I really liked GalCiv2 except for one critical part of the whole experience. Tech tree on it was boring and pointless. Which was annoying since tech is my favourite aspect on any game in this genre. I seriously hope GC3 improves on this aspect. And I'm not just talking about lots of unique tech on races.
Multiple requirements, optional requirements.. Tech tree needs to be more complex. Or the very least it should support modding in tech tree that is more interesting and provides more options for advancement than just next in the endless straight line. Some techs should depend on more than one other tech possibly from other branches and some techs could have optional dependencies that are not required but could reduce research cost if acquired.
Other than that, I'm really exited on GalCiv3.
Since each race will have its own tech tree, I would like to see branches or subtrees for interactions between races. The races have very different mindsets than each other so it is likely that new and bizarre tech would come out of their interactions. There could be specialized tech if two races had matching border, one race conquered another, and negotiated tech projects between races.
You mean besides insignificant scientiffic advances which came about such as the Manhattan projects or the Apollo Program.
Private enterprise doesn't tend to care for truly groundbreaking tech breakthroughs unless there's a way to capitalize it.
Yes, its far from realistic ... but, then, there's a lot of unrealism in all aspects of 4X games in terms of what you directly control.
We could easily ignore the "major" scientific advances, leaving such to the government, and have the civilian sector be the one creating minor advances and, more likely, "special" tradeable goods and maybe even minor wonders and such.
I think the idea of having directed research for big projects and undirected research for incremental improvements is an interesting one. This would mean that directed research would go to "fundamental" project like lasers and shield and there would be fewer incremental techs, like laser 2 and 3, because the undirected research would provide the benefits instead. The tradeoffs could be interesting. Depending on your research allocation, the old tech with the incremental improvements may end up being better than the next level fundamental tech when it is first obtained. Balancing such a system may take some work though.
I am not sure if I would like to see this system as a slider (undirected research would be whatever research points are not going to directed research), or if the system should be completely separate with different buildings generating different types of research points.
Small companies doing their own thing is an interesting idea, until you run into a person like me who needs to control EVERYTHING.
How about a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary going at the same time, with secondary and tertiary being researched at lower rates? A tech could be like, Lasers. You research to unlock it, and then if you want you could go on to the next tech in the list if you want to speed through it. Of course, you'll miss out on the applications like laser surgery, laser light shows, laser manufacturing, etc. unless you decide to stick it out with lasers for a while. Or you could make the next tech in the tree a secondary project, and research it at a lower rate. This way you control exactly what you want to research, and it wont have to be a "preset path for victory" scenario.
I want a big tech tree like Distant Worlds, with maybe a bit of how Sword of the Stars handled it, where some techs might appear or not, or MoO2 version, just less of the stress of deciding between two awesome techs. Unless we could trade tech as easily as in GalCiv 2, in which case I can eventually get all.
I am not sure how you lack control in my proposed system. You define the amount of undirected research and it gives an incremental bonus, say +1%, to each known tech once a threshold of research points is reached. You have complete control of what you are getting.
Here's an idea. While a core tech tree might be normally available for research, maybe there should be many non-core techs out there that could be unlocked by random events or investing in public research (which techs you get, you don't directly control). Your choice in which civilization you play as might determine what kinds of techs are more likely to be unlocked than others.Once techs are unlocked, you could then invest serious research into more major versions of technologies. If computer games could be considered a form of civilian technologies, then combat simulators (for training purposes) could be form of major research that plays a role in what your civilization does. If you also manage to unlock neural interfaces, then combat simulators could be further improved.
The classical tech tree is superior to all other fancy ideas I've seen in this thread or in other games like Horizon. One tech at a time, and total player control of what to research (and knowing all pathways in the tree) is the way to go. Why? Because it gives the player meaningfull choices with (huge) opportunity costs.
I couldn't care less for the realism arguements in this thread, because the alternative suggestions just seem like dull game mechanisms with very little or none opportunity costs at all compared to the classical approuch.
But if realism is the subject; you can argue the more a game has decission making with consequences, the more realistic it is. That's also a context to see realism in.
I agree. Excessive realism is often not good in games, especially when game itself is not about realism. And there isn't any need to revolutionize how tech tree works.
I would be more than happy as long as tech tree isn't a group of boring lines. At the very least support more complex requirements for modding if not on vanilla game. And if it is a ui issue, give modders an option to override automatic generation of tech tree like in gc2 and let modders explicitly define layout.
That said some ideas presented in this thread are interesting. Like splitting research points over multiple techs.
I tend to be in the complex tech tree camp, but make it too complex, too esoteric and you lose alot of lighter side players. Those with a PHD in Gal Civ aside, many players will not understand the complexities described above especially the all the special case type stuff described.
To make things manageable the trees need to look something like a family tree, the precursor techs, are like great grandma and grandpa,then all the techs that spawn from possible choices branch out like a tree, if you waste enough time you can evenly research everything, but if you race for the prize you can have a scraggly looking vine leading right to Black Hole Cannon.
Not the prettiest compromise, but if you fluff the tree options enough it gives amazingly diverse techs available to research, gives the diversity of techs between players a way to create numerous strategies like heavy armor + slow powerful rockets, light armor + speedy engines + slightly weaker lasers, Stealth drives + recharging shields + short range radiation beams. All allow unique and diverse space combat styles, all can be deadly with appropriate strategies and make each person's approach to research unique and variable based on the strategy they feel comfortable with for space combat.
