I think the general reply (ChrTh has given a specific example) is that each "advanced" tech would carry a minimal gain but that the ability to get the large gains would presuppose getting a lot of these "advanced" techs. They would accumulate like modules, each one licensing an incremental improvement leading to bigger and better units. Think of the progression from Ironclad through Destroyer to Battleship late in the current game, but extended backwards in time so that it starts earlier.
Sorry guys, I do have the strong feeling you are running into a dead-end.
I cannot really discover the value added (except for some - yet, in my eyes minor - historical accuracy = abandoned techs).
There are no significant new choices provided by this system, but it is more complex and therefore, more difficult to balance.
This already disqualifies it from the modding point of view. If I will have to be even more careful than I have to be right now, but will not gain something substantially better for the higher effort, I say: drown it!
Even today, as soon as you discover tech A, you will have let's say three successor tech B (5 turns), C (7 turns) and D (10 turns). B may give you a new unit, C may give you a new building, D may give you a new civic.
Let us assume that in your current situation the new civic will be the most beneficial choice.
What are you going to do? Right, you will try to discover C as soon as possible.
Now, what will the new concept offer you? Some questions, which come down to this: "Although C will be the best option, would you like to go for B or for C or for D?"
You don't have a real choice, you only get pseudo-choices.
In the current system, though, you may determine the AI to follow certain search pathes by higher probabilities, thus making the total of the AI's more competitive (since AI_A may follow one approach, AI_B another one, and AI_C finally the third one).
In this regard, I would say the current system is superior, since "less is more".
[edit] I am off for a new project now, so it may take some days until I can continue the discussion. Yet, please feel free to point out my errors, I am much interested in learning about them.
It starts with an underlying theory/model of how technology advances: most technologies are discovered by accident and then gradually adopted.
That model, in turn, divides into three parts:
First, discoveries are made in a process that is "randomized within constraints."
Second, techs that are discovered cannot be immediately implemented; they need further investment.
Third, after techs have been adopted there is a further investment period after which they become "unloseables." That is, until the tech reaches this last stage, a player could still in certain circumstances lose them.
I'm not sure where your objection lies.
Earlier, it sounded like you objected to the "discovery phase": You wondered what benefit there could be from the random discovery of possibly advanced techs, and you wondered how the game could be balanced if such discoveries were made. ChrTh and I replied that the benefits could be made real but marginal. Just as the (weak) Ironclad evolves into the (strong) Battleship as the civilization accumulates techs, an "advanced" tech acquired early by a civ could have weak benefits that evolve into the stronger benefits that would only be available if the civ (by chance, likely) made enough advanced discoveries.
I'm not sure what your objection is in your follow up post, as you're talking about "pseudo-choices." This sounds like it might be my objection, which is solely to the second, "adoption" phase of the process. That part of the proposal does strike me as chockablock with choices that aren't really choices, and that that part of the proposal could and should be streamlined until it works just like it does in Civ4 currently.
I do think the first and final stages—Discovery and Embracing—are still worth exploring.
Mxzs: I'm still confused on something. How can you have Embracing without Adoption? What would cause Abandonment? (If you've already written this out and I missed it, feel free to link)
Remember that Discovery, in this system, is independent of Research. When tech E shows up you don't have any extra lightbulbs than before it showed up. Where are you going to get the lightbulbs to keep it at a bare minimum? You either take it from A -- meaning less emphasis on A -- or you take it from B, C, and/or D, potentially risking those techs. If you're balanced, you have A, B, C, and D all with some moderate amount, adding E lessens each a little bit but you're still pushing forward on all fronts.
I think Mxzs understands my complaint / worry... I'm still not sure you're seeing it ChrTh. Or I'm not understanding your response.
The best strategy is always to focus on one technology while being minimalistic with the others. I have B, which is just treading water... but I'm getting A in 10 turns. If c pops up, the smartest thing to do is be minimalistic with that too, and subtract that from A. Now A is coming in 12 turns. Once A is done, I'll emphasize B, which will come in 10 turns. Then I'll emphasize C which will come in 10 turns (if not 9, because I'm juggling no other techs).
Here's what happens if you just "average" it out. I am spreading my technology evenly between A and B. Instead of getting A quickly, I'm now getting it 1/2th as fast: in 20 turns. The only benefit is that I'll get B at the same time. If C enters the picture and I decide to spread myself thinner, now I'm dividing my research 3 ways with no emphasis. A, B, and C will all come in nearly 30 turns.
In both cases, I'm getting three techs in about 30 turns. But in the first case, I benefit from key milestones: I get A in the first 10 or so, B in the first 20, with only C taking the full 30. In the second case, where I divide my technology three ways, I get nothing for the first 29 turns!
You have one best choice, meaning there's no real strategic difficulty here. Pick the tech you want the most, and merely juggle the others.
I don't think it's a question of whether or not it's strategic. It's simply equivalent to what we have now. The only difference (from a high level) is the "random" discoveries.
