The nice thing is, I don't have to choose.  I was thinking of leaving both TechTrees in.  With the changed Nav Centers, you could go either way.  There are some issues, though.  You wouldn't want someone to be able to collect 3 or 4 Nav Centers if you had more than one race with the Arcean TechTree.  There's also the fact that a player could potentially cherry pick the planets with the Nav Centers, super charging their fleets and leaving the Arceans hobbled.  I planned to make the navigation techs no-trade/no-steal to prevent a proliferation of Nav Centers, but can't do much to prevent people from picking them off.  As things stand, I guess I lean toward just letting them have the engine techs.

Another idea I had was to simply make the normal Nav Centers dirt cheap.  It's the same principle that I applied to Soil Enhancement, etc.  If the AI has to be forced into building something other than a basic improvement, then you pretty much need to make it cheap to avoid interfering with their basic development.  There's no real reason for Nav Centers to be so expensive anyway.  I may run one of my final tests with engines vs cheap nav centers just to see.

Speaking of Soil Enhancement, I noticed something very interesting.  I set the AI to 0 and got to testing.  A very nice improvement.  A couple years in, though, I noticed that the Arceans were completely ignoring SE, to the point that a couple of planets were sitting idle with 4 tiles waiting for SE.  Now, I had noticed the Iconians doing SE and HI, so I was confused.  A little later, I noticed a pattern of races that were ignoring SE.  I turns out that it was exclusively the neutral races.  I'm left to assume that the neutral races ignored SE because they knew they would get instant terraforming when they chose their alignment.  Very interesting.

I then noticed that the Torians were also ignoring SE.  I set them to good, so there goes that theory.  Damn.  But wait, I set them up to use the Thalan AI Personality!  So it seems that the neutral races unique AI Personalities are set up to ignore the SE improvements - at least when the AI is set to 0.  I had 1 Thalan, 1 Krynn, and 2 Arceans doing it.  The Krynn and Arceans were all neutral, while the Thalan-Torians were good.  The Torians eventually did start up with SE, so it wasn't game breaking.  In fact, the Torians did startlingly well with the Thalan AIP.

That leads to another bit of good news.  My last playtest had 9 races.  4 were AIP 11 (2 Arcean, 2 Generic), 3 AIP 7 (Yor, Korath, Drengin), and 2 AIP 8 (Krynn and Thalan).  Overall, it's been remarkably balanced and fun to watch.  The Yor and Korath got hosed by location and got wiped out in years 4 and 5.  The Drengin started out amazingly strong, but clashed with the Torian juggernaut very early on and couldn't keep up.  I had a first real taste of AIP 7 weakness.  First, they strongly dislike ethics techs.  Evil gets access to several awesome improvements through ethics, not to mention the other evil bonuses, and none of my evil races will touch it  Oh, they finally get Xeno Ethics, but none of them went further.  Second, their development strategy is sorely lacking in production.  They rely on morale buildings and farms to drive their expansion, leaving factories and slave pits as an afterthought.  The Yor seem to be better at this, but they do it too.  It's why the Drengin just couldn't keep up with the Torians.  They had nearly equal militaries and economies and the Drengin could put out some nasty ships, but they lost the war of attrition.  After a bright start, they were simply overwhelmed by Torian fleets.

That said, it was a great game.  I think I can fix the ethics issue easily.  In v3.0, you could easily set up a game with AIPs 7, 8, and 11 and expect a wild ride.

So, not only do AIP 7 and 8 dislike ethics, they really don't like Pure Research.  I thought maybe I'd trick them into researching Xeno Ethics earlier, but now they don't research it at all.  AIP 7 doesn't seem to care for Research or Farming, either.  It's a shame about farming, since with all those morale structures they should be pushing for population.  The Yor build Basic Stalks, which give population, but never upgrade them.  It really likes Biology, though.  I'm going to change farming techs to Biology and see if the 8s and 11s can deal.  Not quite sure yet what to do with Xeno Ethics.  Other than that, v3.0 is ready to ship.

In the future, I'd like to make separate TechTrees optimized for the different AIPs, but for v3.0 I'm going for good enough.  Actually, all the AIPs now perform very well overall, so I don't have any big complaints.

Also, the Arceans seem to do just fine with the dirt cheap Nav Centers.  Looks like I'll stick with that approach so as not to take away their unique techs.

