Is the single biggest issue the tech web?

I think it is.

The primary issue with the tech web is that it facilitates, nay encourages, beelining. Now, Civ players have always, to a certain extent, beelined. Even in the days of Civ II I can still remember focusing on getting Philosophy first for that sweet free tech. But the tech web allows beelining to a hitherto unknown extent, and the effects of this have been major.

One feature early in Civ:BE's development and release was gaining free technologies. Slavic Federation used to gain a free tech upon launching their first satellite, Adept Blue used to reward a random free tech upon trade route completion, Franco-Iberia gained a free tech based upon virtue acquisition, Quantum Computer used to grant a free tech.

However this all was either removed before release or changed in the major balance patch that followed release. The reason? The tech web allowed you to beeline Tier 2 and Tier 3 techs and slingshot into much higher affinities and units much earlier than intended. Only the Institute quest choice remains, and still remains a key component of victory strategies. In exchange, we got bland, boring sponsors, and bland, boring Stations.

Let's compare that to the old linear tech tree of Civ. Babylon can take a free tech by Writing, and the Great Library, and early game wonder, also provides a free tech. Yet whilst these two factors are quite strong, they provide no-where near the benefit that free techs did, and do, in Civ:BE. No matter what that Babylonian player does, they can't use their potential free Tech to jump forwards to the Industrial era.

The tech web also explains why the wonders in Civ:BE are so often underwhelming (especially at release). End-game wonders in Civ can be really powerful, and indeed have to be, because by that stage of the game they need a major impact to be relevant. But if you put a very powerful Wonder into a tech web, a player can access it much earlier than they can on a linear tech tree.

Tier 1 affinity units were nerfed into arguably uselessness due to the same issue. Beelining Battlesuits was a dominant strategy at release, and yet again this was a result of the Tech web.

Because of affinity points being mainly produced by technologies, players are encouraged to only research the techs that assist them in gaining their affinity victory. Players thus hit end-game significantly earlier than they do in Civ V, where players must research all techs in a tree (to a certain extent). Games end earlier, and much of the end-game is simply unexplored, with certain units like the CARV, Rocktopus and Aegis never see use because they are off the main tech paths in the web.

The same simply can't be said for games like CiV, because players by a certain point MUST have access to particular units. In games with a linear tech tree, more units can have bonuses against units of other kinds, because the developers know that players must have access to the counter naturally at some point, and if they don't have it quickly enough, they can quickly gain access to it. By contrast, Civ:BE units mainly gain their bonuses against other units via affinity upgrades, which reduces tactical gameplay. A Battlesuit, a SABR and a Xeno Swarm are all equally good against enemy armour; the only defining difference is unit strength. Compare that to CiV, where Pikemen counter Knights, who counter crossbowmen, who counter Swordsmen, who counter Pikemen. Units feel boring in Civ:BE, a fact not helped by a quite uninspired upgrade system.

This is not to say that all issues with Civ:BE are due to the tech web. But I do think that it's the biggest root cause of Civ:BE's issues.

TLDR: How many of Civ:BE's issues would be solved if the tech web was replaced with a traditional linear tech tree?

I am not saying the tech web is perfect but I don't ever want to go back to a linear tech tree. The big problem with the tech tree is that the player ends up having to research almost everything, especially if they are going for the space race victory because of how prerequisites work. That means that there is no real choice. The only choice is the order, do you I get tech A first then B, or B first then A? But there is no choice of tech A OR tech B because I have to get both. With the tech web, there is a real OR choice. Yes, I can beeline but that is the whole point. I don't need to research everything. If I am going Supremacy, I stick with one area of the tech web and ignore the other side and have completely different buildings, units, wonders than someone going for say Harmony. So, the tech web offers a lot more variety and flexibility.

You're right that the tech web introduces some real issues, but it's also a distinct and interesting mechanic that helps distinguish BE from historical civ, and I'd be very disappointed to see it disappear entirely.

The focus on beelining affinity stems not just from the tech web but from the fact that both key military units and most of the victory conditions hinge on getting to 13 affinity points. This issue is probably embedded too deeply in the game's design to change entirely, but some thoughtful editing of the tech tree could at least mitigate it. Rising Tide is also supposed to spread affinity points out more in the tech tree, so even if you're still trying to get to 13 affinity as quickly as possible, you'll hopefully have a lot more options in terms of how you do that and what you unlock along the way.

