Multiple Advance researching

[KHOMAR]

Is it possible to integrate Multiple Advance researching in the source code project with a system of priority or something like that to manage the researching speed ?
With a player.researching.index array accessible through SLIC ?

Maybe this would be far too much complicated to manage diplomacy/advance interactions....

[MrBaggins]

Well.. I'd be opposed to such a system, as part of the game. A big part of CTP2 is about reducing micromanagement, and does it pretty well.

I might be in favor of a system that keeps tabs of how much you've researched a particular advance...

So for instance... if you are researching Slavery, but you switch to Trade, you start researching from 0, again, but could switch back to Slavery and continue where you left off again. Maybe values left in advances you're not researching should decay... yes.. this is Civ3-like... other empire games have used it too, however.

This would avoid lossless tech change.

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As for what you'd like to do specifically... you could probably do it in SLIC, given appropriate functions...

for instance.

In a window, show (3 different) researched advance, current research, required research and time to complete... have three buttons to change research, along with ok and cancel. You'd handle that in your own custom message box too (disable the default advance screen)

At the beginning of turn, you'd get the value of research that had been done, set the current value to 0, and then divide the research up among an array of ints holding values of how much research had been done on each.

If any value was greater than the target value, you'd give the advance, and have the player pick a new advance.

[KHOMAR]

Thank you for the explanations, Mr Baggins.

[Lou Wigman]

Have any of you seen the research tree in Victoria Empire under the sun.?

One of the problems with most tech trees is their deterministic nature. In other words the player knows in advance the benefits which they will get. Want Democracy? Well research this, that and the other and Bob's your uncle.

Paradox have come up with an interesting variation. You research particular fields eg Iron working. Having researched this gives you access to multiple inventions which are opened up by this field of research. But here's the point. You don't get those inventions immediately. Rather there is probability each succeeding turn that you will get it. So, in my example above, getting Iron Working does not give you Legion straight away. If you get unlucky it may not arrive for some time. This adds unpredictability to the tech tree.

[MrBaggins]

It would be trivial to implement in SLIC, should anyone wish to... I.E. Have a separate Legion advance (giving legions,) which was gifted to a player randomly after gaining Iron Working.

So... nothing to do with the Source Code project... as it can be done already.

Having said that, I don't see it as a useful extension to the game. The abstracted time scale of Civ allows for the abstracted scientific development.

Having uncertainty would either hurt you or the other guy. It might be an annoyance in SP mode, but would be a killer in MP.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
It would be trivial to implement in SLIC, should anyone wish to... I.E. Have a separate Legion advance (giving legions,) which was gifted to a player randomly after gaining Iron Working.

Yes of course we can implement a lot by slic, but on the one hand it is easier to do it in the source code ===> giving more choice.

But I agree the priority for that is very low.

-Martin

[MrBaggins]

I read an argument of why multiple researching was "a bad thing"(TM), one time.

Essentially... if you research 3 equally costly techs, simultaneously, and you research them at 1/3 normal spped, then you'd receive all three at the the same time, that the one-at-a-time researcher does.

The one-at-a-time researcher, however, would gain one tech in 1/3 the full time, the second in 2/3 and the last in another 1/3 of the time.

This is one of the game play features, intentionally designed by Brian Reynolds... you want techs to be researched at regular intervals... so the player gets an idea of constant advancement, and can come to terms with the new advantage. Gaining three techs simultaneously may be information overload, to some degree.

Singular researching is also preferrable in a system with prequisites...