Progress Opener Needs a Fix

[crdvis16]

I think Progress's bonus culture yields on tech research might need to be updated to address a rather weird situation. Right now, many of the deity players have to game the system a bit by leaving the initial techs 1 turn away from being researched until after they've unlocked Progress's opener in order to then finish off the tech and get the culture bonus. This strikes me as pretty gamey, unintuitive, and is something I doubt the AI can comprehend. Somewhat related is that when you open Progress and get the initial dump of science from your capital's population, if that science completes a tech then you don't get the culture from that tech completion either.

I think we should just make the culture gain also account for techs that have already been researched, similar to how the science gain from the opener accounts for the capital's existing population as well as any new births going forward. Knowledgeable players are already getting this benefit by carefully controlling their tech research and their only drawback is that they aren't getting some techs completed until after opening Progress. If this is seen as somehow buffing Progress then perhaps an appropriate nerf could also be applied somewhere. I think removing gaminess/unintuitive play is important enough to warrant an update here.

Thoughts?

 

[CppMaster]

100% agree. If it would actually become OP, the just nerf it, but I doubt it.

 

[crdvis16]

That would make Progress a better 2nd tree. Not sure how much that matters though.

Good point! If the culture gain is too large when opening progress as a 2nd tree then maybe an appropriate fix could be applied- maybe the culture bonus should scale based on the tech's era rather than the current era (maybe it already does) or maybe should only apply to ancient era techs retroactively? I'm not sure I'm knowledgeable enough to calculate how much culture gain one could get just by opening Progress much later in the game.

 

[YukiN]

A cap at 4 techs should be good enough. It's not that much culture by medieval and is hopefully not too hard to implement.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I strongly agree! I proposed this at some point in the past. We could adjust the Progress tree in various ways to balance this buff, but all in all I strongly agree because it would make it more equally strong for all players (experienced, inexperienced & AI).

 

[Stalker0]

Ultimately there are always going to be "exploits" that diety players utilize as par for the course in their gameplay. So I don't see a change to progress as "necessary". That said, if there is an easy and reasonable way to do it I see no issue.

 

[Galbias]

I hadn't thought of this strategy and I'm totally going to start abusing it now if it isn't changed, so I agree that it probably should be changed.

 

[suriv]

I agree this doesn't really feel intuitive .. but is kinda necessary. Otherwise progress is too slow in terms of culture to get any ancient/classical era wonders with policy requirements. As it is .. tradition beats progress in wonder building of ancient/classical era.

 

[tu_79]

As it is .. tradition beats progress in wonder building of ancient/classical era.

Which is... the point? Progress beats Tradition in terms of expansibility, so better in international affaires, raw power and infrastructure.

 

[suriv]

Which is... the point? Progress beats Tradition in terms of expansibility, so better in international affaires, raw power and infrastructure.

Yes tradition is supposed to offer a superior start .. the question is how much. My contention is without the optimization of tech research in progress (i play in deity .. cannot comment for other difficulties) the culture deficit will be prohibitively large.

In fact for an isolated start .. with raging barbs, taking authority opener followed by progress beats straight up progress.

Edit: i am talking deficit for peaceful plys. If you are planning to take AI cities, then it doest matter.

 

[CppMaster]

In fact for an isolated start .. with raging barbs, taking authority opener followed by progress beats straight up progress.

Nope. Only for the beginning. Later policies costs increase exponentially.

 

[suriv]

Nope. Only for the beginning. Later policies costs increase exponentially.

Of course I am aware of that .. and hence my point as to how slow culture in progress is at this point. There is no additional culture other than palace and monument till you get the 3rd social policy or lucky enough to get a culture generat in ng pantheon or natural wonder thus requiring the need for optimization.

And progress begs for flooding cities .. which increase the cost of social policies as well. They will eventually make up for it. The discussion is about how big a deficit it can make up.

Btw .. the culture from killing units also scales by era. And you will kill plenty of units.

 

[CrazyG]

This is the situation that I think is a problem.

