Option to turn off Eurekas?

[Frostburn]

Would be nice to turn off Eurekas.

I am finding that Eureka's make my build orders much less flexible if I want to remain optimal. I feel like Eureka bonuses are making the first ~40 turns of the game really static and that the inefficiency you get from not prioritizing specific Eurekas makes it so there is less real creativity in the early game. To top it off- Science seems too fast compared with Production costs and this would balance that out nicely

I would love it if we can turn this ff

 

[NukeAJS]

Not that I'm aware of.

However, with the way that district scaling works, you usually don't want to finish tech/civics unless you absolutely have to. If you're unaware of what I'm talking about, it's basically this -- the more techs and civics you have, the more the production cost for a district rises when you plop it down. After you plop it down, the cost is fixed.

So, the optimal strategy is to press food, production, and amenities in the early game and get as many cheap districts as possible in as many cities as possible. When you have a sufficient number of cities and districts -- then you start pressing science/culture as hard as possible.

 

[isau]

You can't do this, but there are mods that can do it by reducing the Boost from a Eureka to 0.

 

[Meowzer]

I like the Eureka idea, but I agree that it's too easy/happens too often. I'd like to see it be more difficult/happen less often. That way, the civs' tech developments would be more unique.

One consequence of this of course is how it would effect China's eureka bonus. I'm having a hard time figuring out what the consequences would be.

 

[Fromage10x]

I really feel like the best solution would be just to tone them down a bit. Make them a 25% bonus, say. At that point they would be a nice bonus, but not as essential as they seem to be currently.

 

[Ryika]

I really feel like the best solution would be just to tone them down a bit. Make them a 25% bonus, say. At that point they would be a nice bonus, but not as essential as they seem to be currently.

At that point they would be meaningless, because you would never try to actively get them. You'd just get whatever happens naturally, and maybe a few low-investment ones on top of that, the actual problem would still exist.

50% are perfectly fine, the bonuses themselves are just too... well, too generic. Many Eurekas happen automatically, others just require some minor investment and are pretty much always worth it.

What they really need to do is make Eurekas more specialized, so that different strategies actually lead to different Eurekas, and therefor quicker tech/civic progression in whatever you're already concentrating on, leading to overall more specialized games.
Of course that's easier said than done.

 

[Fromage10x]

At that point they would be meaningless, because you would never try to actively get them. You'd just get whatever happens naturally, and maybe a few low-investment ones on top of that, the actual problem would still exist.

50% are perfectly fine, the bonuses themselves are just too... well, too generic. Many Eurekas happen automatically, others just require some minor investment and are pretty much always worth it.

::eyeroll:: Well, I disagree. Neither of us has any real data to back it up, it would require testing to actually see the effects of these changes.

 

[Ryika]

::eyeroll:: Well, I disagree. Neither of us has any real data to back it up, it would require testing to actually see the effects of these changes.

I actually do have quite a lot of data from playing around with these numbers myself, because it's really easy to change these numbers via modding.
See my post here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/slower-tech-by-era.600579/page-3#post-14535636 (at the end of the quote)

And from my experience it is like I said, lower the numbers and you just lower the number of Eurekas that you care to trigger actively, you'll still trigger tons of them passively. That does have a positive effect on balance (you don't speed through the trees as quickly), but it does not fix the issue of some Eurekas being gained "automatically", and others just being an investment into something that you don't really want/need but get because the Eureka is worth the investment.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

At that point they would be meaningless, because you would never try to actively get them. You'd just get whatever happens naturally, and maybe a few low-investment ones on top of that, the actual problem would still exist.

50% are perfectly fine, the bonuses themselves are just too... well, too generic. Many Eurekas happen automatically, others just require some minor investment and are pretty much always worth it.

What they really need to do is make Eurekas more specialized, so that different strategies actually lead to different Eurekas, and therefor quicker tech/civic progression in whatever you're already concentrating on, leading to overall more specialized games.
Of course that's easier said than done.

25% off techs and civics would still be really significant. Top players are not going to ignore a chance to lop a quarter off their tech costs. Eurekas wouldn't completely dominate teching decisions like they do now, but they'd still matter a lot.

 

[Ryika]

"Top players" would still do what they're already doing, decide what Eurekas are worth getting on a case by case basis. The lower you turn that percentage, the more often the answer to that question will be "Not worth it." for generic Eureka Effects, or the requirements are so low that it's not even a decision, but a checklist of things you always want to construct in every game, even if you don't want to use it for anything other than Eurekas (which is also a problem in the current system).

Tinkering with that number is still completely missing the core of the problem, it's the bonuses themselves that need to be overhauled, and then you can see whether tuning down the number is even required at that point.

 

[Fromage10x]

Cool that you've got the numbers, I appreciate that. A slowdown on techs is the effect that I am most interested in achieving. Right now it feels like more of a problem that the tree screams by like it does than that the Eurekas are uneven. Mostly because at 50% it is well worth doing almost any dumb thing to get that bonus.

Now, should the triggers be looked at as well an rebalanced? Absolutely. These are not conflicting goals.

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, like I said, reducing Eureka Percentages may still be reasonable after the Eurekas themselves have been changed, though I'd probably put them at 35-40% or so, because again... at 25% they feel pretty meaningless as something to actively go after.

I'd assume though that setting them to 35-40% combined with more specialized Eurekas that aren't as easy to get for every type of empire would in practice play out similar to just changing the numbers to 25% when it comes to overall progression.

Alternatively some people have of course suggested an incremental system, where whenever you do Action X you get a reduction of Y% on Technology Z, until a maximum Percentage of course. Such a system would be more complicated, but it might offer an even better experience, because almost anything you do would give you a bit of progress in <something>, and doing <something else> in favor of what you actually want to be doing just to trigger extra Eurekas would not even be a thing anymore.