Twilight of the Arnor: Technology Tree Concepts

Published on September 17, 2007 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

The expansion pack, GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor, will have unique technologies per civilization. This means full trees, not just a few special techs per civ.

Below are the general concepts for each.

Terran Alliance

The Terran Alliance will have more propulsion technologies than the other civilizations. Its weapons will be the most like the default tech tree. It will have a series of technologies called Stellar Defense which will enable it to be more effective in fighting within its own area. The Terran Alliance will also have additional diplomacy and economic technologies.

Drengin Empire

The Drengin will not have factory technologies. Its tech tree will be very different from the default one in that its technologies will tend to provide planetary improvements that have a significant drawback. For instance, the slave pit technologies will provide more production but will reduce the planet's influence.

Arcean Empire

The Arcean tech tree will tend to focus more on materials rather than industry and economics as we know it. Their technologies will tend to focus on making things cost less and be of higher quality.

Altarians

The Altarians will have a much smaller technology tree than the other civilizations but they will be much much more expensive.

Torians

The Torians will have technologies that tend to produce low quality but high quantity products. For instance, they will have military techs that are relatively easy to get and cost very little to manufacture but are not as effective.

Yor

The Yor won't have entertainment based technologies at all or any sort of farming technologies. Instead, the Yor will have energy production centers that increase the # of Yor units on a given world which can then be divided between production areas and research areas.

Korx

The Korx will have a lot more trade technologies than the other civilizations and gain a lot more benefit from them.

Drath

The Drath will, like the Altarians, have a much smaller technology tree that costs more but gives a lot more benefit. It will differ from the Altarians in that it will have more diplomacy and influence based technologies.

Korath

The Korath tree will be very similar to the Drengin except that they will have technologies that convert flesh into energy.

Thalan

The Thalan will have a very cool technology tree based on the concept of planetary improvements that do multiple things. Thalan buildings will cost more but they will be multi-functional. There won't be a specialized entertainment area or a specialized farm but instead be buildings that do both. Similarly, there won't be a research lab or a factory but instead be a "labor" area.

The Krynn

The Krynn will have the most alien of the technology trees (other than maybe the Yor). The Krynn are focused on the Jihad. As a result, their buildings are based on having maximum morale in order to always have maximum production levels and maximum taxation. They will have buildings and super projects that lower the cost of leasing units so that the Krynn buy things for the Jihad far more so than other civilizations and do so with relatively little penalty.

Comments (Page 4)

dystopic

on Sep 20, 2007

If GalCiv were a multiplayer game, this kind of feature simply wouldn't be possible precisely because they won't be perfectly balanced.

This is why I worry a bit about GC3 having multiplayer, or the fantasy TBS for that matter...

well, StarCraft is a decent model of how you can have some differences between factions that can work out with decent MP - but it took a lot of play balancing and there were still exploits in the MP games on battle.net. i think it only becomes an issue for MP players with a strong competative edge; those who just enjoy a game against a natural intelligence (human player) may enjoy the game for what it is.

i'd say perhaps the best way to deal with such issues is to have a number of setup options for MP games. the first and perhaps most important would be whether the game's outcome would be ranked/scored. in situations where people were playing one another for fun, no score need be recorded (or contribute to their MV rankings) and the players (or player who sets up the initial game) could have free range of game options, including varied tech trees and even mods.

for competative games, it might be better to use a more tightly controlled set of options to standardize the scores - perhaps not a single set of rankings, either, so that competative MP players needn't be restricted to a single generic game setup.

Megajames75

on Sep 20, 2007

Firstly, this is amzing my only worry would be balencing. But as new as I am to the game I know one thing, this is Stardock, patches are one thing I will not have to worry about.

Secondly, will this make tech trading rarer. I personly think this would be a good thing, but I am only asking how much it will affect tech tradeing.

mementh

on Sep 20, 2007

Well from what i understand alot of the techs will stay the same but be dual use (like hyperwarp will be hyperwarp just used diffrent?)

Some techs will not be usefully at all.. like the slave centers which are useless for non evil ones now...

So some techs will be tradeable still but not all

Minor Race

on Sep 20, 2007

What about minor races? Do they just have normal tech trees?

And how will T.T. be adjusted? In my opinion, you should be able to trade any tech to anyone still, so the Drengin can trade Slave pit technology to the Terrans if they want. Because in theory they can still learn the technology.

dystopic

on Sep 20, 2007

mementh
Well from what i understand alot of the techs will stay the same but be dual use

that's not what i understood at all.

