Military Researcher

I'd like to get opinions on the inclusion of an additional researcher and tech tree. In a nutshell a Military Researcher would be assigned a portion of your research ability, which could be adjusted as you wish. His role would be to research derivative technologies from the base tech tree that is pursued by your 'general researchers'. These derivative techs would be much smaller in cost in comparison to standard techs but have a direct impact on your military. Here's an example of what I mean:

General researcher discovers Composites
Military researcher has the option to research FV Challenger, M1 Abrams, T-90.


Basically the military researcher allows you to create your own UU based off a derivative technology. This would help the game feel less bland and give it more flavor, that the player can control. Also it would add realism, since in the real world some countries have better weapons than others. You may have focused on building better tanks while your enemy was researching better aircraft.

Each derivative tech could only be researched by one civ, however to prevent 1 civ from dominating all aspects it would increase the cost of related techs. In the above example if you researched the Challenger tank, then the cost of the other two would double. If you managed to research the Abrams as well then the cost of the remaining project would double again. You could very well get all the best tanks, but at the cost of falling far behind other Civs in other aspects. Also if you fail to research a derivative unit, you would still be able to use the basic unit. You wouldn't be locked out of using Modern Armor just because you didn't research one of the derivative types, your tanks just wouldn't be as powerful.

The military researcher is an answer for those of us that are sick of the blandness of civilization, and the lack of realism behind unit creation. There's no reason that 2 units from different civs should have the exact same strengths and weaknesses. It helps to emulate real civilizations that have historically been better at some things than others, only you're in control.

So your thoughts?

Follow-up thought, you could also trade units to other civilizations which would enrich the game's diplomacy.

Again using the above example, lets say that you researched M1 Abrams. You could then build and sell those units (or buy them if you don't have) to another civ. You can even establish defense contracts between your civ and theirs.

Better than unit customisation, but this idea focuses too heavily on, or brings the focus of the game too heavily towards military. It isn't so much the unit specialisation that I have a problem with (that would be a reasonably good idea, and the unit trading is quite a good idea), but the addition to the tech tree in a specifically militaristic way. Why not have extra tech offshoots for economic techs or industrial techs? The way you propose would bring the focus of the game even more towards military, which is the wrong direction to move in.

This is the type of response I was hoping to get. You have a good idea, and I suppose the military researcher would have to be re-named to something else. I don't think the scope of derivative techs should be as costly as general techs, so I'm not sure I want 1 researcher to research both types.

Any ideas on 'civilian' derivative techs and the bonuses they could give? I seem to be better at brainstorming war systems.

Oh and 1 thing I wanted to clear up on original post, all derivative techs wouldn't be units you could build. Some may just be passive bonuses.

I'm glad you like the idea of trading units, I always thought that would be more representative of a real-world military/industrial complex. Before the invention of a technology that sets the Civ standard for the modern military/industrial complex perhaps you could simply mercenary your unique troops out. Just a thought.

trickofthehand said:

[...] You could very well get all the best tanks, but at the cost of falling far behind other Civs in other aspects.

Click to expand...

but at the same time

trickofthehand said:

These derivative techs would be much smaller in cost in comparison to standard techs

Click to expand...

trickofthehand said:

The military researcher is an answer for those of us that are sick of the blandness of civilization, and the lack of realism behind unit creation. There's no reason that 2 units from different civs should have the exact same strengths and weaknesses. It helps to emulate real civilizations that have historically been better at some things than others, only you're in control.

So your thoughts?

Click to expand...

There is no reason why 2 units from different civs should have different strengths and weaknesses. in the end, your system will favor one or another civ based on map type (like playing Vikings on a Pangaea map, etc.)

i favor more a system, where what a player does, that's in what he gets better at. like Morrowind with it's skill-based system

P.S. it has occurred to me only now, that the upper phrase(sentence?) and the lower phrase in my signature are somehow connected...

@Hail

What I meant and didn't make clear is that you could spend your time researching the best tanks, but since the tech cost doubles everytime you research one type you'll end up spending twice as long on acquiring 1 new tank. I love examples, here we go:

I research composites and have Derivative Tank Tech A (DTT A for short), DTT B and DTT C available. DTT A costs 4 turns of research time, so I pick it and commence researching it.

Four turns later I finish my research on DTT A and decide I want DTT B. Because the cost has doubled after learning 1 derivative tech from Composites it takes me 8 turns to research DTT B. 8 turns later I learn DTT B. Now I decide I want DTT C. The cost has once again doubled so now it takes me 16 turns. 16 turns later I acqure DTT C.

The total cost was 28 turns. In comparison my enemy researched SIX other derivative techs in the time it took me to research 3.

Now as I mentioned before you would be able to adjust how much research goes to your 'primary' researcher and how much goes to your military or derivative tech researcher. If you are really hungry for those derivative techs then you'll push the slider in that direction and end up losing progress on the main techs.

Thats what I meant by that you could fall far behind, hopefully the example makes sense.

I think this brings realism to the game and stops all civs militaries from being cookie-cutter. It wouldn't favor one civ over another, unless you have a huge technological gap in which case Vanilla Civ already favors the civ in the lead. The doubling in costs would prevent any 1 civ from researching ALL the derivative techs and being a dominating force.

Also Hail, I fail to see how this system is any different from what you said Morrowmind does. According to you:

i favor more a system, where what a player does, that's in what he gets better at. like Morrowind with it's skill-based system

But isn't this the EXACT same thing, just on a strategy game's scale? Think about it. If you spend your time researching better tanks is it not simulating your empire taking the time to engineer and test new tank models to gain an edge in that department?

