State the current situation.

Currently the way the majority of the tech gained by nations is through the foreign aid system through tech deals.
Tech is extremely important in war
Tech doesn't cost anything aside from the initial purchase.

State the problem with the current situation.

It is extremely difficult if not impossible for lower tech nations to catchup to higher tech nations with the current system.

The only ways possible to catchup are
1) if the larger tech nations are involved in a damaging war, while the lower tech nation is not.
2) the larger tech nations are required to send out technology aid for whatever reasons (usually surrender terms)
3) if the larger tech nations do not use all of their aid slots to purchase technology.

re #1. This latest war was one of the most damaging wars we've seen in the history of CN. Yet there are nations that have been utterly decimated and still have very large amounts of tech. A quick glance shows NPO nations with 0 infra and 800+ tech still. Wars also are not common enough to allow nations to really catchup.

re #2. Reparations only apply to the defeated. just glancing at RoK nations , i found one that is still holding 1200+ tech at zi, another with 130ish infra with 1300 tech. also, the tech sent via reparations while making it easier for a new nation to catchup to a defeated one, it makes it harder to catchup to the victor, which makes #1 have an even lesser effect. Also, this only applies when wars are fought.

re #3. This is really the only way to really catchup, but only if the larger tech nation chooses not to purchase tech. Assuming that the larger tech nation is buying tech with 3 slots (avg 100tech/cycle) and the low tech nation buys with 6 slots (avg 200tech/cycle) it will take 100 days for every 1000 tech difference to catchup. If the smaller tech nation only has 5 slots, it will take 160 days to overcome a 1000 tech difference.

For an example scenario, assume that I'm a new nation that just finished selling tech and now wants to start buying. Now im going to try and catchup to the nation that is currently ranked 500 in tech (5354 tech when i looked). This nation is steadily buying tech with 3 slots every cycle.
I start off buying 300 tech the traditional way, then use 5 slots constantly till i get over 1000 tech, then I get my DRA and use 6 slots constantly. 530 days later i will have finally caught up to the nation that at the time was ranked 500. By the time I have caught up we will both have over 10k tech. if at that time another new nation started buying tech and wanted to catchup to the nation I just passed assuming the same conditions, it would take him 1070 days and would end up at around 21k tech. unless everybody above #500 decided to buy with less than 3 slots we would still be around the #500 mark, or likely lower there would be nations under #500 buying with more than 3 slots.

As nations continue to buy tech, it becomes increasingly difficult for new players to catchup to older ones. Due to the importance of technology in war, newer nations are at an extremely long term disadvantage.


Since there is no upkeep on tech, there is no downside to having to much and it makes sense to get as much as you possibly can. This makes it less likely that a larger nation would limit itself on buying tech which in turn makes it even harder to catchup.


State how you suggest to changing it.

I have a couple ideas, but they will need some help to fine tune numbers and such. While they do work together, they do not have to be implemented together to correct the problem.

1) Greatly increase the damage to technology during war. I'm thinking increasing it by a factor of 3 at minimum. Keep the stolen tech at a base of 5 though.

2) add an upkeep to technology and have it scale exponentially and have jumps such as infrastructure. The existing wonders that have a cost reduction to buying infrastructure should be changed to an upkeep reduction since the cost reduction factor never comes into play.

3) Since #2 could cause existing nations to have bills greater than income, add the ability to sell technology back, just like infrastructure. Would need to be a flat rate that is less than the current cost of buying it via foreign aid.

State why your suggestion is better than the current situation

By increasing damage to technology during war, it decreases the amount of tech needed for a low tech nation to catchup. It also makes it less likely for a ZI nation to be sitting on 5k of tech.

By adding upkeep to technology you accomplish several things. One you make it so that a large tech nation would need to stop buying tech or to slow down thereby giving low tech nations a chance to catchup.

Allowing nations to sell back technology is mostly just as a safety feature in case tech bills overcome income. Downsides to this would be surrender terms could include selling off ones tech, but that doesn't currently happen for infrastructure or land, and likely the community uproar would squash that term if one were to try and implement it.

approved for discussion.

I would be in favour of increasing the tech damage in war. Making wars more damaging is a good thing is general, I think.

This idea is strangely familiar.

I agree with the premise behind this post 100%, and feel that something along the lines of what's proposed here should be implemented -along with- tech dealing being severely limited.

But it won't ever happen.

I don't really agree with the idea of tech dealing being severely limited. It's a great way to separate the more active alliances and players from the less active ones. I have a few ideas on this that I think might add to the discussion, even though they are, as you said, not likely to see the light off day.

