earched out of order. I'm not really sure how much this would add to the game.

atic tree so I have one less thing to focus on.

rengins were researching Mass Drivers-- without actually confronting any of their ships.

ue.gif" border=0 ALIGN="absmiddle">

rely.


I have seen many good ideas and comments and think Brad will need to balance good ideas with game mechanics and AI development.
Just wished now to give a vote for DeadJohnny's idea.

I like Brackard 's idea... Tech's do not have to be the same for each race. Meaning my Disrupter Mark IV does not equal another races. Say I have made some more energy advances. Therefore I can power my disrupter better, so my distrupeter is +1 more damiging then theirs. For example, weap techs could have a range of damage, 10 - 15 points. IDepending on other techs you've chosen, you can be higher in this range. I think it would add a bunch of variety.

races.

I agree that this would be more realistic and interesting. Unfortunately this would require lot of balancing. We have 10 ten different races !

the differences would be based on other research, so it doesn't have to be anything race specific. Im not sure if some races will be more prone to research certain trees then others...

his genre because of it's simplicity and elegance. Too many "cool" and "great" ideas can kill a game under their weight. Keep it simple and fun.

r evil civilizations become it's puppets. While the Yor collective would at the same time use it's money to set the good civs up against each other.

beginning and this trade good makes a certain line of techs cheaper to research eg tri-strontium would lead to cheaper armour techs for that race.......

e techs on the same turn this way as well.

d with this module. Also insanely expensive, should be a limit on how many can exist... may be a one-time build item)

o deciding between trying to strip the ship for tech, thus destroying the ship, or keeping the ship around to fight for your side after crewing it with a prize crew.

for randomness.

Paul.

In SMAC, technologies came in different flavours - conquest, exploration, discover and build. Is anything like that likely to happen in galciv2?

ixed tree for the AI.

n GC1 where technologyies fell into certain categories. If you have a read of the development forum you'll see that Cari has posted some pictures of the CG2 research window and it definitely falls into categories.

Paul.

heir techs.

Ok, I have not played the Beta yet, so I am not sure if any of this is already incorporated into the game. I plan to soon. But Master of Orion 3 (MoO 3), as failed as it is, still has two very realistic ideas over galciv, at least galciv 1. Galciv 1 allowed research of only one tech at a time and had every race fighting over the same planets. MoO 3, on the other hand, allowed the division of research into six schools, which "springed forth" different techs at the same time. Further, each race had different planetary preferences, which made certain planets more desirable for some races than for others. These two ideas are the reason that I, and many others, stopped playing galciv 1 and continue to play MoO 3.

MoO 3 has 6 research schools. Instead of researching one tech at a time, sliders allow you to determine which research schools to emphasize. Research on each of the planets is divided accordingly among these schools. When a certain school got enough research within it, it will produce a tech for the civilization. Of course some techs would still have prequisites, which meant some schools would just be collecting research until the prequisites were met from other schools. However, again, you could determine which schools to emphasize, and avoid this occurence. Further, sometimes researching within a school would not produce the tech you thought it would and instead would produce another tech within that school, sometimes better and sometimes worse, but that is what makes this research system feel so real.

MoO 3 also has several playable races, each has different planetary preferences. These preferences differ by gravity, temperature, and air pressure. Though these differences, each race takes on a different identity, some preferring Terran, Earth-like worlds, some preferring Venus-like inferno planets, and some preferring Gas Giants, among others. Because of eviromental conditions, each race has to have most of their planets within their preferences, at least until terraforming techs were reasearched. However, each races could have a few planets that were outside their race preferences, and would do so for other non-eviromental bonuses the planet might have or for stategic reasons. Thus, each race could fight over the same planets, but their proirities would be very different, something again that feels very realistic (as far as we know...)

These two ideas from MoO 3 make a space civilization game seem more realistic. No space empire (or country on Earth for that matter) directs all of their research towards one tech at a time. Instead, empires focus their scientists towards meeting certain objectives (like built me a better engine or make our people live longer). No two races, evolved on different planets from different genetic material, should prefer the same planetary conditions. They should like different planets but still be aware of a planets value when it does not match their preferences (we like cold planets but we could still use that inferno planet over there near our borders, it would make a great home for our enemy, perhaps we should get their first?).

In order to make a better galciv, I believe, and a few others like me, that these 2 ideas must be used to make a successful, fun, and realistic space civ game. I am not saying, however, that these ideas should be implemented like MoO 3 (no need for research overruns or planetary fertility ratings for example), just please incorporate these ideas into galciv 2. Galciv 1 did not have these ideas and I discovered that a heavily modded MoO 3 was quite superior solely because of these 2 ideas. I like where galciv 2 is going, and if these or something like them is incorporate into the game, I believe it could be the best space civ ever made.

