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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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so...I'm sitting here, heavily medicated, and home tonight, rather than with my gal (we were supposed to go to the beach to visit her mom, but I found myself in another bang up car accident--for the second time this year, not my fault...just born lucky I suppose), so I'm home nursing my bruises with meds and two heating pads, and I'm fiddling with game design.
Been thinking about Civ, and how the tech tree is so linear.
Everybody knows that tech x gives benefit y, and that's cool, I guess. It's one of the central concepts OF 4x games, actually, so to get completely away from it might alienate large numbers of players.
But...what if we took half a step away from it?
What if, in addition to the predictable "research-this-gain-that" stuff, a new tech *also* gave you a random, or semi-random bonus?
I say "semi-random" becuase of course, it would not be entirely random. It's not like you could research a diplomatically oriented tech and suddenly gain the next thing in killing machinery...the bonuses would have something to do, topically, with the general bent of the tech you just researched, but....I think there should be some choice. Some menu of varying interpretation about what the tech you just researched really MEANS to you and yours, and how it will be applied.
For example...to use Candle'Bre as an example, since I live and breathe to tinker with the various models I've got going for it.
At military tech five, there's a tech called siegecraft, which makes siege engines available for building.
Well and good. There's a certain logical cohesion to that, and it makes intuitive sense.
But what if, in addition to that, a player were presented with something like this:
Milord, having gained an advance in military sciences, it is your perogative to guide us in the practical application of our newfound abilities
(choose one)
* Siege Engines were made for laying siege! Focus all efforts on maximizing their impact! (gain a +1 bonus to any and all siege checks your faction makes for the remainder of the game)
* Such advances help us to better understand our own weaknesses, and we should use this knowledge to shore up those weaknesses as best we can (all provinces you control gain +1 siege counter til the end of the game. Any provinces you acquire AFTER receipt of this bonus immediately gain +1 Siege counter as well)
* We have, in our posession, the means and knowlege to more efficiently organize the army for extended campaigns. Let us focus our efforts there (better supply coordination reduces the maintenance costs of all your forces by 0.1g per unit, til the end of the game.
Further, the selections you make on any given level of advance could be used to inform the future choices made available to you as you advance further. Sort of...techs and abilities within techs and abilities, and it'd allow each player to customize the game around whatever strategy he/she was pursuing.
Anyway, I was just toying with it, and it sounded like a great deal of fun, so I figured I'd get some other opinions...
-=Vel=-
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Commy
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St. Louis, MO, USA
Mar 2004
time: 05:37
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Hello Vel, nice to see you...
Well, randomness is always interesting, yes, because there is a fine line that is hard to see and harder yet draw...
Perhaps if the advantages you are talking about are chosen after you research the tech...in a way, Vel, it would be like SE on SMAC, you would make a choice for each category...so for military, you might have 5 options, and you pick 2 of them...one might be better siege craft, another might be better defense against sieges, like you said....if you changed choices, a "small" revolt would occur...the revolt wouldn't do anything to your civ, but say, it would take 5 turns to implement the new military doctrine/strategy, so you wouldn't recieve benefits for 5 turns...
Furthermore, militaristic factions could implement these changes, say, in 1 turn instead of 5 (like religious civs with governments)...
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Guynemer
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I like the idea, Vel.
And your avatar is giving me the creeping willies.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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My future wife drew that one for me...we were kicking some early prototype ideas about what the Nilroggi looked like, and this fellow was one of the rejected versions.
Rejected or not tho, I thought he made a good "Velocibeast!" 
And thank ya! I'm glad you like the idea....the trick, of course, will be to see if I can come up with interesting, topically relevant abilities to offer, and try my best to make the choice as agonizing as possible (oh, and I'm also designing the tech tree such that there's no practical way, except in severely milking a single player game) to research all the techs in a single game.
That, coupled with mutually exclusive choices at each level should give me the desired effect...a game that it'll take literally scores, if not hundreds of playthrus to really feel like you've seen most everything...
-=Vel=-
PS: And we need more cowbell!
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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That's it exactly, Az...and one of the difficulties I'm running into.
