More Realistic Research and Science

[Elgalad]

Background

Been mulling this over the last few days in my head. It's about changing the whole notion of research as we're used to it, the old paradigm that works like this.. Cities produce civilization units by resource collection of their population. Civilization units include food, shields, and gold. Food is only used to promote population growth and subsistence. Shields are used only for building construction and training of military units. Gold is used for a lot though; a portion goes towards maintenance of city buildings, some more goes towards entertainment/civil order, some goes into scientific research, and the rest (if any) goes into the national treasury. It is an elegant system and fairly well balanced. You have to make decisions about how much to spend on science as opposed to investing in the national treasury (used for hastening build projects, upgrading military units, and trade). But it has always struck me as very unrealistic. It reduces science to something like an investment in a low guaranteed return savings bond. The more you spend, the quicker you learn, on a linear scale. How boring is that??

Throughout history, science has been influenced by many factors. To be sure, a great deal of it has been funded by governments as a direct result of their desire to gain a technological edge (primarily military) over their neighbors/rivals. But the system described above does not take into account whatsoever the other motivations and sources of scientific progress. A great number of which have resulted in profound technological leaps that would never have occurred if the system were simply a government funded program.
I'm referring to things like the steam engine, or the cotton gin, or the airplane. There have been such leaps in theoretical science as well as practical applications.. concepts like basic Geometry, or the Theory of Gravity, or Relativity, or Game Theory. The list is endless!

But my point in this is that most of these, the vast majority were Not a direct result of government funding, but were discovered independently. I would like to create a system that reflects this and perhaps adds some more flavor to the whole process of scientific evolution inside the civilization game.
The next few posts detail some lightbulbs that lit up over my own head

-Elgalad

 

[MSTK]

Try writing it up in Word and them posting it all at the same time

 

[Elgalad]

Researcher Citizens

The first idea is a radical one. It removes science completely from the resource collection paradigm as it stands now. It works something like this..

Food, Shields, and Gold are still collectable as before, no changes. Gold is used for building maintenance, military unit upgrades, international trade, and national treasury as before. Lightbulbs can no longer be 'bought', however, by adjusting a science slider. Instead, they are produced by specialized citizens inside cities. These citizens do not produce food, shields, or gold, just lightbulbs. They act just like the current 'scientist/wiseman' specialist, but start out at the beginning of the game only capable of producing 1 lightbulb per turn per researcher. As the game progresses and different thresholds of science are passed, this number increases to 2 lightbulbs, then 3, then 4, and possibly up to 5 per turn. Researchers have a maintenance just like any other citizen - 2 food, and further, they are not immune to 'happy face' syndrome. They are a part of the community just like farmers (food), factory workers (shields), and investment bankers (gold) and they are affected by the same factors.. overcrowding, war weariness, atrocities, nationalist sentiment, but also luxuries and entertainment.

Now on the face of that, it looks like my suggestion would cripple scientific research. And in fact, it does.. at first. An infant civilization is not going to full of philosophers trying to determine the meaning of life when simple survival is a more pressing factor! Even so, the starting techs would have to be balanced significantly in order to be researchable by these fledgling medicine men/witchdoctors. But there are other factors to consider.

First, Civilizations with the Scientific Trait would provide 1 extra lightbulb per 'researcher' citizen. This effect is huge at first, but successively weaker as all the civilizations evolve. The effect would continue if those citizens were a part of another civilization's cities, through worker capture or trade.

And Second, the lightbulbs produced by all the researchers in a city go into a pool just like Civ 3, and that pool can be modified by research supportive buildings. Libraries would add 50 %, as would Universities and Research Laboratories. There may be other buildings that would add more as well.. but in addition, these buildings would also act like religious buildings, reducing unhappy faces and producing content ones (only among scientists). The great wonders that influence lightbulbs would work just like before. But the wonders that currently give free techs (the Great Library and Darwin's theory of Evolution) would instead give bonuses to research like above and another effect covered in the next post.

Now, the gist of all this is.. wealthy cities will no longer be the focii for scientific research. Instead, most science will be produced by cities with food surpluses. It's an interesting notion, I think. And it dates back to some of the earliest trends in human civilization. When the first hunter/gatherer tribes settled down and began cultivating food crops, they were able to increase their food production to such a great extent that less of the group was needed to gather it and thus, free to start pondering the unknown. The changes this would result in would have a direct affect on strategy as well, since now the player must decide and balance their expansion efforts (cities that produce excess food are usually settler factories) with scientific research.

