Getting tech from conquest.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Kramsib
Ok I know about the problem of getting tech from poor little villages, but it can be easily solved if the game rules restrict the chance to steal a technology for cities which are bigger than 6.

And about the diplomats.

Civ III has something that I still don't understand, why is the espionage more expensive than buying the technology to its owner?, that makes no sense. IMHO, diplomats and spies in Civ II were better, a cheap way to get the tech level of your enemies, (with a high risk of war obviously), there was another difficulty because you had to transport the diplomat or the spy to your enemie's territory, I found more adventure on this way.

In addition I remember more spy options in Civ II

Ah, but with espionage your opponent doesn't get the gold you spend, keeping him weaker. Check out some real world espionage sites to see how much public money is spent on espionage, and you'll appreciate it's actually quite realistic

Getting a spy to it's target in Civ2 wasn't that tricky - no culture glue to hold units back, and once you had units running around enemy railway lines warfare was quick - too quick.

I do miss the sabotage enemy units option... Kinda ultra mobile artillery. But I reckon espionage is simpler and mostly better on Civ3.

[Kramsib]

Ah, but with espionage your opponent doesn't get the gold you spend, keeping him weaker. Check out some real world espionage sites to see how much public money is spent on espionage, and you'll appreciate it's actually quite realistic

I don't think so. Let me explain...

1. The IA does not know the meaning of "secret technology", it always trades tech among the IA civs. So you can buy it to the weakest civ. It is not worthwhile spending so much money on espionage for something which nearly everyone has.

2. The money spent in espionage is completely lost for the game, if you buy a technology to another civ you put more money in the system giving it more dinamism. For a tech trader's strategy inyecting some money in the system is very useful to recover it with interests.

Getting a spy to it's target in Civ2 wasn't that tricky - no culture glue to hold units back, and once you had units running around enemy railway lines warfare was quick - too quick.

Not in Civ III, where foreign Railways has no bonus for your units. On the other hand you could always do counter-espionage by placing spies in your cities.

I do miss the sabotage enemy units option... Kinda ultra mobile artillery. But I reckon espionage is simpler and mostly better on Civ3.

Bribing units are another lost thing, in the Ancient Times and in the Middle Ages Mercenaries were very common.

[MoonWolf]

It should be possible somehow to get a tech from warmongering. Think of it as it is today:

A group of spearmen are attacked by a horseman:
SM#1:"Where did they come from? They move fast!"
SM#2:"I've seen them many times before, you can't follow them!"
SM#1:"That's right, let's tell our leader our scientists should research this"
Leader:"Hold on, first they must find out about iron working!"

As it should be:

A group of spearmen are attacked by a horseman:
SM#1:"Where did they come from? They move fast!"
SM#2:"I've seen them many times before, you can't follow them!"
SM#1:"Really? They move that fast? Maybe we should try the same!"

Especially some of the older techs could be as simple like this; after encoutering a new tech for a time or several times, there should be a chance of getting that tech. Of course, a spearman being attacked by a tank, should not be able to understand how that metal monster works...

Talking of civ2-spying, I miss some of that too. I was actually hoping it would be possible to carry spies in subs with civ3.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Espionage was out of whack in both Civ 2 and 3, IMO.

Civ2: you won the whole damn game by switched to the super-paradise-gov't entitled "Fundamentalism" and then just BUYING all of your enemies' cities!

Civ3: espionage is too expensive (IMO) and too risky.

I think that the Civ3 option is better, but needs to be modded greatly.

[epics]

MoonWolf: it's not that that you see how a horse looks like but that you have to learn how to tame him.

[Frank Johnson]

The most realistic tech system I've seen related to conquest would be from stars!

If you destroyed enemy ships, or took a planet, you get some tech points sent to your current goal. This worked better in that game since advances were divivded into catgoires like weapons, industry, etc....

But yeah, wouldn't it be most realistic to get at least some tech points toward your goal when taking a city? The larger the differences between the civ, the more points.

[Kramsib]

Good, I like the idea. If you are researching a technoly owned by the attacked civ, you can recieve some gold and some tech points from conquest.

[pedrojedi]

It would be nice, of course, if those "tech points" could only be gained when conquering enemy cities of more advanced civs. In "more advanced", it could be counted as:
1) Having different techs, even if it is roughly in the same tech level.

2) Being behind in tech.

It would require, though, a big great "TECH COUNTER", just like a Culture Points Counter, with the sum of all tech points gained during the eras, representing the accumulation of tech expertise in various areas.
The idea, I think, can be further developed, but I am right now too lazy to think about it.

[Kramsib]

But there is still a Tech counter, let me explain.

