Play with tech trading on or off?

I'm on the fence about tech trading. It's pro's are you can trade military tech to the minior races especially the logistics and range techs. This way you can give them warships and have them declare war on your rival. Now they have the tech to support large fleets and the distance to take the fight to the enemy who may be far away. The con is I think it spoils the point of TA. Each race has it's own tech tree and to grab techs from other races kind of diminishes the uniqess and the entire point of having specialed racial techs. For example I was palying Yor and as Yor the ecnomy works by having large pops and researching the tiny but culmative +5 eco techs. But I traded for xeno business and was able to buil "regular" markets. This made me feel like it took away from the Yor economy model. So it's give and take but I'm leaning towards tech trade on.. I can always exercise self control and not trade for tech that wasnt mean to be mine ;D

About your acension it's probably because you has the strongest military and nobody dared to confront you about grabing the crystals. I play on crippling and my military is almost always second rate and the moment I grab 1 crystal I get war declared on me by someone. I also use the cyrstals as a good excuse to go to a war I want to start.

I have always liked tech tradin off as a personal preference. TA just reinforces that decision as it just defeats the purpose unless you could somehow stop them from trading race specific techs.

The first TA game I started to check it out after the ascension victory was in place I built SBs on the crystals, grabbing them just like any resource. Everything was cool till I got about 3/4 way to the victory. Everyone turned hostile and before long I had a four to one war on my hands. I have since learned to leave them alone till I can handle the consequences. I definately think it's good for the game, but I actually haven't won that way yet.

I personally prefer it to be off. Every once in a while I'll get in a pinch and wish I could trade (or more likely buy outright) the techs from the other races. Since I am usually swimming around in money I think I'd be tempted to abuse this oh so easy exploit of the AI. Nothing wrong with the AI mind you, it would be exploiting anyone to simply have the $$ to buy all the best techs from them.

In DL and DA, I could see it either way - you can get a lot of mileage from selling your techs to prop up a weak early game economy. In TA, I just can't see tech trading as any kind of a positive. It destroys the unique nature of the different racial tech trees.

That said, some racial tech trees still seem horribly broken, most notably the Thalans. I wouldn't want to play the Thalans without some reasonable way to get Battle Stations I for my starbases.

I've always found with tech trading is, whatever one AI has all the rest will have. It's like 8 vs 1 on the tech war. AI's freely trade tech among each other so that pretty much puts your research against ALL of the AIs reasearch.

With tech stealing, I always find I have more stolen from me then I get.

ON --- and, i don't want to hear any arguments for the *No-Brokering* & *Limit the Unique techs* options either.

It's a full-scale war when my fleets must confront enemies? Well, it is also a competitive aspect to handle my sale negotiation skills & tricky tactics as opposed to being isolated sooooo much from the grand schema of Universal Science by anyone else that it defeats the entire purpose of spending more & more beakers at anything OR any gain one gets from being ahead. Wholesale distribution of newest techs included.
Besides i really do like the challenge when the playfield is nearly leveled on techno edges, if not for reasons of active strategy into dealings.

I have yet to determine the whole perspective given by Ascension... but, when i tried to grab EVERY crystals -- it didn't take long for a declaration of war by anybody. The cumulative proportions (1000 seemed a bit low in larger maps) should be optional though, also the starbase should be allowed for some type of defenses.

I'd love to see "limit unique techs" or "no tech brokering" as options.

I felt, as many of you do, with tech trading on , the races lose their personal touch, but in my last game I also saw there were only a few tech freely traded amoungst the races. It was surprisingly moderate as they didn't cheat amoungst themselves.

On the other hand, with tech trading off you have to change your entire early game stategy and build lots of economy buildings, and sadly (at least to me) makes diplomacy nearly moot?

BTW, is there a way to steal techs without taking over a planet?

Yes, but it's not a real viable way anymore. Just as before, espionage can yield stolen techs. It's just that now it seems to only have a chance to steal if you have spies in place.