First, remove the reduction in infrastructure bills brought about by tech. This was made a long time ago, in era when tech sucked and is no longer necessary, I think this makes all the sense in the world to remove- most large nations would be affected by it equally as they have plenty of tech (I have a ~3:1 infra:tech ratio and the bonus is maxed). My suggestion that is similar to his, but not quite the same as to have have technology increase infrastructure bills, as opposed to having tech have its own bills. The equation would work something like, T/4I=% increase in infra bills, with a cap on the increase of around 300-400% or perhaps even lower so rebuilding nations with lots of tech don't get completely shafted (for example, a nation with 8500 infra and 2000 tech would see a 5.8% increase in bills, 8500 and 4k tech would see a 11.6% increase, etc;). I think this a pretty fair way to penalize tech, particularly if you do something to deal with the problem of nations that have been ZIed and are rebuilding because it is pretty ugly for a nation with 10k tech and 5k infra to see a 50% increase in bills.

Well the problem is exactly what is being brought up in this topic, so long as tech dealing remains in place, it is impossible to ever catch up to the high ranked nations in tech. Even if the top nations stop altogether (in which case they won't be top for long), it will take years, because those top nations have been buying for years. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that needs to be ended.

Buying your own tech needs to become a reasonable alternative to tech dealing. Lowering the price of tech at high levels to the price that people pay at 0 tech isn't going to work, so the only other way is to restrict the buying of tech. Making it so you have to buy from someone within X% or X tech of you is one way to do it. It keeps tech dealing in the game, but people are going to have a harder time finding sellers, and the sellers will be wanting money for their tech, making buying your own more attractive.



I like this. While it won't stop the problem of people buying tech, it will add a cost to it which is nice. And it continues the tech and infra interplay just in reverse.

As for your suggestions...


1. I think this is reasonable, nuke damage could certainly be scaled up to hit tech/infra/land equally, I have no problem with that. Cruise missiles shouldn't have their damage bumped up much, but maybe a little bit. Aircraft shouldn't harm tech, and if we are raising other things then we may as well raise the cap on stolen tech as well.

2. This is absurd. Tech provides no income benefits, there is no way you can expect people to support bills for it, thus someone like me would be required to sell of several thousand tech simply to keep out of bill lock. Compare my nation and yours for a moment, yours is older than mine and has almost the same amount of infrastructure, but I have over 5,000 more technology than you. If we implement this solution I would be forced to sell most of this off, thus leaving me with a streignth similar to yours. In other words you aren't helping the newbies you are screwing over the active people who have worked to build up their tech level and rewarding all the lazy people who could never be bothered to tech deal. Frankly it's hard to see this suggestion as much more than a way for someone to lazy to tech deal properly to get themselves caught up with the more active players. Tech dealing rewards activity and dedication, screwing those same active dedicated people in the name of "fairness" is absurd.

3. We do need a sell tech feature regardless...

It's not just the OP, or any individual person. It's every person, old hats who've been destroyed in war, new people who have no way to catch up with the old hats who have been tech dealing since the beginning of time except for hoping that the nation in question gets killed in war. And let's face it, wars in CN don't come frequently enough to make the difference for the game as a whole.

Having tech affect bills in some way gives incentive for people to not horde ridiculous amounts of tech and ignore any other form of growth. And really once you have all the wonders that's about all there is left for you, besides saving money. Not only does it create a new money sink, reducing inflation in the economy, but it also gives an incentive to not tech deal to ridiculous levels.

I don't agree with having upkeep bill on tech. Nations would be put into bill lock the first time it was implemented because they didn't have the funds to support such a change. To the point that people wont catch up is beyond comprehension. This reminds me of people saying they'd never reach the 5% to get nukes, but yet they did. So the larger nations got beat down with a large load of tech. Now those nations have 2 things they can do.

1. They become sellers and sell it to a nation to gain extra income to help rebuild their infrastructure.
2. They keep it and rebuild with what they have and rebuild with what income their nation is making on it's own.

Smaller and newer nations will catchup with larger nations as over time people with larger tech then them get deleted for inactivity or they quit. It all cycles through. Just like those wanting nukes, as people got deleted those under the 5% line moved up or as nations got attacked they'd go back down. Same goes for those with tech.

They lose tech in war and go down or they can sell it for rebuilding cash.

That is why I proposed having tech increase the upkeep on infrastructure and having a cap on that increase, a ZIed nation will not be paying that more in bills with my proposal as opposed to simply having upkeep for tech which results in a nation with lots of tech and no infra being completely $%&@ed.

I don't mind the first part. I do disagree with the second part. The suggestion that younger nations can't catch up with older nations in tech is flawed at best. I am ranked #542 in tech, and I've been here about a year and a half. I started buying tech late, all things considered, and did not buy it at standard rates anyway, at least 2/3 of it was bought at $3M/50 rates. I bought a DRA rather late too. I know at least one nation contemporary to mine who bought at standard rates and ended up 1500+ tech ahead of me. That was before the recent war. That nation lost over half his tech.

