A real reason why tech race looks like me vs World

[KDan]

Oh, and by the way

If another civ gets that tech leaked to it, it also increases the chance of you getting that tech leaked to you - assuming you're in contact with both civs.

Daniel

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

AI civs too unwilly/avaricious in tech trading

I fully agree on all comments concerning tech devaluation and tech whoring already mentioned. The fun about civ games is about evolving throughout different eras and having different options to proceed.
Right now basically everyone agrees on not/exceptionally researching himself in ancient and medieval era, but buying -or better conquering instead.
Later on, if you did a good job improving your cities, in industrial and modern era human players can catch up on the AI and (fairly easily) build up a tech lead of let's say 2 advances.

Reading all other posts it occurs to me that most other gamers don't talk about one of my too frequent experiences:
you guys talk about buying the techs from other civs is fairly easy; but to 90% of my experiences AI civs, during ancient and medieval eras, take a huge tech lead on me (playing emperor, standard map, 8 civs). Those civs usually refuse to trade with me, as I'm running far behind in techs.

Having luxuries or resources generally helps, but man, if AI civs have a big tech lead on me, they are so so so damn avaricious toward me. Heck, I usually will have to wage war to get my techs.

Contrary, AI civs that have been eras behind, can catch up completely in one turn !

Crazy, isn't it?

AJ

[KDan]

AJ Corp

Just trade money rather than techs and you can catch up in one turn. This means that if you find that you are falling far behind in the tech race (eg because you haven't contacted anyone yet, or eliminated everyone you contacted), you should switch your entire trade output to $$$ and concentrate on making cash. Then when you get contact with someone who's got lots of techs most of them will be very cheap and you can trade most or all of their techs in one turn for a lump of money (which will probably be all that you own, but it's totally worth it since that is the sole reason why you decided to make money in the first place!)

Daniel

[Arrian]

I go with an in-between approach. I focus on my overall economy - I run up the Education -> Astronomy -> Banking -> Economics line in the Middle Ages, while building Universities, Banks, Copernicus & Adam Smith's as fast as I can. I always try to maintain a treasury of 1000+ gold, particularly once I have Wall Street, as that gets you the maximum interest (50/turn). The AI will research gunpowder & chemistry for me. Those, I buy, and then continue on to Theory of Gravity for Newton. The major change I have made in my strategy under 1.17 is that I "beeline" more, and just pick up the techs I left behind once they are cheap (I usually get them in exchange for luxuries). Thus, I've been ignoring Nationalism altogether and upgrading Musketmen straight to Infantry. Nationalism/Commie/Espionage I buy from the AI, while I race ahead to Electronics, Replaceable Parts and eventually Motorized Transport.

-Arrian

p.s. The "tech leaking" idea may be relatively realistic, but I don't like it.

[Unregistered]

I *like* the tech 'leaking' idea! More realism is better I think. & yah, every economy I've ever looked at perks up, sometimes by quite a bit, when it goes to war. Implementing that in Civ would skew it even more to the war-mongering end of the spectrum. Looking at history, that's more realistic too...

Something to think about.

Cheers,

[Arrian]

Yes, it would add even more power to the already powerful warmonger strategy. Also, keep in mind that wartime booms are unstable, and are normally followed by a post-war bust. Wars are expensive, and long wars will eventually drag on any economy.

Hey, now that I think about it, sometimes I do get a production boost from a war in CivIII. The first few turns of extra happiness when you get attacked by an AI often gets a few outlying cities of mine into WLTKD, thereby reducing shield waste.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Possible solution

Here's a simple solution to the tech devaluation problem: Let the Beaker cost of techs devaluate, but keep the Gold cost constant. As it is, the Gold cost of a tech is twice the (possibly) devaluated Beaker cost. I don't think these two values should be so closely related.

Here's an example. Let's say Replaceable Parts costs 700 Beakers to research. As I understand it, if only 1 AI civ in the world has discovered it, it costs 1400 Gold to buy. With the current devaluation system, if all other civs know it, it then costs 700 / 7 = 100 Beakers to research and twice this (200 Gold) to buy.

Under the system I'm proposing, if all other civs had Replaceable Parts, it would still devaluate to 100 Beakers to research (which would probably translate into the minimum 4 turns). However, it would still cost 1400 Gold to purchase.

I think this eliminate the tech problem entirely. If you really wanted to buy advances, you could, but at approximately the same price it would cost to steal them. This ensures that you'll never get back into the loop with money alone; buying techs at 1500 Gold each will only get you so far. At the same time, the idea of tech devaluation (which I think is brilliant) stays put, meaning that the Zulus came come back and nuke everyone, if only their scientists put in a little effort.

A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?


