City states give a 1 time cash bonus upon discovery. Meeting other (full-fledged) Civs could do the same in beakers, say starting in the Classical era, scaling positively with the other guys era and inversely with one's own. A lump-sum tech diffusion, if you will. The big problem would be preventing tech-explosions when two reasonably populated continents finally meet.
Research
- Thread starter Thalassicus
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City states give a 1 time cash bonus upon discovery. Meeting other (full-fledged) Civs could do the same in beakers, say starting in the Classical era, scaling positively with the other guys era and inversely with one's own. A lump-sum tech diffusion, if you will. The big problem would be preventing tech-explosions when two reasonably populated continents finally meet.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Not that any real-life civ developed well in isolation - Atlantis is a myth! 
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
The Aztecs and Incas did rather well for themselves, and probably could've prevented colonization for a very long while had they known the threat posed. 
I've often thought about how well guerrilla fighters did once horses spread throughout the Americas... and wondered how these two civilizations would have fared with cavalry. It's not as easy to get a full-fledged army across the Atlantic to fight organized opposition.
I've often thought about how well guerrilla fighters did once horses spread throughout the Americas... and wondered how these two civilizations would have fared with cavalry. It's not as easy to get a full-fledged army across the Atlantic to fight organized opposition.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Yeah, I'd seen this. Epic code fail.
clearbeard
King
There are a lot of XML tags with either unimplemented or non-obvious uses. If this one is, in fact, doing anything, my guess is it may be a "cooldown" timer between RA's with a given civ. If so, you shouldn't be able to sign another agreement with that civ when the first one finishes with your setting of 400, and as long as the number was less than 30, it would have no actual effect. Of course, this is just a guess based on some other unused tags I've seen floating around in the code, largely legacies of Civ 4 or early, pre-release versions of the game.
Txurce
Deity
Russia on Immortal with v25, WWGD and FR:
If balance is the goal, this combination is working very well. The GS seemed suitably nerfed, and RA's are quite doable but not in excessive amounts. This is probably due to a seeming increase in gold. If it's more desirable to have RA's be more of a special occasion, like the Leader's 3000th birthday, then the cost should be increased. But I would love to play a game with what Seek and Alpaca have in mind: no RA's until Scientific Theory.
If balance is the goal, this combination is working very well. The GS seemed suitably nerfed, and RA's are quite doable but not in excessive amounts. This is probably due to a seeming increase in gold. If it's more desirable to have RA's be more of a special occasion, like the Leader's 3000th birthday, then the cost should be increased. But I would love to play a game with what Seek and Alpaca have in mind: no RA's until Scientific Theory.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Definitely interesting. I like the much more expensive RAs, making them rarer.
However, ideally there would still be some benefit for having positive relations with lots of AIs. Maybe being at peace is enough, if war is common with every non-good-relation-AI?
Txurce
Deity
Yes... with the qualifier that - as I've been noticing lately - peace is common with most of the AI even without DoF's with the WWGD mod.
If there could be more positive effects of diplomacy - like RA's with Friends, for example - the game would be much richer.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Seek
Deity
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Played a couple Emperor games up to 250-300 with recent builds; something that popped out at me was the Nat College has a +5
now in addition to other effects, making it incredibly powerful - maybe too powerful. Perhaps it should be moved back in the tree to require more of an investment, with the possible change of moving one of the GS slots from it to the Library. Putting it at Education makes the most sense but something else would have to be moved - Notre Dame?
___________
In my first game I experimented with that, but Sci Theo seemed too late. But I'll give it another go - sometimes I need a couple go-rounds of something before I like it. It's easy to mod in; if you want I can give you info on how to do it. With the second game I used the steeper curve we discussed for GS beakers and it seemed to work well. Did you try it?
now in addition to other effects, making it incredibly powerful - maybe too powerful. Perhaps it should be moved back in the tree to require more of an investment, with the possible change of moving one of the GS slots from it to the Library. Putting it at Education makes the most sense but something else would have to be moved - Notre Dame?___________
In my first game I experimented with that, but Sci Theo seemed too late. But I'll give it another go - sometimes I need a couple go-rounds of something before I like it. It's easy to mod in; if you want I can give you info on how to do it. With the second game I used the steeper curve we discussed for GS beakers and it seemed to work well. Did you try it?
Txurce
Deity
Played a couple Emperor games up to 250-300 with recent builds; something that popped out at me was the Nat College has a +5
___________
In my first game I experimented with that, but Sci Theo seemed too late. But I'll give it another go - sometimes I need a couple go-rounds of something before I like it. It's easy to mod in; if you want I can give you info on how to do it. With the second game I used the steeper curve we discussed for GS beakers and it seemed to work well. Did you try it?
I don't think the NC is OP. I think it's very circumstantial, and a roll of the dice as to whether going for it early is a plus for the player. Maybe the best argument against it is the majority on NC threads who say the NC-first strat is not a good idea. The players who benefit the most from the NC start are the elite who win going away on Deity. They may be the ones whose opinion matters least, rather than most, in terms of designing this aspect of the mod.
