starlifter
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2001
- Messages
- 4,210
One more question? Whats with this "key civ" thing, why do they do it that way, just curious?
It was Brian's decision when deciding how to solve some of the "shortcomings" of Civ 1. Short answer: "The Poor Get Richer."
What does that mean? Let Brian Reynolds explain why he did it, in his own words:
Source: http://www.gamespy.com/devcorner/april01/reynolds/index4.shtmThe Poor Get Richer: The Ancient Art of Game Balance
Help The Poor Get Richer: Civilization II
Build systems into your game which keep the game competitive for as long as possible. Avoid formulas which allow the "rich to get richer." Getting ahead in the game should (properly) give the player a greater chance to win, but it should not make it easier for him to further increase his chance to win. Rather, just as the further we stretch a rubber band the more it resists, the farther ahead a player gets the harder it should be for him to increase his lead. Likewise, the more a player has fallen behind the easier it should be for him to begin catching up-again, our game system's "rubber band" pulls the player back toward the competition.
Example: As work began on Civ2, we observed that in the original game victory was very often decided in the "Age of Chariots." Here was this glorious game featuring material from throughout the course of human history, yet most decent players were effectively winning without even getting beyond the classical era. Players used chariots to rapidly conquer several nearby opponents, building a larger population than the other players, and then switched to a "peaceful" strategy and used their larger populations to blast rapidly through the technology tree.
Players ahead in the technology race had the first crack at building "wonders" and "improvements" which had the effect of further increasing their lead in the technology race-many wonders directly or indirectly increased research speed. Then, as the time scale proceeded from "B.C." to "A.D." the technology cost for all players suddenly doubled-again working to the advantage of players who had been able to research more technologies at the "cheap rate" and effectively locking out those players who were already behind by imposing a further penalty on top of their already bad situation. A winning player rapidly eclipsed the opposition and the rest of the game (often a considerable period of time) consisted simply of mopping up.
With some care and tuning, a technology race can be changed from the "Rich get Richer" to a "Poor get Richer" situation. Moreover, this can even be done in a way which also pays homage to our common sense historical intuitions. We know from history that nuclear weapons were extremely difficult to develop and required a massive and unprecedented investment by the Americans who first developed them. But nuclear weapons having once been developed, a far lesser investment was required for their duplication and imitation by other powers.
Translated into game terms, this means that technologies should be much more expensive for the first power to develop them, and then increasingly easy for other powers to copy. That way, players who are ahead in technology have to expend increasingly large efforts to maintain and increase their lead-they are paying the expensive first-research cost while the trailing players are paying the cheaper "catch up" prices. And the further behind a player falls, the longer a time period passes between the initial discovery of a technology and the player's attempt to research it-cumulatively reducing the cost to "catch up."
The rules of the game should work to keep the game competitive for as long as possible. Players have the most fun when the game is a tight contest, so our game systems should help keep players who fall behind "in the race" and try to prevent players who get ahead from simply "running away with it."
The "rubber band" is the Key Civ concept, which adjusts Civ science outputs based on dynamic references. If you get ahead of the reference civ ("Key Civ"), your cost goes up even more, and those that are behind see their costs go down.
BTW, the credit for discovering just how Civ 2 adjusts tech costs is an guy named Samson (Apolyton) who figured it out when playing OCC last year. People had a general idea before, and I remember just giving everything to everyone to speed science in the "old days", but now it's much more useful with the "Key Civ" knowledge.
Samson's Discovery of Key Civs (at Apolyton):
posted April 22, 2001 11:04
Hi all.
It has been known for a while that giving away techs can reduce your beaker cost. Also, there always seems to be one Key Civ to whom tech-gifting triggers the beaker reduction. What has been unclear is the relationship between the Key Civ and the Human Civ. How do you know which civ to give techs to in order to effect beaker reduction? I think I have found the answer to this.
