Hi everyone, well this is my first post so I´ll hope you´ll forgive me if this topic has already been covered. Anyways Im throwing around ideas for an open ended space strategy grand space strategy game. But where Im having problems is on the research-technology side of the game. I want to create a different feel for research in the game, I dont want to just have a static tech tree where every race follows the same path and ultimately will have the same technologies. How can I have different flavors of technologies for each race without of course, the obvious, just making a seperate tech tree for each race. I want the player to not necessarily know what the next technological advancement will be, I want there to be an element of suprise. I think I know how to do something like this for a medievel-mystical strategy type game. For example in a fantasy world one race might have a certain forest located by it, then the tree can be researched and those trees might be better for building bows than other forests located near other races. In this way players and races would have very different units and techs because their bows would be made from different trees, swords from different metals, other things developed from different artifacts etc. However I have no idea how to implement the same sort of research idea for a space genre strategy game. Any other ideas any of you have had? Thanks.