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.
Linking this in both threads as they seems to have developed into the same topic. It is Greg Costikyan's "Randomness: Blight or Bane?" presentation at GDC09. It's a long but very good read on randomness in games, and not just computer games, but games all the way to pre stone age era. A must read for anyone on either extreme on the random vs. skill debate.
There are already more than sufficient random elements to break the symmetry of this game. Random starting locations. Random resource distribution. Random events. Random encounters in dungeons. Random rewards from said dungeouns. Combat has random modifiers. The more elements you hand off to an AI or an RNG the less the player feels like they are really in control of their empire and game. And the less invested they are in it's outcome. Thus leading to a loss of interest. I believe it is vital that tech progression contains no more than a trivial amount of randomness.
I would at least like to see certain random techs(not the whole tech tree being random of course). And obviously I want to see it done right. Something along with: owning 3 Lumber mills gives you a random chanse opening up the "Improved Axe of the lumberjack", rerolled every round, so that you know you will get it, just not how soon you'll get it. Or that the game starts rolling for the tech branch from your first mill, but adds an aditional roll/round for each lumber mill you own. So if "Improved Axe of the lumberjack"is essential to your strategy, you will want to start choping that wood asap.
I also like stupored's idea, over in the other thread, of gathering inteligence on said random techs, and from that inteligence, counters would open up in your own tech tree.
I should provide some background information so people know where I'm coming from with this: Civ's tech tree is boring me. If I could predefine the order I research all the techs from the position I get, I would probably do so at round 1 and forget about the screen entirely until I am either defeated or the victor. Alpha Centauri's research system was far more interesting with paths of focus, but no guarantee that you would get the same every time. So if the tech screen is entirely non-random, at least give me the feature of planing all my tech research from the start so I can ignore the screen once I'm on my 5th play through with the same faction
forum went boom so doublepost ripe for deletion.
I've several ideas about the type of technology research mechanism I'd like to see. First of all, I'd like to say that I like the new mechanism that Frogboy discussed in the "And now for something completely different. . . " thread. The ideas I mention here move along the same lines of thought.
1. Let's replace the idea of a technology tree with a technology web instead. That is, every technological advance is linked to several other technological advances. Researching higher levels of an existing technology gives you a percentage chance of discovering one or more of the technologies linked to it. For example, I've learned level 1 beekeeping. I continue to fund research into beekeeping to reach level 2. Reaching level 2 gives me a stat increase in the existing technology, say 5% larger hives that give 2% more twilight honey. However, reaching level 2 also gives me a percentage chance of discovering one of the linked technologies, say a 50% chance of discovering poisons, a 25% chance of discovering spiderkeeping, a 5% chance of discovering magical animal control, and a 1% chance of discovering flying. The examples of what's linked to what may not be completely logical here, but I think you get the idea. Because it's a web, the links work both ways, so if I'm an intense magic researching studying flying, learning higher levels of flight gives me a 1% chance of discovering the beekeeping technology. Each technology can be reached multiple different ways. For those of you who are Sins of a Solar Empire players, thing of it as if each potential technology were a planet and research is like influence spreading along phase lines.
2. I'd like to see research funded more like the way it's done in real life. If a government wants research done in a particular area, they set aside a certain amount of resources for research. Frequently they also create laboratories where research can take place to attract potential researchers. After you make a certain amount of money available to do research in a given field, researchers approach you with their proposals, and you decide which ones to fund. Sometimes you get the great breakthrough, sometimes you don't. In Elemental, this could work by setting aside a certain amount of resources as potential grants in a certain area of research. Conventional areas of research would require grants of money, magical areas of research would likely require both money and mana. Researchers would then periodically pop up offering to research a certain subject in that general area. If you agree, they start researching their area of interest, periodically gaining levels for you in the area they're interesting in and opening up new technologies to research as outlined as #1. You fund them as long as you want them to continue their project, and you can redirect them to start working on related technologies they've discovered. Alternatively, these special research projects could be a separate research-quest mechanism outside of normal research for the unique, rare and situational technologies.
3. Make researchers a hero type. The channeler/sovereign would be the first researcher, choosing the first technology within the web to begin researching. If you build the buildings to attract researching heroes, they will periodically arrive and offer to start researching in exchange for funding (money or mana as in #2). As the game goes on, you can research multiple things simultaneously depending on the number of researching heroes you have. This allows you to increase the chances of discovering rare technologies by approaching them from multiple places within the research web (again, think of the SoaSE analogy of cultural influence reaching a planet). Making hero/researchers might also be interesting because it would allow you to create some interesting cost/benefit decisions for players. For instance, do you try to cripple your opponent's research efforts by killing his researching heroes? Does sneaking a spy into a city occupied by a particular researching hero give you a better chance of stealing or sabotaging a particular technology? Do you send your researching hero on a quest to obtain a magical item, face a particular monster or visit a particular resource in the hopes of opening up a new area of research (think, for example, of the way you had to capture certain things in X-Com before you could research them). The risks would be losing research time while your hero is away from her lab, or worse yet, losing the hero and not being able to pursue as many lines of research.
