Every 4X game we’ve made going all the way back to the beginning we try different ways of researching new technologies. Galactic Civilizations I and II both originally had very different research systems.
The one in Elemental we have in the beta we don’t like so we’re going to be making pretty radical changes to it in the upcoming builds.
Here are some of the key elements that we WILL be making more of a focus in keeping:
So stay tuned on that.
I'd say that sums it up for me. The tech trees don't make sense, it just seems like some things were placed further down the tech tree to force you to "work" thru the other techs to get to it.
I really don't mind the UI, it sounds like some people do though. I do enjoy the challenge of you expressing exactly what you see as the shortcomings and trying to come up with alternatives. It's a great opportunity as a fan to be able to have this much input (whether it is implemented or not) into a game like this.
My feeling is that the difficult balance is you want to give the player enough contro that it is not complete RNG, the player has control, but there is also enough random factors to make each new game fresh. I will spend some time thinking on this and see if I can come up with something to post tomorrow.
Idea for research Have general areas of research. You only indicate which general area you want to research, not specific techs: Examples: population growth, weaponry, armor, special resources, resource harvesting etc. I realize this is not much different than the current system - bear with me) If you choose weapons, you will randomly research one of the basic weapons types: clubs, spears, swords, and bows. The reasons for going with random are two: The first is because by research "weapons" you are just trying to come up with "something" to fight with - you don't know what yet, You can't choose sword because you don't know what sword is. Of course, you, the player knows what a sword is, and maybe sword is what you were trying for, which leads to second reason to make it random - it breaks up the routine of finding an "optimum path" to certain techs and then jsut repeating them over and over. There is also a third reason, which will become apparent as we continue to research. So let's say you were hoping for sword, but you got bow. Well the interesting choice you now have is, you can now specify "bow" as a research choice. In other words, your choices are now all the generic things (pop gorwth, weaponry, armor, etc) but also a specific thing "bows". Do you go with weaponry again hoping to get swords, or do you change your strategy and decide to improve bows, or do you start woking on population growth? Let's say you decide to go with bows. Well you DO know that whatever you find it is going to be something that is going to improve archers, but again you don't know exactly what you will get. Will it be a better bow that can shoot farther? Will it be poison or flaming arrows? A fast reloader so you can get two shots off per battle round? Some of these paths could lead to dead ends - nothing further to research on this specific thing. An example let's say you got the fast reloaders - there would probably be a cap that you would not want to allow further research down that very specific tech. You could insert special techs that only rarely appeared in any given game throughout this tech tree, at both the basic and specific level. For instance, you may have a special sword weapon "katana" that might only have a 5% chance of being in the sword tree. I would recommend more starting techs, and techs that branch in multiple directions quickly. You can still do infinite research. This is just a suggested research structure. Techs to start the game: Population Growth, Weaponry, Armor, Special resources, Resource harvesting, (others?) Population growth contains the secondary techs housing, agriculture, prestige, ??? Weaponry - Clubs, swords, spears, bows, ??? Armor - Chest, head, legs, arms, hands, feet Special resources - Kodidal leaves, Honey, many others I hope. Resource harvesting - mining, lumbermills, crystal gathering, others? There may be other general research areas I have not thought of. I also like the idea that resources can be gathered even if they are not within the boundaries of a town.
Idea for research
Have general areas of research. You only indicate which general area you want to research, not specific techs: Examples: population growth, weaponry, armor, special resources, resource harvesting etc. I realize this is not much different than the current system - bear with me)
If you choose weapons, you will randomly research one of the basic weapons types: clubs, spears, swords, and bows. The reasons for going with random are two: The first is because by research "weapons" you are just trying to come up with "something" to fight with - you don't know what yet, You can't choose sword because you don't know what sword is. Of course, you, the player knows what a sword is, and maybe sword is what you were trying for, which leads to second reason to make it random - it breaks up the routine of finding an "optimum path" to certain techs and then jsut repeating them over and over. There is also a third reason, which will become apparent as we continue to research.
So let's say you were hoping for sword, but you got bow. Well the interesting choice you now have is, you can now specify "bow" as a research choice. In other words, your choices are now all the generic things (pop gorwth, weaponry, armor, etc) but also a specific thing "bows". Do you go with weaponry again hoping to get swords, or do you change your strategy and decide to improve bows, or do you start woking on population growth?
