Back with a small update concerning minors. They're not as broken as I thought. What's actually happening is the game removing technology from the minors techtree that is not available to AI players.

Here's how it works:

Say it's you vs the Arceans. The Arceans don't have regular propulsion technology so thats removed from the minors. They also don't have Space Militarisaion (they get war rooms) so that is removed as well. This cripples the minors but prevents the AI from getting unavailable technology by invading minors.

The problem solves itself when, e.g., a major race using the Terran or Minor techtree is in the game.

The only way to fix this would be by giving the minors a separate tree with new IDs for all their weapons and propulsion technology. This would also require new weapons and propulsion technology to be added as well. Quite a headache.

Also be very careful changing the ID of techs. This does effect AI research affinity. For example AIP8 loves Pure Research as a category except when the techs ID is set to Computing.

 

 

Very interesting.  Good work figuring this out.  I always wondered why, when playtesting as a minor, sometimes I can get the Galactic Resort and sometimes I can't.  Turns out it's based on whether I'm using the race with the required tech.

You ain't kiddin'.  I don't plan on ID swapping any more than necessary.

 

It is and it's good to see my ability to fine comb through lots of data is still working. Didn't have a need to use it for a long time. There are still some techs, that have Alignment and Group set to None, but that has no negative effect, so I didn't mention them. Just drop a line, if you want that list, too. Several of those techs are among the ones I already mentioned, so you should notice them anyhow.


Understandable. It just seemed odd, that some Ethic techs were set accordingly (Altarians and Thalans) and some weren't.


That would explain some of my observations, but it still leaves several questions open. Take a look at my quote at the bottom, please.


Here is a quote of an edit I made last Saturday. The only major races in those tests were the Terrans, Altarians, Drengin and Iconians. Keep in mind, that I gave the Yor a unique line of research techs and the Thalans a unique line of econ techs.


Big error on my part: that's all SPs. Clearly shows, that I need more sleep. I haven't tested it with the other tech trees, but my guess is, that it's the same there, too. The minors have only access to SPs, but not to GAs or TGs.

This is immensely helpful for something else I'm doing.  Thanks.

It makes sense that the minors can't grab up the GAs and TGs, but it's kinda silly that they can't have any unique techs.  Maybe that also explains why my minors couldn't have Neutral History.  Could it be that my tests didn't have any races with that tech?  Don't know, but I guess it's plausible.

You should be making a living from this skill, if you aren't already.  Of course, then it's all work and no fun.  But still.  Maybe Stardock has an opening.  They obviously need you.

In news, I've hit just about everything that you listed, with a few exceptions.  I'm going to leave the IDs of Interstellar Construction and Space Mining where they are.  The AI uses them as intended and I just don't want to change it in every TechTree.

It's down to some balancing and deciding what to do with things like the Omega Research Center, Economic Direction Unit, and Trade Nexus/Freighter Command.

After that, it's off to watch some AIs beat each other up.  Well, I have to get the next quarter of the Kushana Initiative out, too.

Glad to hear it. May I ask what you're doing?


I'm not quite sure that they can't have any unique techs. Like I said, the minors with the Yor and Thalan tech trees had all of the unique techs (except the Yor weapons) and the minor with the Drengin tech tree had none, despite the Drengin being in the game, and the Yor and Thalans not. It never seemed to matter, if the Drengin were present or not. The minor with the Drengin tech tree never had the unique techs. That the Yor weapons were missing is also very strange, because the Iconians were there, and they have those weapons, too. If it would really depend on those techs being totally unique in the game, none of that should have happened. In that case, only the Yor weapons and Drengin techs should have appeared.


Well, I am a assistant tax consultant (I think that's the correct English term) with a specialty in accounting. But I've been unemployed since I finished my apprenticeship. That will be five years this July. The idea, that anyone could need me, is completely foreign to me.

No, you may not.

Just know that it'll save me an assload of time of wasted effort. 

All right, disregard my last post about the minors. There is definitely a connection between unique techs and the presence of the major races using them, but it doesn't make any sense.

