Tech Discovery

[Rasputin00]

I am probably re hashing ideas that have been done to death, but to add my two cents worth,

I have never understood why discovering certain techs suddenlly makes other techs dissapear from your tech screen to reappear after discovering some other tech, the tech tree should be cleaned up so that this doesnt happen, if I have all the prereqiistes for a research topic, the addition of more knowledge should not make more prerequisites.

Also I think if you bribe a unit you should discover the tech that made that unit possible, for instance bribing a barbarian trireme should give Map making etc.

also i think that alliances should be able to combine research on a tech , maybe add their combined tech rate and then multipy by a percentage dependant on government type.. For instance multipy by 75% for democracy, 60% for others

Any further enhancement s from anyone

[Rasputin00]

I am tlaking about Civ 2 many times I have option to choose a few techs , but after choosing one and researcing it , when it comes time to choose next tech the list is differnet , I dont think this is how it should work.

As far as luck is concerned, you are right many discoveries occured as result of "accidents" but these were normally as a result of scientific research into one line of thinking but suddenly a side line developed. Probably hard to figure in this kind of thing. But I still beleive most research in modern times is from direct result of needs of society, and as the "leader" of the civ you are choosing the needs.

Hopefully tech research will be linked with actual resource availabiltiy , Iron workning needs supplies of iron to be developed etc. etc..

[tniem]

quote: Originally posted by Rasputin00 on 04-08-2000 12:08 AM I have never understood why discovering certain techs suddenlly makes other techs dissapear from your tech screen to reappear after discovering some other tech, the tech tree should be cleaned up so that this doesnt happen, if I have all the prereqiistes for a research topic, the addition of more knowledge should not make more prerequisites.

Are you talking about Civ I or II. I don't remember this ever happening. One of the features in Civ II is that when you went to pick a tech after discovering another, it would randomly keep you from picking some. Thus giving a sort of blind or not totally in control science like it is in the real world. But once you had the prerequisites then you always had the chance to get that technology.

quote: Also I think if you bribe a unit you should discover the tech that made that unit possible, for instance bribing a barbarian trireme should give Map making etc.

Just because you have control of a unit, improvement, wonder, etc. does not mean you understand it. I have no examples of this but say for instance you take over a city with a library. You as a nation do not have the alphabet, your a warring tribe that is fierce and powerful. Just because you have that city does not mean instantly you gain alphabet or writing or any other knowledge.

However, there should be a chance for you to gain the knowledge when you conquer the city, unit, or whatever else because you have contact with it and the chances are that your civ will pick it up.

Also, in terms of technology research I still favor a system where your chances of gaining learning hinge on what your society needs. You should not be able to pick up on Philosophy if your nation needs Iron Working to protect its borders from an enemy. You should invest in technology research which increases your chances of gaining a new tech but there should be a lot of luck involved because I would say a great deal of society's advances came from accidents or small findings, not wide government sponsered research.

[don Don]

I hafta agree with triem. Take, for example, Navigation. In the 1700's the British wanted to find a way of determining longitude by ships at sea. So the Royal Academy of Sciences under good ol' Isaac Newton established £20,000 Longitude Prize. Everyone was expecting an astronomical solution, especially all the astronomers who dominated the RAS.

When a very clever guy made unanticipated improvements in watch design it took an order from Parlaiment to award him the prize! His watch was accurate to a few seconds over a 46 day journey, sufficient to determine their longitude within 1½ miles (1/40 of a degree). It's a fascinating story you can look up at PBS.org (I think it was a NOVA program).

[HyperElite]

That idea of bribing a unit and getting the tech advance that made the unit possible is interesting - I think gaining the whole advance is too much, but perhaps some 'tech points' or something dedicated towards that tech could be a good idea.

[MidKnight Lament]

I've spoken about my system of 'prereq points' in the past, but I won't go into it here unless someone asks me.

Another possibilty though would be to give a free 10% (say) of the 'light globes' needed for the advance, rather than get the whole advance straight off, which is quite silly.

- MKL

[Rasputin00]

why silly? each turn can take 50 years, and surely in fifty years of interogation you would work out how to build your own.. the example of the library was not accurate, what if you discovered a library with a librarian in it who could teach your people to read...

but i was mainly concerned with unit bribing not city conquering where you already get to choose which advanc eyou want.. If i bribe an archer, i would hope that by 50 years i would be able to train my own archers, after all if i paid the guy good money to join me, he better teach me too . you guys keep saying learning immedialty forgetting how much time each turn represents ...

[MidKnight Lament]

I've heard lots of people complaining about time frames up until now, and so far I've held my tongue. The reason the time per turn is so large is because the game would take forever to play otherwise. People complain that you should be able to fly a plane around the world in a day or two. Well, yeah, if we wanted to be as realistic as possible, we'd make it so that you could, but it doesn't really fit with the game, does it? It would become unplayable in anywhere near it's current form.

