Reading the patch notes properly

"Exploits" of tech trading in Civ4 are often overestimated. Many have followed some Deity forum games and seen some really good player getting 5 techs by trading one. It may look like a cheap exploit, but they don't realize how much planning that kind of "exploit" needs and that it has risks too (one AI may get the tech you're beelining and trade it to everyone - you're getting nothing of your beeline). RAs, on the other hand, were guaranteed to give you a tech you wanted if only you were willing to do tedious but quite no-brainer calculating of blocking right techs at a right time. It was much more exploitable than tech trading ever was. Furthermore, RA is a fundamentally silly concept. Tech trading is a clear (while not realistic) concept - you give a tech and you get a tech, but RA don't make any sense in real world and just gets more and more confusing when they try to fix it.

Your lump sum solution would be better than it's now, but it would still offer an automatic no-brainer exploit for a player. He would simply have to make as much RAs as possible with as many AIs as possible to grant maximum RA beakers for him.

 

Allowing tech-lagging civs advantageous trades with more advanced nations was a "levelling" mechanic. Regardless of whether it was realistic, it was good game design.

Designers of previous Civ iterations were more sophisticated than the team that put Civ V together, I think. They understood how diminishing returns and scale inefficiencies enhanced stability. Currently, most mechanics favor the leading civs, there aren't any "catch-up" mechanics.

 

1. No, they aren't - see two posts up for a list of examples.

2. There's nothing silly about a Research Agreement, and there's nothing exploitative about paying lots of gold for multiple RA's.

It's pretty clear from what you wrote that your only point is to favorably compare Civ4 to Civ5 on a thread about the latest patch notes. So enjoy your preferred game, while I continue to enjoy mine.

 

Interesting thinking . I myself obtained degrees at a university where my particular program was approx. 80% Asian and this university is in Canada so the populace is definitely not 80% Asian . So yeah I know what you mean exactly.

However, with respect, I don't believe this actually represents a backwards nation providing knowledge to a advanced nation... at least not in the way I was agruing against the concept in the game. In this examples, the nations that you considered backward were / are relatively speaking not very backward at all. China is not really all that far behind in tech and knowledge. So it makes perfect sense in game and in reality for both nations to be able to benefit from the research agreement / exchange / whatever you want to call it.

A more accurate example of the issue I don't like would be going to a nation that has no experience whatsoever with modern technology.. has no education system to speak of... bringing them over, sitting them down in front of a computer, and having them help you discover nuclear fusion. It's just not going to happen... and if it does the chances of success are very small. Also consider that the example you mentioned requires the other nation's people to be educated by YOUR nation's facilities... thus requiring you to have those facilities to be of high quality. The in-game research argreements do not reflect either of these realities, IMHO .

 

In Civ4 BTS, there is a thing called BUG mod, which gives you information about tech trading opportunities without need to check diplomacy screen at all.. RAs on the other hand need extremely tedious calculating and watching your research every turn (so that you don't by mistake research a tech you should block, which messes things up completely) if you wan't them to be useful at all. If you want to do that tedious and exploitative blocking, RAs are extremely powerful, but if not, you miss the most powerful feature of the game. Lose-lose situation. A terrible feature.

 

Which, in case you have misread the patch notes, appears to be something they intend to fix.

 

I agree with this. Also the biggest change I see is the ability to make nice with the AI civs and they'll remember it. Also, the Liberty tree looks awsome for an early game sweep of an entire policy tree. I used to just cherry pick what I wanted out of Liberty and Tradition.

 

What I was referring to was China a few decades ago when there was a real gap in technology.

Computers are very recent -- even rather late in the tech tree. Modern research is quite different from what research has been through most of human existence, and not just in the tools used. When you have a research agreement, somebody's facilities have to be used. Either that, or you just meet together some where (in Civ IV) and find someone with the backward technology of archery and you have horseback riding and behold, you eventually get horse archers.

In most societies there are those ahead of their time. Wouldn't you like to have DeVinci on your team, even today?

I think research is much broader, even today, than the picture you are painting of it. That is why the game suggestion in the patch is not reality-breaking, IMHO. We in advanced societies often underestimate the intelligence, creativity, insight and dedication of those whose civilizations we think are technologically behind us particularly once different civilizations begin to be aware of what is going on in the world around them.

 

the new patch doesn't favor culture (i don't understand why they made broadcast tower so useless) and it makes defensive buildings almost useless.

 

I don't think you are quite understanding my words... When I'm referring to gaps in technology. I'm referring to MASSIVE gaps in technology. China a few decades ago was NOT MASSIVELY behind the rest of the modern world. Again as I said before this example is not one I have any problem with.

The computer was an example, not the entire reasoning. I was trying to paint the picture of bringing someone that had no knowledge of a subject and expecting them to help you make a breakthrough faster than someone in your own nation who has studied their lives on the subject. It really doesn't matter whether they are using computers, writing on paper, or drawing in the sand.

Truthfully? If anything I think people overestimate the intelligence of people in advanced societies. I am quite well aware of numerous examples of how so called less developed societies can invent things and think of things that other supposed advanced nations haven't. Intelligence is divided equally across all types of people, regardless of where they come from.

But in your arguments you've made my point for me. You say that these civilizations, once becomming AWARE of the world and the ongoing research can contribute to it and I agree... but that's kind of the point isn't it? These civs that are truly backward (eras behind you in tech) aren't aware of anything your civ is. They have no idea of the problems of trying to operate a centrifuge or how to run a particle accelerator. They don't even know about atomic structure. They don't know about an assembly line... they don't know about factories, coal, exothermic reactions, pollutants... anything. Yes they are smart... yes they can be trained... but that's not what an RA is. A research agreement isn't "I'll bring your people over here, teach them hundreds of years of knowledge in my eduction system, have them use this knowledge to somehow discover technology faster than my own people, and then return them to their own civ and they somehow convieniently forget the entire knowledge" because the other civ doesn't get the same tech, remember? I'm all for assuming all civ's intelligence is equal but wouldn't this other civ have to be full of super intelligent people to do that?

RAs are about people from different backgrounds, different experiences, different knowledge coming together and sharing ideas in the hopes that together they can use their combined knowledge to do something faster than either could alone. Your arguments are all made on the intelligence factor... but knowledge is just as critical as intelligence. Yes Da Vinci was brilliant. But he didn't invent (or I suppose I should say invision because very few of his ideas were feasible) things he and the entire society in general hadn't even considered yet.

Anyways we'll just have to agree to disagree because I don't want to detract the thread any further. All I can say is the game mechanic RAs, whether realistic or not, has not yet been fixed to my and many others liking

 

I beleive, or I should say I hope, that the nerfs to culture were because you can now have 2x the number of cities contributing to culture, which should help make up the gap. I think they also wanted to alter the pacing of the game, perhaps pushing culture (along with other victory types) back.

I agree though with the defensive buldings... not sure why the nerf was needed there especially combined with boosting siege. I never really had that much of a problem taking AI cities under the current rules and apparently most people didn't actually build walls / castles themselves so again.. why the nerf?

 

Agreed. We're not even discussing the same thing. I start in the ancient era. Computers and particle accelerators don't even apply.

Your qualification that backward civs refer to those several eras behind is an important one. In my games other civs are rarely that far apart, and if they are, the advanced one has few techs in the era they are ranked at and they may not have as many techs in the preceeding era as those they RA with. So, we may be closer than our arguments suggest.

Good luck in your games.

 

Bibor, I'd love to hear what you think of the patch as compared to what you predicted for the patch in the original post of this thread.