You are right the nature of the tech web makes free techs difficult to balance. That said, free techs are by no means a necessary mechanic in civ games, and limiting them is certainly a worthwhile trade off for the novel gameplay of the tech web- there are any number of exciting mechanics that can be used instead (for what it's worth, I think they should have left the free tech in Franco Iberia's trait and the Quantum Computer and removed it from the academy quest instead of the other way around- it seems out of place for such a unique and powerful mechanic to be attached to a default building rather than a wonder or a sponsor bonus).

I would prefer a tech tree just because I like eras and I don't like the option to basically beeline to the victories, which is technically possible in BE.

I just prefer the eras of Civ 5 because it also allowed for more unit tiers and I liked being able to go through all the technologies.

But that said, the web is intrinsically linked to the affinity system now. It's just not really feasible to turn it into a tree.

Maybe changing it from a 360° web to a 120° fan would solve -some- of those problems? There would be more than 3 tiers or techs, tech costs would escalate better with the game pacing, ultimate units wouldn't be so far astray from the victory tech route, and the power jump provided by a free tech would be much smaller. Make so supremacy techs are centred on the middle route, purity to one side and harmony to the other.

I think this "fan" idea is something that could be modded in, it would just be super time consuming

The existence of the tech web does not inherently cause all of those problems.

Though it needs a serious balance pass, the tech web is one of the truly good innovations of BE from Civ 5.

If anything the problem is free techs distorting the trade-off to get a late tech early, not the tech web.
___________________________________________

High tier ring tech Wonders and bonuses could be strong in a tech web, with a natural trade-off to beelining them.

Going for late techs early means forsaking more easily accessed techs and what bonuses they would grant for the long research period.

Additionally, while trying to research a late tech early there is a longer period where one's Science is doing nothing for them than for players taking a more balanced approach.
________________________________

Affinity progression is a separate issue, and in my opinion a redesign of it would best address it's flaws.

Researching any tech and adopting any virtues would grant some generic affinity points, which people spend on the Affinities of their choice.

Affinity locked bonuses and buildings could still exist in the tech web, but players would no longer have a dictated path for affinity progression.

Tying it to Culture and Science would take away some of science's prominence, better represent the social and philosophical elements of affinity, and make a heavy culture focus more viable.
______________________________________________________

The counter aspect of Civ combat is still present in BE - all that was really removed was the uninteresting bonus vs tanks and mounted enemies.

(And really, Swordsmen counter Pikeman? A tiny bit of extra combat strength won't do much good, and melee units in Civ 5 were niche at best.)

Cavalry units are quite a bit stronger against Archer types in BE than they were in Civ 5 with lower combat strength, and archer spam was absolutely absurdly overpowered in Civ 5.

So overall I'd say unit interactions are far, far healthier in BE than they were in Civ 5.

The unique traits of upgrades and unique units also allows more roles for units in BE, expanding the asymmetry between armies.
_______________________________

TLDR: While the current design of the tech web may be flawed, the concept itself is not. A linear tech tree would be incredibly boring and option-limiting in comparison.

In a word? No. If we are being perfectly clear, a lot of the imbalance that you mentioned wouldn't actually be solved if it were a tree instead of a web. I seem to recall that even in CiV, the strategy was "Rush Libraries/National College/Universities/etc..." unless you have to deviate for a (usually military related) reason. Same concept as rushing Battlesuits. The link of Affinity to the Web might be an issue, yes, but then, same thing applies if it's with a Tree. The Tech Web is easily my favorite part of this game, something that alone makes me rate it as worth playing when CiV is so much more polished by this point.

The point you made about how, in CiV, certain players MUST have access to certain units? Isn't a plus in my book. It is a logical consequence of following history, yes, but that does not mean it's preferable. The issues with the units, again, is that at base level, they are all defined by combat strength and production cost, something that the new hybrid uniques do differently and could easily be applied to the old ones. As for the point about how the tree encourages units being designed to counter each other, that fits better with a web in my mind - is your opponent is advancing heavy in one path, you choose the path that counters it.

As for Wonders, that is linked to the tech tree, yes, but I don't think that putting them into a Tree would fix anything. The balance issues there come from the fact that the Devs aren't sure how to keep them feeling unique from normal buildings while still maintaining the correct power level, something that resulted in weaker wonders in the Winter Patch to test the waters that should have been followed up on once they were able to witness their effects on balance (they weren't, but that's a different issue).

The effects it has on free techs is something to be addressed, yes. But as Amrunril mentioned, that means that you do something besides techs. A flat science boost based on how much you are currently researching, a la Great Scientists or Research Agreements? Fix that issue while still maintaining all of the finer points of the Tech Web system.

