I really like this idea! I'd tack it onto my idea of research branches with unlockable leaf nodes.

For example, you could have a tech tree that starts with "Weaponry" and contains branches like "Magical Weaponry" and "Heavy Weaponry".  Each node on the tree has unlockable elements, some may be included in your research depending on your race (so researching Weaponry immediately unlocks Swords & Axes for one race and Bows & Daggers for another).  If you want to use a different style of weapon you can unlock it with gold or mana.  Alternatively, quests or recruited heroes might reveal a completely new technology that you can then unlock to provide a distinct boost.

Magical Weaponry would contain lists of items like "Imbued with Fire" or "Imbued with Ice" etc that are only unlockable if you have access to the appropriate shard.  Building units with those magical weapons would require you maintain access to the shard and also use mana from the global pool upon queuing.

So you've researched Magical Weaponry and unlocked the standard "Imbued with Fire" to provide your soldiers Swords that do +Fire damage.  Then you take on a quest that leads to the discovery of an ancient incantation that allows you to create a blade of pure fire.  This new icon would show up in your tech tree for you to unlock, providing you exclusive access to this kind of weapon.  But you'd only be able to use it if you'd already researched "Magical Weaponry" and held one fire shard.

TBH, though, I really doubt that FE will have a tech-tree significantly different than the current one.

For myself researching technology is  very much a part of the fun of this type of game. All part of the for X stratergy game experience, if they take it out I won't be interested in playing.

I also think FE has a much better technology implementation than in EWOM.

Research trees are cool and I don't think they should be axed at this point.  *These* research trees specifically might need some love.  There are some good ideas in this thread.  

Fundamentally make sure there might be some reason to take a different path from one game to the next.  That there would ever be a case where you might look at the game state and say, I really need or could exploit technology X and it would be worth the tradeoff to get it ASAP.  

I like the research system. It allows pregression and more city specialization, and I will take as much city specialization as I can get. However I agree that exploring, questing, and archaeology should play a bigger part in the system. It would make sense given the lore. Also the tech trees do need a lot of work and I hope they get heavily shuffled by the time FE goes out.

That could also work and would make a nice mod.

Research does serve a purpose. Factions that focus on research can be more technologically advanced than others, at the cost of something else. It creates diversity - i.e. a massive army of peasants against a small elite force with top notch equipment.

But the key here is to make technological advancement a real choice to focus on with a drawback to it. Otherwise it's just extra clicking that is annoying.

... and we have another Settlers or Anno. These titles are doing it this way and has done it many times, sometimes with great results. IMO there's no way that FE could beat them. I like the research but I guess it needs more flavor and randomness, more unique resources and technologies to work them. The whole fantasy genre has many interesting flavors and ideas. In FE right now I can't see the "magic", the "epicness".

@Drakohan I like your ideas, and that is nicely summarized.

I think my big problem with research is that I have to research basic shit like pointy sticks and how to plant crops.  I don't want to research that shit, shit that I need for having a basic functioning nation should be automatic.  Maybe eliminate the first half of the tech trees?  Or give the option of starting with those complete, like the first two or three rows.  

via different "time options"

Having the first two columns of the tech trees would certainly speed things up (maybe minus the exploration techs) ...

AKA be the common "advanced start" like a classical start or something.

I agree : I usually like tech trees, but this one is awfully boring, and it results in we not having anything to do with our cities 75% of the time.

Most of the current civics and warfare techs need to be moved to the beginning (I don't care about the lore, chainmail should be available from the beginning if we don't want the game to be decided by cavemen vs cavemen (which would be fine if the game featured dinosaurs).

These techs should be replaced by techs with a more magical feel (like golem factory or whatever), that don't sound like they were escaped from Civilization (which would be cool if the game was not a medieval fantasy one, but one whose purpose was to replay the early history of the world). 

That would be cool, but that would shrink the already smallish tech tree for us (= the players who don't like perhistoric  fantasy). That's why I'd rather have most techs moved at the start and replaced by ones that feels more at home in a med fan setting : it's all about perceived coolness factor :

unlocking mundane troops in civilization is cool, because of the mindset you are in when playing the game. But doing the same among dragons, wizzards, and vorpal swords is not cool at all. It is the same I felt when I had to go through many level up just to unlock 2 handed weapons in Spellforce 2 : having an über melee hero unable to fight with a mere 2 handed weapon  just didn't click... While in the other hand, it is pretty cool to turn your peasant levy into armored zweihandler wielders in Mount and Blade : it is all a question of contextual coolness. And most of the items of the current tech tree are completely lackluster in this context. It's as if they had us develop spear, ballistas, gunpowder, machineguns for the 95% first part of MAster of Orion, and only fight in space for the last 5% part.

I agree entirely with this. Playing strategy games is about making choices and there are no choices involved in having nothing to build (or at least nothing which it makes sense to build) in any of your settlements most of the time early-mid game.

Well tech trees are good if you do it like Sword of the Stars where it is more a choice then a penalty. But in FE most techs don't give much and feel more like a barrier to overcome so you can move forward, especially anything to do with food. 

