There are 4 issues with current design:
1. Unlocking all traditions and researching technologies (reaching repeatable technologies and unity edicts) is too fast relative to expected gameplay time:
There is gameplay setting to increase the cost, while that setting is good it still doesn't prevent the problem, why not?
Because no matter how high you put the setting, it can be easily offset by building more research labs and monuments, and then it's no longer expensive like it's supposed to be.
And this is then serious problem for AI, because the AI won't be following the path of unpredictable human player rushing labs and monuments to jump ahead and offset gameplay cost setting, this way human player can outperform the AI so hard it would be impossible for the AI to ever catch up due to snowballing effect and required time.
2. Tall empire play is not an exclusive choice of human player, most often tall play is necessity (whether of the AI or human player) because of any of the following reasons:
- A) A player lost war and is now forced to play tall for a very long time if not until end game.
- B) A player is surrounded by strong opponents only and is unable to expand or outperform them.
- C) A player wants to play tall for any reason as his own choice
As such tall play (small empires) should be given advantages of "faster" research and "cheaper" traditions to be given a chance to win game or at least be challenging player as opposed to a sitting duck with no real options to improve or expand.
This is the reason why tradition and tech cost should scale with empire size, to make wide play more expensive and let tall empire give a chance to catch up.
Therefore it's not that tall empire would be given faster research and tradition, but rather for wide empires it would be more expensive (depending on empire size) while for tall empires it would be "normal" speed, which is an advantage for smaller empires to improve and catch up.
3. Wide empires or empires that expand are not required to build more research labs or monuments:
This is problem because now in addition of having huge empire we also have more building space to develop other resources that only help to expand further, because research and tradition cost is constant regardless of size.
If large empire is required to build more research labs and monuments to keep it's research rate then that means there is less space for alloys and other stuff that would help to continue expanding.
Therefore this suggestion is indirectly beneficial to slow down expansion that is hard to counter for weaker empires, because expansionist empires would need to feed it's expansion not only with beaurecracy but also with research and tradition cost.
In addition currently, anyone can unlock traditions quickly without building any monument, because getting unity can be gained passively by other jobs that produce unity.
It makes sense to require to build monuments to feed unlocking tradition if one so desires, rather that having it for free (passively)
4. There is planet designation for research and also booster building called "Research Institute" but not for unity\culture
If this suggestions makes sense to you, then given the fact that would be required for large empires to build monuments, therefore it is necessity to have planet designation for unity\culture to help you feed your unity\traditions research rate.
This means "Auto curating vault" (+15% culture) should be unlocked at "Planetary administration" level and should have second tier to be compatible with other booster buildings like "mineral purification plant" (tier 1 and 2) etc.
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Finally why should gameplay setting to increase the cost be complement (retained) rather than replacement (as it is now)?
Gameplay setting still has it's use in that it allows for longer gameplays while not ruining the AI falling behind nor it would ruin tall empires even further.
Therefore gameplay setting is nothing else but valid game customization, but current design is counter productive for said reasons.
1. Unlocking all traditions and researching technologies (reaching repeatable technologies and unity edicts) is too fast relative to expected gameplay time:
There is gameplay setting to increase the cost, while that setting is good it still doesn't prevent the problem, why not?
Because no matter how high you put the setting, it can be easily offset by building more research labs and monuments, and then it's no longer expensive like it's supposed to be.
And this is then serious problem for AI, because the AI won't be following the path of unpredictable human player rushing labs and monuments to jump ahead and offset gameplay cost setting, this way human player can outperform the AI so hard it would be impossible for the AI to ever catch up due to snowballing effect and required time.
2. Tall empire play is not an exclusive choice of human player, most often tall play is necessity (whether of the AI or human player) because of any of the following reasons:
- A) A player lost war and is now forced to play tall for a very long time if not until end game.
- B) A player is surrounded by strong opponents only and is unable to expand or outperform them.
- C) A player wants to play tall for any reason as his own choice
As such tall play (small empires) should be given advantages of "faster" research and "cheaper" traditions to be given a chance to win game or at least be challenging player as opposed to a sitting duck with no real options to improve or expand.
This is the reason why tradition and tech cost should scale with empire size, to make wide play more expensive and let tall empire give a chance to catch up.
Therefore it's not that tall empire would be given faster research and tradition, but rather for wide empires it would be more expensive (depending on empire size) while for tall empires it would be "normal" speed, which is an advantage for smaller empires to improve and catch up.
3. Wide empires or empires that expand are not required to build more research labs or monuments:
This is problem because now in addition of having huge empire we also have more building space to develop other resources that only help to expand further, because research and tradition cost is constant regardless of size.
If large empire is required to build more research labs and monuments to keep it's research rate then that means there is less space for alloys and other stuff that would help to continue expanding.
Therefore this suggestion is indirectly beneficial to slow down expansion that is hard to counter for weaker empires, because expansionist empires would need to feed it's expansion not only with beaurecracy but also with research and tradition cost.
In addition currently, anyone can unlock traditions quickly without building any monument, because getting unity can be gained passively by other jobs that produce unity.
It makes sense to require to build monuments to feed unlocking tradition if one so desires, rather that having it for free (passively)
4. There is planet designation for research and also booster building called "Research Institute" but not for unity\culture
If this suggestions makes sense to you, then given the fact that would be required for large empires to build monuments, therefore it is necessity to have planet designation for unity\culture to help you feed your unity\traditions research rate.
This means "Auto curating vault" (+15% culture) should be unlocked at "Planetary administration" level and should have second tier to be compatible with other booster buildings like "mineral purification plant" (tier 1 and 2) etc.
------
Finally why should gameplay setting to increase the cost be complement (retained) rather than replacement (as it is now)?
Gameplay setting still has it's use in that it allows for longer gameplays while not ruining the AI falling behind nor it would ruin tall empires even further.
Therefore gameplay setting is nothing else but valid game customization, but current design is counter productive for said reasons.
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