Creative too powerful for points?

Currently, Creative will randomly finish your current tech. Prior to this change, it was just giving a static amount of research points (not as good in end game). You'll get a message that Creativity has finished the tech.

I don't know if it's too powerful - since there's no guarantee that it'll trigger - but it definitely is a potent ability to take. Knocking it down a notch probably wouldn't be a bad idea for the same points as now.

Oh yeah, Creativity will definately crank up the speed you put out techs.

I don't think that the ability is broken per se, but it is WAAAYYY undervalued for the effect that it now provides.

I have used Creativity in the past and gotten no appreciable effects with it.

This time around, though, I was playing with the Iconians also with the Creativity ability and about every seventh or eighth tech got the early completion.

The reason that I don't believe that it is broken is twofold.

1) my playing style has never left me behind in techs in the game. While Creativity did give me a nice random boost, it certainly wasn't a game winner.

2) It's too random to plan a strategy around. With increased pop growth bonuses, or economy bonuses, or what have you that you select in the start screen, you get a set, predictable bonus that allows to to plan a strategy for whichever race you are playing. With Creativity, you cannot plan for this. I usually play with races having creativity because I have a point left over and just go for that ability. Even in Twilight, it doesn't usually crop up more than 9 or 10 times in the game, EXCEPT when I have been playing as the Iconians. They do seem to hit the tech lottery a bit more often than the others (although I personally haven't seen a 4 to 1 ratio of Creativity hits).

At any rate, if the Iconians do get a boost for this tech, then that just gives me one more reason to play them more often in Twilight (That and the Organic Hull tech just rocks thematically, and it is so cool to get in a battle in my territory and see my ships practically self heal in a turn). Let's face it, making some of the less enjoyable races more playable and FUN is going to make the game far, far more interesting (not that it wasn't before, BTW.)

I guess I have to agree that if you can't PLAN to use it. However I think 1pt is too low a cost.

And I do love the new trees even when I hate them. They really define the races better.

It can be insanely powerful IF it triggers often enough and at points where it saves you a lot of time. For me it often triggers when there's only like 1 or 2 turns left to completion anyway, thus doing very little, although when it does trigger that way it seems like the research points you had spent thus far gets transferred over to the next tech you pick. At least that's what it has looked like to me so far.

Of course it's hard to make a direct comparison as to creativity's power because we are always aware of when creativity triggers, we usually don't keep track of how much time conventional research bonuses save us though. The randomness of creativity and the fact that both research bonuses scale to your empire or your project makes it even more difficult to figure out how good creativity really is.

I think you'd almost have to time some of the tech tree advancements with and without creativity over several games to quantify what creativity is really worth. Knowing the algorithms involved would also help.

The funny thing is, regardless of how powerful the creativity really is, I'd probably still take it over a regular research bonus. It just comes out as being a fun ability that makes for more exciting games just by its randomness.

It sounds way overpowered tbh. Is the percentage of creativity the chance of having a tech completed every turn? Some races eg Yor have creativity in there tech tree as well.

If creativity gave a tech a 1-5% chance of completing per turn at most, maybe it would be ok and not unbalanced imo. The tech victory path techs perhaps should not be able to be obtained through creativty.

Creativity is something I took when I played the Drengin exactly because it would, every now and again, give you a really insane boost in tech. I do think the points for it need to be raised a little, maybe to two points or three. Currently, it provides a little too much punch for its cost.

Sometimes, it actually activates directly after you finish your current tech. For example, sometimes I'd be researching something, let's say Slave Canyons, and then, on the turn that I finish the tech, creativity would activate and I'd finish the tech after Slave Canyons instantly! That's a good ten to fifteen weeks of research saved, right there.

The biggest problem with it, I think, is that it's too random. It should give a more concrete bonus than a random chance to complete a tech. Because it's so random, it ends up either being overpowered in the event that it activates a lot, or underpowered if it only activates once or twice.

