Stalker0

Join Date 04/2009

+43

A Way to Communicate Quest

So this quest gives you two choices, you can start the mission to get Universal Translator, or pay 600 credits to get a company to do it for you.

And....the company option is utter garbage. Paying 600 credits at this point in the game is absolutely insane, that could be two leaders, and you need them all when your expanding. But then you get what amounts to a free tech (which is pretty darn cheap to begin with) and a -1 diplomacy, as opposed to an early culture point.

There is no comparison here, and its very penalizing to a new player that doesn't know any better.

galactic civilizations iv

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Actually, it is the Universal Translator and absolutely necessary for trade. As you said you do not want to buy it you then wait till, you're ready to research it (unless they made it automatic in a patch since launch).

So, no real decision to make. You want to talk to the Alien Scum research it. You do not want to talk with the Alien Scum don't research it.

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You can spend more money, and a few more turns, and the -1 diplo goes away (and you get the culture point). But then it is more of your early-game cash for an easily researched tech ...

I almost always do the research myself, but if I have tons of cash (Iridium) and other research plans which are high priority, I will buy it.

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SchismNavigator

Join Date 06/2012

+156

I do see where you're coming from in regards to the cost value of the private option being poor. Would reducing the cost be the way to go to make it more appealing?

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+63

Quoting SchismNavigator,

reply 3

I do see where you're coming from in regards to the cost value of the private option being poor. Would reducing the cost be the way to go to make it more appealing?

That's probably part of it. IIRC it also takes 10 turns to get, which is longer than it takes to research it yourself. I don't find myself ever being in a position to be able to afford the 600bc and even with slow research pacing it's usually more efficient to just research it as it's not an expensive research cost.

Halving both the cost and time-to-get seems like it would bring it into the ballpark of me actually thinking about it some games. 300bc and 5 turns vs 600bc and 10 turns.

I have no idea if the number of turns it takes is tied to tech pacing at all. Also, it'd be nice to have a couple veteran players chime in about what an appropriate cost would be to make this a more interesting choice.. I'm probably more miserly than most people..

-tid242

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Quoting SchismNavigator,

reply 3

I do see where you're coming from in regards to the cost value of the private option being poor. Would reducing the cost be the way to go to make it more appealing?

the issue is money is very tight at that point in the game. You need leaders for ministers, for commanders, for governors. And your income is often a meer handful of credits a turn, or perhaps even negative!

meanwhile research is plentiful in comparison, I play on slow research rates and I still consider researching the tech vs paying 600 credits a no brainer.

i need a much bigger prize, probably two free leader at absolute minimum. Than it feels like an investment as opposed to just a huge cost in the early game.

Now if you do want to go the other way, where you keep the benefit the same and just reduce the cost, than I would as a baseline say that 2 credits ~= 1 Research Point (This is based on the raw income ratio early game. I personally think credits are more valuable than that because of my hunger for leaders early, but perhaps other playstyles would disagree). So take whatever the RP cost of Universal Translator is (which I would have noted expect finding that cost is ridiculous hard, and apparantely you can't see it when you've already researched the tech), and then adjust the credit cost to that.

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+63

Now that I'm thinking about it...

The quest cost should probably be scaled by two factors:

Research Rate
Progress in the game.

I realized after typing my reply that it really only applies to the types of games that I play, whereby I generally meet the first AI civ in the first 10-20 turns (sometimes sooner, but always by turn 20, I'd say). At this point in the game I usually have no money, no cash flow and can research Univ Trans in <10 turns. If I were playing a game where I was starting in a sector all by myself, it would be quite different.

So scaling on research rate means that selecting the "hire a private company to do it" or whatever that option is would result in it being completed somewhat along the same timeline as what it would take to research it yourself.

And scaling on "progress in the game" would be scaling it somehow to be commensurate with income, savings and turn number that this happens.

There are probably too many playstyles for it to make sense that this mission have static costs (or rewards, if rewards are to be added). Some sort of "first civ to research UT" reward seems like it would be thematically appropriate..

Again, I'd like to have some veteran players chime in for appropriate numbers for the above (but I do feel like completion roughly equal to time you'd take to research it yourself, seems like it makes sense).

cheers,

-tid242

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