Why is the tech pace so fast?

[bonafide11]

I'm still pretty new to Civ VI, but a veteran of previous Civ games. In the previous games it took some decent strategy to speed through techs at the rate I am as a newb in Civ VI. Entering the Renaissance Era in 200AD when you barely know what you're doing is just silly. I'm not even trying to focus on science and I still speed through history. The game has been out since October and they haven't figured out a way to slow down the tech pace yet? Is it just because of the eurekas and they haven't figured out a way to balance them out?

 

[Jaren]

I noticed this too - as a vet of previous Civ games I still noticed a learning curve in my first Civ 6 game, but had no problem at all plowing through the eras with a single science district. Only two civs kept up, the rest were attacking my infantry with swordsmen. Going to have a look at some mods to slow things down on my next game.

 

[Jaybe]

I use the Time X All In One mod. The 2x is the version I use, but I edited out the part that extends the number of game turns. It extends techs, civics & great people by the same amount.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/time-x-all-in-one.25564/

 

[isau]

There are a lot of popular mods that change the tech curve. Check some of them out.

 

[empresskiova]

Just remember, any mod you throw on also affects the AI. It may just be better to not gun for Eurekas and such so hard.

 

[bonafide11]

Just remember, any mod you throw on also affects the AI. It may just be better to not gun for Eurekas and such so hard.

Intentionally avoiding eureka isn't really a fun strategy either. I guess I'm just curious why the tech pace is so flawed this far after release? Has it been that hard to balance with eurekas? They could probably multiply every tech by at least 1.25 and it would have a more realistic tech pace.

 

[dagriggstar]

When playing the game through the first few times (before modding it) I got the impression that the game is designed essentially in a way so that a time victory is for practical purposes impossible (As in, to win time victory you essentially have to be going out of your way to not win any other type of victory). Since the science victory (for instance) is essentially set in the future, that means the tech speed is going to be faster than it was in real life, making for some crazy dates.

 

[empresskiova]

Intentionally avoiding eureka isn't really a fun strategy either. I guess I'm just curious why the tech pace is so flawed this far after release? Has it been that hard to balance with eurekas? They could probably multiply every tech by at least 1.25 and it would have a more realistic tech pace.

I think it's because the Eurekas are powerful. Giving half a tech means that beelining them will generally cut the tree in half. I use a mod that multiplies tech costs based upon their era. It works for me, but I still find myself in flying Bombers in 1400 lol.

Not to say that Eurekas need a nerf. Otherwise island civs are more than screwed lol.

 

[Nettronic]

I have been playing (poorly) civ for many years.

Yes 6 advances faster than previous games. However it is probably explainable.
Wide civs seem to have none of the drawbacks they used to, and all of the advantages.

I am used to playing warlord if I am trying to dom victory or prince level for science or culture victory.
In 6 I can play prince level, go a wide empire with everyone hating me, despite using casi bellis and despite NEVER declaring formal war. Just refusing peace.
I still have to hamstring my civ to NOT accidentally get a science or culture victory. (Last win, I had to jump back a century and bust up my themed great works, and still was withing a few turns of getting a culture win).\

Warmongering seems to be the only penalty now, and it isnt one. I still get 250 + gold per turn from trade. (or 1K + last dom game when I had 50 trade routes)

Have been doing doms lately because they are so easy now. Running into end game with 50K gold and 10K faith.

Still have only ever nuked once in civ3.

 

[gettingfat]

I once built less than 5 campuses, didn't perform a single research agreement, and still won a science victory in the 16th century at Emperor. In fact I initially tried to win by conquest, not science victory but I changed my mind just for fun. The eureka system is OP to start with. But the biggest factor is that the game does not penalize much on playing wide. First of all too much science comes from the population, and with many cities by playing wide it usually means many trade routes which translate into a lot of gold. The great scientists and engineers also can be purchased at will in the late stage of the game (especially after building big ben) so the space projects can be completed in no time. Many trade routes also mean quick space port construction.

This game needs to cut down the amount of science and culture derived from the population (may need to cut down the cost of early techs and civics to avoid early game too slow), reduce the eureka bonus or make the triggering task a bit more random, and moderately tone down the wide play. The GP purchase system and trade route system also need some revisions. Meanwhile, the other victory conditions also need some work as well, not only SV.