For v3.0, I want everything to be universal. Since AIP 7 can only be used under certain galaxy conditions, I don't want to make any changes to individual TechTrees that will change research patterns for AIP 11. 

As it is, all the AIPs are handling themselves very well.  I have 10 races going at it in a large galaxy - three 7's, three 8's, and four 11's - and every one is putting up an epic struggle.  The Drengin and Torians were once again the first to clash, but this time the Drengin have kept up, trading blow for blow along with a couple planets in a war that has raged for years.  The mighty Krynn attacked the slow-to-militarize Iconians and I thought all was lost.  Lo-and-behold, the Iconians geared up and held them off, finally reaching a peace deal after minor losses.  The Korath struggle with the Tolmekians, who in turn have wounded the Yor, who are now being set upon by the Drath and Arceans.  At the end of year four, the galaxy is on fire but the balance of powers has yet to shift dramatically. Of all the races, the Yor are in the biggest trouble, weakened at beset by foes on all borders.  Even so, they are still strong enough to resist and may yet hold on.

I was surprised and impressed by the way the Iconians and Tolmekians have endured. AIP 11 is slow to militarize, but pursues balanced development.  All four of my AIP 11's - Arceans, Tolmekians, Iconians, and Korx - looked ripe for conquest by the more militant powers.  When push came to shove, however, they took advantage of their solid development to quickly ramp up weapons research and warship production.  By the end of year four, things are looking remarkably balanced and I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite.

True that.  I started moving everything to the TechTree.xml, but only got as far as the Drengin (and Korath).  The amount of useless and oftentimes broken code in the racial TechTrees was staggering when I started.  Having spent so much time and effort cleaning up the racial TechTrees, I've been amazed at how quickly I've been able to make real improvements that have enhanced gameplay.  Seriously.  It took me a solid three to four months of work to do v1.1 and a year of fiddling for v2.0.  Now, in two short months since v2.0 release, I've been able to check off almost every wish on my list and put the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Here it is, v3.0 at last.  I promised the weekend, but delivered at 12:45am Monday morning - my time, anyway.  Hey, I tried.

Hope you like it.  I'm very happy with it.  Let me know what you think and if you find any problems.  I'll do my best to fix things if there's a problem, but other than that it's vacation time for me.  I played it off like this was quick and easy work, but I've been spending a bit too much time on it.

I was, in the end, thoroughly defeated in my attempts to sneak in last-minute changes to get AIPs 7 and 8 to research Xeno Ethics, Farming, and Colonization.  In fact, the things I tried made the game worse.  There seems to be good reason for them to not research certain things.  I backed off any such changes and left all the races at AIP 11.  You could certainly use 7 and 8 and have an enjoyable game, but they are far from optimized.

Enjoy.

 

Woohoo!  I haven't been playing at all because I was waiting for this one!  Looking forward to seeing a topless Elyes Mue.  Anyhow, thanks!

All right, time for feedback.

First, you did a great job! I really like what you did with the TGs, SPs and GAs overall. The Galactic Resort is a must-have now, which is great change compared to how it was before. The new additions add interesting flavor to the different alignments, both through the buildings themselves and the tech descriptions. Turning the Historical Preserve into a building that literally preserves history is something I never even considered. I always thought of it as a wildlife reserve of historical importance.
There are more really nice changes, like the return of the Doom Ray and the Nightmare Torpedo, but there are also a few things I'm not so sure about. Not really errors (except three, maybe), but rather changes I don't understand or that could be problematic:

- Korx changed into Super Diplomats. My guess would be, that this was done for balancing reasons, but I'm not sure for which reason exactly. If this was done to make the Korx AI viable in the colony rush, it could have easily been done by making sure the Korx only start with a maximum of 300% trade bonus to prevent them from building freighters rather than colony ships. If, on the other hand, this was done to make sure, that the other races get a chance to build the Restaurant or Bazaar themselves, I can absolutely understand it.

- Warfare Tax. The Warfare Tax seems quite low for being a deterrent for going to war. A race that is able to go to war with another is quite likely to have a economy strong enough to sustain additional expenses of 10 or 20bc.

- Morale bonuses. There are now quite a lot of buildings with morale bonuses. While that isn't a problem per se, it leads to a very bad AI behavior. The AI starts to build improvements with a morale bonus on a bonus tile, despite having entertainment buildings with a clearly superior bonus available.

