How bad is the expansion tech penalty?

[Ornen]

Historically though, has a European conquering spree ever been really practical? Has anyone since Rome been able to build a lasting empire out of such a thing? I see a mix of short-lived empires (Napoleon's, Hitler's) and smaller, more gradual territorial acquisitions (Russia, Austria). I guess there's Ottoman Turkey, but they only made it so far into Europe.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I'm more concerned about large colonial empires.

 

[xcrissxcrossx]

In my last game as the Moors, I played until the 19th century, and Russia was number 1 in score for a very long time. I don't think they need a buff.

 

[skyclad]

Long time rfc player, new time doc player here
I really think the suggestion to simply keep it as it is now, but lower the penalty to 4 or 5% instead. A system of diminishing returns makes more sense and i think is more fun than for expansion to actually slow you down.

Id also like to say thanks to the modmod creator, its fun to experience a new twist to rfc

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for playing. I've stopped considering this problem and have currently resolved to keep it as it is, but I still think that certain civs get penalized disproportionally, e.g. Russia.

 

[Manco Capac]

In my last game as the Moors, I played until the 19th century, and Russia was number 1 in score for a very long time. I don't think they need a buff.

If DoC hasn't modified the score logics, score is mainly affected by pops and lands. Tech has almost nothing as an influence. Score is not a good reference to show a nation prosperity. Russian will decidedly get large most of the time without wars.

 

[Manco Capac]

I find it funny people keeps asking changes over tech penalties. I suspect it only needs some python excision and bam no more of it. No need to generalize it over the public mod if one doesn't like it. I would understand complicated stuff like modifying a spawn pattern needs a mod tuto, but when it comes to get rid of something, it's sometimes just deleting the "nasty" parts. And as long one doesn't play with Locked Modified Assets (which never happens in DoC being a cooked map), it won't affect any other game at all. Python changes are automatically adjusted. If that was SDK, then that's a harder part to change.

In some other mod, I hated deforestation process making the whole land bare quite fast. I just cut the python parts (which were partly in german lol) and no more deforestation.
How far do I know python: NADA! Just a lil perseverance and I found it.

 

[Leoreth]

That's not true though, the large empire penalty modifier is implemented in the DLL which is hard to change for the average player.

I also disagree that tech is a non-factor. It still annoys me that the Moors are so high in score despite their average size and power because they start with Divine Right. Why is that tech even so expensive? It's not even useful. I really should change that.

But you're right that Russia is large enough to overshadow their tech score (which doesn't scale after all) with size and population. I've created the tech graph in the demographics advisor for the express purpose of monitoring everyone's tech speed, and it did indeed show that Russia is doing badly.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

The Moors no longer start with Divine Right. They start with Philosophy and Aesthetics instead.

I think this is to ensure they build La Mezquita instead of Spiral Minaret?

 

[Leoreth]

... I think. The fact that I don't even know which techs they start with speaks volumes of the design quality of the Moors. Coincidentally, they're one of the things I'll cover in v1.12 (the to do list is one page long already ...).

 

[luckeitor]

What about penalising for expanding out of the core/historical/contested areas?

 

[Manco Capac]

That's not true though, the large empire penalty modifier is implemented in the DLL which is hard to change for the average player.

I also disagree that tech is a non-factor. It still annoys me that the Moors are so high in score despite their average size and power because they start with Divine Right. Why is that tech even so expensive? It's not even useful. I really should change that.

But you're right that Russia is large enough to overshadow their tech score (which doesn't scale after all) with size and population. I've created the tech graph in the demographics advisor for the express purpose of monitoring everyone's tech speed, and it did indeed show that Russia is doing badly.

Ah! Ok. I just entered the realm of DoC and I didn't look into the code at all yet. I know some modders don't even touch the SDK part (DLL in other words) and I assumed wrongly it was the same case here. Due to the high concentration of python events, I thought all changes were made in python over the regular BTS.

Oh, never heard of that tech graph. Interesting. <3
We'll never know why that tech is expensive since it the reason is gone with Soren Johnson and his pals.

Again, unless you changed the rules in scoring, population and lands ARE the most powerful factors in high score. Strongly experienced players made incredible peaks in score (non-DoC) and all the time, wonder and techs are irrelevant. If it seems non negligible in DoC, it is simply because the AI don't overexpand...most of them. Because of either scripting or stability, they are kept small.

 

[Lone Wolf]

AI isn't aware of stability. And European AI's, that aren't deliberately designed to fail at one point, can expand quite a lot - pity that they often, though not always, collapse while doing so. However, with softened stability and slightly decreased the AIUnitTrainPercent (it's actually 110 at Monarch - meaning that units cost more hammers for the AI then for the player), you can have some big empires - see Prussia and the USSR in my Mughal game.

 

[giant49er]

What about penalising for expanding out of the core/historical/contested areas?

I was just about to suggest the same thing, like having a tech penalty that's smaller than the current one for each city in a foreign/foreign core area. It's not very fun to have a very slow tech rate for having a large, historical empire like with Spain, England, France, or Russia. It's like you're getting punished drastically for playing historically.