[Ideas] Techs and Tech Trees

Edit: Additional: Forgot to answer the first question in my neverending quest to bore people silly with text walls. My score would probably be 2.5 or so. There needs to be changes, but nothing to massively sweeping or drastic.

Currently a lot of the techs are so intermingled (either with multiple requirements across the tree, or requirements within another tree) that it feels like you need to pretty much research everything anyway. It isn't so much a choice of which to research, but which to research -right now-. Something I loved about Galciv2's research is that it felt broad enough and disconnected with each other enough that you had to make a decision about how far down each individual tech you were willing to travel.

So overall my suggestions would be the following:

1. Seperate out the tech trees into the various important areas (examples below) and remove or limit the pre-reqs in other trees (e.g. Having to get Higher Education before being able to touch any of the more advanced weapons). While there can be shared roots (e.g. trading and economics having a shared opening tech)

2. Have a larger number of techs with more incremental bonus', with plenty of bonus' seperate from physical improvements like new weapons or buildings, so focusing in an area has immediate dividends and feels like a proper focus. For example, if your game as Trogs involves researching plenty of heavy armour and defensive techs and your game as Krax involves researching one handed melee weapons, even when the Trog and the Krax troops you design have the same armour the Trogs should have a higher defensive value.

3. Examples of important tech areas as follows

Society tech:

Research (improves overall research and grants research buildings)

Farming (improves overall food per grain and grants farm buildings)

Unrest limiting, production, mining improvements, trading, economics etc

Warfare tech:

Polearm weapons (improves baseline damage of polearm weapons and grants access to polearms)

Armour (Grants access to chainmail armour, then improves the defense and lessens the encumbrance of it)

One handed bladed weapons, all major weapon types having their own tree, formation size, army size, mounted combat, etc

Magic tech:

Recruitment (incremental bonus' in the level of heroes that can be recruited, including reducing the cost of recruitment and unlocking buildings that train heroes when left in a city)

Exploration (incremental bonus' in the level of quests that can be undertaken, and can be used to 'restock' quest areas by spawning a number of quest locations around one of your cities)

Magical items, unique units (Scion), unique magical spells, etc.

The idea is that rather than the tech tree being a path everyone stomps down, it becomes a choice where the player has to decide where they will focus their efforts. To compart once again to Galciv 2, it means there will once again be the question of "Which will I put more effort into getting, larger hull sizes, better weaponry, or better factories to make the ships faster?". Of course in any longer game the player will be able to research it all anyway, but in the mid-game at the moment it doesn't feel like I'm deciding what I'll focus on, just getting the next step in the chain.

>1. The system just needs to balance costs and add more content to the current tree. It is well structured right now.

>Currently there are only 2 techs to be gained from quests and about 6 that are randomly available. It would be nice to have a system where there are around 20 random techs and each time a new game is started, you get 3 of those 20. That, combined with about 20 new techs from rare quests would add a level of uniqueness to each game.

I think incorporating a lot more spell research into the magic tech tree would make it significantly more meaningful.  Right now the magic tech tree is, imo, the least fun, useful, and/or necessary in the game, and really breaks immersion for me.

Otherwise, I'd say minor tweaks and balances to the other two trees would be in order, as they are definitely more flavorful than the magic tree at the moment.

I can't agree with this. I personally enjoy going into a game knowing how I would like to play it. E.G. Creating a powerful melee warrior Sovereign and planning on having vast hordes of poor quality 'slave' soldiers supporting small numbers of extremely tough magically enhanced 'Blackguards' or something similar. If tech that ideally suits that concept is random, it just means I'll be restarting to try and get what I want to play that game.

Unless there was some way around the randomness of it all, such as a kingdom/empire advantage that can be selected that would guarantee access to that tech, instead of the current system of starting with basic level techs (which gives you, at best, an 8 or so turn advantage over any decent start).

(2). 

I agree with OP that this is an area that can use some work; I'm not going to go out of my way to propose any solutions because it seems like Stardock are preferring to take command of solutions which meet their design vision.  Which is great.

What? You can still do any of those things without getting the specific random tech for that game. Nothing is stopping you from ignoring masterwork longbows in favor of hordes of minions with spears. The random techs are balanced. They don't make any one strategy superior, they just add new options. Masterwork bows for instance would cost more labor that even yew longbows. So you could choose to make some really powerful bowmen, but it wouldn't necessarily be the best possible option. Of course if you have any archer heroes in the late game, you would certainly want to research this.

