Eureka: Some speculations and worries

[stiiknafuulia]

How does this actually work, though? I haven't watched too many of the released videos, for various reasons; can anyone chime in as to what is the actual mechanic when a Eureka happens, as opposed to months-old, wild speculations?

 

[Vincent55]

I don't see myself doing too much 'half-science'.

I expect I'll usually focus on techs for which I already unlocked the Eureka and postpone techs for which I haven't.

And if I really need a specific tech for strategic purpose, I'll do everything in my power to unlock it in the next few turns.

And if I can't do that and really need the tech, I'll take the hit and research the tech whole.

If I were to do half science on something and then switch on something else instead of researching something for which I already have the eureka in the first place, that would translate into more turns without unlocking a new building/unit/policy/features which is undesirable (especially for culture since it's an opportunity to reset policies for free).

And if I really need a specific tech, postponing until I get the Eureka instead of doing a full research could push it too far back and whatever gain I hoped to achieve (build a key wonder for example) would be lost anyway.

 

[BrokenBokken]

How does this actually work, though? I haven't watched too many of the released videos, for various reasons; can anyone chime in as to what is the actual mechanic when a Eureka happens, as opposed to months-old, wild speculations?

When you get a Eureka you get 50% of the tech completed. If you're at 0% you're now at 50%. If you're at 20% you're not at 70%. There is no overflow from Eureka.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

When you get a Eureka you get 50% of the tech completed. If you're at 0% you're now at 50%. If you're at 20% you're not at 70%. There is no overflow from Eureka.

Thank you. I presume you meant to say 'now' instead of 'not' in that second case, as it seems more logical. So they chose the option where you should stop at 50 % research for optimal results, if you know that you'll be getting the Eureka. Given how easy most of them seem to be to achieve, it's not much worse than the ideal solution of lowering the cost of the tech by half. If they were to make getting the Eurekas harder and more uncertain (as they really should imo), then I'd prefer they adopt JosephC's solution, but as it is I'm pretty satisfied. I just fear that the Eurekas will be a mere series of awkward going-thru-the-motions as things stand (building 3 Spearmen in every game just to get the Eureka, even if you don't intend to use them, etc).

 

[trendy]

Eurekas are definitely going to enforce certain build orders regardless of playstyle. Now everyone has to build x spearmen etc to stay ahead of the curve. I'm starting to think there has to be 3+ tech trees for Eurekas to be interesting. Only when you get to the point where you have to pick and choose what's important to you can build paths diverge and be more diverse. As it is, I expect you can get pretty much all of them but only if you stick to a very specific build path.

But who knows for sure? It's all speculation until we can sit down and see how the game actually plays.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Eurekas are definitely going to enforce certain build orders regardless of playstyle. Now everyone has to build x spearmen etc to stay ahead of the curve. I'm starting to think there has to be 3+ tech trees for Eurekas to be interesting. Only when you get to the point where you have to pick and choose what's important to you can build paths diverge and be more diverse. As it is, I expect you can get pretty much all of them but only if you stick to a very specific build path.

But who knows for sure? It's all speculation until we can sit down and see how the game actually plays.

1. You can't have all eurekas. Some depend on map and sometime you have to choose tech/civic to research before you get eurekas for any of them.

2. You may want to beeline to particular techs. In this case you'll usually have no time to finish eurekas on the path, but the reward could be worth it. Or not.

It's all a matter of choice. Take Irrigation, for example. You need to farm a resource to get it. If you're going for Irrigation to build Plantations, it's good idea to have builder first and farm something to get a boost. But if your goal is to build Hanging Gardens as fast as possible, you may have completely different plan - build a settler while you're discovering Irrigation and start building Hanging Gardens while the second city produces a Builder.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Perhaps there should be randomized Eurekas for each tech to spice things up. For example, instead of killing 3 barbs it might be discovering 5 barb camps or instead of settling on the coast spotting 5 sea resources. Just randomize each a bit to stop predictable build strategies.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Perhaps there should be randomized Eurekas for each tech to spice things up. For example, instead of killing 3 barbs it might be discovering 5 barb camps or instead of settling on the coast spotting 5 sea resources. Just randomize each a bit to stop predictable build strategies.

Many games tried different forms of tech tree randomization. It was never good.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Not tech randomization... Eurekas

 

[mzprox]

Eurekas are interesting, but they should only give 10-25% so we wouldnt feel getting all them a must

 

[stealth_nsk]

Not tech randomization... Eurekas

It doesn't matter, Eurekas are part of tech tree design.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I do not think randomly selecting from two or three premade Eurekas for a tech is fiddling too much with the tech tree.