The end game comes to early in Civ:BE, yes, but it comes differently in each game, as opposed to in CiV, where it was always "progress to artillery, curbstomp face". Every game followed the same trajectory for start to finish, and while there was always variation, the key beats were the same. The Web allows for something different, letting the player make much longer term goals in their research, something touched on by SupremacyKing2. In CiV, you're choices end up homogenizing fairly quickly - at a certain point, you are guaranteed to have picked up certain techs, as you mentioned in the point about units. But that just means that the player input is more limited, and while that might be preferable to some, I vastly prefer the freedom. In BE, you can choose to develop in legitimately different ways, rather than just choosing when you develop a thing.

Doviello said:

Maybe changing it from a 360° web to a 120° fan would solve -some- of those problems? There would be more than 3 tiers or techs, tech costs would escalate better with the game pacing, ultimate units wouldn't be so far astray from the victory tech route, and the power jump provided by a free tech would be much smaller. Make so supremacy techs are centred on the middle route, purity to one side and harmony to the other.

I think this "fan" idea is something that could be modded in, it would just be super time consuming

Click to expand...

360 degrees is much better, especially with the introduction of hybrids. Just think of the circle that holds unit upgrades. Now put a tech web in that. What's between two affinities would be hybrid techs (while most offer two affinities now anyway, these hybrid techs would have a more even level of affinity, including leaves).

@ Doviello - The fact that the ultimate units aren't always on the same path as the VC isn't even necesarily a bad thing - it also encourages the fact that there are multiple wasy in which to develop, even within the same affinity. Do you grab the buildings and rush for an affinity specific victory, playing relatively peacefully? Or do you go for the units, seeking to conquer the world? The exact wheres of their locations relative to the other units is something that could be addressed (ease of grabbing SABR vs CARVR, for example), but there doesn't need to be only one "Supremacy Path" - there should be multiple iterations of it.

On a further note, the fact that units and buildings are locked to affinity (another design choice that I would not want changed) means that a tech tree is just less viable. In a tree, you'd have to grab those techs to progress, and if you aren't that affinity, Congratulations! You get nothing for your research. The similar iteration of the Leaf techs hypothetically being situational also wouldn't work in the slightest in a Tree, where they too would just be another required step for everyone to progress regardless of playstyle.

Hmmm... I don't think the issue is that we have a tech web as opposed to a tree I think the issue is with making each tech you research be as useful vs it's cost.

Take the Aegis Purtity unit there isn't really much point in ever picking it up now even as a purity player because it's cost to research is at a maximum but it's just not useful by the time you can spend research on a tech with that high of cost.

I feel like an easy fix for the tech web would me to have more layers and vary the tech costs up on said layers.
If we had say four techs essential to achieving victory in four different direction in the tech tree plus another layer or two to reach them that would slow down victories and give more room to vary how you develop in the mean while.

Likewise you could have end game techs that require a combination of techs from across the tech web to force branching out a bit more.
This actually reflects real life more accurately, I mean in Civ V you didn't need radios to have radar... that doesn't even make sense but that kind of thing happens in the tech tree in Civ V because of gameplay. It's hard to give people choice when you already know what leads where and having to unlock things linearly with multiple requirements so as a necessity you kind of have to unlink them if you want people to have any real choice there.
However, a tech web doesn't have that issue because you have more than one path that you can go down. I think the reason the tech web isn't more interconnected is a carry over from Civ V gameplay that shouldn't be there so changing that up might help as well.

I agree, many techs aren't really worth researching at the moment, weakening the potential of competing tech paths.

The tech web can work, it's just going to take a lot of tweaking and i'm not sure they're willing to do it. To start there'd need to be some unit/tech balancing (academies/specialized units/awful wonders being major issues) Personally changes I would make:

1. Rework affinity. There's techs on the tech web that basically say "get 1 affinity level" and that's it. Anything with a wonder that's already built (or...honestly...anything with a wonder) or certain techs that you just won't use that game. The way the affinity system is balanced IT'S STILL WORTH IT, and that's just wrong on a whole slew of levels. For starters i'd make the "generic" upgrades like the marine, gunner, armor, etc (basically anything that doesn't have affinity unique assets) based on TOTAL affinity level not "highest" affinity level.

