How the science mechanic needs to be rebalanced

[Cyon]

Maybe science could be connected to information infrastructure like optical cables as a improvement and communication satellites. You world need to connect your other cities to your capital to gain the beakers they produce.

Allow tech trading but only between factions that have optical cables or a communication satelite dedicated to that transaction for say 30 turns. Conecting to another faction should also carry risks, you could be more vulnerable to espionage from that faction and to computer viruses.

A physical infrastructure also makes it possible to stop other players science production and tech trading with a spy or military.

What do you think?

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[_hero_]

I'm totally fine with outteching. In real history there often were hundreds or thousands of years in between discoveries for civzs. Asia had industrial standard waterworks about 400 years before Europe for example.

Right, but at the same time those gaps can close very quickly if those 2 nations interact with each other a lot. This effect is exponential as technology advances. With globalization, the technology gap across the globe is mostly a function of economics, not of a lack of knowledge by the technologically inferior nation. In Civ:BE, I'm assuming most of the technological advancements humanity as made thus far will be preserved, so it would make sense if technology itself is hard to hold on to.

In other words, I think it's fine if you can beeline to some super powerful tech, but the act of doing so should make it easier for other civs to discover it as well.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Right, but at the same time those gaps can close very quickly if those 2 nations interact with each other a lot. This effect is exponential as technology advances. With globalization, the technology gap across the globe is mostly a function of economics, not of a lack of knowledge by the technologically inferior nation. In Civ:BE, I'm assuming most of the technological advancements humanity as made thus far will be preserved, so it would make sense if technology itself is hard to hold on to.

In other words, I think it's fine if you can beeline to some super powerful tech, but the act of doing so should make it easier for other civs to discover it as well.

I really hope that is not true for CBE

For historical civ, that effect made sense because of the tech tree... Usually somone who was more advanced would have almost all the same techs as somene less advanced.

CBE is using the tech web. So rather than making techs known by other players easier to get (which works against tech/affinity diversity), they should
Make a "tech boost" (in terms of faster accumulated research points, not just a tech lead) harder to get

Ie science boosting buildings/policies/tile improvements, etc. should give a small benefit for a large cost...ie prefering Nonscienc boosting buildings,etc. is many times a better strategy.

 

[_hero_]

I really hope that is not true for CBE

For historical civ, that effect made sense because of the tech tree... Usually somone who was more advanced would have almost all the same techs as somene less advanced.

CBE is using the tech web. So rather than making techs known by other players easier to get (which works against tech/affinity diversity), they should
Make a "tech boost" (in terms of faster accumulated research points, not just a tech lead) harder to get

Ie science boosting buildings/policies/tile improvements, etc. should give a small benefit for a large cost...ie prefering Nonscienc boosting buildings,etc. is many times a better strategy.

It really depends how it is implemented. The problem with allowing bee-lining has always been it becomes the optimum strategy as the more expensive techs are and should be far more valuable than the inferior ones. If there's no catch-up, then rushing to something powerful has compounding effects.

Imagine someone bee-lining to a near-end game military unit. Without any catch up mechanism, it's likely that any other civ that didn't focus military tech would be incapable of defending itself. The flip side is that they make late game stuff hardly any better than early game, but that ultimately doesn't sound fun as a player. You need to feel like you are growing noticeably more powerful.

Bee-lining military was a common strategy early on in Civ 5 back when it was far easier to bee-line. The problem was that it was too powerful. You simply cannot have bee-lining without having strong catch up mechanisms. The catch up doesn't necessarily have to be "X tech is cheaper because someone has it" but there needs to be something to make it so you can counter late game stuff while still making late game stuff strong.

And I don't really see how adjusting the power of science buildings helps that much. Science is there to speed tech, and tech is balanced around a pace that the devs think their game should move at. If you lower the strength of science buildings, you'll lower to cost of techs to compensate. Then you end up with people still bee-lining, and if they are bee-lining something other than science, they can do it even better than before since they weren't investing much in the science path anyway, and now the lack of investment in the science path hurts their bee-line less than it did before.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It really depends how it is implemented. The problem with allowing bee-lining has always been it becomes the optimum strategy as the more expensive techs are and should be far more valuable than the inferior ones. If there's no catch-up, then rushing to something powerful has compounding effects.

Imagine someone bee-lining to a near-end game military unit. Without any catch up mechanism, it's likely that any other civ that didn't focus military tech would be incapable of defending itself. The flip side is that they make late game stuff hardly any better than early game, but that ultimately doesn't sound fun as a player. You need to feel like you are growing noticeably more powerful.

Bee-lining military was a common strategy early on in Civ 5 back when it was far easier to bee-line. The problem was that it was too powerful. You simply cannot have bee-lining without having strong catch up mechanisms. The catch up doesn't necessarily have to be "X tech is cheaper because someone has it" but there needs to be something to make it so you can counter late game stuff while still making late game stuff strong.

And I don't really see how adjusting the power of science buildings helps that much. Science is there to speed tech, and tech is balanced around a pace that the devs think their game should move at. If you lower the strength of science buildings, you'll lower to cost of techs to compensate. Then you end up with people still bee-lining, and if they are bee-lining something other than science, they can do it even better than before since they weren't investing much in the science path anyway, and now the lack of investment in the science path hurts their bee-line less than it did before.

