Subversion costs

[Ned]

Ishkandar, Over in the Civ forum, they discuss reducing tech costs by strategic giving of tech to so-called key civs. Apparently, for every three techs you are ahead of the key civ, you get a one tech penalty. So if you give the key civ just the right number of techs just before you research one, apparently your tech costs are lowered (e.g., the penalty is reduced.)

We just do not know what a key civ is - is this the last place civ?

But the other reason is the multiplayer problem. What is causing it? Once we find out, we can, theorectically, avoid it.

Johnd, It is quite clear that the end of turn is divided in several unique phases. In one of the phases, each faction updates, base by base, unit builds, labs, energy, riots etc. During this phase, if the labs accumulated exceed a predermined number, a faction gets a new tech. At this point, its own tech costs are recalculated, as well as, it appears, the penalties and bonuses that are used for other factions. The proceeds, faction-by-faction, until all factions are heard from.

Then, at the end of all this, the control is returned to the player and the faction-wide display updated with current information. It is at this point the where I believe the reported costs can be less than the actual costs that were present when your faction's calculation were made due to a change in the penalties or bunuses caused by research breakthroughs of other factions.

[Deimos]

Just a thought

As far as the not getting the tech goes, has anyone noticed if the rp's generated by the LAST base evaluated in the upkeep phase of the turn is the one generating the rp's that would give you the tech?

I know that this would be a hard one to simulate, but perhaps there's a bug that if your last base would put you at the limit, not over it, but just at the required rp's for that tech, that it doesn't give it to you?

There is some evidence for this: if the upkeep phase looks for rp totals = required amount before adding in the "next base's rp's" at the first part of the upkeep phase, then this would explain cbn's "missing" 17 rp's showing up the next turn, along with the "missing" tech.

Then again, I could just be twisiting in the wind

I'll see if I can reproduce this, but don't hold your breath

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ned
Krazy Horse, The Great Library post also referenced a Key Civ. The tech cost change depending on the relative number of tech as compared to this Key Civ.

What is a Key Civ?

If you remember Civ2, you'll remember your foreign advisor telling you things like how your power was, say, "Inadequate". There were seven ratings, from Supreme to Pathetic, IIRC. Your key civ is determined in the following way: You are told you have a power of "x" where x runs from 1 (supreme) to 7 (pathetic). If you are given a 7, then your key civ is the white civ. If you're given a 6, then your key civ is the green civ, 5 = Dark Blue, 4 = Yellow, 3 = Light Blue, 2 = Orange, 1 = Indians. Note that as your power increases, your key civ changes to a civ which gets its moves later; the white civ moves first, the purple civ moves last. The bonus or penalty you get for being behind/ahead in the tech race is determined solely by a comparison between your key civ's tech level and your own. Everyone out there note: I didn't come up with this stuff myself; I am merely distributing information arrived at by other (more dedicated) players. I hate to see good research go to waste, so I'm providing this information in the conviction that there are numerous parallels between the Civ2 game engine and the SMAC game engine. Also; I just thought up something; in SMAC, was there some sort of penalty to switching your SE settings other than just the one-time cost (such a radical change will blah blah...)?

[cbn]

johndmuller

Other than that one instance have you ever seen the F2 tsch cost go up during the research of a single tech I have never seen the F2 change even if I trade for the tech I am researching and substitute another. Could it be that there is a quirk relatedto tech cost before the first one gets researched and your experience related only to that. Has anyone else seen adjustments to their F2 tech cost? I have not but that is based on far less tracking than would be needed to state conclusively that it NEVER changes (with the first tech exception)

Overall I have seen two theories put forth

1. F2 is incorrect if you obtain additional techs and does not reflect a recalculated cost.

This does not fit my general experience since techs come in as expected even if I track them 6 or 8 turns from discovery. If it comes faster there is an explanation ( facilities, an SP or some other way to increase RP's. Ditto if its slower (changes in an allocation, Drone riots or losing a base). Also it fits neither of my "lost tech " examples since in both cases the "excess RP's went toward the next tech. If tech cost were recalculated somewhere, the game still applied the original tech cost when calculating RPs accumulated for the next tech.

I have spot checked the F2 Labs against the base by base displays and they have remained accurate through my admittedly limited testing.



2. Some quirk of game upkeep involving rounding, RPs from the last base or that determines when tech cost is set. This could be it although if tech is accumulated by founding order, each of my newest bases were contributing far less than 17 RPs so it would have probably taken the contribution of the last 5 bases to result in a 17 point excess. For clarity it would have been my 9th or 10th base (of 14) that would put me over the top.

Rounding or a last base effect could explain the circumstance where I did not get the tech when I had exactly the tech cost but neither can explain a 17 point excess in a 14 base empire.



I welcome you to continue to search for a reason for what happened and I will continue to look myself. But for now I am stumped. There have been some plausible rationales raised but they do not seem to quite fit. Perhaps this is just one of those inexplicable things that this game does sometimes.