Tech Progression Too Fast?

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

If you started with all techs but had no production and no gold they would not be of much use.

Getting science seems rather easy but getting gold and production is the tricky part because you need to invest gold and production to get more gold and production.

Skipping the campus and go straight for the commerce hub may be a risk reward strategy which may have huge payoff if you can get away with it.

It may be better in the long run if you can backtrack to the campus insted of building it first because the goal seems to be to maximize your gold and production because these 2 resources is what your whole economy is built on.

 

[joncnunn]

If you started with all techs but had no production and no gold they would not be of much use.

Getting science seems rather easy but getting gold and production is the tricky part because you need to invest gold and production to get more gold and production.

Skipping the campus and go straight for the commerce hub may be a risk reward strategy which may have huge payoff if you can get away with it.

It may be better in the long run if you can backtrack to the campus insted of building it first because the goal seems to be to maximize your gold and production because these 2 resources is what your whole economy is built on.

If there's not anything providing a science boost to a campus (other than the district adjacency bonuses), even in the short run, it's better to build some other district first; in a position where the campus will be next to both to the city center and whatever you just built so that everything gets something immediately upon being built rather than having several turns of getting absolutely nothing.

 

[Stauffenberg]

Quill18 was maximizing techs by going after eureka moments and he became suzerain of 2 science city states. He built a lot of campuses at the expense of his production and economy. If the AI had been more aggressive then he would have been forced into building more units and then he couldn't have got all the libraries and universities.

To me the biggest issue is that the eureka / inspiration moments gives a huge bonus (50%) regardless of the absolute cost. 50% when the research cost is 50 is just 25. Almost like what you can get out of pillaging a campus district. However 50% eureka when the research cost is 2000 is 1000. Quite big gain for just achieving something minor.

I think having a tiered eureka / inspiration system could have been better. At least 2 tiers like 20% for an easy first eureka and another 30% for a little more difficult second eureka. E. g. for Irrigation you could get 20% for farming a resource, but 30% for discovering 2 resources where you can build a plantation. It would be logical that the need for irrigation would increase if you had found resources that could benefit from irrigation. Farming a resource would give you some ideas about how to do it.

Right now it seems like you get a lot of the early eureka moments by just doing normal things, not having to spend some effort into getting them. That seems too easy to me.

If a 2 tiered bonus is too complicated you could let Eureka moments give a fixed science bonus to the tech based upon the era.

Ancient: +30
Classical: +60
Medieval: +120
Renaissance: +180
Industrial: + 240

Or something similar. That would be 50% or a bit less with the later eras. Specially the second tier techs in the era would be a bit below 50%.

Or maybe increase the numbers you need to trigger an Eureka. E. g. you get 50% bonus to metal casting for owning just 2 crossbowmen. That seems a bit too easy to me.

 

[Cronos]

It seemed clear straight away that the tech rate was very fast. I assume this was intentional by Firaxis for this build so that they could easily show off all the features of the game through the lets plays.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Eurekas
-need to stay strong
-need to be things you just end up doing (but only in certain circumstances)

I could see a 2 level Eureka idea 25% + 35%

If tech is going too fast just increase the cost.

 

[Slayan]

Eureka's come so fast and some what easy I would like to see the base turns maybe doubled.

 

[Bkeela]

It seemed clear straight away that the tech rate was very fast. I assume this was intentional by Firaxis for this build so that they could easily show off all the features of the game through the lets plays.

I assume also that the fast tech progression is 100% intentional by Firaxis, but not to show off the game. I fear they are trying to edge the game toward a more casual/mass appeal game. Perhaps T2 think casual gamers have too short an attention span to sit through days of a single campaign. Maybe they are right there. T2 aren't making this game only for the hardcore like at this forum - they want more people than just us to buy the game.

 

[Civbra]

The tech tree in civ6 has 5 less techs than civ5 vanilla so I don't really think the size of the tree is an issue at this time. Obviously expansions will likely... expand... on specific eras, as has been the usual trend. Thus far, civ6 appears to be the most complete and feature-filled version of any Vanilla release compared to it's predecessor.

Taking issue with a handful of techs seems frivolous.