Ok, now, for example, we are the Chinese civilization, and we are researching for Currency, there are still 8 turns to get the advance, and we are at war with the mighty Romans wich has already got currency but they are very bad guys and they don't want to share it with us.

In this turn we have just conquered CaesarAugusta (currently called Zaragoza ), and we have received 2 gold (yes, too little money in Civ III from conquest) and some tech points in such a way we need only 4 turns to get Currency instead of those 8 turns before.

If you can remember, in Civ II the scientific advisor had a "Tech Counter" where the bulbs were acumulated, in this case, Civ III has substituted the tech counter into an indicator ( 10 turns, 12 turns, ...) but the counter is still there, adding all the lab glasses from each city, and this time, when conquering CaesarAugusta we have added a lot of those lab glasses from the Romans.

[pedrojedi]

Ok, but what you are describing is the already existing Advancement Tech Counter, with beckers in it. What I'm proposing is a UNIVERSAL, ALLMIGHTY POWERFUL tech counter, which would show all beckers accumulated from the stoneage until modern age. Just like Culture counter.

Is this a good idea?

[Frank Johnson]

Well some modifications could be made in civ3. You guys have the right basic idea.

In stars, tech advances were broken into vague catigories like energy, weapons, and construction. The only difference between then were numbers, like level 1, 2, etc... if you blew up ships with a design that required any tech higher than you currently possessed, then you got some tech points in those catigories where there was a difference from the remains, depending on how many ships, and how great the difference.


In civ3 in could work this way. Say you take over a city with a library intact. It'd be fair to say I'd get a great shot at learning alphabet if I didn't have it, a good chance at learning writting, and a possiblity of learning literature. If I took over a city with city walls in tact, I think it'd be fair if I had a chance to learn masonry.

Alternatively, in stead of a "chance" at getting the tech, you could just get some progress on any tech that falls in the catigory of the type of buildings you capture.

Intact barracks would help with any military type advances the enemy had that you didn't. (warrior code, the metal workings, chivalry, etc)

Intact markets would push tech points higher in money related advances. (Math, currency, banking, corperation, etc)

Intact libraries would push tech points higher in all writting related feilds, and any other sciences, after all, its a library.

Walls, Aquaducts, Colluseums, etc would advances building techs (masonry, construction, engineering, invention, etc)

Temples, Cathedrals, etc would advance the religion line. (burial, poly, mono, theo)


If the building was lost in the fighting, or you burned the city. Sorry. You don't get the points, or you get way less than you would otherwise. That's one pretty realistic way it could be dealt with. But I'm just dreaming.

You could also in theory gain tech points if you killed enemy units and lived. Say there were x advanced units on a square. You killed all x and seized the square. You get x tech points times y which is some number that defines the tech difference between your best unit and the units you killed. If you only killed x-1 of the units, you get nothing though, since you didn't get to pick through their remains to learn stuff. ^_^

[Russian_King]

Diplomacy

sorry for not taking the time to read the whole thread, but for the first few posts:
have u noticed how you can cheat in deplomacy?
i was playing my game. me and another civ on my continent (he was huge! due to the fact that he started off in a place where my expansion was cut off.)
and i was regrettably very litle.
all the other civs were on the other side. in the 400th century AD just before anyone discovers caravels. me with my trireme(galley) went over seas and just by accomplishing the rare of making it through to the other side of the world (large map) i traded my map in one turn to all the civs for their techs and retraded all the techs back to my neighbor, then traded my neighbor techs and maps and became about 10 techs smarter and 500 gold richer and also a world map thicker.
another thing i did just after was trade my contact with egyptians with each of the civs on that same turn, to get in return 2 and sumtimes 3 techs from each. its amazing how u can fool the AI

[Egbert]

Russian King,
The AI can do that too so I would not call it a cheat. It is good play to capitalise on a passing opportunity. You played well to get maximum benefit from your temporary monopoly of contacts.

[Kramsib]

Congrats Russian King.

But, back on topic.

I like the idea very much Frank

Should we report it to Firaxis? Or it would be another dream which never come true in a Civ game?.

[Frank Johnson]

Well like you said, the game company isn't going to change everything for little old me. I've been tinkering with game ideas since forever, and making one seems to be beyond the people I've be associated with. Besides even right here on apolyton there are people working on game projects like freeciv, and others which I can't remember right now, that is the only kind of hope for stuff like this. I remember before civ3 came out all of the people that were in the civ2 community offered up lots of great ideas. Some got in, most didn't, and even the whole event didn't prevent flaws, problems and shortcomings in the game so.....at this late stage, I just leave the suggestion to the young programers of the internet.