So this is a synthesis of a few things that have come up in discussions here I've been in lately, that I thought I would lay out here to hash out and see what interest is there before I try making it a formal suggestion. It's an idea that in my view would add some exploration and much needed character to the game, and make strategic resources actually strategic again, as well as revamping the tech tree. Its a big change, but a change in line of tiles to districts. It would also make an easy toothing stone for modders and future DLC, even offer a way to make lesser precursors more valuable.
The core of the idea is a simple one: Change strategic resources from their present rather bland and homogenous form where every one needs them so they occur everywhere, so something that actually changes a civilization and its era, in much the same way that our own historic ages are defined by their most enduring material, stone, bronze, iron, into eras defined by their power sources, steam, diesel, nuclear, into eras defined by the possibilities of material again, ours being possibly remembered as the silicon age.
In this mode, strategic deposits would be rarer and richer, divining their possible applications and securing deposits would be a big part of the mid-game, leaving the late game for mastering them. There could be tiers, you need a tech from the Crystal Tree to be able to harvest living metal, need experience with the energy yield of motes to plumb the secrets of dark matter. You could have resources that are harvested from Tyananki and space Amoeba too too add some spice to the void born kinds.
Finding a deposit gives a bonus researchable tech or special project 'investigate the properties of [Unobtanium]' completion of which gives the harvesting tech, a small cache of the resource, and an overview of its future possibilities. Future research, would cost a quantity of the resource (to represent material expended in the research) making a point of tension between refining one's mastery of the stuff, or exploiting it fully. The result being we'd have a technology grove or forest made of multiple smaller interdependent technology trees, making it easier to add new resources and technological themes.
Secondary resources, created similarly to how access to iron and coal allowed industrial production of steel, which in turn allowed accessing of inaccessible resources, can spice up midgame and later too.
The idea can be seen in Civ: Beyond earth, where you started not knowing which of their 3 distinct materials you'd find nearest your civ, and so be nudged along differing paths, even hybrid paths. Now that's kind of craptastic in stellaris, where you might find yourself driven down a psi path with your fan: Materialist civ, which is why I am proposing the trees offered up are Material+Dominant ethic (Or perhaps Material+ethic, with certain rare techs for fanatics, creating a 'you go too far' from moderates)
For example, Zro clearly has an affinity for mind. In Spiritualist hands it leads to psionic tech, but in materialist hands, could lead to better Augmented and Virtual reality. Crystals that an Authoritarian civ might turn into rare and costly weapons tech for their elites, might be turned into industrial lasers and holograms for egalitarians, and so on and so forth. Giving antagonistic ethics reasons to compete over the same resources would create reasons for conflict, giving sympathetic civs resources that they don't need but the other might can start early 'Jack Sprat' styles of trading relationships, or lucking into a key resource and gambling on it being the oil of the mid-game might give a small civ disproportionate diplomatic weight as they manage the flow of the material.
The core of the idea is a simple one: Change strategic resources from their present rather bland and homogenous form where every one needs them so they occur everywhere, so something that actually changes a civilization and its era, in much the same way that our own historic ages are defined by their most enduring material, stone, bronze, iron, into eras defined by their power sources, steam, diesel, nuclear, into eras defined by the possibilities of material again, ours being possibly remembered as the silicon age.
In this mode, strategic deposits would be rarer and richer, divining their possible applications and securing deposits would be a big part of the mid-game, leaving the late game for mastering them. There could be tiers, you need a tech from the Crystal Tree to be able to harvest living metal, need experience with the energy yield of motes to plumb the secrets of dark matter. You could have resources that are harvested from Tyananki and space Amoeba too too add some spice to the void born kinds.
Finding a deposit gives a bonus researchable tech or special project 'investigate the properties of [Unobtanium]' completion of which gives the harvesting tech, a small cache of the resource, and an overview of its future possibilities. Future research, would cost a quantity of the resource (to represent material expended in the research) making a point of tension between refining one's mastery of the stuff, or exploiting it fully. The result being we'd have a technology grove or forest made of multiple smaller interdependent technology trees, making it easier to add new resources and technological themes.
Secondary resources, created similarly to how access to iron and coal allowed industrial production of steel, which in turn allowed accessing of inaccessible resources, can spice up midgame and later too.
The idea can be seen in Civ: Beyond earth, where you started not knowing which of their 3 distinct materials you'd find nearest your civ, and so be nudged along differing paths, even hybrid paths. Now that's kind of craptastic in stellaris, where you might find yourself driven down a psi path with your fan: Materialist civ, which is why I am proposing the trees offered up are Material+Dominant ethic (Or perhaps Material+ethic, with certain rare techs for fanatics, creating a 'you go too far' from moderates)
For example, Zro clearly has an affinity for mind. In Spiritualist hands it leads to psionic tech, but in materialist hands, could lead to better Augmented and Virtual reality. Crystals that an Authoritarian civ might turn into rare and costly weapons tech for their elites, might be turned into industrial lasers and holograms for egalitarians, and so on and so forth. Giving antagonistic ethics reasons to compete over the same resources would create reasons for conflict, giving sympathetic civs resources that they don't need but the other might can start early 'Jack Sprat' styles of trading relationships, or lucking into a key resource and gambling on it being the oil of the mid-game might give a small civ disproportionate diplomatic weight as they manage the flow of the material.
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