Research

[Thalassicus]

Mostly it's because a powerful Library is friendlier to large and ICS empires, while a powerful National College is friendly to small less-expansionist empires. I think it might be reasonable to have 1 slot available in 4 buildings for all specialists in the ancient-classical period, though. I don't like how they eliminated them from the early game.

 

[Mentos]

I also think the National College’s bonus of +100% is too high, tripling the science output in one city compared to others; +50% looks fine enough. I mean most wonders just give little culture here and happiness there, but this one effectively triples the efficiency of one city together with the university.

I’ve added a graph of my current game (turn: 264) where you can nicely see how quickly my science was boosted after 750 BC when I built the National college at this time. I’ve got every mod of Thal installed.
I receive 507 science points (363.5 from 7 cities (147.5 alone from my NC-capital, +143.87 from 12 allied city states). I’ve got Patronage policy maxed. Playing on huge continent map on Prince diff and normal game speed.
I’ve only completed maybe 2 science pacts so far and haven’t used any Great Scientist for Free Tech so far. The AI itself hasn’t completed much either yet AFAIR.

I’m Germany, second one is the Aztec, last one India.
The Aztecs on second science place is just 1-2 tiers behind me. It looks like Aztecs is making a big difference with the floating gardens: More food, more citizens, more science. He already surprised me with a Canon around 1600 when I assaulted one of his cities with my Longswordsmen.
I don’t know what happened to the Japan player who has some noticeable flat lines in research progress. He probably focuses on few tech trees. I first met him after 1600 when he was currently in war with the Mongols.
India is quite expansion lazy and unfortunately expanded its few cities in tundra areas, so no surprise Ghandi is at last rank.
Otherwise, all nations’ research still sticks as a bunch together while I outrace them as casual player.
My second screenshot shows the Demographic table of all 12 civilizations in this session.

I’m an expansion-lazy Bismarck focusing on city improvement and wonder building, and let the AI manage my Citizens. I was hitting Industrial era at turn 259, 1740 AD, what feels just right. I should have been further if I used my two Great Scientists for Free Tech and did more research pacts. I also should have been slower if my capital wouldn't have such a large research value thanks to the National College.
The only time I felt advancement is too quickly is from Classic to Medieval but I guess that’s obvious with Classic having only one tier to research.

Well, technology advancement could be slower in the beginning but otherwise I haven’t got the feeling so far my units were too quickly obsolete. Maybe that changes in the modern era but let’s see. Just the point of view of a casual player.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd be fine with a reduction in the yield from the national college, the yield change does seem out of place compared to other national wonders and how early it is.
National wonders should not be superior to world wonders.

But its ok for holding off expansion to get the NC to still be a decent strategy.

I think it might be reasonable to have 1 slot available in 4 buildings for all specialists in the ancient-classical period, though.

Well, I'm ok with no engineer slots until workshop/forge.
But market, library, temple should have 1 slot each.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Mentos
I agree completely 100% would be too high considering the buffs Firaxis gave to the national wonder, and I reduced it back to 50% when patch 1.0.1.135 buffed the wonder in late December. If it's still at 100% for some reason it's an error in the file or tooltip. I double-checked after reading your post (thank you! ), and can confirm it'll be at the correct 50% number in the next version of the mod.

 

[Mentos]

So it's no simple display bug you say?

I checked in your "City Development v12" mod files where in "BCD - National Wonders.xml" is following entry:

		<Update>
			<Where BuildingType="BUILDING_NATIONAL_COLLEGE" YieldType="YIELD_SCIENCE" />
			<Set Yield="100" />
		</Update>

I changed that myself to 50 there and loaded my session again. The building itself displays a +50% bonus now but the table on the top-left of the city manager still mentions a "City Modifer: 150%" and also calculates the old amount. Advancing a turn didn't update the value.

I guess I have to start a new game to make the change complete, or am I missing another setting?
Oh well, that was my newbie bonus for this first long-run session then.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm not sure which version you're using, but in the current beta it looks like this. The <!-- --> are comments that make everything between them have no effect, so it's back at the 50% value. I think it was set like this in the last public release too.

<Building_YieldModifiers>
  <!--<Update>
    <Where BuildingType="BUILDING_NATIONAL_COLLEGE" YieldType="YIELD_SCIENCE" />
    <Set Yield="100" />
  </Update>
  <Update>
    <Where BuildingType="BUILDING_IRONWORKS" YieldType="YIELD_PRODUCTION" />
    <Set Yield="40"/>
  </Update>-->
</Building_YieldModifiers>

City Modifier: 150% means there's more than one building there, all of which add up to 150%. Hovering over the building itself (city view or tech tree) should display the contribution from the building on its tooltip.

