We've radically changed the mechanic, so I've started a new thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=227747). I'm leaving the originals intact for reference/historical purposes.

A New Tech Tree Mechanic for Civilization 5

Last updated: 6/7/07

This thread was inspired by this thread by dh_epic (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223199)

The philosophy of the system was best expressed by Mxzs here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5505581#post5505581)

[index to be created]

Objective
The goal of this thread is to provide a new Tech Tree system for Civilization 5. The following characteristics must be incorporated:

The complexity of the system (as seen by the Player) must not be substantially greater than the current (Civ 4) Tech Tree.
The system must be set up in such a way that historical idiosyncracies, such as early inventions (Steam Turbine in 1st Century AD, DaVinci) as well as Dark Ages are possible but do not imbalance the game.
The system must allow research on multiple techs at the same time to simulate real-world behavior of discovery.
The system must contain an underlying Tech Tree so that players will have the option not to use the new system (since the new system is different enough that it may turn off old fans of the game, hurting sales of Civilization 5).


Note on the Discussion
While the system being developed herein is for Civilization 5, it is necessary that Civilization 4 be the game that is referenced in detailing it (since I have yet to develop my future predictive powers to such an extent). Therefore references to Civilization Traits, Civics, Specific Techs, Promotions, etc., are based on how Civilization 4 currently uses them.

Note on Numbers
I am neither a modder nor a game developer. As a result, I am incapable of applying numbers to situations in the discussion. Therefore, you'll frequently see "X%" or "requires Y lightbulbs" or "modifier is SUM(Xc/Yc), where Xc is the number of citizens in a city and Yc is the distance of the city from the Capital". I apologize if you hate algebra, but I see no way around it at this juncture in the system's development; playtesting will be required to determine what most of the numbers should be.

Gameplay Options
The following options will be provided to the player at the start screen

Classic Tech Tree -- turns off this system and uses original system
Modern Era Tech Tree -- Once a Modern Era Tech is Adopted, the game reverts to the Classic Tech Tree for the remainder of the game. This option is available for those who want a more stable Space Race (see below for more info) Also considering the possibility of the adoption of Computers allowing you to choose which Tech is being examined in each branch
Automated Tech Advisor -- when a Tech is discovered, the Tech Advisor will give options for pursuing the Tech further; this will minimize micromanagement of the techs for those who do not wish to do so. Those who do not want the assistance (i.e. prefer to micromanage) can turn off the Advisor. (Note that if the Advisor is on, micromanagement is still available to the player)
Always War -- In Always War games, any War modifiers do not exist

The Core System
There are two main changes to the Tech Tree as seen in Civilization 4. They are:

Techs are now categorized by which Branch of the Tech Tree they are in
Techs now have 4 stages: Unknown/Abandoned, Discovered, Adopted, Embraced. Each of these stages has different effects on your Civilization


This (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/2578/Techs1.jpg) is the Tech Tree (without Prereqs/Influencers) for the first 3 ages.

Tech Tree Branches
There are six branches that make up the tech tree. They are:

Manufacturing
Economics
Discovery
Civilization
Philosophy
Government


The following is a list of the branches and their techs for the first 3 ages

Manufacturing
Mining
Masonry
Bronze Working
Iron Working
Metal Casting
Engineering
Machinery

Economics
The Wheel
Pottery
Writing
Mathematics
Currency
Guilds
Banking

Discovery
Fishing
Hunting
Sailing
Compass
Calendar
Optics
Astronomy

Civilization
Agriculture
Animal Husbandry
Horseback Riding
Alphabet
Construction
Feudalism
Civil Service

Philosophy
Mysticism
Meditation
Philosophy
Literature
Drama
Music
Paper

Government
Polytheism
Monotheism
Priesthood
Code of Laws
Monarchy
Theology
Divine Right


The branches are used only for the Discovery of a Tech; after a Tech is discovered, the branch of the tree that the Tech is found on (or any Trait modifiers for that branch) has no impact on Adoption/Abandonment/Embracement.

Each Civilization Trait has a predisposition towards one of the six branches. The predisposition causes a Trait Modifier for discovery calculations (see below). Here is the list of Trait dispositions:

Forthcoming(?) -- May drop Trait Modifiers for Discovery Calculations, still contemplating.

