Education is broken

[Mutineer]

In addition to all other problems, like RAF/Bellcurve production I found education is broken.

I am not sure how it calculated, but it seems education times eincrease expotentially. At late game education of free colonist in school take 200 tunrs to graduation?

I do not believe that education should scale what ever way it scales currently and that one should pay money for education.

It is really increasing additional micromanagment, tracking that and keep 500 gold (Some times more?) at the end of turn. KIng can take it and one can forget about it. Better system that education take fixed amount of education and schools educate to raf matherial speciality, colledges to profession and Unies to statesmen.

Really currently education is broken.

RAf is broken too, as current formular extrimelly limited winning strategies.
One would think gettign founding father should help, but it has opposit effect.

 

[Antilogic]

The idea is sound, I just think the percentage is off. I have been playing with the Patch Mod from Dale and Snoopy, and they hit it right on the mark, I think. Just enough that you can train several statesmen in good time for the buildup to independence, but not to the point where you can pull specialists out of thin air.

I'd recommend refusing the king's requests for money. Tell him to stuff it, and watch how he just looks shocked and doesn't do anything.

Also, take advantage of as many native villages as possible. Don't train fishermen, farmers, or planters yourself--send them to the natives so they don't count against your limit. Use your schools mostly for a couple carpenters, maybe a manufacturer (like weavers, distillers, etc.), and then all statesmen.

 

[Mutineer]

I disagree. If we will talk about general design issue I would say par of game missing.
Currently after declaring independence you are economically cripple. You can not conver new citisen to specialists, you can not sell your production, you can not really become a triving independent country.

So, personally I will make education not to scale at all. If should be posible to tain all specialists you need yourself.

Insted I will make school educate only raf matherial producers, colledges UP to all manifacturing specialists ( take longer) and Unies everybody(take longer).

In order to be able to build self sufficient economy I will change beneficial effect of liberty bells by introducing inside consumption.

Like In order to benefit from increase productivity workers need to be able to consume
Some products. Like Coverted natives need rum. all raw matherial specialists consume coats. Production specialists consume cloth. Preachers and statesmen consume cigars.

Amount they need should be proportional to liberty % in city. and they should pay
for it market price. Exec amount could be ballanced (I did not think about it yet), but in short you should be able to to build really triving, independed colony at the end of the game.
In addition it will inrich inter colony trade, as colony will benefit from trade with each other. One only need to sell excess of production somewhere.

So, I would change monarchy so it will let you to sell your product oversea, but everyone can buy everything from oversea.

 

[nbcman]

I'd recommend refusing the king's requests for money. Tell him to stuff it, and watch how he just looks shocked and doesn't do anything.

I think that if you refuse multiple requests for money you do get a negative attitude with the King. I never refused a tax increase but never accepted any requests for money and I had a -4 'You refused to kiss my ring' after about 100 turns.

 

[KJIOYH]

I agree with Mutineer that colonists should consume products, otherwise they (products) are completely useless.

Also i cant understand any reasons for current education system. It seems more logical if the times became shorter instead. It would be nice if i could choose who the student is studying for and paying in the beginning of his studying not in the end.

 

[Antilogic]

I think that if you refuse multiple requests for money you do get a negative attitude with the King. I never refused a tax increase but never accepted any requests for money and I had a -4 'You refused to kiss my ring' after about 100 turns.

But what does the negative attitude do? It doesn't increase the size of the REF. Sure, you might not get another discounted veteran soldier, but I can normally pick up one or two before he gets too mad (and rarely I find one on the docks).

 

[Shabbaman]

The education system in col1 was just so much better, because you had to weigh if you needed the specialist as a farmer/statesman/soldier/whatever or if you could live with the specialist producing nothing for several turns (and teach in the mean while). It gives the game additional depth, and I'm wondering why they removed it.

BTW, all citizens consume food

 

[player1 fanatic]

I prefer basic mechanics of new system more, although i don't like how it scales.

 

[B.B.Shrooms]

In addition to all other problems, like RAF/Bellcurve production I found education is broken.

I am not sure how it calculated, but it seems education times eincrease expotentially. At late game education of free colonist in school take 200 tunrs to graduation?

I do not believe that education should scale what ever way it scales currently and that one should pay money for education.

I totally agree. Education as it currently is simply doesn't work. IMO this yet another point where obviously they didn't balance the game correctly and then went for some quick fix. And here is why:

If you build your first schoolhouse it will take something like 8 turns (plus 500 gold) to train a free colonist into whatever specalist you want (provided you have that type of specalist in town already). Now that is clearly way too fast and way too cheap. That way you can basically create an army of elder statesmen right at the start of the game.

