RA: The biggest Bug never fixed!!!

Well, here's how things generally seem to work.

We identify a problem.
A modder adds it to a balance mod.
Firaxis adds it to the main game.

They do keep an eye on these things. Whether they've identified it as a sufficient problem that requires redress I can't say. If people think this is very unbalanced, perhaps another balance patch could address this. For me, I clearly don't play optimally. There have been games where my RAs have been minimal, since I've had greater priorities for gold elsewhere.
 
For me, I clearly don't play optimally. There have been games where my RAs have been minimal, since I've had greater priorities for gold elsewhere.

This is actually a very good point. For RAs to be overpowered, you have to spam them. If you just sign them casually (1 or 2 at a time with good 'friends') they tend to behave fairly well. In that sense a self-imposed rule can solve your problems.

I tend to limit my use of them as I find the game much more enjoyable this way. So they aren't a massive problem for me. I would like to see them adjusted but wouldn't be devastated if they weren't.
 
Maybe the most ideal solution is the escalating cost idea. The first research agreement costs 250 for you, the second costs 300, the third 350, etc. The more Civs you sign currently active agreements with, the more expensive they get. That'll help reduce the number overall.

I'd also suggest costs scaled individually by era. Maybe they do and I don't encounter it, but a classical civ signing with a medieval one should pay less. Although this might be factored into AI requests (they usually want something to sweeten the pot if you are already pretty advanced).
 
Maybe the most ideal solution is the escalating cost idea. The first research agreement costs 250 for you, the second costs 300, the third 350, etc. The more Civs you sign currently active agreements with, the more expensive they get. That'll help reduce the number overall.

I'd also suggest costs scaled individually by era. Maybe they do and I don't encounter it, but a classical civ signing with a medieval one should pay less. Although this might be factored into AI requests (they usually want something to sweeten the pot if you are already pretty advanced).

For players like conquering, cost is not really a problem. I often get 5K gold for selling a city in mid game(100~150turns). And have 20K+ gold in later game.

So, i think limited RA quantity (can only sign RA with friendly AI) and limited RA effect (Median of lesser CIV for RA reward counting) are better. :)
 
For players like conquering, cost is not really a problem. I often get 5K gold for selling a city in mid game(100~150turns). And have 20K+ gold in later game.

So, i think limited RA quantity (can only sign RA with friendly AI) and limited RA effect (Median of lesser CIV for RA reward counting) are better. :)

The cost increase could be tuned. For example, if each RA signed will multiply RA cost by 2, they'll become too expensive very soon ;)
 
the AI needs 50% bonuses from everything, loads of extra starting units and an extra city.

yet RA is the route of the problem? :/
 
Yeah this is good idea.
But i have very easy ways to fix it.
1.Peace Treaty last 20 turns.
2.You need to have Declaration of Friendship to player ho you want to sell city.
3.You can't sell same city more than once.
4.You can sell only 3 different cites.
 
I don't even think you should be able to sell cities straight up for cash. Make it so the AI will trade city for city and only offer or demand gold to cover the difference (value of the city increases by size, resources, and proximity to the other civ. Value decreases likewise for them if they're far away, insignificant, or lacking in resources).

Since small cities will have little value (often no value if the city they include balances things out), it'll dramatically reduce any exploit of selling cities (something I've never actually done).
 
I think you should be in the same era to be able to have RA with some AI. Or, at least only backward civ should gain new knowlege. For exaple if I'm in ancient era, and ai in renaissance then I should get new techs, and they should get a kind of money (or price for RA should be higher). If two civs are in the same era then they both should receive techs from RA. What do you think?
 
If I'm the more advanced Civ, why would I sign an agreement that would only benefit the less advanced civ? If I'm the less advanced civ, how am I to come back if the advanced civs only sign agreements with each other and I'm left out?

I think the cost should be different, but I don't see any benefit to simply blocking the signing of agreements between eras.
 
