Reading the patch notes properly

I agree with you that tech trading was awful... it had a few good points to it (which I will get to in a moment) but in general the chain reaction feeding frenzy of tech trading was not a great game mechanic IMO. However RAs are not good... they just aren't as bad.

Tech trades, for how awful they were, at least didn't let you get tech that nobody had. Or trade with some backwards nation to get some very advanced tech. RAs on the other hand... well we know the answer to that, don't we ? Does it make sense that I should be able to go to some guy stuck in the medieval era and have him somehow help me get globalization? It has happened to me many times. I hope the new patch mechanics fix this.

Still... does it make sense that I should be able to 'agree to research' with someone and have the results be something they don't know and aren't even lose to researching? Meh...
So yeah... better than tech trading but not good.

It is easy to bash and not to prop up. With that in mind what would I suggest as being better? A combo system of tech trading and RAs. In order to form a research agreement, you must go to a civilization that has a tech and pay them to send you scientists to help you learn that tech yourself faster. It avoids the feeding frenzy of old tech trading. Doesn't allow you to use RAs to jump to future techs no one even has. It allows AIs (and you, if that's the case) that are behind to catch up. It's a nice option IMO.

 

I like the idea of RAs because it gives the player another option for spending money. You now have more choices to make. Tech trading didn't really provide those choices. Now you can buy an RA, bribe a CS, buy a building, or trade with another civ for something else. These choices allow players to really customize their strategy to a much greater extent. I think the new mechanic will also be better than the current implementation that allows the tech blocking exploit.

 

You know you were always able to buy that tech off of them, right? As well as trade it for maps and other items that the AI civ would find of value.

 

Now I remember. Thanks for the memory jog. I haven't played CiIV in a loooong time. The interesting thing about RAs is the 30 turn wait for them to mature. No more immediate gratification. You have to think it out before you enter into it to try to figure out which techs will be available at RA maturity.

 

I like the new RA dynamic coming in this patch, but I do agree with this, and I do think that one of the flaws with this game is also that there's too little tech rubberbanding (where previous civs often had way too much).
I think an interesting partial solution might be to award tech based on the median value of the other civ's available techs. So trading with the backwards guys is less risky but gives less benefit for the cost, while trading with the advanced guys gives you more tech but also benefits your most dangerous rivals. And it somewhat slows a runaway tech leader while helping to give a leg up to those guys who are struggling an age or two behind.

 

I third that motion, tech rubber banding through the inability to have full scale research agreements with 'backwards' civs would be a very welcome addition indeed. So, I think we're all on the same page on this issue: We don't want to go back to tech trading, but the rubber banding effect from previous games is something we'd like more of. Polycrates' idea above would be an excellent way to implement this.

 

That sounds like a decent suggestion too, yeah. It would be very hard to manipulate your partner's median tech value too, making it harder to exploit. So some combination of their median and yours. In other words some measure of the advancement of both civs would be used to compute the cost and / or benefits of an RA.

 

I would be VERY happy with a combination (hell, even just the average of the two median values); doing so would make the value less clear, unfortunately (unless you tell them right then how much it will be, which wouldn't be difficult), but it has the side effect of making RA's much better for those lagging in tech... Which I like.

 

Reading this gave me an additional idea. It would a way of balancing things to have the more advanced civ charge extra (as they are getting less out of it). This is obvious. But the idea would be then to allow the stuff that boosts RAs right now (the tower and rationalism) could actually be changed to... well... make you appear smarter than you are . So that you will get better deals on the RAs. The tower and rationalism won't be overpowered (as I fear they might be now) but will still make RAs much more efficient for you.

I really like this whole idea... unfortunately we likely won't get it... but... it's a nice dream

 

What a great suggestion to fix RA's! This sounds like something that could be modded in too.

 

It's going to be difficult for me to learn this game from scratch again. There are so many changes!

 

Like so many have posted on these "patch threads," it will be like a brand new game! To me, learning this new game from scratch again seems like it would be fun.

 

I was thinking about the broken RA system now, and the patch(afaik) doesn't seem to indicate that it will fix the ability to influence what techs you get.

I think RAs need to be fundamentally changed, because as everyone has pointed out on this thread and others-it makes no sense that you're able to get help with a modern tech from a backwards civilization.

I've been tossing an idea around in my head, and I haven't really deconstructed it in terms of how it could be exploited yet. I'd like to see a hybrid of the old tech trading and the current RA process. My idea is this:

A tech agreement involves CivA giving something(gold, resources, another tech agreement) to CivB for research help on *one* tech that CivA doesn't have, but CivB does. This would transfer a beaker bonus(say +25%) when CivA wants to research this. The new buff for the Porcelain Tower/Rationalism would still be in effect. You would also be able to stack this with multiple civs.

