Technology system in 2.0 is too confusing

[LiberiusX]

In my opinion, this is the reverse of how you'd want progression to go. The increments should each feel weighty and important, while the totality of your selections should not get out of hand, lest it breaks parts of the game.

depends on the game I guess. I’ll frame my thoughts around EU4. Stacking small modifiers can lead to explosive growth for European minors.

Imho, there aren’t enough negative modifiers to retard this explosive growth in a meaningful way.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I don't get why modifiers are necessarily boring. If I get for example one giving me a bonus to PI generation, I'm excited - as that will allow me to do more exciting stuff with the gained PI - a ressource I'm always short of. Sure, some modifiers coming along you way are situationally less useful (happiness/production out for tribesmen if you play a Republic/Monarchy) and I agree even that some could need a general balance pass, but not even every new feature, character interaction or whatever the tech tree can give you beside modifiers is useful in every possible situation.

And no, I also don't think that AE managment rules the game and going for the world conquest is the only effective way to play. I'm playing to have fun (which is my effective playstyle) and the offers of the tech trees satisfy my roleplaying needs

It becomes boring when you have 3/4 different innovations in a row all giving the exact same modifier.

 

[Herennius]

It becomes boring when you have 3/4 different innovations in a row all giving the exact same modifier.

Sure it is possible to tech that way - but the charm of the trees is that you aren't forced into it. I sometimes experience this when beelining to a certain innovation, but over the course of the game my progress is rather spread out and gradual in all trees. And then sometimes getting the same modifier after modifier is monoton...but highly desirable, because you actually need it. For me in that case it is no longer boring, because taking the invention opens new romms for developing my game.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Oh, i like the tree mechanic despite that feeling. I tried to like, for example, Stellaris semi-random tech picks, but it can ruin your game pretty hard if some key tech refuses to show up for a while. Tech trees become more predictable as soon as the "optimal" strategy shows up, even if there is more than one strategy. But overall, I still prefer it over many other systems. My only gripe is that the sheer amount of innovations dilute their importance, expecially when so many are just the same modifier with a different name. I'd rather have less innovations, but more significant.

 

[LiberiusX]

Oh, i like the tree mechanic despite that feeling. I tried to like, for example, Stellaris semi-random tech picks, but it can ruin your game pretty hard if some key tech refuses to show up for a while. Tech trees become more predictable as soon as the "optimal" strategy shows up, even if there is more than one strategy. But overall, I still prefer it over many other systems. My only gripe is that the sheer amount of innovations dilute their importance, expecially when so many are just the same modifier with a different name. I'd rather have less innovations, but more significant.

I like the Stellaris tech tree. My all time favorite was Sword of the Stars, where there was a defined tree, but the “next” invention in a tree was not guaranteed to be available to research.

Games get boring for me when the “optimal” strategy is discovered. The SotS mechanic kept the game fresh as you were forced to learn to not plan too far ahead, and adapt to what cards were dealt you.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

I like the Stellaris tech tree. My all time favorite was Sword of the Stars, where there was a defined tree, but the “next” invention in a tree was not guaranteed to be available to research.

Games get boring for me when the “optimal” strategy is discovered. The SotS mechanic kept the game fresh as you were forced to learn to not plan too far ahead, and adapt to what cards were dealt you.

It's what I liked of the Stellaris tech at first, but when I got no Destroyer tech for 50 years (hyperbole) I started to reconsider its effectiveness. After all, it gave random chance to progress, but the "optimal" tech ladder was there nonetheless.

 

[Bovrick]

I think randomness having a place in a tech system is justified and can lead to good gameplay, but I'm not a fan of completely removing agency, and random selections lean a little too far to that for my taste. @IsaacCAT made a good thread about gating Techs around gamestates, and I think those are a good compromise. You get some randomness as to whether you have (easy) access to the requirements to unlock something (say ownership of a trade good's production), but it also gives you an opportunity to alter your gamestate to satisfy those conditions.

 

[crownsteler]

I like the tech tree in that they are fairly tight. You have to ballance long term goals with short term gains with your limited number of innovations. I can see the benefit of some randomness in the trees though, as I can imagine them feeling same-y after a while.

A more underlying issue is IMO the limited number of 'effect classes'; mostly the innovations are just modifiers which stack with just a limited number of different modifiers. But that mostly shows that there are to few mechanics in game to fully flesh out the tech tree.