Tech trading in this game is a micromanagement nightmare

Of course for the conference thing, there would need to be a time period between them.  Maybe it can only be called by the UP or something.

Having 100+ major factions is an edge case and not what the game is going to be balanced around, I would think.  Still, the obvious solution would be to make the cost of tech be (somewhat) dependent on the number of major factions present.

*cue cries of "Now you're forcing me to trade techs* :p

The other point is, in the theoretical game with 100 major factions what makes you think each faction will be in contact with each other?  OK, fair does on a smaller map,  But, well, if one is going to cram that many factions on to a map that can't support it, weirdness is to be expected.  But on the Immense and higher maps (which is where I think these mooted scenarios would tend to occur), many factions might live and die before anyone contacts them.  So they probably wouldn't be able to get into a tech trade spiral.

More to the point, as you learn more techs, a "tech tax" is applied making it far harder to research the rest if you get a bunch at the same time.  When I've traded a bunch of techs all at once, it then plays havoc with me trying to research my current ones.  This is a feature not a bug, BTW, according to the devs.

So, yes, it might be that some races will be able to trade their way into, lets say, the Age of War with aggressive trading.  Then they'll slam into a brick wall of not having enough research infrastructure to continue.

And that presumes that all of the races will like each other and not launch into wars of conquest due to not having enough room to properly grow their empires.

...

Mind, I LOVE tech trading, and base quite a bit of my playstyle around it. So I'm a little bit biased here.

I agree with OP, tech trading is an unrealistic time consuming tedious boring exploitative feature that has plagued 4X games for many years and the Galactic Civilization series has been one of the worst offenders.  The fact that your forced to use it to keep or achieve tech parity makes it an even more vile mechanic.  Gal Civ 3 seems to be embracing this unimaginative feature more than many recent 4X games and in my opinion it will be a worse game because of it.  Tech trading was awful in Gal Civ 1 and 2 and just about every 4X game I've played and I've played many, it's time for something new in regards of 4X diplomacy...

You can turn off tech brokering.  I think that is the one that prevents you from trading techs you haven't researched yourself.  I'm not positive about that (lack of tooltip descriptions, hint hint devs), but I believe that is how it works.

I kind of like the way Civ V handles research agreements.

I think a lot of this can and will be fixed with fairly simple balancing. If the AI values it's own tech more it will drive the incentive for tech trading and brokering down, and it will only be valuable in very specific cases or when you have a large diplomatic advantage over a close ally.

This can't be fixed by an AI evaluating it's own tech against the player's unless the player's tech ranking is brought into play.  But frankly, that's a terrible, self-defeating mechanic that is nothing better than something for the tech morons of the game to catch up.  I don't mind if tech trading is a part of the game, I like a certain amount of it.  But there's a good hundred techs.  Even if you've only got five players, that's a lot of clicking around in diplomacy.  It's good in that it gives the player something to care about in diplo.  But there's just too many techs there.  Just trade tech points or something.  Or perhaps tech points/race specific stuff.

In a game where I am managing hundreds of constructors, tech trading is no chore.

The AI basically researches the same techs so after a few rounds there is little to trade with them after 40-50 turns. A trade round every 20 or so turns keeps you up to date with them. The AI are easy to manage right now but that will change I am sure.

The problem is the micromanagement itself.  Tech trade, and in fact all trade, should occur in a natural way and the player simply set policies that his minions strive to conform to.  The player could make adjustments but basically let discrete automatons of varying quality do the brute work.

Along with that, whenever you come to such high levels of micromanagement, it's essentially an unfair advantage against the human player.  The computer can compare techs with all of its neighbors every turn.  Sure humans can do that too, but your game suddenly becomes ridiculously boring.  If the advantage for this comparison is too high, then it becomes annoying to play the game.  Which defeats the purpose of making the game in the first place.

Similarly with making tech trading expensive when you are in a tech lead position.  Making one of your mechanics completely useless in the situation where you are playing well is an odd game design at best.  It's a pretty regular strategy to shoot for the tech lead.  So why would you then want to penalize that playstyle by letting everyone who doesn't tech trade on the cheap?

So there was a built in limitation in that respect.  Whether that limitation is put into Gal Civ III remains to be seen.

It's a balancing mechanism.   If you are ahead in tech, wouldn't intelligent beings think again about trading more tech to you?   Similar to many situations in other 4x games, such as the warmonger penalty in Civ 5.   The increase in research cost of techs as you acquire more (as in Civ series) tends in this direction also.

I tend to agree with Franco fx.   One doesn't need to check more than every several turns, and with a little bit of balancing of tech costs (especially tech valuation by the AI) I think things will  be fine.

What do I want in a 4x?  Lots and lots of choices, which have more or less complex, interacting positives and negatives.  Tech trading provides another powerful choice problem.   Buy a tech or a new colony ship or a factory or save the money or try to trade for it or...   Of course the annoying thing is that the AI will trade also.  It's another issue --- if I trade a tech, will it be passed around to the other AI, and will that hurt too much?

Tech brokering, on the other hand, I am not so sure about (selling or trading techs you haven't researched).

I don't think it should be just from the lead position, I think all civs should be reluctant to trade their proprietary knowledge unless it is at a significant gain. If civs have to pay through the nose for eachother's tech, it will be a situational decision for when you really need certain techs faster than you can research them rather than an every-game strategy that artificially increases everyone's speed through the tech tree. Of course, with high diplomacy you may be able to get your close friends to share their tech for a reasonable cost, but in general trading for tech should be a losing proposition.

Let's assume it's crushingly penalizing to trade tech.  You get 1 tech for every 3 of yours that you trade away.  If there's three other players, you are now doubling your tech points by trading vs not doing so (you're doubling those three opponents techs as well).  If there are more than three players, you must participate in the tech trade game or get destroyed by the AIs that do.

Also, how much more micro intensive has that become?  Do I now have three techs I can trade away with any of my allies?  No?  How can I get a tech they don't have?  What do they have?  Oh they have these 20 techs each...  

It's easy enough to turn tech brokering off.  But I do not think it's possible to balance the game across different numbers of players with the feature on as it currently is.

So what if we turn it off scrap tech trading entirely and instead create a system of component trading. 

You want to upgrade your factory to the next level but don't have the tech you open trade with me

 ok well I will help you refit your factories for a cost ~1.5X manuf cost in credits. ( so if it costs me $1000 to build it I will charge you $1500) 

now my planet ( probobly connected by trade route to your civ) pays 75% of the actual manufacturing cost (to build the upgrade) and your planet pays 25% ( to install)  and the $1500 previously mentioned 

this could easily work for ship components as well 

Well i wouldn't want eliminate tech trading. Maybe component trading an idea. I'm sure stardock knows how to make untradable techs. I disagree about balancing more players, you could make techs worth more,  or are harder to research. I like  diplomacy. Even though there are 130 major races there are only 9 types of tech trees, so this will probsbly br bslanced by modders. You could mske some untradable. You may need bigger trees for nore race mods.