Adding improvements to the cultural branch

So I'm in the process of creating a custom tech tree for one of my races with a heavy cultural focus. I'm kind of a noob, so instead of creating one from scratch I'm using the minor race tree as a template and editing from there. One of my ideas is (instead of sticking to only the Embassy - Cultural Exchange Center for the entire game), to add several incremental upgrades to the CEC in the form of additional improvements along the Xeno Business > Cultural Domination>etc. branch of the tech tree.

My problem lies here: in order to make these improvements available only to my custom race, I have to create a new modified entry in the general Tech Tree file, and then replace the relevant techs in my custom tree with those new entries. However, I still want to keep the same cultural Starbase modules that come with those techs. How should I go about doing this?

A practical example:

<Name>Insurrection Coordinator</Name>

<Model>Starbase01</Model>

<Tech_Requirement>Cultural Insurrection</Tech_Requirement>

<Module_Requirement>Maximizer</Module_Requirement>

<Description>Coordinate covert attempts to subvert native governments of nearby planets.</Description>

<StarbaseAbility>Culture</StarbaseAbility>

<Type>Culture</Type>

</StarbaseModule>

This is the starbase entry for the Insurrection Coordinator starbase module, which requires the Cultural Insurrection tech to be available. Say I've replaced Cultural Insurrection with a tech labelled 'Cultural Insurrection II' in order to make an improvement available exclusively to my custom race, how should I modify the code in order to make the starbase module available to me if I have either of the techs?

Hope I made myself clear, and looking forward to your help!

modding

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I need to ponder on this one. I tackled the same issue with the Arcean TechTree, in a crude way. Instead of Space Militarization, they have War Rooms. That means they don't have access to the Recruiting Center improvement, which I don't like. So just like you, I had two techs in the same place on the tech tree, and I wanted both techs to allow the same improvement.

I ultimately solved my problem by making a copy of the Recruiting Center improvement and changing the tech requirement. I have two instances of the Recruiting Center in my PlanetaryImprovements xml with the same Internal Name, Display Name, and everything else except the tech requirement. On its face it seems like it shouldn't work to have two improvements with the same internal ID, but it does. I haven't tried to figure it out yet.

What you end up with, for a race with both techs, is two instances of the improvement when you go to build on a planet. The 1-per-planet restriction still holds, though, and both instances disappear after you build one. It's not entirely elegant, but it is functional. You may try experimenting with your situation.

I think your bigger problem will be having two identical techs with different internal names. That opens the door to the AIs trading identical techs and ending up with two instances of the same tech. I'd try to avoid that situation in my own work. What you may consider is giving your race a set of unique techs that unlock the unique improvements. You make the first tech branch off from Xeno Business, the second tech branch off from Cultural Domination, etc. You can make them really cheap and make the AIValue really high so the AI will research them immediately and it will only take a week. In fact, if you arrange it so that the unique tech is higher on the TechTree than the next normal tech, the extra research points will "spill over" into the unique tech and you may just end up finishing both techs at once.

Yeah. That's definitely what I'd do.

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