I gave several minors access to different tech trees, for testing purposes. Akilians got the Thalan tech tree, the Carinoids the Iconian one, the Paulos the Arcean tech tree, the Letzlandians the Altarian one, the Dark Yor the one of the Yor and the Snathi the Drengin one. Scottlingas and Jessuins stayed with the regular one. The only major races in the game were the Torians and Krynn. The result was quite weird. No minor had access to the regular research techs, any of the culture techs after Xeno Business, Fleet Battle Tactics or Weapon Focus. But everyone had access to all of the unique techs. Even the Snathi got all Drengin techs, which never seemed to work before.

I made another test with all of the major races (except Krynn and Korath) and the result was disastrous. None of the minors had access to any of the unique techs, with the exception of the Carinoids and Dark Yor. They still had access to the weapons, but that wasn't really helpful for the Carinoids, because they were missing the Advanced Weapons techs and couldn't progress any further.

The way this works seems to be, that the minors keep access to unique techs only, if they are the only ones with them. If one major race with access to those techs is present, the minors lose them. If two majors are present, the minors regain access. In other words: If you have both Drengin and Korath in the game and a minor uses the Drengin tech tree, the minor gets access to all techs. If the minor uses the Korath tech tree, it will get only access to the techs, that overlap with the Drengin, but not to the Korath-only ones.

This is a serious handicap for the minors, depending on the composition of the major races in the game. The presence or absence of a major can easily lead to the presence or absence of a valuable research line (and any techs depending on it) for the minors.

Thinking back to mention of there being a lot of morale bonuses, I was wondering about farms . . .

The idea behind giving farms a small morale bonus was to make them useful prior to planets reaching full population, and to help ease the morale crush on high pop planets.  Lately, I've been wondering if I should get rid of it.  Would solve the problem of the AI putting farms up on morale bonus tiles.  Any thoughts on the issue?

On farms, I also considered making them a one-per-planet improvement.  Prevent AI misuse and make those farm bonus tiles really worth something, along with the Food Distribution Center and other +% food improvements.  Could boost AI value of farms to promote higher populations and not feel so bad when the AI researches Xeno Farming III and ends up with that 26-32b max pop.

Any other wacky ideas for v3.1?

Edit to add:

Another thought I had was modifying the political parties.  I fixed the penalty issue, but I was thinking about the Federalists and Technologists.  Conventional wisdom is that players take one or the other and basically never use the rest, right?  That tells me something is wrong.  What if the Feds only had +10% economics and the techies only had +10% research?  Would that tip the scales?

It's been noticeable in playtesting, too.  The choice of political party can have a pretty big impact on how well any given race does.  Especially under my conditions, with custom races that have no bonuses whatsoever.  I've given up on trying to customize races and just give everyone Federalists to level the playing field.

Yeah I think that more than one farm tends to be a waste, unless you only have basic Xeno Farms and want to get a planet up to 14bn.

You should also look at the Hyperion Matrix, which adds a totally unnecessary 8bn to the population cap, usually on Thala.  Unless you changed that already.

I like the idea of 1 farm per planet. Maybe call them (orbital) farm control centers ? Its rarely worth the trouble to build more than 1 farm and I never use the food bonus tiles because the planet's population tends to get unmanageably large.

The AI does seem to consider the destructive effect on morale of having high-capacity farms on tile bonus.  However, auto-upgrade ruins any such considerations.  That's why I disabled much of the farm upgrading in my mod, the exception being Xeno Farms, which upgrade from +2bn to a +4bn Improved Farming.  Even when deliberately placed on a +300% farming tile, that will only take a typical colony up to 20bn, which is not great but not totally disastrous either.  In fact I find it's useful having those worlds around because they can fill lots of troop transports, assuming it's possible to get them up to the cap.

I did cut the food output of the Hyperion Matrix to 4, so even when they plunk it on their homeworld it tops at 20b.  Of course, in the first test game they dropped it on a bonus tile, so it was back to 24b.  I do agree that food production is a pretty unnecessary bonus for it.

