I was thinking about adding a function to the Writer that will randomize tech costs. It would also record what the original costs were so you can return to the baseline at any point.
Essentially you would load up the Writer, randomize the tech costs, save the files, then launch GalCiv to play with your new costs. I'd black out the cost fields to preserve the mystery while randomized. When tired of these values you could return to baseline or randomize again.
Please note I'm just talking about randomizing the costs, randomizing the actual tech tree itself is another matter, also possible but a lot more work, I might do this later.
Would anyone be interested in this? If so, what do you feel would be non-game-breaking randomization factors?
I haven't given it too much thought, but I was thinking -50% to +50%. Should we have larger swings then that?