The Four Stages of Techs

Unknown/Abandoned: In the case of the former, the Tech has never been known to the Civilization. In the case of the latter, the Tech has been discovered (or even adopted!) but is no longer in use by the Civilization. An Abandoned Tech can not be rediscovered until all other Civs have adopted/embraced it.
Discovered: A Discovered Tech is one that is now known to your Civilization, but which can not be used.
Adopted: Once a Tech is Adopted, any benefits the Tech provides (buildings, units, civics, etc.) are now available to your Civilization. However, an Adopted Tech can not be traded to another Civ, and the possibility exists that you will lose the Tech.
Embraced: Once a Tech is Embraced, your Civilization has incorporated the Tech into its definition of itself and can never lose it.

Note on Tech Trading: A Tech can only be traded by a Civ if it is Embraced. The receiving Civ treats the Tech as if it is Adopted.

Gameplay Mechanics: Discovery

Prerequisites/Influencers
Techs can have Prerequisites and Influencers.
Prerequisites must be Adopted before the Tech can be Discovered. If a Prerequisite is Abandoned, dependent Techs receive a Abandoned Prereq modifier.
Influencers do not have to be Adopted or even Discovered, however, doing so will make it more likely to discover and easier to adopt.
Because of the existence of Influencers, Techs will no longer have funnelled prereqs. For example: Guilds (Economics) requires Machinery (Manufacturing) as an Influencer. Since Metal Casting (Manufacturing) is a Prerequisite for Machinery, it is also considered an Influencer for Guilds.
If the Classic Tech Tree is turned on, all Influencers are considered Prerequisites for gameplay purposes.

Discovery of a Tech

Discussion has been moved to this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225053)

Once a Tech is discovered, you'll receive a notification from the Tech Advisor that it has been. If the Automated Tech Advisor is turned on, you'll receive the following options (see below for more info on abandonment and adoption):

I have no time for such nonsense! (abandonment of the Tech; no lightbulbs are allotted to the Tech -- see After a Tech is Discovered below)
While it's not what we need, keep an eye on it. (enough lightbulbs are allotted to the Tech so that it moves slowly towards adoption; a change in situation can cause it to become abandoned, though)
This sounds promising, let's work on it (more lightbulbs are allotted towards it, adoption happens quicker and abandonment before adoption is highly unlikely)
We must stop at nothing to master this! (most lightbulbs are allotted towards it, adoption happens quickly however it may result in the abandonment of other techs)


Note that if you select "This sounds promising" too often, a point may be reached where that option is greyed out because there aren't enough lightbulbs to work towards adoption with all the techs. For "We must stop at nothing", it works on a LIFO system.

If Automated Tech Advisor is not turned on, a default value roughly equivalent to "Keep an Eye on It" is given to the newly discovered tech.

Gameplay Mechanics: After Discovery

After a Tech is Discovered

The move towards Adoption/Embrace uses the Research Lightbulbs already designed in the game.

Once a Tech is Discovered, it is now visible on the Active Techs screen. Each Active Tech will have a slider to determine the amount of lightbulbs per turn to put into the Tech (there will also be 4 buttons on the line that correspond to the options from the Automated Tech Advisor). Other information presented will be Lightbulbs needed to Adopt (for example, Above X for Y Turns; X is based on the Tech itself (earlier age techs will have a lower value), Y is based on Difficulty Level and Game Speed), or if Adopted, to Embrace (the X and Y will be greater for Embrace over Adopt). Also noted will be total lightbulbs invested and the net gain/loss per turn of lightbulbs (mouseover will show individual modifiers affecting the per turn lightbulb generation).

If Abandonment is selected when given the option by the Automated Tech Advisor, zero lightbulbs will be put into the Tech. However, there will be a minimum of 5 turns before it is lost (to give you a chance to change your mind). If the ATA is not turned on, setting it to zero (and presuming negative lightbulbs per turn as a result) will cause it to be abandoned the next turn. Abandonment always occurs at 0 if lightbulbs were previously invested in the Tech. Once a Tech is Adopted, dropping below the Adoption level does not abandon the Tech (only 0 lightbulbs). Once a Tech is Embraced, a Tech can never be Abandoned (and no longer consumes lightbulbs).

