27-05-2004 03:29									#1
	Slow down research rate. Full PM-box? Change here!

This is not a big thing, but nevertheless.

I sometimes find it frustrating that you reach the middleages in 800 bc, and modern age in 1200 AD.

This can happen if you are on Pangea and there is heavy tech trade going on. In other cases the science rate is also, well, ahistorical, while not so fast.

I have the preliminary understanding that now, apart from the basic economy, the science rate is decided by the number of civs, the size of the map, and the number of contacted civs which know the tech you are researching.

There needs to be a fourth inhibitator on science, because naturally science on Pangea will always progress faster than on archipelago.

Thus the map size calculation should be determined by the size of land, excluding sea tiles. So the more land the less science rate is.

Even this might not be enough. So maybe skip the science rate being affected by contacted civs.

The decreased corruption is also a reason for the increased science rate. So maybe one should increase science corruption, while keeping shields the way they were.

Another approach would be to simply raise the cost of researching techs.

	27-05-2004 03:37									#2
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The date is meaningless in this game really-it serves a purpose only in telling you how many turns have passed.

	27-05-2004 03:50									#3
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That is inherently true in terms of game mechanics.

However, I feel that civilisation is also somehow meant to be inspired by history.

In any case there needs to be a reworking of the years passed.

So then it should be so designed that the years pass at a quicker succesion than they do now.

	27-05-2004 09:13									#4
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I've always felt that the scientific eras in general should be stretched out a bit, if only so you can appreciate them a little more. In most situations, certain military periods will be completely skipped, for the most part, because technology is blazing right along. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to appreciate each military/scientific period as much as they deserve?

	27-05-2004 17:10									#5
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There are no IFs in history but if Sumerian knowledge hasn't been lost but instead kept progressing at the same rate then the first man in space would have flown a couple of millennia earlier. There have been a lot of times in real world history when knowledge was lost and had to be reinvented hundreds of years later. The sharing of knowledge in the real world was also never as perfect as it is in civ games.
So it is perfectly normal that technologies in civ games won't be researched around the years that they were researched IRL.
Having said that I think that the civ2 system for technology costs was a lot better and more realistic. The technologies in civ2 required more beakers if you had a lot of technologies and less when you had less advances. This means that if you went straight for republic it would take fewer beakers to research it than if you had invented everything else in the other branches of the tech tree.
Another thing that might help in improving the current research model would be to make it more difficult to trade technologies. Perhaps setting a rule that once you trade techs you can trade techs again only when 'n' turns have passed. Also setting some requirements like civs that don't have writing can’t trade techs that come after writing and civs that don’t have computers can't trade techs that come after computers in the tech tree.

	27-05-2004 18:55									#6
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Ways in which to slow the tech climb:

Make tech cost proportional to size-bigger empires have to pay more (ala EU) for the same techs

Make tech trading much harder

Make research blind

Modify the tech tree-add new categories-either research new concepts, or improve on old ones

Allow for backslidding-the ability to lose knowledge due to catastrophic events-not very likely as it would be deemed 'not fun'

	27-05-2004 20:25									#7
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Blind research is a good idea, but I liked the civ2 style better. It used to give a random number of techs from the tech tree instead of allways giving all possible techs for research.

	28-05-2004 07:59									#8
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Most of this problem is caused by the expansionist civs and luck with goody huts. I would make it a little harder on the expansionist civ's. In this spirit, I'd like to make expansionist units able to get barbs from huts and to give the scout a defense of 1.

Also tech trading should not be allowed before discovering writing.

	30-05-2004 02:11									#9
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I don't like the Civ2 tech model. Its stupid to think that Pottery costs more than Computers simply because you researched it later.

If you want to have technology development staggered based on historical time why not simply give post ancient era techs increased costs that gradually decrease each turn. They return to 'default' cost once the turn year reaches their expected discovery date.

I don't like the idea, but I prefer it to the Civ2 tech model or the tech research based on Empire size model.

	30-05-2004 02:16									#10
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quote: Originally posted by ZargonX I've always felt that the scientific eras in general should be stretched out a bit, if only so you can appreciate them a little more. In most situations, certain military periods will be completely skipped, for the most part, because technology is blazing right along. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to appreciate each military/scientific period as much as they deserve?

More techs, with more extraneous avenues, are what I'm after.

I would like to see a tech tree where its difficult if not impossible to research everything, but then is not necesarry to research everything to progress. What you choose to research becomes dependent on what strategy you are using.

	30-05-2004 21:26									#11
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Perhaps a research-slider before a game begins?

i.e. Short, normal, or long game

	31-05-2004 04:00									#12
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quote: Originally posted by jdd2007 Perhaps a research-slider before a game begins? i.e. Short, normal, or long game

hi ,

great and simple idea

it could have the regular " as it is now " way and a more realistical way , ....


have a nice day

	31-05-2004 04:01									#13
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The more choices, the better

	31-05-2004 21:06									#14
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My prefered science system would work thus:

you can chose blind research.

Cost of tech depends on trade levels (more trade, techs cost less to simulate cultural diffusion) and empire size (techs cost more for bigger empires) plus social choices (some governments and societies more open to change).

Tech investement comes from two sources-government resources and private innovation. Private innovation is based on your government type and strength of economy.

Techs would be of two types:
Theoretical-concepts like writing, fire, gunpowder, so forth and so on. These techs open up other techs-cost a lot, private innovation is not significant for them but the diffusion factor is significant.

Practical-refining of ideas-better guns for example, or improvements to ships or better agriculture-private innovation is important, much easier to keep these techs underwraps to maintain a technical advantage over neighboring civs.

	03-06-2004 21:22									#15
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I'm not sure why having a large empire should directly cause the research cost of technologies to increase. Hasn't it been that in the real world, as populations increased since 1800, that the technology rate accelerated?

	04-06-2004 14:00									#16
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Id suggest that CTP had a good idea here. Each tech had its own base research cost, with advanced techs costing more, and techs in later ages costing exponentially more.

So additions Id make...

Add boolean logic to tech research requirements, particularly the NOT modifier. That will really come into its own in scenarios where you dont want a particular civ to gain certain techs, or if you have a magic mod where fire magic and water magic (forex) are mutually exclusive.

Combine the base costs with an incermental rising cost a la civ 2.

Have research maintenace requirements. Stop investing in science a while (the higher your current tech, the bigger the maintenance cost), and youll lose technology. Techs that are part of a NOT boolean requireme should have a CANNOT BE LOST flag set if both ideas are implemented.

	01-07-2004 17:40									#17
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Isn't this already implemented in CIV3? I usually set the research cost to about 1000 for normal size maps, and this works fine. You get to see all periods, and it usually follows history quite closely.

	02-07-2004 10:19									#18
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I agree that empire size should no longer be the major determining factor in how long it takes to research. Either in calculating cost, as suggested in this thread, or by increasing gold going to research, as in previous games.

Average per capita in the country would be a better number to use. A billion poor people won't invest as much into laboratories as a few hundred thousand wealthy merchants in a single city, so let the game relfect that.

The player can directly influence research to a small degree by pouring more money in, as it is now, to meet the research cost. Or he could indirectly influence reserach speed by a great amount by working to increase the welfare of his people.

And addressing early posts: I agree that some tinkering should be done to make technology usually show up a little closer to when it "should." This should mean more tech, not fewer turns, and it should also mean adjusting the rules for tech cost to keep balance over difficulty levels. Making the game harder shouldn't mean that eras advance much more quickly, as it does in Civ 3 with all of the AI bonuses. Tech costs should increase according to any AI bonus to keep the feel of the game balanced on all levels.