Would we know at the beginning of the game what the random techs will be?

May I sugges:

4. Excluding techs. If you choose to research a environmental tech like fast growing wheat (+ food) then you dont get access to the tech scorched earth (remove forest to create normal land

Bad examples here, but I hope I get my point across.

Hello,

  The above tech ideas sound cool.  I always thought it was silly to research something specific.  Even though it wasn't a very good game, MOO 3 had a cool idea with tech research.  You would put a certain percentage of your research towards any number of tech trees (10% to weapons, 30% towards biology, etc...) and you didn't really have any concrete idea of what you were getting, or when.

  It could be like gov. grants where you invest heavily towards military might while leaving out education and infrastructure (sound familiar ) 

  You could get an occasional update as to what is being researched, and where it is, but you never know EXACTLY how it'll turn out.

  In MOO 3 you would also get updates saying things like "Our researchers have come up with a great new idea about ---- .  Would you like to invest in this idea?"

Sounds good! Random tech will makes games more interesting.

Sounds good!

-Randomize quantitative effects of techs within a reasonable range.

-Have later techs affect earlier techs (like in MOO2)

What I didn't like about research systems is that you need to learn a tech tree, and subsequent games you plow on auto-pilot.

Here's my beef with the current research mechanism:

If I want to get to say horse back riding, I end up having to go through a bunch of largely unlreated techs first.

The UI for the current system doesn't lend itself to rapid branching and as a result ends up being quite linear.

Love the idea of infinite research. More generally i like the idea of a massive tech tree that is impossible to reseach everything and demands you make choices.

Situational techs is imo a great idea. I would love to have a random generated world with absurb amounts of horses running around and a tech tree centered around horse back riding. (just an example don't really expect to see a whole tech tree chaning because of a situation)

Imo random techs are potentially more problematic. Imo, if these techs are for all players (to maintain balance and avoid the "kill tech") and are viewable from the start (to be able to plan your strategy accordingly) it would be a great idea. It would add replayability and avoid having an "ultimate" strategy, always researching the same things. Imo random techs should be made more in a spirit "each game is different" rather than "you got the lucky number and you have the ubber tech". In this sense imo these techs should be available to all and you should be able to see them in advance.

Apparently reading your other thread on a similar subject, implementing different game mechanics like this is not time consuming, If possible get wild on the tech tree because it is an essential element of 4X games and is a great element of the fun. Would love (uptopia) a totally different tech tree for each game that adapts to the world you are playing in. Just would like that my oponents benifit from the same tech tree to mantian "equal chances" and that the tech tree is visible from the start to undermind these same opponents by better planning .

So would you like to implement a Civ4 style research system? That worked very well in that game. [It's a shame that the combat system was horrible..]

I wasn't turned off by your current research, but I only scratched the surface with it.  I liked the way research opened new areas of technology and the ideas of infinate tech.  I think it would be better to let a player research more than 1 tech at a time.

What I think should be avoided is a super steep tech tree.  MOO 2 was very fun, but accelerated tech research seemed the easiest way to a win.  I think the higher level techs were too powerful in relation to earlier techs.  This makes it so every player has to be a part of the technology arms race or have a chance at winning.  Does everyone have to research?  Are some techs mandatory for everyone?  Are different tech trees viable?  Can I focus my resources in making low tech armies and compete? 

A few random techs is fine to add spice to the game, but it is a hard thing to balance.  If you make it powerful, everyone has to research it and if you make it weak everyone will ignore it.

This also brings to mind another problem with research.  It is ussually a rich gets richer scenario.  Those who expand fast and get their economy booming also get the best techs.  If I were creating a fictitious world from scratch I might have a small kingdom with very high tech or super powerful magic and you might have large low tech kingdoms.  My question would be:  How can you devise a system where a kingdom can't be good at everything?  Maybe it was what you had in mind for the soveriens essence.  You can use the essence to make your empire vast or you might use it to give you a step function increase in technology or magic.  This would make it so players could only be very good at one thing or mediocre at all of them or some other combination.  Rather than one kingdom dominate at everything.  This would make for much more interesting games with much more varied opponents.

