I should correct myself...I think it should not count eras past the one you might be researching something in, either. So if you gain an era III tech somehow while in era IV it should just make era III techs more expensive, while the era IV tech situation could be anything at all and it would be ignored (for the purpose of era III and earlier tech prices; era IV would of course care about era IV). Basically, you only ever count nine per previous era (no matter what it really is) plus whatever is in the tech's era, and nothing from future eras (no matter what it really is). This way gaining extra techs from past eras is just an opportunity cost of various possible types (and since the prices don't inflate insanely you may in fact be tempted to research, trade for, or quest for extra techs at times), and not an infuriating additional penalty to all tech prices that never ever goes away (except within its era, which is possibly interesting while being tolerable and not straitjacketing you into nine per era (even if not distributed perfectly) lest you wish to play foolishly), and you thus don't have to worry about any tech affecting any era but its own at all, ever. And of course this unruins quests and tech trading with the AIs (which also makes the AI better without any actual AI changes, since it won't be especially penalized by accepting techs it doesn't need)...

While I don't have much to add to the mechanic discussion going as the maths involved fly far, far above my head, I think it may be prudent to add that making a Science victory easier is not necessarily a bad thing as the game stands right now, seeing as from what I've heard it's one of the least viable victory conditions - at the point when the victory becomes possible the player has most likely conquered all enemy factions, or at least has had ample opportunity to do so.

So we want to simultaneously satisfy several conditions:

• Any tech from any unlocked era can be researched in any order.
• The total science cost of a set of techs should not depend on the order in which they were researched.
• Science costs should increase over the lifetime of a game.
• A higher-era tech should always cost more Science than a lower-era tech.
  
  

I think the simplest way of doing this is to introduce an intermediate resource---let's call it Research.

• Lifetime Science = lifetime Research^2 (or whatever). So Research becomes more expensive over a lifetime.
• Different techs may have different Research costs (so we can make later era techs always cost more), but otherwise each tech costs the same Research no matter when it is researched. This means that the total cost of a set of techs does not depend on the order in which they were researched.
• The Science cost of a tech is therefore total Science spent after the tech minus total Science spent before the tech. In this case it is Science cost of a tech = (Research cost of the tech)^2 + 2 * Research cost of the tech * Research spent before the tech.
• (Optional) Eras are unlocked based on Science/Research thresholds instead of number of techs.
  
  

This satisfies all four conditions.

Thank you very much for your work !



- To be clear and using these graphics knowledge, it confirms in any situation it's never good to research more technology than the requiered amount needed for passing to the next era, right ?



- I did not understood this : Do the quest given by quests or diplomaty count as unlocked technologies ? Or are they free (which they should be I think if the system want to favorise diplo trade) ?

I don't think it's likely that the devs can make each tier's techs superior to the previous tiers. Not with the framework they have.



Techs like Mill Foundry are designed to make science competitive with industry for the purposes of building additional settlers-- of which the first doubles the total number of city tiles you have.



You could say, "Tier 2 only has to be superior to the ninth tier 1 tech," but that means at least as much imbalance within a tier as exists now. And I would rather see harder choices within a tech tree than have a clear motivation to only ever go forward.



I would like to see certain techs stop contributing to a science victory-- particularly traded techs. The simplest way to do this is just to not count them towards tier advancement. It doesn't take a wild redesign.



Antistone's suggestion to make all techs cost the same seems reasonable to me. I would like there to be more of a feeling of technological advancement than that would bring, but it wouldn't matter all that much.

Antistone wrote:
Again, that would tend to eliminate the option to choose which eras to get your techs from. Since different mixes between the eras will have different combined research costs, there will be some cheapest mix (exactly which mix is cheapest will depend on unspecified details of the math), and you'll have to pay a larger and larger science penalty the further you deviate from that mix (increasing quadratically the more you focus on one era).



