A new model for Science

[True_Candyman]

Science in Civ is a pretty stagnant entity now, with all these changing systems around it the age old tree remains as the supposed pinnacle of its implementation. It isn’t exactly a clever implementation of how science developed, and it is very player driven without any particular nuance to the strategy. So I propose a change that incorporates the tree, but in a more complex and interesting way.

Tech Requirements

In basic terms, each tech will no longer simply have pre-requisite techs, they will have pre-requisite materials. These can be in the form of buildings, resources, units or perhaps unit experience, whatever seems the most appropriate to the tech being researched.

For example, horseback riding will require improved horse tiles in the empire to be researched.

In this manner, the pre-requisite tech, animal husbandry, is still present without being directly involved. You have to engage with existing technology to develop better technology, which I think is neat.

My City is my Island

Each city in your empire will only be able to research what it specifically has the pre-requisite to research. This way research will be incredibly specific to what you’re empire is actively doing. In order to research something different, you will have to DO something different.

For example, a city that is working an incense tile (or another plantation resource) will mean it can research calendar.
Or to research iron working, you might need to work iron AND produce a certain number of spearmen

Instead of focussing purely on growth during the game to min max, you will be forced to focus on other things to keep up in various areas. This will hopefully mean civs that are naturally more military focussed than science focussed can actually have a military advantage over a more developed civ. And that over time, to win a science victory, you must be researching and participating in all parts of the economy.

Researching a Tech

Actually researching a tech is more passive in that the player does not specifically choose the tech being researched, unless more than one tech is available to be researched at one time. You must be more active in how you play the game in order to open up more research options.

Additionally, since cities within your civ will only be able to research what they currently have the pre-requisites for, you can be researching more than one tech at once if you have different cities, and the science output from that city contributes to their respective tech.

For example, London is working its incense tile, so its research points are contributing towards the calendar tech. Meanwhile, York has produced 3 spearmen and it is working an iron tile, so its research points are contributing towards iron working. However, Nottingham has produced 3 spearmen and is working incense and an iron tile so it must choose which tech it wishes to contribute its research points towards.

What if One or None of my Cities have the Pre-requisites for a Tech?

Good question. The research points for each city then contribute towards a great scientist. The ratio of which would be subject to balancing.

For example, England has finished researching Calendar, but London does not have iron to work and has not produced 3 spearmen, so its research points are converted into great scientist points.

The idea would be to make this alternative less attractive than actively pursuing pre-requisites for techs. It would be a slower method of researching, but it would still get you through your research by spawning great people.

Great Scientists

Great scientists remain fundamentally unchanged. Maybe the academy yields less science as a tile but that doesn’t matter so much as their most important function now is to pop techs. With pre-requisites so fundamental to science, occasionally you will have to use GS’s to advance past a tricky point in the tree because your empire is not able to improve what it needs to progress.

For example, London, Nottingham and York all do not have shrines, so they cannot work on philosophy which requires a shrine in a city. After a few turns, enough science had contributed to GS points in London to spawn a GS, which pops philosophy.

The slower rate at which science contributes towards GS points than actual tech would mean planning ahead and strategic thinking is as important as balancing the development and investment of your empire. To improve an area fastest, you must concentrate on it the most, at risk of neglecting your tech in another aspect.
GS’ will still be gained through current methods too. And their cost will still go up per great scientist spawned, so beware of neglecting your pre-requisites for research too much early on! It may cost you later.

Conclusion

This new research will be much more focussed on what your empire is doing and will reflect much more on what your empire is specialising in. Tech requirements will still be loosely present in the type of pre-requisites for research being from previous research more or less, but open enough to allow some interesting and crazy diversions. Additionally, not all the techs will be needed in this way for a science victory, but at the same time it will be harder to achieve and require a much more robust empire.

Most of all, I hope this will stop the mad focus on food and science that dominates hardcore CiV gaming. Each game will be much more subjective to the lie of the land, and it has the potential to make starting locations much more balanced and prevent runaways.

Thoughts and ideas are much appreciated! I'm sure there's lots of things i've missed out! I wanna hear what you guys think of my ideas. Most of all because I would love to see something more interesting and interactive for science in CVI

 

[Ninakoru]

Interesting. A bit complex if you ask me. You don't say nothing research speed. I like the current system, but maybe science has too much protagonism. Is okay that science is important, vital.. but in civ 5 is everything.

 

[Vandal Thorne]

Yeah, the main issue with Science in CiV is that research gets too easy in the late game.

