Eureka!? Not So Fast

[Sonereal]

The early game available eureka bonuses feel about right, such as the 50% boost toward sailing for building a coastal city. However, the end game boosts seem hilariously trivial.

From the Wiki:

Nanotechnology: Build an Aluminium Mine. I don't really get why it is *that* easy to get a free 780 beaker boost to an end game technology.

Composites: Own 3 Tanks. Do Eurekas scale to map size? I feel like that would alleviate issues I have with this boost and the previous boost.

Guidance System: Kill a Fighter. lol

A lof of technologies are like this and I feel like they need to either be more difficult, or they need to scale to map size. Building an aluminium mine on a huge map is definitely a non-issue. You will accidentally do that. Sure, building a coastal city is something you're also "going to probably do anyway", but it being an ancient era booster makes the ease justifiable.

Mining a resource (the boost for Mining) is great for an ancient era boost. It gets your feet wet.

Building a Coal Mine (the boost for Steel) is not a great boost for a modern era technology.

In short, the further down the tech tree the boost, the more it should scale to map size when applicable. Maybe one coal mine is all you need for Steel on a standard map, whereas you need 3 for huge maps. Maybe one is good enough for a duel-sized map and everything scales up from there.

 

[MistroPain]

I actually agree, some are too easy. It might have been better if Eurekas happened in increments rather than just one thing that gives you a 50% discount, IE killing a single fighter would still net SOME of the Eureka bonus, but not all of it.

I do love the concept though. Great way to vary games.

Also regarding the Aluminium thing, it seems like strategic resources are genuinely quite rare in this game, so it might actually be a difficult to achieve Eureka.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The early game available eureka bonuses feel about right, such as the 50% boost toward sailing for building a coastal city. However, the end game boosts seem hilariously trivial.

From the Wiki:

Nanotechnology: Build an Aluminium Mine. I don't really get why it is *that* easy to get a free 780 beaker boost to an end game technology.

Composites: Own 3 Tanks. Do Eurekas scale to map size? I feel like that would alleviate issues I have with this boost and the previous boost.

Guidance System: Kill a Fighter. lol

A lof of technologies are like this and I feel like they need to either be more difficult, or they need to scale to map size. Building an aluminium mine on a huge map is definitely a non-issue. You will accidentally do that. Sure, building a coastal city is something you're also "going to probably do anyway", but it being an ancient era booster makes the ease justifiable.

Mining a resource (the boost for Mining) is great for an ancient era boost. It gets your feet wet.

Building a Coal Mine (the boost for Steel) is not a great boost for a modern era technology.

In short, the further down the tech tree the boost, the more it should scale to map size when applicable. Maybe one coal mine is all you need for Steel on a standard map, whereas you need 3 for huge maps. Maybe one is good enough for a duel-sized map and everything scales up from there.

Aluminum mines (like other strategic resources) may be limited...
Since aluminum is a late game resource, they should probably have about 1 Aluminum source for every 3 starting civs.
(which means it should be hard to do)
Coal I would say maybe one source for every 2 starting civs

Composites should probably scale to map size

Guidance systems requires that someone attack you or defend against you with a fighter (ie it requires war)

 

[Ciarson]

for me, eureka should not be based only on tile improvement or unit owning.

but more based on tile used by a city, unused strategic ressources or a unit per city ratio.

well to explain:

1)tile used by a city

if a city work a ressource, that city would gain a science bonus when researching something requiring said ressource.
that way, if your nation is big, that kind of bonus would end up being small unless you have multiple cities with the same criteria.

for example: a city working a stone quarry would see it's research output increased when you research "masonry".

2) unused strategic ressources

if your nation got extra strategic ressources, it would gain an extra science bonus when researching something requiring said strategic ressource.
that way, buying or simply owning strategic ressources would be of some benefit to your nation.

for example: a nation owning some Uranium (or other radio active material) would gain some bonus when researching "radioactivity."
same example but IRL: Marie Curie would have got a hard time discovering radio activity if it didnt got it's hand on some Radium.

3)unit per city ratio

if a nation army became quite famous (like owning 1-2 unit of a given type per city), it would be easier for people to start thinking of ways to improve them.

 

[Amrunril]

I think this is a very good analysis. The early game Eureka bonuses are all very much acheivable, but they come at nontrivial opportunity costs. Inmymind, this is exactly how the system should work. As the game progresses, however, empires naturally grow larger, produce more of just about everything and can do more things at once. This means that,in order to impose the same levels of opportunity cost, Eureka and Inspiration triggers need to get correspondingly bigger.

 

[Sonereal]

Fair enough to users making a point that aluminum and coal could be rare resources. However, the eureka bonuses in those cases still feel very drab. I understand that a lot of the bonuses are tied to the map, but I feel like later game eurekas should be tied toward development and based on how your civilization has developed. In that sense, shooting down fighters (but not just one) would be perfect as a eureka bonus, whereas building a mine on aluminum feels good (in my opinion) as a late-game bonus.

Maybe nanotechnology should be about building something (units or buildings) using aluminum instead of just building a mine. Same with the coal mine.

Amrunril is right. The early game bonuses have higher opportunity costs compared to a lot of late-game eurekas if you're going out of your way to achieve them.

Overall, I feel that there will be some balancing patches in the future to address the eureka system. It is a fundamentally good idea which has problems in the mid to late game as opposed to just being a bad idea. With bad ideas, you discard them. With fundamentally good, but flawed, ideas, you improve them.

for example: a nation owning some Uranium (or other radio active material) would gain some bonus when researching "radioactivity."
same example but IRL: Marie Curie would have got a hard time discovering radio activity if it didnt got it's hand on some Radium.

She admittedly would have a hard time discovering radioactivity if not for the industrial and scientific developments during that era that allowed her to make those discoveries in the first place. The problem is that I think the late-game eurekas are still too centric on the *map* itself as opposed to how your civilization has developed in the 5000 years is has taken to get up to that point of the tech tree.

 

[ehecatzin]

I think some key Eurekas should be harder to unlock, and work a bit more like GP, in that only 1 civ will get that Eureka, that way civs that are focused on a particular strategy will be able to blaze through certain techs, but will have to go the normal speed on the rest.