From most of the screen shots it can be seen that the player would be researching specific technological/magical goals. I would argue for the option of focused technology/magical progression. By focused technology progression I mean a research system akin to that found in SMAC, where you set your prefer research direction(s) but have no control over exactly what is researched.
The reason I favor this approach is that it will add more accuracy to the game in that technological advancement is not linear. Also, it will add a bit of luck to how your research progresses and you will not be able to employ a strategy that requires you to attain a specific technology at a specific time.
The reason I am advocating this as an option and not an outright change is that I know some people would not share my views about how research should progress or just prefer to know where they are going. However, if the game is designed with focused research in mind it can easily be adapted to specific research but the opposite is not true.
Please post any comments, ideas, or criticisms.
NOTE: It appears that those that are not familiar with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri(SMAC) are misunderstanding the concept but I didn't phrase it with those individuals in mind so I apologize.
Here is an example to better explain the concept. You have, for arguments sake, 4 different categories of research: Military, Industry, Economy, Agriculture. All of the technologies are categorized into the previously mentioned categories. You decide to temporarily focus only on Agriculture. This doesn’t mean that you will only research Agriculture technology. It does mean that if you meet the prerequisites for an Agriculture and, for example, a Military tech you have a much higher chance of researching that Agriculture Tech rather than the other.
Here is another example that addresses the concept from a different direction. From the club could you "see" the exact path to a short sword assuming the only knowledge you had was of the club? Not really. Would you even have a concept of an edged weapon? Maybe, maybe not. Would you know what to make it out of or how? Nope.
If you had a SMAC like tech system and wanted to get to the short sword ASAP you would select to focus on Industry and Military b/c the Industry focus will answer how to make it and out of what and the Military focus will fill in the concept. However, just b/c you are focusing on one area doesn’t mean that your civilization couldn't come up with new economic thoughts or of applying agriculture principals. It just won’t be as likely.
This adds to the strategy element b/c if you focus on industry and economy too exclusively you will not be guaranteed to get the military techs that you may need right away if you run into someone that wants to conquer you. At the same time it dampens the effect of player focus by giving them technologies that they don’t think they want or need right at that moment. This acts to give players that focus on industry and economy, for example, a few military and agriculture techs here and there so they are not extremely vulnerable to challenges in those areas.
Like I mentioned before, not everyone will prefer this option but I believe that it adds considerably to how the game is played and will fit in well with the ideas expressed by Frogboy.
All I'm asking for is the option to do blind. That way both camps will be happy.
Focused research could be interesting.
It'd be great if it could be done in such a way that the game did so based on your needs, since that is how most techs are discovered through necessity and happenstance.
Say you're focused on military tech and have been for awhile. So the game sets out to research your next tech, and it looks at you're empire. Because of your focus on military power, you've surpassed everyone else in the game, you have no match for your knowledge in warfare, but your economy is weak, terribly so. The game then decides that even though you're focused on military tech, you need an economic boost, stat. This could even be relayed to the player when the tech discovery screen pops up. "Sire, I know you desired more toys for killing our neighbors, but we came across a way to turn lead into gold instead! We hope you'll find that the increased gold in your treasurey is sufficient to keep our heads attached to our shoulders."
The beauty of this system is that these tech trees are not linear and in essence simulate this. If you are focusing only on military and run out of military techs that you meet the prerequisites for you will research a non-military tech the next time around. The reason is that a lot of the military techs will be dependent on the nonmilitary techs and will simulate the advisor redirecting the leaders attention as you put it. For example, Industry leads to more efficient armor and weapons, Economy leads to more efficient means of paying and supporting your troops, and Agriculture would lead to more efficient means of feeding your troops.
As for magic I am uncertain how it should work into the system. From the lore it appears that magic is uncommon and would be the exclusive realm of your "channeler" his heroes and assistants. That information would support a separate research system. With magic being so rare I don’t think it would interact with technology much and people would still need to come up with technological rather than magical solutions for there problems. Keep in mind that the thoughts outlined in this paragraph are pure conjecture.
