RA: The biggest Bug never fixed!!!

[Optional]

Originally Posted by stealth_nsk

No, that's wrong. In Civ 5 diplomacy is based on trade and RA is one of the biggest part here. It helps much more than, dor example, DoF

Can you back these statements up, please? I'm not even seeing a diplo modifier come up after signing a research agreement. A declaration of friendship at least shows up, but backstabs are so rife that even these count for little.

You're saying the backstab bias has been decreased? Of the 22 civs I've got in my game it has not changed for 13 of them, and for the other 9 it has been turned down by just a notch, I posted the figures from the XML files a couple of times in these forums.
If you think the figures are being misinterpreted, please explain how you read them.

[Becephalus]

I agree completely, I have no idea why they have RA in the game or how they think they fit in well with the res tof the mechnics. Not to mention that it is not as though you needed a way to turn $ into beakers,

You already have that it is called science building purchasing/maintenance. If I could turn off RA I would, though obviously there would need to be some alternate functionality for the PT and Rationalism.

[stealth_nsk]

Originally Posted by idontknow2011

How long have you played CIV5? Have you tried Deity level yet?

I'm playing it since release, but not that much time. I'm beating Emperor easily. Deity tried twice, although both times didn't succeed, going to give it another try soon - I know what I was doing wrong

On Deity RA is mostly worthless spend of money. AI is ahead of you in money and military (at least they think they are better in military ), so they mostly consider RA as a method of sucking your money before attack. At least this was before the last patch, hoping for more proud trade partners now.

Originally Posted by Optional

Can you back these statements up, please? I'm not even seeing a diplo modifier come up after signing a research agreement. A declaration of friendship at least shows up, but backstabs are so rife that even these count for little.

Diplo modifiers is only part of the AI reasons when they make a decision about going to war. If you have undefended city, that's not shown in diplo modifiers as well, although it's as important as half of them. When AI weights reasons to attack you or not, they consider losing RA as negative effect of attack. Unless that's backstab.

You're saying the backstab bias has been decreased? Of the 22 civs I've got in my game it has not changed for 13 of them, and for the other 9 it has been turned down by just a notch, I posted the figures from the XML files a couple of times in these forums.
If you think the figures are being misinterpreted, please explain how you read them.

I don't have exact formulas. As I could suggest, 5 is neutral to the backstabbing idea and all numbers below are against it. So, since actual personality varies each game for each leader (+/-2 if I remember correctly), decreasing base bias from 7 to 6 could have quite high effect in average.

[turingmachine]

The whole science system is somewhat broken in that it essentially forces you to abuse RA and save Great Scientists to instant bulb later techs. In fact, if you look at how there's a bunch of ways to get free techs throughout the game you can see that actual science was never really the focus.

RA's need to be fixed. How about into an actual research agreement. You and a civ both choose a tech you both can research, and you both research it together sharing bulbs and you pay based on how many bulbs you get from the other civ.

Great Scientists also need to lose instant free tech and add an upper limit to how much research they can give. So early techs are still free but later techs only complete 50-75% of them.

[Tabarnak]

RAs should give you a certain amount of beakers each turn. A DoW still make you lose money but at least you got beakers from previous peace turns. They can give less beakers in the beginning of the deal, but more they are close to completion, more they give beakers.

[stealth_nsk]

Originally Posted by turingmachine

The whole science system is somewhat broken in that it essentially forces you to abuse RA and save Great Scientists to instant bulb later techs. In fact, if you look at how there's a bunch of ways to get free techs throughout the game you can see that actual science was never really the focus.

Compared to previous Civs tech trading, you gain much less free techs. And number of GS is tightly linked with your research, since you need science wonders and science buildings with scientists sitting inside. The only free techs not related to you science output are RA and GS from city-states, but you could only research very limited amount of techs this way.

Originally Posted by Tabarnak

RAs should give you a certain amount of beakers each turn. A DoW still make you lose money but at least you got beakers from previous peace turns. They can give less beakers in the beginning of the deal, but more they are close to completion, more they give beakers.

Another idea decreasing RA diplomatic value.

[MkLh]

Originally Posted by stealth_nsk

Compared to previous Civs tech trading, you gain much less free techs.

How is that? In Civ4, you always had to offer more expensive tech to the AI to get a tech. In V, it's certainly possible to get more beakers from the RA than the AI gets (Porcelain + Rationalism, and the AI most likely has no idea of how to maximize RA beakers).

[ColinTH]

Originally Posted by MkLh

How is that? In Civ4, you always had to offer more expensive tech to the AI to get a tech. In V, it's certainly possible to get more beakers from the RA than the AI gets (Porcelain + Rationalism, and the AI most likely has no idea of how to maximize RA beakers).

In civ4 you could sometimes get six or seven techs (all in one turn) from your one tech.

