omega_zeta

Join Date 06/2006

Specific vs Focused Technology Progression

From most of the screen shots it can be seen that the player would be researching specific technological/magical goals. I would argue for the option of focused technology/magical progression. By focused technology progression I mean a research system akin to that found in SMAC, where you set your prefer research direction(s) but have no control over exactly what is researched.

The reason I favor this approach is that it will add more accuracy to the game in that technological advancement is not linear. Also, it will add a bit of luck to how your research progresses and you will not be able to employ a strategy that requires you to attain a specific technology at a specific time.

The reason I am advocating this as an option and not an outright change is that I know some people would not share my views about how research should progress or just prefer to know where they are going. However, if the game is designed with focused research in mind it can easily be adapted to specific research but the opposite is not true.

Please post any comments, ideas, or criticisms.

NOTE: It appears that those that are not familiar with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri(SMAC) are misunderstanding the concept but I didn't phrase it with those individuals in mind so I apologize.

Here is an example to better explain the concept. You have, for arguments sake, 4 different categories of research: Military, Industry, Economy, Agriculture. All of the technologies are categorized into the previously mentioned categories. You decide to temporarily focus only on Agriculture. This doesn’t mean that you will only research Agriculture technology. It does mean that if you meet the prerequisites for an Agriculture and, for example, a Military tech you have a much higher chance of researching that Agriculture Tech rather than the other.

Here is another example that addresses the concept from a different direction. From the club could you "see" the exact path to a short sword assuming the only knowledge you had was of the club? Not really. Would you even have a concept of an edged weapon? Maybe, maybe not. Would you know what to make it out of or how? Nope.

If you had a SMAC like tech system and wanted to get to the short sword ASAP you would select to focus on Industry and Military b/c the Industry focus will answer how to make it and out of what and the Military focus will fill in the concept. However, just b/c you are focusing on one area doesn’t mean that your civilization couldn't come up with new economic thoughts or of applying agriculture principals. It just won’t be as likely.

This adds to the strategy element b/c if you focus on industry and economy too exclusively you will not be guaranteed to get the military techs that you may need right away if you run into someone that wants to conquer you. At the same time it dampens the effect of player focus by giving them technologies that they don’t think they want or need right at that moment. This acts to give players that focus on industry and economy, for example, a few military and agriculture techs here and there so they are not extremely vulnerable to challenges in those areas.

Like I mentioned before, not everyone will prefer this option but I believe that it adds considerably to how the game is played and will fit in well with the ideas expressed by Frogboy.

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Denryu
GW Swicord

NorsemanViking

Join Date 03/2006

+19

I don't like the luck factor in it, and the way it replaces strategical choices with.... yah, luck.......

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The strategic choice in this case would be which field of study to emphasize. I agree with Nathaniel as I feel that a little randomness helps keeping one on the edge and focusing more on the overall strategic choices and not to micromanage everything.

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But most discoveries were by accident. Like Frogboy says, no-one researched knights as a goal. Most inventions come out from a general goal/direction in which they use a collective of now how to see what they come up with to fulfill that goal.

I like the SMAC style. It felt a lot more natural. The choice becomes in what direction you want to send your faction. Military, magic or whatever other styles Elemental will offer.

It isn't exactly luck either. When you pick a goal, the stuff you get will be useful. I'm sure the developers will have each 'tech' have some significance and use.

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Quoting NorsemanViking,

reply 1

I don't like the luck factor in it, and the way it replaces strategical choices with.... yah, luck.......

I agree with Wahngrok that it would do more to alleviate micromanagement and change the stratigic choices but that is why I said option. I do not want the game to have only one style of research locked in b/c not everyone is going to agree with me. I would like the option for focused research to be included as a new game setting and the only way for that to happen is to inject it early into the minds of the game designers.

I agree with hiddenranbir that the concept of Focused Research fit very neatly into the ideas Frogboy outlined in "Re-thinking 4X economics" and that is one of the reasons I started this thread.

