Science

[Sanguinus]

@Thalassicus
As I never used villages before, I'd always prefer the farm, mine or lumbermill.

 

[pthmix]

For me its...
... with a tall empire: Farm > Village, Mine > Village, Lumbermill > Village (I don't build many villages in a tall game).
... with a wide empire: Village > everything unless it's my capital or the city is in a good location. I will only build mines if the city has the potential to be a production powerhouse.

 

[Seek]

It depends on the game (terrain, lots of trading partners, Collosus, whether I have coastal cities, etc) but generally I'll have at least two villages per RS city, and will sometimes village over farms with Rationalism and multiple Maritimes.

 

[MortalD]

Library can help educate peasants --> +1 science on farm
University can help educate town people --> +1 science on Village
Public School can educate everyones children -- > +1 science on EVERY improvement ( even work boats ) or simply +1 for every pop.
Observatory can add +25 % and req mountain within 2 haxes away not 1 ( like Machu P. )

Or i can just go to kitchen and make myself a coffee

 

[pthmix]

Library can help educate peasants --> +1 science on farm
University can help educate town people --> +1 science on Village
Public School can educate everyones children -- > +1 science on EVERY improvement ( even work boats ) or simply +1 for every pop.
Observatory can add +25 % and req mountain within 2 haxes away not 1 ( like Machu P. )

Or i can just go to kitchen and make myself a coffee

If I remember correctly, Thal tried this when he wanted to add a unique granary building for Korea and it did not work because there is no table for yield changes to improvements in the game.

 

[Zaldron]

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

Note: I tend to go tall.

Farm ~80% depending on city needs. *Always* mine or lumber mill if possible.

 

[mitsho]

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

• Both, so that I can switch, afterwards mostly Villages since food seems to be easy to get
• Mine, production is always more valuable. Sometimes a lonely village
• lumbermill mostly... dito
  

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.

That's what I wanted to propose:

1) If later populations give bigger boosts in science, it is worth more to have more tall cities than many small. (If 4 size 5 cities give 4*5= 20 science, but one size 20 city gives 5 (first 5 population) + 10 (pop 6-10) + 15 (pop 11-15) + 20 (pop 16-20) = 50 science, that's a hell of a difference.

Unfortunately, the question is how to make these steps "flat" and not steep. Also, a high-pop city doesn't mean that it is developed....

Thus...

2) Every buildings gives science. Thus it doesn't matter which strategy (culture, commerce or military) you go, you should have a higher science if you build up instead of wide (as long as you keep improving your cities instead of building units (or wonders), you're good. To make that scale better, go something like this
Tier 1 buildings (f.e. wall or monument): 1 science
Tier 2 buildings (f.e. castle or temple): 2 science
Tier 3 buildings (f.e. arsenal or opera house): 3 science
Tier 4 buildings (f.e. military base or museum): 5 science

I'd guess that'd lead to heavy need for rebalancement though...

3) A simpler way would be to add in a new national wonder for science, just like the National College, but for Universities or Public Schools.

 

[pthmix]

Mitsho just gave me an idea: How about something like + x on buildings or population or something else if the city is connected with a trade route?

Basically you would have to connect your city to the trade network if you want it to give even basic science. I. e. a city without trade route could have +0 per while a city with a trade route could have + 2 per and a city with a railroad connection could have + 3 :c5science per . You could do something similar to buildings.

 

[sukritact]

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

In order:

• Farm
• Mine
• Lumbermill

Mitsho just gave me an idea: How about something like + x on buildings or population or something else if the city is connected with a trade route?

Basically you would have to connect your city to the trade network if you want it to give even basic science. I. e. a city without trade route could have +0 per while a city with a trade route could have + 2 per and a city with a railroad connection could have + 3 :c5science per . You could do something similar to buildings.

Wouldn't this encourage ICS? The fact that you could build a bunch of the cheaper buildings that could then be boosted by some roads doesn't seem a good way to reward tall cities.

