A real reason why tech race looks like me vs World

[Hurricane]

Could you post a saved game for the Theory of Gravity deal?

Already did.

[solo]

Many thanks, Soren, for looking at the save. I overlooked the possibility of a per/turn deal expiring that turn, and this certainly explains what happened.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
There already is a floor for tech devaluation. It is (1 / number of active civs). However, we are considering raising it...

YESSSS!!!!

Ahem ... good idea. Anything between 25% and 50% will do. And please make it so that the actual tech cost is not dependend on the no. of active civs, but only on the no. of known civs that already have the tech. I don't like the idea that civ A destroying civ B can result in civ C suddenly discovering a tech.

BTW, the following rule would help even more: When civ A is the first to discover a tech that civ B is also researching, civ B's research costs are only lowered for the part that hasn't been done yet.

Edit: Obviously player1 suggested this rule before me.

[Hurricane]

I agree with lockstep. The easiest and probably the most stable way to decrease the AI trading would be to limit the tech devaluation, perhaps to 50%.

Also, I think tech costs should be recalculated only at the beginning of a new turn. Now, the last civ in the turn will get benefits from the others´ research and trading. Also, you always have to remember to sell a tech first to the richest civ in order to maximise your profits. This is neither realistic nor intuitive, and easily creates confusion among beginners.

A more elegant solution would be to make the devaluation grow only slowly, over a number of turns. Now you can save lots of money by waiting one round before buying a tech so that all AI players can get it first (and then pay the minimum price one round later). If the discount would compound something like 5% per round it would take 10 rounds before you´d get a 50% discount.

[Blaupanzer]

Very interested in that 1 gold for a tech request. I've not seen that from the AI in any of my games. I have had them offer 1 gold. I took this to be either an intended insult, an indication of lack of money, a sign they are studying the tech and are close, or an expression of their power/culture -- anticipating that they think they could just demand it, so why pay a lot. Asking for only one gold makes little sense. Even 1/16 of a tech cost is more than a dollar, especially when it comes to non-ancient techs.

[Arrian]

Soren,

I'm glad you are looking at raising the floor for tech devaluation.

1/number of active civs, huh? Interesting. Very interesting. Sort of a reverse effect... as civs die out, and they usually do, the floor gets higher, and the techs cost more. Then again, the surviving will also be larger/richer, and thus able to keep up. EDIT: Actually, I only looked at this from one angle. There is another, which I've brought up before, but should have also mentioned here. As civs die out, the tech devalues quicker. 1/6 is larger than 1/8. Thus, although the floor is higher, the cost of a tech also falls faster.

I would argue for a constant percentage, rather than a fraction based upon the number of existing civilizations. Just my two cents.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Soren,

To add to other, this is great that this major annoyance with 1.17 will be fixed. I have enjoyed original and 1.16 but not 1.17 primarily because of the tech devalution.

Ideas others have suggested that make sense:

1. Devaluation at end of turn
This is better than having the value changing many times during the current turn

2. Devaluation floor
Limit maximum devalution to
30% current era
40% previous era
50% post previous era
60% ancient


3. Limit Devaluation to fixed percentage
There should not be a penalty for playing with less than 16 players. Tech discovery devaluation should be fixed.

4. How about showing techs known
It would be a great addition to have a screen that shows
a. Techs known by all civs
b. Techs known by some civs
{list of techs and # of civs know}


Again thank you for fixing this problem. We need a fun game again.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by planetfall
2. Devaluation floor
Limit maximum devalution to
30% current era
40% previous era
50% post previous era
60% ancient

Great idea! Firaxis, please adopt it!

4. How about showing techs known
It would be a great addition to have a screen that shows
a. Techs known by all civs
b. Techs known by some civs
{list of techs and # of civs know}

Also a nice idea. This could be partially implemented with additional colour-coding in the science avisor screen.

