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What's missing to get realistic timelines
Firaxis has said that they test and balance the game at Regent level. They have done an excellent job in that, IMHO.
At levels other than Regent, however, the play is not as balanced. Spaceship launces by 1200 A.D. at Deity anyone? This tech acceleration at higher levels spoils the Civ3 feel. You hardly have time to build a unit and it goes obsolete.
The reason for the timeline being so out of whack is, of course, the fact that the AI gets bonuses at higher levels.
There is an extremely simple way for Firaxis to fix to this problem: Just multiply the cost of each technology by the ratio of the AI Cost Factor at Regent to the Cost Factor at the current level.
This should be done internally, without the need to add yet another parameter in the editor.
Example:
At Deity, the AI Cost Factor is 6.
At Regent, the AI Cost Factor is 10.
When playing at Deity, all techs should cost 1.66 (10/6) times more.
This assumes that the turns played up to a given point in the tech tree are directly proportional to the tech cost. Is this true in practice? Probably not exacly, because of more aggressive AI trading at higher levels. It is also not accurate for lower levels, especially Chieftain, because in those cases the human is usually the tech leader, so the rate goes faster than what the AI would do alone without the human player. But in any case, it's certainly better than what we have now!
Lets assume a Regent-level game that enters the modern age at 1950 A.D. That's 440 turns worth of research from all civs. For a Deity-level game, the AIs would get the equivalent of 440 turns of research in only 264 turns: year 1320! Sounds familiar? Using the same assumption, you would enter the modern age at 1774 on Emperor, and at 1862 on Monarch. Is this about right for you? If it is, then the proposed fix would work perfectly.
At levels other than Regent, however, the play is not as balanced. Spaceship launces by 1200 A.D. at Deity anyone? This tech acceleration at higher levels spoils the Civ3 feel. You hardly have time to build a unit and it goes obsolete.
The reason for the timeline being so out of whack is, of course, the fact that the AI gets bonuses at higher levels.
There is an extremely simple way for Firaxis to fix to this problem: Just multiply the cost of each technology by the ratio of the AI Cost Factor at Regent to the Cost Factor at the current level.
This should be done internally, without the need to add yet another parameter in the editor.
Example:
At Deity, the AI Cost Factor is 6.
At Regent, the AI Cost Factor is 10.
When playing at Deity, all techs should cost 1.66 (10/6) times more.
This assumes that the turns played up to a given point in the tech tree are directly proportional to the tech cost. Is this true in practice? Probably not exacly, because of more aggressive AI trading at higher levels. It is also not accurate for lower levels, especially Chieftain, because in those cases the human is usually the tech leader, so the rate goes faster than what the AI would do alone without the human player. But in any case, it's certainly better than what we have now!
Lets assume a Regent-level game that enters the modern age at 1950 A.D. That's 440 turns worth of research from all civs. For a Deity-level game, the AIs would get the equivalent of 440 turns of research in only 264 turns: year 1320! Sounds familiar? Using the same assumption, you would enter the modern age at 1774 on Emperor, and at 1862 on Monarch. Is this about right for you? If it is, then the proposed fix would work perfectly.
how did I post this twice
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