R&D
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Does anyone know of a way to create a system where you can attempt to research multiple techs at the same time?
I want to be able to have a nation choose to allocate its tech "tokens" to multiple techs or focus all on one.
I don't have any idea how to even try to achieve this. Any help would be appreciated.
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The focus all on one cernel achieved in advanced tech
0_1491593855409_41 tech advance new.tsvg -
There is no way, with tech, to target specific techs and get more than 1 tech per turn.
In Classic you were able to get multiple techs at the same time (but not target anything) but, thereafter, the rules were changed (for the worse) that you can get max 1 per turn; while this is obviously to reduce the randomness of tech, it is really nonsensical and plainly dumb that if you get 1 tech on a turn then you can't possibly get any other tech at the same time (one research team discovered "something", so nobody can possibly discover anything else, at the same time...).
Off the cuff, my suggestion is to do the tech development with user actions.
Or convince some developers to make a property for v3 tech that allows to get more than 1 tech per turn; that would be a sensible improvement, getting rid of the max 1 tech per turn v3 limit. Of course, the default should remain max 1 per turn.
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@Hepps
Tech has been a traditional weak spot of TripleA games, both for the basic games (the WWII serie) (that almost nobody plays using their lame (my opinion) tech systems) and for the way a mapmaker can do variations of them, as the rules are both confusing and limiting (a lot to learn for doing not that much). The thing you mentioned, that a player has to 100% focus on 1 single tech and can't possibly get more than 1 per turn, or decide to go on researching multiple projects at the same time (which is just what everyone always did and do, in reality), being the biggest one.As you know, Frostion got around doing the tech system for AoT by just having the "techs" as normal units you buy and place; the triggers doing the rest.
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@Cernel Not really sure what you hoped to contribute with that post.
I am already aware of the limitations of traditional tech system and it's limitations.
I am more curious if there is a way to allocate tech tokens to pursue multiple research opportunities in tandem.
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@Hepps
Short answer, then (I assumed this was clear from my answer): no, you are not missing anything; there is not a proper "way to allocate tech tokens to pursue multiple research opportunities in tandem".The use of tech tokens comes bundled with targetting only one category and getting only one technology. If you want to research multiple, aside from changing the engine, you need to do it not with tech tokens (thus not with the v3 tech system).
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@Hepps
If you want to hack in something the like of having tokens (that keep re-rolling until hitting, as per how tokens work) allocated to some specific researches, and as many at the same time as money can buy, you can hack it by creating boxes in the game, where to put units, acting as pseudo-token resources, and, then, triggers that have a chance of removing those resource-like units and giving you the tech. Or you can make it just like AoT, but, instead of the triggers removing the pseudo-token unit and giving you the tech for sure, you can have them related to rolling a chance to do it (with different chances the more the units of that kind you have around, like buying more tokens (you just need more triggers)), and removing them and getting the tech only upon a successful chance. Not really directly possible with user actions and resources only (like clicking on a user action button for a chance to get a tech), because the only resource that the user action sees are the PUs (but since you can see units, you can hack this, as well, by placing units acting as pseudo-tokens, and having user actions conditions looking at those).If you go this way (like AoT, but with chances to remove the unit and get the tech, instead of just 100%), I would also suggest, instead of having the pseudo-token unit laying around till scoring a hit on its tech, having it also a maintainment cost per turn, lower than the initial cost of buying it, since it doesn't really make sense (as per how the token system works) that you buy the tokens and fail, then further researches cost nothing (but time); they should cost less, but there should be still some cost, realistically. However, this would add the need of having the ability to remove the tokens you want to stop researching (again, more realistic than surely keep researching what you started till success), if they are not free to roll again; you can remove units with user actions.
To make it clear, limited to only simulating a tech token system with the variation you wish, you can start from Frostion's AoT and change it this way:
- You spend PUs or whatever instead of the specific tech resource to buy the "tech-units" (to have the trade off between more tech and more money, differently from AoT, where money and tech are set apart).
- You can buy (and place) more than 1 of the same "tech-unit".
- Change the triggers to have only a chance to remove the tech-units and giving you the tech, instead of doing it for sure (so, the unit would just act like a token that you keep rerolling, but specific to the tech you bought it for, as per how it works in AoT); sadly, here there is the problem, with conditions, that you cannot directly test for the number of such tech-units in the map, but only for the number of them in a territory or the number of territories having them (so, if you want to keep it simple, you can have a "box" territory, in the game, where to place all tech-units, instead of placing them like all land units, as per AoT).
Still, at this point, I think that adding something to have some more costs for rerolling (the tech-unit having an upkeep cost) would be foremost to enhance realism, even tho it would make the system more luck dependant, as if you fail to get the tech, you would lose also more money, instead of just time.
There may be other ways to hack something the like, but I'm guessing that this (using tech-units and triggers testing their presence, like in AoT, but in a more complex manner) should be the closest way for what you want, if I get it.
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@Hepps
So, to be clear on general terms, no, for what you want to do, there is no way you can do it "properly", meaning using the tech phases for the tech development.
