Balancing Applied Research |
I am looking for a way to keep the tech tree about the way it is (no BM or Devnull), but make it so that Applied Research isn't the uber-tech it currently is.
As I found in my an my brother's first games in the full version (we each played 1 game in the demo first), Applied Research is way too powerful. By using Applied Research, we ended up with more research than all our enemies put together, and easily got the advantage.
However, other than that, I have few problems with the game. I just want to nerf Applied Research enough that researching it and the Colonies aren't enough to set you up for a victory.
My current plan involves the following steps:
1) Increase the cost to 25K (from 10K)
2) Set up Research Facilities to provide diminishing rewards: each level increases the cost more and more, and gives less and less additional research
I'm wondering if that is enough, or if I should do other things instead/also.
Re: Balancing Applied Research
You might consider increasing the maintenance cost of the research centers.
It is fine to research more powerful research centers (even at greater costs) and have diminishing returns.
But if you make them more expensive to maintain, then having a lot of them can quickly empty your resources.
Still, changing the cost, will not assist the AI to use them correctly.
Re: Balancing Applied Research
Learn how to edit AI scripts....
Re: Balancing Applied Research
If it was just you and your brother than I assume the other empires were AI. I'd say it was a problem with the AI not realising how powerful researching nothing but Research was. they probably spent their research points on techs to allow them to build things.
If you played other people they would be better able to balance increasing their research and dealing with other players at the same time. You could have more research points than anyone else but it won't help if they rush you before you can develop defences.