[wobuffet]

Originally Posted by ArcaneSeraph

What would happen if it was changed it to:
0.5 * PT Bonus * Rationalism Bonus * min (your median tech value, your partner's median tech value)

That way, if you are trading with someone that is ahead or at your level you would get about the same. If you are ahead, however, you will get at most their median tech value. So if you are trading with some backwater civ that you just kept alive for RA purposes or some other obvious exploit, then you wouldn't get many beakers for your buck.

Under this mechanism, AIs that are behind could catch up (which is largely the intent) but AIs or players that are ahead wouldn't be able to sail foward.

Thoughts?

This is an excellent idea. It could be balanced so that science-light (esp. AI) Civs could use them to almost keep pace (e.g., at least avoid ending up pitting Archers against Riflemen), but that science-heavy Civs would still enjoy several turns of technological advantage (in combat, wonder production, building production, etc).

After all, thematically speaking, an Modern Civ signing an RA with a Medieval one shouldn't really do much for the former Civ. And it definitely doesn't make sense that an RA is an RA is an RA, regardless of who they're signed with.

Originally Posted by Tabarnak

RAs should give you a certain amount of beakers each turn. A DoW still make you lose money but at least you got beakers from previous peace turns. They can give less beakers in the beginning of the deal, but more they are close to completion, more they give beakers.

This too. Not only does it link RAs with war/peace more tightly, it also would make RAs less susceptible to micro-manipulation – a good thing, in my book. Perhaps each subsequent turn of an RA could give you x% more than the last turn (compounded interest!), calibrated so that something like 50% of your research comes in the last 1/3 [i.e., 10 turns] of the RA.

[Just because I'm a math geek, I figured out what that rate (x%) would be: 4.93%. (But because I'm a lazy math geek, I used WolframAlpha.)]


Or actually, maybe an RA should generate 10 turns of nothing, followed by some sort of increasing rate of beakers/turn. It'd be nice to see "Your Research Agreement with Ramesses has begun to bear fruit! Over the next 20 turns, it will generate Science for your empire."

As far as war/deceit, a pop-up would appear after each RA signing asking something like "You have signed a Research Agreement for 241 with Suleiman. Did you enter this agreement with honest intentions?
- Yes, invest in Science (will begin yielding after 10 turns).
- No, pocket the money (entails WAR with Suleiman within 10 turns!)"

It'd add a whole new level of complexity to negotiations with Civs you've been to war with in the past, for example. Making it a viable game mechanic might necessitate making AI Civ leaders' deceit biases much random (less predictable from game to game).

[MkLh]

Originally Posted by ColinTH

In civ4 you could sometimes get six or seven techs (all in one turn) from your one tech.

Yes but every AI gets a tech too.

[ColinTH]

Originally Posted by ArcaneSeraph

I was brainstorming a bit overnight and came up with what maybe a decent idea to balance RAs. Right now they give:

0.5 * PT Bonus * Rationalism Bonus * your median tech value.

What would happen if it was changed it to:

0.5 * PT Bonus * Rationalism Bonus * min (your median tech value, your partner's median tech value)

That way, if you are trading with someone that is ahead or at your level you would get about the same. If you are ahead, however, you will get at most their median tech value. So if you are trading with some backwater civ that you just kept alive for RA purposes or some other obvious exploit, then you wouldn't get many beakers for your buck.

Under this mechanism, AIs that are behind could catch up (which is largely the intent) but AIs or players that are ahead wouldn't be able to sail foward.

Thoughts?

I have been waiting for someone else to explain this in simplistic terms (I am simple).
If I understand this correctly, you are saying that the research agreement should give the amount of beakers acrewed by the weakest RA trading partner to both RA trading partners? If one or other of the trading partners has the Porcelain Tower, or one or other (or both) have Rationalism they should still receive those beaker bonuses?
I like this idea very much ArcaneSeraph, it would certainly do alot to curb runaway civs (be it us or the AI).

[wobuffet]

Originally Posted by ColinTH

I have been waiting for someone else to explain this in simplistic terms (I am simple).
If I understand this correctly, you are saying that the research agreement should give the amount of beakers acrewed by the weakest RA trading partner to both RA trading partners? If one or other of the trading partners has the Porcelain Tower, or one or other (or both) have Rationalism they should still receive those beaker bonuses?
I like this idea very much ArcaneSeraph, it would certainly do alot to curb runaway civs (be it us or the AI).

I don't mean to speak for ArcaneSeraph, but this is what the math means: both civs receive the same (base) number of beakers. This number is determined by median tech value of the less scientifically advanced partner.

I assume each Civ's RA multipliers would apply only to their own yields beyond this common base, although this would not help alleviate the runaway Science Civ problem. I guess letting both Civs' multipliers apply to each RA wouldn't be all that bad (although the Porcelain Tower would become useless in, say, Duel games). But really, the best approach would probably be to reduce the size of all RA bonuses.

[MkLh]

Originally Posted by wobuffet

I don't mean to speak for ArcaneSeraph, but this is what the math means: both civs receive the same (base) number of beakers. This number is determined by median tech value of the less scientifically advanced partner.