Get rid of it. It only means trouble for the AI.


I've been playing with this idea for some time now (also for morale and econ improvements), but finding the right balance is quite tricky:

1. With a high AI value, will the AI definitely build a farm on their homeworld. The Hyperion Matrix is prove enough.

2. The Hyperion Matrix is the only Thalan building with a food bonus. Their soldiering bonus is also extremely weak. A guaranteed doubling (more or less) of the population for the other races, will make it very hard for the Thalans to compete in economy and planetary invasion.

3. Population is the main source of tax income for the Yor. They only have one 1pp economic improvement (not counting the Recruiting Center). The rest is made up by the Yor's economic ability. The other races can easily increase the income of one planet by building multiple Markets, while the Yor have to increase the population to be anywhere near competitive. Still, the increased population will never provide as much money as a planet full of Markets (not counting any additional bonuses to economy). Planetary Invasion is also more crippling to the Yor economy, because of this.

4. Races with multiple farming improvements will have a big advantage over the other races. To be precise, the Torians will have a much bigger population than the other races, and will reach it faster. Their economy and influence will be much stronger and won't be hit as much due to invasions.

5. Food bonus tiles will be more powerful and for the AI even more dangerous. You can almost guarantee, that the AI will use a +300% tile, if it finds one.

Those are the possible problems just from the top of my head. The solutions I thought of provide yet even more problems:

1. Reducing the base food amount for the Colonies. This will reduce the problems of high population somewhat, but will also increase the problems for the Thalans and Yor.

2. Reducing the amount of food provided by farms. This will reduce the problems of high population in most cases, but will also increase the advantage for Torians (and other races with multiple farming improvements), increases the economic problems for the Yor and make food bonus tiles even more powerful.

3. Increasing the power of the Yor Charging Stalks. This will help with the economic problem, but morale is still a problem and bonus tiles will be even more dangerous.

4. Giving the Thalans access to Farms. This will certainly help with their problems, but if it fits them is a whole other question. I'm not sure, if there is any downside to this.

I tested some of this a while ago, but further testing is out of the question for now as it just leads to BSODs. Faulty RAM seems to be the most likely culprit, based on my observations. At least I hope it is, as I currently can't afford anything more expensive.


Wacky? I'm not sure I can do that. Well, I can provide some more ideas. However, it is up to you to decide, if they are "wacky" or not.

1. Customized flavor for government techs. The government techs don't fit all races thematically. Changing the name and description of the techs would help to alleviate this.

- Iconians. They are the closest thing resembling a real socialist. My knowledge of socialism is pretty limited, so I'm not really sure what would fit the USSP (Union of Socialist Soviet Planets).

- Korx. The Korx are ruled by a company. Using different form of corporations seem fitting.

- Thalans. They are a insect hive. Using insect terminology would be the best way to go.

- Yor. They are a collective of individuals that are sentient machines. No idea, what could fit them.

2. Overhaul of production cost and maintenance for all planetary improvements. The imbalances in that area are not a big problem for the player, as he/she can build multiple weaker versions of the buildings. The AI, however, doesn't has this choice. It will always build the most advanced version, no matter how inefficient it is, thereby wasting time and money. The following suggestions are from my mod. I tested them thoroughly, so I know they work. I'm not happy with them, however, but they are the best I managed as of yet without a total redesign (tried those several times, too, with no success).

- Production cost only increases by 50% of the original building. For example, the Traditional Factory has a cost of 40, so every improvement to it increases the cost by 20 (Xeno Factory 60, Adv. Factory 80,...). That way, the cost of more advanced buildings will still increase, but no longer by such a huge margin as before.

- Maintenance increases by 1 for each additional 2 MP/RP. This will make more advanced versions more competitive to previous ones. Now, it will no longer always be better to keep the outdated versions. I'm still not sure, however, if it might be better to decrease the increase in maintenance more (e.x., 1 for 3 or 1 for 4) or remove it entirely.