Let's say you decide to go with bows. Well you DO know that whatever you find it is going to be something that is going to improve archers, but again you don't know exactly what you will get. Will it be a better bow that can shoot farther? Will it be poison or flaming arrows? A fast reloader so you can get two shots off per battle round? Some of these paths could lead to dead ends - nothing further to research on this specific thing. An example let's say you got the fast reloaders - there would probably be a cap that you would not want to allow further research down that very specific tech.
You could insert special techs that only rarely appeared in any given game throughout this tech tree, at both the basic and specific level. For instance, you may have a special sword weapon "katana" that might only have a 5% chance of being in the sword tree.
I would recommend more starting techs, and techs that branch in multiple directions quickly. You can still do infinite research.
This is just a suggested research structure.
Techs to start the game:
Population Growth, Weaponry, Armor, Special resources, Resource harvesting, (others?)
Population growth contains the secondary techs housing, agriculture, prestige, ???
Weaponry - Clubs, swords, spears, bows, ???
Armor - Chest, head, legs, arms, hands, feet
Special resources - Kodidal leaves, Honey, many others I hope.
Resource harvesting - mining, lumbermills, crystal gathering, others?
There may be other general research areas I have not thought of.
I also like the idea that resources can be gathered even if they are not within the boundaries of a town.
I really don't like the idea of taking away the players ability to select research. I know there's some realism but playing a game like this is about selecting your own path not having it selected for you. Selecting the research paths you take is surely no less realistic then selecting your culture or the traits you (the sovereign) were born with.
One game that did this sort of mechanic reasonably well was Sword of the Stars.
He does select areas of research. but if you give the player complete control with no variation, then players just develop an optimum path of research and research over multiple games becomes drudgery. The player still guides from a strategic level, but by introducing a degree of randomness it will keep the game fresh and makes the player evaluate his next move rather than following the "tried and true" best path over and over.
If you want to improve archery, yes it may really want better bows to get improved range, but if you get flaming arrow instead your archers are still better, but it will change how you use archers. If you are a warlike tribe then you will focus your research in weaponry and armor, but again I think as long as there are not "gimp" vs. "overpowered" but rather the challenge is learning how to take best advantage of "the cards you are dealt" I think that is critical for replayability.
And again, I definitely agree with Frogboy that a lor of what is not cool about current research is it is too linear - a leads to b leads to c...etc. I think it is important to provide more choices early (while still holding the highly powerful civ changing techs until mid to late game - put them far down the tree and also require enough research that you will either need a well established research empire or it is going to take a long, long time to achieve them.
I also like the ideas in the "Hidden tech triggers" post https://forums.elementalgame.com/368095 Those ideas could be implemented to what I have posted above. Another type of trigger could be discovering something on the map. For instance you could discover a new metal type node on the map, and that would add the mining of that metal type as a possible tech under the mining research tree.
I like random and situational techs as long as they don't affect to key technologies or buildings. I don't like infinite research though, it tranform the research process into something boring. I think current system is quite interesting, although still need some work, but not a complete rebump...
Reminds me (again) of Sword of the Stars. The random tech tree in SotS is one of the best things about that game. Should be in every game in my opinion!
And as we are at it: Also include random shortcuts from one tech to another.
(Terrible) Example: A prerequisite for "Young Genius Sponsoring" might be "Universities". But you might also reach it by first researching "Efficient Education Policies". Or on top of that only one of it might lead to "Young Genius Sponsoring" but you don't know which one until you try.
I really like the idea of situational techs ... I think you should compare average yield of tiles/starting areas, to the advantage of relative situational tech.
For instance, situational techs could be added to certain factions with a less-than-par starting location to better take advantage of their environment.
aka. Surrounded by mountains? Feel some-what limited? You have a good chance of getting Mountaineer tech (mountain movement), Terraces (limited farming/production), Cave Mushroom Farming (extensive farming), and better Windmill techs (extensive production) ....
for some example numbers, a 20% chance for a lower-tiered "mountain" tech for each mountain 1 tile away from city square. Up to max of 80%. a 15% chance for a high-tiered "mountain" tech for each mountain 1-2 tiles away from city, for a max of 75% chance.
