To me, this is worse than simply being unable to obtain the other mutually exclusive technologies. For the technologies to reasonably be mutually exclusive, you need to be making tradeoffs that prevent you from getting the other benefits. Otherwise, there's little good reason why I could not, given sufficient time, develop those other benefits on my own. Being unable to obtain the other specializations by research is fine; it just means that whatever tradeoffs I made to get the benefit I chose are incompatible with getting the other benefits. Being able to obtain these other benefits via trade undercuts this; now, instead of having made tradeoffs which were incompatible with obtaining the other benefits, I simply haven't spent enough time looking at the problem, as there is clearly a set of tradeoffs which gets the full benefits of each specialization. This should not be possible, or at least it should not be impossible to develop through research and yet entirely possible to implement just by talking to the neighbors; at the very least, I should need to spend some time figuring out how to incorporate their tradeoffs into my system to get the benefit (i.e. trading for the technology does not instantly give me the technology, it just gives me the opportunity to research it).

Alternatively, the specializations need to not be strictly beneficial. Maybe that +10% factory output costs me +5% in maintenance because the higher output means more wear and tear on parts, that -10% maintenance costs me +5% construction costs because high-quality parts are more expensive and harder to make, and that -10% construction cost reduces factory output by 5% because the cheap parts just cannot handle the wear and tear of normal operations. Now instead of it being strictly beneficial to obtain all three specializations, you can see evidence that we've had to cut back on some of the tradeoffs that gave us the benefits listed in each individual tech. The factory with all three specialization techs is still better overall (it has +5% output, -5% maintenance, -5% construction costs if the multipliers are additive, or +4.5% output, -5.5% maintenance, -5.5% construction costs if the multipliers are multiplicative), but it's worse in any given category than the appropriate single-specialization factory would have been, and the factory with any two specializations is similarly placed. With tradeoffs in place, it actually makes sense why you might not take the time to research the other benefits, because you're happy with the set of tradeoffs you picked and you don't want to rebalance the tradeoffs to some other standard, and you don't magically obtain the full benefits of tradeoffs that ought to be conflicting with one another just by talking to the neighbors, though you do still get some benefit out of it. Or, if you don't want the tradeoffs to be against the bonuses offered by the specializations, come up with a fourth metric you can trade against - maybe each of those bonuses to the factory are the results of changes to labor laws, with reduced maintenance costs being the result of a lower standard wage for factory workers, the reduced construction costs being a result of less stringent safety standards, and the increased output comes from increased shift durations, all of which translate to a trade against a planet's approval rating.

It's funny many people here trying to defend the new limitation called "specialization" saying it makes game more interesting, using different strategy or the last ridiculous comment above which suggests that we want to play as several races at once... pfffffff.....

Ideology was already enough to pick between 3 choices everytime you colonize a planet, game already had this.
Putting a limit in research and say no you can't research this even when you have already your own tech tree with different options there is a new illogical rule and says you can't research everything just because.

And who says about strategy, no matter how many games you play you always choose the same thing, the best one.

GC3 has become a very restricted game which you have to play by the rules, no freedom allowed. While it's visually a lot better than GC2 it's not that good..

I'wont go about strange issues and mechanics which look plain wrong like culture flip for planets but no for shipyards or starbases, no borders anyone can roam freely, improvements whic you have to build from level 1 even when you have level 4.. they are annoying but at least you can ignore them.

But when I play GC1 GC2 and GC3 and suddenly you get a new rule which says no you can't do this anymore.. well I won't play it at all I don't like restrictions.

In ideology you get 3 moral choices you have to balance what is bet for your colony and the general ideology which side you want more that's cool and perfectly logical
But in technology you get the illogical limitation you can't make a tech cheaper, faster and smaller the same time no, no no bad thing only one!

And here there are some people who want to defend this and call this great... oh yes I have a new lim.. strategy now I can choose what I want instead researching all the time its sooo boring you know pfff..

It's like going backward, games of the past had many limitations modern games instead coming closer and closer to reality unfortunatelly GC3 is not one of them.

