Tech-Trading / Leakage

evan · Post by **evan** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:45 am

The discussions in the previous thread in LT33 didn't mention all the options for tech leakage.

This is taken from the Github for LT33 data/games.ruleset

; Technology leak from other civilizations
; 0 - No reduction of the technology cost.
; 1 - Technology cost is reduced depending on the number of players
; which already know the tech and you have an embassy with.
; 2 - Technology cost is reduced depending on the number of all players
; (human, AI and barbarians) which already know the tech.
; 3 - Technology cost is reduced depending on the number of normal
; players (human and AI) which already know the tech.
tech_leakage = 1

The Aztecs knew nothing of European science, whereas Europe had contact with China and gained technology from this.
So setting=1 makes sense, and it gives another reason for embassies. I see no reason to change it. But people might prefer the other settings.

I've also transferred over the discussion about tech-trading and leakage, to help Wieder and to keep threads separate.
I apologise if i missed yours, and the dates might be off. (It just said 'yesterday')
Note: Corbeau's post included quotes from Wieder. They pasted without the highlighting.
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Sandain 21.11.14

Tech trading has been both a savior from my defeat and the reason that I was forced to go into "turtle" mode early in the game. I resisted the urge to try joining an alliance (I am still not in one) in the early game with the belief that it would be better to wait before choosing a side. However, with tech trading, I quickly found myself falling behind the tech curve even though I was in the top 10 for research speed and was forced to end any idea of going on the aggresive.

My decision to avoid joining an alliance was my downfall, but it was only a downfall because of tech trading. I'd suggest doing away with tech trading entirely, and force people to research a tech themselves, steal it with a diplomat/spy or by taking territory.
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Evan 24.11.14

I agree with Sandain about tech-trading,
and i think it's a good example of a rule that could be put to a poll without any danger of people not knowing what they are voting for.
Although it's important that we don't end up with rule changes that conflict with each other, or compound to make effects that are too strong together, no tech-trading is straightforward, we have it LW2, for example.
If we have a majority of players wanting a tech-trading free game, then we can build other rules around that.
The best way to find out is to have a poll. And it doesn't have to be open for just a week, the starting date for LT34 is still some time off. And so people know that we're talking about and voting about LT34 it would be much better if it had a separate listing in the main index, that way people who drop in to the site to have a quick look will see it. I think this is very important for players who are RIP.

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Wieder 24.11.14

Having or not having tech trading may be a straight forward decision if it's simply enabled or disabled. However we can have some shades of grey for it. I'll list some possible alternatives here.

1) No tech trading, no tech leakage

2) No tech trading, tech leakage on and with a 50 player game techs would become 2% cheaper every time someone gets a new tech

3) LT31/LT32 style tech trading when the giving party can lose the tech and the receiver is not really getting it every time even if the tech is stolen successfully. With this approach techs can be lost and you can't really advance faster if you trade techs because losing techs will compensate on this. Some people said the game felt more like a lottery

4) LT33 style -25% penalty for the receiver and a possibility to lose techs if you go negative on bulbs

5) With Freeciv 2.5 it's possible not to just reset the negative bulbs to zero but only remove half of the negatives at the tc. With -25% penalty for the receiver and maybe -10% penalty for the giving party it would make tech trading more expensive but still not as easy as it is with LT33. This is my favorite at the moment because giving away techs wouldn't be free

6) Allowing all tech trading without limits. This would definitely make it more tempting to form huge tech trading alliances

Another option would be lowering the base chance for the diplos/spies to succeed. This would also make the civil wars less likely to happen. It has been too easy to split nations with civil wars. Part of this is due to having no restrictinfra and a too complete rails network for the enemy to utilize. Some of the civil wars may have been avoided if the players had more units in the capitals but this is very easy to forget and sometimes too tempting to have the risk if it looks like the enemy shouldn't be able to infiltrate deep into homeland.

The base chance to spies and diplomats to succeed is now 50%. How would it feel if this was 25% instead of 50%? It would make it twice as hard to steal, sabotage or incite cities.

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Sandain 25.11.14

I have no idea what you mean by tech leakage.

Assuming tech trading is disallowed, I think it should still be possible to gain tech by stealing with a spy/diplomat, or by taking over a city. Stealing tech via one these two methods should have _no_ affect on your current research (unless you steal the tech you were working on, obviously), although I think that is how stealing tech currently works anyway. Stealing tech can be made difficult by a) making the probability of success of stealing low, and b) making the probability of transferring the tech back home low (like in LT32).

The current situation where you can trade tech through your embassy greatly advantages the players that join forces early in a game. It is my own fault that I did not realize this early this game, however I think that a lone-wolf strategy should be viable (at least as far as tech is concerned, obviously it is helpful to have allies when it comes to military units).

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Corbeau 25.11.14

Wieder, you seem like the person who runs around asking questions, and when you're buried in answers, you seem as if you didn't even notice them.

Endgame: for the record, I gave about a dozen ideas here and made some clarifications further down the thread.
wieder wrote:

1) No tech trading, no tech leakage

As a consequence, the moment you stay behind, the difference will increase. No way to catch up.

2) No tech trading, tech leakage on and with a 50 player game techs would become 2% cheaper every time someone gets a new tech

I'm in favour of this simply on the account of all other options being worse.