Mountaineering could open up varying "Mountain combat" techs, some basic mountain combat being defaulted to open up with acess to mountaneering, although some "super mountain combat" or very specialty snow-skiing troops, ect, would be in the "random" techs, and certain Cave Drillers, or Mountain Climbing elephants, will have a 20-30% chance of showing up in game each, but still only accessible by the situational mountaneering tech.
I think it would be cool to have several nifty branches such as this, which are just an Extra Methyl group to add upon the complex Organic molecule which is the Faction's unique technology tree. Because each faction does have their own tree ... right?
These situational techs could be alot similar to my Environmental type model, only instead of catering the race to live in a certain environment, these situational techs could aid factions with "poor" starting locations, like Icy tundra, barren mountain ranges, vast Deserts, Thick Steamy Jungles ... with advantages in these ecosytems on resource collection and military strategy/tactics.
Who is the best at fighting in the mountain highlands? That crazy tribe that lives off mushrooms in the north. That Incan civilization ... sure did take to terraces soon after they started learning about basic-advanced farming techniques ... maybe someone just started experimenting on all of those mountains?
Man, what kind of armor are those Sand-men wearing? it seems like the Heat and Sand have no effect on them ...
Ice, snow, snow, ice ... It's snowing pretty hard ... our feet keep sinking into new-snow and permafrost ... Whats that large figure in front of us? no wait ... it seems to be an army .. but moving at a normal pace? not slowed down by the snow and ice? what? oh ... lookit Skis! Cross-country skiis?! Its possible to have ski troops! ::gets stabbed and dies::
Jungle ... so much wild-life density, but most civilizations lack the patience or respect to harvest just enough to continue the ecosystem. Techs to attune a civilization to life in the Rainforest will not make them the Industrial or Commercial giants as some nations, nor will they perhaps have enough food to compete with larger nations. Chopping down Rainforest in certain areas may prove cost effective, although being one with the rainforest will provide several advantages. One, you will still have a decent productive rate, just not AS great, Two, your science ability will far exceed your commercial ability, because of all the diverse plants to reasearch (medicines attract scientists globally to your cause, you nation is a research station for an international community). Also, enemy armies will suffer disease and poisons while travelling through the rainforest, and perhaps suffering random losses from encounters with the occasional Caiman or Anocanda (if wading through swamps) ... (wading through a river could be attacked by African River Crocodiles, that would be HEAVY losses indeed, although thats more of a Savanna thing) ... with Knowledge of the jungles ... the Jungle Nation could turtle in the depths of the Rainforest, using their biodeverse dome as a shield. Of course, Situational and Random techs will determine if they can completely successfully turtle there, or if they need a little more ambition to stay ahead. It will not always be smart to settle there, but if you do end up settling there, there will still be hope of at least some good news.
One situational (or random) tech I see for Desert Tribes would be "Cactus Orchard" ... providing a healthy supply of food n water, cactus Orchards provide where farms might not (in the desert), and also provide fresh water (clean rain and ground water) from within the Cactus. If one knows how to grow Cactus in great numbers, they need not concern themselves too highly with looking for Oasis. Im sure there will be some penalty or other for no fresh-water in the desert, wether fixed by magical (to upgrade terrain) or mundane, perhaps the penalty is inherently there.
As to getting horseback-riding early, or some-such ... having "bare-back riding" as a situational tech requiring a nearby abundance of horses might work. This tech could also provide an extra bonus to the added benefit of Saddles (since they can already ride the horses) ... perhaps allowing faster speeds for the horses with saddles, because the people will excell at not falling off their horses, and will know how to handle their weight better as to lessen the tired-ness of the horses.
perhaps that tech or some other situational horse-based tech could increase the chance of a horse-husbandry/fighting tech arriving with the completion of an agriculture-type tech, and perhaps decrease the cost slightly.
On that system, I think that techs of similar tiers should have a certain random chance of arriving as the next tech in the tech line-up, and others having a pre-requisite.
