Hurry Up & Wait

[ruff_hi]

One downside that I notice in my games is that the tech position between civilizations gets way out of balance - one civ has modern armour and another has archers. In the real world, this doesn't happen as most 'backwards' civs can either buy the old technology, steal it or otherwise acquire it.

The aim of this mod is to implement road blocks to stop a civilization gaining a huge tech lead. It shall also aim to force civilizations to fill in techs and not bypass them (ie no destroyers without compass). Further, I am hoping to extend the usefulness of units / buildings that come with techs (no more limited windows for muskets).

My thinking is to introduce 2 technologies between each technology era - the Bottleneck tech and the Key tech.

Tech 1 (The Bottleneck)
This tech would be comparatively cheap and is the last tech in an era. All techs in the Bottleneck's era are required pre-requisites to this tech. Researching this tech has the following effects:

• all civs gain knowledge of this tech and all techs in the Bottleneck tech's era

Tech 2 (The Key)
This tech is expensive. Very expensive! It is the first tech in the next era and all techs in that era have it as a required pre-requisite. It only has 1 pre-requisite - the previous era's Bottleneck tech. Researching this tech has the following effects:

• civ discovering the tech gets a golden age
• all civs gain knowledge of this tech
• civs are granted gold equal to the amount of beakers invested in the tech

 

[Bloodstone]

One downside that I notice in my games is that the tech position between civilizations gets way out of balance - one civ has modern armour and another has archers. In the real world, this doesn't happen as most 'backwards' civs can either buy the old technology, steal it or otherwise acquire it.

The aim of this mod is to implement road blocks to stop a civilization gaining a huge tech lead. It shall also aim to force civilizations to fill in techs and not bypass them (ie no destroyers without compass). Further, I am hoping to extend the usefulness of units / buildings that come with techs (no more limited windows for muskets).

My thinking is to introduce 2 technologies between each technology era - the Bottleneck tech and the Key tech.

Tech 1 (The Bottleneck)
This tech would be comparatively cheap and is the last tech in an era. All techs in the Bottleneck's era are required pre-requisites to this tech. Researching this tech has the following effects:

• all civs gain knowledge of this tech and all techs in the Bottleneck tech's era

Tech 2 (The Key)
This tech is expensive. Very expensive! It is the first tech in the next era and all techs in that era have it as a required pre-requisite. It only has 1 pre-requisite - the previous era's Bottleneck tech. Researching this tech has the following effects:

• civ discovering the tech gets a golden age
• all civs gain knowledge of this tech
• civs are granted gold equal to the amount of beakers invested in the tech

ruff_hi, this principal sounds awesome, and would probably keep some games alive that get abandoned because of someone being to far ahead/behind.

I'm not a tech guru so I can't really help out to much, other than to test if needed, but maybe adding some additional/different incentives might help out.

Maybe he who discovers gets all the benefits, and those who are behind get a gift of 1/2 the beakers or some other amount? This way, each Civ has the opportunity to catch up, but isn't just given a freebie.

Maybe a reduced cost GA? Gold might be the best reward since it would allow the player to spread around other things within his empire to maybe accomplish things he wasn't counting on, while the other Civ's work towards getting into line with the "modern" age.

Sounds like a great concept! Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[ruff_hi]

... maybe adding some additional/different incentives might help out

My comments above re benefits from each tech suggestions and 'thinking out loud'. I think that we have to level up all the civs re techs or the whole concept won't really work. I am not sure about the rewards for being the first civ to finish the 'key' tech and could use some suggestions.

I know that there are any number of ways of 'gaming the system', but as long as the opportunity cost is balanced, then I would be happy with that.

Alternative ideas ...

• set each civ's gold equal to the number of beakers invested (you could lose gold!)
• set each civ's EPs against each other to zero (the cost of getting the free techs)

 

[Bloodstone]

Understood, I was just really thinking out loud myself. I'm not the most experienced player in terms of familiarity with game mechanics, though I'm an old hard core single player all the way from the Civ I days.

I like the idea of getting people to parity once there is a Tech pop, since that is closer to RL where the knowledge gets passed in different methods. The idea of the "bottleneck" and "mandatory" techs I think would go along way in achieving the end goal. The bigger question is to how and maybe give an incremental reward to the Civ that actually does the work.

Maybe the EP gets adjusted, or some combo of a free Spy or Great Spy to the other Civs with a reduced cost to "steal" a given group of techs. That might be a little to convoluted but you see what I'm saying. Something with Gold, Commerce, or Beaker bonuses to the discovering Civ could also fit in.

Giving a "reset" to everyone is a good idea, but I would have to say the team that got you there should still maintain some small advantage, and possibly a setback. Not sure if it could be programed but going along the historical mark, is there a way to award an invading force that captures a certain wonder (be it national or great) that would allow them to "obtain" an unknown tech from their target? Maybe even a portion of a tech? This would help keep the Warmongers motivated and moving forward, and require that the Tech motivated player provide some base defenses.

