Racial Tech Advantages

[Kimball]

I am just wondering what everyone's opinions are about racial tech levels. Is there one racial tech filed that is better? Religious looks because of the system wide combat advantages, but organic looks good because of the armor and population advantages. Then there is Chyrstalline Tech...you get the idea. Any opinions and comments are welcome.

[Socialist]

i like Temporal..they dont look as snazzy as organics or crystaline..but its bonus is that
it gives shield buster tech on its main fireing weapons..decent/mid/long range, and par to above damage..is 2 turn firing weapons are excellent in damage..6 - or better range on it too. also happiness bonus components for planets..handy dandy.
great with PDF against missle (ie organic)
seekers. run them down! fire your big boys and burn through any armour..be done with them heheh

i like finding best ways of dealing with Organics lovers

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Waves his Red flag

Socialist

[Sinapus]

I suppose it would depend on your style. I prefer Advanced Storage Techniques myself.

I did try Organic Tech in one game. I prefer the standard weapons, but the population growth modifier facilities seem useful. That Medical Lab facility seems useful, too, but I wish the happiness modifier would increase with level as well. I ended up building an Urban Pacification Center III in all my systems as well, since that will get every planet to "Jubilant" levels, while the Medical Lab would only raise them to "Happy".

[Snap Spelljammer]

I play with Temporal, Psychic, Religious, and Crystal.

Temporal because of the fast construction, plus the Vacation facility has a happiness modifier of 6. The urban and fate shrine only give 3. I don't think the temporal weapons and such are all that great, except for the seeker parasite.

Psychic for the Allegiance Subverter. The psy scanner facility is nice too.

Religous because the shrines and talisman rock. =)

It's a toss up between organic and crystal, I'm playing with organic in my current game, but I like crystal more. I like the facility that cuts your maint costs down.

Most 4x games come down to economy. If I can get a bigger economy than you I will probably win. I go in for all the production and construction speed bonuses that I can.

To get all 4 of the traits I cut my strength to -50% and my politics to -50%.

With my ability to wipe a planet clean with my normal ships I don't need troops. I can always subvert one of thier colony ships to get access to thier population.

And with the computer ALWAYS turning on you when you get a certain % bigger than them I hardly ever go in for treaties so I could care less about the trade penalty.

[General Hawkwing]

I use the speed bonus racial modifier. I helps in ship combat and exploration.

[Kimball]

I wasn't aware that the propulsion racial advantage gives an additional combat movement too. Thank you.

[Triumvir Emphy]

going down to -50% doesn't give you the bang for your buck, after going down by 20% points gained are very low. Everybody has radiation and green stuff coming out your ears, so reduce those by 20% and gain more points to play with else where.

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[Commander G]

What you pick for racial traits will vary somewhat if you are playing AI's or people. As someone earlier noted, you can afford trade at 50% because once the mega evil AI triggers, trade will do you no good, Playing against human, research and resources from trade are crucial until you can a huge lead. Another factor is how many starting points. With 2000 it is hard to sacrifice enough to get more than two advanced traits without seriously hurting your economy.

I myself, like to take two traits in a 2000 point game. If I'm playing Rock, I like Natural Merchants since a space port really cuts into the facilities if there is only one colonizable planet in a system. It also speeds up the startup of a new solar system. If I am playing Gas Giant, I pass on the natural merchants since you get all huge and large worlds and can spare one slot for a space port.

I usually like to take the extra movement trait because you can either move your ships one faster or you can remove one engine and save the metal/minerals for something else. In the early game, the biggest cost factor of ships is the engines and their affect on metal. Getting to planets faster, is a good way to optimize growth, a key factor in any 4X game.

I tend to disfavor increasing the shipyard rate since you can quickly produce a fleet that consumes all your resource for maintenance. Resources are more of a limiting factor in my mind than Shipyard capacity.

Also consider taking 50 to 80% for repair rates to get the points somewhere else. Repair does not help you much in the game if you can build a new ship as fast as you can repair it.

Combinations that I like include Extra Movement + Temporal, Extra Movement + Organic, Extra Movement + Crystal.

Another thing to consider when looking at advanced traits for economy bonus is how do they cost verus gaining 20 by picking 120% on the nonadvanced screen. Usually, you only want to pick the advanced trait if you take 120% plus the advanced bonus. Otherwise, it is not cost effective.

50% to 80% on Strength is a good choice since Troops are a ways down the tech tree and it is much easier to clear a planet than to take one over.

You may be able to go 80% on intelligence and just play it defensively with counter-intelligence to gain points as well. I am a little leary of doing this myself.

Trade at 80% is still useful, even in a multi-player game. At 50% you may be helping the other person to much for what you are getting.

[Commander G]

Another think I would like to add, is consider taking a reduction on Organics and Radioatives if you do not intend to use much of these. If you pick Organic Advanced you need better organice resource production. Likewise, Temporal uses a fair amount of Radioactives.

[nweaver]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kimball:
I am just wondering what everyone's opinions are about racial tech levels. Is there one racial tech filed that is better? Religious looks because of the system wide combat advantages, but organic looks good because of the armor and population advantages. Then there is Chyrstalline Tech...you get the idea. Any opinions and comments are welcome.

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I am a huge fan of organic technology. Hele's why:

Medlab, organic armor, and replicant center. +10 to +40M population per planet per TURN ends up having a huge effect. Self healing armor can make even a wimpy transport fairly damage resistant.

But, even more than that, there are Fighters.

Fighter's are god's gift to an organic race. Fighters have no maintinence cost, so you can crank out tons of them and not have to worry about paying the bills, placing swarms of dozens to hundreds at every warp point into your space. They have insane innate bonuses, to boot.

More importantly, Organic races have the ultimate fighter weapon: Small Electric Discharge, which at Lvl 3, is a space 3, range 3, damage 20! weapon. You can fit 2 on a small fighter and still have room for 7 engines. So, at L1 fighter tech, L3 organic weapons and small weapons, you can be cranking out tons of little gnats, each of which has about half the damage potential of a comparable escort or frigate, but you can make 7 or more per turn per shipyard.

You can fit 2 on a large fighter and still have room for 9 engines, shields, cluter bomb (gotta cleanse those planets quickly), and ECM. Or just fit 4 and engines. Even better, it only costs organic, so the build time from the weapons is effectively zero, the build time is just the rest of the fighter chassis.

Also, fighter production parallelizes extreemly well, just early on build A spaceyard, have it build more spaceyards, etc. Once your production starts to be more than your income, start mothballing them and save them until you need to produce a good swarm.

Whenever excess income is coming in, build more fighters. Transport them to your frontline planets and launch them in large Groups from the surface, to cover warp points.

And, it just seems fitting that an organic race should rely on "The Swarm!"