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Old March 16, 2002, 09:05   #61
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Oh, and by the way
If another civ gets that tech leaked to it, it also increases the chance of you getting that tech leaked to you - assuming you're in contact with both civs.

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Old March 16, 2002, 12:41   #62
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AI civs too unwilly/avaricious in tech trading
I fully agree on all comments concerning tech devaluation and tech whoring already mentioned. The fun about civ games is about evolving throughout different eras and having different options to proceed.
Right now basically everyone agrees on not/exceptionally researching himself in ancient and medieval era, but buying -or better conquering instead.
Later on, if you did a good job improving your cities, in industrial and modern era human players can catch up on the AI and (fairly easily) build up a tech lead of let's say 2 advances.

Reading all other posts it occurs to me that most other gamers don't talk about one of my too frequent experiences:
you guys talk about buying the techs from other civs is fairly easy; but to 90% of my experiences AI civs, during ancient and medieval eras, take a huge tech lead on me (playing emperor, standard map, 8 civs). Those civs usually refuse to trade with me, as I'm running far behind in techs.

Having luxuries or resources generally helps, but man, if AI civs have a big tech lead on me, they are so so so damn avaricious toward me. Heck, I usually will have to wage war to get my techs.

Contrary, AI civs that have been eras behind, can catch up completely in one turn !

Crazy, isn't it?

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Old March 16, 2002, 13:22   #63
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Just trade money rather than techs and you can catch up in one turn. This means that if you find that you are falling far behind in the tech race (eg because you haven't contacted anyone yet, or eliminated everyone you contacted), you should switch your entire trade output to $$$ and concentrate on making cash. Then when you get contact with someone who's got lots of techs most of them will be very cheap and you can trade most or all of their techs in one turn for a lump of money (which will probably be all that you own, but it's totally worth it since that is the sole reason why you decided to make money in the first place!)

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Old March 18, 2002, 10:44   #64
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I go with an in-between approach. I focus on my overall economy - I run up the Education -> Astronomy -> Banking -> Economics line in the Middle Ages, while building Universities, Banks, Copernicus & Adam Smith's as fast as I can. I always try to maintain a treasury of 1000+ gold, particularly once I have Wall Street, as that gets you the maximum interest (50/turn). The AI will research gunpowder & chemistry for me. Those, I buy, and then continue on to Theory of Gravity for Newton. The major change I have made in my strategy under 1.17 is that I "beeline" more, and just pick up the techs I left behind once they are cheap (I usually get them in exchange for luxuries). Thus, I've been ignoring Nationalism altogether and upgrading Musketmen straight to Infantry. Nationalism/Commie/Espionage I buy from the AI, while I race ahead to Electronics, Replaceable Parts and eventually Motorized Transport.

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p.s. The "tech leaking" idea may be relatively realistic, but I don't like it.
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Old March 18, 2002, 15:54   #65
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I *like* the tech 'leaking' idea! More realism is better I think. & yah, every economy I've ever looked at perks up, sometimes by quite a bit, when it goes to war. Implementing that in Civ would skew it even more to the war-mongering end of the spectrum. Looking at history, that's more realistic too...

Something to think about.

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Old March 18, 2002, 16:10   #66
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Yes, it would add even more power to the already powerful warmonger strategy. Also, keep in mind that wartime booms are unstable, and are normally followed by a post-war bust. Wars are expensive, and long wars will eventually drag on any economy.

Hey, now that I think about it, sometimes I do get a production boost from a war in CivIII. The first few turns of extra happiness when you get attacked by an AI often gets a few outlying cities of mine into WLTKD, thereby reducing shield waste.

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Old March 21, 2002, 20:45   #67
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Possible solution
Here's a simple solution to the tech devaluation problem: Let the Beaker cost of techs devaluate, but keep the Gold cost constant. As it is, the Gold cost of a tech is twice the (possibly) devaluated Beaker cost. I don't think these two values should be so closely related.

Here's an example. Let's say Replaceable Parts costs 700 Beakers to research. As I understand it, if only 1 AI civ in the world has discovered it, it costs 1400 Gold to buy. With the current devaluation system, if all other civs know it, it then costs 700 / 7 = 100 Beakers to research and twice this (200 Gold) to buy.

Under the system I'm proposing, if all other civs had Replaceable Parts, it would still devaluate to 100 Beakers to research (which would probably translate into the minimum 4 turns). However, it would still cost 1400 Gold to purchase.

