What about the Tech Threes??

[unmerged(4522)]

I think it needs to be completely redone. Not everyone should have access to the same technologies, and/or not at the same time.

For example, the English had longbowmen, which gave them a terrible advantage against traditional mail-clad knights. How do you simmulate this with a tech tree?

Also, the Swiss pikemen, Polish hussars, the Armies of Gustav Adolf, Spanish sword & buckler infantry, Cossack tabor, Spanish tercios.

Further, I think we should have more unit types. When muskets became available, not everone carried them. It wasn't until they bacame effective, and the beyonet became practical, that pikes were finally put to disuse. How about the ability to build different infantry types as they become available through the tech tree. Thus, initially, all your infantry would be either archers, longbow (for Eng), or spearmen. Then we get the Swiss pikemen, shortly thereafter followed by their imitators (Landsketch and others), then by arquesbusiers, musketeers, then in the pre-Napoleonic era we get skirmishers, followed by riflemen.

Same with cav and art.

We already have 3 categories of troops. It would not be so hard to subdivide them!

 

[unmerged(3856)]

Most innovation in the period under concern was driven by trade. It was trade and the promises of riches that prompted the age of exploration in the first place. A good many of the wars were trade related. Many of the advances (think tech-tree) were trade related. (The creation of merchant banks for example was of pivotal importance.) Yet the trade system in EU is laughable as is the socio-economic development aspect of the game. (Promote bailiff???? - come on now!) To claim that this a 'simulation' is also a joke. Its a fun game, but a simulation? I don't think so. Civ is still on my hard drive. EU is not. Why? Because EU lacks the depth of the civ style games. It lacks that depth precisely because the tech tree, the social and the economic development aspects of the game are grossly inadequate. Perhaps EU2 will go some way to enrich the game. We shall see.

 

[Mowers]

Contraversial- apart from the first bit about trade which is a good point.

I would hardly say the trade or socio-economic aspect is laughable- name a better system in any game?

CIV is a game, a great game. But a game with no semblance to history or realism.

EU is not on your hardrive because it lacks depth? EU is realistic, CIV is not. I can't relate to CIV because whilst its fun it has no realism or simulation aspect in it. EU has both. I really enjoyed CIV but because it was another utterly unrealistic conquer the world game I lost interest (admittedly years later). Power politics is a balancing act, CIV doesn't even start to simulate this, EU does and rather well to.

Simulation- A joke? Strange- it doesn't do badly. I'm not claiming thats stunning but its not bad.

We shall see.

 

[unmerged(3856)]

bmoores

I have already said it. Civ is better than EU in most apects of game play. Whether you like it or not both games are 4X games. Just about everything that's in CIV is also in EU and vice versa. Question is which does it better? As for historical accuracy, depending on how you play EU there can be precious little of that. In one game starting as Brandenburg I colonised all of North America. As Russia I had little difficulty in pushing to gates of Berlin. (maybe that is historically accurate?) This IS a conquer the world game if you choose to play it that way. A game needs to be multi-facetted (sp?) to be interesting enough to keep coming back to. If the trade system, the production system, the socio-economic system of EU were expanded then certainly EU could be such a game.

 

[Winkelried]

I agree that the socio-cultural, the economic and the political system are far from what I wish from such a game and even farther from reality, the developers have made some nice additions compared to civ-type games that give EU quite some depth (like changing religion, vassalization etc.)

 

[unmerged(349)]

I think the tech tree system needs to be overhauled so the players have far less impact on it. I get tired of hearing about players who have maxed out their tech trees in 1650. There needs to be some way to limit the research so that Muskets, for example, aren't going to be common in 1500 (not that they are now, but if the game starts in 1418, under the current system, a lot of countries would be well-advanced by 1500).

Maybe the solution is to hard code some dates (e.g, all European powers will receive the handgonne advancement sometime between 1475 and 1500, depending on how they do their research allocations). This is a bad example, but I think you understand what I mean.

 

[Savant]

Great post!

Originally posted by bmoores

Which, Gentlemen, leads us into unfamiliar territory.

On the premise that military innovation was by and large not state driven at the time do we remove the military and naval tech investment options? Perhaps there ought to be a radical overhaul of the military advancement path.

What did drive military innovation?

I would argue this. It was driven by four factors. Individuals with a vision (of which there were numerous), technology advancement, experience of war, in particular, defeat, and finally, threat driven.