I think they should they should keep the costs of all eras approximately equal at all points in the game, so that researching extra techs from an earlier era is roughly balanced with the current era and both are reasonable options. (Or they should rebalance the technologies so that later era techs are consistently and noticeably more valuable than earlier eras, so that you'll always want to focus on the current era regardless of cost.)

Well actually, what I favour above all is:

- The cost of a tech in Era X is dependent only on the number of unlocked techs in Era X.

- Era X+1 is only unlocked when there are nine(?) techs unlocked in Era X.

- Techs of eras are rebalanced and redistributed so that all techs within an era are valuable and most are roughly equally valuable. I would not make later era technologies significantly more valuable than earlier eras, but not insignificantly valuable either. While a small few within an era (say, three per era) may be classed as must-haves, the others will all be equally valuable.

(so far, basically the same as Daisuki-chan above)

- Some techs shouldn't need to be researched. Anything diplomacy or market-related, for instance.

- New resources become visible one era before their extraction technology is accessible. (e.g. palladian visible era 2, extraction tech unlocked era 3; mithrite visible era 4, extraction tech unlocked era 5)

- Address technology trade... somehow. Haven't figured that one out yet. Daisuki-chan's suggestion is a good one though - actually, I think many other trades could benefit from influence costs scaling with the "volume "of the trade.

natev wrote:
I'm not certain, but I believe that, currently, eras are unlocked with cumulative science-- not with cumulative techs. I've actually had an era unlock on a turn on which I didn't complete any technologies. But maybe that was a bug.

I believe there's a "bug" if you complete an era via a quest tech. It will wait until the next turn to actually unlock the next era, of course forcing you to waste a turn of science on nothing. I assume this is due to the order of events only checking your tech count (however many times it may do so, although one would be the most expected number) before you complete the quest.



Antistone, what solution do you propose, then? I would like it if extra techs were per era and were desirable for their non-era-unlocking benefits, as this gives more choice of whether to improve your economy, military, diplomacy, etc. or to beeline for later eras and their techs. Therefore, I would like it if you needed exactly nine techs from the directly previous era to unlock the next era, while tech cost increases, if applicable, for extra techs would stay in their eras rather than becoming a constant, growing problem throughout the game (either you skip the benefits of one tech to receive the frustration of an inferior tech to avoid this, or you research every tech you otherwise had planned to research at a higher cost; either way you lose!). I want meaningful choices, and being able to choose to gain extra techs for their benefits without it being more than a TEMPORARY opportunity cost is a big aid to this. Knowing that it's 45 or "I'm a moron" if I want a science victory (meaning that I'd have to act like I wanted such a victory at all times if I wanted to keep the option open...very straitjacketing) is a restriction, not a positive.



I believe you favor earlier techs at least in part due to cheaper, more efficient buildings on top of those techs being cheaper, no matter the order you research the same overall set of techs in. I consider this to be a reflection of suboptimal era tech cost and benefit balance (which the developers should independently fix rather than hold a non-solution against us that partially works while ruining other things) rather than a personal preference of yours, although this is all speculation. Obviously if you happen to have what turn out to be less logical reasons for such a preference then I must say that I can't care, because there have to be logical limits somewhere unless this game ceases to be a strategy game, and I'm simply asking for the options to be more spread out, where you can get extra techs you hadn't planned to get based on circumstances that can change during/between games (as opposed to having fixed plans with little variation, which are very frustrating to get screwed over on). Currently the 45-or-bust method is fighting heavily against this, and if you really want a science victory above benefits from techs you would simply accumulate all remaining era II and era I techs to burst through in that order later on to get to 45 techs the most cheaply possible (say you had 12 tech choices per era...you would research 9 I, 9 II, 9 III, 9 IV, 3 III, 3 II, and 3 I techs in that order)...again not much of a choice. Instead I want the extras to simply not be such huge penalties beyond temporary opportunity costs, so one may, due to circumstances, favor extra economy, military, diplomacy, etc. for more speed or safety after the TEMPORARY setback of paying for the extra tech in some manner.



