Listing all the tech tree gaps/flaws

TA is some big challenge regarding techs and I'am still trying to figure out which is the tech path with unique elements for each race and were some techs stop and can not be researched further.

F.ex. the Iconians are simply not able to get advanced troops and their soldiering ability stops quite early in the game. Sure, you will need to get these techs somehow by trading them later on (very expenssive... ). It makes the game interesting indeed.

What I would love to is a overview with all those specific techs. Is there something like a wiki document out there? Couldn't find yet...

Cheers

Re 3) The Yor get a different tech with +1 speed. It makes sense for the Torians not to have it, since they're supposed to be less technologically advanced. Much of the Krynn tech tree seems copy-pasted from the Torian tree, so that might be an oversight. The Arceans are indeed designed not to have engines.

To add some...

5) The Krynn has Aquatic World Colonization as cheap as the Torians, although the Krynn need to research Extreme Colonization first. This is probably an oversight, and further strengthens my belief that the Krynn is partly copy-pasted from the Torian tree.

6) Most races get +2 Courage with Aquatic World Colonization, and no bonuses with the other extreme world techs. This just seems weird, and I'd like to have it explained.

7) I've read several people wondering why the Drath and Altarians have Healing Pools, and why the Altarians have Drathian Temples in their tech trees. Especially the latter doesn't really fit thematically.

I was going to point out number 6 and 7 above as well.

Answer is: All of these things (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) are intentional. They're part of the new game strategy .

Logicsequence, they're really not. I can absolutely cast iron guarantee that 2) is a mistake, because without Battle Stations Mark I the Thalan can't attain any other offensive starbase modules of any kind at all, which immediately renders many of their other upgrades (some of them UNIQUE to their tech tree) utterly useless. They still have Battle staions Mark II, II and IV in their tree! It can't possibly be intentional for them to lack Mark I.

As for 1), I suppose it is possible that the developes wished to intentionally cripple certain races' ability to exploit galactic resources, but I can't imagine why, nor see how they are compensated for it.

All the other I could be believe as being intentional with an explained rationale.



Try the Galactopedia: here

I've been using it to spot the gaps with.

The altarins best morale buidings is the Healing Pools, +17%, very bad. I've always had the luck to grab and upgrade at least 2 morale resources early on as the altarians. I cant imagine how hard must it be to play withot them.

And i can see how bad it must be to not be able to upgrade resource starbases... damn. Its like throwing away the possibility of +20% to economy/morale/research times the number of resources you control.. usually many, on immense maps.

Anyway, bumping this thread until someone important notices it.

I'd be interesting in seeing official word on this...because it seems possible, especially considering the length of beta and how something this obvious would have to have been found during beta.

I'd especially like to see a reference that issue 2 is intentional, since that is a decision asinine far beyond anything that can be reasonably imputed to Stardock. Thalans have tech for starbase modules which they cannot install because they lack tech allowing them to make the starbase module which is a prerequisite to all of them.

Sometimes, guessing what is a bug and what is just a strange design decision is hard. This isn't one of those times. This is an obvious oversight.

Some of the other issues seem likely to be the result of oversight rather than planning too, but none are as obvious as the Thalan Battle Stations issue.

Well, I have played custom races with most every tech tree, at least through the initial colony rush, and I find that tech trees significantly impact it. Note that I play on immense maps where there are generally quite a few planets up for grabs, and with a very slow tech rate. So the starting and early techs and planet improvements are very important.

The Torians always kick butt. They are the best expansion AI race in every game I've played, and the easiest tech tree to expand with. Super breeder is the best ability IMHO, and with the Torians you can get planets up to max very quickly by maintaining a tax rate of 32% (one of their initial techs gives +5% morale, using other races on super breeder means a slightly lower tax rate for the same growth) and building the cheap temple of memories and a healing pool. Thanks to the harvester being initially available, you can get starting colonies up to 10-12 billion in pop (or more, depending on morale and farming enhancing resources on planets) in about 20 turns. That's a good tax base fast, especially considering that the Torians are one of the two races who can build market centres initially. I've never had to reduce spending below 100% using this tech tree. One game I never had to raise taxes beyond 32% to stay at 100% production.

Not only that, but their mine, while one per planet, gives 12mp for a 3bc upkeep, is insanely cheap to build and can be bought for a measly 204bc. You can afford one on every planet. IRC, you'd need three traditional factories to get 12mp, with a 9bc total upkeep, and they each take longer to build than one mine. You can't afford that on every planet. Plus the mine takes the fullest advantage of manafacturing bonus tiles. There's no hurry to research xeno factories, or to build them on any worlds save your industrial powerhouses. Schools are also a good deal, giving 4rp for a 1bc upkeep. In addition, since I play with the +20% PQ ability, their +5% PQ tech early on makes a big difference as it gives a number of planets one extra tile, but especially in taking those class 9 planets to class 11 and giving them the high PQ morale boost.

