Research system remake

[Naokaukodem]

I have always been saying myself how amazing it was that for some reasons, one or another civilization have had a scientific "golden age".

For example, I'm always wondering what if Ancient Greece were to prolong its scientific golden age: could have the steam power been discovered 2000 years before?

In the same way, what the hell made that in the couple most recent centuries humankind have known such a clearing scientifically speaking? Why do we name the Renaissance and the like?

In some ways, Civ3 tried to answer to this interesting question by triggering random golden ages. But this does not tell us why do they appear. (we can agree that a wonder of the world is pretty much more the effect of a golden age rather than its cause)

So here I am in interest with the whole scientific discoveries system. That's what I want to talk about here.

Plus, I am not satisfied with the current Scientific research system of Civ4 which consist in moving a research bar as if scientific discovering were a plain volunteer AND expensive things:

* First off, one cannot really command to those things. As far as I can see it througout the History, they are pretty random and uncommanded. One can refere to this with the philosophic Platon's Cave analogy.

* Second, I don't thing scientic researches can monopolize in such a Sid Meier's Civilization way the economy of a whole country or civilization. I think that maybe for the first reason, they are never near any other financial aspect of a country or civilization: because in any way they can't be controlled. Of course this does not mean that one can't work on it: scientists exist and programs like the Manhattan Project can born, but are not near to cost as much as in the Civ series.

For those reasons, I would suggest to completely remove the Tech Bar, and suggest to manage tech discoveries differently.

I would like a much more natural and random way in the same time.

I give it without any turning: the tech pace would depend on culture contact exclusively.

It includes:

* A powerfull [EDIT: Aussie_Lurker may be right: only a moderate bonus could do it] research bonus for EACH civ we are in contact with.

* A powerfull [EDIT: same remark] research bonus for each trade route we have with each civ.

* A powerfull [EDIT: see above] research bonus for each independant culture one is assimilating in its own culture, this depending on several events:

- A conquest (conqueror): The remaining culture of the conquered civ will influence the conqueror culture and boost its research.

- A conquest (conquered): The invading culture will mix during a certain amount of time with the conquered culture and on a certain amount of land (before being possibly taken back) and boost the conquered research the time the culture would not be completely assimilated yet.

- Other (see 'culture centers' in another of my posts)

This ideas could go well with the jdog5000's Revolution Mod, as in this mod, rebellions and revolutions can happen more or less oftenly what can generate research boosts.

Of course this could trigger other things among the natural apparition of backwarded continents and a possible Discovery Age into a normal Civ game, or the need to define another meaning and use of the commerce and the sliders.

AFTER THOUGHT: It is true that commerce could be seen not only as commerce, but as people interactions, in the same way of cultures interaction such as mentioned above at a more powerfull scale, the scale of each person. Therefore, it could be wise to get some research of commerce, as the interaction of different points of view. Therefore, in the system above, there could be a slight benefit from commerce into science, as for example an immuable percentage of it, as it is the case in Civ4, like 10%.

PS: Another idea could be that to be several tech trees, through which we could go by different bars, like the Civ4 science/happiness-culture ones. Because civilization could be advanced socially and technically but not scientifically.

EDIT: But if the tech tree depends on relations (mostly), what will be the use of the "commerce"?

>>> There could be another "tech" tree, but with only Civics to discover. THAT, would represent well the volunteer efforts that is a change in a given society, taking many years of developpement and a lot of ressources, unlike the real Science.

Those Civics would improve drastically the efficiency of the cities. This way, a civ could choose to ignore those Civics for a time and get more gold, to maintain a large empire, or could choose to have a much smaller empire but more efficient: this would be usefull for the civs starting on an island for example.

Additionnally, the Civics would work like the Emancipation one: additionnal unhappy heads would be added if a given civ is too much backwaeded in Civics. Or a revolution could occur, the people wanting more freedom and better Civics.

Also, the separation Elaborated Civics / Primitive Civics could be seen as the Expansive-Militaritic / Neutral-Pacifist one, so that militaristic bonuses could be attached at the Gold bar: the more taxes there are, the more the militaristic units have bonuses, like: 2% Strenght bonus per 10% taxes, a move bonus on roads per 20 or 30% percent taxes, a bonus movement point per 50% taxes, etc... this would represent the hard efforts put into militaristic politic, thus the motivation and equipement of the troops. Basically, money would serve the army, or the civics, or a certain complementary quantity of the two. Not to forget the happiness/culture bar.

[Mewtarthio]

Seems a bit complex and random. Randomness is usually bad.

