How to slow down technology discovery?

[jackesnacke]

I've been searching the forum but I can't find the answer to my question.

I want to keep the production at the same speed as marathon but I want to slow down the technology development even more to get the periods to stay longer. For example, I want the medieval era to last longer so that I can enjoy the units of this era a longer time.

You guys understand what I mea?

How do I do this?

 

[freeluos]

What I did was editing the XML file (CIV4TechInfos.xml) in:
Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Technologies

In my case I multiplied the <iCost>50</iCost> line with a certain factor:
Ancient = 1.0
medieval = 1.1
renaissance = 1.25
industrial = 1.2
modern = 1.15
future = 1.1

But keep in mind to disable the time win. Otherwise you will not be able to reach some later era's.

Backup your files before editing.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I saw this on another thread dealing with the same topic:

If you just want a casual mod that simply stops the tech advancement before the Renaissance era then how about simply multiplying the tech research cost values of Nationalism, Printing Press, Education, and Gunpowder by 100 or so? If I remember correctly those four are the bottleneck techs between Medieval and Renaissance eras so that would increase the research times to at least several hundred turns which ought to be "enough". Check from the Civilopedia, though, whether there are others. (Or if you wanted the "barrier" between Renaissance and Industrial e.g. to get a prolonged Age of Sail just pick the appropriate bottleneck techs.)

You can create the above casual mod simply by copying the CIV4TechInfos.xml to the directory "\Users\YourName\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\CustomAssets\xml\technologies" and then searching for the techs (TECH_NATIONALISM etc.) and changing the field "iCost" from 1800 to something like 180000.

Everything else stays the same and since you used your own custom assets directory you don't have to specifically load mods or anything. Every standard game you start will use your changed version of the Civ4TechInfos.xml and essentially stop the advancement at those 4 techs. If you want to switch back to the original simply delete or rename your customized file.

 

[jackesnacke]

Thanks for the responses.

Freeluos:

In my file the <iCost>50</iCost> is already <iCost>60</iCost>, does this mean that it is already multiplied? Is this number what I should change?

Ramesses-Rules:

Thank you, but I think I'll choose the other option as your suggestion only will slow down certain technologies. I'm looking for a slowdown for all technologies.

 

[freeluos]

I just picked a random technology. You probably chose another one.

But that's indeed the number you should change. But you have to change it for all the technologies in that specific xml file. Thus it should take a couple of minutes to calculate a new iCost value for every technology.

 

[God-Emperor]

In CIV4EraInfos.xml each era has an iResearchPercent value. The regular BtS settings have it at 100 for ancient, 90 for classical, and so on to 40 for Future. If you set them all to 100 then the research costs will escalate more than they normally do. (I'm not sure why they have the value in this file counteracting the increasing costs they assigned - it seems like they should have just assigned costs to the techs that are what they are supposed to be without needing this adjustment.)

I would not change the original files. If you are modifying things make a mod. Or at least copy the file into the corresponding location in CustomAssets and make the change in that copy.

 

[jgroth1978]

If you want to pull a Byzantium, just set your science slider to zero and enjoy the Middle Ages longer.

 

[Espírito]

A couple of interesting ideas here.

1. Edit costs of inividual technologies - time consuming and you may be forever trying to balance your changes (I tried this).
2. Bottlenech Technologies - nice idea, but would seriously cripple technologically backwards civs (once you're past a bottleneck you'd have a very long time to research better techs and use this to your advantage. Worse, if you're behind and stuck at a bottleneck and someone else gets an advanced unit, how do you stop them overwhelming you before you get past the bottleneck - very difficult).
3. Change Era % - good, simple way to do it imo as long as you can get the balance right. I confess I thought that this value was simply for which era you started in, but may be wrong.

4. The way I've done it is to change CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml by adding "Transmarathon" - exactly the same but with <iResearchPercent>500</iResearchPercent>.
This will simply extend the research cost, but be careful because you'll find the early technologies very long to research (more of an issue on higher levels where the AI starts with many techs). I counteracted this by getting the palace to provide more commerce, so that initially you'll have same research times but these will slowly and gradually increase. The benefit of doing it this way as opposed to #3 is that you can research your initial techs in time to use them, and it's a smooth transition from ancient to classical era which you wouldn't get with #3.

I can upload my edited files if you're interested. It definitely gives a longer game while keeping the very early game as balanced as possible.

 

[jackesnacke]

A couple of interesting ideas here.

