SKM Development: Research

This has been a long time coming. A really, long time coming. Yeesh.

Alright, straight to it.

Research is broken into Four Primary Categories.

Military – Offense: Which is primarily designed around weapons, siege devices, and offensive units.  If it increases your AR, it probable comes from here.

Militay – Defense: Which is primarily designed around defenses, stronghold upgrades, and defensive units. If it increases your DR, it comes from here.

Social – This represents a catch all category for infrastructure improvements and social improvements. Research to improve land, decrease spoilage, etc, comes from here.

Magic – This is the dodgiest category.

We’ll unpack them in a second.

The actual process of research, is somewhat more dodgy.

Every Research Topic (RT) has a Research Value or RV. This RV must be reached (in terms of funding) before the opportunity of the Research Topic being unlocked is even possible.

There are tiers to Research. Now, I had originally considered providing a full list of research topics, but I’ve decided instead to keep that stuff ‘behind the screen.’ While its ‘behind the screen’ though, I am still going to roll randomly on the chart I’ve made to determine what research is being handled by the various pools in each country. 

Everyone has one RT in each category at a time. They don't know what this is (normally), and these topics are for the most part entirely random.  When the RT becomes fully funded, a new RT comes in though, even if the previous RT has not been 'discovered.'

To unlock a Research Topic (RT) you have to fund research. Every country is assumed to have a 5% base chance of unlocking research that has fully met its RV, but when you are funding research that chance increases.  Research funding represents a routine, constant, investment in research. Having inconsistent funding, or having low funding will harm the likelihood of a necessary break through. Funding also is the only really consistent way to fill the RV of Research Topics.

Funding is provided on the basis of gold piece, or Resource expenditure based on the RV of the RT you’re hoping to unlock. Resources are considered to be equivalent to 10 gold for these purposes, similar to how it’s highly valued for stronghold building.  The funding must be provided monthly, I can’t restate that enough. Funding provided to research isn’t ‘lost’ however, even if it fails to unlock a fully funded RT, it begins to go towards paying off the RVs of other RTs.

Funding must be provided by category. So in a month if you want to keep research funded for all four topics, you have to expend resource or gold on each in a research budget.

If you are providing less than 25% of the RV, or did not spend the previous month funding research, you have a 5% chance of unlocking a fully funded RT.

If you are providing 26-50% of the RV, you have a 10% chance of unlocking a fully funded RT.

If you are providing 50-75% of the RV, you have a 25% chance of unlocking a fully funded RT.

If you are providing 75% to 90% of the RV you have a 33% chance of unlocking a fully funded RT.

If you are providing 100% of the RV, you have a 50% chance of unlocking a fully funded RT.

Past this point, it increases by 1% for every additional 100% you exceed the RV, to a maximum of 59% where 1000% of the RV is being funded monthly.

A percentage die is rolled for every fully funded RV in a topic being researched.

Research therefore represents a ‘pissing money down the drain’ feeling until it pays off. You never really see much in the way of major returns until you suddenly do.

However, a way to avoid that trouble comes from our next point.

Sages.