Full Tech cost reduction...

[hauptman]

... backfires?



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Maximised my tech cost reduction with aristocratic, plutocratic, innovative coupled with Tuscany's double University and NIs. Yet I'm still at even tech level with the rest of Europe, and not likely to be any more advanced.

I'm going to call this a bad strategy idea. Best possible is 11 years ahead of time I guess... If I'd stop getting those "people sampling new religions" fires and dump DoF maybe I'd get 12.

 

[Novacat]

The thing about tech cost reductions is that its not going to allow you to get further ahead, the ahead of cost penalties are just too brutal for that, what it DOES Allow you is to gain technologies at a substantial monarch point discount, allowing you to put monarch points that would have otherwise gone into technologies into other things, such as buildings and raising stability. This is important considering that technologies are the #1 biggest sink of monarch points in the game.

 

[Xara]

That's nowhere near maxed especially given your 10% tacked on from narrowminded and defender
You should have the polar opposite narrowminded bonus. The 5% discount with -1% miss strength.
And you could have Libertie/Egality/Fraternitie active from innovative
You could also have converted to Sunni and become impious!

All it does anyway is save you points that you can funnel into ideas/buildings anyway. You can leap forward, and, say, start a war while you have 1 mil tech bonus, but you aren't going to outpace same-tech-class nations by all that much.

I have personally gotten Admin as low as 75% discount, and even that wasn't maxed

--you dont even have the empire bonus from the 25+ members HRE

 

[hauptman]

The next naval tech is down to costing me about 350, and I have been coring my own provinces for once... I NEVER CORE! Been building as much as cash will allow, which isnt much... Needed a too large army (and DoF, since I have no combat idea sets) because of the WildTurks right next door fielding some 300k troops.

the events havent been favoring me much this game, I seem to get all the negative ones and no bonus events...

 

[Xara]

Okay, but still, your title is erroneous. You aren't nearly maxed, there's at least a +35% difference in all 3 tech types I can spot immediately even without the L/E/F event

Remove Defender : +5
Remove narrowminded : +5
Remove kebab : +0
Add innovative (opposite of narrowminded, whatever it is) +5
Restore 25 princes to the empire / stop being emperor (if you are) : +10
Become Sunni and impious : +10

 

[hauptman]

Well I wasnt trying to Imply I did everything in game to reduce tech cost, I just chose the idea sets that reduced it, hoping I'd be sufficiently more advanced to make up for lack of fighting abilities... It works vs the turks. I've stomped them pretty soundly a couple times, but vs real europeans I have to let Brandenblob and Burgunblob do most of the fighting. All I do is mop up and siege...

I really hate playing anyone who isnt Brandenburg/Prussia... =P

 

[grisamentum]

Sunni/impious to get another +10 is really not practical. You just can't keep it at full -100 piety with any consistency especially because it resets on ruler deaths and on regencies. Maybe if you had Sunni neighbors to constantly attack to drive it down...

In practice it's more like -60 on average for +6 or so, though of course you might hit a good stretch with a great ruler and stay at -100 for a couple decades before he dies and goes back to -25 or so.

 

[Xara]

Muslim events are not that uncommon, its pretty easy to push it down to max negative, particularly when you have cash and prestige to spare. Never said it was "practical", but it's certainly possible if your goal was "max tech discount" / "max ahead of time". If you have Expansion you can simply DOW Indian Sunnis over and over without doing anything

I did it as Spain for a lark

 

[grisamentum]

Muslim events are not that uncommon, its pretty easy to push it down to max negative, particularly when you have cash and prestige to spare. Never said it was "practical", but it's certainly possible if your goal was "max tech discount" / "max ahead of time". If you have Expansion you can simply DOW Indian Sunnis over and over without doing anything

I did it as Spain for a lark

Yeah but it's still random and lost on every ruler change and only pulses every 2 years, and sometimes you'll get a normal random event, not a Muslim one. Best case scenario it takes 8 years per ruler to get ti down only on events.

Not saying it's hard and the Expansion trick is pretty nice (though in my last Poland game I diplo-vassalized every Sunni in Asia) but any other war will raise it another 25, which is the real problem. I suppose you could set up a Sunni OPM solely for the purpose of piety bashing (and AE removal).