This wouldn't change much. The only level where RAs are needed is Diety. There the human player is usually (almost always?) less scientifically advanced, so he would get exact the same amount of beakers as now. Paradoxically, the AI would probably get more beakers than it's getting now, so the RA would be slightly weaker. I doubt the effect would be significant though.

[stealth_nsk]

Originally Posted by MkLh

Yes but every AI gets a tech too.

Yes, they get 1 and you get 6-7. Plus with RA your partner gets beakers too. So I'd say RA is actually a weaker version of tech trading, without the disadvantages of the tech trading system.

[MkLh]

Originally Posted by stealth_nsk

Yes, they get 1 and you get 6-7.

With the RA the mechanism/exploitation is very similar really. If you make RAs with 6-7 civs, each of them gets beakers worth of 1 tech while you get beakers worth of 6-7 techs.

Plus with RA your partner gets beakers too. So I'd say RA is actually a weaker version of tech trading, without the disadvantages of the tech trading system.

It's more powerful than tech trading ever was, but much much clumsier. It's very hard to understand why they replaced tech trading with this thing.

[ColinTH]

Originally Posted by wobuffet

I don't mean to speak for ArcaneSeraph, but this is what the math means: both civs receive the same (base) number of beakers. This number is determined by median tech value of the less scientifically advanced partner.

Thanks - So I had it worked out about right (it seems), i just don't understand the exact meaning of words like median.

Originally Posted by wobuffet

although this would not help alleviate the runaway Science Civ problem.

I disagree - This is an extreme example - If I am tech leader and have the Porcelain Tower and Rationalism and I traded with a civ that is in the classical era (because I kept him there for trade purposes), I am in the industrial era, then my beakers are going to be negligable with ArcaneSeraph's suggestion, atleast the AI civ will still receive the same amount of beakers as before!
At the very least it would stop some forms of extreme RA abuse!

[stealth_nsk]

Originally Posted by MkLh

It's more powerful than tech trading ever was, but much much clumsier. It's very hard to understand why they replaced tech trading with this thing.

Ok, let's compare.

Tech trading:
- You need to discover a tech, which someone doesn't know yet.

RA:
- You need to pay money for each tech.
- You need to maintain peace for 30 turns.
- You could do it only once in 30 turns per civ.
- Unless you invest in wonder and/or SP, it's only 1/2 of median tech.
- You pay immediately, but get results in 30 turns, etc.

I'd say tech trading is much more powerful. Once you managed to be the first one one one tech, you get a lot of stuff for free.

The reason why they changed it is simple. Civ 4 is about tech race. If you're first to discover tech, you get tech trading, religion, great people, etc. That's core of gameplay and it has a lot of problems starting of the system being too random.

Civ 5 is free of direct tech race, that's a concept and it's much better. RA fits the idea perfectly.

[idontknow2011]

Originally Posted by stealth_nsk

Ok, let's compare.
.......

"If" you can discover a tech first. That's the devil. In Deity level of CIV5, you can't discover a tech first, so , you get nothing. But you have RA to catch and surpass AI easily!

Then, tell me, which is more powerful in CIV5 ? RA or tech trading?

[stealth_nsk]

Originally Posted by idontknow2011

Then, tell me, which is more powerful in CIV5 ? RA or tech trading?

If Civ 5 had tech trading, it would be possible to tech first. That's simple balance. Civ 5 allows AI to be in front of player so much because there's no direct tech race.

[ArcaneSeraph]

Originally Posted by wobuffet

I don't mean to speak for ArcaneSeraph, but this is what the math means: both civs receive the same (base) number of beakers. This number is determined by median tech value of the less scientifically advanced partner.

I assume each Civ's RA multipliers would apply only to their own yields beyond this common base

It's fine to speak for me especially when I'm sleeping . And yes that's the idea

Originally Posted by MkLh

This wouldn't change much. The only level where RAs are needed is Diety. There the human player is usually (almost always?) less scientifically advanced, so he would get exact the same amount of beakers as now. Paradoxically, the AI would probably get more beakers than it's getting now, so the RA would be slightly weaker. I doubt the effect would be significant though.

The problem I'm trying to curb is the runaway player. On any difficulty, but Deity especially, there's a way to get to Renaissance about the same time as the AIs. It basically means using either some early RAs or saving a GS or 2 from the PT and other sources. Once you are in renaissance with the AIs (sometimes ahead of them), this is where the problem takes over. You just push with RAs the whole way through. With the PT and Rationalism on your side, and the fact that the AIs don't spam RAs as aggressively as humans do, you'll be out of Renaissance far faster than any of them.

Why stop there? You can push through Industrial and Modern with RAs. The AIs will be lucky to be a single era behind you.

With the change I proposed however, these latter pushes would no be possible until the AIs caught up. It would also make microing the median tech useless once you are ahead of them techwise.

I also like the idea proposed of limiting this to Friendly AIs (or even modifing the amount you get by their status). They'd have to fix the silly backstabbing all the time though... The idea of getting it per turn isn't a bad one either but would likley require more code change so it would be up to the devs as to if this is possible or not.