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Calin2

Join Date 03/2003

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researching is not worth it

Hi.

What is the point of doing research? Getting more powerful weapons? Faster engines? No. The whole point is economics. It's either to generate more money or lower the cost of a product. Research is a project, and like all projects, you have to take into calculation cost vs benefice to determine if it is worthwhile.

However, in this game, the amount of money and time you have to invest to in building the labs, paying the upkeep, invest the money to generate research points is so big that there is no way i see for it to be worth doing it when you consider that you may replace these installations with factories or farms/economic buildings.

Did i say that technology is worthless? Not at all. I'm just saying that researching them is not efficient. Buy them, take them by force.

It's strange for me to say this, because in all other 5x games, i love doing research. My suggestion? The creator of the game should revise the benefits and cost of the technologies in the game.

Let me know what you think.

research

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While this may be true with the current version of the game. You may find that research will become pivotal in the upcoming patch. (Well pivotal IF you turn off Tech trading)

Hopefully the new patch will add some new challenges for us all to enjoy.

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But if you plan to buy tech your going to need good diplomacy while not as hard to get as research still uses up resources. And buying tech will always leave you a step behind the computer.

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Really?

I find that the aliens usually won't trade warfare-related techs with me, even if we're on good terms. Not researching would leave me vulnerable.

Of course, my overall strategy involves staying ahead, or at least competitive, technologically. I'm sure there are other approaches.

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I disagree completely. You can only get technology that others have the way you are saying, so you will never have a true technological edge over everyone. It is a viable strategy to steal, or trade for all of your technology, but it is by no means to only viable strategy. I have never been so close in tech to the other races to make this viable to me. I rely on my sheer technological dominance to give me an advantage. I have only played against intellegent AI's so far though, so I don't know how well they research when they get economic bonuses.

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research is one key element in my games. And You cannot buy or steal technologies, which are not invenented yet by the other races. So you have to research and you will get a big bonus out of it: To be ahead in the right techs will give you a big advance

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It's strange for me to say this, because in all other 5x games, i love doing research.

5x? I thought this was a 4x game? I can't even remember the Xs when there are only four. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXsomething. See? *sniffle*

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research is one key element in my games. And You cannot buy or steal technologies, which are not invenented yet by the other races. So you have to research and you will get a big bonus out of it: To be ahead in the right techs will give you a big advance

I agree! It is quite difficult to get the AI to trade good techs with you. And most won't give you warfare related techs. And you need those!!

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Also, I've run into occassions where the AI is rather reluctant to trade away their best techs. And will charge through the nose for many others as well.

So unless your strategy takes into account always being behind the tech curve, this would likely be an ultimately futile strategy.

In other words, if you are aiming for a military or (especially!) a technological victory, you need to do your own research, maybe trade for techs that you aren't focusing on. I think even an influence victory requires pretty heavy research as you need the best influence techs, and have to keep the barbarians away from your gate until you can convince everyone that they can't leave without your TV programs.

Even if you are working a diplomatic strategy, you need to keep ahead of the diplomacy research or you'll always negotiate from a position of weakness.

Another point is that the AI doesn't necessarily research what you need!

And as has been stated, with the upcoming enhancement, turn off tech trading, and it becomes a really moot point.

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5x? I thought this was a 4x game? I can't even remember the Xs when there are only four. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXsomething. See? *sniffle*

The developers of the horrible space conquest game that shall not be named (as it shames the name of those that came before) tried to expand the term from 4X to 5X.

We all know how that ended.

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Its an interesting area. Does having a huge fleet of older ships outweigh having a modern fleet? If you only gain the non-military techs and then research military you would be behind but not by very much. Most games I am behind in tech and as long as I have enough ships i have generally had little problems with the AI's. Given the new logistic changes I expect this to be even more true down the road as I will be able to add more smaller ships to my defensive fleets.
I generally try not to fall super far behind but this seems a valid tactic to me as long as you keep enough ships on patrol from having a greater economic advantage.

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The developers of the horrible space conquest game that shall not be named (as it shames the name of those that came before) tried to expand the term from 4X to 5X.