I think this eliminate the tech problem entirely. If you really wanted to buy advances, you could, but at approximately the same price it would cost to steal them. This ensures that you'll never get back into the loop with money alone; buying techs at 1500 Gold each will only get you so far. At the same time, the idea of tech devaluation (which I think is brilliant) stays put, meaning that the Zulus came come back and nuke everyone, if only their scientists put in a little effort.

A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?


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Old March 21, 2002, 21:11   #68
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Quote:
A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?
i love the idea Dominae, and i hope that Soren reads this, that would fix most of the problems, except the AI would have to realize it would be better to research these tech than to overpay for them, but if that was fixed as well, i think that could fix the problem

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Old March 22, 2002, 01:52   #69
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Re: Possible solution
Quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Here's a simple solution to the tech devaluation problem: Let the Beaker cost of techs devaluate, but keep the Gold cost constant. As it is, the Gold cost of a tech is twice the (possibly) devaluated Beaker cost. I don't think these two values should be so closely related.

Here's an example. Let's say Replaceable Parts costs 700 Beakers to research. As I understand it, if only 1 AI civ in the world has discovered it, it costs 1400 Gold to buy. With the current devaluation system, if all other civs know it, it then costs 700 / 7 = 100 Beakers to research and twice this (200 Gold) to buy.

Under the system I'm proposing, if all other civs had Replaceable Parts, it would still devaluate to 100 Beakers to research (which would probably translate into the minimum 4 turns). However, it would still cost 1400 Gold to purchase.

I think this eliminate the tech problem entirely. If you really wanted to buy advances, you could, but at approximately the same price it would cost to steal them. This ensures that you'll never get back into the loop with money alone; buying techs at 1500 Gold each will only get you so far. At the same time, the idea of tech devaluation (which I think is brilliant) stays put, meaning that the Zulus came come back and nuke everyone, if only their scientists put in a little effort.

A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?


Dominae
So instead of buyiung it for 50gp (1.17f) I need to research it for 4 turns (tech devaul.)
Or maybe 1 turn if I already was researching it.
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Old March 22, 2002, 02:51   #70
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player1, that's the basic idea. I think the 4 turn minimum and tech devaluation are great ideas. If the Zulus just meet the rest of the world and are way behind (say, 6-8 techs), it would take them around 28 turns to catch up on their reading, so to speak (assuming all the techs have require the minimum 4 turns). At the same time, the rest of the world can research anywhere between 3-5 techs, so the poor Zulus are always sort of behind. With enough perseverence though, they may be scientific leaders someday. The point is they can't just come up with a couple of gold mines and buy themselves into the Industrial Age.

In any case, seperating the Gold cost and the Research cost, I think, eliminates tech whoring completely (regardless of whether or not you think tech devaluation is a good idea).

korn469, you're right, the AI would have to know which was better, research or purchase. I think the default should always be research, unless some other civ is offering a tech for an affordable price. Under the system I'm proposing, the prices would rarely be affordable (which is a good thing).


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Old March 22, 2002, 12:55   #71
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I think I love this idea. Devaluation tied to beakers only, or maybe different devaluation rates for research and gold cost. So a civ that doesn't have a tech gets a break on research once others have it, but the gold cost never drops to outrageously cheap levels.

Research devaluation can remain the same, gold cost could devalue at half the rate, and have a floor of 40-50%. So, yeah, the Zulu can come back, but only if they research.

Dominae, my hat's off to you. Well done. Firaxis, if you're listening, I think this is the solution!

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Old March 22, 2002, 15:39   #72
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Sorry, but I have to disagree. I think that the the idea of different devaluation rates for research and gold cost is essentially flawed, at least if one presumes that the AI is negotiating rationally when it comes to tech trading.

When giving my reasoning, I'll assume that any player (human or AI) has conversion rates of 1 gold = 1 science beaker to simplify matters. This is true if there are no tax or science buildings at all or if the existent buildings yield the same bonus to the basic number of commerce for both gold and science beakers (e.g. marketplaces/banks and libraries/universities, which both result in a multiplier of 2).

Now let's say there are 8 active civs that all have contact with each other. It costs 3200 beakers to research a certain tech (actually, this is about the costs of Replaceable Parts when playing on a standard map). After the first civ (civ A) has completed research, the beaker costs drop to 2800 (3200*7/8) because of the current devaluation formula. Civ B, which is about to start research, contacts civ A and asks about its demands for trading the tech. What offer should one expect reasonably?

