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Twilight of the Arnor: Technology Tree Concepts

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Twilight of the Arnor: Technology Tree Concepts

from JoeUser Forums

The expansion pack, GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor, will have unique technologies per civilization. This means full trees, not just a few special techs per civ.

Below are the general concepts for each.

 

Terran Alliance

The Terran Alliance will have more propulsion technologies than the other civilizations. Its weapons will be the most like the default tech tree. It will have a series of technologies called Stellar Defense which will enable it to be more effective in fighting within its own area. The Terran Alliance will also have additional diplomacy and economic technologies.

Drengin Empire

The Drengin will not have factory technologies. Its tech tree will be very different from the default one in that its technologies will tend to provide planetary improvements that have a significant drawback. For instance, the slave pit technologies will provide more production but will reduce the planet's influence.

Arcean Empire

The Arcean tech tree will tend to focus more on materials rather than industry and economics as we know it. Their technologies will tend to focus on making things cost less and be of higher quality.

Altarians

The Altarians will have a much smaller technology tree than the other civilizations but they will be much much more expensive.

Torians

The Torians will have technologies that tend to produce low quality but high quantity products. For instance, they will have military techs that are relatively easy to get and cost very little to manufacture but are not as effective.

Yor

The Yor won't have entertainment based technologies at all or any sort of farming technologies. Instead, the Yor will have energy production centers that increase the # of Yor units on a given world which can then be divided between production areas and research areas.

Korx

The Korx will have a lot more trade technologies than the other civilizations and gain a lot more benefit from them.

Drath

The Drath will, like the Altarians, have a much smaller technology tree that costs more but gives a lot more benefit. It will differ from the Altarians in that it will have more diplomacy and influence based technologies.

Korath

The Korath tree will be very similar to the Drengin except that they will have technologies that convert flesh into energy.

Thalan

The Thalan will have a very cool technology tree based on the concept of planetary improvements that do multiple things. Thalan buildings will cost more but they will be multi-functional. There won't be a specialized entertainment area or a specialized farm but instead be buildings that do both. Similarly, there won't be a research lab or a factory but instead be a "labor" area.

The Krynn

The Krynn will have the most alien of the technology trees (other than maybe the Yor). The Krynn are focused on the Jihad. As a result, their buildings are based on having maximum morale in order to always have maximum production levels and maximum taxation. They will have buildings and super projects that lower the cost of leasing units so that the Krynn buy things for the Jihad far more so than other civilizations and do so with relatively little penalty.

121,692 views 83 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i wonder then, if some techs will be available only after your alingment is chosen.
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I want to know how capturing other races' tech will be handled (ie getting a slave pit that exist on a planet that had been captured).


I imagine it will be no different than it is currently... you can already capture a planet with alignment-based planet improvements on them of an alignment not of your own.

Some techs may be unstealable or untradable, but I imagine you can still always capture planets with improvements from them without a hitch. Of course... I imagine that could change too.


About the Slave Pit in specific if im not mistaken I read somewhere that youll have to take a alignment choice once taking over the planet. Etc free the slaves would be a Good choice but would be very costly, while just keeping the pits as they are would be a Evil choice. Makes sense and sorta solves issues with Good aligned races taking over Evil planets that have hefty bonuses due to their previous owners alignment.
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Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


About the Slave Pit in specific if im not mistaken I read somewhere that youll have to take a alignment choice once taking over the planet. Etc free the slaves would be a Good choice but would be very costly, while just keeping the pits as they are would be a Evil choice. Makes sense and sorta solves issues with Good aligned races taking over Evil planets that have hefty bonuses due to their previous owners alignment.



Hmm, I kinda took that as being more of a meta-game choice than an actual game-forced choice. Of course, it would be nifty if they did that, as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings... I always found the ethical events more interesting than the actual techs, so seeing those kinda things afterwards would be interesting...
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings


but the buildings aren't good/neutral/evil. they're drengin/terran/etc. i read nothing to indicate the unique buildings and techs would be related to the game ethics at all.

and even if slavery seems obviously evil, if the drengin turned good one could imagine a meta-game explanation that their slaves were all evil drengin who refused to convert (and other evil races), and that slavery was still better than destruction (though it'd be really nifty if they got renamed to something more "PC" for a good race, like 'social debt repayment centers' LOL).
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
'social debt repayment centers'


Thats is good. I swear thats what im going to start calling my offive here at work. Slave Center? I'm living it!

Im just hoping someone whill show up and shd some light on all this. Perhaps alignments will be comletely different. I don't imagine that each race will not only have its own building BUT a different set for each alignment choice. That would be a lot of work.

Also, Does the AI always get around to actually choosing an alignment? I usually only see then "leaning" one way. which is why i never build those buildings that give you money from races with the same alignment.

well time for me to go back to repaying my social debts.



Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings


but the buildings aren't good/neutral/evil. they're drengin/terran/etc. i read nothing to indicate the unique buildings and techs would be related to the game ethics at all.


I was talking about the current alignment based buildings, ie: Temple of Evil, Mind Control Centers and the like.

As for whether or not the new techs are going to related to alignment... it was stated somewhere that a good player would have a "moral decision" to make when he captured a planet with the slave centers on them. Whether that really means it will be an ethical decision a la the current events or not, who knows.

