Executive Summary

First, holy sh!t, 18 pages!

I can't respond to everything, so I'll just sum up my general thoughts. For the most part, I like the current system, although I agree with you that the prerequisites are less than clear. But rather than changing anything about how the system works, I think that could be solved just by puttiing a button that says "Show Tree" that shows the full tech tree, with the exception of the techs that are hidden/secret.

Another suggestion that has come up a lot is "grey techs." After a certain period of time, or enough breakthroughs in a given field or something similar, some of the more common techs that you see a lot would change from being green to being grey (or some other color), which would indicate that when you finish your next breakthrough, you automatically obtain the grey techs, in addition to whatever tech you choose to unlock.

I think that in combination, these would be a fairly simple, straightforward (both for the player and the developers to implement) way to deal with the issues you mentioned (to be honest, I'm still a little confused about your solution, I'll have to go back and reread it again).

What parts are you finding confusing? I've spent way too much time with it to see the rough spots now... start listing and I'll do my best to see if I can clear things up.

In your suggested system, you mention "pulses" but as far as I can tell, you never define what a pulse is (although maybe you did and I was reading too fast and missed it). And then right after that there is your chart, with Levels 0-9 in red at the top, 0-9 in blue on the bottom, with a bunch of techs and arrows. Those two things were the biggest, but other than that it was very clear.

Hmm, yeah, I'll probably need to expand that section.  I've also gotten a request to expand Appendix A with examples.  To tide over while I write:

Pulses are a way of thinking about techs, by subdividing them into groups.  A pulse spans several levels, and the way the system is currently concieved, a player researches (eventually) all techs in the pulse. We can toy around with making it so that not all of a pulse's techs are researched (paths the player chooses to not follow).

I should also expand on the stuff I've learned from the XML files, which is kinda big.  To summarize, each category has "lines" which are almost linear dependencies it seems like.  I'll have to look much more carefully at that.

Ah, that explains it, thanks.

A solid read but I would ask if you could direct us to the .XML file you speak of so we may better assess the situation as it exists currently. It is assumed all Beta installs contain said .XML file?

I will expand my response tomorrow as I left my printed version of the .PDF at the office.

The .XML is not quite as straightforward as being on every computer, see my issues finding it in this thread.

That being said, here are the copies of the XML that are on my computer - just making sure we're all looking at the same-ish thing.

I'm against having any prereqs at all.   So what if you don't discover how to make a catapult, but you figure out how to make a trebuchet.   Or skipp wood walls, and figure out that stone make excellent walls.

If there are going to HAVE to be prereqs, then Iagree with you sareln, that they should be as few and far between as possible.  Your idea on cross category prereqs is also good.

Perhaps, looking at each category as a tree itself would help design which techs should have prereqs.  I would suggest to make only ONE prereq per branch, being that you have to research the lowliest low of a branch to be able to get anything higher up.   For example, the warefare category has a couple of branches being:  walls, training.  I would suggest that the only prereq in the walls branch would be that the 2nd lvl wall needs  the 1st level wall (which i believe is wooden palisade).  If you ersearch wooden palisade, then you can miss any other type of wall and still fluke getting a much better wall later on.

Ah, so say we have 5 wall techs: Wall-0, Wall-1, Wall-2, Wall-3, Wall-4.  Then Wall-0 is required for Wall-*, but that's the only prereq?

This is the Warfare Tech Category from the XML files, arrows for prerequisites and blue triangles for infinite techs.  I've rewritten parts of the report, namely to tie the problems I elaborate on more to the goals, to give examples of various alternate systems in Appendix A, and to make the usual plethora of grammar fixes associated with large docs.  I'll sleep on it and proofread tomorrow.

Hopefully that'll give something for everyone to chew on Wednesday night, right before we jump into a hopefully awesome Beta2!

Yeah, you got my idea down pat for prereqs.  Then it is down to the "rarity" stat and random luck whether you get to research the upgraded versions.  In my opinion, making for each game making you play more uniquely as youdraw on the strengths granted you, and try and hide all the weaknesses from being lucky/unlucky in the tech tree.