Medieval era may have 7 techs to civ5's 11, but Classical era has 8 techs to civ5's 6. So between both eras there are 15 for civ6 and 17 for civ5 vanilla. The ancient era has the same amount of techs for both versions so I don't think losing two techs in the first part of the game is much of a deal. Again, considering the total - that means for the rest of the game civ6 has only three less techs than what were originally included.

yeah I understand you and I agree that Civ 6 came with a tons more than any other Vanilla game in the series!

What I meant is that a lot of gameplays the players between 1200 and 1500 Ac They were well advanced in the technology tree! I think MArbozir is the only one whom I saw which that diference was smaller!

Even in prince thats bugs me, probably in high levels this will going down...I don't Know! I just said that bother me a little bit!

Don't get me wrong, for me now, looking all gameplays this seems be the best Vanilla game ever!

 

[Civbra]

It seemed clear straight away that the tech rate was very fast. I assume this was intentional by Firaxis for this build so that they could easily show off all the features of the game through the lets plays.

For a moment on a gampley, I don't remember who, I thought that too!!!

 

[stealth_nsk]

Just a note, it's important to remember what the game is under heavy tweaking/balance, so there are things which are likely to be changed and which are not:
- Tech speed itself could be affected by one modifier number. Those value will surely change before release.
- How AI handles eurekas is not that easy to change, but if there's some different mechanics in place (i.e. AI getting +30% on techs without eureka, but +40% on techs with eureka as opposite to 0/50% human gets), these numbers are quite easy to change.
- The effect of eurekas to tech progression will generally not be changed. We don't know what is the difference between "ignore eurekas and play as is" and "try to grab all eurekas possible" playstyles is, probably about 20-30% in the amount of science (as you'll get many eurekas even in the first case and not get some in the second). I believe the difference is not a big deal.

 

[TheD3rp]

I've also noticed that the way the tech tree is laid out is a bit bizarre, for example thermonuclear weapons come after composite armor.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Long story short: yes, it's too fast. It was obvious months ago that the endgame tech costs were going to be too low. That was a design reaction to not being able to bulb/RA in massive science at the end, yes. But they obviously overcorrected.

It's also an easy problem to fix. Just adjust the rate of cost scaling and suddenly we're fighting Renaissance and Industrial wars rather than landing on Mars in the 1300s. Tweaking scalars is about as easy as balance changes get.

 

[joncnunn]

The other option would be to leave most things constant, just on normal speed make turn 400 trigger time victory instead of 500 with the years per turn adjusted so that turn 400 is somewhere between 2020 & 2050 ; and the turns adjusted accordingly. (It might work better for pacing than slowing science down.)

 

[Slayan]

when you look and there's a game win with science in the 1880's then there is a problem

 

[MACKA0ili]

If eureka moments are really this much of an advantage for the human, I can see their effectiveness being nerfed for higher difficulties.
Maybe cutting the bonus by half per difficulty level ( +25% for king, +10% for emperor, etc.)

Deity level would have AI's start with all techs and civics boosted with none available for the player (except if they're China)

 

[stealth_nsk]

If eureka moments are really this much of an advantage for the human, I can see their effectiveness being nerfed for higher difficulties.

I have a feeling there will be more natural nerf on higher difficulties. Instead of "let's get all the eurekas" we'll see "screw them, I need those muskets as fast as possible"

 

[Baleur]

I dont think eurka is a big offender, what is are that tech are so cheap.

But the problem with Eurekas giving 50% of the tech is that, if we then DO increase the tech costs so they take longer to research, then we also by proxy increase the value of Eurekas, since those 50% will have saved you even more turns... The only way to properly balance this down, is to raise both tech costs AND lower eureka bonuses.

If you just lower eureka bonuses = still fast tech research by default.
If you just raise tech costs = eureka bonuses even more outrageously effective value per percentage.

 

[spfun]

A tech stagnation advanced set up option like Alpha Centauri would be nice here.

 

[need my speed]

when you look and there's a game win with science in the 1880's then there is a problem

Not per se; a BC space win has always been possible for very skilled players. But not for first-time - and surprisingly bad! - players, no.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Not per se; a BC space win has always been possible for very skilled players. But not for first-time - and surprisingly bad! - players, no.

They are not as bad as they look. The reviewers are hardcore Civ5 players and most of them are familiar with Civ6 game mechanics. While I'm seeing a lot of mistakes, I'm pretty sure I'll be doing much bigger ones for some time after getting Civ6.