Search engine still not functional, so stop me if this isn''t original (pretty likely) Most strategy games incorporate "research" into their gameplay. Whether it be discovering a new way to chop wood (AoE), designing a laser cannon (Earth 2150), acquiring the ability to build Prism Tanks (RA2), or meeting Dutch sailors who just sailed into port to trade their "bang sticks" with you. OK, the last two aren''t research per se, but they do fulfill the same basic role, so I''m gonna treat them the same in this post. Research in general seems to be treated as a state-of-being which can be had by anyone, for a price. I''m not suggesting that there''s anything wrong with this sytem, but I do believe that there is a different way of doing it. And here it is... Basically, each tech can be owned by only one player at a time. Take this for example: Player A finally earns sufficient credits to build a Research Facility. Up until that point, he has only been able to build basic civilian and military units (Note: "basic" does not necessarily equate to "weak"). Now, however, he is presented with a wide range of possible techs which he can research. He decides to research "Plasma Weaponry: Level One". As soon as he clicks the Research button, that technology is reserved for him. If the Research Facility is destroyed before the research is completed, then that tech becomes available for research to all other players. Now for the interesting part. Every tech that is researched becomes a "Tech Object" in the possession of the player who researched it. If the Research facility is destroyed, all the tech objects that were contained in it are scattered on the ground around it (little floppy disk icons or something?), and the original owner loses whatever benefits that tech gave him. Any unit can now collect these techs (can only carry one tech at a time), and bring them back to it''s own Research Facility, at which point the new owner can take advantage of them. This means that if Player A had researched thru the tree up to "Plasma Weaponry: Level Three", the new owner would be able to equip his untis with third-level plasma weapons. I haven''t thought this thru too thoroughly, but I can see that it might have some pretty big (negative, prolly) effects on play balance. However, as long as the tech tree was designed carefully (so if someone researches plasma weapons, there are a bunch of other similar techs which you could research instead), it might provide a nice touch of variety to a game. Coupla thoughts: A limit should be placed on the number of techs that can be held in one Research Facility. A comprehensive range of basic units should be available without the need to research anything. Anywayz, just thought I''d chuck mine into the whirlpool of ideas here... Peace

I don''t like it.. and here''s why:

In real life, many companies can research the same thing. Why would only one person be able to research it at a time? It just makes no logical sense.. if player A has 10,000 cash, and player B has 20,000 cash... why should player A be able to research Plasma guns, while Player B can''t? I would think that player b would be able to, and be able to more efficiently since he''s got more resources. Also, tech isn''t something you just find laying around... sure if you can get a disk full of research data, you can learn much easier, but you should be able to figure it out given enough resources even if you don''t find one laying around. I think, you should be able to do any research you want, but your fundings are the limiting factor... the more you can throw at it, the faster you figure it out (aka, no set amount of time, it''s variable depending on how much money/resources you allocate for it, and you can take away/add resources if you need to). In war, patents mean very little, so if you''ve got a patent on type of weapon... and I have discovered it also... what are you going to do if I decide to use it? Sue me? Bahaha, sorry, had to throw that out there... just another reason having only one person be able to research isn''t a good idea, there IS no real factors that would create this scenario, unless it has something to do with discovering weaponry used by extra-terestrial life, and you need the object to be able to do research on it (or, maybe you get your hands on data from the future or something, but then it''s still dumb).

I agree with the first poster....technologies shouldn''t be monopolized by one side.

However, I do think there is a difference in knowing what is required to build something, and actually being able to build it or do it. Look at N. Korea for example, they have the knowledge "presumably" to build nuclear weapons, but they don''t have the infrastructure required to actually build them. Most games solve the infrastructure problem by just requiring certain buildings as requisites, but they do this in reverse order...you can''t research a technology until these buildings are in place. But there''s also a manufacturing factor involved as well.

Secondly, there''s the possibility that a certain technology may be morally repugnant to a culture''s sensibility. In my own game, Eugenics and AI Androids are a big deal on this. Thanks to Hitler, Eugenics research is a pariah in the scientific community, and the mere mention of it will stigmatize you as a scientist. Now imagine if someone finds out that the government was funding this research all along? That''s exactly what''s happening in my game, is a huge impetus for the cause of the civil war which is the backdrop of my game.

Here''s another technology that most game designers will just include as a "cool" factor but not realize its ramifications....cybernetics and chemical augmentation. Chemical augmentations use steroids, growth hormones, adrenal and norepinephric as well as synaptic enhancers to augment human capabilities. They would literally transform a human into an amazing fighting creature. The downside is that it shortens your life span. And with cybernetics, it too can give you amazing enhancements at the cost of your humanity. How many people would be willing to undergo such procedures? Would the government "force" you to undergo these treatments?

To me, knowledge alone is useless. You must also be willing AND able to capitalize on what you know. Knowledge isn''t as important as how it is perceived. If knowledge is perceived as "evil", then it won''t be used (except by a few). If you have the know-how, but not the means to utilize it, then it is also useless.

quote:

---

In real life, many companies can research the same thing. Why would only one person be able to research it at a time? It just makes no logical sense

---

Agreed. I have next to no experience developing strategy games, and being an action game indie, I tend to focus more on what would be fun that what would be realistic, or even logical. But I guess an illogical strategy game is in itself a contradiction in terms

You gotta admit, though, sending in a lil'' special forces dude to infiltrate an enemy base, blow up their research plant, and sneak off with the plans to their new Subatomic Deatomizer would be a helluva lot of fun Then of course, there''s game balance. Always game balance....

Peace

Dauntless: Do you have a website for your game? Sounds awesome...

