1.FIRAXIS-patch: 17f tech acceleration is too fast to enjoy

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

In several threads people have concluded that the tech progression since the latest patch develops ways too fast!
This reduces the attractiveness of playing in and progressing through the different eras. It's more fun and realistic being able to use your precious built armies (not meaning leader-armies) for a longer period of time. Basically the Roman legions ruled for almost a half millennium. Now the possibility of simulating these historic events/realities (having UU's military strengths ruling for an appopriate period of in-game time, better reflecting the reality of ancient time), is almost reduced to 0.

IMO this could and should be adjusted.
Now it's not a game of evolvong through history, it's more like racing toward modern times and really fighting it out then.

This can't be ment to be, can it?

Any supporters of this (frequent) request?

AJ

[Worthingtons]

I completely whole-heartedly agree, this is what frustrates MOST about the game, it's more annoying than the corruption model for me.

Firaxis have tried so hard to make the game unbeatable, that they are ruining the game

Tech 'patents' MUST be introduced in the next patch!!!

[No.Dice]

Also each civ develops the same tech all within a turn of each other, leaving no diversity and making tech brokering nearly impossible in early/mid game. Emperor and above have become nearly unplayable unless you start an early war, and involve everybody in it to slow down progress.

[Dida]

You get one tech after another so fast, that the units become obselete before you can even built them in great numbers.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

MW's versus riflemen

In my latest emperor/Iroquois game I've tried to settle as fast as possible, building up my armies afterwards. I was all of the time very much behind in tech, whilst knowing every other civ, but while I most of the time have had two luxuries to trade, the other civs only traded 'ancient' techs to me.

So by the year 590 AD I attacked and conquered Rome, that held the GL (GL gave me all before education AND music theory, banking, astronomy, economics, navigation, physics, magnetism and metallurgy !!!!
--> posted my remark on forum: general: 1.17f bugs). So out of the blue I was suddenly even with the Formula One tech-civs. But a couple of turns later we (this means: all of the other civs except me) were in modern times, and my precious built up MW's had to face riflemen.

My point: by the (limited) time I spent building up an attack army of ca. 15 MW's, the other civs were far ahead already, making ancient and medieval units obsolete in the 6th century! Was I playing on a huge map with 16 civs. Not at all: standard, 8 civs, continents, larger land masses.

I won't finish the game as I've picked the Iroquois to enjoy ancient expansion. But ancient times no longer exist.
And don't get me wrong: I've won many games on emperor before. But a civ game without fair evolving phases troughout times/eras just isn't ...

FAIR
AJ

[I Am Jeff]

I think an easy solution to the tech problem would be to slow down expansion. Everybody expands WAY to fast. I remember In civ2 there was still sometimes open land by the time I got modern techs. If expansion was slowed, then they would have less cities, and less cites means less tech output. Which would lead to gaining tech slower. Only way that I think you could slowen expansion is by raising the cost of settlers and making them take 3 population, instead of 2. Anything else would be in Firaxis power to change, such as what units the cpu starts with and so on.

One thing they could do is have, on higher difficulty levels, the settler cost for the cpu be the same as the human player. This way the computer will expand slower as well.

[Dida]

An easy way is to make techs for expensive.

[White Elk]

I agree, the Tech race has been lobotomized, and gameplay has greatly suffered. Enough with these broken fixes already; Firaxis(with all due respect) please hire more testers and thouroughly playtest future patchs/games.

My first 1.17f patched game was played on Emperor. I was expecting to have to work hard and manage my Empire well in order to gain a tech lead. It was apparent early that I was going to have to pull a rabbit out of my hat to accomplish that task. So I built the Great Library which was a great help, and sacrificed some food production for commerce, and continued building the Science infrastructure. The tech race was no longer against individual Civ's but a consortium of tech whores. Where did the challenge of the Tech Tree go?...(sound of a flushing toilet in the background)

The game droned on and I kept current with the other Civs tech, but was unable to get ahead. As we communially entered the Industrial Age, I focused my tech research towards The Theory of Evolution. It was vital to my success to prevent the AI civs from discovering Replaceable Parts (rubber and the Infanryman) before I could disrupt their infrastructure and capture their rubber producers.

