After the Cataclysm, much of the accrued knowledge of the world was lost. One of your priorities will be to find scholars who can recover this lost knowledge.
Elemental doesn’t have a traditional technology tree. Instead, it has 5 research categories (the Kingdoms and the Empires have different categories). When enough research has been done, a breakthru in that category is made and the player is presented with possible technologies to learn at that point.
When choosing a category, a given technology is color coded (green, yellow, red). Green means that technology will be available upon the breakthru being made. Yellow means it might be available. Red means it will possibly be available. In addition, there are certain technologies that are so rare that they are not displayed until the time of the breakthru.
Each new level of a given category takes more research to achieve than the previous. Hence, players have to be mindful of what technology they choose, particularly when deciding whether to pick up a rare technology that becomes available.
Acquiring Knowledge
There are two primary ways of acquiring knowledge in Elemental. The first way is to construct improvements to your city that attract scholars. The second is to actually recruit famous scholars, inventors and other specialists as you find them.
Constructing Studies
Recruiting NPCs
While I generally don't like to rain on parades here and have been holding back mostly waiting to see how things look in beta 2. I have a few issues with the general format of the tech trees in general. I understand that you were trying to go for a unique and different approach.
But I find the random popping up of certain must get techs like "Houses" to be incrediably anti-fun. Especially when I have to research Civics 3 times just to get the tech I was after in the first place thanks to an RNG.
May I ask what is being done if anything about issues like that?
Why will we have killed you by turn 2000?
Will certain technologies require a minimum research level in the category before they become available?
I would hope that the hero could generate more research if he levels up. Then its up to us to do things that make him gain experience. How he does so has been discussed in at least one other thread. Can he only gain by fighting / killing, or also by accomplishing other things, like a governor gaining exp by building and governing-in-general ?? Can he slowing gain 1 point per turn just by living ? Etc.
Haven't heard an answer from the devs on this. Did I miss one somewhere ?
Next you would have to chose research instead of other abilities when he levels. Or, I'm on record as wanting some valuable heroes to gain skills determined by the game when they level, in addition to the skills we chose. I might not have made it clear in my prior post, but I was thinking mostly of automatically granting extra of his specialty, not granting anything he didn't already have. More research for a good researcher would be good example.
I am glad that scholars are capable of generating RPs. It is different to most other games. The question is, are they heroes? I will love if they are. Heroes should generate RP, $, mana and/or other resource etc when appropriate. And it is not just that the amount they generate should goes up when they level up, each hero should have another formula to calcuate what they can generate.
There should be different types of hero. A scholastic type is one of them.
A scholastic type hero that can generate RPs is generally very weak in combat. They gain level not only because of combat, but mainly due to their stay in library or doing research etc. Maybe some of them gain a level whenever they study at a foriegn university, or some other gain level for every 5 scholastic hero you have recruited in empire. The higher level they are, the more RP they generate.
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Again, I share the concerns of PigeonPigeon.
Can a hero earn new "skills" or upgrade already existing ones on level up ?
I agree with the fact that some tech are so must-have that it's un-fun to get them randomly. Housing, lumber and mining shouldn't be random but given free as you reach some levels in civilization.
I guess it should be pronounced in the same way than Hieroglyph (the egyption symbols used for scriptings)
I agree that rare technologies shouldn't be grey. Gold would be good. Or maybe white if the tech is exclusive to the Kingdoms and black if it's exclusive to the Empires.
I like these journals
Color
Agree that the color of very rare techs shouldn't be grey. Purple for legendary techs fits.
Champions
They must be able to lvl when they do their job. Like a healer heals, inventor invents (duh!)
This is one area in which Age of Wonders failed miserably. Heroes could only get XP from the killing blow. So a spellcasting hero that healed and buffed didn't get a single point of XP....
