Yeah. I agree with you, not with him
I tried to tell his mind by the best way I understood him myself 
Ahead of Time Bonuses and Maluses
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I tried to tell his mind by the best way I understood him myself 
I don’t look at it that way.. The technology system in EUIV is abstract. Countries don’t “discover technology”. No nation in that time frame had a R&D department. Various innovations and discoveries happen on a lower individual or group level during the time frame. The act of you clicking on the next tech level is spreading those discoveries across your nation, it’s economy, administration, infrastructure and military. You can’t get too far ahead of time because the discoveries needed hadn’t happened. Also it makes sense for game balance.
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In other words, the "ahead of time" modifier is a proxy for technological development happening "naturally" (people coming up with ideas, trying them out, gossiping about them and learning about what the blokes in neighboring village tried, etc.) throughout the land. If the game could accurately simulate this, we wouldn't need this modifier, but I think it would be a lot of computing power wasted for little benefit. The "ahead of time" system is good enough.
What the current system primarily does is ensure that the gap between technologies is kept reasonably even (given that a not insignificant proportion of power income is determined entirely randomly). Basically, it ensures that you CAN'T just do the Civ V thing (or the typical 4X thing) by charging up the tech tree and out-teching everyone (which is otherwise my modus operandii of choice). And that the nations lagging behind because of poor rulers and whatnot (that AREN'T the player's nation) don't lag vastly behind.
(Heck, if the system did not exist, I likely would have completed the tech tree in basically all my games of Vicky 2, EUIV and CK2 centuries before the the game finished.)
(Heck, if the system did not exist, I likely would have completed the tech tree in basically all my games of Vicky 2, EUIV and CK2 centuries before the the game finished.)
Would be interesting of technological landmarks were discovered much in the same way as the new Ages (fulfill requirements, a certain % chance or MTTH of triggering a discovery). Ships, land doctrines, trading/farming improvements, etc, etc. Then technology would spread outwards from the discovery (contact through proximity or trade).
This era did not have 'science' or even 'technology' as we think of it as far as I understand.
This era did not have 'science' or even 'technology' as we think of it as far as I understand.
Maybe technology should use a similar mechanic as institutions? "Somewhere" in your country a tech spawns (even at multiple locations) and you can use Mana to spread it further (or accelerate spread). The moment all your provinces are covered your nation has "unlocked" the tech level? Or maybe stay on province level. Example: Infantry trained ona province with tech X is better equipped than Infantry trained in a province without that tech. Of course for making that work the combat system (among others) had to be modified to represent different tech levels per unit type in an army.
I like that idea.
Sure, there has been arms race in history. However, what he is describing sounds like an incredibly boring game.
Why do we need to increase the amount of MP gained over time? Does this have to do with the technology cost increase over time modifier? Isn't this already cancelled out mostly by the ideas tech reduction and specific to each technology? I don't understand the problem.
Well yes, why not? If absurd scenarios like internal combustion happens in the 16th century then obviously the game is not giving the player either way too much resources to spend on technology or too little focus on other areas of the game. There are a whole host of ways a game can limit the player without setting a hard cap on them.
The difference between films and games as a medium is that in games, we as players can interact with the game world. I'm really tired of seeing someone (anyone) make a suggestion and getting shot down by people saying - "no we can't do that because it didn't happen historically and this is a history game". Well first of all, we as players are already "changing history" by our interaction with the game. Second, I think what makes a great historical game is its ability to explore why things happened the way they did and what might have happened if we chose a different path. If we take out this interactivity out of games, what makes it any different from a book or a movie?
How can you have an technological arms race when you're limited by what technologies you can get and when? What makes it a race if there's no way you can gain an advantage over your opponent?
What about the rapidly evolving arms and tactics that happened during the Italian Wars? Or what about the rapidly developing and competing philosophies that came about during early-modern Europe?
Can we just say it's done for game balance purposes and be done with it?
It annoys me too, but the alternative you suggest would be harsher than necessary. However, you may like to know that there's a time penalty implemented which does pretty much the same thing.
It annoys me too, but the alternative you suggest would be harsher than necessary. However, you may like to know that there's a time penalty implemented which does pretty much the same thing.
So whats your strategy for getting techs ahead of time? Do you take the extra cost, or do you spend monarch points on other stuff until the tech penalty goes down and then take the tech?
Well it's a little unrelated to the topic at hand but given how valuable monarch points are, I try to take as few cost penalties to monarch points as possible (depending on the situation).
In this game we are changing history on a superficial level. Conquering that bit of land that this country never did historically. Or picking an idea group that this country never did or never would have. Or converting the religion here or the culture there.
Technologically advancing centuries into the future in a matter of years is simply outside the realms of possibility and outside the scope of the game. But you might say, what about world conquest or one faith? Aren't those realistically impossible? Yes I think they are, but the method of achieving those things is firmly based in reality. You use men with pikes and muskets, horses and cannon. You don't use aircraft carriers and ICBMs. You can create what you want to, but you can't change the tools.
Right, and there have been many many discussions on implementing real-life limitations like logistics and such to simulate the constraints that prevented things like world conquest or one faith. The point is not to hard code the player from being able to do so but rather to simulate the difficulties that faced historical attempts to do so. Technology should be treated the same way don't you think?
