The "cities tech cost" and it's implications

[anandus]

Okay, first and foremost:
It is still unclear how this exactly works, it's a value pulled from the XML and we're still speculation how it exactly works.
Although what can be assumed is that the cost of tech go up with the amount of cities, analogous to social policies.

The core is this bit from an xml file (as seen in this post):

<NumCitiesPolicyCostMod>10</NumCitiesPolicyCostMod>
<NumCitiesTechCostMod>5</NumCitiesTechCostMod>

I've also added the "cities policy cost" (which now is lower btw) to 'prove' that the 'cities tech cost' probably is also something like that.
What is unclear is the value. It says 5, but 5 what? Percent? Beakers? Turns? Baskets of pineapples?

What can be assumed though is that techs increase with cities.

Now this still make a large empire very worthwhile for tech victories, but it does have some implications. For instance for the value of a one-city-National-College start. It also reduces the science runaway civs (along with other things like the trade routes tech seepage and the (speculated) unit-killing tech reduction)

What are your thoughts?

 

[True_Candyman]

I think we can safely assume it's in percent, since the social policy cost increases 10% per city i believe.

 

[Loucypher]

I'm going to guess that this was done to keep AI runaways in check a bit. Hiawata with his city-spamming abilities is often far in the science race simply because he has so many cities. It'd be a better way to balance it then the current busted happiness system though, that's for sure.
This'll be interesting to toy around with, thats for sure.

 

[Sir Parsifal]

If the increase doesn't apply to puppet cities, Venice keeps looking better and better.

 

[xxhe]

Interesting and reasonable design. I like it

 

[Ryoga]

If the increase doesn't apply to puppet cities, Venice keeps looking better and better.

My guess is that it won't. Puppets already give you less science than regular cities as well as less culture.

The difference for Venice is that you can buy scientific and cultural buildings.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It does make for an interesting Trade off

either -25% to this cities output (puppe.. is this value still the same, could it have been increased/decreased)
OR
+5% to the tech cost (annex)

So you annex it when the output of the city is >=
Total science output / (5+annexed cities/4)

[assuming all your cities have the same science out put (false..but)]

Then if you have more than about 5-6 total cities(puppet or annexed/founded), annexing additional cities will bring your tech rate down overall.

 

[apocalypse105]

So its even more important to go national college?

You can rush for iron working and compasite bows after that you need to go philosophy or maybe earlier.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

So its even more important to go national college?

You can rush for iron working and compasite bows after that you need to go philosophy or maybe earlier.

Its not as important to go national college, it is however hard to both REX and tech rush.

If they really want this to reduce runaways, then either
1. the penalty should apply to puppets
2. the existing puppet science penalty should be increased (say to -50%)

 

[AlpsStranger]

Hrmm, very interesting.

So wide empires are now better at culture and worse at science ( not compared to tall necessarily, but compared to before. )

 

[Makavcio]

It seems great. I love tall empires and used to play most of my games with this approach but on immortal difficulty level it's simply impossible to keep up on the field of science with wide empires.

An interesting observation:
Wide empires:
- reduced science rate
- reduced monetary income (no river bonus + smaller trade routes per city factor than tall empires)
+ more tourism from excavations (more territory = more available digs without international issues)

Furthermore, there are some new screencaps I've found on muve.pl's facebook and it seems that there's going to be some rearrangements in cost of land improvements. All the screencaps have a lot of pointlessly spammed roads.

 

[apocalypse105]

Its not as important to go national college, it is however hard to both REX and tech rush.

If they really want this to reduce runaways, then either
1. the penalty should apply to puppets
2. the existing puppet science penalty should be increased (say to -50%)

Yes rushing becomes now verry difficult

 

[Lieu]

5% per additional city is brutal. I can only really see this being a big negative to gameplay for the following reasons:

- 'Tall' already tends to tech faster in the first portion of the game. Say, T0 to ~T150 before a REX catches up. This widens the gap more.
- Late game, acquiring cities lowers your tech rate. Run the numbers and you'll see that this arises out of situations where there is an infrastructure discrepancy. In particular this seems to reach breaking point with research labs and turns after, say, ~200 (depending on difficulty level).

