Research Time for Advanced Technologies

[Llewen]

One of the things that I like in the blurb on the FfH2 download page is the idea that you have to specialize your research and choose your paths because research is much slower. Research is slower, but sadly, as I advance in the game, I find that I am doing exactly what I would do in any vanilla Civ (BtS) game, I just learn all of the techs.

Just my personal opinion, but I think the points requirements for the advanced techs need to seriously be increased, to force specialization. I'm guessing in the order of ten times for the most advanced techs, maybe even more.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually the opposite is required to force specialization IMO. If you get toward the end of the Tech Tree and advancing further in the same branch requires 100 turns, but picking up something in the alternate branches takes 2 turns... it doesn't encourage you to specialize yourself.

Making the early techs (the ones you NEED to have for worker actions & general Survival) fairly cheap, but making the mid-rank techs INSANELY expensive means that people will "break over the hump" in one area, then have the option of:

1. Continue to specialize, and get a nice new tech every 30 turns or so
2. Spread yourself out to diversify, but spend 200 turns or so without any new toys "breaking into" your new secondary field.


A hump in the middle means specialization, but only if there is still a lot you can do on the other side of it. A hump at the end means that you can get more gain quicker by going down a seperate path.

 

[Caradoc]

I think the key to specialization is for civilizations or maybe leaders to have an affinity for certain technologies. You could pursue other interests, but would advance more quickly where you have the affinity. This could also help AIs stay on track.

(A lot of the advanced techs are already of dubious value. You've really got to have a thing for War Elephants to do all the research needed to get them. )

 

[Tarquelne]

Mid-game tech hump:
I think that's a good idea. Ideally adding new techs would be part of it. You might also make some key techs untradable. I don't know what the explaination for that would be, though. (Perhaps techs that arguably involve significant social adjustments.)

I think the key to specialization is for civilizations or maybe leaders to have an affinity for certain technologies.

I suspect that would be seen as limiting (well.. discouraging) replayability too much. It makes a lot of sense, though, and I wouldn't mind it.

A better way to do that sort of thing might be making some techs exclusive of each other. If you research X you can't research Y or Z. So you'd have to make some choices as to what branchs you can go down in a given game, but as the same civ you could make different choices in a different game and not be charged extra.

(A lot of the advanced techs are already of dubious value.)

I agree, and hope the later part of the tree gets some more attention. It'd be a nice reward for the occasional game that actually goes that long. If the AI is improved significantly those longer games should come more frequently, too.

 

[MrPopov]

You've really got to have a thing for War Elephants to do all the research needed to get them. )

Aren't War Elephants just a captured elephant upgarded? I think they come quite easily. Just requires a hunter with subdue animal, then horseback riding to enable the upgrade. Attack the elephant with a warrior (or unpromoted hunter) first to soften him, then finish it with the subdue-animal hunter. It does take a bit of cash for the upgrade though: 185 or something like that, but it's worth it. You get a hidden nationality str 7 movement 2 unit

 

[BeefontheBone]

Think he was thinking of war elephnats before the last update, when they needed a Large animal stables

 

[Alzara]

273g without a reduction from GoH or something

Al

 

[Tyrs]

Honestly Xienwolf's idea makes a lot of sense to me, much more so than increasing late game techs. It's already hard to get to the end game.

 

[Llewen]

I guess I wasn't being clear. I think the research times for the early techs are good, but I think they need to be very seriously increased as you reach the middle techs, then increased even more for the final techs. I like the hump idea, but I'm not sure it would work all that well. Some of the other ideas such as making certain techs exclusive are great ideas as well, and maybe some kind of combination of the suggestions would be ideal, such as radically increasing research times, and also making certain techs exclusive. For example, a no brainer in my opinion is that you if you research the order tech, the Ashen Veil tech is no longer available to you (you cannot research or trade for it).

However, this might seriously impact the Tower of Mastery victory condition (not sure and can't get into the game at this time as I am in the middle of a format and reinstall ). Perhaps that could be reworked in some way, if necessary.