[korn469]

has anyone tried this...

this strategy would be most viable on deity where the AI gets significant cuts to its research and with AI tech pooling it is hard to get a tech lead

first thing is don't choose a scientific civ because this would waste their special ability, i suggest using civs that have one of the following traits, commercial, religious, or industrious

you completely skip building all scientific buildings and wonders and concentrate on maximizing your tax output, so the most important buildings are marketplaces and banks along with happiness structures, never put any resources into science output and always run the tax rate as high as possible, then you just trade for your tech, because the only thing that apparently modifies trades at all is your relative culture rates, but even that doesn't modify them that much

if you pursue this strategy you will find that each tech really does have a price, it might be high, but once you get enough gold you can buy any tech (ie the AI will never withhold tech from you if you can pay for it, unlike in SMAC where if there was an unbuilt wonder with that tech the AI would never sell you that tech)

would this strategy allow you to research faster than if you dumped an equal amount of resources into science? it almost seems that way to me

[solo]

korn,

I just tried this in my first OCC game with the 1.17f patch, but I did use a scientific civ for the first free tech into each age. I started the game by building the Great Library, which kept me even until Education. After that, I waited for a few civs to have each tech before trading for it with luxuries, resources, and enough gold to complete deals. I also was able to build Theory of Gravity, and bought some expensive techs, just so mine would be new enough to sell back. I quit awhile into the Modern Age when I noticed that I could not get any aluminum, rubber or uranium, all needed for a ship, but was able to keep even in tech until then.

My game included only 4 civs on a standard map, which might have slowed the overall AI tech rate, however, the strategy did work okay in that game for keeping even.

I also tried another OCC game using the same idea before the patch, but without building the Great Library. I fell well behind in science and remained about 6 techs behind the whole game. However, in this one, all I had to work with in trade was my income. (no luxuries or resources).

Now in any non-OCC game this strategy may really come into its own, since multiple cities multiply potential income and there are opportuntites to control more luxuries and resources. In this type of game, I would try for happiness wonders and also for Adam Smith's, and go for Wall Street after 5 banks are in place. Why not let the AI do the research if they always get to new techs first, and build an economic engine instead? In this scenario, I think I would still go for Theory of Evolution, too.

One note though, before installing 1.17 tech sales always gave me the best income, even with science maxed out. All that gpt from AI purchases of freshly researched techs made a huge difference. It was so much at lower levels it was embarassing, but we got to depend on it too much in deity. Super science made the most out of that opportunity, but now it no longer exists.

solo

[solo]

I'm all for a devaluation floor, too, if Firaxis is counting opinions.

I'm very much for the tech screen idea, too.

I might add that a separate screen reachable in one step, that would show all of my active trade deals (showing turns left for each) would be extremely useful, too. It is quite a cumbersome process to get to this information the way things are now, by contacting each civ.

[Jack_www]

In my current game that I started after installing the new patch I have gotten to the Industrail age around 1000 A.D. I can no longer even maintain the 1 to 2 tech leads I use to have pre 1.17 patch. All though I like that the computer players can keep up with the human or even pass them, techs become too cheap and speard too fast. Once you get cavl. all the other civs get infintry soon after that. I dont mind have civs who can rival me in tech race and can trade techs just as well as the human, but I think that the tech race is going to fast. You can't use any of the units, once you get a lot of them, they are already out of date.

[romelus]

i continued an 1.16 emperor save in the ancient era after i installed 1.17f and have found that researching yourself was no longer a good option, ever. with the money i was raking in and the cheap tech cost, i could buy new techs costing something like 4 x annual income (and old techs for much less), meaning it was equivalent to researching at 100% yourself and getting new techs every 4 turns, and old techs every 1-2 turns (or even less). it's much much better than researching yourself. you no longer have the tech need but if you maximize production you can crush the ai still.

i was also rudely surprised when my 2 despot rush cities created in 1.16 turned completely unhappy, and the unhappiness spread to a neibouring normal city after i disbanded one of the slave camps, rendering the normal city useless too...

