Science penalty for large empires

[innonimatu]

This is the one thing that irritates me on Rhye's fine mod. It used to be the constant stability problems even for the peaceful (if expansive) player, but those can now be managed.

Stability makes sense, in a mod that is meant to simulate the rise and fall of civilizations. Punishing expansion with huge science penalties does not. Not everyone goes for UHV. Cultural victories are possible, but take very long to achieve. So does the space race. In a recent game I went for domination, only to discover in the late game every tiny european nation beating my huge empire covering half of America, Africa and south Asia. Its absolutely unrealistic! The only way to win a domination victory is by building the Internet and then expanding - which means war, as that late in the game settlement is nearly impossible. And the only way to win a conquest victory is to occupy the best terrain (Europe) and raze everything else.

Can someone at least explain why the science penalty was necessary?

 

[kairob]

Civs like Russia, china and India got huge tech leads on the Euro's IIRC

 

[innonimatu]

That would be true for the germans and the dutch, and perhaps the vikings and the romans (if they make it to the late game) which tend not to expand. But the others have plenty of land to settle, and a human player could also expand even with the civs I mentioned.

 

[kairob]

I agree with you to an an extent and I think the effects should be toned down a little.

 

[Panopticon]

As I see it, the science penalty exists to encourage the discovery of techs at the appropriate historical time. That is a HUGE problem in the main game of Civ and it still exists to a lesser extent in RFC. So certainly, it should exist; it is then a question of how onerous it ought to be.

 

[Rhye]

the reason is that I think (and pushed for applying this to regular civ4 too, unsuccesfully) that number of cities should NOT be proportional to research rate. For this reason, penalties try to balance out the advantages of over-expansion

 

[wolfigor]

The only way to win a domination victory is by building the Internet and then expanding - which means war

Not really...
I recently won a domination victory, before the UHV deadline, using Spain.
Clearly war was one of the "tools" for the victory, diplomacy was an other.
Surely it was done before internet.

My empire spanned all west of south america, mexico, and good part of USA.
In Europe I had Spain, Italy, and Bordeau (taken from France ).
I had one town in Maroc.
What really made a difference was to have a huge number of vassals, mostly gained pacifically... Portugal, The Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Russia, and egypt.
The point is that their territory added to mine (50% ratio) and they did care of expansion for me.
For example Portugal colonised vaste portions of south america, africa, and india (this with congresses).
Germany Killed off france and the vikings.
Russia expanded east.

However I have to admit my tech research was going down the drain... my vassals (expecially The Netherlands) were several techs in front of me.

 

[Tweakee]

I recently did the German UHV, and had to actively give away land to avoid a domination victory. I had 5 vassals, controlled all of Europe, and had given Africa, South America, and Arabia to my vassals. Even still, my german lands were massive, and my research was pumping out a tech every 2 turns. The key is to avoid towns that drain money, build wonders, courthouses, banks, etc... If you expand too rapidly, or don't build up your new towns quickly enough, you'll kill your research regardless of empire size.

 

[Virdrago]

My German UHV victory was finished two turns before I won domination - I noticed that as I was about to win via UHV (one turn from the last spot of science), I had already collected the population necessary, and was .65 away from getting the land. I had Spain (plus colonies), Portugal (plus colonies), Ethiopia, the Incas, Aztecs, Turks, Mali, and India as vassals.

Thing is, Portugal's five cities were out-teching my 50. I was lucky, and while both Porto and Katerinthal were building the Internet (I'd finish one turn ahead), the plague struck, and I had Medicine (the only tech of mine the Portuguese didn't).

I wouldn't have had a chance tech-wise, though, without expanding slowly - if I had that many cities in 1600, as opposed to 1800, I would have been way behind in techs at the end.

 

[redazncommieDXP]

What exactly are the tech penalties applied in this mod? That might explain why I'm always a whole era behind when I play as China.

 

[innonimatu]

What really made a difference was to have a huge number of vassals, mostly gained pacifically... Portugal, The Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Russia, and egypt.

I never "take prisoners" in my wars. To the bitter end, that's the way I like them

I did manage to win the domination victory with Portugal without a single vassal, and beat other civilizations to the Internet even with huge science penalties for settling or occupying most of Africa, America and South Asia.
But without the Internet I would have lost. The remaining land necessary was kindly provided by the british, who declared war on me together with their american allies a few turns after I had built it, and caught up with them in technology thanks to it.

However I have to admit my tech research was going down the drain... my vassals (expecially The Netherlands) were several techs in front of me.