This allows players to do hybrid builds all the way up to affinity 5/6 without their military falling behind. As it is right now if I were to go say, 3 purity and 2 harmony, i'd have upgraded armor, but still no artillery, gunboats, or needlejets. I'd actually be weaker than someone who had 4 levels of just supremacy. That's just wrong. You'd still have plenty of reason to specialize as you'll eventually need to for higher military units and there's LOTS of buildings/bonuses that are based on affinity, but you're not instantly handicapped for spreading out early game. With some tweaking on the upgrades for hybrids/pure builds (require say, 4 in purity and 6 total levels for centurions) you can then encourage hybrids, while still giving specialists a boost (as they'll have access to better purity only techs and bonuses, such as say putting battlesuits at purity 6 requirement).

In short, buildings/bonuses should be tied to highest level, military should be MUCH more flexible, as if you do it the way it is right now, branching out through anything but quest luck is suicide. Hell i'd honestly probably put other ways in to get affinity besides from tech, but i'm trying to not do major overhauls here (quests that mattered and determined shifted your playstyle would be ideal. Imagine if you had to kill all the aliens near you and the heretic trade outpost while building one or two terrascapes to get enough purity to rush those battlesuits, or could decide it wasn't worth it and expand into a more broad strategy. Having affinity related tiles not generate affinity in any meaningful way was one of the biggest failures of BE in my eyes)

2. Move a lot of the important stuff from stem tech to leaf tech. You're too punished for going for leafs that aren't absolutely necessary, and all the "basic" stuff is on stems. You just grab the stems you need with your affinity bonuses on the leafs and you're good to go (rushing your specialized unit). I'd actually rather see wonders and passive/minor bonuses on stems (mag rails or farm improvements for example) which reward first adopters but don't punish secondaries, and then make the infrastructure buildings on leafs. The main goal of this is SLOWING DOWN TECH PROGRESSION, which currently slingshots so fast many units are all but useless. If rushing to leaf 3 didn't give you as much, it'd give players who went for level 2 stems time to leverage their advantages while you try to rush a stem 3. As it is if i'm researching a level 2 stem there's a VERY heavy difference when the opponent hits their first leaf 3, that can quickly cascade into their stem 3.

As always there's more i could list, but I think that gives a good idea of "what it could be" without rebuilding the game from the ground up (mostly number's tweaks and tech shuffling). This would still probably require a lot of trial and error, but frankly the tech web by design is going to be harder to balance than the tech tree. You don't have as many chokepoints like ages to fall back on and when you increase the number of player options it gets much harder to balance (which is why i'm a huge proponent of just waiting 2 weeks to a month for people to find the REALLY obvious stuff, and planning to do a patch after that, as thousands of players playtesting is always going to be faster than your Q&A group).

No the tech web is not in itself the issue.
The biggest issue is the combination of the tech web with affinity points.

If by making it linear you force the player to take the techs of other affinities then yes you'd solve a lot of problems but also completely remove the point of affinities.
I've always been a partisan of removing the affinities from the tree. BERT is at least a step in the right direction but I'm not sure it's a big enough step.

As for free techs it was forecasted before release that Free techs and tech webs do not work well together. Removing the free techs was the right move.

SupremacyKing2 said:

I am not saying the tech web is perfect but I don't ever want to go back to a linear tech tree. The big problem with the tech tree is that the player ends up having to research almost everything, especially if they are going for the space race victory because of how prerequisites work.

Click to expand...

so, actually the problem is not the linear tech tree, but the way (binary & -> all of) prequisites work!
imo most prequisites should be binary or -> any one of. that should allow much more flexibility.

The overall problems mentioned are not the tech web, they are balance. A tech web is probably harder to balance but it can still be done.

The tech web does certainly play a prominent role when it comes to BE's problems. Mostly because it makes it almost impossible to balance stuff properly due to that beeline effect. The other one, as pointed out above already, is the connection between the victory conditions (= Affinity levels) and technology.

But having a tech tree wouldn't fix the underlying issues with the game. When I play CIV5 I only need to know which luxuries are nearby - and then I can usually queue up all my techs from Antiquity to the Modern era in one go without EVER having to touch the tree again. For me the main problem with BE (and actually CIV5 to an almost similiar extend) is the fact that there is actually little choise involved. You have to pick your spots for new settlements, you have to decide which strategy you want to use (warmonger, science, culture, diplomacy) and if you want to go wide or tall.

But outside of these core decisions, you rarely have to stop and think about your actions. There are rarely any tough choises to make, more often than not you have clearly superior options. When it comes to CIV5, I feel that Religion Enhancements (Pantheon/Founder/Enhancer) are the only options where I get the feeling of making a tough decision (mostly because I have to evaluate the map and weight short vs. long term impacts).

