Is Science broken?

[LoneDragon]

Should I have Electricity and Flight in 1810 if I haven't built a single Campus all game?

 

[Ashbery76]

The Dark ages never happened.

 

[Acken]

He... this is nothing spectacular. I launched around that time in my first deity game.

We can argue it's broken but I don't really think it's a good idea to base that on the in game date. Otherwise it would mean it takes 500 turns to launch on standard and that's really long. 300 turns on standard for a good game seems alright to me. Right now I think people can push it down to 200 to 250 (once they refine their strategies etc) and this is probably a bit too fast. I'm not sure I'm that interested to try it myself because I'm already feeling bored but people with more time will probably aim for it.

 

[Takfloyd]

The game is SUPPOSED to last 500 turns on Standard, that's the whole point. If you want 300 turns then play quick instead? There's no excitement in the space race if it's not a race against time. In past civ games, from 1 to 4, the real time was always a good indicator of the tech level of the game, unless you were doing extremely poorly or extremely well.

 

[Acken]

What are you talking about ? Civ5 games were done in 200 turns standard.

edit : Ha nevemind you said 1 to 4

Even then I'm pretty sure it didn't take players 500 turns in civ4.

 

[Takfloyd]

What are you talking about ? Civ5 games were done in 200 turns standard..

And Civ 5 was a bad game which is why I don't play it. Civ 6 should correct its mistakes, not make them even worse.

 

[Acken]

You can always play epic if it's too fast.

 

[isau]

I'm about 90% sure they will be increasing the cost of techs in the first patch. It really is too fast and the Campus is a poor district because of it.

Also is it just me or are Great Scientists not very good? If you could pick the tech they boosted I wouldn't mind so much, but having it be random means half the time they boost something you would have easily satisfied anyway.

 

[Waywocket]

Should I have Electricity and Flight in 1810 if I haven't built a single Campus all game?

It does seem broken. I built campuses in two of my cities but I don't think I got past libraries in either of them and I had flight by 1000AD. I didn't build any more science buildings for another 700 years or so because my tech had far outstripped my ability to build the things in reasonable time. Basically ignored science until I had factories everywhere, and then coasted to a ludicrously easy and completely uncontested science win in the early 20th century (with a number of future techs).

This is on King, in my first game, where I've seen no previews, read no reviews, didn't know any of the new mechanics, didn't even bother to check what the victory conditions are until about turn 100 and just muddled through.

I think they should double the cost of science - maybe even more as you get further down the tech tree.

 

[Solaxe]

And Civ 5 was a bad game which is why I don't play it. Civ 6 should correct its mistakes, not make them even worse.

So bad it's the most successful Civ game to date

 

[Promethian]

Its been said in other threads but science (and the civics/culture tree) are too cheap and districts are too expensive. District costs seem reasonable at the start of a game but become too expensive. I think the error is in how fast the cost scales up. Science and civics I think we should increase the total cost by 25% (half of which is taken in a eureka). If you chase eurekas total science costs would increase by about 12%.

Edited: Refined my opinion a bit.

 

[Takfloyd]

So bad it's the most successful Civ game to date

Are you implying success is equal to quality?

Civ V got its mainstream success by dumbing down all aspects of gameplay for the attention deficit smartphone generation. It's called selling out.

Civ VI has already marketed itself on returning to the more complex and diverse choices of the earlier games. Instead, we get easy mode with a braindead AI and rushing through the tech tree.

You can always play epic if it's too fast.

I already play on epic, and it's still far too fast, tech wise. Production meanwhile is slow as molasses.

Science is broken, end of story. Saying "it gets slower on slower game speeds" or "it's supposed to be fast even though the real year indicator doesn't match up with the in-game tech" is just making dumb excuses. Science is broken RELATIVE to the other game systems.

 

[Acken]

I already play on epic, and it's still far too fast, tech wise. Production meanwhile is slow as molasses.

