to it really is the building speed and building as many huts to level 5 as early as possible to reduce building speed corruption.

Thank you, Gozni, For me who tends to like building way too many towns, I'm off to the wrong start already and about 100 days old. Is it too late to take down 5th town? Still at medieval stage . What are the 6 science perks? I probably should know but .. I printed this out for my  next hero. .hopeful to see these results. That would be awesome!  I'm guessing the 5's are the levels to go to, right?

100 days just in medieval age and with a 5th town, it's indeed really unlikely you will reach information age even if you destroy the last town, actually destroying slowly each harvesters and science building even after everything else is destroyed would take some time and during this time your science would be slowed down so unless you have a lot of wrath of kotygoroshko or can promote them to level 1 so you can destroy them quickly it seems better to keep it.
The perks: it has been reported already that some people have no clue about perks/points simply because it's not in the tutorial anywhere: open you hero page where you can switch equipments, on the right you should see "stat up", click on this, add 10 intelect points and in the intelect perks tab in the next page select the 6 perks that add 5% science income.
The "5" are indeed the level that the building shall have.

Thanks, I did see there are 6 levels to the science perk. Will be ready for next hero, though, with this guide.

Looks like I can't edit so I add it there: especially for 46%, don't forget that a storage need the harvesters of its age of what it can store to level 2. I personnaly had this issue when I tried to build innovation studio which required construction stock.

I want to say that after all this time I still didn't find any replacement for tt2, I tried civilization games since they are the main inspiration of tt2 but freeciv is very far from perfect and civilization 6 is a complete joke, so I'm really waiting for space age and/or science victory to be released to come back to tt2, even if like for info age everything is not released at first (like the aircraft-carrier).

Thank you, it's a pleasure to hear that, but I can't tell Space Age will be released soon, majority of people are not even reaching info age, so we decided to focus on more quest locations for now. It would be neat to have Science Victory, though.

Most of us do not reach Info age because we do not have enough time. Still think the 150 days per session needs be adjusted.

I want to add one more thing to gozni's list. Go Monster hunting! Monsters give good research points, unless something has changed, make sure to do dens and caves etc looking for monsters.

https://imgur.com/CURtWCJ   A picture guide, of prerequisites, I made for my gang, No info age or advice.

I want to say that after all this time I still didn't find any replacement for tt2, I tried civilization games since they are the main inspiration of tt2 but freeciv is very far from perfect and civilization 6 is a complete joke, so I'm really waiting for space age and/or science victory to be released to come back to tt2, even if like for info age everything is not released at first (like the aircraft-carrier).

Thank you, it's a pleasure to hear that, but I can't tell Space Age will be released soon, majority of people are not even reaching info age, so we decided to focus on more quest locations for now. It would be neat to have Science Victory, though.

Yep I agree with a new Victory Ber's, the war one is the one I have never done, not sure I want to.  

I'm curious about another thing that improves science and I'd like to know how efficient it is from people who did/will try it (for those who would do it only with a new hero I don't mind waiting 5/10 months for feedback):

You can craft encyclopedias with the innovation studios. You need it level 10, not 9, because the extra length it takes to craft an encyclopedia would be that long that even taking a week to craft a blueprint with the studio itself to make it level 10 is better. This way, the first week you loose 15% resources, thus 15% science too, but starting next week you gain 25% science while loosing 15% resources(for the next encyclopedia), thus gaining 6,25% science, which breaks even the first week loss in 2.4 weeks (3.4 if you count the first week but don't forget that once the studio is obsolete, you get for one week the full 25% bonus with no more 15% taxes).

This is what I wonder about: do those 6.25% allow you to research one more tech per day instead of being unlocked like 1 hour after you went to sleep, or did you not only not need that but you lost like 7 techs the first week ?

even taking a week to craft a blueprint with the studio itself to make it level 10 is better.

I think I simply forgot that the blueprint ALSO does cost 15% for a week(if you make it with a studio already level 10, otherwise it's even a bit longer) and since this also needs to be counter balanced it might actually take too long to break even, I will check that tomorrow. I also checked other items of the studio, mainly the 3 ones that instantly give research points, and, I will study it more and explain why tomorrow, it really seems like the arithmometer have no way to break even because of its 3 weeks/20% cost, that its only purpose would be for people going on vacancy for a while so more like that it's not balanced at all. Even if at first sight it's more profitable than the sextant/microscope in term of points given per resources used, it seems like a microscope has actually more chances of being useful in theory, if not then all 3 are useless by costing more science (and even resources) than what they reward.

Never mind, it just takes longer to break even but a level 10 studio is still better, and about arithmometers, they can be used for their whole 100 000 000 only for late info age techs but even sextants are less good than encyclopedias, which is normal since they don't require a high level studio.
Anyway, here is another tip: in industrial age, people may wonder in which order it's the best to upgrade school, old harvesters and the new oil harvesters if you only care about science income, I studied that years ago and if I read my notes correctly, you shall upgrade oil harversters to level 10 then upgrade the other ones to level 8 before upgrading the school. Or maybe this is true only once school reached a precise level I don't remember.

I forgot something important in the list: except in stone age, each house level 2 require the residence level 1. Usually it doesn't matter but it's important to know for classical age.