New Improvement - R & D Lab

[Soxirella]

Right now, most things in the game is formulaic. If you have X number of Resource buildings, you'll have Y amount of resource / turn, if you have X number of Barracks, you'll have Y number of troops yielding Z number of military points, etc.

 

Sooner or later, all nations will have pretty much the same configuration of buildings at their level and the only thing that'll differentiate one player from the other is their level of activity and the time it takes to recover from post-war damage. This may not be good in the long term, since everyone can't have the same level of activity for many months/years and they may not want to be too active.

 

One way we can add variability in the formulaic nature of the game and to some extent address activeness needs is to introduce the ability to assign bonuses to the formula based on your personal preference.

 

Essentially, the R & D Lab will yield a new non-tradeable resource - research points. These can be used to assign bonuses to your other improvements. Some may choose to produce more resources, others may put it into military, etc. Thus, at the same number of buildings and military config, the outcome will be different depending on how you used your research points.

 

The more you use your research points, the more expensive the subsequent research will be. Some people may choose to keep their nations small and research more to be more powerful and effective at that range, others may choose to grow as fast as possible without research.

 

This will also be not too difficult to implement in the code. Basically, you need to add another variable called modified (default value 1) as a product to all existing formulas. Then you need to develop an interface to input the variable value for each building or nation feature.

 

In addition to the existing improvement buildings and military, we can also use research points to develop better defenses that make it more difficult to be attacked or improve banks to be less raided. On that points, while research cannot be sold, it can be deposited into the alliance, to be either used in the alliance bank or help another nation grow.

[Placentica]

Not a bad idea.  We do have projects which force a nation to go either military or economic.  That's similar to what you are suggesting.  But I wonder how you would implement it?  1 pt a day that gives xyz bonus to say a steel mill, a barracks (1% more troops per barrack), income bonus, infra cost deduction?

 

Maybe an R&D Lab would be a project?

[LordRahl2]

Donno if this addresses the problem you identified. You are basically adding another formula to fix the problem of it being a formulaic game.

[Soxirella]

LordRahl2, this does not add another formula, rather it adds a modifier. How and when you choose to use those modifiers will differentiate you from the others. Some will use their modifiers on attack, some will use it on defense, some will use it on resource production, some will use it on resource protection, etc. Is there are possibility of two or more nations following the same research and use patterns, sure, but the idea does add more variability into the game and breaks down groups of generalization further. In other words, instead of 100 players having the same nation build, you may 10 different nation builds by 10 players each - depending on their style of play and current time commitments.

 

 

Placentica, the research improvement will be like any other resource improvement, it will continue to generate 1 or 10 points per turn, the number doesn't matter. It's just like any other commodity. However, with every use of the points, the cost to use it further increases. Let me give you an example...

 

Take a few improvements or features:

Food Production

Power Production

Military Soldiers

Military Aircraft

 

Now let's say you have accumulated 100 points and that is the minimum cost of using your research points. You can spend those 100 points on increasing your food production. I am thinking a ratio of 1:10... in other words, the increase in food production would need to be done 10 times to equal the production from 1 new resource.

 

So now your status will be like this...

Food Production - Yields 10% more

Power Production - As usual

Military Soldiers - As usual

Military Aircraft - As usual

 

Now since you have used your research points once already, the next time, it will cost 10% more to use it again. In addition to this, it will cost additional to use it on items you have already used your points earlier. So here's the new cost of research...

Food Production - 165 points

Power Production - 110 points

Military Soldiers - 110 points

Military Aircraft - 110 points

 

There should also be a maximum of 4-5 research possible on one item. Soon the cost of researching a new bonus and to research additional bonus will become prohibitively expensive, but that's the catch. Nations can choose to either patiently research and grow their nation or to grow as fast as possible. I give you a scenario...

 

Nation A produces steel and spends their money on growth as soon as they get it and grow to 10 cities and 3k infra within two months.

Nation B produces mostly research points and spends whatever little money on resources or deposit it into the alliance bank. They also research military improvements to the max. This may take them six months, until which they have only bought 1-1.5k infra.

 

During the seventh month perhaps Nation A has grown to 5k infra in all their cities. However, Nation B with funding from their alliance now quickly grows to 5k infra as well, but at the same level of infra, military count, and activity level, they can easily cut down Nation A to size. Perhaps, they do not need 5k infra, but rather need just the points to be in range of Nation A.

 

Another scenario is that they do not need to grow at all. Let's say in round 1 of the war, Nation A has lost 2k infra. Normally they may be able to defeat a nation at 3k infra in round two due to higher number of projects, but Nation B has researched military so much that they are able to match Nation A.

 

Still one more scenario... forget Nation A. Nation B has just attained 1.5k infra after being patient for 6 months. During this time, another Nation C has grown really fast and reached 1.5k infra in 2 months. Guess who wins at equal infra and numbers.

[Soxirella]

The Pinned thread in this forum told us to write a detailed and considered suggestion to get proper feedback, but I see the short topics have the most replies in here. Perhaps, I should have written a one line suggestion.

 

"Let's have an R&D lab that will generate points that can assign modifying bonus to various resources and military ability."

[James II]

The Pinned thread in this forum told us to write a detailed and considered suggestion to get proper feedback, but I see the short topics have the most replies in here. Perhaps, I should have written a one line suggestion.

 

"Let's have an R&D lab that will generate points that can assign modifying bonus to various resources and military ability."

Most here are incapable of digesting more than a dozen words at a time on a good day.

 

The idea brings makes the game more personalized. I'm sure I could make more commentary but I'm afraid heads will explode.

[Soxirella]

Somebody should edit that pinned suggestion thread. I was totally misled into wasting all that time writing in a detailed suggestion and giving equally detailed replies.

[Kim Jong-Il]

Oh look, a progressive post meant to try and evolve the way the game works!

 

*everyone proceeds to ignore change and let it fade into nothing*

 

In reality I love this suggestion, as it would add a new element to the game and make each nation more unique and diverse. This paired with the new military suggestion make by Prefontaine ( https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9733-insane-change-to-the-war-system/),theprogression of nation perks by Sheepy ( https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9945-perks/ ), and the color changes also made by Sheepy ( https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9917-what-do-you-think-about-color-stock-bonus/ ) this would change a ton of fundamentals in the game over a short period of time. 

 

The problem with this is that all of these additions would be overwhelming to the players and might turn them off a bit. If this were to be added to the game, it wouldn't be for awhile.

 

However, I still hope that this could be implemented down the road 

Edited December 8, 2015 by Kim Jong-Il

[Soxirella]

With the latest announcement, I see that the new Perks system is very similar to my R&D Lab idea. The additions to Perks in my idea is the ability to use those modifiers for non-military purposes as well and that the points accrue based on the number of improvements dedicated to research and not based on a constant turn by turn growth.

[Conner Temple]

With the latest announcement, I see that the new Perks system is very similar to my R&D Lab idea. The additions to Perks in my idea is the ability to use those modifiers for non-military purposes as well and that the points accrue based on the number of improvements dedicated to research and not based on a constant turn by turn growth.

PERKS HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED FOR THE ENTIRE GAMES LIFE! IT WASN'T YOU WHO MADE THEM!

[Soxirella]

Thanks for pointing that out in ALL CAPS, else I'd probably not realise there isn't any relation to one's post count and them being a <insert term here that'd probably get me banned if written>

[Azaghul]

Edit: wrong thread

Edited December 25, 2015 by Azaghul