Otherwise something along these lines sounds like a good idea. As long as we remember that we r playing a stradegy game and not a shooter or roleplaying game.

[quote who="Farplane" reply="23" id="3405726"]

A reasonably way to do this is have a automate setting where the computer does this by default unless u shut this off, or u could have a default setting set until u changed this.

[quote who="1xador" reply="29" id="3405815"]
I think the idea of having directed research for big projects and undirected research for incremental improvements is an interesting one.  This would mean that directed research would go to "fundamental" project like lasers and shield and there would be fewer incremental techs, like laser 2 and 3, because the undirected research would provide the benefits instead.  The tradeoffs could be interesting.  Depending on your research allocation, the old tech with the incremental improvements may end up being better than the next level fundamental tech when it is first obtained. Balancing such a system may take some work though.

Laser 2 and 3 being incremental is a new one for me. I would say entertainment, economics, farming, trade, industr, and some of the starbase and research techs. Some of these would be shared between the government  and the private. Others would be private. I would say trade goods would apply, but as far as I know superprojects and galactic achievements r to big for the private sector. But they could make specoalised stuff for the private sector.

If we r going along this train of thought. U r the federal government, U could have a better option for more governments. Like communism, Facism, or Nationalism but under a democracy with free enterprise this would be unrealistict. I am down for using civics instead governments to. I would say a better compromise would be to make it an option u can shut off. I would leave this on personally.

Can U compare sword of the Stars to Galactic civilizations for me.

I don't know how to add this to the other options, but I like it to.

[quote who="NorsemanViking" reply="34" id="3405in.[/quote]

Can U compare Horizon to Galactic civilizations for me.

[quote who="Bluekkis" reply="35" id="3405998"]

Quoting NorsemanViking, reply 34

I would be more than happy as long as tech tree isn't a group of boring lines. At the very least support more complex requirements for modding if not on vanilla game. And if it is a ui issue, give modders an option to override automatic generation of tech tree like in gc2 and let modders explicitly define layout.

Sweet also give this to the editor on the game.

Hello. I think race-specific tech trees are a must. It really helps in replayability and faction uniqueness.

Perhaps even alignment based techs would also be cool as well.

I know Galciv 2 has some of these, but it also helps the replayability factor. Having 10+ factions with 3 alignments each sounds like a new experience each time.

That being said, I would like the option to compare tech trees at a glance.

At the moment in Galciv 2, I have to start a new game, look at the tech tree of a faction, memorize some landmarks, then quit and do it with another faction as a means to compare.

There might be a simpler way to compare things at a glance, but I am not very smart.

I would like it if Galciv 3 had a Total War style Encyclopedia that you could read on the main screen or in-game.

Hopefully within this hypothetical suggestion, you could be able to compare factions' tech trees at a glance to see what is common and unique between them.

What tech tree

U forgot civilization stopped having a totally linear tech tree and started researching multiple paths to a tech, but we also have to take into account of civics instead of governments.

[quote who="michaelwhittaker" reply="66" id="3411861"]

Quoting chuck1es, reply 11
I quite enjoyed the research mechanic in MOO2 where you had to choose a tech making you, consequently, lose others.

The first thing we should get rid of is tech trading, i find it lousy.

Sorry about all the posts, but it took me days to read all the posts. So I had a lot of posts to remember which subjects I thought was important.

To sum up what I thought were cool ideas that people suggested. I think soecialised tech trees r a good idea that at least provides a variety. I would like to see a better balance in the next game. This is what I have come up with while brainstorming on this. 2 planetary improvements r worth a one per planet structures. The one per planet units come in 2 types. The first type replaces the units. The second type will replace either a superproject, galactic achievements, or a trade goods. 2 of the first one per planet units is worth 1/2 of the second 1 per planet units. 2 of the second one per planet units will replace a trade good or galactic acheivement. 2 trade goods or galactic achievements will replace a super projects. My reaoning for this is the fact that even though the galactic achievements r the strongest the trade goods could be used to b traded for cash. The super projects may b weaker than galactic acheivemts, but is garanteed to b able to b build by every race that has one. But if your race a specialised galactic achievement then it is worth the most. If u start out with one of these. Then it also is worth more.