CaptainYar

on Sep 21, 2007

i wonder then, if some techs will be available only after your alingment is chosen.

ZzzombieBunny

on Sep 21, 2007

I want to know how capturing other races' tech will be handled (ie getting a slave pit that exist on a planet that had been captured).

I imagine it will be no different than it is currently... you can already capture a planet with alignment-based planet improvements on them of an alignment not of your own.

Some techs may be unstealable or untradable, but I imagine you can still always capture planets with improvements from them without a hitch. Of course... I imagine that could change too.

About the Slave Pit in specific if im not mistaken I read somewhere that youll have to take a alignment choice once taking over the planet. Etc free the slaves would be a Good choice but would be very costly, while just keeping the pits as they are would be a Evil choice. Makes sense and sorta solves issues with Good aligned races taking over Evil planets that have hefty bonuses due to their previous owners alignment.

thehandofzarquon

on Sep 21, 2007

Hmm, I kinda took that as being more of a meta-game choice than an actual game-forced choice. Of course, it would be nifty if they did that, as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings... I always found the ethical events more interesting than the actual techs, so seeing those kinda things afterwards would be interesting...

dystopic

on Sep 21, 2007

as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings

but the buildings aren't good/neutral/evil. they're drengin/terran/etc. i read nothing to indicate the unique buildings and techs would be related to the game ethics at all.

and even if slavery seems obviously evil, if the drengin turned good one could imagine a meta-game explanation that their slaves were all evil drengin who refused to convert (and other evil races), and that slavery was still better than destruction (though it'd be really nifty if they got renamed to something more "PC" for a good race, like 'social debt repayment centers' LOL).

CaptainYar

on Sep 21, 2007

'social debt repayment centers'

Thats is good. I swear thats what im going to start calling my offive here at work. Slave Center? I'm living it!

Im just hoping someone whill show up and shd some light on all this. Perhaps alignments will be comletely different. I don't imagine that each race will not only have its own building BUT a different set for each alignment choice. That would be a lot of work.

Also, Does the AI always get around to actually choosing an alignment? I usually only see then "leaning" one way. which is why i never build those buildings that give you money from races with the same alignment.

well time for me to go back to repaying my social debts.

thehandofzarquon

on Sep 21, 2007

as long as it applied also to all the good/neutral/evil buildings

but the buildings aren't good/neutral/evil. they're drengin/terran/etc. i read nothing to indicate the unique buildings and techs would be related to the game ethics at all.

I was talking about the current alignment based buildings, ie: Temple of Evil, Mind Control Centers and the like.

As for whether or not the new techs are going to related to alignment... it was stated somewhere that a good player would have a "moral decision" to make when he captured a planet with the slave centers on them. Whether that really means it will be an ethical decision a la the current events or not, who knows.

Also, it's very apparent to me that the personalities and physical characteristics of each race is heavily influencing their tech tree in general (Torians, for instance, breed like bloody rabbits on speed with their Super Ability and now this is being applied to their tech tree as well, giving cheap, speedily built ships that are of lower quality). Thus, I expect a number of Drengin techs to be more "evil" than standard techs, whether or not they actually require Xeno Ethics or not.

dystopic

on Sep 21, 2007

Also, Does the AI always get around to actually choosing an alignment?

if you let them live long enough they do, but it's usually a low priority for them. you can also mod a higher AI value for it to make them more eager to take sides.

thebutterfly

on Sep 22, 2007

If you really manage to do this and keep the AI clever and the game balanced than you deserve all the praise that can be given.

crow_t_robot

on Oct 10, 2007

Yor
The Yor won't have entertainment based technologies at all or any sort of farming technologies. Instead, the Yor will have energy production centers that increase the # of Yor units on a given world which can then be divided between production areas and research areas.

So how will morale resources work? Will the mining starbases be useless? And what about the morale tile bonuses? I just think the Yor should be able to use tiles and not be left out of the loop.

Also, will a race's tech tree correlate with waht bonuses you can pick? Since the Yor wouldn't be having morale, it would be kind of dumb for them to be able to pick it.

CaptainYar

on Oct 12, 2007

I don't think it will JUST be the Yor left out. Other races will have unique building s that may not (or maybe they will) be useful on bonus tiles. Will a Drengin slave pit benefit from a production bonus?

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