Technology changes too fast

[Trifna]

I tried the demo and yup... techs are changing from one to another too fast. It diminishes strategy and each tech doesn't have all the importance it could. You just click on everything... And there's no time to profit, to see periods and say "Ohhh boy... I really need to pass to the next" except for very general eras.

Isn't there a way to make techs' search time be more important? To oblige players to decide which one they will take tough choices, see and get the consequences of their choices.

[Inverse Icarus]

you can mod the times / costs to whatever, to make it take much more time / devotion to advance.

[Trifna]

Goodie! I didn't knew that!

[Locutus]

I think/hope the full game will have more options to tweak this during game setup. I agree it's too fast now. The only more or less acceptable game I had so far was with 2 players on a Big Huge map, but it still only lasted an hour or so (but then again, that was on Easy).

[tniem]

What building researches techs in RoN?

[Locutus]

The Library is the primary building for researching new technologies but most other buildings have their own upgrades as well.

[Leaper]

L ~

Once you move the game up to Normal or Hard difficulty, games will last longer. The computer will begin to employ actual tactics, and make you think and work harder. I think you will get MUCH more enjoyment from it.

As far as going through the ages too fast... I agree. But apparently, this is very customizable in the final version.

Later.

[Rohag]

Originally posted by Locutus
I think/hope the full game will have more options to tweak this during game setup.

In the Gold Version the technology research setup options are

Cheap and Fast
Cheap
Normal and Fast
Normal
Normal and Slow
Expensive
Expensive and Slow
Very Expensive
Very Expensive and Slow

[One_Dead_Villy]

if those arent enough for u....someone posted a mod in this forum i believe that makes makes the techs even more slow and more expensive.

[Trifna]

Thinking to it afterward, I believe even units could be a little more costly. As an option perhaps.

The effect would be:
1-Battles should be more prepared, each one having more importance.
2- You'd have more time to prepare battles.
3- It would make a more cerebral, intelligent RTS.
4- Games would of course be longer and chances are they'd stick less to the first ages.


Comment about what I said about unit costs?

[One_Dead_Villy]

the beginning units are a bit cheap but u have to remember the ramping costs....it quickly makes the units pretty expensive

[Locutus]

Yeah, I figured so much, Leaper & ODV.

I was playing on Easy because it was only my 2nd game or so (and I usually s*ck d*ck at RTS games), if I have more time I'm gonna try harder levels later this week.

D'oh! I just found another reason why the game was moving so fast: I had enabled the Turbo Resources option

Trifna,
It would make more sense and probably be easier to slow down (optionalize) the speed of resource collection.

[FrostyBoy]

I have the game on its slowest setting and I think that's pretty good, I'm also trying to get used to using the pause key

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I'm also trying to get used to using the pause key

Love the pause key

[nihilocrat]

The ramping costs cause an interesting situation where the best army is probably a massive one created early in the game that suffers few losses, along with a Statue of Liberty wonder to work it through various troop upgrades. This means that, in the long run, if your forces are battered and beaten while trying to hold a city, it might be economically more sound to retreat, garrison, heal, and come back, peferrably with more units. This, of course, assumes that you'll be able to defeat the recapturing forces.

The least economically sound army, thus, is a very large one that is regularly reduced to a mere batallion and reinforced to its former grandeur. Over, and over, and over again (this happens too much for me :P)

It is also important to consider the resources required to build particular units. Light units tend to use food and lumber, both easily available. Heavier units use metal, wealth, and oil. If you are unfortunate enough to not have a strong economy in each resource (or your enemy has an unbalanced economy, send spies to markets to find out) you can concentrate on particular units. If you have plenty of wealth and oil, but scarce metal (happened in a recent game to me), it might be most effective to create a massive air force supported on the ground by infantry and light cavalry, rather than a small force of tanks or heavy cav that will probably end up doing no good.

I haven't thought about this enough to orchestrate a strategy to create the most economically sound army possible, or to exploit a particular enemy's resource inbalance (consider rare resources and wonders, too)... maybe I'll do that in a few months, after gold and after plenty of experience...