The advanced civ should get some bonus in addition to the research for forming an RA as otherwise a civs would be uninterested in ever signing an RA with anyone behind them. I think this should come in the form of gold or other trading elements. Kind of the opposite of now.
 
The problems with lowering all the late game tech costs would be massive. Considering RAs become more efficient than research already by early-mid renaissance, you are talking about cutting down a significant portion of the game.

Further, doing so would not improve the value of mid to late game buildings nor really weaken RAs or GSes. You'd just use them in combo with hard research rather than have it replace it, as it does now. So instead of finishing the game at turn 250 of 550, one would finish it at like 180 or so.

I'm not sure I was clear here. Since release, the cost of the techs at the back end of the tree has more or less tripled, while the cost of everything until about mid-Renaissance has remained more or less the same. Things in between more or less scaled according to their relative position; an early Modern tech costs about double what it once did.

Now, you might think that increasing late game tech costs makes it slower to get through the tree, but it doesn't. I can count on one finger the number of Industrial and Modern techs that I'm going to research with :c5science:. The rest is filled in with RAs and GS bulbs.

Because that's the case, there really isn't any :c5science: payoff for a wide empire. If you lower late game tech costs to reasonable values, a huge empire can produce enough :c5science: to rip through the back end of the tree at the pace of a tech every few turns. You used to see 40-50 city, 15-20 pop/city empires during the initial release pumping out 1000:c5science: per turn. Now the game is at least as ICS friendly, but no one does it. Since even a wide empire can't hard tech Modern efficiently, there's no real payoff for all the :c5production: invested in settling or conquering. Small, vertical empires end up being the most efficient researchers, as they get through the critical :c5science: phase (start to mid-Renaissance) the fastest.

In fact, lowering late game tech costs will actually slow down vertical empires with low :c5science: output late in the game. A significant part of proper research strategy right now is to open up enough 5400:c5science: techs to blow through the bottom part of late Renaissance and Industrial in just a couple of RAs. If techs in the back end of the tree were cheaper, it would add another 10-20 turns of research before the vertical empire could RA/GS bomb its way to victory.

I don't think that would be quite enough to shift equilibrium strategy, but it would be a start. Getting rid of the National College would put a much larger premium on early :c5citizen: growth to drive :c5science:, which would at least push players towards a mid-size, 5-6 city empire.

On the other hand, weakening RAs would greatly enhance loads of features they presently completely obliterate. Having more options in a strategic game is always the goal. Thus even if you call RAs a feature, they are a feature many of us don't enjoy.

I'm surprised that you've never run across the bug/feature meme before. Maybe it's too old school. One of the more infamous ways for support staff to avoid work is to label unintended behavior a "feature" rather than a "bug". The devs' insistence on trying to stick with the "one tech per RA" model despite its clear flaws and a bevy of rebalance suggestions since release closely resembles that approach.

That said, nerfing RAs is going to do less than you think. All you'll accomplish is move back the dates when players want to RA/GS bomb their way out of the game. You're not going to get players to broadly build Renaissance buildings; they're still badly overpriced.
 
I'm not sure I was clear here. Since release, the cost of the techs at the back end of the tree has more or less tripled, while the cost of everything until about mid-Renaissance has remained more or less the same. Things in between more or less scaled according to their relative position; an early Modern tech costs about double what it once did.

Now, you might think that increasing late game tech costs makes it slower to get through the tree, but it doesn't. I can count on one finger the number of Industrial and Modern techs that I'm going to research with :c5science:. The rest is filled in with RAs and GS bulbs.

There are some interesting thoughts in your post, many of which I agree with. I completely agree that increasing beaker costs late game as it is now will do absolutely nothing. In fact it might actually make it worse due to the RA mechanics.