Thanks for listening,

Emperor Daryl Rhoves of Neo Terra

P.S. Again, I apologioze if any of this is already incorporated, I have not yet played the beta.

You guys have a lot of good ideas, and I'd like to propose my own to see what you think.

What if we had a tech tree that was random, but instead of having prerequisites, we have a research threshold. What I mean is for example, when you research a tech, you gain "points" toward it's supporting tree. Now with new technologies, they may require X amount of points in certain trees to become visible, and then another X amount of points in those trees to become feasable. Imagine for example, you have just invented blasting caps for terraforming your planet. The tech behind the scenes adds 50 points to the weapons tree, 25 points to the propulsion tree, and 35 points to the terraforming tree. This does not have to be visible to the player, and the amounts could be randomized. Now your weapons research has raised up high enough that your scientists can "conceptualize" sending these explosives against enemy warships. They just don't know how it'll happen yet. Later you research thrusters, and the resulting point gain to the weapon tree is enough to reach the second threshold for missiles. Suddenly a scientist somewhere goes "Eureka!" and submits a theory on how we can send explosives to destroy our enemies. In game, missiles will now be researchable.

Now with this model you don't need to research the 2 techs I suggested, it could be any techs that improve the weapon tech level of your civilization enough that someone somewhere has the idea. You wouldn't need to know much on using explosives to terraform to understand that they could be used as weapons, and even if you didn't have a sort of thruster, who says that a rudimentary one might be used in your early models?

That being said, the technical of my model would include 6-8 fields of research, with a point based level. Each tech would be associated with one of those fields, and would have 2 threshold values: visible, and researchable. These can be randomized. Each tech would also have a list of points that would be awarded to each field upon completion of the research, which too could be randomized. For example, maybe your race never thought that explosives once researched could be used as a weapon, so you get fewer points to your weapon tech category. Some categories might be simply set to 0, as a tech might have no influence in that field of study. (Explosive Diplomacy? Maybe with terrorism.) Finally, once researchable, a certain amount of resources, maybe random too, would have to be put towards researching a new technology.

For espionage, a spy would have a lesser chance to steal a tech that his race can't even conceptualize, after all, would he even know what to look for? A stolen tech would also not mean automatically knowing how to use it. However, having an example of the tech would give you another chance that it would be in your tech tree, lower it's thresholds a bit, and reduce the total research cost for the tech. This way, you could maybe steal several examples, and lower the values a number of times. That way your scientists have numerous examples to play with, and learn from. Also, stealing one might not even guarantee that your civ could even conceptualize it still. There are many inventions that we have from Nicola Tesla, that we can't even figure out how to use as he was so far ahead in the field of electricity. Likewise this model could reflect that as well.

Finally, this is just some brainstorming on my part, and by no means should be considered as a final balanced model. I just wanted to see what everyone would think of my idea, and see if anyone else could improve on it. For gameplay issues, much could be hidden, and players would decide what to research using common sense, or maybe give the player an idea of how it'll affect his research levels in the discription. (For more obscure techs) That way players don't start each game with the same research strategy, and the research tree remains fresh. Still, some techs would have to either be guaranteed, or have alternate technologies with similar results added. (like colony pods) Also, one problem I can forsee in this is if you randomize everything, it is possible to reach a technological dead end, and would require a lot of balancing to ensure this does not happen. That's one reason I suggest techs adding to more than one tree's values, that way if you can't see a single tech in one field, you could research another, and eventually uncover another tech in that field.

Anyone want to add their own ideas to mine? Suggest changes? See a problem I didn't?

Lots of good ideas. I want to add my vote for some randomness in the tech tree (ALA moo1). The MOO1 tech tree was great, really added lots of replayability.

I just hope that you keep two things in mind while planning the tech tree:
1) is this more fun than in the original?
2) Are there several viable research strategies for the player to take, rather than just a race to certain important techs?

This game roxors my boxors!

Brad, you don't remember me from Adam. Way way WAY back, long long ago, there was an online discussion of MOO1's tech tree, and how to make a better version both elegant and realistic. Gents, I'm a medievalist who totally missed out on GC1, but hope to kick in on GC2 and, insofar as it might eventually become PBEM-able, eventually dirty-trick you all out of the skies... Naturally, being who I am, I'm worthless for computers, but hope to be able to kick in on technology and alien-civ matters.

Way back when, I had the following proposal: keep the "trunks" of the tech tree, but call them "science."
Keep the branches and leaves of the tree, but call it "technology."

