Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 1:51 am
I am in favor of broad generic categories because I feel it is more organized. Here is a diagram of how the research tree can be structured:
...............| Theory |.......| Applied |.......| Refined |
...Your.....|...a,b,c...|.......|...xyz....|.......|..blah.....|
..Generic..|.............|......|.............|.......|.............|
Catagories|............|.......|............|.......|.............|
.....Here....|............|.......|............|.......|.............|
Then under your Theory column, you list your specific sub-categories, or as Impaler calls them specific fields. For example, you can list Light, Heavy, Super Capital Ships under a generic catagory called construction, which is a row on your tech grid.
Here is a wild idea for stucturing. You know when you pruchase these 4X games that you spend a few hours studying the quick reference tech map, why not scan the map into FO and use that for structuring. You have a big tree in your face.
Here is my crazy idea #2. The whole lifetime of the game is divided into any number or infinite number of time periods. In each period, say 10 turns depeding on how fast you research, you would only research a specific catagory like fighters; and in the next period, you would research corvettes and so on until you switch back fighters, which marks an era or cycle.
As for cross-category requirements, I'll bring three more options on the table: 1) We smuggle some of the techs into other catagories so we get the same effect of prerequisites. 2) Since prereq are really annoying, we can get around this problem by allowing the player to research a tone down version of the tech without the prereq and auto upgrade if he has the prereq techs. 3) following untilae's idea, if a player wants to focus on a specific catagory, you have to research half of the level into another catagory. We can make each generic category have a brother category that they have to research 1/2 levels on. I think we can easily remove the prereq bug associated with broad categories.
...............| Theory |.......| Applied |.......| Refined |
...Your.....|...a,b,c...|.......|...xyz....|.......|..blah.....|
..Generic..|.............|......|.............|.......|.............|
Catagories|............|.......|............|.......|.............|
.....Here....|............|.......|............|.......|.............|
Then under your Theory column, you list your specific sub-categories, or as Impaler calls them specific fields. For example, you can list Light, Heavy, Super Capital Ships under a generic catagory called construction, which is a row on your tech grid.
Here is a wild idea for stucturing. You know when you pruchase these 4X games that you spend a few hours studying the quick reference tech map, why not scan the map into FO and use that for structuring. You have a big tree in your face.
Here is my crazy idea #2. The whole lifetime of the game is divided into any number or infinite number of time periods. In each period, say 10 turns depeding on how fast you research, you would only research a specific catagory like fighters; and in the next period, you would research corvettes and so on until you switch back fighters, which marks an era or cycle.
As for cross-category requirements, I'll bring three more options on the table: 1) We smuggle some of the techs into other catagories so we get the same effect of prerequisites. 2) Since prereq are really annoying, we can get around this problem by allowing the player to research a tone down version of the tech without the prereq and auto upgrade if he has the prereq techs. 3) following untilae's idea, if a player wants to focus on a specific catagory, you have to research half of the level into another catagory. We can make each generic category have a brother category that they have to research 1/2 levels on. I think we can easily remove the prereq bug associated with broad categories.