I'm wondering if you could use prerequisites to simply lower the rarity of a technology by one level... anything with multiple prerequisites would start higher than red (clear/black) and wouldn't occur unless you had at least some knowledge applicable to the problem... stone walls could have 'palisade, stone working/quarry as prerequisites and start as red, move to green after gaining both).

Also, you've mentioned MoO and Civ... SotS (Sword of the stars) is very interesting for a pseudorandom tech tree with only probabilities and branches set and the interesting ideas of using % bias in tech availability to give character to each race with a shared tech tree. Very few key techs, Morrigi have drones as a key starting tech because it fits a theme, others have 60-90% chances of techs appearing that fit the race, while some races have <40% for many techs (zuul). Unlocking a prerequisite can give another roll to reveal techs so unlocking a fusion age tech can unlock a fusion cannon which can lead to antimatter cannons directly, or be unlocked by other antimatter techs. It means that with limited resources you can keep to ballistics and hope for heavy firepower, if you don't get it you need to go the long way around. While another who teched to the next tier will be faster (fission engines are slow, fusion and antimatter are faster) and will catch up in firepower, during your teching you will only be able to field ships with balistic weapons from the failed rush encouraging appropriate counters. (the correct shields, deflectors, armour, ships sizes, drones). But the general idea is visualising techs, having % probabilities for techs, multiple prerequisites, few key techs and clear forms of comparison. (SotS visualises weapon damage, range, accuracy and firing rate... but I think you could do with having comparisons that are global, so daggers may be ~0 when balanced against magic weapons and within category visualisations for improvements on linked techs... smaller, slightly faster, but requires crystal etc.

Either way, losing a key tech would fit the description of  a random act and these need to be distributed correctly. One way would be to have variable balance levels... so any tech marked as key that is lost would be balanced by all players having equal numbers of missing key techs. Or, karma and luck. The point at which you discover a key tech is missing (the roll is made, branch revealed...) you gain a positive karma boost that is spent on random events, increasing positive events and reducing negative. -the last thing you need if you can't make bows, steel or houses is to have a rampaging dragon the next turn. -you could I suppose balance lost key techs with increased low use techs, to encourage other playing styles. No arrows? try slings, boomerangs etc.

When we talk about possible cross-tree pre-req's I get this picture of the first GalCiv. I have a large colored, taped together, printout of that Tech Tree, because there was no other way to keep it straight.

The amount of jumping around from Tree to Tree to accomplish a specific Tech advancement was a bit much now that I think back...

The current Tech set up is not "bad" per say and I think it is growing one me, mainly because after the first 2-3 picks in 2-3 Trees, everything else that becomes available, via the more and more Random nature, promotes a more diverse Kingdom/Empire build up.

Pre-reqs are needed. It makes sense to have some but can agree that to many handcuffs players as to how they want to traverse the Tech Trees as individual entities.

What more concerns me right now is how the "Infinite: Techs will be handled. It seems to just be a add +% bonus to the Tech itself and not this leads to this then this then this etc. etc.

A good example would be the Farming Tech. It seems that now it is just Refined Farming (+% bonus) over and over. Boring...

How about use base Farming (by Hand), then Farming (Tilling with Animal), then Farming (Fertilizers), then Farming (Irrigation) etc etc, then after 10 or so picks it becomes (+% bonus) to Infinity. Hell after 10 Farming picks I will assume I have all the Farming upgrades I will ever need, as actual available Farming sources would become the more pressing need.

That would allow the random element to be used and not terribly affect how, or when, the Bonuses show up in the Tree. It would not matter what actual random order I got (Tilling with Animal), or Fertilizer added), (Irrigation) in, as long as the Bonuses were equal, but I would get to choose.

I think we should try and assemble a List of Techs that would/could be added to the Trees and specifically the Infinite Techs for each.

I am also looking forward to Beta 2 as it may clear up some of the current unknown in this regard as well.

twitch twitch

Good work Sareln, I especially appreciate you providing the xml files to back up your document.  I have one question though, can you trade technology in Elemental?

Later,
LAR 

The current Diplomacy window indicates that we can/could, but Beta 2 will not have the Diplo engine in, as we assume they are making changes, based on some heavy discussion that went on, but it does seems reasonable that will retain the ability to use Techs as a trading tool in the final....