Also, it's very apparent to me that the personalities and physical characteristics of each race is heavily influencing their tech tree in general (Torians, for instance, breed like bloody rabbits on speed with their Super Ability and now this is being applied to their tech tree as well, giving cheap, speedily built ships that are of lower quality). Thus, I expect a number of Drengin techs to be more "evil" than standard techs, whether or not they actually require Xeno Ethics or not.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, Does the AI always get around to actually choosing an alignment?


if you let them live long enough they do, but it's usually a low priority for them. you can also mod a higher AI value for it to make them more eager to take sides.
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you really manage to do this and keep the AI clever and the game balanced than you deserve all the praise that can be given.
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yor
The Yor won't have entertainment based technologies at all or any sort of farming technologies. Instead, the Yor will have energy production centers that increase the # of Yor units on a given world which can then be divided between production areas and research areas.


So how will morale resources work? Will the mining starbases be useless? And what about the morale tile bonuses? I just think the Yor should be able to use tiles and not be left out of the loop.

Also, will a race's tech tree correlate with waht bonuses you can pick? Since the Yor wouldn't be having morale, it would be kind of dumb for them to be able to pick it.
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think it will JUST be the Yor left out. Other races will have unique building s that may not (or maybe they will) be useful on bonus tiles. Will a Drengin slave pit benefit from a production bonus?
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I imagine that it would, since it would be producing production units. Also, you can buy or steal entertainment related techs, if I understand correctly.
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
balance balance balance ... pah!
You don't need perfect balance between factions for a multiplayer game to be FUN.
If this was a multiplayer game, no matter how unbalanced, it will still kick ass! You think a civ is underpowered? don't pick it! A few people will pick it either because they enjoy the coolness of that civ despite its weakness, or they have specialized strategies for them... So yes... an average game will have three human players playing the same race (not always, just usually...) and a few random computer controller races... SO WHAT!

A multiplayer game does not need to have completely identical factions to be FUN! and having that one guy who goes with a different faction then the one agreed to be "most powerful" could nicely shake things up in a variety of ways...

(take a look at sword of the stars... the drive techs are COMPLETELY different... balanced? doubtful... fun? HELL YEAH!)
Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
taltamir, i agree with you for the most part - but i think the point is that the civs don't need to be perfectly balanced, but they should all still be strong and worth picking and playing in their own right (the issue here being that each civ gets a fair amount of testing and consideration within the general schema of game mechanics, "no AI left behind" as it were).
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Forgetting about balance and making the game multiplayer instead seems an odd approach. GalCiv2 was designed to be a single player game. Might as well request that we change GalCiv2 into a first-person shooter while we're at it.
Reply #65 from JoeUser Forums Top
Might as well request that we change GalCiv2 into a first-person shooter while we're at it.


uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh can we have this.     
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Forgetting about balance and making the game multiplayer instead seems an odd approach. GalCiv2 was designed to be a single player game. Might as well request that we change GalCiv2 into a first-person shooter while we're at it.


A turn based real-time,4x shooter? Make it and I'll buy it!
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You forgot multiplayer, space-based, and unbalanced shooter.

So:
an unbalanced, multiplayer, space-based, turn-based, real-time, 4x, first-person shooter. I mean, Sins may be a unique genre, but I think we've brainstormed a masterpiece, here.
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So:
an unbalanced, multiplayer, space-based, turn-based, real-time, 4x, first-person shooter. I mean, Sins may be a unique genre, but I think we've brainstormed a masterpiece, here.


I take my previous comment back... this is starting to sound like a fun game!
Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Woah, what happened to the Iconians?
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Yor will be left out on some bonuses, but will get other benefits to compensate. Also bonuses arent always useful anyway. I never had much use for all the bonus influence tiles since I always go for military or tech victory. Also with no moral what will be done about taxes? Yor taxes at 100% and 20+ billion per world would inheritantly generate a lot of money even without an economy branch on the tech tree.
Reply #71 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Woah, what happened to the Iconians?


Still being worked on. Read Frogboy's post.
Reply #72 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The Yor will be left out on some bonuses, but will get other benefits to compensate. Also bonuses arent always useful anyway. I never had much use for all the bonus influence tiles since I always go for military or tech victory. Also with no moral what will be done about taxes? Yor taxes at 100% and 20+ billion per world would inheritantly generate a lot of money even without an economy branch on the tech tree.


You are forgetting something, they haven't said that the Yor won't be affected by morale, just that they won't have morale buildings. ^_^

Perhaps they are evil enough to force us to rely on something else (unique techs?) to keep Yor morale up...
Reply #73 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I actually get the feeling that they won't be effected by morale at all. So they wont even need to mine morale resources. I have no idea how high populations will be amanaged. But being robots I guess it was time to do away with farms and morale buildings.
Reply #75 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Viva la diversification!

Anyway, from what I understand the slave pits for example have a heavy influence penalty associated with them, so if say, the Terrna s conquer a planet with slave pits they can keep them and the cheap labour and the penalty, or sell them and build ordinary factories, your choice.

No morale resources will not affect the Yor to my understanding, but you can use the starbases to stop other races using them, and to expand your territory.

Tech trading is generally accepted even with race-specific techs, but they'll cost an arm and a leg for starters, altough some race-specifics will not be tradable. At least that's what I've understood.

I also offer my heartiest congratulations to the devs.