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A player who is engaged in research activities is said to be "teching up," "going up the tech tree," or "moving up the tech tree." Analysis of a tech tree can lead players to memorize and use specific Build Order s. TYPES OF TECH TREE Different structures The structures of tech trees vary quite widely. In the simplest cases (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 (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. What happens after you've researched everything In many games there's nothing useful to do and the player should scrap research centers to save maintenance costs and / or devote the resources to something else (production, diplomacy or covert operations). In the '' Civilization '' series researching "future technologies" increases a player's score. In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri , researching everything leads to victory (this is tied with the storyline). 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. HISTORY Tech trees started showing up in the early Real-time Strategy and Turn-based Strategy games in 1990, where Mega Lo Mania had a system of research levels/epochs that allowed the deployment of better units and defenses. '' Civilization '' (1991) was probably the first game to feature the same basic structure of tech trees seen in games today. 1992's '' Dune II '' is another example of an early game featuring tech trees. IMPLEMENTATIONS Tech trees are implemented in various ways. '' StarCraft '', for instance, has different tech trees for each race, although each entry typically has a close analogue in another race (the Terran Goliath, Zerg Hydralisk, and Protoss Dragoon are all ground-based, ranged attack units). '' Age Of Empires '', on the other hand, has a single tech tree for all civilizations, but certain civilizations cannot access certain elements of it. This is compensated for with advances in other areas; so while the Egyptians cannot access advanced academy or siege units, they have bonuses for farming. This makes race selection much more tactical. Alternatively, '' Civilization '' allows all races to access the whole of the same tree, but different civilizations may be given certain technologies immediately and there is a full choice as to how to advance (science, political, military, etc). In '' Master Of Orion '' (the first in the series) each race is allowed to research a different random subset of the technologies at each level and can acquire the additional technologies only by trading, spying or conquest - the objective of this approach is to force players to be adaptable rather than follow a favorite fixed research strategy. |
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