Buildings

Madrasa

The Madrasa raises your Science Point gain through the city it stands in: as long as the city is not in revolt, it adds 0.8 points at the start of every turn (Research and the tech tree).

Its effects

• +0.8 science points per turn

The contribution is at the player level: the points are written to your science balance, not to the city's queue, the production pool or the draw cap (The production queue). The Madrasa gives a city no production speed; it raises your speed of progress through the tree.

The details of the rule:

• It is read from the state at the start of the turn. A Madrasa you complete this turn is counted for the first time at the start of the next turn; it is the same rule as for income.
• The Madrasa of a city in revolt does not count. If a city you took over through a capital's fall has a Madrasa, it brings no points until the revolt ends (Victory conditions). A Madrasa in a city you took in direct battle, on the other hand, is not in revolt and counts from the start of the next turn.
• A city builds each building once, so the Madrasa share is at most the number of your cities not in revolt. Every Madrasa holds a building slot (The production queue).

What it's for

Research and the tech tree costs rise with tier and are paid in science points. The per-city share is small; the Madrasa adds a separate gain per Madrasa on top of that share and is the real lever for progress through the tree. Because the gain grows linearly with the number of cities and Madrasas, the more cities you build a Madrasa in, the faster points build up.

When to build it

• When you want to speed up progress through the tree — the Madrasa's return goes to your science balance, not to the city it is built in, so what matters is less which city you build it in than how many cities you build it in and that those cities are not in revolt.
• When approaching the doctrine (tier 4) or mastery (tier 5) node: high-tier prices ask for more points.
• In an interior city, not a border city at risk of revolt: a Madrasa in revolt brings no points.

The opposing AI builds the Madrasa once its city quota is full and no enemy is near (The AI opponent).

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.