Seek, I did change those numbers as you suggested, forgot that I did so, and thought they worked fine. Then I went with whatever was in Thal's v25 - presumably the old numbers - and actually thought that you had lessened the GS nerf. In other words, whatever is there now works for me as a balancing mod.
Like you, I think RA's would be ideal as a DoF buff. Moving them to a later tech - Scientific Theory or whatever - would make the game different, and interesting, but not necessarily better. I'd be happy to test whatever you want, as long as you tell me how to do it!
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
You've gotta remember people discussing the NC are doing so with the vanilla version, which doesn't have 2 Scientist slots. They're also playing without the Liberty buffs. I think it's worth the risk of an NC beeline if there's no need for early rapid expansion... twenty turns after completing it we get a free Great Scientist.
I like having this as a powerful option in the game because it helps make things a little more fun for small-empire builders.
I'd prefer not delaying RAs too much or we'd have very few benefits of friendly AI relations.
I like having this as a powerful option in the game because it helps make things a little more fun for small-empire builders.
I'd prefer not delaying RAs too much or we'd have very few benefits of friendly AI relations.
Txurce
Deity
This is a good point, although I'm not sure how much of a penalty bad AI relations have in terms of RA's. I do know that friendly relations have no advantage over neutral ones.
Regardless, the best solution is one along the lines of what you proposed today.
An idea for NC:
perhaps it could be even more great for small empires if the NC gives the bonus only
if its required building is present in all of the cities of the empire, ALWAYS, that is, in "present time"',
not only at start of building...
perhaps it could be even more great for small empires if the NC gives the bonus only
if its required building is present in all of the cities of the empire, ALWAYS, that is, in "present time"',
not only at start of building...
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
That might be interesting to do if it required say, 80% of cities to have the required building, though it's not something we can do with current tools.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think people would find this frustrating. Its not easy to observe and keep track of how many cities have building X over time.
The current system works fine I think.
I have no problem with the possibility of a fast NC strategy, its an interesting strategic tradeoff in how you play the early game: tech or expansion?
jacyp
Winter Lover
About the increased cost of RAs, I like to give some feedback while playing on Emperor, Epic speed, Standard map size, using Tectonics map:
The fact that AI cheats is the only problem for such increased cost. The only civ unable to make RAs with frequency was mine, most of the AIs, since it cheats badly, could do it all the time while on Classical Era and civilizations were already somewhat spread across the map. That put me way behind the AI in tech race, in a position of about 7 to 8 techs less in comparison with the 4 tech leader civs. This didn't happen before.
For once I felt like playing Emperor from Civ 4, but the drawback is that in Civ 5 I can't just trade techs to keep it up. So the only option I have when I fall behind in tech race now is to do a bad war with the tech leaders, who have better units than mine.
I think that since you guys also changed the way GS work, it would be nice to give Library its scientist slot back. The removal of the slot was an extreme and unthought measure of Fireaxis to prevent slingshots, but since you guys found better and clever ways to deal with this in "Free-Research Balance Mod", it would be better to bring it back to offer one way to keep up with tech race if you don't have the same money of the AI, other than just go to war against them.
The fact that AI cheats is the only problem for such increased cost. The only civ unable to make RAs with frequency was mine, most of the AIs, since it cheats badly, could do it all the time while on Classical Era and civilizations were already somewhat spread across the map. That put me way behind the AI in tech race, in a position of about 7 to 8 techs less in comparison with the 4 tech leader civs. This didn't happen before.
For once I felt like playing Emperor from Civ 4, but the drawback is that in Civ 5 I can't just trade techs to keep it up. So the only option I have when I fall behind in tech race now is to do a bad war with the tech leaders, who have better units than mine.
I think that since you guys also changed the way GS work, it would be nice to give Library its scientist slot back. The removal of the slot was an extreme and unthought measure of Fireaxis to prevent slingshots, but since you guys found better and clever ways to deal with this in "Free-Research Balance Mod", it would be better to bring it back to offer one way to keep up with tech race if you don't have the same money of the AI, other than just go to war against them.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I'd go with 1 scientist slot for the library. I don't see why under normal circumstances you shouldn't be able to get any slots until university, and even then no actual GP until many turns after that.
I think any AI cheating on RAs is a bug that should be fixed, not a deliberate design decision.
Yes, the AI can do more RAs because it gets gold buffs, but thats what a gold buff is for (buying more stuff).
I think any AI cheating on RAs is a bug that should be fixed, not a deliberate design decision.
Yes, the AI can do more RAs because it gets gold buffs, but thats what a gold buff is for (buying more stuff).
Seek
Deity
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With my last emperor game with only six cities I took and maintained the tech lead in the Renaissance - with an earlyish National College. In the Combined thread, I've suggested giving the Library a slot back while moving the NC back a few techs, but Thal was hesitant to do so.
