Science vs production balance

[Aldor]

I'm actually not sure what the poll means, does teching on higher difficulties go faster for some reasons? I thought it was the same for every difficulty (beyond the "normal" difficulty that is). Or do you mean the AI teching, which of course will be much faster at higher levels?

In my games so far, I have not invested much in campuses (in fact, I usually only build one until around the mid game). And with that, the tech pace seems actually QUITE slow to me (standard speed). In my current game, its around 1700 and I still have a ton of techs to go before I can even think about starting a science victory. I just recently built several more campuses and am a bit over 125 research now.

My personal opinion is, teching speed is fine. Then again, I'm certainly not fully optimising everything I could, yet..

 

[Zhahz]

I think a big factor is that many victory conditions just happen to blossom in the late game. You can't even start science victory til very late in the tech tree so of course you're likely to exhaust the tree if you go that route. Tourism also blooms late since you really need late game stuff to push tourism hard. Religion takes forever (in my only attempts, and the AIs are pretty into religion) so again, not likely to make it happen early. Probably the only way to win fast is ultra ruthless domination (not much different from Civ 5). I don't even consider diplomatic victory - it would take patience and extreme luck (on AIs and agendas) or a tiny map or something).

The design seems to intentionally push most victory conditions towards late/end game resolutions.

I don't think the eureka bonuses are a bad thing. I often see research times of 10+ turns mid/late game on techs and eurekas/inspirations tend to slow down (at least for me) in mid/late game. Boosted early game techs research times are on par with Civ 5 or so. I don't particularly want to see even longer research times.

But I agree that it often feels like I'm flying thru the tech trees even without trying too hard, even with 10+ turns of research time.

I think part of it is that even with more techs overall, having them split between two trees makes for shorter trees (but I like the new system a lot).

I generally go wide in Civ 6 and there's no science/culture penalty for doing that so that's generally going to speed you up. Civ 5 penalized your science and culture for going wide (crushingly so) but 6 seems to punish your production more and adapting to counter that (vs countring the sci/culture penalties in 5) is something many of us probably haven't fully adapted to yet (IMO there are lots of ways to deal with this in 6 but juggling all the new stuff is a work in progress, for me at least).

I also have to wonder, is any of this really a bad thing?

 

[skallben]

A few things could be done to better balance the tech pace.

Science from pop is .7/pop. Can reduce that to .5/pop to make campuses worth it when not getting mass mountains. It's part of the reason that cultures low .3/pop means you need theatres.

Eureka values can be scaled through the eras. So let the early game start at 50% then reduce the eureka value starting at Renaissance. Reduce it down to 40% til modern, then 33% after that. Do give great scientists a flat 50% eureka value to make them worth it. *ot: I have the basis for this as a mod, but the game can't handle individual eureka values at the moment wrt great people - especially the random eurekas.

Right now, no matter how you get a eureka (normal, great person, spy, research agreement) it's all the same.

And Ofc, tweak tech costs a little bit more. You can't raise tech costs too high though, else you end up needing the eureka to tech and therefore end up with two different tech trees.

I think you are on to something in that we need several measures. I agree raw population seems to be too strong currently, playing wide is very powerful with no corruption-mechanic as in old games Dont get your last line though - you mean in relation to civics?

I'm actually not sure what the poll means, does teching on higher difficulties go faster for some reasons? I thought it was the same for every difficulty (beyond the "normal" difficulty that is). Or do you mean the AI teching, which of course will be much faster at higher levels?

I agree it's a bit clumsily formulated. I started out on King and found it waaay too fast. It's even faster on emperor because the AI get more bonuses and play stronger, for instance they start with two settlers on emperor. I'm pretty sure that makes a difference.

I also have to wonder, is any of this really a bad thing?

My main objection to the pacing is that eras just disappear, you don't really get to play them. Now it seems most agree based on the poll but if Firaxis fixed this, they could have a advanced condition when starting the game to go with quick research pacing.

 

[MadDjinn]

I think you are on to something in that we need several measures. I agree raw population seems to be too strong currently, playing wide is very powerful with no corruption-mechanic as in old games Dont get your last line though - you mean in relation to civics?

I meant in relation to a game where you get eurekas vs a game where you do not.

right now, with eurekas being a 50% discount, if the pure tech costs got driven up to the point where it was effectively useless to research without getting the eureka first, then you basically have two tech trees. One where the player is punished and one where the player is overly benefiting.

 

[skallben]

I meant in relation to a game where you get eurekas vs a game where you do not.

right now, with eurekas being a 50% discount, if the pure tech costs got driven up to the point where it was effectively useless to research without getting the eureka first, then you basically have two tech trees. One where the player is punished and one where the player is overly benefiting.

Right, which further supports that several variables needs to come together to avoid bad side effects.

So what do you think about the lack off corruption mechanics, semi-ICS seem very strong not only for research. Do we need a punishing effect on wide empires again? Or maybe a buff do developed cities?

Also, what about the lack of catch-up mechanics as in V where techs get cheaper when researched by others. Some AI:s seem to lag behind alot. Is there a reason they left this out?


(Really like Beyond the Monument btw)

 

[TruthfulCake]

You can jump from Classical to Renaissance, skipping Medieval entirely, with the current design. One thing I really miss from CiV is that you feel the impact when the world enters a new era. I haven't been able to feel that in Civ VI. Sometimes, I just play the game and at one point, I think: "Oh, it's modern era now? Guess it's time to find oil".