EDIT: the following has some really detailed logic... I could probably expand some key sentences to whole paragraphs. Not going to bother, but what it amounts to is that you really need to look at every little point. Apologies in advance...
I was thinking about bello's post last night... and had some observations. Basically, if a "dark age" is possible, then it has to be possible to have so many discoveries that you can't maintain them all. Thus, your discovery pace has to be a mathematical function of your beaker income, and in addition it has to be such that you make discoveries faster than you adopt. Thus, it must always be the case that eventually you will have discoveries which you can't afford to maintain. Either you do it earlier so you can focus and adopt the one single one you really want most, or you "tread water" and do it later -- you maintain more discoveries at the price of getting that single one later on, but in the meantime you still get more discoveries, so eventually you get to the same place anyway. (Same place in terms of having discoveries you simply can't afford to maintain.)
However, the number of techs is finite. Especially, the number of techs eligible for discovery is even more finite.
Thus, we have some kind of discovery rate, which must always be positive. We have discoveries we're losing. Eligible techs are finite. Thus, at some point, they must recycle. That is, we "discover" a tech that we had previously lost.
So... where are we? Back to the conclusion that the player wants to focus on the tech he wants the most. So what about the 2nd-most desirable one? It'll come back around again pretty soon.
I think this problem is solvable... but what it tells me is that the implementation of this whole thing is going to be really hairy. And, I get back to the addition of complexity when all it amounts to is basically what we have now.
To me, I think it might be better to have more of an "out of the box" civil war / dark ages. I lump those two things together, because they could really be the same mechanic.
Focus too much on culture? You have "young bloods" who think the government is focusing too much on opera and nonsense, and start a militant revolution.
Focus too much on military? Your economy suffers. Your research suffers. You start getting bigger and bigger negatives which pile into a dark age.
etc. You get the idea. Anyway, that was the result of my mulling over last night.
It's not strategic, ChrTh, because the best choice is always to focus on one tech at a time... the only choice the player makes is how many techs to juggle in the background. But the smart thing to do is always just to emphasize one at a time, since that will yield results sooner (with no sacrifice in terms of long term results, either).
It's not strategic, ChrTh, because the best choice is always to focus on one tech at a time... the only choice the player makes is how many techs to juggle in the background. But the smart thing to do is always just to emphasize one at a time, since that will yield results sooner (with no sacrifice in terms of long term results, either).
But which tech you focus on is strategic; essentially it's the same strategy as now in the rigid tech tree. Yes, that makes it zero sum with the current game (except at high levels), but the main focus of the mechanic is to provide a less rigid tech tree. The Discovery mechanic handles that, the Adoption mechanic makes it balanced.
Frankly, I'm a lot more fond of the Discovery mechanic than I am the Adoption one. I'm working on a way to drop the Adoption mechanic (hence my question to Mxzs) but I'm not sure if I want the system to be without the possibility of tech loss
I'm trying to be very careful with my criticism, because I don't want it to seem like I'm criticizing things that I'm not.
There's the big idea you're working from--that discovery should be a little more outside the player's control; that it takes time to get the benefits of discovering a tech; and that it should be loseable for at least some time. Then there is the three-stage implementation: a discovery mechanic, an adoption mechanic, and an embracing mechanic.
I love the idea; always have, always will.
The discovery mechanic is a hairy beast and still needs thinking about, but right now I don't sense any insuperable difficulties. The embracing mechanic is another hairy beast, but that's mostly because it follows on the adoption mechanic and needs to be built so it's consistent with that predecessor stage.
My worries so far are solely with the adoption mechanic.
In a sense, I'm not even criticizing it. I'm pointing out that its basic features are already realized in the current game, and so it could best be simplified and realized by simply returning to the mechanic in the current game.
So, the Discovery process goes to work. Eventually it spits out a result, so your Tech Advisor appears and says that your people have discovered a new technology and asks you which tech you want to prioritize for further research. You pick one. X turns later, he comes back and tells you that your people have discovered ways of applying it, and you can now build Unit Y. At this point the Embracing process kicks in.
The reason you could do this simplification, I think, is because your research pace will usually be maximized by focusing all your efforts on one place while diverting enough resources to keep your other discoveries from decaying. Sure, you could give the player a choice between the efficient and inefficient divisions, but why give him a choice when you know what he's going to choose? (If he's stupid or irrational, he can find other ways to sabotage himself. )
Spoiler:
Here's an analogy on why he'll almost always choose the "concentrate on one at a time" strategy.
Suppose you buy a book, a DVD, and a PC game at Amazon and they offer you these choices:
* Get the book tomorrw, the DVD next week, and the PC game next month, all for $70.
* Get the book next week, and the DVD and PC game next month, all for $70.
* Get the book, the DVD, and the PC game next month, all for $70.
Who wouldn't take the first option? Why even offer it?
Concentrating all your research resources on one tech at a time leads to the first kind of outcome: Tech A in 3 turns, Tech B in 6 turns, Tech C in 9 turns.
Dividing your research equally among all leads to the third kind of outcome: All three techs in 9 turns.