Thus large dominant states have no need to militarily innovate unless they have an individual of vision. This individual impact would be hampered or helped by the lead/ deficit of the concerned country. The chances of individuals appearing would be driven by the freedom of thought within the state and the type of sovereign. There is also a large element of randomness in this.

Technology advancement will drive military innovation as commercial technology advances are applied in the military realm. How civil technology advances is largely down to trade and infrastructure. I would link it to those two factors.

Experience of defeat will always drive change. This is self explanatory.

Threat driven. This is already in the game as a neighbour bonus factor. But I would make it slightly more complicated, how? I’m not entirely sure.

But I think the above system has to be far more realistic than the current one.

Hey Greven, this is manual material here!!

 

[Mowers]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
bmoores

I have already said it. Civ is better than EU in most apects of game play. Whether you like it or not both games are 4X games. Just about everything that's in CIV is also in EU and vice versa. Question is which does it better? As for historical accuracy, depending on how you play EU there can be precious little of that. In one game starting as Brandenburg I colonised all of North America. As Russia I had little difficulty in pushing to gates of Berlin. (maybe that is historically accurate?) This IS a conquer the world game if you choose to play it that way. A game needs to be multi-facetted (sp?) to be interesting enough to keep coming back to. If the trade system, the production system, the socio-economic system of EU were expanded then certainly EU could be such a game.

You seem to want a micro management game that just doesn't reflect the type of control that governments had in that era. CIV is a fantasy not reality of command. Not that there's anything wrong in that, and civ does this remarkably well, just that as someone who is well educated and well read I want a game that reflects my own intellect and understanding of history.

EU is not a 4X game in the traditional software sense. I have played the board game for years and BoP is far more important than conquering because of the engine.

So you can bend historical accuracy by beating the AI! Big deal. It could have happened, but the point is that it happened in a fairly realistic game engine. But you would be very hard pushed to do so againist any real opposition. It would appear that you are making assumptions that it can be played as a conquer the world game against the AI. Fine- can't disagree, beating the AI proves nothing. I've played this with 8 players for whole days in LAN sessions and a conquer the world attitude loses because the game engine enforces that. Players that took a BoP came out top. We get people who come along to our games and for first six hours they go on a conquering spree and then some one turns on them, they collapse, go home and don't normally return.

 

[unmerged(3856)]

bmoores

I play games in multi-player mode too, but this represents a tiny fraction of game play. Moreover in a social environment (i.e with mates in the same room where we can converse and share a beer or two) it very hard to get a really serious game going and harder still to carry it through to its conclusion. The fact is that something like 80% of all gameplay is versus the AI. If the game design and AI don't reflect this then the game will fall short of the mark. Without micro-management (I prefer to call it game depth) interest cannot be maintained. Remember that other board game called Diplomacy? Utterly simple yet what a rip-snorter of a game. Change this to a computer game and it fails miserably. Horses for courses.

 

[Mowers]

Mp gaming only represents a fraction of ( yours and others ) game play because the Mp bit isn't reliable. (thank heavens this is to be fixed)

I'm all for being social, but we discuss it down the pub afterwards, our games are frighteningly quiet- the owner of the cafe thinks we are very strange as he is used to teenagers screaming 'headshot!' at each other in a LAN game.

80%? Were did you get that figure? Admittedly its easier to play the AI- I just choose not to as I find it unchallenging. Any AI isn't going to be good enough in my lifetime to take most of us on, so by and large I ignore it.

Game depth can be achieved with out micro management. I would like more depth but without the micro management bit. It would appear that they are going to do exactly this which would be brilliant- we will have to see. Royal families and religion are two factors that would be ideal additions.

 

[unmerged(3856)]

bmoores

Nice chatting with you. Its 2.30 am here. Got to get some sleep!!!!

 

[Mowers]

Its been a 'rip-snorter'! I've never heard that one b4, perhaps it was invented to describe yet another Aussie wipeout of us Brits. Anyway, another time.

Ben

 

[unmerged(2055)]

Tech advancement is fun when a new "discovery" unlocks a new gameplay capability (like "armies can explore" or a fortress level-up). Techs that don't act as keys are merely numerical modifier improvements. Calling them "muskets" or whatever is purely a matter of flavor, irrelevant to gameplay. They could simply be called "tech level x" for all the difference that they make.

