I have two questions...

from Elemental Forums

I don't recall seeing anything about them at all in the faqs or other threads, hopefully some peeps here might know the answers...

1) What do the 'upgraded roads' do? I saw my caravan's road become visably changed when it upgraded; It had a more proper road appearence compared to dirt road look they normally have. What does the upgrade do exactly?

2) What determines when the chance based researchs are 'likely,' or 'unlikely?'

elemental
5,088 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

1) I do not know, but I suspect it improves movement speed and possibly the output of the caravan.

2) Each research has a base chance of being researched. Every time it does not show, the chance of appearing increases (this may also include times it does appear, but you do not select it).

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

To elaborate on 'likely' vs. 'unlikely'   You will always get a likely tech, but its a risk if you're specifically trying to get an unlikely tech (unless you only have unlikely techs available)  The top-tier infinitely researchable techs (very unlikely I think... they are red in color) pretty much are only available after you've completed all the other techs.

The idea is having a tech system that is not the same every time.  You are not required to research things in the same order, and your engineers are not really sure whey they are going to invent before they do.  They know what they might be able to figure out, but have to research into it.  You as the player know what is 'likely' to appear.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

As for your first question, here is a detailed list of each road level and their bonuses as defined in roadleveldefs.xml:

Trail (lvl 0) -

Trade Multiplier: 1.0

City Tile Multiplier Bonus: 0.0

Cycle to reach this level: 0

Path (lvl 1) -

Trade Multiplier: 1.25

City Tile Multiplier Bonus: 0.1

Cycle to reach this level: 30

Road (lvl 2) -

Trade Multiplier: 1.5

City Tile Multiplier Bonus: 0.2

Cycle to reach this level: 100

Highway (lvl 3) -

Trade Multiplier: 2

City Tile Multiplier Bonus: 0.3

Cycle to reach this level: 500

As for your second, every tech has a rarity value between 0 to 100. These values are essentially your basic percentage chance that a tech will be available for you when you get a new level. So the Empire Tech Shard Domination has a rarity value of 60, while the Lady Umber's Legacy is only rarity 50. If you care to find out all of the values, they are easily attainable by looking in the files Techs_Trog.xml and Techs_Amarian.xml as these are the files which contain the tech declarations used by the game.