Is the single biggest issue the tech web?

[Hakan-i Cihan]

In addition to Galgus' ideas I think that the use of specialists should also be involved somehow in the process of obtaining affinity points. As they are now, they are pretty dull.

 

[Joch]

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

true, you can beeline to an outer ring tech early in the game, but there is always an opportunity cost.

Since research time keeps going down as your science level goes up in game, you have to weigh the costs of spending X turns researching a outer ring branch early versus spending the same X turns researching 2-4 middle ring branch and waiting until research time goes down before moving on to the outer ring.

Again, everyone has their own way of playing, but I generally find researching the low-time-cost basic techs first and gradually moving out to the middle and outer ring is a more efficient strategy than beelining.

At first glance, the Tech Web seems wide open, but it has its own constraints.

 

[Galgus]

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.

The idea would be that different affinities would still benefit more from different techs.

So you might research Sentient AI Robotics and get progress in Purity, but at the same time you will get nothing or next to nothing from Sentient AI Robotics as a tech because you aren't Supremacy.

The idea would be that a lot of bonuses and buildings would be locked behind affinity, so you need that affinity to utilize them.

So you could research a tech that obviously does not fit your affinity, but it would be very suboptimal.

(Why research an expensive tech that unlocks next to nothing for you?)
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@Hakan-i Cihan

Specialists definitely need something, but personally I like letting Virtue kickers upgrade Specialist yields instead, and made a mod to that effect.

I'm not sure how they would tie in with affinity progression to be honest.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The idea would be that a lot of bonuses and buildings would be locked behind affinity, so you need that affinity to utilize them.

Then why not just give the player supremacy points to go along with the supremacy stuff since only a supremacy player will bother researching the tech in the first place?

 

[Galgus]

Because that would punish players for researching neutral techs and/or require putting Supremacy points on anything that could possibly be affiliated with it.

The current system of affinity points from specific techs limits options when one is trying for an optimally fast victory.

It limits the freedom of research paths, which is the entire point of a tech web.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Because that would punish players for researching neutral techs and/or require putting Supremacy points on anything that could possibly be affiliated with it.

The current system of affinity points from specific techs limits options when one is trying for an optimally fast victory.

It limits the freedom of research paths, which is the entire point of a tech web.

Freedom of research paths is directly limited by optimally fast victory anyways.

Admittedly removing the 'these are the techs to research to reach Affinity 13 soonest' would help, but you still have the "these are the techs to research to get to the victory techs X, Y and Z soonest."

Part of the problem is choosing an affinity suddenly changes how valuable different techs are for you (because the Affinity points on them change value to near 0), so the tech web has effectively only 1/3 the techs.

They alleviate this slightly by having hybrid military units, both unique and generic upgrades (if I have Purity 6, getting Harmony 6 is actually helpful to my military).

The other change they need is hybrid Victories. If all you need for a Victory is Affinity 13, then you need to rush that.
However, if you need Purity Affinity+Total Affinity=30 then other affinities are actually useful in staying ahead. (same as for military)

 

[GenEngineer]

Part of the problem is choosing an affinity suddenly changes how valuable different techs are for you (because the Affinity points on them change value to near 0), so the tech web has effectively only 1/3 the techs.

But that was still a choice that you made, and can be made in every game. Even if it was each affinity has 1 strict path, that still affords you 3 paths to progress through the web. And as you mentioned, Hybrid affinities add to that, and there is more than one way through each affinity. Having some techs be valuable for different players is a natural consequence of a web where you aren't required to go a certain way to pick something up, and not a bad one in my opinion.

 

[Galgus]

Freedom of research paths is directly limited by optimally fast victory anyways.

Admittedly removing the 'these are the techs to research to reach Affinity 13 soonest' would help, but you still have the "these are the techs to research to get to the victory techs X, Y and Z soonest."

Part of the problem is choosing an affinity suddenly changes how valuable different techs are for you (because the Affinity points on them change value to near 0), so the tech web has effectively only 1/3 the techs.

They alleviate this slightly by having hybrid military units, both unique and generic upgrades (if I have Purity 6, getting Harmony 6 is actually helpful to my military).

The other change they need is hybrid Victories. If all you need for a Victory is Affinity 13, then you need to rush that.
However, if you need Purity Affinity+Total Affinity=30 then other affinities are actually useful in staying ahead. (same as for military)

That is true, and the game could benefit from higher affinity level requirements for victory.

