Another Approach to Research

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jeb:
On the other hand, the "delayed effect of efforts" is one of the things that causes "just one more turn" syndrome. First you play another turn so you can research that dandy new tech. Then you play a few more turns waiting for a ship incorporating the new gizmo to be built. Then you play some more so you can see it in action. By that time, you're on the verge of a new breakthrough, and you're hooked for another couple of hours. If everything improved gradually and incrementally with no need for upgrades or new ship designs or anything, new tech would be a lot less fun.

---

You've got a very strange idea of fun. It's precisely this "fits and starts" phenomena where you have long waits for new techs and then a sudden flood of new weapons and other techs into the field that so often makes playing 4X games so screwy. I HATE "just one more turn" syndrome - don't you? It would be much better to research a general type of tech, like a beam weapon or a new type of shields, and then have it improve incrementally without having to refit. Only changes in the TYPE of technology should require a refit. Then you could build ships with a new tech and not have to refit them two turns after they are completed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jeb:
All that said, I do like the idea of not everyone having the same tech. The MOO2 system of not allowing everyone to research every tech (except for those weenie Psilons) was fun, although could also lead to tedium if you tried to keep a "pet" enemy empire around in hopes of stealing all the techs you can't research yourself. So to really get this to work, some techs should just be mutually incompatible. I have no idea about how that should work, though.

---

That's one of the features that makes the current generation of 4X games better than MOO. It's not a matter of just choosing among a few techs that anyone else might also have chosen anymore, now there are real differences in what is possible for each race/empire. The "path" through the tech tree is much less predictable and if technologies were a bit less transparent there would be much less predictability to battle tactics, as well. Do we need to know that shields II absorbs exactly X number of points of damage? Do we need to know that ECM I reduces the enemy's chance to hit by exactly X percent? Not really. We just need to know that it's better than the previous Version, or better than not having it at all.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 17 August 2000).]

[Master Belisarius]

To be honest, I think that have not sense discuss about a different tech tree for SE4 , when the game will be gold in 15 days... (maybe we can discuss for SE5! ).
I believe that MM will not change the current system. In my opinion, the only thing that they could do now, it's try to balance the techs, and fix the bugs.

Anyway, talking about the random research result question, I have an approach like Jeb: I don't want to lose a game only because the other guy have more luck than me...
At any case, the random research results should be a game option.


WINGTE:
You said: "SE does have a form of "racial" modifiers but they don't seem to have any impact on the amount or type of recearch any race has access to."

But, what about the Psychic, Deeply Religous, Temporal Knowledge, Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulation, advanced traits?
These techs allow unique extra tech tree, for the race that have the racial advantage... The only problem that I can see with it, it's that some advanced traits looks much pore powerful, than others (for example Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulations, Psychic).

Also, for example, it's possible to create most of the Moo2 races, because you can manipulate the Culture, Physical Characteristics and Vocational Aptitudes.

Psilons: select the Scientists Culture, decrease the Physical Strength, and increase the Intelligence (research).

Alkari: spend your points in Defensiveness.

Bulrathi: Select the Warriors Culture, and spend your points in Aggressiveness and Physical Strength.

Mrrshan: select the Warriors Culture, and spend your points in Aggressiveness and Maintenance Aptitude.

Darloks: spend your points in Cunning.

Silicoids: select Xenophobes Culture, decrease the Reproduction and the Political Savy, and increase the Environmental Resistance.

Etc...

In my opinion, the SE4 Race settings, are MUCH more flexible than the Moo2 settings (and the Moo2 race settings were a great feature).
My only complaint, it's that think that some of them, still need to be balanced.

[wingte]

WINGTE:
You said: "SE does have a form of "racial" modifiers but they don't seem to have any impact on the amount or type of recearch any race has access to."

But, what about the Psychic, Deeply Religous, Temporal Knowledge, Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulation, advanced traits?
These techs allow unique extra tech tree, for the race that have the racial advantage... The only problem that I can see with it, it's that some advanced traits looks much pore powerful, than others (for example Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulations, Psychic).

Also, for example, it's possible to create most of the Moo2 races, because you can manipulate the Culture, Physical Characteristics and Vocational Aptitudes

========================================

Well, I have no desire to recreate the MOO Races. Making too liberal use of the MOO II Creat your own race feature can produce one that is essentially unbeatable even in the hard mode by any race except the Silicoids. It also makes for a boring game.

Personally I like the Imperium Galactica II system where some races can't even use some of the tech that other races can research. Everything there seems to balance out,, but even in the easy mode there is no guarantee that any given race will be able to defeat any other race.


------------------
Wingte

[wingte]

MB said
But, what about the Psychic, Deeply Religous, Temporal Knowledge, Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulation, advanced traits?
These techs allow unique extra tech tree, for the race that have the racial advantage... The only problem that I can see with it, it's that some advanced traits looks much pore powerful, than others (for example Cristallurgy, Organic Manipulations, Psychic).

==========================

Well ,, 100 turns hasn't given me enough time to play with the advanced traits very much. As I understand it if I set the racial points high enough for me to get the advanced traits,, then all the computer generated players also have the opportunity to get the advanced traits. Of course it might be possible to simply reduce the individual traits enough to add one of the special reseach areas while locking all the computer generated one out.

Hmnnnn 1500 points is a lot of reduction. Are any of those sspecials worth it???




------------------
Wingte

[Master Belisarius]

Wingte:

==========================
Well ,, 100 turns hasn't given me enough time to play with the advanced traits very much.
==========================
Nope, it's enough.
Try selecting low tech cost in the game setting, or starting with 5 or 10 planets, or selecting all the tech allowed from the start.