Anecdotal evidence, sure. But if the OP's suggestion were true, there is no way I could have gotten this high on the lists being as inefficient as I have been. The point the OP and people who agree with him are missing I think is that tech is a self correcting commodity. Especially with WRCs now coming on line in greater numbers, the more tech they pile up, the more of it they are going to destroy as well. If someone could find out how much tech was in the AAs that fought the recent war before and after, we might have some evidence either way.

The other thing I don't like about that part of the suggestion is basicly covered by nc1701. The people with the highest tech levels are there because they put a lot of effort and activity into getting the tech in the first place. If this part of the suggestion were implemented those nations would suddenly find their efforts to build up their tech levels would suddenly have become detrimental to their nations overnight.

@seerow,

While I agree in principal that tech dealing really should be nerfed, doing so would ultimately prevent low tech nations from ever reaching the level of higher tech nations. How would a nation with 300 tech ever catchup with a nation that has 2k tech, or 5k tech, or 10k tech? I delebrately wanted to leave the ability to tech deal in the game because the suggestion has to have a way to work with the existing nations without unbalancing the game.

@essenia

I like the idea of linking the increased bills to infrastructure on one hand, but on the other, shouldn't a nation that has more tech than infrastructure not be able to maintain it? Having a cap on it means that at some point the costs on having more tech never increase so nations that are currently above that limit will remain uncatchable thus defeating the whole point of the suggestion.

@nc1701

I never mentioned any numbers so to assume that you would be in bill lock if this is implemented is not guaranteed. In fact thats the whole reason suggestions are made as threads, so they can be discussed and fine tuned. that being said, yes, some nations would be insta bill locked, but it wouldn't be the first time a change in the game screwed people over. Keeping with the tech theme, it used to be the case that having more than 300 tech did your nation absolutely no good other than stats, so a very large amount of nations stopped buying tech at that point or slightly over it for a buffer. Admin made some changes to tech and suddenly every nation that stopped buying tech was screwed and those that had just been gathering stats got a huge advantage over others. In fact, thats where a large part of the problem originated, people stopped buying tech as it had no gameplay reason to have more, others didn't and then when the change happened, those that stopped instantly had a very hard time to catchup.

@myworld

Just doing some math shows the time it would take to catchup. if a nation was just given all my tech constantly, 300 every 10 days, it would take 6 months to get to where the nation at #500 is, and that is with nobody buying tech. If you want to catchup to that rank and other nations are buying tech (which other nations are doing) it will take even longer. We're talking in the scale of years here. In my above scenario in the OP it would take roughly 40% of the time that CN has currently been in existence. To try and say that it is incomprehensible that a nation can't catchup means that you haven't bothered to look at the game mechanics. Comparing it to getting into the top 5% is comparing apples to oranges. There is a set limit on how much tech one can gain, and everybody can gain that same amount. There are many many ways to gain NS and they are not limited by 1 single thing such as aid slots, but are instead impacted by many many things. trades, improvement swapping, how you spend your money, and many other things in addition to use of FA slots affect NS growth.

Nations beat down that start to sell their surplus tech do nothing to alleviate the problem as the nations on top will still be buying.

The ONLY way to stop the problem is to make nations on the top want to either get rid of tech, or stop buying more tech.

@everybody

Yes, this suggestion does something that can hurt nations. The point of this suggestion isn't to make everybody on the top all giggly, its to attempt to balance the game. In addition adding upkeep to tech will add a new bit of strategy to the game. No longer will it just be buy buy buy buy, but nations will have to choose to either hold a large amount and have all the military benefits that come with it and stall their nations growth, or they will hold minimal amounts of tech to grow their nation, but be weak at war, or anything in the middle.

This will introduce a balancing affect to the game (though it will likely take months to years to balance out) as well as adding a new gameplay dynamic that every nation large or small has to figure out unlike new billion dollar wonders that only the extremely large can buy.

Well, I do think that there is a better way to do it with the lower ranks. However, the way I'm proposing it, the cap only kicks in for nations with a 16:1 or 12:1 tech: infra ratio. I doubt many nations have that.

when the game was new, it likely only took people a month to catchup to the top 10 in tech. when it was a few months old, it likely only took a couple more months. A year old, and maybe 6 months to catchup, 3 years now, and 500 is about 5k tech, How long does it take to get to there from zero now? when CN is 5 years old how much tech will the 500th nation have? History has already shown that there is a very large amount of inflation, and it keeps growing. There are nations with 15000+ tech in the top 10. some of them have less than 60000 casualties. How often do you think that nation has gone to war. nations in the top 10 buy tech pretty much constantly. who do you think will ever catchup to the top ten? Sure the former #1 got in a war and got beaten up pretty badly, in fact he's only at 17k infra and 13+k tech, but the rest of the top 10 is basically where it was prior to the war.