Please note that the more active techs you have, the fewer lightbulbs can be allotted to each. However, this makes for some fun micromanagement. If you're finding yourself squeezed in lightbulbs, you can either mad dash to Embrace for a Tech to free up the lightbulbs it's currently consuming, or you can let an adopted tech fall towards abandonment while getting other techs adopted and then 'rescuing' it before it hits zero.

Modifiers for Adoption/Embrace
Outside of Research Allotment, the following will affect your efforts to Adopt or Embrace a Tech:

War. War makes it harder to adopt/embrace a non-Military Tech. Military Techs receive no bonus from War. This modifier does not exist in Always War games.
Diplomacy. Open Borders with a Civ that has already adopted the Tech will have a positive effect on the move towards Adoption. Friendly/Pleased relations with a Civ that has already embraced the Tech will have a greater positive effect towards Adoption and a positive effect towards Embrace. Effects of Open Borders and Friendly/Pleased are cumulative.
Permanent Alliances/Vassals. You can only demand an "Embraced" Tech from a Permanent Ally or a Vassal. When you receive it, it is considered Adopted.
Civics. Civics will definitely effect how the Adoption/Embrace occurs:

Effects of Civics
Mercantilism: Receive no Diplomacy modifiers towards Adoption/Embrace
Bureaucracy: Techs can not be abandoned while in a Bureaucracy, even if they hit 0 in lightbulbs; and Tech adoption takes twice as long (Above X for 2Y turns) -- this represents the red tape of a bureaucracy


Running Tech-specific Civics. If you run the Civic associated with an adopted tech, it will provide a positive effect each turn you are running it towards Embrace. This does not occur for Government Civics if you possess the Pyramids and they have not expired.
Builds. Once a Tech is adopted and its benefits are gained (see below), a build of a Unit or Building that is gained specifically from the Tech will cause a 'burst' of lightbulbs towards Embrace. The more you take advantage of the Tech, the more ingrained it becomes. Note that the effect also works for Techs that had 'obsoleted by' Units. In other words, if Sailing and Astronomy are both Adopted, building a Galleon will burst lightbulbs for both techs.
Dependent Techs. If the tech is a prerequisite (hard or soft) for another discovered tech, X% of the lightbulbs given to that tech will also be given to the prereq tech. If a soft prereq for the tech is not discovered, a penalty occurs. If a prereq for the tech is abandoned, a serious per-turn penalty is incurred. Note that Dependent Techs penalty/bonuses are cumulative; using the example from the pre-req section above, since Machinery and Metal Casting are both soft prereqs for Guilds, not discovering either will incur two dependent tech penalties when attempting to adopt Guilds.
Anarchy. In periods of Anarchy, the "If you don't use it, you lose it" lightbulb penalty increases.
Difficulty Level. The higher the difficulty level, the greater the per-turn "If you don't use it, you lose it" lightbulb penalty

Effects of Adoption
Once a tech is adopted, all units/buildings/civics/wonders made available from the tech are now available to your Civ. In addition, Wonders do not expire until the Tech is adopted (so you may want to delay adopting a tech until such time as you're ready to stop using the Wonder).

For all intents and purposes, Adopting a Civ is equated to researching the Tech in the current game with the following exceptions (previously mentioned):

A tech can not be traded until embraced
A tech can still end up abandoned


Effects of Abandonment after Adoption
If the number of lightbulbs invested in an adopted Tech drops to 0, the Tech is considered Abandoned. This has the following effects:

Any buildings/units/Wonders made available by the Tech can no longer be built. Any In Production do not complete (hammers are lost); instead you are made to switch builds ("can no longer continue building").
Any units made available by the Tech can no longer heal (unable to resupply the unit), and a Great General can not be attached to them.
Any buildings/Wonders no longer provide their effect. Conversely, no maintenance costs are required either.
If you are running a Civic made available by an abandoned Tech, you immediately go into Anarchy and need to switch the Civic. If it's been less than 5 turns since your last revolution, you automatically go after 5 turns are up. Note: This scenario is highly unlikely except for at the highest difficulty levels (and even then I'd think you'd have to deliberately try to create this situation for it to occur)
If it is a hard prereq for a Tech you have not yet Discovered, you will be unable to Discover that Tech until you've adopted it again


Now, once you have adopted any Tech in the same age as the abandoned Tech (excluding the abandoned tech; let's say you adopted Iron Working and you then "entered the Classical Age" but then abandon it before adopting any other Classical Age techs...you have left the Classical Age), you can start attempting to adopt the abandoned Tech again (remains as a option on the Tech Research screen). If you're in the Classical Age when you abandon Steam Power, for example, you can not put lightbulbs into it until you reach the Industrial Age.