==========================
As I understand it if I set the racial points high enough for me to get the advanced traits,, then all the computer generated players also have the opportunity to get the advanced traits. Of course it might be possible to simply reduce the individual traits enough to add one of the special reseach areas while locking all the computer generated one out.
==========================
The AI is not good doing races... in fact the AI still need work in all the fields...
To do more interesting games, I was forced to create some AI races to play against (giving them some Advanced Traits, and not taking any Advanced Trait myself).

In a game with 2000 points to generate your race, you can pick one of the advanced traits without problems... look this example:
http://pub4.ezboard.com/fse4centerfo...icID=599.topic

============================================
Hmnnnn 1500 points is a lot of reduction. Are any of those sspecials worth it???
============================================
You will see that some of these tech is really powerful (Cristallurgy or the Biological Manipulation)!
The Psychic is powerfull too, but more against the AI: you can take over their ships, if the AI is not using a Master Computer... and the AI is not so smart (At least in the 5.6 demo), to see that need to get the Master Computer.

1500 is nothing compared with the advantages! You get so fast, so powerful weapons and armors.
For this reason I think that these tech must be balanced...
In fact, I think that if you go to play against other human, you need to pick one of them or you will be wipped...
Regards

MB

[Master Belisarius]

Wingte:

Personally I like the Imperium Galactica II system where some races can't even use some of the tech that other races can research.
=============================================

But you get it in SE4 with the Advanced Traits... if you have the Cristallurgy tech, nobody else can use the Cristallurgy tech tree (at least that the other race have the Cristallurgy tech too).

For example, other race could take over one of yours ship with Cristallurgy weapons, and use this ship against you... but can not analyze the ship, and "learn" about the Cristallurgy tech (but you can do it with the others common techs).
Also, they can not stolen your Cristallurgy tech using the Intel options...


=====================================
Everything there seems to balance out,, but even in the easy mode there is no guarantee that any given race will be able to defeat any other race. =====================================

Pesonally, I have played the Imperium Galactica II Demo, and have decided to no purchase the game... I think that this game wanted to do so many things in a sole game, mixing RTS battles, RPG elements and 4x games.
I know that you're not saying that IG2 is a great game, ok?
But, in my opinion (not only my opinion), IG2 failed because currently is not possible to be so good like StarCraft, Homeworld and MOO2 (Se3) at the same time...

About the main IG2 races, I'm not impressed:
The Solarians: an eclectical race... average warriors, average traders, average diplomats, but good research.

Kra'hens: warriors... They can not use diplomacy, trading or spying (very boring!).

The Shinari: they are spies, traders and diplomats, but weak fighters. (in multiplayer games, I know a lot of people crying because the Shinari human player can destroy complete fleets with their spies...)

Finally, I think that IG2 have a limited tech tree, and really I never saw a real difference between the Solarian, Shinari and Kra'hens tech tree... I only can remember that you can purchase more advanced ships/vehicles, to the tradders that time in time go to your spaceports. But maybe it was only in the Demo... I don't know.

[Jeb]

I can't figure out how to get the message board software to let me quote the bit where Baron Munchausen says I have "a strange idea of fun" for liking games with "just one more turn" syndrome. That's my measure of a good 4X game! I dunno, maybe we just like different sorts of games, Baron. The JOMT syndrome is what made me stay up all night playing the original Civilization. Civ 2 also had long periods waiting for new tech, and then mass upgrades, although Leonardo's workshop made that a lot easier if you had it. The wait for new tech is part of what made it fun for me. Anyway, say what you want about gradual, incremental tech improvements vs. quantum leaps, but don't you dare badmouth my beloved JOMT syndrome

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
That's one of the features that makes the current generation of 4X games better than MOO. It's not a matter of just choosing among a few techs that anyone else might also have chosen anymore, now there are real differences in what is possible for each race/empire. The "path" through the tech tree is much less predictable and if technologies were a bit less transparent there would be much less predictability to battle tactics, as well. Do we need to know that shields II absorbs exactly X number of points of damage? Do we need to know that ECM I reduces the enemy's chance to hit by exactly X percent? Not really. We just need to know that it's better than the previous Version, or better than not having it at all.

---

As I said, I like the idea of everyone having different techs and ships. This does make it hard to balance things but, as the Grumbling Grognard says, fun gameplay is ultimately more important that exact balance. I agree that sometimes games where you have to struggle, and even where you wind up losing, are often the most fun. However, if a game is too unbalanced, it's usually not much fun to play, either because you'll discover a can't lose strategy that makes it stupid to use any of the other possibilities, or else bad luck can make it impossible for you to win no matter how well you play.

What I'm not crazy about is not knowing what your techs do. SE4 is a strategy game, and you need information on your unit capabilities to plan a rational strategy. Again, maybe I'm just more anal than you, MB, and like more detail, but it drives me crazy trying to play a game where there's no manual to tell you how combat works or what your units can do.

This isn't to say that uncertainty is always a bad thing. Anybody remember the old "Panzergruppe Guderian" boardgame? In it, you had untried units, so one side of the counter only had the unit's type (infantry, armor, etc.) and movement printed on it, and you only got to flip the counter over find out what the unit's combat stats were once you actually used it in combat. A research system like this could be really cool: your researchers have invented a new gizmo and you have a general idea what it does, but you don't get to find out its exact stats until it's tested under battlefield conditions. Building a prototype would *really* be building a prototype in this system. But, of course, this is more an idea for SE5 than for a game that's going gold in October.


[This message has been edited by Jeb (edited 17 August 2000).]