I think the choice comes in what to research first. Do I research more civic techs so my cities are more powerful and can produce more research, gildar, units, etc.? Do I focus in warfare so the units I do crank out don't drop like flies to a freaking bear cub? Or do I focus on magic so that I can grab heroes early? I think there are choices in the way the research tree is designed now.

After reading thorugh the posts I was going to say something like this... Then your rezzed your own thread to say it.

I think the basic shit issue causes AI problems as well, and hurts the strategy of the game. It's hard to react to your opponents moves when you have to spend 30 turns waiting for a basic, necessary tech to become available. Mind you, all of this is during the part of the game that actually matters. Once you've researched all your basics, the game is basically over.

Fundamentally research should do 2 things

1. It should provide bonuses in areas of your choice so that you can customize your nation.
2. It should provide new and interesting ways to counter existing tactics.

For point 1, I think it might dramatically improve the game if we did away with the typical "get all tech" race that we see in games like Civilization. This is a fantasy game, and races should be allowed to customize instead of being forced into generalization because high level techs take too damn long. I want to see a nation put all research into war, and not have to wait 350 turns for a tech, and still be viable because combat and economic options are available through all trees. Basically we need smaller wait times and bonuses between techs. I'd also suggest adding the end game "unlimited research" techs to the very front of the tree as unconnected options so that players can choose to customize stuff as they see fit.

For point 2, this means providing all the stuff we need (basic bows, horses, armor, buildings) right from the start of the game. From there on you could unlock things like walls and siege equipment to build a defensive/aggressive empire. And lots of other stuff I don't have time to type because my wife just got home got to go!

It really wouldn't feel like turn-based strategy to me without a research tree..  That being said, Xia makes some excellent points, particularly about having to research the pointy sticks and planting seeds.

The FE research tree is light years better than WoM's was, but it could still use a lot of improvement.

I'd personally like to see some of the basic techs removed from the list and given freely to all factions at game start, but then the rest of the tree expanded significantly with new techs and spread out.

When I play TBS, I like to take my time and play big, long games that still feel like they are evolving over time.  I usually play Civ 4 and Civ 5 on Epic or even Marathon and use mods like History in the Making and Rise of Mankind (even though they often crash my PC :P)  just because they add lots of cool 'stuff'.

Something That ambitious would probably be too much to ask of this game and better left for modders to add in later., but for now I still hope the research tree can be made richer and feel less punishing than the one that exists now.

I agree with eliminating about the first 33% of the tech trees, and adding more specialization and "epic-ness" to each individual tech tree. 

Basically, the sovereigns should know how to start and run a basic civilization, but they need to *learn* how to take over the world.

Also, why can't traits and (more) spells be unlocked via the tech tree???

WOM had both magic and tech research and It was a bit too much for me. I hoped that they would get rid one of them in FE, and they did, just not the one I hoped for. Research in FE is much more fun than WOM, but I wish they went the MOM way, that is magic/spell research.

Researching two techs just to build a gold mine is painful, so I agree with all those that said that alot more of the starting techs should be unlocked.

Though I like the research option, my one issue with FE is that there are too few branches. It has gotten better though with more magic branches, it needs still more to give players a more diverse gaming environment.

In Magic I would like to see branche that unlock new spell books, spells and traits.

In Warfare I would like to see branches for improvements that affect the tactical battles for your cities (fortifications & seige weapons) along with new types of unusualy weapons (think DaVinci or Archimedes)

I don't mind 'that' much that I have to research basic techs. I would definately prefer that each route of research provide it's own means of advancing and could be focused on while remaining competitive with the others, otherwise why not just use one big linking tech tree?. I have given up trying to persuade the devs into making changes of this nature however..

What really bothers me is that the technologies are bland. Maybe it has to do with being able to design my own units, but finishing researching chainmail doesn't provide the same excitement as getting a destroyer or a battleship, or a knight or an archer. On that first research of bows suddenly I can do something different! On my fifth research of melee weapons, i'm significantly less enthusiastic.  The same is true for many of the civic buildings, in fact after roughly the first 3 research tiers buildings start all being 1 per faction. Yay?

I don't care so much that my ciites don't build anything for a big part of the game. Honestly it always bothered me when I didn't have the turns available to build the stuff I wanted, but time constraints aside there isn't much to build, and on top of that when i'm finished I can't put that production to use.

Just fyi, traits -are- unlocked with the tech tree, they just don't mention it in the tooltip. You can get discipline for regular units if you go high enough into the warfare tree.

Thanks for the technology dependant traits correction. I would have missed this one, as I usually stop when the game seems won, which usually happen before I have anything better than shortbows and spears.

 I thought too, but it was the same in Master of Orion, design wise and in MOO, I was really excited about unlocking almost every single tech. I don't know why it worked here and not there. Maybe because each new tech in MOO felt like a massive improvement over the previous one : having phasers when your opponent still had fusion beam was a big deal. Getting from level 3 shields to level 5 too. Here, tech only seems to give a tiny incremental improvement. That's why I would like most of the early tech removed, and give more bangs to each tech unlock.

