The Wonder Balance (encyclopedia)

[Aevum]

I for one, am finding some things unbalanced. Mostly recenlty encyclopedia.
Its almost game breaking in single player, and very breaking in multplayer. Its not like Internet wonder in vanilla civ4, wheres thers only 10 techs left.... Its you get all techs that 2 people have... and theres 200 tech left.
The moment I completed it, I got at least 5+ techs. Now every few turns I get more. for free. I don't even really need to tech considering on epic speed you're getting 1 free tech every 5 turns or so in my game. And in my multplayer game, well i'm screwed. My brother got it, and boom the advatage my defensive pact breathen and religous allies have is shot. He must have gottn 10 techs from us. So my question, do other people agree with me? The 15% resreach bonus in all cities is enough. Having free techs for life seems breaking to me considering the scope or time and sheer amount of techs in c2c.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I for one, am finding some things unbalanced. Mostly recenlty encyclopedia.
Its almost game breaking in single player, and very breaking in multplayer. Its not like Internet wonder in vanilla civ4, wheres thers only 10 techs left.... Its you get all techs that 2 people have... and theres 200 tech left.
The moment I completed it, I got at least 5+ techs. Now every few turns I get more. for free. I don't even really need to tech considering on epic speed you're getting 1 free tech every 5 turns or so in my game. And in my multplayer game, well i'm screwed. My brother got it, and boom the advatage my defensive pact breathen and religous allies have is shot. He must have gottn 10 techs from us. So my question, do other people agree with me? The 15% resreach bonus in all cities is enough. Having free techs for life seems breaking to me considering the scope or time and sheer amount of techs in c2c.

This one goes all the way back to Civ III. In Civ III the Great Library and Internet gave you techs free that any three other nations had. The Civ III mod Rise & Rule, added Encyclopedia as a middle tech with the same properties. Note that the Great Library went obsolete before you could build the Encyclopedia.

In C2C the Encyclopedia has been made extremely expensive costing much more than the space program projects combined. I don't know when it went from three to two.

 

[Koshling]

I for one, am finding some things unbalanced. Mostly recenlty encyclopedia.
Its almost game breaking in single player, and very breaking in multplayer. Its not like Internet wonder in vanilla civ4, wheres thers only 10 techs left.... Its you get all techs that 2 people have... and theres 200 tech left.
The moment I completed it, I got at least 5+ techs. Now every few turns I get more. for free. I don't even really need to tech considering on epic speed you're getting 1 free tech every 5 turns or so in my game. And in my multplayer game, well i'm screwed. My brother got it, and boom the advatage my defensive pact breathen and religous allies have is shot. He must have gottn 10 techs from us. So my question, do other people agree with me? The 15% resreach bonus in all cities is enough. Having free techs for life seems breaking to me considering the scope or time and sheer amount of techs in c2c.

How about if it were changed to free-access to techs at least one third of all civs own (or half, or whatever, but you get the idea)?

 

[Aevum]

Well its the only Wonder in this mod (as far as I see) that gives free techs for life. Even the internet no longer does that. It only took me 8 turns to make (in a good prod city), so its not hard either. Was it supposed to cost more then the space projects?
Casue encyclopedia cost 3300.
A single SS casting is 6000, and you need 5. lol
It just seems to broken to me. Currently if there was only one wonder I could pick to have... free tech machine would be it. :OP

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It usually takes me 40-70 turns to make.

 

[Epona222]

How in the "you know what" did you manage to build Encyclopedia in 8 turns? Even in my best hammers city it usually takes me at least 40-45 turns or thereabouts. What speed are you on? I usually play on Snail.

I think it should obsolete at Internet, Encyclopaedia Britannica has just announced it won't be doing any more physical print runs unless I'm much mistaken!

 

[Aevum]

EDIT. Rechecked Civopedia, as in game speeds and diffuclties change costs:
Epic enclclopedia at 3300. Sill roughly the same, with rifleman at 345.

 

[Koshling]

Well im at epic game speed. BUT.. its 2200 / 8 turns .... 275 hamemrs a turn. Thats less then a riffleman at 350 Hammers. (i think?)

Its always been circa one hundred turns in any game I have built it in. That's on eternity though. Maybe this is another area epic speed is mis-tuned

 

[Epona222]

I had my game idle in the background on my other screen so was easily able to check the pedia - it's listed as 13200 hammers, and the game I had running is one of my settler difficulty sandbox games (which is a whole other thread about playstyles ), so that's like the least amount of hammers you could possibly require to build it. I'm on SVN build 2154, Snail speed.

 

[Sgtslick]

I think how long it takes to build is irrelevant, the fact you can build it and then have tech turned to 0% from then on is imba. I think it should scale with the number of opponents you have, if there are 30 AI opponents, you are basically guaranteed all the techs for free, if there are only 6 or 7 players, then 2 players having the tech > free tech is more reasonable but still too powerful I think.
I like the idea of 1/3rd of civs + i think it should be a little bit random, like you are not guaranteed to always get it, and maybe it should be periodically like every 10 turns you will have a 50/50 chance if 1/3rd of civs have it. (this sounds alot more balanced)
If you feel it isn't strong enough therefore, you can just buff it with +commerce/happy whatever..

 

[Aevum]

so that's like the least amount of hammers you could possibly require to build it.

