any info on the logs vis-a-vis the person who tried it?

Question for kryo:
Does Creativity give random RPs in fixed amounts, or in amounts relative to the player's research infrastructure?

Fixed amount random bonuses would be worthwhile in at least the early going of a balanced effort or production focused game.

Creativity bonuses based on how much effort your civ is already devoting to Research could really reward a research-focused style of play, with the greatest benefit occurring when the weekly research points were cranked way up.

At least from my own experience, the amount doesn't seem to really scale.

I always choose Creativity and the effect I notice is that you get a tech quicker once in a while. I'll notice this when say I have 2 or 3 turns left and when I end the turn I get the tech right away (basically 1 or 2 turns shaved off.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Hey, it's all quite realistic. After all, creative people don't tend to be the most organized!

There is an anomaly that does that as well.

Research01
Thanks to probes of the spatial anomaly, our researchers have been able to make phenomenal advances in the technology currently being researched.

So it could have been due to Creativity or to your survey ship grabbing the right anomaly.

A tip I learned from a thread on this forum: It's the Civilization Graveyards that usually and exclusively have the 25% tech bonus. They look distinct, and if you cursor over them, they'll say Civ Graveyard. If your survey ship is about to get one, it's wise to choose a very expensive tech just before the ship hits it (and of course you can switch back to what you wanted immediately right afterwards). That way you can take, say, Planetary Invasion from 20 weeks to 15 without even using a turn of research!

I've been doing that for the past few games now, and it works like a charm.

Red Raven here...
What it means is that it once in a while the tecnological advancment you are working on will be completed ahead of time. Example, your researching 'space weapons' and it's got 5 week till it's completed, creativity has a 1/20 chance of completing that for you in the next turn

If the creativity bonus does not scale with your empires growth then that is a significant dissadvantage from selecting research ability points which will.

Perhaps i should rethink choosing creativity afterall??

Especially since the RPs grow exponentially for higher-tier techs, creativity ends up all but useless lategame?

For those interested, the reply #11 in this thread https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=162&aid=142909 has a  debug.err file with lines about free RP given by creativity bonus.

Dear Mystikmind,

If the creativity bonus does not scale with your empires growth then that is a significant dissadvantage from selecting research ability points which will.

Perhaps i should rethink choosing creativity afterall??

I've been reviewing my debug files and it appears that creativity gives a flat rate percentage. Specifically, the AI was playing the Terrans and chose creativity bonus. It appearred to have a random creativity event nearly every week. The first amount was only 7 tp for a small tech. Later on it grew to above 260 tp per week depending on the size of the tech. The Terrans got on the average 100 tp to 125 tp per week for 1 ability point (depending on the size of the tech they researched). To me this seems like a nice return on 1 ability point.

The AI success with creativity may not be fully reproduced for human players. I haven't looked into it yet, since at present I am focusing specifically on trade and starbase bonus production. Something for the back burner I suppose ...

Thanks for the info. I ended up keeping my creativity ability bonus, but only because it was convinient after having 1 ability point left and not knowing what else to do with it.

Usually i will select maximum defence, hitpoints and weapons then luck and creativity.

However at the moment i am playing the DL apocolypse mission so defence and hitpoints is kinda, lets say, IRRELEVANT!

I've been playing as the Altarians with creativity (DA, 1.6, normal, gigantic galaxy, normal tech rate, 9 opponents). I am down to the last four opponents. The game will be over soon. This is my assesment of creativity: PPTRTRTRTRTRTRTRT  ! I should have spent that point elsewhere. If I had a benefit, I did not notice.

I notice a lot more random good/neutral/evil events when I enable creativity. A lot more of the choices where I can get improved planet quality or starship bonus etc. I also tend to get more of the "you've discovered a ranger class ship" type events.

I can't say this for sure, it MIGHT be a coincidence. I used to play with Creativity point allocated for EVERY game. Ever since I've been trying some different strategies and point allotments, I notice less of those events.

Jeremy,
Are you also playing with the "Luck" ability, or with a race with high natural Luck?

The Ranger discovery events are definitely increased by high Luck. Possibly Creativity has an impact as well, but from my own experience, and a lot of forum reading about Luck and Creativity, I doubt it.

If I have Luck selected, I often don't build ships. I just research the techs necessary to be able to upgrade Rangers later in the game. Then for warships I just use various upgrades of the 8 - 20+ Rangers that I find.

drrider

On Dread Lords I remember choosing creativity once or twice. The result was the odd random tech appearing from nowhere, although there was a dialogue box pop up to tell me what was discovered.