The ideas I've outlined above can be used together or as bits worked into a different system. It is a more complex system than the one Frogboy outlined in his post, although I think it could be managed using a system similar to the new mock-up he posted.It would probably require a second screen that would allow the entire web to be viewable. In my opinion, all potential technologies should be viewable by the player, but the strengths of the linkages between should be hidden. Players who want an element of randomness in their technology research could select to have the strengths of the linkages between technologies subject to a certain degree of randomness (so sometimes beekeeping level 2 gives you a 1% chance of discovering flight while in another game it might give you a 5% chance). Variation would also be created by which hero researchers approached you, what their areas of research interest were, and what quests or materials you had for them to study.I think a technology web would allow the situational, infinite and (sort of) random techs that are desired more organically than a traditional technology tree. A technology web also allows modders to link new technologies in more easily; they simple create the new tech, then assign how tightly it is linked to other existing technologies to define how it may be reached.
First a quick comment, the idea of "infinite research" is very meh to me. All it means is I get to increase some bonus along a line of rapidly diminishing returns. It is identical to "future tech" and I honestly do not see the point or appeal of it. Perhaps someone who really likes the concept could enlighten me?
As far as a way to do research, as long as you talk about x-com as being an inspiration why not allow some forms of reverse engineering in your tech tree? You go on a quest or clear a dungeon and you find some unknown item or capture a new creature or prisoner. You can then allocate research to figuring out what it is. This will unlock some base tech based on that. Then you could allow different base techs to build up into more advanced ones.
I would not make this the main tech tree, but this is what I would like to see as a "random" or "unique" system. I think it fits with the lore of the world as well, there will be items from before sitting around and figuring out how to use them should be a big deal. As far as technology restrictions I think this should be approached in the same manner as Fall From Heaven. The AI players will have techs they like or shun but the human player is allowed to take his empire (or kingdom hehe) in any direction they want. You could then allow an option for more restrictive technology or it could be modded in. The base game should not force a play style for a given faction, only set up the backstory and flavor for them.
The UI needs to change though, you need a tree or web, or some way to see dependencies at a glance.
I like the current system newly introduced in the "and now for something completely different" thread.
I suppose something talking about tech relations, or a hash-map of each "base" tech for each level of Warfare(ect) development (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, ect) ... to see basically what "could" occur. for each catagory of course. Then you would know alot about whats out there (as far as non-situational, ect) and could plan some-what out-side of the game/ before it starts. Also however, to allow for a psuedo "tree" to be created in a "techs we have already researched" sector.
That way you can see a progression of which techs you researched in which order ... not that it would be "too" informative, but perhaps here you could see what the "true" level of the tech was. like if it was a Tier II or a Tier IV, ect.
As long as different tech paths are viable and different goals/situations/etc. exist, tech paths being known don't have to lead to the same being taken most/all of the time.
ok this is very good to hear , especially for someone who loves to max out a tech tree
I like random techs. Keeps everything spiced up.
How about a Civ 4 type tech tree where I can click say Horseback Riding down the line and all the techs needed light up and get queued. The one thing I always found confusing and frustrating in Gal Civ was not having this ability. I wanted to get Avatar class ships but had no idea how to get there. Same here, I want Horseback Riding but no easy way to get there. So make a higher tech selectable and all prereqs get queued up.
I will admit I've had very little time to spend on Elemental lately (and Dragon Age isn't helping) so I apoligize if this game mechanic is already in there.
I just thought of an idea (that you ppl will kill, but thats the idea).
How about having some techs that influences your army directly/immediately, and some techs that will only help future builds. Examples:
Somewhere up in the tech tree you will have:
1. Improved defensive Plate Armor fighting. Gives -1 movement to unit with Plate Armor instead of -2. This will help all your units with Plate Armor
2. Mithrill Armor. New defensive equipment that is general better than standard Plate Armor, but has to be built/equipped on units, and therefore will not immediately make your army stonger.
An interesting choice I would imagine...
To add to my own idea.
It could be cool to deciede that my army will stick to chain mail and techs that improves chain mail, instead of reequipping new stuff like plate mail and later mithrill.
This should have an advantage and a cost to it (or the choice would be obvious).
Advantage: All units are always equipped with good, but not great armor. Saves cost on reequipping.
Disadvantage: Down the line your opponents will have armies, or part of armies with better equipment.
In other words you gain shortterm and are weakened long term.
If you have the resources and cash to always upgrade and research better stuff, then you pay extra shortterm, but gain a stronger army longterm.
Not sure if I got my explaining skill upgraded enough here
To me this is the reason for unlimited tech. When a lower level tech get unlimited levels, it will be remained useful at late game. Your Chainmail VII will definitely not as nice as Mithrill VII, but you get it way earlier. For example, when you've already invested up to Chainmail IV and you can now use Mithril I starting this turn (which has similar performance). Will you abandon your previous investment in Chainmail?
This gives gamer interesting choice.
Liking the idea of infinite research, especially if each new 'tech' is not just Future tech X+1 ala Civ. E.g. the n+1th future tech should give something new and different. All of it sounds innovative.
