<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
The Solvay Conference may be a good idea, but boosting a NW which you may or may not have built? I would rather boost Universities (and maybe Academy too).
Brainstorming Thread - One-Trick-Pony Techs
- Thread starter Vokarya
- Start date
The Solvay Conference may be a good idea, but boosting a NW which you may or may not have built? I would rather boost Universities (and maybe Academy too).
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
Well, you know, I almost never build academies
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
A different idea. Vokarya mentioned several times how hard it is to create wonders for the Renaissance era. How about adding SI (International System of Units) as a project? It could add little (5%?) bonus to money, production, science and connectednes to all civs, and a free GP (scientist, engineer or merchant picked randomly) for the builder.
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
Not bad, I like the idea
I'm still not seeing enough to salvage both Relativity and Quantum Physics. I also don't think that Solvay has enough mythological "heft" to count as a World Wonder. Perhaps making Scientific Conference a National Wonder available at Relativity is possible, but I think the cleanest thing we can do is cut QP and give Uranium to Relativity -- I want to keep Relativity, and two tricks is enough.
A couple thoughts on the current status of Humanism.
First, I like the idea of getting a third trait at Humanism. I think it's totally unique and would make the game much more interesting. The only thing I have to wonder about is how would the AI choose which trait it gets. Would it be hardwired, random, or determined? You'd need an entire AI routine to do this if you make it determined.
Secondly, what if Humanism gave you a Great Person that you couldn't get any other way? I was thinking it could give a literal Renaissance Man. It would either have the abilities of every Great Person (keep in mind that any use of a Great Person consumes the unit) or be able to upgrade to any kind of Great Person. You might get a second one at Homo Superior.
First, I like the idea of getting a third trait at Humanism. I think it's totally unique and would make the game much more interesting. The only thing I have to wonder about is how would the AI choose which trait it gets. Would it be hardwired, random, or determined? You'd need an entire AI routine to do this if you make it determined.
Secondly, what if Humanism gave you a Great Person that you couldn't get any other way? I was thinking it could give a literal Renaissance Man. It would either have the abilities of every Great Person (keep in mind that any use of a Great Person consumes the unit) or be able to upgrade to any kind of Great Person. You might get a second one at Homo Superior.
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
I'm a bit dubious on the third trait and this would require additional coding. What does Afforess think about it? I'm OK with the Great Person.
Afforess
The White Wizard
The third trait is possible, but my concern is not with the technical aspect, but the balancing aspect. Being able to pick a trait in game, part way through the game, that seems highly exploitable. There are certain trait combinations that don't exist because they are too powerful (see: Industrious trait), and this would suddenly allow players to pick those traits. I am worried the entire balance of traits, which is designed to be useful over the course of an entire game, would be suddenly thrown off. Certain traits like Nomad would be pointless to adopt at Humanism. Others, like Deceiver or Industrious might be too powerful.
I don't want to do events as long as No Events is an option. You can make a non-random event by setting iWeight to -1 (I'm pretty sure iWeight 0 means the event will never trigger, but iWeight -1 means it triggers as soon as the conditions are right), but No Events turns even those events off. This hurts Blarney Castle a little and Woodstock a lot; at some point I have to write a Python routine to allow Woodstock to go off even if No Events is on.
True about the early-game/late-game. I'd completely forgotten about Nomad. I was thinking Creative is also much more powerful in the early game.
Why is No Events still an option? A) It's dull and B) it's a bit cheaty, isn't it?
I suppose that you could have a small selection of Humanism traits, with both positives and negatives, or you could go for an upgrade trait for one of your existing traits, with Homo Superior then boosting the other trait. It could make traits like Creative just that bit more interesting.
I suppose that you could have a small selection of Humanism traits, with both positives and negatives, or you could go for an upgrade trait for one of your existing traits, with Homo Superior then boosting the other trait. It could make traits like Creative just that bit more interesting.