[Naokaukodem]

Random? How that? Can you develop please?

If you speak about trade routes (which seem pretty random IMO this is true), I was more thinking about communications, like land/sea-ocean/air/rivers, and the number of them, aka the number of roads (or their overall quantity) and airports/seaports)

As for complexity, this may be because I didn't express myself well... in this case, can you underline the points you didn't understand please?

[CliftonBazaar]

In some ways, Civ3 tried to answer to this interesting question by triggering random golden ages.

From memory each civilisation (in Civ 3) had to discover a particular technology to start their golden age, there was nothing random about it.

I would like a much more natural and random way in the same time.

This is the problem, the more randomness you put into the game the more frustratign it can be.
I play 'Games of the Month' and compete against others, the more random elements in the game then the more difficult it is to compete against others. We are getting to the stage where even huts have been edited out of maps purely because they add a random factor in the game.

The system we have is simple and easy to understand, to make it too complex drives away new customers.
For example, I played Civ2 and waaaaay too many hours of Civ3 but when I started Civ4 the tech tree intimidated me - it took me 2 or 3 games before I understood the tech tree enough to not have to read each tech as it was discovered.

One point I do agree wholeheartedly with is getting science bonuses if your neighbour already has the tech.
If you get an open borders policy with your neighbour then you should be able to 'listen to rumours' and receive bonuses to research that tech.

[Pitboss]

Originally Posted by Naokaukodem

So here I am in interest with the whole scientific discoveries system. That's what I want to talk about here.

For those reasons, I would suggest to completely remove the Tech Bar, and suggest to manage tech discoveries differently.

I would like a much more natural and random way in the same time.

AFTER THOUGHT: It is true that commerce could be seen not only as commerce, but as people interactions, in the same way of cultures interaction such as mentioned above at a more powerfull scale, the scale of each person. Therefore, it could be wise to get some research of commerce, as the interaction of different points of view. Therefore, in the system above, there could be a slight benefit from commerce into science, as for example an immuable percentage of it, as it is the case in Civ4, like 10%.

PS: Another idea could be that to be several tech trees, through which we could go by different bars, like the Civ4 science/happiness-culture ones. Because civilization could be advanced socially and technically but not scientifically.

I could see how taxes would influence te research rate, but perhaps there is more to researching than just the influence of taxes.

The system you propose seems viable, but rather more complex than the current one.
I'm wondering if the gameplay wouldn't suffer to much with the higher customisability.
Unless it's designed in the same way the cities can be tuned, but without obligation to do so.

[Naokaukodem]

Originally Posted by CliftonBazaar

From memory each civilisation (in Civ 3) had to discover a particular technology to start their golden age, there was nothing random about it.

Random in the sense that there was no logic explanation of those golden ages, beside the simple fact to build a wonder or to win a battle with a UU.

This is the problem, the more randomness you put into the game the more frustratign it can be.
I play 'Games of the Month' and compete against others, the more random elements in the game then the more difficult it is to compete against others. We are getting to the stage where even huts have been edited out of maps purely because they add a random factor in the game.

The system we have is simple and easy to understand, to make it too complex drives away new customers.
For example, I played Civ2 and waaaaay too many hours of Civ3 but when I started Civ4 the tech tree intimidated me - it took me 2 or 3 games before I understood the tech tree enough to not have to read each tech as it was discovered.

One point I do agree wholeheartedly with is getting science bonuses if your neighbour already has the tech.
If you get an open borders policy with your neighbour then you should be able to 'listen to rumours' and receive bonuses to research that tech.

By random, I hear less "mechanical", more "organic".

You could act on your science. By the 10% science from commerce, by simply making your cities to grow, as in Civ4. By the contact, by doing efforts in encountering other civs. By creating trade routes by building seaports, roads, airports. By conquering other civs, so the war would have an indirect influence on your science. Even by letting you being conquered, or at least encouraging different cultures/visions of the world to meet each others and have contact.

So by random I mean more different ways to improve our research, and not only one. You would pay attention to any whatever number of them, but probably you would not want to be conquered in a volunteer manner! So the research could be improved by events you would have not commanded, or even not wanted. In this way, research would be determined by the events of the world, not its pure original shape. But not that your efforts into research would be vain.

And I don't think it would drive customers away, as Civ4 is pretty complicated to understand as it is. I don't say it would attract customers either, but it would in fact make the game more simple.

It would be simply less predictable.

