Science vs production balance

[qadams]

Yes, and science progression is too fast at ALL difficulty levels, not just higher ones.

I agree. Same problem on every level.

Off topic: It seems I'm only posting about bugs, UI and other issues today. Truth is, I'm loving Civ VI and having a blast playing it, I just expect our feeback to help make the game even better.

Me too!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to need that. While I was busy fighting a nonsense war, my industrial districts were sabotaged through spy spam. I spent as many turns repairing them as it would have taken to build the spaceports. Lesson learned. Now its going to be close but that's what first games are for.

"(it would also be good if Globalization / Social media gave repeat bonuses... say +1 religious unit strength per research or +5% Tourism per research)"
I could have easily won by either of these two methods as it is. Maybe its harder on higher levels but on Prince I'm way ahead. Religion is the only victory condition that I'm not leading. That's because I have only played that in a defensive role. Even then, I'm in second.

To clarify Future techs do NOT give a bonus to spaceship parts.... I think they Should.

 

[EpicWestern]

Achieved my first science victory yesterday on Immortal difficulty. Science is definitely "too fast" but in a way that's a good thing. Its overpowered in the last few versions of civ. For all the faults civ6 has, the districts are all actually fairly balanced. Your empire should have a healthy mix. In fact, the districts themselves are important enough that I would place food at a premium over either science or production, especially after learning that the spaceport counts as a district (meaning population thresholds matter).

 

[Stalker0]

I would adjust overall tech costs before eurekas.

Honestly I stop caring about them halfway through the game since I am tech I so quick anyways...so the issue techs are simply too easy to get.

Change that first, then we can see if eurekas should be adjusted

 

[Larsenex]

Yes, and science progression is too fast at ALL difficulty levels, not just higher ones. Tech costs basically needs something like the Civ IV balance patch applied that increases all tech costs starting in Midevil era; with larger increase in cost the further down in the tech tree it is.

^^^ This is spot on. Early teching to get up to some units is good then a general slow down is needed with higher tech costs for further ages (modern, atomic, information). I had posted that I would like production to stay the same but slow down tech. Production is at best slow (for me) and I try to optimize my industrial area districts with adjacencies.

Ideally I would like an 'Epic' pace game but with the production of a standard game. Able to produce units and economy while the ages and years stretch out as the cost of techs is higher. Units would be a bit easier to produce and you would be able to field a professional army of guys with promotions.

 

[Acken]

Yes.... but not in relation to production. Or not directly. Production is fine if you get the production bonuses.
There is an argument to be made that there is a district imbalance because of it but this will not magically go away by increasing research times. As in all civ games its the relationship between multiple systems that needs to be considered.

Civ6 also suffers from a size issue. The more you increase the tech costs the more efficient a wide empire becomes. That is because the tech rate of an empire is an exponential function of the number of cities and time. A quick example is that in the last 30 turns of my last science game, my tech rate doubled reaching the 500.
Higher tech costs have a weird relationship with empire size. That is something I learned in my mod where even though I increased tech costs by up to 40%, the fact that wide was easier at the same time allows player to reach the end at the same time.

I think good tech rates that also dont bbias the game in a particular direction require a more radical idea. One that ive been suggesting before release which is to remove science as a normal easy to acquire yield and make it go through a way more limited process allowing the designer to have a lot of control over the game pace.

 

[Ikael]

Increase the base cost of techs and civics at least 30%, so you have a realistic pace of development (aka no more industrialization by the year 1000 AC).

Mantain the Eureka effects in order to force you to have a specialized type of play and avoid the "science is everything" trap. They are a good core mechanic, I believe.

Increase the difficulty of getting eurekas so you don't get them by accident nor become the default game speed (think something along the lines of "adopt a theocratic goverment" or "build two campuses next to each other" rather than the currently production-centric ones a la "build 3 libraries"). In short, make Eurekas feel like an actual archievement.

Decrease .the base production cost of wonders by a huge amount (at least by 50%), downsize the curve of production costs from your number of districts, and completely eliminate the district cost increase from tech: one thing is to avoid making science as vital as before, and another different thing is to actually punish you for researching.

 

[Acken]

Im willing to prove that a science increase of 30% will barely have a minor effect on the time required to reach the end of the tree. Even more so if its coupled with biffs to production.

 

[rpgalon]

I think reducing the science yield from each pop, from 0.7 to 0.3 or even 0.4 ,will not only increase the "tech cost" but will also give players a reason to build campus. That is like 50% science nerf from the base science (the science that everyone gets with no effort).

I also hate the way Great Artist, Writer and Musician are the same with no extra effect. but that is another topic.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You have reasons to build campuses because extra science is still good. Great scientists are pretty decent as well and without campus you can not do project for extra great scientist points.

