I think this is a great idea! Every game involves some amount of luck and a random tech tree is no different. In fact, it encourages MORE strategy as you have to think "is going down path A worth the risk to potentially getting better shield tech or should I go down path B that seems more safe." The way to balance the "one player has more than player B" is solved easily by making the tech tree random per game, not per player. Every player would have the exact same random tech tree, that way it becomes a matter of who makes the best tech choice.



Plus I always hated "Oh I have to do X and Y to get Z" every 4x game, to where it became an automatic, robotic movement making the tech tree system less fun and involved. At least this way, it's different each game and would keep the person more attached and involved in the system.

being equal in footing in every aspect doesn't necessarily create multiplayer balance. All it does is create static "perfect build" gameplay, and trust me that will kill MP faster than anything.



What you do is create certain items in the tech tree that are absolute. For example, getting at least 1 of every ship frame is absolute to prevent the loss of "competitiveness". You should always have to evaluate your strengths and weakness. Are you weak in carrier tech? do you then make up for that with more flak cannons per-ship? Now you suddenly discover a powerful carrier design and have to reevaluate your ships. An evolving game (even if it appears slightly unbalanced) creates a more enjoyable gameplay experience. As strategy is really about making do with your weaknesses.



Edit:



I am not against the current design if it had to be left in place, I am just trying to point out that there is a better system out there especially for a 4x space game.

In sots 2 you have not one way to development, so it's easy to research other type of weapon. Actually I also like this system, because you must think more about design and tactics, create new ways of development. This increase your playing skills.

However, I can't see ways of implementation this system in ES, because there aren't a lot of technologies and research tree has a different structure. In ES it has more traditional structure.



Also I have a counter suggestion. Let will be some techs in research tree, that need more than 2 (even 3) techs to develop. Or another idea. When you had researched one previous non-necessary tech, it would boost researching next tech.

I think that this is a neat idea but I do not see a way to balance it in multiplayer. One player would have an advantage over other players because they have bigger or better tech tree.

Let me ask this question back, how many ways can you make a tech tree? A tech tree is considered common, it is only legally ambiguous if it copies it exactly too the letter which my suggestion doesn't do. (this includes the look)

i actually didn't really like the SotS random tech tree

sure it made the game seem more repayable but it made some of the really good techs (mainly AI development) really unpredictable and risky (e.g. if you can't get the AI control techs after an AI rampage, it become extremely difficult to recover)

also i have really no idea were this stands legally with the whole "intellectual propriety" buisness

+1 to this idea, I think it would make the whole technology side of the game more interesting. Not only having the trees blocked out, which would force you to experiment and would make sense for the techs to build on each other based on your discovery, but also possibly having certain conditions to unlock the effects of the tech tree, or even have them depend on race.



It would make sense for the more warlike factions to be able to advance in the Galactic Warfare tree on possibly a more direct path through having more links, but have randomized less links on say, the Diplomacy and Trade tree.



While it would definitely gimp some of the factions ability to perform certain roles, I think it would make for a much more dynamic experience.

I think this is a great idea. The idea of a randomized and hidden tech tree makes research much more interesting and causes you to almost gamble with what to research and what not to. It also in a way would drive you to research what will best fit your current situation instead of research the best path towards your goal (plan super far in the future).



In reality people research/experiment/invent when there is a problem, or they realize something can be done better. They never know what may be the result of their work, it could blossom to be something amazing and gateway to new tech, or it could just be a dead end.



A line from a video game, i don't remember which, was "There are technological paths towards the same end result". My end result may be Super strong ships, however there are many ways to go about this, i could research loads of regeneration, loads of armor, or even powerful shields (Maybe things i can't even think of but you can). The end result is the same, strong ships, but there are many paths to that same goal. The paths that are taken can be considered to be truly random in origin.



Integrating this sort of random technology tree in a game like this would be amazing, even if its just optional, it brings an entirely new level to research and technology.



Great idea Naisho, i applaud you.

Rykof wrote:
I just mostly also would like to avoid the best build situation that everybody would do for every race in every situation.

"best build" against what? If the enemy is sporting beam weapons, you had better be loaded up with shields. There is no such thing as a generic best build in this game. You have to pick a pony and bet on it. Good scouting helps. Or you could TRY being mediocre at all three, but that's not going to win.



Also, check out the thousands of youtube videos for the game StarCraft 2. They all rave on about "build order" and "build timing" for the first couple minutes, but then they all drop the topic. Why? Because the situation changes too much after that. The same thing is true in this game: Maybe you meet an enemy later on that has gone all missiles, and you have to change up your fleet composition on that front.