And maybe that is the main problem of BE(/CIV5): The lack of interactivity with the map. When I think of CIV4, I always feel that the game had a lmuch more diverse early game. Sure, you had some obvious choises (like founding early religions if you had Mysticism), but I also felt that the map had much more impact on your tech choises (e.g. high food, low production start -> Bronce Working for slavery).

Maybe the solution is to get back the map interactivity by adding more ressource or terrain related effects to techs and/or their associated buildings. Imagine if you'd go a completely different early game tech path because you have lots of Tubers in your starting area. Another time you focus on Xeno stuff because Wildlands with lots of aliens and Xenomass are nearby. Imagine if your Affinity wasn't just decided by the techs you reserach, but also by your deeds as a player - the buildings you get, the locations you settle, the ressources you improve, the improvements you place on the land.

Things like that would be possible - and it would actually play to the strength of a tech web, because you could add all these different options with even more powerful choises at outer parts without having to force the player through a narrow pathway (like in a tech tree).

IMHO, the Tech Web is the best single innovation in BE, much better than the Civ5 "stuck on a rail" Tech Tree. It allows the player to tailor his research based on his situation, resources, affinity, etc. It allows you to try different approaches each game, offering a lot more replayability.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the Tech Web, it should be obvious by the design that it was never intended that a player would research every Tech available, unlike the old legacy Tech Tree. The Tech Web allows you to pick and choose the Techs that you need.

If you play the game often enough, you also see that the freedom to pick and choose Techs is very relative, i.e.:

- in the early game, you pretty much have to research every node and their tiers in the inner core since these techs are essential to build your Civ;

- in the middle game, you also have to research pretty much all the nodes in the middle ring since they are the gateways to the outer ring;

- it is really only in the late game once you get to the outer ring that you have a lot of freedom to only research the nodes and tiers you need depending on your victory conditions.

The Tech Web is brilliant design decision. Now can it be tweaked and improved? certainly, but I would not want to go back to a traditional Tech Tree.

Joch said:

IMHO, the Tech Web is the best single innovation in BE, much better than the Civ5 "stuck on a rail" Tech Tree. It allows the player to tailor his research based on his situation, resources, affinity, etc. It allows you to try different approaches each game, offering a lot more replayability.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the Tech Web, it should be obvious by the design that it was never intended that a player would research every Tech available, unlike the old legacy Tech Tree. The Tech Web allows you to pick and choose the Techs that you need.

If you play the game often enough, you also see that the freedom to pick and choose Techs is very relative, i.e.:

- in the early game, you pretty much have to research every node and their tiers in the inner core since these techs are essential to build your Civ;

- in the middle game, you also have to research pretty much all the nodes in the middle ring since they are the gateways to the outer ring;

- it is really only in the late game once you get to the outer ring that you have a lot of freedom to only research the nodes and tiers you need depending on your victory conditions.

The Tech Web is brilliant design decision. Now can it be tweaked and improved? certainly, but I would not want to go back to a traditional Tech Tree.

Click to expand...

I would say that isn't quite true in the middle game,
You often start moving on to the third ring before you finish off the middle ring stem techs

Although the web gives a lot of flexibility, most of it isn't the web structure as much as the leaf + stem structure.

Galgus said:

Affinity progression is a separate issue, and in my opinion a redesign of it would best address it's flaws.

Researching any tech and adopting any virtues would grant some generic affinity points, which people spend on the Affinities of their choice.

Affinity locked bonuses and buildings could still exist in the tech web, but players would no longer have a dictated path for affinity progression.

Tying it to Culture and Science would take away some of science's prominence, better represent the social and philosophical elements of affinity, and make a heavy culture focus more viable.

Click to expand...

This, this, THIS! A thousand times, THIS!

I've already called this in other threads, good to know I'm not the only one who sees.

Galgus said:

Researching any tech and adopting any virtues would grant some generic affinity points, which people spend on the Affinities of their choice.

Click to expand...

But wouldn't this completely kill the immersion of what the affinities are about philosophically? How can you research say "sentient AI robotics" but go "oh I am going to use my new affinity points on purity" when the tech is clearly about supremacy and purity would never care about this tech in a million years? Plus, this would completely eliminate any sense of choice for affinities since players could research whatever they want and still pick whatever affinity they want. There would be zero incentive for affinities to pick a certain tech patch.