What's the point of trading techs?

[dharper]

As soon as you learn a tech from another country you lose 10 RP, the same as if you'd researched it yourself, right? So unless you have a RP surplus, trading technologies gives you a marginal advantage at best - you get the effects of a technology earlier, but your overall technology level will be the same after some time has passed.

It seems that there are only two times when it is worthwhile to trade technologies:
1. You have a surplus of RP and don't want to wait.
2. You have almost no RP at all.

...Since most countries seem to be in between these extremes, what's the point of trading technology with your neighbours?

 

[OHgamer]

if you are also generating RPs at a rate faster than the year it takes to research the tech for the equivalent amount of RPs, then it makes sense to trade a tech for every 2 you research (if you are generating RPs at a rate equal to the number of RPs needed for those techs in the interim while you are researching one yourself.)

So say you've just about finished your reserach for a tech and you have 20 RPs saved up, and there are two techs which require investing 10 RPs and one year of research time. If you are producing RPs at the rate of at least 10 per year, it makes sense to invest 10 RPs in researching one tech, trading with another nation for another 10 RP tech, and then when you are done researching the first tech, you'll still have 10 RPs produced in the interim to start research on the next tech.

And of course if you are generating the equivalent of 20 RPs a year (very possible with larger nations, you'd need to average 1.67 RPs a month) then you can research one and trade one every year, and still produce enough RPs in the interim to continue that.

Now of course not all techs, esp in VIP, have the same RP cost. In VIP, the RP cost of later techs rises to IIRC 15, so you'd need to produce 30 RPs/year (2.5 RPs/month) to be able to trade and research every year. Still obtainable for the larger nations.

and iIRC trading tech with neighbors usually results in improved relations with those neighbors (+15 per trade IIRC), so it lets you build up relations or keep relations strong.

 

[Orm]

• In Revolutions there are 150 techs available for research.
• Most civilized nations start with 20-25 of those already researched.
• That leaves 125-130.
• Each tech takes about a year to research.
• The game starts in 1836.
• The game ends in 1936.
• You do the math.

 

[dharper]

Well, yes, I see the point for advanced countries who have lots of spare RPs. But what about backwards countries who barely have enough RPs to research one new technology at a time? For these countries, buying or trading new technologies gives them almost no advantage - yes, they gain the benefits sooner, but they don't actually become more advanced than if they'd not traded in the first place, because each new tech earned in this way slows down their normal research by a year or more.

Is the game really saying that there's no way to uplift a backwards civilization from outside?

 

[Orm]

Well, yes, I see the point for advanced countries who have lots of spare RPs. But what about backwards countries who barely have enough RPs to research one new technology at a time? For these countries, buying or trading new technologies gives them almost no advantage - yes, they gain the benefits sooner, but they don't actually become more advanced than if they'd not traded in the first place, because each new tech earned in this way slows down their normal research by a year or more.

Is the game really saying that there's no way to uplift a backwards civilization from outside?

What the game is saying is that a country needs to have a certain amount of educated people to handle new technologies, whether they're researched or traded for. That is what the RP cost represents.

 

[unmerged(71982)]

I think we have to take in account another point. If you trade a lot of techs with your neighbours you reinforce them, because they do not receive the "penalty", i mean, the receiver of the proposal get the tech and do not have to wait to research for it. I think this should have to be taken in account

 

[Orm]

I think we have to take in account another point. If you trade a lot of techs with your neighbours you reinforce them, because they do not receive the "penalty", i mean, the receiver of the proposal get the tech and do not have to wait to research for it. I think this should have to be taken in account

You don't have to trade a tech for a tech though. You can just pay money for it.

 

[Sarmatian]

Well, yes, I see the point for advanced countries who have lots of spare RPs. But what about backwards countries who barely have enough RPs to research one new technology at a time? For these countries, buying or trading new technologies gives them almost no advantage - yes, they gain the benefits sooner, but they don't actually become more advanced than if they'd not traded in the first place, because each new tech earned in this way slows down their normal research by a year or more.

Is the game really saying that there's no way to uplift a backwards civilization from outside?

It's very difficult, yes. This is not EU. But not impossible. When other countries offer you techs, you won't lose RPs. Only the party that's offering to trade techs loses RPs. Problem is, AI doesn't offer techs very often, that is - it never offers, except when it tries to buy a colonial claim from you. So, you can get several free technologies if you place colonial claims carefully. Claim one colony in a state and let other claim the rest in that state. That other will often offer you some money and a free tech for that claim.

Other way advancing rapidly is improving your generation of RPs. This is relatively easy with smaller countries. Your RP generation depends on literacy and ratio of clerks and clergymen in your population (although clergymen add to RP generation until Darwinism, somewhere in 1880's, after they lower your RP generation). So if you're a small country, converting several biggest POPs to clerks can give you a positive RP generation even at 10-15% literacy.

Put your research slider to the max, convert your biggest POP's to clerks and you will have a surplus that can be traded very quickly. Feel free to fill up your factories with 3 craftsmen POPs 1,000 people in size and two clerk POPs 30,000-40,000 in size. This is especially true with immigration countries. Just keep converting your biggest sized POPs to clerks.

This doesn't work with uncivilized nations, though. It doesn't matter how much RP you generate, 90% research penalty means it will take decades to research one technology. In this case it's useful to trade technologies that will help you industrialize to get the 50 industry score you need to civilize, among other things. But, the requirements for civilization are so high that it's practically impossible to do it except for a few countries...

When I try to play uncivilized minor that has no chance of civilizing during the time frame, I usually edit the save game and remove uncivilized status...

The reason for this kind of tech trading system are balance issues I guess. It is relatively easy with some countries to get so much money that you can buy all technologies 100 times over and still have millions left. China would be the best example. Russia is a good example, too.

 

[unmerged(37660)]

"As soon as you learn a tech from another country you lose 10 RP" This is NOT always true. And in fact savy tech trading should be used at all times if possible. Nations with liberty will only pay 9 rp for commerce and industrial techs. Nations with order only pay 9 rp for army and navy techs. Culture does not apply to tech trading as you cannot trade for the section of techs.

Now the important part is that you only get whacked for the amount of rp's that the discovering country paid fof the tech ! Example - say I'm Russia with order as my national value. I will research army and/or navy techs and trade to perhaps Belgium for indrustrial or commerce techs. Since they have liberty as a national value I will only get dinged 9 rp's for the tech I traded for. This means when I have traded for 9 techs I get the next one for "free" as opposed to trading with nations where I would have been dinged for the full 10 rp.

Trading for techs has one other very important side effect in that you can jump over a tech that you may not want to research at the moment. Example - lets say that I am to pick a tech to research and I see that I am staring at all the 2nd slot techs. Hmm, well I really don't want Idealism right now but I sure could use Potvism or Functionlism slot. I see i have some rp's saved up so i trade with a nation for a tech and that will advance me to the 3rd slot for the tech I really want to research.

Hammer

 

[Dysken]

Well, yes, I see the point for advanced countries who have lots of spare RPs. But what about backwards countries who barely have enough RPs to research one new technology at a time? For these countries, buying or trading new technologies gives them almost no advantage - yes, they gain the benefits sooner, but they don't actually become more advanced than if they'd not traded in the first place, because each new tech earned in this way slows down their normal research by a year or more.

Is the game really saying that there's no way to uplift a backwards civilization from outside?

Getting free trade or mechanical production a few years early can make quite the difference.