E-stab's Tech Tree Modification

- more effects & higher costs -

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I modded the tech tree to be somewhat more expensive to research, especially in some branches where the cost increases were too little for my taste. I added a number of additional effects as well, most of them are small, some of them are interesting though (e.g. on the way to tech victory).

To play with it, download it from the library and overwrite your techtree.xml in \GalCiv2\Data\English\ with my file (you might want to make a backup first).

Here's the full change log (included in the download as well):

(All changes listed below are additional effects, except when they replace old effects.
No tech prerequisites have been added or changed, only tech costs and direct effects.)

- reworked all tech costs to be higher and increase more further up the tree

- every new drive type gives +10% trade
- the three trade techs give +25% trade, "neutral shipping" gives +50% trade
- "xeno business" and "xeno cultural trends" now give +25% trade

- halved the range bonuses given by the support techs (to +10%/+20%/+25%/+25%)

- "advanced hulls" and "superior hulls" now give +10% hitpoints
- "reinforced hull design" and "hardened hull design" now give +25% hitpoints

- the four economic techs now give +10% economics and trade
- "galactic stock exchanges" even gives +20% trade

- the four industrial techs now give +10% social and military production

- the three terraforming techs now give +5% morale
- the four morale techs now give +5%/+10%/+15%/+20% loyalty

- the five diplomacy techs now give +10%/+15%/+20%/+25%/+30% diplomacy
- the three government techs now give +10% diplomacy and influence
- the six influence techs now give +10% influence (+20% for "cultural conquest")
- the moral alignment techs now give +10% diplomacy and influence
- "concepts of malice" and "concepts of righteousness" give +25% loyalty additionally

- the first five research techs (those giving new buildings) now give +5% research
- "neutrality learning centers" now gives +10% research
- "deeper knowledge" now gives +10% research
- "galactic understanding" now gives +10% diplomacy, influence, economics and production
- "near omniscience" now gives +15% weapons, defense, hitpoints, soldiering, miniaturization and +5 logistics
- "beyond mortality" now gives +25% morale and +50% loyalty

- each new weapon type (not the mark x ones) gives +5% weapons, +10% for the last
- the three "evil" extra weapon techs now give +15% weapons
- each new defense system (not the mark x ones) gives +5% defense, +10% for the last
- the four "good" extra defense techs now give +10% defense
- each logistics tech gives +1 logistics more

I'd be pleased to get your feedback as there might be some minor things to tweak. I'd be willing to change the "AI values" (an indication for the AI about the worth of a tech) as well if this should be necessary.

Until then - have fun!

modding

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I'll be trying it in my next game. I'll let you know what I think.

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Hi!

- the five diplomacy techs now give +10%/+15%/+20%/+25%/+30% diplomacy
- the three government techs now give +10% diplomacy and influence
- the six influence techs now give +10% influence (+20% for "cultural conquest")
- the moral alignment techs now give +10% diplomacy and influence
- "concepts of malice" and "concepts of righteousness" give +25% loyalty additionally

Just a remark from my games: I've rarely seen AIs researching those techs in depth, at least not until the late game. I've seen my race researching most of those techs before late game. So, don't you think those changes give too much of an advantage to a human player?

- the three "evil" extra weapon techs now give +15% weapons
- the four "good" extra defense techs now give +10% defense

Owwww! It will be quite a pain playing as a neutral.

BR, Iztok

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I'll be trying it in my next game. I'll let you know what I think.

Great! I'm looking forward to it.

Yes, that is my observation as well. I'll try giving these techs a higher AI value (which hopefully results in the AI being more interested about them) and/or will reduce the effects of the diplomacy techs a bit as soon as I have the time.
Until then it'll be up to player not to exploit it to much, I guess. (It's the same to a lesser extent in the standard game, diplomatic effects seem to be too big and the AI doesn't care enough about them.)

It will be quite a pain playing as a neutral.

I don't think so. The weapon/defense bonuses for good and evil races are less significant than one might think, because there are a lot of bonuses available to everyone as well: A step from +0% to +40% has a greater effect than one from +100% to +140%.
Additionally the neutral bonuses are nice as well: You get another +50% trade for neutral shipping and the maximum number of trade routes (I tried to value trade a lot higher in general), and you get +10% research for the neutral learning centre.

Thanks to you both for your feedback, I was a bit disappointed at first because noone seemed to take notice. I actually thought a lot about the bonuses I gave before doing it, and I'll be happy to explain them if there are questions. They might not be 100% balanced yet, but I'll adapt them if there are problems. Because of the higher research costs in general, the modified tech tree might be better suited for larger maps, I recommend to use one of the slower "tech rate" settings for larger maps and one of the faster ones for medium and below. But that's a matter of personal taste as well, I like having relatively slow research because in my opinion it adds a greater tactical component to the game.

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Aloha!

e-stab I'm developing the Default Systems Comprehensive Modification Pack (DSCMP) and I was wondering if you would be interested in getting involved. If you are please contact me via MSN. My MSN is Spartan@thetrivium.org . I look forward to hearing from you.

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I like around 1/2 of your changes just on hearing them, but the rest seem too powerfull to the player.

The ones i like are
1) shorter range. range isn't a issue in the standard version really
2) better trade. trade is pitifully weak in standard version
3) tech victory path should give you something on the way.
4) weapons bonuses.

How well is the AI handling the MOD ? Since the AI loves trading, I would think it would get a good boost, but for the rest i'm not sure.

Also I think some of these will overwhelm your initial racial bonuses. Especially the production ones. Overall I'd probably play this if a lot of these numbers were smaller.

Another thing that would make the AI better, improve the starbase defensive modules.

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I've been using it for a couple of days now and i like the changes alot. The only slightly bad thing i can think of is that Influence seems to get boosted too much. I played a Gigantic galaxy on Normal with Good Populists and after a while i just rolled over half the galaxy (i controlled less than a quarter). After two curious "jumps" i ended up influencing 99% of the galaxy. Maybe make the AI appreciate those techs more?

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