TheProgress

Join Date 04/2008

+43

Research revamp

The current research system works something like this:

Invest N turns into researching a general topic (Civilization, Warfare, Magic, Adventure, Diplomacy)
Once you devoted roughly L * 3 turns (where L is the current level of the topic), you get to choose a break through. The breakthroughs that are available are based on some form of probability
Once you've chosen the breakthrough that you want, you can select the next topic to research.

Issues with current system:

It requires L times more turns to research a new breakthrough than it took to research the previous breakthrough in a specific topic
Logically the system doesn't make a large amount of sense. Ex: "Hey fellow scientists, let us research improvements to farming. *6 days later* Oops! We accidentally learned that we should build bars!"
It takes a very large amount of time to research a number of low-level technologies due to how quickly the required number of turns increases to reach the next breakthrough
As another user brought up earlier on the forums, trading technology will become rapidly unbalanced.

New proposed system:

Keep technology organized into topics the way it is now (Civilization, Warfare, Magic, Adventure, Diplomacy)
Assign a probability to each technology that will govern the chance of it becoming available to the player
Present a number of technologies to the player that are available to research for each topic
Allow player to select the technology they would like to research
Base the number of turns needed to complete research upon the rarity of the technology in question
Once the player has completed researching a specific technology, move it to the completed screen
Replace the empty space with a new technology from the correct topic based on probability.

Basically mimic the MoM research system.

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Just a techincality, the current model is based on increasing the Research points needed to acquire the next level. Hence if you suddenly build a ton of schools in 1 turn, the turns needed drop significantly.

Looks like the MoM system is similar to the MoO system, which I am a huge fan of (I'm assuming Rarity = tech level, approximately). I'm not familiar with the MoM system, but does it not allow you to research some things each game? I like not being able to predict which research options I'm going to have each game.

eg of MoO system: you research the construction topic and recieve "industry 5". The game then randomly picks 1-3 of the next level technologies to make available in the construction topic. If it does not select "industry 6", it will not be picked later on, ever. It cannot be researched. However, any previously unlocked contrustion techs can be researched, for the research cost it started with.

The MoO system may not work for Elemental if there are not enough incremental upgrades of technologies. ie, farming 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. If there were not enoug hincrements, then you could completely miss out on farming, and GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!! It does appear though that Elemental has a built in incremental approach to some technologies, so the missing out on something important may not be an issue.

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Quoting StillSingle,

reply 1

That's not quite how the MoO2 system worked as I recall. Each level there was 1-3 items but you got to choose which one of them to research for that level. There was no "random" picking which techs were available. There was 2 Racial traits that did effect the tech tree though. Creative allowed you to get all of the 1-3 items at each level and thus gave a huge advantage. The other was Uncreative which it then picked randomly for you which of the 1-3 items you got. You might of liked playing with Uncreative racial trait but it wasn't the default.

Now MoO has had 3 games and each one had a very unique R&D setup. I MoO3 I think it did have a totally random tech tree where you only got to pick fields and got stuck with whatever. MoO3 had a lot of things I didn't like so I didn't play it very long and thus don't recall it that well. If your talking about MoO3 then that might be the case.

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I like the current system. When you research something, you don't always know from the start what the result will be. Of course the base cost of researching new technologies in a category should increase when you get technologies by trading, and there should be options to disable tech trading and brokering.

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Quoting PyroMancer2k,

reply 2

Yeah, you're right about MoO 2, but I was talking about MoO 1 . I preferred MoO 1 over MoO 2 research system. And I'm with you on the MoO 3 system, very closed box, like pretty much everything in that game (looks at case gathering dust on shelf, next to recently used MoO2 and MoO1 CDs.....).

MoO was actually slightly more complex than I originally wrote, because each race actually had a predisposition to different technology fields, and only some races could get certain end game technologies, eg Psilons are the only race I know of to be able to research Death Ray.

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Quoting StillSingle,

reply 4

Wow I haven't played MOO1 is forever. I don't recall it being on CD I could of swore it was on floppies. Don't really have any of my old floppy disk anymore. Not sure what happen to them.

One thing I do like about playing old TBS games though is how fast they go on newer machines. I remember waiting a real long time for turns to process late game in MOO2. Now they are practically instant even late game. And of course the same thing will be true with a lot of TBS games now. Like on the huge maps in Civ4 late game it takes a while to process the turn. Though they keep improving the series so there is no reason to go back to the old ones. While MOO2 never really got a proper sequel then the series died cause 3rd was so bad. I can finish a full game of MOO2 in a couple hours while back in the day I might play it over a couple days.

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MOO1 was on CD I do beleive it was my first ever game I purchased too!! Long live pocket money Just been playing MOO2 the last couple of day, and yeah, couple of hour games is great!! Spying is neutered though and the creative race skill is overpowered. Other than that it is sooo much fun!!

Hey Pawels, I agree with you for the options needed to turn of research trading/brokering. Makes for more thought out decisions regarding which tech you pick from the list, not just, do they have that tech already, ok, so I'll pick something different and trade.....