Not really. If you make the right districts (which is rather boring admittedly) then production times are fine relative to science rate.

 

[isau]

Not really. If you make the right districts (which is rather boring admittedly) then production times are fine relative to science rate.

Disagree. It's way too easy to fly through the science and culture trees without worrying with Campuses and Culture districts. In fact, in the current build avoiding them for the most part is probably a good idea. Too much depends on building Industrial districts and then backfilling production.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Should I have Electricity and Flight in 1810 if I haven't built a single Campus all game?

1810 is really late. 1500s flight or you're already behind.

But it is too fast, and not at all balanced with production costs. The big thing would be to reign Eurekas in (change to 33 or 25 percent bonus), or just adjust tech costs across the board, and scale down the insane ramp to production costs.

 

[Acken]

Disagree. It's way too easy to fly through the science and culture trees without worrying with Campuses and Culture districts. In fact, in the current build avoiding them for the most part is probably a good idea. Too much depends on building Industrial districts and then backfilling production.

Yeah that was the districts I was talking about, Industry+Commerce take precedence over Campus/Theater. If you make those first then you'll be able to build things fast enough. The rough part is mid game when those aren't up everywhere.

Not like it's a good thing though which is why I'd lower production but at the cost of also lowering Industrial district strength (maybe make it more a wonder/building focus or help low prod cities instead) and remove the trade route from commercial (or not make said route as good).

 

[isau]

Not like it's a good thing though which is why I'd lower production but at the cost of also lowering Industrial district strength (maybe make it more a wonder/building focus or help low prod cities instead) and remove the trade route from commercial (or not make said route as good).

I agree with this.

 

[elitetroops]

Right now I think people can push it down to 200 to 250 (once they refine their strategies etc) and this is probably a bit too fast. I'm not sure I'm that interested to try it myself because I'm already feeling bored but people with more time will probably aim for it.

I just finished my first game with a t225 science victory (1570AD, playing Russia). Only emperor difficulty though, which was a mistake. Thought it would be a good idea to move down in levels to allow for more noob mistakes, but that was clearly not needed. I feel this played like Civ 4 noble difficulty. Anyway, unless deity is seriously a lot harder than emperor, I'm sure there will be sub 200 science victory dates soon.

I didn't build many campuses either. Only spammed a few of them late, after power plants were up, to be able to build those research projects for Great Scientists. Teching was indeed way too fast. Especially in the late game tech costs would need to be doubled or tripled at least. In this game I 1-turned just about every tech in the Atomic and Information era and the main bottleneck to my victory date was that the last techs flew by so fast that my builders weren't in place to chop/harvest for spaceship production in time. Could probably have shaved off a couple of turns if I had been prepared for the insane speed at the end.

I also agree production costs are too high. (And since production is everything, Toronto is overpowered.) With the game in it's current state, you really have to focus on the essentials and be very picky with what you choose to build. Payback times are so insanely long that I found most things not worth building at all.

 

[Big J Money]

"science is broken" is an over-weighted claim. Need specifics. Are you saying that there is an issue with the date not matching eras you progress through? I can confirm I see that as well. But be careful with "science is broken" since it can mean a lot more than that.

That being said, science seems to be imbalanced in more ways than this, as others have said.

 

[joncnunn]

1810 is really late. 1500s flight or you're already behind.

But it is too fast, and not at all balanced with production costs. The big thing would be to reign Eurekas in (change to 33 or 25 percent bonus), or just adjust tech costs across the board, and scale down the insane ramp to production costs.

Decreasing production costs wouldn't do anything about 1500s flight; if anything it would speed up tech progress via both Campus Districts and Universities being cheaper.

The other thing that would (besides increasing tech costs and decreasing Eureka percentage bonuses) is changing time victory from 500 turns to 400 turns and rescale the years per turn; (it wouldn't affect either turn number or production costs being high, but would change the displayed year).