Altarian + Research + Creativity

Aye, that currently is the "issue" with Creativity. Before TA it gave you X amount of research points silently. Now it finishes the current tech. That is just completely sick in my mind.

If it would be on par with the anomaly that gives 25% each proc it would be less powerful and less of a given attribute every player will snag (even 25% may be snagged).

Sadly, this proc can be a bad thing. I've seen some player having it proc right after they finished learning Manufacturing Centers and now POW they have Industrial Sectors...tanking their economy.

I really do think that it should only work if you are actually making some headway on research. If it reads NEVER than creativity shouldn't be allowed. If nobody is working on things, how can they be creative? What, some Alterian, formerly sewing fuzzy bunnies for sale on the galactic market suddenly has the answer on how to ascend? It cannot be slider-related, it must be time remaining related. In your instance that all planets shut down until your economy got back about -500 yet your research slider was above 0%, it still shouldn't have gone off.

Ok, that started turning into a rant. I'm going to go walk it off.

It's all a question of taste. Personally, I like the way Creativity works now better than before. Not that the old way didn't work just fine in my mind as well.

"Never" also doesn't actually mean "never" if you get lucky with exploring anomalies that temporarily boost the research of your current tech. I don't think that is a bug.

If research isn't being funded and the current tech shows "never", one of the researchers can still wake up in the middle of the night, scribble something on a pad of paper, go back to sleep, and wake up the next day to see the solution seed written out. It happens. I'm satisfied that the game mechanic sufficiently covers aha! events.

actually, not working on things is the very definition of creativity

I like the idea of Creativity finishing a tech, but think the likelihood of it doing so should be less depending on how much research remains. Some sort of sliding, normal scale would be nice.

I don't like the way Creativity can take away player decisions like that. It should just dump any excess research point after completing the current tech, IMO.

Another problem with Creativity is that it's potentially a player exploit vs. the AI, since no race has creativity as a default ability. The game retains the player's last settings for each race as a new default for each game, so all you have to do is make sure no race except the one you're playing has creativity, and you get a big tech advantage.

Of course all the abilities can be gamed this way to an extent, but most of the abilities are defaults for at least a few of the races. Creativity is one of the few that isn't a racial ability for anyone, so it's a bit overpowered for the player, in that respect. No other race is going to have this ability unless you specifically set it up for them.

I think the Arceans have a bonus to creativity in one of their techs, but I'm not sure about that. I just remember someone getting creativity from the research tree.

It still strikes me as something that shouldn't happen, "aha!" middle-of-the-night inspirations aside. It's a stat that's always in effect and groundbreaking achievements dont happen every day, every month or every year. Why would there be research funding if I can just rely on the off-chance that I'll get it for free anyway and can just focus on other fundings.

It also breaks the progression of certain techs, things that should not be available in any decent amount of time. Every time the game starts, there is a progression with the research tree, some taking less days to research (base techs or priority) and more special options taking a considerable amount of more time. Creativity is simply cutting out the middlemen, research funding and time, and can be a considerable advantage if the AI doesn't get it.

Altarians can research a tech for +25% creativity, for a total of +50 if they take it at creation.

I have to admit - the Creativity factor has altered how I play a game. As an example - with creativity, racing to the end of one tech branch is relatively easy if the steps are large. Selecting to develop Democracy, 40 turns, was achieved in 9 turns. Federation selected at 90 turns, completed in 14. Selecting the smaller steps and branches of the tech tree did not see the same benefits. 9 turns = 9 turns etc. Only these lower steps creativity had little noticable effect.

While I can see that this could be a taste issue for some players, then I still think the ability is way to powerfull. Especially when you play as some of the races that have bonuses to the skill, which combined with the 25% in the start gives one a huge egde.

I have a good example playing with the Yor, where I got 4 colony techs in less then 10 turns, effectively guranteeing me victory in less then 3 years of play on a gigantic map. So while it might be fun when this event kicks in and save you from the brink of destruction, then it was a tard overkill in my case.

Another thing I would like to know is if there is a time limit on Mega events.. since I find it a bit silly playing the Yor, and getting 8000BC a turn from tourism for almost an entire game. (Had the Tourism mega event giving a factor 10 to tourism income followed up by the UP proposal to increase this by another factor 5!!!) In my opinion then events like this give huge empires a unfair advantage over the smaller and medium sized ones for far too long.

