Science

[Txurce]

From this, I think Monastery or Monastic School works well (though Txurce and pthmix are right, a flat bonus would be more fitting), Universities seem to be at an appropriate place and science on villages should unlock at Printing Press. This last is far more historically accurate and would prevent messing too much with the early-game science balance. It would make for an interesting transition in the mid-game away from pop-based science to terrain-based science, giving incentive to expansion and land-grabs which seems historically accurate in my mind as well for the time period.

A high-tier building would be much better if you're willing to code it (great to hear it's feasible!) - the only reason I suggested a policy is because I was under the impression you couldn't create such a building.

Your "Printing Press" trigger is basically my earlier Renaissance trigger - so of course, I agree. I also think we need more than one additional building (a la Sukritact) or it's too easy for a wide empire to emulate this approach. As I mentioned earlier, multiple buildings work in that you can only build so many of them. (Anyone would just knock off a monastery.)

This also allows population to have more of an effect for longer, as I believe it should. I'm happy to support Thal's desire to change the system, but there's nothing passive about building a large population: it requires multiple buildings, and increased happiness demands. In many ways, shifting it to villages is actually more passive (build it and you're done).

The gold issue you raised earlier is something we should not lose track of. As it is, we are still dealing with the blowback from having the AI spend all its gold. In my last game America had countless frigates, and partly as a result of the crazy unit building, for the second game in a row almost all the AI were hopelessly broke in the later game. Adding more gold may alleviate this problem... or it may make it worse.

 

[Seek]

Your "Printing Press" trigger is basically my earlier Renaissance trigger - so of course, I agree. I also think we need more than one additional building (a la Sukritact) or it's too easy for a wide empire to emulate this approach. As I mentioned earlier, multiple buildings work in that you can only build so many of them. (Anyone would just knock off a monastery.)

I'm not certain we need more than one building - we could create a new one that would be an interim between Uni and PS (since it's off the science tech path and a third tier building, it wouldn't be terribly easy to grab for wide empires) or we could shift Oxford in another direction and have it unlock village science and become available at PP.

This also allows population to have more of an effect for longer, as I believe it should. I'm happy to support Thal's desire to change the system, but there's nothing passive about building a large population: it requires multiple buildings, and increased happiness demands. In many ways, shifting it to villages is actually more passive (build it and you're done).

The gold issue you raised earlier is something we should not lose track of. As it is, we are still dealing with the blowback from having the AI spend all its gold. In my last game America had countless frigates, and partly as a result of the crazy unit building, for the second game in a row almost all the AI were hopelessly broke in the later game. Adding more gold may alleviate this problem... or it may make it worse.

Agree on both points.

 

[Thalassicus]

Resource tiles provide better yields than normal improvements, and get even better with the various bonuses from buildings like the Granary. Most cities have a few workable resources within their range. If a city has 5 citizens, they will generally be working resources. This makes resource improvements best for wide empires. I'm relatively confident the best strategy for a wide empire in the early game is to pursue techs which unlock nearby resources:

• Calendar
• Sailing
• Animal Husbandry
• Archery
• Masonry

This is why writing and villages are low priorities for me. I focus on farms and resource tiles. I believe villages favor neither wide nor tall empires, and changes to them will not significantly effect the early game.

I want to avoid blocking players from choices (building villages or selecting policy trees). I prefer those things to part of built-in gameplay mechanics like described above, instead of enforced. It's similar to what I discussed in the variable difficulty thread.


@Seek
I think that article is about western Europe. I'm looking for a more general, global term for a private boarding school with religious affiliation.

 

[Txurce]

I'm not certain we need more than one building - we could create a new one that would be an interim between Uni and PS (since it's off the science tech path and a third tier building, it wouldn't be terribly easy to grab for wide empires) or we could shift Oxford in another direction and have it unlock village science and become available at PP.

Agreed.

 

[Txurce]

I think that article is about western Europe. I'm looking for a more general, global term for this type of educational facility.

"Monastery" is a global term for similar institutions. All the major religions (except Judaism) have had them for many centuries, and they have generally been associated with education. In fact, "Wat" means "monastery"!

 

[gunnergoz]

Earlier I posited an education building that converted some gold to science. Any comments on the idea or is it too far out in left field?

I could see it as the later-game equivalent of a think-tank or commercial science lab.

Don't know if it is technically feasible or even useful given your vision for VE, but it did occur to me as one way to put generate science by bleeding off a little gold income and it is not directly related to pop, either developed or not.

 

[Seek]

I believe villages favor neither wide nor tall empires, and changes to them will not significantly effect the early game.

