Tech system

[joe9594]

Paradox has mentioned that they were looking to revamp the tech system when they found something more fun and I thought I would try floating an idea and see how people like it (probably not much but it cant hurt).

I thought that instead of just having tech countries could have a tech level which as is currently the case is quite easy to keep up in (with decreased costs compared to now) and also reforms which are unlock with tech and carry most of the benefits that were previously on the techs. Nations could buy reforms once they had the appropriate tech but they would also be given them for free some time after getting the relevant tech level.
So for example western might get it 40 years after, eastern 60 Indian 90, Chinese 110 etc. (but non western tech groups would have a much easier time keeping up).
So nations could invest a lot of monarch points into getting a real advantage in a field which would disappear after some time (military ones are obvious but diplomatic and military ones would probably need to be given more power to potentially be worthwhile).
This would simulate historical situations much better showing how military rulers like Gustavus Adolphus or Fredrick the great had effective armies (often inherited from their talented predecessors) which allowed them to be successful.
I feel like this would introduce much more meaningful choices with regards to how many reforms you wanted to get and when (after all you could save a bunch of monarch points by never buying reforms and just getting them for free) rather than now where you just get tech when it no longer has an ahead of time penalty (or sometimes a bit earlier for mil).

Thank you for reading.

 

[Denkt]

I made a similar suggestions a few days ago:

We all know that most likely sooner or later the technology system will ge a major change, here is my current best suggestion how it should be changed. I assume here that the current technology system have been removed.

Instead of a linear technology system with predetermine bonuses at each technology level my system is based around only a few levels which I call tiers or invention tiers.

At each invention tier there is a number of inventions all which are available if you have reached that tier and no invention have any prerequisite other then you have reached its tier. But each invention will obsolete its cousine in the lower tiers. Then you have developed a number of innovation (but not all) you will unlock the next tier.

What this mean can be shown by this example: You develop arquebuse as your last invention before being advanced to the next tier. As your first invention in the next tier you chose to develop musket which give you the musket bonuses but remove the weaker bonuses from arquebuse because musket obsolete arquebuse. Most likely it was a waste to pick arquebuse here because if you had picked any other invention you had left you would have keept its effect then you developed musket.

This system allow player interaction into a system that currently lacks it. This system also allow you to prioritize what you need right now, again not that possible with the current tech system. Poor tech group could be punished by making them need more inventions before advancing into next tier which I think will work better then the current implemention of tech groups. Ahead of time penalty could be based around how many inventions you have developed, maybe 10 years per invention. Another thing is that you can either chose to separate administrative, diplomatic and military inventions into their own groups or you could put them all in the same group.

Another very nice thing is that you can use this system to for example unlock cannon for the Ottomans at the start of the game and many other interesting things that are more or less impossible with the current technology system.