 

[killmeplease]

while this idea is good, it doesnt fit tech tree game mechanic quite well
something should be developed to replace the tech tree to make this idea viable

 

[Fabio1701]

I like this idea. The tech tree has not changed since civ1 and is due some innovation. moving to hexes was a brave and IMHO excellent move, and firaxis should consider such bold moves. This concept sounds organic which is how real research works, rather than knowing what the future holds and going for it which is not realistic at all. IRL war advances tech, which is what this would do for military tech, whereas in civ5 war slows down tech. One also sees IRL that scientific advances are indeed tied closely to what is available to a civ: the civ in the fertile crescent would never have discovered agriculture if wheat were not naturally present in the vicinity.

the details of the mechanics would need to be worked out more, but I am in favour of getting rid of a stagnant tech tree. A tree may always be there, but prerequisites should be not only more than just other techs, they should be fluid so there are multiple routes to a destination as in history. For example, working both copper and iron should advance the field of metal working, having either horses or elephants or camels can advance the cavalry tech. a science like papermaking can come either from working wood or working sheep (papyrus).

And rather than just having on metal working or cavalry tech there should be different levels of speciality. level one, discovering the saddle gives mounted warriors some more benefit than those without, then the invention of the stirrup for level two, etc etc. metal working starts with rough weapons, then advances to pure metals, then alloys like steel and all the way through history to nano metallurgy etc.

this would also make resource based wars more interesting: it's not just for happiness or for war materials, but you need to wage those resource wars for science. and GS represent that lone scientist working on some revolutionary idea which does not come from the general populace getting better at doing their jobs.

 

[daft]

Agree with the post above. The tech tree should be adjusted and made more free flowing. Research depending more on the availability of resources/luxuries and leader's characteristics, strengths in each field. You should not be able to access the tech tree as it would be different in every game. Inability to see the tech tree would make decisions about what to research more challenging because there'd be no specific name for the advancement you are trying to develop yet, you'd only point your scientists a certain direction, for example: having access to horses as you get prompted to select the field of research you want to pursue next you'd select MILITARY, there would be a chance of either developing Horse Archery or Horseback Riding, or if you still don't have it Warrior Code.
Adding more scientific advancements would be required as well. I find that every player being a Republic/Democracy by 500 ad or so, the research gets too quick and nuclear weapons and space flight are available too early(compared to reality).

 

[Naokaukodem]

Well it's interesting (new or even not-so-new-but-told-in-a-round-way ideas always are), but I feel like the examples given would be it pretty much all : ok, you need to work incense or else to find calendar, but what do you need in order to discover philosophy or composite bows ?

I personnally think that science should be treated realistically.

The problem being that I have no clue of how it works. You can plant academies, create scientific programs, spend a lot of money into science, if nobody comes up with a revolutionnary idea, nothing will be created. Think about space travel : it's still to be discovered theorically how to go faster than light, so think about in practice ! On contrary, people in antic Greece knew theorically how to create steam machines, but nodody knew how to do it in practice ! Techs come up by the meeting of theory and realisation, both feeding themselves from the other most probably. Science discoveries scheme is a complex field of opportunities, and i'm personnally convinced that it's not only about our modern science discoveries scheme of fact : for example, salpeter properties could have been discovered way before and change the face of the world. (provided we could build big or small canons, but if the idea didn't emerge in China before it actually did, it may be because nobody have had the idea, because canons didn't existed and couldn't. So muskets did not exist before because nobody have had the idea ? Really ? Or was it simply unreachable and those ideas abandonned as soon as created ? Probably that. Again, we can see that practice is a must have.)

Then I would say that practice obeys to a rule of increasing elaboration, while theory obeys to stream ideas, but one can reach practice guided by theory - if only practive itself is mature enough and can be imagined -, while theory can draw from practice - see Science domains.

So it's true that we are limited by eras and their respective elaboration of technics, but we are not limited in this way theorically, unless theories obeys also to an increasing elaboration, but it's most probably limited by concrete, way of thinking, Science dogmas and academies, and needs. I also think that we are limited by experiments and luck. (secret recipes and ununderstood ways of mateer - metal alliages, chimic reactions, quantic mateer... when there's no theory only practice)

 

[Alexey86]

Science in Civ is a pretty stagnant entity now, with all these changing systems around it the age old tree remains as the supposed pinnacle of its implementation. It isn’t exactly a clever implementation of how science developed, and it is very player driven without any particular nuance to the strategy. So I propose a change that incorporates the tree, but in a more complex and interesting way.

