Maybe this has been suggested already, but as tech trading is infamous in this game, I thought I'd offer my thoughts anyway. I'm playing on marathon now, and I have to turn off all tech trading, it just ruins it. At the same time, playing without tech trading takes out one very interesting aspect of the game, as you now have much less to barter with. Even on the faster speeds it's no fun, because the AI's trade away with no discretion.

The thing I was thinking about was allowing tech trade pretty much like before, but when you receive a tech, you only gain HALF of the value for it. The other half you MUST research yourself. And immediately, unless you start to research a received tech, you will begin to forget it (lose some beakers every turn). You can only trade for each tech once by ANY AI player, even if you completely forget everything you've learned of a tech you received ages ago, but neglected to follow up. If you trade for 10 [half-finished] techs, you will start forgetting all of them, perhaps even faster than it takes to keep up the research! The trading becomes less overpowered, and must be done in smaller steps.

Hope this makes sense?

Interesting idea, really. Tech trading needs a fix, even if this is more a problem of AI advantages and difficulty here than anything else. Civ's simply too hard, it is frustrating to not be able to compete at higher difficulty levels.

As your idea of forgetting a tech, i don't see the point. could you explain it larger? Why to forget a tech?

I would rather suggest tehcs that can be learned spontaneously, like if a neighbour has it, i have a certain chance to discover it freely. Some techs couldn't be acquired this way, because too complicated, like the iron working or the nuclear power.

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Interesting idea, really. Tech trading needs a fix, even if this is more a problem of AI advantages and difficulty here than anything else. Civ's simply too hard, it is frustrating to not be able to compete at higher difficulty levels.

Yes, this is sort of a compromise. I don't like playing with tech trading, and I don't like playing without it! This would in effect halve the effect for every player.

As your idea of forgetting a tech, i don't see the point. could you explain it larger? Why to forget a tech?

I don't mean completely forget a tech instantly, but losing some beakers every turn it's not being researched (maybe that's how it is in civ 4 by default?). This would mean trading for several techs at once becomes less powerful, because as you can only research one at a time, you will invariably lose beakers from all others you have unfinished. It becomes so silly when you can beeline for certain techs - knowing the AI doesn't research it - and then trade it to everybody else in return for all the techs you've neglected.

I would rather suggest tehcs that can be learned spontaneously, like if a neighbour has it, i have a certain chance to discover it freely. Some techs couldn't be acquired this way, because too complicated, like the iron working or the nuclear power.

Ah yes. I read something like this before, and the idea of learning spontaneously from close neighbours is very interesting. Perhaps this should be as a "tech leak", gaining beakers over time rather than all at once. This could be sped up with things like open borders, common religion - even proximity of science cities to the border! Maybe it's best to integrate this idea with the espionage system, so that beakers will begin to leak if you gain enough passive points from a certain player (in addition to the more direct "steal technology" option, of course). This could also be proximity based - less points required for cities closer to your border, etc.

At any rate, something must be done, because it's way to heavy-handed now.

Perhaps this should be as a "tech leak", gaining beakers over time rather than all at once. This could be sped up with things like open borders, common religion - even proximity of science cities to the border!

Imperialism II (IIRC) had a system sort of like this. The more of your opponents who knew a tech the cheaper it was to learn it. I do like the idea of open borders lessening the price (it makes sense - presumably you've got some of your people in their country - traders, etc. and they will see this tech in action and report back).

Imperialism II (IIRC) had a system sort of like this. The more of your opponents who knew a tech the cheaper it was to learn it.


Civ 2 made techs cheaper or more expensive by comparing which ones you had with one of the other civilisations; I do not know why it was taken out, because broadening that to the avergae of the other civs would seem very sensible to me.


I do like the idea of open borders lessening the price (it makes sense - presumably you've got some of your people in their country - traders, etc. and they will see this tech in action and report back).

That I like, too.

Indeed, if you have open boarders it could just as easily be a scientist actively going over and looking at it, I mean would that not be a good way for your researchers to spend all the coin you are giving them, why would they re-invent the wheel when they could just go on holiday and see how the neighbours are doing it? Of course it does become harder with some technologies, Nuclear Power is a prime example. But any scientist worth a penny can work out how a sailing boat works as soon as he sees it.