I have to wonder why we even have the feature to research technology at all? Does this make the game more fun? I don't don't think so. I don't understand why we need researching at all or tech trees. It's just something that TBS games have so we have to have it. I think it's unneeded, or in this game, should be only in the form of researching new things to do with magic. I know this is in no way going to change FE, but maybe something to think about for future games.
But then, Xia, why wouldn't we just start building castles and super magic knights from day one? Resources. Building requirements. Population requirements. Gold cost. We start off knowing HOW to make a chain mail shirt, but no metal, no mine to get the metal, and no blacksmith to forge it.
I Just see research trees as a crutch that really isn't needed.
I disagree. The story behind Elemental is the land is devastated after the war, and the world is left a smoking ruin, and one would expect that (being in a classical-type age) most knowledge on how to do things went with the people who knew it best. So you need people to research these things again, and recover the lost knowledge from before the world was reduced to ruin. I think the tech trees could use a more advanced approach, like instead of just clicking on a bar in a window and it starts working on it, you put a certain amount of resources toward the development of newer things. With this sacrifice, I would suggest that technological advances be strengthened since they take more effort to get. That way each advance *means* something. And they're important, rather then just a hurdling stone we have to jump over.
That's my opinion anyway.
I agree that that is story behind the game mechanic. But, it's not a great mechanic, and I think it's just a left over from other games like it. I really just don't see the point in research. It doesn't add to the fun of playing the game.
I like research. I just think that right now, it doesn't seem to matter much because champs are so OP. They essentially make research unnecessary.
Research gives you a way to specialize your faction.
It's just one type of game design vs another. Some games decide to go for the unlock-through-prerequisites like C&C games and some tbs as well. Others go for a research system. They are repleacable with each other, sure. But what makes one better than the other? Mostly player preferences.
Research is another one of those things that some people like in 4x games and others do not. (like city building, etc). Both perspectives are valid.
I happen to like research as it gives me a sense of progress as well as the ability to design better units or exploit better resources. For me it also adds to replayability as I have the option to go down a different path in another game. Now that gets to what I see is the issue with research: not enough variety.
The following might be worth considering:
1. More research options that only show up for one faction and not the others. (This might make trading technologies interesting)
2. More research options that are only available if you discover something when adventuring out in the world that unlocks that research path.
3. More research options that do no show up in every game - i.e. some technologies would only show up based on some % chance at the start of each game.
4. Do not show the entire technology tree at the start of the game. Perhaps you should only be able to see two layers ahead.
It could fit within the lore. There are some survivors of the war; a few blacksmiths are left and a couple builders and some horse breeders. A population requirement could even model this; only once your city is sufficiently large will the odds of having a blacksmith, builder, etc, be in your favor. Instead of having some scholar mysteriously researching how to forge a sword you just need a blacksmith who knows how. Building a forge for him and having a large enough city will "attract" one to you.
I really like this idea. It's true that TBS games usually take this mechanic for granted; they need some way of pacing the game and they turn to tech trees more often than not. But tech trees are not the only way of pacing a game.
RTS a prerequisite building system is optimal because of the fast paced nature of the game, and then the research system is for TBS. It is all a pacing feature that allows for specialization of game play.
Logically civilizations don't start with the ability to make advanced structures. It's not like the cavemen were toting AKs because they had the ability to make gunpowder and gun steel. People don't automatically start out with knowledge, you have to go through a process to discover it. Even in the dark ages where the knowledge was there before it just disappeared, and they had to work back up to it. (In the European countries, that is.)
I agree with xalt's methods of making it more interesting.
I have to agree with the OP. Ever since WoM I have felt that tech trees are a bad fit for just about any fantasy game. I feel like the tech tree is getting in the way of the fun in this game. Tech trees fit where the time scale is either well beyond a persons lifetime like in Civ, or if it is the main narrative of the game like in MoO.
I understand that the fiction supports the idea of lost tech, but to me it feels very forced and full of plot holes. There are characters in the game who were around before the cataclysm, certainly they wouldn't forget that horses could be ridden or that things could be made out of metal!
The way I see it, it would be more plausible that what is lacking in the world is infrastructure, not tech. This was never a technological world to begin with. I think that building trees ala MoM would be a better fit.