Tech Requirements

In basic terms, each tech will no longer simply have pre-requisite techs, they will have pre-requisite materials. These can be in the form of buildings, resources, units or perhaps unit experience, whatever seems the most appropriate to the tech being researched.



In this manner, the pre-requisite tech, animal husbandry, is still present without being directly involved. You have to engage with existing technology to develop better technology, which I think is neat.

My City is my Island

Each city in your empire will only be able to research what it specifically has the pre-requisite to research. This way research will be incredibly specific to what you’re empire is actively doing. In order to research something different, you will have to DO something different.



Instead of focussing purely on growth during the game to min max, you will be forced to focus on other things to keep up in various areas. This will hopefully mean civs that are naturally more military focussed than science focussed can actually have a military advantage over a more developed civ. And that over time, to win a science victory, you must be researching and participating in all parts of the economy.

Researching a Tech

Actually researching a tech is more passive in that the player does not specifically choose the tech being researched, unless more than one tech is available to be researched at one time. You must be more active in how you play the game in order to open up more research options.

Additionally, since cities within your civ will only be able to research what they currently have the pre-requisites for, you can be researching more than one tech at once if you have different cities, and the science output from that city contributes to their respective tech.



What if One or None of my Cities have the Pre-requisites for a Tech?

Good question. The research points for each city then contribute towards a great scientist. The ratio of which would be subject to balancing.



The idea would be to make this alternative less attractive than actively pursuing pre-requisites for techs. It would be a slower method of researching, but it would still get you through your research by spawning great people.

Great Scientists

Great scientists remain fundamentally unchanged. Maybe the academy yields less science as a tile but that doesn’t matter so much as their most important function now is to pop techs. With pre-requisites so fundamental to science, occasionally you will have to use GS’s to advance past a tricky point in the tree because your empire is not able to improve what it needs to progress.



The slower rate at which science contributes towards GS points than actual tech would mean planning ahead and strategic thinking is as important as balancing the development and investment of your empire. To improve an area fastest, you must concentrate on it the most, at risk of neglecting your tech in another aspect.
GS’ will still be gained through current methods too. And their cost will still go up per great scientist spawned, so beware of neglecting your pre-requisites for research too much early on! It may cost you later.

Conclusion

This new research will be much more focussed on what your empire is doing and will reflect much more on what your empire is specialising in. Tech requirements will still be loosely present in the type of pre-requisites for research being from previous research more or less, but open enough to allow some interesting and crazy diversions. Additionally, not all the techs will be needed in this way for a science victory, but at the same time it will be harder to achieve and require a much more robust empire.

Most of all, I hope this will stop the mad focus on food and science that dominates hardcore CiV gaming. Each game will be much more subjective to the lie of the land, and it has the potential to make starting locations much more balanced and prevent runaways.

Thoughts and ideas are much appreciated! I'm sure there's lots of things i've missed out! I wanna hear what you guys think of my ideas. Most of all because I would love to see something more interesting and interactive for science in CVI

I dont fully understand your idea. You say first comes the benefits then you discover, like a vice-versa tech advancing.

Like you build up some farms and then you know agriculture. But how do you initially know to build those farms.

Also you cannot come up with ideas for the entire tech tree, its impossible or only limit the gameplay.

 

[True_Candyman]

I dont fully understand your idea. You say first comes the benefits then you discover, like a vice-versa tech advancing.

Like you build up some farms and then you know agriculture. But how do you initially know to build those farms.

Also you cannot come up with ideas for the entire tech tree, its impossible or only limit the gameplay.

Not quite, the example i gave is that you would need improved horse tiles to start researching horseback riding. You unlock horses and pastures with animal husbandry. Likewise, iron and spearmen are unlocked at bronze working, and they are required for researching iron working. Incense pops up on the map from the start of the game and you need it (or another plantation-improvable tile) for researching calendar.

I haven't actually made any self requiring examples like you suggest in my post, I've been very careful to avoid those, and these are only hypothetical used to demonstrate my point I should add. I'm not suggesting my examples are the best they could be, just aids to my argument

Also, i believe you CAN come up with ideas for the entire tech tree. I don't see how it would limit the gameplay, maybe you could be more specific on why you think it might? It's a bit of a vague statement as you have put it so far. It might make tech more difficult to achieve and extend the tech tree, but i don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. Besides, beaker requirements for techs can always be modified to reflect the increased difficulty of acquiring tech and make sure the victory still remains balanced with the others.