Warlike Civilizations and Technology

There is always the problem in 4X games of what trumps other things.  In Galciv 2, over time technology tended to trump race.  The final iteration resolved that a little bit with unique tech trees, but it was still a problem.  In Dominion's 3 magic ultimately trumped faction.  In Master of Orion, both 2 and 3 technology also trumped faction in the end.  While races usually played a bit differently in all of these, the differences, by the end, were usually compensated for by teching.

In elemental I'm not sure that is going to be the case.  Empires and Kingdoms should be different enough in terms of playing style that regardless of technological advancement they won't play the same.  Also, with each advance significantly increasing the overall tech curve, it should make it so nations are unable to get anywhere near the end of the tech tree, thus making exactly what you research important, and not enabling each nation to become identical with tech advances.

well i think that each faction needs some technology that is all their own.  if there is a predominately warlike race then they should have some unique technologies and spells that support that.  such as summoning or enchanting catapults to do more or a specific damage type.  i think the problem could be resolved by giving each faction particularly unique things.  this could be easily integrated with custom creation as well.  during faction creation the player could choose for their nation 1 or 2 of these unique technologies, spell books and what not.

The lion's share of my GC2 games have been 'tech turtler' things. I've never been a scoremonster, but I did learn that Demiansky is quite right that you can do very well loading up on civ tech bonuses and researching warfare instead of loading up on warfare bonuses and hoping to steal plenty of tech whilst pillaging.

Re lwarmonger's "in the end" points, I'd like to see Elemental break the mold there but I couldn't even start being hopeful about it until we see a fuller version of the game that includes all the canon factions, substantially more of the magic system, and AIs that will hopefully be able to take substantially different approaches to the game.

This thread also reminds me that I regularly think there's already 'too much tech' in a game subtitled War of Magic. Maybe that's because we have so little of the magic system in the public builds, but I'm very concerned that by RTM the magic system will simply be a combat-centered sibling of the tech system and yield the same kind of bland end-game scenarios that inspired Demiansky's post in the first place. That said, many of my guesses about dev intentions have been wrong; hopefully this is another one.

Would Klingons vs Humans be a good model for this?  Klingons being more warlike (not that humans aren't warlike...).  How would a game translate Klingon's more warlike nature/society, and how would it apply in Elemental?

Klingon's would research 'war' tech faster/cheaper, so while they may be less advanced in other areas and slower to tech generally, they'd be able to keep ahead in war techs? 

Have 'personal/personnel' bonuses (more hits, faster reflexes, stronger so more physical damage, etc.) than an equivalently trained human)?

I think personal (both troops and sovereign) bonuses are definitely part of it. However, in a more fantastical setting I feel like tech shouldn't be as important as it would be in a sci fi or modern game. The difference between a well-made sword and a poorly made sword are significant, but not game changing.

Agreed.  Changes through tech really shouldn't be large, especially as right now large empires are favored over smaller ones in research (who can't get as many research buildings).  Whereas in medieval Europe, advancements were largely based on gradual improvement of infrastructure, and it was the smallest political units (Italian City States and the Dutch/Belgian towns) that were the most developed.

Probably the tech tree should be mostly focused around improving existing abilities.  For example, tech can improve the quality of your farms, creating a production bonus, or improve your sailing abilities, making better ships and increasing trade on naval trade lanes.  Or better, you can research the ability to execute certain formations in the tactical battles (shield wall, spear wall, pike phalanx, ect).

I think this is the key here.  In all the  games I've played mention above, you can research everything.  As a result of that, the race/faction bonuses to war are too small to be noticed against the large numbers of the later techs.  Currently, and hopefully even after twaeking the research system a little, you still will not be able to research ALL techs.  It simply is not viable.  Therefore, having a faction with war bonuses should actually give them an advantage in war.  Only those that have picked the war tree and got lucky or specialised in a certain area of the war tree (infantry equipment) will make the war faction look twice before attacking.

