Elemental *was* this way.  Not as good as it sounded really.  Pretty much every place where there is this random aspect is being slowly removed from the game.  Tech randomness -> Tech tree.  Level up randomness -> Level tree in FE Legendary Heroes.  Strategy games are about choices and removing choice from teching really doesn't add to things, I feel.  It detracts.

Did you guys play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? Because the randomness in that game (optional of course) was quite a lot of fun after playing the stairstep techup game for a long time. To me it feels too gamey to know what research you're going to discover and how long it's going to take. Even in real life that doesn't happen. How long we been looking for a cure for cancer? One other thing is many discoveries have been made while researching or doing something else. I think one i recall was soap or soap bubbles then another was plasma and if I googled I bet I could find a lot more.

I do accept your points though because everything pretty much has a counter opinion. I'm just saying I'd like it to remove the redundancy that is research and teching up in most games.

I agree that randomness has to be well done in order to add to the experience.

One problem with the random tech approach is that not all the techs cost the same. Another problem is that when you are picking a "tech level-up" you can't see the tech tree and that makes the choice a blind one unless you know the game very well.

I think that if you want to add randomness to the tech part it's better to follow a Master of Orion II approach. In that game techs did not cost a fix number of research points. Once half of the research was completed there was a chance each turn to make the discover. If I remember correctly the chance was (Researched points-50% research cost)/(50% research cost), so at 75% research the chance to discover was 50%. If you were unlucky enough, you reached the point where all the research had been made and there was a 100% chance to make the discover.

About randomness in the heroes skills, I really like the Heroes of Might and Magic random choices, but for some reason that randomness does not work well here in Fallen Enchantress. Perhaps the reason again it's because it's too random. In HOMM those choices were less random than they seemed, but yet the feeling was the right one. Perhaps now that the skill tree is being introduced, the level-up screen could show this skill tree and allow the player to choose between just two of the available skills. That would give randomness while keeping the roadmap (in that case skill tree) at sight and maintaining the control feeling. Another thing in HOMM was that at least one of the choices was to upgrade an existing skill, which allowed to build-up the hero instead of having a hero with lots of basic skills.

  Randomness worked for Alpha Centauri because the techs were arbitrary in the first place.  Because they are a 'futuristic' tech, they don't have to follow any sort of logical path.

In a fantasy setting, you are still following a sort of historical path, with magic thrown in (mimicking a historical path).  There are clearly techs which should come before other ones in the path.  You shouldn't be able to jump them.  For example, does it make sense to get a cavalry tech before you get horse-riding?  Metal armour techs before mining?

The other point people have raised as well is valid.  A game is about making choices.  The more choices you get (and the more they lead to other choices), the deeper the game is.  The deeper the game is the more rewarding it will be to play.

Yes...much better to let the computer pick it for you, with no input on your behalf...weee what a fun game you are proposing, I can hardly wait to just hit buttons and let the computer randomly do its thing.

how EXCITING how REWARDING to have all the fun taken away from you.  Its like letting random people pick a string of beans out of a basket of strings of beans sitting in front of you.  lmao.

I'm gathering from your posts that you're more of a simulation gamer than a strategy gamer.

Strategy gamers make up the most of this forum. We like choices, and games are all about presenting the player with choices. The sum of our choices are what makes us win or lose. Technology being a static tree appeals to strategy gamers because it allows us to decide what we want to research to fit into our master plan. It makes the game feel more like chess really.

The simulation gamers on the other hand, love to see systems work, as well as optimize them and fix those systems when something goes wrong. They take the pieces they are given and build something that works. Games that appeal to these types of people are more along the lines of Sim City and Dwarf Fortress.

Both approaches have their merits and I myself enjoy both styles. I love roguelike games where the game places you in a random world and expects you to carve your own path. I just can't see techs in a game like this being fun when random though. I can't wait for Legendary Heroes where they will remove random traits. Random character development is just not something I like in an RPG, which this game is partly. The same can be said for techs if you consider the character development as a faction whole.

As for your statements about it being optional, I don't think it can work. Game design in most cases needs to take decisions like this into account early in development. Games like Alpha Centauri and Star Ruler took the random tech idea and based their games around it. Fallen Enchantress did not, and it is way past the point where the game can be changed in that way without being part of a new expansion. It takes time and money to implement features like these, and most of us believe that Stardock would be much better off improving other aspects of the game.

Yep it's going to ruin it for a LOT of players. I also see a lot of players from this thread wear blinders and aren't open to anything NEW and challenging. They want to play TIC TAC TOE instead of a good Sherlock Holmes mystery. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri won awards after awards for the OPEN design it had and the CHOICE of type of game to play. THey all talk about CHOICES up above but aren't willing to allow something that would allow such. lol

How many game of the year awards has Elemental series won? lol Alpha Centauri has won the highest score evah from PC Gamer!! And you're trying to tell me it's a bad OPTIONAL idea to include random teching up? lmao