The Compromise of 210 BC *Everyone Read*

[vulture]

In that test, buying the tech cost 193 gold, while researching took 128 beakers. So researching is more 'efficient' in that sense (though not in others).

But...

I had a look at how the cost varies with no. of civs you have contact with who have that tech. I did a test with 5 other civs, and one with 9 other civs. The details of what is going on are a little obscure, but essentially it works like this:

If no-one has the tech, you have to research the full quota of beakers (192 in the case of writing in my test). If you have contact with all the civs in the game, and they all have the tech, the cost in beakers is half of the full cost. In between it varies linearly. So if there are civs in a game, and you are in contact with M of them that have the tech, the cost in beakers is multiplied by (1-M/(2N)). So with 16 civs in game, 8 of whom you have contact with and who have the tech, then the cost to research it is reduced to 75% of the full cost. This is all for the cost in beakers of doing your own research.

The cost for buying the tech (ignoring slight variations due to the attitude of the civ you are bargaining with) is less, contrary to what I just said at the start of this post, UNLESS only one civ has the tech. Basically, the cost in gold is 3/4 the cost in beakers. But if 1 civ has a monopoly on the tech, the price you have to pay is doubled (1.5 times the cost in beakers).

There seem to be some other factors involved as well, but the above is pretty close. Here are some data for a test with 5 AI civs. First column is no. of civs I have made contact with, second is the cost in beakers to research the tech myself, lastly is the cost in gold to buy the tech of the Persians (who were annoyed with me - the price for polite civs was systematically 2 gold less).

0 192 -
1 175 260
2 155 116
3 136 103
4 117 90
5 96 76

The cost in beakers isn't exact, as it can't be determined precisely when you need 39 turns at 3 beakers per turn - it could be 117-119 with the same result (for example).

[Shiber]

Oh, you were playing in a TINY map, that explains it. I actually looked at the data and thought this proves that techs cost less to buy than to research.

[Shiber]

Okay, so now we have know that techs can be as expensive as 50% more gold than the price of the tech, as cheap as 50% of the full price of the tech (if you haven't begun to research the tech yet) and that each beaker you've researched saves you 1.5333 gold coins off the price that the AIs charge for a tech (before applying any discounts related to how many civs you have contact with have the tech). We also have a formula for calculating the discount in the tech given the number of civs you have contact with and how many of those civs already has the tech.
We've really made a lot of progress!

I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I'll try to run a mock game and annoy a civ by demanding tributes and another where I'll appease another civ by giving them tributes and then see what kind of effect their attitude has on the price of a tech.

Edit: I forgot to mention that a city with a library saves you 1.3 gold coins for every gold coin you invest in research (+50% to beaker output for the same investment in gold, and same for other science improvements), and cities with universities and research labs save you 2.06666 and 2.83333 gold coins for every gold coin you invest in research in that city.

[Shiber]

Another interesting discovery: in a situation where you're buying a tech from an AI who is the only known civ to have that tech and you haven't got a single library in your cities (let alone universities and research labs) it actually becomes cheaper to buy the tech than to invest money in science to research it yourself after you've collected 93.75% of the beakers needed to complete the project. Unfortunately this is of no use to us...

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
Listen, I predict we can obtain either Theology or Chivalry in the next few turns. I want to know if this affects anything.

Noo... but if you have some plan for doing it, you should PM it to either me or Togas so we can check that there's nothing else against it and make sure it gets done. (You might have already told Togas and I might just be out of the loop, ).

-- adaMada

[Apocalypse]

I haven't told anyone except through this thread and the one I created this afternoon. I'm too lazy for pms.

[adaMada]

Yea, just saw the other thread. That's good enough .

-- adaMada

[Donal Graeme]

Fascinating. Early in the game it is more cost-effective to trade for techs and have the science slider bar set to 10%, then to research the tech. The money you save from trading rather than putting into science allows you to build more libraries and Universities and in the process you end ahead of where you would be if you had only researched. The only problem is that you have to be behind the curve for this to work, something that can be a major disadvantage militarily.

[Apocalypse]

I'm going with the compromise.

[adaMada]

Awsome . Go for it .

-- adaMada

[Panag]

hi ,

nice , lets go for this "compromise"

have a nice day