Tweet
so...I'm sitting here, heavily medicated, and home tonight, rather than with my gal (we were supposed to go to the beach to visit her mom, but I found myself in another bang up car accident--for the second time this year, not my fault...just born lucky I suppose), so I'm home nursing my bruises with meds and two heating pads, and I'm fiddling with game design.
Been thinking about Civ, and how the tech tree is so linear.
Everybody knows that tech x gives benefit y, and that's cool, I guess. It's one of the central concepts OF 4x games, actually, so to get completely away from it might alienate large numbers of players.
But...what if we took half a step away from it?
What if, in addition to the predictable "research-this-gain-that" stuff, a new tech *also* gave you a random, or semi-random bonus?
I say "semi-random" becuase of course, it would not be entirely random. It's not like you could research a diplomatically oriented tech and suddenly gain the next thing in killing machinery...the bonuses would have something to do, topically, with the general bent of the tech you just researched, but....I think there should be some choice. Some menu of varying interpretation about what the tech you just researched really MEANS to you and yours, and how it will be applied.
For example...to use Candle'Bre as an example, since I live and breathe to tinker with the various models I've got going for it.
At military tech five, there's a tech called siegecraft, which makes siege engines available for building.
Well and good. There's a certain logical cohesion to that, and it makes intuitive sense.
But what if, in addition to that, a player were presented with something like this:
Milord, having gained an advance in military sciences, it is your perogative to guide us in the practical application of our newfound abilities
(choose one)
* Siege Engines were made for laying siege! Focus all efforts on maximizing their impact! (gain a +1 bonus to any and all siege checks your faction makes for the remainder of the game)
* Such advances help us to better understand our own weaknesses, and we should use this knowledge to shore up those weaknesses as best we can (all provinces you control gain +1 siege counter til the end of the game. Any provinces you acquire AFTER receipt of this bonus immediately gain +1 Siege counter as well)
* We have, in our posession, the means and knowlege to more efficiently organize the army for extended campaigns. Let us focus our efforts there (better supply coordination reduces the maintenance costs of all your forces by 0.1g per unit, til the end of the game.
Further, the selections you make on any given level of advance could be used to inform the future choices made available to you as you advance further. Sort of...techs and abilities within techs and abilities, and it'd allow each player to customize the game around whatever strategy he/she was pursuing.
Anyway, I was just toying with it, and it sounded like a great deal of fun, so I figured I'd get some other opinions...
-=Vel=-
Been thinking about Civ, and how the tech tree is so linear.
Everybody knows that tech x gives benefit y, and that's cool, I guess. It's one of the central concepts OF 4x games, actually, so to get completely away from it might alienate large numbers of players.
But...what if we took half a step away from it?
What if, in addition to the predictable "research-this-gain-that" stuff, a new tech *also* gave you a random, or semi-random bonus?
I say "semi-random" becuase of course, it would not be entirely random. It's not like you could research a diplomatically oriented tech and suddenly gain the next thing in killing machinery...the bonuses would have something to do, topically, with the general bent of the tech you just researched, but....I think there should be some choice. Some menu of varying interpretation about what the tech you just researched really MEANS to you and yours, and how it will be applied.
For example...to use Candle'Bre as an example, since I live and breathe to tinker with the various models I've got going for it.
At military tech five, there's a tech called siegecraft, which makes siege engines available for building.
Well and good. There's a certain logical cohesion to that, and it makes intuitive sense.
But what if, in addition to that, a player were presented with something like this:
Milord, having gained an advance in military sciences, it is your perogative to guide us in the practical application of our newfound abilities
(choose one)
* Siege Engines were made for laying siege! Focus all efforts on maximizing their impact! (gain a +1 bonus to any and all siege checks your faction makes for the remainder of the game)
* Such advances help us to better understand our own weaknesses, and we should use this knowledge to shore up those weaknesses as best we can (all provinces you control gain +1 siege counter til the end of the game. Any provinces you acquire AFTER receipt of this bonus immediately gain +1 Siege counter as well)
* We have, in our posession, the means and knowlege to more efficiently organize the army for extended campaigns. Let us focus our efforts there (better supply coordination reduces the maintenance costs of all your forces by 0.1g per unit, til the end of the game.
Further, the selections you make on any given level of advance could be used to inform the future choices made available to you as you advance further. Sort of...techs and abilities within techs and abilities, and it'd allow each player to customize the game around whatever strategy he/she was pursuing.
Anyway, I was just toying with it, and it sounded like a great deal of fun, so I figured I'd get some other opinions...
-=Vel=-
Comment