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[Granite26]

10d100 isn't necessarily less than 500d100, but most of the time it will be.

Yeah, but the difference between 10d100 and 500d100 doesn't matter so much if there's a million other dice out there you're ignoring.  By obstinately refusing to admit that *gasp* cultural differences have some effect on historical development, guns germs and steel pretends those million dice don't matter.  Don't get me wrong, I'd buy into the premise that the geography of europe makes it a very good location for an expansive society or an industrializing culture.  But it was hardly inevitable and they weren't the only ones.  After all the phonecians and chinese went through very expansionistic phases, even though they are supposed to be the counter examples!  And a single leader was able to turn mongolian culture from very inward looking to the most outward looking culture ever.  There's a whole lot of random stuff that determines the path of history.  And it's often random which way the geography will affect the balance, only afterwards seeming "inevitable."

I dunno, I kinda got the impression that he was considering China, the Phoenicians, the Swedes and the Egyptians to be all playing on the same team.  (Vs. the Bantus, the Polynesians, the Aboriginies and the Americans as each their own team).

Sure it was cultural factors that led to it being the Europeans being the ones who conquered the Americas as opposed to the (predominately Muslim) North Africans or the insular (at the time) Chinese.   The point (as I read it) was that it was inevitable that Eurasia would be the ones doing the conquering.  I don't feel that it is addressing why White Europeans in particular, but more Eurasia in general. 

[Muz]

Necro'ed, because it's a cool topic, even if it veered off course.

Civilization (the game) sort of took the right thing with what they wanted to do. With Civ, research progress was linear.. you'd always want to put 100% research into one thing, and that's why you could only research one thing at a time.

I think one thing that everyone's missing about research is that it takes time to get there. With most games, you could just say, toss 40% research in guns, 20% in physics, 40% in ethics. Then suddenly, someone declares war on you. Your guns is at 91% completion and setting guns to 100% lets you unlock bigger guns.

Well, it doesn't work that way IRL.. because there's only so much you can allocate. Guns need weapon engineers to work.. you can't just turn a bunch of philosophers into weapon engineers in one turn. And even then, giving them a whole lot of money doesn't make a difference.

Also, my experience in RL research had this one project given a hell lot more money than it needed. Well, the child psychologists decided that the children needed microwaves for the nursery, and state-of-the-art computers for the researchers, so they spent the research budget on that. In other words, the excess money went to waste.

So, I'd say, maybe one way to do it is to give all research some inertia - takes a while for research to pick up speed, and a while for it to slow, but the research rate drops rapidly once you drop funding. And make it sort of a non-linear thing, so that even if someone spends double as much on it, they don't get double the research results.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

10d100 isn't necessarily less than 500d100, but most of the time it will be.

Yeah, but the difference between 10d100 and 500d100 doesn't matter so much if there's a million other dice out there you're ignoring.  By obstinately refusing to admit that *gasp* cultural differences have some effect on historical development, guns germs and steel pretends those million dice don't matter.  Don't get me wrong, I'd buy into the premise that the geography of europe makes it a very good location for an expansive society or an industrializing culture.  But it was hardly inevitable and they weren't the only ones.  After all the phonecians and chinese went through very expansionistic phases, even though they are supposed to be the counter examples!  And a single leader was able to turn mongolian culture from very inward looking to the most outward looking culture ever.  There's a whole lot of random stuff that determines the path of history.  And it's often random which way the geography will affect the balance, only afterwards seeming "inevitable."

I dunno, I kinda got the impression that he was considering China, the Phoenicians, the Swedes and the Egyptians to be all playing on the same team.  (Vs. the Bantus, the Polynesians, the Aboriginies and the Americans as each their own team).

Sure it was cultural factors that led to it being the Europeans being the ones who conquered the Americas as opposed to the (predominately Muslim) North Africans or the insular (at the time) Chinese.   The point (as I read it) was that it was inevitable that Eurasia would be the ones doing the conquering.  I don't feel that it is addressing why White Europeans in particular, but more Eurasia in general. 

You know, if Cordoba has not fallen to the Spanish, perhaps we would see a Muslim AZTEC empire.

Brain-bleach.

[Granite26]

You know, if Cordoba has not fallen to the Spanish, perhaps we would see a Muslim AZTEC empire.

Exactly...  Who conquered SA (Muslims, Chinese or Europe) was up in the air, although there was never any real chance of the Aztecs winning in South America and then conquering Eurasia.

[Goron]

There are some games that did the research(and/or tech implementation) aspect almost right, namely: MOO2, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron series. If one combined these three, he could get a system close to ideal(in my opinion, of course).

/agree

I think HOI2 had an amazing system imho. I have only played hoi3 a little, so I can't completely comment, but it seems the practical vs. theory system is a big improvement.

The Hearts of Iron series is definitely an example where you must research and you (almost) must take advantage of research as you discover it.

[Servant Corps]

I like to see procedurally generated technology trees. A QML game based solely on procedurally generated research trees would be quite lame, but I like to see that happen anyway.

[Ampersand]

If I recall correctly, the higher difficultly levels of Alpha Centauri did punish changing research goals midway through.

