I agree with a lot of people here. RAs definitely need a change. I've been lurking around for a while but had a free day so I'm actively lurking today
.
I came up with an idea that amalgamates a lot of the ideas here so if you see your idea in here or something like it, it was probably yours and I give you credit! I'd appreciate some feedback on it. Like? Dislike? Change? Let me know.
Initially, what are the goals we are collectively trying to achieve:
1) We want to force hard research (no more 200
at the end of the game as others have said)
2) We want to weaken RAs so they augment and not replace hard research
3) We want (or at least I want and I think others do too) to have a meaningful end game that isn't just rushed through with great scientists and RAs. The Industrial and Modern eras are a joke right now.
I'm going to call it the RA Bucket implementation. It's kind of hard to explain. I hope I do it justice. I'll use an example to help.
The idea is, when an RA lands you get:
0.5 * min (your median, your partners median, your bucket)
Basically ArcaneSearph + a bucket. The devil is in the details and is a bucket in this case
The bucket is a counter. From the time the RA is signed to the time in lands, it keeps track of how much hard research you've done. It doesn't take away from hard research and change anything like that. It just keeps track of it. On to the example:
Assume we have a hard research rate of 100
/turn. Assume our partner has a hard science rate of 20
/turn. Assume we signed an RA and when it lands the min of the two medians is 1500
. What will each civ get?
Our bucket has 100
added to it each turn. It has 3000
in it when the RA lands. So using the above equation we get:
0.5 * min (your median, your partners median, your bucket)
=0.5 * min (1500, 3000)
=750
Our partner has a science rate of 20 added to his bucket each turn. It has 600
in it when the RA lands. So what does he get:
0.5 * min (your median, your partners median, your bucket)
=0.5 * min (1500, 600)
=300
Because he didn't have enough actual science, he wasn't a good participant in the RA and therefore didn't get as much of a bonus. Research agreements, by definition, are agreements to research between two parties. If one participant doesn't actually pursue science himself to a large degree, he won't get much benefit from the research agreement. So logically this makes sense. At least to me. There would be absolutely no way a civ with 200
/turn would ever get a tech worth 10000
with this option.
There's more (sorry for the long post). What about more than 1 RA? Assume you have 2 active at a particular turn. What I propose is that each bucket only gets 1/2 of your hard research added to it with 2 RAs active. You have to split your research sharing between 2 separate empires and the fairest way to do it is equally. The more RAs you sign, the more hard research you need to get maximum benefits from them. In this way it scales by number of civs. For the math people out there:
bucket @ turn X + 1 = bucket @ turn X + hard
/number of active RAs at turn X
There are a few add-ons that would well with this idea, I think.
Add-on 1) The PT and Rationalism work differently. Instead of multiplying the reward, they multiply the amount of
added to the bucket(s) each turn. They allow you to sign more RAs rather than just making each RA better.
Add-on 2) Diplomacy multiplies the reward. If you are friendly, it's easier to work with your partner. Therefore friendly civs get 1.5x the science. Netural get the same. Guarded get 0.5x the science.
Add-on 3) If a partner is an era or more behind when the RA lands, they get 2x the reward to help catch them up.
That's the idea. I think it's pretty good as I don't see any way to exploit it.
On a side note. Maybe I shouldn't say anything but I don't really follow most of your posts Martin. I've played the game a lot and I think I understand most elements of it but I'm not really sure what your position is except that you don't like anyone else's position. That's your perogative but I can see what ArcaneSeraph is saying. Maybe he should've said you are leaving most of the data out rather than changing it. I'm not trying to offend you so please don't take it that way. Your posts sound like "Nope. Won't work. Merely does this" with no real justification of where your numbers or ideas are coming from. Forgive me for saying so but is sounds rather arrogant and dissmisive of other's ideas. You aren't discussing; you are just telling people the way it is with no room for debate. There's nothing to debate as you haven't given an example or anything. When he said he didn't want to argue anymore you said he was being insulting and just didn't understand your arguments and he should've asked questions politely. Again that's sounding kind of arrogant. You know better and the only reason to disagree is because of lack of understanding.
Maybe it's me and I'm missing something or reading something into things that's not actually there. I know people are intimidated to talk on forums and I'd just like to see everyone be allowed to have an opinion whether people think it's valid or not.