- Remove the increase in maintenance for all non-factories/labs. On the one hand, the game wants you to keep your people happy (at least somewhat), safe, well fed and more. On the other hand, however, will it punish you by crippling your economy for doing so. The player can work around this, the AI can't.

- Remove maintenance for all SPs, TGs and GAs. This is mostly to keep those buildings more apart from the regular ones.

- Several improvements are not on par with their maintenance and/or cost. Some examples are: the cost and maintenance of the base factories and labs (compared to equivalent buildings of other races), the cost of the Torian morale improvements, the maintenance of the Iconian's Dream Conclave, Robotic Farm, Interstellar Refinery and Molecular Fabricator.

3. Changes to several other buildings. This is a continuation of the last suggestion. However, it goes beyond the cost and maintenance of the buildings.

- Dream Conclave. The maintenance is not only extremely high, but the morale bonus is also extremely low. You would think a building based on Precursor tech would be more powerful.

- Festival of Capitalism. The Korx are capitalists. Wouldn't it therefore make sense, that they would use the festival to try to make some bucks?

- Slaveling Training Center upgrades to Artificial Slave Pods. One of the biggest problems for the Drengin and Korath industry is the abundance of manufacturing enhancing buildings. Turning the ASP into an upgrade for the STC would help to reduce the clutter.

- Manufacturing Vortex. The Yor are a highly efficient race and are supposed to be the best at manufacturing. Taking a look at this building, however, really makes you wonder, if that is the case. It is describe as "Expensive but very effective production magnifier". Expensive? Hell yeah. Effective? Not at all. Even the Anti-Matter Power Plant is better and that one has the same maintenance. Why would the Yor use something that inefficient?

- Distributed Energy Matrix. Same case as with the Vortex. Except this time, it's a SP the AI can't even use properly.

- Hyperion Shipyard. The Shipyard will "increase the base movement of ships created on this world" by +1. Is this really so Super? More importantly, can the AI make good use of it? IMHO, no on both counts. The Arcean Navigation Center does the same, can be build on all planets (not just one) and is much cheaper. However, a bonus to the speed ability would be too much and speed bonuses are already too prevalent in the game. In GalCiv I, the Hyperion Shipyard provided a 50% bonus to Ship Quality for all ships build on the planet. Ship Quality back then increased damage, defense and hit points. Now, it only increases damage and defense. This is still quite powerful, but the AI still can't use it properly. It will build the Shipyard even on the most nonsensical planet. Ship Quality is planet-only bonus, so you can't make it civ-wide. That would be to powerful, anyhow. Which leaves us with a bonus to Hit Points. A 50% civ-wide bonus would be too much. 25%, however, sound more reasonable.

- Stellar Forge. The "crowning achievement" of the Arceans. They've put all their engineering expertise into this GA, which improves all ships build on the world it is located. Am I the only one disappointed by this? This is literally the same case as with the Hyperion Shipyard, just with a GA and different original bonuses instead.

- Doomsday Generator. Another GA the AI can't properly use. The planetary bonus to Hit Points is wasted most of the time. I'm currently considering, if I should change this into a 1pp improvement. Simply changing the bonus from planetary to civ-wide would be too much.


That is strange. My experiences are quite different to yours. But then I also play differently. For one, I use the most fitting political party for a race and customized them all accordingly:
Federalist: Korx (originally Mercantile) and Yor.
Populists: Terran, Drath and Krynn
War Party: Drengin, Arcean, Korath
Pacifists: Altarian
Technologists: Iconian and Thalan
Universalists: Torian
I also changed the values for Populists back to the way they were in GalCiv I. 20% for both Diplo and Morale.

My observations in AI vs AI games (10 major races, no minors, large galaxy):
- Altarians and Iconians joining a loose alliance (not allied, just close, trading and having exchanged all treaties with each other) and then carving up the galaxy between each other.
- All Good races joining an alliance with each other and going on a Holy Crusade, wiping out first all Evil and then the Neutral races.
- Terrans gone wild, with Drengin and Korx as loyal vassals.
- Drath brain-washing the galaxy, by using the MCC they stole from the Yor.