Dominae

[korn469]

A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?

i love the idea Dominae, and i hope that Soren reads this, that would fix most of the problems, except the AI would have to realize it would be better to research these tech than to overpay for them, but if that was fixed as well, i think that could fix the problem

[player1]

Re: Possible solution

Originally posted by Dominae
Here's a simple solution to the tech devaluation problem: Let the Beaker cost of techs devaluate, but keep the Gold cost constant. As it is, the Gold cost of a tech is twice the (possibly) devaluated Beaker cost. I don't think these two values should be so closely related.

Here's an example. Let's say Replaceable Parts costs 700 Beakers to research. As I understand it, if only 1 AI civ in the world has discovered it, it costs 1400 Gold to buy. With the current devaluation system, if all other civs know it, it then costs 700 / 7 = 100 Beakers to research and twice this (200 Gold) to buy.

Under the system I'm proposing, if all other civs had Replaceable Parts, it would still devaluate to 100 Beakers to research (which would probably translate into the minimum 4 turns). However, it would still cost 1400 Gold to purchase.

I think this eliminate the tech problem entirely. If you really wanted to buy advances, you could, but at approximately the same price it would cost to steal them. This ensures that you'll never get back into the loop with money alone; buying techs at 1500 Gold each will only get you so far. At the same time, the idea of tech devaluation (which I think is brilliant) stays put, meaning that the Zulus came come back and nuke everyone, if only their scientists put in a little effort.

A minor problem that I can see with this system is that the Gold cost of Advances is static; Replaceable Parts would always cost 1400 Gold. I'm sure some sort of "Gold cost tech devaluation" could be introduced, with a rate much lower than standard devaluation. This would only involve a slightly more work.

What do you guys think?


Dominae

So instead of buyiung it for 50gp (1.17f) I need to research it for 4 turns (tech devaul.)
Or maybe 1 turn if I already was researching it.

[Dominae]

player1, that's the basic idea. I think the 4 turn minimum and tech devaluation are great ideas. If the Zulus just meet the rest of the world and are way behind (say, 6-8 techs), it would take them around 28 turns to catch up on their reading, so to speak (assuming all the techs have require the minimum 4 turns). At the same time, the rest of the world can research anywhere between 3-5 techs, so the poor Zulus are always sort of behind. With enough perseverence though, they may be scientific leaders someday. The point is they can't just come up with a couple of gold mines and buy themselves into the Industrial Age.

In any case, seperating the Gold cost and the Research cost, I think, eliminates tech whoring completely (regardless of whether or not you think tech devaluation is a good idea).

korn469, you're right, the AI would have to know which was better, research or purchase. I think the default should always be research, unless some other civ is offering a tech for an affordable price. Under the system I'm proposing, the prices would rarely be affordable (which is a good thing).


Dominae

[Arrian]

I think I love this idea. Devaluation tied to beakers only, or maybe different devaluation rates for research and gold cost. So a civ that doesn't have a tech gets a break on research once others have it, but the gold cost never drops to outrageously cheap levels.

Research devaluation can remain the same, gold cost could devalue at half the rate, and have a floor of 40-50%. So, yeah, the Zulu can come back, but only if they research.

Dominae, my hat's off to you. Well done. Firaxis, if you're listening, I think this is the solution!

-Arrian

[lockstep]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I think that the the idea of different devaluation rates for research and gold cost is essentially flawed, at least if one presumes that the AI is negotiating rationally when it comes to tech trading.

When giving my reasoning, I'll assume that any player (human or AI) has conversion rates of 1 gold = 1 science beaker to simplify matters. This is true if there are no tax or science buildings at all or if the existent buildings yield the same bonus to the basic number of commerce for both gold and science beakers (e.g. marketplaces/banks and libraries/universities, which both result in a multiplier of 2).

Now let's say there are 8 active civs that all have contact with each other. It costs 3200 beakers to research a certain tech (actually, this is about the costs of Replaceable Parts when playing on a standard map). After the first civ (civ A) has completed research, the beaker costs drop to 2800 (3200*7/8) because of the current devaluation formula. Civ B, which is about to start research, contacts civ A and asks about its demands for trading the tech. What offer should one expect reasonably?

Obviously, civ B would have to forgo 2800 gold (1 gold = 1 science beaker) by choosing to research the tech. Civ A would forgo nothing by sharing the tech with civ B (that is, no gold - I'm not talking about strategic significance of techs here). Therefore, the room to negotiate between civ A and civ B is 2800 gold. The offer humans generally consider as 'fair' would be to evenly split this sum: Civ A demands for 1400 gold for the tech, so that civ B would save 1400 gold/science beakers. I'm not an expert in game theory, but this theory states that the so-called 'fair' outcome is also the result of rational negotiations between two participants (especially when assuming that the room to negotiate decreases by and by, e.g. if Civ B starts to research the relevant tech).

