accidental inventions

[spiceant]

if you look at history a lot of inventions have been made by accident or began at one person and were from that point on improved.

the basic idea is that you should not pay to research new technologies as if you had to pay for them but rather have your people discover them incidentally, the great inventions we know mostly began with 1 person and not the money of a whole nation, after which they were enhanced by either the same person or researchers.
in my opinion techs should be discovered incidentally and be enhanced (through financing research) after being discovered. the chance that new techs will be discovered should be enhanced by the size of your population, education, other support toward the intellectual capabilitys of your people and the presence of the undiscovered tech in neigbhouring civilizations with whom you have good connections such as many trading routes.

perhaps there should be several civics that inhibit new discovery's such as theocracy, which in itself is not very tolerant of anything new (in this case, religions). perhaps the chance that a certain will be discovered should be influenced by how much it is needed, as many inventions were made as they were solved the problems that their inventors saw or experienced (for example medicine).

 

[Noof]

I Think This Is A Great Idea!!!
You Should Get Someone To Make A Mod Using Your Idea!

 

[spiceant]

on a sidenote, the current research system just feels really awkward to me, im not sure if someones gonna be capable of making a quality mod out of this but im sure it would be a great idea for civ V, but im pretty sure thats gonna take a while

 

[warpstorm]

the chance that new techs will be discovered should be enhanced by the size of your population, education, other support toward the intellectual capabilitys of your people and the presence of the undiscovered tech in neigbhouring civilizations with whom you have good connections such as many trading routes.

One could agrue that this is exactly how the game works now. Your tech spending could be considered as "support toward the intellectual capabilitys of your people".

The only major difference is that you wouldn't get to choose any techs (ala SMAC's blind research).

 

[spiceant]

the research of each civ is completely isolated from other countrys, which is not seemly compared to ouer own history

 

[Naokaukodem]

I like blind research and support it. It is more fun. It is like a chocolate you unpack and you are suprised by the good (or not so good) taste.

There could be also a second separated science tree, beside the tech path. For example, Greeks had the knowledge of steam power but the techniques to do such a thing like an engine was impossible in the antiquity. I don't really know what could be the use gameplay-wise though.

 

[Zanmato]

in my opinion techs should be discovered incidentally and be enhanced (through financing research) after being discovered.

Quite a good and interesting idea. Instead of financing research to refine it, could always use the 'phototype' cost from SMAC if I remember right for new building or units. Making new buildings and units more costly on the first build for the refining process.

 

[Flak]

It's a good idea, but I think you need to have a way for the civ to focus what kind of techs you are likely to get, sort of like you can now very much influence the kind of Great People you get in Civ IV. So you could concentrate on seeding science techs, military, trade, etc..., or you could just do things very generally and do the best with what you get.

 

[PhysicsRules]

This sounds like a great idea, but it seems to me that this is already in place with Great Scientists, who can uncover an technology (or part of it) at random.

 

[GIO888]

PhysicsRules beat me to it!

This is what Great Scientists do, and the good part is, only if you want them to!

 

[Danielos]

I like this idea and made a similar suggestion in a thread earlier.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146143

 

[siroxo]

One could agrue that this is exactly how the game works now. Your tech spending could be considered as "support toward the intellectual capabilitys of your people".

The only major difference is that you wouldn't get to choose any techs (ala SMAC's blind research).

An option to choose from the 5 "major" areas (the ones corresponding to techs discoverable by Prophets, Scientists, Arists, Engineers, and Merchants) would be an intuitive way to make this similar to SMAC.