The Key to Tech Gifting

[samson]

Hi all.

It has been known for a while that giving away techs can reduce your beaker cost.
Also, there always seems to be one Key Civ to whom tech-gifting triggers the beaker reduction.
What has been unclear is the relationship between the Key Civ and the Human Civ.
How do you know which civ to give techs to in order to effect beaker reduction?
I think I have found the answer to this.

I hestitate to post my conclusions for two reasons. First, early announcements of "findings"
often turn out false. And secondly my answer is pretty ridiculous, in my own opinion.
Nevertheless, here it is.

The relationship between the Key Civ and the Human Player
involves the Power ratings and Turn positions.
Each civ's Turn Position is determined by its color:

1 White
2 Green
3 Dark Blue
4 Yellow
5 Light Blue
6 Orange
7 Purple

Power Ratings are reported by the Foreign Minister:

1 Pathetic
2 Weak
3 Inadequate
4 Moderate
5 Strong
6 Mighty
7 Supreme

The Key Civ for tech-gifting can always be found occupying the Turn Position
which corresponds to your Power Rating using the above numbers.
For example, if your Power is 'Inadequate', the Key Civ will be Dark Blue.

Science beaker cost is the product of two things: the number of Acquired Techs (+1) that you have
and a Tech Multiplier. One of the determinants of the Tech Multiplier is your relationship
to the Key Civ as found by the above method. If you have the same number
of Acquired Techs as your Key Civ, you get the nominal Tech Multiplier and pay an average cost.
If you have fewer Acquired Techs, you pay less. If you have more, you pay more.
By giving a sufficient number of techs to the Key Civ you can reduce your beaker cost.

If your Power rating corresponds to your own Turn Postion, you will always have
exactly the same number of techs as yourself and therefore will always pay the average cost.
You can give away techs till you're blue, it won't help. Well, it might.
Power ratings are in part determined by how many techs you have. So giving away techs
may lower your PR and get you out of the 'dead spot'.

If you're planning to spend a lot of time being 'Pathetic', don't choose White!
Same for 'Supreme' and Purple.
I know, this seems like a ludicrous design.
Maybe that's why it has proven so illusive.

Let me know if you have questions or if you can show this to be wrong.

samson

P.S.

My testing was with V2.42, deity, 7 civs. I haven't tried fewer civs yet.

Also, this finding may explain the 'destroyed civ' phenomenon.
When a civ is destroyed, your Power Rating may change. If the destroyed civ
occupies the Turn Position corresponding to your new PR, you will be much higher
in techs (since they now have none) and would have to pay the highest possible beaker cost.

[This message has been edited by samson (edited April 22, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by samson (edited April 22, 2001).]

[SlowwHand]

Accurate or not, I applaud your efforts.
I can't imagine having the time or patience to dissect this way.
WTG.

------------------
It's In The Way That You Use It
Tuatha De Danann Tribe

[SlowThinker]

{advances}
{beakers count}
{}{SlowThinker}

------------------------------
This is a post with keywords. See The Great Library: a hierarchical structure" thread.

[Mixam]

Wow Samson, If this turns out to be correct you saved me from having to try to figure it out. I have my hands full right now or i would test it

[Scouse Gits]

Sounds totally plausible to me - great work ...

------------------
Scouse Git[1] -- git1@scousers.net

"Staring at your screen in horror and disbelief when you open a saved game is one of the fun things of a succession game " - Hueij
"The Great Library must be built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

[East Street Trader]

There must have been a great "Eureka" moment when you intuited this curious connection. I'm with you that it seems weird.

For sure, though, your work will be quickly verified as people try it out in practice.

I guess that gifting to all will continue in OCC where improving the attitude of other civs is as important as beaker count. But in regular SP games this is a vital piece of information and I, for one, have printed off your post and it will be found sat beside my machine for a while.

As you point out choice of civ is affected. I like to play all colours but I have a predilection to play purple which may need reconsidering.

Rufus T.'s discovery that there is a key civ for tech gifting purposes seems to me to be work of Apolyton Nobel prize winning calibre but this work of yours builds on that discovery so substantially it must rank with it.

