Keep playing. You'll hit some dry spells. At least I have.

I use it nearly every game.  It would be cheap if it were any better but as it is now it's too unpredictable to be broken

Ya luck is the best but with creativity is right behind it. Always pick those 2 abilities they just make your life that much easier.

Does someone know if there is a difference in the way how creativity works, between the DL campaign and the ToA campaign (both played in ToA)?

While playing the DL campaign i was able to finish a research every round with creativity via reloading a savegame and ending the turn again and again. This way i'm able to have the huge ship hulls, industrysector, best research facility and several other things already at the 30th round.

However in the ToA campaign it doesn't works anymore that way. Here it seems like i have to force the random generator to do some new calculations on every turn by moving an asteroid miner on a new asteroid field or using my Survey Ship on an anomaly.

So is there any known difference in the game engine behaviour between the campaigns, even if you play them all in ToA? For me these are just maps which shouldn't have any affect on the way how the game works.

btw, the same is true for the colonization bonus. While playing the DL campaign it was pure chance which bonus you get and via reloading a savegame and colonizing again and again i was able to find the best bonus for the planet. However in the ToA campaign, the bonus (if there is one), is always the same and only the value of the bonus changes if i reload the savegame. Here i have to do the asteroid miner or survey ship move too, to force the random generator to create a different bonus.

Just tried a game out where i picked creativity, it's awesome.

esp. with Arceans because they get War Rooms, an early +Creativity tech that can really help you get early, expensive technology like weapons.

If i'm not mistaken the Altarians and Drath also get a +Creativity tech, but it's after Xeno Ethics and is later on, do any other races get bonuses to Creativity after the game starts?

Let's all give a round of applause for Netriak, who's taken over tending the Galctopedia code and just added new sort functionality to the alphabetic list so we can do things like scan for Creativity bonuses. Here's what version 1.7.6 helped me find by way of techs that improve Creativity:

• Default tree: Creative Good (requires Good alignment, untradable, unstealable, +25)
• Altarian: Creative Good (requires Good alignment, untradable, unstealable, +25)
• Arcean: War Rooms (+10, tradable, stealable)
• Drath: Creative Good (requires Good alignment, untradable, unstealable, +25)
• Dreadlords: none
• Drengin: none
• Iconian: none
• Korath: none
• Korx: none
• Krynn: none
• Minors: none
• Terran: none
• Thalan: Ultimate Creativity (requires Neutral alignment, untradable, unstealable, +20)
• Torian: none
• Yor: Creative Insight (+10, tradable, stealable)

So it looks like the max Creativity boost you can get from techs is +45 by using the Altarian or Drath tree in a game that also includes the Arcean and Yor trees and then either buy or steal War Rooms and Creative Insight.

Try the Universalist Party (my favorite) luck , and ,creativity. Now you've gaot a game!

The Universalist Party I think is by far the best party of them all!

When playing, one config I often do is:

Torians

- Luck

- Creativity

- Economics (maxed)

- Defenses (maxed) or Weapons (maxed) - I find that building defense ships is actually better

- Universalist Party (for even more luck, defense, economy, and even faster population growth)

Pretty much you're set. Creativity makes up for the poor Torian research abilities. You've got one hell of an economy, so you can support whatever you want. Super Breeder gets you fast growth. Luck is useful for everything and is good when you go to war.

If you do choose to go to war, you've got the best economy (which should help you support the most vessels and pay for research), likely the highest population (important because where you can't match the empires like the Drengin in soldiering, you can outnumber), a happy population (those hot springs are nice), and the defense bonuses (plus Defensive Trance). You don't get as much creativity or luck as the Altarians (who start with a weapons penalty that needs to be addressed by dark energy research), but it is one hell of a combo.

I have not found creativity to do much in DA.

You don't get much of a boost in DA. I see much greater impacts in Twilight. Suddenly, you've discovered a technology out of the blue sometimes.

I don't think creativity procs the techs in the technological victory line.