Those are just a few of my latest tests, and as you can see, the Federalists and Technologists are not always on top.

But that's it for now. 5 hours is enough time spent on writing this.

 

Edit: Apparently not. Something I totally forgot: the Iconians don't have Xeno Business. This means, they can't use any of the culture modules from the Business-line of techs. 

It would probably take me another five hours to hit every point here, but they are well taken.  I actually did/am doing a fair amount of what you mention.  That or the idea crossed my mind.  For instance, I nixed maintenance on every GA/SP/TG, buffed the Manufacturing Vortex and Distributed Energy Matrix (for the same reasons, sheesh), considered having Drengin/Korath +% manufacturing buildings upgrade, adjusted maintenance-to-output of various lab/factory type improvements, wondered about the Doomsday Generator (really?), boosted the Yor Efficiency Center to +50% and reduced the cost, etc.

Great minds, they say.

Giving Festival of Capitalism an econ bonus is a novel and brilliant idea.  The Korx definitely need a little more help, especially as I just noticed that the FoC is the only morale structure they get.  Well, barring all the new bonuses I doled out like Planetary Defense and various SPs and GAs.

I went ahead and made sure everyone has governments, farms, and planetary defense.  No reason for it to be otherwise.  I also changed Planetary Defense Category from Invasion to Planetary Defense and Requirement to Space Mil.  Rationale is to get an AIP 7 Korath to research it, though I haven't tested that idea yet.

I considered the idea of unique government techs as I was adding them to the Yor.  They would pretty much need to be CanBeTraded/Stolen 0 if I did that.  Wouldn't make much sense for someone to get Distributed Decision Network from the Yor or Autonomous Hives from the Thalans.  It would also take a lot more creative writing than I have time to crunch out, so it's definitely not going to be in 3.1.

Other than all that, I'm pretty close to testing time.

Oh, and on that last comment:

Very interesting.  Remember when I fixed the "problem" of the Franchise Center module - the second in line - not having any requirement?  Wonder if that was Stardock's way of clearing the path for Iconian culture modules.  My new fix is to cram Xeno Business in between Xeno Persuasion and the next tech.

Ran into this in a recent game. Took exactly this approach - well, I reduced the cost of and bonus from Xeno Persuasion as well. In the game I was lucky enough to be able to trade it from the Korx relatively early, though at some cost (it was like they knew I needed it - market forces...)

Agree on both. AI Korx always seem to run into morale problems in my experience - I think it was meant to be deliberate, so you have to play like a low-tax fiscal conservative, but the AI has trouble with this. As the regular morale line is kind of "capitalist" anyway, I figure it would make sense to give it back to the Korx and have the FoC improve either economics or influence (which would also work thematically - capitalism and its endless shinies being very attractive). Or both, and ditch the morale bonus.

And having the STC upgrade to the ASP seems entirely sensible.

Woo! Again, playing through a game as Iconians, the lack of PD and governments is a bit of a bother, to put it mildly, although researching every available diplomacy tech and then trading for them them from the Arceans, along with those nifty space cannons, worked for me...

I actually nixed it and increased the bonuses from the techs instead. My new Research Collectives needed a icon and query graphic.



That was my reasoning. As a capitalist, you try to make money out of everything. Entertainment, ideals, principles? Who cares, as long as it makes me rich!


Changing the Category to Military will definitely get the Korath to research it. You may need to adjust the AIValue, however.


Good point. Haven't thought of that.


Wish, that were the case, but the same "problem" already existed in DL.

Not a bad idea overall.  Why wouldn't they?  I always thought the entertainment techs were a little powerful to be restricted to only 2 races - and the minors if you don't have one of either the Terrans or Arceans, apparently.  I mean, they unlock 3 trade goods and a galactic achievement.  The GA is no biggie, but 3 trade goods only available to 2 races?  Wow.  Are any other trade goods exclusive like that?

