Krynn consulate lost Stellar Cartography

They never had it to begin with.

They are also missing hyperwarp on their tech tree. I'm going to do a bit of mind reading here and say it's probably intentional and that the designers intend the Krynn to be more of a turtle race like the Arceans, if nothing else to counteract the incredible morale and influence bonuses they get. I know in Dark Avatar they were one of the most powerful races due to their bonuses despite having a mediocre super ability.

Of course I could be wrong here, but it does seems a reasonable disadvantage for the race.

What does the espionage ability do, by the way? I really couldn't tell if I was getting intelligence on other races any faster with my spies placed, and that's after putting points into the ability and building all the spy-specific upgrade buildings that the Krynn get.

I was comparing it to DA version.

I am not against the diversification of the starting techs.
It's just it's weird because only Krynn lost Stellar Cartography, among nonhuman races.

I guess no astronomers joined the crusade.

I guess a race that's back story is all about worlds that were merged into one melting pot of a "race" doesn't have a stellar map from any of those races...

As for the espionage ability. You'll be able to spend more money on Espionage than any other race...cool huh? Yes, that means you'll get the spies quicker, but c'mon...

And these "super spies" from the equally named building, what makes them so GD super and where are they? When I hear that I got a Super Spy Trainer Center, I'm hoping these dorks can't be removed by 1 other spy who graduated bottom of his class in the backwater planet of the galaxy.

Ha ha!

Yeah, I'd rather the ability allowed spies to be trained faster without paying more for them, myself...but then, I'm not fond of the espionage system in DA/TA. Apparently the AI just holds enough spies to kill all of mine when I place them.

The bonuses get you more spies I think.

Agreed with really disliking GC2-style espionage

Those spies should get oil slicks and smoke screens on their space ships...

Yeah, TA/DA spying needs to be improved. The AI doesn't appear to use spies, ever, except to create a massive counterespionage reserve, which they use the instant you put a spy down. Spying simply becomes an economic race - you have to produce spies faster than the AI can create them. If the AI used spies it might be a little better but... the fact that they don't is a little crap.

The doubling returns on purchasing spies is a little crap too, as it means you'll eventually just run out of money for spies as they cost you 1,593BC a week to get a spy in a month. At first it seemed a little cool, but now that I found out getting any intelligence on any races after the beginning of the game ends and the midgame begins is nearly impossible and costs trillions of credits, I lost interest in espionage.

I have had the AI place spies on my worlds. Not very many, but a few. I typically start building my spy army once my economy really takes off. Then I hit anyone who declares war on me with 20 at once. It costs them a lot to get rid of, and gives me good intel. After the counter-espionage massacre, I hold a few in reserve to drop on morale buildings before invasions (Love that Information Warfare!).

I have had the AI use spies on me a couple of times.

I've also seen the AI use spies...rarely.

IMHO though there should be a cap on the cost of spies. Seriously, when I can outright buy a huge hull ship fully loaded for the same amount I spend on 1 spy....something is drastically wrong.

But you say "those enormous empires won't think twice about loading up on spies" well...yeah. The same goes for them outright buying lower end ships for the same cost if they needed to. They are large, they have more planets to espionagingly (yes, I just coined that word) defend so they need more spies.

I really have a hard time even seeing the best response to why we need scaling costs on spies in the first place. Is that very first spy we buy in the game really that low cost? It doesn't matter when in the game it's first made, it's low cost so you can't just say "well its due to inflation of the bc and they cost more now"....

...but I digress, this post was meant to be about the Krynn not having Stellar Cartography. I'm sorry for hijacking this thread.

I'd like a reason why all races don't have it by now too. The Terrans have got to progressed THAT much in these years.

The reason that the marginal cost of spies rises is because it is meant to be something of a check on the largest player. Instead of risking an attack on the most powerful player, smaller civs use spies. If the cost curve of spies were flat, a large civ could more easily outspend the smaller players. In other words, the cost mechanic favors spy production of many small civs over one large one.

I like this, and personally wish the ai would do even more to check runaway players so the late game doesn't become a complete cakewalk. Just another plug for the idea that diplomatic relations should suffer as a player takes up a larger percentage of habitable planets...

My problem with the current saboteur-style hybrid system where you also get information is that it makes it extremely expensive to learn anything about other civs, and it forces you to sabotage any civ you want to spy on.

I would like this system fine if it were just the sabotage side, and the espionage side worked with sliders or whatever.

Well, there are plans to have you be able to assign agents to spy on a Civ without them sabotage any of that Civ's buildings. They will just collect information, but you won't be able to get those agents back. This was planned for the 2.0 patch, hopefully it will get implemented.