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Quoting _PawelS_,

reply 3

I like the current system. When you research something, you don't always know from the start what the result will be.

I didn't like the current research system, preferring selecting what you'll research when you begin that research phase, not at the end of that phase. Looking at it from your perspective, I think I've changed my mind.

You're right, sometimes research results are more serendipity.

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I like the current system.

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The current system is flexible in that I can chase a Tech type via the color codes(unless they are just colored different for aesthetic reasons), but also allows me to change over, in the same Tree, to another Tech track, but with a cost. That being, in order to go back, it seems to take the researching of one more, now unwanted Tech, in that same track, before I can get back to the track I want.

I don't have an example in my head but will see if I can get one later via Testing.

The current one simply needs more filling out so we don't reach the "Infinite" end to soon.

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I like the current system, although there are probably still improvements to be made.

It's been a while since I've had time to play a long enough game in Elemental to remember what happens when you get far enough down the tech tree. Is there any mechanism to research some of the more basic techs when you're far along down it? I remember lots of discussion about it but can't recall anything being done about it.

While I definitely want to keep the system so that you really have to think about which techs to take (ie, make it extremely difficult if not impossible to research everything), it would be nice to be able to go back and pick up some of the real basic techs without paying through your ears for them (researching farming for 100x its base research cost just seems a little absurd).

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I agree that it is a bit of an annoyance that if you pick the rare techs, researching something like Basic Farming can take ages later on. So far during beta games the system has felt like even though you're given four choices each time, you really have only one sensible path to go through each field.

I do not have a good solution to improving the current system, other than using the tried and true research point system.

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I really don't like the current Research system, and there must be a better alternative.

The main reasons I don't like it, I beleive, were already stated:

Firstly, you choose which category to research in, you research for a while, then you get a bunch of choices which then are instantly yours when you click them. I don't really think that makes sense, and it's not very strategic, either.

(I've had towns parked next to resources like Gold, or Orchards, and had to continually research Civilization without the techs ever coming up, continually getting things I really didn't want. Certainly I like the /idea/ of randomization, but the current system just does not work very intuitively.)

Secondly, if you run into something you want, but in the near future, and pass it by, research something simpler and more immediately necessary, and go back, the other tech you wanted won't be there anymore. As if people could be just an inch away from discovering something, and then utterly forget it a few months later.

Perhaps, if for example, you spent a few turns researching, then were prompted with several things you can research: each with a time-cost listed in turns next to them, and had to choose to research one of those things.

If you changed your mind you could go to the tech screen and go 'back to the drawing board' and either throw out the research to that tech, or have it 'stick around' in-case that tech comes up again in the groups of techs you can choose...it'll be cheaper next time.

Example: You research Civilization, 5 turns later a prompt comes up listing three techs: Farming (3 Turns), Construction (5 Turns), or Housing (7 Turns). You choose Construction, and about 3 turns in you realize you should probably go for Farming, so you go to the research screen and pick 'Farming' instead, and Construction either stays as it is (or even better slowly /loses/ research points) and will be available again next time you research. So you finish Farming, and then you research Civilization again. (7 Turns) When you complete those turns you get 4 Options: Construction (3 Turns), Advanced Farming (5 Turns), Mining (9 Turns), and Civics (12 turns).

That idea makes more sense to me, and it gives you a /slight/ bit of variability...though I am not entirely happy with my idea, I'm sure someone else can come up with something better that /does/ make me happy...but I'm just throwing it out as a counter example which I think works better than the current system.

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Here is a solution:

You get to chose in the middle of the research process which tech you want

and

You can select multiple technologies in the list. doing so will increase the amount of time it will take before researching both technologies.

In that case, you never miss a technology. But if you want to develop powerful technology fast, you better only chose 1 tech every time.

Maybe there should be a limit of 2 or 3 technologies that can be selected every time to make sure you cannot develop the complete tech tree.

What do you think?

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I'm leaning towards the ability to trade efficiency for stability. What I mean by this is that the player could "Bid" up a tech, in order to grab more techs at once. This would make rarer techs more rare because they would have less opportunity to appear, but not force players to drill down a particular path (ala why get a low level training boost when you have access to a high level gear boost).

This would put players into the position of having either easy but more random techs, or longer but broader techs.

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The above problems people have with the current research system could probably be solved if the Research point cost was tied to the technology rather than the technology tree. Personally I think there should be a small additional RP cost if you skip a tech, but I agree it shouldn't be as big as it is currently. eg, skipping farming for mining, should increase the cost to get farming but not by the same amount it is currently.

Changing the point of time when you pick the actual tech you get won't really change anything, its more about the craziness of taking 19 turns (which is a hell of a lot of RP) to research farming if you didn't pick it when it cost half the RP. I really suggest staying away from multiple techs being researched at the same time though, instead use a reduntant list, meaning, anything that became possible to research in the past, is available the next X times you research that tech tree. Probably need to tweak the number of techs that become available though.

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