bonafide11
Worker
I highly doubt vassals are even going to be in the game, so I wouldn't worry about losing the ability to give them techs.
There needs to be some way for technological diffusion to happen in game, and having a "research partnership" is absolutely not the same thing.
The problem is that a civ wanting to catch up needs to have something to offer. And this is not always the case.ITech trading is a more player-controlled method of simulating that effect, and in Civ 4 it's critical to gameplay, helping civs that get stuck behind technologically actually be able to catch up.
I voted yes. There needs to be some way for technological diffusion to happen in game, and having a "research partnership" is absolutely not the same thing. Perhaps the ideal implementation would be just to drastically increase [you mean 'decrease', don't you?] research time as more nearby civs gain that technology, so that if five neighbors have gunpowder it'll only take you a couple of years to figure it out as well. Tech trading is a more player-controlled method of simulating that effect, and in Civ 4 it's critical to gameplay, helping civs that get stuck behind technologically actually be able to catch up. If there's some form of technological diffusion in the game, it won't be a serious loss, and it might in fact end up being a big improvement, but without knowing any details it really seems like a bad idea.
I believe Civs 3 and 4 have a sort of "research diffusion" - if you are the first to research a tech, it actually costs more beakers than if one more other civs have already researched it. Can anyone confirm that?
i didn't think i'd have to walk anyone through this step by step, but here goes:
let's take the example of the americas in an earth map. because there are only a few civs in the americas and tons in the old world, it'll be extremely unbalanced for the americas as there will only be a few civs with which you can form research pacts right away, and they won't even be close enough to each other to get the same bonus as, say, european civs would. also, because this is the main method of getting bonuses to research from your relations with other civilizations and there is no tech trading present, you won't be able to catch up with civs that are that far ahead of you. if tech trading were also present, you could take advantage of both methods and it would be much more balanced. the ai might still constantly trade with each other, but that's how things work in the real world.
One of the new Civ5 previous has announced that tech trading has been abolished. What do you guys think about it? Will the new cooperative research be good enough to replace it?