Lol know it sounds ridiculas, but I built it to snub France, who had 10 turns, so I put it up in my city for 8. (not even my capital city) Costs 3300 Hammers on Epic... soo not very hard, If it is super high on other speeds, then something is messed up on epic. Pic as proof of hammers

But anyways, any 2 people is just bad. So I trade something to my defensive pact... and someelse.. Who we're at WAR with learns it. I vote to nerf it. Increase the cost of it on Epic, increase the amount of people to share the tech knowlege, and make it go obsolete!!! Liberalism, (the required tech) is less then halfway thru the tech tree!

 

[Epona222]

Lol know it sounds ridiculas, but I built it to snub France, who had 10 turns, so I put it up in my city for 8. (not even my capital city) Costs 3300 Hammers on Epic... soo not very hard, If it is super high on other speeds, then something is messed up on epic. Pic as proof of hammers

But anyways, 2 people is jsut bad. So I trade something to my defensive pact... and someelse.. Who we're at WAR with learns it. I vote to nerf it. Increase the cost of it on Epic, increase the amount of people to share the tech knowlege, and make it go obsolete!!! Liberalism, (the required tech) is less then halfway thru the tech tree!

3300 hammers/8 turns on Epic has got to be a mistake surely, when it's 13200 hammers/40-ish turns in my best hammers city on the lowest difficulty setting on Snail, that's just bizarre. I do think it should go obsolete at internet/computer networks or whatever at the very least, and it's just bizarre that something so potentially powerful can be built so quickly and give benefits for the rest of the game.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Personally I think it should be more than 2 civs. Maybe like 3 to 5. Possibly even a % if that's even possible.

 

[DRJ]

Its always been circa one hundred turns in any game I have built it in. That's on eternity though. Maybe this is another area epic speed is mis-tuned

Yes, I can confirm that (it took 79 turns in my best production city with old eternity speed).

I think your idea to limit it to the techs the top third of civs have is just fine, Aevum is right - atm it's OP.

 

[BlueGenie]

Only downside I see with setting it to a % of # of civs in game is if Barbarian cities growing into nations is activated as well as Rev being on.
From start you might have 10 civs. That would mean 3 (or 4) civs needing it for the owner to get a free tech.
Scenario: Further along, and still way before being able to actually build Encyclopedia, a few small nations have revolutionized and broken free from the major nations while several Minor Nations have emerged around the world, bringing the total civs up by 20 to 30 civs. Now Encyclopedia needs 10 others to have the tech before you get it for free. Hmm, wait, that means ALL starting nations plus one more (as you yourself don't count) for you to get a free tech.

I'm good with the +15% being the only bonus the Project gets. It's still massive.
If you want a better way to get "free techs" without making it either OP or UP it could grant an extra research bonus similar to Tech Diffusion (on top of possible Tech Diffusion if that's active) when researching a tech at least one other nation you have contact with already has.
That way you don't get any real free techs, but in reducing the turns needed to research a tech in a way you still do, via proxy of x # of turns = free tech.

Cheers

 

[strategyonly]

No offense to anyone that plays Epic and below, but they are not balanced at all, Epic alittle but not that much, so when play at these speeds, PLEASE dont expect too much, unless someone would want to do some gamespeed changes like Praetyre's thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=451917

until then, you'll just have to wait, sorry everyone. I know there are way more pressing issues (no offense) than this, thx.

 

[Aevum]

Well, I understand that they don't have time to balance Epic. But I still believe the theory behind it is just OP. free techs for life, even if the people who are getting them are your bitter enemies who are at War with you! -A small play for my amusment--
---scene a secret weapons lab.
*Scientist. "At last we've completed our new megadeth Shark Nuke Missle! that will destroy the enemy nations!"
*Other Scientist. "Hey the hell is that writting this all down?"
*Scientist. "Oh thats the guy from encylcopedia britainica. He'll be writting down all of our secrets and publishing them to our enemy nation when done."
*Other Scientist. "Are you ******* kidding me. what the ***** are you ****** thinking!"
*Scientist. "Seemed like a good idea at the time?"
End

 

[ls612]

No offense to anyone that plays Epic and below, but they are not balanced at all, Epic alittle but not that much, so when play at these speeds, PLEASE dont expect too much, unless someone would want to do some gamespeed changes like Praetyre's thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=451917

until then, you'll just have to wait, sorry everyone. I know there are way more pressing issues (no offense) than this, thx.

I am actually going to change that and make Epic balanced this version, I hope. I think that it should be a viable option for those who like a 3000 turn game as opposed to a 7500 turn game. Normal and below I think though I'll ignore.

 

[Aevum]

Yeah normally I'd like to do a slower speed, as I love having longer epochs during medieval and the like.
But, with multiplayer we're limited on time, and this is the first non pratice C2C multiplayer we've done. Maybe we'll all agree to do a slower speed next time. As for my personal game, I was just doing epic on noble to fly thru and test things first hand. Figure I can't be that useful for input if I keep restarting before modern times lol!

Also: Who is in essence, "in charge" of the encylopedia Project? I hate to voice my opinions without actaully knowing who I should be directing them too. Plus I'd like thier input as well.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Yeah normally I'd like to do a slower speed, as I love having longer epochs during medieval and the like.
But, with multiplayer we're limited on time, and this is the first non pratice C2C multiplayer we've done. Maybe we'll all agree to do a slower speed next time. As for my personal game, I was just doing epic on noble to fly thru and test things first hand. Figure I can't be that useful for input if I keep restarting before modern times lol!

Also: Who is in essence, "in charge" of the encylopedia wonder? I hate to voice my opinions without actaully knowing who I should be directing them too. Plus I'd like thier input as well.

First it is a project not a wonder. The owner would be Zappara so that means it defaults to StrategyOnly.