Does giving away tech help your science?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Something else I just noticed: the numbers generated here contradict Caesar's Beaker Numbers in the Great Library; my beaker count at 57 and at 75 were lower than Caesar's, even before I started lowering them further with tech giveaways. Caesar's numbers at levels 3-5 are also lower than samson's. There's clearly much work to be done.

[samson]

Rufus,

You're right.
I just played a game where I got even lower beaker numbers on some
of the earliest techs. More work to do on this.

Regarding your theory about powergraph position ... I toyed with it a bit.
In one instance, I was the top civ on the graph and was able to reduce
my beaker count by giving techs to the lowest civ on the graph.

Another observation ... sometimes giving techs results in no immediate reduction,
but the beaker requirements decrease at the start of the next turn.
In one situation I found that I could reduce the beaker count
on the next turn by giving techs to any combination of four civs.
Giving to three of fewer civs didn't effect it, but four did.

I'm feeling more confused about this. Except for the one constant ...
giving techs does help your science.

samson

[Rufus T. Firefly]

quote: Originally posted by samson on 04-12-2001 09:25 AM Another observation ... sometimes giving techs results in no immediate reduction, but the beaker requirements decrease at the start of the next turn. In one situation I found that I could reduce the beaker count on the next turn by giving techs to any combination of four civs. Giving to three of fewer civs didn't effect it, but four did. samson

Are you sure the fourth civ wasn't simply, coincidentally, the appropriate power-graph civ? I ask because, in my first example above, I gave a boatload of techs to 5 civs without producing any effect. Just wondering.



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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

[Mixam]

How exactly can you check the power graph? I can't seem to find it except when i quit a game. I have the classic verison. Thanks

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Shhh... Just Take It!
Shhh... No-one Has To Know!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Well, the easiest way is to save and retire, but you can do it if you have contact with every civ or all but one civ (where the info about all the other civs would allow you to infer info about the one that's missing). You just have to visit them, one by one; in their antechambers, to the left of their pictures, will be icons of 0-6 weapons (arrows, rifles, missiles, and something for early civs that always look to me like wooden spoons). The number of weapons corresponds with the position on the power graph; 6 rifles = first, no rifles = last (with 7 civs; with fewer, it still starts at 6 icons but only goes down as far as necessary). You can always find your position on the power graph by consulting the foreign minister, who will tell you, "Sire, our power is ____...". There are seven possible adjectives he can use, and they correspond to the seven possible places on the power graph: supreme, mighty, strong, mediocre, inadequate, weak, and pathetic.

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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

[samson]

Rufus,

Sorry to take so long in replying to your question.
Yes, I'm sure. I tried giving techs to each civ alone, no effect.
I tried various two and three civ combinations, no effect.
Any combination of four civs worked, as did five civs.
(At that point in the game I had no contact with the sixth civ).

I think it's important to reiterate that nothing I did reduced the tech multiplier immediately.
It only reduced it at the start of the next turn, which brings up another point.
The tech multiplier is sometimes increased. This only seems to happen at the start of a turn.
Lately I've been noting the turn year when this occurrs.
So far it has always been one turn after an 'oedo year'. I read somewhere
that Powergraph rankings are recalculated in oedo years. So this may
have something to do with that.

When the tech multiplier is increased at the start of a turn, nothing I have done
has been able to reduce it immediately. But giving techs away can reduce
the multiplier at the start of the next turn.
Sometimes, even when there has been no start-of-turn increase, giving techs
only reduces the multiplier on the next turn.

I suspect that there are two mechanisms involved in Beaker Cost assignment.
One is cyclical, every four turns, the other is an adjustment that is made
when techs are aquired, but this might be done only in non-oedo years.

happy researching,

samson

[SlowThinker]

{advances}
{beakers count}
{}{SlowThinker}{end1}

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This is a post with keywords. See The Great Library: a hierarchical structure" thread.
This thread has got to the top of the forum because of this post. It may be a very old thread.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm beginning to feel like those researchers a few years back who went public with their "discovery" of fusion.

It sounds like samson hasn't been able to duplicate my experience with giving to the next-highest civ on the power graph. Moreover, I recently failed to duplicate it myself: I'd never tried the give-away early in the game, so in my most recent game I did -- and in spite of being 5 techs ahead of the next nearest civ, and in spite of giving 11 techs to the next-highest civ, my tech rate didn't budge (it was at 224 while researching tech #14; I should have been able to drop it to 196). On the other hand, I haven't to been able to duplicate samson's experience with lowering tech rate by giving to multiple civs (though I haven't tried checking the rate at the beginning of the next turn), and my successes (see post with tables above) happened instantly and don't correspond in any way with odeo years. The more we know, the more we don't know.

Still, at least we know a couple of things: the sixth civ hypothesis is wrong, the beaker count in the Great Library is inaccurate at the upper levels, and the "penalty" for being ahead in techs can be greater than +8. A couple of things are suggestive, if by no means conclusive: I have yet to get the tech rate at higher levels down below the hypothesized base of 24 (see samson's first post to this thread), and I have yet to succeed in lowering my tech rate once a civ has been eliminated.

Ideas, anyone?


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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 18, 2001).]

[samson]

Rufus,

The immediate reduction of the multiplier does seem to be triggered by giving techs
to one specific civ. However, what the significance of that civ is, or its relationship
to the human player is uncertain. In my last game I had two instances that refute
your hypothesis. In one case I was the lowest civ on the PG and gave techs
to the #4 civ and got a beaker reduction. In the other case, I was #5 and gave to #2.
The one-turn-delayed reduction may work differently, I only recall seeing it
after giving to multiple civs.

Increases in the multiplier at the beginning of a turn are quite troublesome.
If it occurs on the turn in which you expect to complete research, you can lose a turn.
Very annoying, especially when the beaker count reduces again the next turn.
One time I had a size 4 city starve down to size 3, and the tech multiplier INCREASED.
I'm talking about the required beaker count, not just the # of turns.
I replayed that piece several times and it was definitely the reduction of my population
that triggered the required beaker count increase! What the heck?
There's some twitchy stuff going on in there.


samson

[debeest]

The data in the Great Library, posted by Caesar the Great in "Yet Another List of Data," are clearly not generalizable. He generated them by cheat-adding the advances at the beginning of a game, which meant that none of the other civs gained any, and he got farther and farther ahead. Those data may actually represent the MAXIMUM penalties that samson refers to. Interesting, but not all that useful in figuring out how much science you'll actually need or how to keep your science costs down.
[This message has been edited by debeest (edited April 19, 2001).]

[Mixam]

The data in "yet another list of data" written by Caesar in the GL seems to have been done in cheat mode on the first turn of the game as i have duplicated this by testing. Of note is that you will get the same results no matter how many techs the other civs have. Also even if you kill all the civs off using the cheat menu the results stay the same. At least this proves that there is no change in beakers required until the next turn no matter what. This may not be true on Oedo years. I think i recall hearing some people say they have had their beaker requirement drop the same turn they gave away techs. I am trying to test whether or not this happens on Oedo years. I will make my results public once I am finished probably within the week.