When I first started people i knew tried to get into the top ten, and after months and months of perfect nation growth and max tech dealing they came close, and 1 even made it. Try it now. It will take years.

This game should be setup so that new nations have a chance, not an easy one sure, but still a chance. When its measured in years, im sorry, thats not a chance.

Well i could go for a cap that far out there.

Not only unnecessary but actually way out of line from reality.

The reality is that in the history of mankind in the era since 1300, war has actually INCREASED the technological level of nations, not decreased it. You could make the argument that nuclear war reduces tech levels dramatically for both sides, but that is already sufficiently dealt with in the game.



This idea has a bit more merit, save for the fact that technology tends to build upon itself and create new technologies. Particularly in the Computer Age, each new advance lowers cost and maintenance on systems.

Indeed, I've found the whole system in which higher tech nations buying technology from lower tech nations to be patently silly, but I go along with it like most folks simply because it is a condition of play.



Since #2 isn't necessary, this isn't either. However, the idea that tech can be sold back seems ok, though most people would rather sell it to another player and get more for it.

I'm going to have a say 'no' on this one. I just don't see any compelling reason for this band-aid approach, when tech isn't actually being dealt with properly to begin with. Indeed, I see no reason to punish nations simply because they want to have a higher tech level and players simply because they didn't quit and re-roll or aren't new to the game.

first off, technology has always been the amount of techy things you have, i.e. how many tv's and cd players, not the technological advancement such as the wheel vs quantum computing. That has been said a few times by admin himself. anything mechanical or electrical breaks down, so should have a maintenance cost added to it.

And since it is the amount of things, and not advancement level, then yeah, increasing damage is realistic.

That being said. this suggestion is about balancing gameplay so that newer nations aren't at an extremely long term disadvantage. It's not about matching it to reality, and honestly most everything in this game isn't based on reality. You can build aircraft carriers in a day, you can attack multiple nations with the same deployed troops within seconds even if they are on opposite sides of the world. Heck, it looks as though some nations will have moon bases. Playing the "its different that the real world" is never a good argument to make, and usually its the defense of somebody that can't find anything else wrong with the idea.

Actually it's not strictly one or the other. If it weren't why are there minimum tech requirements for some items?

Even by the strict measure of the penetration of technology into the society versus what the highest level is within the nation at a given moment, war improves the overall technological level of nations, particularly those that win. Making it more damaging to the tech of both sides is wrong.



A certain amount of abstraction is a necessary evil in all game simulations. How long is a "turn"? Some games are very precise about it, others not. This game is not, so ground battles that in real time that might drag out for days or even weeks happen at the click of a button and carriers can be built in one turn within certain restrictions (you can only build as many as your nation has the capacity to build within a given set parameters).

However, to the extent that you can simulate a more realistic feel into a nation simulation game that is based more or less on the current era, you have an obligation to do so. This isn't space opera where it can take 20 widgets to create a level 2 fighter and 40 widgets to create a level 3 fighter simply because the designer says so. Even so, the space opera games need to be logically consistent, have no "gotchas" (you need a level 2 wedge to do that and there are no level 2 wedges in this region of space) or exploits that the players can use to break the game mechanics (once you achieve level 8 star cruisers they become the most economical to produce, and all other warships become a waste of money).

Back to this. You say that smaller, younger nations can never catch up to larger, older nations in terms of tech, yet those smaller nations are able to sell tech and make significant profits on it in order to build up their infrastructure/add improvements far faster than should be possible. About 3-4,000 infra they cross over and begin buying tech with a substantial economic base and add it far faster than should be possible, adding wonders along the way to improve growth--wonders that in many cases didn't exist 2 years ago. Speaking of two years ago, a nation just starting out today can grow FAR faster and bigger than it could 2 year ago, passing up many older nations along the way while doing so. Over time, a nation created today, if it has a bit of luck, can easily aspire to be in the top 1%. In case you hadn't noticed, long time players can and do quit this game for a variety of reasons or lose interest in growing their nations aggressively and slip down in the standings. War, quite damaging enough, thanks, increases the number of older nations on the down elevator.

Where you see a problem I see no problem. Indeed, some would argue that tech dealing is an exploit and Admin needs to fix it.

If you do not see it as a problem then thats you're opinion and I may not be able to change you're opinion to match mine, but I am going to try.

