The beaker bonus from big cities sounds plausible .. and also that military techs etc could be more easily captured. It doesn't have to be as big a thing as it was in civ1. And it can be somewhat random, just like in real life, you really have no idea what technology to find when capturing a city. There could be some obscure things which you wouldn't have much way of knowing, like, if the city has produced stealth fighters, there's a greater chance of getting some stealth technology from the city when captured.
Getting OT:
But shouldn't you also get (smaller) beaker bonuses from fighting and winning enemy units? I mean, the enemy could hide its super-secret stealth fighters / swordmen during peacetime, but when they attack and you down one, your scientists can take a look at the wreckage / equipment and you get a small research bonus in that particular technology - just like in real life. I heard the crashed f-117 in Yugoslavia was quickly sold to Russia, and all this stuff certainly happened in world war 2... Iron swords and broken armours or catapult wrecks could help research. These bonuses should be very small so they wouldn't be abused.
And even more OT:
If all this rewards warmongering, one should give similar realistic tech transfer benefits for allies. In co-operation that nowadays manifests itself in subcontracting - you wouldn't actually need all techs to build something if that could be provided by the allies (i.e. nuclear powerplants). And there could be general transparent co-operative lines of research so that the civs wouldn't research the same things by accident.
Getting OT:
But shouldn't you also get (smaller) beaker bonuses from fighting and winning enemy units? I mean, the enemy could hide its super-secret stealth fighters / swordmen during peacetime, but when they attack and you down one, your scientists can take a look at the wreckage / equipment and you get a small research bonus in that particular technology - just like in real life. I heard the crashed f-117 in Yugoslavia was quickly sold to Russia, and all this stuff certainly happened in world war 2... Iron swords and broken armours or catapult wrecks could help research. These bonuses should be very small so they wouldn't be abused.
And even more OT:
If all this rewards warmongering, one should give similar realistic tech transfer benefits for allies. In co-operation that nowadays manifests itself in subcontracting - you wouldn't actually need all techs to build something if that could be provided by the allies (i.e. nuclear powerplants). And there could be general transparent co-operative lines of research so that the civs wouldn't research the same things by accident.