Obviously, civ B would have to forgo 2800 gold (1 gold = 1 science beaker) by choosing to research the tech. Civ A would forgo nothing by sharing the tech with civ B (that is, no gold - I'm not talking about strategic significance of techs here). Therefore, the room to negotiate between civ A and civ B is 2800 gold. The offer humans generally consider as 'fair' would be to evenly split this sum: Civ A demands for 1400 gold for the tech, so that civ B would save 1400 gold/science beakers. I'm not an expert in game theory, but this theory states that the so-called 'fair' outcome is also the result of rational negotiations between two participants (especially when assuming that the room to negotiate decreases by and by, e.g. if Civ B starts to research the relevant tech).

As far as I can judge, available test results indicate that the AI actually calculates this way when asked to trade a tech. E.g., in a test setting done by korn469, a tech worth 200 beakers that devalued to 133 beakers (200*2/3) when the first of three civs had researched it, had a lowest negotiated price of 73 gold, which is close to the 67 gold (133/2) that one should expect as a 'rational' outcome. (As there were no tax or science buildings in that test setting, there was a conversion rate of 1 gold = 1 science beaker.) Another tech worth 200 beakers that had been researched by two out of three civs (and therefore devalued to 67 beakers) had a lowest negotiated price of 20 gold. Again, I don't know that much about game theory, but I suspect that this is close to the 'rational' outcome when civ no. 3 (which doesn't have the tech yet) is able to play off civ no. 1 against civ no. 2 (because both know that at least one of them will miss out in the negotiation).

So I think the AI indeed acts like humans would act (and, strategic significance of techs aside, will eventually act in MP) when it comes to tech trading: Determine the room of negotiation and make a 'fair' offer considering the number of participants. Therefore, negotiated tech prices are bound to science beaker costs. And whatever the devaluation rate for research is (or will be in the next patch), there should be no independent rate for the gold cost of techs.
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Old March 22, 2002, 16:24   #73
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There is one way in which the AI most definitely does not act as a human would: there are times when a human player would not trade a tech - under any circumstances. The AI, on the other hand, merely calculates a tech's "worth" under a given formula, and tries to sell it at that value. Thus, 1 AI civ discovers a tech, and they all have it that turn.

I often refuse to trade literature, even after I have built the Great Library. Why? Because the longer it takes for the AI to get its libraries up and running the better, both culturally and scientifically.

That's just one example. Now, the AI is not capable, and never will be capable (CivIII) of making "human" decisions. So, what we can do is give it a formula that results in a level of tech devaluation and trading that seems right.

I'm ok with beaker devaluation, so that it's easier to follow the tech leader. It keeps the AI close, and it makes intuitive sense to me. The gold cost thing is ridiculous right now, but it too should devalue, just slower. This would reflect a general desire on the part of civs "in the know" to keep others backward... it's a tech race, right?

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Old March 22, 2002, 16:25   #74
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One more thing. Despite my enthusiastic approval of this idea, we don't really know how it will effect the game. Therefore, clearly, it requires playtesting. Full-length in game playtesting. Sorry, but I felt compelled to state the obvious.

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Old March 23, 2002, 09:52   #75
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Quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
There is one way in which the AI most definitely does not act as a human would: there are times when a human player would not trade a tech - under any circumstances.
I agree, and have already said in my former post that I factored out strategic significance of techs. I myself don't trade a tech that allows a wonder which I'm constructing at the very moment, at least if I'm the only one that has researched this tech yet. Also, I won't trade key military techs (e.g. Motorized Transportation) to a neighbouring civ as long as I don't have a large and up-to-date defensive force.

Quote:
I often refuse to trade literature, even after I have built the Great Library. Why? Because the longer it takes for the AI to get its libraries up and running the better, both culturally and scientifically.
OTOH, with the gold you get from trading Literature, you could increase your science rate, beeline to Education and get your universities up and running sooner.

Quote:
Now, the AI is not capable, and never will be capable (CivIII) of making "human" decisions. So, what we can do is give it a formula that results in a level of tech devaluation and trading that seems right.
The formula for tech devaluation applies to the human player as well. What needs to be 'given' to the AI - and Soren has obviously done this in 1.17 - is comprehension of its implications: science beakers are gold forgone, therefore it is advantegous in general to trade techs for gold.