First of all, new nations do have more advantages now that older nations did not have. I remember when i started 200k was given in harbor aid and most alliances required you to pay it back down the line. Now its no problem to throw 3mil at people. However, all the advantages that new players have now, old players have them now as well. The reason nations can catchup to another nation infra wise is because infra becomes more expensive with the amount you have, and wars cause a ton of damage to infra. There is also no limit on how much infra a nation can buy other than the amount of cash they have. Technology on the other hand, is limited by aid slots, and the cost is minuscule compared to how much nations make. The amount of damage that can be done to tech is tiny when compared to infra or land. Base numbers for GAs are 20 infra, 5 tech. nukes, 150 infra, 50 tech, planes 20 infra, no tech, cms 10 infra 2 tech. that means base i can cause 230 base infra damage vs 64 tech damage which is just over 25% of the amount of infra damage if my on the fly math is correct (and if i correctly remembered damage amounts, i didnt look them up). Plus from what i understand, as a nation approaches ZI the amount of damage done to tech is greatly reduced even if they have a huge stockpile of tech.

So that means
tech is hard to destroy (in comparison with everything else)
tech has a set limit on how much is purchasable with cost not being a factor

infra on the other hand is easy to destroy
infra has no set limit on how much is purchasable except in regards to cost

so a nation can catchup in infrastructure, but a nation will have a much much much harder time catching up in technology, and it really isn't possible unless the larger nation chooses not to continue their tech growth. This is my problem, and one that i feel needs to be corrected.

If there are better ways to correct this problem than my above suggestions, then i will happily support them instead, but so far I haven't seen anything better than upkeep on tech (or as essenia said, increased upkeep on infrastructure based on tech) and greatly increasing the destruction of technology in wars.

You seem to have overlooked my points about wars affecting the status quo. You even mentioned the number one player being hit, and where he is now, but drew different conclusions from it. That person who had 1500 tech higher then me, is now 2000 tech below me; the war did that much damage to him. Things like peace terms will also keep formerly high tech nations from growing again. I've also seen plenty of nations in the top 5% that do not go all out in buying tech as much as possible. The ones who do buy more, will end up losing more of everything in a war, making it harder to return to their former position. As chairman Hal mentioned, older nations do go rogue/leave the game all the time for other reasons.

Getting into the top 10 of a game which has over 26000 people and has been around for over 3 years should be very hard, and it is. Getting into the top 5% shound not be easy, and it isn't. I guess I don't see it as being as impossible as you do.

actually I addressed your points when replying to the others, i felt no need to repeat myself, but if you would really like me to.

As far as the impact of wars, Tech is actually very hard to destroy in comparison to everything else. take a look at the all nations list and sort it by infra from smallest to largest. on the very first page you find nations sitting at ZI that have 400, 500, 700, 800, 1700, 1800 tech. The nation with 1800+ tech is NPO and considering the casualties, and the fact he's at ZI means he was likely fighting the whole time, yet he still has 1800 tech. Thats because tech is hard to destroy. A previous post of mine showed that its around 25% of the damage that can be done to infra. Reparations you might respond with right? well reparation tech doesnt go away, it just transfers to other nations who now don't have to pay for it, thus they can get more tech faster.

And again, i never said it was impossible to grow NS, I said it was very very difficult to catchup techwise to higher tech nations and if they are buying with all their slots it would be impossible to catch up to them. I also gave examples of the time it would take to catchup assuming that a new nations buys with max slots and the nation he's trying to catch is buying at half effeciency. Yes its possible in that scenario, but it would take forever and a day to do so.

And yes larger nations do get bored and delete/rogue, but many many more stay in the game and continue to grow. new nations aren't trying to catchup to nations that are roguing, or deleting, they're trying to catchup to nations that are in the lead. assuming that nations roguing or deleting is a valid way of catching up means you are assuming that all the nations above you will do so at some point and time. The rate at which large nations rogue and delete is so low, that it would likely take even longer to catchup if thats all you waited on. When i started this game, 1 nation had over 9k tech, nobody was over 10k tech. Now, right after the most damaging war bob has ever seen, there are 51 nations over 10k tech, and further 24 above 9k. The top 1000 nation has 4100ish tech. The tech levels in this game are constantly growing. Nations that buying tech when you did had a much much shorter path to get to where you are at then than they do now. The time it takes to get to where you are at or above is fast increasing.

Tech upkeep? Tech lowers infra upkeep, bad idea and just destroys one of the foundational reasons to buy tech.

No, the suggestion is a bad idea.

I think Syzygy adressed that matter some months or years ago too. His suggestion was that tech expires on a specific rate after you reached a certain percentage of your NS or Infra. Can`t remember it exactly.
That means the active players above that range have to constant tech deal to avoid tech losses and the tech grow slows down while the inactive ones above that range actually loose tech until they hit the range and stop loosing tech.
This will benefit the active players over the inactive ones and it will allow newer nations to catch up easier depending on the expiring tech rate.

I´m to lazy to search for the orginal suggestion.

