Tech trading 'exploit'

ya, they need to fix the unique tech trading in the game so that not every tech is tradeable.

Tech trading itself has needed a fix forever but they'll never do it :/

You shouldn't be able to trade for any tech that isn't on your tech tree somewhere. Period.

Tech trading itself shouldn't give you the tech either - I like the idea of it giving you parts of the research instead.

If you give a tech, you do just that.. you give everything down to the lab assistants notebook. So I am in favor that you should be able to trade techs.

But it is also clear that it needs a major overhaul, since sometimes it is just silly how much the computer holds on to a given tech. For example.. the "unconventional warfare" I been up to offering the Drengin "Massive Scale Building" without them going for a clear yes! So in short... yes tech tradeing needs some work eventually!

The whole tech-trading system is close to an exploit! Pick Terrans, pick Diplomacy bonus, tech whore for tens of thousands of BCs. It's pretty much that simple.

Some of the unique racial techs ARE marked as not tradeable. IMO, this list should be greatly expanded. Or just prevent you from trading unique techs altogether. It really detracts from the uniqueness of each race when everybody in the galaxy is building Agony Arenas as their morale buildings.

Turning tech trading off does preserve the racial uniqueness, but you lose a big part of the diplomatic game. If the devs aren't willing to turn it off unique tech trading completely, then I'd like to see a Civ-IV style "no tech brokering" option, where you can trade whatever you like, but cannot turn around and re-sell a tech that you didn't research.

I'll just say again that I like trading for other races' unique techs. Not all of them, by any means, but it is something cool about the specific game I am playing that I have the chance to develop a set of techs that I can only get from other races. It adds to the uniqueness and fun for me.

So anyway, I'm against "no trading for unique techs."

Er, why on both of those? Something not being on your tech tree doesn't make it impossible for you to implement it, unless it's based on something that is simply physically possible for you to do (such as that Altarian ground combat "magic" tech) or requires you to adopt an ideology or theology that would alter your culture irrevocably (like the Krynn influence starbase techs).

Locking out any tech that's not on your tech tree cripples Altarian morale a lot, for example.

And why change the accessibility of traded techs? I mean, if another race says "Here is a laser cannon, and here's the schematics, and the principles under which it works," why should you need to research to discover everything the other race has told you?

Some techs should be marked as untradeable - stuff like Unconventional Warfare, for example, which only exists to open up tech options for the Drengin and don't have any bonuses, modules, or improvements associated with them.

But you can turn it off if you really don't like it.

There was a time when tech trading was altered and it was vogue to say that the game was much harder because the AIs trade with each other under slightly different rules using a "group think" advantage to way out research the player. These supposedly super hard rules are still in the game, and no one is complaining now.

The player can think, this will typically give the player an advantage over any algorithim the designer can implement. If it gives you too much of an advantage, turn it off.

~ Wyndstar

I just remember when I could use tech and trade goods to bankrupt all the other civs at higher than cakewalk difficulty, in GalCiv 1. The tech trading now is pretty tame in comparison.

Aye, removing the ability to get techs that aren't in your tree would really hurt some races. The Alterian & Thalans (as Phaedyme has noticed) also lack the standard-issue Xeno Ethics sub-techs. Without the ability to buy the techs of Good vs Evil or such those two races couldn't get the MCC for example.

I will agree though that if a tech doesn't give ANYTHING, not even a passive bonus, it's "usefulness" cost should be damn near pennies to other races. However, if a tech gives no buildings/weapons/modules etc...but has some sort of passive bonus like +10 weapons, it should still be viable for trade.

If you can list specific techs that should be made untradeable, it'd make it easier for the devs to take care of it.

All of them tbh.

If you really want me to make a list of what I think should and should not reasonably be made untradeable, I can get on that.

This is by design. I'm willing to bet that ALL races are getting unique ethic techs. And the MCC is horribly imbalanced. AND, besides, they DO get their own ethical choices. Once again, the key word is VARIETY.

Here's some points:

1) The Altarians have the Drath tech tree. There's absolutely no reason they should have problems. I've yet to have issues with them.

2) A LOT of people play with tech trading off to curb the massive AI 'cheating' so they're not getting ANYTHING, not even the economic bonuses of selling things, even 'worthless' techs like Universal Translator.

3) Mind Control Center? And what about Good players? They seem to get along just fine without it.

Because you people mismanage or fail to adapt, you NEED things like a 100% empire-wide economy bonus? So why the fuck did the devs give them specific ethical techs, when you can just toss 200bc and advanced colonization on the Paulos and get whatever the fuck you want? THAT sounds unbalancing to me.

Used a lot of unneeded words Uranium. Your comments would be more pleasing, as well as appropriate if you just got rid of the "the #$%@" in your sentences. They will also still make sense! Go figure...

Anonymity of the internet really brings out the worst in some people. I really stopped reading any post of his anymore as it's normally a flame-fest.

The Altarians do not have the Drath tree. They have a modified Drath tree.



It sounds like that the ideal setting for you would be with tech trading off, rather than making a majority of the techs untradeable. It'll accomplish exactly what you want without eviscerating the idea of tech trading.



