No Tech Stealing During War?

[xoque]

According to the new FAQ update on civ3.com, you can no longer steal technology during war. I don't think this is very realistic. Not sure if I like it. I'm always stealing tech from other civ's I'm warring with in civ2, and the ai does as well. I think it doesn't make sense to take this out while at war.

What do you guys think?

 

[zandar]

I don't find that very realistic either. Certainly during WWII both the Allies and the Axis powers were heavily into industrial and technology espionage. I'm hoping that the Intel Agency will, if you have a spy in the enemy's embassy, allow you to steal enemy tech even during war as long as the spy isn't caught.

The Intel Agency does allow all the functions of the Agency itself to be operated during a war as long as your spy is still under cover. I'm hoping it will allow the basic espionage functions (steal tech) during war as well, thus making an Intel Agency a very nice wonder to have.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

No stealing of technology during wartime seems like a bad idea to me. In civ2 I rarely stole tech during peacetime unless I wanted to start a war, which it almost always caused. With the new rules, it almost seems like firaxis is saying "no stealing of tech", because if you steal it during peace, you start a war, and then you can't steal anymore.

 

[joespaniel]

Yeah, that is unrealistic. Big time. You should definately be allowed to steal tech in war time.

Perhaps zandar is correct that there is another means to accomplish industrial espionage in war time. Otherwise, that would be a huge game flaw in my humble opinion.

I am going to take a look at that article.

 

[neotemujin]

This is just a thought, but maybe Firaxis is TRYING to discourage tech-stealing. Although it is used in the real-world, it is very difficult to do so without incedent. This way, civ's will not be able to leach off other's advances. I personally use tech-stealing plenty, but i nonetheless think of it as a "lower" way to obtain the upper hand. I'm not saying it's wrong or i some way detestable, but I just dont think that the civ who can steal the most should be the one with the best tech. After all, in the real world, a civ that simply stole from others would be universally hated. However, if this civ were powerful enough, no one would mind. The equivalent of that in civ3 is that if the tech stealing starts a war and the theft is very powerful, it is to the advantage of the civ that the tech was stolen from to end the war peacefully. Then the power civ can steal again, and the cycle repeats...until the small civ gets mad enouh and decides to declare an undying hatred war on the thief, that is
I like the idea of a lessened importance of tech-stealing all in all, although it takes away a fun way to stay up with a more scientifically-inclined civ

 

[malphigian]

I think its a good thing that it's either very hard or impossible to steal tech in war time. It frankly felt really lame in civ2, everytime you went to war with someone, if you put ANY EFFORT at all into it, you could pretty much steal every tech they had. This gave a HUGE ADVANTAGE to declaring war and to people taking a war like play style. You could trail behind in tech, and then depend on declaring war and, without even capturing any cities, you could flood your enemies with spies and catch up.

Making this impossible, in my mind, brings balance to the game. I'm very happy that ability is gone.

w/r/t the realism discussion, anyone basing gameplay opinions solely on that in a game where a group of chariots can wander the lands for 1000s years is being a little silly (I'd argue its always silly to talk ONLY about realism, but esp. so in an abstract sim like civ). Yes, it should try and represent reality, but if you think something should be changed for realism reasons, don't you think its reasonable to also provide a gameplay reason? If you think stealing tech all the time during war time was a great feature of civ2, then fine, but I think you're wrong, I think it sucked

 

[Shaar]

Ho!!!!! Ho!!!!! Samurai roxxor!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Shaar]

Grrr.... wrong topic, sorry guys. THis was meant to go in the samurai discussion thread, I don't know how it got here

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Hopefully they've kept the "tech by conquest", then! Haven't read anything about that, btww... Any news?

 

[joespaniel]

I re-read the article and it does appear this is so. Oh well. I also E-mailed the FAQ team, but with the release date so close, I would be surprised to hear anymore about it.

I think you guys may have a point about game balance, we will just have to wait a few more days and find out.

I still agree with Zandar that it makes no real sense though in reality. But as some have pointed out, its a game. I wont miss it that much.

As for tech by conquest, I wouldnt miss it that much either. Theres a good diplomacy system now, so you can aquire what you need if the price is right...