Quote:
I'm ok with beaker devaluation, so that it's easier to follow the tech leader. It keeps the AI close, and it makes intuitive sense to me. The gold cost thing is ridiculous right now, but it too should devalue, just slower. This would reflect a general desire on the part of civs "in the know" to keep others backward... it's a tech race, right?
I'm okay with tech devaluation in general because of the very reasons you gave. And if the specific formula (a bottom line multiplier of 1/no. of civs) does away with the possibility to gain a significant tech lead and therefore hurts gameplay, this formula must be tweaked. What I don't like is the idea that we could leave the formula as it is now, but conceal its implications to the AI - and IMO, a different devaluation 'formula' for tech trading costs is nothing else.

As for the general desire of civs 'in the know' to keep others backward, I'm for a relative approach. Trading Replacable Parts to civ no. 2 for 1400 gold and increasing my science rate may in fact increase my advantage in the long run. Also, even if the technological gap between me and civ no. 2 doesn't widen, with a devaluation rate smaller than in 1.17 we may both leave civs no. 3 to 8 behind in the dust.

(And to also state the obvious: Whatever the approach in 1.18 may be, it requires more playesting than was done until 1.17.)
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Old March 24, 2002, 02:40   #76
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Quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
One more thing. Despite my enthusiastic approval of this idea, we don't really know how it will effect the game. Therefore, clearly, it requires playtesting. Full-length in game playtesting. Sorry, but I felt compelled to state the obvious.

-Arrian
Playtesting??

I think Firaxis relies on US to do that - at $49.95 a pop.
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Old March 24, 2002, 11:10   #77
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Cool ideas presented on the thread here. Here's my opinion.

I think tech devaluation (TD, for short) is necessary to keep the game balanced. Let's say gold TD is taken out. Then, I assume, the price of the tech costs the same amount as the beakers for it. Say 500 for my example. Consider this scenario (with made up numbers for ease of argument):

Case I
Civ A discovers Magnetism worth 500 Gold. Civ A on that turn sells it to 7 civs. Net profit: 3000.

Civ A just made way too much money. Now Civ A can reapply their research effort 6 times for the next advance. I think this would make the tech race a 1 player deal, which would favour the human since they would know best how to get this.

Case II
Civ A sells Magnetism to Civ B. Civ B sells it to Civ C. Now Civ B ended up losing nothing at all for the buy & sell. Even worse, had Civ B sold it to 6 more civs, it would gain a 3000 profit (same profit as A had!). In the turn-based game, the 1st civ has too many cards.

The current harsh devaluation formula seems necessary for game balance, IMHO.

Similar problems result in the case of a higher floor:

Case III
Civ A seels Magnetism to Civ B, C, D. Assume the floor has been hit. Civ D sells to E, F, and G. Civ D just doubled their gold. Again, I think this throws things off balance.

Alright, so what do I propose? I'm afraid my view is subjective, & only as the result of observations, but here goes:

I think the problem is the trading, not the TD. That's what changed in 1.17f. Not the TD. It seems the AI doesn't have up & down relationships any more because of constant trading. Thus, I've seen few wars & many many trades. I think that is what makes it look like me vs. World.

How big of a problem is it?
Well, I like the fact that on a higher level, I have to beat a number of opponents who are working together. I'd probably keep the system, at least as an option for experienced players who want more of a challenge.

What else was I thinking?
Something sits funny with me, but goes against my points raised above. That is, it seems tech ought to be more expensive than what it costs to research it yourself. What you're buying, along with the tech, is saving yourself "time" as well. There doesn't seem to be any value in the time you'd save from buying it to just researching it yourself. Hmm.

One more thing. Whatever change results, I'd prefer all the civs to be at the same tech over getting those half-era leads. I think we can't go back to tech research being so dominating & exploitable. This makes the game to unbalanced for the player. However, right now, 0gpt researching seems too exploitable. Hmmm. Trading on our turn was frustrating, but at least it took some (but not all) the cards out of your hand.