I would like another TBS game without research and random map/city placing/building. I played the crap out of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dark Wizard, and Brigandine and they didn't have that. Also, I think I would rather have one good map, than a random square island generator. It's much better than WoM, but it's still not on par with a CiV map. But, might be limited without boats and with squares instead of hexes.
I dig research as a concept, and I'm glad it's in... for the most part.
"We need some kind of regulating organism to deal with the increasing number of citizens".
"We need a more efficient way to work this metal"
"I understand the fundamentals of magic, what kinds of spells might we be able to master?"
As a ruler you would surely face issues like these: "research" is how you'd deal with them.
But, I certainly wouldn't ask "how do I enter a lair?", or "how do I unlock 5th level quests and heroes?"
To me, the issue is simply to identify what should be researchable and what shouldn't.
The games you are idolizing are console games (yes romance was on pc but it was also on consoles). So we might as well throw Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle, Fire Emblem and all those in there too right? I agree with the lack of navy though and I do love hexes. Warlock looks to be interesting for some of those reasons. Just not a huge fan of paradox games, but if they go through with the $20.00 price they mentioned on the Angry Joe preview then I might get it.
Personally I think this game would have been better without research at all and focus all that on city/hero/magic development. But it's here now.
I also agree with xalt about making diverse technologies available via different methods. I don't think any should be random at game start however...
For the others... I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. Yes, there are some survivors of the cataclysm. Most the champions you meet however, are not craftsmen. If you wanted to go the route of starting with everything and just needing resources for it, it takes away from the pacing of the game. It's more of an RTS feature, rather then a TBS one. Personally, I wouldn't feel like I had accomplished much of anything if I just needed to go kill those few things and wow nifty sword. Sure, you can still get nifty swords, but they're looted items, rather then one you just have waiting back at the city. One of the biggest joys in a TBS game is the diversity that tech trees allow. If everyone has the same exact playing field, the ability to make everything without research, I would find that boring. If I wanted that kind of game I'd go play Star Craft. (Star Craft is a good game, but I can't spend hours enjoying it like I did WoM or Civ)
Now, a compromise...your soverign starts out - say you're playing Ceresa. She's a mage. Do you think she knows how to work a forge? Doubt it. I could see the leader of Guilden knowing some about it though. I believe thats where racial starting traits came about. I think starting techs should be limited to what your leader would know about since in the beginning it's just the sov vs the world. This would include adding more to a character creation system so that custom leaders could have a certain tree available to them at start.
Over the course of the game, say you could meet NPCs/Champions who know other tech trees. In order to utilize them, they'd need to be hired on. Also, it would make more sense that if you were researching, that the champion that has that knowledge would have to be in a city and have proper facilities to do their research at. Also, you could find old blueprints from loots that unlock trees but still require a worker to do it. Alternately, you could have a hero/sov teach their basic knowledge to an expensive trainable unit called an Expert or something...who can stay in the city and do the research for you.
Now for the sake of not screwing people out of being able to start and get going, there should be base trees that every race starts with. The three available now are very broad ideas that cover a lot of topics. Going back to my Ceresa example, she may not know how to work a forge, but she would know the value of equipping her troops with good weapons. She would also know, being that she wishes to rule, about some basic techniques that would allow her to do so more efficiently. Being a mage, she would also (obviously) understand the importance and have some ideas on how to better use magic. Difference of knowledge vs common sense for the base 3 trees. I do think there should be sub-trees accessible under each one that are unlocked by items, or knowledge of certain npcs/champions that you hire on.
Basically - more specific example. The Warfare tree. It has to do with war. Okay? So what is war. War is a conflict. There really isn't much to war when just describing it as war. In terms of a tech tree, it should also not be as all-inclusive as it is. (btw, I like micro-management somewhat)
So...say you like spears. They're nifty. You stab people with them. Well, as a sub-tree of tech under Warfare should be something like Spear-Crafting. With more and deadly objects your artisans could learn to make, to hand to your soldiers to stick people with. Now you have a tree of spear items you can learn to make.
I hear the argument already. "Why learn to make? You have a blacksmith who provides the tree to do it! Why can't I just make my super person-sticker item NOW?!" Well, going back to the fiction. The Cataclysm. That blacksmith you hired on has probably been running for his life from random roving beasts and bandits and depraved survivors since then. He's probably a little bit rusty. So hire him, house him, build a nifty smithy for him and let him get back into practise by giving him metal and such to tinker with. Thus the tech-tree progression.