The underlying tech system is solid (except that the end of the tree is usually reached too early). To account for the much longer GC in EU2, more tech levels need to be introduced, and/or the cost of existing levels raised. The tech-level names just don't matter to me, but Paradox obviously needs to adjust the name list if they're going to modify the number of tech levels.

Tech advancements being driven by government investment are somewhat unrealistic, but because tech levels are important to gameplay, players must have some control. IMO the current model, in which we can affect overall investment and relative priorities (but not choose specific techs or tech paths) is just right for this game.

Bottom line: Expand the number of levels and reevaluate the costs of each level so that reaching the end of the tree is rare. Restructure the tech-name list to reduce anachronisms. Consider implementing multiple tech-name lists to enhance the feeling of cultural diversity. But don't mess with the underlying system: It works!

 

[Carolus Rex]

Man, this is a discussion that has evolved!

 

[Mowers]

Yeah, it works, I can't deny it, and I am by and large happy with it. I just pointed out that it could be more realistic because at the moment it doesn't reflect what really happened.

I would like to add my voice to your call the highest level to be reached more historically.

I think that cultural diversity would have to be handled with care.

Any ideas on how this would be implemented? I personally think that the switch from feudal to proffessional armies ought to be built on more. To have 'true' campaigning seasons would be interesting.
As for different types of troops, its mico managment and as you say they could be called X-troops for all intents and purposes. What needs to be simulated is how warfare changes, which was very well modelled in the first game. Any addition to this would be good, opening the question, How did warfare change in this period and how could this be further implemented inot the game?

 

[Carolus Rex]

Yeah, we have to remeber that warfare was not the same in 1500 as in 1700. The warfare should evolve with new strategies, such as cavalry shock, the "everybody fire at 3" strategy.
New units should also evolve. But, this is still very hard to simulate.

 

[unmerged(4522)]

cencerning 'cultural diversity'

How should it be handled?

Easy. Just like a nation's general goals are called up by a reference to a particular ai file, so could its tech tree.

Let's say we give Spain a new land technology called 'Tercios', which gives them a significant shock combat boost. Let's say this is land tech level 10.

It would then need, say, 1000 pts to reach next level.
Other countries, who never developed the Tercio, would skip right over it and might require 2000 pts to reach the same level.

I think technological cultural diversity is necessary.
Why? It is Western-European-centric!!!

Eastern European counties, Asia, Africa, and the Americas had a completely different level of technological development!

The tech trees should be designed in such fashion that for each cultural zone, they end approximately where they did in 1820. Thus, the Zulus should probably never get to artillery, no matter how much of africa they conquered, etc., etc.

 

[unmerged(2724)]

Actually I'd prefer to see less historical "realism." I think that if I'm playing as the Mughals and want to do something akin to Japan's closing to the West then I should be able to at least try. The factors that I use to mold/guide my particular country should be changeable by me. If I want to convert France to Buddhism I think the game should let me try. Of course it should make it near impossible, but I want to try. If not I think what you end up with is a game that forces you along predetermined paths that you can deviate slightly from but not truly affect. There was a thread a while back asking who "really" won and I think the general answer was England. I want to be able to change that, not just work towards being able to move from #3 to #1 in the "reality" version of events. I want to be able to "win" as Switzerland or Tuscany.

As for the tech development, I don't like the linear nature of development. I think it should come more in spurts or by chance. I would like to allocate a certain percentage of my income/taxes to research and not know what I will get. Maybe break it down between land/naval/infrastructure/whatever and see what pops up. I kind of think of it as funding for inventions/workshops/schools/etc. that would hopefully get me something, but I'm not sure what. If I allocate a lot of money for naval research, it might pay off in year 1 with something new and maybe in year 5. Maybe I'll get lucky and get 5 naval advances in 10 years that allows me to sweep the seas clean of opposing ships. I want to be able to use this windfall strategically. There have been times where I've sat and waited for my land research to reach a certain point so I'll get a specific bonus (the +5% to seiges for example). I'd prefer to not know and have the frustration of just breaking a level 5 fort and unexpectedly getting the message that my land research has paid off and I have now found a new method of breaching fort walls that gives me a 5% bonus.

Sorry for the long post....

 

[Carolus Rex]

I would like to see an option where you could choose to have the exact tech as the country had during that time.
Or you could choose to play a game like the original EU, research and max if you want to.

 

[PSYCHO V]

Lou Wigman

Huh !? ...Civ better than Eu !? I think those lead water mains up there in N/C are beginning to take their toll !

Hail EU ! Hail Paradox !