Sorry, I haven't thought more on solutions yet, but I'll try...
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Old March 24, 2002, 12:08   #78
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I think a good solution would be to increase the cost of techs by difficulty level. Tech moved too slowly on lower difficulties, and now moves way too fast on Deity. I don't mind the player vs the world mentality, it's how I've always played the Civ games anyways. I just want to have an Ancient Era, Middle Ages, and Industrial Era in my games. As it is now, Deity is late Industrial/Modern only.
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Old March 24, 2002, 18:30   #79
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chiefpaco, you've raised some interesting issues concerning a civ's turn number and their advantages in a tech race. It certainly seems obvious that if Player A discovers a tech first they'll get offly rich. However, I do think there are serious flaws with your examples.

---

Case 1: Player A discover some tech. Sells it to B, C, D, E...
Problem: Player A gets very rich very fast.

Yes, at 1000 Gold a tech this Player A gets very rich almost instantly. I see nothing wrong with this. The flaw here is that you're considering this example in a vacuum. What happens when Player B discovers their own tech? Player A will have to dish out Gold just like everyone else. The same with Player C, D, E, etc. So A appears to get rich off of everyone else, but there's a big tech circle here so no one is getting really rich (and even if they are, they're doing research and selling techs, which is good). Furthermore, who 'Player A' is depends on a whole slew of factors (number of Libraries, Tax rate, Government type, etc.); a good strategy is to try and position yourself in first place, but that's the reason it's called a Tech race. Given that other civs can always do their own research (and this is always cheaper than buying techs), it seems improbable that Player A is guaranteed to hold his or her coveted position.

Case 2: A sells to B, C, D, etc. B sells to C, D, E, etc.
Problem: Player B has obtained a tech for virtually nothing.

Maybe I don't understand your example, but why would Player C buy Magnetism from both Player A and Player B? If it goes "A sells to B, B sells to C, etc.", why didn't A sell to C in the first place (in which case we're back to Case 1)? Anyway, if B manages to pull this off, good for him/her! This is one of the reasons to withhold Communications, no?

Case 3: A sells to B, C. C sells to D, E.
Problem: C doubled his or her Gold.

Again, why didn't A sell to B through E in the first place? If there are two trading camps ABC and CDE, C should be advantaged. This has nothing to do with devaluation.

---

So I think my idea is still valid. I must point out that I was trying to solve the problem of never doing your own Research on higher levels, which is disctinct from the problem of "Me against the World" (the topic of this thread). Personally, I agree with Aeson in thinking that, if you're playing on the higher levels, you should expect to be fighting against the world. That's just one way making these levels difficult.

Arrian, I of course agree with you that this idea needs testing. I'm just defending it here because 1) it's simple and 2) it would bring the game back toward a Civ I enjoy playing (I HATE the idea of not doing my own research until the end of the Industrial Age).


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Old March 24, 2002, 19:58   #80
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Upon further reflection, while I still have problems with the tech devaluation, I've come to the opinion that the BROKEN element here is the fact that you can always always always BUY tech for HALF the coins as you can research it for yourself with beakers.

This means doing your own tech research is ALWAYS unwise unless you find yourself in a situation where you need a tech and aren't going to have any chance to buy it any time soon (beginning of the game, mainly, or if at war with a lot of civs, or at a place where you are ready to break out and take and hold the lead the rest of the game).

Because from what I can see, the tech davaluation IS even across both research and trade. That is, when the cost drops by half to research, it also drops by half to buy. Yet it ALWAYS costs much less to buy than to research for yourself.

Now maybe at the lower difficulty levels this serves a function as a "hidden extra difficulty factor" to keep players from outperforming the AI's commandingly. At the higher levels, the wise player just gives up on the tech race and rides the coattails of the AI's, buttering them up, buying the techs at the cheapest rate until they are ready and able to make a move.

I don't know about others, but I find this "one best way" to be so commandingly OUT OF BALANCE that it's equivalent to the old poprush loophole or the bombard bug: it's an option so "good", there's stops being any other way to play the game.

Rather than SLOW tech whoring, this patch has gone the exact opposite direction, forcing even stubborn players like me to cave in and admit, it's just not worth doing research. The tech trade game is the only game in town.

If the tech devaluation were left in place, but the COST to buy in gold were made equal to the cost to research in beakers, then it would still make some sense to ride coattails on higher difficulty, but at least there would be SOME purpose to building libraries and universities, instead of only markets and banks.

This facet of the game definitely needs more attention. Might be any number of solutions, but the current implementation leads the player down one easy path, and every game plays the same. That can't be what they intended? Can it?