Yeah - ex-franchise!!

I think the OP is tripping. Even if you decide to go full diplomacy abilities.... the AI will soon catch up in diplomacy, then everything will cost you, all the time you are buying their econ techs they are raking the cash in and laughing.... not to mention as everyone pointed out - even your best friends wont sell you military techs 99% of the time.

In fact, I'm really not sure if you are playing the same game Calin2...... unless it's on Cakewalk?

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I don't see how you could possible win an Influence or Diplomatic Victory without having an edge in their respective technologies. I suppose if you were strictly playing it as a war game you could get away with ignoring research and using economic might to overpower everyone.

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the other X is eXterminate

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To OP the whole way it's done is so there is an alternative to just RESEARCH, because as you may love researching, not everyone does. Ideally you want both to be equivelent in terms of resources so that its a matter of choice not choosign the best way. You may thinkt hat sinply buying tech is cheaper, but I wouldn't necessarily agree. Only way to lower the colony maitenece is to leave some areas opened. If you jsut swap a research alb for a factory, how does that reduce your colony maintenece?

In all my game sI do a combinatino of research/trade/buy/take when it comes to technology, and I love it! You should also know that all the other games have a cost to research too. Take moo2 for example, you need buildings to research and you need people. Buildings cost money and you have to build em, the people loose opportunity to build while they are researching, so that's an opportunity cost.

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[quote find that the aliens usually won't trade warfare-related techs with me, even if we're on good terms. Not researching would leave me vulnerable.]

Indeed, they are almost ridiculous about this at times, refusing to trade warfare techs when I offer a bunch of more expensive techs they don't have for them and a ton of money, only relenting at the point where it would be crazy for me to refuse. This includes when I offer them BETTER warfare techs in the deal. Sometimes that finicky AI doesn't seem the benefit of a straight "I give you laser IV, you give me laser III" deal. He also still values completely out of date techs and ones that are very, very old for him (such as the first several missile techs when he has anti-matter torps).

If anything you need to do a lot of the military research on your own otherwise you'll be killed. At least early on. Certainly I find it useful to do most of my military research for myself. Afterall that is the only way I am going to have a huge lead on the AI. I certainly think it is worth it, even if it is oddly related to money spent on other areas. Also, usually research is cheaper than industrial stuff, and certainly researching better economics and industry helps those fields many times over in the long run.

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If your just buying techs, you are always a step behind AND giving all your money to those who are smarter then you. Not a terribly efficient way to compete by subsidising your enemies.

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What if an AI update caused the AI to start using strategies such as noticing players who bought all their tech and then only selling you techs that were very old, or hosing you by not selling anymore at all?

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eXecrable eXcoriative eXploitive eXpletive eXcrement -- the 5 X's for That Horrible Space Empire Game By That Other Company.

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lol kato24

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Sorry folks but I know not of this Horrible Game(by that name anyway, I do have an inkling). Where would I search the internet to find out more about it's stupidity?

On topic... OP, Research is my saving grace. In fact I almost entirely reverse your position. I buy techs I don't have, true. But I also sell all* my techs I do have. This allows defecit spending for quite a while if I don't buy something outright.
Techs also make good trades for Trade Goods that they almost never let me buy from them.

Perhaps as you say, it isn't efficient. But it IS effective. I go with effective winning against efficient losing (I suck at playing fair)

*all nonmilitary techs unless way outdated, that is.

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I can see the OP's point, because research in this game is different than, say, MoO. MoO, unless you were Creative, you got to pick one tech out of a handful to research. As such, each tech offered a fairly sizable advantage. Cloning centers gave a massive boost to population growth, Walker Garrisons gave you a highly resistant-to-invasion ground force, and whatever you didn't choose to research, you'd have to try and trade for.

GC2 research is different in that a) you can research anything on the tree you can reach, and

it's all smaller, incremental bonuses instead of massive, specialized bonuses. You need to focus on one branch for quite a while to achieve a massive bonus, and by that time, everyone else has spread out and gotten better at other things. It's easy for me to see who going for a 'tech sucks' strategy could be workable (With the main problem being that you can't steal tech until you get Planetary Invasion, and people rarely like ot trade it to you... they know what you can do with it).