The Terran AI always seem to do second-best. Since their tech-tree is pretty standard, my guess is that the lowly marketplace makes a big difference compared to those with no econ improvement in terms of keeping the money coming in.

The other races tend not to distinguish themselves much in the rush, save the Altarians, who seem to consistently be the absolute worst race by far at expanding, for reasons I can't quite grasp. The Krynn are interesting, and have some interesting unique buildings like the consulate, however their upkeep tends to be high at 5bc.

The Thalans are also somewhat unique, given the amount of research they have to do to build improvements at all, except for a morale one which comes early. However, if they can build one of their initial mega-structures on bonus tiles, especially manufacturing, things are looking up. It's also interesting to play as it provides a really different game-play experience. Using super breeder, you have a lot of planets with only a starport and the morale improvement quickly getting to an 8 billion pop, good income and low maintenance. They are also slowly but surely producing colony ships for you.

The Yor are another interesting race, who seem to come consistently second-last in the colony rush despite an interesting tech tree that I would think would help. Their collective is more productive than a factory and very efficient, 5mp for 1bc, and the enhanced (advanced?) collective at 7mp and 2bc a worthwhile upgrade. They are also very low maintenance in other improvements, with their research matrix giving 12rp for 3bc maintenance, and their maintenance grid giving +20% morale for no upkeep, although both of these are one per planet only. I also like that their pop increase improvement, stalks, increases morale as well.

The Yor are seriously gimped from the mid-game on, however. Their strength, cost effective-industry, disappears as the further collectives have much higher maintenance for 2 additional mp. I personally don't see them as worthwhile upgrades at all and don't research them; as a matter of fact overall I think they actually hurt you. The only economy improvement they can research is the efficiency centre, a one per planet deal that is not in the early tech tree. The bonuses from efficiency studies just don't cut it. Their inability to research other government types, which provide econ bonuses, also hurts. IIRC, there are also no additional morale improving techs or improvements in their tech tree. So you better hope you can trade for advanced market centres and entertainment centres real soon, although from a role-playing perspective these (especially the latter) seem kind of silly for a cybernetic species. You also have to trade for mining module techs, as noted above. The lack of diplomatic research options, however, makes tech trading a more expensive undertaking than need be.

The even more maddening thing about things like the missing starbase modules is that you can't fix it with the editors, beacause there isn't one for starbase modules. Another anoying thing is that the trade good requirements are specifc techs as well, which means that if you create a new tech tree, you have to somehow jimmy the old techs in to get the trade goods. 

On a related subject, has anyone seen what the new techtrees have done to battle of the gods? It was bad in dark avatar, but now...  :NOTSURE: 

Issue #1 is by far the worse as the inability to upgrade your resource mining starbases above 9% is game altering. This probably matters more too human players then the AI as the AI does not seem aggressive in acquiring and upgrading resource starbases.

Playing as the Yor I've also noticed I don't have access to the Manufacturing or Tech Capital. The Manufacturing Capital is linked to Xeno Industrial Theory which this thread's OP stated is not available to the Iconians, Korath, Thalan, and Yor. The Tech Capital is linked to Advanced Computing.

In addition to the Efficiency Centre, the Yor, may research and place on each planet a Recruitment Centre which provides a 10% economic bonus and a 20% population bonus. If issue #1 were fixed and the Yor's advanced manufacturing and research planetary improvements made cheaper then they were be competitive mid-game.

It's a little ambiguous when the only information is ingame. Makes it hard to discern a bug or intended feature.

I'm also wondering to what extent some of the races lacking certain trade goods and Galactic Achievements is intentional and how much is just an oversight.... real hard to be sure on that one.

In any case it's clear that balancing work remains to be done, but I'd like to see the really obvious errors as above corrected first .

Actually, I've edited the planetimprovements.xml file to do just that. I've found it really easy to copy the xml files into the default mod directory and edit them. Although for some reason when I put the planetimprovements.xml in the mod directory I got two of each improvement in the build queue, so I just backed it up and edited it in the data directory.

I've also edited the Yor tech tree to give them the advanced government techs and a few more comm techs from a role-play perspective, given that I use the Yor tech tree to play a custom race called the Autobots. I'll also edit it to have the manufacturing collective tech tree unlock the mining modules, now that I think of it.

It seems there aren't a lot of official comments being posted lately.... I hope we hear from the devs.