Wishful thinking.  Of course, it probably did factor in by allowing them to set it up that way and not see a problem.  Not that they looked for problems before shoving Twilight out the door.

If both Terrans and Arceans are present, the minors will have the entertainment techs, too.


The Galactic Resort is a SP or did I miss something? The only other TG that has some exclusivity is Xeno Cultural Threads. That is only available to 7 of the 12 races. So, not really an issue.

Some ideas:

1. Gravity Accelerators. Change the requirement to Artificial Gravity. Makes more sense tech-wise, IMHO, and gives everyone access to it.

2. Ultra Spices. Change the requirement to either one of the Xeno Business-techs or one of the Biology-techs (Xeno Biology maybe).

3. Aphrodisiac. Change the requirement to Fertility Acceleration and give all bio-races access to the tech. I know, it's not one of those TGs, but it just doesn't make any sense to me, that it is unlocked by Habitat Improvement. Plus, what would the Yor do with it anyhow?

My bad.

Good ideas.  I took Aphrodisiac down from 50% to 25%, so it's not such a monster.  The Yor have a +10% advantage to pop growth over the basic techs, so they aren't dying without it.  It may be amusing to see how it would work out for them though.  Huh . . .

 

With regard to the farm morale bonuses - one option would be to kick the 5% bonus to the tech instead of the improvement. This should solve the AI bonus tile issue and relieve the early morale pressure at the same time.

One thing I really like about the altered farm is the little pop growth boost. Even if you remove the morale bonus entirely, I know I would build early farms solely for that effect.

 

 

On a different note, I've been lurking for a while waiting for Tolmekmod 3.0, and I'm delighted with it so far. I'm playing as the Korx (for the first time in TA) in a Gigantic all random normal tech speed game, and I'm having a blast. Playing with Terrans(human AI), Korath(thalan AI), Altarians(altarian AI), Arceans(arcean AI), Torians(krynn AI), Yor(generic AI), Krynn(krynn AI), Thalans(generic AI), and Iconians(generic AI). Everyone but the Terrans, Altarians, and Torians started out stranded near the edges of the map in their own tiny clusters (the Korath had a smaller gap to the middle than average, and the Yor had a medium cluster).

I forgot to do the quicksave workaround so the minors are stupid. Unfortunate, but not enough to make me restart. The total lack of morale techs in the Korx TA tree was a surprise to me, and my all random gave me very few cash anomalies... ruh roh. I ended up deep in the hole and with a populace considering armed rebellion before I finally stabilized with the galactic stock exchange (lifesaver!). About this time, I made contact with most of the other civilizations and was able to rip off - I mean trade equitably for - xeno entertainment and the thalan 15% morale tech. With the addition of two morale resources, my problems were solved. Except for the fact that I only had four or five planets...

Korx trading power is awesome - my short range routes max at around 100bc, and the longer range ones go to 250 or so, without any starbase help at all. Then, the UP wisely considered an agenda I had bribed - er, lobbied them to propose: doubling trade income permanently. Ka-ching. (disclaimer: the Korx interstellar trading association does not, and has never manipulated the galactic political establishment for its own gain - this was merely happy coincidence)

I then decided to test whether super diplomat chicanery still works in Tolmekian 3.0. Short answer: yes, yes it does. One long round of trading later, and I was down to nearly zero influence but was also the proud owner of nearly all the recently and semi-recently settled planets in the galaxy. The Thalans in particular enjoy Korx-brand beads and trinkets, due to their unfortunate combination of bad diplomacy and slow population growth. This non-hostile takeover effectively cemented my victory, but I'm still durdling around exploring the mod.

Before I bought most of their empires, the Korath, Terrans, and Torians were doing the best, with the Yor and Altarians a close second, and the Thalans and Iconians third. The Krynn and Arceans were screwed by position, their clusters not having the number of planets required to provide a launch base towards the center. I, as the Korx, was somewhere between 2nd and 3rd tier, with a minimal number of planets propped up by strong research and economy.