[korn469]

i continued an 1.16 emperor save in the ancient era after i installed 1.17f and have found that researching yourself was no longer a good option, ever. with the money i was raking in and the cheap tech cost, i could buy new techs costing something like 4 x annual income (and old techs for much less), meaning it was equivalent to researching at 100% yourself and getting new techs every 4 turns, and old techs every 1-2 turns (or even less). it's much much better than researching yourself.

this is exactly what i found, and that if you know this going into the game and focus all of your infrastructure on generating cash and don't worry about scientific buildings then you can keep up in research and spend far less on each tech

again if soren is counting, i'm for a much lower tech devaluation floor, like at most 20% when the second civ gets the tech

[Arrian]

Soren,

I finally have a saved game for you to look at. Monarch level, large world, 12 civs. I can buy Invention for 1gold. I'm three turns away from researching it myself. Leo's has NOT been built. Call up the English (or any AI, I would think) and see for yourself.

-Arrian

p.s. In other news, I did notice something in this game I've never seen before. The Greeks, after deciding to backstab me while I was dealing death and destruction to Persia, actually showed up with bombard support. Granted, it was just a catapult with a hoplite guarding it, but they actually marched it up to my city and bombarded me (while attacking with other units, of course).

[Sirian]

In prior versions, if you met a civ and neither of you had met anybody else yet, they would trade with you evenly. That is, if you started with Masonry and they started with The Wheel, Masonry is worth slightly more, so they would be happy to trade. Now in 1.17f, this is no longer the case at high difficulty. On top of all their other bonuses, they now treat the player as a pariah, giving him worse deals, while trading amongst one another on even terms.

THIS is the reason why it now feels like Me vs The World.

What makes it playable is the devaluation. The current tech devaluation is SO severe, that the new trade penalty all but vanishes, as paying double for 1/8th cost, being the last of 8 civs to get the tech, is still only 1/4th of the primary cost. (My numbers are just an example and don't match the actual penalties and devalution, but you get the point).

The net result is now that on Emperor and especially Deity, there are two forces pulling at opposite ends: the trade penalty, and the tech devaluation.

I happen to believe that the emtremity of the devaluation is masking the flaws in the trade penalty. Once you are in contact with everybody, it stops mattering any more. BUT... if you are in contact with just one or two other civs, perhaps playing an archipelago map instead of pangaea, the broken nature of the new trade penalty shows through very clearly. In that situation, there is the inescapable sense of unfairness, as the AI's are able to trade freely but they impose the equivalent of oppressive tariffs on any trade they do with the player.

This is a problem! It pigeonholes the strategy into "Make Contact At ALL Costs", because the deciding factor in the game is how many other civs you're in contact with, and that applies to the AI's as well as the player.

I'm afraid the game balance goes out the window. Pangaea becomes simplistic, while anything that prevents you from making contact with lots of civs becomes pointless or frustrating. And yes, I agree with those who are saying this speeds the total pace of the game up too much, at least until Industrial, when wars will plunge most of the civs into the one government sure to sink their economies: Communism.

(Communism is SO WORTHLESS and broken that Anarchy is sometimes a better alternative! Isn't Communism supposed to be more attractive for sprawling empires than other governments? It's not. Here's proof if you want it, complete with save files if you want to compare Communism with Monarchy, 1820AD vs 1830AD. Click Here The problem with Communism is that corruption contines to climb as you add more cities, and that defeats the purpose of spreading the corruption around. The net result is that distant cities are still worthless, while the home cities are also penalized. Under all the other governments, at least the home cities stay strong! In fact, I'd say that Communism's broken state is more responsible even than Railroads for the pathetic performance of AI's post-industrial -- I'm getting off topic, though).

The new Trade Penalty for high difficulties is a step backward. I have found that exploiting the devaluation, and riding the coattails of the AI's until I'm strong enough to make a play, I can cope with it and still do well, even on Deity -- all with no exploit play.

BUT... that just shows up another problem. The devaluation is too strong, also. It renders the tech race nearly moot. Keeping a tech lead is too hard, and recovering from a tech hole is too easy. In 1.07, there was no point bothering with research in the early game, just buy everything. 1.16 fixed that, but now it's back to being broken again, as the best move is to ignore research, wait until you make contact with everyone, then buy yourself into tech parity on the ultracheap. Doing your own research IS A LOSING MOVE and this has to be considered broken.