 

[Leyrann]

Because the tech pace isn't balanced right. AI moves just as fast as players. I myself use the 8 Ages of Pace mod which slows down the tech speed depending on era as well as rebalancing a few other things. I'd advice just using a mod until the balance is right if you want to have more playtime in the later stages of the game.

 

[PYITE]

It's a difficult game to balance, took me a while to set a pace I enjoy. I use the slower tech by era mod, if you open the file you can see that each era has a multiplier for increasing tech costs of that era. You can edit those numbers as you see fit. You can also do civics by copy/paste the code to the same file and change technologies to civics for the pasted part.
Keep in mind that because the district scaling formula is based on tech/civic progress, changing the pace has a direct effect on production costs of districts. The slower you go the more production you are adding to the game.

 

[Victoria]

Science has a flat path based on population and campuses. This is accelaeratec by eurekas and great scientists.

If we look at early mid-game when you get around 100 science per turn. A eureka is around 400-500 science per turn and a great scientists is typically around 1000.

If you graph science growth for the AI it's fairly flat with a few bumps indicating they primarily use population and difficulty level growth and a few eurekas but not many scientists.
If you concentrate of campuses without accelerating eras with beeline you can get excellent great scientist boosts to go with extra eurekas from dedication you can really race ahead.

The outcome of this is either you or the AI can get many techs in front and really be OP. With those mechanics in mind where is the issue? Well probably great scientists as well as eurekas but the fact the AI can leap ahead equally as well on difficlt levels I pose the question

Is the problem that a date is displayed that makes you think it's too unreal or does it break the game?

The reason is I never look at the date and never consider science an issue unless there is a runaway on deity. Civ V was waaay too much science based, civ 6 is quite complex in comparison. I can play a pure culture push getting really high culture and not be severely disadvantaged by low science.

 

[magha77]

I would prefer more techs and corresponding units to stretch out the eras. I've taken to only playing on marathonnow as a result to enjoy each era but still proceed through it faster than I like. For now, the only solution are the mods.

 

[bonafide11]

Science has a flat path based on population and campuses. This is accelaeratec by eurekas and great scientists.

If we look at early mid-game when you get around 100 science per turn. A eureka is around 400-500 science per turn and a great scientists is typically around 1000.

If you graph science growth for the AI it's fairly flat with a few bumps indicating they primarily use population and difficulty level growth and a few eurekas but not many scientists.
If you concentrate of campuses without accelerating eras with beeline you can get excellent great scientist boosts to go with extra eurekas from dedication you can really race ahead.

The outcome of this is either you or the AI can get many techs in front and really be OP. With those mechanics in mind where is the issue? Well probably great scientists as well as eurekas but the fact the AI can leap ahead equally as well on difficlt levels I pose the question

Is the problem that a date is displayed that makes you think it's too unreal or does it break the game?

The reason is I never look at the date and never consider science an issue unless there is a runaway on deity. Civ V was waaay too much science based, civ 6 is quite complex in comparison. I can play a pure culture push getting really high culture and not be severely disadvantaged by low science.

To me, it does really break the immersion to an extent. I don't expect the tech pace to be perfect, but it's so far from balanced that it takes the fun out of it. I enjoy there to be some historical relationship between the date and the era I am in, and if it's too out of whack it takes some fun out of it.

After reading everyone else's posts, I'm thinking the game needs to do a whole re-balancing effort of tech, production, wide empires, and eurekas. Hopefully in one of the patches, or at the very least at the expansion, they fix it.

 

[Browd]

I've often thought that it would help some players enjoy the game more if they had a game option that would disable the calendar year display -- just display the turn counter. For every player that finds the stated calendar year immersive, there are probably an equal number who find it undermines immersion, for the reasons you state.

 

[UWHabs]

Definitely still feels like there needs to be a little more balancing. As much as I try to ignore the date in the game, it's still weird to think that you're in 1200 AD and you're researching Rocketry.