(Concentrating most of your tech on one and dividing the rest leads to something like the second outcome: Tech A in 6 turns and Techs B and C in 9 turns.)
Unless you redo the whole idea of adoption from scratch, I think you wil almost always run into this kind of objection, so it's best to just bite the bullet and admit that Firaxis already has your adoption mechanic in place. The question then becomes how Embracing would best be realized.
Wodan makes excellent points about the Discovery mechanic. Basically, the number of techs the player has going at any given time is a function of two dynamic processes: the number of discoveries coming in and the number of adoptions moving out. This is worth thinking about in further detail (how do you regulate the flow so that the player has choices?) but the point right now is that in principle the player might wind up being overloaded. This could lead to a situation where he has to do a "Sophie's choice" and kill one or more of this discoveries.
The other place is post-adoption, where techs might automatically move back toward abandonment unless the player counteracted that drift.
But I don't know for sure. All I know for sure is that I'm tired of offering criticisms of your proposal and want to start saying something constructive, dammit ...
A way to drop the adoption mechanic but still have the discovery mechanic. Let's differentiate between "discovering" and "mastering".
For all intents and purposes, the current technology has all technologies discovered. In 4000 BC, you know you'll eventually research Fusion. You pour research into mastering those technologies, which have hard prerequisites.
Now the new system...
Research is semi-blind. You pour research into one of 6 branches... and while there's a higher probability that you'll pop a tech from your emphasized branch, there's still enough random factors that other techs might come up. Many pre-requisites are loose, and occasionally a later technology can come early. This is how technologies become discovered.
Otherwise, the game functions as before. From that small pool of discovered technologies, you can master any one you want, as before. Pick one and eventually you'll master it. If this version would let you pour research into mastering the few technologies you've discovered, then the classic tech tree would consider *all* technologies discovered.
Wodan makes excellent points about the Discovery mechanic. Basically, the number of techs the player has going at any given time is a function of two dynamic processes: the number of discoveries coming in and the number of adoptions moving out. This is worth thinking about in further detail (how do you regulate the flow so that the player has choices?) but the point right now is that in principle the player might wind up being overloaded. This could lead to a situation where he has to do a "Sophie's choice" and kill one or more of this discoveries.
That's not very fair to the player: if you're going to have Abandonment, they should be able to control the situation to an extent that it can be avoided. Penalizing the player for a lot of Discoveries, imho, would kill this suggestion faster than ... something fast.
The other place is post-adoption, where techs might automatically move back toward abandonment unless the player counteracted that drift.
But I don't know for sure. All I know for sure is that I'm tired of offering criticisms of your proposal and want to start saying something constructive, dammit ...
Again, how does the player counteract it? We could use feedback (build cannons to reinforce Mathematics and Construction), but not every Tech has a build/Civic for feedback. How do you show the player which Techs are in danger of being lost, and more importantly, how do you give them an option to prevent it?
A way to drop the adoption mechanic but still have the discovery mechanic. Let's differentiate between "discovering" and "mastering".
For all intents and purposes, the current technology has all technologies discovered. In 4000 BC, you know you'll eventually research Fusion. You pour research into mastering those technologies, which have hard prerequisites.
Now the new system...
Research is semi-blind. You pour research into one of 6 branches... and while there's a higher probability that you'll pop a tech from your emphasized branch, there's still enough random factors that other techs might come up. Many pre-requisites are loose, and occasionally a later technology can come early. This is how technologies become discovered.
Otherwise, the game functions as before. From that small pool of discovered technologies, you can master any one you want, as before. Pick one and eventually you'll master it. If this version would let you pour research into mastering the few technologies you've discovered, then the classic tech tree would consider *all* technologies discovered.
I think we have our own Sophie's Choice here: do we want Abandonment or Not? If we do, then what you have here isn't a bad idea. Any post-current age Tech in the Discovery Pool has a Time-To-Live before you can no longer master it. Of course, you have to make sure the TTL is reasonable, but this is a workable suggestion.
If you don't care about Abandonment, why not just move the research towards the Discovery Phase? Drop the Discovery Points and just apply lightbulbs to the branches. After the examined Tech has enough lightbulbs, you discover it, which is the same as doing so now. Two issues:
Since the examined tech is chosen at random, you can fall behind in a category waiting for an advanced tech to come in. Not sure I like that since the player doesn't have control (until Computers)
Advanced Tech units have to have more prereqs to prevent a killer Tech pop. Ironclads would have Replaceable Parts and Steam Power, not just Steam Power (since RP is no longer a prereq for Steam Power)
That's not very fair to the player: if you're going to have Abandonment, they should be able to control the situation to an extent that it can be avoided. Penalizing the player for a lot of Discoveries, imho, would kill this suggestion faster than ... something fast.
If the player has discoveries, he can maintain them, move them forward, or not maintain them (which will lead to abandonment). If he maintains them or moves them forward, this uses up a limited resource (beakers). Consumption of resources = a penalty. The more discoveries you have, the greater your penalty.
