Something has to be done to limit unrecognized countries tech research

[Moe 3mperor]

Currently those big unrecognized country (Qing, Japan) can industrialize themselves, poping out progressive ideas like Compulsory Primary School, Universal Sufferage, Protected Speech and many others ,while having isolationism, catch up great powers like Germany and UK in tech and GDP around mid-to late game. This was not that easy in our history.

I think this might be caused by the fact that every country can research tech freely at the start of the game, the difference in literacy and research points is not enough to reflect the huge gap between agrarian east and industrialized west in our history.

During 1840 to 1890s, advanced technology in Qing and Japan was mainly , if not fully, introduced by the west through trade and sharing. The academia in Asia was conservative and ossified, let alone making any tech progression.

I fully agree that Westernization in V2 is archaic and should not come back to Victoria 3, but something should be in place so that the reseach capability of unrecognized agrarian countries are reduced and significant tech progression should be relying on trade with coutries that are more advanced in techs, like European great powers. This debuff can be removed once a "checkpoint" reached (e.g. "Academia" researched via spread), then the said countries can possibly do research as much as their European counterparts.

This can help making the game a bit more authentic, and the experience playing unrecognized countries more reasonably challenging.

 

[MJAnderson]

yea tech is just way too fast for all countries and spreads too easily. In all my games I'm done with the tech tree by 1900. Feels weird to have aircraft carries and tanks in 1890.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Of course the tech was introduced through trade, that's how tech has spread from the beginning of history. Being isolationist should have a penalty, but there's no reason a non-recognized country would have bad tech just because they were unrecognized.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Yeah, can you imagine if a nation like Japan ended up a credible world power by 1936 and became a significant player shortly afterwards in one of the major conflicts of the 20th century?

I mean, that would be absurd. No way would that ever happen.

 

[Moe 3mperor]

Of course the tech was introduced through trade, that's how tech has spread from the beginning of history. Being isolationist should have a penalty, but there's no reason a non-recognized country would have bad tech just because they were unrecognized.

There was a reason for those country to started as an unrecognized. Either because of the laws and power structure are too archaic, or the technology are too far behind.

But you are right, I should make correction as I'm more concerned with that agrarian countries can quickly catch up industrialized countries in tech.

 

[Moe 3mperor]

Yeah, can you imagine if a nation like Japan ended up a credible world power by 1936 and became a significant player shortly afterwards in one of the major conflicts of the 20th century?

I mean, that would be absurd. No way would that ever happen.

It is indeed hard to imagine when you play Japan you can have several universities as good as those in UK by 1850s. Develop aircraft carrier themselves by 1890s. That's a little bit too quick in the game, no?

 

[Sagrifizius]

Oh, can you imagine if a nation like Japan ended up a credible world power by 1936 and became a significant player shortly afterwards in one of the major conflicts of the 20th century?

I mean, that would be absurd. No way would that ever happen.

One important reason why Japan was able to modernize was their extremely high literacy, on par with some of the best in the west. Literacy in game is way off, with the ripple effects OP mentioned.

It is indeed hard to imagine when you play Japan you can have several universities as good as those in UK by 1850s. Develop aircraft carrier themselves by 1890s. That's a little bit too quick in the game, no?

Japan did actually create the first purpose-built aircraft carrier (not in 1890, though).

 

[Moe 3mperor]

One important reason why Japan was able to modernize was their extremely high literacy, on par with some of the best in the west. In game there is barely any difference in literacy between most countries (notable exception being Sweden..).

Japan did actually create the first purpose-built aircraft carrier.

Yeah, in around 1920s though. You can acheive this far earlier in game easily, which to me, means its research speed need to be impeded somehow if we want to make the game experience more authentic.

 

[Sagrifizius]

Yeah, in around 1920s though. You can acheive this far earlier in game easily, which to me, means its research speed need to be impeded somehow if we want to make the game experience more authentic.

Yes, I just edited my post to reflect this, agreeing with you there!

 

[EwaldvonKleist]

The problems are that
1) Pop promotion/learning of professions seems too easy. New factories fill out too quickly.
2) Tech spread is too quick for low literacy nations.
3) Literacy gain may be too quick, or there should be a second parameter "higher education" that combines academic degrees, trade degrees and longer school education and requires institutions and existing industries to be built up.
4) Many of the limiting factors IRL are only weekly present in V3. V3 landowners simply watch while you build factories and universities to empower industrialists or intelligentsia, while IRL, they often hindered entrepreneurs or tried to limit access to concessions and education.

 

[MatthewP]

The problems are that
1) Pop promotion/learning of professions seems too easy. New factories fill out too quickly.
2) Tech spread is too quick for low literacy nations.
3) Literacy gain may be too quick, or there should be a second parameter "higher education" that combines academic degrees, trade degrees and longer school education and requires institutions and existing industries to be built up.
4) Many of the limiting factors IRL are only weekly present in V3. V3 landowners simply watch while you build factories and universities to empower industrialists or intelligentsia, while IRL, they often hindered entrepreneurs or tried to limit access to concessions and education.

