Originally posted by chiefpaco
I'll make a $50 bet (Cdn dollars, that is! ) the rest of the world just got Fission that turn.
Jimmytrick is right.
Did someone do a test on the precise amount of tech devaluation?
I think you're both right! And I guess I have the proof of that!
But there is even more to it, than that. Read on.
Answering your question, chiefpaco, this is exactly one of the things I've been experimenting with.
I already answered you in another thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=214214&t=3858#post214214
I'm collecting the exact data on my spreadsheet now, and I cant give it now, because Ive had several problems this weekend, but I can already advance you a simple and *real* case which I still have in my mind:
In my current Monarch game (around 580AD), there are 2 big continents, each with 4 civs. I have the contact of all 4 civs on my continent, and therefore I know exactly what techs they have.
Then, the Babylonians, from the other continent, managed to travel by sea towards me thanks to their Lighthouse, and tried to sell me Republic by 160g, which no civ on my continent had yet.
I conducted several tests, after that.
I experimented buying the contact of the other civs on the unknown continent (which already had that Tech, but I didnt know that until I had their Contact).
After buying other civs contacts and trying to buy Republic from them, to figure out how much it would cost, it was amazing to verify that by the simple fact of contacting another civ (that already had the tech), the initial Babylonians would sell me it by a fewer price.
As a shortcut, I can tell you that in the end, I bought it from the Zulus for about 45g (Im not sure), but the Babylonians were willing to sell me the Tech for about the same price too. So, there was a devaluation of about 115g (260 => 45g) after I had the other 3 civs contact! So the devaluation was bout 500% when passing from 1 knowing civ to 4 knowing civs, for this case.
That is called competition! And the Babylonians seem to understand that quite well!
So it seems that the simple fact of another civ having a tech is not enough to lower the techs price in what regards to trading. The fact of having the contact of other civs who also have that tech seems to be *very* important.
I think the research process is based on the overall discoveries though, but Im not sure yet. I will try to find that out with the Civ3Multi Tool.
IMHO, I think I have some other useful conclusions, but as I said on the other thread, Im in the process of collecting them. So I will post them as soon as I finish, in a single place.
Sorry for the long post. I hope that helped.