There have throughout history been civilizations renowned for their exceptional mastery of certain technologies. Obviously, this is represented in Civ V with leaders' unique abilities, units and buildings, but what I propose is a way to specialize and customize your civ during play.
Upon researching a technology, the player may choose to do further research on that technology in order to unlock the advanced version of it and to receive a related bonus. This advanced version will not be available later on, only immediately after completing the basic version of the technology. If you go on to research a new tech, the option is no longer available.
The advanced research would take half the amount of beakers the basic tech required. This way, it obviously wouldn't be a good idea to do too much advanced research - you would soon lag behind in the tech tree. However, it should be balanced so that, depending on the situation, it could be worth choosing the advanced option. As an example, if you wanted to go to war early (or suspected an imminent attack), Advanced Iron Working could give a boost to your Swordsmen units (or the production of them) and so be worth the cost of impeding your overall tech progress for the short term gain.
The idea is that research is a bit more involved with another layer of choice to consider. In Civ 6 we have heard that one of the stated aims is to avoid players repeating the same strategies over and over and rather have them react to the map and improvise accordingly. If balanced well, I think this system could work well with that and give the player another way of adapting to the current game situation.
Upon researching a technology, the player may choose to do further research on that technology in order to unlock the advanced version of it and to receive a related bonus. This advanced version will not be available later on, only immediately after completing the basic version of the technology. If you go on to research a new tech, the option is no longer available.
The advanced research would take half the amount of beakers the basic tech required. This way, it obviously wouldn't be a good idea to do too much advanced research - you would soon lag behind in the tech tree. However, it should be balanced so that, depending on the situation, it could be worth choosing the advanced option. As an example, if you wanted to go to war early (or suspected an imminent attack), Advanced Iron Working could give a boost to your Swordsmen units (or the production of them) and so be worth the cost of impeding your overall tech progress for the short term gain.
The idea is that research is a bit more involved with another layer of choice to consider. In Civ 6 we have heard that one of the stated aims is to avoid players repeating the same strategies over and over and rather have them react to the map and improvise accordingly. If balanced well, I think this system could work well with that and give the player another way of adapting to the current game situation.
