19-07-2003 15:26									#1
	Adding new techs Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I have been doing some tests at Normal difficulty in a tiny galaxy to find out which techs the various AI players research first.

I have found that the Alexians, Altarians, Carinoids, Torians and Yor all research the same techs in the same order until they get Corvette technology. I have been unable to find any way to get any of them to ever research any custom tech before they get Corvette technology. I can easily get them to research a custom tech AFTER they get Corvette technology. This leads me to believe that they have a fixed research path for the first 20 odd techs and then some kind of tech selection algorithm cuts in once all those techs up to Corvettes has been researched.

The Drengin have their own research path. They consistently follow that path up to Corvette technology. I am similarly unable to induce them to research a custom tech before Corvettes.

I forgot about the Arceans so I did not track their researchs.

If you keep the abovementioned stuff in mind it is easy to amend techs in a way that is fair to the AI.

Hope this helps anyone trying to fiddle around with techs.

If you need to know what those research paths are just ask and I will post them here. I couldn't be bothered doing all that typing unless someone would actually find this information useful for his mods.

BTW. If anyone has already looked into this I would appreciate if someone could tell me whether the fixed tech selection path is by tech number or tech name to save me a heap of tedious experimenting.

EDIT
NB These tests were done on the original GalCiv, straight out of the box, no patches or updates. It is therefore possible there may have been changes to the research selection AI since then.

	25-07-2003 23:59									#2
	Increase the size of your Attachments

It would be interesting to see the tech path written down somewhere, if only because it is a very big advantage vs. the ai in terms of what to research so I can trade somehting else in exchange.
I am pretty sure that the list is by tech number, but that's just a player's opinion based on nothing (except my outside programmer's understanding of what would be the easiest thing to code).
My big gripe is, btw, that set path of techs. I really wish it could be modded, but I am afraid that removing the techs altogether will ruin the ai, since the algorithm they'll choose to pick their tech based on ai value (and, I guess, the type of tech) may not be optimal.