Why I still love this game

[Zeraan]

As for higher tech levels enabling one empire to destroy another...well, historically that has generally been the case unless the lower-tech empire has a lot more people/economy. And sometimes even then tech dominates if the gap is severe enough -- Europe vs the New World comes to mind. (I expect that a history expert like Sullla could provide quite a few more examples.) But I think the real reason this applies in games is because it works as a game mechanic: if you can acquire the advanced tech, it gives you an advantage. Otherwise why would anyone bother?

You raise a very good point. Egytians' chariots, Romans' legions and tactics, Old World's muskets and cannons, etc all proved superior and gave them ability to dominate their enemies. I guess my perspective is a bit skewed because in the past 100 years, most of the warfare involved consists of troops battling it out. But in last decade, Americans started using drones and other advanced technologies to conduct warfare (Israel's Iron Dome for example destroys incoming missiles/rockets, aka Anti-Missile system like in MoO 1 ) If America decided to invade another country using non-nuclear options, I believe that only China or Russia actually have manpower/technology to be able to resist, other countries' defenses will just crumble. However, the real challenge is maintaining claims on the conquered territories, as there'd be terrorists blowing up stuff, small militias hit-n-run tactics, guerrilla warfare, etc.

I guess that's why MoO 1's method of ground combat is to eliminate everyone, so no unhappiness to deal with

[Selrahc]

My computer tech was terrible: ECM I... ECM II... ECM III.... ECM IV... Ummm, I am the borgs here, right? Good at computers? BC VI was at least something different, then finally Robotic Controls V for some factory upgrades at last. Missed all the scanner techs, IRC3, and IRC4, when the Meklar are supposed to be tops at Computers. rant

So... does the rating actually affect the techs that show up in the tree? The Psilons get "Bonus Techs" as part of their species bonus. For everyone else, I thought there was no actual difference in how techs were determined.

To wit, AFAICT The rating just determines how easy things are to research rather than what is available to research.

If not, do you know what the exact mechanics are?

[haphazard1]

Very good questions, Selrahc. I have no idea how the tech ladder mechanics work, and am basing my thoughts on the info provided from Sirian's pages on the game (along with his game reports and Sullla's). I have not made a detailed study, but my game experiences have usually matched the idea that you get more choices in fields where you are rated Good or Excellent, and fewer choices in fields rated Poor. This may just be confirmation bias, though, since I am expecting to see that. My Meklar game certainly did not match that expectation, which is why I found it so notable.

My most recent games were as Silicoids (poor in all but computers) and Psilons (good at everything), and there was definitely a noticeable difference in the number of choices available in the five non-Computers fields. The Psilons research faster which is obviously very powerful, but having so many more choices is also a big part of their strength. Getting the more optimal paths through the ladders makes quite a difference.

[RefSteel]

I don't have any hard data on this one, but I seem to recall Sargon addressing this a few years ago in a post on CivFanatics. The findings he reported were that the Psilons get more choices in their trees than anyone else, but that's the only factor affecting the quality of any given tree; as I recall, he said it works like this:

- Each tech has a 50% chance of appearing in each race's tree, except...
- If that race is the Psilons, each tech instead has a 75% chance of appearing in their tree, and...
- If that race is the Silicoids and the tech in question is a Controlled Environment or waste-related tech (or Soil/Atmo/Advanced-Soil if you're using kyrub's patch) that tech has a 0% chance of appearing.
- If any race has an entire empty tech tier, reroll all the techs in that tier for that race until at least one hits.
- If any race lacks every tech of certain critical types (e.g. space scanners) reroll all of those techs until at least one hits.

Thus, the chance of IT+10 showing up in your tree should be 100% if you're Silicoids, 48/63 (about 76%) if you're Psilons, and 4/7 (about 57%) if you're anybody else. Races that are Excellent in a given field don't have a direct bonus to this chance, but do climb the tree significantly faster, so they're more likely to quickly find a tier with a tech of the kind they need.

The Psilons definitely do have thicker tech trees than other races though, and the Silicoid trees can look thinner because of the Planetology and Construction options that never show up for them at all.