Because that's the case, there really isn't any :c5science: payoff for a wide empire. If you lower late game tech costs to reasonable values, a huge empire can produce enough :c5science: to rip through the back end of the tree at the pace of a tech every few turns. You used to see 40-50 city, 15-20 pop/city empires during the initial release pumping out 1000:c5science: per turn. Now the game is at least as ICS friendly, but no one does it. Since even a wide empire can't hard tech Modern efficiently, there's no real payoff for all the :c5production: invested in settling or conquering. Small, vertical empires end up being the most efficient researchers, as they get through the critical :c5science: phase (start to mid-Renaissance) the fastest.

You actually can, as you suggested, get a massive amount of hard beakers and rip through the tech tree. I still do it but usually only in my self-imposed RAless games. Interestingly enough you can do it with a handful of cities (like 4 - 6) but they have to be very tall. Anyways... that's kind of irrelevant ATM. They key point here is that under current rules, setting up this hard teching empire, either horizontal or vertical, takes a lot longer to do than RA/GS teching.

In fact, lowering late game tech costs will actually slow down vertical empires with low :c5science: output late in the game. A significant part of proper research strategy right now is to open up enough 5400:c5science: techs to blow through the bottom part of late Renaissance and Industrial in just a couple of RAs. If techs in the back end of the tree were cheaper, it would add another 10-20 turns of research before the vertical empire could RA/GS bomb its way to victory.

I don't think that would be quite enough to shift equilibrium strategy, but it would be a start. Getting rid of the National College would put a much larger premium on early :c5citizen: growth to drive :c5science:, which would at least push players towards a mid-size, 5-6 city empire.

I understand what you are saying now. Basically if you lower the tech costs to be more linear through the ages, unlocking more advanced techs would not push up the median as much and therefore not allow you to jump through techs as quickly.

However I'm not sure I understand how that's any different than some of the proposals here to weaken RAs. Using the 5400 tech example, under my RA idea where you get the min of the medians of the partners involved the only way you'd actually get anywhere near 5400 is if your partner has also unlocked those 5400 techs. On deity it is possible but my experience suggests it is unlikely as you can surpass AI teching by this point. Thus you'd either have to sit back and do nothing and wait till the AI catches up or hard tech / GS your way through.

It's the same line of thinking I believe as what you suggested with the NC. If it was delayed (or deleted) you'd have to do more earlier to get hard science to get to the point where the RAs are worth while. Alternately if you are too far ahead thus weaking your RA potential, you'll have to get hard science if you wish to further push yourself ahean.

That said, nerfing RAs is going to do less than you think. All you'll accomplish is move back the dates when players want to RA/GS bomb their way out of the game. You're not going to get players to broadly build Renaissance buildings; they're still badly overpriced.

You could be right about the buildings. The public school is useful in hard teching / GS strats, for example, but buildings like the windmill are awful. Way too expensive and seem to have a rather large rush modiifer for unknown reasons... it isn't that good.

However I feel that if the end game can be delayed significantly with these changes... say by 100+ turns... it will allow items like the academy and bulbing for earlier techs to become more viable strategies. Also hard building additional science buildings beyond universities.

I do agree that lowering tech costs will also weaken RAs but I fear that in order to weaken them enough you are going to make hard teching so much more powerful that the end game will be about the same timeline as it is now.
 
Here are my thoughts:

1. I think increasing the number of techs with decreasing their cost should help a lot. Probably a good idea for expansion.

2. Could anyone calculate, how many techs they gain using GS and how many using RA in a single game? Let's consider each completed RA to be 1/2, 1 or 3/2, depending on Rationalism and PT. It's also interesting to see how many RA weren't complete. Just to see there the real problem is.

3. If GS is more problem, probably they should be modified in the same way as RA, granting median science cost (or fraction of it)? Additionally it will bring more balance with other GP.
 
Here are my thoughts:

1. I think increasing the number of techs with decreasing their cost should help a lot. Probably a good idea for expansion.

