On tech diffusion

os79 said:

I was looking around for mods' ideas. I found Realiticus Invictum idea for Tech Transfer through Open Border agreement. Would this be an useful alternative?

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You'd have to explain how that differs from Tech Diffusion. That is literally how tech diffusion works - open borders increases the rate of tech diffusion.

Afforess said:

You'd have to explain how that differs from Tech Diffusion. That is literally how tech diffusion works - open borders increases the rate of tech diffusion.

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I hadn't a chance to analyze so I asked in case there were players here playing RI willing to expand on it? .

The RI method doesn't care about tech position. That is, you can be the second civ to research a tech, as long as you have open borders with the civ that researched it first, you'd get a diffusion bonus.

triplebassist said:

The RI method doesn't care about tech position. That is, you can be the second civ to research a tech, as long as you have open borders with the civ that researched it first, you'd get a diffusion bonus.

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That's what Tech Diffision does too. There is a second separate component called tech welfare which also gets added to the diffusion amount. That is the part based on player score.

Then I guess there is still work to do. I was hoping there may be some solution in that code if anything is new. However, from what you said; it looks like they are similar and we are back near square one relating to our problems with eras.

Afforess said:

I'm worried tech diffusion has gone too far the other way now (it's too powerful). I played a game last night where I was able to easily exploit tech diffusion for essentially free techs. My strategy was to research a techs the AI did not have, and those techs took me 50-100 turns in the classical era. Then, I would be far enough behind in the other areas of the tech tree that tech diffusion would allow me to grab the rest of the techs in the previous row in 1, 2, or 3 turns. I basically didn't even have to care about investing in research, I could have run a full-culture/espionage economy and gotten free techs from the AI's as they gave me tech diffusion.

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I'm not sure I think that's so bad - with conditions.

I understand that Open Borders affects Tech Diffusion (TD), which is good, in my view. If my citizens are able to freely move across a friendly border, then I would expect a strong flow of knowledge, both ways. This seems reasonable to me. Conversely, if I'm isolated and my people believe that we are the only Civilisation in the Universe, TD should be very very low.

You mention that you consider it to be an issue that one is able to run an Empire effectively without investing at all in technology... Fair enough. Is it possible for TD to vary also by the specific technology itself? For example, farming (Agriculture) is easy for a citizen to see and copy and therefore has a high TD rate, whereas say Flintlock (or whatever) isn't and would diffuse only slowly. The idea is that military technologies (say), which your empire would certainly not be trying to share, would diffuse slowly, whereas common civilian technologies would diffuse quickly. This way you'd have to do some research of your own, but weak Civs couldn't fall too far behind; they'd generally have access to reasonably modern infrastructure, if not military technology. They might occasionally get stuck at a bottleneck technology which has a low TD rate for a while, then after they learn that they'd quickly start to catch up again.

I realise that tech's aren't purely military / civilian, but the rate of TD would be, after all, entirely arbitrary and could be based on any game-play factor we like.

I would envisage that this woud involve giving all technologies a single extra number (int would probably do) and a minimal extra calculation when TD rate is calculated.

Perhaps we'd no longer need "tech' welfare", though I'm not familiar with the details of how that works.

Silly? Over-complicated? Doesn't solve the issue?

I have so many ideas! I should learn to mod' myself (extensive Python experience, and CivII "mod" experience).

Cheers, A.

So how does the current TD work?
Do human players get just a small bonus of beakers?
In my first game with TD i gained a bonus of 4-5 beakers per turn when my basic research was 8(for slavery)

ksenagos said:

So how does the current TD work?
Do human players get just a small bonus of beakers?
In my first game with TD i gained a bonus of 4-5 beakers per turn when my basic research was 8(for slavery)

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Every player gets a bonus depending how far behind he is, how many civs he knows that already know that tech and other factors.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13721958 said:

Every player gets a bonus depending how far behind he is, how many civs he knows that already know that tech and other factors.

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Thank you though i understand these factors and i ve read the previous posts in this thread.

I m more concerned as to whether human players get the same or less bonuses(for the same factors).

Playing in emperor i always fall behind in the beggining...which just spices up the game and i like it.
If i m enjoying the same bonuses as the AI i the gap will close significantly sooner...or even it could be exploited to gain free techs(as mentioned in other posts)

In higher difficulties AI gets an inherent research bonus. If human players can indirectly benefit from their advandage it actually helps the HP in the long run.

So my questions are:
Do human player get the same bonuses as AI?
Should i incorporate it? What are your experience with TD? does it start to work as a benefit for human players in higher difficulties.
Are the additional beakers related to your research spending. Or can you run a 0% research and gain beakers out of thin air?

In theory, you get tech diffusion even when you're at 0% research. So you won't ever be too much behind. Same for AI. But bonus is not the same. I suggest instead you try flexible difficulty and flexible AI, that will make it a good challenge even when you start at noble