Fair enough. While I do think it would be more interesting, historically accurate and better for gameplay if science-gathering shifted mid-game at PP, I will happily test the mechanic when released and report back. Btw, thanks for considering our concerns before implementing the mechanic!

"Monastery" is a global term for similar institutions. All the major religions (except Judaism) have had them for many centuries, and they have generally been associated with education. In fact, "Wat" means "monastery"!

This. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education reveals no better candidate.

Earlier I posited an education building that converted some gold to science. Any comments on the idea or is it too far out in left field?

I could see it as the later-game equivalent of a think-tank or commercial science lab.

Don't know if it is technically feasible or even useful given your vision for VE, but it did occur to me as one way to put generate science by bleeding off a little gold income and it is not directly related to pop, either developed or not.

Maintenance costs already reflect this, and in VEM they are significantly higher than vanilla - unless you meant gold and science modifiers? That would almost be like reintroducing the sliders from previous Civ games.

 

[Txurce]

While I do think it would be more interesting, historically accurate and better for gameplay if science-gathering shifted mid-game at PP, I will happily test the mechanic when released and report back.

Yes, v.154.1 does so much stuff so cohesively, that I want to try it before opining too much. That said, I happen to agree with your reasons for shifting village-based science harvesting to PP or Renaissance. It would make the game more exciting, and possibly create the sort of evolutionary shift G&K promise as it shifts from faith-based to government-based diplomacy. (If we did this, I would probably boost village science more, to help the AI. But we'll see whether they need it or not soon enough.)

 

[gunnergoz]

@Seek - no I was simply addressing the original (as I understood it) question of how to get more science without involving undeveloped population to generate it. We seem to agree that villages can perhaps be one vehicle for this in mid and late game. I was just brainstorming another means to the same end...since we have income from mines and villages, even to excess in later turns, perhaps some income can be indirectly diverted into science generation. A building (or set of buildings) doing just that would be an option that a city builder could use to tune his output so that some of his gold is generating science, without having to commit the entire city production to make science.
I'm not familiar enough with the gears and wheels of how Civ works, honestly, to be even sure the AI would be able to use it or might suffer from it's adoption, though.

Admittedly, WAG ideas are a dime a dozen...analyzing their value and implementing them are not my strong points. Whats what I keep you guys around for.

 

[Lmaoboat]

Unfortunately we can't have buildings affect improvements - ridiculous, I know, since buildings can affect resources (like Cattle or Incense) and tile features (like Forest or Jungle). Improvements can only be affected via tech tree or SPs currently. Yet another unfathomable coding decision by Firaxis.

If Thal can figure that out, his proposition would be much easier to balance.

You can't? I could have sworn there were wonders and builds that increased tile outputs. At least in some of the mods.

 

[Zaldron]

]

Big chart removed.

Summary of changes:

• Tech costs changed to keep research pace the same.
• 15 per player (was 5) to help the early game and favor tall empires.
• 1 per (was 2 per 1).
• +1 Villages with Writing.

The one thing you forgot to mention here is that while the science is the same on both sides of the chart, the right hand side has a potentially significant net loss of food (up to -18 food for the pop 15 city) which hurts tall empires more than wide - wide will just stop growing at a suitably small number and plant another city, while tall (by definition of being few big cities) has no choice but to slow growth (by converting farms to villages) or give up any village science at all.

 

[learner gamer]

I agree that villages don't come close to the value of mines in the early game, and doubt they ever will (or should). I am foreseeing repercussions with regard to villages vs farms. (I don't think most humans build villages on hills.) Start raising the value of villages, and you affect the value of farms. That will have repercussions on other aspects of the game (good or bad, I don't know.)

Thanks Txurce. My guess is that you’re suggesting that a strategy of farms plus villages now beats out an alternative of something involving mines (since I updated my spreadsheet to place a village on a hill (and replace a mine) at 3 pop and saw no material change to the results.) Whilst I could update the spreadsheet to examine this alternative (which would require looking at a different pop size), things seem to have been rather superseded by the release of v.154, which alters hammer and gold costs amongst numerous other things.

Rather than continue this analysis (for which I’m grateful for your insight), it’s likely more productive – and fun – for me to try out v.154. Thanks again for your feedback.

 

[Txurce]

Rather than continue this analysis (for which I’m grateful for your insight), it’s likely more productive – and fun – for me to try out v.154. Thanks again for your feedback.

I'm doing the same thing, except I'm waiting for v154.1, where all the science changes should kick in. The difference between 153 and 154 is huge!

 

[rfxmills]

I went over the discussion from the beginning, there are a lot of ideas brought up!