If after a Tech is abandoned you are able to Adopt it again, the following occurs:

The Dependent Tech penalty (see Modifiers for Adoption/Embrace above) disappears
Buildings resume their functions; you do not have to build them again
Units can heal
Civics will again be available to revolt to


Embracing a Tech

When a Tech has been Embraced, you will no longer need to dedicate lightbulbs to it as you can never abandon it again. In addition, you are now able to trade it (presuming Trading of Techs is available).

Other Effects

Great Persons
In the new system, Great Persons have a much more influential effect when you choose to research a Technology:

The Tech that can be researched is whatever is currently being "examined" in the branch pool for the associated Great Person (see list below), even if it has no discovery points
The Tech that is researched is immediately Embraced due to the influence of the Great Person
Great Spies can now research Techs, but Great Generals can not


Here is the association branch for each Great Person:
Great Artist -- Philosophy
Great Engineer -- Manufacturing
Great Explorer (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223347)-- Discovery
Great Merchant -- Economics
Great Prophet -- Philosophy
Great Scientist -- Civilization
Great Spy -- Government

Huts
Any Tech "popped" from a Hut is considered Adopted.

Starting Techs
The default starting techs for a Civ (possibly modified if the system is enacted) are considered Adopted and are at the halfway point towards Embrace.

Modern Era Tech Tree
This section may be replaced by option for Computers to allow directed research
When this option is enabled, the successful Adoption of a Modern Age tech causes the game to revert to the Classic Tech Tree for the remainder of the game. This option is provided for those who want a more stable space race, or who believe that in our own Modern Era Civilizations are better suited to fully focus on tech research. The effects of the reversion are as follows (note that the effects apply to all Civs once they enter the Modern Age):

Any Adopted Tech is automatically considered Embraced
Any Discovered Tech that is not Adopted is considered partially researched by the amount of lightbulbs it currently has
Any Abandoned/Unknown Tech is considered unresearched
All Soft prereqs become Hard prereqs. Violations currently in place are ignored (although since Soft prereqs are no longer funnelled (see prereq section above), it will be hard to research many modern age technologies without going back and researching older ones currently ignored; i.e. Ecology now has Astronomy as a Soft Prereq and thus in the reverted tree, Astronomy has become a Hard Prereq).


Resources
Resources become visible upon DISCOVERY, not Adoption, and even if you abandon the Tech you don't lose visibility. This is because I want the Discovery of Techs to have some strategic value. If you discover Iron Working and find out there is no Iron nearby, you might want to delay adopting it and put the lightbulbs in more immediate need techs.
Worker Improvements are available as of Adoption. However, if you Abandon the Tech, the Improvements remain and continue to confer their benefits (your society may have forgotten how to build a Watermill, but I'm sure the Millers still know how to run one); you just can't build new ones. The exception is resources: if you lose Iron Working, you'll still get the hammer bonus for a mine on iron, but you will no longer have access to Iron in your cities.

Things to update in the original posts


Nothing right now

Unknown/Abandoned: In the case of the former, the Tech has never been known to the Civilization. In the case of the latter, the Tech has been discovered (or even adopted!) but is no longer in use by the Civilization. An Abandoned Tech can not be rediscovered until all other Civs have adopted/embraced it.[/list]
I don't see why abandoned != discovered (instead of unknown). No research goes towards eventual adoption, but nevertheless the theory is known and could be "picked up" at any time. Perhaps there is a cumulative 0.5% chance per turn that the tech becomes genuinely unknown (this would represent significant time passing and the knowledge passing into obscurity).

Also, I would be wary of a player accidentally putting 0 lightbulbs into a tech, resulting in an irrevocable abandoned state. This would be extremely frustrating. Because of this, I would recommend against that idea. Better would be to allow the civ to pick it up again at any time.

