make technologies semi-proportional

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Kristijonas
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make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Kristijonas »

While it is true that the biggest and strongest countries in the world ARE the most technologically advanced, the rest of the countries don't fall back too much mostly. Just look at countries like Switzerland or Luxembourg or Netherlands. They are small but technologically advanced. Yet in the game small countries have 0 or 1 research facilities. So if the game starts in 1936-CW in particular, they will lag behind tremendously in technology which is ahistorical. Could there be some sort of mechanism to allow easier research for countries that lag behind? Perhaps research cost could be lowered a little after the technology passes its 'release date' ? For example if a technology is marked 1993 and it is already 2000, it could be 2x easier to research for all countries. It's just one way to address the issue, I'm sure it's possible to do better.

Thoughts?
dax1
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by dax1 »

I think "research facilities" is "outmoded"
imo BG should create a new system that it considers: population and cultural level

example
population*cultural level/X="slot number(s)" (Behove I annex or not?)
culturallevel*research efficency=research bonus (for research faster)
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Kristijonas
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Kristijonas »

dax1 wrote:I think "research facilities" is "outmoded"
Sorry what do you mean by that? Do you mean there is a mod to change how research facilities work?
dax1
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by dax1 »

Kristijonas wrote:
dax1 wrote:I think "research facilities" is "outmoded"
Sorry what do you mean by that? Do you mean there is a mod to change how research facilities work?
sorry.....absolutely not!
I want say that the concept of research facility is wrong, couse building 10 reserach facilities and you have a great advantage over the others.
It would be enough to have research slots according to the number of population, as I suggested above, also based on the cultural level of the population. at this point...if I want annex a country, I will have to think if the cultural level (loser region) can penalize me by number of slots
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Nerei
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Nerei »

Research facilities could still serve a purpose in that they can represent large investments into research such as CERN, ITER, Los Alamos National Laboratory etc.
Having them serve such a purpose would also mean I can still artificially boost my research output though at great expense.
With such a model the facilities would still mean something but you could do without them if need be.

It would be great if facilities like ITER and CERN could be multinational but that is probably too much to ask for.

Also I feel education investment should be considered directly in some form as public universities etc. conduct research and having a well educated population should be fairly critical. The last part might have to be tied to an overall education level that gradually change depending on long term education investment but that might be taking it too far. Then again I think the SR series should go for complexity rather than being Paradox with worse graphics.
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Zuikaku
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Zuikaku »

Higher education founding should significantly increase research. Also, most regions do have unproportional research lag (too few research centers). Also, allied AI regions shoul'd learn how to trade techs.
Please teach AI everything!
Kristijonas
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Kristijonas »

Perhaps a simple solution would be an AI rule (if it's possible), with 1 check every year or every month:
if tech is (10? 20? 30?) years old (every tech has it's preset default date) then -> is given to allies.

Which would be rather realistic. Countries like Bulgaria don't create that many inventions/technologies themselves but they certainly receive a lot of them through businesses and civilians just because we live in global world. The only thing is - they don't have the latest tech, they don't have secret (unreleased) technologies and they lag behind a little.
Nerei
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Nerei »

In some cases it should not just go to your allies but to everyone. Anything that is going to find its way into or become domestically sold products will spread across the world eventually. Computers, TV, radio and similar are going to be impossible to restrict access to once they are available commercially.

It has been a bit of time since I last looked closely at the tech-tree but I am fairly certain there are also technologies related to pharmaceuticals which again if we assume they work like in the real world their patents have limited lifespans after which everyone can produce them. Many countries might not have the budget to develop the pharmaceuticals initially but in many cases they probably have the money to create the factories to manufacture them (pharmaceuticals of natural origin or created from simple chemical reactions are quite cheap to make).
Even they do not have the resources to create say genetically modified eukaryotes that produce say complex enzymes these would still be available now on the open market and likely at a fraction of the initial cost.
dax1
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by dax1 »

Nerei wrote:Research facilities could still serve a purpose in that they can represent large investments into research such as CERN, ITER, Los Alamos National Laboratory etc.
Having them serve such a purpose would also mean I can still artificially boost my research output though at great expense.
With such a model the facilities would still mean something but you could do without them if need be.
I know what it rapresent in game, but there isn't limited to build 10 R.Facilities and taking advantage of the technological point of view, completely out of the normality of real life.
Anyway I know BG will not touch the R.F., but the building of them should be limited in someway.
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Nerei
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Re: make technologies semi-proportional

Post by Nerei »

Putting a hardcap on research facilities of 10 it is not really solving the fundamental problem of 10 research facilities being far more than what most nations have unless they undergo significant blobbification (which might just break the AI economy) and relying on the AI building enough research facilities is not exactly something I would count on.
Sure 30 facilities is much faster than 10 but both are quite a bit better than 3 (even if we assume they get a decent old tech bonus) and will see you gain an insurmountable advantage in the end. The only question is how fast will you get that advantage.

I am fairly certain I only had 8 or 9 facilities operational for most of the time in my last game and I was still way ahead on technology in the end.


As for exploits honestly if you think something is that the answer is simple: Do not do it.
Yes that is a cheap answer but seriously removing player exploits in large, complex grand strategy games should be somewhere around quaternary priority. For starters it will require dumbing down the game quite a bit.
Insert Paradox joke here.

It will also put massive restrictions on what the player can do. A classic Hearts of Iron strategy bordering on being an exploit is attacking the US in 1936. Yes it is amazingly effective and yes it also works in the latest version. Preventing players from doing it except through house rules is quite hard or very restrictive though.



Personally I am far more in favour of soft-capping things.
Lets assume we use an equation like the one suggested above and lets have research facilities increase efficiency (basically we will take whatever time we come up with and multiply it by whatever the research facilities give us). Basically something like:
culturallevel * research efficency * research facility bonus
Research facility bonus itself could be something like:
[number of research facilities]^(1/20)+0.05
No hardcaps or anything like that you can build as many facilities as you want. The equation will however apply diminishing returns and deter too much research facility spamming.

Here is a quick list of speed increases and what number of research facilities they would require:
5% = 1 facility
10% = 3 facilities
15% = 7 facilities
25% = 39 facilities
50% = 1688 facilities
100% (double speed) = 631964 facilities
1000% (10 times the speed) = 9.04*10^19 facilities (yes 90 quintillion facilities)

Yes I know we will not see this kind of change to research but my point is that such a mechanic would not actually prevent a player from doing anything. It works without giving the player an error that tells them that for some arbitrary reason they cannot build more of a certain type.
It does however dissuade them from building too many facilities as they suffer from diminishing returns and facility 40 is worth only a fraction of the first facility.
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