Why am I discussing government types and technology in the same Dev Diary? Government type is a pretty simple feature in Imperialism: Concert of Europe, but it has a significant impact on some other systems, and on technology research in particular.
There are several government types in Imperialism: Concert of Europe:
- Tribalism
- Feudalism
- Absolute Monarchy
- Constitutional Monarchy
- Republic
Communism might later be introduced as a possibility, but for the moment it is not. Game mechanically, Constitutional Monarchy and Republic are the same, the difference being only cosmetic.
Government types do not really affect the player’s decision space, because you do not have control over what government type you have. Each nation begins with a government type, and the government type of some nations will change during the game in response to scripted historical events (most notably the Revolutions of 1848). The main purpose of having government types is to prevent nations like China and Persia from becoming as technologically advanced as nations like France and Germany. Historically there were, of course, many reasons why the great divide in technological advancement occurred between the West and the rest of the world, and scholars disagree on which factors are most important. Since this game is not intended to be a simulation, much less a PhD thesis, I have chosen to err on the side of simplicity. A nation’s government type and any events that might change that type, effectively make some nations more difficult to play as than others.
Most playable nations will begin the game as an Absolute Monarchy. The United Kingdom and Netherlands, however, have the advantage of having Constitutional Monarchy from the beginning.
The government type of a nation affects the efficiency of most of its middle class pop units. Recall, in the last Dev diary we mentioned that each Engineer pop generates a number of research points each turn, and that number depends on the government type of its nation. Likewise, Bureaucrats and Officers are more effective in, for example, a Constitutional Monarch than in a Feudal nation.
So much for government types, what about technology and research? The technology tree Imperialism: Concert of Europe is pretty standard in most respects. As usual, the tree itself is structured based on prerequisite dependencies. Each turn you collect research points from your Engineers and once you have enough points to get a new technology, you spend those points to get said technology.
There is one respect in which technology research in Imperialism: Concert of Europe from other games I have played, and that concerns patents. The first nation to research a technology gets a patent on that technology. This comes with two benefits and one drawback. The first benefit is that the first nation to research a new technology gains one Prestige (i.e. a victory point). The second benefit is that all other nations will have to pay that nation a gold fee when they research it. The drawback of being the first to discover a technology is that you must pay the full Research Point cost, while all other nations will pay only half that cost (but must pay the gold fee as well). This makes the race for technological supremacy lucrative for both Prestige and wealth and also makes it less likely that there will be a large gap in the technological advancement of advanced nations.
There is also a tech-spread mechanism, whereby a technology will be known by all Modern nations some number of years after it is first discovered.
What do technologies do? Well, mostly the sort of things you might expect. Technologies can have the following effects:
- Unlocking factory types and upgrades to those factories.
- Allow construction of railroads (first iron, then steel).
- Allow upgrading provinces so they can produce more resources (three levels).
- Improve military units.
- Unlock unit types: Ironclads, Dreadnoughts, Fighters, and Tanks.
- Discover new resources: rubber and oil.
- Lengthen the lifespans of your population units.
There are a few technologies that are really just prerequisites for others, but they reward some Prestige to compensate for this.
Below are some pictures of the tech tree. Nete that this is one aspect of the UI that is likely to be significantly revised between now and the final release.
Imperialism: Concert of Europe 