I like features from both HOI and HOI II with respect to the research aspect. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to logically merge both methods without becoming too cumbersome. Here’s what I have so far:
Technologies:
The technologies would be offered individually as in HOI and every one given a point value. The point value is behind the scenes and only used by the AI to determine completion time of the technology. The point value will also be used to calculate penalties to research such as:
If you do not have a tech team with a specialty that matches the tech you want to work on, the point value of that tech doubles. This effectively requires twice the time and cost to complete.
When you start researching a tech early the point total for completing that tech doubles for each 6 month segment of time you begin before the historical date.
Here’s an example of how I see this working; in the industrial tech “advanced machine tools” the historical date is 1938. One of the components is “automation”. Let’s assume that automation has a point value of 200 and requires a skill of industrial engineering. If you started researching that component in the 2nd half of 1937 the point total would be 400, if you put it into production in the 1st half of 1937 it would be 600 points and so on. If you didn’t have a tech team with the industrial engineering skill the point total would be 400, 800 or 1200 since not having a matching skill doubles the point total.
The technologies will have links to production items, so when you complete the required number of individual technologies a new production item will appear, or a change in industrial capacity will occur, or organization of land units will improve, etc. I don’t think any one component in isolation should impact the game.
You use cash to pay for R & D not IC. The amount of cash you need might determine how you allocate your IC but IRL I don’t think that R & D interfered with production capacity.
Tech Teams:
The tech teams will operate basically the same way they do today with these changes:
Each tech team will generate the number of points per day equal to its experience level.
Each tech team that is utilized requires a dollar amount in relation to its skill level. Therefore you have to pay each team you have working. The higher skilled they are the more they cost.
You can utilize as many tech teams as you can afford. It’s strictly a pay for service industry.
When the tech team is utilized for 360 consecutive days it’s experience level will improve one level. (Remember that also increases the cost of using that team)
If a country utilizes all their available tech teams for a period of 90 straight days a new tech team will become available. (Up to a limit for each country. I hope the economics (money or lack thereof) will keep this under control)
If a tech team is not utilized for at least 15 days in a rolling 360 day period it will become unavailable.
Each tech team will retain areas of specialties like in HIO II so you don’t have Supermarine building battleship components.
You can assign multiple tech teams to one component in order to speed up completion. However the second team only gets half of its point total applied to the project and you’re paying full price. The third team you assign towards the same component would only apply ¼ of its point total towards the project and again you’re paying them full price. The 4th team would be 1/8 and so on. So again the economics should keep people from assigning more than two teams to any project.
There’s a lot of work that would have to go into implementing something like this because you’d have to assign values to each tech in relation to the tech teams from all the countries in order to maintain competitive balance. The groups of tech teams for each country would have to be expanded in order for each country to have a pool that come and go depending on usage. And a big one is that there is an AI to turn over the research if the player doesn’t want to micro manage this game aspect.
I’m sure I’m missing things and welcome your comments. I have faith that Johan & co. will make HOI III the best yet.
Technologies:
The technologies would be offered individually as in HOI and every one given a point value. The point value is behind the scenes and only used by the AI to determine completion time of the technology. The point value will also be used to calculate penalties to research such as:
If you do not have a tech team with a specialty that matches the tech you want to work on, the point value of that tech doubles. This effectively requires twice the time and cost to complete.
When you start researching a tech early the point total for completing that tech doubles for each 6 month segment of time you begin before the historical date.
Here’s an example of how I see this working; in the industrial tech “advanced machine tools” the historical date is 1938. One of the components is “automation”. Let’s assume that automation has a point value of 200 and requires a skill of industrial engineering. If you started researching that component in the 2nd half of 1937 the point total would be 400, if you put it into production in the 1st half of 1937 it would be 600 points and so on. If you didn’t have a tech team with the industrial engineering skill the point total would be 400, 800 or 1200 since not having a matching skill doubles the point total.
The technologies will have links to production items, so when you complete the required number of individual technologies a new production item will appear, or a change in industrial capacity will occur, or organization of land units will improve, etc. I don’t think any one component in isolation should impact the game.
You use cash to pay for R & D not IC. The amount of cash you need might determine how you allocate your IC but IRL I don’t think that R & D interfered with production capacity.
Tech Teams:
The tech teams will operate basically the same way they do today with these changes:
Each tech team will generate the number of points per day equal to its experience level.
Each tech team that is utilized requires a dollar amount in relation to its skill level. Therefore you have to pay each team you have working. The higher skilled they are the more they cost.
You can utilize as many tech teams as you can afford. It’s strictly a pay for service industry.
When the tech team is utilized for 360 consecutive days it’s experience level will improve one level. (Remember that also increases the cost of using that team)
If a country utilizes all their available tech teams for a period of 90 straight days a new tech team will become available. (Up to a limit for each country. I hope the economics (money or lack thereof) will keep this under control)
If a tech team is not utilized for at least 15 days in a rolling 360 day period it will become unavailable.
Each tech team will retain areas of specialties like in HIO II so you don’t have Supermarine building battleship components.
You can assign multiple tech teams to one component in order to speed up completion. However the second team only gets half of its point total applied to the project and you’re paying full price. The third team you assign towards the same component would only apply ¼ of its point total towards the project and again you’re paying them full price. The 4th team would be 1/8 and so on. So again the economics should keep people from assigning more than two teams to any project.
There’s a lot of work that would have to go into implementing something like this because you’d have to assign values to each tech in relation to the tech teams from all the countries in order to maintain competitive balance. The groups of tech teams for each country would have to be expanded in order for each country to have a pool that come and go depending on usage. And a big one is that there is an AI to turn over the research if the player doesn’t want to micro manage this game aspect.
I’m sure I’m missing things and welcome your comments. I have faith that Johan & co. will make HOI III the best yet.