I'd suggest changing research slightly, by making different 'branches' of the tech tree 'opposed' branches. If your scientists spend too much time studying lasers, maybe they have trouble wrapping their mind around Mass Drivers, making them harder to research. If you spend your time researching better, more efficient factories, maybe you can't understand why it's so hard to improve your environment now that your new building process eats away at the ozone layer. Something like this would make empires pay more to be 'generalists' when it comes to tech, and specialists would be more likely to trade away their older stuff for things that just isn't worth it to research.

Another other option is to add some 'more bang for the buck' techs, ones that change the game in a minor-to-medium way. Right now, the only 'bang' techs I can think of are Hyperdrive (no ships without it), Universal Translator (no Diplomacy without it), and Planetary Invasions (Not much point to wars without it). Perhaps Xeno Physics (allows Tech Trading with other races), Terror Warfare (Evil-only, allows you to use your Espionage budget to sabotage the other empire's stuff), Jumpgate (Ships at any of your planets can go to any other planet in a single turn, but if they have engines of their own, there's a chance they'll be lost), or other 'game-altering' techs could be included, making them seek more useful than '+5 to Soldiering' or '-1 space for lasers'.

A third option would be to introduce more specialization to the tech tree... when you research Beam Weapon Theory (for instance), you have to pick one of three theories: Gamma Lasers (+1 damage), Efficient Focus (-25% size), or Cheap Materials (-25% cost). All your laser tech then enjoys that benefit. Say you have Gamma Lasers at Laser II and you trade for another race's Cheap Materials at Laser II. You can then add a Gamma Laser os a Cheap Laser to your ships... and you'd have another option on the tech tree open up, allowing you to research Cheap Gamma Lasers and gain both benefits at once. Races would have to work together to gain the ultimate laser: One that's smaller, cheaper, and more powerful.

Just thinking of ways to make research seem more beneficial...

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in my current game I got lucky and everyone went after the korx and ignored me and my mass of starbased mined traderoutes I had with the korx. I was able to keep funding wars between the different species for a good long time, eventually the drath built up an army large enough to take out the korx, and more importantly were about to take over the planet I had a traderoute with. By that time I was so far ahead in the tech tree compared to everyone else that I was able to crush the entire drath army in a few turns.

Also some of the more likely to get cleared off the map species have a couple of my ships and are able to run around crushing fleets of the AI's ships. War goes on and on... I go closer to tech victory

so... lots and lots of severely outdated ships is unlikely to help against a superior opponent.

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Research is pretty balanced because selling it, especially with diplomacy bonuses and selling the same tech multiple times, can net a profit over the cost of production. Also, as pointed out above, buying tech is expensive, for you or for the AI. I've found that researching to research centers/academies/invention matrix early and selling that line of tech to the AI slows them down quite a bit economically, and then makes it difficult for them to research anything, because the upgraded buildings take so long to build and so much money to buy. Meanwhile, I have a load of cash from my sales to research other techs faster, and with tech bonuses I can pursue military, economic, or influence-based victories.

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Lol, 5X game, ok buddy.

Research is very important, and the OP doesn't make much sense at all.

What is the point of doing research? Getting more powerful weapons? Faster engines? No. The whole point is economics

Unless you are going for a influence victory, then you will either need tech for a tech victory (duhhhh) or tech to get better weapons/shields in order to take out the opposition. Yes you can win a war with less tech, but it's MUCH MUCH easier to win with better tech and you can't get better tech by not researching. Very weird post, there is no economic victory...

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I find research actually generates more money than anything, once you have the high level diplomacy techs anything you research that the other races don't have pays for itself 10x over. If you research a high level tech no one else has you can often extort stupid amounts of money and even planets for it.

Having the technological lead over everyone can give you enourmous control over the galaxy, if you see a war breaking out you can shape it's course by deciding who you sell tech to, and therefore keep races from becoming too powerful.

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