Also like Camikaze said, 'civilian' techs could be included as derivative techs so that the focus isn't simply on units and war.

I'm not entirely sure that having derivative techs is all that good an idea, so much as expanding the tech tree would be. If you have multiple derivative tech categories, in addition to the normal tech tree, you'll be researching 4 or 5 things at once, rather than the 1 in the current system. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I'm erring on the side of 'not'.

The tech tree is generalized, and should be. A project such as an improved banking system (that improves bank output) or a better tank is not worthy of an entire country's research. I'm not sure where you thought that you would be researching 4 or 5 things at once, but you're not. You would research your primary tech, Fusion, while a percentage of your tech was diverted to research an improved model of the modern tank.

The research projects are concurrent and independent of each other. The only relation between the two is the ability to decrease or increase a derivative project's research at the cost of your general science output, like say in time of war when that new tank model could make a big difference.

Just to say, derivitive research is like specialized research: Like teching to Robotics and chosing between Unmanded Air Drones (Less attack, greater range, no War Weariness) and Unmaned Land Tanks or Cybernetically Enhanced Troops, (Pick two).

So maybe for Bronze Working a Dirivitive might be 'Heavy Phalax' for Greekish Spear Groups, or 'Halbardiers' for slighty weaker Axemen that aren't vurnurable to Chariots. (Say, STR 4, 80% v.s. Melee(str 7.2), 50% V.S. Chariots(str 6)).

On the issue of small passive bonuses (so that not all civs have the exact same value for the sme units), my concept is that e.g. the more cavalry you make, the better your cavalry will be.

If you build a heap of them, say 10% more than the nearest civ, then your cavalry will be recognised as the best in the world. This will open up say 3 small techs - of which you may choose only 1. They could be (a) slightly more powerful offence (training of the horses to be warhorses), (b) slightly cheaper to build (more efficient breeding/training) or (c) quicker healing (better knowledge of horse anatomy).

If another civ then closes the gap, the benefits do not exist any longer.

If they surpass you for domination of that kind of unit, then they get the chance to choose 1 of the 3 techs.

(Obviously a buffer-range system would need to be implemented so that it doesn't continually switch). Any by "cavalry" I would be referring to all kinds of cavalry throughout history etc

I like this idea but I think it should be expanded on to prevent the focus on military in the game. Have a researcher for every aspect of the game. You would divide your research points amongst all of them, so for example you could give all of your tech points to the military guy and wind up with the most advanced military in the world but be a bunch of mindless, broke barbarians. Where as you could give all your money to the economic one and be the richest in the world and try to buy the rest of the techs from your enemies. Balance created and war given some flavor.

Of course as to the units, I will use your examples with tanks would the T-90 be heavily armed and thick Armour with slow speed while the Abrams would have thick Armour with speed but slightly less in punch. If thats the model were going with I fully approve.

@ Colonel and Charles, yes that's exactly what I was getting at. Although CivMyWay does raise an interesting point. I was pondering something similar last night while I was crushing the romans with hordes of elephants (i was ethiopia not carthage ).

Also after Camikaze brought it up I agreed that civilian derivative techs are a very good idea, and no reason why they couldn't be included.

I'm glad to see members of the community just as bored with the 'clone' aspect of Civ as I am.

I would stray from having different screens etc... I see no reason why the concept can't fit into a single tech tree (perhaps which is expandable or collapsable visually)

Like I mentioned to Camikaze I just don't think that researching a variant on the tank should hold-up your researchers from the 'main' techs. Also I see it as a strategic choice, forcing you to split up between near-term boost or a long-term one (like if you were in a costly war) since the two researchers share the same pool of resources. If we have only 1 researcher then the derivative techs will have to be a comparable cost to the main techs, the way I pictured it a derivative tech would cost approximately 1/3 of a main tech's cost.

In my vision though teching would take a much longer time to make the game last longer, approximately comparable to a current Marathon game (though no reason why it couldn't speed up for faster games if u wanted). This will make variant unit techs actually worthwhile at all ages, not just the modern age ones.

Ofcourse I suppose 1 tech tree could work, since researching variants on techs would automatically lengthen the game (longer time between main techs).

Just make it like fingers on the techs, so we have
Main Tech is []
Derivitive is ()

[Metal Casting]---------[Machinery]----------[Ect]
/---l---l
(Quinqirime (1 move, 3 str, + 25% v.s. Galley, -50% v.s. Trireme))--(Cast Iron Forges (+ 1 Unhealthy, + 20% Production, + 10% military Production))--(Cast Pottery (Tiles next to hills + 1 commerance)) ect, ect.

Spot on Charles. Though your example was a bit confusing since it didn't line up right lol.

Oops, sorry.

EDIT: I don't think I can fix it.

I had another thought about this, to slightly vary it from taking a portion of research. Perhaps instead of 'researching' derivative 'techs', you could invest production in building improvements to various military things, or for that matter, civilian things. So, instead of researching an improved banking system, you could perhaps build an improvement to the bank. Perhaps not realistic, and it moves away from a commerce based system to a production based one, but maybe it's worth considering.

Or what about borrowing a page from Paradox's Victoria - derivative discoveries that depend on certain techs but appearing at random, or perhaps triggered by use (eg be the first to win 5 combats with swordsmen and gain a special promotion for all swordsmen)