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I really like the SMAC research system personally. To me it added much to the games replay value.

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Quoting Spartan,

reply 5

I really like the SMAC research system personally. To me it added much to the games replay value.

I agree, in Civ 4 I constantly find myself repeating the same research track regardless of which nation I am playing.

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Quoting Spartan,

reply 5

I really like the SMAC research system personally. To me it added much to the games replay value.

+ to replay value = win.

Sammual

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I don't like this idea at all.

It makes luck a too large factor and removes control from me as a player.

As an option in game creation, ok, but not as the standard mode. Also there are better options to increase the replay value then to artificially make tech developement random.

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It isn't random. You choose if you want military technologies being researched or industrial. What you don't do is specifically try to research "knights" or "mining" or "farming". These sort of things come out naturally from your chosen goal.

But like SMAC, giving it as a game option would be acceptable.

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I have just updated the explanation of the concept to better convey the ideas involved to those unfamiliar with SMAC.

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I don' like this approach at all (acknowledging I'm not familiar with the SMACK me system)

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Quoting the Gorgon,

reply 11

I don' like this approach at all (acknowledging I'm not familiar with the SMACK me system)

Btw, SMAC => Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

When you say you dont like it at all are you saying that the option for this style shouldn't be included or that you would use the option for the more standard tech system instead?

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I must agree. Luck is trouble when it really effects things like tech trees. Sure its really replayable single-player, but it can cause problems multiplayer. The only way luck wouldn't be a bad idea is if it was easy to switch your strategy around and the alternatives were very balanced so that you wouldn't be hurt/helped much by getting the wrong technology. Since that sounds a little impractical to me, I'm not sure how else we could change it to better the work.

Maybe just have your different tech trees, but with a very predictable research path depending on what you choose. I'm a fan of special cross-technologies that only exist when a certain amount of one tech is mixed with a certain amount of another.

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Yes landi, you could change your goal focus/strategy at any time. You could even have multiple goals, which means your tech discover was balanced. I think the faith is, no technology will be the 'wrong' technology, since all of it will be useful and supportive of the goals/strategy you dictated.

SMAC's game options allowed you to determine if you wanted blind research or not. I think the bottom line, at the very least, is we have a choice between the two.

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SMAC had a slight problem with people always beelining for the same few technological advancements, which blind researching somewhat prohibited. It very much became a balancing factor, with blind research benefitting martialy inclined factions.

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Going with a research focus, rather than just researching specific technologies, helps prevent mini-maxing, which isn't what running empires has ever been about. The British in the high middle ages didn't just one day decide, "hey we need a long ranged armor piercing bow that can stop a cavalry charge... get working wise men!" Instead the longbow and its widespread use came as the result of a fairly random invention and the long term shift that was made in society to make that weapon useful (such as the forbidding of all sports other than archery, and the encouragement of the yeoman farmers to take up and consistantly practice the skill of using a longbow). Other European nations could manufacture the longbow, but none made the social changes or put the effort into training their people so it would be useful, and as a result its effective use was almost exclusively British and Welsh.

This methodology enables a game to accurately represent you as a ruler making that shift in social priorities that will enable more inventions of one type than another... but as a character in the game you aren't simply going to set your people out to invent something to fulfill a need. Corporate or government style Research and Development is an innovation of the 19th century, and was not the way medieval or ancient society did things.

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Quoting lwarmonger,

reply 16

This methodology enables a game to accurately represent you as a ruler making that shift in social priorities that will enable more inventions of one type than another... but as a character in the game you aren't simply going to set your people out to invent something to fulfill a need. Corporate or government style Research and Development is an innovation of the 19th century, and was not the way medieval or ancient society did things.

Don't forget that accuracy or realism is not an excuse for bad game design.

Also, in this idea defense, historically there is no connection between science and invention (seriously, I had a class based on this and it shocked me, but its true. Most things were completly randomly invented without any scientific backing or understanding of the new technology. The idea of using science to invent things is actually a modern age idea (post industrial revolution)

That being said, I don't think that is a good excuse to make it random

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I don't think that general orientation instead of researching specific technologies is bad game design at all... it is simply different game design. And one that is more realistic at that. Anything that prevents the mini-maxing so common with most strategy games is a good thing.