If you research while isolated, you may need to do some research to have things to keep building. Need harbors, libraries, courthouses, maybe aqueducts. If you have nothing to do, that's more wasteful than doing research. BUT... short of that, doing your own research is foolish for this reason: tech devaluates, but coin does not. The wise player then saves everything into coin that he possibly can, then uses it to buy into tech parity. Any surplus can be used to rushbuy improvements or upgrade troops. The game is playable this way, but this can't be how it was meant to be!

I'm of the opinion that tech devaluation itself is a flawed concept, precisely because of that factor that research devalues in the game but coin does not. In REAL life, both devaluate. Obsolete tech becomes cheaper and readily available, but inflation also eats into savings, reducing the value of coin in a similar way. Civ3 doesn't account for this, which is why it has become a tech-whoring game end to end, in various ways. Human players are smart and will find all the loopholes for "storing" their economic gains in the areas where they won't be devalued as much.

Soren, if you ever want to tech whoring to stop, you will have to discard or at least dramatically change the tech devaluation system. It seems to me that immediate devaluation is a problem. In real life, obsolete tech only devaluates when the tech leader is several advances ahead. That is to say, a software company (for example) has no problem releasing source code to a program from five years ago, but NO WAY would they release it instantly just because a few rivals have developed similar programs. Do you follow that analogy in pertaining to the flaws in the instant devalution of Civ III techs?

I know it's not that simple, as the tech devaluation leads players to earn less from brokering techs to everybody. But there is also a flaw in the 100% willingness of the AI's to make trades. The AI will never turn down a trade if the buyer can pay their asking price. (Well, except if at war). They will never refuse to buy from the player, no matter how slimy his reputation gets. They never ever withold techs when in the tech lead, and it would actually be unwise for them to do so. The very fact that tech devaluates means that it would be foolish to hold on to it (economically). If you're going to sell it, sell it while the price is still high! If you wait, you lose the chance. This is the fault of devaluation. If not for the devaluation, the AI's could afford to turn down deals, try to be stingy with their tech now and then.

My jaw would probably FALL OFF if I saw an AI refusing to trade Music Theory to anybody while they sit and build on their Bach's Cathedral. If players are tech whores, they learned it from the AI, as the AI's will sell anything to anybody at any time, IF the price is right.

Whatever else you may decide, please repeal the Trade Penalty. The game was fun when civs I met (on high difficulty) were willing to deal with me fairly, or maybe with a slight bias. It's enough that they start with free units, have been given discounts on food, shields, and trade, and that the player has some handicaps too. But adding on top of that that the AI's shun the player and rip him off, accepting only 3-for-1 kind of deals in their favor while the Good Ole Boys AI Network trade with each other... is pointless, definitely NOT fun, and drives the player to have to exploit some trick or other, like shutting down all research to avoid any devaluation, poprushing, or city-trading exploits.


- Sirian

[Arrian]

Sirian,

The Trade Penalty of which you speak... I assume it is responsible for what I see every time I start a new game (monarch level):

I'm Egypt. 10 turns or so into the game, I meet another civ. I have Masonry (a valuable wonder tech) and Cem. Burial available for trade. They have 2 other techs. I offer Masonry and Cem. Burial and ask what they will pay, and the response is 10 gold. If I ask for a tech (say, warrior code or bronze working) in exchange for my TWO, they will apparently be insulted.

That is frustrating. It has always been there, but I think 1.17 has made it more pronounced (I think 1.16 would have resulted in a deal for my two techs in exchange for 1 tech + 10 gold, which still indicates a penalty, but not as harsh).