Pros:
Civs still need to do research on their own-no instant tech trades
Weaker civs have a way to rubber band back into the game

Cons:
Strongly allied civ gangs could double their science output if played right(could use some AI tweaking)
You'd know explicitly what techs other civs have

Thoughts?

 

@doctorfork

Yeah that is very similar to my suggestion as well. You go to a civ that has a tech, ask them to help you learn it, and they send people to accelerate your research on that tech and that tech alone. It would force you to have your own research but could still provide a significant boost to it.

To avoid exploits you might have to implement some sort of a delay between RAs so that you couldn't constantly have tons of them active for the same tech or something. Also you'd have to consider how to add this additional science in. If it is, say, a +25% boost... does it apply after other modifiers or in addition to them? Does it scale with how advanced the other civ is or perhaps more importantly does it scale with hold old the tech is? This would especially help with lagging civs. If the old techs were boosted much more strongly than modern techs, they could catch up more effectively.

So I kind of like this system.. but the other proposed system I think is pretty good too. It is close enough to the current system as not to annoy people too much and it is less exploitable. It is more conducive to allowing people to catch up and not allowing leaders to shoot further ahead. It has less micro than constant tech monitoring that tech trading had. So in many ways I think it would be the easiest to switch to from the proposed system.

 

Yeah, after I read your post again, I realized I pretty much repeated it. I don't know if I like the idea of limiting it to one at a time-because I think the ability to get tech-challenged civs back into the game should really be the focus behind diplomatic science.

I think scaling things based on the age of a tech is a slippery slope, because the AI(at least in Civ4) was abysmally bad at determining the true value of a tech. Generally speaking, natural growth automatically scales research. I'd say a +25% would go against the base value of produced beakers, so it would stack on top of other modifiers. It's difficult to gauge without playtesting. (I think this is how the PT and Rationalism bonuses will work).

The way I envision it is that once the deal is made, the Civ who purchased the RA would not be forced to research that tech, but they would get a bonus on it whenever they got around to it-and at the same time, they would not be able to open another RA with that Civ until that tech is finished. So, you could purchase a research bonus for Optics, but never get around to actually researching it til way in the future.

(It makes perfect sense in my head, but I don't know if that translates when I write it)

 

A simpler choice would be just to bring tech trading back as it would have essentially the same effect in a much simpler form. It would also make diplomacy more interesting. The problem is that Civ5 devs seem to think that they just have to do certain things differently than they were done in Civ4 even if their new way is horribly inferior. I understand that the horrible Global Happiness system is a core concept in game and can't be removed, but research agreements are not. If and when the newest version of RA will be a failure, I hope they will just throw it away.

 

@doctorfork

Yeah I think I understand. The bonus would need to be playtested for sure but I'm sure it is balancable with the cost.

The main thing I would change is I wouldn't allow the RAs to be of infinite duration, though. Yeah I agree with the you don't have to research the tech in question part but I think the duration should be limited. If you want to renew it afterwards... well that's up to you and the civ.

The part that would be interesting would be how to cost these RAs... I don't want to pay the same price for an RA that will only benefit me for 5 turns versus one that will help for 30.

One detail that comes out of this proposal that may be important. Forming RAs with nations that are behind you would be completely useless. They would not be able to help you with pretty much anything. That may or may not be a problem for people.

A sort of an alternate option comes to mind too. You don't target the RA to a specific tech but any tech the civ has that you don't. So you'll get bonuses to any one of them that you research. The problem here is again you'd have to know what techs the person has as to whether it is worth while or not... but that's the same as before.

Just some thoughts

 

Tech trading was too easily exploited, which is why it was changed. A simple solution to RA exploits would be for an RA to grant a set number of bpt, or a lump sum at the end of the RA. This could be complicated based on each civ's overall bpt, or not.

 

Yeah I have to agree... tech trading was just awful. Way too exploitable. The AI didn't do it right and due to their war ineptness you could get them to hand over like 5 - 10 techs at the end of a war... wait a few turns... and do it all over again. Further its instantaneous nature combined with the fact that every AI treated techs like their were knock-off merchandise salesman really didn't promote good gameplay. Also starting by yourself on an island was pretty much a restart the game scenario.

I know I turned tech trading off in Civ4, at least

 

It may not make sense that a civilization behind in tech can help research the advanced tech being researched by a civilization ahead of them in technology, but that is not unusual in real life. Real life doesn't necessarily follow logical thinking!

When China was/is behind the United States in technology, they sent students to more advanced countries, and these students have been instrumental in numerous technological advances. Other "backward" countries have done the same with the US and other more "advanced" countries. It may not "make sense" to some people, but reality trumps making sense. So, I do not see this argument preventing such things from happening in the game.

Some people in "backwards" countries even have knowledge which more "advanced" countries don't have. In Civ V, they also may have technolgies which more advanced civilizations don''t have.

I think we need to be more open to these possibilities when we write about what makes sense.