Tech rubberband?

[Clol7]

It seems that the AI gets a major helping hand where it comes to tech, in the course of 200 years after I met an AI player, they've gone from 2 era's behind me to one, I have to kill all the AI before they start to overtake me, out of fear of that exact thing happening.

Is this the work of tweaked mod settings? If so, how do I change it?

 

[mart777]

If that civ was behind you technologicaly, my guess is: this is tech diffusion feature.
But it goes to zero, when they do not have neighbours more advanced than them.

 

[Clol7]

Okay, how do you turn that off, or at least turn it down?

 

[Noriad2]

1) tech diffusion.
2) tech trading. AIs are more willing to trade older techs. And the techs can be traded for by excess resources.
3) faster overall growth. It may have had a slow start, expanded its size considerably halfway the game, and is now catching up in tech.
4) this AI may take a different route through the tech tree. It is possible to leave a lot of techs behind, or try to research everything. This can slow down or speed up your research through the ages.

P.S. "200 years" says nothing. How long that is, depends on game speed and current date.

 

[Clol7]

Oh, that would be snail, 1645 BC.

And they're still at 3 cities each...

 

[mart777]

You may have also variable game difficulty, but I am not sure, how that would work in this case.

At the game setup you can choose features to play with.
Some features can be turned on/off in the BUG screens, but not all of them, afaik.

 

[Clol7]

No, I checked that, variable game difficulty is off.

Okay, I found the settings for tech diffusion, and one of the variables there seems to be in error.

TECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER appears to be at 700, and according to another topic here it's supposed to be at 70?

 

[JosEPh_II]

It seems that the AI gets a major helping hand where it comes to tech, in the course of 200 years after I met an AI player, they've gone from 2 era's behind me to one, I have to kill all the AI before they start to overtake me, out of fear of that exact thing happening.

Is this the work of tweaked mod settings? If so, how do I change it?

Welcome to C2C.

1st, if you are 2 Eras ahead all the AI in Tech, you are playing at Too Low of Difficulty setting.

2nd, why fear the AI that at your present settings are inferior to you? Are you afraid of facing a challenge?

3rd. No you don't have to kill all AI unless you have chosen Conquest Victory condition.

I think you're over thinking this whole situation. And are you using the SVN to update your mod?

Finally, if you think you have found a mistake/bug post it in the Bug and Crash thread.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Welcome to C2C.

1st, if you are 2 Eras ahead all the AI in Tech, you are playing at Too Low of Difficulty setting.

2nd, why fear the AI that at your present settings are inferior to you? Are you afraid of facing a challenge?

3rd. No you don't have to kill all AI unless you have chosen Conquest Victory condition.

I think you're over thinking this whole situation. And are you using the SVN to update your mod?

Finally, if you think you have found a mistake/bug post it in the Bug and Crash thread.

JosEPh

lol... I was kinda thinking the same thing like... wait... that's a BAD thing? huh? The challenge for us is to get the AI to keep up not how to figure out how to get it to fall behind.

 

[Clol7]

I just hate rubberbands in general, if you were good enough to get a lead, that lead should be your reward. If you weren't, then being behind should be your punishment.

Also yes, I did turn the difficulty all the way down, figured I'd do so, since it's my first C2C game.

 

[Noriad2]

I just hate rubberbands in general, if you were good enough to get a lead, that lead should be your reward. If you weren't, then being behind should be your punishment.

Also yes, I did turn the difficulty all the way down, figured I'd do so, since it's my first C2C game.

Take a hint from my former chess-teacher: if you have a temporary advantage (better position), turn it in a permanent advantage (take his units).

In case of C2C that would for example mean take his cities. Or at least destroy them.

 

[Noriad2]

Also it is not a-historical. For example, Western Europe in early medieval times was far behind several other civilizations. With a few exceptions, almost everyone was illiterate and technologies and sciences that were known in Roman Empire times were lost. Then Emperor Charlemagne set up a system of schools to start up education again (educational achievement). Western Europe slowly catched up with the rest of the world, and after the 16th century or so, the overwhelming majority of Scientific and technological progress was made by Europeans or former European colonists in e.g. the USA.

Horrible history of the European dark ages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPu0su0un5Q

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

You need to play C2C two levels higher in difficulty to normal BtS just to get the same level of difficulty. This is because of all the new stuff and no new AI code to help the AI. Or at least some new AI code but even some human players are learning what needs to be done, so there is no transfer yet to the AI.