Wodan
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"Life is not fair, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." -- The man in black, Princess Bride
I said I was tired of being critical and wanted to start being constructive again. But as long as I'm being critical, I'm going to try knocking the last struts out from under this proposal. Anything that survives will be a good element in a reconstruction. Guys, do your best to save what you can; I'm only beating it into oblivion to see what survives. Okay?
Once reduced to its essence, the "adoption" phase is basically indistinguishable from the research method already present in Civ. So, the player is alerted that he has a new discovery and is encouraged to put all his efforts into securing one tech. Once he has secured this tech, he is able to build the units, buildings, etc. that it licenses. So, I'm going to start by assuming that the current research model is the best one and that it will go over into the new proposal unchanged. (Except for semantics: "Which tech shall we research" becomes "Which tech shall we try to develop?" and "We have discovered X!" becomes "Our civilization has adopted X and is now able to use it!"
There are still four issues to tackle: The "abandonment" mechanic, the "embracing" mechanic, the "discovery" mechanic, and the underlying "picture" of scientific research.
The Abandonment Mechanic
There seem to be two ways in which a tech might be abandoned. The player might abandon it when it is still in the adoption phase, and he might abandon it before it is embraced.
Abandoning it during adoption would involve the advisor popping up with the message "Sire, our wise men are spreading their efforts too thinly. If we abandon one of our discoveries, we will be able to adopt a new technology more quickly. Shall we abandon one of our discoveries?" If you say "Yes," you get to choose one or more techs to drop, knowing that they will almost certainly not appear in the research menu the next time you adopt a tech.
The problem here is that abandonment will likely not mean an appreciable difference to the pace of technological advancement. To abandon one tech will only make the tech you're trying to adopt appear one or two turns sooner. To get an appreciable quickening, the player would have to abandon a whole bunch. And if he's going to abandon a whole bunch, why not abandon all except the one he's trying to get? We're back to the "What is the most efficient way to proceed" question, and that question can only end in the answer "Concentrate on adopting only one tech at a time."
But of course a player isn't going to abandon all his techs; likely he's only going to want three or four under active consideration at any one time. There are two ways to go about getting him this result. One is to let him actively keep his herd of techs culled. That gives him choices, but they're Sophie's choices, I've said. Long-time Civ players are not likely to consider the addition a positive one. "Why are you making me kill my children?" is likely to be the complaint. After all, people already don't much like that they may have to raze conquered cities to keep them from flipping back, and asking them to abandon discovered techs would be something similar.
The other way would be to have the game manage the player's pace so that he always has some "optimal" number of techs under consideration at any time. This could be managed at the end of the Discovery phase; if a discovery is made but there are still X number of techs being adopted, the discovery wouldn't be announced until one of them had been adopted. In essence, though, this would push the model even closer to the current Civ structure: each time you adopted a new tech you probably find a new discovery in your queue, and you probably wouldn't discover a new tech until you had made a new adoption.
The Embracing Mechanic
There still remains the other option, that abandonment could take place before a tech is embraced. How this is realized, though, would depend upon how the embracing mechanic is structured.
Right now there seem to be three possibilities on the table (some combination of which might be used): A tech is embraced after a certain amount of more research is poured into it; it is embraced when a tech to which it is a prerequisite is adopted; and/or it is embraced when one of the units/buildings/etc., that it licenses is built. Taking each in turn:
1. Making the player spend more research money after already spending a lot on adoption seems pointless; why couldn't the extra money simply be put into it while it was in the adoption phase? Players are apt to think of this as an extra hoop to jump through and wonder why it's been added. If you answer that the extra hoop is there to save them from losing a tech they've just adopted, the reply will probably be an incredulous "You're making me do more work just to avoid a penalty that you've added?"
2. If discoveries are made semi-randomly, then the player's ability to embrace a tech will be at the mercy of the semi-random process that gives him techs. Why punish the player by taking away techs when it isn't his fault that he couldn't secure them?
3. So that he could hang on to his techs in the interim while future techs are being researched, you could force him to build units, etc., that use the tech. This is the "use it or lose it" idea. The problem here is that you are diverting him from other, possibly more pressing production work in order to build a unit. This might be justifiable (one of those guns vs. butter decisions the game is full of) except that you're putting a fat thumb on the player's scale. He'll be quite likely (or at least feel pressured) to build a unit not because it is useful (the "use it" part of the formula) but simply so that he can hang on to the tech until such time as it really becomes useful. This is to give the player makework.
Bottom-line: Abandonment looks like a penalty to punish the player for circumstances he is not likely to fully control. As such, it is a negative addition and should only be added to a redesigned process that includes a strong positive to which it is organically related. I don't see such an obvious positive.
Without the concept of abandonment, the concept of "embracing" becomes empty. There's no point in having it.
At this point, I conclude that the research model (including both adoption and embracing) will collapse right back into the current Civ model: the player chooses a tech from a list of possibilities; when he has it he can use it, and he cannot lose it.
