I'm just looking forward to seeing it in action.

Eoino wrote:
Not to sidetrack too much, but what are everyone's thoughts on increasing research costs based on the number of cities in ones empire? I know some games do this and others don't, it was introduced to Civ V in one of the expansions I believe and it was about 5% per extra city. The idea I guess is to make smaller more specialized empire viable against larger empire with more cities, from a tech point of view at least. Of course there could be other ways around this eg. having lots of buildings in the game so larger empires may take longer to build tech buildings etc.



Just some ideas, I'm not sure if this was in Endless Space? Plus maybe this is a bad idea and limits/stagnates people and empires?

Well, Endless Space had a mechanic that prevented endless growth in the early game, so I guess it would only be natural to have a similiar thing in Endless Legend.

To be honest, I really liked how CIV5 handled wide vs. tall empires. Before this iteration of the series, more cities was almost always better. It would be nice if EL would also offer some features that benefit small empires more than big ones (and maybe a small-empire oriented faction, like CIV5 did with Venice).

Varadhon wrote:
That's "a bit more of a surprise," not "a total surprise." Total opacity would be bad because, as you say, you would have no room for strategically planning your research options. However, a tech tree that is identical from one game to the next panders to min-maxers and reduces strategy to mere mathematics. I simply don't find that fun any longer--it's been done for over 20 years, it's time to finesse the mechanics.

I think Sword of the Stars had a great randomized tech tree: Before being able to research a tech, you first had to check the "feesibility" for a few rounds. That means you could actually first check which of your desired weapon systems would be available and then research what fits best into the given situation. Maybe EL could do a similiar thing by, lets say, adding a single tech before each tier that actually unlocks or modifies the cost of all techs in the upcoming tier. So in one game "Archery" might cost +50% extra, while "Horsemen" are -50% off, while in another game it's the other way around.

If you want to get fancy, you could also take the map, ressources or state of the game into consideration: If the player has lots of "Iron", "Ironworking" and related techs are cheaper, if he has none, it is a bit more costly. That could be an interesting spin on the "monopoly" mechanic from Endless Space.

Well it is so that it forces people to make hard choices and specialize, and will likely make combat much better than it was in Endless Space if simply because it is a major investment to adapt to your enemy rather than just a retrofit and research in two turns.

Andy_Dandy wrote:
I've never understood this fascination some players seem to have for suprise techs. It kills so much of the strategy, and will especialley be a bad idea with a the tech system of increasing tech costs in this game. Player directed is what gameplay is all about.

It's the same fascination that allows people to enjoy random maps and random enemy empires (I'm assuming you are OK with those). It makes each game different and requires you to try different strategies which (IMHO) makes good 4X games fun to play repeatedly, especially in single player modes.



There's always trade-offs and opportunity costs with tech.



Do you build research structures to boost your tech output, but sacrifice other areas of your game?

Do you rush higher tier techs or grab a lot of the low-level ones?

Is it easier just to steal/trade tech from/with your neighbors?

Will you have time to actually build and deploy the units you researched if you wait?



Penalizing players for researching more techs (vs deeper techs) seems like an arbitrary penalty to force a behavior. Without playing the game, it's hard to tell the effect, but I'm interested in the design thinking around this mechanic.

Not to sidetrack too much, but what are everyone's thoughts on increasing research costs based on the number of cities in ones empire? I know some games do this and others don't, it was introduced to Civ V in one of the expansions I believe and it was about 5% per extra city. The idea I guess is to make smaller more specialized empire viable against larger empire with more cities, from a tech point of view at least. Of course there could be other ways around this eg. having lots of buildings in the game so larger empires may take longer to build tech buildings etc.



Just some ideas, I'm not sure if this was in Endless Space? Plus maybe this is a bad idea and limits/stagnates people and empires?

its a fact that scientific organisations not subsidized by the government DO make major technological advancements.

Andy_Dandy wrote:




I've never understood this fascination some players seem to have for suprise techs. It kills so much of the strategy, and will especialley be a bad idea with a the tech system of increasing tech costs in this game. Player directed is what gameplay is all about.

That's "a bit more of a surprise," not "a total surprise." Total opacity would be bad because, as you say, you would have no room for strategically planning your research options. However, a tech tree that is identical from one game to the next panders to min-maxers and reduces strategy to mere mathematics. I simply don't find that fun any longer--it's been done for over 20 years, it's time to finesse the mechanics.

Propbuddha wrote:
Isn't that "just race up the tree" though? By penalizing players who choose a broad range of low techs, you force players into the higher techs.



You mention that this will force factions to be more distinct. I suspect that players will across the board invest in the same set (the perceived "best") low-era techs, just to era-up. This will be especially true if the high-era techs are better versions of the low-era techs (i.e "Armor 1" vs "Armor 2"). There's no benefit in researching a little bit of everything which seems counter to the idea of "no prerequisites".



I agree that it's difficult to judge without playing...