 

[Psyonif]

I agree with most of OP's sentiment. The tech web looks like it adds more variety and choice, but what happens in actuality is that you only ever want 1/3 of it (or even less than that, you only ever want one of three linear branches of it), so in practice it makes the game substantially shorter and less diverse. It's bad enough that the number of distinct units has been ruthlessly culled going from Civ V to BE, but then the tech web massively exacerbates same-iness of every BE game because half the units are on dead end branches that are never worth exploring, for the AI or the player. As someone else mentioned, you never see a Roctopus or Aegis. And has anyone ever researched Human Idealism other than for the tech achievement? I know I haven't.

Reading the responses in the thread I agree that decoupling or generalizing the affinity gains from specific techs would mitigate the problem, but I don't think it would get rid of it. Civ V is a game with a (semi-)linear tech tree, and when you throw that in the trash and crudely transplant in a web, there's an infinity of balance and progression things that go subtly (or blatantly) wrong. Which is why when you're trying to have a comfy empire-building BE game it's over in 250 turns, rather than 450 for Civ V, and you leave feeling strangely short-changed.

I should also flag up underrated post:

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).

The tech web is bad, but I agree that this is much worse, especially from an immersive point of view. Since you can, pretty much, build every tile improvement on everywhere, I never really feel that I have to know, or care, about the geography I land in (other than that all-conquering metric, "How much titanium"). There's never any inclination to fight over high-quality land or rare resources; there's no geopolitical strategy to the game because nobody cares about anything on the geo.

I'm hoping that the landmarks in Rising Tide will go some way to making me interested in the actual features of the planet I land on, 'cos on vanilla BE, I am not.

 

[GenEngineer]

@ Psyonif - you make some good points, but the flaw in your argument is that they aren't specific to the tech web system. Are there some units that come too late to be useful? Yes, but that's not a product of the web being a web, but of them being in the wrong tech - if you make it a tree but still put those units in later techs, the issue still appears. Are there some techs that are useless? Yes (although Human Idealism at least has more use in Rising Tide, as the tech that unlocks Thrones), but they would still be useless in a tree as is. Gamespeed has more of a link to the web yes, but that could likewise be fixed by upping the relative cost of each ring of techs and/or nerfing the way science is gained (academies, free techs for stuff, etc...).

As for only some techs being useful in a given playthrough... why is that a bad thing? If you mean that about 1/3 of the techs are underpowered, then they need a buff, and would need a buff in a tree as well. If you mean that in a game of Purity, the Harmony techs aren't useful, then I consider that a positive, and that putting it in a tree would just make those dead techs mandatory. The affinity-tech link weakens that, yes, but that doesn't mean we need a tree, it means we need to decouple the systems more.

In short, you point out good flaws, but none of them would be instantly fixed by turning the web into a tree. They would need something else, and that something else could also be applied to a web.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The tech web is bad, but I agree that this is much worse, especially from an immersive point of view. Since you can, pretty much, build every tile improvement on everywhere, I never really feel that I have to know, or care, about the geography I land in (other than that all-conquering metric, "How much titanium"). There's never any inclination to fight over high-quality land or rare resources; there's no geopolitical strategy to the game because nobody cares about anything on the geo.

I'm hoping that the landmarks in Rising Tide will go some way to making me interested in the actual features of the planet I land on, 'cos on vanilla BE, I am not.

Terrain and rivers do actually have a pretty big impact on the game. If you are lucky and get several flood plain tiles you will have a significant energy advantage throughout the game (which means more early building buys and being able to skip Solar Collectors). Same goes for having Titanium or a bunch of high food ressources around your capital.

Good terrain is easily a 10 turn (or 5%) wintime reduction. But it does never have any impact on your strategy. You just do the same you always do, only slightly better/faster. You don't interact with it differently. And it is not worth fighting over it, because you usually lose a lot of momentum with an early military buildup. So you just settle the suboptimal spots instead.

 

[Psyonif]

As for only some techs being useful in a given playthrough... why is that a bad thing? If you mean that about 1/3 of the techs are underpowered, then they need a buff, and would need a buff in a tree as well. If you mean that in a game of Purity, the Harmony techs aren't useful, then I consider that a positive, and that putting it in a tree would just make those dead techs mandatory.