The Discovery Mechanic
The discovery mechanic is the newest and most promising feature in the proposal. The idea is that the player can direct his research into certain areas but cannot control which techs will appear in his research queue.
This is a negative addition to the game: you are taking a significant choice and planning tool from the player. There must be a correspondingly large positive addition to counterbalance it.
This proposal followed from something Wodan said:
Personally, I would like a more flexible tech tree. Perhaps not even a "tree" at all but some other system.
Anyone read any alternate history science fiction that touches on this? I can recall several good books. e.g.,
Steam-based civilizations, who never develop internal combustion engines but take steam to places that real life never did.
How about a biological-oriented civilization? Extremely advanced medicine and perhaps even to the point of genetic and DNA modification (maybe they're able to bring back dinosaurs and use them as beasts of burden and war machines, or maybe they adapt birds to large size to be able to carry a human), but they aren't advanced in the physical sciences at all.
What about a civilization that advances in what we might call alchemy rather than advancing in chemistry?
How about a culturally advanced civilization that ignores the sciences altogether?
Think about the Inca or Romans; the way Civ has "perceived" them, these were primitive societies, less advanced even than cultures in the Dark Ages 1,000 years later. However, another way to look at them is that they were quite advanced, simply in a different direction.
There are all sorts of interesting possibilities. The idea, regardless, is to allow a civilization to do things differently than "we" did. In addition, it would be sheer hubris to think that mankind has discovered everything, that we have not missed (due to "cultural blindness") some tech path that is very possible, to discover things that mankind has not. I think people tend to believe that mankind has discovered everything possible up to this point in our history, that the only exploration is to push further the technologies we already have. Call it hubris, call it whatever you want, but it is probably more likely this is not true than that it is.
The idea is that if "advanced" techs popped up out of sequence, it would open up new research paths or lead to new and unusual play configurations in each game.
Making things pop up randomly, however, doesn’t by itself lead to playable or interesting possibilities. If the advanced tech does not itself provide new units, then it's useless, and any sensible civilization would forget all about it. Here, by the way, is the fundamental objection to the "abandonment" conceit: Past civilizations abandoned certain discoveries because they didn't know they could or would become useful. Players of Civ know exactly how each tech is or could be useful, and so they see no advantage in giving up a tech. The point is not modified by appealing to "blind" research. Anyone who plays the game more than once will know what becomes useful.
On the other hand, if the advanced tech provides its regular advanced unit, then it risks unbalancing the game. Grant that it would be, er, new and interesting should your Egyptian War Chariot meet a Roman Gunship in 500 BC. "New and interesting," though, is more likely to be a euphemism for "sh!t your pants panic."
The only way to be sure that an acquired tech is useful but not unbalancing is to provide it with units that it could build in combination with the other techs already in place, and correspondingly scaled-down to fit the overall "time period" suggested by the available techs. Hence, Steam Power discovered in Roman time might lead to the Steam-Powered Trebuchet (a slightly amped up version of the classic), but not to the Ironclad.
However, if chance determines what the player gets, then there would have to be units/improvements provided for the likely combinations of techs. This might be doable, but only if it were severely circumscribed; there are so many different possible combinations of techs that it is isn't even comprehensible. A game that doesn't circumscribe the possibilities is humongously large (almost a 1:1 model of the multiverse); one that is circumscribed is inflexible in just the way Wodan decries.
Spoiler:
You might make a stab at creating some possibilities by breaking ChrTh's six-path tech tree into five ages (ancient, classical, medieval, industrial, modern) and providing each of the thirty resulting "spots" with a single "enabling" tech. Then the various combination units would be realized by making the enabling tech a prerequisite for all the possible inventions during that age. So, let "Engineering" be the enabling tech for the medieval-manufacturing section of the tree. Engineering with Steam Power would lead to one unit/building combo; Engineering with Physics would lead to a second unit/building combo; Engineering with Biology would lead to a third; and so on. Even with this limited base, though, there would be at least 30 units to manage, and probably more like 90 if you wanted each tech type to lead to at least one Melee unit, one Mounted unit, and one unit of some other type. I can't imagine anything built on a more limited base, and it's both probably too much and too little, given that each period would come with such a limited stock of units.
Anyhow, the best way to realize new and unexpected units and historical situations is to go looking at mods. Here is where the proposal runs into Bello's objection, and I think it's a decisive one.
A mod takes the basic stock of elements and arranges them into rigid relationships; given that the game elements have a lot of modularity to them—they can be plugged together in a lot of different ways—you can get a lot of variability between mods. However, a game that tries to create a base that generates all the possible mods will be too complex for mod-makers to manage.
The reason is simple: When creating a mod in the current system, you only have to put the elements together into the order that you want. But in a system where all the elements are already connected in a quasi-infinite number of ways, you have to close down the alternatives in order to get your preferred mod. Because Civ itself is, in a sense, one of its own mods (it arranges the Civ elements in a pre-packaged way), the designers would have to close down all the alternatives to get a systematic game, and each mod maker would have to do the same. Clearly it's much easier to enable a single arrangement of elements than to disable a large number of alternatives.
