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I formed a research agreement with an AI in Civ 5, and when it was about halfway done he attacked me. Is that money just gone for both of us, or can we resume it somehow once I've taught him a lesson?

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Investments into Research Agreements, if broken, are lost. This is why you should never go to war with your research partners if you can help it -- since you both lose.

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The money you each put into the agreement is lost. This is not necessarily a bad thing - if you can trick someone into a research agreement before going to war, they will lose that money, which they could have used on defending themselves.

According to Wikipedia, the higher-level computer opponents will sometimes use this strategy.

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  • I had a research agreement get broken from me starting an attach, but got the "free" tech anyway. I think I was only a few turns from the end of it.
    – Dave
    Commented Sep 24, 2010 at 16:50
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    @Dave it was a bug in the first (unpatched) version of the game, it's fixed now.
    – Oak
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 15:02
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    I just Googled "Research Agreement" "War" and this was the first post that came up. This was my first ever game and Montezuma tricked me into spending all my gold to form a research agreement when he had 5 spearman directly outside my capital. I had no option but to accept incase it annoyed him. Two turns after he decalred war. And all the gold was gone. I then couldn't fast build a horseman to defend and lost. This was on easy difficulty so I can confirm this tactic isn't even used on higher difficulty games. It was my first time playing.
    – Layke
    Commented Sep 10, 2011 at 13:56
  • @BlueRaja, Don't use a research agreement if you are going to break it. Offer the opponent GPT and goods for his treasury gold. The GPT and goods will be returned once you declare war. You'll be at least 500 richer instead of 500 poorer.
    – Joshua Shane Liberman
    Commented Jan 29, 2013 at 17:16
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GPT as BlueRaja mentioned is a good exploit for sure. Open borders also is a good trade or pretty much anything that pays out over multiple turns including your excess strategic resources. You'd think it would be a horrible idea to arm the enemy at your gates but once they declare war on you 1 of 2 things will happen:

Let's say you trade iron for gold to Montezuma just before he declares war on you... 1) He already had more reserve iron than swordsman/catapults/etc. on the field, meaning the excess iron you gave him provided no benefit, but he has now financed your defenses/fun budget. 2) Montezuma was actually able to increase his max number of (iron) units via the trade, but now that your supply of iron is cut off Montezuma will have a shortage of iron resulting in all of his swordsmen/catapults/etc. receiving a combat penalty until he is able to get back in the black. Also, he has now financed your defenses/fun budget.

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    This is a good discussion of trading, but what does it have to do with research agreements, as asked in the original question? (Each answer here should directly address the question. Welcome to Arquade, and check out the faq.)
    – PotatoEngineer
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 15:57

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