1. Edit costs of inividual technologies - time consuming and you may be forever trying to balance your changes (I tried this).
2. Bottlenech Technologies - nice idea, but would seriously cripple technologically backwards civs (once you're past a bottleneck you'd have a very long time to research better techs and use this to your advantage. Worse, if you're behind and stuck at a bottleneck and someone else gets an advanced unit, how do you stop them overwhelming you before you get past the bottleneck - very difficult).
3. Change Era % - good, simple way to do it imo as long as you can get the balance right. I confess I thought that this value was simply for which era you started in, but may be wrong.

4. The way I've done it is to change CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml by adding "Transmarathon" - exactly the same but with <iResearchPercent>500</iResearchPercent>.
This will simply extend the research cost, but be careful because you'll find the early technologies very long to research (more of an issue on higher levels where the AI starts with many techs). I counteracted this by getting the palace to provide more commerce, so that initially you'll have same research times but these will slowly and gradually increase. The benefit of doing it this way as opposed to #3 is that you can research your initial techs in time to use them, and it's a smooth transition from ancient to classical era which you wouldn't get with #3.

I can upload my edited files if you're interested. It definitely gives a longer game while keeping the very early game as balanced as possible.

This sounds excellent! Thank you very much. Please upload your files if you have time even if Ill try it myself

Thanks to everyone else!

 

[Espírito]

This sounds excellent! Thank you very much. Please upload your files if you have time even if Ill try it myself

Thanks to everyone else!

Edit: please also see for the updated file and instructions - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10254979&postcount=13

I had to zip them to upload. There are two files included.

CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml should be put in BeyondTheSword\CustomAssets\XML\gameinfo
CIV4BuildingInfos.xml should be put in BeyondTheSword\CustomAssets\XML\buildings

Let me just say a couple of things:

1. The only change to the default files is to have the palace provide more gold (14 instead of 8), and added Gamespeed "Transmarathon". This has a 500% research rate (compared to 300% for Marathon).

Once you add on your starting square that gives initial value of 15 commerce instead of 9 (i.e. the same ratio as 500/300). If you want even longer research rates you only need to change these two values to keep the balance.

Edit: CIV4CultureLevelInfos.xml is changed as well but doesn't alter ordinary gameplay or need changing to alter tech speed.

2. If you turn on "Lock Modified Assets" you can still play (obviously not with the new Transmarathon game speed since it's a modified asset) but the game will tell you some files have issues. All you have to do is click "OK" on a few popup windows, so it's not a big issue. If you really want to avoid this, just rename the files (but remember to change the name back when you want to play with TM gamespeed again).

Edit: I think this arose because I hadn't put one of the files in CustomAssets, make sure you do and it should avoid the problem.

3. These were edited from the BtS files. It shouldn't matter if you only have Warlords/Vanilla, but I might be wrong. You could always just copy my method with your Vanilla/Warlords file (only one value needs changing). The gameinfo.xml file will work for Vanilla/Warlords or BtS.

Let me know if you need any help with that, and let me know what you think once you've played a game or two. I confess I've never gone much slower than this, although if my computer was able to play Huge maps I might be tempted to slow research down to 1000%!

 

[jackesnacke]

I had to zip them to upload. There are two files included.

CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml should be put in BeyondTheSword\CustomAssets\XML\gameinfo
CIV4BuildingInfos.xml should be put in BeyondTheSword\CustomAssets\XML\buildings

Let me just say a couple of things:

1. The only change to the default files is to have the palace provide more gold (14 instead of 8), and added Gamespeed "Transmarathon". This has a 500% research rate (compared to 300% for Marathon).

Once you add on your starting square that gives initial value of 15 commerce instead of 9 (i.e. the same ratio as 500/300). If you want even longer research rates you only need to change these two values to keep the balance.

2. If you turn on "Lock Modified Assets" you can still play (obviously not with the new Transmarathon game speed since it's a modified asset) but the game will tell you some files have issues. All you have to do is click "OK" on a few popup windows, so it's not a big issue. If you really want to avoid this, just rename the files (but remember to change the name back when you want to play with TM gamespeed again).

3. These were edited from the BtS files. It shouldn't matter if you only have Warlords/Vanilla, but I might be wrong. You could always just copy my method with your Vanilla/Warlords file (only one value needs changing). The gameinfo.xml file will work for Vanilla/Warlords or BtS.

Let me know if you need any help with that, and let me know what you think once you've played a game or two. I confess I've never gone much slower than this, although if my computer was able to play Huge maps I might be tempted to slow research down to 1000%!

Thanks!