After you get done thinking things through to their logical conclusion, I think this is what it comes down: Firaxis has already given us the "flexible, alternative games" implicit in Civ, and given them to us in the only practical way: They're the mods hosted by this site and others.
I conclude, unhappily but with a sense of renewed admiration, that the tech system in Civ has remained a near-constant because it is so well-designed that it cannot be tinkered with without worsening it. The only alternative is to burn it to the ground and start completely over.
A lot of really interesting comments in the past 24 hours. Rather than respond to them directly, because we're all starting to pull apart, the best way I have to respond is to build the idea up from scratch:
A way to drop the adoption mechanic but still have the discovery mechanic. Let's differentiate between "discovering" and "mastering".
For all intents and purposes, the current technology has all technologies discovered. In 4000 BC, you know you'll eventually research Fusion. You pour research into mastering those technologies, which have hard prerequisites.
Now the new system...
Research is semi-blind. You pour research into one of 6 branches... and while there's a higher probability that you'll pop a tech from your emphasized branch, there's still enough random factors that other techs might come up. Many pre-requisites are loose, and occasionally a later technology can come early. This is how technologies become discovered.
Otherwise, the game functions as before. From that small pool of discovered technologies, you can master any one you want, as before. Pick one and eventually you'll master it. If this version would let you pour research into mastering the few technologies you've discovered, then the classic tech tree would consider *all* technologies discovered.
ChrTh summarizes this well, and raises new issues:
f you don't care about Abandonment, why not just move the research towards the Discovery Phase? Drop the Discovery Points and just apply lightbulbs to the branches. After the examined Tech has enough lightbulbs, you discover it, which is the same as doing so now. Two issues:
* Since the examined tech is chosen at random, you can fall behind in a category waiting for an advanced tech to come in. Not sure I like that since the player doesn't have control (until Computers)
* Advanced Tech units have to have more prereqs to prevent a killer Tech pop. Ironclads would have Replaceable Parts and Steam Power, not just Steam Power (since RP is no longer a prereq for Steam Power)
I definitely think we can drop a distinction between discovery-research and mastery-research. We'll just have research, and when a technology receives enough research through the semi-blind process, then it becomes "visible" or "discovered". At that point, you can directly apply research to mastering technologies you discover. For example:
I first divide my between mastery and discovery. I'm more interested in discovering new technologies, so I set it 70% into discovery, and 30% into mastery.
In discovery, I've decided to emphasize the Government branch. I need some new civics badly. That branch receives the vast amount of research.
In mastery, I've decided to emphasize Gunpowder. It's a cool technology, but I don't want to be playing with fireworks for a millennium. I want to master it so I can make guns, and conquer the world.
That's how I handle discovery/mastery. So let's talk about abandonment.
Even though I'm emphasizing one technology at a time, the other technologies I've discovered are consuming too, just to prevent abandonment. Think of it like a bicycle. If you don't ride it forward, it falls down. Moreover, the more advanced technologies require more research just to prevent them from being abandoned. You can see that as I juggle more technologies, it's going to slow down my "emphasis".
To return to the example, I'm loving the idea that I might discover steam power now. But it's treading water while I emphasize gunpowder. Maybe I should emphasize steam power, to get it out of the way? But it's so expensive, maybe it wouldn't be worth the wait. And yet it's eating into my mastery of gunpowder, and slowing my new discoveries.
As you can see, I have some choices to make.
So here's the answer: Abandonment is a choice.
Abandonment isn't something that happens to you. It's something you have to consciously choose, as your economy starts to flounder. I decide to abandon one of the technologies that I'm not currently emphasizing, in order to speed up my emphasis and keep both mastery AND discovery going. The game already does this with strikes: if you're handling too many units, you have to disband some, or find a way to raise some additional cash quickly.
A lot of the time abandonment will occur because someone just stormed one of your great cities, and you realize you don't have enough research to just play around with. But sometimes abandonment will occur because you discover something so great that you decide the other technology should go by the wayside. So it won't just happen to players who screw up. It might happen because a smart player sees new opportunities. And it might happen because a smart player discovers a technology that he can't really use at the moment -- better to ignore this new discovery.
So let's summarize, up to this point. Here's the choices the player makes.
ECONOMY: How to divide their economy between research, commerce, and luxuries (like now)
DISCOVERY/MASTERY: How to divide their research between discovery versus mastery.
DISCOVERY EMPHASIS: Which area of specialization they will emphasize in discovery (Government, Building, Religion, etc...)
ADOPT/ABANDON: Whether they can afford to adopt a discovered technology, or whether they will abandon it because they don't need it yet (and to keep the rest of their research going).
MASTERY EMPHASIS: Of their adopted technologies, which one they will emphasize while the others are merely maintained.
SUDDEN ABANDONMENT: Of their adopted technologies, which one they might abandon (to speed up everything else). Players can have a change of heart due to new opportunities or problems.