I still think it's a good idea.
Why? Replayability and the alienness of species.
RLE (real-life examples)
1. CDs and DVDs are all over west africa... but in spite of their principles being understood, there is not a single west-african nation that can manufacture the parts required to create a DVD factory.
2. Rutan's recent space shot rested in great part not upon a great leap forward in the miniaturization of rocket technology... but upon an improvement in materials science that let him build a spaceship out of polymers usually reserved for surfboards.
3. Saddam Hussein's artillery pieces outranged ours. But we wiped him off the battlefield in GW1, and shook even the Russians to the bone with the ease with which we dismantled them in GW2 not because our Social Network Analysis and Network information theory simply made our guns thirty times more effective. SNA, btw, is now how western intel agencies are rolling up spy and terrorist networks, to the point that we have successfully predicted the successors to the Hamas leadership four times now.

SciFi Examples:
1. Mix the science of lasing (weapons) with the science of digital data storage (computers), and you get CDs and DVDs. Add Nanofabrication1, and you get to carry all your music on a FractalDisk(tm).
2. Mix String Theory and Graviton Lensing, and you get el basic Jumpgate. Once you combine Fractal Manufacturing and Portable Fusion, you get Portable Graviton Lens. Is that a propulsion tech, or a weapons tech?

Well, if one posits that each player (and each alien civ) will tend to go heavy in one direction, or a couple of them. That will tend to make other civ's technologies strange and wonderful, a.k.a. "how did they do that?" And you should be able to slowly figure out how to use an alien tech... but that doesn't necessarily give you a leg up in the technology race until you can muster the scientific prerequisites.

Similarly, posit a guided missile. We've had conventional, sub-mach guided missiles in play since WW2. But nobody would think of comparing conventional tactical rockets of the 1950s to what we have today... because the supporting sciences have improved that much. And you can't even begin to compare a 30mm mortar to what the Ausies have come up with in Metalstorm... a technology dependent upon, of all things, inkjet printers.

BENEFITS:
1. Generic rockets can be slaved to the levels of science required to create them, and every time those sciences improve by X%, their effectiveness improves by Y%.

2. Taking this route, one can have a generic scientific tree that plays elegantly... and a storm of strange and implausible technologies with prerequisits from one or several branches of sciences AND/OR several pieces of technology. Xenoanthropology is a science. Xenohierarchical analysis aids in dipomacy and trade. Xenoinference is good for assuming their tech. Xenocombat analysis helps you wipe them from the sky. Xenosimilitude , a technology dependent upon antecedents and certain social prereqs, allows two allied species to share a planet without conflict.... Easy, elegant, simple. And still allows for classes of tech to radically outclass others. Vast interstellar empires don't dictate basic science research -- it's underneath the radar unless your civilisation is a hivemind... but governments direct science generally, in terms of emphasis, and are regularly the drivers of specific technological marvels.

3. It lets you work around player-hedging by building in counter-intuitive prerequisites. A fairly humble or middling weapons tech may rely upon a low weapons-science tech and a hellaciously-advanced science or social tech... (Xenopredictor mines) but what builds upon THAT might be a real humdinger (hyperspace xenopredictor mines).

4. It easily passes muster from Leisola's reply#47 as well as Magus' reply#39, particularly the fun of capturing technology. Of course, my humans can't improve upon it, but we will, and then "human life, not insect, will dominate this galaxy, now and forever!"

BoxingAlcibiades/Russ Mitchell

What I really want to see is research evolving gradually. I prefer higher number of technologies than lower. I don’t want to see ech “teleporters” all of sudden, followed by “improved” and “Advanced” teleporters. I would like to see tech “Teleporting Theory”, followed by “Industrial Teleportation”, which is useful as (and only as) easy and efficient way of transporting heavy materials and unloading cargo ships. That tech would provide improvement for planet’s industry. Then tech “Wireless Teleportation” (Or something like that) which allows sending materials over long distances, i.e. on orbital shipyards. It would give military project which allows construction of large-hull ships. And then finnaly “Lifefrom Teleportation” which allows transporting people around. Since you already have “Wireless Teleportation” it is ideal for capturing enemy ships. (Althrough I would like to see capturing enemy ships in game, this is just example for tech tree and it doesn’t matter if it won’t be available). Then later, there could be techs as “Advanced Teleportation” which gives planetary improvement “Teleportation Infrastructure” as well as better teleportation modules for ships. And after I research that, I would like to see some new techs which came up from my endeavours in teleportation field; “Material Synthesys” (Transforming of energy into materials, useful in military production as well is industry, not efficient in start but then you could research ‘advanced MS’ latter) and some tech that transforms mattery into pure energy, which can be good weapon.
Same thing can be applied to any tech: Laser Technolgy, ECM, Computers.... Thus, it increases number of techs, making game more interesting because you are constantly getting new techs (Only thing I don’t like in Civlization is that you have to wait 20-30 turns for new tech)

Hpe tha somebody will read this