Soren Johnson's designer notes about the tech tree

[The_J]

Soren Johnson has again posted another entry about the design decisions which went into the tech tree.
https://www.designer-notes.com/?p=1703
The most interesting part for me:

Of course, every piece of game design is a set of trade-offs, and one of the trade-offs that the traditional tech tree made in the name of clarity was determinism. As everyone knew the path to Gunpowder, it was very easy to remember the exact order of the ten techs which led to Gunpowder so that the player could get to it as early as possible. If this strategy turned out to be optimal, then a veteran player would find themselves making the same choices, game after game after game. Indeed, many versions of Civ made this even easier for the player by allowing them to target a specific tech and then highlighting the right choice each time it came up.

In fact, Sid anticipated this problem from the beginning as the technologies presented to the player in Civ 1 were a random subset of the ones available. However, because this version had no in-game UI and because the tech tree itself was so new, players didn’t give this randomness much thought, especially when it was dropped quietly in later versions. Giving players a random subset of tech choices did solve the basic problem but was perhaps an inelegant way of addressing it. The ideal solution would force players to make difficult choices while also being transparent about why the player couldn’t choose from all the valid options.

This is indeed very true, and I wondered myself already how a better system could work.
Soren then afterwards describes how the tech tree in Old World works. I've not played the game yet, but I find this solution interesting. It does combine randomness with strategy.
I'm curious if anyone could actually tell me if this worked out how Soren imagined it.

 

[Dale]

Soren Johnson has again posted another entry about the design decisions which went into the tech tree.
https://www.designer-notes.com/?p=1703
The most interesting part for me:


This is indeed very true, and I wondered myself already how a better system could work.
Soren then afterwards describes how the tech tree in Old World works. I've not played the game yet, but I find this solution interesting. It does combine randomness with strategy.
I'm curious if anyone could actually tell me if this worked out how Soren imagined it.

Yes, it works fantastically!

* I'm biased though.

 

[PiR]

It's only my first few hours into the game, but I can definitely confirm you cannot beeline something you want. You have to make do with options, not twist the game into your scenario.

 

[nolegskitten]

You can still beeline something if you want to, but you might have to take detours depending on the luck of the draw. I would say this is working excellently, actually It's amazing that most people coming from "deterministic" tech tree which are the norm in other 4xs adapt to it almost immediately.
Almost no one ever asks questions about it, which is a sure sign that it just "makes sense" and is very easy to adopt. It's still a tree so you can plan every time you get to draw, and you get interesting mechanics when selecting your research, for example picking the shortest research to get a new draw if you are targetting something not on offer.

 

[PiR]

I also like the choices of "non tech" cards, like Free Settler or Stone shipment. That creates tough choices. Although "Free" was a confusing word for me to qualify the "Free Settler", as it was not really free... it cost me quite many yields of tech!

 

[Solver]

Also, Scholar leaders can redraw from the deck, making them much better suited to tech beelines. One of Babylon's strengths is thus the ability to plan your early techs better (as Nebuchadnezzar is a scholar), and Scholars give other nations interesting opportunities later in the game, reaching a key technology like Machinery or Bodkin Arrow earlier.

 

[Silver Marmot]

The random tech choices make each game feel unique, especially when factoring in the free techs you can sometimes pick up early on via ruins, events, and founding the science family seat. In some games I’ll end up with a level three tech like forestry on turn 10-15 even though it’s not at all what I planned for. But I still feel like I retain a reasonable degree of control over my research.

 

[pholkhero]

I think this is a terrific solution to both the meta-player problem, but also a better way to simulate real-life "tech discovery." of course, there's the unfortunate small occasion where you're waiting for a tech for whatever reason, and it doesn't come up in consecutive draws.

a way to maybe pay extra to direct your wisemen towards a specific tech might be nice for those rare situations when you need a if the trade-offs made it extremely rare.

 

[nolegskitten]

I think this is a terrific solution to both the meta-player problem, but also a better way to simulate real-life "tech discovery." of course, there's the unfortunate small occasion where you're waiting for a tech for whatever reason, and it doesn't come up in consecutive draws.

a way to maybe pay extra to direct your wisemen towards a specific tech might be nice for those rare situations when you need a if the trade-offs made it extremely rare.

Well the whole point is that you don't have full agency, so I don't think such an option would work. However you can get one more card offered if you build the Oracle, and you can re-draw if your leader is a scholar, so there are options built around the system.