Perhaps you should be the Watson and Crick of the Apolyton world and share the prize.

[samson]

Thanks, all.

EST - The 'eureka' moment is recorded in the log of my 'size 1 OCC' game posted here also.
In playing that game I tracked all beaker counts to be sure I was paying the minimum cost.
Whenever the beaker cost went up, it was because the Key Civ shifted from Romans to Babs
or vice versa. After awhile I noticed that this happened at the same time
as my Power rating changed from Pathetic to Weak.
I used this 'tell' in the game but didn't understand the connection until late in the game
when I jumped to Inadequate and the Key Civ switched to the French whom I had been ignoring.
My beaker cost got clobbered. That's when the connection hit me. I left the game
for a couple hours and did some testing. When the theory proved true I couldn't stop grinning.

I've tracked this through two games now and found it explained all beaker count
increases and decreases. It also held up through a number of Cheat Mode test cases
I devised. Then I went back to some save games of odd beaker bumps I had. Bingo!
The topper was that it explained the 'destroyed civ' phenomenon neatly, too.
If this isn't the answer, it's damn close.

As to strategy, I think it will change my play even in OCC. Tech gifting does three things:
it lowers your beaker cost, it improves AI attitude and makes alliances possible,
and it slows down AI research. The last of these is not always desirable in OCC
because it means you have to do more of the basic research.

My future research strategy for all games, including OCC, will be based on three things:

1) Accurate beaker minimum cost tables
2) Tracking the Key Civ
3) Embassies with all AI

By knowing the beaker minimums and the Key Civ, I can control my research costs,
getting the maximum benefit with minimum impact on the AI's research ability.
I will still gift techs to AI to get alliances and maintain relations, but only
give the minimum needed, not every tech I acquire. By establishing embassies
I can see what tech each AI is working on. I can give that tech to that Civ
immediately if I have it. If they are researching something new to me,
I will leave them alone (suspending my tech gifting) to allow them to complete their research
as quickly as possible. In this way I can pay the minimum for my research
and utilize with maximum efficiency the AI's own research efforts.
In theory, I could effectively control seven lines of research simultaneously.
In practice, two or three or four perhaps.

samson




[This message has been edited by samson (edited April 23, 2001).]

[East Street Trader]

I read your log after I had posted. I could feel some of that grin.

So thanks for sharing it with us.

Like many a breakthrough it may now seem a straightforward connection to have made. But this is always ex post facto thinking. Fact is, many folk have counted beakers in OCC but none of us previously ever guessed at this.

You had Rufus T's discovery to help and Mixam too has been making interesting posts around all this. But the actual discovery fell to you and a fine one it is.

Can't imagine what the developers were doing. Perhaps there is some programming reason it has convenience.

You are way ahead of me with the application. I had got as far as realising that this ratchets up yet further the benefits of early contact and embassies/Marco Polo's. But I shall study your thoughts carefully.

[Edward]

samson,

Absolutely brilliant discovery!

It's one more area (hut pattern, Oedo years, 3 tech groups, ...) where the developers used an unrealistic, illogical pattern where a purely random method would have served just as well and been less easy for humans to exploit. I hope Civ3 takes a different tact.

As you noted, it can still be worthwhile to gift techs to non-key tribes to improve their attitude and slow their research.

Congratulations again. This will revolutionize tech giving.

[samson]

Thanks, Edward.

I've done more testing of this and I'm now convinced this is the explanation
for all changes in beaker counts occuring during a game. I went back
to Rufus T. Firefly's "Does Giving Away Tech Help Your Science" thread
and it explains both of the examples he posted there perfectly.
It also explains all of the counter examples I posted to refute his hypothesis.
The "delayed beaker reduction" phenomenon that I described occurs when you are your own Key Civ.
Since you can't give techs to yourself, giving them to everyone else has no immediate effect.
But on the next turn, the Power ratings may change and you might have a new Key Civ.
Since you gave away all your techs, he is now ahead of you and so your beakers reduce.
It even explains the extremely odd case I reported where the reduction of my city population
by one point caused my beaker count to go up on the next turn.
Obviously, my Power rating dropped, my Key Civ changed, and I now had more techs than this guy,
so I was charged more beakers for my current research.

