Science

[Thalassicus]

We want to feel that our skill makes a difference as we get better at the game. Bonuses from developed sources like improvements, buildings, and specialists reward a player's ingenuity. Our capability at prioritizing these developed sources matters more with gold (and other yields) than science:

• Science comes mainly from an undeveloped source (basic population).
• Gold comes mainly from developed sources (buildings, improvements, and specialists).

Consider a city with 12 pop, a library, and 1 scientist:

24 = basic population
12 = library
03 = scientist
====================
39 total

62% : basic population
31% : buildings & improvements
08% : specialists​

Now consider if 12 citizens are working 11 villages of 2 apiece, 1 merchant, and 1 market:

06 = basic population (trade route)
22 = villages
09 = market
03 = merchant
====================
40 total

15% : basic population
78% : buildings & improvements
08% : specialists
​

My goal with this topic is to make our skill more important for science income. I'd like to shift science away from undeveloped population, and towards developed sources like improvements, buildings, policies, etc. I want to keep the importance of these sources roughly balanced among themselves (so scientists are not dramatically more important than merchants, or libraries vs markets). I'm open to any suggestions you have to accomplish this.


Edit: we achieved the goals of this thread! Click here to see some results.

 

[Zaldron]

Wouldn't something as simple as moving 1 sci/pop to university help? Another thought is that the university, a tech, or both would buff say farms, mines, and villages with +1 sci, leaving resources and specialists alone (reducing the double-dip of specialists in smaller cities).

If that's too much in one place, for example put pop back to 1 for 1, and then add 1 for 2 (or even 1 for 3) pop to the university and then say give the public school a percentage in addition to its sci/pop. Would that make the buildings too similar?

 

[Castar]

An idea that may be completely unworkable, but would encourage development and development choices: grouping science into categories, then having many buildings provide percentage bonuses to research in these categories. For example, a barracks providing +10% research towards military tech.

 

[rfxmills]

Could you let us know what currently affects science please? There have been lots of changes even since I've joined in discussions which was probably only about a month ago and the website seems a bit behind.

 

[MortalD]

Simply boosting already very important building seems a bit "lame" ( sorry cant find proper word ) solution.
I would suggest adding science bonus to village improvement based on what is build in a city.

Library could add 1 science to each village ( rather then population itself ), giving us very interesting choice/development in early game - i only hope AI will do well here.
At same time University could do what library do now and add science by population.

Or vice-versa - tho moving village science to university removes that aspect of the game from early eras. Ideally i would suggest:
Library add 1 science to village + flat 2 science for city.
University add just bonus 25 % to science + jungle science.
Public School add science per pop like i think it does now.
Observatory can add 25 % also ( i don't like the flat 8 science as its mostly just weak )
And i dont really care about Laboratory so it can stay on however it works now ;p

I dint scale anything, just pop it out of head so if anything it need scaling.

 

[Thalassicus]

@rfxmills
These are the current settings.

2 per : population
3 per : scientists
1 per : library
1 per jungle: university, public school, research lab
+33% : university
1 per , 3 : public school
+50%, 4 : research lab

+3% combined research from a Research Agreement.
Some wonders (Great Library), policy bonuses (Enlightenment), and traits (Korea).

 

[rfxmills]

@rfxmills

2 per 1 : population
3 per 1 : scientists
1 per 1 : library
+33% : university
3 , 1 per 1 : public school
4 , +50% : research lab
1 per jungle: university, public school, research lab
​

I think those are what we can get in every city. I left out things restricted to specific cities or circumstances (Korean trait, Great Library, etc).

Thanks Thal, what does NC currently give? And Academies? Is anything coming from policies? I know there is the CS bonus, which isn't relevant to this.

 

[Thalassicus]

5 : per player
5 (legalism) : palace
8 + 25% + 50% (democracy) : national college
5 + 5 (scientific method) + 2 (secularism) : academy
Most enlightenment policies.

