Alternate Tech Tree Development

[Yoshi2942]

Ok, I Love the mod, and Fire sounds like it will add a ton of new features which will be great. But with that said, I found the Tech tree
lacking. Mostly because I found the AI unable to research and utilize the tree properly. I have tried a few different layouts for the tech
tree and would like additional input as to what others feel could improve the tree - primarily because I play the game one way, others
may play it in a different way, and if I can take all playstyles into consideration then hopefully I will be able to further improve the AIs
interaction with the Tree.


To give an idea - religeons get swallowed up within the first 50 turns of a normal speed game. The current game which the tree was
captured from sports Barbarians which are more advanced than my civilization - And I am not doing badly, having the largest civilization
and defenses high enough to prevent being over run.

Spoiler :

Things of note:

Few Techs have been cut - namely a lot of the mounted techs and a few that seemed redundant.

Cottage building, Tree cutting, Jungle cutting have been moved - along with a number of other items. I am still working on making
changes to units and buildings to better improve balance.

The cost to research techs is based upon a formula which I came up with and has been applied to every tech:
TECH_COST = (X-location^3) * 6 + 10 per Or tech beyond the first, and - 10 per And tech. Techs which have multiple routes (Or techs)
will tend to cost slightly higher, and those which have more requirements (And techs) will tend to cost slightly less. The actual values
for the And/Or techs is likely to change, but I'm just using 10 for right now.

 

[Yoshi2942]

Things that I will be looking at, per 3rd party input (that's you guys and gals):

Look into the Monk that requires Priesthood.
Make Omniscience require Chants or something instead of Commune.

 

[Silverkiss]

Hum. Putting the Order and the Veil that early is going to make them overpowered, as they are balanced to come out later. And with Fire´s change to Veil....

I don´t know, maybe it´s good, but I don´t like it. Kael and the Team made the Tree with all the four phases on mind, and we are only playing the first... Some things are meant to be as they are, I guess.

Looking at it now, I don´t like many things about it, but im not that good of a player, so maybe it is better and I just can´t see it

Edit: Take for example Priesthood, so the Elohim can only get their kickass UU (Monks ! =O) if they follow either the Order or the Veil ?

 

[Yoshi2942]

That is EXACTLY the kind of things which I am hoping you guys point out to me: I never play the Elohim, so the need to relocate the Monks is what I am hoping to get out of this thread. I know that a LOT of the units and buildings need to be relocated with this tree, but unfortunately - I don't know all of them.

As to your pointing out that the Original tree was developed with all four parts in mind - fair enough, but since I don't have all four parts, I can't determine whether the tree needs changing or not - if, after all four parts are out, that the original tree actually is the best idea - then it is easy enough to play with that, but if on the other hand that tree doesn't seem to fit the bill, then having toyed around with the tree ahead of time would benefit any future tinkering.

 

[Silverkiss]

Maybe, but I think you should wait for at least Fire to be out and running (Like Light is now, maybe even not wait that much), so you have a idea of the new concepts and features. The Hyborem (Infernals) with Veil thingy, and the Basium (Mercurians) with ??? thingy that Kael is going to talk with us, for example. You have to take that things in mind, for example summoning Hyborem to the wolrd as early as that is probably not a good idea, as I guess that he must be really powerfull...

 

[Yoshi2942]

You may be right that the religeons should be delayed, due to the strengthening of Hyborem, and when the new features are out I will know more about this. But since Fire does not introduce any new techs, I felt fairly confident that I could reshuffle the techs to reduce the number of dead end and overly specialized techs. I'll fully admit that I cut a lot of the Mounted Techs - primarily because I have never used any of them and I have never seen the computer build any of the advanced mounts. They may find their way back in, but that is secondary to making sure that the number of dead end techs is reduced. (thereby increasing the computer's desire to build some techs - religeons notably - before turn 200)

 

[Gamestation]

You cut off the Grigori from getting feudalism and monarchy. They can't get omniscience either because they can't adopt leaves to get commune with nature. What do you have against OO (why is it so far compared to the other 4 religions)?

 

[Chip56]

Also that only fellowship of leaves can get druids&Baron& rangers is very unbalancing

 

[eerr]

making techs with religion prerequisits just isn't practical-you need to cut out all the red lined techs except awaken the ancients from leading more than one or two techs into the game

1. the grigori are restricted from all of these religious techs as they cannot adopt a religion
2. it may be worth having one or two techs requiring a religion, but having whole branches requiring a specific religion just arent fun(the nature branch, and the monarchy branch), because you restrict other religions from these choices
3.many civ uniq heros may not be accessable if they cannot obtain a certain religion
4.you cannot learn omnicscience or future tech if you have no access to the Fol religion?(this is unclear, is that an -or- branch ?)

 

[Yoshi2942]

First off - I have nothing against any of the Religeons or Factions. I fully recognize that I would miss a number of problems - and I was hoping that you guys would help me out in this regard .... and sure enough, you aren't letting me down.