[Mewtarthio]

But if research is determined solely by your contact with other civs, wouldn't that give everyone pretty much the same research rate? The only difference is that now rich Civs get scientific bonuses from their high incomes. That removes the strategic balance to the income sliders (ie whether you should save gold for a mass upgrade or wonder rush vs getting the next tech faster).

Try to think of yourself less as the leader of a civilization and more as a civilization itself, if it helps. In this case, a high research slider does not necessarily indicate that the government is hiring more scientists but rather that the people as a whole are more scientifically-inclined (I find this makes more sense in the rest of the game, too: What leader incites a democratic revolution against himself?).

[CliftonBazaar]

I can see your point of view and I do agree with science bonuses for trade with other civ's.
The biggest disappointment I experianced in the game was when I took over another civilizations city and didn't get a tech that I knew they had - which happened in Civ2(?) or civ3.

Your biggest problem, with what you suggest, is game balancing. A continent with 4 civ's will always tech up faster than a competing small island of 2 civ's.
For a higher difficulty than Diety would be simply to start the player on a 1 tile wide island while all other civ's start on a huge continent.
Playing 'teams' (which I do rarely but have played) allows all the civs on each team to pool their research; the trick is to knock out one civ of each team, not by going for all the members of a team at the one time.

It really comes down to game balance.

[Naokaukodem]

Originally Posted by Mewtarthio

But if research is determined solely by your contact with other civs, wouldn't that give everyone pretty much the same research rate?

This would give an advance to the civs that:

- meet the others first
- manage to get see and land trade routes early
- build more roads (trade routes)
- build more buildings (seaports, airports) (trade routes)
- do more trade
- have the biggest commerce (still 10% science from it don't forget)
- have more neighbours (culture mixing)
- do more wars if they end to a conquest no matter if won or lost (culture shocks)
- possibly keep more culture diversity by the "culture centers" or huts of some sort (kind of minor civs)

The player may look for culture shocks, beside contact, trade and productivity. Beside the mixing of thought of my theory, this would represent also the kind of "pillage" of a culture by another, as History have seen many. (Greek by Roman for example)

The only difference is that now rich Civs get scientific bonuses from their high incomes. That removes the strategic balance to the income sliders (ie whether you should save gold for a mass upgrade or wonder rush vs getting the next tech faster).

This may still be there. Something should replace Science in this slider, maybe another tree as I said at the end of the first post, like a social or technic tree, maybe the civics also. Or maybe not, this may be only happiness/money, but civics like Heredetary Rules should be modified. I didn't thought about it very much yet, I have to determine what can represent commerce precisely (considereing it can pay for culture in Civ4) and what can we obtain from it by converting it.

Try to think of yourself less as the leader of a civilization and more as a civilization itself, if it helps. In this case, a high research slider does not necessarily indicate that the government is hiring more scientists but rather that the people as a whole are more scientifically-inclined (I find this makes more sense in the rest of the game, too: What leader incites a democratic revolution against himself?).

I have always considered playing a civ, not a leader. I just not consider that commerce activities by themselves can enhance scientific researches. My theory is that it is the differance of point of views that enhances Science and ideas. Commerce is not about ideas, that's a task. Or could we rename Commerce in something else (Activities? Interest?) as it has been renamed in Alpha Centaury (Energy)?

Anyway, that's not the first cause of this system, this system is designed first to offer a much more dynamic game an offer new possibilities.

Originally Posted by CliftonBazaar

Your biggest problem, with what you suggest, is game balancing. A continent with 4 civ's will always tech up faster than a competing small island of 2 civ's.

Yes. But did you see such a case?

[CliftonBazaar]

Originally Posted by CliftonBazaar
Your biggest problem, with what you suggest, is game balancing. A continent with 4 civ's will always tech up faster than a competing small island of 2 civ's.


Yes. But did you see such a case?

In SGOTM2 ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=180489 ) we started on a 1*1 tile island; luckily we were give a second settler started on another continent. I would give more information on this game but I'm not allowed too until the game is finished.

GOTM9 has us on a continent with 2 other civs while the other continent had 4 civs. This game finished 13 hours ago so I'm allowed to say that

Last night I played a 'snaky islands' game where I was the only civ on my island, yet on another island there was 3 civs - the other 3 civs were each on their own islands.