That is just one of the random techs we already have in the game. Other techs could give you advanced trade, better diplomacy, new spells, better farming techniques. Are you saying you don't want this?

I can see either way on the design of whether to have random and quest techs in the first place; personally I like them just as something that is relatively new (to me anyway).  Given that we have them though there should be more than 2 and 6 ! 

Pretty much yeah, I'm saying I don't want that random element to tech advancements. If I intend to make a kingdom of master archers one game and an empire of heavily armoured warriors in another, it is kind of disappointing to get masterwork armour in the first and masterwork longbows in the second. Sure, I still CAN make the archers and warriors, but it just feels wrong.

Random tech availability strongly limits the element of choice in games like this, and choice is why I play these games.

If it was an option you purchased for the empire ("Expert Armoursmiths: access to masterwork armour techs" or "Legacy of Bowmen: access to masterwork archery techs") I'd be fully behind it, but I do not want random techs. I'd just end up continually restarting the game until I got the techs I wanted, which is not fun to have to do.

The current random techs are just nice options and not getting them doesn't cripple any playstyle you may favour. Warmongers can still be warmongers without the Masterwork techs. I think that it's one of the things that has been well done in the tech trees.

I like the tech trees for the most part but I would prefer some minor tweaks on some. I'd like that eventually Stardock adds more faction meat to them but I understand their reasons, and just hope that FE earns the right of an expansion and something can be done about it.

I can understand the reason some people like the random techs, and I get the feeling the way I play the game (almost like setting up an evolving narrative rather than as a 'game' game) is in the minority, but for me the aesthetics and the feel of it all is quite important to how I enjoy the game. If my kingdom can create masterwork bows, that to me conjures up images of a millitary focused around the use of those excellent weapons and I will adjust my plans for unit creation and army composition to match. But if I started the game designing everything around the idea of them being a highly heavy-cavalry focused force with a disdain for ranged weapons and magic, it does lessen the enjoyment for me. I feel like I'm wasting the rare tech opportunity, but I didn't WANT to play to that tech opportunity in that game.

You do understand the choice would be masterwork gear at random or no masterwork gear, right? By the same logic you would have to reload on every levelup to get the traits you want for your heroes. Randomness is part of the story. It doesn't make sense to restart just because your nation doesn't get the random techs you want. Many times you won't get any random techs. Other times you won't be able to find the quests that give unique techs. The game is about doing the best you can with what you have. That, to me, is what makes the story compelling. 

I too play with a heavy focus on narrative. The first thing my Sov does is survey the land and decide on a strategy that fits his or her starting position. Then he or she delves into the library and looks for rare scripts that may be unique to his or her nation. At that point a long term strategy can be chosen and the story can unfold.

The biggest difference between the way you and I play seems to be that you start the story beforehand. Try letting it unfold on its own. 

On the topic of random stuff, where do the "Revive the Land" high end earth V spells come from?  I have seen them in the Hiergamon but never found them myself in-game.

- Manii Names

Might be in the Book of the Magi III. That is a random tech that has some high powered spells in it. 

Yep you're right.  I started a few games in a row until that tech showed up.  It has Falling Star, Pull of the Earth, Glyph of Life, Birth of Summer and Bloom of Twilight in it.  Of course it will also take 11372 seasons to research heh.  In fact it's 8000 more research than the Spell of Making, which wins you the game in 25 turns.  Soooooooo i don't know how much play that tech will ever get.

- Manii Names

Haha. I keep on forgetting to suggest that people start modding that sort of thing out. I have rebalanced most all of the tech tree for .77. You just need to copy the techs xml into the mod folder and change the values. A great way to get into modding. 

Definitely a 3 for me. Technology in FE doesn't approach how meaningful it was in Fall From Heaven II. There, you made real choices as to what to research, and critically hampered your performance in some areas to improve it in others. Not having tech at the right time meant life or death situations.