I think that creativity should take into account current research spending and time to completion. It should be commonplace to finish the last 10% of a tech early, but very rare to finish it before 50% is done.

It also takes nearly 5 years to build a battleship in real life.

As for Creativity, I've had some games go and it only triggers once or twice. The current game I'm in is still early, but I've yet to have it trigger.

What a lame idea, if you did that there'd be no point in taking Creativity, and just dump the point into +research as it'd likely work better overall. Finishing a tech with 2 weeks 'early' is like getting socks for Christmas.

There should be certain techs that you cannot finish with Creativity, especially everything after Discovery Spheres on the way to Tech Victory, and it also shouldn't do much if your spending is too low. That's about it.

Considering the 'insider trading' and freebies the AIs give each other all the time, I fail to see why getting a few techs early here and there is so bad.

That's the way its been for GalCiv II since it was released.

~ Wyndstar

I have to agree with those who say that creativity should not affect techs on the tech victory line. I just finished a game as the altarians where we were still in the colony grab phase and I reached tech victory via +50% creativity. I got each of them in 20 turns or less, usually less than 10 turns. I mean, no one even had a military yet... that's how early in the game this was. Even if the terrans had sent a warship to me to keep me from winning, it wouldn't have gotten there in time.

Creativity must not work on any tech after discovery spheres. It cheeses tech victory.

I agree about that it should not affect the technology victory line. However, apart from that, I think creativity is great as it is. The only thing that should be done with it is change the race selection point cost to reflect the current power of it, to something like 3-5

I think Creativity should give a %age of the currently researched tech. That way, it will scale as you go farther in the game (as opposed to OG creativity which got less useful as you had more research capability), but doesn't automatically give you a huge tech for free. Maybe it gives 20% when it kicks in, and only once per researched tech. So you still need to spend 80% of the RP to get the tech.

You realize, of course, that the numbers I pulled out were completely arbitrary?

If percentages of the research remaining doesn't work, how about scaling the chances with the number of research points that it'd take? Making leaps and bounds with small, cheap technologies (like weapons and defenses) would be easy, but the big expensive game changing ones would rarely be researched that much faster unless you were quite lucky.

I definitely don't like the idea of making creativity work just like a hidden %research. to me thats pointless.

It does seem wrong that it seems to constantly have a chance to proc and finish a tech, making it very profitable to research things that take a long time.

If I had my way the proc would be independent of what you were actually researching. just from time to time you have a chance to get a random available tech. It should over the course of an average game provide slightly higher returns than %research, but with the downside being that its completely uncontrolled research which might take you down a tech path that you wouldn't normally be interested in.

Am I wrong in saying that +research boosts research costs due to boosting research and creativity costs you nothing?

I can't fathom putting a price on the time AND credit savings that creativity brings to the table. Proccing on a tech and cutting a year off of research did far more for you than just finishing that tech early.

The worst thing about creativity in my book is that it seems that it procs at a much higher chance when you don't have any research ongoing, IME anyway. This is, obviously, a bad thing, because that means you can just run yourself into debt and hope for creativity.

Apparently creativity now no longer procs without research spending in the latest update (I'm not positive but I believe I'm referring to the one due out today-as the most current version of TA, which I have, and is reported as such by SDC, still allows me to be creative while having no production-and furthermore even being in massive debt).

+25% would be good, except on low techs like say, a DA example (since TA mixes up the tech trees a bit), space weapons, which IIRC has a base cost of 150. Saving you ~37.5 isn't really that useful at all, especially with only a chance for it to proc.

Loupdinour, half of the +research points on the customization screen are free, if I remember correctly. The other half you pay for normally, but it is a free -something-.

As far as Uranium's idea that cutting two weeks off of a tech doesn't help much; well, it can help quite a bit if you're still in the early and possibly midgame, particularly if your research output is higher. If it's going to take you three weeks to get a tech naturally and you get it in one due to creativity, is that not a good thing?

particle77, I love your idea. I actually said something similar to that in another thread, but didn't add the "available" clarifier, which I have to admit would be a very good thing, making it far less powerful while still useful. I think that would make creativity both awesome (just from the perspective of getting something for nothing) and not game-breaking (because, as you said, you can't control what something you get), though, as well as quite obviously differentiating it from a +research bonus.

I would even go so far as to say that the ONE thing Creativity should NOT apply to is the tech currently being researched, but I'm not sure how people would take that.