- Galactic Guide Book. Like I said earlier, turning it from a GA into a TG disables the cost reduction for Survey Modules. To prevent any confusion, you should probably remove that part from the description.

- Eyes of the Universe. For one thing, I don't understand the change into a TG. Maybe because I always understood it as a space observatory and not an invention that can be licensed to other races. The second thing is that line: <F_AbilityFactor>0.200000</F_AbilityFactor>. This gives another bonus of 20% to the sensors of your ships. I.E., if your ships should have a sensor range of 10 due to your bonus ability and on-board sensors, you get another 2 on top. If you left it intentionally back in, okay. Otherwise, you should probably remove it, because it undermines the power reduction.

- Hyper Distribution Center. The HDC uses EntertainmentNetwork.png as Icon and has no Query Graphic. You could use HyperDistributionCenter.png as a replacement. This is something I missed in your last version. Should have been more careful.

- Navigation Center. While it is good, that they are cheaper, I think they are a little bit too cheap now. To be precise, they are the cheapest buildings in the game now. Increasing their cost to 30 would make them on par with other buildings and, especially, Hyperdrive engines, without making them too expensive to produce quickly on all planets.

- Death Furnace. Why has that one been turned into a SP? Was it because of lack of SP/GAs in the Drengin/Korath tech tree? In the same line, the Yor also lack in that regard, and I also never understood why the Distributed Energy Matrix a SP is. Maybe this is related. 

- Re-Education Center. I don't understand the morale bonus. A influence bonus? Okay. But a morale one? I really don't get it.  If nothing else, could you at least explain that one to me, please?


Okay, now to the reason why I started posting at all: Starbase Modules.

At first glance, some well made changes. Seeing the Starbase Hull Repair Kit in the same place I have it, is quite a surprise. Separating the culture based influence modules from the diplomacy based ones is a good move. Changing all the defense and military assist modules to require weapon and defense techs, is also very interesting and removes unnecessary research-problems for the AI (even though it is the total opposite of what I did with them). The change in module requirements for the mining and production assist modules is very helpful for both AI and player, as it prevents any inability to use the modules you have, if you should have acquired a more advanced factory tech than you have available (both to build and to research). As a next step, I started to count the amount of modules: 133, if I didn't miscount. All right, let's see what's among the modules the AI can't use due to the module limit:

- Terror Star modules. No problem. The AI can't use them anyhow.

- Sensor modules. Ditto. Making them only two and more powerful is also quite nice.

- Culture modules. Might be a problem. Some AIs use them, but never to the extent a human player would. So it isn't that bad.

- Speed Assist modules. More of a problem. At least for those AIs that use military starbases.

- Trade modules. Definitely a problem. If the AI builds trade routes, it will use those modules to augment the income. They could also use a boost in power.


Okay, that's it for now. I have some suggestions left, but I'm going to post them tomorrow, because the post is long enough already and it's 1 am here. I should at least try to get some sleep. Even though I know it won't be much, if anything at all.

Have I missed something? Why would anyone be nervous because of me?


That is weird. My Korx usually have no problem, if they start with 300% trade. But if that is the case here, changing their Super Ability is appropriate. Super Diplomat and Super Manipulator are both fitting for the Korx.


Okay, you're right about the AI. I was thinking too much of the player here.


I've been trying to optimize that for four years now, with only a slim success. Therefore, I'm not really surprised that you moved on.


No problem.


Why you reduced its power was clear to me. I did the same. Just the change to TG wasn't obvious.


You could use HyperDistributionCenter.png, like I said. You would only need to change the Icon and Query Graphic of the Hyperion Re-Supply Center. Galactic_Re-supply_Center.png would be fitting, I guess.


Reducing the AI of the Nav Center a little, so the AI builds factories first, could probably help. But that requires a lot of fine-tuning. Keeping it as it is might, therefore, be better.


Okay, makes sense.


I thought of it as a "school", that re-enforces the strength of your culture in the people. You might not be happy with the way the government is run, but you're proud of your culture. The way you describe it sounds more like how the Secret Police Center is supposed to work. Both approaches can work though. Thanks, for explaining your reasoning.


Yeah, I noticed that problem. I just don't remember if I moved the Repair Kit because of this or some other reason. As far as I could tell, every module is below its requirement, but I'm going to check it again, just to make sure.


You certainly did. Sometimes, sacrifices are necessary.


I did notice that. They are mostly a waste for the AI, anyhow, so keeping them in the hands of the player seems to be the better choice.

