About research rate

Research rate is something we've worked on through the entire development of AND.
There are players who prefer a realistic timescale, similar to that of the real world, and there are players who prefer freedom of research, maybe aiming at riflemen in 1400 AD. Current system is somehow flawed because different people have worked on it at different times. Research mainly depends on mapsize, gamespeed and handicap. The problem is that there are 2 parameters for research, one for humans and another for AI: this was introduced before we had Flexible AI and it's somehow clashing with it.
Currently it goes like this: compared to Noble level, if a human player has a higher difficulty level, he gets some research penalty and AI gets some help. With Flexible AI, if AI has a higher handicap, it gets some penalty. Current problem is that if human player gets the lead and his level raises up to let's say deity, every other civ gets a tech cost discount while he gets some penalty. This leads to situations where AI is teching way faster than it should and it explains why on certain games AI has tanks well before 1700AD: it usually happens when human player has a high difficulty level. I personally don't like it but even if I did, I think it's unfair and not fun, because on that level usually human players are a backward civ in terms of techs.

So here is what I would like to do to fix the problem, but I want to make sure the rest of the team agrees, Afforess especially.
I would keep AIResearchPercent but I would make it the same for every handicap level, we could also get rid of it but you never know. Then I would rebalance researchpercent so that AI develop along the real world timescale no matter the handicap level. Of course some tolerance would be allowed, making it more strictly adherent to our timescale only for those using Realistic Timescale game option. Research for humans would then be balanced on Noble to make it the same as for AI and making it harder as level goes up. So on higher levels for humans, only humans will have a handicap and AI won't have bonuses anymore. If using Flexible AI, AI will get the same penalties as level increases, keeping de facto the same ratio as if all were on noble in case all considered players are on Deity (which isn't the case now). If game proves too easy with Flexible AI, we can simply place an offset on Noble making it easier for AI, or harder for humans, no matter the handicap.
I hope my explanation is clear. This change would make the game more balanced and easier to balance when needed. And it would prevent some crazy situation we've seen in the past.
It's pretty an easy change, so let me know what you think about it.

I'm not sure I fully understand, but I think I see the general idea, or at least the intended end result.

The change would result in less out of balance tech rating when you start on very high/low difficulty levels?

Rezca said:

I'm not sure I fully understand, but I think I see the general idea, or at least the intended end result.

The change would result in less out of balance tech rating when you start on very high/low difficulty levels?

Click to expand...

Exactly. When you start or when you reach, if using Flexible Difficulty or Flexible AI

@45°: I think your general idea is good but I've still have some suggestions. Instead of making a handicap for the human and cap the AI on noble, why don't you make the handicap only difficulty dependant (same for AI and human) with FlexDiff. The plan would be:
- Remove AI bonuses and human handicaps
- Balance the game for the noble difficulty
- Apply the same handicap for the human and the AI if flexible diff is enabled AND based on the current difficulty of the civ.
- Apply your offset system to the AI when not using FlexDiff.

dbkblk said:

@45°: I think your general idea is good but I've still have some suggestions. Instead of making a handicap for the human and cap the AI on noble, why don't you make the handicap only difficulty dependant (same for AI and human) with FlexDiff. The plan would be:
- Remove AI bonuses and human handicaps
- Balance the game for the noble difficulty
- Apply the same handicap for the human and the AI if flexible diff is enabled AND based on the current difficulty of the civ.
- Apply your offset system to the AI when not using FlexDiff.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I get it: what do you mean by "make the handicap only difficulty dependant (same for AI and human) with FlexDiff"? It must work even when you're not using Flex Diff, because if I start on Deity I should have some kind of handicap compared to AI (which always plays on Noble when not using FlexAI).
I agree on the rest of the plan, it's what I intended to do.

- Remove AI bonuses and human handicaps --> = removing iAIResearchPercent (or making it the same for every handicap)
- Balance the game for the noble difficulty --> = Research for humans would then be balanced on Noble
- Apply the same handicap for the human and the AI if flexible diff is enabled AND based on the current difficulty of the civ --> = same as above, using ResearchPercent in HandicapInfo for different handicap levels
- Apply your offset system to the AI when not using FlexDiff --> if properly balanced maybe we don't even need that, but it can fix any problem if the game proves too easy