Two issues
1. beelining is fine especially in CivBE (since you want a lot of civs beelining in different directions)

2. Someone who beelines to an Advanced Military unit first should be able to Potentially be beat by
-someone who gets a lot of low tech units because they beelined a production tech
-someone who gets elite low tech units because they beelined cultural techs
-someone who gets a lot of low tech units because they built production buildings instead of science buildings
-someone who gets elite low tech units because they built cultural buildings instead of science buildings
-someone who beelined and built science buildings and has a few even More advanced units (after they hold off your initial wave)

...ALL of those should be valid counters under the right circumstances (circumstances meaning distance, diplomacy, factions, terrain, resources, etc.)

3. Adjusting the power of science buildings is necessary because of the positive feedback... you spend science to get Science techs that let you get more science

 

[_hero_]

2. Someone who beelines to an Advanced Military unit first should be able to Potentially be beat by
-someone who gets a lot of low tech units because they beelined a production tech
-someone who gets a lot of low tech units because they built production buildings instead of science buildings
-someone who gets elite low tech units because they built cultural buildings instead of science buildings

That's going to depend on the relative power differences between units, and what combat looks like. Extreme example: Someone with 50 spearmen isn't likely to beat someone with 2 Giant Death Robots in Civ 5. If the relative power differences are too low, advancement becomes a trivial part of the game.

-someone who beelined and built science buildings and has a few even More advanced units (after they hold off your initial wave)

And how do you think they are going to hold off your initial wave if they not only lack military tech, but also an army because they've invested everything in science? With a tech tree, this situation didn't come up because advancing towards science techs usually helped you pick up some military along the way. If the tech web has a science side and a military side, you're not going to pick up much military while going for science.

I agree Bee-lining should have counters. In the past, they've done a horrible job of balancing the counters and almost always their ultimate solution is to make it more difficult to bee-line, either by moving building/unit further down the tech tree, or by increasing the number of tech connections needed to unlock the tech.

With a tech web, neither of those solutions is practical. If the counter strategies you mentioned prove ineffective, it's going to be a big problem.

3. Adjusting the power of science buildings is necessary because of the positive feedback... you spend science to get Science techs that let you get more science

But the positive feedback effect is true of every aspect of the game. You build production buildings to get more production. More production lets you build more production buildings. You build military to expand your empire. Expanding your empire lets you build more military.

The difference is science benefits literally every aspect of your empire and costs you almost nothing. Even if science buildings didn't exist at all, science would still be the most important thing in the game because of this.

Other things, especially military, have benefits as well as costs. You pay a tech penalty, a culture penalty, and a happiness penalty for taking cities. You gain gold and production, but much of that extra gold and production is offsetting the extra gold and production your spending on military instead of everything else.

 

[Ustgar]

I think you could just have more so called "rubber band" mechanics to help civs who are behind in tech catch up. I think a more powerful version of the espionage mechanic from Civ 5 would work pretty well. I think if you made it stronger and available from the early game (as opposed to only getting it after the Renaissance) it could do some work while not warping gameplay. They could also probably have some of the tech boosting buildings not be so powerful; the National College was stupid good in Civ 5.

Solving the problem by nerfing technology itself would take a lot of the fun out of the game I think.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Essentially any Choice you make which increases science must not be an one right way choice.

Techs which boost science should not be "must research" (especially because of the tech web)
Buildings which boost science should not be "must build" (any more than other buildings of that level are)
Civics/Policies/Social Engineering which increases science must not be the "must select"
Peace v. War and Wide v. Tall should not be unbalanced because of research.


This can be done by
1. Decreasing the benefit (in terms of amount of research it gets)/Increasing the cost of the policy/building
OR
2. Decreasing the benefit/Increasing the cost of All technologies

I hope they go for #1 and that they don't do it by having 'tech leak/trade' because tech leak/trade reduces tech diversity between factions

(Something that gave more raw science to civs that had less total techs is fine...but not on a tech bh tech basis)

 

[Montov]

Maybe part of the problem is how science unlocks units, building and other stuff.
There is a scenario (Wonders of the ancient world?) where all forms of playing unlocked wonders to build. Hopefully, something similar can work for CIV:BE.

And with a techweb, there is a possibility to have techs of an higher level unlock when other (culture, financial, diplomatic, military) criteria has been met.

 

[Wodan]

I'd really like to see a more "open" tech tree, where you can have different strategies without being channeled through a similar tech progression every game. And, without illogical prerequisites that exist only to force you through said progression.

It'd be nice to be able to have a biological-oriented civ, with genetics and DNA modding, etc, against an advanced physics civ.

The original SMAC captured much more of this, but I'd like to see it go even further. To compare, CiV was a regression with hardly any difference in civs and techs from game to game.

 

[Babri]

China and Japan and India all considered themselves quite civilized... but they still had medieval technology when Europe was entering the Industrial Age. Technological gaps were the norm in history, not the exception.

It appears that technology will be key in Beyond Earth, as Affinities appear to be driven by technology choices.