So what situations does this put you in? If you have at least a few built-up core cities and it's any time around or after research labs, where science starts getting up into ~600-1500 territory you can:

- Acquire a city and try to use a 'normal' build progression. If the city doesn't have a research lab, your tech rate is now almost certainly slower. Of course, this is civ. That's a huge negative.
- Acquire a city and try to offset the science penalty. Public school + research lab is 800 production. Can you afford that in time to pay back the lost science and get some kind of benefit from this city before the end of the game?

Don't forget the opportunity cost of actually getting your hands on new cities.

What, exactly, is the benefit of additional cities if this penalty is real? As number of cities tend upwards and time before the end of the game tends downwards, benefits of cities goes down and will go negative. All this really does is reinforce the "sweet spot" handful number of cities with a harsh cap. How is that healthy?

If puppets don't give the penalty, what then? As if puppet empires need any more encouragement? The social policy and annex cost already strongly discourages people from annexing anything other than a capital and a 5% science hit is far, far harsher than any 10% or 15% SP hit.

Same thing generally applies with university and public school differences, except the science difference isn't quite as great and you have some more time to make the city benefit you in the long run.

If it's trying to stop runaways or put a damper on ultra-wide civs late in the game then ok, but it doesn't do well solving that problem. It probably levels the playing field around the ~T150-T220 kind of time, widens the gap earlier, breaks things later, removes a bunch of choice in how many cities you should actually build and happiness is the existing science moderator, since population is the base source of all science. "Wide vs Tall" has a lot of mechanisms already to even the two out. Would be nicer to rely on these kind of things rather than creating a lot of unfun and unhealthy situations with science/city choice.

I mean, for a start I liked the idea above mentioning -50% science instead of -25% for puppets, and we know AI happiness is being revamped. A few things like that probably go a long way. Don't forget the capital's science, RAs, PT, great people, head start, diplo safety, etc. If conquering really is seen as a problem, someone really needs press F2 and sort the city list by science

 

[apocalypse105]

5% per additional city is brutal. I can only really see this being a big negative to gameplay for the following reasons:

- 'Tall' already tends to tech faster in the first portion of the game. Say, T0 to ~T150 before a REX catches up. This widens the gap more.
- Late game, acquiring cities lowers your tech rate. Run the numbers and you'll see that this arises out of situations where there is an infrastructure discrepancy. In particular this seems to reach breaking point with research labs and turns after, say, ~200 (depending on difficulty level).

So what situations does this put you in? If you have at least a few built-up core cities and it's any time around or after research labs, where science starts getting up into ~600-1500 territory you can:

- Acquire a city and try to use a 'normal' build progression. If the city doesn't have a research lab, your tech rate is now almost certainly slower. Of course, this is civ. That's a huge negative.
- Acquire a city and try to offset the science penalty. Public school + research lab is 800 production. Can you afford that in time to pay back the lost science and get some kind of benefit from this city before the end of the game?

Don't forget the opportunity cost of actually getting your hands on new cities.

What, exactly, is the benefit of additional cities if this penalty is real? As number of cities tend upwards and time before the end of the game tends downwards, benefits of cities goes down and will go negative. All this really does is reinforce the "sweet spot" handful number of cities with a harsh cap. How is that healthy?

If puppets don't give the penalty, what then? As if puppet empires need any more encouragement? The social policy and annex cost already strongly discourages people from annexing anything other than a capital and a 5% science hit is far, far harsher than any 10% or 15% SP hit.

Same thing generally applies with university and public school differences, except the science difference isn't quite as great and you have some more time to make the city benefit you in the long run.

If it's trying to stop runaways or put a damper on ultra-wide civs late in the game then ok, but it doesn't do well solving that problem. It probably levels the playing field around the ~T150-T220 kind of time, widens the gap earlier, breaks things later, removes a bunch of choice in how many cities you should actually build and happiness is the existing science moderator, since population is the base source of all science. "Wide vs Tall" has a lot of mechanisms already to even the two out. Would be nicer to rely on these kind of things rather than creating a lot of unfun and unhealthy situations with science/city choice.