Stop accusing other players of incompetence. You're assuming that when someone (like myself) points out that a tech tree heavily limits a civ that means we're unable to play that civ at all, when nothing could be further from the truth.

And, please, stop trying to make the game by default "no tech trading" and just play with no tech trading if that's what you want. Your suggestion is unbalanced and grants an a fairly large advantage to civs with well-rounded tech trees and limits civs with deliberately flawed tech trees.

Also, play at higher difficulties. The holes in the tech trees really show when you get to Challenging and above, when the AI civs have full access to the AI functions.

Yeah, because every weapon tech, nearly every planetary improvement tech, every defense tech, hull tech, government tech, diplomatic, trade, and influence tech, starbase tech, and colonization tech is the "majority".

So because 7 races can all trade tech X, but 2 races cannot because they aren't meant to have it, that makes it the "majority"?

Torians don't get new research labs. Every other race does. So that means that the "majority" of races can't trade them, because one race can't?

Excuse me while I laugh. I just can't imagine someone would could say something like that and believe it.

Actually, I just did a comparison of the two Tech Trees. I was mistaken, yes, the Altarians have the same morale buildings the Drath have (temples were not where I thought they were). There is no way the Altarians have a morale problem and the Drath do not.

In fact, I photoshopped both tech trees and overlayed them.

The Drath have Invisible Hand and War Profiteering.

The Altarians have:
- Inherent Magic (Ethical Good)
- Creative Good (Ethical Good)
- Righteous Might (Ethical Good)
- Righteous Justice (Ethical Good)
- Paradise Worlds (Ethical Good)
- Enhanced Defenses (currently worthless)

Their tech tree, aside from the three racial techs and the ethical techs, is 100% identical. They even share "Drathian Temples". They have the same economy, morale, and production buildings.

I do NOT consider that difference "modified". That is close enough to call it the same, especially since War Profiteering is not the source of any fictional problems with Altarians.

The only reason the Altarians should have any trouble should be economic, as War Profiteering is a ridiculous source of income. Altarians also, however, do NOT have the population growth problem the Drath have, so that point is somewhat moot. They won't make as much money, but that's it.

Unconventional Warfare gives +5 Weapons, it isn't worthless.



Can do! Here's a list separated by categories of "shouldn't be tradeable" and race:

Definitely shouldn't be tradeable:

---

Many Races:
Industrial Revolution, Traditional Research - These are starting techs, having these not be tradeable should delay the loss of "unique'ness" between the different AI Races. This is only listed because, if I remember correctly, a few races can trade these techs, while others can't.

Yor:
Life Support - These techs are re-flavored to be maintaining their sentience, not support biological functions like the other Civ's Life Support techs.
Efficiency Studies II - The rest of the techs already are untradeable.

Drengin/Korath:
Both Research Trees (Slaveling Labs and the Pain Amplification line) - These techs heavily rely on Drengin (or more specifically, their researchers) physiology. The new research methods gained from these techs would be worthless to other Civilizations. Or, at least, should be, anyway.

Iconian
Advanced - These techs are supposed to be a "disadvantage" to the Iconians, a way to slow down their weapons research. Interestingly, they actually are an advantage (due to the total +15 Weapons you can easily get from them), and given that it is the Iconian's mindset that spawned these Techs, it really doesn't make much sense for them to be tradeable.

Kyrnn:
Krynniac Conversion - None of the other Krynn Influence techs are tradeable.

Ultimate Espionage - All this tech does is give access to a Galactic Achievement. Since it is far too easy to make this tech worthless to another Civ, but still get them to offer you a good bit for it, this shouldn't be tradeable. If the building was changed to be a "Super Project" I would say let it remain to be tradeable.

Torian
Defensive Trace - This tech specifically refers to a part of the brain in the Torian mind (well... actually whatever Civ happens to have the tech, but that's a different point).

Scientific Method Implementation - All other races already have developed their own Scientific Method. The Torians, however, being a pre-Industrial race, haven't and are forced to quickly do so.

Probably shouldn't be tradeable:

---

Drengin/Korath
Arena techs - The later Arenas dispense with the Gladiatorial games (which might entertaining to other races) entirely in favor of just causing pain to others to please the populous (which is based on the Drengin's ability to feel the pain of others and the pleasure this feeling causes).

Yor:
Synthetic Ingenuity and Creative Insight - These are modifications to the Yor in order to replicate functions already present in Biological Entities.

Iconian:
The Organic techs - The rest of the Precursor technology the Iconians get isn't tradeable (barring Xeno Persuasion, which makes sense to able to be traded, to me anyway) and these techs are the Iconian's main military strength.

Shouldn't be tradeable, but just IMHO

---

All Races
Life Support Techs
Colonization Techs
Farming Techs

All of those techs heavily rely on the physiology of the race in question. Granted, one could argue that when these techs are traded, the races simply apply and adapt the techniques to match their unique Physiology, but I would like that their be some things that you just can't Trade for techs to improve upon (Range, Colonization, and Farming being my choices).