I agree with you, but it's a core BTS option and some people (especially multiplayer) swear by No Events/No Huts. So I feel like we have to leave that as an option.
Rezca
The Greatest Jaggi
There's some people who don't like the randomness that Events add in. I don't see how it's cheaty at all though. I suppose maybe removing the random hits to diplomacy you have no control over (Airplane crash, faux passes, etc) might count as 'cheating' depending on how one wants to look at it
ETA that it'd also remove the 'good' random events like free great people (The senate/hereditary line dying out, ice sculptures, assassin in the capitol, Stonehenge druids...) too...
Rezca
The Greatest Jaggi
Was just about to say that, then I go back to edit my post to include it and see this - no need to then
Events/Goodies I often see disabled in multiplayer but I generally play with both on all the time. There's been a few times where I've disabled Events though.
Okay, so here's where we stand right now. To the modern era, we have 13 techs that are troublesome.
Three techs are getting to the 2-trick threshold just through rearranging existing content:
Four techs need something created where I at least have an idea of what to make:
One tech I want to keep but don't know what to give it:
Five techs are just getting cut out completely:
Three techs are getting to the 2-trick threshold just through rearranging existing content:
- Relativity (gets Uranium from Quantum Physics)
- Microprocessor (gets Design Studio from 3D Modeling)
- Superconductors (gets Maglev from Magnetic Levitation and Great Scientist from Superstring Theory, gives up Supercollider)
Four techs need something created where I at least have an idea of what to make:
- Storytelling (Myths as part of hunting-capturing mechanic)
- Humanism (Renaissance Man)
- Submarine Warfare (Enigma)
- Hydroponics (Hydroponic Farm improvement and/or Gardens By The Bay)
One tech I want to keep but don't know what to give it:
- Thermodynamics
Five techs are just getting cut out completely:
- Quantum Physics
- Modern Physics
- 3D Modeling
- Fuel Cells
- Magnetic Levitation (getting replaced by Particle Physics, along with Superstring Theory)
The Transhuman Era is the hardest era to make content for, because everything we make is pretty much an extrapolation from existing content or inspired by fiction in some way. Fortunately, there are only 7 problem one-trick techs:
Here are a couple of ideas.
Cryogenic Prison: This is an upgrade of the Jail available at Cryogenics. I'm thinking it would have the same level of espionage production, but be even better at suppressing War Weariness and offer a small break (-10%) on city maintenance, as the prisoners aren't doing anything while being frozen. Of course, it does require Power, so if you lose power, you have to fall back on a regular Jail.
Meeting of Minds: This is a working name. Back when I was working on C2C, the Galactic Era was a wide swath of technologies with very little content (it's been nearly two years, and I've been deliberately not paying attention to anything they're doing). One of the intriguing ideas buried in the strategy entries was a Museum of Humanity at the Astroanthropology tech. The name always stuck with me, and I was thinking that something similar would work for our Mind Uploading tech, as a way of being a repository for your civilization's greatest minds. I was thinking there are three possibilities:
Virtual Democracy: This would be a civic available at Mesh Networks. I'm not really sure what type it would fall under, but it would represent direct citizen voting through electronic means. The effect would be a civic with high upkeep and sensitive to shock (high war weariness, unhappiness from taxes) but very stable, generate lots of culture and (maybe) science, and its greatest strength would be a civic building that allows every city to count as a Palace (if this breaks maintenance completely, then it doesn't have to happen) -- this would be called the Voting Uplink. The reason for this is to make sure that a Wonder like Independence Hall doesn't break this civic completely; you would need a Computer Network as a prerequisite for the Voting Uplink.
As far as Bionics and Cybernetics go, I'm not sure keeping both of these is a great idea. I think the casual meanings of these techs are too close together, and technical precision isn't a really good way to make a tech, so I would lean towards axing Bionics and keeping Cybernetics. The problem with collapsing both of these technologies is that the two pieces of actual content they share are two units in a chain. I think we are actually better off moving Automatons to Brain-Machine Interface; the Civilopedia description of these units is that they are clones controlled by implanted computers, which would be a pretty good fit for BMI, and would save that tech.
