Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic – Low Tech Game Mode / Challenge Guide

A gameplay modification to increase variety and choices by restricting research.

Guide to Low Tech Game Mode / Challenge

Сrеdit gоеs to UsF!

What is Low Tech?

Low Tech is a game mode modification intended to alter the gameplay when playing while research is enabled, to give you interesting challenges and decisions, while also slowing down the game a bit. If you think the game is easy and you feel like you are building the same way every start, this might help you to create decisions and choices rather than going through the motions.

Why Low Tech

In the default game, you can research all researches as soon as you build the appropriate university building. This allows you to build one town with 3 universities and go through all research rather quickly, if you want. This makes the research predictable and allows the player to pick and choose the same research path, as they have no restrictions. Low Tech attempts to change this by slowing things down and requiring the player to expand.

So How Does It Work?

In Low Tech, you gain research points to unlock the ability to research. Those points are granted in two specific ways. You get a research point when you build a functioning settlement or you get a research point when you reach a multiple of 2500 total citizens.

As an example, in the beginning when you build your first town and move people in, you gain a research point. That point can then be spent to select a research to research towards. So for example you could say I would like the distribution office and then you may research towards it.

Free Research

But wait you might say, isn’t there a research in front of this that would need to be done first? Yes, research that does not unlock any gameplay mechanism, building or other functionality and whos only purpose it is to unlock other research does not use up a research point and is for all intents and purposes free.

Settlements

A functional settlement entails any collection of buildings that house at least 100 people, who are not in danger of dying and are getting most of their needs met. Food must be provided locally via a store/grocer/shopping center to the people living there. It can otherwise be as large as you want, as long as there are people living there and they are somewhat content.

Basically a common sense approach of letting some people live in an area and making sure they are OK.

Getting a large building, filling it with people with the intent of getting a research point and then not caring for them is therefor not unlocking you a research point.

A settlement can grow larger to cover multiple name tags on the map, so if you grow a larger city, it might still only count as only one settlement, even if it starts a new city/area. A settlement does not equate a city/area marker on the map.

Rules List

• Each research costs one research point, you start with zero.
• One research point is granted per successfully populated settlement.
• One research point is granted for each 2500 people total population across all your settlements.
• Researching something that only unlocks further research and no game functionality or building does not use up a research point. See (1) below for clarification.
• You may not skip research by saying that you won’t use the features/buildings. Each research that unlocks something has to be paid for with points before progressing further down the research tree.

Research like OPEC, Phone Tapping or Woodcutting Planting Policy does cost a research point, even if no building is unlocked. Concrete study, logistics optimization or faculty of geology does not cost a point, because there is no gameplay effect other than unlocking another research.

Edge Cases

• You may not blindly research “free” research in the beginning. You must select a research with a point before you can work towards it. You may therefor also not change your mind about an unlocked research, but you can suspend a research and choose another one, if you have multiple research points to spent.
• Dropping your population below a multiple of 2500 does not lower your research points total, however you do not gain another point for the amount you already had them before. So if you drop from 8000 to 7000 citizens and then go back above 7500, you do not gain another point.
• Similarly if a settlement completely dies out, founding another one will not grant you another point. Only if you found one more or resettle your lost settlement successfully do you gain another point in that situation. Basically it is the highest total amount of functional settlements that counts.
• Researching multiple free researches to reach an unlocked research is possible. For example you may research Steel Cables directly, even if you need to research two free researches that do not unlock anything.