Has anyone tried altering "SCIENCE_PER_POPULATION"?

[Bibor]

In ..\Assets\Gameplay\XML\GlobalDefines.xml line 640 there's this:

<Row Name="SCIENCE_PER_POPULATION">
<Value>1</Value>

Maybe altering this value would have good impact on toning down ICS/HugeAI research rates, while increasing the tech % from Universities and Research Labs.

Example 1:
Science Per Population value: 1 (generic)
Library: +1 per 2 pop
University: +50% tech

A 10-pop city would give:
10 from population
5 from library
+50% from university
for a total of ((10+5))*1,5)=22.5

Example 2:
Science Per Population value: 0.5 (new)
Library: +1 per 2 pop
University: +5 beakers (new), +50% tech pace

A 10-pop city would give:
5 from population
5 from library
+100% from university
for a total of ((10+5))*1,5)=22.5

Cities with just a library would generate 30% less research than before.
Cities with a University would be exactly the same as they are now.

***

And yet another possible tweak:

<Row Name="TRADE_ROUTE_CITY_POP_GOLD_MULTIPLIER">
<Value>125</Value>

Lower the value from trade route population yields (maybe even by half),
Increase the value of Commerce policy and Machu Picchu slightly BUT

add a flat GPT value to Banks (sort of a non-chinese Paper maker).


This way cities with both University and Bank would yield as much gold as cities yield with them now, but cities without them would be at a severe disadvantage.

 

[The Great Apple]

Halving science per population would massively slow down early game teching, would it not? Alongside this change you'd have to rebalance all the tech costs to make early techs (before university) an awful lot cheaper. Same goes with a bank buff; early gold would be too hard to get.

 

[Ahriman]

I think its easier to change tech costs, and to make it easier to grow cities larger (so specialist science cities with university/public school are more valuable.

 

[MkLh]

Lowering science per population would make the ICS even more desirable because it makes scientists relatively more powerful. A civilization with more cities does not necessary have that much more population, but it has linearly more scientists slots.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I wish it were cumulative:

1 pop = 1 science
2 pop = 1+2 science
3 pop = 1+2+3 science

That would reward the larger cities. Or if that's too strong, something like "every pop point past 10 counts for 3 science, every point past 20 for 5, etc."

 

[Ahriman]

I wish it were cumulative:

1 pop = 1 science
2 pop = 1+2 science
3 pop = 1+2+3 science

That would reward the larger cities. Or if that's too strong, something like "every pop point past 10 counts for 3 science, every point past 20 for 5, etc."

I don't think that is necessary. There is already a favoring for larger cities, in that a single university in a size 12 city (with a library) gives +9 science, whereas a university in a size 6 city (with a library) gives +4.5 science.

The problem is about food (too available for small cities with MCSs, too hard to grow for large cities with punitively increasing food costs), not science efficiency.

 

[Celevin]

I wish it were cumulative:

1 pop = 1 science
2 pop = 1+2 science
3 pop = 1+2+3 science

That would reward the larger cities. Or if that's too strong, something like "every pop point past 10 counts for 3 science, every point past 20 for 5, etc."

Now that's a unique idea. It's a bit outside the box.

The problem would become you would make size 1 cities, click "avoid growth", and build happiness buildings just to fund your uber science city. There's currently a fundamental problem with happiness because its main source is just a bonus from building a new city. More cities will always yield more happiness right now. Happiness is supposed to be a limiting factor to expansion, but the opposite is happening.

 

[Slowpoke]

Halving science per population would massively slow down early game teching, would it not? Alongside this change you'd have to rebalance all the tech costs to make early techs (before university) an awful lot cheaper. Same goes with a bank buff; early gold would be too hard to get.

Early science rates are always fixed by buffing the palace's beakers.

 

[Trickster7135]

In ..\Assets\Gameplay\XML\GlobalDefines.xml line 640 there's this:

<Row Name="SCIENCE_PER_POPULATION">
<Value>1</Value>

Maybe altering this value would have good impact on toning down ICS/HugeAI research rates, while increasing the tech % from Universities and Research Labs.

I'm not 100% sure, but this value looks like a booleen, which means its an off or on switch. The only values you can input would be 0 or 1.

 

[alpaca]

Yeah, I would try changing the CITY_GROWTH_EXPONENT before anything else. Maybe try setting it to 1 and play a few games to test

 

[Xger]

Now that's a unique idea. It's a bit outside the box.

The problem would become you would make size 1 cities, click "avoid growth", and build happiness buildings just to fund your uber science city. There's currently a fundamental problem with happiness because its main source is just a bonus from building a new city. More cities will always yield more happiness right now. Happiness is supposed to be a limiting factor to expansion, but the opposite is happening.

It would seem if the problem is that truly, then changing the Happiness buildings (maybe just Collo and Theater since Stadium is so far off) to be based on city size would be better.

Collo: +2 base, 1/4 a point per population
Theater: 1/3 a point per population

This would make ICS become weaker as a size one city with a Collo would be a net -1 happiness. Just an idea though

 

[Celevin]

It would seem if the problem is that truly, then changing the Happiness buildings (maybe just Collo and Theater since Stadium is so far off) to be based on city size would be better.

Collo: +2 base, 1/4 a point per population
Theater: 1/3 a point per population

This would make ICS become weaker as a size one city with a Collo would be a net -1 happiness. Just an idea though

You can do that, just not for every happiness building. One or two happiness buildings giving a static bonus is OK. The current system is not. The other solution is making unhappiness per city have a positive rate of change.

What needs to be done is tying happiness to another resource for a building. I like doing a "+happiness equal to x% of the city's culture". It would make people really specialize.

 

[Asylumer]

I've tried altering the Define Science Per Pop but like the Unhappiness Per Pop you cannot change it to a non-integer value. I was forced to remove it entirely and create cheap building that acts similar to the Library.

The Happiness Per Pop building idea is also a no-go since only the Science, Gold, and Production fall under YIELDS. Culture has a similar problem.

Which is pretty annoying since I wanted to do the +Happiness/Pop thing to control the larger early populations my Mod allows. I had to apply a mini-Ghandi trait to everybody as to make the population growth manageable.

 

[Perkus]

SCIENCE_PER_POPULATION: I doubt that this is boolean (true/false). But I think it's highly likely that it is an integer, and therefore you can't set it to 0.5, or 1.5, changing it to 0 or 2 would be the smallest possible tweak. Which of course doesn't give any modder the resolution to tweak it reasonably. I haven't tried it, though.

 

[Asylumer]

SCIENCE_PER_POPULATION: I doubt that this is boolean (true/false). But I think it's highly likely that it is an integer, and therefore you can't set it to 0.5, or 1.5, changing it to 0 or 2 would be the smallest possible tweak. Which of course doesn't give any modder the resolution to tweak it reasonably. I haven't tried it, though.

I put it at 0.5 and it truncated to 0. Same with Unhappiness Per Population although Unhappiness Per Occupied Population seems to be a float.

 

[Perkus]

Yeah, that figures. Again, lazy of them. Making it an int doesn't give modders anything to work with, might as well be hard-coded! If they didn't have a million more important problems to deal with, I'd be bugging them about little things like this.

 

[Nunya]

One possibility is to set science per pop to 0 and increase the science bonus from Library to 1 per pop. It would make cities without a Library produce no science at all though and it would likely lead to the AI falling behind in technology.