Maybe the more warlike races could have some kind of morale boost, making them less likely to retreat?  Or maybe they could be partially immune to the negative effects of a long war (in civ terms, no citizen unhappiness from prolonged fighting)?

I absolutely concur with prior posters that the tech tree should not be fully researchable thereby further differentiating factions as the game progresses.  Indeed, based upon technological choices made, I would believe some "branches" of a tech tree get closed off permanently via research in favor of pursuing another tech branch.  This may not be entirely "realistic" but more "fun."  This player decision-making would add some depth, I believe, to game playing choices. Conversely, however, some non-researchable techs could be bought, stolen, etc. from other factions.  In sum, one of the downsides of a long SoaSE game IMHO was you could research the entire tech tree-- I would have preferred an either/or choice such as b/t lasers and mass-based projectiles...

I think the biggest issue is the big artificial dividing line between tech race and war race.  A war race should actually have solid military tech and should easily absorb opponents techs.  Why not give a "war race" 1 free research point into Military tech every turn, or to really encourage them to be warlike, extra points every turn that they are at war since it inspires their researchers?  While I have no problem with a generic +x to research I think +x to one of the 5 branches would be far more interesting (and FUN).  You could even limit it to one branch but let it be taken multiple times-but with a slight surcharge for each one.

Let us also remember the Holy Rules of MOM, which had the Warlord retort which boosted the experience level of your troops and (most importantly) they could go beyond the experience of regular units, so it could not be fully replaced by tech.  There was a spell that did the same thing, but the effects stacked, so you could have units 2 levels higher than others could get.  It was a powerful combination.  In fact, I think it's about the only primarily warlike bonus I have ever intentionally chosen in a 4X style game.  Of course the 'tech tree' in MOM is a bit shallow.

I think Magic races should get magic techs 20% cheaper, War races should get war techs 20% cheaper, Diplomacy races get Diplo techs 30% cheaper (cause diplo less useful :p), Adventure Races get Adventure techs 20% cheaper, and "Tech Savy" races get Civilization tech 20% cheaper.

Or more simply, "Tech Savy" get Civilization techs 20% cheaper and "War races" get War techs 20% cheaper.

(since the discussion is only considering the two)

Personally I think techs should be expensive, increasingly difficult to get, dependent upon existing infrastructure level, and additive to existing techs so that the tech tree never ends in most cases.  This should have several features.

For example, if you wish to research more advanced lending the tech for it gets discounted by an amount dependent upon the highest level lenders you already have built as a percentage of buildings (reflecting infrastructure choices and focus).  So if you have four lending institutions that consist of 10% of your aggregate buildings you will receive a 25% discount on a new lending tech, whereas a larger empire that has eighteen lending institutions that only consist of 5% of their buildings will only receive a 12.5% discount on a new lending tech.  This effectively prevents the traditional hyper-teching by large empires at the expense of small ones, and also reflects the positive effects that infrastructure focus have on technology development.  The Netherlands had significantly more advanced banking structures and credit markets because it had significantly more banks than say Poland-Lithuania of the same time period, which had a larger population but significantly less focus on lending and the modern instruments of capitalism.

Now the above named "lending" technology will reflect the amount of money you gain out of lending institutions, but the majority of tech increases should merely involve an additional  revenue gain for existing structures as an existing amount, just like farming techs should only add a single addition to food production per tech, and completely new buildings or abilities (depending on what kind of tech you are researching) would only be added say every ten levels of tech up to around 30 or 40 levels (and then it simply becomes additive increases for as long as you research).  That way true investment in an area would increase your abilities without subsuming your racial features (which I think will trend towards multiplicative, as they normally do).

That finally brings us to empire size balancing.  Techs do not go to the biggest, best empires out there, because the biggest empires in medieval history don't tend to be the most advanced or vibrant (on average).  Instead of having research buildings produce a set amount of points and those points going to technological advancement, those research buildings need to produce a set amount of points which is divided by population, or building number, or something representing empire size.  This reflects the difficulty of spreading advances out across a large, unwieldy empire and accurately reflects the difficulties that large states like Poland-Lithuania, Russia, France and Spain had adopting technological advances across the entire nation as compared to small compact regions like Milan, Venice and Flanders, as well as preventing large empire hyper-teching.  As a large empire you've already got significant advantages in total tax base, population, production, resources base and potential army size... why add technology to the list as well, especially when it isn't usually the case that the large Empires are necessarily the most advanced or technologically dynamic nations?

