...it is indeed quite overwhelming.
Now, let me preface this by saying first just how much I love this change, and how this impacted my enjoyment of the game, it is indeed to me the best change since the big mana/pops overhaul in 1.2.
After that, even if I thought the game had solid mechanics, it'd become quite boring after the first century of gameplay and in subsequent playthroughs.
There was no tangible sense of progression, you'd be going through essentially the same motions in 450 as in 700, only more effectively and on a bigger scale.
With these new inventions however, you unlock whole mechanics as the game goes, and can spec your nation to be very effective in a variety of ways.
It can't be overstated how much this was a game changer for me.
That said however, the sheer number of inventions is something to keep in mind.
On a first look it's really intimidating, even with the search function you can't easily tell what may be the best option at a glance.
Of course, as you play you get a handle of it and it starts to become more natural, but I found that it was quite a steep barrier before you get to that point, I myself made a list of the total modifiers every tree gives, so I can quickly assess where I should prioritize given my current situation.
That was really the point where the system "clicked" for me, but I can't really consider the fact that I had to do this in the first place as a positive sign.
And I dread how I'll have to keep checking every patchnote to keep my list up to date.
When I imagine how this would look for a newcomer (even worse for someone who has never played a GSG in their life), I can't help but think this is, at best, very problematic.
I could see two solutions here:
1) the conservative one, more UI related.
Making a list of all modifiers in that tree was very handy for me, so I think the game could use that, listing those modifiers in game would already be a huge step in the right direction imo.
Perhaps have an icon at the top of every invention, and hovering over it could give you the list of bonuses you'll gain if you follow this branch, something like this:
2) more radical, involves streamlining the invention trees.
Many inventions works on tiny increments, to a very disproportionate degree, I think.
Stuff like 3 or 4 inventions giving -0.1 AE change or +3% pop happiness so close by just makes the whole interface needlessly cluttered and hard to read imo.
So why not consolidate those inventions into bigger, more impactful ones, which take multiple innovation points to get, so those 3 giving -0.1 AE or +3 happiness could be one which gives -0.3 AE or +9 happiness and costing 3 innovation points each, for example.
I feel trees could be consolidated into at least half as many inventions, with each costing 2 innovation points.
I made this quick example of what that could look like for the oratory left tree:
Personally, I lean more in favor of streamlining it, I think it really makes it more accessible.
But having a tooltip would be much easier to implement, and very likely more agreeable as well since it doesn't change anything in practice, so it's a good compromise imo.
It may have been best to create this thread in the suggestion subforum, or SPQR (is it even being updated anymore?), but I wanted to hear opinions here in the main forum first.
PS: I had in mind to list all bonuses the tree already gives in the pictures, if I overlooked something it's not intentional.
PS2: they are just examples, the 2nd image isn't necessarily the exact way I think they should be consolidated, but just to give an idea.
Now, let me preface this by saying first just how much I love this change, and how this impacted my enjoyment of the game, it is indeed to me the best change since the big mana/pops overhaul in 1.2.
After that, even if I thought the game had solid mechanics, it'd become quite boring after the first century of gameplay and in subsequent playthroughs.
There was no tangible sense of progression, you'd be going through essentially the same motions in 450 as in 700, only more effectively and on a bigger scale.
With these new inventions however, you unlock whole mechanics as the game goes, and can spec your nation to be very effective in a variety of ways.
It can't be overstated how much this was a game changer for me.
That said however, the sheer number of inventions is something to keep in mind.
On a first look it's really intimidating, even with the search function you can't easily tell what may be the best option at a glance.
Of course, as you play you get a handle of it and it starts to become more natural, but I found that it was quite a steep barrier before you get to that point, I myself made a list of the total modifiers every tree gives, so I can quickly assess where I should prioritize given my current situation.
That was really the point where the system "clicked" for me, but I can't really consider the fact that I had to do this in the first place as a positive sign.
And I dread how I'll have to keep checking every patchnote to keep my list up to date.
When I imagine how this would look for a newcomer (even worse for someone who has never played a GSG in their life), I can't help but think this is, at best, very problematic.
I could see two solutions here:
1) the conservative one, more UI related.
Making a list of all modifiers in that tree was very handy for me, so I think the game could use that, listing those modifiers in game would already be a huge step in the right direction imo.
Perhaps have an icon at the top of every invention, and hovering over it could give you the list of bonuses you'll gain if you follow this branch, something like this:
2) more radical, involves streamlining the invention trees.
Many inventions works on tiny increments, to a very disproportionate degree, I think.
Stuff like 3 or 4 inventions giving -0.1 AE change or +3% pop happiness so close by just makes the whole interface needlessly cluttered and hard to read imo.
So why not consolidate those inventions into bigger, more impactful ones, which take multiple innovation points to get, so those 3 giving -0.1 AE or +3 happiness could be one which gives -0.3 AE or +9 happiness and costing 3 innovation points each, for example.
I feel trees could be consolidated into at least half as many inventions, with each costing 2 innovation points.
I made this quick example of what that could look like for the oratory left tree:
Personally, I lean more in favor of streamlining it, I think it really makes it more accessible.
But having a tooltip would be much easier to implement, and very likely more agreeable as well since it doesn't change anything in practice, so it's a good compromise imo.
It may have been best to create this thread in the suggestion subforum, or SPQR (is it even being updated anymore?), but I wanted to hear opinions here in the main forum first.
PS: I had in mind to list all bonuses the tree already gives in the pictures, if I overlooked something it's not intentional.
PS2: they are just examples, the 2nd image isn't necessarily the exact way I think they should be consolidated, but just to give an idea.
- 7
- 4
- 2
- 1
- 1