 

[Zaldron]

Library could add 1 science to each village ( rather then population itself ), giving us very interesting choice/development in early game - i only hope AI will do well here.
At same time University could do what library do now and add science by population.

Or vice-versa - tho moving village science to university removes that aspect of the game from early eras. Ideally i would suggest:
Library add 1 science to village + flat 2 science for city.
University add just bonus 25 % to science + jungle science.
Public School add science per pop like i think it does now.
Observatory can add 25 % also ( i don't like the flat 8 science as its mostly just weak )

That library would significantly change the balance towards ICS/village spam empires rather than being pretty balanced for tall/wide. What about +1 science on farms instead? That creates a different development tension that brings happiness into the equation rather than "spam a bunch of small cities for the library + scientist".

Would the university be too weak at 25?

The problem with giving a big multiplier to observatory is that whether your capital has a mountain can make a *huge* difference in you mid-late game science.

 

[wobuffet]

The problem with giving a big multiplier to observatory is that whether your capital has a mountain can make a *huge* difference in you mid-late game science.

This. Also doesn't scale at all with the number of nearby mountain tiles, which would be thematic and strategically interesting.

 

[MortalD]

This. Also doesn't scale at all with the number of nearby mountain tiles, which would be thematic and strategically interesting.

Just cuz u have more mountains, dosnt mean u need to put observatory on top of every of them ;p

 

[void_genesis]

My idea would be to reward different conditions with each different era science building. This would make meeting all the conditions for an overall science victory more fun.

1- Early building bonuses based on building alone (initially favors wide)
(library->simple knowledge repository)
Small luxury science bonus (one beaker)- rewards settling luxuries
No scientist slot

2- Mid era building bonuses based on surplus strategic resources (wide or diplomatic). Science buildings get bonus for unused iron/coal/aluminium/oil/(stone?). Rewards wide or diplomatic style and not using strategics for units/buildings.
Universities- bonus based on surplus strategic resources (2 beakers per university per surplus resource nationwide)
One scientist slot

3- Late building bonuses based on population (tall) (public school->mass education). Quite high maintenance makes it only worth building in large cities. +1 science per population 1-20, +2 science per population over 20. Rewards large cities.
Three scientist slots

4. End game building bonus based on research agreements (research lab). Rewards peaceful players.
+base^n science where n is number of RAs (would need adjusting based on number of opponents). Synergy with porcelain tower.
Favours peaceful/friendly/diplomatic style.
Three scientist slots

Playstyle compatibility
Tall- Midgame science from friendly AI/CS surplus strategic resources. Late game from high city population, end game from gold>research agreements. Late game gold limits research agreement rate (plenty of friends).

Wide/Warmonger- Libraries and universities in all/most cities due to large resource base. Late game public school high population bonus not worthwhile in most cities. Endgame research agreements difficult or impossible (slow down warmonger steamrolling).
Could make late game techs expensive enough in terms of beakers and the research lab RA bonus high enough that a warmonger has little hope of pulling off a scientific victory and ends up stuck with late industrial/early modern units (allows science focused civs a good chance at defending themselves late game).

Wide/peaceful- Wide resource base plus some friendly AI for endgame research (mostly universities). Late game diplomacy issues from border pressure limits RA rate (plenty of gold, not so many friends).

Final Idea
Does the patronage tree need to only deal with CS interactions? Is it possible to incorporate some rival AI bonuses to reduce chance of aggression?? Effect could be also added to a weak diplomacy wonder as well.....a wonder that makes the AI happier to be your neighbor would be interesting.

 

[Prodigyx732]

This may be completely unoriginal however I would like it better then what it is now.

Reduce science output to 1 pop = 1 science

Make a new tile improvement unlocked in classical era that can only be built on hills. Perhaps unrealistic but I find myself only building mines on hills and if near river a trade post.

Side Note: I also find myself never building lumber mill, it could be cause I never really see forest near the shore as I always build near the shore = food and gold galore. Moral of the story? I don't feel there's much "choice" when it comes to building what improvement's where. As long as there's 4-5 hills near my city I'm alright with production.

