Live stream "The Tech Web: Midgame Choices" Thursday, Sept 18 at 2pm EST

[KrikkitTwo]

It would be reasonable if it randomly gave you a low cost tech it would be worthwhile...even doing it by ring
Randomly from highest category to lowest
R1
R2 or R1L
R3 or R2L

 

[thedrizzle02]

It would be reasonable if it randomly gave you a low cost tech it would be worthwhile...even doing it by ring
Randomly from highest category to lowest
R1
R2 or R1L
R3 or R2L

A change like this seems like a good idea.... however, it would need to be looked at to make sure it was still not too powerful. Maybe make the trade route slightly longer so it is not completely superior in beakers per turn than all other stations.

 

[ResistancKnight]

From what I've seen, Adapt Blue seems to be in the realm of balanced. If worst comes to worse and a rival civ gets Adapt Blue in a place you can't reach to destroy, you could plop a spy or two in some of their cities and lift the techs just as fast as they get them.

Can't say for sure till I can get my hands on the game though.

 

[Aeson]

If worst comes to worse and a rival civ gets Adapt Blue in a place you can't reach to destroy, you could plop a spy or two in some of their cities and lift the techs just as fast as they get them.

You give up whatever value the Agent(s) involved would have given otherwise to try to get the value of Adept Blue for yourself. If we assume the Covert Ops are reasonably well balanced, that will switch the relative benefit of Adapt Blue from tech to something else, not diminish it.

 

[Khaim]

I think I might have guessed what Human Idealism is for: Purity victory. New Terrain Myth is a national wonder you need to get colonists, in addition to the warp gate.

This would explain why the Harmony victory requires three diverse techs while the other only mention one. They also require three techs, they just don't list them all at once. I'm not sure what the last Supremacy tech would be. Presumably it shares the second tech for the warp gate with Purity - Field Theory looks like a good candidate.

 

[Manannan]

From what I've seen, Adapt Blue seems to be in the realm of balanced. If worst comes to worse and a rival civ gets Adapt Blue in a place you can't reach to destroy, you could plop a spy or two in some of their cities and lift the techs just as fast as they get them.

I find this far more concerning for balance purposes than Adept Blue giving a tech to be honest. It look like it's pretty easy to get spies up and running, and not too difficult to generate enough intrigue to get to the point of stealing techs. Hell, even if you can't steal techs you can still steal beakers (looks like 200ish beaker per mission?). Having 2 or 3 spies running around stealing techs and beakers from early on seems way more likely to be abusable than maybe lucking out with AB landing on your doorstep for an easy trade route.

You give up whatever value the Agent(s) involved would have given otherwise to try to get the value of Adept Blue for yourself. If we assume the Covert Ops are reasonably well balanced, that will switch the relative benefit of Adapt Blue from tech to something else, not diminish it.

If the AI isn't thick and actually counter-spies/actively works to keep it's intrigue level down I think it's reasonable to assume stealing techs isn't going to have too much of an opportunity cost associated with it if that's what you're getting at. I'm assuming coups, dirty bombs, sabotage, and siege wurm strikes are going to be rare things you actually need to work at rather than the norm, and I know I'd much rather steal tech/beakers than recruit a couple random units or hack satellites generally speaking, which is another little potential balance issue I find myself concerned with.

 

[Louis XXIV]

BTW, credit where credit is due, having aliens passively pass through your territory (mentioned in this live stream) is the kind of thing I was looking for where Harmony actually allows you to be in harmony with the native fauna.

 

[ResistancKnight]

You give up whatever value the Agent(s) involved would have given otherwise to try to get the value of Adept Blue for yourself. If we assume the Covert Ops are reasonably well balanced, that will switch the relative benefit of Adapt Blue from tech to something else, not diminish it.

And with tech coming in through your agents, you can focus your industry on other things since you're outsourcing your science production. The extreme need for beakers in Civ 5 may have been curved with the web too, and a free tech from a station every x amount of turns might not be as game breaking as it would be back in 5.

Don't get me wrong, BE will be needing some patches post launch because it will not come balanced out the gate. Few games ever do and this very well could be example A, but at this stage we have no real idea of what is and isn't balanced. We'd need time to see how the different game mechanics play with one another before we can decide that.

 

[Esperr]

From the looks of it and the laxity at which beakers and techs can be gained I dont think this like civ 5 where its tech or die. Each tech isnt that big of a leap, unlike 5 where being two techs ahead was backbreaking.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, tech seems relatively slow and it doesn't look tremendously difficult to reach the outer edge. It seems more is to be gained from affinity points as techs when it comes to advancement.

 

[Aeson]

If the AI isn't thick and actually counter-spies/actively works to keep it's intrigue level down I think it's reasonable to assume stealing techs isn't going to have too much of an opportunity cost associated with it if that's what you're getting at. I'm assuming coups, dirty bombs, sabotage, and siege wurm strikes are going to be rare things you actually need to work at rather than the norm, and I know I'd much rather steal tech/beakers than recruit a couple random units or hack satellites generally speaking, which is another little potential balance issue I find myself concerned with.

I'm just pointing out that using your Agents to try to grab Adept Blue's bonus from your competitor means in a relative sense Adept Blue is worth your Agents value to your competitor. You have to invest that value (your Agents) to get it's return (the Techs). They get the Techs on a dice roll and their Agents are free to do other things.