2. Could anyone calculate, how many techs they gain using GS and how many using RA in a single game? Let's consider each completed RA to be 1/2, 1 or 3/2, depending on Rationalism and PT. It's also interesting to see how many RA weren't complete. Just to see there the real problem is.

3. If GS is more problem, probably they should be modified in the same way as RA, granting median science cost (or fraction of it)? Additionally it will bring more balance with other GP.

My expierences coincide a lot with what Martin just said: "I can count on one finger the number of Industrial and Modern techs that I'm going to research with :c5science:. The rest is filled in with RAs and GS bulbs."

So in other words RAs + GSes are used for pretty much every tech in Industrial, Modern, and Future (if you need to go that far). Also RAs tend to be used for about half of the Renaissance techs.

In a typical non-Babylon game I think the usual is to generate around 10 GSes or so. Thus the last / most expensive 10 techs go to GSes and the rest are RAs.

I wouldn't say that GSes aren't really more of a problem right now... they are powerful if they are saved to the end of the game but getting to the end of the game quickly enough to justify saving them requires RAs. Eliminate this issue and the GS issue should resolve itself.

EDIT: Oh BTW. The yields from the RAs arent 1/2, 1, or 3/2s as you mentioned. It's actually 1/2, 3/4, 1.
 
Using the 5400 tech example, under my RA idea where you get the min of the medians of the partners involved the only way you'd actually get anywhere near 5400 is if your partner has also unlocked those 5400 techs. On deity it is possible but my experience suggests it is unlikely as you can surpass AI teching by this point. Thus you'd either have to sit back and do nothing and wait till the AI catches up or hard tech / GS your way through.

This does a few things:

- higher premium on GS; no bulb/Oxford on Electricity
- delay first wave and hard tech a couple more mid-Renaissance techs first

That's about it, really. Min of the medians is going to merely halve what you'd get with an AI that just hit Industrial, which is common in the 160 range when a first full wave would ordinarily resolve now.

You could be right about the buildings. The public school is useful in hard teching / GS strats, for example, but buildings like the windmill are awful. Way too expensive and seem to have a rather large rush modiifer for unknown reasons... it isn't that good.

It's useful if it gets you the GE to get out of your Diplomacy game when you hit Globalization when you otherwise wouldn't. That's about it.

I do agree that lowering tech costs will also weaken RAs but I fear that in order to weaken them enough you are going to make hard teching so much more powerful that the end game will be about the same timeline as it is now.

Lower tech costs, drill RAs, drill Great Scientists. Cap GS :c5science: by turns elapsed - same mechanism as CIV. Steal the Research Treaty mechanism from MOO2 (per-turn :c5science: boost, big brother gets less than little brother) - it worked. Reverse AI RA behavior such that it wants :c5gold: if you're behind in total research - other hypothetical control mechanisms can be gamed.

2. Could anyone calculate, how many techs they gain using GS and how many using RA in a single game? Let's consider each completed RA to be 1/2, 1 or 3/2, depending on Rationalism and PT. It's also interesting to see how many RA weren't complete. Just to see there the real problem is.

I typically get 6-7 via GPP (plus one from PT) if I get out in 200 turns via Space/Diplo. Assuming a three-city empire, what usually happens is the capital produces the first two, then the second city, then the third city, then the capital, then the second city. If there's a seventh, the capital produces it and I put the Public School there; if there won't be a seventh, I put the Public School in the second city if necessary.
 
I don't have these problems in my games as I play pretty casually (no clear strategic path) on King on smaller maps. I can rarely implement the dominant diety level strats talked about here. (AI's never seem to have tons of gold to buy conquered cities, and they are constantly backstabbing me before RA's are complete, even when my army is superior to theirs).

But, the problem appears to be that GS's and RA's are vastly superior to hard beakers in the later part of the game.

Couldn't this be balanced by linking RA and GS production to hard beaker production? Rather than getting an amount of science based on development, you'd get a one time boost based on some multiplier of the hard beakers you are currently producing. (maybe about 5 turns worth on standard speed?).