  Now with techs if u start with it; it is worth more than if u have to research it. If the tech is straitforward it is worth more than if u have to work for it on the research tree. For differentialization a unit, one per planet, super projects, galactic achievements, tradegoods, or abilities can all be interchanged with dufferent tech trees, but a race that has this equivelennt can't trade for it. It it steals it it doesn't recieve the bonus. I wouldn't have a problem with different races with the same techs having different abilities for the same tech. I would like to see the races more fair this time. I prefer to use civics instead of government techs, but if I can't do things this way. I have an idea on governments inspired by the Yor tech tree. Instead of the standard tech tree; I think the ending techs for evil races be communism. I think the Korx should have Obliarchy. I think the Thalans should either have Monarchy or a confederate government. The Krynn should have a Theocracy. The Yor would probably have a dictatorship. Federation I don't know about or whaat exactly its makeup is.

These are the ideas I like. I like tech point idea. I think u should be able to change this in the game to be more effective at this. If the Ai can't handle this; then my idea on how to handle this is to have a fixed option that is automatically set where u have to manually shut this off.

In the beginning U could randomely select starting techs. Their may b a set of default techs, but the game would only randomely pick half. Each of tje randome techs would lead to a different tech tree. Most of the techs would have different paths to research to each tech. If u pick a tech it would close u off from other future techs.

All while giving everyone their own individual tech trees.

Wow all these ideas put together has to b the best idea for tech research yet.

Even though I am the one who canabalised this I have to give credit to the other posters for most of this.

I don't mind the concept of tech trading, but the valuation that the AI did on some techs vs others made it really off the wall and not all that usable. It also went sideways when you started to gain a bit of and edge on a race. They would basically ask outrageous amounts of stuff in return for a single tech.

The concept is good enough, just need to improve the mechanics of it.

And in regard of the multiplayer-mode, it would be very nice  to (or at least have the possibility to ) trade techs with your allies in your effort to beat other players.

I very much liked buying/stealing unique techs from other civilizations. The Arcean navigation techs are a favorite of mine. I like getting technologies to make my civilization better than it would otherwise normally be. Unfortunately, the civilizations don't always research the techs I want.

I would very much like to be able to ask a civilization to research certain techs so I might trade them for them. I would also like to be able to steal/buy what ever qualities that allow a civilization to research their unique techs, so that I might be able to research the techs myself (I don't like it when a civilization is wiped out before I could buy the unique techs from them).

I played Distant worlds and discovered that the way they've done the private research was a bad idea. We could make a compromise that maye the public and the private sectors could do research, but maybe the idea of private research would be a bad idea if they do it the same on Distant worlds. i'm scared thay would go to Dostant worlds to create private research. Lets not have private research.

word

All I hope for is that the tech tree is as large as it was in GC II. Compared to all of the other 4x games, GC II's tech tree for each faction is quite large, and would take you quite a long time to max out, if you ever do in a single game. I love that about 4x games. The more Research the better. Sprinkle in some more things to make it take even longer, such as going the sots route of first "exploring" or contemplating on the tech before you even get to research it, and that time frame depends on your race's traits and science, all the better.

The thing that truly pulls in a great 4x for me is when the tech tree is huge and vast, and takes awhile with limitations to slow down the tech process to a degree depending. When specific AI's or players, etc. can start "falling behind". Albeit not to much.

It feels like to me most 4x games have severely crippled their tech tree. Sid Meiers Civilization being one of them.

Fallen Enchantress was a big disappointment to me tech wise as well, extremely small tech tree.

[quote who="Tridus" reply="45" id="3410859"]

Quoting Farplane, reply 23

There's a reason why the Civilization style more or less linear tech tree is in so many games: it works.

Just because a feature is functional doesn't mean it is interesting or particularly useful. 

Functional is a key requirement. So are things like the AI being able to navigate it, and players being able to understand it. The standard tech tree does all those things.

Any "improvement" needs to also do all those things, or it's not actually better. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a bonus if it breaks something.

But oversimplification for sake of... you know, isn't optimal too. I mean, I'd prefer different tech branches giving us different paths to follow, and thus, play differently, other than present us with false choice options, when our opinion doesn't matter (say you'll need to develop most branches anyway to succeed), or, even worse, when there is no real choice at all, because you choose between useful tech and useless one. Formally you had a choice, but in reality...

Not sure about "you can't lose" kind of choice, or, if I'm not mistaken with a term, "retroactive" choice, when no matter what you chose, you'll be right.

Yeah, for sure. But for that to work, the tree needs to be big and slow enough to navigate that you can't easily backfill. Otherwise it's not really a playstyle affecting choice, it's a "I'm going to do this until it gets expensive, then I'll go spend 5 turns picking up all the old techs in the other direction I need" type of thing.

Which is fine, but it's not really differentiating things a whole lot. The best way to do that is with mutually exclusive tech branches - maybe if you choose to specialize in mining, you can't get advanced farming tech, ever. In that case you're making a choice that can't be undone, and it will affect how the game plays out.