Science is dramatically slowed on Huge Maps

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Geppenguin

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe technology costs scales up with map size to account for the larger number of cities (and hence population). In BNW, this upscaling seems to be too much on huge maps. In my current game as Venice (12 starting civs), I'm the tech leader, it's turn 370 and I haven't even started on Atomic Theory (my literacy rate is 72%). Despite civs like Poland and Persia having massive empires with fairly well-developed cities, they still can't match my tech lead somehow. Am I the only with this problem? O.o
 
I think another contributing factor could also be that science leakage doesn't scale up with time OR map size. Anyone else think this should be fixed?
 
Well i had this too in my Brazil game i had like 6-7 Citys and had a 5% Penalty per City..
All had high Pop and all Sience Builduing but it took me still 20 Turns to research a tech.
This was Epic btw.

Right now on my Portugal game i only have a 2% penalty dont know why..
i have 5 Citys and 1 Puppet.
 
My problem, is that I'm not sure what angle Firaxis was getting at with some of these changes. Were they trying to smooth out early-game science imbalances that lead to Renaissance-runaway syndrome? Maybe, but perhaps they were just firing a shot in the dark, more or less, and seeing how the mechanics would play out. Launch now, patch later- it's the motto of all modern game devs :nuke:

The tech cost penalty per city is also really painful for wide empires, but I think this is definitely intended. If you build a lot of cities, you should be building a lot of buildings for a strong economy- not spamming units from those cities, which is what generally happens. I think that's the specific bit of the AI that's causing so many different problems. Military needs to be re-prioritized to balance with development.
 
I was of the opinion that the new costs were dragging me down too much, but once I reached public schools and rationalism with 5 cities and 3 puppets I was generating more science than before in BNW.

Teching is a bit slower by tech-cost increasing, but more or less my timings are the same since G&Ks.
 
I love slower tech'ing. In fact i usually play with mods that increas tech costs by 300%.
 
It's mostly the same mechanic as happiness. You start out at a deficit, but gain a surplus with buildings. This means the biggest hit you suffer is spreading wide in the early game.

Ironically, between the science penalty, culture penalty, and internal trading routes... it is often easier to get a new city started up in the mid and late game than to go wide in the early game.
 
My thinking was that it's an attempt to curb rapid early expansion (REX), which I believe was seen as having too much explosive potential by many. From the little I've seen of it, you can still do fine tech-wise with a wide empire, but you need to be able to properly build up your cities and not just spam them out willy-nilly. And for those going wide, it shifts the priority from grabbing all the land you can immediately to balancing developing your early cities against plopping new ones down as fast as you can.

I haven't played around with it too much yet but it seems like it's doing an all right job, and it doesn't seem punitive enough to make wide impractical or unworkable. Maybe the numbers need to be tweaked a bit to bring different strategies in line. At least it's an additive multiplier, not a multiplicative one.
 
I have noticed it even on a standard size map.

My first game of BNW just ended last night in a diplo victory for me as Venice. The year was 2033 - no one had higher than WWII era units, me included. Granted I wasn't focusing on military tech but still....

It was weird.
 
marlowe221 said:
I have noticed it even on a standard size map.

My first game of BNW just ended last night in a diplo victory for me as Venice. The year was 2033 - no one had higher than WWII era units, me included. Granted I wasn't focusing on military tech but still....

It was weird.
Click to expand...

Difficulty if I might ask?
 
It's partly the expectation of more RAs as well. If you're not having more RAs on a huge map, you'll be struggling a bit.
 
pilot00 said:
Difficulty if I might ask?
Click to expand...

Prince. I would usually play King/Emperor in G&K but it was my first game of BNW and all so...

I figured I had a hard time with science due to me being Venice and focusing more on economy and diplomatic relations than beakers.

Oddly enough, I had the highest pop at the end of the game and built every science building I could - but I did not go into Rationalism so that's probably a lot of it.

Germany, the score leader for most of the game, never seemed to tech any higher than I did judging by the wonders he was building and his military units.

It was kind of funny to watch a wood and sail naval war going on between Indonesia and Byzantium in the 2030s.
 