Same could be said about Islamic world & Europe in dark ages. But it didn't took forever for the backward civs to catch up. Japan for example rapidly industrialised in less than a century & even was a major world power in WWII.
There should be a mechanic which should make techs already researched by civs you have open borders with much cheaper.

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[AriochIV]

Same could be said about Islamic world & Europe in dark ages. But it didn't took forever for the backward civs to catch up. Japan for example rapidly industrialised in less than a century & even was a major world power in WWII.

Yes, unfortunately since they disallowed tech trading, it's very difficult to make up a technology gap in Civ V.

There should be a mechanic which should make techs already researched by civs you have open borders with much cheaper.

There is the "Scholars in Residence" resolution for the World Congress that makes techs 20% cheaper if they have already been researched by someone else.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Same could be said about Islamic world & Europe in dark ages. But it didn't took forever for the backward civs to catch up. Japan for example rapidly industrialised in less than a century & even was a major world power in WWII.
There should be a mechanic which should make techs already researched by civs you have open borders with much cheaper.

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That IS in civ v (and others) you get a bonus to Grass for researching a specific tech based on the civs you know that know the tech. It should probably be much stonger when they make civ vi

However, it Should NOT be in cbe.
Because in cbe they want tech tree diversity, you don't want to encourage getting techs that other civs have.

Instead, they should have something more like a true rubber band. You get bonus research, that you can spend on Whatever you Want, if someone has more Total techs than you.

 

[AriochIV]

There's also a point to be made that Beyond Earth is a science fiction game. Neglecting science really shouldn't be a viable strategy. If you had a culture that didn't like science, you wouldn't be sitting on an alien world in the first place. The question is in what direction you choose to go with science, not whether it's a priority -- it is.

 

[Rebel Fighter]

I think a good way to balance money, culture, military, science, and production is to make the Affinity webs have trade-offs for each direction you take. For example:

Affinity

Science - Gold, Culture
Production - Military, Food
Food - Production, Gold
Culture - Military, Science
Gold - Food, Science
Military - Production, Culture

You MUST have trade-offs for a tech web to be balanced. Want to rush Science? That's fine. But don't expect any good Food or Military. Seeing as Food is the backbone of creating more Science (via population) and Military is the way of defending your base, you'll have to multi-focus your strategy on more than one target in order to succeed. I think a model similar to this would balance CBE the most.

 

[Commander Bello]

Instead, they should have something more like a true rubber band. You get bonus research, that you can spend on Whatever you Want, if someone has more Total techs than you.

Why should it be easier for me to discover forestry (just as an example) because somebody else is already master in advanced metallurgy?

 

[Babri]

Yes, unfortunately since they disallowed tech trading, it's very difficult to make up a technology gap in Civ V.

I disliked the tech trading mechanic of cIV because it added unnecessary micromanagement. That is why I suggested the tech flow with open borders.

There is the "Scholars in Residence" resolution for the World Congress that makes techs 20% cheaper if they have already been researched by someone else.

Yes but powerful civs are unlikely to pass it. Also it comes quite late in the game & provides little help to catch up if you are left too behind.

That IS in civ v (and others) you get a bonus to Grass for researching a specific tech based on the civs you know that know the tech. It should probably be much stonger when they make civ vi

However, it Should NOT be in cbe.
Because in cbe they want tech tree diversity, you don't want to encourage getting techs that other civs have.

Instead, they should have something more like a true rubber band. You get bonus research, that you can spend on Whatever you Want, if someone has more Total techs than you.

Agreed. But your last point might be a bit too unrealistic.

There's also a point to be made that Beyond Earth is a science fiction game. Neglecting science really shouldn't be a viable strategy. If you had a culture that didn't like science, you wouldn't be sitting on an alien world in the first place. The question is in what direction you choose to go with science, not whether it's a priority -- it is.

Agreed. In BE science should be a very high priority. That may sound like limited choices but that goes well along with all the post apocalyptic theme of the game.


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[KrikkitTwo]

Why should it be easier for me to discover forestry (just as an example) because somebody else is already master in advanced metallurgy?

1. Concepts from one informs the other
2. Competitive pressure from another advanced civ makes my scientists work harder

That's the fluff explanation, the gameplay reason is to stop 'tech lead' from being the best strategy.

 

[Rebel Fighter]

I think you guys all need to consider that every faction in the game is from the future. Right now in our modern times, new technology spreads extremely fast. At the slowest, it takes a few years for it reach most developed countries. I think this should also be reflected in CBE. If one player is leading far ahead in tech, all the techs for every player who is either trading, is friends with, has open borders, or is near that civilization should be cheaper, or at the very least, gets a temporary tech boost to stay competitive.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think you guys all need to consider that every faction in the game is from the future. Right now in our modern times, new technology spreads extremely fast. At the slowest, it takes a few years for it reach most developed countries. I think this should also be reflected in CBE. If one player is leading far ahead in tech, all the techs for every player who is either trading, is friends with, has open borders, or is near that civilization should be cheaper, or at the very least, gets a temporary tech boost to stay competitive.

That would be good. However, focusing on a tech lead should still be a possible strategy (just not the best one)