What to do with the GL in case of no diplomacy?

The Great Library is already overpowered in big games, even if you can counter it by a tech trading alliance.

I wonder what happens when a new player is added to LTeX, how it's decided which starting units he gets and which technology / gold. There seem to be huge differences between players.

Should we set conquercost=0?

Reason: conquercost favors advanced players against less advanced. If big player takes city of weak, he won't pay anything, because strong has all technologies which weak has.

If weak takes city of stronger, he will be punished, because he will get some technology (even useless), and will be stopped with his research for some time.

Should diplcost (cost of getting a tech by diplomacy) be increased to 100%?

reason: When we decided to have diplomacy again, several people argued that they want diplomacy without tech exchange. The reason is that tech exchange favours big alliances (the more members, the more total research) and makes it impossible to win if you play solo or with a single ally. In general I think it's more fun if players have to do their research themselves, instead of getting it for free.

This can partly be done by increasing diplcost (cost of getting a tech by diplomacy). It's at 40% now, so getting a tech costs you 40% of it's research points (it's substracted from your ongoing research).

I propose to increase this cost to 100%, so it's very expensive to get your techs for free from allies. But tech exchange will still be possible for those who really want it.