Multilayer DvD disks are pretty cool..

Perhaps a Blue-ray disk..

Not ENTIRELY sure what that would do.... the coating might make things look funny, and I IMAGINE the smaller pits would create smaller but more numerous sparks.... although being only an aspiring electrical engineer, I can't tell you for certain.

I must be ill or something, because I totally support Psychoravin's points here.

I'd love to see a tech tree driven by the old D&D "find your spells" method. If you don't know what I mean, in old school D&D you could only learn a spell if you could find a copy. Some spells were well known, so everyone had a copy and you could buy one. As the spells got more powerful though, you frequently relied on a loot drop of a scroll to find the spell you wanted and inscribe it in your spell book. Also, there was a maximum number of spells per level you could learn, so you couldn't choose to just learn everything.

I think this might be an interesting way to do spell research. Some are common, you can simply learn them. Other spells are rare and you'd have to buy them or find someone to train you. Others are simply very rare and you can't get them except through exceptional means, such as a quest of some type. 

You could use bits of this type of system to keep spell research from being the same each time. Maybe each game 100% of simple spells are available, a random 75% of medium spells, and only 50% of the hard spells. How you acquire some of those medium and hard spells could vary. Medium ones perhaps you simply get at goodie huts, or learn if you take a certain neutral town/city/resource. Hard spells would require heroes to go on quests, or multi-stage builds, etc.

What I would applaud even more is a skill tree that is adapting to paths you choose so that new options open up depending on the choices you made in the past. Even political choices might matter for that. In the end it would be nice to see a ton of skills with every one having a use that you might actually want making diferent builds all as plaiusible as the next.

What I would hate to see would be skills that are pointless to have so that those skills will never get picked. The number of games that have a useless 'sneaking'-skill are countless and it is annoying to no end.

Yea, I hadn't intended it to replace research. It'd just be for spells. You'd still have the normal tech research. Some spells might be research related, some might not. I could see the ability to learn certain spells only unlocked after researching something like Alchemy, but the gathering of the Alchemy spells would be in the D&D vein. Building an Alchemists lab might allow you to purchase the simple spells, but for the more rare spells perhaps you need to build an Alchemist unit and get him to the Ancient Laboratory of FooBar to learn the secret ingredients that go into the ink required to write the scrolls for spells X, Y, and Z.

You wouldn't want it to get too complicated, but it'd provide some distinction between how Tech is learned/acquired vs. Magic.

I know for a fact that the spell system will have a tree structure to it. Moreover, a strict D&D system would, as I said, put an unfair advantage on players who go Gandalf (meaning power up their channeler and ignore city-building). However, the option of alternate quest-basing for all spells would certainly help, as mentioned above.

How about a system where you unlock new effects in a particular type of magic at a certain research level then you could combine effects you know to make new spells and give them a name and description. Costs for effects could also scale and minimum cost for one unit of effect is the lvel of the highest magical school. This is a system not dissimilar to Oblivions but could be used in a stratergy game.

For instance

Fire;

Level 1 = Immolate (hurl a hudge fire ball into the field of combat doing damage to all enemy troups in range (1 man = 1 damage or 10 extra yards radius)

Level 2 = fire aura (surround a unit with an aura of flame which does one damage per mana spent) for the duration of the combat.

Death

....

Level 5 = Create Zombie (suck the life from an enemy unit or units and raise then as zombies under your control for the duration of the combat), 1 mana per 10 yards targeted.

Example combined spell: Flaming Zombies (Target area: 10 yard, Cost: 5 Death mana, 4 Fire mana)

Description: The channeler sucks the life from all soldiers within the target area transforming them into zombies surrounded by an aura of flame that burns all who oppose them for 2 damage a turn.

Of course this example isn't very balanced obviously it shouldn't auto kill all units in the target area.

But something like this could be fun, if done right. I mean Elemental lets us create units from component parts, why not spells?

Not entirely sure what you mean here, but simultaneous spell casting would be great.

A D&D system for certain spells would be awesome, and it would increase thevalue of heroes and give them a "story" of sorts. Not ALL spells obviusly, and the amount that could be learned would be minimal, but the idea is still cool.

As for "going gandalf" that point is silly. A: Ignoring city building to go learn flare is mind-numbingly stupid, B: Using your channeler in battle is risky and unnecessary, and C: You have heros to learn stuff in the field, your channeler should be safe at home.

I Love your idea, though I don't know if the engine was designed for it. However, as an expansion idea your talking a whole new level a awesomeness.

A: That's why I said you should have conventional research. Because giving up city-building to learn Flare is mind-numbingly stupid, and if that was the only way to learn spells, it would make the game a nightmare.

B: Unless (s)he's so filled with essance that (s)he's super-powerful..... that's what going Gandalf means: you invest in your channeler and heroes instead of an army or empire.

C: And heroes take essance. See above.

"Researchers, I command you to develop improved bows."

"Oh, dear leader, what are those 'improved bows' ?"

"You see, they are composite, made of if and oak, bended like this, using horse-based glue to maintain them... and that's it !"

"Oh, dear leader, if you already know what they do and how to make it, why should we research it ?"

bottom line : Searching for a particular tech seems quite unnatural for me... In reality, your search is aimed at one generic goal, and by sutdying nuclear energy, you may find A-bomb, X-ray, microwave,... and all these sort of things you didn't even know of before.

Keiyan.

You kind of have it backwards there.