In reality, research doesn't work like that. Jet aircraft, for example, began with a lot of theory about how Jet propulsion could work, then prototype jet engines in laboratories that were too big to be useful and mostly sat around doing nothing, then test flights, then production models.

While for the purposes of Videogames, this needs to be abstracted out a little bit, it doesn't make much sense at all to be in the stage where you're working with prototype engines, then tell all the scientists to stop researching Jet engines, and start working on Free Market economics or something, and have them start midway through because of accumulated research points.

[Sowelu]

I like to see procedurally generated technology trees. A QML game based solely on procedurally generated research trees would be quite lame, but I like to see that happen anyway.

Hmm...How would that work?  Would you get to know what the tech tree looked like at the start of the game, still, or could you only see a few levels out, maybe even just the effects of the next techs you could get?  You need SOMEthing...because otherwise, there's no point in directing research at all (except maybe into areas that you know have been discovered vs. ones that you think nobody has discovered).

[IHateOutside]

Don't forget crusader kings. In that you chose an area for 3 different categories and they were randomly discovered after a random amount of years. But the tech was only discovered in your capital. Each province had its own tech levels. And there was a fancy formula for the spread of technology.

From the looks of things we should combine all of Paradox's various research things (can't think of a word for it) into one drop of concentrated awesome.

Hearts of Iron 3 tech screens are quite nice. Still have the same areas, like desert fighting equipment, but make it gradually add bonuses as the research goes along, not in one big lump at the end, would make it batter in my opinion.

[Servant Corps]

I like to see procedurally generated technology trees. A QML game based solely on procedurally generated research trees would be quite lame, but I like to see that happen anyway.

Hmm...How would that work?  Would you get to know what the tech tree looked like at the start of the game, still, or could you only see a few levels out, maybe even just the effects of the next techs you could get?  You need SOMEthing...because otherwise, there's no point in directing research at all (except maybe into areas that you know have been discovered vs. ones that you think nobody has discovered).

You don't direct the research. It's automated for you.

[Granite26]

I like to see procedurally generated technology trees. A QML game based solely on procedurally generated research trees would be quite lame, but I like to see that happen anyway.

Hmm...How would that work?  Would you get to know what the tech tree looked like at the start of the game, still, or could you only see a few levels out, maybe even just the effects of the next techs you could get?  You need SOMEthing...because otherwise, there's no point in directing research at all (except maybe into areas that you know have been discovered vs. ones that you think nobody has discovered).

Well, I'd think the Tech would require certain levels of different things... Like, you'd know 'GUNS' would require a certain level of metalurgy and a certain level of chemistry, but you wouldn't know how much of each.

GUNS might only show up as a research posibility when you've got metalurgy and chemistry each within 5-10 points of where you needed to be, and then research on GUNS would be divided up 1/3 GUNS, 1/3 METALURGY, and 1/3 CHEMISTRY, with the portion put into GUNS scaled by how close you were to the right METALURGY and CHEMISTRY values.

(specifically, create 6 - 20 tech 'areas' that all advance as your knowledge in them increases.  Possibly they aren't all available at the begining)

You'd kinda know what direction you needed to go in to get specific types of stuff, but not necessarily what's next.


Take this back to MoO2... you've got the six areas of research with a 4(?) items in each level. 

Apply this mod:  Delete all effect names/numbers (for guns, etc).  Starting from the top, there's a 5% chance each item will flip with a lower item on the list.  This makes it possible that the first laser you research will have the death ray effect (.05^20th possible).  Now, reapply the names in the same order.  The first armor you get will always be 'Armor I', but you may get surprised with the 'Armor III' effect.

This would be especially useful in a growth system.  (Each armor gives you +lvl rather than lvl, so if you got 3 early, eventually getting 1 would give you a 4)

That would serve to randomize to tech levels, since you don't KNOW what the most powerful tech is going to be.

[Muz]

Hah, I'd love to see procedurally generated tech trees. I'd make it so that you could research Science, Law, Philosophy, War. Or something. Once you get Science at 20%, you unlock Iron Working. Then if you have (Iron Working*3 + War) = 100 + Random*5, you unlock swords.

The game would then have an algorithm to decide which direction you prefer to research in, and give you discounts on how you've spent your research so far. Like, if you spend a lot of research points on Philosophy, you get like a 20% discount on uncovering Education.

And instead of distributing 3% Science, 20% War, etc... it'd be nice if you just put in Science - very little, War - lots. That way, the game will automatically distribute research % so you don't have to calculate it yourself.

[ChairmanPoo]

The answer is quite simple. What is it that happens in the real world R&D but not in games? Prototypes.

Alpha Centauri had this

[Granite26]

The answer is quite simple. What is it that happens in the real world R&D but not in games? Prototypes.

Alpha Centauri had this

I believe MoO3 and maybe even 2 had it, in that the first one you built was more expensive

[Sean Mirrsen]

Remember Tomorrow has a static, but fairly complicated tech tree, governed by four basic science areas and a large collection of applied branches that open up as the basic areas progress. I keep forgetting what I need to put research into to get to the first good guns. There are dependancies on the applied branches (that you can see) and on the basic areas (that you don't), adding up to make a fairly interesting, if ultimately predictable, research system.