The power of microing RA's

[Fluxx]

There have been some discussion about micro-managing RA's, and if it is worth it or not.
Today I played a game, where I tried to abuse this to the max.

It requires a certain amount of resources, timing and partially luck.

I signed 3 research pacts at the same turn, and controlled the tech tree in such a way that I got Civil Service, Education and chivalry all at the same time from RA.

The screenshots will tell how I did it

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Exploit. I don't think they intended for you to get what amounts to a Great Scientist for 250 gold.

EDIT--didn't mean to trash your thread, though. I'm sure some people will enjoy using this (while it lasts, anyhow).

 

[Botzarelli]

Couldn't you quite as easily have been landed with Sailing, Optics and Metal Casting?

 

[alpaca]

Couldn't you quite as easily have been landed with Sailing, Optics and Metal Casting?

If you put a turn of research into them, they are locked and you won't get them in a RA.

Yes, using research agreements for slingshots in this way is extremely powerful - and pretty exploitative. It's stupid that you can so easily disable the main downside of RAs.

I'm using it myself on deity but I feel like I'll stop doing it soon, it just makes the RA much more powerful than they're intended to be.

 

[UWHabs]

Definitely seems like a bug/exploit to me.

I undestand part of the theory. It'd suck to sign a RA, and then be given the tech you're only 5 beakers away from finishing yourself.

Really, the solution should be something like:
For each possible tech, assign it a value between 0 and 1. This value is the % of unresearched value left in it. So if you put 1 turn out of 12 into it, it would get a value of 11/12. Then you simply pick from those weighted scores. So if you are half-done a tech, the odds of getting it in the RA are roughly half from any other unresearched tech, but you can't just lock out techs by putting a couple beakers into them.

 

[Ahriman]

I think its still ridiculous that you can get any tech, no matter how expensive, for only 250 gold.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Definitely seems like a bug/exploit to me.

I undestand part of the theory. It'd suck to sign a RA, and then be given the tech you're only 5 beakers away from finishing yourself.

Really, the solution should be something like:
For each possible tech, assign it a value between 0 and 1. This value is the % of unresearched value left in it. So if you put 1 turn out of 12 into it, it would get a value of 11/12. Then you simply pick from those weighted scores. So if you are half-done a tech, the odds of getting it in the RA are roughly half from any other unresearched tech, but you can't just lock out techs by putting a couple beakers into them.

A much easier solution would be to have it give you any random tech that is not the one you are currently resarching. If it gives you one that you've already put some research into . . . well, though luck. Maybe you should be a little more decisive next time.

 

[Mumin]

If you put a turn of research into them, they are locked and you won't get them in a RA.

I get the impression that this mechanic breaks down after a while. Early in the game I can block out undesired techs but later the game doesn't seem to care anymore and I get "blocked" techs even if there are other techs available.

At any rate, RAs really needs to be reworked completely. They're annoyingly random and exploative. Not to mention the risk when signing them with AIs on the same continent

 

[Bobafett0610]

I never sign research aggrements as I always play on deity or immortal and the AI will always break the RA with you by declaring war just so you don't get it. The thing that sucks is then you don't get a refund. I think they should keep it the way it is where you can lock out certain techs so that way you don't get the one you're researching. They also need to fix the no refund thing as well.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I never sign research aggrements as I always play on deity or immortal and the AI will always break the RA with you by declaring war just so you don't get it.

You can't sign them with next-door neighbors. You can sign them with the civ seventy tiles distant from your capital. Far away civs are extremely unlikely to declare.

There's no question that managing RAs is exploitative, but even if this were fixed you'd still want to sign them in an NC first game. The problem is that this would change the game in such a fashion that you'd be at the mercy of the random number generator for your overall strategy. Sometimes you would get a military tech and want to push that line; other times you'd get a tech at the top of the tree and want to push Education.

The best solution is to remove the randomness entirely. RAs should provide a fixed amount of beakers, and that amount should probably depend upon where the signatories are at in the research tree.

Even two hundred would be worth paying for early on if you could choose the tech the agreement applied to. I don't think it would make sense to bother with the agreements if they provided less. The median tech cost of all techs currently researched by a civ would probably be a good starting point; that will scale over time, but not excessively so.

 

[MykC]

Yeah, I agree with the above. RAs should be change to something like above. I would say that it make the most sense that the RA is for X turns and has a X upfront cost and a X GPT cost and in return you get X extra beakers per turn or X extra beakers at the end of the RA. You would get the most beakers if the RA went the full length and a portion (may not be linear) of the beakers if it ends early.

Also, it would be nice to see if in these RA or other trades that the one breaking the RA suffers a penalty, like no extra beakers, or a fee, or you the one who didn't break the RA gets a refund or something.

 

[Sneaks]

Also, it would be nice to see if in these RA or other trades that the one breaking the RA suffers a penalty, like no extra beakers, or a fee, or you the one who didn't break the RA gets a refund or something.

I severely disagree with this part. One of the few facets of the game I really enjoy is that rich AIs will sign RAs with people they plan to attack beforehand to help empty out the bank account of the victim. The penalties are already imposed by losing a research partner, and gaining distrust all around if they were a friend as well. There should always be risk in gold investments. If anything, I think the risk is too minimal.

I would almost prefer a system where you choose the tech you are going to research, and there is a % chance the research will fail, and you only get a modicum of beakers (say 15-25% of the tech) rather than maybe 50% of the tech.

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

I would almost prefer a system where you choose the tech you are going to research, and there is a % chance the research will fail, and you only get a modicum of beakers (say 15-25% of the tech) rather than maybe 50% of the tech.

This would be awesome.

 

[Beef Hammer]

If you put a turn of research into them, they are locked and you won't get them in a RA.

And there's the exploit, should be easy enough to patch.

 

[Eqqman]

The best solution is to remove the randomness entirely. RAs should provide a fixed amount of beakers, and that amount should probably depend upon where the signatories are at in the research tree.

Or a flat rate/percentage increase in the player's own Beakers-per-turn for 30 turns per agreement?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The best way to do it.

The RA randomly selects from among ALL the techs you can research, including ones you are researching/have put research in.
However, if it gives you one that you have research in, all the research in that tech becomes overflow for your next chosen tech.

so if you have 99/100 rp in a tech, and you get it from an RA, those 99 point will go into your next tech.

 

[alpaca]

The best solution is to remove the randomness entirely. RAs should provide a fixed amount of beakers, and that amount should probably depend upon where the signatories are at in the research tree.

Thalassicus proposed to split the research up evenly. In fact, you could even go all the way and make the research you get depend on how much the civ you signed the agreement with produces! Although in that case, we should get some measure of this number somewhere to be able to tell who we should sign a RA with.

 

[Sneaks]

Thalassicus proposed to split the research up evenly. In fact, you could even go all the way and make the research you get depend on how much the civ you signed the agreement with produces! Although in that case, we should get some measure of this number somewhere to be able to tell who we should sign a RA with.

This sort of reminds me of the way teams work in the game right now. If you set another AI to your team, you will get any tech it researches, and it gets yours. Basically what amounts to combined beakers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wow, no matter the game, people cry exploit any time something doesn't fit their narrow-minded perceptions of what "should" be in the game. I guess favorable tech trading was exploitative back in the day, too?

 

[Sneaks]

Wow, no matter the game, people cry exploit any time something doesn't fit their narrow-minded perceptions of what "should" be in the game. I guess favorable tech trading was exploitative back in the day, too?

Well it does feel exploitative, given than I am guessing this was not the way the developers meant for the process to work when coding. Completely eliminating risk in a risk/reward system is frankly imbalanced.