Most of all, I want to be able to make relevant decisions in the tech tree. The 3-weapon/3-defense structure supports this kind of behavior, and allows for committing any number of research points to a specific build (Going missile with anti-gun defenses for instance).



This part about committing vs staying flexible is an interesting one.



Also, there are random tech events that come up in this game already. If you want more of them just turn up the setting.

Naisho wrote:
being equal in footing in every aspect doesn't necessarily create multiplayer balance. All it does is create static "perfect build" gameplay, and trust me that will kill MP faster than anything.



What you do is create certain items in the tech tree that are absolute. For example, getting at least 1 of every ship frame is absolute to prevent the loss of "competitiveness". You should always have to evaluate your strengths and weakness. Are you weak in carrier tech? do you then make up for that with more flak cannons per-ship? Now you suddenly discover a powerful carrier design and have to reevaluate your ships. An evolving game (even if it appears slightly unbalanced) creates a more enjoyable gameplay experience. As strategy is really about making do with your weaknesses.



Edit:



I am not against the current design if it had to be left in place, I am just trying to point out that there is a better system out there especially for a 4x space game.

I like what you're saying here. Having, as you called it, equal footing in every aspect can definitely lead to perfect build gameplay. I too think it would be fine if the current design is left but if they made it so not everyone in multiplayer had the ability to get the same techs it would create a much more dynamic game each time. I think it would be cool if one guy got a bunch of the really good techs but the others didn't have them available. This could lead the players without the techs to form an alliance to take down the "super power". Plus, if it is randomized each game, the next time someone else could have the "advantage" and the game would unfold entirely differently. While that might be frustrating to a point it also means you can't just have a formulaic approach to the game. You would have to think about it and come up with new strategies each time. But anyway, that's just my two cents. Something to think about.

A mesh of the two systems would be great.



Have a static tree with set techs with the links between one tier of the statics and the next obscured. To get from "shields 1" to "shields 2" might take the path of 1, 2 or 3 hidden nodes of random tech. These random techs could be completely new techs to bonues to the trees they are connected to. For example, between "Shields 1" and "Shields 2" I find 2 nodes of random tech and these are "Enhanced capacitors" that give a bonus of 2% to all shield techs and "Phased Shields 1" that sits in between "Shields 1" and "Shields 2"



TLDR - Static techs trees with randomized tech connecting them that are hidden by a "fog of war"

Two options then,



1. Rather than a randomizer that "denies access" to something, make it a bonus.

2. Create alternatives.



What are some ways that might be done?



One idea, be selective in the technologies that are made 'random', so as not to create undesirable effects.

On SotS, priority is purely ship/fleet based. And technology priority is all about ships/fleets. About, how many ways you can customize a ship, or how many different versions of ships you can make out of different chassis. You have access to tons of weapons, choices, and stuff. If you cannot research something, you have alternatives, or sometimes, second chances to get it via another technology.



In this game, there isn't a technology priority; you need bits from everything to succeed. And everything is important. As there isn't a priority on technologies, you have less choices - by less I mean, you either get kinetic weapons, or beams, or missiles. You cannot make this random. Because there isn't much to research as an alternative. Same also applies for other trees. If there aren't alternatives to pick up if randomizer "denies access" to something, you simply cannot make it random. Unless they expand the tech trees (and I really, REALLY hope they do...), random tech trees are just a dream.

I love SotS II



it's only now becoming a proper game, but I love it for it's scope and ambition to bring innovation to tech and governments and combat and I'll be buying every DLC for it in the hope that one day Kerberos can fully realise their vision

SotS, like Gal Civ II, wants the player to work to master the game







I also love Endless Space



but where ES excels is in refining existing mechanics into a super smooth strategy experience

ES wants to be understood and, while that may hurt the game's longevity for some players, splodgin tech-trees into randomness doesn't suit such an approach at all









if only SOTSII had half as beautiful a UI as ES

I wouldn't mind semi-randomized research, but I also would like to be able fully unlock some areas through racial traits, the strongest being an MOO2-style Creativity trait, and then other traits that grants the player to guarantee and deny specific branches of research. For example, one race may specialize in Crystalline and Temporal technology, but can't research advanced Biology and Engineering disciplines.

Id rather just see more racial oriented tech trees but having it be randomized would certainly make each game unique

No -It is great to post. --> As follows



That being said, the second major issue i found in alpha was the research tree.