Shaar - Its ok, the samurai is cool!

 

[TrailblazingScot]

During a war you can police espionage better...in WW2 Britain was watertight in terms of spying...the only German spies reporting anything were double agents. In a proper war (not like this war on terror) you seal your border and you arrest aliens and potential spies and enemies and you can kill people with less judicial process...spying becomes alot harder...

Spying is easiest when you are a clever American-Chinese physist and you have an interest in Nuclear Energy...they put you in charge of the US programme

As Tom Lehrer said "Los Alamos was at this time staffed entirely by spies" and that was before the Chinese steal every idea of recent years.

 

[malphigian]

NOTE: OFFTOPIC!

kitten, I assume you're kidding, but in case you aren't... if you're referring to the Wen Ho Lee case, he was let go for a reason (57 counts to 1 count).

Mr. Lee did a dumb thing by bringing some disks home. He was arrested in a bring to-do, but the information on the disks was classified AFTER he was arrested, and even then at the lowest level. Once the FBIs bungling was brought to light, he was let go.

No major threat from chinese spies there, but a big threat for a frighteningly incompetant federal investigative body.

 

[Mozenwrath]

I think they may have made taking techs from other civs harder to make the game more balanced and to enhance the Scientific ability. Think about it, if everyone could just steal techs when they wanted, the Scientific attribute would be next to worthless. I'm glad that the ability to steal a tech in war-time is gone it really used to p*** me off.

 

[pansophy]

Since they have made it more difficult to wage war in the first place, a longstanding technological advantage might be more important than in Civ2.

By getting rid of tech stealing during war, it allows a civ to maintain that advantage.

 

[Peteus]

Originally posted by pansophy
Since they have made it more difficult to wage war in the first place, a longstanding technological advantage might be more important than in Civ2.

By getting rid of tech stealing during war, it allows a civ to maintain that advantage.

That's both good and bad.

It's good in that it will make it more important to do your own research - If you were at war with a equally advanced opponent in Civ II, it almost made no sense to do your own research when you could muscle up with Communism/Fundamentallism, set Sci to 0%, and steal what everyone else researches.

It's bad in that tech stealling, especially from your opponent in MP, was a great balancing factor. If one side happened to get Colossus and Copernicus to muscle up a sweet SSC, the other side could stay in the arms race by emphasising espionage.

Espionage is just another way to win, like culture is in the new game. It's not too powerful in Civ II, IMO. If it really is next to impossible to do in Civ III, I'll definitely miss it. What I won't miss mind, is the AI stealing my tech from each new city I capture from him! That was pretty annoying and dumb.

 

[BBarl]

It's also interesting that players won't be able to "investigate city" while at war: this will definitely put a crimp in conquering cities--unless you're preparing for a sneak attack. Without the ability to know how many and what kind of defenders you have to defeat, you won't know whether it's worth pressing on when you're down to just one or two more reserves.

I guess military victories will be more dependent on overwhelming force--or sheer nerve. (I'm all for tweaks that make me rethink the Civ II strategies that have worn grooves in my mind.)

 

[Cluk]

It is quite tough to just steal enemy tech (unless it's something obvious like the wheel), so i think this is a good decision.

But no investigate city? Really, how hard is it to put a few guys with binoculars on a hill near the enemy city?

Getting rid of spoils of war also isn't that reasonable - enemy equipment is captured all the time, especially in the chaos of a major city changing hands. If you capture a car or a labratory, reverse engineering is nothing compared to developing a new tech by yourself.

Oh well, I suppose we can turn it all off.

 

[Mozenwrath]

WHAT!!??? Tech by conqust is gone? What a shame! I really loved that feature and I personally think it is a lot more realistic than stealing a tech during war-time. I f you capture a city, you are bound to found something new if it is there. However, perhaps this should only happen in cities say, with a library or something.

 

[Dell19]

Maybe they have done that for game play reasons because I have played several games where I caught everyone up in research by destroying a more developed civ. Although you may find clues to research you could say that you are not advanced enough to develop this technology...

 

[Mozenwrath]

I suppose it might not really be compatible with the new attributes thing, it probably made the game unbalanced, so they removed it. Oh well...