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, you could argue that using a Great Scientist to either fast track a tech OR build an academy could represent a nations 'Scientific Golden Age'.
That said, I definitely think that there is room for making scientific advancement more dependant on being in contact with other civs. Nothing has held a culture back-scientifically speaking-than total isolation.
So, yes, I think there should be an initial, SMALL research bonus for having any kind of contact with another civ-particularly in techs that civ already has. An additional bonus should come from having open borders with that civ. A 3rd bonus would come from having trade routes between your cities (bonus to the cities connected by trade route), and a bonus from having that civs nationality within your city. So, in many regards, I do agree with the views of the OP-just so long as it is not completely random in nature.

Aussie_Lurker.

[angeleyes]

Techresearch is an very important strategic element of the game, and i think too the way it works in the civ-games isn't very realistic. I like the idea that untill modern times your techresearch is hardly dependent on money you put into (and you can't choose what you research) but other factors e.g.:

- you can't choose your techs (untill modern times), what you get depend on other factors:

- you get agriculture after putting your citizens for a certaim time on fields you could farm,

- untill a certain year, you can't get fishing/sailing unless you have a city on coast, and worked coastal tiles. (you can't work seatiles untill you have worked coastal tiles for a certain periode),

-you won't get horsebackriding unless you have horses (but at a certain date everybody gets it),

- when your special unit needs horses, you will get it quicker ( and you will have horses in your capital, i found it very annoying and unrealistic if your special unit requires horses and you don't have it).

This are some unsystematic wild thoughts, but what i want to emphasis is that civilizations are not made with purpose from ancient times as the civ-games suggest, but evolve quit randomly dependent on climate, landscape, contacts etc. Randomness also put more fun in the game, e.g. getting an army in civ3 was random and big fun when you got it. that i really do miss in civ4.

[CliftonBazaar]

... and i think too the way it works in the civ-games isn't very realistic

Realistic or not, it comes down to game play. Do I want to learn all these rules, even if they are realistic, and have a long drawn out game? No.
I want a game that is simple to learn and hard to master.

As for real life horse riding (for example) this can be explained by a merchant coming to your city and teaching; this would be explained by getting tech bonuses from trades.

I really do like the system we have at the moment; if you bring in too many variants to a game then it can become unplayable - does anyone remember SimEarth? Very complex (but accurate) world model and very hard to play, I played it for about 5 hours and then stopped as it was too hard to learn.

James

[angeleyes]

Originally Posted by CliftonBazaar

I want a game that is simple to learn and hard to master.

In that case you should go playing chess. I've played a lot of chess, but what i like in civ is realism and a certain randomness.

[Naokaukodem]

CliftonBazaar, maybe SimEarth was not designed to be understood the way you undestand for now the Civ series? As my system is not to be understood like a simple math formula; rather not understood like a complex math formula. It would precisely change the way one can play to Civ, not my way for sure, but your way it seems. The gameplay would tend to a more instinctive approach, natural, without the need to precisely determine what does that in which quantity. The quantity would be up to your feeling, not your calculations. I think that is the way SimEarth may be played, and I think the way you play games is a little different than mine. That would explain why some players (such as myself) have some problems to play Civ4: calculations and tricks are too much requiered for upper levels. Actually I can play on Monarch, but that is my very limit.

As for the game balance, I have to say that considering your arguments of a straight manner, I don't have an answer yet. It seems for now that as some Civ4 maps seems to be unplayable, one would have to start over another game in order to have better odds? Or the game could simply get balanced, like 8 civs instead of only 7, and 4 by continent. An option could be "balanced map" or "unbalanced map", this last one only if the player want some possibility to play a Discovery Age, from either American Indian or European side. But that's not to consider the importance of wars in such a system: more civs would create more wars, so less trade and less science, as long as wars remains skirmishes with no conquest. This would depend of all this, different from one game to another. Also, American Indian were numerous tribes, but not that numerous cultures. Their tribes, if I think right, were in fact huge empires spreading on most of the continent. That may explain why they were so backwarded. In the jdog5000's Revolution mod, new civilizations can emerge from barbarians, I would want this extended to goody huts also and possibly to nothing, cultures and civs being able to pop from nowhere. All in all, as we see, the game balance would depend of several things up to one continent or the other, never being the same.

