From: mytelka@codon9 (Daniel Mytelka;612 Barker;x2-5110)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Re: Tech in Empire.
Date: 4 Sep 1992 18:02:17 GMT
Organization: University of California
NNTP-Posting-Host: codon9.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Sep4.083907.19894@cs.nott.ac.uk> nlc@vulcan.xtel.co.uk (Neil Cook) writes:
>It is my humble opinion that Empire is far too heavily based on tech. Tech
>should have more penalties associated with it, and there should be other 
>variables in the game which are adversely affected by tech.
>
I agree that it is currently too easy to do well in empire simply by blasting
tech production, but that is mostly because there are few true playoffs as
to what one can do. True, it is necessary to balance expenses on tech with
expenses on planes and mil early, but money and lcm are not the limiting
factors for long and thereafter the two productions (tech and arms) can both
proceed rapidly. To make a true playoff, there has to be two mutually exclusive
yet desirable goods for people to produce. One way to assure this would be to
introduce requirements that overlap raw materials, but that seems a bit
artificial. 

*Radical Suggestion*

Turn tech into a commodity or directed production. In the latter case, you 
are asked when building tech what the goal is: let's say building Sopwiths, and
when you expend enough on that, you can make Sops. You can also split tech
production, so you are working towards both Sops and cargo1's, or Sops and
Mustangs, etc. There can be requirements for previous planes (eg need small
cargos to make big cargos) or you can start directly with large cargos.

The other alternative is to have tech as a true commodity: you build up tech
units as you build up BTU's, and can spend them to create the ability to
manufacture a certain type of plane. In this case, there would be interesting
playoffs of how much tech you can build quickly still, so one person might
be able to get enough tech to build Mustangs without needing Sops, but 
someone would be able to build less and get cargos first to attack. You also
wouldn't get cargos and Sops at the same time, so you'd have people committing
to attack or defense.

I'm not sure even I like this idea, but it's a new way to create a playoff.

>
>Also, the game seems to be too much based around 20th Century weapons of war.
>There is this massive jump from the country having nothing but plain military,
>to battleships and planes.
>Most of the great battles before this century were not influenced by tech, 
>because they usually had broadly similar tech, they were more influenced by
>tactics and good leadership. It was HOW Alexander used his phalanxes that 
>mattered, not just the fact that he had them.
>
This is not correct, BTW. Alexander inherited a PROFESSIONAL army from his
father, which was a rarity at the time when most armies consisted of citizen-
soldiers, plus a few elite corps. This was a techno/economic improvement made
possible by the capture of some local silver mines or something. There was
also a purely technological advance: his armies had a new sort of weapon called
a sarissa, which was a sort of light lance carried by foot soldiers. It could
be used against other foot soldiers when his phalanxes advanced en masse, and
its butt could be planted to absorb the charge of a chariot. Similarly, the
English victory over the Normans in the battle of (Bosworth Fields?) was
largely attributed by many to a technological advance: the longbow.
>
>Neil Cook.
>
>

Dan Mytelka (mytelka@enzyme.berkeley.edu, Langerhans)

Newsgroups: rec.games.empire