In general I like the idea of having to adjust a strategy as you move through the tech levels, it would operate much like things have throughout history. Might even consider a Cultural boost to the Civ that picks up those big techs, appealing to that side of the equation.

 

[Jennvare]

There is a concept in many of the mods called "Tech Diffusion". It basically states that as more civs have a certain tech, the beaker cossts for those who do not have it decreases. This certainly helps lessers civs catch up, but also let those who research first enjoy the benefit advantage for a while.

The other way most AI civs catch up is basically trading techs constantly between themselves and never trade with you!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I like it Ruff. Count on some help from me.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

What would be the reason for anyone to ever research the bottleneck? If I could get there first, I'd rather just sit on 0% and save up gold for the key tech and wait for someone else to spend their gold researching the bottleneck, or the other techs they need in the era to catch up.

Perhaps an idea would be to have the bottleneck tech give all the techs say a half era back (and then perhaps the key tech to the next era fully catches them up)? That way there is some reason to keep going at the bottleneck (first shot at the key tech and the next era) but can still keep other civs in the game.

 

[ruff_hi]

some comments from people are Realms Beyond ...

Hmm, the idea of giving everyone full era of tech once Bottleneck gets researched doesn't work. It actualy encourages you to stop researching althogether because someone will eventualy get the bottleneck and give you all these techs anyhow.

Consider intorducing tech spread concept - once bottleneck is reached techs from the era have a 5% ( and growing by say 2% per turn ) chance to spread to civs without them calculated for each tech separately.

The same should work for Key techs ( which could perhaps grant Great Persons instead of golden ages? more flexibility this way ) and still allow for your main goal - not having people lag hopelesly behind.

Apart from that I like the concept and wouldn't mind trying it out.

The problem is, I think any Bottleneck/Key set-up really destroys any flexibility on the part of the player, particularly in the early game and in lightbulbing effectively (forget lightbulbing anything valuable in this set-up: controlled skipping of techs is critical there). Especially if it's based on an arbitrary "era" setting. Because Civ5 uses arbitrary eras already for its Social Policies, there's some merit to having a set-up like this for there. But not the far more flexible Civ4. This isn't about the bonuses of researching the techs (I think Mist is onto something there), the problem is the "Pre-req of everything".

I'm assuming no Ancient/Classical Bottleneck, because forcing a player to get the entire religious tree before doing anything useful (Monarchy, Alphabet, Iron Working, HBR...) is trouble in a lot of ways. If someone's copper-less (and PB3 had several who had difficulty accessing copper), then they've got no defensive options besides Archers and Chariots for a really long time. How will that hold up against War Chariots, Immortals, or Skirmishers?

But what about Classical/Medieval? Good-bye slingshots or bulbs of Theology or Civil Service in a reasonable length of time. Do we want to force players to always have to get Metal Casting, Compass, and the Aesthetics/Literature/Drama line before getting access to Bureaucracy, Theology, or Feudalism for Longbows? PBEM10 would be utterly broken under this set-up. TT's lack of iron would have given him no hope of getting any decent defensive units besides very-easily-countered HA. Instead, he was able to get Longbows ahead of time.

Now, do we want a way to make sure that civs don't fall so irrevocably behind in GNP that they'll never catch up, a la PB2? I think so. The easy solution, though, already exists:
PBEM2's 100% Known Tech Bonus. I think it's the only way to make Tech Trading work in such a small game. Simple solutions have fewer unintended consequences, and given the centrality of teching to CivIV, radical changes will change the metagame in so many ways that I think it no longer is CivIV. Also, it's not dependent on the RNG, which is IMO preferred for the medium-to-high-level MP games that we get here at RB.

The 'messing with the lightbulb' comment is a concern. Going the Bottleneck / Key approach would certainly inhibit that option.

 

[ruff_hi]

What would be the reason for anyone to ever research the bottleneck? If I could get there first, I'd rather just sit on 0% and save up gold for the key tech and wait for someone else to spend their gold researching the bottleneck, or the other techs they need in the era to catch up.

Agreed - that would be an option. However, it would result in slowing the human techer down (if he was leading) which is a stated objective of this mod.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Just a weird idea... What if you used the bottleneck tech to unlock a little off-shoot of the tech tree? Say, it opens up a couple of techs that give a non overpowered benefit, but are expensive to research, and can be safely ignored? However, researching them gives a benefit to the normal techs, like making them cheaper, or providing something else.

It would have the benefit of slowing things down a little, but the altered tech path would be optional.

Just a thought.

 

[Uncle Anton]

Guys, not to be a pain in the butt, but this is the wrong area to be having this discussion. This forum is for completed Modpacks only....

I've requested a thread move.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Moderator Action: Thread moved.

Please PM me if you wanted it somewhere else (but not modpacks )

 

[Kid R]

(Attracted to read by the thread title ), but now I'm here....

I think it would be too attractive to sit back and do no tech yourself, especially if isolated or otherwise safe. Save up gold and use it for rushbuy or unit upgrades. Or run perpetual 100% culture slider.

Maybe if the free tech handouts lagged an extra era behind that would reduce the attraction of freeloading a bit.