Avoiding The Must Build Starts

I agree... Having to build or research in a specific order in order to remain competitive is absolute crap.

If I'm an industrious kingdom I want to focus on industry yet remain competitive.

If I'm a warlike kingdom I want to focus on warfare yet remain competitive.

If I'm a brainy kingdom I want to focus on research yet remain competitive.

The idea of balancing coming down to always having to follow the same general stenciled tech/build path in order to maintain a competitive edge is probably THE number 1 thing I dislike about the 4x Genre.

For instance, your warlike people so you've focused on warlike research and buildings...

Your enemy meanwhile has developed their industry and research power...

Early clashes reveal you having the advantage and although your opponents may have more troops because of superior industry yours are superior and you manage to push them back... For a time.

However, eventually when the industrial ingenious giant your opponent has become focuses his infrastructure to warfare, all of a sudden your crushed like a small pitiful bug... Despite having focused on warfare the entire time.

This leads to EVERYONE having to follow the same general steps of infrastructure advancement and makes playing in a unique style almost impossible if you want to remain competitive.

I mean why would my barbarous, badass, pyscho-warriors care about building schools? They don't want Schools! They want weapons and armor! They want to prove themselves on the battlefield. And in a one on one they should dominate!

Conversely if you DO play as the brainiacs your superior weapons tech might help you to stay close to even with the murderous lot, but being the pacifists that you are you should never match them in a one on one.

I know it would be hard to balance everything... But I'm tired of their being the "Right" path and then every other path.

I agree. It seems especially bad in Warcraft, where unless I follow the exact prescribed Optimal Start from videos I'll get wiped by players and AI.

yes i have to through my own experiences in there and say that this plagues way to many games.  i am hopeful that there will be many viable starts in elemental that will suit the play styles of everybody, without handicapping it.

In Elemental, in my testing of pre-beta 2, there's a real question of whether you necessarily need to build a city right away because the NPCs are pretty important.

Well it would be nice if you expanded on that a little lol. But it does beg the question, why not throw down a city and get it started and then run around and do the other stuff? Was pretty standard in Beta 1, once the city was founded no point keeping the sov home.

But with the sov respawn on death in a city, it sounds incrediably dangerous to run around without one founded.

As for this line... Don't take this the wrong way....

But I Hate You.

But in seriousness God I hope Beta 2 hits this Thursday and not Next. Don't feel like there is anything more for me to test in the last few weeks. Without some form of new build no knowing what has changed and what hasn't. and no knowing if bugs we reported are still there or not and if there are new one to run down.

Second, how does one recruit champions that aren't in your 'territory'?  Anyone?  I never found a way, and only could recruit those in my borders.

I'll have to wait until Beta 2 before I can really make comments on the game. : )

I think Brad was trying to signal that he is aware that there is hardly a danger as great to any TBS than a No-Brainer, both in terms of late-game tedium and general fun. I think he will be trying to minimize No-Brainers and maximize meaningful polyvalent choices.

I think it's great that in a 4x game the game doesn't necessarily go the biggest army and biggest production center. That being said, if there are the "obvious" techs I go for, it's gotta be "farming". Other than that, Elemental is the first game where I'm not struggling to make as many research technologies as possibly to get a research edge. Simply, I need the short-term benefits that adventuring can bring. The whole adventuring technology path has been really growing on me in general.

This problem exists because for a successful empire in these games, you need a variety of techs, most of which are the early game ones. It's not even a balance problem so much as it is a fundamental capacity problem. You can't be an effective warmonger without the production to back it up, and production is economy based. Research is economy based. Diplomacy is sure helped if you have a strong economy to back it up (and switch to troops to defend yourself if need be).

Everything else is based on the economy, so any early techs that are economic in nature are required. After that, branching can happen.

Fixing it is a lot harder then you might think. The best way to do is to set the "base" level you start with higher, make techs comparatively weaker in the early game, and make research a lot slower. At that point you've got no real choice but to specialize in something early on, because dabbling in everything just gets you a lot of weak techs and research is slow enough that it takes too long to catch up on stronger ones. Unfortunately, 25 turns between techs and 300 turns before you get a really powerful one doesn't pass the "fun" test very easily.

You could also accomplish it by divorcing research from the economy entirely, but that means the main goal of building up an economy is to build troops, so you'll get more warmongers (as a millitary is essentially free when there's nothing else to direct the economy to do anyway).

Elemental is subject to this problem too. Want to be a warmonger? Great! The warfare line has lots of good tech for that, and you can get to it early... but you need citizens to turn into soldiers, and resources to make armor. That means you need towns, and houses. That means you need to get a farm on that fertile land you started off at. Farming is of course in the Civics line.