For instance, 3 tier 1 techs are in the agriculture line, and you devote 40% of your tech to agriculture so you get a tech twice as fast as if you had devoted 20%, but different techs have different speeds so your not really sure what you are going to get. And lets say that tier1-techA has a 30% chance, B has a 30% chance, and C has a 40% chance. Perhaps the chances could be determined by situational factors. Anyways, so you end up researching C, which is probably basic field-plowing, or something (while B was herb gathering and A was animal taming), and C alone can lead to techs X and Y, so now you have a 30% chance for A, a 30% chance at B has a 30% chance, X has a 20% chance and Y has a 20% chance. (or if Y was the most natural progression, X could have a 15% or 10% chance, and Y could have a 25% or 30% chance)
I agree the current system isn't very good. I loved the sword of the stars system but the UI was difficut for tech. Not only were the tech's relatively random (and there were usually 3-4 variants for any strategic bottlenecks like antimissile defense) but you didn't know more than 1 tech ahead of what you were researching. So every discovery was exciting as you rushed to see what new tech branch you had opened. Now there was a core set of vanilla techs that everyone got, and then various races got percentage chances of the special techs. Some would cross over, so Laser might get you Laser reflecting armor or Heavy Beam weapon or Electrical Dischargers but not Nuclear Mines.
So you could subdivide categories (Plain Spear, Pilum which lowers enemy shield defences, Atlatl which improves range, Copper spear which has better penetration, etc.) Pilum might have a crossover with mining, Atlatl might cross over with LUmberyard or Archery, Magic might crossover with a Magical Spear. So even though the Warfare category would get you Spear or archery, somebody specializing in mining wouldn't be totally left behind, and might even have a better weapon. Of course the pure Warfare specialist would still have all the basics like Recruitment, Tactics, Logistics, etc so they would still have an edge in a pure fight.
So if you wanted magic spears, you would know you would need to research Warfare to get a spear, and then hope you got lucky in researching Magic (because you might unlock magic arrow or Magic crossbow instead). Everyone would be guaranteed a ranged weapon or 2, but not every type would unlock (sling, arrow, dart, spear, magic missile) every game.
Ren
Just thinking some more, the Random techs are perfect for Quests. Say each level of Questing tech opens a rumored powerful tech or item (magic superfast exploding crossbow), after you successfully research it (again sort of like Sword of the Stars situational tech projects that let you take over neutral cyborgs) you find the location. Then you have to get to the location and beat the guardian (giving you exp and a neat tech or even tech tree like Unicorns).
I think for random techs to work out as intended (encourage changing up your research path from game to game), they need to be both numerous and significant. If there is just a small pool of random minor techs to draw from, and only a small number of them show up in a given game, then the random techs will not really change much. Sure maybe you'll put off your 'normal' path by one tech to get a convenient random tech first, but overall it will not really add strategy and won't add much variation.
On the other hand if there is a big pool of random techs to draw from, including techs with as significant effects as the core techs, then things start to get interesting.
I'm not exactly loving the random tech concept. It seems .. well arbitrary. Maybe if it's just exotic techs.
I like Sarudak's idea of keeping theory from practical applications, and this would let you capture an enemy tech, retroengineer it and make improvements on it but not nessicarily know how it works.
If the goal is to make it so you have to adapt you playstyle and keep the game fresh every time you play through, how about weighing the Practical Application Tech tree to the player's territorial control?
So if you have a bunch of fire nodes under your control, your wizard researcher minion types have easy access to lots of fire magic to let them experiment with and thus make research easier for fire magic.
Same thing, lots of forests under your control, that makes learning how to build walls and sturdy houses easier.
Train 1,000 soldiers, you're gonna get better at equipping them and know how to make improvements to their armor and weapons easier. So making 1,000 swords will make it easier to research Fine Steel Swords, but it will be just as hard to learn how to make compound recurve bows, even though they're both under the Tech Field of Simple Military Weapons.
etc..etc.
I love the idea of random and situational techs. I also think that a tradishional tech tree might not be the way to go for this game. There are some great suggestions in this thread already on how to go about this. Here is the one I would like to see (shades of this have already been mentioned previously in this thread.). Each tech should be assigned a tier (how advanced the tech is) as well as a school or color (representing things like farming, mining, military (this could be split into personal unit improvement (armor) or better army formations), exploring, ect. All techs are equally available (barring any national traits) at the first tech. This means it takes just as much research to get to any of them. Once you have learned a tech, the cost to learn a tech in the same school at tier 2 is cut in half. This would continue on up the tier in that particular school. It should also be easier to learn techs that are outside of a certain "school" where you know lots of techs if they are considered related tech (you could call them adjacent techs). For example, it should easier (cheaper by 25%?) to learn the tier 2 skill for tracking or exploring in forests if you already had a tier 2 sill in harventing lumber.
