Gradually slower tech tree

[petey]

I'm going to try and put in a mod this weekend and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for when I start going through the files.

Basically, I find that the game moves too quickly through the middle years and if you've put any kind of focus on science at all, your units are pretty much obsolete by the time you've gotten around to building more than a couple and I'd like to spend more time playing each age. What I would like to do is slow down the science rate as the game progresses.

For example (I forget where the Classical, Renaissance, etc come in, so I'll just call them Ages I, II, III, etc, with I being Ancient)

Age I - 10% slower
Age 2 - 20% slower
Age 3 - 30% slower
Age 4 - 40% slower
etc

Is it possible to do this or is the rate only modable for tech advancement as a whole and I'd have to go in and manually change each tech individually?

 

[suspendinlight]

It's only moddable as a whole as far as we know so far. It has been discussed in the "Modding the aspects of 'Game Speed'" thread. Right now, I am using my own mod which increases individual tech costs gradually based on their era until they are almost 4x as much in the modern era. I am still tinkering with it right now. I suggest you try a few things and find the right balance for you.

 

[guyjr]

I'm trying to remember how Civ III worked - did earlier techs take longer than later techs to research? I seem to remember that as you advanced the rates would speed up, but then as your empire grew larger and incurred more waste costs, you would have less coin to throw at research and would therefore have to reduce spending on research.

I've found that in the first two games I've played my research has always been 90 - 100%... and never below 50%. In Civ III I seem to recall it rarely getting above 50%, even on the easiest difficulty.

 

[69king]

You can only change the overall research rate, not per age. So to change the different ages you must change the costs of each tech individually.

The way I did it was:

Ancient -25% (I like the first few techs to be quick)
Classical (no change)
Medieval +25%
Renaissance +50%
Industrial +75%
Modern +100%
Future +100%

I haven;t played a full game yet to determine if these are OK but I will say that when you see the option to choose a new tech, the techs for the next age require a LOT more turns than for the age ou are in.


I implemented this as part of my personal mod in which I doubled the number of turns (from Normal speed 430 to 860) and increased all rates to 200% except unit production rate which I only increased to 150%

As I said, I have not played a full game yet to test my modifications but so far it is working pretty well. I have been fighting (mostly barbarians) for about 100 turns with warriors and archers (and axemen if I had the resources) but I am still a long way from having any more advanced units.
(It may just be because I suck but I haven;t seen any more advanced units from anyone else either)

 

[woodelf]

This is exactly what I've been thinking would be ideal. Early on the techs are fine, maybe a bit slow. By the 3rd age they simply speed by so fast that they're almost meaningless and there's no strategy involved in selecting what to research.

@69king - any chance you post your changes so I could give them a spin? Also, did you make the game simply 2 times as long or did you space the years/turn out accordingly?

 

[69king]

This is exactly what I've been thinking would be ideal. Early on the techs are fine, maybe a bit slow. By the 3rd age they simply speed by so fast that they're almost meaningless and there's no strategy involved in selecting what to research.

@69king - any chance you post your changes so I could give them a spin? Also, did you make the game simply 2 times as long or did you space the years/turn out accordingly?

I wasn't going to release my mod because there are going to be thousands of them and I didn;t want to add to the confusion but I will put it here anyway.
(not fully tested yet! ) (hey, maybe you can test it for me and tell me what you think )

I made a new game speed called "Grand Epic". You can choose it from the game menu. I used "Normal Speed" as my starting point. I then changed all rates from 100% to 200%. (Except for a few values which weren't directly proportional. (eg. inflation). Those I changed to try to keep the balance as close as possible to the original) The only rate I did not double was unit production speed which I changed to 150% so it will be relatively quicker than before (thus more units for you to play around with) I modified the Worker and Settler production rates to stay balanced to the original rate. (ie. 200% instead of 150%.) So they take a little longer. I didn't want accelerated expansion.

Tech rates are modified thus:

Ancient -25% (I like the first few techs to be quick)
Classical (no change)
Medieval +25%
Renaissance +50%
Industrial +75%
Modern +100%
Future +100%

Years/turn modified to:

150 turns @ 20 years (4000BC - 1000BC)
200 turns @10 years (1000BC - 1000AD)
90 turns @ 5 years (1000AD - 1450AD)
200 turns @ 2 years (1450AD - 1850AD)
200 turns @ 1 year (1850AD - 2050AD)

840 turns for 6050 years.


Umm, I think thats it!!

 

[woodelf]

Thanks king. I'll take a look at it after work.