Slowing Down Tech Advances... simple mod?

[Helium Pond]

Has anyone made a mod that slows down tech advances in the mid/late game? With "tech stagnation" on, the early game has just about the right feel to me, but I still find it ridiculous to have *anyone* able to make tech advances *every turn*. In my opinion, the late game techs should cost *much* more, so that, at the very least, one has a chance to *use* some of the upper-mid-range weapons, rather than just running like hell for the *best* weapon. Has anyone done anything like this?

[Bblue]

I haven't seen anyone do that, not sure that you can, but I whole heartedly agree with you on the speed at which techs come late in the game. If it is possible to do, it only needs to affect the human players or effect the AI to a much lesser extent. The AI, even with it's reduced 'energy to next tech' bonuses can be pretty darn slow at getting techs late in the game. (assuming the AI faction is about the same size as the human faction)

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"Power does not corrupt; it merely attracts the corruptable"

[DaveVegas]

The best solution for this is to change your faction rules file. Add TECHCOST, 125, HURRY, 125 (Tech cost is 125% normal, same with Hurry costs) in the appropiate location. That will do what you want. Leave tech stagnation option alone.

Originally posted by Helium Pond on 11-29-1999 08:23 PM
Has anyone made a mod that slows down tech advances in the mid/late game? With "tech stagnation" on, the early game has just about the right feel to me, but I still find it ridiculous to have *anyone* able to make tech advances *every turn*. In my opinion, the late game techs should cost *much* more, so that, at the very least, one has a chance to *use* some of the upper-mid-range weapons, rather than just running like hell for the *best* weapon. Has anyone done anything like this?

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[AlexanderIII]

I agree with DaveVegas. Altering the tech stagnation in alpha.txt will alter the tech accumulation in a linear fashion, whereas his suggestion might affect it in a more logarithmic fashion, achieving more-or-less the desired result.

[Helium Pond]

Alexander III, I'm confused by your reply. Did you mean to say:

"Selecting the 'tech stagnation' option will alter the tech accumulation in a linear fashion, whereas altering the alpha.txt might affect it in a more logarithmic fashion, achieving more-or-less the desired result"?

I'm pretty sure that's what you meant, but it's not exactly what you said.

[AlexanderIII]

No; altering the tech stagnation in alpha.txt would be linear. Altering the factions may achieve a quasi-logarithmic tech stagnaion more in keeping with your aims.

[SEE]

Methods to slow down tech advancement:

1) Choose "tech stagnation" in the game options

2) Edit the alpha.txt/alphax.txt "tech discovery rate as % of standard" line.

3) Alter the research modifier line in the faction's text file

4) Untested Try a negative number in the "research bonus per base" line of the faction's text file. (It might work, it might not...)

5) Add new delaying techs to the game -- for example, make Digital Sentience the prerequisite for a new Inertial Dampening tech and make this new tech the prerequisite for Applied Gravitonics. You'll acquire techs just as fast, but some of the techs will be placeholders to suck up research time.

6) Add a negative research modifier to faction text files (a la the Believers)

7) Increase costs in alpha.txt/alphax.txt for the various research-speeding facilites

Hmm...

[Bblue]

All good suggestions, but they all still miss the underlying problem.

Your suggestions either effect both the human and the AI or effects the human player through the whole tech tree.
Personally at the lower tech levels the combined AI actually out techs me (btw. I play blind=on) I only have as many 1st discoveries as the typical AI player but as time goes on *ZOOM* things get out of hand. It really don't matter how bad my reasearch modifier is (within reason). I've won by transendence, on transend level, as the believes, running fundy most of the way, playing them as less then agressive builders (except against Yang.. Stupid commie basta.. uhhhh... that's another post ).
The AI gets hit by a 120 mph train, or a 90 mph train, either way... it still gets hit by a train.

I believe the underlying cause of this is the AI's less then poor terraforming ability and to a lesser extent reluctence to use crawlers; orbitals; and in some cases, facilities. It just can't generate the masses of energy and lab output at higher tech levels that the human player can accomplish easily (look Ma, Hybrid forests and all trees )
So with out Firaxis really putting a huge amount of effort into the terraforming subroutines, which we all know they will NOT do. Is there a way to gradually increase the multiplier for your next tech (steepen the tech curve at the upper end for the human player only)
OR
as in CivII, add a tech penalty if you are ahead in tech (bonus if you are behind) preferrably one that increase sharply as you pull further and further ahead? (This option would work for both the Ai and the human players)

btw.. I really liked the built-in 'balanceing' factor in CivII, just don't think they did enough with it.


Geez.. was just thinking how neat it would be to have a balancing factor that changed with difficulty level and was in alpha.txt, so you could fibble with it.

Oh well, if wishes were fishes....


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"Power does not corrupt; it merely attracts the corruptable"



[This message has been edited by Bblue (edited December 03, 1999).]

[SEE]

Originally posted by Bblue on 12-03-1999 01:15 PM
All good suggestions, but they all still miss the underlying problem.

Your suggestions either effect both the human and the AI or effects the human player through the whole tech tree.

Yes, but:

1) To a certain extent, suggestion #4 in my post, if it works, is different. While it does affect your faction throughout the whole game, it would affect you more seriously the more bases you have because you'd get less benefit from each base.

2) You might be able save your game at a certain point, then change the faction file to slow research with the % modifier, then start the game up again using the new file. This is a bit clunky.

3) You could find somebody who knows how to make "trainer" programs and somehow implement multiplier increasing for the human player based on techs learned. This is not a trivial task, but a sufficiently dedicated programmer should be able to do it.

[AlexanderIII]

The solution, since the reason the AIs are behind in techs in later games is because of poor terraforming and builder strategies, hense less minerals and energy to devote to tech development, is simply to force the AI to be better builders. To this end my SNAX 1.0 addresses this problem by:

1) Making weapons systems farther up the tech tree (but not by much);
2) Making terraformers free at the start (i.e. can start building them right away);
3) giving each faction in the .txt files one or two (my pref. is two) free formers at the start fo the game;
4) Programming social priorities in the faction.txt files as y, x, x, 1, x -- the 1 representing a build priority in addition to any others
5) making less units and such available for the AI to choose from at game start, so that their only choice until a little further on is to produce, say, Scout Patrols and Terraformers, that's it
6) fiddle with the tech tree 0,0,x,0 data for certain techs, bumping up the numbers for x without changing the tech's focus (i.e if the tech were 2,2,1,4, making it an 'explore' tech (the 4), you would change it to 2,2,3,4 -- the 3 for build is lower than the 4, so the tech stays an 'explore'-focus tech). Since the faction.txt files now have the faction AI paying attention to builder techs, some AIs might now be more prone to choose to research more 'builder' techs. Again this has shown true in my experiments with my new SNAX mod.

I've played games with these modifications added, and the AIs seem to actually be able to hold their own in late game because of early game builder investment, compared to before where I would always crush them eventually by outbuilding them and reaping the rewards.