Good things about this system
1-really easy to mod relationships between techs (just need to change tier number, school membership, adjacent relationships, and "discounts" for learning a new skill if you already have a tier below for that school or an adjacent skill at a higher tier.
2. Allows a society to go for any tech that want or change the couse of their research. Want to go straight for that tier 4 spell for catapaults? You can but it will take longer to get- on the otherhad this might pay off.
3-tech can be traded but (if I were king) traded techs should not be counted for any tech research discounts (see number 1). This makes traded techs valuable but does not make the receiving nation suddenly an expert on that tech. This also makes lower level techs still valuable to trade or research even if you have a higher level tech.
4. This allows for strategic tradeoffs (should we expand production or military) while not having strict limitations. Ideally we should see nations that may decide to focus on forest dwelling, or military prowess, or strong defences, or productive farms, or centers of magic. What an interesting game this would be if we could pull this off.
Ok tech idea. What if Techs were divided up into two major categories: 1. Tech Fields - The theory - Tech Fields don't actually unlock specific technologies (except maybe accidentally but I don't know if I'd like that entirely. Research into tech fields is more or general knowledge. It represents your scientists/philosophers/smart guys gathering and recording information, having philosophical discussions, analyzing recorded data on a certain subject, possibly even just teaching people. Researching a tech field is more akin to raising the general knowledge and education level of your society than what research is in most strategy games. Examples of fields of research might be physics, chemistry, alchemy, architecture, social sciences, mathematics, etc. 2. Projects - The application - Projects would be the actual application of the knowledge of tech fields. This represents the actual time required to work out the problems with a new design. These are engineering problems often. Projects could also be social in nature implementing a new form of governance or tactical training method. While tech fields would have little real application projects would be all about real application. Examples of projects might be, horse domestication, iron smelting, aquduct construction, recurve bow, javalin, dragon language. (The number of projects could be endless) I love these ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok tech idea. What if Techs were divided up into two major categories:
1. Tech Fields - The theory - Tech Fields don't actually unlock specific technologies (except maybe accidentally but I don't know if I'd like that entirely. Research into tech fields is more or general knowledge. It represents your scientists/philosophers/smart guys gathering and recording information, having philosophical discussions, analyzing recorded data on a certain subject, possibly even just teaching people. Researching a tech field is more akin to raising the general knowledge and education level of your society than what research is in most strategy games. Examples of fields of research might be physics, chemistry, alchemy, architecture, social sciences, mathematics, etc.
2. Projects - The application - Projects would be the actual application of the knowledge of tech fields. This represents the actual time required to work out the problems with a new design. These are engineering problems often. Projects could also be social in nature implementing a new form of governance or tactical training method. While tech fields would have little real application projects would be all about real application. Examples of projects might be, horse domestication, iron smelting, aquduct construction, recurve bow, javalin, dragon language. (The number of projects could be endless)
I love these ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm glad people like my idea. I like the situational tech thing too based on starting area and your ingame actions. That could influence what projects your researchers come up with for you to pursue. I think it would be ok if there was some randomness. Like you wanted to research archery and your researchers came up with 3 possible paths say long bows, fire arrows, and barbed heads but they didn't see the path of recurve bows. But it's not ok to me if I say ok pursue the long bow project that they should come back to me and say sorry sir we invented fire arrows instead.
Btw does anyone know of a good game that has tried implementing this style of tech advancement?
How random is random? Predictability isn't always a bad thing.
Exactly. My general rule is that there should be less that a 10% chance of a random event occurring, or that a random event that occurs should only affect the game by about 10%. For example, a tolerable RNG percentage for tech research would give (or take away) a bonus tech only 10% of the time, or increase/decrease the time needed to research a tech by only 10%. It's not perfect, but it usually gets you close.
