What technologies do you get when civilising?

You get the technologies that have already been researched by every great power. If there's a great power who's far behind in research (for the Japanese it will be the Ottoman Empire if they westernize too quickly) you'll be severely hampered in your initial technology because of them.

Huh. I did not know that. I doubt it will help much since there is very little one can do about that.

You can watch the great power listing carefully, and not press the button until the Dutch replace the Ottomans.

I don't think China will have to worry about the Ottomans. When I play Japan I hit Early Meiji Restoration on day one, take Korea, and I don't have to delay very long. China will westernize much more slowly than that.

intriguing

GC13 said:

You get the technologies that have already been researched by every great power. If there's a great power who's far behind in research (for the Japanese it will be the Ottoman Empire if they westernize too quickly) you'll be severely hampered in your initial technology because of them.

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Oh gawd, I played as Persia and westernised in 1863 ottomans where still GP, I didn't have freedom of trade, mechanised mining or even the tech to dragons or hussars. In fact I only had 1 or 2 navy techs and 3 industrial, 4 miltary, 3 commerce and 6 culture. It was awful being that far in and that far behind, worse yet. I wanted to colonise Somalia, but that didn't happen because of the
I got my revenge though and took a couple of Iraqi regions to link me with the Middle East it self

GC13 said:

You get the technologies that have already been researched by every great power. If there's a great power who's far behind in research (for the Japanese it will be the Ottoman Empire if they westernize too quickly) you'll be severely hampered in your initial technology because of them.

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This is not true as of HoD. You can see this thread here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...rmines-which-techs-you-gain-when-you-civilize for which I've replicated the results, and is one of the common myths about Civilizing. It's quite easy to replicate yourself, too: just Westernize as unsphered Japan in say, 1870, with the absolute minimum amount of reforms necessary, observe your techs and then observe those of the major powers. You will still be behind even the most laggardly GP in some cases. As far as I have worked out:

When unsphered:
You are guaranteed one technology on Civilizing. For every military reform you pass up until 5 reforms, you gain an extra 4 technologies. For every economic reform you pass up until 5 reforms, you gain an extra 4 technologies. Additional reforms in the same category after the 5th have no effect.

What I haven't worked out: what determines which technologies it is you get.

When sphered:
You are guaranteed all of the level 1 technologies (that's 25 technologies). You may get some additional level 2 technologies.

What I haven't worked out yet: what determines which level 2 technologies you do or don't get. It's some function of a) the techs of the GP who sphered you has, and b) the number of reforms you passed in each category.

Note that contrary to the usual advice, this means that Civilizing outside a sphere is normally better if you manage to Civilize in the early-game (before approx 1865). The typical path to reform is the 4 military reforms which give more Research Points on Conquest, plus the 3 economic techs which give you Railroads, a Cement Factory, and a mild literacy boost. That gives you 29 techs, compared to 25 for being in a GP's sphere. You don't start getting more than 30 techs for being in the tech leader GP's sphere until around 1865 or even later.

I don't know where you get this idea. I just set up a test where Japan westernizes early (mid-1839) because I force-fed them research points. If you westernize when the Ottomans are in, your techs are 4/3/3/3/2. If you westernize when Belgium takes their place, your techs are 5/5/4/5/4. Every tier-one technology that Japan doesn't get when the Ottomans are great powers is one the Ottomans lack.

So when, exactly, did the great powers' technologies deciding what techs you got become a myth?

GC13 said:

I don't know where you get this idea. I just set up a test where Japan westernizes early (mid-1839) because I force-fed them research points. If you westernize when the Ottomans are in, your techs are 4/3/3/3/2. If you westernize when Belgium takes their place, your techs are 5/5/4/5/4. Every tier-one technology that Japan doesn't get when the Ottomans are great powers is one the Ottomans lack.

So when, exactly, did the great powers' technologies deciding what techs you got become a myth?

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That's definitely not my experience and doesn't match the save-games I've trialled. Do you have the save-game you used for this? I've been doing a fair bit of research on research points and civilizing lately, I'd like to take a look at it.

I'll send you the basic one. In this save, the Ottomans are about to lose their great power status in two days. To get them to stay, just add 42 prestige (what I took from them) with the console and tag switch back to Japan. Then just take 10% worth reforms and press the Westernize button. You'll note a huge difference. If I had run the test where the Russians were under threat of losing their status too, I could probably more firmly confirm it, as I'm pretty sure they're the next least-advanced great power.

When civilizing as unsphered Japan in 1842, with 4 military reforms and 4 economic ones, you end up with much less than 25 techs, so I'm not sure how the 1 reform = 4 techs holds. There may be more to that.

It is indeed very frustrating to lose techs when westernizing and I'd considered it an oversight that would have been patched if new patches had been made. The game clearly states "unlocks tech X" and then take it back, I can't see any gameplay, balance or sense in that.

IncredibleHorst said:

Is it possible that certain reforms unlock certain tecs ? - obviously it might have been planned to work that way (if you see the description of railway reform, etc.). And it seems to work with the guns...

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That's what it says but then you lose the techs on westernization. In the early westernization of Japan example, I did not get military staff, even though I had the reforms which says "unlocks military staff", same goes for experimental railroad and the transport reform. So it's not completely clear what gives.

El Jojo said:

That's what it says but then you lose the techs on westernization. In the early westernization of Japan example, I did not get military staff, even though I had the reforms which says "unlocks military staff", same goes for experimental railroad and the transport reform. So it's not completely clear what gives.

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It's very clear: the Ottoman Empire doesn't have those technologies, so you don't get them.

GC13 said:

It's very clear: the Ottoman Empire doesn't have those technologies, so you don't get them.

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It's not that simple, westernizing in the 1860s with the Ottomans as secondary power can yield the same result. 1860 is pretty late for no GP having researched military staff or first railroad. I'd say Russia starts with military staff but I'm not 100% sure.

Well I've only tested the correlation to great powers a couple of times, but both times it showed that your great powers make all the difference. Plus, the way the test was set up, it would mean that if it wasn who the great powers were then it would be entirely random.

So the best thing to do is, when you westernize and get lousy tech, make the rounds tag switching to each great power. Odds are good you'll find your culprit.

CrabHelmet said:

This is not true as of HoD. You can see this thread here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...rmines-which-techs-you-gain-when-you-civilize for which I've replicated the results, and is one of the common myths about Civilizing.

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I'm the original author of that thread and it turns out my results in those tests were due to a bug in 3.01 that was patched in 3.02.

Here is the gameplay change from 3.02:

################################################## ##########
# Changes for Heart of Darkness 3.02 below.
################################################## ##########

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Gameplay Changes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Fixed bug where westernizing without being in SoI gave best techs from all GPs.


So I was actually getting way more techs than was intended by civilizing outside of a sphere. I haven't played much vicky since then so IDK what its like in 3.03.