In the same breadth, you make can make very powerful types of units using your super-person sticker weapon when the blacksmith has gotten back into the swing of things. It makes the game more diverse. Instead of having 'Oak Spear', you could have "Mitrhil Spear' or "Legendary Ebony Spear of DOOM' on your side rather then just...'Oak Spear'. Which is the same thing your enemy has if they have just basic equipment. Also, each tech-tree advancement could be more player-sensitive. Say your super-person sticker item you want in the end does tons and tons of damage...but weighs a LOT. While the other guy could go a more middling, or a light approach for less damage but more mobility.
I'm just throwing ideas out here, fellas so don't take any of my commentary personally. I believe tech trees are an important part of playing Elemental. If they removed them, much of the draw of the game would be gone for me. I like the feeling of accomplishment when I can finally do things I could not before, or build things I didn't have the knowledge to do previously. It makes the game more fulfilling, rather then just a mind-numbing, 'race for materials then go slaughter the other guy' fest that RTS games are.
This sounds to me like a very good thing to contemplate. For example, entity X says that the in game achievement meta-game is a requirement for a "good" game, hence all games now have achievements (I even saw the achievement tab in the ctrl-tab console interface in FE).
I personally love the accomplishment of researching things because I'm an accomplishment junky, and not just in video games. But I, too, think the tech tree could use some streamlining... OR it could use more incremental improvements, but in different areas than what has been improved.
In sci-fi games, having billions of gadgets makes sense. However, I don't think billions of gadgets makes sense in this game. But lots of spells? Lots of magic type research? Magical enhancements for cities?
Sure, a Pub is fine... but magic green beer that might make my troops dumber (-Int) but provides a fire breath attack? This is a lame example, but it's more within the flavor of a magical game.
In Sci-Fi games we get black hole generators. There are truly end game research goals for us megalomaniacs. Seems to me that researching truly end game, land altering and destruction magic fits within this world, and it's doable in the currently existing engine (at least from my black box view of the game engine). Not the sort of spells that simply sets the boolean flag you_haz_won_teh_internetz = true. The sort of magic that is like the atom bomb, and let's me decide do I actually nuke the world, or turn on a previous alliance to make the others cower, or do I use my powers to save other races from extinction by the rampaging monsters.
And what about counter magic? Not just dispel stuff, but for every undead that could be raised, there's a consecrated ground magic that can damage undead invading a particular square, or a particular city.
I see the ability to take the code and core engine that is here and really do something great with it. Things are on the right track, but there's a long way to go and since the schedule seems to be more malleable, it would be great to take the time to push out a 'great' instead of a 'good' game.
I disagree as well, I love being able to plan out a grand strategy through tech research. I do think right now that it's a hassle because the gameplay does not mesh/isn't balanced with the tech tree very well. After 150 turns I'm just learning how to ride horses and form groups of units despite having a 6-adventurer level 18 mega kill everything fellowship and have pretty much won the game 100 turns ago. I didn't need anything from the tech tree to even help me win (probably the most important thing I researched is the training tech that allows one more person in an army = one more spell nuker in the fellowship).
That I think is the main problem and why a lot of people feel we don't need the tech tree... because we don't need anything from it to win the game. Maybe on a super large map and two empires far, far away from each other might use it eventually to create super awesome troops, but it just takes too long to reach that level when there's armies of heroes destroying everything in their path. Balance the gameplay with the tech tree and all will be awesome.
I like the suggestions xalt threw out there... they're exactly what Sword of the Stars does and their tech tree is the best I've ever seen and most fun to use.
In the short term, I'm wondering if we could have more heroes that have really beefy "town administrator" paths and traits that would really add some choices in the early game. Something like where there's a real benefit to keeping a hero stationed in a town as opposed to going out, killing everything and becoming a juggernaut. Something like:
*Heroes with the Path of the Administrator very rarely are allowed to get any traits that improve their combat ability (would love to have the other paths differentiate like this so that we can't have super awesome mages also be killer in melee, unless they're the sovereign of course... putting restrictions on gear would also help this quite a bit. Want that super awesome fire-resistant plate armor? Better be a Path of the Defender...)
*Heroes with the Admin path get XP for buildings being built and techs being researched under their command. Enough to keep pace with adventuring heroes (sort of like how there were 'Governors and Admirals' in Master of Orion 2).