I just want to point out also that it's a pretty big exaggeration to say if you remove the ahead of time penalty it'll take only a few years to achieve centuries worth of technological progress. Ignoring everything else, with 14 MP production per month (3 base + 6 monarch + 3 advisor + 2 focus) it still takes 107 years to research the 30 technologies at base 600 MP cost. Realistically though, we're looking at probably about 8MP/month on a 3 stat monarch and a lvl 2 advisor. In that case, even if we just raised the base cost to 800MP, it'll take 250 years out of the game's 377 years. And that's saying we're spending our monarch points only on technology and ignoring things like ideas, coring, developing provinces, ect.
Yeah, I know. Your comment was just the first one to actually put into words a "model" of a replacement system, so I felt my argument was best placed there.
Most people don't argue that the game should be a re-run of history. Usually people are making an argument for historical plausability, which, coincidentally, is also what the developers are aiming for(though I think they've failed at that to a large degree).
Countries like the Ottomans, with their godlike monarchs and lots of money would race quickly up the tech tree without an ahead of time malus, the opposite of what happened.
You don't see getting 400 years worth of tech in 107 years as a huge problem?
1. You forgot another +2 MP from promoting advisors, and another +1 from over 50 power projection.
2. Military power(which has been the biggest focus in this thread) is used mainly for the tech and ideas. Its other uses are less relevant, and would become even less relevant with you proposal:
- Harsh treatment, why bother? I have a Napoleonic army in 1580.
- Developing provinces, why bother? I can already conquer the entire world with my lightsaber-wielding Übermensch.
- Raising war taxes, why bother? I can pulverize any castle's walls within minutes. Who can oppose me long enough to put a dent into my economy?
Well, the thing I don't like with the current system is that pretty much everyone in Central and Western Europe is the same tech the whole game and that it takes just one click and the tech advantage from one country over another is gone. And being ahead of the time is rarely efficient thing, since if you tech up 2 years ahead of time, you pay 20% more MP, which is huge, but your advantage lasts only 2 years over countries which tech "on time". It's not realistic, because in reality you would want to advance as fast as you can, but in the game you better wait. You might want to tech up a bit earlier if you're JUST ahead of an important war, but I personally always wait until the Ahead of Time malus goes away and prefer to invest MP elsewhere.
Of course simply getting rid of Ahead of Time malus is not the way to go. A couple of good rulers in row + some luck and a country can be ridiculously far ahead of the time which makes no sense and realism.
What I think would work well is that every country is XX years ahead/behind of the time in every tech all the time. And it's kind of like getting a 1-year worth of tech each year. You want to progress in MIL so you need to use eg. 30 MIL points each year. Otherwise you fall behind 1 year each time you don't have enough MIL points to do that. If you have some spare MIL points, you can get ahead of the time. But being 1 year ahead of time requires eg. 33 MIL points each year. 2 years: 36 MIL etc. So it will be impossible to get for example 50 years ahead of time. But this way you can use a good ruler to keep a military advantage over a decent period of time, instead of just being ahead for 2 or 3 years before others simply tech up. Also your advantage will be diminishing slowly, year-by-year once you run out of points to keep outperforming others. Not just one magical click and a difference of 12 or so years is gone immediately. That would be far more realistic than what we have now IMO.
But that would make a completely different game and require to redesign quite a lot of things (eg. what advantage does being 3 years ahead of time represent), therefore I think it will never be introduced in EU4.
Of course simply getting rid of Ahead of Time malus is not the way to go. A couple of good rulers in row + some luck and a country can be ridiculously far ahead of the time which makes no sense and realism.
What I think would work well is that every country is XX years ahead/behind of the time in every tech all the time. And it's kind of like getting a 1-year worth of tech each year. You want to progress in MIL so you need to use eg. 30 MIL points each year. Otherwise you fall behind 1 year each time you don't have enough MIL points to do that. If you have some spare MIL points, you can get ahead of the time. But being 1 year ahead of time requires eg. 33 MIL points each year. 2 years: 36 MIL etc. So it will be impossible to get for example 50 years ahead of time. But this way you can use a good ruler to keep a military advantage over a decent period of time, instead of just being ahead for 2 or 3 years before others simply tech up. Also your advantage will be diminishing slowly, year-by-year once you run out of points to keep outperforming others. Not just one magical click and a difference of 12 or so years is gone immediately. That would be far more realistic than what we have now IMO.
But that would make a completely different game and require to redesign quite a lot of things (eg. what advantage does being 3 years ahead of time represent), therefore I think it will never be introduced in EU4.
1. Sure, but like I said, the numbers obviously need to be tested and tweaked. The lack of useful places to spend military points is a problem with vanilla that needs to be fixed.
2. I have a hard time believing you can maintain an average of 11MP/Month without spending it on anything else (@ 600 base MP cost per tech). I proposed 800 base MP per tech, which means you have to maintain ~15MP/Month, but okay:
- Harsh treatment because your rebels spawn with the same technology as you.
- Developing provinces to get that institution that didn't spawn inside your borders. Especially if you're playing outside of Europe.
- Your neighbours aren't necessarily that much behind you technologically given all the neighbour bonuses. But if you're playing against the AI, you're already winning nearly all your battles.