I'm not sure why you have those stiff penalties built into the system in the first place? What do they accomplish? Why have the abandoned concept at all?

Otherwise, this looks really promising. Reminds me of SMAC. It might be insightful to compare/contrast to the SMAC system.

Speaking of, there are some other concerns. There might be possible gameplay or logical/story imbalances possible if players are allowed to "max out" 1-2 branches, without even paying lip service to the others. Something to consider.

Wodan

Whew! That's quite something. There are a lot of details to mull over and consider. There's a lot of good stuff in there. :goodjob:

Before we get down into details, however, I'd like to hear your answers to some general questions.

Your objective is to provide a new Tech Tree for Civ5. You then put four constraints on its design. Three of these are basically negative (can't be complex; can't unbalance game play; need not be turned on). Only one constraint is positive: Players should be able to research more than one tech at a time.

My first question is this: Why would a new tech tree for Civ5 be a major drawing point? True, the tech tree has changed as the game has evolved, but those changes have never been a compelling feature of the upgrade. (Quite often, those changes have been disorienting.) Moreover, changes in tech trees are basically the stuff of mods. Even the idea of "parallel" trees is a mod-like idea. (Way back when Civ2 was the latest thing, I built a scenario that had four parallel but mutually exclusive tech trees, which is an idea even more radical than you're playing with here.) A game that features parallel tech trees strikes me as the stuff for an expansion pack, not for an evolution of the game.

My second question: Why is the idea of being able to research more than one tech at a time a compelling one? It seems to me that it's the "research" equivalent of the idea that a city should be able to build more than one unit at a time. So you research for eight turns, at the end of which you get two techs simultaneously, whereas in Civ 4 you spent four turns to get one tech and another four turns to get the second. It seems to me one of those "six of one" vs. "half dozen of the other" situations.

Third: Why do you need separate tech trees in order to "weight" research toward Military, Philosophical, or Scientific directions? Back in Civ2 (I'm not sure if it is the same in 3 or 4) the techs were assigned these sorts of categories without being separated into separate trees. You could do the same thing here without changing the actual tech tree structure. In fact, shorn of the idea of "new tech trees," this part of the idea sounds like a return to Civ2. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess.)

Fourth: Is the Discover-Adopt-Embrace concept an intrinsic part of the idea for a new tech tree? Is the idea of a new tech tree an intrinsic part of the Discover-Adopt-Embrace concept? I ask because it seems to me that they have nothing to do with each other. Today anyone could build a mod with parallel tech trees without using the DAE concept, and the DAE concept (even with all the steps you describe) could be applied with little change to the tech tree that exists in Civ4.

I don't mean this to sound brutal, but I am going someplace with these questions: It's the DAE idea that is interesting in your proposal, not the tech tree stuff. You've devoted a lot of time and thought to the DAE stuff, and it sounds extremely promising. That's what you should be concentrating on. I think bringing in the tech tree stuff just brings in an unnecessary layer of complexity and runs the risk of distracting you and commentators.

Hey Gang, some good stuff so far. I'll craft specific responses shortly.
Four quick things before that, though:

1) The Un-Abandonment Mechanism is broken; what if two Civs abandon a Tech? :crazyeye: ... I believe the solution is as follows:
When the lightbulbs in a tech hits 0, the tech is abandoned (you lose any benefits as described above). Now, once you have adopted any Tech in the same age as the abandoned Tech (excluding the abandoned tech; let's say you adopted Iron Working and you then "entered the Classical Age" but then abandon it before adopting any other Classical Age techs...you have left the Classical Age), you can start attempting to adopt the abandoned Tech again. The reason I want to do this is because I don't want those who discovered, say, Steam Power in the Classical Age, to put no lightbulbs into it until they reach the Middle Ages (or whenever the opportunity presents itself). Discovering a tech is a privilege, not a right, and I want the gameplay to reflect trying to seize opportunities, not just idling along.