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well, thats just it. Min-maxing is what a lot of players WANT to do. It makes them feel special. If everybody is a mix, then nothing really stands out. However, if they min-max, it lets them focus on something. It lets them say "yeah, I'm a fire guy" or "yeah, I a sword guy. I know nothing about clubs, but thats ok because I'm awesome with the sword". People WANT to say that. they want to be the sword guy. Leaving it up to chance that they will get the best sword abilities will upset people.

The key is for it to be balanced enough so they can choose to min-max or not and still have a fair fight. Games are broken when they min-max and it breaks the balance.

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Preventing mini-maxing doesn't necessary mean that people can't focus on one particular strategy, however it does preclude exclusive styles of playing. Having one nation only be playable by researching the same things in the same order nearly every time is not a way to enhance replayability. Also, I have to imagine that magic would be treated a bit different than technology (since learning magic is an academic process, then that lends itself to a bit more focused style of advancement than the more mundane technologies that are reliant upon society as a whole to implement).

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Quoting landisaurus,

reply 19

The key is for it to be balanced enough so they can choose to min-max or not and still have a fair fight. Games are broken when they min-max and it breaks the balance.

Quoting lwarmonger,

reply 20

Well, here is an example of someone that wants to be an awesome armored cavalry guy using the discussed technology system.

You would focus on Industry for how to make the armor and weapons, Military for the concept and advanced training, and Agriculture for high quality Equine(or whatever exists as a horse substitute) Husbandry. If you would rather be a horse archer guy then you would only focus on Military and Agriculture b/c you wouldnt need all of the metalurgical knowledge that went along with making armored troops unless you wanted armored mounted archers.

Also, what makes troops really good is training and social dynamics rather than technology. If you dont have a society that encourages use and training in military technology you wont be very good at it even if you are very advanced technologicaly.

The idea here is to have the option to chose which type of system to use. The reasoning is that if you design a system with the standard TBS research system it is very difficult to mod in this focused approach b/c of the lack of pre-determined, tested, and balanced catigories. However, if you design with this option in mind its only a simple coded swtich to revert back to standard TBS research.

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I think this right here hits the nail on the head... and is why specific technological development is wrong for this game.

I would also like to point out that having a clearly deliniated tech tree benefits the people in multi-player who "know the system" and can mini-max the hell out of their technology development. There shouldn't be a system to learn... you should simply focus on the areas that mesh with your overal strategy, but your technological advancement shouldn't be your overall strategy, merely a part of it. Most games turn into a tech race for a few specific techs, and that is neither realistic nor fun.

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My gut instinct is that research should be specific, not generic.

I understand the arguments people are making about real research being very much in-the-dark but I don't think it works in the context of a strategy games. Strategy games, more than any other genre, live and die by the quality of the choices they present to the player. A strategy game that gives me interesting decisions to make is a good game; one that doesn't, isn't. An FPS might get away with wowing you with a beautiful landscape and an RPG might get a passing grade based on a compelling sense of atmosphere and character growth but a strategy game is all about analysing possibilities and outcomes, weighing pros and cons: in other words, making strategic decisions.

Making research blind, even partially so, is simplifying or eliminating a huge amount of player choice. Choosing what to research, weighing the payoff to my empire against the research time, knowing at the time that I am forgoing Benefit A in favour of Benefit B, wondering whether am I giving my opponent the upper hand by spending time researching wagons instead of weapons - these are the sorts of decisions that have to be in a strategy game for it to be good.

Also, if you make research generic, you're faced with the problem of deciding how much generic "randomness" (i.e., "accidental" discovery of technology outside the chosen focus area) to allow. If you allow too little, then research doesn't really feel blind after all (since selecting "military" will produce a constant stream of military techs). If you allow too much, then the player doesn't feel like their choice even mattered at all.