[solo]

samson

In my 1056 landing game I was supreme and was playing the Indians, both in the #7 spot, and I noticed that gifting techs to everyone never changed my beaker requirements, and was wondering why not. Your theory supports exactly what happened to me in this game, at least, and also confirms my overall experience that there definitely is one key civ that triggers beaker changes.

I'll bet your theory holds up through further tests and earns an "oedo" award for its brilliant insight. Also to thank very much is Rufus T. Firefly for his extensive tests that led to the one key civ theory.

[samson]

Solo, thanks for the further confirmation.

If you were stuck in the deadspot all game, as seems likely, you never got the reduced research cost.
On the other hand, you would never have paid the penalty cost either.
Since the penalties are much higher than the reduction, you probably made out pretty well.

The 'key civ' idea has been around for awhile in its earlier guise as the 'sixth civ' theory.
Rufus's work refuted that hypothesis, replacing it with one of his own,
which also proved to be false.
So far, this new one looks good.

samson


[This message has been edited by samson (edited April 23, 2001).]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

An absurd, ridiculous, utterly counter-intuitive theory! Next you'll be telling us that deadly diseases can be cured with a derivative of bread mold!

Well, done, samson! I wish I could have been the very first to congratulate you, but I've been away. But let me make it up to you with some data:

1) I went back to the saved games I had which failed to conform to my speculations about tech and the power graph, and tried your method out; worked every time!

2) "Every time" includes a game where a civ had been eliminated: I was Mighty in a game where the Indians had been wiped out, but giving tech to the English still lowered my count. I would imagine that eliminating a civ eliminates the possibility of gift reduction corresponding to that civ's position, but not for others.

3) I found a game where I occupied my own preferred "tech giveaway" slot -- I was the Babylonians, and Weak -- and found that when I gave tech to the Pathetic Germans, my tech count reduced on the next turn, and when I gave tech to the Inadequate Sioux my tech cont reduced two turns later. I haven't checked for sure, but it seems likely that when I gave the techs to the Germans, I helped them pass me on the Power Graph and thus got the reduction on the next turn, whereas when I gave to the Sioux I didn't get the reduction until the Germans passed me on their own.

4) I still haven't been able to get the multiplier down below 24 for 20+ techs, so I suspect you're right about that being the floor.

It would be interesting to know what happens when you occupy the privileged slot yourself, give away techs, and then go up the power graph rather than down. I think I'm playing a game know where I can make that happen; I'll let you know what I find.

Again, kudos. If my students were even half this imaginative or this diligent, I'd be a happy man indeed.

Now: any ideas on the second gunman in Dealy Plaza?

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited April 24, 2001).]

[samson]

Welcome back, Rufus, and thanks.
I'm glad we got to the bottom of this issue.

quote: I would imagine that eliminating a civ eliminates the possibility of gift reduction corresponding to that civ's position, but not for others.

That is correct. And tech-gifting can sometimes change your Power rating enough
to shift you into a different position. From the testing I've done, it would seem
that an eliminated Key Civ acts as if it has 0 techs, which means you pay the maximum penalty.
That is not a good situation.

quote: ) I found a game where I occupied my own preferred "tech giveaway" slot

Actually, you really aren't too bad off when this happens. You don't get the MINIMUM,
but you don't have to pay a penalty either, even if you're way ahead in techs.
If you're Purple and Supreme, you can arrogantly forge ahead with no tech-gifting at all
and never pay too much extra for your research. The penalties for the late game techs
are quite severe (more than 100%) whereas the Bonus is constant
and so actually becomes less as a percentage of your cost.

#4) Yes, 24 is the Bonus Multiplier for a medium map, 19 for the small.

samson

[samson]

Xin Yu -

I just did some quick testing on a Large Map (75x120=9000) and the Bonus Multiplier is 30.

So if "14= 10x1.4 = tech paradigm x deity modifier" is correct then we have:


Map Size(in K) MapFactor

Small 2 5
Medium 4 10
Large 9 16

The progression seems roughly logarithmic instead of linear, i.e.:

MapFactor = 5 * Log(base2)(MapSize/1000)

samson