I once heard a suggestion for it that went something along these lines; the chance of creativity activating scales based on how much tech you've completed. For example, say you're researching Basic Logistics. Let's say it'll take you five weeks to research it. On the first week, when you having gotten any research done on it, creativity will have a 0% chance to activate. However, on the second week, it'll have a higher chance to activate, let's say 10%, just for an example. Creativity then gets a higher and higher chance of working until right before you finish it, when it'll have, say, a 50+% chance of activating. In this way, the randomness can be changed so it still has the flavor of a skill (Which represents an inherently random stroke of brilliance that allows your scientists to make a major breakthrough), yet minimizes the problems with it potentially saving you thousands of weeks of research over a long game, which is extremely imbalanced for a skill that only takes one point.

To summarize: I think Creativity should take 2 or 3 points (Perhaps make different levels of it, like with Morale: Creativity +5% takes 1 point, Creativity +15% takes 2 points, Creativity +25% takes 3 points, just to give an example) and its mechanics should be changed so it has a nonexistent chance of activating during the first quarter or half of a research project, but increase its chance of activating as the tech progresses into its last half and final quarter.

thousands? i'll assume that's an exaggeration, since even a 20-year game would only be 1,040 turns (weeks).



i'm pretty sure it's a lot less often than that. 25% would mean you complete a tech as a result of creativity every 1 in 4 turns, and that simply doesn't happen. i haven't used creativity more than once or twice since it was changed, but i'm sure i would remember if it worked that frequently. without running a test bed, i couldn't tell you the direct correlation.

but i really do not think it's over powered, and in fact, i'd tend to say that it's one of the less useful ways to spend your bonus points. i never pick creativity in a serious (MV) game, and only rarely research, and i don't seem to have any problem out-teching the AI on crippling and even maso most of the time, with or without tech trading. i think the ability picks are pretty well balanced for the most part, though a couple might be under-powered (trade/trade routes come to mind). but that of course is just my opinion.

the nice thing about GC2 is that, if you don't like a small detail like this, you can mod it to work the way you like (and since i don't see any MV medals other than Lenius, i'll assume MV flags aren't a problem for those who've posted so far).

I like it now. At least with the new way it works you get to see some benefit from your point selection. Plus i do not think it is undervalued as in my current game it has triggered a few times but not that often, it does appear to trigger randomly as well.
I look at it as a nice change that can work nicely for you but not something you should rely on to finish a tech for you earlier than planned. Well worth the one point as it is a random trigger. Grats to the Dev's for finally getting Creativity to actually do something constructive.

I've been picking it out of habit from GalCiv 1, in the hopes that if I played often enough, I could see it do something. When I played the Iconians in TA for the first time, I was getting a huge number of Creative procs. I haven't had such a perfect storm since, so I'd hesitate to assume this was normal.

It was interesting to see, and I rather like Creative as it is now (how it usually plays out, that is).

Exaggeration or not, explain why it should be that good for only one point.



No, it does not. It means that, over thousands and thousands of weeks, you eventually get an average number of successful creativity tech completions that, eventually, the percentage of time it works ends up to be about 25%.

You're thinking of how creativity works the wrong way. 25% chance of working doesn't mean I'm going to get a free tech every fourth turn any more than flipping a coin ten times means that I'll get exactly five heads and five tails every time.

Since you haven't run a test bed to see if it does, in fact, have a 25% chance of working each turn, I suppose we'll just have to take the tooltip at it's word and assume it does give a 25% chance every week of finishing your current tech.



I would suggest using it more often before you assert that it's fine. The inherent problem with creativity is that it is random; it is, at times, far too good for 1 point, and at others barely good enough. The best thing to do is find a way to alter it in such a way that it keeps its flavor while trying to lessen the randomness of it. Doing such a thing would make it far easier to address its value as far as points go.

I've played many hundreds of turns over a handful of games with Creative over the past week, and I just haven't seen this happen 1/4 of the time.

Which is why it is only worth 1 point.
(sigh)

Also, on the "sometimes it's too good, sometimes it's not good enough," thing? Sometimes I find a PQ 18 planet with two precursor archives close to my homeworld, and sometimes I never see a bonus tile. So what?

Sometimes random favors you, sometimes it doesn't. That doesn't make Creative overpowered unless it favors you in every single game.