This problem exists because there is no "end game" to which point you cannot keep building, or a certain activity/skill requirent to maintain your nation above a certain point.

*shrug*

I'm sorry, the upkeep reduction factor of tech is not a foundational reason to buy tech. It is only one of 6 things stated in the information index that tech does, and it is not a major reason to buy. Most people buy tech for the other benefits, and enjoy the side affect of slightly lower bills.

@steelrat

That is an awesome idea, i'll have to dig through the past threads looking for it when i get home from work. Although that idea would likely be alot more work to code than the other suggestions, but I can actually see it solving the problem more efficiently than adding an upkeep to tech which would require alot of fine tuning in regards to pricing and jumps. The only downside i can see to it, is it would put a cap on the total amount of tech possible to buy, and generally I am against hard caps. If it could be tied into another stat such as infrastructure then it would become more of a floating cap. Basically the higher your tech:infra ratio becomes, the faster the rate of tech decay.

Or if you really want to make the game interesting, you could implement both ideas. If you choose not to pay for upkeep on tech, it degrades, if you pay the max upkeep on it, it doesn't degrade, and you can do anything in between so that you could have a variable rate of decay and upkeep on it. This of course would require quite alot of coding and likely wouldn't be something that would implement, but either of the forms would work.

I may actually prefer the idea of tech decay vs having bills on tech. I'll have to find that thread / post.

I think tech should be limited based on infrastructure. Say, you can have no more than 2/5 your infra in tech. If you already have more, then you can't accept any tech aid offers nor can you buy tech yourself.

There should be some kind of cap on technology. Getting in a war and losing thousands of technology puts you at a permanent disadvantage compared to those who avoided war, because everyone buys tech indefinitely. It acts as a deterrent for war, because you can never win in war.. the people who don't fight, they win, and the more wars you fight, the more the gap between you and them will increase. Unless everyone fights, then it's cool. Infrastructure doesn't have that effect, because you can't keep buying it indefinitely while making a profit. In fact, it doesn't make much sense to go further than 14000 for the SDC, because it's extremely costly for small benefits.

You say it might cause end-game boredom? Stagnation? That's why there's war. The end-product of this game is war. That's why you build your nation. Unless you just like to see your pixels grow I guess, but war is an important part of CN.

I disagree with this solution based on the "how can you implement it with existing nations".

If you were just to introduce a cap, then nations that are currently above that cap will have a permanent advantage, with nations of equal infrastructure but lesser tech being unable to buy or receive tech to reach the larger tech nations.

Permanent advantage? Attack them if it really bothers you. Their advantage is anything but permanent.

"You are too strong, it worries me. Sell some of your technology or else!"
"No"
/war

It's actually surprisingly similar to some real-life situations.

10k infra nation with 9k tech (over your max, because he was already there)
vs 10k infra nation with 4k tech (max he can have per your cap)

yeah, not really gonna happen, especially when you tie in things like alliances and such. Your cap would only exacerbate the problem i outlined in the op, not alleviate it.

new nations increasingly have a harder time to catch existing nations. That is a problem with any game as you need new blood to replace those that bleed off from things such as boredom or RL issues.

A few weeks of nuclear war will bring down his tech level pretty fast. Also, that 9k tech would easily pit him against nations with 12-15k infra. If his alliance is strong, play the political game.. make sure your side is stronger.

You can also add "tech decay". A nation over the cap loses 0.5% of his tech level every day. At 10k tech, that's -50 tech a day. For RP purposes, you could say that they don't have the infrastructure to support that technology.

Still disagree



This is something that would work though. I think it would be better to have variable rates of decay. Just using your numbers, I'd say if you are at or below the soft cap of 2/5ths, no decay rate, but once over, it starts at say .1% of tech loss, but the more you are over, it steadily increases the rate of decay up to a maximum of 1% and a hard cap of tech decay at 35 tech per day. This way nations can choose to go over the 2/5ths soft cap if they want, but it would take increasing effort on their part to do so until they get to a point where the rate of decay is equal to the maximum amount of tech they can bring in. The cap of 35 per day loss is so that nations that are grossly over their soft cap have time to rebuild infra after a war without having all of their tech melt away in days. Also allows for nations that are above at time of implementation to not just have all their hard work disappear overnight.

With current aid slot, 30/day on avg is the most tech you can have incoming to your nation, so 35 per day would mean you lose 50 per tech cycle if you have all your slots being filled, or likely 150 per cycle if you are buying with 6 slots at 3/100 constantly. Its a much slower drain than you're suggestion of 50 above, and i think that fits better when implementing with nations that already exist that are likely way over that cap.

Also, where did you get 2/5ths from? I'd think 3/5ths would be a better number. I chose this because of the current NS values of both tech and infra, and at a 3/5ths ratio you would have an equal boost in ns from tech as you would from infra.



