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Prerequisites for technology advances In many real-time strategy (RTS) games, the player needs particular buildings in order to research specific techs or build specific advanced units (StarCraft, Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Total Annihilation). In many turn-based strategy (TBS) games the prerequisite is one or more lower-level technologies, with no dependency on specific buildings (Master of Orion series, Civilization series, Space Empires series).[2][3][4] Most strategy games however use both systems. both requiring dedicated buildings and in advanced cases pre requisite technology, sometimes culminating in a game ending super-weapon of some kind. Complexity The structures of tech trees vary quite widely. In the simplest cases[citation needed] (e.g. Master of Orion) there are several completely separate research areas and one could research all the way up to the highest level in one area without researching other areas (although this would often be suicidal). In the most complex cases[citation needed] (e.g. Civilization) every technology above the starting level has more than one prerequisite and one has to research most of the lower-level technologies in order to research any of the top-level technologies. And there are many possibilities between these two extremes, for example in Space Empires researching to a specified level in one field may enable the player both to research to a higher level in that field and to start research in a new field which was previously not available.[2] Major 4X games like Civilization and Master of Orion have a much larger technology tree than most other strategy games; as an extreme example, Space Empires III has over 200 technologies.[5][6] Are all technologies available? Some RTSs make different techs available to different races or cultures (especially StarCraft; but many RTSs have special units or buildings for different cultures, e.g. Age of Empires expansion pack and later versions, Red Alert 2). Most TBSs make all technologies available to all cultures (e.g. Civilization). Master of Orion (original version) is a complex special case in this respect: the full tree is the same for all; but in each game each player gets a subset of the full tech tree that depends on which race was selected. Balance between civilian and military techs In many RTS games tech advances are almost exclusively military (e.g. StarCraft). But in most TBS and some RTS games the research and production costs of top-end military techs are so high that you have to build up your economy and your research productivity first (RTS - Age of Empires and Empire Earth, where one of the most significant costs is going up an epoch; TBS - the Civilization series and Master of Orion series). What happens after researching everything In many games there's nothing useful to do and the player may scrap research centers to save maintenance costs and/or devote the resources to something else (Space Empires series). In later installments of the Civilization series the last technology (called "future tech") represents an amalgamation of all possible future discoveries and can be researched repeatedly. In Civilization V, it increases a player's score, while in Civilization IV it raises the health and the happiness in the empire. Note that to reach the last technology, all spaceship technologies required to win must also have been discovered, so the game will be nearing its conclusion. In the Galactic Civilizations series the final technology solves the nature of existence, and is victory. In the Master of Orion series more advanced research reduces the size and cost of spaceship components, and "hyper-advanced" research in areas which have military applications therefore enables players to build more high-tech weapons into a given ship size and at lower production cost. In Rise of Nations, the final four technologies result in such an advantage that the game will likely end quickly. Also, the "knowledge" resource needed to research is also used late in the game to produce cruise missiles and nuclear weapons. |
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