Anyone Else Find Tech Pacing To Be "Off"?

[Zanteogo]

Anyone else find tech pacing to be "off"?

I notice the rate of tech increase seems to go though a spike around mid game, and the last quarter of the game, unless your in a spot that your going to lose your getting tech way faster than you can build to keep up with it. I find I spend 80% of my games playing with swords and pikemen and 20% of my games playing with everything else.

If you play with tech trading this becomes silly, though I think it's a reason the option is turned off by default.

Research agreements, if you play with them turned on, tend to compound this as well.

Few things...

The Cern wonder needs a change. Giving two techs is silly. I get it's the last wonder of the game, but it's too much. 1 free tech, and maybe a free Giant Death Robot and perhaps some free Uranium to power it?

Great Scientists can become super common if you play a certain way after a certain point. The science output early and mid game from these guys seems to be ok, but later they often shave off 40% of your research time on new projects.

Research agreements need a pull back. In theory they work because it's a reward for civs that manage to play nice and not have everyone gunning for them. However, they actually reward warmongers because they tend to have a collection of vassals who will usually be willing to have RA with their masters. It's also near impossible to play nice with most of the world unless you turn victory aggression off. You will have bribed wars, random group attacks and the AI just doing weird AI attacks.

I also think we need to increase research costs of late game tech. Last era tech needs a 15% boost in cost, with everything past medieval needing a 10% boost.

 

[Hinin]

Here is the table of tech tier cost increase, if you're interested (Tech tier 0 is Agriculture). I've been lobbying for a tech cost rework for a while now, especially for the endgame.

 

[Zanteogo]

Wow, seeing it like that really puts it into perspective. The percentage increase seems to be all over the place, and way too small for the last 6 tiers.

I can see why I spend 80% of my games with Swords and Pikes.

 

[CppMaster]

Here is the table of tech tier cost increase, if you're interested (Tech tier 0 is Agriculture). I've been lobbying for a tech cost rework for a while now, especially for the endgame.

View attachment 633729

@Recursive Why is that?

 

[Recursive]

@Recursive Why is that?

Ask @Gazebo.

 

[Hinin]

@Recursive Why is that?

I mean, I don't think Recursive has anything to do with this.

As you can see :
- Max spikes : at tech tiers 4 (post-Library) and 7 (Medieval-Renaissance transition)
- there is a drastic decrease in tech cost progression starting the Modern Era, hence the feeling of having the game "end too fast", with the lowest increase being the Modern-Atomic transition (only 6 %)

I feel like a lot of work was put into the first half of the scaling, with variations being the product of @Gazebo AI-only statistical analysis. The second, however, seems lacking, with simply a linear +1000 science / tech tier progression starting in the last tier of the tree.

If enough people agree, I would like to see a reassessment of the tech cost scaling. I'm currently working on my own rework, but a lot of AI-only games are required to gain good data, and my computer isn't made to be able to run Civ V all day without risks.

 

[usadefcon1]

This is what I use and I find it works quite well. Entering new eras beyond Industrial requires extra science.

Spoiler Tech Costs :

UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 60 WHERE GridX = 1; --
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 100 WHERE GridX = 2; -- +40
--Classic
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 150 WHERE GridX = 3; -- +50
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 275 WHERE GridX = 4; -- +125
--Med
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 500 WHERE GridX = 5; -- +225
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 850 WHERE GridX = 6; -- +350
--Ren
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 1550 WHERE GridX = 7; -- +700
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 2500 WHERE GridX = 8; -- +950
--Ind
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 4000 WHERE GridX = 9; -- +1500
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 5000 WHERE GridX = 10; -- +1000
--Mod
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 7400 WHERE GridX = 11; -- +2400
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 8800 WHERE GridX = 12; -- +1400
--At
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 11300 WHERE GridX = 13; -- +2500
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 12700 WHERE GridX = 14; -- +1400
--Info
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 15200 WHERE GridX = 15; -- +2500
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 16600 WHERE GridX = 16; -- +1400
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 18000 WHERE GridX = 17; -- +1400
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 19400 WHERE GridX = 18; -- +1400
-- FT
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 22000 WHERE GridX = 19; -- +2600

 

[Milae]

Yea I completely agree that the tech costs aren't quite right. To me an easy improvement would be shortening late Industrial and Modern, then lengthening Future.

