Bye Bye Tech Tree.....

[ukcivfan]

Thanks for your replies everyone.

I think one or two have slightly missed my point, so I will explain a bit more. I am not saying that it should be completely random, and I do think that players should be able to influence what happens.

But the best example I can think of giving is the mechanics for great people.

Great people is randomised to an extent (90% great mechanic, 10% great artist), but the number and the type is dependent on the actions that people take and through the natural resources that may make you focus on a certain aspect such as bigging up culture etc. What’s more, because the mechanics are visible and can be manipulated, it is a skill and thus an enjoyable part of the game.

I would have it so that you could, in theory, research all the techs but just that this wouldn't be an efficent idea. I think we would all agree that civ 4 was better than civ 3 in that that it wasn’t an advantageous strategy to cover every square with something.

So I would do this by having a set tree you can go up, but there are extra branches that may give you units or buildings which can fit into the strategy of that specific game. You could decide to go all out to dominate the naval tech in the middle ages, or you could use those beakers to plough on to the industrial age, and get the jump on your enemy with machine guns. Within this, it is important to model in comparative advantage benefits, if you are by water, building ships and have lots of ship techs - you should get shipping techs cheaper in terms of beakers. We have benefits from specialisation elsewhere, this is just an extension of that. It would also have a side effect of mimicking golden ages, go all out on medieval ship you may dominate for a bit, but you may be slower to the machine gun...

Having more variants, that can be understood and manipulated, with a small bit of randomness to make you re-asses constantly, and would make for a better game.



Thoughts?

 

[ddd123]

It shouldn't be a random seed for each player. It should be the same tech tree for all players, but the tech tree is just a little different from game to game.

ok this sound acceptable but based on what?

maybe id like something based on civs involved in game (you have aztec, babylonian and egyptian dont get democracy and nuclar fission, something like that )

 

[Ahriman]

I would have it so that you could, in theory, research all the techs but just that this wouldn't be an efficent idea.

I'm not sure that this makes sense though.

Every 20th century (non-tiny power) has basically every tech from every previous century.

And the only way you really end up with non-researched techs is if you make techs that are dead-end and/or offer no significant benefits, neither of which is normally very good for tech-tree design.

The problem with tech-tree variation is that it is hard enough to make *one* logical and balanced tree. I think its very important for immersion that technological requirements make historic sense.

Once you allow the tech tree to start varying, you run the risk of getting weird nonsensical tech paths, like banking requiring mechanization, or liberalism requiring navigation, or iron working requiring animal husbandry.

I think its better to allow variation within the tree through "or" requirements and through terrain/resource/situation synergies (eg: I'm on an island, so I go for naval power faster, or I have lots of horses, so I develop a cavalry army, or I have stone and marble so I go for lots of techs that offer wonders) or through a wider tree (as opposed to the vanilla Civ4 tree, which is very long, but narrow), so players can choose different strategies from game to game.

Check out the tech trees in mods like Fall from Heaven 2 or Dune Wars, to see attempts at allowing for strategic variation in the order you research techs.

 

[ukcivfan]

I'm not sure that this makes sense though.

Every 20th century (non-tiny power) has basically every tech from every previous century.

I don't really agree with this, for example, did the US ever bother to research forms of wooden ship? Or did they just jump straight into friggets. Of course the US could have spent time working out how to build really good wooden ships, but then there really wouldn't be much point.

Once you allow the tech tree to start varying, you run the risk of getting weird nonsensical tech paths, like banking requiring mechanization, or liberalism requiring navigation, or iron working requiring animal husbandry.

My idea was more that they would be means to their own, that is, that you don't get anything else aside from that unit, deviating isn't necessary to advance long term, just for those extra units abilities.


Hope that makes more sense

 

[Ahriman]

I don't really agree with this, for example, did the US ever bother to research forms ok wooden ship?

Absolutely 19th century US had knowledge of ancient ship-building techniques. They could have build galleys if they wanted to, they just had no reason to.

But you can't really build a mid 19th century sailing ship without understanding the basics. Like how you can't build a steel mill if you don't know how to work iron, and you can't have a university if you don't have a written language.

My idea was more that they would be means to their own, that is, that you don't get anything else aside from that unit, deviating isn't necessary to advance long term, just for those extra units abilities.

This is hard to understand without some examples.
But if there is a tech that gives some extra units, how is the game better off if that tech is only available in some games but not others?
If there is a crusader unit from an optimal Holy War tech, that unit should be available every game, even if not every civ bothers to research it every game.

I don't see an advantage from designing and creating art and balancing some military units that some games aren't available to anyone because their tech doesn't show up.

And if you're doing this, then won't there be only a handful of different variations in the tree - in which case what's the point?

Its an interesting idea, I just can't think of a good way to make it workable.

 

[Ramanag]

To me, it sounds like ukcivfan is suggesting something along the lines of the blind research in SMAC.

 

[Tylerryan79]

This is discussing social policies, not technologies. It does not provide support for the claim "different paths you can go down in the tech tree, it it will be almost impossable to get all techs"

It does pose an interesting possibility that social/governmental advances (fascism, liberalism, monarchy, etc.) might be taken *out* of the tech tree and put purely into the social policy tree.

You know what, I didn't even catch that. When I read about it in the confirmed features thread all I saw was "tree". I must admit I had my blinders on. Well hopefully they do something unique with the tech tree as well. Here I was thinking everyone had lost it and forgot about this haha. This maybe has to do with culture spending? I dunno.