What you choose to call panalizing is what I would call opportunity costs and interesting hard choices and strategy. Things good games need, but too few dare to do hardcore enough.

Varadhon wrote:
What I would really like to see is a less transparent process for developing tech, so that it's a bit more of a surprise. That would take a whole new level of innovation, though I fear introducing opacity to a system that has typically been fairly straightforwardly player-directed would likely put people off.

I've never understood this fascination some players seem to have for suprise techs. It kills so much of the strategy, and will especialley be a bad idea with a the tech system of increasing tech costs in this game. Player directed is what gameplay is all about.

i was wondering about quests, do they favor far-reaching empires that can transport troops far away to possible quest locations or can smaller empires still compete on that level?

I'm not against this. I'd like to see how this plays out before deciding.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
this may give food factions a bit of an advantage though as most factions will likely start with growth techs rather than their specialties while food factions will be researching it the entire time.

If the devs balance the game well, it's not a problem. The starting position can give you a boost if you have the right weapons for instance. Don't forget quests.

Referencing the Science and Research Design Doc...



I really like the concept of a dynamic tech tree and allowing players to choose from a wide number of techs to start off. Systems like this are used in board games (ex. FFG Civilization) and offer more choices to player rather than forcing players to research a lot of stuff they may not want in order to get at stuff they do.



I'm trying to get my head around the thinking behind...

Once a technology has been researched, all other technologies will have an increased cost

This mechanic seems like an artificial penalty to slow down research that will be difficult to account for as a player. Researching "Iron Weapons" (made up tech) now makes "Sawmills" (made-up tech from same era) more expensive later. It's confusing that it would make something related, lets say "Steel Weapons" (assuming this was in the next era) more expensive. This mechanic (on paper) seems to discourage strategies where a play wants a lot of low-era techs and reward rushing top era techs. Assuming the high-eras contain "bigger and better" versions of low-ear techs, the optimal strategy would be to research just enough tech to era-up to the next level.



I was wondering how this mechanic is playing out and whether or not you considered other ideas.



Thanks for your attention.

this may give food factions a bit of an advantage though as most factions will likely start with growth techs rather than their specialties while food factions will be researching it the entire time.

It's not that blatant at the moment, I think. But the idea is there : will you reasearch weapons/armors/new units or things that are more about your empire ?

I hope the costs will really prevent players from reasearching everything.

so does this mean that we can finally see some nice divisions between factions? each having to use their science to further their specialties allowing the strengths and weaknesses in each faction to become more apparent?

Hum.. Last time I checked our dear VIP build.. it wa...*thump thump*

/Dead Oldcat.

One of the recent articles said that the tech costs only go up for other techs in that tier, so going back and grabbing techs from tier 1 won't be as expensive as the highest-tier tech available. This alleviates my worries about the system quite a bit.

Propbuddha wrote:
Referencing the Science and Research Design Doc...



I really like the concept of a dynamic tech tree and allowing players to choose from a wide number of techs to start off. Systems like this are used in board games (ex. FFG Civilization) and offer more choices to player rather than forcing players to research a lot of stuff they may not want in order to get at stuff they do.



I'm trying to get my head around the thinking behind...







This mechanic seems like an artificial penalty to slow down research that will be difficult to account for as a player. Researching "Iron Weapons" (made up tech) now makes "Sawmills" (made-up tech from same era) more expensive later. It's confusing that it would make something related, lets say "Steel Weapons" (assuming this was in the next era) more expensive. This mechanic (on paper) seems to discourage strategies where a play wants a lot of low-era techs and reward rushing top era techs. Assuming the high-eras contain "bigger and better" versions of low-ear techs, the optimal strategy would be to research just enough tech to era-up to the next level.



I was wondering how this mechanic is playing out and whether or not you considered other ideas.



Thanks for your attention.

You have to make choices.

You know in advance that everything you won't research early won't be later or at a cost.

So... you have real choices to do : in civ games you more or less research the whole tree, the only differences between players are how advanced they are or the last few techs researched.

There you have a game where you can see the same faction with two different tech tree and thus two really different ways to play with the same faction.

as long as the more powerful faction specific technologies arn't available early game even through rushing then this system will be fine to me.

You still have to research a certain number of techs in the current field before you can advance to the next and which one you choose first will make a difference because it will be the cheapest (i.e., not subject to the structured penalty).



As to the "just race up the tree"--we really can't know until we have an idea of what the techs are. I agree with you that it just cloaks the old problem in new clothes if the techs are generic iterations on one another. They could make huge differences though if the techs are inter-related with resources scattered about the world. Armor 2, for instance, wouldn't be much use to you if you have no access to the special resources necessary to craft it; maybe Armor 1 is great for you because you have a surplus of whatever resource is required to make it, though. Racial stats could play a similar role.



Again, until we have the game in our laps, it's really hard to judge, but the foundation is there for something that breaks the typical mold.