 

[Soam]

I'm with the OP on this. The only way I've found to make specialization work is by turning off Tech trading. Otherwise everyone just gets what they want and then trades the rest making actual specialization a joke since everyone trades it away anyways. But this method makes certain civ's particularly weak like the Sheaim as they ignore a lot of military techs and end up with armies of adepts that they don't know how to use. Also when the comp reaches a certain point they go back and branch out their techs while I as a player advance to higher military heights. (FYI I play on Emperor and Immortal)

 

[psychoak]

I hate tech trading in ffh, ruins the game completely.

Research religion, give tech to everyone else, presto, religious victory on anything below... emperor I think? Once they beat me to the first religion it doesn't work that way, but it's game breaking at noble difficulty. Guaranteed massive council the first turn you set it up, absurd ease in tech aquisitions by trading your one advanced line for everything all the poor spread out ai have collected between them. It's as lame as it is in vanilla civ, but makes it ridiculously easy to win instead of making it suicidal to be a warmongering . .. .. .. .. .. .. . with no friends.

If you turn tech trading off, or at least tech brokering, specialization is mandatory as long as you've actually got a challenge from the ai. When I play at immortal or diety, I'm just barely scraping by on the games I win, if I waste time to get another path up very far, I'll never make it to archmages or whatever it is I'm after. I'll get there and they'll already have matching units in greater numbers and bury my ass. I have to go for that primary unit first and save the other stuff for later. I usually hit t4 before I have even one t3 unit to support it. The exceptions are the religious lines for the religions with a good t3 disciple, I almost always get crusaders and stygian guard before I go to high priests, and often stonewardens

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

The hump idea makes ALOT of sense to me but it wouldn't work if you could trade the "breaking into" techs. So I suggest that the hump idea is used as long as the most expensive tech(s) of the specialization path are untradeable, maybe with a game option that allows those specific techs to be traded.

 

[xienwolf]

Another thing which probably needs done is to remove the hump from the techs available by Goody Huts of course (I am amazed that so many techs are available from them!)

 

[Zechnophobe]

I think Xwolf has the truth of it regarding specialization. Mid range 'gateway' techs (Knowledge of the Ether perhaps, or priesthood) should cost a great deal more, but once you have them, the techs beyond are not, comparatively expensive. It'd be nice to have those mid techs really set you on a path.

 

[Mylon]

Either use the "gateway" tech idea as before, or change the game so whenever a tech is researched, techs of different categories are made to be more expensive. This way a civilization would have to specialize in magic, warfare, good, or evil, or all techs will become prohibitively expensive!

 

[WCH]

A simple modifier to tech cost based on total techs researched so far would do the trick as well -- increases the benefit to streamlining. Would even make it so that receiving useless techs by trade actually hurts you, as it makes the techs you really want harder to get.

 

[Mylon]

That would make going down 2-3 lines total suicide. If it was done based on tech flavors, some techs could be made to synergize or polarize. (Good vs evil, nature vs industry) Plus, dead end techs like the one for public healers would get abandoned, as it would make other techs more expensive.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Might be wishful thinking but the way I see it is that the designers realized how foolish it is to try to outright force specialization, and gave up on trying to do it, but forgot to appropriately change the mod's description.

Reward specialization, yes. They've done this by making high end techs give big benefits. Trying to outright FORCE it isn't a good move though. As this topic proves, forcing specialization requires weird moves like forbidding the trade of specific techs or increasing costs as more techs are acquired (protip: alpha centauri used this mechanic, it sucked) that don't really make sense in any context other than trying to force a design philosophy down the player's throat.

 

[Mylon]

I could code the game to encourage specialization (using the increased-cost-for-other-techs, as above). For other games, like vanilla Civ4 or SMAC, such a tactic wouldn't accomplish much as all of the techs are interrelated. Generalization is still possibly, but when a 1 turn tech becomes a 3 turn tech and the one after it becomes an 8 turn tech (when you're still doing roughly 6 turns per tech along your current path), sticking with the path is more appealing, but not the only choice.