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I'd be interested in playing a 4X game where research more closely resembles how R&D works in the real world. Meaning that you don't always get what you want. S

I'd be interested in playing a 4X game where research more closely resembles how R&D works in the real world. Meaning that you don't always get what you want. Success is not guaranteed. And sometimes you figure out something else that works even better.

suby 8y ago
There are games which do something similar. Alpha Centauri for example gives you four category options to choose from (corresponding to the 4 x's, if my memory is correct), and then you get one of the next techs in the pool from your category choice. More recently Stellaris gives you three topics to research at once, but you're limited to about 3-5 choices (there are ways to increase the number of choices) in each category. Those choices are weighted to appear based on how rare / expensive the tech is and the area of interest of the scientist researching that area. There are also gameplay elements which impact the choices you're presented with, like for example if you have a gateway in a solar system you own (think stargate), then you're more likely to get an option for the tech for building stargates. It works pretty well.
GrumpyYoungMan 8y ago
The only game I can think of that was similar to the model you suggest was the long ago "Spaceward Ho!" series, which was uncomplicated but fun. There was no tech tree; putting money into each of several categories of research yielded incremental improvements in that area over time but occasionally one would get a "breakthrough" that would boost that area dramatically or provide a new capability. I thought it was an interesting idea but it seems fundamentally incompatible with having a tech tree at all.
- vatys 8y ago
  That also made me think of Spaceward Ho! I know it may be too simple a game for a “serious” 4x game conversation, but I still in joy its style of gameplay. Sometimes a game like Civ can be too deep, or demand too much time for a satisfying play through, where Spaceward Ho! is fun, quick, but still hits some of those 4x notes. Are there any modern 4x “lite” type games like this?
kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
In a pretty distant way this reminds me of Game of Life. People spend real research effort (and brute force computing power) to discover structures with certain capabilities (e.g. glider guns). I think the key is that the new tech to research is not even known by the game creators in advance. Something similar can be seen in machine building games like Besieged.
jandrese 8y ago
Sword of the Stars has a more or less fixed tech tree, but your scientists can completely fail to find techs at random, sometimes locking you out of important technologies. Turns out that making a core gameplay mechanic RNG based is kind of annoying. I liked the one in the old Stars! game where you invest in broad categories (chemistry, biology, etc...) and tech would unlock at a combination of tech levels. A better laser might be electronics 4, metallurgy 2 for example.
vvillena 8y ago
The first Master Of Orion was like this. You put resources on research fields, and once you filled them you had a small chance (increasing every turn) of discovering the next breakthrough. You couldn't choose specific techs to research, and you couldn't discover everything on your own, meaning that you needed to trade or steal tech from the other civilizations. This was essential, because sometimes you were left with big gaps in your knowledge (say, lack of fast engines for your spaceships, or weak terraforming tech), and keeping up with everyone else was essential.
- vilinus 8y ago
  Master of Orion II was slightly better in this regard - there were 2-4 technologies in each tech discipline per rank and you could only research one of them (except for early game tech where everyone would get everything on the list). This meant you could plan your tech strategies ahead of time - barring random breakthroughs and salvage tech - so you could design your empire around the tech tree you were going to pick. The game also completely broke this approach by including a racial attribute that guaranteed you discovery of every technology at each level - "creative". You could stack population growth and the Creative stat and pay for them with minor downgrades in other nonessential characteristics (e.g. ship dodge % or spying effectiveness %). The resulting race would have stupidly advanced ships and the economy to support them very early in the game, which usually leads to a total stomp as you just roll over the local enemies and claim a large chunk of the galaxy map as your own, turtling until the endgame.

suby 8y ago

There are games which do something similar. Alpha Centauri for example gives you four category options to choose from (corresponding to the 4 x's, if my memory is correct), and then you get one of the next techs in the pool from your category choice. More recently Stellaris gives you three topics to research at once, but you're limited to about 3-5 choices (there are ways to increase the number of choices) in each category. Those choices are weighted to appear based on how rare / expensive the tech is and the area of interest of the scientist researching that area. There are also gameplay elements which impact the choices you're presented with, like for example if you have a gateway in a solar system you own (think stargate), then you're more likely to get an option for the tech for building stargates. It works pretty well.

GrumpyYoungMan 8y ago

The only game I can think of that was similar to the model you suggest was the long ago "Spaceward Ho!" series, which was uncomplicated but fun. There was no tech tree; putting money into each of several categories of research yielded incremental improvements in that area over time but occasionally one would get a "breakthrough" that would boost that area dramatically or provide a new capability. I thought it was an interesting idea but it seems fundamentally incompatible with having a tech tree at all.

vatys 8y ago
That also made me think of Spaceward Ho! I know it may be too simple a game for a “serious” 4x game conversation, but I still in joy its style of gameplay. Sometimes a game like Civ can be too deep, or demand too much time for a satisfying play through, where Spaceward Ho! is fun, quick, but still hits some of those 4x notes. Are there any modern 4x “lite” type games like this?

kaffeemitsahne 8y ago

In a pretty distant way this reminds me of Game of Life. People spend real research effort (and brute force computing power) to discover structures with certain capabilities (e.g. glider guns). I think the key is that the new tech to research is not even known by the game creators in advance. Something similar can be seen in machine building games like Besieged.

jandrese 8y ago

Sword of the Stars has a more or less fixed tech tree, but your scientists can completely fail to find techs at random, sometimes locking you out of important technologies. Turns out that making a core gameplay mechanic RNG based is kind of annoying. I liked the one in the old Stars! game where you invest in broad categories (chemistry, biology, etc...) and tech would unlock at a combination of tech levels. A better laser might be electronics 4, metallurgy 2 for example.

vvillena 8y ago

The first Master Of Orion was like this. You put resources on research fields, and once you filled them you had a small chance (increasing every turn) of discovering the next breakthrough. You couldn't choose specific techs to research, and you couldn't discover everything on your own, meaning that you needed to trade or steal tech from the other civilizations. This was essential, because sometimes you were left with big gaps in your knowledge (say, lack of fast engines for your spaceships, or weak terraforming tech), and keeping up with everyone else was essential.

vilinus 8y ago
Master of Orion II was slightly better in this regard - there were 2-4 technologies in each tech discipline per rank and you could only research one of them (except for early game tech where everyone would get everything on the list). This meant you could plan your tech strategies ahead of time - barring random breakthroughs and salvage tech - so you could design your empire around the tech tree you were going to pick. The game also completely broke this approach by including a racial attribute that guaranteed you discovery of every technology at each level - "creative". You could stack population growth and the Creative stat and pay for them with minor downgrades in other nonessential characteristics (e.g. ship dodge % or spying effectiveness %). The resulting race would have stupidly advanced ships and the economy to support them very early in the game, which usually leads to a total stomp as you just roll over the local enemies and claim a large chunk of the galaxy map as your own, turtling until the endgame.