Since there are different paths and each leader has different priorities/traits each needs its own AI to cover the new material.

 

[Noriad2]

You need to play C2C two levels higher in difficulty to normal BtS just to get the same level of difficulty.

also, "nightmare mode" adds another difficulty level.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I just hate rubberbands in general, if you were good enough to get a lead, that lead should be your reward. If you weren't, then being behind should be your punishment.

Also yes, I did turn the difficulty all the way down, figured I'd do so, since it's my first C2C game.

Please think about it, there is no rubberband "effect" in this situation because you started with the lowest level difficulty. You have all sorts of bonuses but the AI is playing at Noble/Prince level (no bonuses).

Start a new game on Monarch or Emporer and then see if your situation remains the same.

JosEPh

 

[Slarki]

Also it is not a-historical. For example, Western Europe in early medieval times was far behind several other civilizations. With a few exceptions, almost everyone was illiterate and technologies and sciences that were known in Roman Empire times were lost. Then Emperor Charlemagne set up a system of schools to start up education again (educational achievement). Western Europe slowly catched up with the rest of the world, and after the 16th century or so, the overwhelming majority of Scientific and technological progress was made by Europeans or former European colonists in e.g. the USA.

Horrible history of the European dark ages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPu0su0un5Q

I hope you didn't choose the video because of the title and description. That would make you look racist.

(By "rest of the world", you mean middle east and Asia?)

This still isn't an argument for rubberbanding, which I also dislike.

 

[Noriad2]

I hope you didn't choose the video because of the title and description. That would make you look racist.

(By "rest of the world", you mean middle east and Asia?)

This still isn't an argument for rubberbanding, which I also dislike.

The title is indeed excessively non-friendly to Europeans but it seems to be just the opinion of the youtube poster. The documentary is well-made and very informative on how harsh, violent and primitive Europe was at that time. And how Europe eventually came out of the Dark Ages. Spoilers: Charlemagnes political and educational reforms, climate change leading to better harvests, the Catholic Church promoting peace (Pax Dei, Treuga Dei), and import of classical Greek science and philosophy from the Middle East.

Middle-East and Asia were indeed more advanced than Western Europe during the Middle Ages, except perhaps on the subject of slavery, which vanished from most of Western Europe during the Middle Ages (with the exception of Islam-occupied Spain). While Christians of that time differed in opinion on slavery (some Christians were against all slavery, calling it a crime against God, while others made a distinction between justified and unjustified slavery), the consensus became that Christians should not own other Christians as slaves. And as eventually everybody in Europe became Christian, that was the end of slavery in Europe.

About rubberbanding: the concept of tech diffusion seems logical to me, as it is always easier to copy the succesful ideas of your neighbour than it is to come up with new ideas on your own. And it has been done countless times in real history.

However, if you choose "custom game" there is an option No TechDiffusion.

 

[JanusTalaiini]

It could also be a bug. I know I've encountered a few situations where a revolution caused a separate civ to take over one of my neighbor's cities, and that single size 5 city was suddenly producing more science than the previous owner's empire and my empire combined (I was the world's leader in science by a factor of 3). That was with no tech diffusion or trading.

I've since stopped using revolutions, and haven't encountered that any more. It makes me sad because the dynamic of large empires destabilizing and fragmenting is one of my favorite parts, but it's just not worth that kind of frustration.

 

[Noriad2]

It could also be a bug. I know I've encountered a few situations where a revolution caused a separate civ to take over one of my neighbor's cities, and that single size 5 city was suddenly producing more science than the previous owner's empire and my empire combined (I was the world's leader in science by a factor of 3). That was with no tech diffusion or trading.

I've since stopped using revolutions, and haven't encountered that any more. It makes me sad because the dynamic of large empires destabilizing and fragmenting is one of my favorite parts, but it's just not worth that kind of frustration.

I've posted a few bug reports about conquered cities having their economy screwed up and producting much more of everything than they should, including Science. Shift+CTRL+T (recalculate everything, takes a while) usually solves that. If you want to play completely honest, you should use Shift+CTRL+T everytime you conquer a city. Or perhaps even when the ownership of any city changes.

 

[Rwn]

I've posted a few bug reports about conquered cities having their economy screwed up and producting much more of everything than they should, including Science. Shift+CTRL+T (recalculate everything, takes a while) usually solves that. If you want to play completely honest, you should use Shift+CTRL+T everytime you conquer a city. Or perhaps even when the ownership of any city changes.

Does it also applies to an AI civ conquering other AI cities ?