At first it seemed like an interesting idea to choose stuff one by one and advance slowly, but then it hit me that as you develop and your research time shorten, you can get back to things that you didnt pick and research them in 1-3 turns, making the whole "tree" design completely obsolete.



Example: Masters of Orion 2



(See link in blog)



You see in MoO2 you had 8 categories to research from, each holding roughly 10 levels and having 1-4 items on each level

The twist is that from the 1-4 items you could research, you could pick only a single one (unless you had a racial trait that told you otherwise). The remaining items which you couldnt pick were lost to you. You couldnt go back to research them later, they were simply lost.

At first, this might sound a bit bad, but trust me: its not.

The reason is that firstly: this made the tech trees of each race unique (what would they pick?)

and second: this was the first reason for trade and spying. Steal and trade for the techs you couldnt research right away.



In my honest opinion the tech tree needs a gain/loss based system that allows you to pick something but lose something else in return. It makes planning and thinking more of a challenge and lets face it: The current "research everything" is sort of useless. No challenge, strategy, real planning involved. It just feels repetitive and plain simply boring.



------------------- My additions ---------------------



Love it. My major concern also remains that at the end, you go back and research the other stuff anyway. It does not seem... natural and is just too.. generic.

Im supporting this.

Also: I wont copy paste the full thing here, but please refer to my blog entry. Leave your thoughts and if you agree with me, keep on posting the link around. I hope to get the devs attention somehow.

Tartopaum wrote:
I think that a nice way to combine randomized tech trees with (kinda) long-termed strategy and (kinda again) balance would be to implement research fields (RFs).

Let me explain:

- all players can technically access the same set of technologies, which may be randomly determined, and may be hidden,

- Every technology have prerequisites: a (more or less) randomly fixed amount of research points in certain fields for instance, or simply other technologies,

- Research fields may be, like, weapons, shields, but also light, nuclear, wormholes, gravity, etc...

- Not all research fields are available from start. To unlock a research field, a player should encounter some prerequisites. For instance, to unlock the wormhole RF, one should first discover a wormhole,

- RFs may also be unlocked thanks to the enemy, by spying on them, or by capturing ships,

- Some RFs may be unlocked as simple techs: by reaching a given value in some others RFs,

- RFs available from start may depend on the race and the starting planet/system of the players,

- To develop techs, one should invest more or less in given fields. For instance, investing massively in weapons and in nuclear RFs will fatally lead to more powerfull nuclear weapons, but may also unlock more efficient nuclear energy sources (who knows what else may be discovered if we keep researching that way?). That kind of "side discovery" (understand, unpredicted by the player) may lead to re-think one's strategy to take advantage of this new particularity.



Plus, I think that that kind of system may interoperate well with other ways of acquiring techs, via diplomacy or exploration for instance, because unlocking a given tech for which we do not meet prerequisites would not break the tree.

Probably one of the better elaborations on how this might work. I really like the idea of pre-requisites, and the idea of random encounters. It is THESE sorts of details, that make a game replayable far more times than not. How might this work with some of the tech's presently in the game, to make this easier to the dev's. Also, it is feasible - is there dev interest in this, or are we wasting out time?



For the positive side - this dev team seems FAR more interested in us than the Civ 5 dev team, I have completely given up on. Load after load of rubbish new, money sponging civs, with broken diplomacy and victory. Yuck.



While I am on the topic, I would love to see a UN style possibility, sanctions, embargoes, travel restrictions, treaties, military exchanges, outright licensing of particular ship designs - bring it on!

I had the pleasure of playing a game called Sword of the Stars.



It probably was the best tech tree design I have ever played with as it added a sense of replayability in a true sandbox game.





The basics of it follows like this, each tech beyond the starting tech was blacked out. You had to research the next tech in the tree to find out what was next.



Sometimes entire segments of the tech tree were missing. For example, one game I played the shield tech tree existed. The next game (with the same faction) the entire tech tree for shields was removed.







How to apply this to your tech tree.





I believe it would be possible, (if you dont want to remove tech) to randomize the spider webbing between tech, and sometimes make tech lines completely end in dead ends, or you have to go about researching a tech almost backwards. Never knowing how the spider webbing connected your tech tree together until you research that current tech thus showing the next possible tech you can research, or just going into a dead end.



This kind of randomization prevents "best build" tech lines from appearing, and making players adapt to evolving situations.



*just food for thought*