For one point apiece, I think Luck and Creativity are worth it, for a start it stops me from being too anal with race bonuses and appears to help things along every now and then.

I have experimented with creativity and found only one use for it, in DL and DA (Currently I play DA 1.50). It can kick in when you come across a civilization graveyard anomoly that can give you a 25% research to the tech you are currently researching.

If you don't have creativity and the tech you are currently researching is less then about 10 turns total (somewhere from 8-12 turns total, I forget the exact number) it will give you the 25% of tech researched. HOWEVER, if you were reseraching a tech that takes more than a total of about 10 turns (somewhere from 8-12 turns total, I forget the exact number) it does not give you 25% of the tech researched. The anomoly simply give you nothing.

If you have crativity and you are researching something about 10+ turns total, say its 50 turns to research, and you come across a civilization graveyard that gives you 25% to the current tech reserached it will still give you the 25% tech researched.

As far as my testing has gone I have found (and therefore have assumed) that anomies are fixed on game creation and do not change if you reload the game or even get them in different order.

Once I found this out I tried starting games where I had no creativity and just went after all the civilization graveyards with survey ships. First I tried this with a tech that took about 40 turns total to research. After about 7 civiliztion anomies where I got no 25% bonus, I switched my reserach to something that was about 8 turns total. I then started recieving man more 25% bonues.

Still not convinced I reloaded that game and remebered both the number and the exact anomolies I tried before with a 40+ turn researching. This time I used went after the same anomolies with techs that were 8 turns total or lower. Many of the ones that gave me nothing before now gave me 25% to current tech.

I would like to preface my whole arguement by saying that civilization graveyards are fixed from galaxy creation. Some do not to give the finder any bonus or reward but those that do give a 25% to current tech bonus can only be utilized with the creativity skill when you are currently researching a tech that takes a long time.

I know the whole thing is kind of confusing and I have not tested it as much recently so the devs might have changed some stuff. Basically the advantage of using creativity as far as I know is if you have a high concentration of anomolies in the galaxy and you plan on getting survey ships out early to keep the AI from capitalizing. It gives you an amazing early research boost to levels of research that you otherwise would not think of persuing.

Please other people test this and tell me if I am wrong, right, or left something out.

TY

Kesselring,
Kryo told a primary effect, possibly the only effect, of Creativity in posts #3 & 9 of the current thread.

drrider

Just put those ability points into research.
Creativity comes in handy not very frequently. Research is permanent. believe it reduces the umber of weeks for ALL technologies except just a few random ones.

If you ever checked your debug file you'll find it accumulates to significant values by the end of the game. Add 1 point of luck and you'll see that increase, as well as more bonus tiles, etc...

Er...this happens part of the time (possibly ~50%) with Civ Graveyard anomalies regardless of whether you have Creativity or not.

Its a great eco-tactic though. When you get that report from your explorers "We're approaching an apparent Civ Graveyard" (i.e. you cursor over the anomaly your surveyor is approaching), your research establishment briefly turns its attention to some of the deep mysteries of...physics, whatever...and requests that the explorers look for pertinent technological clues (i.e. you change your Research target to the most time-expensive tech on the list for one turn). If you are moderately lucky, boom you get 25% off that tech, many turns of research, whenever you choose to come back to it. then you switch focus back to whatever tech it is you need right now. If you are rigorous about whatching out for these Civ Graveyard oportunities, you can carve a couple of hundred turns off your eventual research timeline.

(simple version: 25% off of 40 research turns for a tech you haven't started yet is a better long-term deal than 25% off the 4 turns you have remaining on the current research tech.)

drrider

drrider, I always used to use this tactic. However, I've noticed that it doesn't work in the latest DA 1.6 betas. Are you using those? Is it working for you? Maybe I've just been extremely unlucky in the last few geames, but it seems to me that when you switch what you're researching just before hitting a Civ Graveyard, you consistantly DON'T get the bonus, whereas you almost always do if you don't switch just before hitting it. I might be totally wrong, but I suspect that this "exploit" (though I wouldn't personally call it that -- it's just smart!) might have been weakened.

I'm playing beta 4 right now, as I won't be upgrading to 5 until I finish a big game. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone who has played betas 4 and/or 5 thinks differently about this.

C-Mac

I just think the chances of getting a Research Bonus from a Civ graveyard has been tweaked. In my experience, I still get them whether switching techs or not - but only about a third of the time now, doesn't seem to matter if I change techs or not. 1.6b4.