Don't thank me just yet.

Some more feedback\critique:

- Freighter Command. I really like the economic bonus, it is absolutely fitting. But giving Neutral a identical building, really undermines the uniqueness of the Korx. Replacing the Persistent Trade Routes bonus of the Trade Nexus with a bonus to Trade would still make sense, with regard to the purpose of the building, and keep Persistent Trade Routes as something unique to the Korx.

- Xeno Mysticism. I understand why it has been moved, but I'm not sure if Xeno Research is a fitting requirement in this case. Xeno Mysticism is more of a history lesson and about the cultural identity of the Altarian and Drath, so culture (Xeno Business) seems like it would be more apropriate.

- AI research. I'm not sure if it is my setting or bad luck, but for some reason the AI takes quite a while before it starts researching to Planetary Improvements and beyond. It mostly goes for culture or weapons/defense techs and invasion first. Even if it has finally researched Planetary Imp, it rather goes for Extreme Colonization, than new factories or labs. I'm going to test a little more to see if this behavior continues.


Now, the suggestions I promised. As with anything before, feel free to disregard what you don't like:

1. Political Parties for all Races. Currently, the AI selects the political parties more or less randomly for each race. You could set a standard political party for each race in the RaceConfig.xml, to give them a little bit more personality. Just add <PoliticalParty>x</PoliticalParty>.

2. Thalan Racial Music. The Thalans are currently using the racial music of the Iconians. I'm not sure when this has been changed by Stardock (or why), but you could easily change it back by replacing Race09 with Race08 for the Thalans under RaceMusic in RaceConfig.xml. This is way more fitting for them.

3. Political Parties (again). There are several errors with the way penalties are applied, if the party loses control of the senate. Most parties apply the bonus as a penalty. Others are either using one of its bonuses as penalty but with higher value or they use the bonuses of the opposite party as the penalty. The affected parties are: Industrialists, Universalists, Populists and the War Party. The Pacifists has another problem: they provide a bigger penalty to Social Production than bonus. All of these are leftover errors from GalCiv 1. Seems like there was no general agreement of what the penalty should be for losing control of the senate.

4. Market Center. The requirement is currently set to NeutralHistory. This lead to most races not getting them and an additional entry of the Market Center (for the minors). I suggest changing the requirement to IndustrialRevolution. That way, all of the factory users (except the Torians) would get it, and eliminate the need for the additional entry.

5. Stock Market. Please remove the PrestigeBonus line, as it makes the influence from econ-planets too powerful. This is why I won most of my games with a culture victory back during DL (until I disabled that victory condition). 

6. Invention Matrix. The Invention Matrix costs currently 350 to build, while the Discovery Sphere costs only 275. Either swap the costs or overhaul them completely. The overhaul, in the end, might be the best, because of the extreme jumps in cost for only minuscule improvements in output.

7. Manufacturing Capital. The manufacturing bonus is quite low compared to the cost, the status of a SP, and the power of similar buildings. Either increase it to 50% (like it was in DL), 100% (like it was in GalCiv 1) or something completely different. 33% is just too low.

8. Omega Research Center. Another GA that is just too weak. Consider the time and cost it takes to first research up to Discovery Spheres and then build it. And now consider the time and cost it takes to get the Technology Capital, which provides double the bonus for only 3/4th of the cost to build and is only a SP. Something needs the be done, but I'm not sure a planetary bonus is the way to go. The AI is tremendously bad at properly utilizing them.

9. Galactic Stock Exchange. The current requirement of Advanced Trade (left-over from GalCiv 1 again) doesn't really make sense. I suggest to change it to Interstellar Stock Exchange.

10. Hyperion Re-Supply Center. Similar to 9. The requirement of Expert Logistics makes no sense. Advanced Life Support would be more appropriate.

11. Economic Direction Unit. A planetary economy bonus of 25% seems quite weak for a GA. Either increase it or make it civ-wide.

12. Altarian and Drath entertainment buildings. Currently, they have three weak entertainment buildings: the Entertainment Network, Healing Pools and the Drathian Temple. Healing Pools don't make any sense for them, so I suggest to remove it. The Drathian Temple could use a little boost. If you then also add EntertainmentNetwork as an Upgrade_Target, it will prevent the Altarians and Drath from cluttering up their planets with weak and obsolete improvements.


That's it for now. I hope.