I am not advocating a "hidden" tech tree. Expecting the player to know exactly what is in the mind of the designer and try to figure out what the designer would intuitively have follow each tech and how they would interconnect is a very tall order.
What I am saying is that when you research you choose what area of the tech tree to focus on and not what your next tech will be specifically. You as a player still have full knowledge of the tech tree and choose the areas of the tech tree to focus on to meet your strategic needs.
Again, I am only advocating this technology system as an option in addition to the normal TBS tech tree.
(remember, this proposal is just for "blind research" to be an _option_, not mandatory, not even defaulted to "on")Sounds cool as an option, and I would probably play some games with it on. The tricky thing development-time-budget wise is balancing the number of semi-niche options to implement versus time spent on core features and whatnot.Implementation probably wouldn't be a total bear. I guess you'd need:- another checkbox on the option form, mapping to a value stored in the options file- the yes/no value stored in each savegame- a new data type for "tech category" (military, industrial, social, etc)- a new field on the "tech" data type linking each tech to a single tech category (or do we need multiple?)- when choose-tech screen is requested, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if it's on display a new interface with one option for each selectable tech category- anywhere the "current tech research" display is used, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if on just display the tech category being researched with some kind of progress indicator (or not, dunno)- when a tech is finished, or tech category is switched, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if it's on then set the player's tech-in-research to a random eligible tech from the currently selected tech category.Would anything else be necessary? Anyone modding techs would have to specify a tech category for each new tech or it wouldn't work right with the Blind Research option, but that would be up to them.Personally, I could do without this option, but as this discussion has shown there are people who would really like it.
Sounds cool as an option, and I would probably play some games with it on. The tricky thing development-time-budget wise is balancing the number of semi-niche options to implement versus time spent on core features and whatnot.Implementation probably wouldn't be a total bear. I guess you'd need:- another checkbox on the option form, mapping to a value stored in the options file- the yes/no value stored in each savegame- a new data type for "tech category" (military, industrial, social, etc)- a new field on the "tech" data type linking each tech to a single tech category (or do we need multiple?)- when choose-tech screen is requested, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if it's on display a new interface with one option for each selectable tech category- anywhere the "current tech research" display is used, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if on just display the tech category being researched with some kind of progress indicator (or not, dunno)- when a tech is finished, or tech category is switched, check the switch; if it's off proceed normally, if it's on then set the player's tech-in-research to a random eligible tech from the currently selected tech category.Would anything else be necessary? Anyone modding techs would have to specify a tech category for each new tech or it wouldn't work right with the Blind Research option, but that would be up to them.Personally, I could do without this option, but as this discussion has shown there are people who would really like it.
From what I have seen you are correct in your analysis of the implimentation of this feature. It takes a little extra effort to catigorize the technology and put in the switches to display the correct menues depending on the tech style selected.
Also, in its previous implementation each tech had only a single categorization. For simplicities sake I think it probably should remain that way. There were, however, many cross-dependencies between categories which in my mind is the better option.
Multiple categorizations would be possible, it's the difference between a straight-up field/attribute storing a tech category id on the tech type and a sub-type within the tech type that would store an association with a single tech category id and you could have multiple records of that sub-type.
<tech name="Sword Smithing" category ="Military" />
as opposed to
<tech name="Sword Smithing">
<tech-category-association category="Military" />
<tech-category-association category="Industrial" />
</tech>
Anyway, enough geekery from me for now.
You deserve a cookie for the part I emphasized.
To be clear, as a gamer, I love options. As someone providing input into the design of a game, though, asking for something to be an option is both a copout and the worst possible outcome for the developers. Making something an option requires that SD spend time designing, coding, testing and balancing both/multiple possible systems - resulting in one area of the game taking, generally, twice as long to develop as it could. Asking for something to be an option is a copout because it means that we failed the intellectual exercise of identifying the costs and benefits of each approach and determining which one had the largest net positive.