I think the tech speeds are okay earlier but there is an issue that there isn't any alternative to getting libraries early for decent science and classical/medieval wars are very difficult to pull off because castles are very strong and early. This means I almost always go Writing first nowadays and skip any serious wars until Renaissance.

 

[Rekk]

Yea I completely agree that the tech costs aren't quite right. To me an easy improvement would be shortening late Industrial and Modern, then lengthening Future.

I think the tech speeds are okay earlier but there is an issue that there isn't any alternative to getting libraries early for decent science and classical/medieval wars are very difficult to pull off because castles are very strong and early. This means I almost always go Writing first nowadays and skip any serious wars until Renaissance.

Military buildings are supposed to give okay science, but I guess it's not enough.

 

[pineappledan]

There’s 2 on a library and 1 each from barracks and forge, so they do at least match, unless milae is very diligent about working his specialist

i think industrial and later should have their costs increased, but I also think that later science building from things like public schools and military academies should also increase a bit too. Public Schools in particular are quite anemic. You want heavy investment in science to still pay dividends and you don’t want to make the overall length of the game to go up by that much, but too much overall science is coming from cheap, early buildings that carry too much value relative to their cost IMO. I think it's making it too easy for culture civs etc. to coast on minimal investment without falling too far behind.

 

[Rick Drayson]

Late game is unfortunate. You get modern tanks and rocket artillery then immediately get giant death rockets which obsolete every other unit and nukes (better to use uranium on this unit than a nuke)

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Here is the table of tech tier cost increase, if you're interested (Tech tier 0 is Agriculture). I've been lobbying for a tech cost rework for a while now, especially for the endgame.

View attachment 633729

There's no fixed formulae determine why. Actually i'm more interested on tech routings as well as pacing. Did Civics follow the same scaling model? do you have similiar tables for civic?

 

[greenfieldpark]

Kind of related. But has anyone had success with later era starts?

For example I want a industrial era start. But the pacing is wildly off.

Ai seems unable to deal with these settings.

 

[Jdoug312]

Kind of related. But has anyone had success with later era starts?

For example I want a industrial era start. But the pacing is wildly off.

Ai seems unable to deal with these settings.

Yeah it's a really weird experience. I only do this now to start in the information era to see if AI are using planes properly, before I spend 500 turns (epic speed) getting there only to be disappointed.

 

[greenfieldpark]

Yeah it's a really weird experience. I only do this now to start in the information era to see if AI are using planes properly, before I spend 500 turns (epic speed) getting there only to be disappointed.

Hehe you guys on epic speed. Already ive put thousands of hours into this game since civ 2. Aint got no time for epic!

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Anyone else find tech pacing to be "off"?

I notice the rate of tech increase seems to go though a spike around mid game, and the last quarter of the game, unless your in a spot that your going to lose your getting tech way faster than you can build to keep up with it. I find I spend 80% of my games playing with swords and pikemen and 20% of my games playing with everything else.

If you play with tech trading this becomes silly, though I think it's a reason the option is turned off by default.

Research agreements, if you play with them turned on, tend to compound this as well.

Few things...

The Cern wonder needs a change. Giving two techs is silly. I get it's the last wonder of the game, but it's too much. 1 free tech, and maybe a free Giant Death Robot and perhaps some free Uranium to power it?

Great Scientists can become super common if you play a certain way after a certain point. The science output early and mid game from these guys seems to be ok, but later they often shave off 40% of your research time on new projects.

Research agreements need a pull back. In theory they work because it's a reward for civs that manage to play nice and not have everyone gunning for them. However, they actually reward warmongers because they tend to have a collection of vassals who will usually be willing to have RA with their masters. It's also near impossible to play nice with most of the world unless you turn victory aggression off. You will have bribed wars, random group attacks and the AI just doing weird AI attacks.

I also think we need to increase research costs of late game tech. Last era tech needs a 15% boost in cost, with everything past medieval needing a 10% boost.

Increment percentage. you mean that consecutive techs should be consistently 10% - 15% higher than previous one? And should civics follow the same pricing model?