Even if we assume stealing Techs is far and away the best Covert Op, they can use their Agents to steal your Techs or those of other competitors. Without Adept Blue you could have used your Agents to steal other Techs from other competitors. So using Covert Ops to try to mitigate the advantage of Adapt Blue is just shuffling chairs on the deck, not actually changing Adept Blue's value.

 

[Aeson]

And with tech coming in through your agents, you can focus your industry on other things since you're outsourcing your science production. The extreme need for beakers in Civ 5 may have been curved with the web too, and a free tech from a station every x amount of turns might not be as game breaking as it would be back in 5.

You've lost the value of your Agents to try to claim the value of Adept Blue for yourself while your competitor got it for a Trade Convoy and still has their Agents to gain value in other ways.

 

[ResistancKnight]

Is having to adapt to the ebb and flow of the game a bad thing? By trading with Adapt Blue, the enemy is using that trade convoy when they could be trading with a different station that provides something else and has the ability to level up as they trade with it. Have we seen any tier 3 stations yet(not sure)?

 

[Aeson]

Tripling Science output (or more) as we've seen in an example isn't "ebb and flow" or even a leap tide, it's more of a tsunami.

 

[ResistancKnight]

Then what? If it really is obviously over powered when compared to the rest of the game like you say, then why did they decide to show it off in a twitch game? It's not like it got sneaked in under the radar.

For all we know, it could have already been changed removed too. I'm not saying it's not op, I'm saying it's pointless to worry about the balance of a game when you only have bits and pieces and not the whole picture.

 

[Esperr]

Tripling Science output (or more) as we've seen in an example isn't "ebb and flow" or even a leap tide, it's more of a tsunami.

And how do we even know that yet? From what we've seen thus far its hard to say whether or not science is that important. We've seen both sides of the coin in civ games before, in civ 5 science was everything and game warping, whereas in civ 4 it didn't have nearly as much impact. Even looking at what units we've seen so far the attack values don't seem to jump that much between tiers.

 

[Aeson]

And how do we even know that yet? From what we've seen thus far its hard to say whether or not science is that important. We've seen both sides of the coin in civ games before, in civ 5 science was everything and game warping, whereas in civ 4 it didn't have nearly as much impact. Even looking at what units we've seen so far the attack values don't seem to jump that much between tiers.

It doesn't matter what Science means*, because we can see Science benefits of other Virtues, Buildings, Wonders, Terrain, and Stations. Adept Blue is far and away the outlier in regards to Science. I find it much easier to believe they messed up on one rare Station than all the other Science modifiers and outputs in the game. The highest modifiers we've seen are +10% or +7 Science.

*This is still Civ. We've seen enough of gameplay to know Tech is still one of the most important aspects of the game.

 

[Aeson]

Then what? If it really is obviously over powered when compared to the rest of the game like you say, then why did they decide to show it off in a twitch game? It's not like it got sneaked in under the radar.

Adept Blue is apparently a rare and variable thing. Rare things don't get as much rigorous testing as common things simply because they don't show up as much. Variable things don't necessarily make the extent of their effects known, especially when the sample size is kept small by rarity. So this is the perfect setup for something imbalanced "sneaking" into production. Rare and extremely variable.

For all we know, it could have already been changed removed too.

Which is what I'm hoping for

But rather than just hope for it, I would like to try to ensure it happens by pointing out the problems with it until it is confirmed as fixed.

I'm not saying it's not op, I'm saying it's pointless to worry about the balance of a game when you only have bits and pieces and not the whole picture.

No, it's not pointless to point out problems. That's how they get fixed. Someone points them out. Then they can be addressed.

The latest info we have about the game is that Adept Blue has that bonus. There hasn't been any word it's been changed. Until it's been confirmed as changed, if there's a problem with it (and there is), it needs to continue to be pointed out until it is changed.

 

[Gamewizard]

I still don't think it is nearly as OP as you think it is. We have seen outposts that grant 3 free military units upon route completion. And I am willing to bet that the outpost which grants +2 culture/+2 science per turn will instead produce atleast +5 culture/+5 science at lvl 3.

To a warmonger like myself I think I would choose the free units over the 1 free tech. Go and rush that guy who just landed his spaceship in my back yard. He will probably pop his Adept Blue tech as my rovers start pillaging his sad little colony.

Also, they forgot to show the next turn in that game, where his sea based trade route gets eaten by a wandering Krakken just a couple turns before it finishes...

 

[Aeson]

There are situations where one aspect of the game becomes more important than the other of course. It doesn't mean the other aspects aren't important in situations where they demonstrably are, or that balace in those aspects of the game should be completely disregarded.

Your scenario is may be one where Adept Blue isn't going to destroy the balance of the game. (More likely though, you'll be the one benefiting from it's OP soon enough.) What if Adept Blue spawns next to one of your opponents on the other side of the world? Or right next to you. It can be a huge swing.

The only level 1 Outposts I've seen that give free military units give 1 or 2. The value of which is the Production that they offset ... which is not that dissimilar to the 3 to 4 counter Trade Routes. Basically, if you took a +4 Production Trade Route instead, you could build yourself those extra units or close enough to it that it's not really that huge a deal. You might get 1 sooner, one later... but also could apply the Production elsewhere if you didn't need the units.

All Stations will get better over time, even Adept Blue as average tech cost increases. It's just starting from a position that's way out of whack, extremely variable, and can scale up much faster than the 2:5 ratio you give for the counters. Going from 100 to 250 counters is nice. Going from a Tech that costs 80 to a Tech that costs 2100 is many times better.