What I'd like, however, is that the cheapening rate isn't linear. For example, in a 50-player game, maybe to make the tech 4% cheaper once it is discovered by one player, then 3.5% when discovered by two, 3% when discovered by three and so on. Make a neat exponential function. However, that would need dipping into the code, right?

3) LT31/LT32 style tech trading when the giving party can lose the tech and the receiver is not really getting it every time even if the tech is stolen successfully. With this approach techs can be lost and you can't really advance faster if you trade techs because losing techs will compensate on this. Some people said the game felt more like a lottery

Exactly.

4) LT33 style -25% penalty for the receiver and a possibility to lose techs if you go negative on bulbs

A small penalty, basically, the more friends and bigger alliance you have, better chance of winning. A popularity contest, not a strategy game.

5) With Freeciv 2.5 it's possible not to just reset the negative bulbs to zero but only remove half of the negatives at the tc. With -25% penalty for the receiver and maybe -10% penalty for the giving party it would make tech trading more expensive but still not as easy as it is with LT33. This is my favorite at the moment because giving away techs wouldn't be free

A large complication. Cumbersome, non-intuitive, complicated, unrealistic, doesn't contribute to the game.

6) Allowing all tech trading without limits. This would definitely make it more tempting to form huge tech trading alliances

Correct. See under 4.

The base chance to spies and diplomats to succeed is now 50%. How would it feel if this was 25% instead of 50%? It would make it twice as hard to steal, sabotage or incite cities.

I have no problem with this. I think the diplomats and spies are too powerful when it comes to the material effects. Their main benefit should be gathering information, not replacing whole armies. (And when we're at that, any way to make the diplomat return home after investigating a city?)

And, again, I think restrictinfra is essential. In LT33 we have (had) a game where the major players have been preparing for moths and then *wham*, if you blinked in the wrong moment, you didn't even notice what was going on.

Also, I'd be in favour of completely removing the civil war option. This is effectively making one single wrong move a game loser. Nations should be able to regroup after a defeat.

Post by **wieder** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:40 am

Maybe having a lw2 style tech leakage would be the right call. After LT30 people wanted to limit the tech trading and after LT31 and LT32 there were lots of opinions for allowing it again in order to help those players who are not doing that well with the techs. The requirement to have embassies might be more realistic but it would be too much if you had to send out 49 diplomats in a 50 player game if you wanted to have full advantage of that.

Making the tech leakage to become non-linear would require coding.

This would also mean disabling all tech stealing because it's just another way for trading techs.

Remember to check Trello for the changes. Not just about tech trading.

https://trello.com/b/wIEPjpkd/longturn

StratThinker · Post by **StratThinker** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 2:40 pm

With LW2 style tech leakage, in a 50 player game, suppose the top player is researching at 100 bulbs/turn; then the player with the second best research speed only needs to research at 100*49/50 = 98 bulbs/turn, the third best player only needs 100*48/50 = 96 bulbs/turn. The player with the worst research speed only needs 2 bulbs/turn to keep up with the best player.

This totally takes away any incentive to be the best player to try their best at increasing research speed. This also takes away any incentive for the worst player to improve their game, at 2 bulbs/turn they can keep up with the best player. Isn't the purpose of techleakage=2 only to lessen the effect of bad luck?

If we use techleakage=2, then we should use techleackagerate = 50. With this rate if the top player is researching at 100 bulbs/turn, then the weakest player needs to research at 51 bulbs/turn to keep up with him.

Nimrod · Post by **Nimrod** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 3:48 pm

Based on what I've seen on LT33 and how things are progressing on LW2, my vote is for ZERO tech trading, ZERO tech conquest & ZERO tech stealing (like in LW2) but with tech leakage ON to allow for slightly cheaper research costs based on existing embassies and number of players that already have the tech (option # 1). Voila.

kevin551 · Post by **kevin551** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 4:07 pm

I prefer zero tech trading. Including no tech transferred by conquest or theft.
Clearly not a popular option for the militarists.

The random loss of tech caused by tech loss in LT32 became silly in the endgame, best to avoid this in longer games.

I haven't checked yet but assume that in a team game techleakage would refer to the number of teams not players.

edrim · Post by **edrim** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 7:34 am

Max techleakagerate in 50 players game will work quite nice, because when everybody has a tech you will get it for free, but it will be quite hard to get tech as a last man. In this time in normal tech trading game player who will get it in last would have this tech from trading, so it would be for free too.
In LW2 there is only 10 players so next player get a tech 10% cheaper, thats a lot, but when there is 50 players and one get gunpowder next one will need to have near same amount of bulbs to get it.

Case with having embassies is bad because weaker players are not able to build diplos for many players and with succes establish embassy with them.

No tech trading means much more powerfull simciting and city placements, when you get bad terian you are out.

kevin551 · Post by **kevin551** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 4:45 pm

edrim wrote:
No tech trading means much more powerfull simciting and city placements, when you get bad terian you are out.

The warserver fair island generator has now been ported to freeciv 2.5. It means every player starts with exactly the same terrain. I don't like island games much though.

And yes I agree "No tech trading means much more powerful simcitying and city placements"

taulover · Post by **taulover** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:08 pm

I have noticed that in LW2, the number of bulbs shown in the help menu is not accurate. Is this a known bug?