Tech Progression Too Fast?

[Ebrim]

I do think that Eurekas are a bit too easy. Yes they should be based around your environment but by making them super easy to get they aren't actually reflecting your environment much because just about anyone can get them.

 

[need my speed]

I said that from the very beginning. A 50% boost combined with such an easy bonus is rather ridiculous. Eureka bonuses should be something like 'have at least 30% of all the tiles under your cities' control be water tiles for ten continuous turns while owning at least three cities', which would then give you a bonus to Sailing. That way, you actually do get map-dependent things; you'll actually see civilisations specialising themselves.

 

[elitetroops]

Quill's game is a bad example. Him reaching the Modern and Atomic eras so fast is mostly the result of bad play. The Atomic and Information era techs don't really give you anything but the ability to construct spaceships and units. He doesn't even start on the spaceport in a very long time after unlocking it (didn't check, but I'd say dozens of turns) and he really doesn't need those units. In fact, he only hurts himself by building modern units with very high upkeep to fight vastly inferior random barbarians. Being that far in the tech tree basically gives him nothing at all. Meanwhile, he has barely entered the Industrial era on the civics tree and cannot even build Neighborhoods yet. The later parts of the Civics tree come with some really useful stuff that would help him a lot more than any of those late game techs can help him. Worst thing is that he doesn't even realize this and keeps focusing on science, with over 3 times higher science than culture output and nothing useful at all to research.

Had he instead focused a bit more on culture to keep a more reasonable science/culture ratio throughout the game, he would possibly have reached the later eras of the tech tree later but most likely won the space victory a lot earlier. I say "possibly", because it's also possible he could have reached the later eras on the tech tree just as fast while being much further along the civics tree, because of better policies and better options to pick up Eurekas.

 

[criZp]

That seems a bit overly complex for civ? They could maybe give you -20% research time on sailing for each ocean tile adjacent to a city center you own. Settle in a bay and get a small boost, settle a city on some peninsula and get u huge boost, settle another city near the coast and get additional boost.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I haven't seen a let's play video that's been on a difficult higher than Prince. I'm pretty sure half of us here would tech just as fast in civ5 on a prince game. Until I do, I'm not overly concerned at all.

Maybe Civ VI difficulties will work differently from past Civ games, but don't difficulty levels typically affect the rate at which the AI progresses, not the player?

Human players actually teched faster on higher levels in Civ V because various catchup mechanics in the game let them leech some AI science. Not sure if those mechanics are still significant in Civ VI, but I don't see why high levels will slow the player down that much (other than maybe needing to build a few more units early).

 

[Sansa_Stark]

On the other hand, districts should be more balanced. As it is now, people build campus, holy site, industrial zone primarily as it seems. The others should be more important. I haven't seen much cultural districts in non-greece videos and only one or two entertainment districts. If techs needs more science, that will only lead to more campuses and even less other districts. That's also why the solution 'reduce science per pop' is not the best way to nerf it.

So you are saying that they should change some balance related to districts since 7-10 people who had ZERO clue what is actually good in Civ6 were doing in their first couple of games?

 

[Siptah]

So you are saying that they should change some balance related to districts since 7-10 people who had ZERO clue what is actually good in Civ6 were doing in their first couple of games?

We'll have to see if it holds true of course. But districts like the entertainment complex should be really needed at some point. I know, right now, no one has much experience with the game. But it seems you can successfully (on Prince, yeah) play without it, same for the commercial, harbor and the cultural district. They seem pretty optional. There might be viable strategies for which you need them, of course.
Since districts are limited per city by pop, the decision which to build next should be a hard one imo. And I really hoped for that to be one of the most crucial things you do in your cities. Right now, it doesn't seem like it.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

TBH I don't get what this thread is all about. You all want to change some mechanic (and even able to provide specific numbers how to do it, which truly amazes me), based on single gameplay? I mean, really?

1. If the issue is year when players reach certain eras, then I have to admit I am little biased because I just don't care. But even if I did - is this new? AFAIK science victories were common under 250/300 turns in Civ5 (and possible under turn 200), and as I just checked, Quill is at turn 311 in his current gameplay and did not win so far (I have no idea how close he is). So, is there different ratio between turns and years as was in Civ5? If not, what's the deal?
2. To partly answer my question (I did not see any late game, including Quill's), it seems that part of the problem is that he has science tree fully researched, but it will take some time to actually win science victory, since it takes lot of production to execute it. If that is the case, it just mean that they have change a design a little bit, and in Civ6 you actually WILL progress a little faster through science tree, but you WILL NOT win SV victory sooner. That's not bad, that is just different design. So what you need to do, is change priorities and take more care about culture (which I guess has some policies to speed up Mars mission) and production. That will result in slower science and you all might be happy.
3. To me it also means that he is playing the game bad, by prioritizing science too much over other things. I didn't see his gameplay, but maybe he just builds many Campuses, which is just bad in Civ6 and he doesn't know it. And weren't these things common in previous iterations too? I never really cared, but I am pretty sure you could get artilleries in some totally unrealistic turn/year in Civ5 if you beelined it and didn't care about anything else, but a) that year/turn didn't matter and b) it wasn't a good path to victory.
4. Last but not least, you are really overestimating Quill's game. I randomly compared him and Marb in turn 193 (end of Marbozir's part 11). Science/culture Quill 127/56, Marbozir 71/59. I have no clue what's the reason, but I am pretty sure this thread wouldn't exist if we all watched just Marbozir (who I consider better). So, why don't we just give it a shot, and judge later?