-Arrian

[korn469]

ok i wanted to know more about how the AI values trades, so i did a little bit of testing

first i gave both the romans and the egyptians 10,000 gold, then i gave the egyptians masonary and i made the romans expansionistic and gave them a 50 movement treat all terrain as roads scout

i changed the tech cost of masonary to 10 and the world size tech cost to 100

so here is what the egyptians charged me for masonary

70
130
130
130
140
140

that's chieftan through diety

now i switched so that the romans had masonary and here is what they offered me

20
50
40
40
40
40

again that is cheiftan through diety

i'll will do a few more tests and report back

[Arrian]

korn,

I assume that, for the purposes of this example, you are playing either the Egyptians or Romans, right? And that contact is made in 4000bc due to the 150 moves your scout can make?

-Arrian

[solo]

I find myself agreeing with Sirian's excellent post and also lament the fact that players have to resort to narrow or exploit-oriented strategies at higher levels in order to have successful games.

[korn469]

Arrian

i played as the romans each time, and i made contact in 3950 so both sides would have a city

a little bit of further testing...

i changed the tech cost for masonary to 100 and then the egyptians offered 430 gold for it

i reset masonary to 10 and changed the world size tech cost to 1000 from 100 and they still offered 430 gold for it, so it seems that the uses the multiplied total of tech cost times world size modified by difficulty level and then devaluation to determine the value of the tech it is trading for

[korn469]

ok here are some more tests results

*i set the tech cost on masonry, alphabet, and the wheel to 100, and i then set the world tech cost modifier to 10
*i set the minimum number of turns to discover a tech 1 and the maximum number 100
*i then gave masonry to the egyptians and the greeks
*i then gave alphabet to the egyptians
*i changed the tile bonus so i could allocate up to 20 gold per turn to science
*i changed the starting treasury to 10,000
*i then gave roman uberscouts
*on 3950 i made contact with both the egyptians and the greeks, and i hadn't accumulated any science yet
*i played this on diety

at 2 gold per turn to science
to research masonry would have taken me 33 turns (66 gold)
to research alphabet would have taken me 67 turns (134 gold)
to research the wheel would have taken me 100 turns (200 gold)

at 10 gold per turn to science
to research masonry would have taken me 7 turns (70 gold)
to research alphabet would have taken me 14 turns (140 gold)
to research the wheel would have taken me 20 turns (200 gold)

so this means that the techs actually cost 66, 134, 200 gold

to buy masonry at offered price would have taken me 22 gold
to buy alphabet at offered price would have taken me 80 gold

to buy masonry at lowest negociated price would have taken me 20 gold
to buy alphabet at lowest negociated price would have taken me 73 gold

conclusion:

the AI sells tech too cheap, and that the optimal strategy is to always buy devalued tech

[Sirian]

conclusion:

the AI sells tech too cheap, and that the optimal strategy is to always buy devalued tech

On Deity that holds true. On lower levels, even Emperor, its readily possible to play efficiently enough that in most games, you can reach a point where you outproduce the next best civ by SO much, you can take and hold the tech lead. On Emperor, this often does not happen until Industrial age, when they go to war with one another (sometimes takes a little nudge from you, but usually not) and end up in Communism.

Communism is so broken, that getting the AI's into it is just as much an Always-Winning move as is building markets and banks and not bothering with research while you're trailing in production power. Except for my very first game ever of Civ3, I have yet to lose a game after surviving to the industrial age. Not only is Communism inherently weak economically, but the AI's poprush WAY too much. Way WAY wayyyyyyyyy too much. And why do they have to do this? Because you come close to one of their cities, which is invariably defended by just a couple of units. You don't even have to DO anything, just move a couple of warriors into range of cities and watch them draft or rush, shooting themselves in the foot. Park a few infantry on a hill and watch the AI civ scramble into panic mode. And my goodness, with the new 40 turn penalties, the AI's are now set to permanently cripple their cities at the first sign of any threat. They are damned either way. I've taken over cities that the AI has whipped 30 times, or 30 pop worth of whippings left on the memory. Something is wrong with that.

