Random tech ladder or fixed tech tree?

I hope they go SotS style, where certain techs are random, to the point where you may call it "random tech tree" even if it doesn't necessarily influence the way your going to play the map (or win a war against a specific opponent). Nothing wrong with the classical tech tree of choosing the optimal tech for whatever you're going to do as long it's actually difficult to come up with or choose that optimal tech and for that to happen, you need lots of viable techs and that's NOT easy apparently (with many 4X's have worse tech tree than MoO2 just because they can say it's different).

 

One thing i absolutely hated about Moo2 (I loved the game overall) was that you could only pick 1 of the 3 techs. This made absolutely no sense to me. If my civ was aware of the possibility of the other techs, or ever better, was aware another race already had such technology so they knew of its existence, then why could they not research it? That just makes no sense. Besides, it also made the creative trait far too powerful. I hope this not something they copy.

 

What i really like is the Hearts of Iron 2 techsetup.
You have some tech teams with scientists. You can choose from the tree. If you are the first discovering this technology it costs a lot.
If you are the second and have the "Blueprints" from the enemy (like form spying) its much cheaper.
I liked that setup so no party can make a huge scientific leap, because if you are always the first it costs so much to discover it. And all parties have a common base.

 

This makes the most sense to me.

 

I hope they use the original MOO2 tech system. It is excellent because it forces the player to choose and to diversify which is not often the case in other 4x games.

 

Has anyone played one of "difficult choice" mods for MoO 2? It solves the problem of never researching heavy armor because you really need automated factories.

On topic, I'm OK with both MoO 1 and MoO 2 approach if the game embraces the rest of the games philosophy. MoO 1 was incremental, in a sense you were acquiring bigger and bigger bonuses. MoO 2 had combinatoric choices along with incremental. Kind of like picking sidegrades for limited amount of slots. And race traits had good interplay with tech tree.

 

I guess everyone is different, as I loved this about MOO2. Being forced to make difficult decisions which have a long term impact is one of the keys to deep and challenging gameplay. Do I have better armour or longer range on my ships? How can I compensate for the choice I don't pick? This led to interesting gameplay, in my opinion.

They raised the cost of creative in the patch. No one picks it in multiplayer. It is not as powerful as you think. It's good against the AI, but a poor pick against human opponents.

 

keep in mind that its not only the way that research goes but usefulness of the technologies. thats why i liked space empires tech tree.. yeah for some is boring coz gaining a level in particular tech is getting a little bit better but still it gave you the moment of choosing in a sea of techs depending of situation so there was a lot of adaptation

 

SE 5 tech tree was boring because most techs had 100 levels which linearly increased effectiveness. Early levels where you really feel that +10% are fine but as you keep leveling items up that 10% on top of accumulated +400% makes only 2% relative difference. You stop caring about individual levels and keep going until you get 10+ levels or when you get to the final level.

 

for me it worked perfectly.. and imho its vastly superior to Moo system. simply the fact that depending who you encounter at beginning makes you invest in different things its a win..

 

I like the tech tree in Moo2 with two exceptions. The game was always less interesting to me with the creative option. There should be some bonus for this trait but not "you get all techs"
The second drawback I found was in how the progression of technology integrated with the game. It seemed at times that research was too fast and that by the time you actually fielded the new technology it was already obsolete.

 

If it is supported by other mechanics then yes. MoO 1 had RP interest system which encouraged spreading points over multiple fields and that "post light bulb" period where you had a chance to get the technology so you could let dice rolls work in one field and raw RPs in another.

 

As I expected, everyone like something different, and the tech tree is a good example of the many choices SS will probably have to make.

But I wonder and this is where I think the true future of 4x gaming lies, its really the only thing left to try.

Barring the practice of ...least work for most money, why aren't areas such as tech trees coded into the game so that payers could choose the option or type of tech tree applicatiion they wanted for that game play and then choose another for the next?

 

I think the word "Options" is key here, so many think you have to have it one way or the other only.
I would like to SEE options of not just two extreme choices, but some degree of choice between
the two. I personally like a Tech Tree that allows you to not only progress in a linear fashion,
but also with a High an Low selection from any other Tech that may have a Relationship to the
same Science. Think Hyper Drive and Mass Driver as an example.

 

+1

 

I think the tech part should be divided in two: Pure Science and Engineering(or Tech). Pure Science allows the discovery of new technology, like for instance:

• Energy generation/dissipation/containment
• Social sciences
• Terraforming of hostile environment
• Psychic powers
• Anything that leads to new abilities in the game

Engineering provides the optimization or practical uses of those scientific discoveries such as:

• A weapon that neutralizes shields or computers
• Shielding to protect from armor piercing weapons
• Virtual reality dome to improve morale
• Miniaturization
• Weapons specialization (MIRV, shield piercing, faster whatever, etc...)
• Cost reduction and production optimization
• etc...

To make it even more interesting, certain type of science should be available only to certain races and certain type of tech only works with certain type of strategic resources. When it come to stealing tech, if you steal a tech from an alien race without having the base science behind, you could use it, but at a much higher production cost if not at all.

For example, you have plain lasers as weapon. Your neighbor has Photonic cannons which required the Optical Physics discipline to develop. You could steal the blueprint for that and reproduce it on your ship, but they would cost a lot to produce and you could never specialize them or make them smaller, since you don't get the science behind.

That could open up interesting diplomatic and strategic options, you could steal tech, but not the science behind. In order to get the science behind, you would need to have some sort of diplomatic agreement or capture the scientific center or minds or planets behind this.

You could even make some sciences impossible to comprehend or implement among different species. For instance, if you develop some sort of super-soldier serum, it would be possible to adapt to other biological races, but impossible to give to mineral based lifeforms or robotic ones.