Well, since GoodGame kicked this thread out of bed for a moment, I'll say that I quite like the 0.264 changes to the research GUI, but the vast tracts of mundane research items make me wonder whatever happened to the old idea of making magical knowledge the more important part of researching in Elemental. I'm having a hard time imagining a magical research system that takes center stage from the current mundane research trees without getting 'too complex' for the current target market.
The target market for Elemental isn't the casual gamer.
Instead, we're targeting people who would like Galactic Civilizations or Sins of a Solar Empire. On the other hand, people who loved Disciples or Space Empires IV might find Elemental too simple.
It seems that there is going to be a good bit more depth to Elemental than GalCiv - I realize depth does not mean complexity necessarily and I don't like complexity for the sake of complexity. I do think that the ability to drill down and do some micromanaging can add some fun for those that want it, but can lead to the problems of Moo3, where everything is SOO complex that you just have to assign everything to a governor and then "observe" the game being played. It's a tough balance, give the player maximum control, make decisions MEANINGFUL, but do it in a straightforward, fun, and entertaining way. And convince the casual end of the spectrum that it is not mindblowingly complex.
You guys will pull it off.
[quote who="Frogboy" comment="92"] The target market for Elemental isn't the casual gamer. Instead, we're targeting people who would like Galactic Civilizations or Sins of a Solar Empire. On the other hand, people who loved Disciples or Space Empires IV might find Elemental too simple. [/quote]
Really? Early impressions I got suggested that it would be at least as, if not more, complex than Disciples or SEIV. Have you been scaling back the complexities since the beta started?
I think that research should work something like this:
Split up the act of researching something and actually using it into two parts. If you research new furnaces then it would cost a lot to re-equip all of your blacksmiths with the new technology and if you research better armour then of course your soldiers wouldn't all magically get it. In most games the second part of this is usually in, but most cities and such upgrades for free.
My vision is that the research part is partly done by daily activities. When people work they learn new things, so simply by having blacksmiths, having troops fight etc you gain new research in those fields. You can't choose at all what to get, the options pops up randomly, and they come faster the more of those structures/fights you have. We can call this free research. This only goes a small step over what is already implemented.
The other part of research would be academies and such, this is where you do specialized research. Basically if you want better furnaces you can tell your research guys to research it, and they will give you solutions much faster than if you let it happen naturally and gives you much better choice of what to do more like other games. This research is not limited by your level of implementation but it gets a lot slower the further away from implementation you get, also jumping tiers in implementation costs more but it should be cheaper than doing every tier.
Then for the implementation part. Just let its cost get scaled based on your population, it is a bit too abusive to just scale it based on how many structures you got of that kind and after all most of the new technology comes with a change of lifestyle. This cost should be the main cost of doing research meaning that spamming universities doesn't get you much of an advantage of being large except that it gives you more choices for what to implement and that you can potentially get a lot of research done.
As for tech trading and such, every tech you have implemented should be automatically available to everyone you trade with and for those you don't trade with, once you have implemented it the tech should be extremely easy for them to gain through espionage. To make this not get out of hand, we say that only the things directly above in tier over what you currently have implemented follow these rules, so if you don't do a lot of research you can't jump tiers, the further away from your tier the harder the espionage gets. This means that as long as you don't get hopelessly after you will be able to keep the distance not insurmountably large and it goes quite well with what happened in reality.
Now, there are most likely flaws in my system, but at least I think that it is a way of thinking to consider and hope that it sparks some ideas.
Brad what is the techign mechanism? I see in your latest build there are 5 different "schools" to tech. However, are the poitns split between the trees? Can u research multiple trees at the same time? What is the deal?
I recommand u try a game called Armada 2526 if you have not yet. that's 2526 not 2525. They have very nice way of teching. You build a generic research lab, which generate research points that can be used in any school. Then you can upgrade them to specialized buildings which produce researhc poitns for a particular school only. If you got one researhc buildign for Construction for example and one for Weaposn research, you will be teching 2 techs at a time.
You then can upgrade ur specialized buildings up a level, which allows u only 1 of those higher level buildigns per system. So that it is good to have many research buildigns in many systems, as opposed to all in one system, because u can get higher quality buildigns, space and upkeep being the bigesst savings there. You basically get more bang for your buck.
THEN you can upgrade ONE building per empire to ultimate research building for that school! So that if your race gets bonus for example to Bio research, you can stack the bonus by building a Bio research NEXUS. Or you can coutner one of your research penalties by building the nexus for that school. That way your weakest research school will keep up.
Now there is even more goodies in the system! I know hard ot believe! There exists also a specialized school of builkdings called "Skunkworks!" By using Skunkworks you get a bonus to the tech but cannot choose the tech you are teching! It can come from any school. And you don't even see what the tech is till it's halfway done. At which point you can use the random button to get a new random tech assigned instead. There are races which get HUGE bonus for skunkworks. So with that race I would just build skunkworks EVERYWHERE. No specialized buildings, and Skunkwork NEXUS on top of that!
So this game gives u options on how to do your teching, and I love that.
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