But... even without Communism, even if they opt to stay in representative governments and you don't conspire to start wars, you can still reach a point of outproducing the AI's anywhere below deity. Once you reach that point, as difficult as it may be, it's a winning move all the way to maintain a tech lead. Even two to four advances ahead can do the trick, as you get your rails online sooner, or you send your cav against muskets, or your tanks against rifles and infantry. At that point you can translate your advantage into more and more advantage.

In that regard, the tech devaluation keeps all the AI's close and prevents the kind of tank vs stone age gap we often saw in Civ1 and Civ2. It prevents the game from becoming a cakewalk once the player gets a production edge. But it also pretty much renders a lot of the game pointless, since the system is SO bent toward maintaining parity and keeping every civ in the game bunched in one clump, techwise, that the course of the gameplay falls into a narrow range. Frankly, it's too predictable. You can glance at a few factors and, within a reasonable margin of error, project the outcomes. The black fog masks some of the flaws in the game. Not knowing where the other civs are, or the exact lay of the land and the resources, is what keeps the game alive for me. If the map were revealed from the start, the ONLY element of the game that introduces significant uncertainty would be gone. There is still a goodly range of things the player can do with the game enforcing such extreme parity onto all the civs, but like the size 7 food preservation or the overriding contentment, the tech devaluation has some flaws that wreck the game balance. So, too, with Communism.

It would be an interesting experiment to remove Communism from the game, and lower the draft penalty down to five or ten turns, and see if the AI's would do better. I'm rather certain they would, and dramatically so. If that's the case, what's the fix? I don't know. Several possibilities. Right now, the bigger your civ gets, the LESS attractive Communism becomes. The whole deal with communistic corruption continuing to grow and grow and grow as you accumulate more cities is the main problem for the human player. The AI's it seems to be that plus that they whip and draft too much.

The AI got some impressive upgrades in the last patch: they now use artillery offensively (still in the pairing approach, an artillery piece and a defender, but it's MUCH better than not using any at all). Their priority on attacking workers is so much improved, it probably doesn't need any further attention. Overall, things are moving in the right direction, but still a few major loopholes left to plug.

Deity as it stands now might be rendered unplayable without the tech-devaluation loophole, but that's a separate problem and should not be the reason for not addressing the loophole presented by tech devaluing improperly relative to coin.


- Sirian

[Arrian]

Hey Soren,

Have you had a chance to look at that saved game?

-Arrian

[Capt Dizle]

Best thread, you folks have it pegged. I ever so much wanted to post here while Ming had me on vacation, but now there is little more to add.

I expect Soren is working on fixing this mess.

[Ribannah]

As far as I can see the best solution would be to delay the tech devaluation, ie make the minimum value dependent on the number of turns passed since the new tech was first discovered (or, even, since it was obtained by a civ you are in contact with). Also, devaluation should indeed happen at the end of (your) turn. This way:
(a) It doesn't matter to which civ you sell a tech first during the same turn;
(b) Techs won't taht easily be (re)sold by the AI to all other civs once one of them has it;
(c) Setting the science rate at zero (until the final burst) is still a viable strategy, but it is risky military-wise and you'll have to plan well ahead to get key wonders and resources;
(d) As a consequence, at higher levels deals with the AI can be less unfair.

I'd say it should take 8 turns before full devaluation can be realized. That is, if you lag behind and want to buy tech as cheaply as in version 1.17, you'll be a couple of techs behind at all times. This will make all the difference.

[KDan]

Just to confirm that spending NO % on tech is a very winning strategy. I started a game in Emperor mode, went into 100% gold mode, and never actually spent a single coin on those light-bulbs. Result? Because of all the trading everyone is fairly peaceful towards me (only had one war to boot the roving English out of my continent), I'm now making about 150 gold a turn, I am always 1 or 2 techs behind the tech leader, but no more, as even when they ask for ridiculous price I can buy it and make back some of it with the other civs usually (eg Buy Democracy for 1000 gold or so and sell it back for about 300-500 gold to other civs). The only times when I can't make it back is when everyone already knows it - and when that happens, well the tech is damn cheap so it doesn't really matter.

