WFYABTA continued

[theGrimm]

I disagree with the "more than" part.

I was responding to your implication (at least, if that wasn't your implication, it was my interpretation ) that breadth first was the only obvious way, so perhaps I should say "potentially more than".

Choosing depth first or breadth first will be guided by your situation. A recent beeline to liberalism paid off very well, but only because the map wasn't condusive to early war. In fact, it turned the game into a winning position for me pretty much from that point on.

Yes, sometimes your position will dictate a breadth first path. Such as having aggressive neighbours or having few luxury resources. But not always.

[Sirian]

The idea of waiting 20 turns of investing 1000 beakers into an expensive tech without gaining any new building/civics/religious options in the meantime, while the others are putting their 1000 beakers into 4 cheaper techs, immediately gaining their advantages from them, was to be able to use my 1000-beaker tech to trade for their 4 250 beaker techs.

Then it's time to adapt. That concept is fatally flawed.

It's a total no-brainer to beeline up one branch and trade the same tech to a pack of AIs for three, four, six techs. This isn't a choice or a strategy, but a steamroller. I'm not sure why you aren't seeing that yet. We even left the steamroller in place! You can use it still, on timing of your discretion, but only a limited number of times, rather than all game long. You don't like ruling out this option, but if the option is there, it rules out everything else.

The ability to trade for the entire early-game tech tree with one tech like Music, Machinery or Philosophy, has to have a significant price attached to it. Even then, it's still a valid option in many cases!

I don't get caught up in theory; in fact I have found this imbalance in practical play first, and then did some thinking why I felt I got the shaft when doing depth-first research.

Depth-first research pays at any stage of this game, but not PERMANENT depth-first research, which is what you are craving.

A beeline to Iron Working or Horseback riding without bothering with Religion or Writing can make for a brilliant early-game military gambit. You've seen my religious beelines. Sea-tech beelines can payoff big on some maps. Alphabet beelines, Monarchy or Feudalism beelines, Machinery beeline, Calendar beeline... Lots of options.

The only thing unavailable is game-long tech whoring. For that, I offer no apology.


These complaints remind me of builders griping about having to build a military, and warmongers griping about having to build some infrastructure. Taken individually, the waters can get muddy, but put them together and the picture clarifies.


- Sirian

[microbe]

You and I have been on good terms lately, but you are trigger-happy with your displeasure and scorn. Please find less abrasive ways to express your views, lest we stray back in to frictioned territory.

Why do you always take criticisms on civ4 so personally? Geez.

[Hacp]

Then it's time to adapt. That concept is fatally flawed.

It's a total no-brainer to beeline up one branch and trade the same tech to a pack of AIs for three, four, six techs. This isn't a choice or a strategy, but a steamroller. I'm not sure why you aren't seeing that yet. We even left the steamroller in place! You can use it still, on timing of your discretion, but only a limited number of times, rather than all game long. You don't like ruling out this option, but if the option is there, it rules out everything else.

The ability to trade for the entire early-game tech tree with one tech like Music, Machinery or Philosophy, has to have a significant price attached to it. Even then, it's still a valid option in many cases!




Depth-first research pays at any stage of this game, but not PERMANENT depth-first research, which is what you are craving.

A beeline to Iron Working or Horseback riding without bothering with Religion or Writing can make for a brilliant early-game military gambit. You've seen my religious beelines. Sea-tech beelines can payoff big on some maps. Alphabet beelines, Monarchy or Feudalism beelines, Machinery beeline, Calendar beeline... Lots of options.

The only thing unavailable is game-long tech whoring. For that, I offer no apology.


These complaints remind me of builders griping about having to build a military, and warmongers griping about having to build some infrastructure. Taken individually, the waters can get muddy, but put them together and the picture clarifies.


