Technologically befuddled

[daringly]

In many games I have played, most of the technologies are never researched (nor do we even consider researching them). The problem is that "Industrial technology" is by far the best thing to research. There is a race for this (usually led by Germany), followed by Jets (again led by Germany). England can't even consider most items.

Two ideas...

1. When you get a technology advance, you automatically lose one research point. That will slow the race down slightly.

2. Rebalance techs. Either change the costs of researching different things, or have a chance to develop something you are not actively researching (areas of focus, instead of "Jets, Jets Jets! Throw out this pesky uranium thing you found, it doesn't build jets!) As it is now, there are a lot of interesting techs out there that never see play, because to research them in 39-41 is to surrender early.

[Bruce70]

Perhaps this is true if you only play to win. Personally I like to experiment with different techs. One of my favourite strategies is to get the Italian navy in the Atlantic with L5 GLR.

There are some techs that I have not found interesting though. I have never had any luck using rockets, never had a need for sonar (yet), have found little use for radar (but maybe this will change if applied to ground units) and I have never reached a high tech level in bombers despite trying on a few occasions.

I often find that the Tank/AT tech battle is one of the most interesting aspects of the tech war.

[pzgndr]

An interesting game variant would be to provide each country with a virtual research point or some other bonus in some random tech area. Germany might luck out and start with a bonus in tanks, but could just as well have it in sonar. :eek:

[RicKhan]

I luv those Rockets. Protect them from Airstrikes and they are your WonderWeapons.

Very mean, Very Deadly.

My active Pbem opponent and i try to Spread out the Tech Points among the many tech options.

We are currently going to try a limit of 1 point bought in year39, and 2 points a year til year43, and 1 in 44, for Germany.

And 2 per year for Italy and all Allied powers except the USA which is allowed to buy however it wants.

[zappsweden]

To enable all research areas to be cost-worthy there must be some system so that advances get slower for each level. An example below.

Example:

level 1 has a research cost factor of 1

level 2 has a research cost factor of 1.5

level 3 has a research cost factor of 2.2

level 4 has a research cost factor of 2.5

level 5 has a research cost factor of 2.8

A cost factor of say 2.0 means that the chance of advance will be only half of the "regular chance" in the old system.

The above example means that after level 2 Jet Aircraft is achived there is much more cost further advancing to level 3 than it is switching to some unreasearched area.

After a while the less important areas will become cost-worthy because of this system.

[Ancient One]

Why not just use the CoS system, or something along those lines.

Anyway, I think most of us can agree that research in SC needs at least some kind of "diminishing returns" factor.

[Gman]

Originally posted by RicKhan:

I luv those Rockets. Protect them from Airstrikes and they are your WonderWeapons.

Very mean, Very Deadly.

My active Pbem opponent and i try to Spread out the Tech Points among the many tech options.

We are currently going to try a limit of 1 point bought in year39, and 2 points a year til year43, and 1 in 44, for Germany.

And 2 per year for Italy and all Allied powers except the USA which is allowed to buy however it wants.

RichKhan I like your idea of the tech points. I will try this out in my next game and see how it goes! Thank you!