Tech Trade

[Arent11]

I'd like to see the first civ to research any new tech get a bonus for being the first to discover it. I'd rather see races like this, where you get a bonus for winning but no real penalty for losing (since you still learn the tech), rather than the wonder-building races or, even worse, the great person races. The bonus should be something fun, like the old "We love the [king/president/leader]" celebrations or maybe a free unit or building, possibly something tied to the tech itself or something more general like a short burst of productivity or progress towards your next great person

X turns after a civilization researches a tech, it should get cheaper for every civ in contact with them to research that tech. Espionage (if its in the game), should just get that discount sooner, rather than having to wait the full X turns. Later era policies could potential increase X to protect your tech secrets, at the cost of also slowing down how quickly you get the bonus for techs your competitors know.

The obvious choice would be "fame", "golden age points" or something similar. In Master of Magic, fame attracted more heroes/mercenaries and made them cheaper. That was actually a fun mechanic.

Btw., why are there no random events of great people/mercenaries wanting to join your civ? Would be much more fun than the static "great people race".

 

[Nikolai II]

The obvious choice would be "fame", "golden age points" or something similar. In Master of Magic, fame attracted more heroes/mercenaries and made them cheaper. That was actually a fun mechanic.

Btw., why are there no random events of great people/mercenaries wanting to join your civ? Would be much more fun than the static "great people race".

Events in Civ? Hmmmm, interesting thought.

 

[pokiehl]

I don’t think random events are very fun. They inevitably get exhausted and then you just see the same boring stuff popup and click through as fast as you can. They’re a distinctively “artificial” way to try to force immersion IMO.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I don’t think random events are very fun. They inevitably get exhausted and then you just see the same boring stuff popup and click through as fast as you can. They’re a distinctively “artificial” way to try to force immersion IMO.

There's already some randomness built in to the Great People system, in that you can never be entirely certain which Great Person will be available next, or at all in a given game.

And I have argued for a Random Events ("Events and Decisions") in the past, but the problem, as posted, is that IRL there was no limit on rthe number and variety of Random Events you could get hit with, whereas in any game you are limited to what was programmed, and that is a Hard Limit, inevitably quickly reached in a few games. To really make 'Random Events' work every DLC, Pass, Update would have to introduce a few more of them - which would eventually bury the gamer and the game in Random Event files . . .

 

[GeneralZIft]

Will always be against Events, you know of the type where you get some scenario and have these choices:
"Be a nice leader" or "Make money"

 

[pokiehl]

There's already some randomness built in to the Great People system, in that you can never be entirely certain which Great Person will be available next, or at all in a given game.

And I have argued for a Random Events ("Events and Decisions") in the past, but the problem, as posted, is that IRL there was no limit on rthe number and variety of Random Events you could get hit with, whereas in any game you are limited to what was programmed, and that is a Hard Limit, inevitably quickly reached in a few games. To really make 'Random Events' work every DLC, Pass, Update would have to introduce a few more of them - which would eventually bury the gamer and the game in Random Event files . . .

yeah; to clarify I’m not opposed to randomness, I think it adds a lot of fun. I meant specifically pop-up events like Humankind or Old World have. That’s what I’d rather not see, for the reasons above.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I've played a couple of games of Civ VI recently, after almost 2 years of not playing, and am more appreciative now of the number of places that Implicit Randomness is baked into the game: you may have your favorite Relgious Beliefs, but someone else may grab them first; your favorite Great Person may not even appear in the game, or be the next one available after you snagged one and are last in the race to get him, etc.
And, of course, as mediocre as the maps are graphically and in Bland Continent Generation, having a Natural Wonder nearby, or nowhere in sight, or next to a City State, can change your intended Victory Condition and playing style very quickly.

I'm more and more convinced that might be the way to go for Civ VII, with the addition of (almost) always having an Alternative: the bonuses from a Natural Wonder should be simply More of the Same instead of Specifically Different from what you can get from lots of the right kind of buildings/districts. Wonders and Natural Wonders should complement, so that missing out on one means you can still get some of the same benefits from the other. Even Unique Units should not be entirely 'unique' in that I think the game really needs a Mercenary mechanic so you can buy or 'rent' military units from other Civs (Barbarian Clans added this from Barbarian Camps, extending the idea is, I would think, an obvious step)

 

[AffineConstant]

I've played a couple of games of Civ VI recently, after almost 2 years of not playing, and am more appreciative now of the number of places that Implicit Randomness is baked into the game: you may have your favorite Relgious Beliefs, but someone else may grab them first; your favorite Great Person may not even appear in the game, or be the next one available after you snagged one and are last in the race to get him, etc.
And, of course, as mediocre as the maps are graphically and in Bland Continent Generation, having a Natural Wonder nearby, or nowhere in sight, or next to a City State, can change your intended Victory Condition and playing style very quickly.

