New here, civ fanatic player - possibly galciv fan also. Tech question.

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all. Well I think that the game is very very good all over with one exception. Despite the AI seems to beat every other strategy game's AI, I am puzzled in the tech trading field.

My first campaign is with Terran Alliance, 9 civs, gigantic map, AI "Intelligent". Eventhough most of the AI clans are beating my crap in almost every field I have by far more techs than everyone else due to exploiting tech trade with them. Now, is that due to
1. Bad AI?
2. Is the significance of techs reducted in Gal Civ (eg compared to the significance of techs in Civ series)
3. Is it because the Terrans are "super diplomats" and can make good bargains?

In other words by having the "tech trading" option on am I exploiting the game and making it "unfair" to the AI?
5,688 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Browsing the forums it seems most "hardcore" players disable tech trading. It can be an exploit. It can also be downright difficult to get them to part with certain techs, any of the extreme colonization techs especially.

Every tech has a value to the AI. I think your diplomacy can lower/increase the value that the AI puts on tech during trades with you.

Hopefully someone with a little more knowledge will post after me

Hope that helps a wee bit

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What version of the game do you have? Dread Lords? Dark Avatar? What patch?

Under DA 1.5X tech trading is much harder. Then again you are playing the Terrans, who are crazy good at diplomatic trading. It may just be that you're making good use of your super ability. Without knowing more its hard to say, but if you've got the latest version it's almost got to be #3. If not, you should pick it up.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Its not really an exploit. Each race has a nack for something the others don't. For the Terrans, its trading. But what the AI gives up in tech trading it gains somewhere else. Others races might be exploiting me in another area. And think of it this way, once you trade and get a great deal on some techs, thas pretty much it since you'll be ahead of the AI after that, there wont be much else to get from them.

And you will have to keep up with the diplomatic techs or lose your advantage.

I'm playing DL on the first difficulty above "normal" and i was able to get a lot from the Dengin (spell check) only giving them something like sensors. But now when i go to trade again, they never have anything that i don't. The other two races don't seem to be as easy to get stuff from so its not an exploit in my book.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3. Is it because the Terrans are "super diplomats" and can make good bargains?


Quite likely. Terrans in DA can get much better deals on trades than other races.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I usually turn tech trading off, because I'll abuse it far beyond the AI's capabilities if it's there. In retrospect, I think I should mod the diplomatical races to compensate for that loss by giving them a research boost... Hmmm
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heh, it depends on what Difficulty youre playing on. The harder you set the game, the faster opposing civs develop tech,the more money they have, and therefore the more prolifically they trade amongst themseves and the entire map just runs away with technology . Of course, disabling it, there are going to be a few civs that you simply cant keep up with. But the player will always be able to make better decisions about what to research, and work to specifically counter those civs. With the new 1.5x diplomacy nerfs, tech trading is a wash at best , a liability at worst, at the harder levels.


At the lower to medium levels of difficulty, turning off tech trading ,without question, favors the player. At those levels, you can out-tech the AI easily without ever trading for a single tech, so turning off tech trading at those levels is clearly to the players advantage. People who disable at this level do so because they dont like the AI having any chance to keep up with them ( they will probably offer an alternate explanation for this )


Contrary to some opinion, generally speaking, I feel that disabling tech trading favours the player and makes games easier throughout the game. It gets a little hazier at the hardest levels. Players usually survive the very hardest levels of the game by exploiting weaknesses in diplomacy..but these are slowly being closed off with each patch.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I´m also a fan of the Civilization series and have only recently started playing GalCiv II.
The tech-trading is unfortunately quite a bit worse in GalCiv than in CIV for a few obvious reason.

a) The tech-trading screen is much less informative in GalCiv than in CIV
(for instance, you do not see how many recearh-points a certain tech is worth, nor can you while still trading, navigate other menues for more information about wheater a trade is a good deal or not like you can do in CIV IV for instance)

b) There is much, much, more tech in Galciv II to keep track of (or at least several versions of the same tech) while much less information is available so tech trading can easily become a micromanagement-hell.

c) A.I values techs quite strangely at times.

d) there is no "what will you give me for this"-button in GalCiv II. Every time you are suggesting a trade, tehere is a lot of micromanagemet to be done.


I played a few games with tech-trading enabled and quickly firgured out that the game is much more fun with tech-trading disabled.
It´s a pity though that disabling tech-trading really disables all tech-options.
It would be nice if you still could demand tech as tribute for instance. Or gift tech to a weak race as a way to help.
In addition the diplo-screen dialouge is incorrect for some reces when they make demands with tech-trading disabled.
They may for instance claim that I am to poor to pay them tribute so I have to give them some tech instead. Then, since tech-trading is disabled they still only demand gold and in many case very small amounts of it. (I even had one case where the Yor Collective demanded 0 gold in tribute order to let me live)