In regards to learning techs, some would obviously be easier to learn than others. On one hand, if a militia managed to know off a chariot, then it probably wouldn't take them much to figure out what's going on with The Wheel. In the other extreme, is it best for game-play purposes that a civ can reverse engineer a nuclear plant to figure out what's going on there and straight away learn everything it took many more turns for another civ to learn in it's entirety? We should be thinking of this in perspective.

I believe that one way to fo it would be to gain a certain number of 'light globes' which would go towards your eventual learning of that advance. The amount you gain from it would be proprtional to how close you are to getting it anyway. If you're still researching Phalanxes, you shouldn't be able to figure out how to build a Machine Gunner in one turn. You could argue that a Phalanx-era unit couldn't beat a military unit, but it's not that inconceivable for a unit to walk into a briefly unoccupied city.

I still believe that giving an advance to a civ in the space of one turn is wrong.

One archer teaching others to become archers is a different story though.

[Klunk]

I agree with the resources idea. That might make it work. But here is my problem with bribing units and getting tech.
Lets say that my best unit is a phalanx or something like that and I bribe a stealth bomber. There is no way that I am going to figure out how to fly, stealth, jet engines, etc. I may find out it is possible and boost my science for a bit, but thats it. If you can steal tech by bribery it needs to be limited to at most one or two levels above where you are at. If I know propellers maybe I can steal jet engines, but not much more.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

The problem everyone is dancing around is that of Diffusion - ideas and technologies spreading or being spreadable by contact of all kinds. The real problem is that applications and technologies diffuse at different rates and through different methodologies.
In one example already given, the Wheel is pretty easy to 'pick up' as an idea, application, or technology once you've seen it in action. About the only prerequisites are some kind of woodworking tools and some kind of domesticated animal to pull a wheeled thingee to make it practical (lack of such domestics is why the idea of the wheel, known to the American Indians of Central/South America, never got developed by them into useful carts, wagons, or chariots). On the other hand, a Stealth Bomber is full of very specific, complicated, and not at all obvious technologies that cannot be mastered just by seeing one fly by - or even by climbing over the plane while it's on the ground.
So, every Tech Advance needs to have a Diffusion Factor of some kind built into it in the game. Some time back I suggested a three-tier Diffusion system, ranging from Obvious on Contact (civs will get it from contact almost automatically) to Provides Inspiration (civs get a boost in developing the tech once they've seen it) to Requires Instruction (tech can only be obtained through research, stealing, or buying it).
Along with this, there should be a lot of elements that contribute to or hinder research in certain areas. Best example I can give is ship building or seafaring tech. If your civ has 50% or more cities that are ports, any research into seafaring should get an automaic boost. On the other hand, if you have no port cities but are researching seafaring or map making anyway, your research will receive a negative modifier.
Modifiers could be based on aspects of the tech already discovered (the more prerequisites the better), the requirements of the civ (if you've been at war continuously for 1000 years, research with military results will definitely get a boost) or the terrain and climate with which the civ is contending (desert kingdoms learn a lot about irrigation; island nations develop ships, etc).
While this might complicate the basic Tech Tree quite a bit, and make calculating tech advance times near-impossible, it would stimulate civilizations to become unique: not everyone will research the same things in the same ways, because requirements and situations would vary by civ in each game - more variety in play and strategy, which is always a Good Thing to maintain interest...

[Rasputin00]

if you are arguing to change the current system of stealing techs when capturing enemy citys or via using a spy/diplomat then you are after a differnet change than I am , I firmly beleive , bribing of enemy soldiers will bring their knowledge with them, its not like finding a machine gun lieing in the battlefield, you have an actual human to teach you, he will explain what it took to get there, sudden enlightenment if you know what i mean can hapen, to make this more realsitic though, you would need to find all the necessary resources to make the new discoverys. for example, bribe a rifleman you got knowlwedge of rifles, but to make them yourself you need access to the materials to make a rifle . the game doesnt presently make sure you have adequate resources to make new techs , perhaps as part of new trade system , knowledge of a tech doesnt mean you can produce the new units ywt, but you simply have knowledge to go find certain materials to make it....

[OrangeSfwr]

as I listed in an earlier thread, you should be able to pay a civ money for its tech as an option. Once in a while it is offered if you're in desperate need of one. My example was the Russians, they jumped from a feudal society to an industrial society by paying german scientists to teach them secrets such as navigation, magnetism, industrialization, and other minor techs. It should be an option, but expensive. That way it is not abused. And to whoever was talking about the techs disappearing from the tree and reappearing later - I know exactly what you mean. It happens in both Civ I and II. It's a pain in the ass when you see a tech and decide that it can wait a turn, and then all of a sudden it's not there anymore when you discover the other tech. Than it comes back later. I think it's in there to prevent people from discovering Democracy before they know literacy, stuff like that...

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[UndoRetry]

Here is another idea:
Suppose you do not have the tech to build archers. You bribe an archer. As a result, only the city where the bribed archer stays can build new archers.