 

[Mentos]

I'm using "Balance - City Development (v. 12)" available from the mod browser. It was uploaded 22.12.2010. I had a long break from the game, so I haven't digged into every mod's topic looking for beta or other versions lately that haven't made it to the mod browser yet.
I've redownloaded the mod there again and it shows that:

	<Building_YieldModifiers>
		<Update>
			<Where BuildingType="BUILDING_NATIONAL_COLLEGE" YieldType="YIELD_SCIENCE" />
			<Set Yield="100" />
		</Update>
		<!--<Update>
			<Where BuildingType="BUILDING_IRONWORKS" YieldType="YIELD_PRODUCTION" />
			<Set Yield="40"/>
		</Update>-->
	</Building_YieldModifiers>

AFAIK there is only the University that offers the other +50% bonus; that's what my other cities have as bonus at least. Only my capital with the NC has +150%.
What I already mentioned, changing that value to 50 just corrected the tooltip of the NC-building, but not the calculation in my current running game.

Anyway, I do know now there was a mistake with the current public-browser version. Fixing that mid-game doesn't seem to work but I trust it will in my next game with either my own fix or any new version of your mod. No big deal.

 

[Spatzimaus]

AFAIK there is only the University that offers the other +50% bonus;

Observatory adds +50%, but needs a local mountain.
Research Lab adds +100%, but obviously comes late in the game.

There are also a couple Policies in the Rationalism tree that add percentages to this value. The Public School USED to add 50% to it as well, but they changed its effect in the megapatch. And that brings me to the reason I posted here: for all the complaints about the National College, the Public School is a FAR bigger problem. Instead of its old +50%, it now gives +1 base research per population. Except that, like the Library, that value is before any multipliers.

So let's say you have a fully developed city. Library, University, Observatory, Public School, Research Lab.
Old way: 5.25 research per population ( (1.0 base + 0.5 Library) * (100% + 50% University + 50% Observatory + 50% PS + 100% RL) = 1.5*350%)
New version: 7.5 research per population ( (1.0+0.5+1.0) * 300%)
Okay, probably not fair to include the Research Lab in the math, since it comes so late. Without that it's 3.75 vs 5, so it's still about the same ratio. And maybe it's too optimistic to include an Observatory here, since so few cities will have them, so now it's 3 vs 3.75.
(And oh yeah, the Public School now adds +1 culture, because the devs thought it just wasn't good enough with this change, apparently.)

The only real counterargument is that lowering the new Pubic School reduces the impact of other sources of beakers (specialists, academies, etc.) by reducing the multiplier. But in general you're still coming out well ahead of before, with a tech pace even faster than before in the later eras.

 

[Thalassicus]

Did you factor in the scientist? It does take 2 food and I haven't checked these numbers, but just off the top of my head here I think it'd bring the value up about the same.

2 / turn
2 / turn

4000 cost for techs in the late industrial, probably about when public schools can finish building everywhere
Assuming 1000 needed for current great scientist... not really sure what it's at during that stage in the game...

2 + (2 / 1000 needed * 4000) = 10/turn

The actual value probably varies from 5-15 depending on circumstances, but does add to the value.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Did you factor in the scientist? It does take 2 food and I haven't checked these numbers, but just off the top of my head here I think it'd bring the value up about the same.

2 / turn
2 / turn

4000 cost for techs in the late industrial, probably about when public schools can finish building everywhere

A few notes:
1> Late industrial techs cost ~2000, not 4000, in the vanilla game. (The three Modern Era tech tiers cost 2600, 3000, and 3350.) I know you've added multipliers to the costs in this mod, but I didn't think they got to x2 that quickly.
2> That 2 science becomes 3 with the University, 4 with the Observatory, 6 with the Research Lab... the point is that those +50% bonuses add up, since 2 is just the amount added to the city's base value. So moving the Public School from being +50% to adjusting the base population rate actually reduces the research of each scientist specialist by 1, effectively. (Hence my comment.)
3> It's 3 great person points per turn, assuming no Garden or National Epic. (Or have you changed that in your mods and I missed it?) And while I'm not sure what the threshold would be at that stage of the game, GPPs are only worth anything if that city will be producing that type of specialist. Having a specialist add 3 GPPs to some remote city that'll never build up points fast enough to generate a GS means that it might as well be 0 GPPs.

 

[Polycrates]

The only real counterargument is that lowering the new Pubic School reduces the impact of other sources of beakers (specialists, academies, etc.) by reducing the multiplier.

Heh heh heh heh heh

*ahem*

It is pretty powerful, but I like it - it really makes a couple of specialised, science-focused cities far more worthwhile for research than a whole conquered empire of regular cities. Really helps the smaller builder empires, I think. And as well as that, I think it's more interesting than just a string of buildings that all add a +whatever% bonus.

 

[Thalassicus]

A few notes:
1> Late industrial techs cost ~2000, not 4000, in the vanilla game. (The three Modern Era tech tiers cost 2600, 3000, and 3350.) I know you've added multipliers to the costs in this mod, but I didn't think they got to x2 that quickly.
2> That 2 science becomes 3 with the University, 4 with the Observatory, 6 with the Research Lab... the point is that those +50% bonuses add up, since 2 is just the amount added to the city's base value. So moving the Public School from being +50% to adjusting the base population rate actually reduces the research of each scientist specialist by 1, effectively. (Hence my comment.)
3> It's 3 great person points per turn, assuming no Garden or National Epic. (Or have you changed that in your mods and I missed it?) And while I'm not sure what the threshold would be at that stage of the game, GPPs are only worth anything if that city will be producing that type of specialist. Having a specialist add 3 GPPs to some remote city that'll never build up points fast enough to generate a GS means that it might as well be 0 GPPs.

