Wouldn't losing techs be interesting?

[dearmad]

I mean wouldn't it be neat if it were possible to have dark ages because your society was no longer capable (through education or practice) to retain a technology?

It could work something like you develop X technology which requires you to maintain X units or something- say some building in a city in order to keep the tech- then if you lose the building or # of units required, the tech is gone.

Older techs would be much harder to lose, obviously...

I don't know, just a pipe dream- and something the AI couldn't handle probably anyway...

[Sava]

no

as if corruption in civ3 wasn't bad enough... losing tech would be so awful... it would make me not play the game

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, at some level, fun has to trump realism (I think that is a Sid-ism... when fun and realism conflict, fun should win). It would really be annoying to lose techs.

[Verenti]

I think it's a good concept: If you got nuked off the map, it could result in a post apoctyptic setting where you have tribes of nomads with spears and other makeshift weapons with the occausional machine gun. Or like the Dark Ages.

[wgabrie]

This reminds me of how my 7 year old brother was once paranoid of trading techs because he thought he would loose them.

[Nikolai]

Short answer: No.

[dearmad]

I don't mean lose them willy nilly, but under serious, egregious circumstances- like a world cataclysm.

Well, nevermind then, you technophiles!

[wgabrie]

Well a Post-World Cataclysm scenario sounds interesting. But it should start you with a backwards people back. I wouldn't have this occure in the middle of a hard work game. Too frusturating.

[Ninot]

i think if ever a tech should be loseable, it shouldnt be random, but very specific ones, and only because of very specifc avoidable circumstances.

Like if you chose such and such a government, you risk losing such and such a tech.

[Sava]

How about if you are late in the game and you choose Christianity as your religion, you lose Biology...

[LordGek]

Civilization wide alzheimers?

[gunnergoz]

I'd love to see the loss of technology come as a result of a massive shift of power, say, or due to massive invasions and/or loss of the capital.

We do have precedent in the West as the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. Technology did not exactly stand still in the rest of the world in the ensuing years.

I'm not sure how this could be implemented but I do think it realistic.

[Shogun Gunner]

well, these ideas are better than the civ2 feature of military conquest of a city gaining you a tech from the enemy.

It does seem hard to implement clear rules about when a lose of tech would occur. Plus, the poor, poor AI. They dim witted bunch have to be considered in all of this.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, you could design a script wherby your level of science investment determines a chance per turn of losing techs-perhaps modified by civic choices and whether you are currently in a state of anarchy or civil war. Under such a system, so long as you maintained a science level of at least 60% you probably would be in no danger, but if it fell much below 40% you might start to be in trouble-especially if your society goes into a state of upheaval. Also, the higher the cost of the tech-the more likely you would be to lose it due to a 'Dark Age'. If it were done in this way, then I think it would be kind of fun, because it would at least work along semi-predictable lines, and it would definitely encourage more co-operation between high-tech and low-tech nations because, if the high-tech nation enters a dark age, then everyone could be stuffed !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Kc7mxo]

This was discussed way back before civ 2. . . and I still think it belongs in the game.

All technologies should simply have a tech maintenance cost. If you don't pay your maintenance, you'd lose access to that tech and depending on your level of tech maintenance you'd slowly or rapidly lose the bubbles you put into it.

Of course, since technology once discovered is easier to rediscover, you could have it get double the research points when you start working back into it.

I like the idea of tech mainance, and basing it off your number of cities. So a small super advanced civilization would pay less in maintenance, in comparison to a massive empire. Basically you're paying to keep your citizens educated.