Please Nerf Beelining!!!

[AmtrakQuebec]

It takes all the fun out of the game by making it completely unrealistic and formulaic.

People in ancient times had no clue that a certain discovery would lead to another, and so forth. You see all these people in MP utilizing the same boring strategy of beelining a Science that gives them a military unit then going on a rampage... rinse and repeat.

There needs to be a control on the advancement of tech... something like needing a certain percentage of the discoveries in each era before you can proceed to the next. Or perhaps put some randomness in the Tech tree? Now wouldn't that be more interesting and realistic? Scientists are constantly surprised how one discovery can lead to something completely unexpected.

Anywho, this needs to be fixed to give the game back some of it realism and interest.

Cheers

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

I would like to use this thread to say that I dislike the way that advancing in eras essentially skips great people. When the higher level AI makes their beeline to cartography, all the great people skip to the renaissance.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

^ Another good reason to nerf Beelining.

 

[Leyrann]

I would like to see the eureka system expanded upon, that a single tech can gain eureka's of varying sizes from different things, and if you get enough of the eureka's, they add up to 100%.

 

[Infixo]

Check out Real Tech Tree http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=871465857

 

[vit_sin]

a certain percentage of the discoveries in each era before you can proceed to the next

Nice!

To my taste, eras in Civ VI in general are jumping waaaaaay too fast on Standard Speed.

 

[Left Foot]

I would like to see the eureka system expanded upon, that a single tech can gain eureka's of varying sizes from different things, and if you get enough of the eureka's, they add up to 100%.

Agreed.
And I'd also like to have the new concept where resources appear on the map before you've researched the tech expanded on. For example, you see that there is bronze, you start mining it, and then you get the eureka for bronze working. Would make tech research feel more organic i.e. you research outwards based on what you see and know, rather than goal based. "Even though I have no idea what Iron is or looks like, I will start researching how to work it!".

 

[V. Soma]

immortal level AI Greece entered Atomic age... in AD 620...

 

[Ciarson]

Agreed.
And I'd also like to have the new concept where resources appear on the map before you've researched the tech expanded on. For example, you see that there is bronze, you start mining it, and then you get the eureka for bronze working. Would make tech research feel more organic i.e. you research outwards based on what you see and know, rather than goal based. "Even though I have no idea what Iron is or looks like, I will start researching how to work it!".

it would indeed be fine to have some research locked but also have the ability to focus on a field (research a tech again to get access to some bonuses or get access to a wonder).

example 1: to be able to research bronze working you will need to have access to a ressource of copper. (could be by trading with a player that got one, through a city state suzerainship or be simply improving a copper tile in one of your cities.)

example 2: after researching celestial navigation for the first time you get access to the harbor district, researching for the second time you get access to the lighthouse, researching it for the third time you get access to the Great Lighthouse.

that idea aside,for me, the major problem is around the eureka system.

my view of an "eureka" is "an inspiration that allow you to progress faster" and therefore should be an increase in research speed rather than a cost reduction. the increase could be around 5% more science per time you completed the eureka (so if you have 6 harbor you gain 15% more science per turn while researching astronomy).

however, i would also make it that a tech cost more if they are not from your era. something like 50% more per era difference. So, if you want to research a tech that is two era ahead of your time, it would cost you twice the amount of research to do so. making big jump like shipbuilding to astronomy quite difficult unless you got a big amount of harbor and campus (but then it is safe to assume you were planning to become a large naval power for quite some time.)

but by doing so you would increase the cost of all the tech you bypassed as well so beelining a tech could put you in a troublesome situation if you get in situation where you are in desperate need of a tech you bypassed. (even though you could get the eureka for those tech to alleviate the pain and as more time has passed you should also be generating more science than during the era in question.)

 

[steveg700]

The watershed feature of the eureka system is that it takes away some of the snowballing, incestuous nature of teching up that players had become the norm for 4X games. You can advance through techs by doing stuff other than outputting beaucoup science. The Mongols don't have to be boffo at science to get their techs that focus and cavalry and encampments, they can hedge their investment by building pastures, taking out barbarians, and so forth. The more eurekas are nerfed, the more that pivots Civ back in the direction of all roads of effectiveness leading back to whatever the science-meta-de-jour is. In Civ V, you always beelined to research buildings, because once you had them you would reach the other branches more quickly anyway. What's good about eurekas is that they expressly do not simply multiply science so that the rich get richer; they are something approaching an equalizer.

If players were always required to research a certain number of techs in order to advance, I submit this would definitely not serve the goal of making games less formulaic. Beelining is, after all, a pejorative for focus. If you can't focus, you're a generalist. If everyone's a generalist, that leads to homogeneity.

Having said that, if the issue is only the jump from one era to the next occurs to quickly, then perhaps the thing that needs to be reconsidered is the notion of putting a player into a new era by virtue of having researched one tech from the next era. Maybe you need more than a toe in before you're considered to have made a complete transition.