Salvete,
I know there have been two other topvoted suggestions for tech and Inventions but I feel I have something to add to this and give my view of an 'Improved' tech system. I think the current one is very shallow and is one of my main frustrations with the game.
The current system is extremely generic and linear and in my opinion boring and flavorless. Inventions are even worse, there is no good overview of them and when you tech up all the previous ones are blocked out, if you haven't unlocked the ones you want yet getting new tech can actually be a bad thing. Just adding a separate UI for inventions with an overview or tree of all of them to see and unlock past ones and a summary of all the ones you've unlocked would be a huge improvement.
Now on to my suggestion.
Remove linear tech level and add something like this (Civilization Advancements from Bronze Age mod (RIP))
or the fantastic suggestion by @Kantoli, with each level being much more impactful than research levels and unlocking new mechanics, laws, buildings, ideas, bonuses and inventions, which I will get to.
Make research points an accumulative resource that you spend on unlocking new tiers in advancements, and maybe other things, like speeding up inventions (Yes, I'll get to that). Or with Kantoli's suggestion, research points would go toward the progress in that field (or just be replaced with how his system works with XP and expertise, which is also super interesting but/and more complex).
Edit addition: If you feel RP being a resource would be too much like mana, I understand and an alternative could be like Stellaris, where you pick which advancement to do next and the RP would accumulate towards that tech. An advantage of it being an accumulated resource is that it could be used for other things related to research and scholars, such as a button (like the pig stab button) to increase Scholar's effectiveness/Invention progress at the cost of RP or similar things. Or just replace RP with Kantoli's system of XP and Expertise.
Remove Researchers and replace them with Scholars, replace the current invention system with more like a tech tree of inventions, you would assign scholars to work on an invention based on his corresponding ability and when he is completed you can adopt that invention for a gold/PI/Stab cost, or just automatically adopt it upon finishing.
Make these inventions more impactful than small modifiers, like unlocking buildings,policies, laws, ideas etc. You would have one 'tree' of inventions for each category, military, civic, oratory, religious and you could keep many of the current existing inventions, but make them more interesting.
For Scholars there are different approaches you could take, you could either have one Scholar for each category like Researchers now, or you could have Scholar slots that can work on whatever invention you pick (but only corresponding to their skill in that category) and be able to increase these slots with buildings, ideas, laws, heritages, you name it.
Edit addition: A ruler's stats could also modify the speed at which inventions in the corresponding categories are gained.
You could also have Invention 'drifting' like some have suggested, having progress toward an invention be increased by having neighbors or trade partners with that invention, in addition to Scholars.
There would also be Inventions unique to specific countries, like there are now, but perhaps increasing and fleshing them out more with this invention tree approach and making them more impactful to the playstyle, priorities and mechanics of that nation.
Thank you for reading and looking forward to read your feedback and seeing your thumbs ups!
-Dragonpants
I know there have been two other topvoted suggestions for tech and Inventions but I feel I have something to add to this and give my view of an 'Improved' tech system. I think the current one is very shallow and is one of my main frustrations with the game.
The current system is extremely generic and linear and in my opinion boring and flavorless. Inventions are even worse, there is no good overview of them and when you tech up all the previous ones are blocked out, if you haven't unlocked the ones you want yet getting new tech can actually be a bad thing. Just adding a separate UI for inventions with an overview or tree of all of them to see and unlock past ones and a summary of all the ones you've unlocked would be a huge improvement.
Now on to my suggestion.
Remove linear tech level and add something like this (Civilization Advancements from Bronze Age mod (RIP))
or the fantastic suggestion by @Kantoli, with each level being much more impactful than research levels and unlocking new mechanics, laws, buildings, ideas, bonuses and inventions, which I will get to.
Make research points an accumulative resource that you spend on unlocking new tiers in advancements, and maybe other things, like speeding up inventions (Yes, I'll get to that). Or with Kantoli's suggestion, research points would go toward the progress in that field (or just be replaced with how his system works with XP and expertise, which is also super interesting but/and more complex).
Edit addition: If you feel RP being a resource would be too much like mana, I understand and an alternative could be like Stellaris, where you pick which advancement to do next and the RP would accumulate towards that tech. An advantage of it being an accumulated resource is that it could be used for other things related to research and scholars, such as a button (like the pig stab button) to increase Scholar's effectiveness/Invention progress at the cost of RP or similar things. Or just replace RP with Kantoli's system of XP and Expertise.
Remove Researchers and replace them with Scholars, replace the current invention system with more like a tech tree of inventions, you would assign scholars to work on an invention based on his corresponding ability and when he is completed you can adopt that invention for a gold/PI/Stab cost, or just automatically adopt it upon finishing.
Make these inventions more impactful than small modifiers, like unlocking buildings,policies, laws, ideas etc. You would have one 'tree' of inventions for each category, military, civic, oratory, religious and you could keep many of the current existing inventions, but make them more interesting.
For Scholars there are different approaches you could take, you could either have one Scholar for each category like Researchers now, or you could have Scholar slots that can work on whatever invention you pick (but only corresponding to their skill in that category) and be able to increase these slots with buildings, ideas, laws, heritages, you name it.
Edit addition: A ruler's stats could also modify the speed at which inventions in the corresponding categories are gained.
You could also have Invention 'drifting' like some have suggested, having progress toward an invention be increased by having neighbors or trade partners with that invention, in addition to Scholars.
There would also be Inventions unique to specific countries, like there are now, but perhaps increasing and fleshing them out more with this invention tree approach and making them more impactful to the playstyle, priorities and mechanics of that nation.
Thank you for reading and looking forward to read your feedback and seeing your thumbs ups!
-Dragonpants
Last edited:
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