No Tech Trading

Is the lack of Tech Trading a Bad thing?


  • Total voters
    330
  • Poll closed .
I highly doubt vassals are even going to be in the game, so I wouldn't worry about losing the ability to give them techs.
 
I voted yes. There needs to be some way for technological diffusion to happen in game, and having a "research partnership" is absolutely not the same thing. Perhaps the ideal implementation would be just to drastically increase research time as more nearby civs gain that technology, so that if five neighbors have gunpowder it'll only take you a couple of years to figure it out as well. Tech trading is a more player-controlled method of simulating that effect, and in Civ 4 it's critical to gameplay, helping civs that get stuck behind technologically actually be able to catch up. If there's some form of technological diffusion in the game, it won't be a serious loss, and it might in fact end up being a big improvement, but without knowing any details it really seems like a bad idea.
 
In history tech-trading didn't really happen. On the contrary states often guarded their tech-breakthrough quite jealously (for example: secrets of making porcelain or silk).

Of course knowing that something can be made or a problem has been solved often helps the trailing nations to get the same tech (= tech becomes easier to research).
 
There needs to be some way for technological diffusion to happen in game, and having a "research partnership" is absolutely not the same thing.

I believe Civs 3 and 4 have a sort of "research diffusion" - if you are the first to research a tech, it actually costs more beakers than if one more other civs have already researched it. Can anyone confirm that?
 
I personally believe it's an important feature that shouldn't be abolished just like that. So I voted for the first option.

I still think it really depends on where they're going with the entire game, though. In Civ IV, tech trading went into the whole concept like a glove and fit perfectly. I won't mind having a fifth installment without those trades if the game in its entirety is fun to play and does well without them. I trust Sid.
 
In Civ IV at least, you do get a research discount for other civs that had already discovered the tech.
 
ITech trading is a more player-controlled method of simulating that effect, and in Civ 4 it's critical to gameplay, helping civs that get stuck behind technologically actually be able to catch up.
The problem is that a civ wanting to catch up needs to have something to offer. And this is not always the case.
 
I voted yes. There needs to be some way for technological diffusion to happen in game, and having a "research partnership" is absolutely not the same thing. Perhaps the ideal implementation would be just to drastically increase [you mean 'decrease', don't you?] research time as more nearby civs gain that technology, so that if five neighbors have gunpowder it'll only take you a couple of years to figure it out as well. Tech trading is a more player-controlled method of simulating that effect, and in Civ 4 it's critical to gameplay, helping civs that get stuck behind technologically actually be able to catch up. If there's some form of technological diffusion in the game, it won't be a serious loss, and it might in fact end up being a big improvement, but without knowing any details it really seems like a bad idea.

I believe Civs 3 and 4 have a sort of "research diffusion" - if you are the first to research a tech, it actually costs more beakers than if one more other civs have already researched it. Can anyone confirm that?

I think there is (in Civ IV) tech diffusion of this sort (i.e. research cost decreases as more have that tech). And I think this is the way to go. I would just modify it so that tech diffusion between two civs increases with trade and with proximity. That is, the techs known by a civ near me and whom I am trading with will be less costly than those known by faraway civs, or civs that aren't trading partners.
 
Haven't they confirmed there will be some kind of research sharing option? Where research is joined in order to develop a technology jointly? So maybe this feature will take the place of tech trading.
I always thought it was a worthless feature in CIV4 anyway because the AI civs that had better techs didn't want to trade, and the AI civs that had no techs had nothing to give in return. So for me it never really got used anyway.
 
i didn't think i'd have to walk anyone through this step by step, but here goes:
let's take the example of the americas in an earth map. because there are only a few civs in the americas and tons in the old world, it'll be extremely unbalanced for the americas as there will only be a few civs with which you can form research pacts right away, and they won't even be close enough to each other to get the same bonus as, say, european civs would. also, because this is the main method of getting bonuses to research from your relations with other civilizations and there is no tech trading present, you won't be able to catch up with civs that are that far ahead of you. if tech trading were also present, you could take advantage of both methods and it would be much more balanced. the ai might still constantly trade with each other, but that's how things work in the real world.

Maybe you can't have research pacts until later in the game, when most civs know each other already.
 
I guess getting rid of this will help slow down the human. I am gonna go try a custom game with this. looks like it will be fun.
 
I think this really helps in terms of separating Teching from Warring.

in Civ 4
You can have a continent with a few major powers warring with each other and then passing out techs back and forth a one wins and then the other.

in Civ 5
You can only get the 'tech bonus' if you are willing to stay at peace with the other empire for a certain length of time.
Technology will never be part of the "Spoils of war" at best you will force the enemy to pay you the money and possibly force them to sign a research agreement with you, but that won't give you the bonuses of the war immediately.
 
"Tech trading" as modeled in Civ and technology diffusion are completely different things. The former has no place in history. Methods like:
a) Civ3 where the more factions have discovered a tech the cheaper it is to research, or
b) some civ4 mods where you get bonuses for researching tech already known by someone with whom you have open borders
are mcuh more accurate.

I'm glad to see tech trading go.
 
I always though tech-trading a bore, if you really wanted to optomize it u basicaly had to check the availability of techs and checking all the leaders for who'd give u the best bargain every other turn just to be sure you didn't miss out on that "golden turn" where u could trade your way to almost all the available techs (or at least a few important ones) . Sure it was fun when it all fell into place, but way too much work... (and getting these golden tech-trade turns was about the only way you could ever have a chance to cath up on deity and also very often on emperor)

yeah in civ4 they made it a little easier with a new screen to view tech availability (u didn't have to check every other AI in person as in civ 3) but still u had to make the occasional visit on every AI to see who'd give u the best deals... tedious...

I totally welcome the no tech trade rule :)

My first post btw. Nice forum for my favorite game ever :)
 
Welcome aboard!
 
@RoaldAmundsen: As I said, it should be an option, as it is/was in Civilization 4 (I think--I couldn't get into cIV).

PS: Welcome. :D
 
Guess i agree, options are always good, actually i kind of liked to "no technology brokering" option from BTS.

PS: Thanx :D
 
One of the new Civ5 previous has announced that tech trading has been abolished. What do you guys think about it? Will the new cooperative research be good enough to replace it?

I voted no, assuming that the new cooperative feature will do a better job of replasing it.
 
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