I suppose my thinking is coming from the point of view of "Because you only ever need 1/3 of techs, games only take (inexactly) 1/3 as long, and so you finish on turn 250 instead of turn 450 before you've got time to have any real adventures with your little empire".

Which is true and needs fixing, but I take the point that forcing you to research a bunch of dead techs is probably not the most enjoyable way to have the problem corrected.

I suppose what's worth opining is that if you're going to make a tech web so players only ever have to research 1/3rd of the technologies, the tech web needs to be three times as big as the tech tree such that everything syncs up nicely again.

 

[Galgus]

The issue is that games need to last longer and that beeline routes and useless techs need to be addressed, not that there aren't enough techs.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I suppose my thinking is coming from the point of view of "Because you only ever need 1/3 of techs, games only take (inexactly) 1/3 as long, and so you finish on turn 250 instead of turn 450 before you've got time to have any real adventures with your little empire".

My other problem with the tech limitation is that I actually don't even want the stuff I research during the late game. Many Harmony techs offer nothing of interest for a peaceful player - I only get them because I need the affinity points. Which is sad, because that means I have to forgo so many interesting techs that actually have neat stuff attached to them - but it's useless, because I don't get my affinity points from it.

Let's have a look (from a peaceful builder player type POV):
-> Alien Biology: Gimmicky (but pretty decent early on)
-> Alien Adaption: Useless
-> Alien Hybridization: Useless
-> Alien Evolution: Useless
-> Alen Domestication: Close to useless
-> Swarm Robotics: Useless
-> Tissue Engineering: Useless
-> Nanorobotics: Useless
-> Swarm Intelligence: Useless
-> Metamaterials: Useless
-> Exotic Matter: Only useful if you have Geothermal and get it early
-> Designer Lifeforms: Useless
-> Photosystems: Good if you need the Solar Collectors, otherwise "meh"

So we have at best 3 sort-of-useful techs, 1 really weak tech and 9 useless techs. Yay, I am getting spoiled by choise... Q_Q

 

[GenEngineer]

My other problem with the tech limitation is that I actually don't even want the stuff I research during the late game. Many Harmony techs offer nothing of interest for a peaceful player - I only get them because I need the affinity points. Which is sad, because that means I have to forgo so many interesting techs that actually have neat stuff attached to them - but it's useless, because I don't get my affinity points from it.

Again, more of an issue with how Affinity and the Tech Web interact than the Affinities alone. While RT moved affinities around (hopefully helping), I still think that fixing the affinity quest bug and letting fire a lot more often could solve this, since it would let affinities develop separate from progress in science.

 

[Ryika]

I think that assumption is false - you'd still want to get as much affinity from techs as you can, because getting more affinity is always better than not getting more affinity.

 

[Psyonif]

The issue is that games need to last longer and that beeline routes and useless techs need to be addressed, not that there aren't enough techs.

My reasoning was that adding more techs is a possible solution to the problems of short games and beeline routes.

Swarm Robotics: Useless

I personally think that the Drone Sphere is the best wonder in the game and I beeline Swarm Robotics even if I'm playing Purity/Supremacy.

(But apart from that, I agree that getting tech just for the affinity is unsatisfying)

 

[Galgus]

There are already plenty of techs that are extremely weak: giving a reason to invest in more of them would be a better solution.

(Alongside raising the affinity requirement for victory and changing the way affinity points are gained.)

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I personally think that the Drone Sphere is the best wonder in the game and I beeline Swarm Robotics even if I'm playing Purity/Supremacy.

(But apart from that, I agree that getting tech just for the affinity is unsatisfying)

The wonder effect is pretty nice, but when I get the tech my Academies are already built. If it was a T1 wonder, I'd probably get it. The thing that annoys me the most about it is the Floatstone requirement. I'd not waste science to get Terraforming just for that (thankfully there is usually an AI around to trade that single unit you need).

 

[gunnergoz]

Am I the only one who enjoys research that has random elements to it so each game is different? Would it not be interesting to play a game not always knowing exactly what is going to result from a particular line of research? I appreciate that logic and science dictate that some technologies are connected to specific discoveries and that one can research with an eye towards making those same discoveries, but there are also ample historical discoveries and resultant technologies that came about due to blind luck and coincidence (not to mention dead ends that were a waste of time and effort.) So I would have been happier with a tech web that was not quite so concrete as it is now, preferring one that had some variability and surprises built into it so each game plays out different from the previous one.