That's more choice than "pick one of 5 technologies you can discover right now". But not so much choice that it's confusing.
IS ABANDONMENT FUN?
I think choosing to cull technologies could be fun. Kind of the same way that the player is forced to only pick good city locations, or only build units he needs, or only stay allies with some people. A game where you can settle everywhere quickly, build tons of units, and somehow be close friends with two arch enemies is boring. (Actually, it sounds a lot like Civilization 3.)
The main issue is that you wouldn't want to corner a player into culling their discovered technologies down to 1 or 2 at a time. The current tech tree only really lets you choose from 5 or 6 technologies at a time. If this mechanic led to 5 or 6 technologies discovered at a time, and the player gets to choose what to master... what have they lost? And look at what we've gained already.
WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF EARLY DISCOVERY?
I think this is the real difficult issue. Discovering flight is useless in 1200 AD unless you have knowledge of internal combustion to make planes. And yet, if you were to relax the requirements too much, flying bombs over the heads of knights would not make for a very fair (or fun) game.
There's a few balancing factors.
- Obviously there would still need to be hard pre-requisities. That's part of play testing. You want to make sure nobody can pull too many game breaking moves.
- Keep in mind the research would be high for late technologies. There are already ways to shoot up the tree and try to research in 40 turns some middle ages technology when you still haven't mastered Monotheism, which will take you a fraction of the time. So there's an opportunity cost.
- Another thing to keep in mind is that an advanced unit or building would still be costly. The guy trying to produce cannons with a small population and weak infrastructure will likely only have one or two cannons. While this is an advantage, you can imagine the catapults focusing their efforts on this one.
- ChrTh was onto something, too, when he said that technologies would need to provide new soft bonuses. Steam Power without replaceable parts probably won't give you an ironclad. But it could still improve your mining capabilities.
Those are all factors... But the most key aspect is that the technology tree is already more flexible by splitting it into multiple branches. In the current technology tree, Rifles require Paper. It seems less ridiculous when you consider that Rifles require Replaceable Parts, which require the Printing Press, which require Paper. But the new 6-branch tree will already give you a cleaner path to rifles: Machinery leads to Replaceable Parts, and with Gunpowder you'll be able to unlock Rifles.
In other words, you'll be able to have Rifles without Paper, Civil Service, Theology, the Printing Press, and Banking. That already sounds balanced. What kind of economy are those rifles protecting? How literate are those rifles? How efficient will his government organization be? The other civilizations might overwhelm him with sheer numbers, enough to speed through the technology tree with their Universities.
There's some danger here. But I don't think it's a deal breaker. I think it makes game balance difficult, but far from impossible.
I really like the idea of the binary Discovery vs Mastery. Do I put a lot of in the Discovery or the Mastery section? Well, I guess that has to do with what Techs I've discovered. If I'm 'meh' about what I've discovered so far, I can put just enough to keep some Tech Mastery going (say 20% while putting most of the into Discovery so that I can maybe pop a Tech I could use. It's a simpler system: throw out the Discovery Points and use for everything. I'm totally on board with this.
I was originally going to quote dh_epic's part about Abandonment and say "well, the system I created already did this, why did you criticize it you mean mean person you?!? " ... but then I thought of a better way (which I believe is what dh_epic was talking about):
You can only focus on Mastering one Tech at a time (just like the Civ IV system), with the same ability to switch
Every Tech has a Discovery Maintenance Cost. Say 1 for Ancient Age Techs, 4 for Classical Age Tech, etc
Maintenance cost comes out of the science you've allotted for Mastery
The Tech that you are currently trying to Master does not have a Maintenance Cost
You can voluntarily Abandon any Tech so that you don't need to pay the Maintenance Cost
Abandoned Techs can be re-mastered at any point, however, the amount of required to Master is higher (twice as much?)
EXAMPLE said:
So you are producing 20 ... you allocate it 50/50, so you have 10 for Mastery. You have discovered Iron Working (Classical), Mining (Ancient) and Sailing (Ancient).
If you choose to Master Iron Working, you put 8 towards it a turn, while you put 1 each towards Mining and Sailing Maintenance.
If you choose to Master Sailing, however, only 5 gets put towards Sailing, since you have a maintenance of 4 for Iron Working (and the 1 for Mining). So if you don't think you're going to need Iron Working yet (and are willing to pay more for it later), you can abandon it so that you put 9 towards Sailing.
Now, this system doesn't allow you to abandon a Tech you've mastered but that's ok in my opinion.
We might want to provide different benefits for Discovery versus Mastery. For example, Discovery of Iron Working reveals Iron, and you can Mine it, and thus have Iron in your resources. However, to actually use it for a Unit, you have to Master it. What's the point? Well, you can still trade the Iron. Let's say you're playing a Team Multiplayer game. Your Teammate is Rome, but doesn't have Iron in his borders. He masters Iron Working, you just Discover it and trade the Iron you have in your borders to him. Meanwhile you can spend time Mastering Currency to improve your cash flow.