Change that second line to " Oh, dear leader, we've researched 'improved bows'."  Then toss that last line, logical fault solved.

You give your researchers a task, these bows suck, make em better.  The researchers look for ways to make less sucky bows.  Maybe they accidentally find out something else along the way, but they still have a direction.

In the end it would be nice if we get spells and such through exploring, plundering and such. I am looking forward to getting more info on this infinite researching and such, since I am dreading it will be like GalCiv2 where there were so many techs that essentially did the exact same thing. (Oh look, another tech that improves photon cannons, making them onky slightly better and even if you equip your ships with them, the freed up room is not useful to do anything with it. Yay! Improvement!)

I would like to see a system somewhat equal to SMAC or MoM where you could slowly advance without the focus of the game being technological advantage like it is in Civ IV. Maybe a system where you can either steal ideas from neighbouring countries or get ideas from the local population would work. That way let us say that at the start of the game you have an idea or two. You can spend time into developing that idea. As your settlements grow and the population thrives, your inhabitants get some more free time because the standards of living improve. Some people get a good idea and spread it. You can then when you get to it develop that idea, and as such you gained an additonal research option. In the end then it will be needed to keep your population happy, because at random times your population might propose something you may research. The happier the locals and the higher the standard of living the higher the chance they will propose something.

This way you will depend on both what the locals propose - making what techs you have available different every time - and on how well you play - because the better you manage your population, the more often they will provide you with ideas for you to look into.

Finding an interesting, working way to research techs is difficult for games. You want to keep it simple, yet fun and rewarding.

The RPG Evil Islands had an interesting system that might work for Elemental: There you didn't research but you did have schematics for various weapons and types which you put together using different materials. So you find a Short Sword blueprint and you build it using iron. Iron Short Sword is basic and wont be nearly as good as say super rare Adamantium or whatever.

So keep research in Elemental but weave in materials as well.

Depending on how much effort it would be to develop something like this (would work well with the unit creator though!) you can implement it in various degrees. From being able to find various woods, stones and ores to really have various weapons/armours/wooden weapons/buildings(?) made of different quality, to a more simplistic system that doesn't make it a core feature.

Perhaps a simple materials system might be easier/better. So, 90% of the things you find in mines would be your standard ores but due to randomized events you might find a very limited amount of special material which you can work into something. Balance is an issue but if you make it so it's difficult (perhaps impossible without specific tech + special forge) and expensive to turn into items, you could horde this stuff for some awesome leet units later. Or just make them slightly improve the stats so it's not gamebreaking and unfair to those less lucky. +2 to damage on a +10 damage sword.

==EDIT for clarity==

The materials idea you propose is nice as an idea for the results of technological breakthroughs. Once you get tech X, you may add material A to your iron weapons, granting them one additional +1 bonus or something. Having the techs focussing on the matrials or something, or on schematics is just wrong imo.

Maybe it could be so that you need to adjust the forges in order to make use of these special materials, but these adjustments are not as expensive as sompletely building a new buildikng just to use some material.

Yeah I was perhaps hoping to have various materials be found on the map itself, making protecting various deposits to be more important. But again there's the question of balance since everything's randomly generated. I guess a minimum distance can be put in. Materials of value >= some value must be at least X tiles distant to starting location. They could also be guarded by creatures.

Or going back to the finite and rare materials idea, you could have it so you find an ancient battleground where you start an excavation to salvage old, broken armours and weapons which you melt down into the various materials so you can use them again.

As for the tie in with technology, I'd implement it as a reactive technology. You find material X so it unlocks a new technology to harness that material that you found. That would make it pretty easy to mod as well. But there are various levels of complexity that you can apply. Have forges run at various temperatures for example. The better the material the higher a temperature you need. So you need to increase research in forges to build/upgrade your forges so they can reach a higher temperature.

I like this materials idea but I suppose it should be discussed in a different thread as it only compliments the research rather than dictate it.

I was more referring to different quality materials found on the map, like various quality ores etc. As for losing a resource it would simply mean you don't get any more of that resource, so you can still work your stockpile until it's dry. As for the techs, if you don't find that resource there's no point researching it. When you do find it, you can research it to find out how to make use of that material.

Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be a super hardcore 50 different types of metals system, it could just be one/two special materials that are very rare and require research to use. Just to give you that extra edge.

In the unit creature you'd have the option of making pieces of equipment out of that special material, similar to enchanting them. To prevent characters looking like clowns, there could be a system to dye the equipment to be uniform. (Different materials would have different standard colours)

I don't see why we couldn't have both systems implemented to be honest. I like the way MoM handles spells, and Frogboy has already stated that not all spells will be in the game everytime based on randomization, soo i think its already headed that way for magical research, but at the same time MoM didn't have Civ-like technologies in it.

So why couldn't they have two systems? you could use a more advanced SMAC's system for those civ-based technologies such as "iron working" or "farming". Ex- you pick a branch, "military", "domestic", etc. and then based on certain factors or needs in your nation, those technologies are researched. I just like the way SMAC handled its research and even though it had a "linear tree" behind the scenes, it never got old, because you never knew what was coming and i also never felt like i was screwed over because i at least had the ability to pick the branch of study.

just my two cents.

Let's not drag up TBRWITS again.....

I have no clue what that means, but I thought the discussion was interesting enough to continue, so... bad dog!

The Big Roulette Wheel In The Sky: a funnier name for an overpowered RNG. I don't want to have to remember all my arguments again.