Reducing science given to citizens for simply existing is a good idea. Couldn't we reduce the cost of techs a suitable amount (~25%) to compensate and call it quits for now? Which would mean we don't have to rebalance the whole system, adding new buildings or repatriating existing buildings.

Losing 1/ and keeping everything else the same increases the relative contribution of specialists and buildings, but isn't that the point?

Losing 1/, but then bringing it back only for citizens who work villages unbalances the relationship between villages, farms, mines and specialists.

If this doesn't work we can look at more drastic changes.

 

[Prodigyx732]

+1 to Villages > Korea's UA

 

[Txurce]

+1 to Villages > Korea's UA

This had crossed my mind, but I told myself that I must be missing something. Consequently... I think you missed something, Prodigy!

Reducing science given to citizens for simply existing is a good idea. Couldn't we reduce the cost of techs a suitable amount (~25%) to compensate and call it quits for now?

I hope it's as simple as this. Population would still be important, but the effect of buildings would increase proportionately. Fine tuning would then probably be about straight buffs vs pop-based ones.

 

[Pep]

Just another idea: if the goal is to buff science in tall empires and increase the importance of science buildings, what about adding modifiers on science buildings based on cities' population?. For example: an extra 10% science to University if city has 10 population or more.

 

[Thalassicus]

The one thing you forgot to mention here is that while the science is the same on both sides of the chart, the right hand side has a potentially significant net loss of food (up to -18 food for the pop 15 city) which hurts tall empires more than wide...

@Zaldron
I think tall empires will be better off:

• Aqueducts earlier in the tech tree and lower cost (v153).
• New percentage modifier for science (v153.1).
• Higher per-player science (v153.1).

If food is a concern we can add some to Aqueducts.

Do you feel the aqueduct buffs are not enough to counterbalance building fewer farms? I think population is primarily limited by happiness, not food.

@Txurce
I want to give everyone a chance to weigh in with their opinions before updating the mod.

@rfxmills
Scientists were originally too powerful, so I raised tech costs and sci-from-pop. This made population too powerful, and I realized that decision was wrong too. It's like squeezing a long party balloon. It just moves stuff from one area to another. This is why I want to reshape things in a more basic way by introducing a new source of science. With that approach, we can keep the balance of other buildings/specialists unchanged.

Villages seem to be considered less important than other improvements, so buffing them is probably okay. Adding a new science building should also be okay since it can be individually balanced against other buildings.

My goal with this topic is to make our skill more important for science income. I'd like to shift science away from basic 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).

If the goal is to buff science in tall empires and increase the importance of science buildings...

I'm not focused on tall/wide balance in this thread. If that needs changes, altering aqueducts or the Tradition tree is an easier way to do it. I don't want to make individual science buildings more important than their counterparts (like library-vs-market), but increasing the proportion of science coming from buildings in general is okay. It's not really the focus, though.

 

[Txurce]

@Txurce
I want to give everyone a chance to weigh in with their opinions before updating the mod.

That's what I guessed and, given the diversity of suggestions, it's a good idea.

@rfxmills
Scientists were originally too powerful, so I raised tech costs and sci-from-pop. This made population too powerful, and I realized that decision was wrong too. It's like squeezing a long party balloon. It just moves stuff from one area to another. This is why I want to reshape things in a more basic way by introducing a new source of science. With that approach, we can keep the balance of other buildings/specialists unchanged.

Villages seem to be considered less important than other improvements, so buffing them is probably okay. Adding a new science building should also be okay since it can be individually balanced against other buildings.

All of this makes sense to me - it's the basis for your proto-proposal - but I'm not sure how it answers rfxmills' suggestion that you cut population influence, but balance it not via new buildings and especially village science, given its potential for collateral damage, but simply by lowering tech costs. To my layperson's eye, this would raise the value of every science building and wonder by default, making science more pro-active, while still keeping pro-active population growth viable. What about his proposal seems sub-optimal to you?

 

[Thalassicus]

Those were the changes made in v131.1 as a result of the problems discussed in the yields thread. If we reverse it we'll just replace one set of problems with another. Since both alternatives have their issues, I started this thread to search for the fundamental root problem of science.

We advance in a few ways:

• Policies
• Techs
• Construction
• Expansion
• etc...

I suspect the basic problem is too few options for science in the early game. It's mainly population and libraries until the medieval era. Construction is the most open-ended since we can build things with gold or production, and gold comes from a wide variety of sources. Even culture has more sources than science:

• Monuments right away, temples by the second era.
• All three opening policies provide culture in different ways.
• All wonders give culture.

A lack of options for science income might or might not be the root problem, but I figure it's worthwhile to do some tests and find out.