For myself researching technology is  very much a part of the fun of this type of game. All part of the for X stratergy game experience, if they take it out I won't be interested in playing.

I also think FE has a much better technology implementation than in EWOM.

I like the research system. It allows pregression and more city specialization, and I will take as much city specialization as I can get. However I agree that exploring, questing, and archaeology should play a bigger part in the system. It would make sense given the lore. Also the tech trees do need a lot of work and I hope they get heavily shuffled by the time FE goes out.

That could also work and would make a nice mod.

... and we have another Settlers or Anno. These titles are doing it this way and has done it many times, sometimes with great results. IMO there's no way that FE could beat them. I like the research but I guess it needs more flavor and randomness, more unique resources and technologies to work them. The whole fantasy genre has many interesting flavors and ideas. In FE right now I can't see the "magic", the "epicness".

I think my big problem with research is that I have to research basic shit like pointy sticks and how to plant crops.  I don't want to research that shit, shit that I need for having a basic functioning nation should be automatic.  Maybe eliminate the first half of the tech trees?  Or give the option of starting with those complete, like the first two or three rows.  

I agree : I usually like tech trees, but this one is awfully boring, and it results in we not having anything to do with our cities 75% of the time.

Most of the current civics and warfare techs need to be moved to the beginning (I don't care about the lore, chainmail should be available from the beginning if we don't want the game to be decided by cavemen vs cavemen (which would be fine if the game featured dinosaurs).

These techs should be replaced by techs with a more magical feel (like golem factory or whatever), that don't sound like they were escaped from Civilization (which would be cool if the game was not a medieval fantasy one, but one whose purpose was to replay the early history of the world). 

That would be cool, but that would shrink the already smallish tech tree for us (= the players who don't like perhistoric  fantasy). That's why I'd rather have most techs moved at the start and replaced by ones that feels more at home in a med fan setting : it's all about perceived coolness factor :

unlocking mundane troops in civilization is cool, because of the mindset you are in when playing the game. But doing the same among dragons, wizzards, and vorpal swords is not cool at all. It is the same I felt when I had to go through many level up just to unlock 2 handed weapons in Spellforce 2 : having an über melee hero unable to fight with a mere 2 handed weapon  just didn't click... While in the other hand, it is pretty cool to turn your peasant levy into armored zweihandler wielders in Mount and Blade : it is all a question of contextual coolness. And most of the items of the current tech tree are completely lackluster in this context. It's as if they had us develop spear, ballistas, gunpowder, machineguns for the 95% first part of MAster of Orion, and only fight in space for the last 5% part.

Well tech trees are good if you do it like Sword of the Stars where it is more a choice then a penalty. But in FE most techs don't give much and feel more like a barrier to overcome so you can move forward, especially anything to do with food. 

After reading thorugh the posts I was going to say something like this... Then your rezzed your own thread to say it.

I think the basic shit issue causes AI problems as well, and hurts the strategy of the game. It's hard to react to your opponents moves when you have to spend 30 turns waiting for a basic, necessary tech to become available. Mind you, all of this is during the part of the game that actually matters. Once you've researched all your basics, the game is basically over.

Fundamentally research should do 2 things

1. It should provide bonuses in areas of your choice so that you can customize your nation.
2. It should provide new and interesting ways to counter existing tactics.

For point 1, I think it might dramatically improve the game if we did away with the typical "get all tech" race that we see in games like Civilization. This is a fantasy game, and races should be allowed to customize instead of being forced into generalization because high level techs take too damn long. I want to see a nation put all research into war, and not have to wait 350 turns for a tech, and still be viable because combat and economic options are available through all trees. Basically we need smaller wait times and bonuses between techs. I'd also suggest adding the end game "unlimited research" techs to the very front of the tree as unconnected options so that players can choose to customize stuff as they see fit.

For point 2, this means providing all the stuff we need (basic bows, horses, armor, buildings) right from the start of the game. From there on you could unlock things like walls and siege equipment to build a defensive/aggressive empire. And lots of other stuff I don't have time to type because my wife just got home got to go!

I agree with eliminating about the first 33% of the tech trees, and adding more specialization and "epic-ness" to each individual tech tree. 

Basically, the sovereigns should know how to start and run a basic civilization, but they need to *learn* how to take over the world.

Also, why can't traits and (more) spells be unlocked via the tech tree???

