Hi,



There hasn't been a dev post on research or tech, so this might be too soon. But still wanted to ask since it's not very obvious to me...



Will Endless Space 2 have Eras like in Endless Legend, or the classic Tech Tree from Endless Space.



As a player, which would you prefer?

The design doc on techs hasn't been released yet, but they've stated the general shape of how it's going to work. The idea of tech dependencies like a tech tree still exists, but they're soft prereqs instead of hard prereqs. So instead of saying "You must research Tech A before researching Tech B," it will instead say "If you research Tech A first, then researching Tech B is 25% faster." But you can research Tech B out-of-order if you want.



Personally I like the idea of soft prereqs. The tech tree still exists, so there's a "pathway" rather than just a mess of options, but going off-path is viable which expands options. I kind of like the idea of skipping earlier techs and jumping straight into the middle of a tech tree, rather than having to backfill two dozen minor techs.



I'm 50/50 on whether I like the idea of mixing Eras into this system.

I really liked the tech trees as it was in Endless Space and am totally against having an era system.

Hmm, some kind of a hybrid perhaps?

Personally, I would welcome a hybrid of "soft prerequisites" and "eras." The eras could be "soft capped" as well, technologies of higher eras being more expensive until you research a sufficient number of lower era technologies.

Of course, some people might feel that the term "eras" is out of place in a sci-fi space 4x, but there are a variety of other terms that could be used, such as "difficulty."

However, if there are no hard prerequisites, then the balancing needs to be impeccable to avoid techs that are always skipped or always a priority.