I mean, for a start I liked the idea above mentioning -50% science instead of -25% for puppets, and we know AI happiness is being revamped. A few things like that probably go a long way. Don't forget the capital's science, RAs, PT, great people, head start, diplo safety, etc. If conquering really is seen as a problem, someone really needs press F2 and sort the city list by science

Wasn't science allready important enough?


Know it makes you choose only 1 tech path going straight to philosophy after that education if you don't you lose science if you are expanding or conquering same goes for plastics and scientic theory . it makes the game less dynamic you are forced to choose that tech path or you lose.

Why should I bother going straight to a certain medieval tech ? Because I need universities to get their do you get the point?


Not to mention that there isn't a counter agianst the -5% . With the happiness penalty for expanding and social policy increase but you could overcome it by building happiness buildings and culture buildings.
.
But with the derease in science it just caues you to lose because you allways need university science labs , public school to win .

 

[Princeofnigeria]

I am mostly for this change, but a sad thought occured to me: with wide empires now taking a penalty to science, tall science will... Be... More... Viable... "Hooray! Korea is even stronger!" (Sarcasm)

 

[Montov]

Good news. There were some indications how tall empires got nerfed, and this is a good way to balance that.

 

[RealHuhn]

In G+K, four big cities can easily compete with 10-12 smaller cities, even without this weird science penalty.
Every fast science victory in G+K is based on a tall Tradition/NC approach.

An increase in tech costs by 5% per city would be ridiculous. Sure, culture and religion got buffed for wide empires but those mechanics aren't as important as science.
MadDjinn is my only hope here because he said the penalty isn't really noticable.

CiV 4 was fun because you constantly felt the pressure that you had to expand in order to stay competitive. In CiV 5, you have all this awesome land around you but you know that settling a city after turn 120 hurts more than it helps. This science penalty only promotes "lazy gameplay". -_-

 

[InsanelyApple]

In G+K, four big cities can easily compete with 10-12 smaller cities, even without this weird science penalty.
Every fast science victory in G+K is based on a tall Tradition/NC approach.

An increase in tech costs by 5% per city would be ridiculous. Sure, culture and religion got buffed for wide empires but those mechanics aren't as important as science.
MadDjinn is my only hope here because he said the penalty isn't really noticable.

CiV 4 was fun because you constantly felt the pressure that you had to expand in order to stay competitive. In CiV 5, you have all this awesome land around you but you know that settling a city after turn 120 hurts more than it helps. This science penalty only promotes "lazy gameplay". -_-

What difficulty do you play on? It's near impossible to keep up with the AI unless you city spam on higher difficulties.

EDIT: I welcome the changes. I'll be glad if I don't have to city spam to keep up in science.

 

[RealHuhn]

What difficulty do you play on? It's near impossible to keep up with the AI unless you city spam on higher difficulties.

EDIT: I welcome the changes. I'll be glad if I don't have to city spam to keep up in science.

Immortal, and outteching AIs with 4 cities plus Tradition and Rationalism is pretty easy. What game have you been playing? xD
I consider myself a pretty strong Liberty ICS player but I've never managed to beat my Tradition finishing dates.

That's why I was looking forward to all those little buffs to wide empires.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

It seems great. I love tall empires and used to play most of my games with this approach but on immortal difficulty level it's simply impossible to keep up on the field of science with wide empires.

An interesting observation:
Wide empires:
- reduced science rate
- reduced monetary income (no river bonus + smaller trade routes per city factor than tall empires)
+ more tourism from excavations (more territory = more available digs without international issues)

Furthermore, there are some new screencaps I've found on muve.pl's facebook and it seems that there's going to be some rearrangements in cost of land improvements. All the screencaps have a lot of pointlessly spammed roads.

Empires might get pissed at tall players for snatching their antiquity sites, but it's not like there's not going to be a trade off diplomatically for most wide empires. Gobbling up half you continent, for example.