Other Suggestions

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I suggested this elsewhere, but there (IMO) really needs to a third level of "trade-ability" - Tradeable only if both races have the tech in their tech tree. Two races with the Yor tech tree, for example, can't trade their Morale, Farming, Economy techs with each other like the races with the more standard Tech Trees can.

There are also a few techs that aren't Tradeable that I feel there is no reason they couldn't be tradeable. A few of the Scatter Blaster and other Weapon techs in the Yor tree are an example. If I get inspired enough, I might list them out later...

Other Tech Tree Issues:
The Thalan Tech tree has the "IndustrialRevolution" tech in it, but it is not possible to research it. I doubt it was intended to actually be there, though.

About the Iconians tech tree... the "Category" tags' contents seem extremely out of whack. "Missile" for the Industry tree? "Logistics" for the Economy? "Beam" for Advanced Mass Drivers, "Ethics" for Organic Hulls, and even "Trade" for Advanced Beam Weapons?!! I dunno what happened here, but it's no wonder to me that the Iconians never seemed to do very good when they were an AI player in the games I played... at least if I understand the use of the "Category" tags correctly (that they help the AI choose what to research next based on what it thinks it needs to improve on).

It was at the time I wrote this.

It has given +5 Weapons since the first beta.

There is currently a bug, however, in the current beta that results in the bonuses and unlocked improvements/components of Traded Techs not being shown on the tech tree (ie: those nifty little boxes they added in the beta)... however, they should be applying properly (I know for a fact you can build the modules/improvements from them). Save and load that game and the bonus should show up in the tech tree. At least, that's been my experience.

Speaking of the Tech Tree display... a couple things need to be added to it:

1. Right Clicking a tech shouldn't select the tech for research.

2. Techs probably should have an icon for the Asteroid Mining Bases. They show up in the Right Click display, though.

3. The Right Click display needs to show the Size of Ship Components. Sometimes, that's the only difference between modules of different tech levels, after all. To a newbie, for instance, they would think probably that the "Kinetic Streams" are vastly inferior to Lasers, since they are FAR more expensive than Lasers, but deal the same damage... but they wouldn't know they took up MUCH less space, more than making up for that high cost.

With those three changes, the UI for the Tech Tree would be perfect, IMO

Well, no. they aren't. But you didn't say that you wanted to leave those tradeable.



You said...ALL of them. So why not play with tech trading off?

I was talking unique techs. The whole thing that started this was me saying that if a race didn't have the tech somewhere in their tech tree, they couldn't trade it.

You can deal arms left and right, but because only the Drengin and the Korath have 'unconventional warfare', only they can trade it between each other (well, I think they both have it).

Same thing with the Torians research. They don't get research labs, and never should.

It sounds like a lot, but not every race has all too many unique techs. Almost every other part of the tech tree is tradeable. And it also clogs what are, in my eyes, crutches and semi-exploits, like a race that was designed around having a somewhat weak economy grabbing a pile of economy techs they obviously were designed with the intention of not having.

Thalans aren't supposed to have very good soldiers and populations, as the idea is that they're a 'small' team, not here to really stay permanently. When you play that race, you accept that you're going to have that problem. But all you have to do is find a minor race, throw some worthless advanced colonization tech at him or a rather modest amount of money, and you suddenly have Tir-Quan training and advanced ultra super farms.

It's like playing Starcraft as the Zerg, and having a way to spend resources to allow you to build Siege Tanks too.

With all the tech trading you CAN do, it's trivial to overcome intentional weak points in a race, and make you damn-near godlike by piling on every race's own version of a tech.

I love that no matter how many incredibly good points he makes, you'll write him off because he offends your delicate sensibilities.

I've read all of Uranium's posts and I agree with him on every single solitary point he's made. I played maybe two games with tech trading on since I started playing GalCiv 2 and have had it off ever since. It, over the course of time, virtually erases all differences between all races, until you're left with the only difference between all of them being the color of their interface. It needs a lot of adjustment before I'll ever even consider turning it back on.

I fully agree with Uranium; techs should only be able to be traded if both races can research the tech in question. No more Torians with Discovery Spheres, please.

I am forced to remember a conversation I had back in beta at the dawn of Avatar... about miniaturization and being able to add the ability via points at the modification of the race area and was told... sorry no quotes... by Frogboy of all folks...

No

What I found out later after more play was that there was a subplot and events that were already keyed into the game for miniaturization. Although, being a retired sailor I loved the brevity of the answer.

Suppose, just suppose, that although some fixes and streamline of techs are going to happen before full release that the development folks actually have a plan, given Stardocks unique ability to release quality material to all of us, I am going with they have a plan and that all the discussion here, although not moot, is probably that... just discussion.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

I think the problem is that there's a lot of issues the developers have been disturbingly silent on whereas the community has been anything but. AND since this is the last expansion pack, it's sort of an 'all or nothing' feeling we're getting. If a tech trading 'fix' doesn't happen for the expansion pack, I personally assume that after TA, we'll never see it happen.

Same thing for my proposal for a new GNN screen that combines all the stupid pop-up windows in between into one easy-to-read interface that is actually USEFUL. I don't doubt it'll get passed over for time reasons, and I don't doubt that after the expansion, it'll never be put in as it's "too big".