- Sirian

So whats the point? To make the game go slower? Instead of spending time to research and trade to fill out all those early game techs, you beeline for one tech and then trade that tech to fill out the early game techs. If you were researching and trading regularly, it would have the same effect, except that the beeline tech would not be dispersed amoung the civs.

[Majromax]

No, the problem is that unlimited tech trading, of the Civ3 sort, accelerated the tech pace to the point of obscene imbalance. In Civ3 tech trading, players got along fine with doing nearly no research whatsoever, and picking up all techs in N-fers.

Unrestricted tech trading can, in theory, result in an N-fold (where N=# of AIs) research speedup for the entire game. In practice, since the AIs will tend to research the same thing, you'd max out at 3-5fold. This is 3-5fold the AI research speed, too -- on Deity Civ3 games, that alone is insane.

In Civ4, the very wise decision was made to limit the acceleration of the tech pace through tech trading; AIs still conduct trades, but at a far more limited pace. The Human is limited by the WFYABTA limit -- possibly not the best possible limit, but such a limit is necessary to keep the human player in check.

[Sirian]

No, the problem is that unlimited tech trading, of the Civ3 sort, accelerated the tech pace to the point of obscene imbalance.

That's not the problem, either.

There is no affect on game speed. Game speed will turn out the way that the design is set for it to turn out. If a variable on one side unbalances the equation, a weight of equal measure is added to the other side, and then nothing in the balance has changed except that the equation has been complicated and confused to no useful end.

With all the AIs in Civ3 trading back and forth immediately (when not at war), the TECH COSTS GO UP to compensate, and the game comes out at the same speed. Then where have you gone? Nowhere. Nowhere except down a blind alley, where tech trading to the max is the only strategy.


The AIs were better able to compete at tech trading with the "gold per turn" mechanic, but even then they had to trade back and forth at hugely discounted prices to stay in the game. No matter which way the balance was sliced, the result was catastrophic.

The AIs stayed in a TIGHTLY bunched pack, in all games all the time, under the original Civ3 mechanic. Soren changed the relationship between beakers and coins in spring 2002 (some of the first advice he took from me) and we also got the "monopoly double-cost penalty", but all this meant is that the leading AI would research the tech at full price, sell it to some sucker AI at 1.5 cost, and use that extra cash, plus any more they got from other sales, to push FARTHER in to the lead, while the AI paying the 1.5x cost would fall farther behind. It was broken at every level, but some folks here are fixated on only part of the picture, the tip of the iceberg that is readily visible on the surface. *shrug*

Even most elite players do not register just how EXPENSIVE techs are in Civ3 at the highest difficulty levels because they only ever deal with them when they are buying (automatically getting a 25% discount there) at deflated prices (getting more discount, as much as 80% in the early patches, toned down to about 50% later), and pull n-fer trades where they get two, three, four, six times the value out of one heavily discounted purchase. Or they have the largest, most efficient civ, are in the lead, are raking in AI GPT payments (often at the 1.5x monopoly sucker price) and have already won the game but still have to mop it up.

Lining up the trading strategics to where the player is twenty times more effective than the AI at navigating the trading system requires that the AIs be given a net 20x boost via handicaps that overlap with one another to insane degrees, distorting the gameplay at EVERY turn. Such matters of rescaling the equation to balance against a massive imbalance always comes with cracks, leaks, which sap away at the intended design until all that is left is a twisted, tortured mess.


Tech trading does not SPEED the game, it SWALLOWS the game, so that there is nothing else left. I've had my fill of that and I think most others have too.


- Sirian

[Sullla]

No, the problem is that unlimited tech trading, of the Civ3 sort, accelerated the tech pace to the point of obscene imbalance. In Civ3 tech trading, players got along fine with doing nearly no research whatsoever, and picking up all techs in N-fers.

Do you remember the days in Civ3 (pre-1.29f patch) where it was easily possible to hit the Industrial Age by 500AD? Modern Age before 1000AD? (Sirian's got a 750AD United Nations victory from Epic Four!) It was not at all uncommon for me to set granary -> courthouse -> factory build orders in those days!

