IMO one of the most important questions about the MOO2 legacy is the handling of technology. The way MOO2 did it was of course mostly great. I had only 3 issues with it. 1. Modding issue: Techs have not been moddable by the user. I hope tech in space sector is moddable by a simple to use editor. The reason is that many of the techs in MOO2 were not balanced and some tech choices where not as attractive as others. Of course sometimes this is subjective and different from user to user so an editor which allows the user to modify his techs would be cool. 2. Scaling issue: techs in MOO2 always have the same tech cost. They do not progress with the size of the galaxy. That leads to epic games where the players dont have anything to research anymore in the last third of the game and to tiny games where the players are able to research only a fraction of available techs. The solution to this dilemma would be a "scaling option". For example the Stellaris devs regognized the problem and introduced a tech cost penalty based on colonized planets. 3. The third issue is more fundamental. Its based on the fact that the empire which produces the most is in 95% of all MOO2 games also in the lead in research. This dominance of production leads to predictable planetary production queues. (auto-factory always first, later the lab and the rest) Therefore I suggest to uncouple technological progress from production progress as far as possible. This would not only improve the impact of player choices what to produce next, it would also give smaller empires a better chance to make a stand against larger ones.
3. There needs to be some connection but indeed it shouldn't be too much. A game that sort of implements this is Horizon I think. 2. Indeed I want tech cost to automatically increase by galaxy size from the get go (both scaling and a fixed amount), irregardless of the player's progression. It'd be great if there were something that can represent tech retardation over long distances in larger galaxies or something, but it's not necessary. The point is it needs to be there. This is one of the reasons of the late game boredom in 4X's. I hope you guys can look at more 4X techtrees other than MoO btw.
I’ve given some thought to this and this is what I came up with, have a look and tell me what you think. Scalable research is a given, consider also allowing the option for a player to set game research speed. Start by separating the technology into two, about 70% of the technology (base technology), goes into the tech tree. Structure the tech tree similar to Moo2 (6-8 research fields). All races will have access to the entire tree. Each race should then have one or two fields where they receive a research bonus (20%) and possibly an area where they receive a penalty, for each race the bonuses and penalties would be different. A creative race would suffer no penalties and have a bonus research rate applied to all fields but at a reduced rate (say 10%) The remainder of the technologies (Unique techs) should then be spread into artifacts discovered throughout the game as well as the random leaders appearing. In these cases it might be better if discovering these technologies does not mean that you instantly get them but rather that you are now allowed to research them. These technologies would be random and can only be researched if discovered. Some lower level leaders appearing in the game may also contribute some “blueprints” to base technology as a bonus. (50%) This approach would allow for a more diverse approach to research while staying true to the Moo franchise and as a bonus would be an instant enhancement to exploration as well. It would also add one more factor to consider when deciding on which leader to recruit. I also believe that this would be more feasible from a coding standpoint as well.