Yea, anything that effects teching (other than knowledge points) should be in proportion to your empire size.

So 4 viziers might allow a considerable discount for a small nation, while it might take 20 viziers (or so) to get the same discount for a much larger empire.

There was no 'tech' tree in MoM. There was simply a magic tree for unlocking new spells but that was it. Everything other then spells you started the game with access to you just had to build it and it's requirements first. MoM had more of an RTS feel with buildings and unit production.

In fact the focus on the Magic tree was often the thing that allowed people to do huge exploits in MoM. You could start the game with some of the best spells in the game if you got enough books in that area. Sure you couldn't cast them very quickly but just 1-2 of the most powerful summoned monsters in any line could sweep the starting map with little to no effort.

While the counter route of non-magically could rarely do anything to stop it even against AI on impossible difficulty which had like a 50% bonus to all production as I recall if not more. They'd have whole armies of units while you'd have just a few and the uber summon units were often the only counter. On normal difficulty it wasn't even a challenge really.

I'd say that the lack of a tech system is really what made the "military" pick like warlord so valuable. You either went with units that could gain XP or you didn't. If you went the route with units that earned XP then letting them level up higher really helped. While if you went the summon unit route it was a rather worthless pick. So it depended more on what units you plan to use rather then a military vs tech choice.

As for the original topic I think part of the reason that war bonuses get over shadowed by tech is due to imbalancing in how fast tech power grows compared to the war bonus. Some games give a static bonus and while it makes the problem worst a percentage bonus also often doesn't measure up.

The reason is say at tech level 1 units has 1 strength, Tech 2 is 2 strength, Tech 3 is 4 strength and so on. This basic doubling effect while not exact is kind of the model games like Civ and Gal Civ follow where the next weapon/unit/tech continue to have even greater bonus then the one before it especially at the end of the tech tree. Take Civ4 for example when you got from Musketers at STR9, to Rifleman at STR14, to Mechanized Inf at STR 32. Now a 10, 20, or even 30% bonus isn't going to offset that tech jump.

Usually a tech focused side can keep 1 or more tech levels above a war race. Even if you get a war based race the benefit of increased tech stealing when capturing cities/planets like some suggestion. The problem is the war race can never effectively over take any race because they are totally dependent on other races to have developed it first just like the spy focused race. Thus they will always be behind or equal to the tech race. They can only over take them after having destroyed enough of their production base that the tech race can't R&D faster then them, such as the war like race has 20% more income put into R&D then the tech race who gets a 20% bonus to R&D. Then they end up researching at the same rate, meaning the war empire needs to be about 20% larger most likely. If the tech race has a larger empire though then the war like one's only real hope is to rush them and undermine their production enough to over take them on R&D.

Personally I do think the R&D bonus to military field is the better approach. Though it does still pose the problem of late game usefulness. At least with the bonus to combat itself there is a slight advantage when players are on equal tech terms, such as late game when they both have reached tech limit. What it comes down to more often is a balance issue.

Though in closing I've never really liked how most 4x games handle war like races. They tend to give them simple bonuses to combat and that's it. They still suffer penalties with war and unhappiness that other races do, though in some cases it's slightly less, which in my opinion doesn't make any sense. Someone already mentioned the Klingons so I'll use them again as an example. The Klingons love war and would not become unhappy that were at war unless maybe they were losing it badly but even then it would spur them onward even more. Even in human history curtain nations loved warfare and were always at war with someone yet their people thrived and encouraged it. They didn't rebel and become unhappy like a bunch of anti-war pacifist we have today.