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Old March 25, 2002, 10:38   #81
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I was under the impression that the purchase cost of techs (in Gold) was already twice the research cost (in Beakers). Could someone clarify this?


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Old March 25, 2002, 11:46   #82
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
I was under the impression that the purchase cost of techs (in Gold) was already twice the research cost (in Beakers). Could someone clarify this?

Dominae
Are you perhaps refering to the 100% total increase in science from libraries and universities? If so, then the cost in gold is twice that of the cost in beakers only if you have those science improvements in all of your cities, and you don't have any marketplaces or banks.
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Old March 25, 2002, 13:04   #83
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Dominae. I respect your theory very much, which is why I'd like to try to make sure it can work. It's far easier to criticize than to theorize, so you can take this however you like.

I don't think you got the gist of all my cases there, but I think my argument can simplify to one general case.

- Selling tech at full price every time could be too dominating while the AI can not judge its overall financial situation.

Right now, I think the TD by gold is there to (also) close some cases where AIs will not bankrupt themselves over tech. Without it, I think games could gravitate to a single "tech leader" and in most cases, that would be the player.

So, I'd like to ensure that civs check on the cost of the purchase vs. researching. That way, by the time you want to trade it to Civ E or F, they will say, "500 gold? No way, we can research it ourselves in 3 more turns! Go away!" If this is already in, then it could work well.

Could there still be cases where the Player can target specific civs to bankrupt?

I think I'd still like to see a stiffer penalty for the relations between all civs. Might make for more of an "Us vs. them" approach rather than "Me vs. World". Eliminating tech trading between Furious and possibly Annoyed civs could help. After all, it might be realistic to not give key techs to suspicious civs that could become your enemy. After you start dealing luxuries & others, you can start sharing tech. However, the AI civs seem to trade amongst each other so much, it could be difficult to break the "Me vs. World".
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Old March 25, 2002, 14:04   #84
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chiefpaco, I think we're agreeing more than we're disagreeing.

The point of the little solution I proposed is to eliminate the effect of never doing any research on higher levels because it's just easier to buy techs once they devaluate. If you've never seen this in action, start an Emperor game, slide your Luxuries and Science down to 0%, and check out how easy it is to catch up with Gold alone. I just thought that if the Gold cost of any tech far outweighs the Beaker cost, then it wouldn't be worth it to buy techs all the time. The simplest way to do this (I think), is to make the Gold cost of techs devaluate slower than the Beaker cost.

Whether or not the current AI can adapt to this new system is another matter. Not doubt, it's important, as you've pointed out. If the AI always prefers buying techs to researching, they could easily ruin themselves if techs suddenly cost a lot. But I think the reworking of the AI to go along with the new devaluation system wouldn't be as hard as it seems. First, the AI already loves doing research, on any level (and is good at it too); it's the human players that have discovered that it's better to buy than research (in a sense, we're the problem). Second, it's pretty easy (I think) to "teach" the AI when to buy and when to research (roughly), under any system. Making the Gold cost of techs devaluate slower would make this estimation even easier ("Replaceable Parts costs 1400 Gold today, and it'll probably cost around 1400 Gold some turns from now, so...").

I apologize if I appeared to "attack" your post. Like you, I prefer constructive ideas, and you definitely appear to have some to share.


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Old March 25, 2002, 16:25   #85
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It is important to balance this so that the AI will not bankrupt themselves buying tech. This was part of the problem with the game pre-1.16. You could just sell old tech to the AI for gold/turn, thus ruining their research rates and surging further ahead. 1.16 tried the "oops, we traded on your turn" thing, which most people disliked, and 1.17 tried the "aggressive AI tech trading" thing, which again most people dislike.

Now, what was wrong with the system in the first place? It was the AI's willingness to buy and/or sell tech no matter what, so long as the price was right. The human could tech whore (or even "Pope" - buy from one, sell to everyone else) and suck the AI dry with per turn deals. That's an issue.

I like the idea that "furious" civs should not trade tech. Makes sense, encourages making an effort to have good relations.

Making the tech more expensive to buy won't stop the AI from buying and selling it. A change to the AI's decision-making is needed as well.

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Old March 25, 2002, 16:48   #86
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
I was under the impression that the purchase cost of techs (in Gold) was already twice the research cost (in Beakers). Could someone clarify this?


Dominae
I think korn469's post earlier on the cost of buying tech sort of answers your Q. Gold cost seemed to be a fraction of beaker cost.