For those reasons, I, personally, am going to treat most of the discussions that are going to happen here as "pick the one best approach" conversations, even if the topic starter only asks for the approach to be an option. I don't mean that as a slight to the people proposing the options. I simply feel that we're not providing very much valuable input to SD if we're constantly just saying "add this as an option". There will always be someone in favour of any idea and, therefore, always at least some basis for including it as an option. Obviously, though, not everything can be an option. Aside from the nightmarish snarl of menu screens and dropdowns that would create, SD only has so many people and man-hours with with to create the game and they can't possibly make it everything to everyone. I see part of our role here as being to help them identify, instead, which decisions will make it the most things to the most people.
My feeling is that the notion to make something an option should only happen at the end of a conversation, when it has become clear that (1) people are approximately evenly divided between two or more approaches to an issue, with no clear plurality or majority favouring one approach, and (2) we cannot identify a game design issue - be it development time, balancing issues, or whatever else - that would eliminate the alternatives as not being viable.
- Ash
Well, I would hate it if we all had to play the game with surprise research. It should be optional if ever presented in the game.
Example: If I want to prioritize economical growth in the start of the game, and just a few military techs, then I want to be able to choose military technology that helps me defensivly, like for instance good archers to protect my castles. I don't want to end up with tech that improves my horsemen.....
In general, OAB. Options Are Bad.
Options are *NOT* "free" in development resources.
In general, the cost of implementing a significant option is pretty high, higher than the benefit of having both alternatives.
However, it is not always the case that the cost of implementation is all that bad. It's a case by case thing. That's why I went into the list of each specific coding/data-type change that would be necessary. In the end, I don't think it would take much.
Do you think my estimate of what it would take is missing something? Or is it just a principled objection against having an option? I certainly sympathize with the latter.
I do have a principled objection against options (well, premature requests for them, at least) but I also think there are some nuts-and-bolts/balancing issues that you haven't considered there. For instance, how exactly would generic research work:
- Would choosing a category be an all-or-nothing decision (choosing Military means 100% of your research resources go there, 0% to anywhere else) or would there be a slider (so that you could focus 60% on Military, 30% on Economics, 10% on Science)?
- Beneath that, if you were eligible for multiple techs in a category, how would the game allocate resources to each? If your focus is Military and you have three available Military techs, does the game split your your Military research points 33/33/33? Does it pick one and go all-in for it, first? If the latter, does it pick one at random or does some algorithm to pick between them need to be developed?
- Would there be any element of pure randomness, allowing for the occasional development of a tech from an area that you were not focusing on at all? If so, how much? Might there even be a situational element to that randomness (as people have said, innovation is often a response to need, so perhaps being at war would increase the likelihood of developing Military techs)?
I think your list above was a pretty good one in terms of putting a generic research system in place but I think the true time the system would require would not be in making it work but in playtesting and balancing to make it work right.
Certainly, it would not be as simple as making the feature available, there is still much to decide as to what it should actually do.
And you are right that it would be far preferable to identify a single system that would please everyone (or nearly everyone) rather than "copout" and go with two distinct systems.
So what middle ground would work? What would please the control freaks, min/maxers, and those who want a form of blind research?
Thanks,
Keith
Just brainstorming...
What about (and I think I'm going to invent a term here) a form of tech "clustering"? Here's what I mean by that:
- Technology development would work off a conventional, explicit tree.- Most technologies would be present in the same one-tech-leads-to-the-next linear fashion we're used to, with or without some cross-branch prerequisites for balance.- At certain key points, however, there would be "clusters" of 2-4 mutually exclusive techs. You would choose to research the cluster, not a specific tech in it, and which one you get would be random and would preclude ever developing the other techs in that cluster.- Clustered techs would always be related but would represent those moments of blind inspiration that could redefine an empire by taking it down a specific path.
