Automating the research slider needed!!!

[Chemical Ollie]

Keeping control of the micromanagement will differ a skilled player from a fairly good one in most strategy games, both realtime and turn-based. As long as the AI is more stupid than a human, taking care of the micromanagement instead of automating will improve the result for a skilled player.

But the issue of adjusting the science slider in Civ feels almost like a bug exploit IMO, even if I'm aware that it works that way on intention.

[Shr3dZ]

I dont think for everyone an automatic slider would be any good. I know for myself I have no problem remembering to monitor it from turn to turn, and I believe the more skilled players will be sliding it so you may be making +50 one turn and -250 the next. I hardly ever have it set so that I make the minimum amount of money and maximum tech, like I said, sometimes I losing a lot of gold per turn just so I can research the tech a little faster. Altho you have a point, there could be a little button that says 'automate slider' and it will take care of that last turn for you...

[CerberusIV]

Having come from CtP where you just set the percentage of wealth going into science and leave it (with the excess going into the next advance) I like the Civ3 way. Now I get to choose how long researching a tech takes and how much it costs me. Yes it is a bit tedious adjusting the slider at the start and end of each tech but it just becomes habit.

What I really like is the feeling of losing 20GP per turn for six or seven turns to research an industrial age tech and then turning the slider down with one turn to go and making 300GP and using it to upgrade some units. That feels like getting something out of the game because you put something in!

[ChaotikVisions]

Really not needed I say. By the time it gets to where monitoring it closely is actually needed (Industrial/Modern) ages you're doing alot per turn anyway. So its not that difficult to just check it every other turn or so.

[CiverDan]

This is one change I disliked from civ2 for civ3. In civ2 any extra beakers would not be wasted (except for the extra beakers in the city which contributed the last beakers needed for researcgh an advance, IIRC). Now all exceess beakers are wasted. I think this changed has something to do with the fact that the games sets a mininum number of turns per an advance. Even is you tweak the editor, it is impossible to research more than 1 tech a turn, which was possible is civ2.

[badams52]

I think both ways are fine. In civ2, I could get 2 future techs in one turn when I was milking the score. Now I have less micromanagement with the research seeing as how it will take x amount of turns. I think it also adds more balance to the game that way.

[Brizey]

Some of the problems in this area is the poor implementation of diminishing returns. I like civ3, and usually mentally defend the game when people complain, but this is one place where they got it wrong. They should have used a true diminishing returns model instead of a flat cap. It would have been more intuitive for the player.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Brizey
Some of the problems in this area is the poor implementation of diminishing returns. I like civ3, and usually mentally defend the game when people complain, but this is one place where they got it wrong. They should have used a true diminishing returns model instead of a flat cap. It would have been more intuitive for the player.

Good one. I've thought of about 75 problems and disappointments with Civ 3, especially compared to Civ 2, but I hadn't thought of that one.


BTW, Firaxis is never giving you any of this, you know. With the exception of one more patch for PTW, they are done.

[fittstim]

Originally posted by Gyromancer
fittsim- Not much thought process to performing the same stupid repetitive task over and over again. (If I wanted that, I'd spend an extra hour or two at work.. :LOL: )

Ha ha. That's the funniest response I've ever saw on this forum. Performing the same task over and over. Hoo hoo. Yeah, like moving a mouse around and point to squares to move your units. Yup, that only happens maybe once per game!?!

Or maybe building improvements?!? Yup, that's not something that happens over and over and over.

Or maybe attacking those barbarians?!? Yuck, yuck. Nope, that just doesn't happen more than once in a game!

OK enough pointing out the painfully obvious. The fact is that this game revolves aroung doing the same freakin' thing OVER and OVER and OVER.

[Brizey]

Coracle:

I think civ is about the only 4X game that does not use diminishing returns when alocating resources. And the sad thing is that it could be so much easier and explicit. The research system in civ3 is needlessly secretive. We all know there is a simple formula for the number of beakers to produce a new tech, yet the GUI does not provide us this number. Here is how it should work:

-The GUI displays the number of beakers required to reach the next tech.

-For a given commerce resource allocation, the number of beakers produced per turn is displayed.

-An ESTIMATION of the number of turns to produce the next tech is displayed. This is an estimation beacuse the number of beakers produced can vary from turn to turn. Also, the number of beakers required can change as other civilizations discover the tech.

-The number of beakers produced is based on a diminishing returns model. The more extreme the unbalance between science and treasury, the less the total commerce production is.

This model would be simple, direct and predictable. I never understood why they chose to make the number of beakers required to reach the next tech a hidden quantity like it was some big secret.

[Jaybe]

Brizey, I would bet it's a big secret because it is
THE Key to Winning The Game.

You wouldn't want to make the game any EASIER, now would you? ( wink, wink, just kidding, etc.)

(Also, it is possible that they couldn't figure out a GUI place to put it without redesigning either the F1 or F6 screens).

[Brizey]

But the high/low caps are such a primitive way to conceal it. You can estimate it with a little bit of algebra, and tighten the tolerance of your estimation by experimenting with the slider.