As we get more expansions and the tech trees are filled out with more and more options, does keeping the same "9 technologies to unlock era" keep making sense? The guardians expansion added more in the later techs, but with Shadows we got pillaging which is in the first era, and further security upgrades later on.



An increase to 10 per era would be easy enough and keep the right proportion of unlocks, but perhaps something like a 9/10/11/12/13 progression would have a softer effect.

maybe it would need to be increased but it might be better the way it is right now.

in the base game you didn't really have to give up any important techs but now it might be better because you need to make sacrifices to have a good build.

still maybe a 9/9/10/10/12 is better so that you still have to sacrifice some techs and make you chose.

There was a lot of testing, debate and changes on this pre-release. Here's all of the variations that existed...

• 10 techs from the previous era to get the next era. Ex you needed 10 Era 2 techs to get to Era 3, 10 Era 3 techs to get to Era 4.
• 8 techs from the previous era to get the next era.
• 10 techs from any Era to advance
• 8 techs from any Era to advance
  
  

10 techs felt a little slow and it was difficult to get into the higher Eras. 8 techs felt a little fast. So that's where 9 came from.



It also felt like you had to get almost everything in each Era to advance, so there was very little variation.



As for the removal of the previous Era requirement, some players (including myself at the time) felt it punished you for going back and picking up stuff from older eras you may have wanted or needed for quests. Also consider the BL quest line requires extra Era 1 techs. This opinion (at least for me) was based on the idea that if the higher Era techs were valuable enough, players would choose the higher Era techs anyway. This isn't necessarily the case today, especially after Era 2.

I like it as it stands.



Some factions, like Broken Lords, already have too few options. Without access to food tech, they still have to pick 12 T1 techs to get their quest past a certain early milestone. They pick up techs just because they're techs. BL would probably be more fun with relaxed tier thresholds, or more tech options, rather than with higher tier thresholds.



When I play Cult, I feel like there are just too many good choices, not enough tech, but that's interesting. I don't want to have a fixed playbook, and the number of good options means that I make a lot of decisions based on the particular game. (Until I have to research 10 T3 techs for the quest, far more than I want.)

natev wrote:
I like it as it stands.



Some factions, like Broken Lords, already have too few options. Without access to food tech, they still have to pick 12 T1 techs to get their quest past a certain early milestone. They pick up techs just because they're techs. BL would probably be more fun with relaxed tier thresholds, or more tech options, rather than with higher tier thresholds.



When I play Cult, I feel like there are just too many good choices, not enough tech, but that's interesting. I don't want to have a fixed playbook, and the number of good options means that I make a lot of decisions based on the particular game. (Until I have to research 10 T3 techs for the quest, far more than I want.)

I actually disagree with you on this one. That is a problem with the BL quest not era tech requirements (Most faction quests could be looked at and updated). Science races are really in the dump compared to dust races. BL never need to go past the two dust techs in tier 5. They could just stop doing any science if they really wanted too at that point. I do not feel like science races are ever really "ahead" while dust races are drastically ahead.



I know your viewpoint is in 40 turn games though but many games go to 80 where science is irrelevant.

BigBalls wrote:
I actually disagree with you on this one. ...BL never need to go past the two dust techs in tier 5.

I don't think you are disagreeing with me-- I was saying that BL get very little use out of techs, and that they end up researching trash just to move up a tier. Requiring more techs to advance a tier just means more trash for them.