I hinted at this in another thread, but was hoping I could better clarify what I'm thinking, and maybe try to understand things a bit better.

In the upcoming Technology Tree Editor, will it be possible for someone (assuming they had the time and wherewithal) to literally create, from scratch, an entire technology tree from start to finish? (even if they had to take a pre-existing one and edit it, I would consider that 'from scratch').

If so, will the person then be able to "save" the technology tree under a particular name and then assign the custom tree to a custom race?

If so, I am curious how the A.I. will understand how to use these. I'm not a programmer by trade, and know virtually nothing of AI programming in games. But it would seem to me that if this can actually be accomplished, it would be quite remarkable.

I am guessing that the computer AI looks for bonuses and such, and will comb the custom AI trees for what it is looking for, and then choose that to research. Something like this:

AI: It is year 2 and I want to begin trading if possible. [search usertechtree for trade] [Found tech = Protoss tech trading 1] [research Protoss tech trading 1].

Is that basically how it's going to work? I am guessing because Brad created GalCiv2 with a 'dynamic' AI rather than a 'scripted' one, that it will not be much different for the AI to evaluate what it wants to do, and then go and find the appropriate tech to achieve it's goals in the custom tree. It just seems insanely complicated to me.

But I am speculating completely. Perhaps I am hoping for WAY too much here. Any clarification would be great.

Thank you.