As for tech trading...I was not saying I want to make it more powerful (that was your strawman), but more balanced (i.e. not in favor of players over AIs) and logical if it exists. I assume the developers prefer having it exist, so I wasn't advocating removing it, even though I turn such tech trade options off in 4X games where I can. I also don't consider it fair to try to keep it less useful for the player in order to make up for the developers' doing a bad job with this system. Instead the developers should fix (or remove, but they probably don't want to do that) the system. Trades naturally should be mutually beneficial on some level, and this is normal in 4X games. It's ridiculous that you can dump techs on the AI and therefore expect them to have to sacrifice later buildings or other tech benefits they would want if they don't want to ruin their chances of winning via tech victory, assuming(!) the AI is even intelligent enough to choose between these options in the first place. If you dislike the ease of a trademania scenario between players, rest assured that I am not in favor of this (although I consider it so broken already that it's pointless to worry about breaking it more, as such players will already be destroying the AIs and any other players if otherwise competent), but I am focused on avoiding making it easy to screw over the AI while it pays you for the pleasure of doing so. It's actually quite easy to make tech trading harder...just make it cost way more influence (like say a fifth as much influence as it would cost in science for the recipient to research it?) in one manner or another, if one wants to make another easy fix the developers may more inclined to adopt.



Also, I suggested this easy fix because it wouldn't particularly require rebalancing all tech costs, and I assume that easy solutions are more likely to be implemented than massive changes that require full rebalancing.

Tigregalis wrote:
Personally, I still favour the cost of each tech being based on the number of unlocked techs within that era, rather than across all eras. However, you could still keep the era unlocking based on the number of techs across all eras.

Again, that would tend to eliminate the option to choose which eras to get your techs from. Since different mixes between the eras will have different combined research costs, there will be some cheapest mix (exactly which mix is cheapest will depend on unspecified details of the math), and you'll have to pay a larger and larger science penalty the further you deviate from that mix (increasing quadratically the more you focus on one era).



I think they should they should keep the costs of all eras approximately equal at all points in the game, so that researching extra techs from an earlier era is roughly balanced with the current era and both are reasonable options. (Or they should rebalance the technologies so that later era techs are consistently and noticeably more valuable than earlier eras, so that you'll always want to focus on the current era regardless of cost.)

Quest reward techs do advance the tier, as do traded techs.



In theory, you could have each of two allied human players research different techs, and then trade techs, allowing you to advance to later eras twice as fast as your opponents. You would need enough influence though.



Personally, I still favour the cost of each tech being based on the number of unlocked techs within that era, rather than across all eras. However, you could still keep the era unlocking based on the number of techs across all eras.

natev wrote:
Quest reward techs aren't supposed to advance the tier, are they?

Some do and some don't. If it is a faction-specific tech (ex. Vaulter's Winter Shelters), no, but if it is a generally-available tech given as a quest reward, then yes it does...

Tested-- you're right.



Quest reward techs aren't supposed to advance the tier, are they? If they are, getting a reward might have explained the time I advanced without learning a new tech.

natev wrote:
The UI says lots of things of questionable validity.

"The UI shows a 3 in this spot where it should show a 2" is a plausible UI bug.



"The UI presents an elaborate and consistent explanation of an entirely fabricated game mechanic" is not.



But if you really believe in your theory, it's easy to test: play until you unlock an era, load a save from the previous turn, change your research target to anything that won't finish in 1 turn, then click "next turn". If your theory is correct, you'll still unlock the new era (since you generated the same amount of science), and you can post the save file as proof.

The UI says lots of things of questionable validity.



You're right, though, that reducing the cost of lower tier techs would mean faster development. I'm like you-- I find myself walking back down the technologies frequently.