Exactly. In my game the even the Netherlands with 4 cities passed me as was still researching Radio! I suggest a cap on the penalty, however it is calculated. Otherwise trying to win the game with domination just gets very frustrating.

And conquest is even worst. Playing as Rome I ended up with the whole of Asia and America and most of Africa wasted so I could win. Sending my units all the way across the asian wasteland to ferry them for the final invasion of Japan - well I actually enjoyed the game, no need to worry about managing conquered cities

As for the Space Race, I also cannot ever win it, but that's probably just because I cannot avoid overexpanding and ruining my tech lead, always.

 

[Arralen]

For this reason, penalties try to balance out the advantages of over-expansion

But there is already a penalty for having a higher numbers of cities (and accordingly n(squared) size of bureaucracy).
I think you have another kind of "overexpansion" in mind here than that, though ... read on, I'll come back to that later.

the reason is that I think .. that number of cities should NOT be proportional to research rate.

This assumption is plain wrong, sorry.
How much highest-level research is going on in Malta or the Popes State today (e.g.)? None ... Now don't tell me Germany, Great Britain, Japan etc. are much smaller than the US and China, yet they are technologically equal or superior (in case of Ch.).
That's because A) we didn't disable tech exchange and brokerage when we started the game , B) they specialize on certain parts of the tech tree, to trade for the other techs they don't get in time and C) they have a very ratio of "cities" vs. "squares covered by cultural borders". The US and especially China had/have vaste areas of "undelevoped squares" which drag(ged) them down .. worse so for lots of 3rd world countries, btw.

A change is needed gameplay-wise anyway, too: As somebody mentioned, playing for UHV with China is impossible with 3.13/1.09 (found the strat guide to be rather wrong in this regard): you're required to have 8 cities in 900AD, to build 2 temple in each and those academies etc. afterwards (and 10 turns are not many for that IMHO). Last time I tried, after some bad luck I ended up with 7 cities (2 founded in 8x0) at that date - and was barely able to pay 1.2 units per city and research dragging along at 30% or something. During the next 40 turns, I got me lots of trade routes with Europe, exchanged for tech and pretty much closed down Japan (blockaded all their ports) and watched them starving to death (city sizes down to 1-4) .. yet they got black powder 3 turns after me. That's rediculous.

So I suggested that instead of "squaring" the city-number penalty, for the science penalty you look for "squares inside cultural borders, but outside some city radius (plus maybe a modifier for eras?)".

 

[Rhye]

Malta or the Papal States aren't what I meant.

A good example would rather be Netherlands and the italian Renaissance states, and on the other hand big empires like the HRE or Russia.
This would lead to the proposition that tiny is better. I don't want this, just want to loose the ties size/rate and a penalty for very large empires is needed.

Furthermore, when the human player has got half world and discovers a tech every 2 turns, it kills the gameplay and the challenge

 

[redazncommieDXP]

That said, where have you hidden these penalties so that those who would like to can edit them (no disrespect intended)?

 

[Rhye]

in the SDK

 

[usi]

I guess there are two problems:

1)
It is too generous that the penalty is applied only after we have more than 10 cities.
With 10 cities, we can cover most of Europe, present-day USA, Japan + China, or India + Khmer + Persia and so on.
I think the trade off of production and research can start before an empire becomes large like those.

2)
The penalty is very severe once it is applied.
It is appropriate that a very huge empire (say, an empire consists of 25 cities) receives a severe penalty, but it is somehow strange that having the 11th city results in 10% raise of the research cost, since the 11th city presumably won't pay off (unless that's Rome).

So I suggest having the penalty (1) start earlier but (2) start weaker and gradually increase.

 

[MrPopov]

definately agree with usi. Sadly after having read this post, I am now going to be playing RFC completely differently by counting cities and

 

[Barak]

I can completely understand early in the game that empire size would be a detriment to science. But later in the game, I would think that there should be certain civics, national wonders and/or technologies that help reduce this penalty.

 

[Rhye]

there isn't a single step, where did this information come from?
The penalty is gradual and includes discounts for small empires

 

[usi]

there isn't a single step, where did this information come from?
The penalty is gradual and includes discounts for small empires

I did not check any .xml file or .py file, so, I am sorry if I missed something.

But, here's what I did:
I started a game as Egypt and gave myself 10 settlers (from WB).
I checked the research cost of Hunting every time I founded a new city.
With 1 city to 10 cities, the cost remained the same (69), but the cost jumped up (75) after I built my 11th city, suggesting that having the 11th city makes a difference.