This sounds like the "good" kind of randomness to me, I always played with randomized tech trees as soon as they were on, and I'd love to see a randomized list of wonders available each game instead of the entire list always being available (and that means you can have a lot of wonders in total, too many for a balanced game if they were all available).

I wonder what other minor things could be randomized a bit to change the game up? Leaders with different personality types, so you never know whether your getting kind of ok Montezuma or really aggressive and mean Montezuma?

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I wonder what other minor things could be randomized a bit to change the game up?

The should be a unique ability that a civ grants to another civ. Something like "Any Civ with a Friendship with Norway is immune to coast raiding". It's random as the civ selection but something you have some control of in-game.

 

[Core Imposter]

You need to program the AI to handle it which is somewhat tricky.

There are a world of things the AI has problems handling but if you take them out you have a lesser and lesser game.

 

[Josephias]

I wonder what other minor things could be randomized a bit to change the game up? Leaders with different personality types, so you never know whether your getting kind of ok Montezuma or really aggressive and mean Montezuma?

This is an interesting idea I thinkered with back in the days of BE: have all leaders have 3-4 types of “AI” personality, determining their “agendas” (both in terms of diplomacy nitpicks and gameplay priorities), one of wich is randomly assigned at the beginningnof the game so, while still flaworful, you are sitill a bit unsure of who you are dealing with at the beggining of the game. Sort of the personas we had in Civ VI without making them different civ visuals and traits, but you could have a “colonial” Victoria, expansionist and more war-prone, making good use of redcoats, an “industrial” victotia, tall player focusing in production, and a “british museum” victoria, whose primary goal is acquiring artifacts, first by trade and, if denied, by force. Focused personalities should allow the CIV AI exploiting at maximum one of the civ traits for a preferred victory type while using the others as support (we could even argue about switching the personality midgame if their focused victory path becomes derailed and other is potentially better)

On wonders, rather than limiting them, I’m more in favour of some ideas that have already been exposed regarding grouping them so only the first wonder built in the group gets a “major” effect while the others can still be completed for a minor effect. It is still as a randomness factor as depending on which wonder is completed first effects of the others will change, but does not feel as arbitrary as saying “you are not allowed to build the Pyramids this game”

Last, I’d like to expand Boris comment about uniques with an idea that has been in my mind for a while: uniques should be actually techs allowed for all civs, at an opportunity cost, that is spared to the “owner civ”. E.g: legions may be made available under a “marian reform” leaf tech/civic with a relevant cost (let’s say a medieval tech/civic cost when it is a classical tech/civic). Rome, however, will get the tech for free when unlocked or at a very reduced price (let’s say 1/10 of other civ’s cost). This means you can take the effort to develop any civ into having legions, but they are still “unique” to tome in the sense Rome will not need to put any effort on doing it.

 

[Potworny]

Just a moderately curious little story: I remember when I was like 10 and I played Civ III without any clue as to what I'm doing and I discovered another continent in my Byzantium (?) game. While there were about 6-8 civs on my home continent and we were rather late in the tech tree, the civs on this one continent were pretty much ancient. Naturally, it sucked for Bismarck over there with his medieval garb on, but this imbalance, very similar to how I think technology spread in the real world, makes me sort of miss tech trading (and map trading, why not).

I think it happened due to tech trading at least, but I'm not sure. While this one silly happenstance isn't really a good argument for reintroducing the mechanic (on the contrary when you think about it), as a kid I really felt like I discovered America with a precolonial Bismarck or something. Keep in mind that it was on the lowest difficulty settings, where I think the AI drew pretty patterns with roads instead of building infrastructure for example.

 

[UWHabs]

Just a moderately curious little story: I remember when I was like 10 and I played Civ III without any clue as to what I'm doing and I discovered another continent in my Byzantium (?) game. While there were about 6-8 civs on my home continent and we were rather late in the tech tree, the civs on this one continent were pretty much ancient. Naturally, it sucked for Bismarck over there with his medieval garb on, but this imbalance, very similar to how I think technology spread in the real world, makes me sort of miss tech trading (and map trading, why not).

I think it happened due to tech trading at least, but I'm not sure. While this one silly happenstance isn't really a good argument for reintroducing the mechanic (on the contrary when you think about it), as a kid I really felt like I discovered America with a precolonial Bismarck or something. Keep in mind that it was on the lowest difficulty settings, where I think the AI drew pretty patterns with roads instead of building infrastructure for example.

Yeah, I definitely remember some games in the olden days like that. Or on the flipside, my continent has been at war for thousands of years, you're just barely getting to the medieval era and suddenly you meet a civ that's like an era and a half ahead of you, and it's like a "oh, damn, well, this will be tough to figure out how to win". It does give you a little more incentive to stay peaceful too.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think it should be possible to trade tech eurekas with other civs. That way you are not just giving a tech away but you are still helping the other civ get that tech a littler faster. Another option would be to allow civs to trade units. For example, you could sell a tank unit to another civ that does not have the tech to build tanks themselves. This would allow you to help another civ boost their military without trading the tech. And this would represent the concept of arms sales of an advanced civ to a less advanced civ.