You have to get creative (I just gave some ideas, or rather redrew them from AoT, but other ways may be possible) with user actions or purchase/place units, plus triggers and triggers (obviously, this is not a proper way to use stuff, so like you can't then expect the AI to be supported to understand and play it). -
Important Topic, btw. The big limit that you can research and get 1, and no more than 1, category and tech per turn is the biggest limit that the current v3 tech system (the most advanced one available) has. I think I would not use it just because of that. The other limit is that the tokens you used to research something, and failed, should keep researching that same category thereafter (not possible, either). So, whatever ideas on how to work around this limit may be interesting, if others have different "solutions".
Side note, as I mentioned, only in Classic you are able to get multiple tech at once, but that system is very basic, thus has other limits, as known.
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Nice to see that AoT can be an inspiration to how tech can be managed
The AoT tech system seems pretty simple, but it has the drawback that since AoT tech-units can be placed in every territory on the map, there are literally thousands of triggers in the xml. But as Cernel says, you can limit the placement of tech-unit or other trigger-units to certain territories / administrative boxes, then let triggers determine what happens to the units and player's technology/unit stats.I did something like the above in my Start Trek map. That map has a normal tech development system that uses PUs and has a risk of failing the development rolls. But besides this, and this is where the placement territories/boxes come in, the map features a "communication" system where players can place special units, purchased in the purchase window, in the top left of the map. Conditions then sees them and trigger something. I guess this is close to the system that Cernel is suggesting. Take a look at the system. You can edit the XML and give the Federation a lot of starting dilithium resources, then you can see the system work, without first playing approximately 10 rounds.
@Cernel Besides the "actions and operations" only being able to withdraw PUs from the players, and not tech tokens or other resources, can all tech development, unit alterations, purchase options etc. actually be handled this way? Are there no limitations?
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@Frostion and cernel Thank you very much... this sounds like it is possible then. I just have to build this trigger system. Thank you both very much! Very helpful.
Don't go away to quickly as I am sure this is going to cause me problems getting it to work... as XML is not my strong point.
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It is still sloppy and really hacky that one has to use units to act as tech tokens or resources in general; so, for the people going this way for their maps, while doing it this way (which is totally cool, as I 100% agree with hacking if and until no other ways available), I suggest opening also an Issue in GitHub for asking / encouraging this being handled properly, by enhancing the true tech system, to be able to. It is also a big problem when you use stuff, for doing not what it should do, that then the AI will never be able to play it (so you are creating a game that it is doomed to be never really playable by the AI).
User actions can see everything that the conditions can see and do anything that the triggers can do.
@Hepps For example, when you have finished what you want to do, I suggest you open a GitHub issue in which you say: "Look, I've done this thing this way, but if the tech system would be expanded this way, I could properly do it using it, instead; anyone?".
@Frostion User actions can see everything that the conditions can see and do anything that the triggers can do, with the "costPU" and the "attemptsPerTurn" and "chance..." being the only additional features. The limit, as I see it, is not really in the useraction, but in the fact that the conditions can see the units on the map, but they can't see any resources (so, for example, you can hack what I was saying by having the user actions putting pseud-resources units on the map, just to keep track). However I warn you that using user actions a lot is less playable than one might think. A limit is that you can't change the effects of techs with triggers, so you need 1 tech each there. I've already suggested the developers to make conditions able to test for resources presence (then you can use those conditions in the user actions), in an issue you opened, if you recall; maybe open another one specifically for it, if you are particularly interested and wish to use it in a current project. That would at least cut down the hackyness some, as doing it with resources would be closer to normality than hacking it placing units on the map, IMO (of course, the best would be having an actual tech phase able to handle it).
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Nice to see that AoT can be an inspiration to how tech can be managed
The AoT tech system seems pretty simple, but it has the drawback that since AoT tech-units can be placed in every territory on the map, there are literally thousands of triggers in the xml. But as Cernel says, you can limit the placement of tech-unit or other trigger-units to certain territories / administrative boxes, then let triggers determine what happens to the units and player's technology/unit stats.I don't know what you are referring to here, as of course the number of territories doesn't matter, if you can anyway place max 1 pseudo-resource unit per player. Of course, it would matter if you can place more than 1 (as Hepps probably wants to, as to be able to invest more and more in each project, as preferred), since you can't directly test for the number of units present in the entire map. I see you did it correctly, just testing for the whole map, thus I don't get what you mean when you say "since AoT tech-units can be placed in every territory on the map, there are literally thousands of triggers in the xml":
*<attachment name="conditionAttachment-Brittonic-Develop-Axeman" attachTo="Brittonic" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.RulesAttachment" type="player"> <option name="directPresenceTerritories" value="map" count="1"/> <option name="unitPresence" value="Develop-Axeman" count="1"/> </attachment>* -
Another example of the sloppyness of using units as pseudo-resources (for tech or whatever) is that, then, the Unit Help tab in the menu becomes not really helping anymore. You can see what I mean if you click on Help/Unit Help in Age of Tribes, and see all the various actual units and develop-units mixed up at random.
This would be solved if only a developer would add for conditions the ability to test for resources (still not as good as having a good tech phase for it, but at least better than using units as tech tokens).