Anti-Aging Medicine is another problem tech for me. The issue here is that we have a run of medical techs in the Transhuman Era: Replacement Organs, Anti-Aging Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, Smart Drugs, and Homo Superior. I don't really like having a single field represent so many techs in a particular era, and this one might be worth cutting out and reassigning the Longevity project; either to Regenerative Medicine or Smart Drugs.
- Brain-Machine Interface: Bioenhancement Center building
- Mesh Networks: Advanced Quality Control building
- Anti-Aging Medicine: Longevity project
- Bionics: Automatons unit
- Cybernetics: Cyborg unit
- Mind Uploading: Mind Storage national wonder
- Cryogenics: SS Stasis Chamber spaceship part
Here are a couple of ideas.
Cryogenic Prison: This is an upgrade of the Jail available at Cryogenics. I'm thinking it would have the same level of espionage production, but be even better at suppressing War Weariness and offer a small break (-10%) on city maintenance, as the prisoners aren't doing anything while being frozen. Of course, it does require Power, so if you lose power, you have to fall back on a regular Jail.
Meeting of Minds: This is a working name. Back when I was working on C2C, the Galactic Era was a wide swath of technologies with very little content (it's been nearly two years, and I've been deliberately not paying attention to anything they're doing). One of the intriguing ideas buried in the strategy entries was a Museum of Humanity at the Astroanthropology tech. The name always stuck with me, and I was thinking that something similar would work for our Mind Uploading tech, as a way of being a repository for your civilization's greatest minds. I was thinking there are three possibilities:
- A global bonus for all your Specialists, with individual bonuses for each type (so +
for all Artists, +
for all Engineers, etc.) - One free Specialist of every single type
- One free Specialist of every single Great Person type. This one is probably too powerful, but it just seemed worth including.
Virtual Democracy: This would be a civic available at Mesh Networks. I'm not really sure what type it would fall under, but it would represent direct citizen voting through electronic means. The effect would be a civic with high upkeep and sensitive to shock (high war weariness, unhappiness from taxes) but very stable, generate lots of culture and (maybe) science, and its greatest strength would be a civic building that allows every city to count as a Palace (if this breaks maintenance completely, then it doesn't have to happen) -- this would be called the Voting Uplink. The reason for this is to make sure that a Wonder like Independence Hall doesn't break this civic completely; you would need a Computer Network as a prerequisite for the Voting Uplink.
As far as Bionics and Cybernetics go, I'm not sure keeping both of these is a great idea. I think the casual meanings of these techs are too close together, and technical precision isn't a really good way to make a tech, so I would lean towards axing Bionics and keeping Cybernetics. The problem with collapsing both of these technologies is that the two pieces of actual content they share are two units in a chain. I think we are actually better off moving Automatons to Brain-Machine Interface; the Civilopedia description of these units is that they are clones controlled by implanted computers, which would be a pretty good fit for BMI, and would save that tech.
Anti-Aging Medicine is another problem tech for me. The issue here is that we have a run of medical techs in the Transhuman Era: Replacement Organs, Anti-Aging Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, Smart Drugs, and Homo Superior. I don't really like having a single field represent so many techs in a particular era, and this one might be worth cutting out and reassigning the Longevity project; either to Regenerative Medicine or Smart Drugs.
Rezca
The Greatest Jaggi
Longevity as a project could require both Regenerative Medicine and Smart Drugs?
I might not know the specifics, but Anti-Aging Medicine and Regenerative Medicine both seem like... Well, like they'd accomplish the same thing. So I don't think AAM would be needed.
I might not know the specifics, but Anti-Aging Medicine and Regenerative Medicine both seem like... Well, like they'd accomplish the same thing. So I don't think AAM would be needed.
Similar threads