I suppose having 1 set of visible options is acceptable, although I would rather have the actual research to be completely blind, and X% out of a 100 assigned to each color-group, (Military Recruitment and Strategy, Resource Gathering and Refinement, Education and Research (parallel but different), Agriculture(wild animals, wild herbs, and domestic farming), and Architecture (housing, barracks, granaries/silos, Acadamies ... the heart-n-soul of the construction companies). With a 6th color-slot being open for terrain ... wether Ice, Desert, Mountain, Jungle, or some unforseen ability to come later with modding (like cave dwelling, under-water, extra-planar, Undead, Daemonic Legacy, Angelic Ancestry, ect) ... in the cases of Daemonic and Angelic Legacy ... perhaps tapping into hidden Demonic or Angelic powers, with perhaps the ability to evolve into even more powerful daemons (or angels) for those that are worthy.
So yea ... if someone places all 100% of reasearch into agriculture, and places all of his focus on horses/aquiring horse resources, what-not, perhaps there is a 50% chance of gaining the relevant horse technology instead of the standard 20 or 30% chance. While if he places 50% of research into agriculture, he will still have a 50% chance to gain a horse technology, but it will take twice as long.
Same for a Wild-Herbs technology if some-one focuses on gathering herbs: AKA rainforest n jungle mediciens, or Desert Wildlife. Focusing on Wild-Herbs mixed with some basic know-how of Agricultural Orchard methods (learned from Neighbors?) could lead to the Project "Cactus Orchards" which allows you to build cactus Orchards in Arid, unarable, sandy lands ... allowing the productive (if slow growing) cacti to fulfill your nation. Perhaps the spines and skins of the Cacti could be used for more efficient Desert armors with more research in the Military Strategy color-group.
Perhaps, once you realize the concept of using cactus for armor, you will unlock the ability to synthesize Cactus skin + spines into clothing/armor ... or rather you will have to research this newly unlocked ability in Resource Gathering. Additionally, if you were to aquire Cactus Skin-Usage tech under Resource gathering, you would unlock the tech under military strategy to figure out how to use it as an armor. The "figuring out to use it as an armor" would be the theoretical from Military Strategy, while "making the armor" would be a practical tech-ability from the Resource Gather n Synthesis branch. Additionally, it could be random as to wether you need the practical tech to unlock the theoretical tech, or the theoretical tech to unlock the practical tech. It could be a 50/50 shot each time ... or something. Just a possible suggestion of how a system could interact. (I'd prefer requiring the theoretical tech first, unless you fight people with cactus armor, then you could research the cactus armor tech and then tech the theoretical tech (without needing any of the standard requirements) in order to use it. Of course, this would still require a hefty supply of cacti, hence the need to naturally aquire cactus Orchards before any further steps are possible.
It seems rather complex, but I think its actually quite organic ... just allow for new objects to be added into the game, and to allow its own tech abilities/progressions, Im no programmer but im sure it could be done elegantly and organically. I mean, most features of a game need to be under player control, but I think situational-based technology could have a much more organic flow to it ... while mundane core techs would always be available as long as a nation had enough scientific minds thinking about the Group for long enough.
Basically I think there needs to be lots of situational/randoms, and that technology growth should be completely blind. Also, although I may be losing the audience here, I think there should be two types of technological development (to speed up the process) ... Education and Research. Education would allow for more percentage points (beyond 100) to be distributed, based upon raw research ... while research/experimentation will out-put raw research. A meeting of the minds, and discussion, can only go so far without an influx of raw data, and I think it would be awesome to have that represented. As opposed to having research % modifiers being tied to the strength of your economy ... which just seems less than mundane, where economy is a single all-powering choice, rather than a physical choice between economy and research that cannot simply be altered at a whim.
I have never seen a blind or truly random tech tree in a game that I liked.
What are the system requirements?
You need to have at least a 386 to run it...
I took a glance through what has been posted, but my quick scanning didn't reveal it, so forgive me if I repeat someone else's ideas.
It seems to me that if the problem is linearity, then you should follow a system like Sword of the Stars or Fall from Heaven, both of which seemed to me to open up the possibilities of a variegated tech tree, mostly by having a ton of options available from the start and making the general process of research a little bit slower/more expensive than in some other games, forcing one to choose...
Of course, balance will be a nightmare. But that's what we're here for.
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