The only thing I'm not sure about in the post was the tech cost and the tech rate. I thought the 2 multiplied each other, in which case, the total beaker cost of the techs would be 1000? This would make the gold trades even more ridiculous. However, I'm not sure of that factor.

And yes, all the 1.17f games I've played, I've gone 0% science throughout the game.

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Old March 25, 2002, 21:57   #87
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Just a quick comment and an not-yet-completely-thought-out idea

First, though I like the idea of not being able to trade tecgs with furious civs, I don't think this will solve many problems with the 0% science strategy because if that's what you're doing then you're probably a) not going to war much, especially with advanced civs and b) having good relations with all the advanced civs due to your constant trading with them.

And a preliminary idea, that hopefully others will be able to manipulate into a real solution. My idea is to completely disassociate coin and beaker, not in trade, but in acquisition. Presume your city at the moment produces one commerce. With this change, your city now produces one beaker. Perhaps your next 'commerce' is also a beaker. Maybe the next one is a coin. Essentially, you lose the beaker slider, as coin and beaker totals are now absolute, and not related to each other, so now you are forced to do some research and collect some money, eliminating both the 'science king' and '0% science' strategies. You would still be able to sell a new found tech, but doing so would not drastically affect your ability research more tech. The only connection between the two would be indirect, in that the money could be used to pay for maintenance on even more scientific improvements, or to buy new improvements altogether.

Criticisms:
1. Overhaul of main game dynamic - This slider has been part of civ since the beginning, removing it altogether would greatly affect gameplay and strategy.

2. Luxury problems - What to do with them? There are a few possibilities: keep the slider, so you can still take luxuries out of your income; allow you to take luxuries out of science or gold, though you'd have to be able to keep track of which luxuries came from which; use the same system that I've proposed for coin and and beakers; eliminate luxuries altogether and have people less likely to become unhappy or place more weight on luxury resources, though this would again be completely reworking a major game dynamic.

3. Determination of coin and beaker - How would the game decide where to put coins and where to put beakers? Would it be one or the other anywhere there is commerce now, determined randomly? Or, perhaps, each associated with different terrain types (ie. grasslands have beakers, plains have coins, etc.)

4. Overall fun factor - It simply might be annoying and not fun to no longer have the slider. This kind of ties into to criticism one.

As mentioned earlier, I am hoping this will idea will be mutated, so if you have comments that would help with my own criticisms in order to make this a viable solution, or outright problems and criticisms indicating why this could never be a viable solution, please share.

Thanks
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Old March 25, 2002, 23:15   #88
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punkbass2000, you're idea would (I think) eliminate some of the problems discussed on this thread. However, you pointed out yourself that this requires an overhaul of a main game dynamic. This is the sort of stuff Sid would have to be consulted on, I think. A good idea, but certainly not for Civ3 (I can't imagine them implementing it for a patch...).


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Old March 25, 2002, 23:26   #89
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hmmm, i'm not exactly sure how it would work, but are you saying that a tile for example would provide 2 food 1 shield, 1 gold and 1 science?

i think the biggest problem with that is it takes away a player's strategic choices which is a bad thing, the more interesting choices a player has to make the better

but i could see it working if the game was built from scratch with this in mind and had a variety of tile improvements, but i don't think that civ3 could handle it
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Old March 26, 2002, 07:59   #90
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
punkbass2000, you're idea would (I think) eliminate some of the problems discussed on this thread. However, you pointed out yourself that this requires an overhaul of a main game dynamic. This is the sort of stuff Sid would have to be consulted on, I think. A good idea, but certainly not for Civ3 (I can't imagine them implementing it for a patch...).


Dominae
True. What I'm really looking for, I guess, is means to prevent a no research or no tax strategy. For one thing, I think this is highly unrealistic. Were there ever any civilizations that made absolutely no technological advances? Could you even call them a civilization if they didn't? I like the tech-leaking idea too, myself. Some have pointed out a problem with possible unfair leakage, but I would say that this really wouldn't be too different than culture flipping. I wonder if you could even have factors as to which civs were more likely to get it (ie. you're more likely to get a tech from a civ if you have an embassy with them, etc.) Also, I think warfare should yield techs from conquered cities like it used to, at least in ancient warfare. At the Nile River and Fertile Crescent (the 'Cradle' of civilization), most technology was spread by one civ conquering another.
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