v1.17 and A.I vs A.I tech "trading"

[kimmygibler]

Agreed, something must change. I have basically stopped researching techs for the first 2 ages. There is no point, as soon as one civ gets it, everyone else has it within a few turns. This was a bad flaw in the patch, but what can be done?

I think there needs to be some reason to value researched techs over acquired techs. Perhaps a culture bonus for developping your own alphabet/pottery/whatever rather than simply picking up the tech of another civ. As it stands, the amount of tech trading kills the game. Add to this, the lack of global trading screen and you are forced to click diplomacy screen with every civ on every turn.

[DaveV]

I agree on the military vs. peace imbalance. In my limited amount of playing, I've never had an AI break an alliance; my pattern is to wait for an AI to declare war (or declare myself, if I'm tired of waiting), buy alliances from the other AIs, and eliminate the AI with whom I'm at war. Select next target, repeat.

In my current (Emperor level) game, I've kept my research at zero, and I've been able to purchase AI techs to keep current. In this case, I think it's still to my advantage to eliminate the AIs, since losing one member of their team should slow their overall tech rate.

[Eric S]

There's one thing I've seen wrong with the theory that the AIs treat the human equally. I installed the 1.17f patch midway through a nasty game, huge pangia map with 16 players (something I'm never doing again until I have a 3-4Ghz PC) on Regent (I think, it's the third level).

And sure enough, the only Civs that aren't tech-equals at all times are the ones that are in a bad enough position that they can't afford anything. As soon as one AI sells something, they tech-whore it to all the other AIs, and when I notice that a new tech is available, I'll buy it off of someone. It takes some of the fun out of the game, as it homoginizes your opponents, but it's not anything critical.

However, *NOT ONCE* has anyone offered to sell me a tech before I initiated negotiations. It's not like I don't have anything to offer, as I've got extra Iron, Saltpeter, and tons of gold (you can still tech-whore with 1.17 if you do it right, at least at Regent level. I'm at 100% research with my treasury increasing by 500g per turn ).

[JeffNebraska]

Soren, if you're still reading this, which you're probably not, please know that this tech problem makes 1.17 unusable. It was working perfectly for me and I was very excited about the stacked movement and the improved automation options, but this problem just ruins the game.

Like many here and on civfanatics have said, it makes it USELESS to research techs. No matter how heavily one invests in that strategy, the AI will not only keep up, but will ALWAYS be ahead. I haven't seen a single post yet saying that someone has managed to gain and maintain a lead in techs over the AI on any level other than cheiftan.

It really is such a shame that one miscalculation can ruin an otherwise excellent patch. This turn of events shows what a delicate balance programmers are forced to maintain. Nonetheless, until you release a version of 1.17 that returns to the old tech system, I will not play with 1.17 again. Since I'm now spoiled about stacked movement and the shift-I worker command, I doubt I'll play at all until this issue is resolved.

Please focus all your resources on this problem. I imagine a 1.17g reinstituting the old tech system could be easily released, but if you wait for 1.18 to fix this problem, the quiet rumble of discontentment over this issue will blossom into outright civil disorder.

Good luck and Godspeed.

[Arrian]

Yeah, Dave, that makes sense. If you are going with 0% science to buy tech while warmongering, eliminating civs doesn't hurt at all.

But the builder route (note I don't say "peaceful builder" because even I pick a fight here and there) I think favors leaving civs alive. If you manage to grab the tech lead, keeping all 8 civs in the game should help you keep the lead. Also, in games with a higher number of civs, the loss of one has less impact.

Anyway, it seems that I am not alone in my frustration with the AI tech trading in 1.17. There are many other things I like a lot, including the obvious improvement in AI unit upgrading.

Again, my understanding of how tech devaluation works may be wrong. Soren, please correct me if it is.

-Arrian

Edit: Regarding gaining a tech lead on the AI above cheiftain. I have done it. I had a lead, lost it, and got it back. I finished 1-2 techs ahead of the remaining 2 civs. On Monarch. Of course, that was the game with SEVEN great leaders, where I built both the Pyramids and Great Library (leader #1), along with SunTzu, Sistine, Newton, Adam Smith's and industrial wonders, and captured Copernicus, Bach and Leo's. In a game such as that, I had damn well better be ahead in tech. Yet I strained to keep my lead.

[SirPleb]

I'd like to join the voices who are concerned about the new rate of tech advancement. I agree with the concerns already raised and want to add another perspective.

It seems to me that an important element of balance in the game is the number of turns involved in a finished game. The limit is 540 turns to 2050. I think that a finished game will feel well balanced when as it approaches this limit it is also approaching the end of the tech tree. (Within a fairly broad margin.) If the tech tree is completed dramatically faster then there is not sufficient time available to build most city improvements, and the game begins to lose balance.