To use a GalCivII example, you might cluster the initial techs for Beam Weapon Theory, Mass Driver Theory and Missile Theory, so that a Civ could only persue one avenue per game (it's not a great example because GalCiv's combat strategy was based around being able to adapt your ship outfitting to counter your enemy's designs but you get the idea). After the cluster, there would be a series of linear "refinement"-type techs for each possibility (better beam weapons, etc.) before another clustering of techs representing the next "Eureka!" moment in your development.
The possible downside that I see to this approach is that clustering techs that are too important will make people feel like they aren't get to make choices that are critical to their game, while clustering techs that are too trivial will make people feel like the whole system is pretty pointless.
Thoughts?
That sounds like a very cool idea, one that I would enjoy.
The immediate problem that comes to mind is the downside you mentioned. A lot of players will hate the idea, and a lot (smaller number) will hate it in practice. They won't like that they really wanted to focus on cavalry but the game just refused to give them the right techs for it. That could be really, really frustrating, and it's not a "challenge" type of frustration, it's just the random number generator farting in your general direction. Personally I don't mind rolling with the punches and seeing what happens, but that's not a universal outlook.
So you just get back to the same situation: significant portion of the audience hates the idea and wants it to be optional.
A general idea that came to mind is making the "natural" or "path of least resistance" progression of technology be more or less blind, and making it possible to focus more but at the cost of research efficiency, gold, magic, resources, etc, or some combination thereof.
A simple implementation could be:
- if you just pick a tech category, you get 100% of your research points towards the tech
- if you pick a specific tech, you get 50% of your research points towards the tech
This could be combined with the cluster idea (I do like the idea of mutually exclusive tech, though it didn't work so well in MOO2). The costs could involve other resources as well though I don't want it to be too complex.
Oooh, I like this. I would suggest adding a third setting to it:
1) "Follow your inspiration wherever it may take you!". Blind research: you might get anything from any branch of the tree. Research is 100% efficient.
2) "We need better weapons, damnit!". Focused research: you pick a branch of the tech tree to focus on and the game randomly selects an eligible tech from that branch. Research is 90% efficient.
3) "I want a curved sword and I want it now!". Specific research: you pick the exact tech to target and you will get it. Research is 75% efficient.
Percentages subject to playtesting and balancing, of course.
One additional minor problem that I forsee: with any form of non-specific research where a specific tech tree is visible, research costs need to be set in such a way that the user can't figure out what tech they're going to get by doing a little math (current research rate * turns to discovery = cost of tech to be discovered). Thus, tech costs within a given tier of the tree would need to be similar-to-identical to prevent this sort of exploitive premonition.
Yea, the inference by tech cost problem occured to me which is why I wasn't sure if they should even get a progress indicator. It would be weird and kinda frustrating to not have something though, so it could display an estimate (e.g. "will be complete in 7-12 turns").
I like the idea of the 3 levels of focus. And I'm a serious control freak and want to pick my techs I'd like to hear what objections others would have to this model. As a non-optional model.
What do you think of having various ways of mitigating the focus penalty? Like a character creation pick that allows tech-specific focusing in the military category at 90% efficiency? Or one that allows category-level focus at 100% efficiency? Or a special "headquarters" lab where you could station your avatar and get much better efficiency since there's a demi-god-like channeler coordinating the effort? Or is this just too complicated without enough payoff?
While I was writing this up keithLamothe and Asharak both posted elements included below. I'm going to post it unedited anyway, though, as it's different enough that I think it's worth it.
The focus system appeals to me a lot. I've never played a game with it before but it sounds like a great idea. However, i think that, if implemented, it should be more than just the option to focus on a one or two technology trees; you should have more control than that.
