How bad is the expansion tech penalty?

[Leoreth]

Why not do it by a combination of land area and current advancement?

Didn't comment on this due to crosspost. I think land area has the same problems as number of cities; your tech rate is influenced by something that has no direct relationship with it. And different gamey strategies would arise, like avoiding culture etc.

I think current advancement is difficult to measure, compared to commerce output.

 

[blizzrd]

A better solution than to penalise a civ for having more commerce than others would be to incentivise catch up research.

The cost of researching a tech that is already known by sufficient number of other civs is currently reduced (although I don't know the forumla) - why not focus on allowing other civs to catch up, rather than penalising the human player for playing better than the AI?

I really don't like where you are trying to take this Leoreth. It would be a major change and if implemented I think I would keep to the current version and stop updating.

 

[Leoreth]

And I really don't see what the problem is. You would still be able to outtech the AI, it would only lower the relative difference.

 

[blizzrd]

Being penalised for good play. Incentivise catch up play (if you must), don't smack the leader.

I don't see the problem with current mechanic of limiting civs to 10 cities before research starts to slow. It means that the AI have enough room to prosper without the human player dominating all of them.

There are currently two ways to get ahead of the AI. Work within the mechanics and build up to the best 10 cities that your civ can hold, then out tech the AI with superior research rate. Or, repeatedly crush the best AI civs into the ground (razing capitals, etc).

If penalties are introduced for being the most commercial civ, plan B will be to focus on crushing the AI instead.

 

[Leoreth]

Why do we need the 10 cities limit then? Why is it okay to be penalized for being good enough to acquire more than 10 cities?

 

[blizzrd]

It allows sufficient space for AI civs to flourish.

 

[theHIStorymaker]

What about just including truly crippling maintenance(like small+torodial+emperor) for occupying foreign cores and foreign area. That makes some historical sense and would encourage the human player to expand in a more historical manner.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Okay, just change to 15 cities and call it a day. And have the AI build units at 110/95/90 or something instead of 120/110/100, to make the AI somewhat stronger militarily. Make them pay something for upgrading their units as a compensation for the slight strengthening of early civs.

15 cities is enough for a nice empire with a semi-historical city density, like

1. London
2. Plymouth
3. Manchester
4. Edinburgh
5. Dublin
6. Toronto
7. Vancouver
8. Cape Town
9. Durban
10. Madras
11. Calcutta
12. Bombay
13. Sydney
14. Darwin
15. Perth

I don't think that the game should punish the player for that. Of course, if the player wants to go on a wide-tile conquest spree,

1. Southampton
2. Aberdeen
3. Dublin
4. Paris
5. Marseilles
6. Bordeaux
7. Valencia
8. Lisbon
9. Rome
10. Athens
11. Constantinople
12. New Orleans
13. Sioux Falls
14. Durban
15. Madras

He's welcome to, it's not like controlling all that with good stability is prevented by the 10th city rule.

 

[Leoreth]

What's better about 15 cities than 10? Why not 25? Or 12.5?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Mostly because I feel that circa 15 is enough for a decent colonial empire with a semi-dense build. Make it 17, really, since possessing Mississippi Valley probably outweighs the penalty, and every colonizing human will attempt to control it.

 

[Leoreth]

If we're so worried about accomodating comfortable world domination and tech lead strategies why not make an even higher limit? Or none altogether?

I really like the idea to have every city on ahistorical territory contribute to the tech penalty though.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Well, I think that 10 is way too restrictive.

The idea of ahistorical territories being subject to penalty is fine.

 

[Leoreth]

I agree somewhat ... it is too restrictive in some cases. The problem is that it's arbitrary.

 

[blizzrd]

If we're so worried about accomodating comfortable world domination and tech lead strategies why not make an even higher limit? Or none altogether?

I'm just fine with the status quo actually.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I'm not, it way too restrictive and unhistorical to boot.
Mind you, sometimes it's worth founding a city for production or resources even if it hurts the research.

 

[Leoreth]

Playing around with WolframAlpha is fun. I gave logistical functions a try and the nice thing about them is that the standard logistical function f(x) = 1 / (1 + exp(-x)) has some useful properties:

- f(0) = 0.5
- f approaches 1 to the right and 0 to the left very quickly, rounded to two digits after the decimal point we already have f(-5) = 0 and f(5) = 1

So I multiplied it with the current linear function for the extra research penalty and got this:

(y-axis is the additional research cost in percent, x is the number of excess cities)

As you can see, both functions converge for larger values, i.e. the penalty builds up a bit more slowly for a lower number of excess cities.

And under these rules it would make sense to count cities in unhistorical territory for the tech penalty instead of the number of cities after the tenth, I think.

 

[calad]

I dont know if this is possible because of code but idea is: civs are penalized by actual results. If you have too many techs of next era penalty strikes. Also civs who are lagging behind are boosted. This would keep game more historical, but would definetly annoy somebody. But it is all about where to put limit.

 

[SheaferDaDawg]

If we are concerned about this issue due to the AI lagging behind the human player, then I would propose the 15 city limit or none at all, while providing largely reduced tech costs for all discovered techs. Just my two cents.

 

[theHIStorymaker]

The biggest problem I have with the current limit is that is not profitable to conquer densely populate areas without razing everything. When I try to recreate the Napoleonic Empire, I don't want to have to burn everything to the ground except 3 cities.

 

[civ_king]

I agree somewhat ... it is too restrictive in some cases. The problem is that it's arbitrary.

How about 15 free cities on core/historical/contested tiles, but every city outside of that adds to the penalty straight, so if the penalty was 10% then four cities with two outside makes 120% cost whereas 17 in bounds is also 120%. Only problem I see is Congo getting screwed royally.