Science is slower, but if I dedicate myself to it (build up my economy, snatch up beaker wonders, Rationalism in order to buy scientists) I've managed results like Satellites around 380 on Prince, Standard speed

It definitely is more important to wait to go wide until you can afford to support putting up a new city, though. Early explosive growth will cripple your empire.
 
marlowe221 said:
Prince. I would usually play King/Emperor in G&K but it was my first game of BNW and all so...

I figured I had a hard time with science due to me being Venice and focusing more on economy and diplomatic relations than beakers.

Oddly enough, I had the highest pop at the end of the game and built every science building I could - but I did not go into Rationalism so that's probably a lot of it.

Germany, the score leader for most of the game, never seemed to tech any higher than I did judging by the wonders he was building and his military units.

It was kind of funny to watch a wood and sail naval war going on between Indonesia and Byzantium in the 2030s.
Click to expand...

I would argue that the difficulty level is what kept the AI at that pace of low tech.
And indeed as Venice its easy to have a science problem, after all you only have one city but puppets get inherent penalties in science generation (as well as the new 3%).

Science without rationalism is a difficult prospect, you need a very very large empire but even then IDK if you can compete with a 4 tradition city with rationalism and boosts either through ToA or religion in food growth. Probably would if you ICS but those four cities will have a lead for a loooong time.

Yep it seems that the AI handles fleets better now, still though wont use them to attack the human player :lol:


EDIT: As far as GS go, plant everyone before the you research public schools and bulb the rest in the atomic/info era or if you immediately need a tech.
 
I am at turn 330, emperor, Siam and i have almost completed the tech tree.

Like others said, you probably have not sign enough RAs, plant enough GS among others. I even had time to dabble in tourism. Having an intense bout with the Arabia who is order and Freedom me.
 
pilot00 said:
I would argue that the difficulty level is what kept the AI at that pace of low tech.
And indeed as Venice its easy to have a science problem, after all you only have one city but puppets get inherent penalties in science generation (as well as the new 3%).

Science without rationalism is a difficult prospect, you need a very very large empire but even then IDK if you can compete with a 4 tradition city with rationalism and boosts either through ToA or religion in food growth. Probably would if you ICS but those four cities will have a lead for a loooong time.

Yep it seems that the AI handles fleets better now, still though wont use them to attack the human player :lol:


EDIT: As far as GS go, plant everyone before the you research public schools and bulb the rest in the atomic/info era or if you immediately need a tech.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's good advice. I didn't realize that puppets gave you a tech penalty. I had 5 puppets, 4 CS conversions and Carthage (hey, sh!t happens). I am used to going tall, just a 3-4 cities or even OCC but I never remembered having tech that slow before BNW.

Come to think of it, Germany had a few puppets in my game too. We were not nice to Dido. ;)

Edit: In retrospect, had I been a bit more science savvy, I could have ended the game faster by teching faster and thus triggering the formation of the UN faster since I was going for a diplo victory. Oops.
 
i played on huge map, King level, with 19 other AIs & 30 CSs, until about the year 2000 or a little more, many AIs still fight me with triple plane, great war bomber, rifleman, calvary, privateer, etc. Science is really behind the history but still it's still fun to play:D
 
marlowe221 said:
Thanks, that's good advice. I didn't realize that puppets gave you a tech penalty. I had 5 puppets, 4 CS conversions and Carthage (hey, sh!t happens). I am used to going tall, just a 3-4 cities or even OCC but I never remembered having tech that slow before BNW.

Come to think of it, Germany had a few puppets in my game too. We were not nice to Dido. ;)

Edit: In retrospect, had I been a bit more science savvy, I could have ended the game faster by teching faster and thus triggering the formation of the UN faster since I was going for a diplo victory. Oops.
Click to expand...

Venice can actually buy science buildings with gold though so you can often overcome tech deficiencies by holding strong puppets with Tech buildings.
 
Resipsa said:
Venice can actually buy science buildings with gold though so you can often overcome tech deficiencies by holding strong puppets with Tech buildings.
Click to expand...

Yep, did that. I bought almost every building of every kind in all my puppets since I had ridiculous amounts of gold.
 
Resipsa said:
Venice can actually buy science buildings with gold though so you can often overcome tech deficiencies by holding strong puppets with Tech buildings.
Click to expand...

Problem is that you get science and culture penalties in the output generated by puppet cities.

EDIT: Forgot I had posted that again :lol:
 
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