-Elgalad

 

[Elgalad]

Great Scientific Leaders..

Okay, we have cities now with lots of researchers thinking up lightbulbs but we're still back in that linear research/tech race with the other civs. Instead of wealth defining success though, it is now the countries who have food superiority. Let's mix it up a bit -

Throughout human history there have been breakthroughs in thought and practical application that were so radical and significant that the entirety of civilization has been impacted. Examples include Pythagorean theorem, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Newton's theory of gravity, inventors such as Archimedes, da Vinci, and Edison. These men were more than simple government researchers and scientists, they were visionaries. It would be great to apply them to research in an interesting way.. something more than just creating a 'scientific age' or making a great wonder instantly. So here are some ideas..

First of all, there should be Many more of these people, and they should not necessarily be Civ-Specific. Not all, at any rate. No civilization has ever had a monopoly on genius. I disagree with the current manner in which they only appear now - as a random prize for being the first civ to research a tech. Now isn't that the cart leading the horse! These are the folks who Made the breakthroughs, not the ones who came along afterwards.. Maybe allow some of them to still appear this way, but only for the first civ to discover specific techs that make sense. (like mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, scientific method, fission)

But let's also have them arrive by other means, and a variety of these.. Some of these 'leaders' should be simply random. Perhaps (on average, not Set) every 100 turns in a game of 500, one would appear in a random city in a random civilization. Another way that they could appear (perhaps 5 more in addition to the 5 random ones) would be upon completion of one of the great scientific wonders. (great library, newton's observatory, darwin's theory of evolution, etc). These ones would be scientists directly related to the great wonder, like Newton for his observatory, and Darwin. There could be other methods as well.

So how should these great leaders work then? Great Leaders are non-military units that possess a 'nationality' flag. This comes from the civ in which they appeared. They should be Capturable by any ground military unit if they are undefended (like workers). Think of them as mobile small wonders. Every turn, they will produce 1 culture for their 'nation of birth' and 4 culture for the nation they are currently owned by. This is national culture, but if they are placed inside a city, that city will also gain 1 culture per turn from their presence. Their real use is inside a city, where they supercharge the research. Each great scientific leader (GSL) adds 1 lightbulb to each researcher citizen's output. They also add 50% to the total lightbulbs in that city each (non-cumulative) and further, provide free maintenance to all science buildings in that city only. They cannot be 'sacrificed' to rapidly build anything, only supercharge research. GSL's can be targetted by espionage in missions to either 'Abduct' (success places them in the abductor's capital) or 'Assassinate' (permanently kills that GSL from the game, cheaper and easier than abduction).

A typical game should result in about 20-30 GSL's, some depending on fate. They may provide victory points and increase score, depending on the victory condition.

-Elgalad

 

[Elgalad]

Tech Trading

There needs to be some way to trade science without directly trading technologies. I still find it highly unrealistic to just Give the knowledge of say, fission and nuclear weapons to another country. If it were that easy, there would be 193 members of the Nuclear Club since basic designs are easily attainable.

So I would definitely make that impossible, no more techs offered in trade.

But! how about a trade pact, similar to the one used in Master of Orion 2? The way it worked there was very simple. Two players (nations) agreed to the joint scientific pact. For maybe 5 turns there is no benefit, instead there is a gold cost related to setting up the systems allowing information sharing. This starts out on turn one high and then drops each turn until it reaches 0 on turn 5. On turn 6, both countries experience an increase in 'total research' as a result of the pact. This increases each turn until it maxes out on turn 10 and continues at that rate.

Applying this to CIV 4..

1) The benefit each country receives is dependent on the gap in their respective technologies and the total scientific research being done by their partner. It should not exceed +20% for any one given partner sharing their research. The trailing partner should have a higher rate of benefit than the leading one, this will reflect them catching up.

2) If either partner is researching a tech that their partner knows but they do not, that tech will cost Half as much as normal to research.

3) If the pact is interrupted for whatever means (loss of trade route, war, ending by either partner) then it must start over from scratch if the two decide to renew it.

4) Science pacts provide some diplomatic positive points, slightly pushing both nations towards friendlier relations each turn.