Thanks again for the feedback, Gaunathor, and thanks to you MisterAedan.  It's wonderful to get other perspectives.  I can't do the point-by-point thing this time around, but I really like your suggestions and many of them will make it into the next release.  I didn't even notice or just didn't have the time to even think about some of that stuff.  Nix stock market prestige? I like it.  Man. Capital improvement? Something that occurred to me, but now I'm motivated to do it.  Market Centers? Every race that has the traditional economic branch should get them.  Either through Industrial Revolution or through multiple entries of the Market Center.  If each entry is linked to a racial history tech, then the players will never see a double icon.  I'll have a look see.

The Omega Research Center? Totally forgot it was a GA.  You're right on with this one.  It's something I need to think about.  A first thought would be hey, the SP Tech Cap should be 50% and the GA ORC should be 100%, but I'm thinking that idea might be met with open rebellion.  You're right about the AI having trouble with the planetary bonuses, too. There's also the new Benevolent Research Center that is yet another research booster.  Hmmm.

I share your thoughts about the Trade Nexus, to a degree.  I just invented the whole idea of splitting up the ethics techs and improvements on Sunday, though, so I didn't have much time to think about it.  I needed a GA for Neutral and the tech ended up being Neutral Shipping, so that's what I came up with.  Since I even went and made the econ bonus better than the Korx building, that also does the Korx something of a disservice.  There is, however, the fact that the Korx can get their Freighter Command regardless of their alignment and at considerably less TP expense - 550 tp as opposed to 4000 to research the needed ethics techs.  Nobody can beat them to it, and they don't need to research or build it until they darn well want to.  I didn't want to give the nexus a trade boost because Neutral Shipping already does that, but I guess it didn't stop me from giving identical boosts to all the other ethics tech and improvements.  Maybe the Freighter Command could give an extra trade route or two.  Or maybe Neutral Shipping loses some or all of its Trade Routes bonus and the Trade Nexus gets some or all of them.  It's something I'll need to think about.

My first concern, of course.  For v2.0, I did my best to fix basic research behavior, but didn't have time to optimize high-end research.  As a result, the yellow techs suffered along with stuff like high end miniaturization and logistics.  This time around I bumped the AIValue of many of these techs to round things out.  Overall, the AI has done a pretty good job, though I have noticed that the Planetary Imps line gets less attention than it used to.  I'll have to keep an eye on it.  Offhand, I bumped the invasion techs and I think it may have been too much.

There's also the way the AI seems to universally favor certain research patterns from game to game.  Kind of like there can be one predominant weapon, in some games it seems like the AI loves or hates certain branches like governement or manufacturing or whatever.  A few more playtests and a little more tweaking is in order, I think.

 

The only two races that wouldn't get Market Center through Industrial Revolution are the Torians and the Thalans. For the Thalans it's part of their unique nature. Struggling to survive early on, but extremely powerful later. The Torians, on the other hand, don't really need Market Center. Their pop growth more than makes up for it.


Well, you don't have to fear any rebellion from my side. The others, I'm not so sure about.

Regarding your Benevolent Research Center: A bunker doesn't really seem fitting for a research center. Well, except for the ones where top secret military research is going on.


I'm not sure extra trade routes would be a good bonus for the Freighter Command. The Korx hit the trade route cap (12) already way too easily. That could, however, work for the Trade Nexus, as most of the other races don't start with bonus trade routes. Come to think of it, how about a Trade Monument GA for the Korx? Something that boost trade income and gives a nice planetary bonus to economy? This would certainly make up for some of their lost uniqueness, and would fit right into their capitalistic nature.


After some more testing, I can definitely confirm my earlier statement, but it isn't as bad as I feared. The AI still puts up a good fight. But I believe you should take another look at sensors, as I don't think having Sensor Mk IV researched at the beginning of year 2 is what you had in mind.

The test-games were quite interesting to watch, especially the last one. In the beginning, wars were usually declard by the minor races. The Thalans were almost constantly in war with somebody, but still managed to prosper. The biggest empires mid-game were the Yor (16), Korx (16), Iconians (22) and Thalans (23). The Torians were the smallest, with only 3 colonies left. Despite this, they managed to hold on for several more years. The first to go were the Drengin (no surprise there), the Drath and then the Arceans. The biggest surprise was the comeback of the Terrans. They only had 5 colonies left, but somehow were able to conquer several new planets. They received a tremendous boost from one planet, where the Artificial Slave Center was being constructed. The Terrans finished it and went into overdrive, quickly conquering one civ after another. All this was financed by the Korx, with whom the Terrans traded and had both an economic and research treaty. The last races to go were the Thalans and Yor, after which the Terrans won a Diplo Victory, having allied with the Korx by then. At the end of the game the Terrans had 81 colonies and the Korx 25. Date of victory July 8th 2241. (Took you long enough, AI!)


