This is a groundbreaking proposal that will require the reader to really pay attention in order to fully grasp the importance of — and need for — this suggestion.
~O~
OK. So I've been thinking about the research system. It's designed to encourage players to choose only portions of the total stock of technologies and focus on them. I can agree with that, in principle (somewhat), but it offers a terrible disadvantage in a game where there are many players in some individual matches.
It's one thing for you and your enemy to both focus on naval technologies. But if you are an island-centric nation and you are surrounded by vast land-based empires, your navy will never be able to compete in the long run. So spending your research on naval power -- which makes sense in the early game for an island nation -- will have been an utter failure since you can't compete on land once your competition has grown past you in the mainland. The most you can hope for is your nearest neighbors to go inactive so you can sneak onto the mainland and take over their holdings without much resistance just so you can grow your army to take on the active mainland players, later on.
At the same time, if you are a small but powerful landlocked nation in the Pacific Map per se, and your competitors are on the other side of the map with vast navies, you'll never be able to successfully cross the ocean safely enough to invade their lands. Moreover, they're going to eventually be able to transport their entire armies into your lands thus overwhelming you because they have a monopoly on the seas.
Some players like to hyperfocus on very few technologies, i.e., Tanks and Bombers, where they can gain an early/mid game advantage if they are lucky enough to secure a good supply of Oil. Other players like to hyperfocus on just Infantry and slow-moving guns so they can turtle up and never offer much to the game and, heaven forbid, if anyone tries to invade their puny nation, it'll cost the invader dearly, thus freeing up a third nation to wipe out both of these two after they've decimated each other.
~O~
Sure, those various scenarios offer a variety of playing styles. But the problem with them is that you are pigeon-holed into your decision -- like going down a rabbit trail -- where you can't just back out and change your mind without suffering vast technological deficiencies. So, if you decide to change your focus on naval power (for instance) into air power, your newly-constructed air forces will not be able to compete against your competitors who already built up their air corps and so your change in focus will only fail.
The point, here, is that the technology is divided into five main groups...well four really, with the "secret" branch being more like a special or supplementary branch to the main four branches. And with the various prerequisite technologies being more varied up front, the early game forces you to at least research Infantry before you can research most of the other slow ground-based technologies and you must research the Armored Car before you can research many of the other armored ground-based technologies. Until the recent categories change, you had to research Fighters before you could research AA. And, despite the reorganization of the categories, you still must research slow Artillery guns before you can research fast Self-Propelled Artillery.
Now, those cross-category research requirements in the early game do help to balance the play somewhat. But the fact that they only affect the research focus for balancing in the early game is problematic. Because the typical player might only research levels 1 and 2 of Artillery so that they can unlock the SP-Artillery and only research and build the SP versions from there, thus never researching beyond level 2 of regular Artillery and never wanting to build any, anyway.
Now, I'm not in favor of forcing any player to build a balanced military. Though I much prefer balance, myself, if someone else wants to build nothing but Bombers, that's their choice. But as it stands, now, the way the technology system is set up, it encourages players to hyperfocus on only a few technologies.
~O~
So I propose this change. First, the prerequisites for various techs should continue to be cross-category far and above the early versions of each tech area. For example, instead of just requiring level 2 AA tech before researching level 1 SP-AA, maybe the level 3 SP-AA should require level 4 AA tech in addition to level 3 SP-AA tech. And, the level 5 Naval Bomber should require maybe level 3 Tac Bomber tech combined with level 4 Submarine tech...this would simulate the impetus behind both the need for and ingenuity behind the design of a more advanced Naval Bomber. Maybe it would make sense for a level 4 Light Tank to require the engine upgrades designed for a level 3 Armored Car. And maybe a level 3 Transport Ship should require a level 2 Medium Tank to be researched to simulate the need for, not just a faster ship, but one with a larger cargo-hold for those heavier units.
Already, this kind of thinking is behind the Nuclear Bomber...the higher level Nuke Bombers require higher-level Strategic Bomber technology. So why not implement this across the board?
Then, to facilitate this need for more research, so that the pigeon-holing isn't just prevented, but the ability to actually keep up in research across the board is better-balanced, I propose more research slots be made available. However, I am not proposing more of the slots as they currently are. Instead, there needs to be only one research slot per each of the four main categories and one additional slot for any category including the Secret branch. This way, you will always have one research slot dedicated to the naval branch, one for the Air branch, one for the Infantry branch, and one for the Armored branch.
The fifth slot can focus on the Secret branch while being able to supplement any of the other branches as well. I believe that fifth slot would offer both an additional bit of balance as well as enabling players the ability to still choose to focus on fewer technological paths, somewhat.
~O~
Thus, to sum up, my proposal is twofold:
1.) Increase the prerequisite technologies for higher level techs with cross-category requirements.
2.) Have 5 research slots...1 for each of the 4 main categories and the 5th. slot for any category including Secret.
Mod edit - changed the title of this thread as it is obviously not "Top Priority"
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.
The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.
R.I.P. Snickers <3