Actually, Yoda, I think your idea has some interesting parts to it.

While I don''t think that one side should be able to monopolize a single technology, I do think that having the ability to steal other people''s technology is an interesting idea. After all, remember when we had that plane downed in China (anyone still remember that?) and the Chinese tried to find out as much as they could from it before we got there to take it back? It seems that if you introduced some way to take others peoples technology, then you could have some players just using the blunt force method of spending money to research things, and others trying to steal technologies from other people. Let''s say, for example, that you captured one of your opponent''s special units. With that unit in hand, the speed of your research to develop that unit could be sped up. After all, with a working nuclear weapon in hand, its much faster to develop one of your own, but you can''t just immediately build one. Also, if you had some way of capturing your opponents manufacturing buildings, then perhaps that could also speed up the rate of your technological progress.

Also, Dauntless, if your RTS game has a website, I''d like to see it too.

Don''t reject this idea too quickly though, it does have some merits. Being able to deny your opponent certain technologies could make the game interesting: if your opponent can''t use his ''favourite'' unit he''ll have to learn to use the alternatives.

Making all technology totally unique isn''t necessarily the only (or best) way of acheiving this for example.

One possibiity is an technology business model. There are three basic ways of getting new technologies: you can either research and develop it yourself (slow, very costly) or you can buy it from someone who already has them, e.g an independent third party. This is generally cheaper than DIY, and much faster, although bleeding edge tech might not be available. Finally, you can steal it from your opponent.

However, these independent contractors are purely mercenary - they''ll happily sell their tech to any side, unless you pay them a bit more for an exclusive contract. If you do this, then your opponent has to go through the slow and arduous process of developing the tech independently, as opposed to buying it off the shelf.

Another approach might be to have special agents which can block the research of certain technologies. As long as these agents are in place, the enemy player is completely unable to make any progress with that technology.

Sid Meier''s Alpha Centauri had something along these lines.

There was your normal tech research which anyone could research. You could also trade this research for money, other research, bribe, etc. There was also an option, that if you successfully captured an enemy base you could "steal" one of their "technology modules" and use it.

There were also a few special projects that only one faction could use at a time. First one done building got to use it and anyone else working on the same project automaticly had the resources re-directed to another project. Each special project had is prerequisite technologies that you had to acquire before you could start building. The project was then associated to the base that build it and who ever owned the base would get the bonus(s) from the special project. If the base was completely destroyed, no more special project.
The special projects usually just enhanced existing technologies, i.e. the space elevator would allow any troops with parachuting abilities be dropped anywhere on the planet and not have the limitation of only x number of squares from a base.

I think it is basically an interesting idea. In a multiplayer RTS with more than 2 players that is free for all (nobody can side with another).

The 3rd party idea seems like a good way of doing this. I wouldn''t go for tree''s of technology though, because that would bring the game out of balance.

However I was thinking more along the lines of fantasy, how it could be applied in that genre.
You would for example have gods, deities if you will. Now this doesn''t need to be set medieval or earlier, it can very well be in an alternate now or future.
The first to build a shrine to a particular deity, will gain that deity''s favor. Dependant on the deity the advantage is different. To make it more interesting and to disallow any player monopolizing all gods, you also get a disadvantage (gods don''t appreciate it if you worship all gods, they want you to worship just them. Childish gods such as the Greek and Roman gods are good for this IMHO).

Example:
I''ll take Greek & Roman gods as example. Mars/Ares, god of war, would increase the damage your units deal. However your economy and food/supply production will decrease.
Poseidon/Neptune, god of sea, earthquakes and horses, would make your cavalry (if they exist) faster and ships stronger. However your building construction time would increase, while building HP would decrease, because they would have to be earthquake resistant.
Dionysus/Bachus, god of wine & madness, would increase unit building time (morale) but decrease their effectiveness.

If you had Dionysus and Mars together for example, the negative dionysus abilty would disable the mars advantage, but the negative part would stay as it is. This means that advantage can''t levy the disadvantages in any way and would make the choice of god very important.

Then one more rule that would bring it completely back to topic:
Only the player who has the oldest shrine of a god, would have the god''s favor. Other players could destroy the shrine or would have to take control of it to gain the god''s favor (destroying is easier & more effective game rule, controlling is more logical & easier to understand. After all what god would appreciate you destroying his shrines?)

YodatheCoda and aleclair-
I'm working on it now as I speak. It may take me awhile since it's been awhile since I've done any HTML, and I really want to use CSS this time around. Gimme about a week, and I should have some stuff up.

As for the research idea, although it's a nice gimmick to have research belong only to the owner (unless its stolen by espionage), I didn't like how it was done in Alpha Centauri which had a similar idea. Matter of fact, I could almost always win on the normal difficulty setting solely by advancing my tech and denying it to others. Even at the hard level, this was fairly easy to do (but usually I got clobbered militarily by someone if I did lose).

For me, it just isn't logically consistent since the world shows that technology really isn't exclusive (other than atomic weapons). What I DO think you can do which is along similar veins is that you can steal technology through espionage or conversely delay your opponents research through sabotage. Historical examples of the former are the Rosenbergs giving the atomic bomb secrets to the Russians, and of the latter the destruction of NAXOS (sonar detection equipment) research for the Germans and destroying the Heavy Water plant in Norway that was a necessity for atomic weapons building and research.

You can set up an espionage network that if good enough, can detect if your enemy is researching something. Then you can decide to either steal it for yourself, or destroy it (if it's something you already have). This way you can monopolize technology for yourself in a way.

[edited by - dauntless on February 6, 2003 1:39:31 PM]