1. Yeah I'm counting the tech costs in the mod
2. Right, it gets more powerful
3. The building still has 1 point inherent on it, so I'm counting the difference from before

Point is though, I think it's not too much up or down in value from its earlier form.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Point is though, I think it's not too much up or down in value from its earlier form.

In the pre-patch vanilla game, not counting specialist slots, a Public School adds +0.75 beakers per population (the base is 1.5/pop for city and Library, and this adds +50%), although this goes up a bit if there are any non-population sources of beakers (like an Academy or a Scientist specialist); not much, though, since these will be far outnumbered by the population as a whole.
Post-patch, a PS adds 1 beaker per population point, but this gets +50% for the University (which you WILL have), +50% for an Observatory (which you might have), and then +100% for a Research Lab towards the end. Ignore the RL for the moment; you're still looking at 1.5-2 beakers per population. Let's assume you DO have an Observatory, since I want to examine the worst case scenario for making a science-oriented city.
So you're looking at a difference of 1.25 beakers per pop. For a size 16 city (fairly normal for core cities in the Industrial era), that's 20 beakers per turn more than the old version gave. At size 20 (which you'll get to by the Modern) it's 25 beakers. And so on. Once you get the Research Lab the discrepancy just gets HUGE, but again, we're talking about before that.

A difference of one specialist slot isn't even close to enough to balance that sort of difference. And if you look at the math you quoted, you'd see that the vast majority of the 5-15 estimate hinged on the creation of a Great Scientist... except that great people just don't work that way. If you build a Public School in every city (which you SHOULD, currently), and fill a scientist slot on each, it's not like you'll get a GS spawn in each of them; only the schools in your core cities (those with +science Wonders or other specialist-filled buildings) would ever have a chance of spawning one, and only then at the expense of OTHER great people types. (Make a Great Scientist, and the threshold needed to get a Great Engineer goes up.) And a specialist doesn't just cost 2 food (or 1, with the right policy). There's also the opportunity cost, the amount the tile they could have worked would have produced. So that citizen you allocated as a scientist for a handful of beakers could have been used to give the city food, production, and gold from that grassland tile nearby.

That's why you can't count specialist slots on buildings as a pure gain to their output; in most cases, it's not even a GOOD idea to fill your slots. An Engineer, for instance, would be better served working a Mine tile (which probably generates more hammers and usually also adds some gold)... unless you have no mines available or really, really want a Great Engineer. So you could put ten Engineer slots on a Factory, and it wouldn't make it any more powerful in practice unless someone wanted to go out of their way and make a Great Engineer in spite of the lowered output.

---
It's your mod, do whatever you want, of course. But there's a reason that in my own mod I changed the PS back to its old version, and then tweaked from there. In practice, it's just far stronger than it used to be without this sort of change,

 

[Thalassicus]

I think what I'm saying is I don't feel it's an issue that the public school is stronger now. It's a tier-3 building, which means cities have to be rather well-developed, so it favors 'tall' empires over ICS.

 

[Ahriman]

I agree with Spaz that the public school is stronger.
I agree with Thal that this is just fine. Most buildings are stronger in this mod.

 

[spfun]

Research for modern age is 180% of normal, yet a research pact is what 350gold? its far to cheap i'd like to see the cost increase & majorly in modern age. I gift poor small nations gold just to sign a research pact & when im spamming research pacts, it devalues science makes money even more key. & is a very boring way to advance the tech tree. A quick fix, turn them off?. They are pretty OP. Though i only play on emperor/king, diety i can imagine they're simply a necessity to keep up. so i reword, they are overpowered on lower than immortal difficulties.

The value of good diplomatic relations is war related things like goto war with X nation & defensive pacts, also selling resources for maximum prices. & the fact it halts AI from warring with you even if u got weaker military. Ive had many peaceful games with a few nations with current diplomacy & close'ish Pangaea starts.

edit. just out of curiosity whens next version of this coming out?

 

[Thalassicus]

Probably sometime in the next few days, I'm just about done with the automatic-tooltip system I'm working on. I've left gameplay mostly alone for the past week to let people test it thoroughly, and it seems to be ready.

Research pacts are adjusted in that upcoming version.

 

[Txurce]

A stray thought - given the major current GS nerf, and the use of beakers rather than a free tech, shouldn't the Porcelain Tower's benefit be boosted?

 

[Ahriman]

A stray thought - given the major current GS nerf, and the use of beakers rather than a free tech, shouldn't the Porcelain Tower's benefit be boosted?

How about increasing its scientist GPP yield?

 

[Sneaks]

I really don't think it needs any value added. It's a serious beaker boost or a Golden Age (more or less a Great Library or a Taj Mahal). Even with the nerf to beakers, Great Scientists are probably still the best great people in the game.