Science Advisor 'Path to Tech' Bug?

[kazapp]

To reproduce:

1. Start a game with a Civ that starts neither with Hunting not Mysticism (e.g the Romans). I believe you can use any version of the game.
2. Enter the science advisor, and click "Code of Laws".
3. The game will start researching Hunting for you.
4. But you don't need Hunting to reach Code of Laws.

To research Code of Laws, you need to research Mysticism->Meditation->Priesthood and Writing.

Problem is, while Hunting->Animal Husbandry is the fastest path to Writing in itself, in this case it is better to take the slightly slower path of Mysticism->Meditation->Priesthood->Writing because that is what we will need anyway to research Code of Laws.

In other words, if you click Code of Laws, the science advisor will research
Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Writing, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood and then Code of Laws for 800 beakers in total.

But the shortest path to Code of Laws is Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, and then Code of Laws (660 beakers in total). Taking advantage of the fact we will need Mysticism->Meditation->Priesthood anyway, so let's use it for Writing too.

As far as I can see, this is a bug. I could be wrong.

Has this been found/discussed already?

 

[ggganz]

Not a bug, a design flaw. When you click Code of Laws, it finds the cheapest techs it needs (Writing and Priesthood). Then it finds the cheapest prerequisites to those techs and the cheapest...

Yes, it could use some work.

 

[kazapp]

Design flaw, okay, whatever... At least you seem to agree the bug is there.

Has this been discussed before, or did you just realize it (like I did)?
Has somebody "used some work" on it (i.e. fixing it either in or out of game?)

Regardless, I realize you can avoid the bug by not trusting the advisor and instead select each tech manually. So it isn't gamebreaking. However, grumbler made an utility a few years back, which unfortunately duplicates this "design flaw" (or perhaps intentionally replicates the in-game algorithm, I don't know).

This utility would be exceptionally useful - if we could trust it - for finding out things like equivalent techs (does tech A require more or less beakers than tech B).

 

[ggganz]

Not sure if it has been brought up before. And I don't know if you can fix it. Sorry.

 

[kazapp]

Well, that's why I posted on CivFanatics...