I will remove the Commune requirement - easy enough.
OO is a step further, not because I have anything against it - but because that just happened to be where it made sense to put it in the line up. (infact, I almost always play OO).. to compensate for being a step further, I will remove the Mysticism requirement (which I am able to justify to myself).

As for only fellowship being able to get Druids, baron and rangers - completely makes sense as far as I'm concerned. No plans to change this as I can't possibly justify to myself Baron joining a Cult player.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I will remove the Commune requirement - easy enough.
OO is a step further, not because I have anything against it - but because that just happened to be where it made sense to put it in the line up. (infact, I almost always play OO).. to compensate for being a step further, I will remove the Mysticism requirement (which I am able to justify to myself).

OO isn't more powerful than the other religions. It has slightly more powerful military units, but it also has its drawbacks. Just because you prefer a particular religion doesn't mean that it's unbalanced.

 

[woodelf]

I'm all for changes, but I suggest playing each civ through at least 2 eras and try each religion a few times. We all have favorites, but the balance is quite good. Of course, warmongers might prefer X and builders might prefer Y, but overall the pluses and minuses are zeroed.

And I would definitely wait 11 days to attempt this. FIRE will change your thinking.

* - But use the next 11 days to try them all out so you can make changes after Fire.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Ancient Chants might be a good replacement for the Priesthood requirement.

It would allow other religions (and agnostics like the Grigori) access to the religious branch without adding junk techs. Plus, you can then separate the Way of the Wicked/Wise techs and either make them cost a lot more or give them more requirements (Code of Laws for the Order, Knowledge of the Ether or Necromancy for the Veil) without slowing down tech progression.

 

[Yoshi2942]

OO isn't more powerful than the other religions. It has slightly more powerful military units, but it also has its drawbacks. Just because you prefer a particular religion doesn't mean that it's unbalanced.

Sigh... When did I say that it was unbalanced or over powered? I play it because I preffer the background music associated with OO than the others.

And... get this.. out of all the units which I know that I want to "rebalance" (with current knowledge).. the only ones which I have actually rebalanced are the OO units, made them weaker.

I am NOT looking to play a powergamer's wet dream here.. I'm trying to get as much out of the game as I can.

As for how FIRE will change things, cool! I'm very much looking forward to Fire, and if I need to completely rethink things at that point - zero worries.

There are really two reasons I started this thread:
1) if anyone sees anything which precludes a faction from being able to build a specific unit, I would like to know this -- the monk example is a perfect one. That is something I will look at, and see how I can best "reassign" the monk to a different tech to fit my outlook.
2) if anyone else has been toying with the tech tree and wanted to post their tree and compare and contrast the reasons for certain placements, that would be great also.

Don't get me wrong, I love feedback - but I have played dozens of FFH games in which I remained in the game atleast 300 turns, and actually completed 10 or so games. I've played most of the leaders, and I have found that the default tree doesn't do it for me.

 

[Silverkiss]

Err.... Only FoL players can get Druids ? That means NONE of the others can terraform ? The only units able to terraform are Druids and FoL High Priests, so... How they are going to remain competitive ? Do you think that this is fair ? Same with rangers... Its the same as going "only Runes can get Macemen"... How can you prevent the acess to a whole branch of units just because of religion ? The religions alredy have their unique units... The basic branches need to be left off for everyone to choose from...

And last but not least, I call playing a dozen of FfH games in wich I stayed for 300 turns or more a boring tuesday.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

The only units able to terraform are Druids and FoL High Priests, so... How they are going to remain competitive ?

Archmages, too.

 

[Silverkiss]

Oh well, that shows I need to use the magic branch more. I don´t know why, as it is the most powerfull one, but I never use it.... Well, the rare times I use it I never got nature mana anyway

 

[Yoshi2942]

Macemen can still be built by anyone, they require Iron Working - or something like that.

And even if Archmages wheren't/aren't able to terraform, I'd STILL think that it is just fine to allow only those who worship Nature to be able to terraform. Not everyone needs access to everything. But I believe that the above is correct and that Archmages can terraform.

 

[eerr]

b. why not have a cultist baron? the baron is supposed to be Evil(he ate his fellow generals"before" he became mr wolvenstien)
I could easily see him going anyway possibly excepting the order(maybe)

c. why bother having druids?-the fellowship of leaves already gets access to genisis and the priest already gets the important vitalize promotion, the rest of the nature promotions are just fluff in comparison.

 

[Yoshi2942]

b. Hmm, didn't know this - I'll take it into account, but will probably just justify to myself that the only one who can control him is one who can control nature.

c. There are a number of units which I ask myself "why have such-n-such a unit?" Prophet is certainly one.. and for that matter, ALL of the mage/priest type units I would preffer if they were all upgrade units from the adept. But such a change is beyond the scope of what I am currently working on, I may revisit this again later, but for the time being I'm happy with the way of how games play out with this tech tree so far.

Keep the questions, thoughts, comments, complaints, ideas coming!