On 1/23/2018 3:07 AM, Caleuche wrote:
> Taking a look at the systems broken down by Allegiance:
> https://i.imgur.com/9rwo92c.png
> - white circles represent >= TL15 and yellow circles represent
> population >= 5*10^10 - it appeared that there is no Zhodani TL15
> world, and there's not, at least in the official data. Has that always
> been that way? Is it intentional?

Naturally.  When the game was developed, the Imperium were the good guys
(aka "the US/NATO") and the Zhodani were the bad guys (aka "the SU and
WarPact"), so the good guys *had* to be smarter, more created, better
educated, and better at researching & developing than the bad guys. 
Doesn't make sense given the history...the Zho never suffered a
societal/governmental collapse since achieving interstellar travel, and
the Imperium has crashed and burned twice.

I can understand the Vargr and to a lesser degree the Aslan lagging
behind due to cultural reasons, but even then, knowledge and information
is portable; the only things holding back advancement are artificial
constructs (for any "empire").

> Also, if you look at the power of an empire as a combination of
> population and tech level, it seems like the third imperium should be
> far more powerful than anyone else.

It should, but...well, they had to have a fatal flaw to make them not
quite so perfect.

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living enough." - Me