Just my 10 cents
You could have different approaches to research for different civilizations. For us humans, it would be suboptimal to force every scientist - historians, biologists, psychologists - into solving a specific physics problem. The best return on investments would be to research one Social Tech, one Physics tech and one Biology tech at a time. For a groupmind, though, focusing on a single issue might be the natural thing to do, and splitting attention would lead to penalties. Yet others might be inspired by serendipity, making random tech advancements at an increased pace, with maybe 30% of the effort going to a formal goal.
Something I liked in Sword of the Stars was how the different civilizations had different game mechanics for moving between star systems. Having different game mechanics for research might be cool, too - if the devs can pull it off.
My fancy idea, isn't all that fancy, it retains the classic tech tree but gives a bit of flexibility to allow a more robust research program by being able to invest research points across a number of technologies at once rather than driving down a linear path. investing all of your research towards one tech allows you to bulldoze your way to a critical technology, but you could then split it between two lines say lasers and shields, so that first destroyer you pump out has some defences as well as offensive capability. This retains the opportunity cost decision that players are faced with because splitting your research priorities will slow down the speed at which technologies are researched. Spread yourself too thin and you will find yourself outclassed by the enemies who are more decisive.
i don't think the research allocation approach actually fundamentally changes the tech tree at all. if you wanted you could even build in boosters for having a quarter, half or all of your research points allocated to a tech branch so it's actually beneficial to only research one or two techs at a time. Call it a collaboration bonus. Just makes research more interesting and dynamic without having to fundamentally change the tech trees.
i don't think there is any harm bringing in elements of realism as long as they do not bog you down in gameplay, it has to be straight forward but not necessarily overly simplistic.
I do like some of the ideas proposed in this thread. My thinking is that perhaps a system with directed research by the government will be for large projects like lasers, and then refinements will be made by the private industry based upon the racial mindset as defined by racial traits. Such as one race is more warlike so refinements to lasers will mostly be in increasing damage, while another race's refinements will more along the lines of making them cheaper/smaller or as some have suggested spin-off technologies in medicine or entertainment. This allows for the classic method of research to remain while adding some unique flavor to it and making research something to invest in throughout the game, as opposed to when you finish with the tech tree you just destroy all of your research generating buildings and then build something else in their place, because there are no more advancements to make.
What about races, that don't have a private industry? It's pretty unrealistic to expect all races to have one. The Iconians, for example, are communists (or the closest thing there is to a communist).
It would not necessarily have to be entirely private industry, it could be colleges and universities, or there could be two research expenditures, that of directed research and then a budget for minor projects, or something like that. Either that or build refinement/spin-off research directly into the research system instead of attempting to justify it in a realistic sense.
I liked SotS's randomized Tech Tree, and randomized research time. Made each game unique, you could not follow a pre-determined research path.
The only thing I disliked was that once you didn't rolled a certain tech, you could never get it. Would be nice if you could invest research in finding new pathways in the Tech Tree.
This was the best tech tree ever because it was dead easy to program an entirely new one... screw the rules, when you know how to create things with codes.
I have, but the feature list was required long before coding could begin. We had many stages in our development cycle, and Requirements was first, followed by Design, then Code, then several levels of Test, Integration, System Test, Final Production, another Test, then delivery.
Why would I want to do that? If I can get X, Y, and Z in 15 turns, it makes more sense to get X at turn 5, Y at 10, and Z at 15 than it does to split my research three ways and get all of them on turn 15. The optimal way to do it is so obvious that doing anything else is simply playing wrong, and thus why bother implementing it? Trying to fix it such that it's not lopsided just makes something else optimal, and thus people in the know will still do that.
Honestly, this thread is a great example of the problem plaguing so many ideas: people throw out what sounds cool with no regard to the complexity of implementation or if it's going to accomplish anything. People of all skill levels have to be able to understand whatever is implemented. Someone at Stardock has to build it. The AI has to be able to cope with it, since this is meant to be a single player game.
There's a reason why the Civilization style more or less linear tech tree is in so many games: it works.
As for private industry discoveries, a lot of games have some other event to discover a tech randomly (it's exploration in Civ). What you call it doesn't really matter a whole lot, but it should probably be a racial trait or something because if everybody has it happening throughout the entire game, what's the point?
There might be a few scenarios where splitting research would be beneficial - usually mid to late game, when going back to pick up one or two early techs you blitzed past. If your empire has 1000 RP output and that one tech is only 200 RP, the other 800 RP from that turn was wasted in GC2.
But yes, at a 5-15 turn time horizon, single topic research would always win. Only when your empire gets to the point of being able to finish techs in 1-2 turns would the ability to split matter. And of course the extreme min-maxers would split the last turn to squeeze the last few points out at the end of a tech, to dump them somewhere else.
Why not have the excess research points be automatically be redirected to the next research project instead of being wasted? I'm thinking that when ever you have more than enough research points to complete 1 tech (or several), the excess is put towards the tech of your choosing (you should get a pop up or something).
GC2 did that, as long as the tech was in the same chain. If you overkilled Laser II, the excess would go into Laser III, then Laser IV, etc. The only time it would matter is when researching a terminal tech in a chain. That's not to say it wouldn't be nice to be able to redirect the remainder to something else if I wanted to end at Laser II for some reason.
That's what it should do, yeah. Excess should just sit in a pool until you pick the next research subject, then apply it to that immediately. That removes some really tedious min/maxing to avoid wasting points and is user friendly.
And if you generated enough tech points in one turn you would get the two techs in one turn, the one you were researching and the next one in the chain.
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