Most everyone who has played a 4X game has encountered a tech tree. These tech trees can be traversed using stuff like research points or just with a time allotment and allow you to unlock new skills, equipment, and, if you aren't at the end, more tech. Mostly these things are passive, you click on them and either immediatly recieve something, or will recieve something in a few turns or 30 seconds or so.

Now, what if you wanted to make the act of researching engaging and fun? How can we make researching fun? i have some ideas which I'll lay out here, but I would like some suggestions and feedback on the idea.

Idea 1: Make the player engage with a system in order for research to progress.

Idea 2: Allow the player to engage with the process but don't make it mandatory.

Idea 3: Make the process fun to watch.

Idea 1 would be something like clicking certain things or solving a puzzle to finish the research, and could be a fun little mini game. Problems crop up when you embed this into a larger game like Civ. Where you want to spend your turn micro-managing your cities or some such. How can we make the player want to engage in this mini game, and not dislike it, without taking all the focus away from the main game?

Idea 2 is an opt in method. Either the player wants to play the mini game or doesn't, and that really only changes, perhaps, how quickly research happens. The problem is that you'll want the player to engage in this mini game or all the assets you used to make it are wasted, but don't want to make it more fun than the main game.

Idea 3 is something interesting, but takes a bit of the game and makes it passive, but tech trees are pretty passive as is. The problem is that what if you want to make a good portion of your game about researching, but not all of it? What if the player has to watch some form of the research cut-scene every 5 minutes or so, how do we make each scene interesting?

I know that much of this is open ended and much is up to the designer to determine. What I'm looking for is idea's, suggestions, and experiences with similar systems. Thank you.

The thing that I've always questioned about the 'tech tree' approach is that you normally know in advance what the results of your research will be and when they're due. That's totally the opposite to how research works!

I love this answer. Like a fog of war for the scientific fields. It works really well because it entices the player with mysteries and discovery.

Idea 4: Leave it as it is

Here's the thing, I'm using the current 4X games as an example. I already have an excellent fighting mechanic, exploration is always fun so long as you can explore, expanding is covered, but exploitation is dependant on research. In fact, when you get down to it, the entire progression and escalation is dependent on research. Hell, I even have some ideas for a cool dialogue and negotiation mechanic.

But once you realize that the whole point of the game is fighting, or talking to, or building a shield to stop some type of cthulhu type creature research becomes your only real option. You will make peace with your neighbours, forget the rest of the world, and only have the infrastructure needed to fund your universities and laboratories. So at this point research needs to be fun, and it becomes your core mechanic. And if you core mechanic is nothing but clicking and waiting for 5 minutes, you're going to lose your players.

So, you see my delema.

I have a core mechanic. It's the simplest mechanic that a game can have. Discover and implement a way to attain victory. Most games focus on the implementation of this. Shooting in FPS, combos in Fighting games, fitting blocks together in tetris. I want to focus on the discovery, as the implementation will be relatively easy after it's been discovered. So i start with the implementations. There are 5: Kill the Monster, Become the Monster, Negotiate with the Monster, Leave the Area the Monster is in, and Defend against the monster without attacking it.

Now you must discover first that these things can be done, and then discover how they can be done. This is where research comes in. You either need to figure out what kinds of weapons work, learn how to become like them, learn their language, figure out what kind of shield you need, or how to escape.

I'm not just going to tell the player how to do this, of course. The best part of the game will be the ah-ha moment when they find something that works and win. The play will be testing, designing, and finding results. Of course, there will be obsticals. They might not be able to get all the research materials, or they might need more people. which is why there are 4X components to the game. but that's more dressing than mechanic.

The real question is, what should I use to make this core part of play fun? Essentially I'm giving myself the task of taking a super boring topic (the actual drudgery of lab work and research) and making it fun.

What context would make this fun? What would push the player to use new tactics and try new things in this enviroment? And I'm getting more vague by the second. If any one even kind of understands what I'm getting at, please feel free to reiterate what I'm saying to make it easier to understand as well.

Do not add mini-games. It's feature creep and just not what a 4x gamer is looking for.

There are two types of Tech Trees in the world. Logical ones (usually based on the past, IE: Civilization) where you can see what's coming because it makes sense in a historical context. There's a LOT to be gained from a tree like this, especially in historical context, because it helps you tell the narrative of your game. "We developed advanced religion before we developed the ability to make roads" or "We had gunpowder before we discovered how to sail." This allows you to plan in advance how to do your 4xes.

On the otherhand, using an obfuscated tech tree (usually future games) like SMAC (Ironically I've picked two 4x games by the same developer) gives you a sense of having to adapt your plan to the technology you develop. If you simply don't get aircraft because even though you're focused on the right tech you developed something else, then you have to change your plans accordingly. There's fun in the unknown outcomes, where you roughly know what is coming but can't plan for it, leaving your strategy to depend on flexibility.

That's the fun part... You can take SMAC style further with a truely random tech tree or full obfuscation maybe (so you can't even direct which field to study), but basically you have to develop the core of your game around if you're planning your expansion based on what tech you KNOW is coming vs. what tech you HOPE is coming.

Ok, it seems my metaphor is what's weighing my down. I'm not designing anything like an actual 4X game. It's just where I've seen that kind of thing most often. In my game, there are exactly 3 things that you can do. 1: throw your army against your opponents. 2: negotiate with your opponents. 3: research new technologies which give you leverage in negotiations, war, and have their own end goal where you get on a space ship and leave. The only way to win is to either defeat all comers, negotiate an eternal peace, or leave the planet. Fighting and negotiating will always be fun, but the research will be boring, and I don't want it to be, it's one of the only 3 important things that are in my game, and I'd be losing out on 1/3 of the opportunities to explore the hows and whys of the world.

So, should I continue to try and make researching fun, or give it up as a lost cause and just leave a boring old tech tree?