From both realism (even though realism isn't that important to me) and gameplay standpoints, focusing on, say, agriculture doesn't make much sense. agriculture is really broad, and can vary from plowing to cultivate more land or irrigation to cultivate undesirable land. As many people have said, new advances are usually based on need, without a clear picture about what the solution would entail. If my empire is on lush terrain crisscrossed by streams and rivers, irrigation isn't going to help much. On the other hand, the plow would allow my empire to cultivate vast tracts of these fertile lands. Or an even more drastic comparison: the cotton gin vs. the plow: if I have a lot of land, but little of it is suited to grow cotton, then the cotton gin is going to be a significantly inferior advancement to the plow.
You could always say that if the tech tree is designed and balanced well, then all technologies will be helpful. But that is inherently wrong unless the game is always the same. All advancements should have a reasonable opportunity to be worth their cost when compared to others, but they shouldn't all always be worth just as much to the player. Every game should play differently, due to starting area, strategy, events, etc. Certain circumstances present a strong impetus for certain advances - both in real life and in a game like this.
Given that Stardock has plans to allow for truly long and epic games, I am hoping that they are also planning a very, very large tech tree so that by the end of the longer games not everyone has everything. There's the option to make technologies take longer on larger maps, but I personally hate that. It makes me feel stagnant.
If we take a large, detailed tech tree for granted (for now), then my proposal is literally a direct compromise between focused and specialized advancement. Have the tech tree divided into two levels of categories: the broad top level (agriculture, industry, military, etc.), and the bottom, specific level (swords, farmland improvement, farming tools, armor-piercing weapons, metalworking, etc.). This should be ONE big tech tree, and the specific categorizations should draw from multiple broad ones! Then, let the player choose to focus on ANY of the categories from EITHER categorization level.
That way, if you loooove swords you can focus on swords. Or if your enemy has really tough armor, you can focus on weapons to negate their defense. Or, if you're at peace and want to improve your agriculture, but you don't really have a vision for anything specific, you can focus on agriculture as a whole and be surprised!
I think that in the end, a system like this would provide the replayability granted by the SMAC system, but also provide the player with reasonably specific control over what they're going to get. The specialized categories would be organized so that whichever tech the player ends up researching will be just as good as the other potential advancements s/he could've gotten. No more feeling of being swindled by chance
The rest of this is a little unrelated/going into details but I'm going to post it here anyway.
Some other features I think would be nice:
1) Techs should be able to be part of multiple categories if applicable.
2) Techs should be able to have prereqs outside their categories. This is already implicit in the idea, because it's based on one big tree, but categorized separately into related technologies. They should also be able to have material prereqs - no swords research if you have no metal.
3) Some specialized categorizations shouldn't be available until certain prerequisites are satisfied. You shouldn't be able to focus on swords on the first turn if you have neither metalworking nor any metal resources, nor even the concept of a sharp-edged weapon. Maybe draw from the galciv approach here - before you unlock the "swords" category you need to research the "sharp-edged weapons" tech, as well as have metal resources. The "sharp-edged weapons" tech could be part of the "weapon concepts" and "armor-piercing weapons" categories... "Axes" could also be unlocked by researching the "sharp-edged weapons" tech, but it could require stone instead of metal. Or either!
Note that this are just examples, and not particularly good ones.
Some problems to resolve:
1). What happens if you want to focus on a category with no available techs (haven't researched the prereqs)?
I can think of two solutions: automatically research prerequisites or don't allow you to do this. I'm leaning towards automatically research prerequisites. If more than one prereq is needed, maybe make a high chance to consecutively research prereqs for the same tech until it's available. If you can focus on multiple categories at once, maybe it will prefer prereqs from other categories you're focusing on. Could be used to improve chances of getting what you want.
2). If there is too much interconnection between the specialized categories then the focus system would fall apart - it would take ages to get what you want. Would probably end up slowly creeping up many categories simultaneously.
The only real solution to this is to design the tech tree very cleverly, but I think it can be done, and done well. And if anybody can, it's Stardock!