With 1.16 I think that the timeline was generally well balanced. A player whose level of skill makes a Regent level game challenging would generally find that research approached the end of the tree after 400 or more turns. Sure some people complained that research was too slow (or too fast) but I think that this often just meant that they should boost their difficulty level.

At Deity level with 1.16 it seemed generally true to me that the tech tree would be finished in 300 turns or less. This caused a bit of imbalance but was not a killer, it was fun to play. It was a constant challenge to try to fill in infrastructure as advancements became available.

"Tech whoring" was possible with 1.16. Not a technique I've played much because I prefer to slow the AI's rate of research. I'm not sure it was a bad thing. The people playing it seemed to be having fun. And I think it carried a penalty of a sort in that the player was choosing to accelerate the pace of the game. At Deity level, giving the AI's advances allows them to start their construction of improvements sooner, at their 6/10ths construction cost, which is a penalty for this technique.

With 1.17 the pace has dramatically accelerated. In many Deity games it might now be necessary to complete the tech tree in something like 200 turns. This will imbalance those games badly since they were already pushing the balance in that regard. (I.e. the side effect of reducing the total duration of a complete game from the 400 to 500 "optimum".)

If anything, I think that perhaps the pace of research at higher difficulty levels should have been made slower from 1.16, not faster. If the "tech whoring" problem needed fixing, a different approach should have been taken.

Hindsight is of course cheap. I doubt that a major change like the following could be made in a patch. But for the purposes of overall game balance I think it might have worked better to "flip" the logic on the higher difficulty levels. Instead of making everything cheaper for the AI, make everything more expensive for the human. That would keep the number of turns from compressing as one learns to play at higher difficulty levels.

[monkeyman]

So, would a simple fiddling with the value of a tech and that decay parameter with widespread knowledge of the tech so that tech trading is less common solve these problems.

It seems to me, if an AI is looking out for itself, as I as a player always do, it would not trade fission, or nationalism for less than an astounding amount of gold. In ITS OWN BEST INTEREST, it is far better to keep another (AI OR PLAYER) civilization 5 turns away from an advance than to net a mere 50 gold. No contest. That sort of thing should be expected.

Looked at another way, the US and USSR invented and manufactured Nuclear Subs 50 years ago. Today, who has that capabilitiy? US, Russia, China, UK, France(?). (there may be more, but not many) My point, a mere handful. I mean, we are talking about HIGH technology. Not like stealing the formula for gunpowder. Tech disparities can and do happen. The scaling factor for already discovered techs should be more gentle.

Also, how about a toggle switch to regulate {AI free-for-all} vs {AI team up vs. player}? Also fun would be permanent alliance toggles...

just a thought or two,

-MM

[Ironikinit]

I found it totally possible to maintain a tech lead over the AI in both the small game and my current standard game since the patch. In both cases, the lead came after I completed the Theory of Evolution. Monarch level, if you're wondering.

I like the current system more than I liked the AI trading on my turn. It makes it more fun because the AI is more competitive. I don't get every industrial era wonder as a matter of course like I did with 1.16. Unlike some, I still research in the ancient period. To me it's all the same, I can spend the money on research or I can spend it buying the techs.

I have become more warlike, though, and can't win with diplomacy in my current game since I extorted a lot of tech.

[wervdon]

Well I've probally played 8 full games post patch now, and I have to say that I have mixed feelings about the AI tech trading. On the one hand, it makes it more of a challenge, on the other its not as much fun if your out to try to get a tech lead of half a age or more and keep it.

I do think there's a easy solution though that'd satisfy most people and makes intuitive sense. Just make the frequency of AI-AI trading difficulty level dependent. At the moment, I literally cannot see a difference between their trading on chieftan vs regent (I dont play any higher than regent).

Just do something like this:
chieftan: AI requires 50% more for its AI vs AI trades, only contacts each other 1/5 as much as now.
warlord: AI contacts each other 1/3 as much as now, and asks 25% more than now.
regent: Basically 1.16 trade levels
above: Basically 1.17 trade levels

Basically, im just saying on the "easy" difficulties maybe the AI trading should be hampered somewhat. 1.16 should be considered "fair", and what we have now "hard". Or some similar scheme. What we have in 1.17 is certainely great for a challenge (and sometimes thats a good thing), but in general I dont think everyone playing wants a challenge like that in every single game....sometimes you just want to dominate for a while and have some fun.


Anyways, sorry if someone suggested this already, I didnt actually read every post in this thread first.

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Hindsight is of course cheap. I doubt that a major change like the following could be made in a patch. But for the purposes of overall game balance I think it might have worked better to "flip" the logic on the higher difficulty levels. Instead of making everything cheaper for the AI, make everything more expensive for the human. That would keep the number of turns from compressing as one learns to play at higher difficulty levels.

I don't think that would be difficult to implement. There could be a level dependent factor for the beakers required by the human player. Before starting my first game I assumed that it would be handled like that. I thought that research would be very cheap under Chieftain. Like it is now Chieftain players have a hard time because research goes really slow. And Chieftain is a beginner setup.