Wow so much negativity. I like the change, its a good one. Definitely in the right direction. Restriction is good, it forces you to make painful decisions. It's good for game play and replay, just look at all popular boardgames, how well thought out mechanics they have and how you cant do everything at once while playing. Computer game should learn a lot from them. Hard decisions needs to be made every turn, just like a good 4x game should be. 

This change makes the game a lot more interesting for me, well done developers. More restrictions please.

But this is especially true with open tech trees, no matter how big it is, how many thousands of techs, there will always be an optimal order to research everything in, or which techs in which catagory to go for first.  Players figure that out, and then do that for each game. Instead of having to make a choice about which is the  'best' specialisation tech, you just build that first. At the very least, it's no better than a restricted tech tree.

I strongly feel that 'open' research trees give less depth, choice and replayability, not more, but recall the initial satisfaction of completing the entire (modded, of course) tech tree in GCII  and so can understand why others strongly feel that open trees are essential for their gameplay enjoyment. But ultimately, finishing the tech tree in GCII was more a case of artificially extending games I could have finished off a hundred  or so turns ago just to complete everything, (if you're in a position to do it, you are utterly dominant and under no threat whatsover, right? Will that be any different in III?) and I eventually felt that chasing down each and every tech was pointless and was  just preventing me from starting a new game that might have had me fully engaged and enjoying myself, rather than grinding on in the current one. Each to their own, I guess.

Disagree, I like what they've done. If you can't stand to play the game because this makes it so awful I suggest;

1) Get some perspective, it restricts a tiny number of tech specializations.

2) Do as you suggest and go play another game.

I think restricting specializations is one of their best design decisions, though I an see those few who don't like it continue to be very loud and over dramatic about it. 

So are you saying that Stardock should disregard those of us who agree that specializations should be limited instead? You seem to think all player share your opinion and we don't I assure you.

Also your sense of entitlement is misplaced Frogboy can make any decision he wants, it's his company and this is a game in active development, the fact is what some people are strongly for this decision and some people are strongly against it like you while others don't really think it's important, Stardock are designing and building the game not you or me  and as the saying goes you can't please all of the people all of the time.

your games must be very boring then. the way I see it is that, as each game progresses, it should present a various array of difficulties which have to be addressed correspondingly. granted, the current ways-to-win are too much the same because of some mechanics that still need balancing, but I'm sure this will change in the near future. if I go back and start a TOTA game I don't know what will happen, and what I will have to choose because most games develop differently and I've played half a thousand games so far. of course I make a plan but that plan usually gets disrupted multiple times by stuff that turns up, events, AI choices... so I have to adjust, and I do that by making different choices. this is what a good strategy game should do for you in a nutshell.

and because different games develop differently, you can't know beforeahead, "what is best". you'll have to see, and I haven't seen any data or calculations here in this topic which would support these claims of "what is always best". 

what we get is stuff like this

where people *assume* (instead of *knowing*) and use this guesswork to jump to non-constructive conclusions ("stupid"). maybe some choices are weaker in most games, then the correct way of action would be either boost those or weaken the strong choices, but I haven't seen a single presentation (of the people who are against the specialization) in this thread or the others.

I really think this is blown out of proportion by a vocal minority. They made the game the way they thought it would be fun. They also made it moddable so that those who wanted a slightly different play style could also have fun. It's not like exclusive specializations is a core mechanic of the game that is hard wired into the code.

I see the potential for a few different mods

1. No specialization exclusivity (e.g. from Neidzielan)

2. Partial specialization exclusivity (for those specializations that might be more impactful such as colonization and invasion/defense)

3. Exponentially expensive specialization (e.g. trims2u's idea)

and perhaps all other ideas in between, such as rebalancing specializations so there isnt one clear good choice and two mediocre choices.

On another thread someone mentioned there was already a mod to change it back for those pitching a fit about it, so I guess the drama's over....  Well in any reasonable discussion it would be but this is the internet after all.

Like many others, I like the specialization, but I do agree with BuckGodot on the extreme worlds aspect. It seems to me we should be able to colonize varying planets.

...and as much as I loved MOO II, creative was the single most broken part of the game.  If you played with that trait, you won.