3 ms·

I haven't played Stellaris, but I looked up the research system after reading your comment. It does actually seem really cool and like a good use of randomness.

I haven't played Stellaris, but I looked up the research system after reading your comment. It does actually seem really cool and like a good use of randomness. It reminds me of Master of Orion 2, which also had non-deterministic research. There, each point in the tech tree was a category containing multiple items and, when research into that category was done, you got a random item from that category. If you wanted one of the others, you'd have to get it by trading with or spying on other races.

adwf 10y ago
Yeah, it does lend the game a bit of a Moo2 feel. In other strategy games like Civ 5, or even in RPGs, it tends to be very straightforward to work out the "optimum" strategy. eg. You have to get this tech as quickly as possible, you have to unlock that ability. After a while of playing those games, I tend to get a little bored as I'm pretty much following the same strategy over and over. You get the feeling that you're just ticking off the boxes on your perfect playthrough and when I have that realisation, I get immensely bored with the game. By adding some randomness and preventing the player from ever being able to follow a perfect plan, they've actually made a very interesting highly replayable game. And like all Paradox games, it'll only go from strength to strength as they patch it and release new content for years to come.
santoriv 10y ago
IIRC it only worked like that if you had the race pick Uncreative. Normally you got to pick which tech in the category you wanted to research. So you could plan ahead if you were going with particular strategy (like Darlok spying with all the spy techs). But Master of Orion 1 did have a somewhat randomized tech research series.
- Agentlien 10y ago
  Yes, you're right, I misremembered. Most races got what they selected. But only being able to select one at least limited what you could research. Uncreative races got a random one in the category they chose and Creative races got all items in the category they chose. It was far too simple to play as a creative race, such as Psilon.

adwf 10y ago

Yeah, it does lend the game a bit of a Moo2 feel. In other strategy games like Civ 5, or even in RPGs, it tends to be very straightforward to work out the "optimum" strategy. eg. You have to get this tech as quickly as possible, you have to unlock that ability. After a while of playing those games, I tend to get a little bored as I'm pretty much following the same strategy over and over. You get the feeling that you're just ticking off the boxes on your perfect playthrough and when I have that realisation, I get immensely bored with the game. By adding some randomness and preventing the player from ever being able to follow a perfect plan, they've actually made a very interesting highly replayable game. And like all Paradox games, it'll only go from strength to strength as they patch it and release new content for years to come.

santoriv 10y ago

IIRC it only worked like that if you had the race pick Uncreative. Normally you got to pick which tech in the category you wanted to research. So you could plan ahead if you were going with particular strategy (like Darlok spying with all the spy techs). But Master of Orion 1 did have a somewhat randomized tech research series.

Agentlien 10y ago
Yes, you're right, I misremembered. Most races got what they selected. But only being able to select one at least limited what you could research. Uncreative races got a random one in the category they chose and Creative races got all items in the category they chose. It was far too simple to play as a creative race, such as Psilon.