An idea to balance out tech

[DavidG]

I just read a thread where Baron Munchausen said something about sphereworlds to the effect that "if you can build them you have already won"
I think this is true of many techs and it would probably be fun to play a game with several players of similar tech level. My idea would be to make it so that after you research a tech the other races would have a certain chance to aquire it. Not right away of course but say after a year of having a tech information about it would leak out and the other races may randomly aquire it. Sort of like the 'tech breakthroughs' in MOO2. OF course this would probably require a major code change.

[Puke]

yeah. Imperialism had a great system where after one player researched a technology, other players had the option of buying it. I think it was exclusive for a short period, then it became available on the open market.

essentially technologies represented industrial developments, and you were recruiting merchants and tradesmen and industry barons and such whom could develop those technologies within your nation.

doing something similar in se4 would definitly require a hard code change, unless you played a moderated game or a game with a good code of honor where players made technologies available to each other shortly after researching them.

[Arkcon]

Another 4X space game I played -- Galactic Civilizations had something like this. Basically, when you invested intelligence points, you learned something about other civilizations culture, and once you knew everything about their culture, you would occasionally acquire some of their best technology.

Simply put, Gal Civ was not as carefully balanced as SE4, and this is just one example.

OTOH, the SE4 intelligence project Technological Espionage is really too expensive. I've wiped an AI off the map at times before the project could even finish. It often fails if you know what you're looking for, and if you don't specify, you end up acquireing Physics I or something. If you Crew Insurrect a top of the line ship, you can analyze it for all of it's advanced tech. (I know you might not make it to the shipyard, but still)

This would seem to suggest that Tech Espionage is ... hmm ... is overbalanced a fair term?

[ August 11, 2002, 14:01: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[DavidG]

Hmm I wonder if you could mod this idea by making Intell really easy to get. Make it much more effective and remove all projects but the tech Espionage?

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Hmm I wonder if you could mod this idea by making Intell really easy to get. Make it much more effective and remove all projects but the tech Espionage?

That might be a worthwhile mod to make. It could be fun to play on an occasionally leveling field. Then winning would be based on tactics rather than who researched what first. I dunno though, that sounds similar to high tech start, which doesn't guarantee a fun game.

Anyway, some of the current intelligence projects really seem uninteresting to me. Late in the game, cargo destruction really doesn't make much of a dent in the massed weapon platforms, for instance.

And what's with poisoning the population? Maybe this seems horrific to a human player -- but does it really dent production? Ditto for destroying one facility or damageing conditions or planet value.

Some people want more complicated intelligence, then a wise person pointed out -- if you want that, take out the ships and planets and call the game Intelligence Wars

[Phoenix-D]

"And what's with poisoning the population? Maybe this seems horrific to a human player -- but does it really dent production? Ditto for destroying one facility or damageing conditions or planet value."

Yes, it does. It also makes planets easier to invade/kill off. Knocking out one facility can be critical if that facility is, say, a Robotroid Factory. Conditions doesn't do a whole lot, but the hurt from planet value drops should be obvious- less of that resource can be produced there.

Phoenix-D

[jimbob]

And of course the loss of population will have a more profound effect in mods like Proportions.

[Fyron]

Trust me, the pop-killing intel project can really screw over colony worlds. It kills a few 100 million at a time (IIRC). This can be used, in conjunction with cargo bombs, to prevent those colonies from ever having any population.

[DavidG]

Yup I think sadly intel is useless in SE4. Well it can be fun for a bit early on but it seems that it quickly becomes useless as races get defenses which seem impossible to breach. I would like to have any intell project have at least a certain minimum chance of succeding. Intell defense should just reduce the percentage chance of a project succeding. Getting back to my idea is it acutually possible to mod the game so that you could run an Espionage project and have a gauraneted chance of success? I'm thinking if you could remove counter intel and basically all the projects except Tech Espionage. But will this mean the tech espionage would always work or can you set the percentage chance that it will work. ie say 10 or 20% chance of sucess?

[DavidG]

PS yes when Pop killing tech reduces a planet to 0 that is nasty!