Want to research the spell of making? Great! Shame you need several labs to get enough researches to do it before anybody else, and you are limited in the number per town, and town size, and you'll need an army to defend yourself when other people realize what you're doing and come to stop you... so you'll need to build that farm. Back to the Civics line for you.

You see where I'm going with this. Town count, size, population, and resources are the limiting factors on warfare, research, defence, and so on. All of those things are economic and improved in the Civics research line. If you're playing on a large map, rushing to do anything other then build an economy is going to end badly. (On a small map, you could theoretically rush build an early army and go kill someone before they can react.)

This is truly spot on-- I was thinking the same thing but you articulated it very clearly.  Your point, however, doesn't resolve the OP's issue and that is to develop a game mechanic to partially address this. 

Perhaps one way to address this is to re-think the economy-based (and others) research tree and automatically give, after a certain number of turns, every playing faction the "basic" research outcomes-- e.g. as below construction, "farming", mining, and others of their ilk.  In effect, there is "The Fundamentals" research tree operating in the background (it could incorporate elements of all five research areas below), that the players and "AI" never sees, that everyone ultimately gets after X-turns pass.  In this way, by example, we all get "Pointy Sticks" (spears) but do I want to spend research points turning those spears into javellins first or pikes?

You're right. For me, this was a case of "I don't have a solutoin, but I admire the problem."

Your idea is pretty good, though. To expand it a bit, what if we removed the Civics tree entirely? The other four are all focused on different ways to play and win. In that sense, those four work well, and they don't really depend on each other (warmongers don't need to do much with diplomacy, and mages might not care for adventurers).

The Civics tree is different. It doesn't lead to its own victory like the others, and unlike the others it's highly dependent. Everything else depends on it.

So for my idea - remove it outright. Every X number of breakthroughs in any other research line also gives you a Civics upgrade. That lets you decide which way you want to go, and get the farm that you'd have to get no matter what.

Radical, but absolutely worth thinking about.  I would, however, think there are some "Civic" based research branches definately worth pursuing.  By example, "Seamanship" is given (don't we all go on rivers, lakes, waterways, etc. in some fashion?) but would it not be valuable to have a research branch where you can make trade ships larger? A research branch where you could pump just a bit more out of your farmlands/orchards compared to your competitors?  Gold mining (for income) as opposed to copper mining (weapons) as an offshoot of mines? That kind of thing?

Yeah, but the way the research model is right now lends itself to that. When you get a breakthrough, you get one of several things to pick from. You could use that to accomplish the goal, so when you get your civics breakthrough, you can decide to head down more advanced mining, saling, caravans, etc.

The Trees need work for sure. I think the "Auto" tech idea has merit and could be accomplished with only 3 or 4 freebies.

Farming, Construction and Mining (+/- Housing)All non-luxury type items.

From those basic 3-4 techs, then the real "where do I go now" decision making can take over.

I would however like to see the Civ Tree be left in play though.

The Warfare Tree certainly needs some revision, as currently, there is a couple of early choices that are simply a waste and don't really advance the tech, unless that was the intent.

I think we can all for the most part agree that the tech tree need some serious work as things stand in Beta 1Z. Granted we are not seeing what they have in Beta2 yet which I will admit at this point is very frustrating. Something like those nice long patch notes we used to get pre release would be nice to start from.

As for everyone getting basic techs at certain threshholds. That is definitely a unique idea with some serious merit. It even has real world examples. New techniques no matter how well guarded always trickle out. Some just faster than others but they always do.

Of course that opens up the questions of what techs, what thresholds,

Another point I am thinking is how to adjust the tech modifier. Lets take MoO2 for an example again

You take a basic starting race that has two production a unit. And IIRC you start out with about 3 pop you can make builders so pretty much 6 production. You get Auto Facs which adds a base 5 and +1 per worker. All of a sudden you have 14 production off those 3 workers, over a 100% increase. Again a must have tech starting out.

While I am loathe to admit it mabey the bonuses from techs like this need to be measured in decimals. Such as in the previous example the production per worker is made .5 and lower the flat bous to +1 or 2. Hence following the previous illustration. 3 workers at abase of 2 + 1 flat bonus +1.5 worker bonus. and we come out at 8.5 for the three instead of 6.

Still a significant jump in production almost 50% but much more manageable. And if you think .5 doesn't add up fast when dealing with pops. Cities in elemental go up to what 1000 pop. so from the previous example you are looking at 1000 pop giving 2501 production over an unmodified 2000 without the bonus.

Of course the flip side to this is not make it so low or put in other mechanics so that you don't just make it simpler to build an army and zerg.

Or here, this is an even more radical idea. WE all know that so far it seems that EWOM has alot of redundant building in place.

Why not change each tech tree to having it's own specific set of research buildings...