I hestitate to post my conclusions for two reasons. First, early announcements of "findings" often turn out false. And secondly my answer is pretty ridiculous, in my own opinion. Nevertheless, here it is.
The relationship between the Key Civ and the Human Player involves the Power ratings and Turn positions. Each civ's Turn Position is determined by its color:
1 White
2 Green
3 Dark Blue
4 Yellow
5 Light Blue
6 Orange
7 Purple
Power Ratings are reported by the Foreign Minister:
1 Pathetic
2 Weak
3 Inadequate
4 Moderate
5 Strong
6 Mighty
7 Supreme
The Key Civ for tech-gifting can always be found occupying the Turn Position
which corresponds to your Power Rating using the above numbers. For example, if your Power is 'Inadequate', the Key Civ will be Dark Blue.
Science beaker cost is the product of two things: the number of Acquired Techs (+1) that you have and a Tech Multiplier. One of the determinants of the Tech Multiplier is your relationship to the Key Civ as found by the above method. If you have the same number of Acquired Techs as your Key Civ, you get the nominal Tech Multiplier and pay an average cost. If you have fewer Acquired Techs, you pay less. If you have more, you pay more. By giving a sufficient number of techs to the Key Civ you can reduce your beaker cost.
If your Power rating corresponds to your own Turn Postion, you will always have exactly the same number of techs as yourself and therefore will always pay the average cost. You can give away techs till you're blue, it won't help. Well, it might. Power ratings are in part determined by how many techs you have. So giving away techs may lower your PR and get you out of the 'dead spot'.
If you're planning to spend a lot of time being 'Pathetic', don't choose White! Same for 'Supreme' and Purple. I know, this seems like a ludicrous design. Maybe that's why it has proven so illusive.
Let me know if you have questions or if you can show this to be wrong.
samson
P.S.
My testing was with V2.42, deity, 7 civs. I haven't tried fewer civs yet.
Also, this finding may explain the 'destroyed civ' phenomenon. When a civ is destroyed, your Power Rating may change. If the destroyed civ occupies the Turn Position corresponding to your new PR, you will be much higher in techs (since they now have none) and would have to pay the highest possible beaker cost.
Samson's follow-up:
posted April 23, 2001 08:23 (at Apolyton)
Thanks, all.
EST - The 'eureka' moment is recorded in the log of my 'size 1 OCC' game posted here also. In playing that game I tracked all beaker counts to be sure I was paying the minimum cost. Whenever the beaker cost went up, it was because the Key Civ shifted from Romans to Babs or vice versa. After awhile I noticed that this happened at the same time as my Power rating changed from Pathetic to Weak. I used this 'tell' in the game but didn't understand the connection until late in the game when I jumped to Inadequate and the Key Civ switched to the French whom I had been ignoring. My beaker cost got clobbered. That's when the connection hit me. I left the game for a couple hours and did some testing. When the theory proved true I couldn't stop grinning.
I've tracked this through two games now and found it explained all beaker count increases and decreases. It also held up through a number of Cheat Mode test cases I devised. Then I went back to some save games of odd beaker bumps I had. Bingo! The topper was that it explained the 'destroyed civ' phenomenon neatly, too. If this isn't the answer, it's damn close.
As to strategy, I think it will change my play even in OCC. Tech gifting does three things: it lowers your beaker cost, it improves AI attitude and makes alliances possible, and it slows down AI research. The last of these is not always desirable in OCC because it means you have to do more of the basic research.
My future research strategy for all games, including OCC, will be based on three things:
1) Accurate beaker minimum cost tables
2) Tracking the Key Civ
3) Embassies with all AI
By knowing the beaker minimums and the Key Civ, I can control my research costs, getting the maximum benefit with minimum impact on the AI's research ability. I will still gift techs to AI to get alliances and maintain relations, but only give the minimum needed, not every tech I acquire. By establishing embassies I can see what tech each AI is working on. I can give that tech to that Civ immediately if I have it. If they are researching something new to me, I will leave them alone (suspending my tech gifting) to allow them to complete their research as quickly as possible. In this way I can pay the minimum for my research and utilize with maximum efficiency the AI's own research efforts. In theory, I could effectively control seven lines of research simultaneously. In practice, two or three or four perhaps.
samson
Samson's post discovering How Research is Computed (at Apolyton):
Sources:posted April 23, 2001 18:25
Hi all.