As far as I can judge, available test results indicate that the AI actually calculates this way when asked to trade a tech. E.g., in a test setting done by korn469, a tech worth 200 beakers that devalued to 133 beakers (200*2/3) when the first of three civs had researched it, had a lowest negotiated price of 73 gold, which is close to the 67 gold (133/2) that one should expect as a 'rational' outcome. (As there were no tax or science buildings in that test setting, there was a conversion rate of 1 gold = 1 science beaker.) Another tech worth 200 beakers that had been researched by two out of three civs (and therefore devalued to 67 beakers) had a lowest negotiated price of 20 gold. Again, I don't know that much about game theory, but I suspect that this is close to the 'rational' outcome when civ no. 3 (which doesn't have the tech yet) is able to play off civ no. 1 against civ no. 2 (because both know that at least one of them will miss out in the negotiation).

So I think the AI indeed acts like humans would act (and, strategic significance of techs aside, will eventually act in MP) when it comes to tech trading: Determine the room of negotiation and make a 'fair' offer considering the number of participants. Therefore, negotiated tech prices are bound to science beaker costs. And whatever the devaluation rate for research is (or will be in the next patch), there should be no independent rate for the gold cost of techs.

[Arrian]

There is one way in which the AI most definitely does not act as a human would: there are times when a human player would not trade a tech - under any circumstances. The AI, on the other hand, merely calculates a tech's "worth" under a given formula, and tries to sell it at that value. Thus, 1 AI civ discovers a tech, and they all have it that turn.

I often refuse to trade literature, even after I have built the Great Library. Why? Because the longer it takes for the AI to get its libraries up and running the better, both culturally and scientifically.

That's just one example. Now, the AI is not capable, and never will be capable (CivIII) of making "human" decisions. So, what we can do is give it a formula that results in a level of tech devaluation and trading that seems right.

I'm ok with beaker devaluation, so that it's easier to follow the tech leader. It keeps the AI close, and it makes intuitive sense to me. The gold cost thing is ridiculous right now, but it too should devalue, just slower. This would reflect a general desire on the part of civs "in the know" to keep others backward... it's a tech race, right?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

One more thing. Despite my enthusiastic approval of this idea, we don't really know how it will effect the game. Therefore, clearly, it requires playtesting. Full-length in game playtesting. Sorry, but I felt compelled to state the obvious.

-Arrian

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Arrian
There is one way in which the AI most definitely does not act as a human would: there are times when a human player would not trade a tech - under any circumstances.

I agree, and have already said in my former post that I factored out strategic significance of techs. I myself don't trade a tech that allows a wonder which I'm constructing at the very moment, at least if I'm the only one that has researched this tech yet. Also, I won't trade key military techs (e.g. Motorized Transportation) to a neighbouring civ as long as I don't have a large and up-to-date defensive force.

I often refuse to trade literature, even after I have built the Great Library. Why? Because the longer it takes for the AI to get its libraries up and running the better, both culturally and scientifically.

OTOH, with the gold you get from trading Literature, you could increase your science rate, beeline to Education and get your universities up and running sooner.

Now, the AI is not capable, and never will be capable (CivIII) of making "human" decisions. So, what we can do is give it a formula that results in a level of tech devaluation and trading that seems right.

The formula for tech devaluation applies to the human player as well. What needs to be 'given' to the AI - and Soren has obviously done this in 1.17 - is comprehension of its implications: science beakers are gold forgone, therefore it is advantegous in general to trade techs for gold.

I'm ok with beaker devaluation, so that it's easier to follow the tech leader. It keeps the AI close, and it makes intuitive sense to me. The gold cost thing is ridiculous right now, but it too should devalue, just slower. This would reflect a general desire on the part of civs "in the know" to keep others backward... it's a tech race, right?

I'm okay with tech devaluation in general because of the very reasons you gave. And if the specific formula (a bottom line multiplier of 1/no. of civs) does away with the possibility to gain a significant tech lead and therefore hurts gameplay, this formula must be tweaked. What I don't like is the idea that we could leave the formula as it is now, but conceal its implications to the AI - and IMO, a different devaluation 'formula' for tech trading costs is nothing else.

As for the general desire of civs 'in the know' to keep others backward, I'm for a relative approach. Trading Replacable Parts to civ no. 2 for 1400 gold and increasing my science rate may in fact increase my advantage in the long run. Also, even if the technological gap between me and civ no. 2 doesn't widen, with a devaluation rate smaller than in 1.17 we may both leave civs no. 3 to 8 behind in the dust.

(And to also state the obvious: Whatever the approach in 1.18 may be, it requires more playesting than was done until 1.17.)