1 more vote for option to turn off completely tech trading.

Researching technology is a major portion of the game. Looking through all the available techs and deciding which of them is the most useful is one of the largest ways to make it feel like you own your empire. I want to have to decide whether researching Laser IV to give me an edge in combat is more important than researching xeno industry to give myself a manufacturing bonus. That's one of the most important ways I feel like I'm playing the game. If I can research either Laser IV or Xeno Industry, then trade whichever I researched to Player 2 for the other, and then trade those two techs to Players 3 and 4 for more technology still, that means that my choice in research doesn't matter, and that is a major turnoff

Right on. Another vote from me. Tech trading busts the game.

I agree, I need to spend half my playing time trading techs just to keep up with the AI. The fun factor of the game is seriously diminished by this. If you are in a war, you want to be focusing on your ships, etc... You don't want to spend half the war in the tech trading screen so you don't get left in the dust by the AI.

There should be a "no tech trading" option like Civ4 or at least make the AI trade less often with each other

I agree. Tech trading needs to be drastically reduced. I want to be able to research and build (expand) my empire a bit more slowly, but this has not been the case. Often, I have to grab 3-4 techs a turn just to stay competitive. I would rather advance slower and enjoy my new ship options as they come. As it is, I had 5 new techs in my last turn, making it all go by too fst for me, and this just to stay in the race.

Give us options to reduce and turn it off. If you want it in, then you don't have to adjust it, period. Win/win!

Be aware that trading tech for money isn't very profitable at a higher AI level

Hey PP, as a Diplomat you should know that it most certainly is if you've got a good enough diplomatic edge!

Also get to the Galactic Bazar achievement ASAP and then you can buy / trade for almost anything.

BTW, have you guys considered, oh, reducing tech rate to very slow and see how that pans out?

I hate to say it, but I agree. Something must absolutely be done about Tech Trading. It is disheartening. And I certainly do not think it is being exaggerated. If anything, the problem (and it IS a problem) has been addressed in a very accurate manner by quite a few posters here. I do hope Brad has a chance to look into this very, very soon.

I do not know the best solution, if there is indeed one. Perhaps the "easiest" solution is limiting A.I. tech trading to every 'x' turns, or limiting A.I. tech trading to only occur if/when relation levels hit a certain number.

There are not enough techs and each tech in the early game is too important to allow their free exchange. The lack of technical specialization that results in pooling the techs removes much of the 'personality' from the AI races. I'd rather see one race specialize in manufacturing, one in weapons, one in planetary improvements, etc to reach their goal, than see everybody with everything from beginning to end of game. I'd hate to see tech trading gone completely, but I would like to see the AI take into consideration it's relationship with it's trading partner, the uniqueness of the tech and the importance of the tech to it's particular area of focus before trading away a potential advantage.

BTW, have you guys considered, oh, reducing tech rate to very slow and see how that pans out?

Of course. thats the only way I play. Doesnt make the slightest difference to the issue being discussed.

M

in my opinion the tech trading should be managed like in civ4.First of all should be introduced for every technology the cost in research points. Secondly AI tech trade should be based on costs of technology and relations between the 2 races. I would add also modifiers based on race history and style of play (for example altarians and drath, or yor and iconians should have a negative modifier in tech trade, humans and arceans positive),( Drengin should give away less military technology, humans less diplomacy techs).

imo, ymmv, yadda, yadda, etc...

In the real world, who the heck trades techs anyway! I'd like to see techs spread by:

1. lower research costs as more civs know a given tech.

2. espionage.

3. a high level of allies agreeing to joint research.

4. NO outright trading.

3. a high level of allies agreeing to joint research.

Me like lots. Me want in game. What game did this in 4x "recently"?? Was it SEIV? There was no tech trading, just treaties which gave you both research bonuses. GCII could do this easily...... right......?

imo, ymmv, yadda, yadda, etc... In the real world, who the heck trades techs anyway! I'd like to see techs spread by: 1. lower research costs as more civs know a given tech. 2. espionage. 3. a high level of allies agreeing to joint research. 4. NO outright trading.

I'll second that, with the potential addition of limited trading between allies.

Hey PP, as a Diplomat you should know that it most certainly is if you've got a good enough diplomatic edge! Also get to the Galactic Bazar achievement ASAP and then you can buy / trade for almost anything.

Well, I haven't gone so far in games I have made

in my opinion the tech trading should be managed like in civ4.First of all should be introduced for every technology the cost in research points. Secondly AI tech trade should be based on costs of technology and relations between the 2 races. I would add also modifiers based on race history and style of play (for example altarians and drath, or yor and iconians should have a negative modifier in tech trade, humans and arceans positive),( Drengin should give away less military technology, humans less diplomacy techs).

I haven't played Civ4, but almost every factor you mentioned is already part of GC2. Different techs require a different number of beakers to research, and the AI does take this into consideration when trading. Your relations also affect what they're willing to offer in response to a trade, and the relations take into account any racial prejudices and history. I don't think it makes room for the Drengin giving away less military technology.

Personally, I like the "blueprints" idea, with a modification or two.

1) Start with a base research cost of a tech.
2) Reduce the cost if you have blueprints.
3) Increase the cost if you don't have the preceding tech (larger increases if you're skipping multiple techs).

I think this could be balanced right so that while you might want to keep a pool of blueprints handy, The AI wouldn't blindly trade for everything and try to research everything, since they still have to dedicate some portion of their research towards making the blueprints usable, they'd still want to focus what research they have available to accessing the most important blueprints.

However, this would be a rather significant change to the game, so I don't expect to see it until GC3 at the earliest.