Oh, but i DO agree with this -- i just feel the whole gameplay balance would suffer sooooo much from these that GC2 would simply stop being the many different type of games it is_was meant to be!

"Half of discovering new technology is simply knowing that it _can_ be done."

The different tech trees reflect the different approaches derived from different perspectives. In the case of Earth (Terra), we have specialized in making machine aides. The primary reason why we haven't developed something like organic "tools" is because no one has spent any great effort (outside of SF writers) about _how_ to do something of the sort. But if our scientists were ever exposed to a new tech that definitively _does_ work, you can bet they'd start hammering away at ideas on how to accomplish the same effect. The hardest method would be to start from scratch, simply knowing that it _can_ be done. Next would be to get a sample of the device and then work on reverse engineering it. Easiest would be to get the owner's manual, complete with full schematics and thoroughly footnoted and annotated.

It would be a safe bet that only intelligent species will achieve interstellar flight. And a hallmark of intelligence is to recognize **what works**. In a multi-racial scramble to further their racial technologies, those intelligent species _will_ be willing to examine anything that can get the job done (whatever that job might be). That means they _will_ expand their tech base with everything and anything that they can beg, borrow, or steal. In cases of machine versus organics, both sides of the issue will nevertheless see what the other is doing, and then use their methods to try to accomplish the same effect, using familiar methods as much as possible.

"No knowledge is a waste. Every bit of it contributes to a greater Truth."

*************

All of that is to say, it would be more "realistic" -- even though this is "just a game", with quite a few cartoonish stereotyping elements -- to play with tech trading turned on.

I play with tech trading on.

This is a 4x game. One of the x's is exploitation. If the AI has a tech that I want, I'll try to figure out how to get it. I could buy it from them, I could send spies, and I can invade. If someone else has a copy of the tech, I could buy it from them too. If there was another way to get the tech, I would try to exploit that too.

Suffice to say, if you think that tech trading unbalances the game, then maybe its a problem with the AI instead of the game mechanics.

I'm playing with tech trading off for the first time and I really like it. Other races truly feel alien now. Besides when I used to leave tech trading on, I found that it really wasn't very transparent. And I'd make trades for short term rewards that was more the result of impatience than proper strategy.

Now (in ToA), I trade lots of ships to my friends -rather than techs. The only problem is: I notice that the races I'm giving ships to aren't moving them! These ships just sit one square from my planets (where I launched them from), and adapt the color of the race I gave them to -but don't move. In my present game I've been gifting ships to the Altarians (who are fighting a desperate war for survival), they say thanks in the diplomacy screen and the ship turns their color; but then the ships don't move. Why don't the Altarians move these good ships to their border with the Thalans, where an active war is happening?

Would anyone please help me with this?

This is a tough one. For me it depended on the game in the two earlier versions I would use tech trading on the harder levels but leave it off on the easier for the flavor.

I don't see much point in having race-specific techs that supposedly reflect directly on your race that you can trade. I'd vote for limited trading - you can trade anything that doesn't uniquely define your race.

I usually go with tech trading off for lack of the more sane and reasonable "no brokering" because I don't want to have to deal with tech trading every few turns to keep up with AI joint research project and I think it's kind of ridiculous that the AIs so freely trade any and all tech to begin with. Tech is a way to get a competitive advantage and trading it away constantly diminishes that advantage.

I also think it's kind of silly to be able to finance your empire by selling tech to the minors (and even the majors although they might actually do something meaningful with the tech you trade them).

IIRC this is a bug when the ships are outside the AI's range. Move the ships into his system before you sell them.

I just played a full game with tech trading off and I got hammered. Tiny galaxy, 8 opponents and 8 Minors.

With only a couple of planets I was seriously impeded in ability by the fact I had to dedicate so many structure slots to Economy Buildings. I was playing as a Korx-based race, so when my trade got going I was able to switch some of those econ buildings to others, but when my trade got severed my little empire collapsed. It was evident early on I'd never be competitive with some of the other races. Ironically the Yor kicked butt here, but in my other games they usually do poorly.