To counter that Firaxis put in this strange scaling law that totally kills the education system once you have actually trained 10 specalists or so because by then it will take 50+ turns for ANY type of education to be completed. In effect this also means that universities are now totally pointless because by the time you get around to building them it makes no sense to educate anyone anymore since it takes forever for them to learn. This is total nuts IMO because the ability to train your own specalists becomes ever more important AS THE GAME PROGRESSES. The current system effectively prohibits this exactly when it would make the most sense in terms of both game play and historic accuracy.

Now in the original game the problem of creating too many specalists was obviously adressed by limiting the more powerful specalists to colleges and universities which worked pretty well IMO. However what was cumbersome about the original system was that you had to put a specalist in the school and a free colonist somewhere else in town who would then eventually learn the profession of the specalist. Here I like the new way of training much better.

So how would I fix it? Here is my idea:

Change the system so that certain types of specalists need different amounts of education. Here is an example of what I would like to see:

Say you put a free colonist into a schoolhouse, then after 8 turns you get the following options:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Keep him in school until he qualifies for a higher rank

If you choose a) you get the selected specalist, if you choose b) you have to wait for an additional 8 turns then this comes up:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Turn him into a middle ranked specalist (carpenter, blacksmith, trader, etc)
c) Keep him in school until he qualifies for a higher rank

If you choose a) or b) you get the selected specalist, if you choose c) you have to wait for an additional 8 turns then this comes up:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Turn him into a middle ranked specalist (carpenter, blacksmith, trader, etc)
c) Turn him into a high ranked specalist (statesman or preacher)


IMO this would fix the currently broken education system while preventing the problem of the specalists being too cheap. Also this could easily be added via a patch...

 

[marciv]

I totally agree. Education as it currently is simply doesn't work. IMO this yet another point where obviously they didn't balance the game correctly and then went for some quick fix. And here is why:

If you build your first schoolhouse it will take something like 8 turns (plus 500 gold) to train a free colonist into whatever specalist you want (provided you have that type of specalist in town already). Now that is clearly way too fast and way too cheap. That way you can basically create an army of elder statesmen right at the start of the game.

To counter that Firaxis put in this strange scaling law that totally kills the education system once you have actually trained 10 specalists or so because by then it will take 50+ turns for ANY type of education to be completed. In effect this also means that universities are now totally pointless because by the time you get around to building them it makes no sense to educate anyone anymore since it takes forever for them to learn. This is total nuts IMO because the ability to train your own specalists becomes ever more important AS THE GAME PROGRESSES. The current system effectively prohibits this exactly when it would make the most sense in terms of both game play and historic accuracy.

Now in the original game the problem of creating too many specalists was obviously adressed by limiting the more powerful specalists to colleges and universities which worked pretty well IMO. However what was cumbersome about the original system was that you had to put a specalist in the school and a free colonist somewhere else in town who would then eventually learn the profession of the specalist. Here I like the new way of training much better.

So how would I fix it? Here is my idea:

Change the system so that certain types of specalists need different amounts of education. Here is an example of what I would like to see:

Say you put a free colonist into a schoolhouse, then after 8 turns you get the following options:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Keep him in school until he qualifies for a higher rank

If you choose a) you get the selected specalist, if you choose b) you have to wait for an additional 8 turns then this comes up:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Turn him into a middle ranked specalist (carpenter, blacksmith, trader, etc)
c) Keep him in school until he qualifies for a higher rank

If you choose a) or b) you get the selected specalist, if you choose c) you have to wait for an additional 8 turns then this comes up:

a) Turn him into a low ranked specalist (miner, fisherman, farmer, etc)
b) Turn him into a middle ranked specalist (carpenter, blacksmith, trader, etc)
c) Turn him into a high ranked specalist (statesman or preacher)


IMO this would fix the currently broken education system while preventing the problem of the specalists being too cheap. Also this could easily be added via a patch...

Good thinking but I don't think you would need 'a' in the 2nd 8 turns as you have already attained that lowly status in the first 8. Also the same applies to the 3rd 8 turns but this time you would'nt need 'a' and 'b'. Just a thought, not trying to be clever. (which I'm not anyway)

 

[B.B.Shrooms]

Good thinking but I don't think you would need 'a' in the 2nd 8 turns as you have already attained that lowly status in the first 8. Also the same applies to the 3rd 8 turns but this time you would'nt need 'a' and 'b'. Just a thought, not trying to be clever. (which I'm not anyway)

In theory of course you are right but it might be nice to have the option because even though 8 turns doesn't seem that long something might change (say you get a blacksmith via emigration from the home land) and you might suddenly realize you do in fact need a farmer instead of a blacksmith.