No, despite the unrealistic nature of a fully-visible and explicit tech tree, I think allowing us to see the tech tree and pick specific technologies to research from it is much better from a gameplay point of view than the alternative.

- Ash

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Honestly, I don't think the appeal of a general research system is mostly about realism. To be quite frank, I don't like to micro-manage technology when I play multi-player, but that is what a specific tree forces one to do in most games. If you want to win you have to tech up to specific techs, generally in a certain order, and so who wins the game is largely dependent upon who can tech up to those specific technologies the fastest. Technology in the Middle Ages provided an edge, it never won battles all by itself (the longbow and like inventions were almost always made useful by wise tactical decisions on the users hand and poor ones on the part of their opponent), and I don't want my entire strategy to hinge (or be forced to hinge) on acquiring a certain technology (are series of technologies) before anyone else.

The more I think about this, the more I think that perhaps a dual system should be emplaced. A specific research tree for magical spells for one's spell book, while the technology for society as a whole uses a more focus system (since no societal techs should provide a gamebreaking advantage, leaving those developments vague shouldn't hurt one side or the other too badly). This would provide the best of both worlds (or leave everyone unhappy... usually something a good compromise does).

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Quoting lwarmonger,

reply 20

Also, I have to imagine that magic would be treated a bit different than technology (since learning magic is an academic process, then that lends itself to a bit more focused style of advancement than the more mundane technologies that are reliant upon society as a whole to implement).

says who? Its magic! It can be just and random and chaotic then anything else. More so even.

Anyway, the point is that having a strategy that focus on a specific thing is what min maxing is. You maximize one thing and minimize all others that would sacrifice from getting the apsolute maximum on the one thing. If you looked up "min-maxing" in a dictionary somehow, that is what it would say (or something similar with better thesaurus work). It is not a problem by being what it is. The ONLY reason people do not like min-maxing is because in many systems, it creates a flaw in a system. Its like if a wall has a weak spot and you focus all your force into that one weakness, it will break everytime. However, with proper balancing it shouldn't break. A min-maxed strategy shouldn't be more powerful than a well-rounded strategy. Achieving this balance is VERY hard, but it is possible. At this point in the development process I don't think we should be talking about how to avoid min-maxing, but rather how to just achieving balance.

That also being said: that is a different arguement from the inclusion of luck as a major game mechanic. Its not a minor flux in damage rolls, its a major change in tech-tree that would prevent a player from being as specilized as he wants > that is what doesn't seem good

I think a better alternative would be make its so that there would be several top-end techs that are about the same and perhaps have a chance to get one or the other. The strategy for the techs should be un-changed (like both should enhance the same feature) but there is a chance. The only way to get these techs is by min-maxing, and they should be equal power. That way players would still want to focus specifically on only if thing if they choose, but can still get a semi-random responce. Then if you don't min-max your end-tier tech picked from a selection. Still having it random seems like bad form, but it is a comprimise that adds the kind of random end result.

Here is a cheap diagram to express the idea.

Military > Military 1 > military 2 > military 3 ---- Tech 1

\ \ \\

Mil 1 + ind 1 > Mil 2 + ind 1 ------ Tech 2

Tech 3 (only chance of getting if you have near half and half)

same as above > Ind 2 + mil 1 ------ Tech 4

/ / //

Industry > Industry 1 > industry 2 > Industry 3 - --- Tech 5

The strategies for end techs 1 and 2 would be military heavy

strategies for end tech 4 and 5 would be industry heavy

and strategy for tech 3 would be some middle ground for when you are exactly in the middle.

This would increase the number of times you would replay, but not make so much based on luck. There still would be a little, but it would be less than what it sounds like in your original post. Like there could be luck based on which end tech you recieve based on how your tech tree is built.

/* added note: sorry for the slow responce. I did not include comments after that because I was at work while doing this and it took me like 3 hours to get this post finish. I didn't mean to ignore you if you posted something that addresses what I mean */

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