Development Diary #19 - Technology

[Johan]

Hi everybody. As King is away this week, it falls to me to publish this weeks development diary. Have no fear though, its written by King and not by me

Victoria 2's technology system will bear a striking similarity to Victoria's. In fact the core idea of technologies then invention is lifted wholesale from Victoria. In fact you a lot of the technology names and inventions will seem very familiar to those of you who have played Victoria before.

That's not to say that everything will be the same. The systems in Victoria 2 give us a lot of new toys to play with and we also do need to put in the props that the Victoria technology system gave us. One example is free machine parts, with Artisans ready and willing to make them as required; we feel there will be far less need to have them given out free when certain technologies are discovered.

However, some technologies are the same, the prestige giving ones are still there, and the ones that give you variable prestige according to who discovered them is also there. With an added bonus, the interface will tell you how much prestige you stand to gain if you discover them. So you can see at a glance if anyone has invented them yet, allowing you to gauge how much of a priority you can give these technologies. If you are struggling to maintain your great power rank then you can see at a glance if there is prestige to be had here.

We can also do cool effects with the discovery of inventions themselves. We have added modifiers to the discovery chance based upon other factors. These work the same way as modifiers for the chances that an event will fire, so moders can have a field day with them. For us we are going to use the discovery of other inventions to increase the chances that a particular invention will fire. Making tech a bit more interesting.

That's our first pass through technologies. We will return with more information later. First we are off to test and balance it to make it more fun.

Here's a screenshot of Japan, with the cool early-style japanese army.

[ElPasha]

wohoooooooo. A Samurai Sprite! Halleluja.

i'll be reading the DD when i come back from work

[Jolt]

Hm.. New port icons!

[telesien]

Funny thing is, that the most important info in this whole technology dev diary was the indirectly menitoned fact, that we will after all have different style sprites for different time eras

[Kantenbauer]

The sprite looks very nice

[nomisma]

Will Intellectual Establishments still in Victoria II? and will they have more impact on research?
e.g. would researching army and industrial faster with Army-Industrial Complex?

[Kodos666]

Here's a screenshot of Japan, with the cool early-style japanese army.

Good, this suggests multi-layered sprites
(or whatever the ones are called that change over time)

[theFreeman]

Hmm so you are no longer sticking with one level sprites?

[PB-DK]

well since you lifted it from vicky you cant fuck it up too much, so cool

also nice sprite

[MannheimCouncil]

Great news about the variable invention triggers. Prestige-only was a bit too simplistic.

Nice layout of Japan, too. And the promise of changing sprites is very nice indeed

[Phelan]

Not much info this week. But I like the Vicky technology system, so this is good news.

Can you give us any further information Johan, for example what about research points?

[HMS Enterprize]

So does every coastal province get a port?

I hope not, so blockading/embargo strategies (and maybe supply too) have a chance of crippling an economy in wartime.

[Nyrael]

While we are at prestige... where is it displayed on the main interface? Is it the star in the Diplomacy section?

[Lord Martin]

The Vic tech system was very good and I´m happy to see it´s in V:2 as well.
The Samurai is really cool. It alone is maybe a reason for not modernize the japanese army.

[Woody Man]

Sounds pretty hot, nice to see you're going with levelled sprites

[CaptRobau]

Short but informative. Multi-level sprites are nice, the new font for the provinces looks nice. Not completely happy about what you've done with the way how research works. I would rather have had a more automated system, like in EU3. Sliders that adjust the amount of research points for each field. If you want to be an expansionist country you just raise the Army and Navy sliders and lower the other ones, etc. Since the order at which technologies are researched within a field is set by the game (I think there's a certain order but it could just be random, I don't know for sure) there's no reason for the player to manually click buttons to research techs. It would also be more realistic as research into the various fields were done continuously. It wasn't like the entire intellectual population of a nation would research new rifles one year and new mining techniques the next. It happened at the same time but with some fields getting more attention (i.e. the sliders).

Would've liked a lite version of the HOI-style research for the military techs. New weapons like rifles and tanks were designed by request, not because of some freak invention (maybe the initial discovery of a new weapon type but certainly the research afterwards was most often guided by the government). But this isn't as important to me as the sliders as the military isn't really a major focus of the game, while technology is more.

I'm happy with the different modifiers and effects of inventions though.

[Hardstuff]

I like how you feel obliged to reassure us that it was pre-written by a Scotsman.

Nice sword, Johan.

[CaptRobau]

So does every coastal province get a port?

I hope not, so blockading/embargo strategies (and maybe supply too) have a chance of crippling an economy in wartime.

I think those are all level 1 harbors, i.e. civilian harbors. Since Japan's food supply is greatly dependent on fishing, this seems about right. Plus low level harbors probably can't process many convoys so you might need to encircle all of Feudal Japan during a war, but it'll take less ships per sea province. Or something like that. It could just be that every coastal province has at least level 0 harbor, so that ships can at least dock there. This was also the case in Vicky 1.

[Dagfinn]

Now that the selling and exchanging of tech have been taken away from the diplomatic choices, I suspect the tech development will be slower and more controlable.

Will PD introduce any kind of inherent technology spreading?
Perhaps not like CK but somehow similar?

[Alistus]

Would've liked a lite version of the HOI-style research for the military techs. New weapons like rifles and tanks were designed by request, not because of some freak invention (maybe the initial discovery of a new weapon type but certainly the research afterwards was most often guided by the government). But this isn't as important to me as the sliders as the military isn't really a major focus of the game, while technology is more.

I'm happy with the different modifiers and effects of inventions though.

Basically that's what vicky 1 did and vicky 2 apparently is going to work.