I'd like to start off and say that I'm exited for this game. I'm a big fan of 4X games and have been playing them for more than 15 years. I'm not a game developer but I do like to think that after playing these types of games for so long that I have a decent understanding of what to expect. It's at a point where I can always ignore tutorials and jump directly to hard settings (regardless of which game it is) since the fundamental mechanics all share a common root and are easily recognizable. Now this is not about self-praise, it's about the fact that as this media has matured it has cultured veteran consumers that have been subconsciously educated. That being said I hope that user feedback (particularly from veterans, and in this case mine) is not ignored, as it traditionally is, especially pertaining to criticisms or feedback regarding game play mechanics.

Now before I present my feedback regarding the topics in the title I would like to clarify certain things. I know this is a game in its early beta stages and so I acknowledge that nothing is set in stone; I do, however, also know that the current design is a good indicator of what direction the game is heading. I do not know the extent of planned changes, or what is going to be completely redesigned, so anything I write does have an element of ignorance (I'm not on the dev team, last I checked ). I'm saying this because I have commonly experienced good feedback deemed irrelevant because something is going to be changed. I'm not asking for changes to be made in the areas that I leave feedback or criticism because I know there are going to be changes, I leave my opinions in hopes that it can influence the outcome of future changes. I genuinely want this game to be the best it can be, and I don't presume that what I suggest or elaborate on hasn't been already discussed by the developers. I will try to explain the reasoning behind my words as best I can. Many things, I presume, will be things that the developer (hopefully reading this :3) already knows about and has been told about by testers many times over, yet I hope that my feedback might help future decisions and designs. 

The Technology Tree

When it comes to 4X games I consider this to be one of its pillars. This is the mechanism that determines the extent of variety and uniqueness between games most profoundly. The way a player directs the other mechanics in the game are directly influenced by the choices made in the tech tree (I'm only saying this to show my understanding is of this mechanic, not to "educate" a developer, because I'm certain they/you understand it much better). 

As of now the tech tree branches too much. I always get disappointed when games such as this have small tech trees (SoaSE as an example) so when I see a big sprawling tech tree I get exited. I don't feel like the tech tree needs to be made smaller, but what I do think is that it branches too often too quickly. I understand that having too little choice in the beginning can homogenize the early parts of the game since the value of each choice is diminished. But does that mean having a system like the current one adds value to your choices? I thought about this and I'm actually inclined to say that it doesn't.

The value and consequences of decisions should be greater with a deeper tech tree, right? If I choose to dedicate my efforts on building an economic empire then the quality of my military will suffer. The consequence of my decision is more meaningful because I can't simply buy a good fleet because I have to go back and research specific technologies. It's good in the way that it challenges a player to approach situations in different ways. I imagine this is the ideal framework, where your specialization impacts you in meaningful and lasting ways. But after playing around and experimenting I don't find this to be the case.

What has happened in this current implementation of the tech tree is that research specialization becomes the clear winner. There are several factors which contribute to this and they are all things that every player has to deal with regardless of how they want to play the game. One of the most obvious factors would be population and its growth. Probably the first thing one might say is that the population mechanic needs to be adjusted. Yes it needs adjusting and is going to be adjusted, but it won't change the problem I see in the context of this discussion. The reason for this is that the early game passive bonuses from certain research options are simply way too good. They are so good that the difference in the value of the consequence between focusing on research and other areas is glaringly disproportionate in the early game.

To make this example as clear as I can let me take you through an example of a new game:

You have limited production and income/money. You don't know what is around you just yet. Set scout to explore and explorer to survey and colony ship on stand by. You have an idle shipyard (i prefer making another scout). Now you come to your planet management and your options are limited and in fact there is only one decision that is the best. Set it for research project and go to the govern tab, drag that marker to set @ 100% research. The difference between doing this and anything else is staggering. You go from typically 8-12 turns for a single research option to 3-4 turns. Now you have the freedom to take any path, but they are nowhere near equal. For instance if you decide to take warfare it actually does you more harm than good because you need to support that with actual production and wealth to take advantage of . No, the only good choice is to hit the colonization tree and start collecting techs that grant amazing passive bonuses and upgrades. The reason for this is that the moment you cease focusing everything on research your tech progression takes a massive hit.

Let's say I stop research focus after I get some basic weapons, defense and hulls and then focus on producing units: my production and wealth is worse than if I had researched the colonization tree but the time I spend making units is a time when I could be finishing research almost 3x faster. If I needed to react to a hostile situation at this stage I could go back and grab those military techs, sure I won't have as powerful units as quickly, but it wouldn't be that much slower and all the bonuses I grabbed instead would make the resulting production quicker. Unless you find yourself on a tiny map and very close to an enemy the early game will be all about research focus in specific parts of the tree.

The solution for this, in my mind, is two-fold. First the power of the research focus in the governing tab needs to be reduced, or simply the entire thing has to be redesigned. Perhaps the extent of how much you can focus a planet on a certain thing should be directly scaled/correlated with the buildings you have? For example focusing a planet on 100% research won't convert your production and wealth at a 1:1 ratio unless you have a certain amount of research buildings (similarly the same effect would be in place if you wanted 100% production or wealth).

Secondly the amount of branching in the tech tree in the early phases of the game needs to be drastically trimmed. My main focus would be the military and engineering sections, there are too many things you need to grab in order to justify the amount of time you spend researching it early on. I think the pace of the game would be vastly improved if the branching of techs happens in the middle and late game phases. The biggest problem with the early game tech tree is that it reserves globally useful bonuses and passives much too exclusively in specific parts of the tree.

I propose that the tech tree in the first phase of the game to be disconnected from the second phase of the game. So the way it would work is that you research to specialize your civilization in the early game granting you bonuses for that specialization as you progress further along, simultaneously the cost of researching in other trees in that first phase increases. When you enter the second phase of the game a new tech tree is unlocked, a tree like we have now. You will be able to research weapons or engineering and etc., but you would have no bonuses for them. If you want the bonuses you could go back and research the relevant tree in the first phase but it would be so costly in time such that it becomes a difficult choice to get it or not.

Now I'm not saying the early game techs should be boring and straightforward things like, "Econ Tech I: +10% production/research". Yes such bonuses would be present, but the real challenge would be to make meaningful bonuses and additions to the game. For instance the different trees in the early game could change the way your population grows in unique ways. They could change the requirements and/or ways of gaining or losing approval. How about differences in how that approval affects certain things? These game play mechanisms are all currently solved in the same way regardless of how you play. Population pressure? Build a farm/colonize. What if the methods of dealing with and solving these problems could vary depending on what you decided to specialize in during the early game? Meaningful early game upgrades could provide unique buildings or even abilities that a player can use to tackle these universal problems in ways that resonate with the way he has chosen to play that game.

The idea behind this is to make the player's choices and the resulting consequences present throughout the entire game. The way it works now is that your choices do have consequences but they only materialize in value further down the game. Even with racial traits and abilities I feel that there is a lot of potential regarding ways of defining your civilization. The current system also makes the early parts of the game very stale because the time is spent getting the exact same core techs every game in order to ensure that whatever you do later works. My suggestions are just ideas, I don't imagine they are actual solutions. What I'm certain of is that the current tech tree leaves me wanting. This is an element of 4X games that just hasn't evolved, not because devs are lazy but because it's pretty damn hard.