There are X turns left on pottery. I click progress, I finish researching pottery, I don't receive any culture. You really should get culture in this situation. Often its only 1 or 2 turns to finish the tech. So before I click progress, I instead change my tech to something else, put my 45 or 60 science into that tech, then immediately switch back to pottery. It came up before and some people who understand code better than I said it wasn't an easy change. If it isn't, we should find a way around it.

I can understand that leaving mining at 1 turn to completion for 10 turns is a gimmick and perhaps something we cannot address, but the above is not.

 

[Minh Le]

I dont think people go as crazy as leaving ALL of their early techs unfinished until open progress right? By the time you open Progress it would be 3 techs researched already? Without one or 2 techs finished, how can you play? I cant even decide to go Progress without the ability to make early settler, which pottery gonna be my 1st tech. I never skip tech waiting for progress opener and its totally fine. I miss most of ancient wonders and all classical, but its progress thing right? Progress is a come back tree. You start weak but come back powerful in Renaissance and Industrial, not for snowballing in Classic.

 

[Gazebo]

This is the situation that I think is a problem.

There are X turns left on pottery. I click progress, I finish researching pottery, I don't receive any culture. You really should get culture in this situation. Often its only 1 or 2 turns to finish the tech. So before I click progress, I instead change my tech to something else, put my 45 or 60 science into that tech, then immediately switch back to pottery. It came up before and some people who understand code better than I said it wasn't an easy change. If it isn't, we should find a way around it.

I can understand that leaving mining at 1 turn to completion for 10 turns is a gimmick and perhaps something we cannot address, but the above is not.

What if it was just a single, instant yield of culture, scaled with Era, equal to the policy value? So you miss (at most) 1 tech's worth of culture? Seems fair.

G

 

[CrazyG]

I dont think people go as crazy as leaving ALL of their early techs unfinished until open progress right? By the time you open Progress it would be 3 techs researched already? Without one or 2 techs finished, how can you play? I cant even decide to go Progress without the ability to make early settler, which pottery gonna be my 1st tech. I never skip tech waiting for progress opener and its totally fine. I miss most of ancient wonders and all classical, but its progress thing right? Progress is a come back tree. You start weak but come back powerful in Renaissance and Industrial, not for snowballing in Classic.

If the first three things you build are monument, shrine, warrior, you often won't lose anything by waiting. Sometimes I put a turn into a worker or farming.

What if it was just a single, instant yield of culture, scaled with Era, equal to the policy value? So you miss (at most) 1 tech's worth of culture? Seems fair.

G

Would I be able to do the research trick and get this culture?

 

[Gazebo]

Would I be able to do the research trick and get this culture?

Yes, as there's no way for me to easily tell the game 'hey, this guy preheated 10 techs, get him!'

G

 

[YukiN]

Yes, as there's no way for me to easily tell the game 'hey, this guy preheated 10 techs, get him!'

G

That's fair. I believe looking up the number of techs a player already has should be straightforward though. Just give the culture based on that, with a cap on the number of techs this accounts for (3? 4? 5?). This should almost entirely remove any gimmick involving not research techs and the culture refund wouldn't be meaningful later on.

 

[Gazebo]

That's fair. I believe looking up the number of techs a player already has should be straightforward though. Just give the culture based on that, with a cap on the number of techs this accounts for (3? 4? 5?). This should almost entirely remove any gimmick involving not research techs and the culture refund wouldn't be meaningful later on.

You'd still be able to preheat techs, though.

G

 

[YukiN]

You'd still be able to preheat techs, though.

G

You mean when taking Progress as the second tree? I doubt you can even have that many techs researched if opening Progress first. When taking Progress as the second tree, the culture from the opener alone is not that significant and the cost of delaying techs tends to be higher.

By placing the culture check after the science gain, the opener also gives culture for any techs researched by the bonus science from the cap. The end result is that we fix the early game problem with Progress without unduly buffing it as a second tree, which is what we were aiming for when we opened this thread.