Im playing with your files now and it seems to work fine except for one thing.
The culture rating seems kind of screwed. First, all capitals start with legendary culture which makes their borders to start with really big. Secondly, when you build your next cities it says they have legendary culture but they don't get bigger borders then normal.

The only thing Im afraid of is that these cities won't get more culture than this in the future. Also, my neighbour seems to have change his capital (or something) to get this legendary culture bonus again and thereby got his borders very big, right next to me.

This happened to you?

 

[Espírito]

Thanks!

Im playing with your files now and it seems to work fine except for one thing.
The culture rating seems kind of screwed. First, all capitals start with legendary culture which makes their borders to start with really big. Secondly, when you build your next cities it says they have legendary culture but they don't get bigger borders then normal.

The only thing Im afraid of is that these cities won't get more culture than this in the future. Also, my neighbour seems to have change his capital (or something) to get this legendary culture bonus again and thereby got his borders very big, right next to me.

This happened to you?

It doesn't happen to me now, but it rings a bell. Maybe I had to change the Culture file as well. I'll investigate briefly now and get back to you.

 

[Espírito]

Apologies, I made the edit quite a while ago and this file was buried in the actual game files (not Custom Assets, hence why I didn't find it.)

I've uploaded a new zip file and it should include the new file:

CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml needs to be put in CustomAssets\xml\gameinfo

That should work now, and if you put it in CustomAssets instead of the normal files like I did by mistake it should mean the problem I mentioned about using Lock Modified Assets doesn't arise.

Let me know if that fixes it or doesn't fix it.

Edit: If anyone is giving this a go, instructions for where to save the files can be found in this post and above: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10248986&postcount=10

 

[jackesnacke]

Apologies, I made the edit quite a while ago and this file was buried in the actual game files (not Custom Assets, hence why I didn't find it.)

I've uploaded a new zip file and it should include the new file:

CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml needs to be put in CustomAssets\xml\gameinfo

That should work now, and if you put it in CustomAssets instead of the normal files like I did by mistake it should mean the problem I mentioned about using Lock Modified Assets doesn't arise.

Let me know if that fixes it or doesn't fix it.

Edit: If anyone is giving this a go, instructions for where to save the files can be found in this post and above: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10248986&postcount=10

Thank you!

That fixed the problem with the culture. Everything else works fine, however I think teching is pretty fast. Maybe I haven't played long enough to notice this yet. Is there any way to see this exactly in-game?

Thanks!

 

[Espírito]

Thank you!

That fixed the problem with the culture. Everything else works fine, however I think teching is pretty fast. Maybe I haven't played long enough to notice this yet. Is there any way to see this exactly in-game?

Thanks!

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. As soon as you start generating commerce you'll notice tech rates dropping compared with what they would have been without the modifications, quickly becoming about 66% slower by the time you're hitting the classical era. The only way to really "see" the difference is familiarity with tech speeds. How far have you got through a game? You won't notice that much difference with just the first "worker" techs because most of your science will be generated by the palace so the tech rate should be about normal at the very beginning.

If you want the game to go even slower (I don't recommend, I found this was about optimum after a bit of trial and error), then change the TechRate under Transmarathon in GameSpeedInfo and the amount of commerce generated by the Palace in BuildingInfo.

 

[thelastmccabe]

This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've never understood why they made research so fast in Civ 4.

 

[Reg Pither]

This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've never understood why they made research so fast in Civ 4.

I feel the same. The techs just seem to fly by disappointly quickly even on marathon, so I've done something similar to post #2, although my multipliers are waaay higher!! I think my current game is something like this :

Ancient = 1.5
medieval = 2.5
renaissance = 4
industrial = 6
modern = 8
future = 10

It's now 1900 and I've just got destroyers and blimps. Sounds about right to me.
I also play with tech trading and brokering switched off, just to keep things pegged back even further.

 

[thelastmccabe]

I am going to try Espirito's method, but I would also like to learn how to modify the values that freeluos and reg pither talked about in case I want to mess around with that in the future. Could someone please explain to me exactly what in that xml file needs to be changed or how I go about finding them? I looked around in there but I couldn't figure out where they were.

Thanks!

 

[G-Max]

just set your science slider to zero and enjoy the Middle Ages longer.

 

[Reg Pither]

I am going to try Espirito's method, but I would also like to learn how to modify the values that freeluos and reg pither talked about in case I want to mess around with that in the future. Could someone please explain to me exactly what in that xml file needs to be changed or how I go about finding them? I looked around in there but I couldn't figure out where they were.

Thanks!

I use a great little editor that you can download from this thread :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140264