I have never made a research agreement with a computer player (playing on King level) in which the computer player did not declare war on me before the agreement was completed, thereby canceling the agreement. I have never actually experienced a research agreement completion in all my time played.
I have 270 hours played of civ5, most from pre-patch, and about 50 post-patch. Am I just unlucky, or does signing a research agreement actually increase hostility with the agreeing civ? I am at the point now where I will not sign research agreements with anyone, unless I want to be at war with them.
I’ve had several run their course. This was a few patches ago when it gave each civ a whole free tech of their choice (I think they’ve nerfed it since). If you ever find yourself with a healthy cash flow during a peaceful build phase, trying signing research agreements with everyone. It’s ridiculous; your rate of advancement doubles or triples.
Bear in mind that I haven’t played much since the last few patches. Could be the AI became even crazier in that time.
I’d say 90% of mine run to completion. That’s quite remarkable. I usually only end up in wars with countries who have some territorial reason to attack me.
Most of mine complete also. Don’t do an R/A with a Civ that’s close to you. That’s just throwing money away. Also, once a Civ declares war on you… you probably don’t want to sign an agreement with them because they’ll probably declare again (and again and again).
I think that’s my problem. I usually play on smaller maps, and most of my rivals are close to me. I tend to ignore civs further away, which is probably why I never have successful research agreements. No matter what win condition I try originally, I end up going for domination because they just won’t stop coming for me.
I love research agreements. I’m on a Mac so RA hasn’t been changed yet though. I’ve only had one or two agreements killed by a war. It doesn’t really bother me since it hurts the other player too.
I love research agreements so much that I’ll give gold to a weaker player to make an RA if they don’t have enough cash.
I haven’t had many wars lately either. Maybe you need to build a bigger army to make yourself less enticing? I find that if I keep a decent army, the AI is less likely to declare war on me. If I want the AI to declare war on me, I reduce my army and stockpile gold so that I can create an army/upgrade quickly when a war happens.