Non linearity of tech web asks the player for too much

I usually go for the fastest available techs but I could see how the number of choices can cause player fatigue, especially once you hit the second ring without a specific victory focus in mind. In Civ 5, one usually had to research most if not all techs to achieve most of the victory conditions. In BE, on a bad day I think it could be overwhelming. But the affinity focus in teching helps especially in figuring out how to upgrade your units.

 

I find tech progression pretty natural. If I haven't a victory in mind yet I base my tech choice on immediate needs and short term goals

 

My only complaints is in regards to affinities and the techweb. Can you get your affinity points from going that way? Yes, research it. No, almost always skip it.

I think a non-linear tree would have been better. Get these techs which branch into a single required tech. Than split in 3 directions with affinity flavored techs than the 3 paths merge again into a single tech that all affinities will need. Split again into multiple paths and converge again.

These connecting techs where the branches merge again would be the key techs, for example a Civil Service type tech, Fertilizer, Guilds, the ones that give boosts to your yields. Each affinity path vould have different boosters on top of the ones everyone gets.

With the web, it's possible to entirely skip key buildings. Imagine playing CiV and never getting Universities or Workshops. That had got to be a balancing nightmare because the designers do not know how much science or production the player will be producing at any given point in the game.

 

Too much emphasis on affinity techs imo. It's too short as well, all the "free techs" are gonna have to go.

 

I agree that choosing a new tech felt like a showstopper in the beginning. I needed to interupt the game for several minutes to look through two dozen possible options.

But now, it feels better and better. I've taken some notes about stuff that is easy to reach and offers great advantages (e.g. buildings with great cost/usefullness ratio, or techs that offer multiple strong items), to help me remember possible paths.

 

In the mid-late game, my cities have so many buildings and improvements that the techs don't really matter any more. Farms get +1 food? Oh, ok. But it doesn't give me affinity points that I need to win, so I skip it, regardless of how useful it might actually be to my cities, it doesn't help me win sooner. This feels sub-optimal.

Having played 4 proper games now (won 3), there are still a handful of leaf and even branch techs in the 3rd and 4th rings that I've never researched because of their cost, incorrect affinity and plain pointlessness (there are several that only unlock crappy wonders - they give affinity but other techs give affinity + something useful).

I think my beef with the tech web is the leaf techs are so much more expensive than the branch techs, so if I have a choice of waiting 12 turns for a leaf tech that gives me something I consider to be worth 8/10, I'd rather spend 6 turns getting a branch tech that gives me 7/10 value instead.

 

For me, it's actually the opposite, I LOVE the huge non-linear tech web because it gives you much more in terms of choices and customization. In CiV, I usually just b-lined the same clearly great techs over and over again and filled out the "minor" trchs at opportune times, which made me "autopilot" my research choices too much to really get any enjoyable decisions out of it.

In BE, I can just go every direction I want and change course any time I want, depending on the situation, without feeling too punished. I love it.

I'll concede that it creates a huge learning curve, but I feel it will add a lot of longterm replayability.

 

Once you become more familiar with the options and what they mean, I think the level of complexity is about right. Unfortunately, the nonintuitive abstract monochrome icons don't help.

The search feature is nice, but I think it should go a step farther and include the description text; for example, I'd like to be able to search for "farm" to find all the farm upgrades.

 

Once you become more familiar with the web it becomes more of a tree. I have almost the same progression every game, with maybe a slight detour if im boxed in by aliens.

Its pretty much chem first, then pioneering, then usually ecology(for the UF so I can get trade route immunity, then genetics for the vault and level 1 purity if I havnt luck sacked it yet, then depending on the game computers or the one that gives you the auto plant. After that it depends on whether your going dom or something else.

If im boxed in sometime i'll detour for rangers earlier, if only to prebuild them for gunners at level 2. But most games it doesn't change very much, unless I feel like grabbing the ecto pod is worth it.

 

It is overwhelming at first, but after a few games you will notice where the important techs are - and from that point onwards, you will eventually discover the best early game tech routes. Mid and late game is about picking Affinity related techs once you have that necessary stuff, so in reality there is not all that much meaningful choise.

 

I was very surprised to see that missing. I was spamming Generators and had to open up the web browser to find the techs that buff them. I feel like that would be a pretty simple addition, but hey, who knows.

We need some color on the tech web (and ability to sort by color) as was as an advanced search. I don't even think it shows the max yields if you look up "Generator" in the 'pedia.

 

Well, Human have ability to learn so after few learning games, You will know which way to go. On the other hands, I have great joy while I see AI building wonder after wonder while no AI thought about building an Warp gate... Easy victory. (at Gemini)

 

My favorite part of starting up a new game is trying different tech paths. I let the starting surroundings dictate where I go next. Yes, chemistry, pioneering, physics, engineering are all priority before venturing out to the second ring, but instead of genetics you might go computing for early spy rush, which also leads to mostly supremacy and orbital techs.

 

Yes, this in addition with the "technobabble" is going to put off many new players (new to 4X games and/or science fiction). Civ:BE could have benefited from something like Alpha Centauri's Blind Research (Focus on Affinity/Purity/Supremacy?)

There's already a "Tech Tree Color Mod" on Steam Workshop.

 

I'm a fan of the tech web in general, but I would like it if there was a filter for "can research", so it highlights only the techs that are available to research right now.

 

There is a certain skill curve associated with the tech web. the more you play it, the more you are comfortable with it. Suddenly you begin to know that certain techs are more useful with certain affinities and once you have these connections in your mind it's much easier to plan.

If you look closer, than NE direction is Growth + Happiness direction. N is energy. SE is tile improvement. Strong military stuff is on W. Most of the satelites are South.

Take Academies for example, their located on a Supremacy path, if I decide to use them, then i will certainly consider going knowledge virtue to improve them.

If I go Purity then I will strive for farms, and thus get the +1 food wonder tech and so on.

The more you play it the more it makes sense. The only problem is the lackluster wonders which make their choice not fun.

 

Yes, otherwise, mechanically it's probably among the best tech trees ever made.

There already is. You have white techs, can research purple techs, and cannot research grey techs.

 

This also should be in the civilopedia for each improvement. If I go to "farm", it should tell me all the techs and wonders and virtues that boost it and by how much. Similar for all the other improvements.