RANDOM

Main Entry: 1ran·dom
Pronunciation: \ˈran-dəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, succession, surge, from Anglo-French randun, from Old French randir to run, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German rinnan to run — more at run
Date: 1561
: a haphazard course
— at random : without definite aim, direction, rule, or method

Random can never be too random.
Anything less would not be truly random.

I like how creativity is now, but it's vulnerable to exploits. For instance, I run my economy at either 100% research or 100% production. When I am running at 100% production, I can set the "tech to research" to point to a very expensive tech that I normally wouldn't be realistically able to achieve quickly, like the fleet booster techs and the terror star techs. It's rare, but I will occasionally finish research on these techs (that I've put none of my money into) and gain an expensive technology without even trying!

Ok. Pop quiz: Which would you rather have, +5% bonus to research or Creativity? Yeah. Thought so.



It is overpowered compared to the Research bonus skill. A 25% chance to instantly save yourself tech time every single week is a hell of a deal for one point, especially when you compare it to the Research bonus skills.



Why thank you for enlightening me. Now would you care to respond to my points instead of toying with semantics? You're ignoring what I'm saying; the change I propose adjusts Creativity in such a way that it only applies towards the latter half of a tech, thus making it a little more 'concrete' than it is right now. That'll help adjust the luck factor in such a way as to keep the skill's flavor, yet not make it such a variable factor.

If you want to prove that Creative triggers 25% of the time, you'll need to do some testing, I think. My experience using it is far from 25%. Either that or ask one of the Stardock people what it explicitly does.

I mean, if you want to base your argument for changing it on the idea that it procs 25% of the time, it really needs to be demonstrated that it procs 25% of the time.

Actually, I was responding to your points.

You are just too stupid to see it.

"Ok. Pop quiz: Which would you rather have, +5% bonus to research or Creativity? Yeah. Thought so."

This is the biggest balance problem in the game right now. Anyone playing to win is going to Max Econ/Morale every time. Sadly, even if +20% econ was 10 points, it would still be chosen every time. The way the games entire economy is designed simply makes any points put into direct money (econ/morale) more valuable than anything else.

Maybe +econ is due for a nerf, like the original planet quality bonus in GalCiv 1.

I mean, it is fairly powerful. Of course, unlike PQ bonuses, econ and morale bonuses are scattered throughout the game.

Kindly take your insults elsewhere. All you managed to do in the post with the random entry is prove you have access to a dictionary. Congratulations. You're still playing with semantics. If you think that pointing out minimizing the random factor associated with Creativity by displacing its effect from the entire tech research time to only the latter half is not what randomness actually is is helpful to the discussion, you might as well leave now.



Well, I was sort of taking the tooltip at its word. But sure, from now on I'll put Creativity on every race I play and write down every time it activates. Then all I have to do is save the start and end date of every game I play with Creativity, and presto, we have a fraction waiting to be solved for.

Maybe I played too much with the first GalCiv, where I couldn't tell whether it did anything, but I don't take the 25% at its word. I mean, it might've been a random (low) chance to get 25% of the tech researched in one turn - at least, that's what appeared to be happening when I played a creative civ in Dread Lords the other day. I mean, separate from the anomalies.

I don't think it could possibly be a random chance to get 25% done on your current tech. Several times ingame now I have finished a tech and then instantly finished the next one, with the only possible explanation being Creativity. It's never happened with non-creative civs for me. I mean, literally, when a tech has one week left to go, I click the turn button, bam, I see the "Completed tech" thing, but then I see the "completed tech" screen for the tech after that one. And it could not possibly be because I had so many Research points they applied to the next tech, because I'm talking things like Manufacturing Centers and Galactic Stock Exchanges here, not Laser I

You've brought up a good point though, and I should go ahead and make an attempt to test if it truly does happen 25% of the time, each turn. Maybe the devs put some kind of cap on how often you can "roll the dice" to see if Creativity applies; maybe you only get a chance of Creativity taking effect every, say, fifth turn or so. Who knows for sure?

Don't suppose anyone from Stardock would wanna save me a good week or so of my life testing this? ::)