One of the things that comes to mind is this:
For any given technological innovation, there are any number of potential applications. In our modern world, for example, many of the technologies we take quite for granted today were, at least in their original genesis, military, or military oriented.
Seems like the trick will be to identify all possible game-related uses for any given technological innovation, and then present those possibilities as options for the player to determine exactly how to introduce the various implementations the research itself has generated. Thus, one branch of scientific research (codified as a "tech advance" in most 4x games) would have a potentially tremendous number of practical applications, falling to the player to determine how, and in what order, to bring those applications to fruition....
interesting...
-=Vel=-
PS: And I disagree 'bout the randomness thing. EU 2 is prolly one of my all time favorite computer games, and it is loaded to the gills with randomness. I see your point tho...randomness that's handed down arbitrarily feels artificial, but I think that, if implemented properly (and a big nod to EU2 for doing that very thing), it can really make the difference.
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Sir Og
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Lurking in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
Jun 2001
time: 07:37
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Vel you should really check out MOO2. In that game your research gives you two or three practical applications. For example when you research Anti-mater Fission you can get one of three technologies: AM Bomb(ground attack weapon) , AM Drive (improved propulsion) or AM Torpedoes (space ship weapon). The nice thing is that you only get one (there is an exception for the so called creativ races, but that is not the point) of these practical applications. I did not like the fact that you could not come back and do more research to get two of the applications that a certain tech gives. All applications were available through spying or diplomatic means however.
Such a system gives you the ability to advance to the next tech but makes you take some choices on the applications of each technology that you research. Such a system should allow in my opinion the choice to spend further research on a given field in order to get all possible applications of a certain technology.
Let us say that in your siegcraft example you get the "Siege attack" application (by default or by chance). If you are not engaged in any wars you may choose to go ahead with your research and go up the tech tree or if you are engaged in a conflict you may spend more research on Siegcraft to gain the Sieage defence as well.
Of cource in such a system you should make shure that you don't end up without knowledge of "Siege defence" for example in the Space age.
I am not sure how difficult it is to implement that but as time passes and you generate more research you should get old/obsolete applications for free without explicitly focusing on them. Let us say you were happy with "Siege attack" and moved on with your reseach, than 15 techs later you receive a message: "Sir we have discovered new applications for Siegcraft. They give us improved siege defence etc."
Another interesting moment is if you are going to get a random application or chose one beforehand or get one by default. The random factor could be extremely frustrating if the different choices are not well balanced. Maybe it will be best to have it random but better techs have higher chance. This way there will be some element of surprise bu t overall you will get what you expect.
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Sir Og
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Lurking in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
Jun 2001
time: 07:37
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Vel you should really check out MOO2. In that game your research gives you two or three practical applications. For example when you research Anti-mater Fission you can get one of three technologies: AM Bomb(ground attack weapon) , AM Drive (improved propulsion) or AM Torpedoes (space ship weapon). The nice thing is that you only get one (there is an exception for the so called creativ races, but that is not the point) of these practical applications. I did not like the fact that you could not come back and do more research to get two of the applications that a certain tech gives. All applications were available through spying or diplomatic means however.
Such a system gives you the ability to advance to the next tech but makes you take some choices on the applications of each technology that you research. Such a system should allow in my opinion the choice to spend further research on a given field in order to get all possible applications of a certain technology.
Let us say that in your siegcraft example you get the "Siege attack" application (by default or by chance). If you are not engaged in any wars you may choose to go ahead with your research and go up the tech tree or if you are engaged in a conflict you may spend more research on Siegcraft to gain the Sieage defence as well.
Of cource in such a system you should make shure that you don't end up without knowledge of "Siege defence" for example in the Space age.
I am not sure how difficult it is to implement that but as time passes and you generate more research you should get old/obsolete applications for free without explicitly focusing on them. Let us say you were happy with "Siege attack" and moved on with your reseach, than 15 techs later you receive a message: "Sir we have discovered new applications for Siegcraft. They give us improved siege defence etc."
Another interesting moment is if you are going to get a random application or chose one beforehand or get one by default. The random factor could be extremely frustrating if the different choices are not well balanced. Maybe it will be best to have it random but better techs have higher chance. This way there will be some element of surprise bu t overall you will get what you expect.
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16-07-2005 06:15
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