there were many factors such as geography, trade, war, migration, etc. that could effect a 'civs' tech. Attributing it to pop is just as innacurate as attributing it all to money, imo.
I totally agree, and that's exactly my point.
Neither population nor money itself should make a civ technologically advanced, while production and money from population, trade, etc can be used to unlock its people's potential.
the reason Nigeria doesn't build advanced structures isn't necessarily because it lacks the knowledge but more likely because it's unnecessary and not viable due to the instability. and I may be a bit rusty of my sub-saharan african politics but I assume all of the governments there asides from South Africa are more interested in pocketing funds than building infrastructure.
That's why I think we need maintenance fees and local (un)happiness back. Nigeria can't even concentrate on making scientific buildings partially because, in civ terms, (1) it's loosing money due to maintenance fees and (2) its government sucks (= low happiness).
To clarify what I mean here and previous posts, let me summarize my model of "fixed" science model in ciV:
Population - No science directly comes from population; however, when buildings like Libraries are built or when certain policies are adopted, more populous cities produce more science than less populous cities.
Maintenance fees - An undeveloped city will be a drain on a civ's economy, rather than providing a scientific or economic boost. And if maintenance fees become so high that a civ can't pay for all the expenses, science suffers. For example, when Germany got reunified in 1990, the poorer East Germany brought a heavy economic damage, which might have slowed down Germany's research speed as well.
Local happiness - Like in cIV, if a city is not locally happy enough, some of its citizens should refuse to work. And when a citizen doesn't work, s/he won't produce any science, production, etc.
Warmongering - Conquering cities means no immediate science and immediate maintenance fees. To get science out of conquered cities, a player must build Libraries etc. To pay for the maintenance fees, the player must build Markets etc there or in somewhere else. However, doing so will slow down the war machine.
ICS - Having more cities does not mean anything good for science, as buildings are needed unlock people's scienfitic potential. Rather, more cities = more maintenance fees, so ICS discourages scientific discoveries. Nevertheless, ICS can be good for handling local (un)happiness issues, as smaller cities require less buildings for happiness.
EDIT:
City specialization - Because maintenance fees are high, a player is encouraged to specialize cities, e.g., making a few great scientific cities rather than many so-so scieitific cities. Great cities like London can't be beaten by tens of insignificant cities combined.
at the beginning of my previous post.