I don't know what to say. This is the kindest thing anyone ever said to me. Thank you!

Hello there,

I'm back from my 6 week sabbatical in New Zealand and just wanted to say grats on releasing 3.0 Tol!

Conserning the minors. After my post (6 weeks ago) I actually edited the Minor_TechTree.xml and removed all the techs that the game didn't show and tested it out. The result were 8 minors who all had weapons and ships to defend themselves with. I really haven't seen the minors develop weapons reliably before.

It wasn't that much work to do this (about an hour) and the result was rather wonderful.

I will incude it in my own mod so feel free to copy it once I release that.

 

 

 

 

 

That was my conclusion, too. Regarding the last part: I'm working on a suggestion regarding cost and maintenance of planetary improvements (and the tweaking of their AI value), but it is turning more and more into a rant, so I'm not going to post it just yet. Suffice it to say, it is an explanation of the changes I made in my mod, which seem to work reasonable enough for now.


Do you want me to report typos, too? I noticed a few, but they seem to fit right in with the Stardock ones. Grammar, on the other hand, isn't my strong point. Not even in my mother language.


Arrrgh. I knew I should have taken a more careful look through your tech tree. Oh well, it's next on my list.


As promised, I had another look at your StarbaseModules.xml and I can assure you, that all modules are below their module requirements. However, I noticed two anomalies:

- Industrial Replication Center. IRC 2 and 3 still have their original module requirement instead of FactoryAssistOne.

- Advanced Navigation Station. I'm not sure, if that is intentional, but ANS has no module requirement. Not even Navigation Station.


Additionally, two more things I noticed in your PlanetImprovements.xml:

- Death Furnace. It still has the PlacementLimit line despite being a SP now.

- Aul Incinerator. This one has several problems and I'm not even talking about the punishing combination of high maintenance and loss of a tile. First, unlike other buildings modifying the amount of tiles on a planet, it can be disabled by a spy. Second, it can be destroyed by invasion or culture flipping, because it isn't indestructible, but it can't be manually destroyed after construction. The most reasonable solution would be to set CanHaveAgents to 0 and to add Indestructable 1. That way it will be just like any other terraforming-building, which it most closely resembles.


And some more suggestions:

- Capitals. Currently, every race has access to the Econ Capital, but not everyone has access to all of the other three. The Iconians are missing the Tech, Manu and Pol Capital. The Yor are missing the Manu and Pol Capital. The Thalan, Drengin and Korath are missing the Manu Capital. I suggest, to give the Iconians Advanced Computing and change the tech requirement of Manu and Pol Capital. Xeno Engineering would be good choice for the Manu Capital, as every race has access to it. I'm not yet sure for a good candidate for the Pol Capital. Something early in the diplomacy line would be best, but nothing springs to mind. No tech requirement would probably be the easiest solution, but that could lead to other problems.

- Alliance. This doesn't really fit as a government tech. Alliance has no effect on how you run your government, but rather how you work\cooperate with other races. Therefore, diplomacy seems more fitting to me. As making and working in an alliance is quite difficult, either Advanced or Expert Diplomacy would be the best choice.

- Logistics and Life Support. It doesn't really make sense to me, that learning how to coordinate more ships at the same time, leads to new ways of how to recycle air. Wouldn't that be more appropriate for learning how to make better ships, i.e. hulls? The other thing is, that Logistics are available when they aren't really needed yet. This just leads to more problems with the AI. A good way to solve this, is to change the requirement for both to Interstellar Construction. This way, both are available fast enough, if needed, and the AI isn't immediately lured into researching something it won't need in the immediate future.


Okay, that's it for today. Next stop: tech tree files.

Sounds good. I'm just not sure about giving the Government-techs to the Iconians and Yor. It just doesn't seem to fit them (or the Thalans, for that matter). But it would certainly be the easiest solution.


My suggestion would fix the problem for the Altarians and Drath, too, but your idea is logically more sound. There is an unused Temple improvement in the PlanetImprovements.xml. It just needs an Icon and Query Graphic. You could use that as a precursor for the Drathian Temple.


