Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 16, 2023, 03:27:46 PM

Title: Diverging tech tree?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 16, 2023, 03:27:46 PM

Recently I have read a criticism on tech tree convergence. Meaning that there are a lot of choices early on and these choices may really shape faction differently depending on what research goal they pursue. However, as game progresses, the tech tree converges to same techs meaning that from mid to late game all factions start to share all the technologies becoming quite indistinguishable.
That is probably the inevitable design solution to ensure everybody can reach the transcendence regardless of chosen tech path.

However, let's imagine that we can somehow design not converging tech tree where the freedom of choice is kept until the end game. At the same time we fairly allow every tech path to be able to discover transcendence with about same chance or even guaranteed. So instead of tech tree currently looking like a new year tree narrowing down to the latest tech, it will be equally wide at the end allowing more choices.

The question is would it be more interesting? Does it add more spice to the game?

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Just to clarify the setup further.

The tech tree keep the same properties. Meaning all techs are still interconnected. Every faction is potentially can research any tech.
The tech exchange/stealing is still in place. Faction can obtain techs by all possible means.

The only differences with vanilla design is that number of choices does not diminish toward the end of the game and it is not required to research everything to get to transcendence. Say 50-60-70% or so.

Title: Re: Diverging tech tree?
Post by: bvanevery on September 17, 2023, 01:26:06 AM

Are you going to mod the game to have lots of new techs?  Because otherwise, what you propose cannot exist.  I've already diverged the tech tree as much as is possible in my mod.  The main method of divergence is to pay very careful discipline and attention to the Explore Discover Build Conquer weights for any given tech.  I did this in spades, 5 years of "long tail" effort on such concerns.  Lots of playtesting.  I even have every faction with a unique combo of Explore Discover Build Conquer for their research strategy.  So, I know what can be done and what cannot be, with the current techs.

Eventually, towards the end of the game, there aren't enough techs in the tech tree anymore, for the different research foci to matter much.  That's inevitable when there aren't a large number of techs compared to what's necessary to win the game.  In my mod I require all techs to be learned to reach Transcendence.  All techs in the tree are strictly required for something.  Eventually you get to the very last tech.

Perhaps players are really just complaining about the pace of tech in Will To Power being too fast.  I probably still have an Issue filed in your tracker to "Stop Tech Leakage".  I didn't bring it up the other week when people were talking about various game stuff, because there seemed to be a fair amount of people talking, and I didn't want to squelch / step on any new voices.  But the dust has settled now and I still consider tech to be moving too fast in your WtP mod.

If you get in an alliance with someone, they will sell or give you a lot of techs willy nilly.  I do see some restriction compared to maybe 6..12 months ago, but it's still easily abused.  Sometimes the Secret Projects do make a choke point where the AI factions stop trading with you.  They're particularly cagey about Biogenetics for some reason.  But there's a simple answer for that: stop pretending I'm doing AI playtests, and just beeline for Biogenetics myself.  After that, it gets a lot easier to clean up all those techs outta one's allies.

Thing is, you shouldn't need late game anything to win the game.  Not if you're serious about winning the game in the smallest number of turns.  I don't know if that's actually the quickest way to win the game in terms of wall clock time, actual player hours expended.

So, that late game stuff is really just toys, for people who sandbox.  Or maybe someone is inexperienced and doesn't actually know how to win the game in the smallest number of turns.  In my own modding, I'm really surprised when some player tells me they're going through a substantial orbital war with the AI factions.  I know the AI is capable of doing that, but it's rather unusual for the AIs to ever even have a chance to do that, in my own mod.  I'm too good.

I can win the game with Impact weapons if I want to.  I keep wondering if I do.  I played as the Pirates the other day.  I got so big so early on, that I just said eh, let's stop invading and just make supply crawlers.   Well, eventually I made so many of them that it got really boring, and it didn't seem to accelerate my research to any noticeable degree either.  All of 'em were owned by my capitol and I never even got Fusion Power that game.  Which is a sign of taking tech tree divergence very seriously, BTW.  I quit the game because in hindsight, it would have been better to make lots of troops instead of lots of supply crawlers.  I did find the Pirates' ability to terraform the oceans mildly interesting though.  I might revisit that sometime.

Oh, and even with the Empath Guild and all that growth, I didn't have enough votes to win.  I would have had to take out 1 major competitor.  Then victory would clearly have been mine.

Transcend... it's such an incredibly boring way to win the game.  Why bother?  Why kill yourself to make a mod with more Transcend options?

Economic Victory should be a valid way to win a game, but at least in my modding, it still pretty much isn't.  Somehow I've made it godawful expensive, to the point that I don't think anyone's gonna bother to do all of that.  I think it amounts to a form of sandboxing.