technology snowballing: any mechanics against it?

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qer

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Nov 12, 2011
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I was watching the blorg stream and one thing that get me troubled is research tied with working titles. This approach is very similar to the one of Civ 4 (where technology is get by commerce that you get by working cottage titles or other commerce related building or by using scientists ) the problem I had with this mechanism is that it often lead with small empires not being able to compete . furthermore, the bigger you are the faster you research making the game unbalanced for a tall play. Of course I'm making the assumptions based on the civ games, but I feel that the system is very similar. So are there any system that make smaller empires still technologically competitive?

PS: there was a very similar topic but it raised the wrong questions and solutions. What I want to know is if they are any mechanics to prevent technology snowballs or not
 
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A possible limitation will be that 'wide' empires will be spending more resources keeping distant colonists happy than 'tall' empires will. A wide empire that doesn't may well see factions taking over planets, and that will reduce their ability to research higher technologies.

Upkeep costs for buildings may also play a factor in slowing down the snowball effects of research.

And the randomness of techs to choose from will hinder the ability to target key technologies.
 
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Tech costs scale up with empire size seems be the major one. A lot of events need to be solved using your science production, which also delays research. Somebody with a deeper knowledge of the game can probably figure out more of the tech limits.
 
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Tech costs scale up with empire size seems be the major one. A lot of events need to be solved using your science production, which also delays research. Somebody with a deeper knowledge of the game can probably figure out more of the tech limits.

Where did you read that tech costs scale with empire size ?
 
Tech costs increase from population size.
 
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Tech costs increase from population size.
I know Civ5 eventually added some comeback mechanics (like the UN's ability to give all already researched technologies a 20% boost) but will Stellaris have any? If I'm 10-20 techs behind due to either RNG, incompetence, or just nonstop warfare am I just effectively out of the game since I'll always be 10-20 techs behind forever? I know EU4 has the neighbor bonus to counteract that, as well as westernization in to neighbor bonuses.
 
Science has no limits.
 
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I know Civ5 eventually added some comeback mechanics (like the UN's ability to give all already researched technologies a 20% boost) but will Stellaris have any? If I'm 10-20 techs behind due to either RNG, incompetence, or just nonstop warfare am I just effectively out of the game since I'll always be 10-20 techs behind forever? I know EU4 has the neighbor bonus to counteract that, as well as westernization in to neighbor bonuses.

If you're at constant war I think there's a chance to discover technologies from space debris left over after a battle.
 
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Tech snowballing has always been a negative to me in 4x games. I never liked in civ how you could end up with helicopters vs spears.

It sounds to me like PDS probably hasn't put anything to stop this yet but they now know it's a concern of their fans. I would not be surprised if they ended up putting one in before launch or shortly after.
 
Tech costs increase from population size.
Is it based off the average gained and linear in deviation?
Example:
So if I have say a population of 10 pops, making on average 1 research/pop, meaning +10 research in total, lets say this gives a research cost of 100
-If I then increase the pops to 100 through massive colonization, and haven't invested into high-quality books yet, lets say I'm still at +10 total research total, is the cost now 1000?
-If I then increase the 100 pops to making on average 1 research/pop, meaning +100 in total, is the cost still 1000?

Essentially, will you like the tidal water, ebb and flow move from a highly educated population making lots of research breakthrough to population growth increasing cost, progress slows down until "standard of living" increased again. (investing into higher yield buildings etc)
 
I know Civ5 eventually added some comeback mechanics (like the UN's ability to give all already researched technologies a 20% boost) but will Stellaris have any? If I'm 10-20 techs behind due to either RNG, incompetence, or just nonstop warfare am I just effectively out of the game since I'll always be 10-20 techs behind forever? I know EU4 has the neighbor bonus to counteract that, as well as westernization in to neighbor bonuses.
More advanced technologies have a higher base cost, so if an opponent is ahead, you get a chance to catch up as they move on to more expensive techs.
 
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We don't know how important technology will be in Stellaris so if technology advantage can be more then overcome by stuff like quantity, a tech advantage may not be a game winning advantage. I know you can jump over technologies, like you scan the debries of enemy ships after battle you may get the choice to research some of their more advanced ship technologies which may be more then a level ahead of you.
 
Tech costs increase from population size.

That's a little concerning. In Civ 5, it was rarely worth expanding beyond 4 cities or so, because the city wouldn't be able to pay for itself by the end of the game vs. the increase in tech cost from an additional city. I really hope that this mechanic, however it works, is not nearly so punishing.
 
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That's a little concerning. In Civ 5, it was rarely worth expanding beyond 4 cities or so, because the city wouldn't be able to pay for itself by the end of the game vs. the increase in tech cost from an additional city. I really hope that this mechanic, however it works, is not nearly so punishing.
That don't have to be true for Stellaris, there is quite much to Civ 5 which encourage 4 cities, not just cheaper tech, like:

  • National Collage
  • Cheap culture
  • Tradition only give 4 aqueducts
  • One unit per tile
  • Cities have long payback time
  • Happiness
  • And more factors
 
Seriously though... there are no less than three topics on the front page about this can we merge them or just stop spamming new topics on it? There's been several a day made on this since the blorg stream started.
 
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I understand that People have those concerns, but this is hardly a new issue. Had been there forever and was mostly dealt with satisfactory, imo.

Civ 5 is a particular bad example for this science-issue, since the mechanics there work. That you may end up with helicopters vs spears is a symptom of a bad AI that needs heavy cheating to be competitive and the abusable tech tree regarding military techs. Or your choice of human opponents :).

But to get back to stellaris, I think that science progress will be just as crucial to balance as every other element (e.g. mass-colonization and system-grabbing in the beginning). No more, no less.
 
It is so hard to end up with a helicopter v. spearman situation in CivV that you would either have to be playing extremely badly at a high difficulty or playing extremely well at a low difficulty. You could beeline spearmen pretty quickly within the first era. In order to still be using spearmen against helicopters, you have to have been avoiding military technologies on purpose.

Civilization V also had a lot of systems rewarding a handful of cities over a sprawling empire, such as the culture system/social policy system increasing in costs rapidly with every new city and happiness rewarding having a handful of cities.