As a side note, I like the idea of tech decay, but i think a different word should probably be chosen before somebody comes in here trying to pull RL examples of how a hard drive platter will never decay. Technology breaks over time, and comes to a point when the parts must be salvaged and rebuilt into something else, (or it ends up in a landfill).

QFT

I think tech is fine how it is, and I think it makes sense that nations that have been around say, a year longer, should, under most circumstances, have more tech, although, as was metioned in the quote, there are wars, peace terms etc. that can drastically reduce tech amounts.

In response to the first post, increasing the cap for tech being destroyed, would not be a good idea, for as was said in the quote:



This is perfectly true, if we increase damage to tech, nations that buy have it 1:2 or 1:1 to infra, which, in many cases is good, would suffer drastic damage to their precious tech.


Also, about the idea for tech upkeep, for nations that have about as much tech as infra, this would be a HUGE drawback, which could result in nations that have spent billions on tech, wishing they didn't have any.


To the "deletion of infra upkeep reduction, all i can think of is . The idea is outrageous! The infra upkeep reduction is a nice addition that is not overdueing it. It is:

1. A nice bonus that you don't need too much tech to get
2. One of the 3 (not counting NS) peacetime bonuses from tech
3. (most people don't care about this) makes sense in relation to RL
4. many more reasons!

Again, its not about top 5% NS. Its not about NS at all. Its about Technology, and just technology.

Currently there is a limit on how much tech can be aquired. The price of technology never increases with the amount one has. This combination means that it will take a very very long time to catchup and only if those on top aren't buying, which alot of them are.

As far as upkeep, i think my mind has been swayed from upkeep to tech decay.

I certainly think this is a better idea, with resources, improvements, or wonders being able to "limit" the rate of decay.

[sarcasm]Hey, I've got an idea! How about we give all new players 100k nations and suck all the challenge out of the game?[/sarcasm]

This.

Syzygy long ago proposed a terrific overhaul for the tech system that has yet to be eclipsed by a better suggestion.

Everything else suggested since looks at punitive measures to curb the long standing tech sales market one way or the other. This suggestion is no different in that respect. Some players will get royally burned by the OP's idea.

But Syzygy's method hurt no one and had the built in feature of allowing for game inflation, IIRC.

He offered it as an alternative for at least a year in every last "tech fixing" thread to no avail. It's no wonder he doesn't bother posting it anymore. Now the best idea we've ever had on this topic has grown so old it slips from everyone's memory, and yet we still get these same threads popping up.



As for the concept of thinking we should allow players to "catch up" with others I propose you simply play longer like some of us did. Eventually you will get up there. I feel no urge to feel sorry I got here earlier and am ahead of many others. Believe me when I say that new players have it far more easier to gain ground than in the old days. I remember when 10K in aid was huge and there were no tech deals or n00b bonuses just for joining. No libraries or growth programs. War was constant and we all kept getting stomped flat with regularity. With my 3rd anniversary arriving I can comfortably state that players who joined 18 months ago were able to pass me because of all of the new training, aid, and game changes made available to them. Yeah, it might take you a couple years to go from zero to the top these days, but it can be done if you are committed and learn how to do it. So you joined the game later than others? My advice is to quit looking for easy game fixes to change the dynamics in your favor and simply get to work stacking pixels efficiently like the rest of us. It won't happen fast, but then it didn't for most of the rest of us old timers either.

I've yet to find his idea (i haven't bothered to ask him about it either tho so....)

As far as getting to work stacking pixels efficiently... you do realize that if you constantly buy tech all out, I will never ever ever be able to catch you right? Its not like infra or NS where you are forced to slow down because the cost continually increases. It doesn't matter how effecient I play, as long as there are those above me playing just as effeciently I will forever be at a disadvantage.

The suggestion of just play longer is a crap suggestion. if it takes me 2 years to get around the top and above those that aren't trying to stay on the top (i.e. those that dont buy tech full out as I'll never catch those that do), how long will it take the next wave of nations to catch up? I'm sorry but when new nations join a game and they see nations that have 15000+ tech they realize that they will be at the bottom for a very long while. How about in a few years when those nations have 30k tech? the problem gets worse and worse as time goes on.

Being entirely honest, if Admin wishes this game to draw in new nations he needs to keep it fun for them, and when somebody looks around and sees that it will take years of play to become competitive with other nations, and only if those other nations choose not to grow as fast, they will stop playing. I've seen many people that oopsed and let their nations delete and at that point just gave up because they know it took them years to get where they were at, but it would take even longer to get back in comparison with where others have gotten to.

Every game I've played makes it harder and harder as you play, it doesn't get easier. Technology in this game is an exception as its costs do not increase ever, it only goes away in war, and only at a fraction of the rate of everything else, and everybody big or small has the same maximum amount that they can aquire.