The tech tree can be largely ignored now since they will progress at a rate that is beyond what you can catch up with production.

 

[Gehennas]

Also, what about the lack of catch-up mechanics as in V where techs get cheaper when researched by others.

I actually think that eurekas and inspirations are catch-up mechanics.
In the beginning of the game eurekas are mostly geography-based and need almost no effort from the player. However, later they become harder to get. This way the technically advanced player will have to ignore some of the eurekas, because their science goes ahead of production and culture while under-developed player will have more time to get the eureka requirements. Also, I believe that it is a reason why most of GS give eurekas - because they become more valuable if you are technically advanced and plan to go for the science victory.

Of course, this mechanic is currently not working because of the too low science costs. I think that current ancient costs are fine but all all the others should be multiplied by era-depending coefficient.

 

[rrrwww]

honestly i just had a game with england, 7 cities emperor, and i felt tech is way too slow

all my routes were international,had about 200 gpt by turn 200 on epic. there were no campuses, and i was building workers and settlers when nothing to build

science and culture were rather low- about 40 to 30 by turn 200

i had nothing to buy even... in any case, once i had my fleet i started taking everything over but then quit 10 turns later after seeing how easy it is

 

[TruthfulCake]

You can actually get by with under 100 beakers per turn for half the game now, thanks to the Eurekas. In my current game I only have like 3 campuses in a 10-city empire, and I am leading in science just fine. In BNW you used to have to have like 500 around mid-game.

 

[Matthew.]

right now, with eurekas being a 50% discount, if the pure tech costs got driven up to the point where it was effectively useless to research without getting the eureka first, then you basically have two tech trees. One where the player is punished and one where the player is overly benefiting.

With how easy many of the eureka bonuses are to get, ideally you would want to balance the pacing on a % of how many a player is expected to get in an average game. For the sake of discussion, let's say an average player gets 50% of the eureka bonuses, then the pacing would be based on roughly half the techs being half cost.

So you would only be punished if you get less-than-average number of eureka bonuses. Likewise, you would benefit if you managed to get more than the average.

 

[MadDjinn]

Right, which further supports that several variables needs to come together to avoid bad side effects.

So what do you think about the lack off corruption mechanics, semi-ICS seem very strong not only for research. Do we need a punishing effect on wide empires again? Or maybe a buff do developed cities?

Also, what about the lack of catch-up mechanics as in V where techs get cheaper when researched by others. Some AI:s seem to lag behind alot. Is there a reason they left this out?


(Really like Beyond the Monument btw)

trimming off the more obvious ICS boosters would be the better plan at the moment. The less things that can be no brainers for 'ICS' the better. On the other side, make the invested cities do more.

So, for that front, you could switch the Great People points from buildings/district into specialists. small change, but to get great people you (as per previous games) need to have the population used. Higher pop cities would be able to do that easier.

The reality is that in the game right now, you don't 'need' to ICS to win, but there is a snowball effect when you do go super wide.

District costs (sad little tech-civic scalar that should go away) really force you to plant districts as early as possible, even if you don't want them right now. So in an 'ics' plan, every city would drop the first district (at pop 1) as soon as the city is founded, before moving on to something else -- to lock in the hammer cost.

Easy change for that is to make the district cost mechanic work with districts made, rather than 'some over time scalar'. Make it self contained and have the cost go up when a district is completed, and therefore you won't have 30+ cities with a tonne of districts sitting around. You'd aim for those nice locations and the cost wouldn't magically rise before you wanted to actually plant a district.

and I'm against any sort of corruption/etc mechanic. it's unnecessary if you make the mechanics work well in the first place.

as per catch up mechanics, I mostly dislike those. But as already stated, the eurekas (if done well) can work for that.

wrt the AI, well, that's always a work in progress.

 

[ddd123]

District costs (sad little tech-civic scalar that should go away) really force you to plant districts as early as possible, even if you don't want them right now. So in an 'ics' plan, every city would drop the first district (at pop 1) as soon as the city is founded, before moving on to something else -- to lock in the hammer cost.

Easy change.

This is just a bug that need to be fixed not changed -_____-
They only need to make 2 stats: production done, production total cost, so when the cost goes up whatever you invested early stay but doesnt lock the total cost.
And I strongly think they should change the scaling, there is really too much scaling, it might be balanced, but its not fun.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This way the technically advanced player will have to ignore some of the eurekas, because their science goes ahead of production and culture while under-developed player will have more time to get the eureka requirements.

If the catch up mechanism is based on one player taking longer to get techs, then that player is still falling behind every turn, so there is no catch up mechanism

 

[RealHuhn]

District costs (sad little tech-civic scalar that should go away) really force you to plant districts as early as possible, even if you don't want them right now. So in an 'ics' plan, every city would drop the first district (at pop 1) as soon as the city is founded, before moving on to something else -- to lock in the hammer cost.

This has to be the most annoying hidden mechanic in CIV6. Naturally, you want to improve housing, terrain and/or border growth first but district costs escalate very quickly it seems. Do you have to finish the district in order to keep the costs low or can you switch production to something else after 1 turn? If you can switch, it feels even more cheesy.

OT: I do like the limited production. Decisions carry more weight compared to CIV5 and you really have to think about what to build instead of spamming everything everywhere. The balancing does seem a bit off though and mechanics like this aren't explained well enough.

 

[elitetroops]

Do you have to finish the district in order to keep the costs low or can you switch production to something else after 1 turn?

You can switch production to something else after 0 turns.