A second idea re: having two or more paths to research a skill or technology would be having the path you follow affect your three qualities, i.e. ideology: - the pretty words for nurture, neutral, bully/pushy - too hard for me to spell.

But basically, rather than having only popups where you make an a or b or c choice, - the choices you make, and where, could affect multiple abilities. For example, learning languages in the Domination tree increases soldiering, decreases diplomacy whereas learning it in the "develop" tree could decrease soldiering while increasing trade - although, imho it would be better if the abilities affected where always different (i.e., in develop tree not decrease soldiering nor increase diplomacy - so, maybe better is increase both trade and economy (or tourism) as side-effect of learning languages.

Yes, more complex to code - but certainly makes way to develop a "cultural/leadership specialization" less monotone.

I am torn between saying - nice! - and Drat! I thought I had an original idea!

Looking forward to seeing it soon!

Note: I was thinking that the names at the start need to be verbs rather than nouns. DO something rather than BE/Acquire something.

Actually, i thought of something that looked like that.

2 categories of research :

- pure research without any specific goal

- operationnal research

There should be a slider that would split research points between the two categories so that the player could choose which one to focus on.

The first research would add technologies avalaible for operationnal research from time to time. Of course, it would be random, the player could not choose which technology would be added for operationnal research. It would work like a breakthrough.

Operationnal research would give an asset in the game (for ship, planet...) the way it works now. All technologies adjacent to the previous could be researched. For instance if you have Laser 1, you can try to discover Laser 2. But if you spend some of your research in pure research, you may have the opportunity to discover Laser 4 without having any other Laser tech. To avoid any unbalanced game, a technology available thanks to pure research but without any previous operationnal research in the same field would require more turns to be discovered.

I thought of that because I do not think all civilizations would follow the same path to achieve one goal. A peaceful civilization will not discover any laser tech for spaceships if it is not threatened, however, it may have the pure research allowing it to have a very advanced Laser skill thanks to medecine, engeneering or other civilian application that uses Lasers.

I hope people will understand my idea despite my level of english.