Re: Feature Request: Advance Prohibits Advance

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

Elijah Meeks wrote:

> As it stands, there's no way to simulate different
> tech paths.  I'd like to have a way to shut off
> advances if certain advances are researched, so that
> sides can choose different directions to take.  For
> example, if we have two spacefaring societies, we can
> have two techs, one being Ground War Focus and the
> other Stellar War Focus.  The side that pics Ground
> War Focus spends less on developing AT-ATs and
> Battlemechs and more for its Cordships and A-Wing
> Starfighters while the other side has to pay extra to
> develop its hovertanks but manages to design
> galaxy-class starships and battlestars at a faster
> rate.

I'm wondering what the best way to model this is. I think that maybe 
instead of advances totally shutting out other advances, that maybe we 
should think about something like 'advance-adds-rp-requirement' and 
'advance-multiplies-rp-requirement' advance-vs-advance tables. This 
would allow for a game designer to make researching certain advances 
arbitrarily more difficult (or easier). This way a "Ground War Focus" 
civilization could _eventually_ research the "Space War Focus" line and 
thereby get good at both, and vice versa.

The ability to make researching advances easier is also interesting, 
because, for example, in a Civ-like game, after researching "Formal 
Logic" and "Empirical Science", a civilization might be able to make a 
whole slew of scientific and technological advances much more rapidly 
than it would otherwise.

Taken to extremes, the proposed tables could shut off advances by 
boosting the RP requirement to some very large number (relative 
infinity?), or make gaining an advance trivial by multiplying its RP 
requirement by 0%.

I'll think about it some more. I haven't dealt much with the advances 
aspect of Xconq before. If it's an easy feature to add (and test), I 
might go ahead and add it in the near future.

Eric