Brad, greatly appreciated.

As others mentioned, it would add a *much deeper* layer to diplomacy.

You could trade away high value military techs to other races to aid in their war efforts without the rest of the universe having that tech three turns later since, currently, as soon as a race gets a tech it pretty much passes it around.

Thanks,

Throw in an eco treaty and I'm there  
The last hit does seem to take a bigger share in my experience too. You'll be fine in a day or two, I got faith!

Well...I am not expecting (or asking) them to re-work the AI.

They already have techs flagged as "no trade", so, depending on how their code is written, adding a "no tech brokering" option might only take a few hours of programmer time to implement, plus a tiny rework of the set-up screen to add the box.

Actually, a "no tech brokering" request was fairly common on the Quarter-To-Three and Octopus Overlord forums, which Brad reads.

I simply can't play the game with trading on (as it's currently implemented), as everyone ends up with all the same techs and you have to spend a bunch of time spamming the trade windows.

I like the no tech trade option, but I'd be far more interested in using the no-tech-brokering option if it were available.

re manbear @ #25:

I always turn tech trading off now, too. I also disable tech stealing. First, it's a lot more fun to play out tech specialities now; tech trading dilutes the unique quality of the ToA races. Second, no tech trading keeps the Terran trading menace at bay (their AI is strong enough as it is). Third, it means I must pay careful attention to research paths and tech planet development, which adds another element of strategy and fun for me.

So which AIs are most powerful under the no tech trading (or stealing) scenario? I've been playing ToA since mid beta, and I find the same races, regardless of game size and difficulty, usually come out on top:

Top tier: Terran, Torian, Krynn

Some races can go either way, depending mostly on luck I guess.

Mid Tier: Korath, Yor, Drath, Iconian, Thalan (during beta were MUCH weaker)

Some races always finish at the bottom. Sad, because these are good races in the hands of human player.

Bottom Tier: Korx, Altarian, Arcean, Drengin

I wish the game were more unpredictable. I've played as all races without tech trading, and each can be quite good. Overall I find Arceans are most difficult to play and Torians the easiest.

Wait, do the AI races not spend their points or something? It never occured to me that I'd have to, I assumed they just spent the ones you didn't assign before game start.

Just because I'm curious - this "No Tech Brokering" Option seems to me that it should be should be generally related to the "Trade Items" specialID info - i.e. it's Tech Licensing, in which you can 'license' a technology to another civilization, but it doesn't mean they actually *have* the technology - They have access to it for purposes of it's benefits, but they can't trade it themselves, can't develop other technologies from it, as far as the engineers are concerned it's "Black Box" Technology - until they develop it themselves, they can only stick it on their ships (Or set it up from a kit).

Probably add a new tag in the tech tree "Licensable" with a SpecialID # like trade Goods have?

Just a thought - Jonnan

I think you misread - you shouldn't be able to research from a 'licensed' technology - the receiving civ doesn't actually *understand* it, they just buy them wholesale. That doesn't mean they can't learn how it works later - not like trade goods that way, where only one civ can develop them.

I would counter that the 'licensed' tech would be a cheaper and more easily traded option - if you want to assist some small civ give the Drengin a black eye, you license out Phasers and Arnorian battle armor - they can build them from your kits, but they don't actually have the tech to build them from scratch.

You might give a civ a tech bonus in any tech tree that *leads* to a licensed tech (Engineer look at lasers, look at the licensed phasors, going "That *has* to be how this works . . . it's the only thing that makes *sense*") bu until they've developed it independently or actually bought the technological knowhow from someone so they *understand* it, they can't actually improve on it.

jonnan