How to slow scientific progress?

[Comrade Lenin]

I'd really like to be able to slow down scientific advancement in my Civ 2 game. To make it more like real life. Just yesterday, I was playing as the Romans, and my enemies the English ended up getting gunpowder technology in the year 20 B.C. And nations often end up using tanks as early as the 1600s, and launching spaceships in the 1800s. So I just think it would be cool to set scientific advancement at a more realistic pace. Plus, since it seems like the ancient ages go by too fast, I don't get to use their military units (elephants, legions, chariots, horsemen) for very long, though I like using them.

The problem is that I can't figure out how to change it. In rules.txt, there's a part where it says "higher number slows scientific research", with a number to the left. So I increase that number, and it seems to do no good. I think the number starts out at like 50 or something. I put it at 100, no difference. I put it at 500, no difference. I even tried putting it at some ridiculous number like 9999999999. If anything, scientific advancement was happening even quicker (that was when England got gunpowder in 20 B.C).

There must be a way to make scientific advancement take longer. The World War 2 and Rome scenarios are set that way successfully. New technologies take forever in those scenarios. So how can I do it too?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Scenarios use the cheat menu to decrease science acquisition, not the rules.txt. If you want to know more about how the rules.txt works, ask in the scenario forum. Note, however, that there are sometimes maximums built into the game, despite the rules.txt. In your case, your "outlandish" number might have run into integer overflow, and become a small number as a result.

You may want to try a harder difficulty level. Another option is to lower your own science rate; people have noticed that the AI often seems to mirror human research levels (I don't think this has been proven, however). Try playing a small map with lots of civs if you want to get some early action.

In any case, the unrealistic part of civ 2 is not that techs are acquired early in and of itself, but rather that nations put so much effort into researching things that won't bring any benefits for hundreds of years. Also, civs never loose technologies in the game either.

 

[elmenhorster]

i was once pursuing the same thing, tried to remove discoveries from rules.txt (like you advance just right before gunpowder there's no options to choose to advance, except for maybe "Future Technology 1,2,3...) in different ways, i've read somewhere that it is possible, but all i ended was game crash after last tech researched. So for the "Ancient game" i always choose small map,small land,7civs,arid,warm,3billion, the idea is deadly terrain (deserts,plains) that stop AIs to advance/build cities, and it gives the impression of ancient world too