Hope the system will work out well when fully inserted into the final game, but at the start of playing Beta 1 my concerns were the following (partly echoing some points above):
with only 5 categories to "choose from" it feels like you don't have much of a choice, or rather that you are not even choosing when you click a category. It just doesn't feel like a strategic choice when you don't know the outcome and it's all so general. Also, will it be possible to really plan ahead, to know how to get a particular high-level tech and work towards that from early game (or will you just have to remember where it might pop up eventually, after playing repeatedly)?
In Galciv2 I LOVED the introduction of special colonization techs, they were very expensive so you had to really make a hard choice early on if to go for that or not. Will this thinking be possible in E or will we miss the overview and be too dependent on RNG?
Recruting NPCs producing knowledge: very good! Hope they are heroes too.
- What would be really cool is if you can find tomes with unique techs, e.g. through quests. I think golems have been mentioned (hope so)
The colour for unique techs should rather be gold than grey!
The tech system will take some getting used to, but I think I like it. It kind of makes more sense, since you are playing the part of the 'king', and not directing every little thing. Instead of funding your scholars to 'discover archery so we can use bows!', like how the hell do you even know what a 'bow' is if the knowledge has been lost, you are paying your scholars to 'find ways to improve our military'. Maybe they'll come up with bows, maybe not...
Hahaha! Probably...
I realize different factions are going to have different tech trees - at least I am pretty sure that is the case.
My question is say I repeatedly play the same faction. Will I be able to memorize the tech tree or is it going to be somewhat random from game to game, even for the same faction?
The main tech research isn't really a "tree", and as such there is a bit of randomness in what you get. But aside from the rare techs, the standard techs are fairly predictable and you'll know what is going on.
I like the idea of scholars giving tech bonuses, definately. I think what would be even more interesting, though, is if scholar tech bonuses were made more versatile and conditional. For instance, you could leave your scholar at home and let him give you a small bonus, or you could send him adventuring with your other heros. If you successfully raid a dungeon and a scholar is present, you might unlock a big tech bonus "chunk" that's locked away in the dungeon ("Wow, would you look at this! This must be one of those cotton gins from before the Apocalypse!") The scholar would also gain XP to his scholarly pursuits as well (he got to see old world technology in its proper context.)
Some scholars might specialize in rooting out technology that is in the "grey" category and others might focus on green or yellows. Just a few ideas
Hair- gah - mem - non
Thats how you pronounce it I think. Similar to Argamemnon.
but its less "hair" and more Hee, err ... so its the Hee Err Gah Mem Non.
Gold sounds good for ultra-rare techs ... or maybe something that shines, sparkles, and glows in a flashing pattern of "on/off/on/off"
You could make ultra-rare techs a four color block pattern like the "E" in the title.
Agreed. Some things seem too "basic" or "Common sense" to be left to random chance. Imagine being able to cast a World Destroying Spell, yet at the same time being too stupid to think about making your Hut out of Stone instead of Straw. Seems kinda dumb to me.
Some techs, minor, every-day, average techs, should be general knowledge that everyone gets when reaching a certain level.
Perhaps could tackle it the GalCiv2 way.
Different civs (factions) start with a certain number of techs, custom Sovs get assigned a certain point pool to allocate to what starting techs they like, with each subsequent tech they chose in the same line costing more than the one before.
Boom, done.
Yes
Agreed.
I disagree. Gray means that it is old and not used or available to anyone, but you have aquired it. It makes sense to me.
Also, Hierarchy Ga-Men-On
I'd like to see the ultra rare skills be a color of Purple or Gold, but I do also like the idea of Empire/Kingdom only skills being black or white. Seems like there could be a lot to that to entice playing both sides once some specific skills were added.
*Just an idea... Can we get some faction specific skills? Might be nice if there were one (or maybe an addition upgraded version) skill per faction in a specific Tech tree branch... could be a light blue/cyan color to indicate that it's a faction skill.
This is like the 10th Dev Post that has been necro'd in the last two or three days.
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