I think you and me are on the same page ChrTh, in terms of discovery versus mastery... and when and why technologies get abandoned.
As a side note, the different benefits for discovery and mastery sound interesting. Certain technologies could offer a discovery bonus. All of them will offer a bonus for mastery. A lot of the time, mastery is incentive enough. But sometimes the discovery is worth it in of itself.
What is the penalty for abandonment? Increasing the cost would work. I think throwing it back into the undiscovered pool needs to be a part of it, though. So it would reset the technology down to 0 :research:, and increase its cost by 25%. That would make it both harder to discover AND master. (Maybe we'd be nicer to someone who abandoned it right off the bat, instead of mid-stream.)
I don't like the idea of throwing Abandoned Techs back into the Discovery Pool. Let's say the Civ is struggling, and is behind everyone else. Part of the reason they're struggling is because they've discovered a mess of Techs that simply aren't helping them. So they try the following:
Abandon Techs that aren't going to help them anytime soon
Increase the Discovery allotment
Pray they pop the Techs they need
Now, if the Techs they abandoned go back into the Discovery pool, they could end up discovering the same useless Techs again! Meanwhile they're falling even further behind.
Abandonment has to have a postive associated with it otherwise Civ V won't embrace it. I think keeping the Abandoned Tech out of the Discovery Pool and letting the Player attempt to Master it whenever they have a chance is a Positive.
Also, I think it should be the reverse: those who abandon right away (or after a few turns) should have a harder time mastering than those who put maintenance into it. (Baby's crying, I'll be back in a bit)
Agreed... a lot of good thinking coming out in the past day or two.
I'm not going to quote and/or expound on things that have been said, unless I have something new to add.
Mxzs, good summary you did in post 75. I get the feeling that the valuable thing we've distilled down to is basically a re-do of SMAC-style semi-blind research.
What I'm seeing is this: let's remove some of the inflexibility in the tech tree, removing some of the hard prereqs, but let's add soft prereqs which give discounts. This is how you can have steam power in 500BC but it won't be unbalanced.
Consider: you discover steam. However, and this is important: it still costs pretty much what it does in the current model. So, you're here in 500BC, and you can choose to embrace something that costs (I don't remember, but let's say 6000 beakers) while your beaker income is only 100 a turn. Or, you could let steam lapse and go with a more normal tech for that period, say, civil service at 1800 beakers.
Now, all techs would have to be re-costed when the tech tree is disassembled. My thought is that the "soft" prereqs give discounts. i.e., if you have steel when you try to embrace steam, you get a -1000 beaker discount. (Otherwise, you're trying to do it with bronze or whatever.)
I'm also still very gung-ho about allowing those alternate tech paths like I talked about last week. e.g., a civ that pushes the Biology/Medical/Genetics far in advance of the physical sciences. And I'm not talking about just a mod.
--Would this be unbalanced? No. While this Civ would have a lot of health benefits and advanced food generation, early access to Red Cross (etc.), they would suffer in physical sciences. Another example is a civ which pushes physical sciences especially military. This civ would suffer on health, happiness, etc. As long as the tech "paths" have good benefits, they would be balanced.
I definitely think we can drop a distinction between discovery-research and mastery-research.
I first divide my between mastery and discovery. I'm more interested in discovering new technologies, so I set it 70% into discovery, and 30% into mastery.
In discovery, I've decided to emphasize the Government branch. I need some new civics badly. That branch receives the vast amount of research.
In mastery, I've decided to emphasize Gunpowder. It's a cool technology, but I don't want to be playing with fireworks for a millennium. I want to master it so I can make guns, and conquer the world.
ECONOMY: How to divide their economy between research, commerce, and luxuries (like now)
DISCOVERY/MASTERY: How to divide their research between discovery versus mastery.
DISCOVERY EMPHASIS: Which area of specialization they will emphasize in discovery (Government, Building, Religion, etc...)
ADOPT/ABANDON: Whether they can afford to adopt a discovered technology, or whether they will abandon it because they don't need it yet (and to keep the rest of their research going).
MASTERY EMPHASIS: Of their adopted technologies, which one they will emphasize while the others are merely maintained.
SUDDEN ABANDONMENT: Of their adopted technologies, which one they might abandon (to speed up everything else). Players can have a change of heart due to new opportunities or problems.
We need to realize that the current techs are defined with the assumption of the current hard prerequisites.
If we remove those hard prereqs, we need to redefine the techs. Flight, for example, would have to be separated into things such as Ballooning, Gliders, Internal-combustion craft, dirigibles, etc.
Simple balloons can have very effective use in war, as scouts/information, tethered bombing platforms, etc. The very use of scouting/information would be invaluable to a general.
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EDIT: the following has some really detailed logic... I could probably expand some key sentences to whole paragraphs. Not going to bother, but what it amounts to is that you really need to look at every little point. Apologies in advance...
) 
between mastery and discovery. I'm more interested in discovering new technologies, so I set it 70% 
while putting most of the 
" ... but then I thought of a better way (which I believe is what dh_epic was talking about):