 

[wobuffet]

Just cuz u have more mountains, dosnt mean u need to put observatory on top of every of them ;p

What I mean is, the added value of every nearby Mountain tile beyond the first is zero. It'd be more fun, I think, if Mountains had some situational gameplay value. (Some other posters brought up that there is a strategic military defense advantage to Mountains, but I think being attacked by AIs is part of the game, and that turtling by humans should be discouraged anyhow.)

 

[Lmaoboat]

. (Some other posters brought up that there is a strategic military defense advantage to Mountains, but I think being attacked by AIs is part of the game, and that turtling by humans should be discouraged anyhow.)

You'd hate to see how I play.

 

[gunnergoz]

Perhaps science should only come from scientists and scientists would be limited by the numbers of slots provided by your science buildings. Your basic library has one, university two and so forth.

To prevent too much population being bled off into science support, the higher level buildings might just have one or two slots but the slots would have more science effect when occupied.

Your capital city (palace) would have one "permanent" scientist, free, so there will always be a minimum of one science point available.

Alternately, there might be one free scientist for each city, in addition to the one in the capital. This might reward early city expansion in the ancient era.

The presence of certain resources or geographic features (mountains, wetlands, fish, whales) might add to the effectiveness of certain science buildings' scientist slots, e.g. a city with a library that is sited next to a mountain would benefit by being able to use it for observation of the heavens, without needing to build an observatory. In the ancients era this would simulate the elders going up to the peak to learn about basic astronomy and calendar. So, for example, a plain library science slot might generate 1 science point, but if the city the library was in happened to be next to a mountain, then the library science slot might generate 1.5 science points...just throwing out numbers here, they are not meant to be definitive.

The observatory as a dedicated science building could come later in the game, with its own high-powered scientist slots. Ditto for the modern research lab or chemistry lab.

The idea would be that, to make science, you need scientists and that means setting them aside from the general population, in specific buildings for that purpose. Furthermore, not all science buildings are equal: the later ones generate far more science per scientist slot.

I admit that there may be a possible flaw in enacting something like this scheme: the AI would have to figure out how to assign pops to the science buildings, regardless if science was the city thrust or not. I'm not sure there is a way to code that with the tools we have now.

 

[Sanguinus]

A agree with "no more science per pop" as a default.
Science buildings should add a "science per pop" percentage or points as well as "Enlightment".

The science point improvement in villages is ok for me but I never used it.
Perhaps Ocean regions could be rewarded with +science as well as jungle tiles in the late game (explore deep ocean).

 

[pthmix]

A agree with "no more science per pop" as a default.
Science buildings should add a "science per pop" percentage or points as well as "Enlightment".

The science point improvement in villages is ok for me but I never used it.
Perhaps Ocean regions could be rewarded with +science as well as jungle tiles in the late game (explore deep ocean).

The research lab already adds 1 to water tiles.

Otherwise you may be able to draw some inspiration from Sneak's Empires Enhanced mod. I think he had some interesting ideas there.

 

[sukritact]

If you wanted to reward tall cities, you could shift emphasis from just population to population groups. Is it possible to change the 1 science per pop into a non-linear equation? The equation 0.1X²+X=Y gives you ridiculous amounts of science for cities with 20+ pop.

Or you could just link it to number of buildings/wonders in the city? Or maybe have the science buildings improve science yields from working improvements and specialists.

 

[Thalassicus]

Whatever we change, I'd like to maintain balance between:

• Buildings
• Specialists
• Policies
• Etc...

So I'd like to avoid direct buffs to the science buildings. We wouldn't want to make them too powerful relative to other buildings. A sideways change to how they work would be okay (while maintaining equal power).

Let me ask a related question... when you have the choice on a river between two improvements, which do you typically prioritize:

• Farm or Village
• Mine or Village
• Lumbermill or Village