 

[redwings1340]

I've found myself building campuses mid to late game, the extra science from universities and research labs are quite nice. You can delay campuses for much longer than you could delay the library in V though, Industrial zones are a must in your high production cities, but I'm not entirely convinced they're necessary for the rest of your empire. If, in a wide empire, your edge cities will only get one or two districts anyway, it doesn't really matter much if they take forever to make. I think next game I'm going to experiment with building commercial zones and harbors at the edge of my empire, with industry and science at the center, and see what happens. I think combining the industry at the heart of an empire with lots of trade routes could be a great formula.

I'm still not entirely sure where and how to put theatre districts in there, maybe they're useful, but they seem... less useful than the other districts. They're probably good for culture wins though.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I would like to test a tall game in civilization VI and tech up to a very advanced unit before the ai does and see how that works out.

 

[IllustriousYou]

The .xml files indicate that boosts can vary from tech to tech. Has anyone considered decreasing the boost for techs by era?

I'm still not entirely sure where and how to put theatre districts in there, maybe they're useful, but they seem... less useful than the other districts. They're probably good for culture wins though.

Theater Districts aren't just good for culture wins, they're necessary. Theater districts are where art and archeology museums are built. Without them, there aren't any places to put great works, and without great how do you earn that sweet, sweet tourism?

As far as where they go, I try to build clusters of 2-3 wonders and drop the theater district in the middle, then fill up adjacent spots with neighborhoods.

 

[Acken]

You can get resorts and parks

 

[JNR13]

It's really hard to have "realistic" time progression because in reality civilizations had their ups and downs and would not make smooth progress all the time. Just think of how early the Chinese had gunpowder and an administration on a level Europe could not match until quite late. Diseases and other catastrophes which impacted development. Most importantly, and I think that could find its way as a feature into civ games to make them more dynamic actually, wars which have society transform towards a more militaristic orientation at the neglect of arts and culture and other innovation. In Civ 6, your research is never set back or impacted by crisis which shift resources away since the yield from districts works even without specialists (who only give rather small, unimprovable yields), so your development is basically first like ancient Egypt, then like Rome, then medieval China, and from then on the path of post-Columbian Europe into the present.

To make the game more realistic in the long term, science would have to be much less of a steady stream and tied more to excess resources being made available which can only be done at special times (i.e. it would be riskier during war), and technologies should not be handled in such a strict propietary manner anymore as it was introduced with civ 5 and instead allow more spillover through trade routes, diplomatic trade, and general proximity to other civs and local diversity. The Eurekas are a nice step in this direction as well, I think.

Until then, we'll try to stretch the values to European history I guess, but for that civ 6 would first need to get the techs into a decent order (like not having the Ruhr Valley right after renaissance and flight no longer before chemistry)

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Techs are going way, way too fast. I'd put a blanket increase in the cost of techs by 20% and tone down Eurekas to 30% (China gets 40%). A pretty dramatic slowdown is needed, I think. The way the game is right now, you can invest almost nothing in science buildings and techs still go a little fast. If you do spam campuses? It's just crazy.

 

[lamaros]

No, Eurekas should definitely stay 50%...that is needed to tie the tech tree to playstyle

If you want Great Scientists boosts to be useful have them give a flat 50% cost (so it gives you the tech completely if you have the Eureka)..or make Eurekas rarer/harder.

If tech is going too fast, then just increase the cost of the techs

If Eurekas are too common (ie you are getting all the Eurekas even for playstyles you don't follow) then make them harder, not weaker.

This.

If anything I would say make the Eureka moment harder, but give a larger reward, and make all the techs base cost higher.

So you can Eureka down a specific path by focusing on non-science building, or go heavy science and brute force the lot.

Heavy science would give you the flexibility, while going the Eureka method might make you lead in a specifc area, but be remiss in others.

Same for the culture/civic side, too.

 

[MRM]

I would go the complete oposite way, reduce the science you get from population, increase the science cost of techs, reduce Eureka to 33%.

Now maybe your production will keep up with your tech.

I agree with reducing science from population, but instead of reducing Eureka to 33% I would make it harder to get an Eureka. At the moment, yea you go through the ages far to fast, even if you do almost nothing for science

 

[Gigaz]

Scientific progress is too fast right now and that has adverse side effects for productivity. District cost goes up with the number of techs you have.
I think the tech costs need an increase by a factor of 2, approximately. Then you could actually build stuff that is not industry before it becomes prohibitively expensive.

 

[MadDjinn]

A few things could be done to better balance the tech pace.

Science from pop is .7/pop. Can reduce that to .5/pop to make campuses worth it when not getting mass mountains. It's part of the reason that cultures low .3/pop means you need theatres.

Eureka values can be scaled through the eras. So let the early game start at 50% then reduce the eureka value starting at Renaissance. Reduce it down to 40% til modern, then 33% after that. Do give great scientists a flat 50% eureka value to make them worth it. *ot: I have the basis for this as a mod, but the game can't handle individual eureka values at the moment wrt great people - especially the random eurekas.

Right now, no matter how you get a eureka (normal, great person, spy, research agreement) it's all the same.

And Ofc, tweak tech costs a little bit more. You can't raise tech costs too high though, else you end up needing the eureka to tech and therefore end up with two different tech trees.