Some cultures find nothing wrong with war as a way of life and wouldn't suffer any penalties from it. Even peaceful nations who don't like war tend to toughen up when they are in a defensive war against an outside aggressor. Though as far as I can tell E:WoM doesn't have any kind of war wariness mechanic so this shouldn't be an issue.

I don't think anyone should get a flat research bonus across all schools of Knowledge, but instead being limited to only one (or two) schools.

For instance, you could have 20% off the price of your "favored" school, and 10% off the price of your secondary school.

One sovereign might favor adventure, while their race is magical (10% off) or something.

Or a warlike race might favor warfare, and then might choose a secondary of civilization, magic, or adventure.

Equally, a Tech Savvy race might choose to favor Civilization, while having a secondary of Magic or Diplomacy.

As for the idea of having proportional tech advantages ... I like it. For instance, if a nation has a large proportion of their population (or economy) invested in warfare ... aka Trained units & Upkeep, then they should have some discounts on military technology so long as the vast percentage of their budget is spent on military.

Meanwhile, the number of Quests you complete should be compared in proportion to the size of your empire (perhaps for added experience and discount in Adventure techs)

So for instance, a smaller nation might gain Bonus Exp from Quests, as well as gain a larger discount on Adventure techs for completing the same amount of quests.

So basically a 1 city Sovereign that completes, say, six lv 5 adventures ... they'll get 20% off their next few adventure techs ... meanwhile a 5 city Sovereign might have to complete 20 or so of the same type of quest ... basically rewarding a person for spending most of their assets on X, even while they might not have all that much to spend.

Exactly.  This is, in my opinion, a good method to give your nation character, as well as prevent hyperteching by larger empires, while enabling smaller nations to become really good at certain things they wish to focus on.

I think this (and all tech trees) work best if they don't end as well, but continue to give additive bonuses the more you research.

Here's a thought: Give Warlike races a boost to military research for successful military actions, the idea being that they are constantly testing new strategies and equipment, then refining them after the results.  That way, warlike races have something to encourage warlike behavior, and won't get completely left in the lurch by tech races.

A player could be provided a Tech "BONUS" for staying in a single Tech Tree for a certain # of Tech picks, versus someone who jumps around in 3 or 4 trying to cherry pick the best starting ones.

So, if I want to Tech my Civ, but dabble in Magic, if I pursue the Civ Tech Tree for 4 items in a row, then do 1 Magic pick, then go straight back to the Civ Tree, you would get a lessening of the Turns required to advance that next Civ Tech item.

Example: In the Civ Tree, I would go 3(3) - 5(8) - 7(15) - 9(24) CIV techs(turns) then jump over for the first Magic Tech 3(3). then jump right back to the Civ Tree.  Now instead of the next Civ Tech being 11(35), it would be only 7(31) thus a 4 Turn "BONUS" for doing 3-4 in a row in the same Tree.

Now if I deviate, say go back to Magic after only 3 Civ Techs this time, when I return to the Civ Techs, the Turns "BONUS" would be reduced.

If I jumped to Adventure directly from Magic, the return to Civ would see no "Bonus", but if during that Adventure visit, I had did 4 Adventure Techs in a row, then went back to either Magic or Civ, they would see no turn "BONUS" but the next return trip back to the Adventure Tree would see a turn "BONUS".

The way to maintain multiple "BONUS's" in multiple Tech Trees would be by staying in a Tree for 3-4 (pick a #) Tech picks in a row.

That way you can be rewarded for staying Tech specific, but don't have to be totally stuck in a Tree to see any real benefit.

Does that make sense sorta?

I think that, in combination with the building percent bonuses, could be a good way to assist focus and give nations more incentive to become "peaceful," "warlike" or "magical."

I think the actual problem in the cited 4x games is too much emphasis on technological advancement instead of gameplay.  ie instead of providing advantages, tech lets you utterly outclass your enemy.

i'm not convinced that they should have a tech system in the game at all.   if theyt ook a tip from MoM and dumped explicit teching for the most part...   i mean, research spells sure, maybe level up in adventure by adventuring..