I don't think there's a problem with the way it currently works, other than the problem with different costs depending on in which order you take the technologies. That one rubs me wrong.

natev wrote:
I'm not certain, but I believe that, currently, eras are unlocked with cumulative science-- not with cumulative techs.

The UI pretty clearly indicates that it's unlocked based on number of techs--if you hover the mouse over the center of the next era, it will say "you need X more techs to unlock this era" (or something to that effect), and there's a ring around the era circle with segments that light up for each tech you research (9 per era).



Even if it were based on accumulated science rather than number of techs, the suggested changes would still let me research more techs for the same amount of science points I'm currently spending; it doesn't change the fundamental issue that earlier-era techs are often worth getting during later eras, so letting me get extra early techs without affecting the research costs of current-era techs is buffing a strategy that's already strong (I wouldn't unlock new eras sooner, but I'd get to research more total technologies for the same price and still unlock eras on schedule).

Antistone wrote:
If you make the cost changes you're suggesting but still allow earlier-era techs to count towards the requirements for unlocking a new era, with the way I play, I'd save a huge amount of science even without getting any techs from trades or quests, and someone who's just aiming to get a science victory ASAP could save even more.

I'm not certain, but I believe that, currently, eras are unlocked with cumulative science-- not with cumulative techs. I've actually had an era unlock on a turn on which I didn't complete any technologies. But maybe that was a bug.



Part of the reason that I suspect it works that way is because it basically solves all these costing problems. Assuming there are techs to research. One day, somebody will get every tech via quest and we'll see how era advancement works without techs to research

There are many cases where I think the most useful tech you can research is not one from the current era; I believe I've researched more than the minimum 9 techs from era 1 in every game I've played, and I don't think I've ever gotten more than 5 techs from era 5.



If you make the cost changes you're suggesting but still allow earlier-era techs to count towards the requirements for unlocking a new era, with the way I play, I'd save a huge amount of science even without getting any techs from trades or quests, and someone who's just aiming to get a science victory ASAP could save even more.



Conversely, if you make those cost changes but change the era requirements so that you always need 9 techs from the current era in order to unlock the next one, you're basically saying my current tech approach is invalid--that I have to get 9 techs from every era, even if I'd rather get more techs from an earlier era. I'd end up paying more science for techs I'm less interested in, compared to the current system.





I'm not sure exactly how technologies from quests work, and it does bug me that I'm (I assume) skipping a level in the tech cost curve when I get a tech from a quest that I wouldn't have chosen to research...but if it means that, it also presumably means that you're unlocking the next era earlier than you would have, and you still get some benefits from the tech itself, so I don't think it's actually hurting you very often. I'm more bugged by the fact that this encourages you to complete these quests as late as possible, because you want the point you're skipping in the tech cost curve to be as high a one as possible. I would tend to solve this problem by simply not giving standard techs as quest rewards (give science points instead, applied to whatever the player is already researching--quests already give direct dust and influence, why not science?), or have them give "side" technologies that don't affect the cost curve and don't count towards unlocking eras (but should probably give weaker benefits than "real" technologies). The problem could presumably also be mitigated by better balance between techs in general.



The issues with getting technology from trades don't bother me as much. Many 4X games completely disallow trading technology because it's just too powerful; you want to make it even better? That said, it does still have the issue where obtaining the same tech via trade saves you a larger amount of science the more techs you already have when you make the trade; that's weird, but not particularly abusable (the direct benefits of a tech are more useful the earlier you get them, and the players you're trading with know how much science you're saving based on the score screen). Or, rather, not any more abusable than the whole idea of "trading" something while also keeping it already is. (If I were designing my own 4X game from scratch, I'd probably do something unorthodox in the whole tech-trading area; maybe require you to pay some percentage of a tech's science cost over again every time you trade it away, to represent "the time your scientists waste teaching them how to use it instead of researching new stuff". I do appreciate having some positive-sum interactions available via diplomacy, but the standard thing where two players who mutually trade all their science can research things twice as fast as a lone player is just crazy.)

