Brad, greatly appreciated.

As others mentioned, it would add a *much deeper* layer to diplomacy.

You could trade away high value military techs to other races to aid in their war efforts without the rest of the universe having that tech three turns later since, currently, as soon as a race gets a tech it pretty much passes it around.

Thanks,

Day 5 and still nothing better. Bug has been going around... I'm always the last to get it and the hardest hit.

Anybody want to trade Xeno Cold Medicine for say... Aft Thruster Filters ???

T

Throw in an eco treaty and I'm there  
The last hit does seem to take a bigger share in my experience too. You'll be fine in a day or two, I got faith!

As long as Frogboy decides to look into it, he might as well underline all of the above to grab a basic principle from the start... only then, would No-Brokering be an ever sooooo sweet option to tick or not!

Besides, i too always burned down in flames trying to figure with who exactly and what is the best deal for any given techs offered or potentially worth more than some *maybe* it is best to keep it for one more turn - kinda.

Well...I am not expecting (or asking) them to re-work the AI.

They already have techs flagged as "no trade", so, depending on how their code is written, adding a "no tech brokering" option might only take a few hours of programmer time to implement, plus a tiny rework of the set-up screen to add the box.

Actually, a "no tech brokering" request was fairly common on the Quarter-To-Three and Octopus Overlord forums, which Brad reads.

I simply can't play the game with trading on (as it's currently implemented), as everyone ends up with all the same techs and you have to spend a bunch of time spamming the trade windows.

I like the no tech trade option, but I'd be far more interested in using the no-tech-brokering option if it were available.

The idea of the op is good, but it might be even better to implant an option which makes sure that a tech could only be given to those races who can research this tech by themselves (in other words, they need to have it in there tech-tree).
It might be a little problem for very unique races like the thalans, but this should be tested (as a beta patch?) to make sure.

re manbear @ #25:

I always turn tech trading off now, too. I also disable tech stealing. First, it's a lot more fun to play out tech specialities now; tech trading dilutes the unique quality of the ToA races. Second, no tech trading keeps the Terran trading menace at bay (their AI is strong enough as it is). Third, it means I must pay careful attention to research paths and tech planet development, which adds another element of strategy and fun for me.

So which AIs are most powerful under the no tech trading (or stealing) scenario? I've been playing ToA since mid beta, and I find the same races, regardless of game size and difficulty, usually come out on top:

Top tier: Terran, Torian, Krynn

Some races can go either way, depending mostly on luck I guess.

Mid Tier: Korath, Yor, Drath, Iconian, Thalan (during beta were MUCH weaker)

Some races always finish at the bottom. Sad, because these are good races in the hands of human player.

Bottom Tier: Korx, Altarian, Arcean, Drengin

I wish the game were more unpredictable. I've played as all races without tech trading, and each can be quite good. Overall I find Arceans are most difficult to play and Torians the easiest.

Have you cutomised them to use all available build points they have? Not only are they much more unique and challenging you can boost the weaker races quite a bit to be more competitive.

I pretty much agree, in my games Thalans are usually first tier I think especially with tech trading. Without TT they seem to fair less well perhaps because Thalans have many unique techs to trade so in essence with TT they have a huge bonus.

I usually find Torians to be weak, they start off strong but are easy prey late game. Once the Torians max out on pop, pretty much game over for them unless they have won by then.

Wait, do the AI races not spend their points or something? It never occured to me that I'd have to, I assumed they just spent the ones you didn't assign before game start.

The stock races get more total build points than a custom race but many have penalties also that a custom race can't have. As Brad said, stock races are superior. When you edit a stock race you will see that each has unspent build points. Use those to beef up or specialise your races anyway you want. You can also decide how much CPU processing each one gets individually.

You can edit stock races from the race selection screen. No modding(coding) experience needed whatsoever. Now if you want to go beyond what the editor offers then yes you would need to edit code.

Just because I'm curious - this "No Tech Brokering" Option seems to me that it should be should be generally related to the "Trade Items" specialID info - i.e. it's Tech Licensing, in which you can 'license' a technology to another civilization, but it doesn't mean they actually *have* the technology - They have access to it for purposes of it's benefits, but they can't trade it themselves, can't develop other technologies from it, as far as the engineers are concerned it's "Black Box" Technology - until they develop it themselves, they can only stick it on their ships (Or set it up from a kit).

Probably add a new tag in the tech tree "Licensable" with a SpecialID # like trade Goods have?

Just a thought - Jonnan

Very clever, Jonnan001. There is just one thing I don't care for:

This would cut off any of the branches of the tech tree as soon as any tech were traded for, and would effectively end trading altogether for most players.

While I'm here, I'll add my support to the idea of 'no tech brokering'. It will keep the unique flavor of the different races, while still allowing trading.

I think you misread - you shouldn't be able to research from a 'licensed' technology - the receiving civ doesn't actually *understand* it, they just buy them wholesale. That doesn't mean they can't learn how it works later - not like trade goods that way, where only one civ can develop them.

I would counter that the 'licensed' tech would be a cheaper and more easily traded option - if you want to assist some small civ give the Drengin a black eye, you license out Phasers and Arnorian battle armor - they can build them from your kits, but they don't actually have the tech to build them from scratch.

You might give a civ a tech bonus in any tech tree that *leads* to a licensed tech (Engineer look at lasers, look at the licensed phasors, going "That *has* to be how this works . . . it's the only thing that makes *sense*") bu until they've developed it independently or actually bought the technological knowhow from someone so they *understand* it, they can't actually improve on it.

jonnan

I think I understand what you are saying now. I can buy a 'license' for any tech from you, and use it right away, but it doesn't show as being researched in the tech tree. I can't sell it, and can't use it as a steppingstone to the next tech in line.

The game would have to be adjusted so that the AI would value the 'license' sold at a far less value than buying the tech outright. I only occasionally buy or trade for techs that I intend to use straight away. Most often I use trades to jump ahead a few spots on the tech tree. I have found that the savings in time, bc, and points outweighs the bonus that most techs give.