Idea - Military Dilemmas

[Lockcaps]

In Rome2 we will get alot more advanced dilemmas - essentially "chains" of events that will have alot of impact on how our faction is going to turn out. But so far, they've only mentioned these dilemmas being political.

So in previous TW-games, you've always been able to get every unit eventually through buildings and/or technology. Alot of the technology options are pretty bad though, and i often ignore alot of stuff and go for the real powerhouses - kneelfire is a perfect example. A negative side-effect of this is that it isn't that fun to research after you have the powerful techs, because they're pretty minor. Also this results in that you are always going to have every single unit, and every single tech, every campaign. If that's good or bad, that's up for you to decide.

My idea is this - the techtree will have pretty powerful stuff, and it works much like it does today. However, occasionally a dilemma will pop up, and then you will have to choose between 2 awesome techs - and the special thing is that they will NEVER become available later. And the 2 techs can be completely unrelated, here's an example as the Romans

1. Wedge Formation - Enables Wedge Formation for your legionnaires. This gives them +X attack while in this formation, but slightly reduces defense, and makes them more vulnerable to flanking attacks. Ideal for killing lots of lightly-armoured foes.
OR
2. Engineering - Your ballista, onagers, and scorpions become 30% cheaper. In addition, allows you to build the Huge Lithobolos(like http://bildr.no/view/1271719) while besieging.

If you like heavy infantry, the natural choice would be the wedge formation, and vice versa if you like artillery. Ultimately this would mean that 2 players could be the same faction, and yet play completely different.

This is just the basic idea, you can change the number of options and everything.

What do you think?

[IGdood]

I don't think wedge formation works with infantry but I get what you mean.

[Lockcaps]

Yeah i mean the wedge formation roman infantry used in that famous battle against the..celts? Infact it may have been called "Saw" formation.

[ngr]

I prefer current system. But I agree that there's a lot of buit techs now.

What I don't like in your idea is that it make research too much random. I prefer more logic.

[Winterspawn]

They already started implementing this in FoTS and Shogun 2, and I feel positive about it. Some further implementation of this feature wouldn't hurt the gameplay if you ask me.

[windsupernova]

Would be a cool idea. Although hoarder gamers that want to have everything won't like it XD.

[Fanest]

i think tech three should give u just some minor improvements like some cost discounts and that u should actually progress with building certain buildings and meeting other conditions like capturing certain (number of) provinces, population connected conditions (faction wide), trading with certain faction, number of turn u are at war/peace (both could give u different bonuses), army/navy size (which u hold for some time) etc.

this way progress would be more realistic and it would reflect the state of your empire throughout your campaign

[Ichon]

Hopefully there will be a choice to develop more flexible military with slight emphasis on a few units or a highly specialized military which focus on a very few units making them quite strong but forced to rely on mercenaries or auxillaries for competent other unit types. So cataphracts, phalanx, archers, etc might be able to get heavy investment both in tech and building levels but at a focus cost for other units. Shogun 2 did this to some extent but was very limited and at least with building it was only a regional focus. It would be more interesting to make a complete faction focus which along with AOR units of various regions could be quite interesting.

Economically that would mean something like spending research time, and also money on buildings/infrastructure to support cataphracts. As a result get better cataphracts, maybe even larger units sizes but the emphasis on cataphracts weakens some other part of your military like infantry. So maybe simply a doctrine path which can add +1 to melee attack and +2% speed to cavalry at the cost of -1% defense and -3% unit size for infantry per level or -5% range and speed for archers. Basically it represents more men choosing to train for cavalry and better cavalry but less men want to become infantry and once infantry aren't as disciplined.

[myself]

I also agree that specializing your military sounds great. So, you can have an emphasis on cavalry or siege units if you prefer. That will make the game more varied as when you play one faction and specialize in a domain, you will have to really think what it is you want to improve: do you want to somewhat compensate the weakest parts of your military by specializing them or do you want to strengthen even more your best units? Then, you would have to build up a coherent army with this new stregths and weaknesses and use your army as good as you can on the battlefield.

[AngryTitusPullo]

I would prefer that 'tech' open up base on events. Enough battles between certain culture and another culture then the ability to 'copy' these will be available.

These could be both military and civil/engineering.

These techs can have branches so if one is available then the other on the same branch is disables.

[TotalWarker]

Quite like the idea but maybe a bit extreme. Possibly an event that means for the next 20/30 turns a particular tech route becomes easier to research and a corresponding alternative becomes harder. In this way it doesn't restrict those who want to have everything, however it does encourage you to choose and stick to a particular path.

This is kinda in S2 but not overly specific. As an example from S2, you could have a choice between focus on spear/sword, with the other doubling in tech time.