[Windwalker]

I don't know about y'all, but I've managed to get a tech lead on regent in the middle ages, and then keep it for the rest of the game. I think the tech trading "problem" only really comes into play at higher difficulty levels, where the AI has built-in advantages (I think Regent is the only difficulty level where AI has exactly the same production and research capabilities as player, right?). So maybe the aggressive tech trading is made to give players a harder challenge at higher levels. If that is the case, maybe y'all playing on the higher levels should drop down a level, and see if the game is about the right challenge for you...

About the arguments, I agree that the AI should be hesitant to trade techs too cheaply, because the deal would help the other civ immensely, and not benefit the tech leader all too much. The AI civs should look out for their own interests and not trade unless it benefits them and doesn't benefit another civ too much. They should never trade military techs (chivalry, military tradition, etc.) to neighbors (unless it's for A LOT, and even then maybe not... no sense trading for suicide), and they should not trade wonder techs if they are building that wonder (and are not halfway done already). The AI civs need to look out for themselves a little more and not just trade amongst themselves for the sake of trading... The whole deal with trading a tech for 2 gold is not very realistic and it's not a very good gameplay mechanic, IMO. The AI civs should not want a backward civ to catch up, even if it's a fellow AI civ

- Windwalker

[Analyst Redux]

"So maybe the aggressive tech trading is made to give players a harder challenge at higher levels. If that is the case, maybe y'all playing on the higher levels should drop down a level, and see if the game is about the right challenge for you..."--Windwalker

Higher upthread, someone posted this same thought, though in a rather more insulting manner. Suggesting that some people are now going to have to drop down a level to find the "right challenge" is rather a significant misreading of the vast majority of posts in this thread.

It is no particular challenge to beat this game on the highest levels, just as it was no particular challenge to beat any of its predecessor titles on the highest levels. The AI in this game is at its absolute worst in prosecuting war. At the highest levels, the AI can be goaded into war at the drop of a hat. Even with immense production advantages, the AI is not now able, and has never been able, to deal with a decently executed warmongering strategy. Being able to win on the highest levels isn't the point.

Now, if that isn't the point, what is? The points are: (i) being able to rationally choose any strategy other than warmongering on the highest levels; and (ii) retaining some sense on the highest levels that it is a game of 8 competing civilizations, and not a game of one human vs. a seven-headed poly-civ opponent.

With the new system of "aggressive" peer-to-peer AI tech trading, point (ii) is absolutely, utterly and completely lost. Not only does losing point (ii) substantially detract from immersion, and other game enjoyment factors, but it makes this product performance indistinct from any number of (supposedly) lesser products where this kind of AI behavior is routinely employed to cover up the gross weakness of the AI programming.

That we also lose point (i) via this change is only a slightly more controvertable point. Soren has attempted to make the argument that "creative" strategies can allow you to keep up in the tech race employing a builder strategy against the AI on higher levels. But with all due respect to Soren, any number of posters here who've attempted employing those strategies say he's wrong. Any achievement of tech parity is fleeting, and the pace of tech advancement is crushing. Attempting to employ a builder strategy is pointlessly ineffective, compared to the strength of advantage simple-minded warmongering gains you.

So the point isn't that one can't win on upper levels. The point is that strategizing on upper levels in one-dimensional, game play is non-immersive, the AI's strategic crutches resemble that of inferior products, and the flow of game play (and especially the only rational winning strategy) is diametrically opposed to the concept of building a civilization, which last I checked, was what this game was supposed to be about.

[SSBLoveU]

The AI is very warlike. It is difficult to make a lasting peace.

[Zachriel]

Various points

Originally posted by Eric S
However, *NOT ONCE* has anyone offered to sell me a tech before I initiated negotiations.

That's strange. They start offering me trades from the first time I meet them and continue the rest of the game.

Originally posted by JeffNebraska
Like many here and on civfanatics have said, it makes it USELESS to research techs. No matter how heavily one invests in that strategy, the AI will not only keep up, but will ALWAYS be ahead.

I usually buy techs until I switch to Republic. Then I usually stay ahead quite nicely. It is important to me as I like to get a few Middle Ages wonders. I usually trade techs, so I don't have a problem if the AI does too. Leaving yourself out of the loop hurts only yourself.

Originally posted by monkeyman
Looked at another way, the US and USSR invented and manufactured Nuclear Subs 50 years ago. Today, who has that capabilitiy? US, Russia, China, UK, France(?).

Though only a few nations have nuclear subs, many have the technology. They are just not very useful in today's world. For instance, I'm sure Norway or Israel could build one, but why would they?

World nuclear sub club:

Britain 13
France 11
China 6
U.S. 101
Russia 110, er 109
India is building one

[Panag]

The AI trades (again) techs during my turn , grrrrr , was this not supposed to be fixed ?

have a nice day !