[CliftonBazaar]

In that case you should go playing chess

Civ has it's randomness from the maps it produces and the opponents that you have, you need to adapt to the situation or lose out and that is where the skill comes into it (finding Queen Izzy as your neighbor always make me sit back and think); chess is excactly the same at the start and I enjoy playing chess about 2-3 times a year, I certainly don't spend 300 hours a year on chess as I do with Civ4

Naokaukodem,
SimEarth was differant to any other game when it came out (still is) in that it tried to duplicate real world physics, eg Evaporation, oxygen, rain forest clearing, food chains, methane and a lot of other variables in real life. It's been a long time since I played it so I can't remember everything that was involved.
The bottom line was that the game had a very large learning curve; I remember having to read 80% of the instructional manual before I could play it. In contrast I never had a rule book for Civ2, for Civ3 I read the rules when I was confused about something (about 2% of the book) and for Civ4 I have only read the 'Notes for players who have played Civ3' section of the rules.
I play this game for it's simplicity and keep playing because of the differances between each game - I have beaten Immortal once and now our GOTM is Immortal so it should be interesting

I do like your suggestions about "balanced map" or "unbalanced maps" option and find your idea about the American Indians to be a good basis for a Mod, but only a Mod (but then again I wouldn't have a problem if Civ's emerging from barb's was part of the game, maybe if two barb cities combined to form the basis of a civ?), wasn't it Civ3 were civilizations could break into two?

I think the real problem here is what to make part of the game and what should be a mod.

Re-reading your original post I remembered another suggestion (another thread) about only learning military techs while at war. In real life the most major advances in military have been made in war time (the best example would be Aircraft in WW1 and WW2).
This idea sounds plausable and would make the game more realisitc (I liked the idea) but the problem is something I touched on earlier; if you start on an island by yourself you will be far behind a continent that starts with 4 civs (you only need one of them to be warlike, the others will either learn very quick or be exterminated).

[Naokaukodem]

Well I played SimEarth just to see, and it is true that the rules are not obvious. But I quited also because of the poor graphics and no sound, on Windows XP... so I couldn't experience much.

Anyway, I don't think that building seaports and airports is more complicated than Civ4.

if you start on an island by yourself you will be far behind a continent that starts with 4 civs

Pretty the same than Civ4 in fact, when you start on a tiny island. Also this have very few chance to happen, especially if you put the right settings on the map.

I don't know if this idea can be done in a mod, but I doubt it. (already created this topic in the Mod area, no answer)

If this would have to be implemented in a future game, the GOTM community of there should just have to forget about starting on a single tile island... unless she likes challenge, sincerely, because every system brings its new challenges.

[Mewtarthio]

There is, incidentally, a "Balanced" map type which starts everyone near strategic resources and removes Stone, Marble, and the like.

[Naokaukodem]

And ? Is this supposed to nullify any idea here?

I have had another idea that goes with this one: if the tech tree depends on relations (mostly), what will be the use of the "commerce"?

>>> There could be another "tech" tree, but with only Civics to discover. THAT, would represent well the volunteer efforts that is a change in a given society, taking many years of developpement and a lot of ressources, unlike the real Science.

Those Civics would improve drastically the efficiency of the cities. This way, a civ could choose to ignore those Civics for a time and get more gold, to maintain a large empire, or could choose to have a much smaller empire but more efficient: this would be usefull for the civs starting on an island for example.

Additionnally, the Civics would work like the Emancipation one: additionnal unhappy heads would be added if a given civ is too much backwaeded in Civics. Or a revolution could occur, the people wanting more freedom and better Civics.

Also, the separation Elaborated Civics / Primitive Civics could be seen as the Expansive-Militaritic / Neutral-Pacifist one, so that militaristic bonuses could be attached at the Gold bar: the more taxes there are, the more the militaristic units have bonuses, like: 2% Strenght bonus per 10% taxes, a move bonus on roads per 20 or 30% percent taxes, a bonus movement point per 50% taxes, etc... this would represent the hard efforts put into militaristic politic, thus the motivation and equipement of the troops. Basically, money would serve the army, or the civics, or a certain complementary quantity of the two. Not to forget the happiness/culture bar.

[blitzkrieg1980]

Originally Posted by Naokaukodem

I have always been saying myself how amazing it was that for some reasons, one or another civilization have had a scientific "golden age".

For example, I'm always wondering what if Ancient Greece were to prolong its scientific golden age: could have the steam power been discovered 2000 years before?

In the same way, what the hell made that in the couple most recent centuries humankind have known such a clearing scientifically speaking? Why do we name the Renaissance and the like?...

My god... it seems too complex and no fun at all. I like this system. I can focus on all factors of my civ and not need to micromanage to the point of insanity! Although, if it interests others, a major mod would be a good thing. However, to completely reface the official versions of civ to this would turn me off entirely to the game altogether. Just my opinion though.

EDIT: I understand you would like to see something more realistic, but to become too realistic would be to suffer the fate of "Superpower" if you've ever played it, you'd know what I mean. way over detailed.