5) They also lower espionage costs associated with spying on each other but increase the diplomatic penalties for failure.

-Elgalad

 

[douche_bag]

I don't wan't to read all this so I'll just agree with you.GREAT IDEA!

 

[Baleog]

I've only read you r first post regarding the lightbulbs (I'll sit down to the rest in a second), but you remind me of an idea I once had and would sometimes implement (as far as was possible) on the editor.

[\QUOTE]
Now, the gist of all this is.. wealthy cities will no longer be the focii for scientific research. Instead, most science will be produced by cities with food surpluses. It's an interesting notion, I think. And it dates back to some of the earliest trends in human civilization. When the first hunter/gatherer tribes settled down and began cultivating food crops, they were able to increase their food production to such a great extent that less of the group was needed to gather it and thus, free to start pondering the unknown.
[\endquote]

My idea was to mod the game so that, not only science, but everything was related to how much food you produced. The idea being that a city with a large food surplus would be able to devote more time to persuits such as science, public works and trade, other than farming and the like.

As a result, when you start off
grasland square - (2,1,0)
bonus grassland - (2,1,1)
floodplains - (2,2,1)
plains - (2,0,0)
desert - (0,0,0)
tundra (0,0,0)
forest (1,0,0)
jungle (0,0,0)
hills (1,0,0)
mountains (0,0,0)

cattle + (2,0,1)
wheat + (2,1,1)
game + (1,0,1)
fish + (2,1,1)

As the game progresses certain technologies such as medicine, mass production and genetics would reveal additional 'advanced' food sources on the map with rediculously high bonuses.

Hypothetical example

wheat + (2,1,1)
wheat (pottery) + (3,1,2)
wheat (printing press) + (4,2,3)
wheat (medicine) + (5,2,4)
wheat (mass production) + (7,4,5)
wheat (genetics) + (8,5,6)

EDIT(Or, alternatively, certain technologies allow you to improve the land around you further to get the most food).

There are problems with this though.

Irrigation of hills is necessary.

Bonus for mining hills and mountains must be reduced. This high bonus I'm sure is to represent that natural resources for building work (such as stone) come from these areas. As a result it would be necessary to introduce stone as a natural resource (or for added complication different types of stone for special buildings, granite, marble as opposed to cheaper limestone). The introduction of a wood resource from jungles and forests might also be interesting, but I'm digressing into another topic.

Elimination of mining on grasslands and plains.

Clearly the amount of shields available to a player have been dramatically reduced so it would be necessary to reduce the cost of buildings and units.

Pooling of food resources, or, at least, an ability to transport food from city to city.

 

[Exel]

Some very great ideas there. I agree on principle, though I'm not sure if they would in the end be good for playability. In any case I hope the devs would take note of them.

 

[Baleog]

Finished reading the other ideas. Really good.

 

[Elgalad]

A lot of rebalancing would be necessary indeed, Baelog. Some of the things you mentioned already exist in various game mods. I'm most familiar with the Double Your Pleasure mod, which includes hill irrigation and many more types of bonus food resources (pigs, corn, oysters, shellfish, tea, etc). I do like the ramping up of food production as technology involves too! There's a term for this - the Carrying Capacity of land. Over the past several thousand years, since cultivation was first achieved, tech increases have multiplied almost exponentially the carrying capacity of land used for food production. The only way that is reflected in the current C3 paradigm is by limiting food production with Despotism, a two tier system with irrigation, and then increasing it through railroads. Those are linear effects though, not exponential ones.

Also, I like the other ideas you have: disallowing mines to be buildable on plains/grasslands (even with shield bonuses), reducing shield production (this could also be increasable exponentially through technological achievement), and food as a city-tradable resource rather than city specific. Food networks would require roads and/or railroads of course, or ports/airports.

All in all, while the purpose of this topic deals with changes to research, all of these other things may be necessary as well, for the changes I suggest to occur, since it's all about balance and realism.

-Elgalad

 

[dh_epic]

I like the specialized citizens stuff, and I think there's merit to that.

But I'm not sure I see the real change to science. I guess that scientists can exist not because you fund research, but because you have excess food.

Not that I'm opposed to your idea, it's solid. But as an alternative, what if you allocate your city's productivity to science, and discovering a tech needed certain requirements?