Technology is a major part of any strategy game for me. In fact, I'd say it's my favorite part. Tech in FE does not come close to the level of performance I'd expect out of a strategy game. It needs to be critical. It needs to be hard to get. And it needs to be utterly awesome when you finally get it. In FFH2, being the first person to get better swordmen meant a significantly easier battle against normally tough opponents. It also cost a lot in other areas. I want technology that inspires me. Even in the base Civ4, researching Technology is FUN. Got iron working? Awesome. Got it before anyone else? Awesome 10x over. That's the kind of technology action we need. I'm also thinking to FE (and even GalCiv), where there are unique techs for each civs. Having some random techs, like from Sword of the Stars, would also be awesome.

Unfortunately the story starts well before any glance at the land, when you start designing a sovereign and kingdom/empire. E.G. Designing a kingdom of master smiths with the ability to commune with reptiles (I forget the name of that trait) is obviously leaning the story in a particular direction, and is completely negated by starting in an area with no access to metal and no monster lairs you can recruit your faction-specific creatures from. Granted that is a slightly different example, but the point remains.

And I'm not trying to perfectly structure what I face to the idea I have in my head, of course it adapts to the circumstances, but randomly available tech is a different kettle of fish to the random nature of the map. The random nature of the map is an example of a nation overcoming obstacles of the land itself. Randomly assigned tech is a case of "By the way, we're one of the only nations that potentially knows how to make better armour. Why? Because you rolled a 20."

I bolded the word 'potentially' for a reason, it's something that doesn't make sense to me. For some random reason a nation that may have absolutely no indication of being better smiths than any other nation may just so happen to have the chance to learn to make masterwork chainmail, while a nation that has put hundreds of years of research into forging the best armour just ends up with the generic stuff, until they research magic armour in the end-game.

I'll use an example game from WoM to illustrate my point. I started in a peninsula area and rapidly managed to take it over, but in rapid succession the Empires managed to wipe the other Kingdom players off the map, and I found myself increasingly worried about my situation with hostile enemies just over the spit of land. However any attempt to fortify my position had a severe problem. I had no iron. Nope, none at all. So my entire defensive strategy involved adapting the land and my army to this situation. I used magic to structure the land bridge to me in such a way that there was a city nestled between two enormous mountain ranges rising from the sea. The enemy could NOT go down this pass without going through the city, so they had to conquer it. But if they just threw wave after wave at me, eventually my defenses would fall to their superior numbers (there were four nations) and armaments (no shortage of metal equipment). So I designed forces of leather armoured bowmen with some minor magic equipment to even the odds. They could move far faster than the enemy, so they would nip in, take down smaller forces, then vanish before larger forces could pin them down, making it far easier for my defensive forces back home to protect the gateway city.

Now, imagine a situation where this arose in FE, but this nation who barely had any metal at all, and had nowhere near enough for even their elite melee troops to wear, just so happened to know how to make masterwork metal armour. It just feels... wrong. Sure it could be explained away easily enough, but it would feel like a cop-out.

Hence my preference for the ability to research these techs being included in the nation-traits when designing a new empire/kingdom. That would be a third option instead of "random or never".

Okay. To each his own. Since we are still waiting for the beta, I would like to discuss it a little more, though I find your opinion reasonable. I still see some errors in your logic.

Technology in Elemental is not wholly the same as it is on Earth. Technology in Elemental relies on a combination of factors. First there is cultural specialization. A king commands his serfs to work the land. In a few years a culture of farming takes hold. Knowledge of farming leads to better crops. Then there is technology gained from invention. New tools and weapons are an example of this. There are also a great many texts that describe technology from before the Cataclysm. These may vary across the land, though some are more common than others. With time these texts can be deciphered and their secrets unlocked. There is always a chance that the texts in your locality will give rise to something truly rare. It can't be predicted, but a scribe with knowledge of ancient universities, or a blacksmith with a manual describing how to forge excellent weapons may be attracted to your fledgling nation. Then there is directed research by professional researchers. This comes only after direct focus on the professionalization of research. This is the way of technology in Elemental. 