While I agree with the other changes proposed here, this seems like a quick and simple fix which wouldn't really change any of the mechanics of the game.

Or is this already the way they work?
 
This does a few things:

- higher premium on GS; no bulb/Oxford on Electricity
- delay first wave and hard tech a couple more mid-Renaissance techs first

That's about it, really. Min of the medians is going to merely halve what you'd get with an AI that just hit Industrial, which is common in the 160 range when a first full wave would ordinarily resolve now.

You're only analyzing the first wave which is kind of missing the idea. It's to prevent outteching the AIs. Let's say under the current system each RA grants you basically 1 tech and you can get 5 or so at a time. They land, you plow through pushing up your median and maybe using key GS bulbs along with it. You push your median up and you repeat.

Under the min median system, the first wave nets you half as much as before, using your prediction. That's certainly going to have an effect. Instead of being 5 techs ahead you'll be 2.5. So your median is smaller and the AIs have not caught up. It's very easy to out tech an AI with the current RAs. Now? Not so much. At this point some AIs will be ahead but even on Deity many will be behind. It will not be worth very much to sign with them. Basically there will be no benefit to tailoring your median and no way to rush to some particular victory tech just with additional RAs. You are going to have to let the AI catch up or find some alternate way.

Yes sure it will place a premium on GSes and free techs. However where are you going to get them? You are going to need more generators which means more cities, more universities, more public schools which is kind of exactly the idea.

If your concept continues to hold that the RAs will be worth maybe half of what they were before (I imagine they might be actually less but lets say half) that implies that you will need 2X the waves of RAs with RAs alone. Thus adding on another 90 - 150 turns to the game which is exactly what is needed.

Lower tech costs, drill RAs, drill Great Scientists. Cap GS :c5science: by turns elapsed - same mechanism as CIV. Steal the Research Treaty mechanism from MOO2 (per-turn :c5science: boost, big brother gets less than little brother) - it worked. Reverse AI RA behavior such that it wants :c5gold: if you're behind in total research - other hypothetical control mechanisms can be gamed.

Yes there are other systems that would improve the system. I've tried to propose something that I like and IMO would help. I don't really like the lower tech costs option as it would unbalance and accelerate the game for the vast majority of players who don't use this RA spam... especially for those below Deity level.
 
I don't have these problems in my games as I play pretty casually (no clear strategic path) on King on smaller maps. I can rarely implement the dominant diety level strats talked about here. (AI's never seem to have tons of gold to buy conquered cities, and they are constantly backstabbing me before RA's are complete, even when my army is superior to theirs).

But, the problem appears to be that GS's and RA's are vastly superior to hard beakers in the later part of the game.

Couldn't this be balanced by linking RA and GS production to hard beaker production? Rather than getting an amount of science based on development, you'd get a one time boost based on some multiplier of the hard beakers you are currently producing. (maybe about 5 turns worth on standard speed?).

While I agree with the other changes proposed here, this seems like a quick and simple fix which wouldn't really change any of the mechanics of the game.

Or is this already the way they work?

No they don't work that way and there have been proposals that RAs + GSes basically add multipliers to your hard beakers. I like those suggestions too and I think they would help a lot.

I don't really care if it is my suggestion or anyone else's. I just would like to see something to bring things back into balance. There should be no way to finish the game with a hard research of 200:c5science: a turn when techs cost 10000+.
 
Couldn't this be balanced by linking RA and GS production to hard beaker production? Rather than getting an amount of science based on development, you'd get a one time boost based on some multiplier of the hard beakers you are currently producing. (maybe about 5 turns worth on standard speed?).

In this case players will boost their science output for the turn they get the research and revert it back afterwards. This could be done by several methods:

1. Putting science specialists inside their slots. Wouldn't help too much if they are already there.

2. Putting other specialists in, if you have Secularism.

3. Putting workers on Trading Posts if you have Free Thought.
 
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