That certainly wasn't unbalanced or anything, of course. I'm sure that Soren intended for us to be able to pick up 15 techs in one turn by playing middleman in the AI trading network. Again, not trying to beat this argument to death, but I'm happy with the improvements made from Civ4 to Civ3. Even though they aren't perfect.

[Sirian]

Do you remember the days in Civ3 (pre-1.29f patch) where it was easily possible to hit the Industrial Age by 500AD? Modern Age before 1000AD? (Sirian's got a 750AD United Nations victory from Epic Four!) It was not at all uncommon for me to set granary -> courthouse -> factory build orders in those days!

That certainly wasn't unbalanced or anything, of course. I'm sure that Soren intended for us to be able to pick up 15 techs in one turn by playing middleman in the AI trading network. Again, not trying to beat this argument to death, but I'm happy with the improvements made from Civ4 to Civ3. Even though they aren't perfect.

The argument that Arathorn makes is that he doesn't want either. He doesn't want this, and he doesn't want to go back to Civ3.

I accept that in theory, but in practice, anything that doesn't lead back to Civ3 Land, or unacceptably close to it, is going to look very much like what we have now. I believe the "miracle third option" to be vaporware. Tech trading is already the "only right answer" to too much of a degree in Civ4. You can get a quarter of the tech tree for free if you pull the right dials. The player who does not pull the levers successfully is left out in the cold.

I really do hate having to broker part of the tech tree. But it's not only there, but also hardwired in to the game balance, since the AIs are brokering between themselves. If there is trading going on, you have GOT TO get in on it or you're throwing away gains on a scale in which nothing else operates. A fourth of the tree passed up? That's worth two difficulty levels by itself, at LEAST.


It's one artificial constraint or another.

Arathorn's proposed solution looks to me like it will tighten the grip on the AI and loosen it on the player. The AI is not going to plan for, navigate around, and min/max the time limits, plus it still has its existing constraints, so it trades less. Players trade more or the same amount. Either way, it's a big move back toward Civ3. He says that isn't what he wants, and he asserts that isn't what he'll get. ... Maybe he's right, but I won't believe it unless the evidence is clear and present.

I'm not the only one who thinks tech trading is a godawful mess, but it is a demon we are stuck with. It was part of Civ1, Civ2, SMAC, Civ3, and so too many players are attached to it. Getting rid of it would have ticked off too many players. (Just look around this thread at the angst over limiting it!) At least the demon in this form is caged.


There are a lot of players complaining that the late game moves too fast. Guess what? The tech costs are going up in the late game. (Compare the current build to v1.00). Why don't they have to go up in the early game? Because tech trading doesn't short-circuit the early game. The serpent is swallowing its own tail. But there's nothing we can do about it. If the tech trading stays, the pacing needs to tweak itself to match. As players figure out how to get the most out of trading, the pacing is adjusted back toward what was intended. ... Game balance is almost always better served by simplifying the equations. The more clutter on one side, the more clutter has to be added to the other, until something breaks and CAN'T be fixed with more and more additions. Subtracting superfluous items from both sides leads to a higher fun quotient for almost everybody.


- Sirian

[pholkhero]

So, can we soon expect a "no tech trading" adventure or an "only breadth/depth research" one to test all this out??

[Yosh]

So, can we soon expect a "no tech trading" adventure or an "only breadth/depth research" one to test all this out??

Adventure 4: Hatshepsut's Hieroglyphics is somewhat this kind of game; although instead of turning tech trading off, you are not allowed to research Alphabet, and (IIRC, since I played and reported almost a month ago) can only accept perform a tech trade when it is offered to you.

It did make for an interesting game!

Can't say anything more about it yet, but you'll get to read all about mine in about a week when reporting opens (I can't wait to see other people's reports to see how they did things differently!)