Page 1 of 1

civ2 "key civ" science rule??

Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:10 am
by wishcraft
Greetings fellow rulers/citizens/barbarians/whatever

In short: does the civ2 ruleset in freeciv use the so called "science key civilization" rule? Which rulesets use this if any?

Allow me to explain:

I've been reading a lot about the inner workings of civ2 lately. I distinctly remember enjoying the game design of civ2 a lot back in the day but becoming very frustrating with the obscure internal workings of certain crucial mechanics of the game. I think I've now discovered one major source of this frustration: the rather baffling "key civ" system. Apparently, in civ2, your scientific development raking assigns you another civilization as your "key civ" based on the colour of that civilization... If you are "supreme" at science, the "key civ" is purple. Your scientific development then drastically slows down when you have way more tech than your key civ, if I get the rule correctly.

I can only imagine this was intended as a "rubber banding" type mechanic: an ad hoc way of rebalancing the game once someone gets too far ahead. However I find this rule to be so quirky and whimsical that it just makes the game feel frustratingly arbitrary whether you understand the rule or not.

Now I recently started playing freeciv and I tried the civ2 ruleset. I'm not bad at civ games, with civ1 I frequently complete tech tree before 0AD on emperor. I noticed civs started getting quite a bit ahead of me in tech before 0AD. This may also be due to playing on a very big map, with 10 other civs, and not really making a lot of contact. They may have been tech trading me into oblivion.

However I just want to make sure I can play without this "key civ rule" if at all possible, but still play a civ2 kinda game.

I searched this forum and on civfanatics they call this "key civ" but I found nothing of the sort on this forum so, is there any discussion of this under another name? Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance!

Re: civ2 "key civ" science rule??

Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 3:32 pm
by Akechi
Tech leakage is none in civ2 ruleset, so I think there is no technology cost modifier by other nations. (by the way, 1AD modifier is exist)
https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv/blob ... leset#L450
However, in civ2civ3 and sandbox ruleset, tech leakage exists.
https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv/blob ... leset#L497

Re: civ2 "key civ" science rule??

Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 4:01 pm
by Corbeau
Also, to my experience, when playing solo, AIs exchange techs like mad.

Re: civ2 "key civ" science rule??

Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 4:14 pm
by Ignatus
So, we don't have "key civ", just the techs are cheaper from their full cost (in some rulesets) with each player/player with your embassy/team knowing it, no matter what colour.