Call Me Crazy |
Call me crazy but I like to put one point of research into every tech available. In my mind society would be advancing on all fronts at all times so I put one point in each. I use the left over point to focus on areas I want to get ahead on. Now this does slow down the research a lot but I think it gives a better game. First, I don’t outpace the AI too much and second, eventually I get to a point where I’m getting a lot of discoveries in a lot of different areas. I would like to see a mod where all tech levels get an automatic 1 point and I/AI get an extra 100 points to spend.
Hm...
That sounds interesting. It could be called teh "free-thinkers" effect or soemthing like that -- i. e. the government might only pay for research in one place, but back-yard and garage tinkerers are probably poking around in all directions at once.
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those that understand binary, and those that don't.
Out of the dark ages, into the Golden Age
Civ 3/4 had something called golden ages, where you would get increased production and income for a time, but at first they considered making it a dark age that would decrease those same things. I suggest that, instead of random up to requested levels, every tech currently being researched has a small chance of getting a bonus to its research.
This would encourage diversified spending, methinks.
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With all these people, you would expect one of them to carry an iguana around...
I came up with a great way
I came up with a great way to encourage research division and also simulate breakthroughs.
Simply, the research costs would be randomized each turn, anywhere from 1% to 100% of normal (with a strong bias towards higher values)
Thus, if you were to spend enough points to complete 1 project, you would get it guaranteed.
However, if you were to divide those points among 5 projects at 20% each, you would have a decent chance of at least one of those projects finishing early because the random cost dipped below your accumulated spending on it.
Your focus areas still get gains faster, but dividing your points gets you gains overall.
The randomization formula could be something like:
This Turn's Cost := %BaseCost% * (1 - random(0,1) ^ 2)
- Thusly, the cost is above 75% of normal half the time, and above 44% of normal 3/4 of the time, and so on.