But the design in MOO was pretty different, you had many more parameters to take into account (cost, survivability vs energy weapons, point defence, ordinance. There were too many cool stuff to load enough of them on a single ship, while you never really have such "difficult choices" to make in the unit designer).

 In MOO, it was usually somewhat sound to develop a complementary force (point defence vessels, missile gunboats, and fleet support vessels), while here, we usually end up with armies consisting of a single unit type.

/thread

THIS is why research is a must.

My main issue is with the trees themselves, not the fact that they are there.

Some techs are ridiculously useful and gamechanging....for example...leather armour. HUGE game change.

While some are so miniscule it feels like its just a barrier to the REAL stuff. THIS is what I'd love to have changed...each tech should feel like a real accomplishment or something I truly want. I also think the trees should NOT be as linear.....forcing people to spread out their tech path makes for specialization which is good.

Axing the very basic techs (the first 2 columns of each treee should be enough) and adding higher-level techs (3rd column) to the faction traits while not reducing the cost of techs in a major way (some condensation might still be worthwhile) has another nice touch to it:

Considerable faction differentiation:

I remember when in WoM there were Factions starting with full Archery. That was one of the few things giving a good amount of differentiation and was quite fun. If a bit unbalanced at the time (because the alternatives weren't as strong not because the idea itself was unbalanced)

Relias starting with being able to recruit Level 5 or 7 Champs (not sure which is 3rd column) while Quendar starting with higher archery, Pariden and Resoln with some serious magic oumph and Capitar with some major economic tech (like trading Resources right from the start) and the Trogs + maybe Tarth starting with some real weaponry and some faction starting with riding would radically change how factions play compared to each other. Of course those Techs would have to be picked well and possibly the cost of those traits be increased to prevent picking to many of them in the faction-builder.
Production and resources is still a limit at the start... Waiting the first 100 Turns (or more) for nothing but the most basic stuff (like using base resources like shards and food ect.) most factions / players have to research anyways to accomplish even establishing the most basic needs doesn't sound to much fun to me...

(this is also possible to do without axing the early parts of the tree with just giving out higher level techs from the traits of course... But I do like the Idea to give more of the very early techs right from the start. Would help the AI either. And in spite of the fight vs. the environment being fun the scarcity of the most basic stuff [and there really is nothing more in the first 2 columns] doesn't actually add much to the game. To me its a deteriorating factor to fun as well.)

Of course including start-eras into the game would be another option to accomplish this but I believe the game as a whole could benefit from a later-era start at least as default balancing for the game (since different eras are bound to be a considerable unbalancing factor...)



I can't find anything bad about the tech-tree's existence as a game concept in principle though (actually even right now it does add good stuff like existing differentiation ect. to the game).
As long as the design is fun and research times are less long / benefits less scattered. Researching a new tech should come faster in late game and matter more... (adventuring-section of the tree excluded since there the pace seems right, maybe even a bit to fast but way faster compared to the rest which seems sluggish and way to fragmented...)

I agree with getting rid of technology trees. 

To make game interesting I would however introduce more materials like bronze or stone, obsidian in case of making weapon/armour. I would introduce also luxuries for trade, so perhaps you have no iron, but you have something to trade for it, or if you are rich, mercenaries would be an option.

I would love to for a change to play in a game where you made/produce every weapon or armor, then put it on people, who then cannot work for your empire. The size of your army and its character would be bound to what you can make, money you can spent on maintaining your army, and how many people you are willing to spare. So one choice in game would be how you balance your economy/trade according to resource you have got.

Research should be reserved to magic only. However, I would divide it into categories like: runes (weapon/armour improvements), global enchantments, summons, war magic etc. Spells available to research I would also bound to shards you own. Some spells could  be researched only if you have enough magic power available, let's say three water shards. The choice would allow you to specialize your strategy, since the power of spells would progress according to the level of research. To make things more interesting, you could link spells with shards directly, if you loose them, you cant cast spells you researched ….

Right now late researchers demand lots of time, yet they bring a little of improvement. If I have a choice between one late game magic tech or 12 civics techs which I so far neglected, 12 civics will always beat it. It is not the case, for instance, with dominions when some late research is so powerful, that it better than 6-7 early researches in other categories.

I've been thinking about this.  Putting more of the pre-designed units on the research track would help (at least for a player's first few games).  More than anything, though, I think the major problem is the incremental nature of weapons in the game.  A batteship or knight had an obvious role which was going unfulfilled in your army prior to its invention.  They opened up more strategic options and provided good counters to units that had previously gone unchecked.  Weapons, with the obvious exception of bows and magic staves, don't do anything except make your troops a little bit better at what they already do.

In short, the tech trees should be mostly about opening up new possiblities in game play, not about improving upon what you're already doing.  Incidentally, this was one of my problems with a lot of the buildings in Civ 5 on release.  There were about 6 different kinds of buildings that you unlocked at the beginning and then just unlocked better versions from then on.  They've made strides toward differentiation since, fortunately.

For the most part, I like the tech tree. I do get excited when I research chainmail or unlock broad swords or horse back riding because I know I can start making some units that rock. The starting technologies have a role in the early game decision making: do I beef up my cities or get some spearmen to deal with the god damn bear cubs.