I think part of the problem is that we have overlapping mechanics. Taken literally, tech spread is glacially slow across the board. No one was hiding 20-year-old techs from any country that wanted them, and foreign experts were available for anyone who could pay. So we have to assume tech spread also sort of covers some degree of the difficulties of spreading the tech, implementing it, and finding trained people to use it. But qualifications are the mechanic that's literally intended to fill this space. So if you look at things from a "what is realistic" perspective, it's very hard to get a definitive answer because the game mechanics don't map super well to real life.

Personally, I agree with 1, 3 and 4 here. I think 2 seems like the case because tech is too fast for everyone - the things a low tech nation can do in the game are about as realistic as nations having all the 1930s/40s tech by 1900.

 

[Richard Dolder]

I think part of the problem is that we have overlapping mechanics. Taken literally, tech spread is glacially slow across the board. No one was hiding 20-year-old techs from any country that wanted them, and foreign experts were available for anyone who could pay. So we have to assume tech spread also sort of covers some degree of the difficulties of spreading the tech, implementing it, and finding trained people to use it. But qualifications are the mechanic that's literally intended to fill this space. So if you look at things from a "what is realistic" perspective, it's very hard to get a definitive answer because the game mechanics don't map super well to real life.

Personally, I agree with 1, 3 and 4 here. I think 2 seems like the case because tech is too fast for everyone - the things a low tech nation can do in the game are about as realistic as nations having all the 1930s/40s tech by 1900.

Yeah the problem is not tech spread, if anything spread is to slow.
Even if you upped the spread penalty, russia and japan could go from totally backwards to completely caught up in about 10 years. (and russia obviously isn't unrecognized but it basically passes all the "unciv reform laws" in soviet period.)
The moment someone abolishes traditional economy, hereditary bureacrats, serfdom, slavery, gets recognized, is trading, (all of these are bits and pieces of the puzzle here) they should get a huge amount of spread.


The problem is tech research is way, way too fast.
And yeah 1, 4 are all too true.

I think the change from promotions to qualifications while good, had a huge knock on effect that the developers didn't really account for in that effectively pops are already promoted for the next job so there is no real adjustment period to increasing engineers or machinists.

 

[praftd]

It should have absolutely NOTHING to do with being recognized. European recognition is entirely arbitrary and should have no impact on anything related to a country beyond prestige and diplomacy.

All of your complaints are rooted in the fact the game doesn't model real-world limitations of the period that well. Such as China's bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency, France's population troubles, Austria's cultural tensions, etc.

Putting arbitrary walls between players and what they want to do is terrible.

 

[ctl3]

I wonder how much time is reasonable for Japan and other countries to catch-up.

 

[GrounchoVilla]

Yeah, in around 1920s though. You can acheive this far earlier in game easily, which to me, means its research speed need to be impeded somehow if we want to make the game experience more authentic.

this is true across the board tho. the uk or france could get these techs even earlier which is just as unrealistic. there are too few techs in the tech tree imo

 

[paulxiep]

It should have absolutely NOTHING to do with being recognized. European recognition is entirely arbitrary and should have no impact on anything related to a country beyond prestige and diplomacy.

All of your complaints are rooted in the fact the game doesn't model real-world limitations of the period that well. Such as China's bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency, France's population troubles, Austria's cultural tensions, etc.

Putting arbitrary walls between players and what they want to do is terrible.

This! Just because someone thinks you're weird doesn't make you any more or less intelligent than you actually are.
Recognition should only affect diplomacy and nothing more. Having penalty to tech spread due to being unrecognized is already bad, no need to make it worse.
Penalties to tech spread due to being isolationist and authoritarian are already implemented.

If anything needs to be done it's Britain and France players completing all the techs too early.
Something should be done to limit recognized countries' ability to get tech, not the other way around.

Unrecognized country already start way behind, and finish tech way behind, in some cases, not at all.
In the AI hands it already never happens. In player hands we can make it happen because we're future time-travelers who know what to do, so of course it's possible.
Even then try playing a Central African nation starting with 1 tech in each category. I'm not positive I'll be able to finish the tech tree here.

 

[iquabakaner]

The reason countries like China and Japan should be limited in research is not because they're unrecognized, but because of their backwards government. They should have to go through reforms that could piss off a lot of IGs in order to modernize. There should be mechanics to represent such situations.

 

[Fawr]

this is true across the board tho. the uk or france could get these techs even earlier which is just as unrealistic. there are too few techs in the tech tree imo

I think the tech formula could do with some work for all countries.

 

[Question]

Ive tried making tech spread entirely literacy based, the end result was that low literacy countries couldnt even get railways by 1880 which caused huge problems with the world economy.

25 base tech spread and 75 based on literacy was also too slow.

Im now testing 50 base tech spread and 50 based on literacy and i think that works better, low literacy countries still fall behind in tech massively but they can still get railways, rubber and pumpjacks to contribute to the world economy. Note that this is after i increased the research cost of later eras and nerfed innovation.

 

[paulxiep]

The reason countries like China and Japan should be limited in research is not because they're unrecognized, but because of their backwards government. They should have to go through reforms that could piss off a lot of IGs in order to modernize. There should be mechanics to represent such situations.

Which is why AI-controlled China and Japan never really get anywhere.

In players' hands we go through all the trouble to make absolutely sure all the necessary reforms are passed.
And yes, we already have to put up with landowners and monks opposing this, many times a reform has to be called off to stop an impending revolution.
Once reforms are passed there is 0 reason to penalize China and Japan in tech.