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I was conquered by the AI. It had cruisers and destroyers. I had not discovered gunpowder yet. The size of my country was big enough (14 cities). How to boost scientific researches?

Well, just to check:

• Have you, at certain point, turned tax slider to at least 60% Science?
• Was at that point there enough Libraries in your city with considerable Trade output?
• Have you switched from the starting high corruption government?
• Haven't you missed the caravans' opportunities?
• And, last but not least, were your 14 cities at least size 12 at the end (you shuld have used rapture period, if enabled by your ruleset, or build some Granaries where necessary)?

I had not built caravans.
And I had a lot of money, I could change tax rate.
Thanks for advice.

Starting on the same continent with AI I found that in the beginning AI has more cities. How many settlers has AI at the normal difficulty, classic ruleset?

No one answers. How many settlers has AI in the beginning at the normal difficulty and the classic rule set?

Mahler wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:29 pm No one answers. How many settlers has AI in the beginning at the normal difficulty and the classic rule set?

AI has the same units as you (2 settlers by default in Classic, if I remember right). In Freeciv, all difficulcy levels below "Cheating" differ only in the probability to make more stupid decisions in some special places of the AI code; "Cheating" AI has some bonuses during the game (see default/ai_effects.ruleset file in your Freeciv data dir) but not unit number. Actually, rapid AI starting boost goes just from its strategy: it, usually, puts a city on any suitable place on its island starting from the best ones. That may be very effective at the start (especially in Classic when settlers cost 1 pop, so a city=+1 worked tile) but backfires later when cities have no place to grow so their buildings are used ineffectively, and empire size effects stack. Actually, a rule of thumb is that you should have within city radii 70% of your starting island/free land before you build anything except settlers, but this may vary due to your preferred strategy and ruleset.

Is it profitable to build the city on a resource? Or resource disappears in this case?

On or adjacent to resources is good. They give tile bonuses. Different bonus by resource.

Mahler wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:28 pmIs it profitable to build the city on a resource? Or resource disappears in this case?

Resource remains.

Resources increase output of the tile. You usually want good output from a city center tile as that's the one tile you are always working (can't move worker from that tile to a better one)

I have started new game placing cities on resources. It is really useful, I am not behind the AI in technology.

Placing cities only on special resources restrains you way too much, so it most certainly isn't efficient. Most of my experience comes from my own ruleset, with quite some changes compared to the classic ruleset. To compete with the AI, the main focus has to be research. The best way to increase that very early on is expanding as quickly as possible, by building nothing but settlers. The AI will still outpace you at first, so it likely will reach Gunpowder before you, but after that point, that tables turn, if you maximized your research and keep avoiding military conflict if possible.