On Normal Speed, Science costs of techs are:



First graph is costs of era 1-5 techs

Second graph is costs of era 1-5 techs on a logarithmic Y axis (for better clarity)

Third graph is costs of era 6 techs



Formula is

TechCost = ( ( ( UnlockedTechCount + 1 )^2 - UnlockedTechCount ) + 5 )*2 * EraMulti * SpeedMulti



Era-based multipliers (EraMulti):

Era1 : 1.16

Era2 : 1.43

Era3 : 1.7

Era4 : 1.96

Era5 : 2.5

Era6 : 22.5



Source: Endless Legend\Public\Simulation\SimulationDescriptors[Class].xml



Game speed-based multipliers (SpeedMulti):

Fast : 50%

Normal : 100%

Slow : 150%

Endless : 200%



Source: Endless Legend\Public\Simulation\SimulationDescriptors[GameSpeedBonus].xml



Not sure if this is useful information, but I'm trying to analyse the XML scripts (hopefully to be able to more easily mod), so I'm just including my observations as I make them.

Daisuki-chan wrote:


Here's an easy fix. Just make each era assume that all previous eras only have nine techs researched in each of them. This way you get the higher price for the tenth+ tech within the era, but it doesn't matter at all if you researched, received, or traded for a total of more than nine earlier techs in any given era (outside of the opportunity costs in science, quest completion tasks/time, influence, not trading for something else, etc.).

So basically stopping the research cost growth for each era after you reached the next one, as well as them not factoring into the calculation further... so going back to grab something less important later on (or trading for it) doesn't punish you. I like that idea.

Does anyone know how free techs from quests work? Since you infuriatingly can not choose to fail a quest, and some quests are impossible to avoid completing without crippling yourself (no, I can't never build another public library without feeling like the game demands me to be a moron), it would be nice to know if these free techs are extreme liabilities if you otherwise don't want them. I know unique techs that you never research yourself don't count for era unlocking requirements, but do they still hurt you by pushing up your tech cost? Broken Lords...penalized heavily by having to research 12 era I techs (as if they aren't unattractive enough!), and even changing those extra techs' cost to zero would still give them a penalty nearly as large. And what about free techs that you could otherwise research? What about techs from diplomacy? If any of these mess with your tech cost then they are in fact liabilities, not free or "given" via diplomacy. This is naturally infuriating, and you can also abuse the AI by selling them techs, because it hurts them (and they even pay you for their punishment!).



Honestly, the whole system is simply insane. Make the tech cost increase within the era, sure, but each era really needs to be independent, or you have all of these situations to at best work around on the developers' part, and I'm not optimistic that they have worked around them (by making them TRULY free) properly. You should never not want to trade technology (at least in the long term, assuming you don't pay any or enough-to-care influence and have already researched whatever you wanted from the era beforehand, making it a simple gain rather than a huge penalty...if you do want the tech earlier then you at least save science), and you should never not want to receive techs from quests. As it is these things are just bad, and even if some or all of them are perfectly worked around, the fact that the game doesn't make this clear still makes it easy to blame the game for being unnecessarily opaque (a "Civilopedia", a list of customizable hotkeys, etc. should exist rather than not exist...UI prettiness is just not everything, especially in a 4X game where many players want details and control, not hidden knowledge and inefficient control and forced bad-strange situations like with tech here).



Here's an easy fix. Just make each era assume that all previous eras only have nine techs researched in each of them. This way you get the higher price for the tenth+ tech within the era, but it doesn't matter at all if you researched, received, or traded for a total of more than nine earlier techs in any given era (outside of the opportunity costs in science, quest completion tasks/time, influence, not trading for something else, etc.).

I suppose you're right.



It follows from that, though, why does the growth term need to be ax(x+1)? why not simply ax^2? why not ax^3 or larger? why not a(e^x - 1)?