Jaycee
08.12.04, 14:32
The Technology Research System
Each country can have up to five techteams active researching a project at the same time. This amount depends on your total effective IC.
There are nine different techtrees, for various types and doctrines.
Each project has five sub projects with various difficulties and technology-categories.
Each techteam have a skill and up to five specialities which matches categories of subprojects.
There is Secret Weapons that are enabled at random intervals after you've researched certain techs.
All techtrees are easily overviewed, and all the current factors can be seen at a glance.
Blueprints given from allies speeds up research.
What does the betas say?
fsp - "I have to say that I was very concerned regarding the "simplified" research before joining the beta. Actually, from what Iīve read, I was sure I wasnīt going to like it. Well, I was wrong. I like it a lot because the research teams add a special feeling to every country (itīs a difference to assign Krupp to tank research compared to just adding IC to research in HOI 1) and the new system really helps game balance. "
Matedow - "The new tech system is great. It forces a player to look at his country's strengths and weaknesses in terms of historical ability. You aren't going to be able to turn Cuba into a naval powerhouse to rival the US. It also adds to the historical feel. You aren't just assigning points to research, you are assigning the Boeing team to research your new aircraft technology and the Springfield Armory to research your new artillery. This makes the game that more interesting to play. "
Grosshaus - "Having played just about every grand strategy game released during the last 15 years that has tech research I'd say this is one of the most impressive ones. It has the unique innovativeness of Master of Orion 1, it's as well visualized as Civilization 3 and it has as profound effects to other parts of the game as Victoria. On top of that it's fully moddable (also visually!), extremely historical, neatly balanced and easy to use."
quaz - "Techteams? Initially the simplified approach scared me, but after a very short while I noticed I had already fallen in love with the concept. As my fellow betas have already mentioned, tech researching has become a lot more "personal", and should I say, it has a sort of a human-friendly touch in it now.
One thing I personally enjoy about the new model of research is how it is based on available total resources. Poor countries can't research as much as those who own a lot of resource-rich provinces? Solution? Maybe an alliance and a war with somebody, just to gain a couple of extra provinces, which would allow another tech team for your use.
In addition, given the limited number of concurrent research projects, you really have to plan things ahead, if researching a difficult technology (especially if equipped with woefully inadequate teams), it will take a longer time and thus prevent you from researching other - possibly more simple and vitally important - technologies. (And while planning, you of course have to take into account how military technologies must be actually upgraded into the units, before they're of any practical use.) In my opinion this adds an incredible amount of more detail and sense of strategy to even the most general gaming."
rollothepirate - "I worried a little about the new research system's simplicity, because I loved having total control over my troops' weaponry in HoI and especially CORE. However, I really like how HoI2's has ended up. Research teams give the game even more flavor, and it all feels much more real than allocating IC - you can imagine your nation awarding the contract, and hopefully the project will finish soon, although like in real life you can't project exactly when. The tech teams and their individual skills strike a good balance between giving players options and yet retaining the research strengths of individual country's - the USA can focus on armor/doctrine research if they want, but their teams are much better at air units and naval - is the tradeoff worth it? The historical date also works pretty well at preventing rushing - you can still get a bit of an edge on a really needed tech (think Germany skipping navy to lay the smack on the SU), but the system rewards a balanced approach. All in all the system is simple yet not gamey, and offers difficult choices no matter what country you play."
jpd - "A major improvement over HoI 1's research model. You now have to work with the research centra of your country, with all their strengths and weaknesses. Gone are the days where you could pour every IC you had into research to quickly run far ahead, or do a quick catchup with your opponents. Gone too are the days where you could create powerfull minor allies, just by handing over just about any tech you pocess. You can aid them by giving blueprints, but the research still has to be carried out.
A nice touch are the secret weapons. It's not enough anymore to crawl the tech tree to get to them. You have to wait until your scientists see the light and have a breakthrough, which may or may not come."
Each country can have up to five techteams active researching a project at the same time. This amount depends on your total effective IC.
There are nine different techtrees, for various types and doctrines.
Each project has five sub projects with various difficulties and technology-categories.
Each techteam have a skill and up to five specialities which matches categories of subprojects.
There is Secret Weapons that are enabled at random intervals after you've researched certain techs.
All techtrees are easily overviewed, and all the current factors can be seen at a glance.
Blueprints given from allies speeds up research.
What does the betas say?
fsp - "I have to say that I was very concerned regarding the "simplified" research before joining the beta. Actually, from what Iīve read, I was sure I wasnīt going to like it. Well, I was wrong. I like it a lot because the research teams add a special feeling to every country (itīs a difference to assign Krupp to tank research compared to just adding IC to research in HOI 1) and the new system really helps game balance. "
Matedow - "The new tech system is great. It forces a player to look at his country's strengths and weaknesses in terms of historical ability. You aren't going to be able to turn Cuba into a naval powerhouse to rival the US. It also adds to the historical feel. You aren't just assigning points to research, you are assigning the Boeing team to research your new aircraft technology and the Springfield Armory to research your new artillery. This makes the game that more interesting to play. "
Grosshaus - "Having played just about every grand strategy game released during the last 15 years that has tech research I'd say this is one of the most impressive ones. It has the unique innovativeness of Master of Orion 1, it's as well visualized as Civilization 3 and it has as profound effects to other parts of the game as Victoria. On top of that it's fully moddable (also visually!), extremely historical, neatly balanced and easy to use."
quaz - "Techteams? Initially the simplified approach scared me, but after a very short while I noticed I had already fallen in love with the concept. As my fellow betas have already mentioned, tech researching has become a lot more "personal", and should I say, it has a sort of a human-friendly touch in it now.
One thing I personally enjoy about the new model of research is how it is based on available total resources. Poor countries can't research as much as those who own a lot of resource-rich provinces? Solution? Maybe an alliance and a war with somebody, just to gain a couple of extra provinces, which would allow another tech team for your use.
In addition, given the limited number of concurrent research projects, you really have to plan things ahead, if researching a difficult technology (especially if equipped with woefully inadequate teams), it will take a longer time and thus prevent you from researching other - possibly more simple and vitally important - technologies. (And while planning, you of course have to take into account how military technologies must be actually upgraded into the units, before they're of any practical use.) In my opinion this adds an incredible amount of more detail and sense of strategy to even the most general gaming."
rollothepirate - "I worried a little about the new research system's simplicity, because I loved having total control over my troops' weaponry in HoI and especially CORE. However, I really like how HoI2's has ended up. Research teams give the game even more flavor, and it all feels much more real than allocating IC - you can imagine your nation awarding the contract, and hopefully the project will finish soon, although like in real life you can't project exactly when. The tech teams and their individual skills strike a good balance between giving players options and yet retaining the research strengths of individual country's - the USA can focus on armor/doctrine research if they want, but their teams are much better at air units and naval - is the tradeoff worth it? The historical date also works pretty well at preventing rushing - you can still get a bit of an edge on a really needed tech (think Germany skipping navy to lay the smack on the SU), but the system rewards a balanced approach. All in all the system is simple yet not gamey, and offers difficult choices no matter what country you play."
jpd - "A major improvement over HoI 1's research model. You now have to work with the research centra of your country, with all their strengths and weaknesses. Gone are the days where you could pour every IC you had into research to quickly run far ahead, or do a quick catchup with your opponents. Gone too are the days where you could create powerfull minor allies, just by handing over just about any tech you pocess. You can aid them by giving blueprints, but the research still has to be carried out.
A nice touch are the secret weapons. It's not enough anymore to crawl the tech tree to get to them. You have to wait until your scientists see the light and have a breakthrough, which may or may not come."