Post shopping spree, the Yor and the Torians have held onto the core of their empires due to strong pop growth (I gave the Yor 40% in customization), the Terrans were not enveloped completely due to strong diplomacy, and the Altarians held onto 6ish planets because they had research I wanted more than the worlds. The poor Korath and Thalans were both reduced to the minimum three worlds, all in danger of flipping, while the Iconians escaped with their core worlds because I ran out of influence, and decided to leave them all the planets in their cluster.

 

Takeaway thoughts:

The Korx mercenary academy leaves me feeling meh. I've manipulated everyone but me into war, and my war profits are a measly 102 bc. While this is definitely pays for itself at 5bc maintenance, it leaves me... unexcited. Perhaps a change to 4% rather than 2%, or a downgrade to 1% but one per planet. (I suspect the 4% will work better for the AI) Alternatively (or in addition) a 10%ish soldiering bonus would be thematic and appropriate. I don't think there is a way to make it apply only to troops taken from that planet, which would be ideal.

I realize the AI doesn't exploit super diplomat like I did, but I'm not sure what they actually DO with it. I think a possible change to super manipulator might fit the Korx as well while leaving their traditional weakness to influence unchanged. It could also provide an additional income stream to offset the low tax rates imposed by no morale tech line. I was only able to scrape by early game by trading influence for cash whenever I could, and I am unsure if the AI makes use of this option.

I am saddened at the standardization of the weapons trees, but it's a small price to pay for improved AI effectiveness.

Fusion power plants and other manufacturing bonus improvements: the AI seems to REALLY like these, often building them before any factories (!?!). I try not to trade any off-tree tech to the AI, in hopes of avoiding them building improvements they cannot upgrade, but I thought these were safe. Nope. I guess they are just vital to planetary success and must be built everywhere, despite the fact that they take forever and have high maintenance.

Korx do not have access to the fertility accelerator tech! This surprised me, as I really like jamming one or two of these guys onto a planet if it's below max pop. Sadly for me, nobody else has researched it. I blame all that weapons research they're doing because of the wars I made them start...uh oops.

I adore the PQ bonuses on xeno biology and extreme colonization. Pre mod, I would research biology only reluctantly, and would try to skip extreme colonization altogether via trading. Post mod, these are significantly more valuable to me, as well as the other techs altered to be more than placeholders. Elegantly done, sir.

I managed, with difficulty, to get the Krynn to trade their racial espionage tech to me, then chuckled evilly as I rush-built the Super-spy training center. Later, to my surprise, they built one of their own. The tooltip still says it is a galactic achievement, but its type is now super project. Was this intentional, to prevent players from scooping the Krynn out of their stuff?

Tech trading in general is more difficult, but it's hard to say how much - I'll have to play a non super diplomat game to see. In any case, that's fine by me - non idiotic AI is worth a lot.

Neutral Korx are fun - what with the massive reduction in rush buy costs and increase to their already impressive trading. It bugged me a bit that the trade center and the Korx racial freighter improvement overlapped so completely though, and I ended up going for the trade center because it was clearly superior. Perhaps some tweaking to one or the other? There was some discussion about that earlier in the thread - have you decided anything on that?

Anyways, thanks for reading my minor dissertation if you got through it, and thank you Tolmekian for the impressive and welcome gameplay upgrade

Thank you kindly for taking the time to post all that.  Not only do simply I love these kinds of posts - keeps me going, you know - but you also gave me some good thoughts.  Like, I need to address the AI value and cost of the power plants.

I do realize that the making the Trade Nexus the way it is was pretty much a hose-job for the Korx.  Like I said, I put together all the new ethics techs and improvements on the weekend I released the mod, so I literally made it up on the fly.  v3.1 currently has Neutral Shipping giving 2 trade routes instead of 3, with the Trade Nexus giving 2 more, instead of persistent routes.  Now, only the civ with Neutral Trading and the Trade Nexus can max at 12 routes without any racial bonuses or UP votes.  The Freighter Command also got an upgrade from 25% econ to 50%.