 

[need my speed]

That seems a bit overly complex for civ? They could maybe give you -20% research time on sailing for each ocean tile adjacent to a city center you own. Settle in a bay and get a small boost, settle a city on some peninsula and get u huge boost, settle another city near the coast and get additional boost.

Sure, perfectly fine by me!

You all want to change some mechanic (and even able to provide specific numbers how to do it, which truly amazes me), based on single gameplay?

No, I said it from the very beginning the specifics of the Eureka mechanic were introduced, and it's about the concept behind it; that it should be something that actually shows a specialisation or such, not 'oh, sure, I'll just do this in a random turn, and presto'.

 

[juanpavo]

I haven't seen a let's play video that's been on a difficult higher than Prince. I'm pretty sure half of us here would tech just as fast in civ5 on a prince game. Until I do, I'm not overly concerned at all.

Yes, agree that it may be too soon to worry.
It may be that the exact percentage depends on the level, for example 50% at Prince level, 40% at King level, etc.

 

[Siptah]

Yes, agree that it may be too soon to worry.
It may be that the exact percentage depends on the level, for example 50% at Prince level, 40% at King level, etc.

I just hope it also scales with game speed. 50% at standard is quite different from 50% marathon, or am I thinking in a wrong way?

 

[Big J Money]

You all want to change some mechanic (and even able to provide specific numbers how to do it, which truly amazes me), based on single gameplay? I mean, really?

Depending on what you're examining, a single game can be a valid point of data. It's valid to expect that even in outlier games, there should be a certain minimum tech rate.

My biggest gripe with Eurekas is more or less they don't look like they were balanced or very well thought out. I'm not even convinced that it's a good system or that it can be balanced without months of painstaking playtesting, while most other gameplay factors are left untouched. I definitely don't envy Firaxis having to balance a game like this under development. Let's be honest, Civ games take about 6-12 post release months to achieve a more stable level of balance.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Eurkas are not hard to get but many of them have opportunity costs which may not be worth the extra science.

The main thing is simply that the cost for each tech is rather low even if you do not get eurkas at the same time the production/gold cost is pretty substantial if you want to make use of the stuff the tech unlock.

 

[Magil]

I'd rather they didn't adjust Eurekas before we even get a feel for them other than just in the press build on Prince at Standard/Quick speed. I always predicted that Eurekas would be a big deal, but even I'd rather see them adjust tech costs across the board rather than just Eurekas. If it does prove that tech rates are too fast (it does seem like the modern era is being reached by players of all levels of skill pretty early in the game, even though they have just started playing VI and are barely optimizing).

 

[Big J Money]

Well... if Eurekas unlock 50% of a tech, it would have made sense for them to offset that by increasing the cost of every tech by 25%. Maybe they didn't do that. This is assuming science yields are equivalent to Civ V of course.

 

[indradiva]

I wouldn't hop to conclusions just by watching a press release letsplay, whose main function is to show things off. Also, it's not absolute progress that is important, but the relative one. If the other player or the AI is progressing faster than you, it's not a big problem if your own progress seems too fast.

 

[Big J Money]

There are other factors that can lead to a conclusion that tech is moving too quickly or slowly. How long are units valuable before they must be upgraded, how many buildings and districts can one build in high production cities, how long does one hold on to their policy choices before time to reset them, etc. The game can have the feeling of moving too fast in general, not just in comparison to opponents.

 

[Dactyl]

Please note that the reviewers are restricted to playing on Prince difficulty. That tells me that Firaxis is still working on balance issues at higher difficulty levels, so I'm not particularly worried about this issue, especially since all versions of Civ have proved challenging at the higher difficulty levels.

 

[indradiva]

I'm not speaking about feeling, but about actual progress, if you're lagging behind someone, you are not progressing. And speaking about feeling, I don't have the feeling that the game is progressing fast, from watching the letsplays. Given how expensive unit upgrades are and how high the maintenace costs are, I think the game has not too fast progress. Theoretical knowledge can be more advanced than practical, but you need to implement it too. Nevertheless, I'm sure the final product will be more challenging than its press-release version.

 

[phryxolydian]

Quill's game is a bad example. Him reaching the Modern and Atomic eras so fast is mostly the result of bad play.

Well then, we have nothing to worry about.

AFAIK science victories were common under 250/300 turns in Civ5 (and possible under turn 200)

It only took those players a thousand hours to be able to win SVs in such fashion. These are LPs and videos from people's first few hours into the game.