There is annother factor that you missed - team penalties.
For each additional player in your team, there is a 0.5 (or 50%) penalty added to the Difficulty Modifier.
This makes the final formula as follows:
Technology Cost = FLOOR (FLOOR (FLOOR (Base Cost * (Difficulty Modifier + Team Penalty)) * Map Modifier) * Speed Modifier)
With this formula, you can find the following:
(Noble has a difficulty modifer of 1, so...)
On Noble, a team of 2 yeilds 33.3% more research than a Solo Noble game.
On Noble, a team of 3 yeilds 50.0% more research than a Solo Noble game.
On Noble, a team of 4 yeilds 60.0% more research than a Solo Noble game.
On Noble, a team of 17 yeilds 88.8% more research than a Solo Noble game.
On Noble, a team of infinity yields nearly 100% more research than a Solo Noble game.
(Diety has a difficulty modifier of 1.3, so...)
On Deity, a team of 2 yields 44.4% more research than a Solo Deity game.
On Deity, a team of infinity yields nearly 160% more research than a Solo Diety game.
Compare this to noble -- the deity research penalty is lessened by being in a team, because of the way the formula works!)
What can be learned from this:
1) If you have a LAN party, it's more profitable to NOT be a team, and instead get a permanate alliance very late in the game. One person should to Alphabet, and the other person should get other technologies. When you meet eachother, continue to get seperate technologies and gift them to eachother when they are completed. Because it requires so much communication, I wouldn't reccomend it except on a LAN.
2) Two players who are at peace but not a team (the LAN party idea from #1) can beat the technology research of a team of 16 players. This means that you can win a 2v16 in a space race. Because research is so important, you could win a 3v15 using the same tactic with any type of victory condition. Using that tactic, you would have a 200% research boost, but the 15 player team would have only a 88.2% research boost.
3) If you choose a partner that can't match half as much research as you, then, because of the Team Penalty, he is actually hindering your science. In a team of two, both players need to be researching like they do in single player games.
4) The Difficulty Modifer is added only once per TEAM, and not per PLAYER. This lessens the effect of the difficulty modifer. Deity mode is still hard, though.
If you could quote me, and put this on the first page, that would be nice.
Requies said:
Like almost all other aspects of the game, it's a tradeoff. If you beeline for a tech, it means that your research will have the least bonuses possible. However, you DO get the benefit of that tech quicker as well as the advantage of having that tech when others do not.
Yep. The benefits of beelining are generally worth the missed techs AND the small loss of beaker bonuses. Most likely, the bonuses are to BALANCE beelining (it was pobably overpowered), not to NERF beelining.
One thing that is still overpowered is beelining to Alphabet, because missed techs are not nearly as much of a problem because you can trade for them afterwards.
Requies said:
And I really don't understand why they put in the +1 beaker when THEY DON'T USE IT IF YOU HAVEN'T FOUNDED A CITY.
Haha, yea, it doesn't really make sense, but there are a few times it is used:
-When you are in anarchy.
-When you have 0% science and have no beakers from specialists.
It is one way to get rid of "integer divided by zero" errors.
What I would have done is to make my OWN dividing function, and to make an exception for zeros. When dividing by zero, I would print "???" instead, to show that you have no research beakers. It's really annoying when it gives unrealistic estimates when you are in anarchy.