 

[Txurce]

Science is a rather unusual yield. Most of it comes from population, an "undeveloped" source. It doesn't require direct development like improvements or buildings. Any city with high population gives lots of science, even if it has no buildings, improvements, connection to the empire, or so on. This is probably one reason why infinite city spam was so successful when Civ 5 released two years ago.

Anyone have suggestions for how science could reward developed cities more than undeveloped cities?

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

Given a culture of learning, the higher the population, the likelier the scientific gains. If we’re looking for a game equivalent to a “culture of learning,” I’d suggest the openers (or x SPs) of either Tradition or Liberty. These could trigger a boost in science from 1:1 to the present 2:1.

Buildings other than scientific ones have next to no correlation to learning. As has already been suggested, you could alternately make the science output of more science buildings be based on population, like the Jade Hall.

Having said that, why are we looking for new ways to reward developed cities with more science than undeveloped ones (given that they already get more science from buildings and specialists)? There’s no ICS in VEM; human players already build plenty of improvements; warmongers already tend to limit city size; and most importantly, low-development AI like the Mongols and Danes need all the help they can get acquiring science.

 

[gunnergoz]

I optimize for whatever gives me the biggest payout...most of the time. If a tile can be improved to provide a maximum of one thing, I generally play to that strength and put down the complementary improvement. I do make exceptions if, for instance, a city is in dire need of food to survive.

 

[pthmix]

...

Wouldn't this encourage ICS? The fact that you could build a bunch of the cheaper buildings that could then be boosted by some roads doesn't seem a good way to reward tall cities.

I thought about rewarding developed cities. It would not support ICS because you could just take the yields citizens currently give and make them dependend on road connection. I do not suggest adding more to small cities, that wouldn't be such a great idea.

 

[Zaldron]

But it's much simpler and quicker to keep ICS cities connected than tall cities that may be much farther apart.

 

[Thalassicus]

It's a small statistical sample, but still valuable:

• Sanguinus : low village priority
• pthmix : low for tall, high for wide
• Seek : moderate
• Zaldron : low
• mitsho : moderate
• sukritact : low

I suspect villages are a moderate to low priority for most people. I think the reason is partially gameplay (gold can't build wonders) and partially psychological: production gives an immediate local effect, whereas gold is pooled into a more nebulous global supply. In previous versions of civilization cottages generated both gold and science. Villages produce only gold, which is somewhat interchangeable with production.

If science depends more on villages in a way that favors tall empires, we solve two problems at once:

• Undervalued villages.
• Science comes mainly from population.

 

[Seek]

My hypothesis is if we make science depend on villages and favor tall empires, we could make villages more important and reward developed cities more than undeveloped ones.

That's a tall order, given a) wide empires naturally have more tiles and b) we can't mod buildings to generate science (iirc?).

I think the simplest and most effective way to favor tall empires would be to return the National Wonders to the previous primarily %-based benefit. I believe the change was made to counteract super-capitals, so we could experiment with limiting NWs to maybe 3 or 4 per city (less harsh than Civ4's 2/city, but would encourage more city specialization).

 

[Thalassicus]

wide empires naturally have more tiles

More unworked tiles. One citizen works 1 tile, and unworked tiles don't produce anything. Say we have 20 to build N cities:

1 city
16
4 per city + 1 per = 20
Can work 16 tiles

2 cities
6 per city
4 per city + 1 per = 20
Can work 12 tiles

The tall empire can get more use out of tile bonuses, since it's working more tiles.

we can't mod buildings to generate science

Could you explain your thoughts about this in more detail?

I think the simplest and most effective way to favor tall empires would be to return the National Wonders to the previous primarily %-based benefit.

Is there a way this could help the problem of science coming mainly from undeveloped population?

 

[mitsho]

Also, Villages can grow very powerful with certain social policies. More so than Farms. Thus as many people stop playing by the Renaissance or Industrial age (since they've already won the game), they never experience this powerfulness. Also early bonusses are stronger than later ones.