Just that on average you can stay around -6 through normal play focusing on keeping it negative.

 

[TheBloke]

When Catholic instead of Muslim, -7% for controlling all Cardinals.

 

[Wallain]

The thing about tech cost reductions is that its not going to allow you to get further ahead, the ahead of cost penalties are just too brutal for that, what it DOES Allow you is to gain technologies at a substantial monarch point discount, allowing you to put monarch points that would have otherwise gone into technologies into other things, such as buildings and raising stability. This is important considering that technologies are the #1 biggest sink of monarch points in the game.

This exactly. Reducing tech cost also allow you to get a lot of ideas sooner and capitalise on that.

 

[BoleslavLev]

Also, the math here is different than in normal life, because the % values just stack no matter when they came into play and how big they are, so even if there would be way to have some technology for 0 cost, sooner or later you would get this ahead of time modifiers which would make your tech cost higher by adding some flat value. Because 0*200% isnt´t more than 0 in real life.

But from the game perspective it´s ok. Maybe sometimes it feels weird, but without any limitations the snowball effect would be even more ridiculous. One thing that sometimes bothers me is that not always you can dump your points into other things. Usually you either don´t have no points at all or you have so many you can´t do nothing with them and have to destroy them until the fase where you don´t have any points come again. It´s not always possible to build what you need because you don´t have tech or money for that, you can´t raise your stab too high because it will drops from comets anyway and if you have good generals/admirals there is no point in recruiting worse ones. I don´t know if I am the only one who is experiencing this, but usually I have periods of many points and periods of no points. (for example technology costs 1100, I have 999 and can´t buy anything - wasting points. Then I finally buy the tech, and open new buildings and ideas and suddenly I´ve got 0 points and need a lot of them).

 

[Avernite]

The max discount is definately in CK2 converted games; universities are (or at least were) not adapted, so you can get a whole series of universities (10-15?) helping you.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Also, the math here is different than in normal life, because the % values just stack no matter when they came into play and how big they are, so even if there would be way to have some technology for 0 cost, sooner or later you would get this ahead of time modifiers which would make your tech cost higher by adding some flat value. Because 0*200% isnt´t more than 0 in real life.

But from the game perspective it´s ok. Maybe sometimes it feels weird, but without any limitations the snowball effect would be even more ridiculous. One thing that sometimes bothers me is that not always you can dump your points into other things. Usually you either don´t have no points at all or you have so many you can´t do nothing with them and have to destroy them until the fase where you don´t have any points come again. It´s not always possible to build what you need because you don´t have tech or money for that, you can´t raise your stab too high because it will drops from comets anyway and if you have good generals/admirals there is no point in recruiting worse ones. I don´t know if I am the only one who is experiencing this, but usually I have periods of many points and periods of no points. (for example technology costs 1100, I have 999 and can´t buy anything - wasting points. Then I finally buy the tech, and open new buildings and ideas and suddenly I´ve got 0 points and need a lot of them).

This is actually one reason why I think lower costs on ideas (protestant) is actually a bit more interesting. You tend to gain the cost benefit when you need it the most.

 

[Me_]

It's not strictly relevant but Hindu nations with a Sunni province and Sunni Mughals can get an extra -6% from the Divine Faith decision.

 

[Rya]

No matter how much you boni you stack, 30 is the minimum cost for any technology (and for stability too, I think). I've had 100% cost reduction before. Of course, this doesn't help one bit against +500% ahead of time penalty.

 

[Reezy]

When Catholic instead of Muslim, -7% for controlling all Cardinals.

lol

 

[TheBloke]

When Catholic instead of Muslim, -7% for controlling all Cardinals.

lol

..is that funny?

 

[Rubidium]

This is actually one reason why I think lower costs on ideas (protestant) is actually a bit more interesting. You tend to gain the cost benefit when you need it the most.

On the other hand, you'll spend significantly less on ideas than you will on tech totalled over the course of a game, so the savings are less.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Some numbers: 5% tech cost over 29 techs is a difference of 870 MP of each type over the course of the game, for a total of 2610 MP. 5% idea cost over 56 ideas is a difference of 1120 MP across all types over the course of the game. So 5% tech cost is worth more than 10% idea cost in terms of pure MP. Though it is true that -% idea cost does tend to help the MP you're most short on.