Playing the game with really slow tech advancement does fix this problem, somewhat. Even totally focusing on research and owning 10 planets, again all focused on research it takes me about 7 turns to research a new tech. None of the computer players focus as hard on research as I do so I have a nice tech advantage. When I dont solely focus on tech, as I usually dont, advances take as long as 20 turns. There is very little trading done on a per turn basis. The thing I do hate about the frequent tech trading is that all my opponents have the same weapons and defense. Whichever weapon is researched first in the galaxy, not by me, that is the one all the computer opponents are using. They dont bother to research something different until mid to late game. So if the Torians get mass driver technology for most of the game everyone will be equipped with mass drivers because the Torians sold it to everyone. This ruins the whole point of the combat system. All I have to do is research beams, cheap, and armor, not cheap, and go kick ass. I wish they would evaluate their system better. I am still one step below normal difficulty though. I do not think it is that much of a difference. From what some have said it is worse on higher diff.

I think it is clear without doubt that the techs are getting traded excessively and that it takes out much of the fun because they all have the same techs and specialization is minimal (not to mention that it's pointless to try to build up a tech lead... you can't research more than all the others combined).

Whether this is due to the strange random tech offer or due to simple cheating (1 tech vs. 1 tech trades without checking the value or strategic needs) doesn't really matter, it *has* to be fixed.

In fact, all it needs is that all AIs behave towards each other exactly like towards the player (and take out the cheesy "good deal random event")... voila.

BTW, have you guys considered, oh, reducing tech rate to very slow and see how that pans out?

I'm going to do that next, but that's not a perfect solution. I like to do the research. I like to look at my empire, decide what I need most, and then get it. When I'm getting more technology through trading than I am by researching, I'm not choosing things but more having them handed to me. Changing the speed at which I would get tech helps, but I still prefer to research more tech than I trade for.

For example if the AI's were trading right now at or near about 100% of the techs. I want that scale throttled all the way down to 10%.

So that way they start developing their OWN tech lines. So the different races don't all have beam weapons. As some one said. After a while it gets aggravating.

I turned my industry into a research focus, put my spending to 100%, and tuned my military to 25%, social 25%, and research at 50%.

JUST to get ahead of the other races, and then I started researching a ton of stuff that I didn't have.

And it took a war with a minor race that for some reason has technology out the rear.. to sue me for peace, and during that exchange, I charged them a ton of money and like 8-9 techs that I didn't have. (Though the other races, did...)

And I'm only currently playing on normal.

This is a problem, and it affects the game play experience. I don't like it, and I can't adjust this feature right now, because it's an AI coding. That means it's in Brad's hands. And he's the one who needs to give us the heads up on it.

There was a big deal made about races each developing unique weapon,tech paths and matching up well to certain races, while being weak against others, but with this A.I trade madness everybody knows everything.

I give another vote to more coy A.I tech trading.

I'm all for limiting technology trading for most of the reasons already listed, but one in particular stands out - to encourage the much-hyped weapon/defense specialization for races.

To me, one of the simplest methods to encourage specialization may be to renew the tried and true prototype model. Every time a new technology is used (Laser IV, Ion Drives 2, etc) a stiff prototype cost is associated with it. The more units made with a specific technology (or even technology branch), the lower the cost of that unit goes (with a floor, obviously). This concept isn't a panacea, but it's worked well in prior games - and would certainly reduce the number of new designs based on radically different technologies (the cost would become prohibitive).

While this doesn't solve the general tech trading pandemic, it would (provided it were wrapped in an intelligent cost/reward driven AI) restore the promoted race weapon/defense-uniqueness.

Cheers!

I haven't played Civ4, but almost every factor you mentioned is already part of GC2. Different techs require a different number of beakers to research, and the AI does take this into consideration when trading. Your relations also affect what they're willing to offer in response to a trade, and the relations take into account any racial prejudices and history. I don't think it makes room for the Drengin giving away less military technology.

If any new technology discovered by one race are after one or two turns traded to all other races every effect on racial prejudices, differences in tech costs and so on have no effect. All players are grumbling here that tech trading is messing a lot the gameplay,so there is some truth in it

Personally, I like the "blueprints" idea, with a modification or two. 1) Start with a base research cost of a tech. 2) Reduce the cost if you have blueprints. 3) Increase the cost if you don't have the preceding tech (larger increases if you're skipping multiple techs).

the blueprints idea is a very good idea, if implemented it should be a lot better than tech trading for gameplay.
(HOI2 did a great job about research and how blueprints were implemented)
I support ur 3 modifications also

What is the difficulty setting? Be aware that trading tech for money isn't very profitable at a higher AI level

Difficulty is "tough", all AIs are on Intelligent. In my current game I have a surplus of 20,000+ credits at the moment. 2 out of the 6 races have been eliminated by me. I can post the save when I get home tonight if anyone is interested.

I'm playing on Normal now and every AI has a near 100% identical list of techs and far more techs than me. I just can't pluck out of thin air 20 techs I want and immediately have them, which certainly seems like how the AI is doing it. I am investing heavily into research, but I might have to change that and crank up the spending for my military, since I'm being attacked by superior AI ships.

I've played this game for about 3 hours and it's getting frustrating to see that the AI has a huge advantage over me when I'm spending the majority of my money ON research. Plus I have like 3 or 4 Research Bonus tiles of 100% and that doesn't seem to help much.

I mentioned this on the other current tech trading thread. In GCI I noticed that the AIs would trade with each other before they would of found each other. If this is still the case in GCII, then this could lead to the cooperative effort of the AIs in researching tech at least in the eary game when everyone should be out exploring and see who and what is out there