This. It can be acceptable for it to be "hard" to catch up with other nations, but "never" being able to catch up is harsh.

Completely untrue.

"Harsh!?"

No.

It makes perfect sense, I am not too big, just under 20k NS, and I would only dream of being in the top 50. If new people join with the goal of "being #1" then they aren't going to get too far.

How about an example:

The average 1001 day old nation is lets say....90k NS

The average 1 day old nation is 210 NS.




By the proposed method in another 1000 days would they be about the same!?

Now that is what I call harsh.

I would like to think of this more like an MMO. After a while, progress begins to plateau and skill in gameplay becomes more prominent. Sadly, this isn't one.

Not to mention the wide web of Mutual Defense Pacts, making it very hard, if not impossible, to become a superpower and rule with military might. They even destroyed New Pacific, you know. And because people will be hesitant to wage wars, making it even impossible to catch up.

And no matter how much proficient in diplomacy and politics a new player is, he won't even be able to catch up with the top players. That *is* harsh.

The point here is that it is impossible to catch up in technology with the old nations because prectically, sooner or later, you'll be limited to the tceh deal ratios, which will be the same for everybody.

I wouldn't make it so that old players would have their tech decay though. And no to tech upkeep. That is just limiting, and will make people calculate the optimum tech/infra numbers and stay there, making for a boring Cybernations. I'd propose getting rid of tech dealing and revamping tech buying system to get the price to be structured like infra pricing (with jumps and similar/same pricing as infra levels). That'd still give the old players an advantage while allowing the newer players to close the gap. It would still allow the old nations to keep their superior technology levels too (if they keep buying technology, they'll stay ahead of newbies). The catch here is that because the gap would be smaller, the newer players (not new, just newer) would be able to gang up on a single powerful tech monster to bring him down. That's where the diplomacy/politics would come in.

Again, not about NS, its about technology. say you're at 1000 technology, im about 2500 technology. How long will it take for you to catch up to nations at my tech level if they all start buying with 6 slots at a time? Unless you are being gifted the tech you will NEVER catch me. The only way you'd have a chance is either if 1, all of them go to war, or 2, they all stop buying tech.

Sure some will go to war.... but not most of them. Sure some will slow or stop buying tech, but not most of them. Given that, there is a very likely possibility that you will never catch up to some of them. Ever. game mechanics prevent you from catching them. Ever.

and to answer your question "By the proposed method in another 1000 days would they be about the same!?" No they wouldn't, but they would be much much closer. The only way they would be the same is if a hard cap were implemented and that is not what this suggestion is trying to accomplish.

If you made a rule that you can't send tech to a nation with more than 500 tech already, you would solve 90% of the issues.
The thing is you would also kill the whole tech trading economy.

Admin implemented something similar to that a couple years ago, but it was shouted down by people with large nations and CN is the worse for it today.

So just get rid of it while making tech level prices/buying mechanism equal to the infra. If people can buy up to 20k infra, then they can buy up to 20k tech too, provided they gain money.

you can't just axe tech dealing unfortunately.

it would screw over everybody since it would eliminate the means that they could catchup to nations that have tech dealt their way to where they are at now.

(also, fyi, you can buy tech just like infra already with jumps and everything, its just tremendously expensive.)

If the pricing was fixed to be like the infra ratios, then you wouldn't need to tech deal anyways. And frankly, if nations can get up to 20k infra, then buying to 20k tech should not be a problem, considering tech doesn't have upkeep.

Also, eliminating tech dealing does not eliminate foreign aids. There is nothing stopping one from receiving aid from allies. As for unaligned people, I have an idea on that, which is seperate from this tech thing.

But eliminating tech dealing will help the game.

This is ridiculous. It seems like you're out to punish those who play the game well. In case you haven't noticed there is no winning Cybernations. Large tech nations can be chopped down in war by use of gang attacks. I don't see any merit to this at all.

I honestly think everybody is making this way to complicated.
a easy way to speed up the smaller nations growth ,really thats what everybody is talking about right ,to try and catch up to the bigger nations,

reduce the cost of tech to the smaller nations ,say cut the cost by 50% for tech levels under 500 units,(Mods for this one )
also
reduce the cost to tech sellers instead of have the most common deal 3 million for 100 tech make the deals 3 million for 50 tech.also it would increase the speed of deal instead of a 30 day cycle for a 1X1 deal it would be 20 days,(players for this one)

this will allow the smaller nations far greater profits to grow there infra,as long as they stay below the 500 tech mark ,after the 500 tech mark is met return the cost to what it is now,
this would be fairly simple to set up I would think.
The ability for nations to make more money right away may help keep more young nations keep playing as well.

This