This is a very minor distinction but, for blind or focused research, what about giving qualitative, rather than quantitative, reports on research progress? Instead of giving a number of turns, do something like this:
1) 00-20% done: progress bar displays "Imagining".2) 21-40% done: progress bar displays "Hypothesizing".3) 41-60% done: progress bar displays "Testing"4) 61-80% done: progress bar displays "Theorizing"5) 81-100% done: progress bar displays "Verifying".
That would get around the issue of tech cost calculations while also avoiding debates over how precise/vague to make a numerical estimate but the consistent use of five named stages would still give people some idea how their tech development is coming along.
Not a bad idea, it fits the setting much better than "We are 73% finished with researching our next advancement" but still gives a rough idea about how long it's going to take. It doesn't, however, completely solve the problem.
If you're researching blindly or in a large category, then it would work pretty well because chances are there would be enough techs available that even if you estimate the cost based on how long it takes to get to "Hypothesizing", there will probably be numerous possibilities.
If you're researching in a smaller category (ala my suggestion, for example), then unless the research costs are very very similar (which they needn't be - it would be possible even to have both low and high level techs available).
However I don't think it's such a terrible thing if you can see what you're going to get after you're a certain % through researching it. If, say, at 30% it tells you what you're going to get, it gives you an interesting option. If it's something you really don't want or need at all, it gives you the option to switch to something else and hopefully be luckier. But if it's something that will be at all useful most people will just stick with it by that point.
And as a side note, I'm not a fan of mutually exclusive technologies unless there is a good reason - otherwise I just get frustrated that I can't have both mithril armor and adamantium armor. What reason could there possibly be? It can, however, work in some cases for magic. And for balance reasons, if there is no other way to balance the problem but to make mutually exclusive choices.
Ash,
Yea, the 0/21/41/61/81 progress 'tier' approach sounds like a good solution to that particular part of the problem. It's ok if the player can occaisionally know which techs they are or are not getting if they are paying an inordinate amount of attention.
pigeonpigeon,
- The judicious multi-categorization could be useful, though the additional complexity would need to be weighed.
- "Need based" research availability is a very interesting idea but may be very challenging to model at a computational level due to having to track various factors reflecting the "need" an empire has of a given tech or type of tech. They planned to do something like that in MOO3 and I don't think it survived the development process.
- I certainly agree on the need for a cleverly done and well-balanced (and large!) tech tree; I think most of what you were discussing there applies equally to semi-blind tech and the classic approach.
I think it'd probably be good to lay off the mutually-exclusive tech idea for a while; semi-blind research will anger enough people
I don't know if the gameplay benefit would be worth it or it would just be feature creep but I think it would really... neat... to work in even a mild sort of situational/need-based bonus to research. Depending on the list of tech categories, something like:
* +5% to Military research per Faction you are at war with.* +5% to Aquatic research per coastal settlement you control.* +5% to Industrial research per metallic resource you have access to.
Agreed. Game/research speed settings are useful things but their function should be to change the progression of the game on any map size, not substitute for an insufficiently deep tech tree on large maps.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, the Blind/Focused/Specific model that keith and I have been working up incorporates this, with our Focused level corresponding to your "top level" and our Specific corresponding to your "bottom level".
Agreed, though I'm not too picky about it pending gameplay testing. Multiple categories might also conflict with my suggestion for situational bonuses: if more than one bonus applies, do they stack?
Absolutely agreed. I posted in another thread that this is how Civilization handles its tech trees, and its an approach I really like. The whole tree is interrelated enough that you can only push ahead along a single branch for so long before you are forced to restore some technological balance to your civilization before you can keep going. I much prefer that approach to one where you can potentially have lasers while still living in mud huts (after all, you can't build a laser without the sophisticated factory to build it in, and the "discovery" of the factory and mass production required the urbanization of the population, and so on).