- need 100 excess food diverted to science
- need 200 excess production diverted to science
- need 50 excess wealth diverted to science
- need 20 excess iron (? -- just to throw something new in there)
- need to wait 5 turns for tech to take effect

I guess this is pretty similar to a Warcraft system. The advantage to this is it would reflect the shifting planes of technology. In the ancient times, it's true, you needed to have your basic needs taken care of before you could even consider the arts and sciences. Nowadays, research is a private enterprise where throwing money at a problem usually has an effect (although it's not the only factor). Different prices to "buy techs" would reflect the changing world of research.

 

[Elgalad]

Great great ideas! During the initial hashing out of my first posts, I was trying to think of a 'maintenance' cost for the researcher citizen in addition to the 2 food but realized charging gold and/or shields might be severely unbalanced. However, your suggestion of resource req's for certain technologies is a great one! Breakthroughs aren't guaranteed simply by throwing money at them, but do often result from real world necessity. If they had resource costs (food, or shields, or gold, or time) that might help to reflect that. An example: during the early 20th century urban American areas were growing faster than the carrying capacity and food transportation ability were able to support them. Methods of distribution and improved storage helped, but it was the advent of mass refrigeration (upgraded from ice storage) that really solved the problem. Now if refrigeration is a new tech, it might require a certain amount of shields to represent upgrading food warehouses and refrigerated traincars/trucks. After it is complete, the food production of resource tiles would automatically increase (the costs having been paid along with the research itself).

Now That is an elegant system.

Also, researching some technologies might require the presence of strategic or luxury resources in the civ. Nuclear technology would be hard to learn without Uranium for example. Or Steel without iron, automobiles without oil (although steam might be a feasible alternative )

-Elgalad

 

[MSTK]

This is a great idea. The only thing I don't understand is how trading would go.

 

[Elgalad]

This is a great idea. The only thing I don't understand is how trading would go.

Technologies would not be offerable directly as bargaining chips in the diplomacy screen anymore. Instead, the option would be available after say Writing for two civs to engage in shared research. This mutual research pact may or may not have a turn limit, if so, 30 turns would be better than 20. For the first 5 turns, neither civ would receive benefits, but instead would incur a gold/turn cost which represents setting up systems of science trade. The first turn would be worst, but with each successive turn, the cost would drop until it reached 0, at which point, overall lightbulbs for each civ would begin to increase. This benefit would be slight at turn 5, but increase until turn 10 when it would plateau out. The total benefit should not exceed a 20 % increase. The civ that trails in overall tech level would experience a higher benefit than the leading one. If either civ researches a technology that the other civ knows already, the cost for that tech would be half what it was if the civ researched it alone. If the pact is interrupted for any reason (loss of trade route/communication, war between the two civs, expiration (and not renewal) of the agreement after 30 turns, or either civ deciding to end it early) then later it is begun again, the costs of setup - the gold/turn and research benefit delay - would start from scratch.

-Elgalad

 

[dh_epic]

I'm becoming more of a fan of this idea. However, it does seem pretty contraversial and non-civ-like. But I'm one of those people who feels the game ought to make big leaps in certain areas.

 

[Stid]

awwwwww! far too much to read its alreayd late for me.promise il read it another time.gd ideas in the 1st post before i realised there was much more to come

 

[El Loco]

from what ive read (very little) i like ur idea

 

[Exel]

While I think your suggestions here are mostly good, some even approaching the level of genius , I must also note that you are complicating things too much. Civilization is by nature a very simple game, and the new dev has decided to keep it that way. The game mechanics deep in the engine can be as complicated as need be, of course, but they should appear simple to the player. Keep that in mind. Also, you don't want loads of more micromanagement with the added touch of realism... most don't, anyway.

 

[Elgalad]

True enough, and I was hoping a lot of the details could be handled by city governors (the auto-allocate feature when you click on the city center square in the popup). Perhaps you could assign priorities to the governor, like 'focus on food/growth' or 'focus on construction/shields' or 'focus on research'. I get your point though, and I read as well that the new game is going to be simplified to some extent to appeal to a broader base(?). If anything, I sure Dont want Civ 4 to look anything like Moo 3

-Elgalad

 

[Jon Shafer]

If you make a system too complicated, an AI governor will never be able to keep up.

This leads to humans doing all the work of these complex systems... and voila: loads and loads of micromanagement.