The weapons techs are my weak point.  My brain is wired for uniformity and I have a very difficult time coming up with varying weapons that still somehow balance against each other.  I could probably put something together eventually, but there are a lot of variables and it's a daunting task.

It's interesting that you didn't like the Mercenary Academy so much.  I'm guessing it's because you're the leader.  In my current game, the MA was bringing in about 650bc until an economic boom, and now nets about 1200 or so.  It's about 6.5% of my economy from one improvement, but it's benefit would understandably decrease as your rivals get weaker and weaker.

Some of your suggestions can't work, though.  The Mercenary Academy couldn't give a per-planet bonus.  Only Super Projects, Galactic Achievements, and Trade Goods can give civ-wide bonuses, and only one such improvement can be built.  It's the flaw with the original Cathdral of Valor, which was supposed to grant +2% soldiering for each Cathdral.  Oh, they say they grant the soldiering, but it doesn't work.  I made it a SP and gave it +20% to solve the problem.  Any suggestion of more than one civ-wide bonus per improvement also won't work.  Each SP/GA/TG can only grant one such bonus.  All other bonuses are restricted to the planet.

Anyway, just some thoughts of mine.  Glad to hear you enjoy the mod!

Edit to add:  Oh, a quick review of my change log says I didn't change the Super Spy Training Center.  So, I guess it's always been a Super Project.

Seconding all three of these - I can see the Drath and Thalan getting very excited about Fertility Acceleration/Aphrodisiac (off-hand, I can't remember if they get FA in their tech trees, but they definitely need it most!)

I seem to remember discussion somewhere about the speed boost from Gravity Accelerators not working when traded - is this the case, and did it turn out to be fixable? If they're going to show up earlier in the game this will be more of an issue.

Going back to Gaunathor's comments about reducing prohibitive costs & maintenance on various morale buildings (thinking here particularly of Torian & Iconian structures, but it also applies to the "main" line) - I would definitely support this, along with removing or reducing some of the morale bonuses on techs. Like ChainsawSchmalz, I'm guilty of going after Xeno Entertainment, Temples, Arenas of Agony, whatever that Thalan tech is called and other techs with those tasty large morale bonuses - by stacking these up I can avoid building morale structures on planets, other than perhaps dual-purpose ones like the Counter-Espionage Center or Space Cannon. I think making morale structures more viable and race-wide bonuses less exploitable would benefit the AI, if only by taking away one advantage the player has over them. Or if that's not workable, then maybe making some of these techs non-tradable would make sense, since apart from the "main" line they're quite race-specific.

Finally - I have never quite got whether the Krynn Morale/Influence structures - the Temple of Krynn and Order of Krynn, I think - are meant to be upgrades of each other, or if it's deliberate to have such similar structures both available as part of the Krynn's influence strategy. Either is fine with me, and either way, the maintenence costs (5/10 bc) seem pretty high, but again, maybe it's deliberate to balance incomes from high taxation & tourism.

Agreed - I love playing both Korx and (especially) Drath for the War Profiteering bonus, as it suits my play style. When I get the chance I trade for the tech, or capture it, and I always try to get WP bonuses early as they can make a massive difference in the early game before stock markets etc are up and running, particularly if you can convince the Drengin to go to war with everyone.

 

The only races with access to FA are the Terrans, Arceans, Drengin, Torians and the minors. Quite unfair, isn't it?


Yes, it is the case, but it should be fixable. The most likely reason for this is, that the Accelerators use a hardcoded bonus. Changing this to a regular bonus to the Speed ability should solve it. I haven't tested this yet, however, due to my current hardware problems.


Reducing the morale bonuses from techs would only lead to morale problems for both AI and player. This is due to the way approval works. Making those techs un-tradable/stealable is definitely the best option.


They are meant to be different structures, but you are right, that their maintenance is way too high. Especially as you want the AI to build them on all planets. A maintenance of 2bc (max 3bc) would be more appropriate.