I noticed that you made a distinction between the randomness of resources and the randomness of technology. It is the same kettle with slightly tastier fish. Those technologies are in fact resources, very valuable ones. You may choose to capitalize on them or not, just the same as deciding to build on resource. The randomness of a few techs adds a new flavor to every start just the same as having a Scenic Outlook might. There is a distinction about balance in WoM and FE. FE has always provided me with the means to defend my capital. The sheer number of possibilities prevent me from listing them. WoM did not offer the same balance. Metal, for instance in WoM was crucial to having any chance at defeating foes that did have it. In FE I could, as in your example, buy all the armor I need for my heroes. I don't need my own metal mine to benefit from a unique armor tech (also unique leather armor solves this problem entirely). I can buy the goods from traveling merchants at a high cost. That just feels right.  

Now to a point that I hope you will consider in the future. Choose something risky at the start, like Serpent Pact. In your game's narrative, you are friend to the serpent. Every serpent you fight in battle is honored the next day with ritual for its sacrifice. Now let's say you do not start near a serpent's lair. Your story may now twist into a plot for vengeance. Your Sovereign was obviously usurped as ruler over an area rich with snakes. You were next in line to become King, until you were betrayed by your Uncle. Managing to escape the assassination plot, you found yourself far from any friends, serpent or otherwise. You have sworn vengeance on your Uncle in the almost forgotten Art of Vendetta. You will see his blood on your hands. 

Not getting a resource vital to your nation is sometimes more interesting than starting with it, from a story perspective. It was the same way in Civ4 when I desperately needed rubber and went to war with Africa in order to take my rightful place in the arms race. Not getting what you need forces an aggressive strategy. That makes the game more interesting. 

Exactly. I think FE has already too much randomness and i like to plan what kind of sovereign and kingdom or empire i play BEFORE i start a game, because it increases the replay ability.

I can respect your position, and understand the descriptions you give for the style of advancemen, but it is an extremely arbitrary line for only the masterwork techs to have this, or even if another 20 tech advances were chosen to be these kinds of 'special techs. Personally, that was something I hated in SOTS.

For me the biggest problem with it is the lack of being able to choose. The arguement can - and has - been made that I can easily play an armoured warrior-race style of nation without the masterwork tech, but I do not get to make that choice. To take the RPG side of the game and stretch it, if you think of the game map as the world itself and the nation/sovereign as the character, I prefer games where I get to decide my character for myself, and have him react to the world around it. The resources and the circumstances of the world around me are what I react to, but I want to have the choice of advanced masterwork weapons/armours. Choosing how to react to the resources (or lack thereof) and position of my empire around me is part of the continuing story. Starting a game and looking at the research tree to find I will never, ever be able to create masterwork armour is not only a choice that is made for me, but it is a choice that is made for me that may be counter to how I had hoped to play the nation.

I have to strongly disagree with this. Not getting a resource is one thing, there are other resources you can gain through expansion and even if I don't start next to an iron mine, as you said it is possible to acquire through other means or expand to find it. Not getting access to a research tech because you rolled a 1 in world creation is not something you can overcome. It is a permanent decision made for me to determine what my empire/kingdom can and cannot do.

In the end, I fail to see why this cannot be a choice, even on a larger game-option menu. Maybe when creating the game you get the choice of random 'special-tech' access, all 'special-tech' access, no 'special-tech' access. Maybe on top of this there could be an extra option where a nation, when being designed, could chose to use one of their trait points to purchase access to the 'special-tech's. I would happily give up any other trait to be able to choose if a nation could do that.

P.S. Sorry if this is a disjointed arguement, it was written while trying to watch an episode of Farscape with a few friends. Distracting show, especially when it's incident #98,293 of them screwing up and somehow escaping.

That is a good point. You can find an iron mine but not the manual for masterwork. This leads me to an excellent idea. Combine the quests with unique techs and the random access techs! say there are 20 unique techs. You get maybe 5 of them at random when starting. The rest have to be quested for. This satisfies the last condition of a resource. You must can expand to find the tech you desire.

I will probably make a separate post about this in the future. I am glad we had this conversation. 

Hooray, I made a relevant point! Going to have to print this off and frame it somewhere.

As I said, personally I would prefer being able to choose to have access to these techs, but I'll take the offer for gaining access through quests in some manner.

Even if there were 'travelling merchants' of some kind wandering around the world who could be tracked down by champions and rare items/manuals bought from, or something similar, just the -option- of gaining access to the tech, rather than it being decided before even seeing the map.

Making the game elements fit the lore is one area that needs work in FE. This is going on my mod list.