Now to the main part. Some errors\possible problems I found in your TechTree.xml, together with a few suggestions:

- Historical Assimilation. The Category is set to Ethics instead of Culture.

- Malevolent Economics. "foolish" should be "foolishly". The ID and Category should be Industry and Economics, instead of Culture and Ethics.

- Ultimate Evil. "exploition" should be "exploitation"

- Malevolent Industry. ID and Category should be Industry and Manufacturing, instead of Culture and Ethics.

- Balanced Vision. "not of Interest" should be "of no Interest"

- Neutral Shipping. Should be Category Trade instead of Ethics.

- Ultimate Equilibrium. "dedicated to preservation of galactic balance" should rather be "dedicated to the preservation of the galactic balance". (not totally sure about that one)

- Benevolent Society. "While some other see as" should be "What some other see as"

- Benevolent Research. Should be ID Computing and Category Pure Research, instead of Culture and Ethics.

- Interstellar Construction. The ID should be Logistics, instead of Industry, to keep it in line with other Hull-techs.

- Xeno Industrial Theory. Description needs an update. It mentions Logistics- and Hull-improvements.

- Space Mining line of techs. The ID should be Industry, instead of Logistics.

- Psionic weapon line. "ultiimate" should be "ultimate"

- Arnorian Armor line. "...managed coax it..." should be "...managed to coax it..."

- Telepath PD line. "The reason? Ttelepaths are..." should be "The reason? Telepaths are..."

- Adv. Planetary Defense. "...some additoinal ideas..." should be "...some additional ideas...". The Category should be Invasion, instead of Planetary Defense. The AI doesn't like Category Planetary Defense that much, for some reason.

- Supreme Planetary Defense. The Category should be Invasion, instead of Planetary Defense.

- Hull Strengthening. The ID is set to Weapons. Should be changed to Logistics.

- Unconventional Warfare. It Requires FleetBattleTactics, but the ID is still Weapons and the Category Military.

- Slaughtertoriums. Description needs an update. It says the slaughtertorium is a one-per-planet building.

- Organic Hulls. The ID should be Logistics, instead of Industry.

- Way of the Arnor/DL. The Category should be Manufacturing, instead of Military. (Your Change-log says, you already did that. Have you changed it again without updating your Change-log?)

- Traditional\Specialized Research and Industrial Revolution. Have not been set to can't be traded/stolen. (Would save you the lines in each racial tech tree.)

Racial tech trees:

All

- Advanced Hulls. Is set to ID Industry, instead of Logistics.

- Planetary Defense line. Is set to ID Weapons, instead of Defense. This shouldn't be necessary, if you set the Category to Invasion.

- Interstellar Construction. Same as above.

Drengin_ TechTree.xml

- Hull Stengthening. Is set to ID Defense. Should be changed to Logistics.

- Unconventional Warfare. The requirement is here set to Space Weapons, but the ID is still Weapons. Do you want the AI to keep researching this? The AIValue is still 0 in the TechTree.xml.

Iconian_TechTree.ml

- Self-Healing Hulls. The ID is set to Industry. Should be changed to Logistics.

Korath_TechTree.xml

- Unconventional Warfare. Same as above.

Krynn_TechTree.xml

- Robust Hulls. The ID is set to Industry. Should be changed to Logistics. Is twice mentioned in the file.

- Superior and Ultimate Espionage. ID is set to Industry. Should be either changed to Culture or Computing.

- Industrial Revolution. The ID is set to Culture and the Category to Military. Should be Industry and Manufacturing. Has not been set to can't be traded\stolen.

- Traditional Research. The ID is set to Culture and the Category to Military. Should be Computing and Pure Research. Has not been set to can't be traded\stolen.

Thalan_TechTree.xml

- Technology Adaptation line. Category is set to Research. Should be changed to Pure Research.

- Hyperion Hull Design. ID is set to Industry. Should be changed to Logistics.

- Mechanized Warriors. "canon fodder" should be "cannon fodder".

- Xeno Brainwashing. Is set to ID Weapons and Category Military. Should be Culture for both.

Yor_TechTree.xml

- Charging Stalks. "cybnertic species" should be "cybernetic species".


All right, I'm done. Those were the last files. I keep on looking for typos (both your's and Stardock's), but that's it regarding errors (as long as I haven't overlooked something again).