Though I like the research option, my one issue with FE is that there are too few branches. It has gotten better though with more magic branches, it needs still more to give players a more diverse gaming environment.

In Magic I would like to see branche that unlock new spell books, spells and traits.

In Warfare I would like to see branches for improvements that affect the tactical battles for your cities (fortifications & seige weapons) along with new types of unusualy weapons (think DaVinci or Archimedes)

Thanks for the technology dependant traits correction. I would have missed this one, as I usually stop when the game seems won, which usually happen before I have anything better than shortbows and spears.

 I thought too, but it was the same in Master of Orion, design wise and in MOO, I was really excited about unlocking almost every single tech. I don't know why it worked here and not there. Maybe because each new tech in MOO felt like a massive improvement over the previous one : having phasers when your opponent still had fusion beam was a big deal. Getting from level 3 shields to level 5 too. Here, tech only seems to give a tiny incremental improvement. That's why I would like most of the early tech removed, and give more bangs to each tech unlock.

But the design in MOO was pretty different, you had many more parameters to take into account (cost, survivability vs energy weapons, point defence, ordinance. There were too many cool stuff to load enough of them on a single ship, while you never really have such "difficult choices" to make in the unit designer).

 In MOO, it was usually somewhat sound to develop a complementary force (point defence vessels, missile gunboats, and fleet support vessels), while here, we usually end up with armies consisting of a single unit type.

Axing the very basic techs (the first 2 columns of each treee should be enough) and adding higher-level techs (3rd column) to the faction traits while not reducing the cost of techs in a major way (some condensation might still be worthwhile) has another nice touch to it:

Considerable faction differentiation:

I remember when in WoM there were Factions starting with full Archery. That was one of the few things giving a good amount of differentiation and was quite fun. If a bit unbalanced at the time (because the alternatives weren't as strong not because the idea itself was unbalanced)

Relias starting with being able to recruit Level 5 or 7 Champs (not sure which is 3rd column) while Quendar starting with higher archery, Pariden and Resoln with some serious magic oumph and Capitar with some major economic tech (like trading Resources right from the start) and the Trogs + maybe Tarth starting with some real weaponry and some faction starting with riding would radically change how factions play compared to each other. Of course those Techs would have to be picked well and possibly the cost of those traits be increased to prevent picking to many of them in the faction-builder.
Production and resources is still a limit at the start... Waiting the first 100 Turns (or more) for nothing but the most basic stuff (like using base resources like shards and food ect.) most factions / players have to research anyways to accomplish even establishing the most basic needs doesn't sound to much fun to me...

(this is also possible to do without axing the early parts of the tree with just giving out higher level techs from the traits of course... But I do like the Idea to give more of the very early techs right from the start. Would help the AI either. And in spite of the fight vs. the environment being fun the scarcity of the most basic stuff [and there really is nothing more in the first 2 columns] doesn't actually add much to the game. To me its a deteriorating factor to fun as well.)

Of course including start-eras into the game would be another option to accomplish this but I believe the game as a whole could benefit from a later-era start at least as default balancing for the game (since different eras are bound to be a considerable unbalancing factor...)



I can't find anything bad about the tech-tree's existence as a game concept in principle though (actually even right now it does add good stuff like existing differentiation ect. to the game).
As long as the design is fun and research times are less long / benefits less scattered. Researching a new tech should come faster in late game and matter more... (adventuring-section of the tree excluded since there the pace seems right, maybe even a bit to fast but way faster compared to the rest which seems sluggish and way to fragmented...)

I've been thinking about this.  Putting more of the pre-designed units on the research track would help (at least for a player's first few games).  More than anything, though, I think the major problem is the incremental nature of weapons in the game.  A batteship or knight had an obvious role which was going unfulfilled in your army prior to its invention.  They opened up more strategic options and provided good counters to units that had previously gone unchecked.  Weapons, with the obvious exception of bows and magic staves, don't do anything except make your troops a little bit better at what they already do.

In short, the tech trees should be mostly about opening up new possiblities in game play, not about improving upon what you're already doing.  Incidentally, this was one of my problems with a lot of the buildings in Civ 5 on release.  There were about 6 different kinds of buildings that you unlocked at the beginning and then just unlocked better versions from then on.  They've made strides toward differentiation since, fortunately.