My games are getting more frustrating than fun. The tech trees/game initially seemed like an amazing improvement and game - but if they are so seriously broken it takes away the level-playing field you need to enjoy an immense game.

Unfortunately, I completely agree with rev.

I'd at least like to hear from a developer that the tech trees are 100% working and everything is completely as planned.

I hate to continue harping on no new documentation with ToA but this is an example where no transparency and lack of information is resulting in questioning the gameplay and design as it's currently released. Makes it feel more like the tech trees is a quick gimmick than something truly thought out, balanced, and beta tested. This game was beta tested with the unique tech trees, right?



Indeed. Unless a developer can speak up and tell us otherwise.

Haven't seen any responses in the debugthread either. Hopefully they'll give some much needed answeres to the techtree questions that are unanswered!

I thought to only upgrading to 19% wasn't a flaw however as the races would be less "starbase minded"

Another point is the when you choose neutral or evil with the altarians they don't get any intresting stuff only when they pick good.

About the Yor midgame, MCC is the answer

In what way is the MCC the answer? As of the last report I'd heard, the MCC now does absolutely nothing - or at least nothing beneficial. It no longer gives the 100% economy boost it used to, while it still provides the "wonderful" benefit of preventing enemy planets from culture flipping to you. I imagine I can track down the thread discussing it somewhere.

Edit: and here it is https://forums.galciv2.com/311072

another disturbing/disappointing thing is that certain race specific tech trees gain no extra bonuses from certain ethic choices...like the Altarians as neutral only get neutral shipping and learning centers, but if you choose good they get a half dozen extra defensive techs as well as some fleet defense and attack modules.

Wow, thanks for that information! I'm playing a game as Altarians and going Neutral. Can't believe I would have missed out on all that just because of not knowing.

I have the time for a good strategy game, not for a game that is unbalanced and provides no information or transparency to the player. I don't want to spend my precious time figuring out these hidden details that there is no way to know about unless you experiment and dive into editors or read forums.

I am starting to get disappointed with my purchase of ToA and the lack of follow-up support post-release. I see Kryo posting to select threads so they see these threads, they choose not to respond. This isn't typical of Stardock releases in the past. At least a response like "there is some issues, we are looking into it" would be nice. With the proposed 1.92 patch a month or so away I feel like maybe I should have waited to drop the bills on ToA.

also, what's with the 10 point techs that don't unlock anything? Like the race history techs and such.

D8alus: I think some of them are just there for flavour so you can read a little history of the race.

Also, I can kind-of see the Altarians not getting as much good stuff for neutral and evil as they do for good, given that they are already directed towards good by default... that seems like it might be intentional. I dunno. Personally I'd like all the ethics choices to have their rewards for all the races, but that's a complaint for another time.

drish311: While developer interaction is always appreciated, it's only been a few weeks since ToA was formally released, and I'm presently confident that Stardock will get to this stuff in time. In the meantime, I'm trying to be a good citizen by organising the stuff together so that players and developers alike can be aware of it .

I know. The game is quite good otherwise. It's small gripes overall. I know the Altarians are a "good" race, I should have expected as much.

From what I understand, the devs are very busy finishing Political Machine. The entire GalCiv team have been kidnapped to finish it. As such, don't expect a responce until sometime next month.

Anyways, if you any of you need a guide for right now, you can read the one I wrote:

TA 101

The Altarians have Drathian temples because they use to be Drathians. They changed to a different race from being visited by Draginol. This is explained when you research their tech tree in the text boxes. So it actually makes sense. I would like if healing pools were removed and if temples had 0 maintenence. Then rather than better structures you would just put down 2-3 temples.

I play with Yor and do pretty well (usually play painful with them). They are good at colony rush due to cheap production, growth from tech, econ from tech. After colony rush, grab barren worlds, then invade. You need to dominate from number of colonies before the other races start to build up and tech. Their basic structures are great, so large amount of colonies is key.

The main Yor issue I found was that terror drones I seems to take way too much tech points. Terror drones II and III takes less. It seems backwards. I don't really think the lack of starbase industry bonuses is that big of a deal. Other evil races will usualy trade them, and you can steal from invading. I would actually like if Yor had a tech that allowed them to use any type of captured factory. You couldn't build them, but you make use of them. It sucks to invade when you don't have the techs and lose the factories, I don't care about the other structures, early on the Yor version is better anyhow.

From my med-large games, I do best with Torians (where they actually seem broken good), I do very good with Yor (they work well for how I play them), and I do pretty good with Altarians (I think they are pretty average). Tried Thalans and Iconians, but didn't completely get how to play them well.