But yeah, I think at the least if they cut down the science by pop, at least down to the same level that the culture gives you, that would be a great start, as that would force you to get some campuses down. Having other ways to slow down and not jump ahead in eras may help too, along with obviously increasing tech costs as you go ahead in eras. Even some stuff like cutting down the "+100% from campus buildings" to, say, +50% might help slow things down a little. Sometimes it can be too easy to go from getting ~300 science per turn to rushing 5 research labs and suddenly your science rate has jumped by a lot in the span of a few turns.

But yeah, it's not just the date, it's the fact that with a good empire late in the game, you can be researching techs in maybe 3-4 turns each with eurekas, which can bring along new units too fast in some cases. And then you get some weird things where if you have a eureka, a tech from the next era can be cheaper than one from the current era. They really need to run it much more exponential, but in turn, maybe need more ways for you to grow naturally grow your science so that it can keep pace with the eras. Would be cool to see it balanced so that it was actually really hard to jump to the next era, but when you did, you got a bonus for that. Even something artificial like having each tech from a new era cost twice as much if you haven't finished researching the previous era. So if you want to jump ahead to get a new unit/building/whatever, you can, but it will cost you heavily if you wanted to optimize things. Almost back to the civ 2(?) time when you literally could not advance to the next era until you completed all the required techs from the previous era.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The problem is that late game techs cost so little. They cost ~2000 science in Civ6 instead of ~10000 in Civ 4 or Civ 5, while the science rate remains almost the same. In fact, in Civ 6 science per turn is even more than that in Civ5. In civ5 I usually get ~60/t at T100, ~400/t at T150 and ~1,500/t at T200, while in Civ 6 I usually get ~100/t at T100 and ~600/t at T150, and finish before T200 so there's no suitable comparison then. Science per turn increases about 50% while science cost reduced to 1/5 the original, this makes the Civ 6 tech speed extremely fast. Furthermore, there're eurekas that make things even worse.

The same thing applies for culture. In Civ5 a late game policy costs about 4,000 culture while in Civ6 this is about 2,000. Also, we get multiple times of culture per turn in C6 than in C5. The culture rate is too fast, too.

The food and production cost seems all the same. In fact, the production cost even increased a little from Civ5 to Civ6. Which make Civ6 tech and culture rate terribly fast.

My suggestion is to significantly increase science and culture cost, multiply them to about 5 times the original in the late game. That may works.

 

[Nettronic]

While the year display does break immersion the tech pace is not broken in relation to the year, it is broken in relation to your other resources.

If I have any campuses its because I conquered a city that had them, I don't build any. Yet I am always within the top 3 science producers. the issue is that that you run out of things to invent mid-late game.

And it takes a couple of hundred turns after you run out of tech to have things that your city no longer NEEDS to build.

Things take LONGER to produce the faster you go up the tech tree. (well eras...) instead of the more realistic, FASTER production.

I am gonna have to try playing on Epic again, I just hate taking a month or more to finish one game when I haven't played all of the civs yet.

 

[UWHabs]

The problem is that late game techs cost so little. They cost ~2000 science in Civ6 instead of ~10000 in Civ 4 or Civ 5, while the science rate remains almost the same. In fact, in Civ 6 science per turn is even more than that in Civ5. In civ5 I usually get ~60/t at T100, ~400/t at T150 and ~1,500/t at T200, while in Civ 6 I usually get ~100/t at T100 and ~600/t at T150, and finish before T200 so there's no suitable comparison then. Science per turn increases about 50% while science cost reduced to 1/5 the original, this makes the Civ 6 tech speed extremely fast. Furthermore, there're eurekas that make things even worse.

The same thing applies for culture. In Civ5 a late game policy costs about 4,000 culture while in Civ6 this is about 2,000. Also, we get multiple times of culture per turn in C6 than in C5. The culture rate is too fast, too.

My suggestion is to significantly increase science and culture cost, multiply them to about 5 times the original in the late game. That may works.

I've played games without building a theatre square, and just running some various policies still essentially keep pace with new civics coming in less than 10 turns each without even getting most of the inspirations. It does make for the games to end a bit quicker, which can be a good thing since sometimes I don't want to play the same game for an entire month. But definitely does distort things, especially since it seems like production doesn't keep pace as you move along.