Whether a Eureka comes from 3 spearmen being built or discovering 3 goody huts, as an example, it is hardly gamebreaking.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I do not think randomly selecting from two or three premade Eurekas for a tech is fiddling too much with the tech tree.

Whether a Eureka comes from 3 spearmen being built or discovering 3 goody huts, as an example, it is hardly gamebreaking.

It either affects your choices or not. If it affects the player choices, it potentially breaks balance in this spot. If it doesn't - it's unnecessary.

The eurekas look like significant thought was put in them. When I look at major beelining paths, they require quite an effort to have it and, at some point, 2 trees start to benefit each other, so imbalance between science and culture becomes a limit too. I don't think such level of balance is possible with randomized eurekas - if they'll really matter, they could create some cheesy beeline paths, for example.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I respectfully disagree with you in this case (though following your posts, much of what you say is meritorious).

That being said, these sorts of things are what modding is for... if you don't like a game mechanic, you change it. I think predictable Eurekas (and inspirations) lead to a familiar pattern of build and tech choices... the Let's Play games I saw (mind you, of limited scope and not deeply in the tree) tended to follow the same patterns as far as getting Eurekas goes. I'll take it to the modding forum if that tends to be the case and it bothers me enough .

 

[stealth_nsk]

I respectfully disagree with you in this case (though following your posts, much of what you say is meritorious).

That being said, these sorts of things are what modding is for... if you don't like a game mechanic, you change it. I think predictable Eurekas (and inspirations) lead to a familiar pattern of build and tech choices... the Let's Play games I saw (mind you, of limited scope and not deeply in the tree) tended to follow the same patterns as far as getting Eurekas goes. I'll take it to the modding forum if that tends to be the case and it bothers me enough .

Yes, surely, that's what mods are for.

Speaking about familiar patterns - eurekas as they are now seem to break them quite significantly. A lot of eurekas depend on exploration and thus are alredy randomized. How early you meet another civ or found a natural wonder; whether you have Iron in your lands, etc. Later in game, eurekas become less randomized, but they interwine with the game a lot. To kill a unit with musketmen or knights you usually need a war, since barbs are mostly wiped by this time - and war is really tricky thing. So, instead of randomness you adapt the tech tree patterns to the current situation.

It looks good for me.

 

[Acken]

I still think the requirement are a bit easy for the benefit. I fear this will lead to some weird min maxing rather than what it is supposed to reward.

Lets take the musket kill as an example. If the requirement is to kill a single unit it seems possible to always try your best to make that opportunity possible througj keeping a barb camp or reserving a cs as a kill farm or have a pseudo war. On the other hand if the requirement is to kill 5 units it becomes harder to do so while still rewarding the player that is in a real war.

The same argument can be made for the build X requirement. If they are too easy then building one may be driven only by this eureka bonus instead of rewarding the player that truly need to build those.

In all those gameplay videos it seems pretty clear to me the tech race in a setting like a gotm will be won by those having the best plan for eurekas. And im not sure its the purpose of the mechanics.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Lets take the musket kill as an example. If the requirement is to kill a single unit it seems possible to always try your best to make that opportunity possible througj keeping a barb camp or reserving a cs as a kill farm or have a pseudo war. On the other hand if the requirement is to kill 5 units it becomes harder to do so while still rewarding the player that is in a real war.

We've seen some mid-game and by this time it looks like barbs are pretty hard to found. So the requirements to kill units with Muskets / Knights are actually about having war between the time you unlock (and build) the unit and the time you need the eureka. For Musket kill requirement the additional potential difficulty is what it sits on the different branch, so if you're going to beeline naval branch, you'll stay without the eureka.

 

[Acken]

You would upgrade the unit.
There are no barb camps because the players were actively killing these. If there are multiple reasons to keep it alive, more experienced player may chose to do so if possible. And like I said you also have the possibility of the CS farm if there are a lot of these warlike eurekas.

It does indeed create a tradeoff between efficiency and beelining.

But still my argument remains that this sounds way too easy and will create a very weird gameplay to optimally use that system rather than have the system reward your situation.

My point is that it will not feel natural at all to try getting the best out of it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It does indeed create a tradeoff between efficiency and beelining.

But still my argument remains that this sounds way too easy and will create a very weird gameplay to optimally use that system rather than have the system reward your situation.

I'd say tradeoff between efficiency and beelining is already way better than previous civs tech tree. With the tradeoff being affected by consequences it's much more interesting. It previous civ games I often clicked on half of tech tree to set research order. In Civ6 this seem to be no longer the case.

 

[Jaybe]

Being obsessed with Eurekas will straitjacket your gameplay and your tech/cultural advances. Liberation will come with uncooperative map and other environments.

Gameplay will definitely be interesting for the 1st few months as we learn to recognize the color of our straitjacket.