So yeah... 0% research is definitely a winning strategy at the moment.

Daniel

[KDan]

Btw, I'd just like to say that in my opinion the whole tech system is flawed from the start. I would remove tech devaluation completely and introduce tech leaking, which is much more realistic. Tech leaking should mean that every turn, you have a small chance of gaining each of the technologies which the people you are in contact with own (and they have a chance of gaining yours). How so? Simply through people travelling around, passing the word, etc. The chance would increase as the tech gets older (and it should become somewhat cheaper to trade for, too, but still not that cheap). But actually buying the tech should still cost bucketloads - so if you want to do no research, you're gonna be either poor or very patient.

How is this better? Well, it's more realistic for a start. That's the main way technologies (at least until various agencies appeared to keep secret techs secret - perhaps introducing a small wonder that allows you to keep X of your techs totally secret would be a good idea). How did the printing press spread? No one went and bought it from Gutemberg's country. People heard of the idea, travelled, then other people tried to do it too and some succeeded and some failed. The same goes for most of the techs in the tree. And academic subjects like Atomic Theory tend to be developed by researchers who publish/share everything the minute they discover it. And it's that way today still, for the majority of research (exception made for government/army sponsored secret research, which should definitely be allowed but not the only way of doing research).

The only time when leaking doesn't happen that much is:
1) when you're at war - but even then some techs leak as you capture/examine/reproduce your opponents' artifacts.
2) once copyrights and patents get invented and implemented in a super-restrictive way. This could be the object of a great wonder, which would make leaking of technologies to everyone instantaneous but make everyone have to pay you for the privilege of using tech you've developed - unless they're at war with you. Maybe it could work that way for everyone, but give more money to the civ with the Patent Agency
3) When researched and kept in a secret lab (small wonder?).

That's all. Hope something like this gets implemented sometime... if not in civ3 then in the next civ. But seriously, game mechanics are important, and must be balanced, but the tech devaluation trick is cheap and very unrealistic.

Daniel

[Hurricane]

I´m pretty sure everyone would hate your system, KDan. People are already complaining over unlucky combat results - how do you think people would react if they notice that the neighboring civ gets a vital advancement leaked to it 20 turns before the human player? Almost everyone wants a game with a clear, fixed, intuitive set of rules. Your idea is mostly the opposite.

[KDan]

As I said, I've been playing this game with no tech development, emperor diff. I get all my tech after most of the AI (cause that's when it's cheap). Apart from wonder-building, the only time when you could feel bad enough about a tech to call it 'vital' is when you're at war and you need the tech edge, or when you want to build a wonder. If you wanna fight people and/or build wonders, tough luck. Do your own research. Plus, assuming my idea of a 'top secret labs' small wonder, if you really want to you can keep some of your research secret in the later eras when it really matters, and so can the AI's, if they consider that it really matters. So there will only be 'vital' tech leaking in the ancient and medieval ages, mostly.

By the way, now that you mention this vital tech thing, I'd like to point out something which has always bothered me about the civ games. Namely the way that getting into a war actually slows down your economy and your tech research because you have to divert resources to build/upgrade units. That is the most unrealistic aspect of Civ (all versions). In reality, war is extremely good for both business and research. And that's not counting stuff gleaned from the enemy towns (which always seems to be pathetic now, since there's no techs in cities in civ3 and who gives a damn about receiving two gold after capturing another civ's capital!).

War is good for business. It massages the economy like nothing else does. Why do you think the US economy is picking up again? Because Bush got the army budget increased by a nice lump. And war is good for research. Research was buzzing like mad everywhere during WW2. Some even say that it was research that won the war rather than plain troops. And that was while all these countries were building fleets, tanks, rifles, training soldiers, spending all kinds of money that could probably not have been better spent elsewhere if they wanted mroe research to go on...

So second idea - I reckon that war should boost your commerce by some margin - like about 10%. Or maybe not war - mobilization. It should boost not only your production, but also your trade so that you research stuff more quickly. Why? Because that's the way it is out there...

Daniel