The Key Civ discovery allowed me to run some controlled tests on the numbers of beakers required for researching new technology. I think I understand how the cost is calcuated now. Some of this stuff is already known, but I will repeat it here just to have the whole mechanism described in one place.
The cost of researching a new technology (the beaker count) is the product of two factors. The first is the Tech Number which you are researching. This is the number of Acquired Techs you have +1. Acquired Techs are all techs you have received in gameplay from research, huts, trades, gifts, or steals. It does not include your starting techs.
The second factor is a Base Tech Multiplier to which either a bonus or penalty can be added. The formula would look like this:
Cost of Research = TechNumber X (Base + Penalty/Bonus)
The Penalty/Bonus is based on how far ahead or behind your research is compared to your current Key Civ. That relationship is quantified by comparing your TechNumber to your Key Civ's TechNumber. If you are the same you receive the Base Tech Multiplier with no Penalty or Bonus.
If you on a lower TechNumber than your Key Civ, then you receive the Bonus. The Bonus is the same no matter how far behind you are. On a medium map it is either a -1 or -2 depending on the TechNumber (see chart below).
If your TechNumber is higher than your Key Civ's, you are penalized a +1 to the Base Tech Multiplier for every 3 techs which you are ahead of him. In other words, if you are even or ahead by one or two, your penalty is 0. If you are ahead by 3,4, or 5 techs then your penalty is +1. Thus, the higher the TechNumber which you are researching the farther ahead it is possible to be. If your Key Civ is stuck in the Bronze Age while you are researching Space Flight, you will be paying an enormous penalty in beaker costs.
Here is a chart of TechNumbers, Base Multipliers, and Bonuses for the first 20 techs.
Tech# Base Bonus
01 10 0
02 11 -2
03 11 -1
04 12 -2
05 12 -1
06 12 -1
07 12 0
08 13 -1
09 13 -1
10 14 -2
11 14 -2
12 15 -2
13 15 -2
14 15 -1
15 15 -1
16 16 -1
17 16 -1
18 17 -2
19 17 -2
20 26 -2
All TechNumbers above 20 have a Base of 26 and a Bonus of -2. The Minimum Beaker Cost for a given TechNumber can be calculated from this chart and that Minimum can be achieved in gameplay by lowering your TechNumber relative to your Key Civ through tech-gifting.
One important consequence of the fact that the Penalty/Bonus is based on TechNumber, rather than total techs, is that Starting Techs are critical in determining how much you will pay for research in a game. If you have fewer Starting Techs than your Key Civ, then you can only get the Bonus when that Key Civ actually is ahead of you in researching. You can never reach the Bonus through tech-gifting alone.
On the other hand, if you have more Starting Techs than your Key Civ, you can easily get the Bonus without even giving away all of your techs. Starting Techs are an enormous advantage not just at the start, but throughout the whole game as they determine your ability to reduce your science cost.
If you start with NO techs, and the other civs all have them, you may be paying research penalties the entire game, even with aggressive tech-gifting.
samson
Samson discovered how Cost of Research is computed; his name, and terms like "purple", "gift*", "research" are good ways to search. Names like Smash, Sodak, and Starlifter are good ways to narrow searchs at CFC. Here are some source links:
Apr 2001 Key Civ (Samson)
Apr 2001 Cost of Research (Samson, Apolyton)
Jun 2001 (Caravans, purple civ, etc.)
Aug 2001 (Cost of Research)
Oct 2001 (Cost of Research)
Jan 2002 (Key Civ)