If I read corrrectly, they are not removing anything. There are simply colapsing the weapons techs so that the tech tree looks cleaner.

That would be great if they improved the presentation of the tech tree. That's always been something difficult to browse, my 2 bc.

I am hoping for branch interaction on the tech tree, so for example once you have researched lasers and point defence, you could research 'laser point defence' or something like that.

I am hoping for branch interaction on the tech tree, so for example once you have researched lasers and point defence, you could research 'laser point defence' or something like that.

The engine can support techs having multiple prerequisite techs already... but it can't display them properly. So... it's a possiblity, but I doubt it.

The Linear tech tree is nice because you don't have to worry about remembering which tech requires which other techs, etc.

Wouldn't it be nice to get some bias in the tech development for every race.
i.e.: If a race spends a lot of time researching a specific weapon tech then that line of the tech tree becomse cheaper because of the affinity that race has with that topic, and other topics become more expensive.

This means that it becomes beneficial to really focus on a certain play style, and development policy.

I'd also love to be able to research 2 or 3 technologies.

Per example, why not be able to make one research type per plane as an option.

example:
I got 10 planets
Default: 10 planets on Tech I
Option: 7 planets ont default, 3 on Tech II
The weeks spent on each would get adapted, for sure. But It's not strange to consider different planets working on different projects if you think of it ....
Well, maybe I'm not the good topic

Wouldn't it be nice to get some bias in the tech development for every race. i.e.: If a race spends a lot of time researching a specific weapon tech then that line of the tech tree becomse cheaper because of the affinity that race has with that topic, and other topics become more expensive. This means that it becomes beneficial to really focus on a certain play style, and development policy.

That is a really good idea and it goes along with the concept that's already in DA of making the races more unique.

I am just curious if a dev could hop in and give us an idea of what 'streamlining' is going to entail. We seem to have a few different meanings for it, and it would be nice to see where you guys are standing on this.

Also, I would also like to know if there is going to be any modifiers for weapons. I know you guys haven't said much, if anything, about them...so I am not sitting on the edge of my seat. But it seems that, in general, there is support for it.

Just wanted to ask.

I like lonewolfs Moo2 kinda tech tree too.

And Iam hoping these Research Screen improvements contain a Zooming ability for the actual screen. But then again , the need for zoom at the moment partially comes from bad way of presenting the research tree. Best of luck to SD in developping the Research Screen to being better

Fogboy, perhaps in future news posts you could refer to this improvement as 'streamlining presentation of the tech tree' instead of 'streamlining the tech tree' to get rid of some of the confusion.

Anyhow, the tech tree is a pretty disappointing aspect of the game. While it doesn’t seem all that bad right now, it's not going to age well. Compared to a MoO or Space Empires tech tree it's actually pretty small, and the very linear progression of the tree makes the game pretty predictable. The more you play the game the more repetitive and less fun it's going to become. MoO1 is, IMHO, a far superior game to Galciv, but because I've played it for over a decade I currently get a lot more fun out of Galciv than I do MoO. Galciv will age much quicker than MoO1 though, and if (for arguments sake) no new Galciv comes out, I will eventually change back to MoO1.

IMO, the best option would be to do a complete overhaul of the tech tree into something fashioned after MoO1, but with a lot more random elements. Unfortunately this approach would have far reaching implications which would change core game play to the point were Galciv resembled MoO more than Galciv. I don't think that being more MoO-like is really a bad thing (in fact, I would go as far as to say that in a lot of ways, the more Galciv comes to resemble MoO1, the better the game will become) but it would kind of suck for Galciv to lose it's identity and become another ‘MoO clone’.

A more conservative approach would be to keep the ultra linear approach that Galciv takes, but to include some significant random elements. For example, say that you have 150 different techs, but only 75 are available in your tech tree each game. Your opponents would, of course, have different tech trees and trade and espionage would become crucial. Under this system the more techs that are available the better. If you had, say, 1000 techs, and you only got 75 of those in each tech tree you would significantly boost replayability. A highly theoretical million techs would probably make the game infinitely replayable. The great thing about random tech elements is that you can add a few more with each patch.

Branches only available to specific races would also add some needed flair to the tech structure.

while that would add in replayability, coming up with that many more techs would be a big headache, not to mention a sensless filler. What would the techs be? Super Laser? Also, trying to recode the AI for that would be murder, I would assume. While it is not a scripted AI, trying to give it the ability to 'know' which techs it needs when there are only 75 out of even 200 seems like it would be impossible.

75 out of 200 is just an example. Even a system with 20 random techs and 75 static techs would add a lot more diversity. AI coding wouldn't be as hard as you think. MoO 1 already randomized the techs that were available to you for research, and that was over a decade ago.

That's kind of a weird argument. What kind of gameplay improvement (besides strictly interface improvements) *isn't* going to require changes to the AI code?