My Gambit was initially effective. The Theory of Evolution gained me the Replaceable Parts tech and I was two techs ahead of my opponents. The rifleman production switched to infantryman and an initial invasion force would be ready to sail in three turns. Now that rubber was visible, I discovered that only I and the Aztecs had access to the resource. I would be able to secure all the worlds rubber resources within five turns. yahoooo.....

However. A few turns after my discovery of replaceable parts the entire world had discovered replaceable parts. They had caught up to my two tech lead within a few turns. My infantrymen still secured the resources, but the Aztecs and their trade buddy the Persians had 2-3 turns of access to rubber. In that time they had been able to upgrade to infantrymen. Aaah, the unjustice of it all. I had no embassies with any Civ and no one had discovered Espionage yet. I can see no way that they could have (within the human game parameters anyway) closed the tech gap so quickly.

In summary; due to the tech trade changes, much gameplay strategies have been lost, and the game has become far to linear. In addition, the (once) great wonder The Theory of Evolution is useless. However the human player must build it or the AI civs will all benifit from it.

[cassembler]

Isn't there a way to adjust the "minimum tech time" in the editor?
Does this affect AI research? Did I just fart?

[davidttm]

Strategic Techs

IMHO the lightning speed problem is caused by the ai civs trading all their techs in a round-robin to each other (and sometimes even the human) without regard for the tech's strategic value.

Yes, we the humans are tech whores too. BUT we balance money-making against the military or wonder head-start the tech can give us.

If the human discovers a military unit tech he or she probably won't sell it to anybody the right away (much less to an agressive civ that lives right next door). The ai doesn't seem to have any governor on selling brand new tech, even if hoarding that tech would give their civ an advantage. Each ai civ is supposed to be trying to win, I thought.

I don't know how to fix it but making tech slower or more expensive by itself is not going to solve the root problem.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Must do's before advancing through era's

A thought:

To slow down the very rapid advance in ancient and medieval era, perhaps a couple of 'imperatives' could be included before a civ can evolve to another era.

For example:

A civ can't research/trade/enjoy medieval techs before having built at least 3 libraries, ...

A civ can't advance to another era if it hasn't conquered at least 1/2 cities from a rival civ (reflecting the absorbance of the culture of a defeated empire by the new one -- Greek culture was taken over by the Romans, giving a boost to Roman culture/knowledge)...

If you all find a couple of good 'triggers', Firaxis could make a synthesis and implement it (seems to be rather easy, although I don't know anything about programming). These triggers can contribute more to realism: in real life we name different periods in time because there exist many clear differences in the socio-economic and political parameters between distinctive periods.

Just program a couple of must have's or must do's before being allowed to advance to another era ...
More interplay goals, more fun!

AJ

[lockstep]

Re: Must do's before advancing through era's

Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR
A civ can't advance to another era if it hasn't conquered at least 1/2 cities from a rival civ

I wholeheartedly disagree. This would kill any incentive to peaceful coexistence.

[pauli]

A civ can't advance to another era if it hasn't conquered at least 1/2 cities from a rival civ

WTF?

with all due respect, that's the worst idea i've seen suggested for civ3, ever

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by cassembler
Isn't there a way to adjust the "minimum tech time" in the editor?
Does this affect AI research? Did I just fart?

Wisdom from cows... Is that like pearls before the swine?

Good suggestion. No, make that great. Double the minimum and increase the maximum by, say, 50% and the tech rate might resume it's leisurely pace through the ages. I'm gonna try it.

Salve

[lockstep]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Good suggestion. No, make that great. Double the minimum and increase the maximum by, say, 50% and the tech rate might resume it's leisurely pace through the ages. I'm gonna try it.

IMO, rapid tech devaluation and the AI's extreme willingness to tech whore is the problem, and doubling the minimum research time won't solve it. The AI's may be only allowed to research 1 tech in 8 turns, but they will still sell 8 techs in 1 turn when given the opportunity.