Trading precursor legacy and inherited technology techs.

I haven't seen anyone mention it but I think its ridiculous that the AI for Iconians and Torians have no issue trading the precursor legacy and inherited technology techs for almost nothing, especially when they have such amazing benefits.

Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to be traded at all since they're so unique and seem to rely on the races' history.
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Reply #1 Top
Thanks for pointing this out.  Techs like this are normally flagged as Can't Be Traded.  This most likely has just been overlooked, especially considering that we've just recently added these two races to the mix, and that those are both new techs.  I'll fix this today before I head out and it'll be in our next release (3C).

~Charles
Reply #2 Top
I might agree that they should be held dearer by the races but there should be some way to acquire the abilities by trade or conquest. The individual abilities such as Central Mines, Harvester are things and as such they should be acquirable.
Reply #3 Top
Nah!!It keeps those techs unique and is a way of curbing the races tendency to trade away techs in general.This way you can keep controls on some tech trading.You would also lose the penalties and pluses that are unique to your race by getting them.

As the Krynn we don't want to use them damn foreigner technologies!!
Reply #4 Top
I might agree that they should be held dearer by the races but there should be some way to acquire the abilities by trade or conquest. The individual abilities such as Central Mines, Harvester are things and as such they should be acquirable.
End of quote


Well, there are two attributes that control whether or not a tech can be traded or can be stolen (ie. through conquest).  The tags in the xml are CanBeTraded and CanBeStolen.  In most cases, we set these tags to be the same value, like what we intended to do for "Precursor Libraries", "Inherited Technology", and the like.  These techs do not make sense for you to be able to acquire from other races.  But special factory or other techs that lead to race-specific improvements don't necessarily need to be set as non-stealable or even non-tradable.  We plan to go down the list and make a decision about each of them in the end.

Just know, of course, that since we are still in beta, things things are being tweaked all the time.
Reply #5 Top
I pretty much agree with that, I can not see the reality in trading away Inherited Tech en masse, any more than I understand trading a concept like Traditional Research.

I do think that real tech like the Central Mine, the Dream thing, etc, should be available at some price. Willingness to trade could be set at a fairly high number.

BTW as we speak the Precursor techs are still tradable but the Traditional Research trading has been blocked.
Reply #6 Top
Well, there are two attributes that control whether or not a tech can be traded or can be stolen (ie. through conquest). The tags in the xml are CanBeTraded and CanBeStolen. In most cases, we set these tags to be the same value, like what we intended to do for "Precursor Libraries", "Inherited Technology", and the like. These techs do not make sense for you to be able to acquire from other races. But special factory or other techs that lead to race-specific improvements don't necessarily need to be set as non-stealable or even non-tradable. We plan to go down the list and make a decision about each of them in the end.

Just know, of course, that since we are still in beta, things things are being tweaked all the time.
End of quote


On the XML side of things, I'd like to point out that InfluenceAbility is used instead of CultureAbility a couple of times in the tech trees, resulting in those techs (Xeno Persuasion, and I think Kyrnn Jihaad, and maybe a couple others in the Kyrnn tree) not giving the obviously intended boost to Influence.
Reply #8 Top
Aww... and here I was enjoying my shiny precursor libraries as the terrans. Those buildings are NICE! It's like an all in one research/influence/economy building... That should seriously give the Iconians an edge.
Reply #9 Top
The edge they gain with the building is diminished greatly by their poor economy, i have never been able to run a game as the Iconians without having to reduce the production slider below 50% at times even with economic bonuses at full, federalists as party..i can't maintain a fleet which with i could go to war, as the maintenance costs would tear what poor economy the race has to shreds. In fact in my current game, my main trade partners the Drengin gone to war with me due to my weak armada. My empire is running at 70% production, and that 2000 BC won't hold out for long(im loosing money on the order of 30 BC a turn, and its raising as the Drengin take out trade routes i had with the Terrans).

The bloody Terrans on the other hand, are all too powerful. Their influence is gigantic, and somehow their able to maintain huge fleets with all their good improvements with high maintenance(in fact one game i observed with spies, the Terran fleet maintenance was 30 000 BC, and their income was only on the order of 18 000 BC, and they still somehow managed to keep building improvements, cranking out new warships nearly every year, and scored a technology victory! Their colony maintenance alone was somewhere near their income!)