I think tech trading off on maps with few habitable planets is a really bad idea... but maybe the games are more balanced in a huge galaxy?

One thing i still do not understand, is having tech trading make the game play harder or easier.

I played my first game of TA today, on normal difficulty level, immense galaxy size, played as the korath, with no tech trading, but tech stealing allowed, very fast researched, and everything being abundant. Oh yeah, there was blind exploration added.

the game was soooooo slow. I mean, i did not get a war declaration until like 3 or 4 years of game years. And i do not understand, why is it everytime i played korath, i always find the Kyrnn wanting to tackle me. The can flip planets and asteriods so easily with their unique techs, there is no way to counter it.

Elias001 - First of all you need to play on Challenging or better yet Tough level. Normal still has the AI oppoenents at a disadvanatge and they will not declare war as quickly as others. I believe Tough is the best level to play at as it offers the least amount of cheatiness but the best competition.

Also, what does this statement mean?: One thing i still do not understand, is having tech trading make the game play harder or easier.

Are you asking if it does, or are you saying you don't notice a difference? I feel it's much more difficult (unless you are a research bonus race) because the human can drastically supplement his income by selling techs.

what i mean by my question is, what are the disadvantages and advantages having tech trading on, compare with tech trading off. I know that having tech trading on, the AIs can develop really fast. When i try to buy techs from others, they never like my price offer, plus, my economy is never as strong as the AI. But if anyone can tell me how to play well with tech trading off, i am all ears.

You have to be more careful with diplomacy, since it's a lot harder to buy friends. Trade and treaties help a lot, trade goods I generally horde for myself unless its with an ally I plan to cooperate with for the long term (ie he's stronger than me). I don't know how to beat the AI at economy, they always have a stronger start than I do. I usually manage to catch up once they start picking a fight with me though. Even with slightly inferior ships and production you can gain an edge on the AI if you're good about focusing your attacks on their lightly defended planets. You definitely need to get planetary invasion reasonably early (man it costs a lot now) and start saving up enough transports to sustain fights against the first AI to declare war on you because you don't give in to their ridiculous demands (no I will not give our ancestral homeworld to you as a vacation home!)

Off for me.

Off.

Playing with it on ruins the tech trees, ruins the point of individual races, and makes the game stupid easy.

So far, I've only played with it off in ToA (except the campaign), while tech stealing has been on and off. I'm currently going over all the tech trees and super abilities again. When I play Super Diplomat and Super Manipulator, I'll have it on to see how effective tech trading really is in ToA.

I do agree that having it on removes much of the feeling that the races actually are different - the same can also be said for having tech stealing on.

Tech Stealing doesn't run AS rampant as Tech Trading though. For that reason I'll leave Tech Stealing on, while keeping Tech Trading off.

I like to keep it so that if I get a racial tech, it's truly a prize, not just another notch in the headboard.

Dunno, we all have our own definition of strictly relative consequences to a Tech-OFF gameplay.
Far from being easier, i find that it adds a pretty nifty strategic concern to "control" whatever pace at which the Universal knowledge gets;

a) Distributed between players - enemies or friendlies
Useful or wasted by the time anyone else reaches any point(s) in all trees (be it, different, common or exclusive)
c) to be the key factor in a faster Victory - or Defeat.
d) to the actual END of all things to know without lagging behind the LAST man standing.
e) to the optimal number of personally expended Beakers or equivalent resources in BCs spent and productivity focused on a bad ship design -- since, the weapons & defenses DO match up or not while into a synchro fashion provoqued by a smart(er-est) decision.

The particular issues of Tech-ON provides a much more exciting context to me and until, espionage gets enhanced i would need to wait to judge the irrelevancy of preciously kept unique techs as they may just be as essential to a race or even, to a team of INFLUENCERS! All differences being accounted for, the perception i have of opponents is still; If i lose (through any means, limited by optional OFFs & ONs) they win.

I've been a salesman in a home-renovation center in the past, so i might sound off-on a bit biased in how i perceive commercial gimmicks as opposed to conquest tricks (unique also if not shared, btw).