 

[vorlon_mi]

If Great People -- including Great Scientists and Great Engineers -- are going to be distinct units on the map, I would like to see them vulnerable to capture. If the player gets one, either use them or keep them safe. Call it role-playing, but I always feel bad when I invade an AI civ and my troops *destroy* their Great People instead of capturiing them. Why could I not capture them?

For Great Generals or Great Admirals (or whatever the equivalent becomes), sure, they could be destroyed. They have signed on to serve in the military of their liege / sponsor and they would be less likely to switch allegiance and agree to serve the invader.

But a Great Artist/Musician/Writer/whatever, or a Great Scientist/Merchant/Engineer/whatever, those should be able to be captured. Or even traded, like the great works that they produce.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

If Great People -- including Great Scientists and Great Engineers -- are going to be distinct units on the map, I would like to see them vulnerable to capture. If the player gets one, either use them or keep them safe. Call it role-playing, but I always feel bad when I invade an AI civ and my troops *destroy* their Great People instead of capturiing them. Why could I not capture them?

For Great Generals or Great Admirals (or whatever the equivalent becomes), sure, they could be destroyed. They have signed on to serve in the military of their liege / sponsor and they would be less likely to switch allegiance and agree to serve the invader.

But a Great Artist/Musician/Writer/whatever, or a Great Scientist/Merchant/Engineer/whatever, those should be able to be captured. Or even traded, like the great works that they produce.

The game could go two ways on this:
Simplified: Great People change sides/get captured, especially Artists, Writers, Musicians, Scientists, Merchants, Engineers - even Prophets are likely to go right on preaching or whatever the little digital characters are up to.

But it really wasn't that simple. I'm sure the Romans would have loved to have Archimedes keep right on developing weapons for them, but an un-named Roman soldier slaughtered him during the sack of Syracuse after the city fell, and in many cases people Fled rather than stay and work for the conquerer. Heck, given an oppressive enough government system, even your own Great People will take off: witness the mass exodus of Great Scientists from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

And earlier, given similar situations among the states, Great People were pretty mobile: the intellectual class that provided Medieval Great Scientists or Engineers in Europe was International - Hildegarde of Bingen, among others, corresponded with people all over western Europe, so placing her 'bonus' in one country is a Simplification all by itself. Artists from Ancient /Classical Greece to Renaissance Italy on were notoriously Mobile, and produced their art for whoever paid for it, wherever they were.

So, perhaps Great Artists, Musicians, Writers only stay where they can get their work Displayed. In game terms, if you 'acquire' a Great Writer but have no Wonder/District structure in which to place his works, he leaves and goes to another Civ who does have such a structure open and available. Likewise, if a Great Merchant can get more of a Gold bonus in another Civ, you might have to 'pay' to keep him.

Great People in general could be more 'mobile' and less fixed, if we think the game needs such complications.

 

[GeneralZIft]

The one problem with stealing Great People is a snowball / balance perspective. To earn a GP to begin with, you need to invest heavily in infrastructure, you know like Libraries etc.

But if you can steal them, well, why would you bother to earn one yourself? Just go on an endless military conquest and grab them all anyway...

Just something to note about.
Also about Tech trading, I would be cautious to add some kind of system to deter trading every single technology.
I like the eureka thing but on top of that, the actual trading of techs should cost money.
Not transferred but the money should actually be lost as an expense somehow.

 

[InsidiousMage]

How often would being able to capture Great People even come up? The only time in the thousands of hours I've played is when Russia doesn't have enough slots for all of their great works.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

How often would being able to capture Great People even come up? The only time in the thousands of hours I've played is when Russia doesn't have enough slots for all of their great works.

Not to mention the fact, as @GeneralZIft noted, that the balance problems are potentially Horrific.

IMHO, another 'feature' that looks good only at first glance, then dissolves into a swamp of potential problems that far outweighs anything it might bring to the game.

 

[Josephias]

Capturing and Stealing are two different things. I agree just stepping over a Great People and making it yours (as it was a settler or worker) won't turn to be a fun feature, but keeping them "hostage" (in a similar way to captured spies in Civ VI) in order to trade them back to their original civ might work.

Nevertheless I've to say the current system of great people could use some other improvements, maybe taking some from the "hero" system in NFP and providing GP a limited "life" in which they can do much more than just using their single charge. Maybe there could be also 3/4 options available at the same time per GP type to make the race more interesting: competing for the top desired GP, or investing to get the "underdog" ones. I think it would reflect more this initial part in which a GP is starting to be known and several patrons start to push for him. (Maybe you could even divide your GP efforts in both: infraestructure might provide base GP, in a lesser number but applying to all GP available, while projects and other GP-focused actions would be directed to a specific one).