I think it should simply be not allowed. The category could be faded out with a mouseover message that reads something like "Our Wise Men don't have even the foggiest clue how to improve our current Farming abilities".
A simple solution to that problem: at the beginning of each tech reseach, throw a +/- 5% modifier on each stage, so that sometimes you'd reach Hypothesizing at 15%, sometimes at 25%, and sometimes in between. Since you wouldn't know what percentage was the "trigger" point for this research cycle, you wouldn't be able to do any sort of accurate math based on it.
Obviously, though, the variance would need to be at least somewhat balanced across the five stages: -5% to all five and you'd end up with a scale that topped out at 75, not 100.
This isn't a bad idea. Again, maybe we're getting into too much complexity, but we could tie it to the stages. If you're using Blind research, at 41% ("Testing") you find out what category you're researching in and at 81% ("Verifying") you find out the exact tech you're getting. If you're using Focused research, you already know the category, so at 61% you find out the precise tech.
I like the idea that finding out partway through presents you with the decision to "waste" a more limited number of turns on finishing the less-useful tech or forgo your research to that point and start over on a guaranteed-different (and hopefully more useful) tech.
Agreed.
Sounds like a cool idea though like you I don't want feature creep. Your examples there are concrete enough that they could be implemented without great difficulty, and perhaps should; it's just a question of total tonnage of how many different places these modifiers can come from and whether it adds to the fun.
There's also the question of game focus; whether a fantasy/magic 4X is the right game to go for a (to my knowledge) unprecedented need-based research system. But I certainly wouldn't complain if it was in and done right.
He may have been looking for multiple levels of categorization, e.g. "military" -> "weapons" -> "swords" -> two-handed-sword tech. I would prefer to keep it to one flat level of categorization for simplicity's sake.
Yea, that would handle that.
I think I would be happy with it as nothing more than a slight flavour-adding feature. I don't think I'd want "need" to be the primary driver of research (replacing user selection at whatever level of focus). I just thought it would be nice to incorporate something that at least nods to the people who have pointed out that need plays a role in innovation. It would also encourage users to play rationally: empires at war just don't throw gobs of money at, say, national park construction; they focus on the war effort. Situational research bonuses would reward players for intelligently adapting their research to the state of the game.
In terms of limiting scope, I would suggest keeping it to one potential "need" modifier per category of research (i.e., "factions at war" would be the only modifier on the Military research rate, etc.).
I actually love that idea! And what makes it even better is that it's reward-based, no punitive measures.
I think it's a little bit different, actually - but there are definitely similarities. I got the impression that your "Blind" would lead to a random tech from the whole tree (I think we agree that there be one big tech tree ala galciv2 or civilizations), that "Focused" would result in a random tech from one of the sub-trees with a research penalty, and that "Specific" would result in getting THE tech you want at a large penalty.
My "top level" or Broad categories = your sub-trees (like Military, Agriculture, etc), and my "bottom level" or Specific categories have no analogy in your/keith's model. The specific categories would be much smaller groupings of related technologies than the Broad categories - and these specific categories are independent of the Broad categories! And technologies could be part of multiple Specific categories if applicable.
The point of this is to allow for a completely focused system, but with enough control that you will always get something that you want. If you want something to counter your opponents heavy armor, focus research on the "Anti-armor" (bad name) Specific category. Maybe you'll end up with armor-piercing arrows, or with maces, or with the half-sword technique for your longswordsmen. The point is that any of the techs you might end up with will achieve your goal, just in different ways.
keithe pointed out that this system might be a little overcomplicated, which might be true. I think before that could be determined either way, somebody would have to give it a brief try!
In my system, very few if any techs should be in multiple Broad categories. But the Specialized categories wouldn't really work if unless some techs can be in several of these smaller categories; many techs have multiple purposes, and should thus be available when focusing on different categories.
Anything I didn't respond to means that you agreed with me and I still agree with you
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