A very general sketch of an idea I'd call Bureaucracy:

1)Reasoning behind this:
If you want to have science on villages, Wide playstyle profit the most from it. So you need to make them dependent on Buildings, but those can be built also in wide games, if you focus on building them, you are still better of than with a tall gameplay. So you need to have some check benefits Tall empires, ergo ressources acquired with a Tall gameplay.

2) Background
Science happens in cities, but it needs to have a broad base from where to recruit "scientists". The most people live in the countryside. If one combines those two in the gameplay, it should favour Tall empires while still letting Wide empires profit a bit from it (since they do have one of the two variables...).

3) A new Building line of Governance: Town Hall -> Parliament -> Administration
They grant 1, 3 or 6 science to villages, thus for every city (of the same size and with the same amount of villages) with a Parliament you'd need 3 such sized ones with a Town Hall.

3) A new Strategic Ressource: Bureaucrats
All these buildings cost one of these ressources. Those are available via Palace (not too many) and via select playstyles:
City States: Expansion and Tall
Wonders: Tall?
Select Buildings like Castle or Bank: Wide and Conquest
National Wonders: Tall
Social Policies: Depending on distribution can go anywhere

4) Problems:
- It's not an easy fix at all and goes away a lot from the original vanilla set up.
- I doubt the AI understands it.

So, the other way is to just go back to the Civ 4 set up:
Name them Hamlets and let them grow slowly into village and towns. Towns should have exponentionally higher science yields than hamlet. Conquest let's them drop a level, Freedom helps the Growth and Order gives science to Hamlets to let them catch up.

Again, doubtful for the AI...

 

[Thalassicus]

If you want to have science on villages, a Wide playstyle profits the most from it.

This is a hypothesis I've seen often, but I have not seen evidence to support it. The numbers I posted above support the conclusion that tall empires benefit most from tile bonuses.

 

[Seek]

More unworked tiles. One citizen works 1 tile, and unworked tiles don't produce anything. Say we have 20 to build N cities:

1 city
16
4 per city + 1 per = 20
Can work 16 tiles

2 cities
6 per city
4 per city + 1 per = 20
Can work 12 tiles

It does matter that wide empires have more tiles, because one city reaching 16 pop takes a huge amount of turns compared to two cities reaching 6 pop. That's the reason why ICS works in the right conditions. ICS means packing cities as close as possible, so there really won't be any more unworked tiles than a tall city - it will just happen sooner (because of fast growth in early cities)!

This will also:
1) further devalue Merchants (why would you ever work a Merchant over a village when villages yield at least the same amount of gold, with food, production and science?) and buffs Scientists (with 2/pop, working a scientist slot gives a 150% increase while with 1/pop it's a 300% increase)
2) cause a return of the gold overabundance only recently resolved.

Could you explain your thoughts about this in more detail?

I recall you saying there was issues with adding science to improvements when you were developing the Jade Hall. If I'm wrong, we can work with the village-science idea via buildings in a way that favors developed cities more easily.

Is there a way this could help the problem of science coming mainly from undeveloped population?

Aside from the ideas about National Wonders above, we can also adjust later tech buildings to favor tall empires by increasing PS's and RL's % and/or per-pop bonuses while increasing their hammer and maintenance costs.

 

[mitsho]

Despite the time it takes to grow a city to size 16, much of these citizens are either bound to food or production tiles. While it's much easier to support many small towns via f.e. Granaries.

Additionally I very very rarely see a city that can work 16 tiles. Normally they are closer together. Also in many situations, specialists and that iron mine takes precedence over villages. If you have a river, you will fill out the river tiles first. The bonus ressources are mostly better than villages as well. That may benefit tall empires in that they are the ones to get past these bonus tiles to the village tiles, but then in a tall empire, I'd go for specialists.

You could make villages cost food to sustain, so that you'd need a developed city/empire to work them whereas the wide empires could only work one of those with the free food.