*The amount of heroes in the world would need to decrease... or perhaps have other heroes come find you (not on the map, just as a function of prestige or something) instead of waiting on the map to be killed. Perhaps there could even be an "Available Heroes" scroll that shows where certain heroes like to hang out or if they're on any quests. Something like, "My lord, word on the street is that Sir Bumblesmiles is currently on a quest to destroy this troll lair (shown on map) because they murdered his wife and children. If we make for this lair posthaste, we might be able to help him with his task and endear him to our service." (Sir Bumblesmiles wouldn't actually be on the map, but if you got to that lair in say 20 or so turns there would be a special event instead of just getting loot) Right now it's too easy to just walk around, recruit a bunch of guys and go postal on the world (fun, but still too easy). I want to know my heroes are beholden to me through great deeds, not just because I paid them 45 gildar on turn 3.
Case 1:
Peasant Joe: "So I heard that you were already alive back in the old times."
Sovereign Bob: "Yup."
Peasant Joe: "Is that true about people wearing armours made of metal?"
Sovereign Bob: "Totally."
Peasant Joe: "So... Could you make some? And teach some people to make them too so all our cities can actually produce them?"
Sovereign Bob: "Er... I was a damn farmer, sorry."
Case 2:
Peasant Louie: "So I heard that you were already alive back in the old times."
Sovereign Jack: "Yup."
Peasant Louie: "Is that true about people wearing armours made of metal?"
Sovereign Jack: "Totally."
Peasant Louie: "So... Could you make some? And teach some people to make them too so all our cities can actually produce them?"
Sovereign Jack: "Of course! Let me mass produce the tools needed for it out of thin air, hope for people being intelligent and skillful enough to master my knowledge in a short period of time and we will be mass producing full plates in three hours."
...
Sovereign Jack: "By the way, did I mention I was a damn farmer?"
Case 3:
Peasant Peter: "So I heard that you were already alive back in the old times."
Sovereign John: "Yup."
Peasant Peter: "Is that true about people wearing armours made of metal?"
Sovereign John: "Totally."
Peasant Peter: "So... Could you make some? And teach some people to make them too so all our cities can actually produce them?"
Sovereign John: "Totally. We are using 'Full Tech Tree Researched Mod' by Heavenfall so no problem."
I agree that research in it's current form seems unecessary and doesn't really add anything to the game. I think it would be much more interesting to work toward material, building, and population requirements in order to attain certain things. It would even create another dynamic in the game, forcing the player to make choices about outfitting a larger army now versus saving those resources and spending them on a better one later. Spending your resources on building up a city (which would actually be meaningful now) or creating that legendary sword for your champion.
Sounds more fun to me, Heroes III works this way and it makes all your choices seem more meaningful.
I agree with Xia. There's absolutely no entertainment in research as it is now. During my last game I decided to (if possible) make a mod that gives you all techs from day 1.
Research could be fun though if there were more branches and specialization. Now you just research all techs one by one. It is very similar to city development. Both seem to be in the game because they just have to be there, they don't add anything to depth or gameplay.
LMAO I totally love this option
Right, there doesn't feel like there really is any specialization with cities or research. Yes, a few of my cities that were't close to enemy borders didn't bother with upgrades that were for building troops. That's pretty much it for cities. I've only played one deep game that went into most of the research. Wasn't there suppose to be some randomness to it? Maybe my memory is off, but I thought that we wouldn't have the same research from one game to the next. Or is it that way and it has slipped me?
Nice try, but I like having a research tree.
I like researching, and thinks it adds to the game. But I absolutely HATE the first several inventions. Why does it require an invention to be able to buy ancient armor and weapons? I think many of the initial technologies should be default. Like Lord Xia says, it wouldn't even change the game. You can't make iron weapons until you have an iron mine going, and building that requires you to have a good material production, etc.. The beginning of the game would probably be more or less the same, but less jarring and well, let us be honest: Less stupid. The initial techs pulls you out of the Elemental atmosphere. You are not rebuilding civilization, you are for some odd reason trying mimick the game Civilization... Not atmospheric at all.
I feel the Warfare Tech Tree needs to be removed fully unlocked from the beginning, the rest can stay for all I care. Though it'd be nice to have more indepth Magical development so I can actually pick or build my own spells.
Hey, I have been all day working on a custom one so I would say that I agree.
That said, what we lack are options like selecting the starting "age". That option would be useless to me as I always play from the lowest starting tech option possible but it's just me.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