Examples

Baracks and Armories do what they do but also produce Warfare RP's

Town Halls produce prestige and produce Civics RP's

Inns and Taverns produce Adventuring RP's

Towers of Sorcery produce Magic RP

And mabey Schools and Consulates Produce Diplomacy RP

And to help at the start each town produces 1 RP for every category or you could even say 1 per level per turn

That way you still have control over what you want as your main focus by building more of those types of buildings. But you can still advance in all categories in a more even fashion. It increases the number of useful and distinct building in the game (more options never bad) and if you limit the research to the base structure plus say 2 upgrades it shouldn't become to overwhelming.

The Drawback here would be 5 different research typoes and associated bars. One could say more micromanagement though I would disagree there. and as for the K.I.S.S. aurgument, dammit this is a PC title and a TBS Wargame. We want some more complicated mechanics to gives us a deeper experience.

And what about techs that you would get for free if other players already have them for some time ?

I mean, if your opponent got pikes and fought you, then you should have a bonus on research points if you want to research pikes (or a percentage bonus to get them on the next breakthrough)

And I still think that housing, lumber, mining should be tied to your civic level. You don't research them : you get them for free when you reach some levels in civics.

At level 1 you get farming

At level 2 you get lumber

At level 4 you get housing

At level 7 you get mining

I like this idea a lot, with one minor change.

Each building type provides RP like you said, but you still only research one line.  When you research the warfare line, your Warfare RP producing structures all produce at full capacity, but all of your other structures only produce RP at one half or a quarter of the usual rate.  That cuts out the keeping track of five different types of research, but still means that wherever you are focusing your building (and therefore your economy towards) is where you will develop the fastest.

+1 Karma for you!

Here's another radical idea...

At it currently stands researching one line becomes progressively harder (the more you know about something the harder it is to learn even more).  This encourages folks to generalize -- stop pursuing one tech path to acquire others while they wait for their research capacity to increase enough to go deeper in their preferred tech path.  Thus we end up with players having a more similar, generalized tech pathing.

What if research got progressively easier (the more you know about something the faster you learn more)?  This would tend to encourage folks to specialize -- specialized teching.  We'd see folks going deeper into a tech path before switching to other paths, thus increasing the differences between player's teching strategies.

This would require slowing down initial teching -- reversing the teching rate (that or adding in a lot more techs in each path).  It would be harder to balance as the current 'teching rate increases over time' fits better with open-ended games.  On the other hand, even with the current system once one researches all tech lines to a certain point, teching is so slow it essentially stops at some point.

I guess the question is -- should teching encourage generalizing (everyone having essentially the same techs at midgame) or specializing?

Hearts of Iron 3 does something like this with its proficiencies, except they do it in building.  The more you build of something the more you increase your efficiencies in that area and the easier it is to keep building.  Stop, and those proficiencies will gradually wear off.  They are all shown, so the basics behind it are fairly transparent.  Something similar for research might not be a bad idea.  The problem I see with that is if it just makes it a matter of teching to the end of the tech tree for a particular lane, and then just doing it for each of the others in turn.  This should reward specialisation, but not to the point of total exclusion of other techs.

I personally don't mind the Civics branch as it is. I mean, it might be necessary to get a couple economic techs ... but with Gardens, for instance, I don't need farming all that early on.

I mean, the only thing I see as really integral to the Civics branch is Schools, but other than "beelining" for Schools ... there doesn't seem to be a lot of use in specializing the Civics tree early.

It would be cool, though, if Military buildings gave you RP points in warfare, and completing quests gave you RP points in Adventure.

Why not change each tech tree to having it's own specific set of research buildings...

Examples

Baracks and Armories do what they do but also produce Warfare RP's.  Each building type provides RP like you said, but you still only research one line.  When you research the warfare line, your Warfare RP producing structures all produce at full capacity, but all of your other structures only produce RP at one half or a quarter of the usual rate.

and

And what about techs that you would get if other players already have them for some time ?I mean, if your opponent got pikes and fought you, then you should have a bonus on research points if you want to research pikes (or a percentage bonus to get them on the next breakthrough)

These are very good ideas, too.  Very much like them. And other good ideas in a similar thread.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382913

I like the idea of "specialty RP points" to only produce @ a quarter of the speed/quantity when not researching in that particular field.

The only exception, I suppose, would be Adventure RP points from completing quests.

I have to say I like a lot of these ideas. Getting specialized Research points from certain buildings makes sense. What are they going to be doing at a barracks or armory? Training and finding new ways to forge weaponry. What are they going to be doing in a Wizards tower? Studying magic and developing arcane incantations. Also this way your never left in the dust of the Super research TITAN in your chosen field because you'll be constantly gaining new better specialized research buildings in your field. The rest all fits too. Marvelous Idea XeronX... You get a cookie.