Esp/tech stealing

[RedRalph]

Way too expensive tech point wise IMO. and punative to the less powerfull civs, they will never acccumulate the EPs to steal a tech without crippling their economies or generating a great spy. I think this could be improved by:

The last person to get access to a tech gets it automatically 10 turns after the second last Civ researches it. People will argue that it will deter researching less important techs, this already happens. I never research Divine right. People will still research the important ones, no one is going to wait ages to get a tech for free if its important to them.

and/or

the EPs required to steal a tech go down proportionately to how many civs have researched it. the idea of a tech that every other nation has being impossibly expensive for a spy to steal is ludicrous. If half, or 3/4 the civs have researched flight, it should be a hell of a lot easier to steal those secrets... makes sense.

any thoughts?

 

[Peng Qi]

Makes sense to me. I'd say the cost of the mission should decrease in a directly and inversely proportional manner. For instance: For simplicity's sake, we'll say the base cost to steal a tech is 1000 and there are 10 civs. Therefore, if only one civ has the tech, it would cost 900 to steal. 800 if two have it, 700 if three have it, etc. etc. all the way down to a mere 100 if 9 of 10 have it.

 

[RedRalph]

Exactly. It would add realism and also mean that a civ who falls behind in tech early on isnt nessecarily completely doomed

 

[MrCynical]

The last person to get access to a tech gets it automatically 10 turns after the second last Civ researches it. People will argue that it will deter researching less important techs, this already happens. I never research Divine right. People will still research the important ones, no one is going to wait ages to get a tech for free if its important to them.

This isn't going to scale in a satisfactory fashion with map size and number of civs. How's it going to work with only 2 civs on the board? Also this is going to make things much easier for the human player at high level.

the EPs required to steal a tech go down proportionately to how many civs have researched it. the idea of a tech that every other nation has being impossibly expensive for a spy to steal is ludicrous. If half, or 3/4 the civs have researched flight, it should be a hell of a lot easier to steal those secrets... makes sense.

This seems reasonable. As it stands it costs far more to steal a tech in the late game than to research it outright, which is plain stupid.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The cost of a tech already goes down based on how many civs have it... perhaps this should be increased, or a time component added.

 

[RedRalph]

This isn't going to scale in a satisfactory fashion with map size and number of civs. How's it going to work with only 2 civs on the board? Also this is going to make things much easier for the human player at high level.
.

Fair point. Maybe on a tiny map you have to wait for more turns after the other has it? I dont know. but every nation shouldnt be starting form scratch

 

[Thyrwyn]

Take look through some of the succession games that are going on at the moment. There are a couple "no self-research past alphabet" games going on. The general concensus being that tech stealing is too cheap/easy.