Ok tech idea. What if Techs were divided up into two major categories:

1. Tech Fields - The theory - Tech Fields don't actually unlock specific technologies (except maybe accidentally but I don't know if I'd like that entirely. Research into tech fields is more or general knowledge. It represents your scientists/philosophers/smart guys gathering and recording information, having philosophical discussions, analyzing recorded data on a certain subject, possibly even just teaching people. Researching a tech field is more akin to raising the general knowledge and education level of your society than what research is in most strategy games. Examples of  fields of research might be physics, chemistry, alchemy, architecture, social sciences, mathematics, etc.

2. Projects - The application - Projects would be the actual application of the knowledge of tech fields. This represents the actual time required to work out the problems with a new design. These are engineering problems often. Projects could also be social in nature implementing a new form of governance or tactical training method. While tech fields would have little real application projects would be all about real application. Examples of projects might be, horse domestication, iron smelting, aquduct construction, recurve bow, javalin, dragon language. (The number of projects could be endless)

Key points:

1. Tech fields are realatively few in number and can be researched ad infinitium

2. Each project has a minimum level in a field (or fields) of research that you must aquire before that project becomes availible for research.

3. Projects can also have other projects as prequisites but this should not be extensive (not all lines need to connect even many advanced projects should simply require high level in a field)

4. The time it takes to research a specific project decreases as your knowledge of it's prerequisite fields increases

5. Projects can be copied from a higher tech kingdom however it will take time to duplicate the captured or stolen technology and it may simply be imporrible for your people to duplicate if the tech feild is far too low. On the other hand this does not advance you up the tech tree because your knowledge in a field of technology is not advanced.

Why this system is cool:

Even low level tech cultures can access relatively powerful technologies but they have to work harder for them. But that's ok if they just want powerful military technology while sacrificing their production (think like the mongols and their recurve bows and advanced horsemanship). On the other hand advanced civilizations may have many advanced technologies but the investment in tech fields may have limited the size of their empire. Thus with proper balancing you might see smaller but highly advanced kingdoms and large primitive kingdoms. An advanced kingdom could give a primitive kingdom some advanced technologies (projects) but this does not make the other kingdom advanced merely a primitive kingdom with some advanced artifacts. I also think it fits in well with the post-apocalyptic idea most technology is being rediscovered so research is more in education so the population can use higher tech and implementation of known ideas.

Possible variations that may make this even cooler:

1. Make it so that a larger kingdom requires a proportionate investment to raise it's level in a tech field (you have more people? Well it takes more time and money to get them educated and trained and equipped to use new technologies) thus smaller kingdoms can go reasearch heavy and become more advanced than larger kingdoms that have to spend more in defense and city development etc.

2. For infinite techs when a field advances enough (alternatively when you have had a technology in circulation for long enough) you are offered a new project that is a refinement of the previous project giving it some bonuses.

3. Make the kinds of projects you have researched 'color' or 'taint' your research tree. So if you research alot of weapons over time your society will become more attuned to how knowledge can be used in war making those techs easier to research and may miss how a piece of knowledge could be used economically or socially making those techs appear later in the field and harder to research and visa versa.

What do you think of that Frogboy? Not linear. Infinite tech. Open to random and situational techs. Bigger is not always more advanced. Variation in how you tech up meaning many potential ways to build an empire tech wise.

Anyone more ideas? Thoughts? Problems? Weaknesses? Adulation?

I have alot of innovative ideas. Although I can't speak to how well all of them would work, personally I think they're pretty awesome. I also would like to see a change to how elemental handles cities. I really don't like it at all. I think my dream is some way to make a hybrid comprimise between the province model used in something like dominions and the traditional civ city model.

Sounds Fantastic! Are there going to be team only techs as well?

If Stardock are true to form, you will have options to disable them in game.

Personally I like your ideas, especially the tech trade potential/gamesetups such arrangements should offer. I like layered gameplay in general and don't see any reason to stop at two tbh. In a sense, GC2 suggested your layout already by colouring research streams as well as branching sections throughout the chart, though if this were officially tiered as you say, it could end up defining the tech trade limits completely. EG : On,t1,t2,t3,t4,Off

Combine this setup with diplomatic treaties and you could develop an incredible deep diplomatic/trade/research system.