2) I totally forgot to include Resources/Improvements. Here's what I'll be adding to the post:
Resources become visible upon DISCOVERY, not Adoption, and even if you abandon the Tech you don't lose visibility. This is because I want the Discovery of Techs to have some strategic value. If you discover Iron Working and find out there is no Iron nearby, you might want to delay adopting it and put the lightbulbs in more immediate need techs.
Worker Improvements are available as of Adoption. However, if you Abandon the Tech, the Improvements remain and continue to confer their benefits (your society may have forgotten how to build a Watermill, but I'm sure the Millers still know how to run one); you just can't build new ones. The exception is resources: if you lose Iron Working, you'll still get the hammer bonus for a mine on iron, but you will no longer have access to Iron in your cities.

3) The mechanic obviously allows for the following situation:
Your war is going badly. You've lost some outlying cities and war weariness is going up. You want to cut your losses, but you have a problem: you're spiralling towards a Dark Age. Several techs are coming close to abandonment, and you haven't successfully adopted a tech in a hundred years. What do you do?
Well, first you make peace. Then, you adopt Bureaucracy. The Bureaucracy Civic has the following effects:

Techs can not be abandoned while in a Bureaucracy, even if they hit 0 in lightbulbs
Tech adoption takes twice as long (Above X for 2Y turns) -- this represents the red tape of a bureaucracy


I like it because it gives you a chance to get your empire in order without worrying about techs so much. It might take awhile before you start adopting new techs, but at least you won't any (more)

4) What about Anarchy? Should we have a mechanism in place that if your Civ goes into Anarchy, you have a % chance of abandoning a discovered tech, or maybe just increase the "If you don't use it, you lose it" lightbulb penalty? I think I prefer the latter.

I don't see why abandoned != discovered (instead of unknown). No research goes towards eventual adoption, but nevertheless the theory is known and could be "picked up" at any time. Perhaps there is a cumulative 0.5% chance per turn that the tech becomes genuinely unknown (this would represent significant time passing and the knowledge passing into obscurity).

Also, I would be wary of a player accidentally putting 0 lightbulbs into a tech, resulting in an irrevocable abandoned state. This would be extremely frustrating. Because of this, I would recommend against that idea. Better would be to allow the civ to pick it up again at any time.


Second point first: the Automated Tech Advisor is designed to prevent that situation from happening; the only way you could accidentally put 0 lightbulbs in a tech is if the ATA is turned off and you're just not paying attention.

That said, the change in re-adoption that I've made in my previous post should address this issue for you for the most part. The only time abandonment will be serious is if you get lucky and discover a more advanced tech, because then you'll have missed an opportunity for several hundred years.


I'm not sure why you have those stiff penalties built into the system in the first place? What do they accomplish? Why have the abandoned concept at all?


I wanted to add historical flavor without imbalancing the game. Dark ages happen. Techs are lost or ignored. The Myceneans Greeks lose writing, and humanity spends two millenia trying to decipher Linear B.

That said, the abandonment phase should be rare on levels below Monarch. The player should not have to worry constantly if they're keeping up with their tech lightbulb allotment. What is more likely is that they discover a more advanced tech and don't do anything with it (or mold their entire game around it!) Even on Monarch or Emperor Tech abandonment shouldn't be an issue unless you spend too much time at war.


Otherwise, this looks really promising. Reminds me of SMAC. It might be insightful to compare/contrast to the SMAC system.


SMAC was definitely one of the 'vague notions' that inspired this system. It's been years since I played it, but I do recall that you didn't have full control over tech tree research.


Speaking of, there are some other concerns. There might be possible gameplay or logical/story imbalances possible if players are allowed to "max out" 1-2 branches, without even paying lip service to the others. Something to consider.

Wodan

The discovery point allotment should prevent this from happening. First, no matter what, you only have a 50% chance of allotting points to a specific branch; on average only every other tech you discover will be from the desired branch pool. In addition, the deeper you go into the pool, the longer it takes to discover and subsequently the longer it takes to adopt. If you discover two advanced techs, you might not have enough lightbulbs to adopt both (or adopt one without sacrificing the other). Finally, there are some hard prereqs in the system, just not as many as before. Eventually you won't be able to take anything else out of the pool before dipping into other branch pools.

Also, Civ 4 did a great job of balancing. Focusing on military and ignoring currency & cottages can kill you in the early game. Ditto here: focusing on one branch will likely prevent you from winning the game.

BTW, one other advantage of the system: Bye-bye slingshots!

Whew! That's quite something. There are a lot of details to mull over and consider. There's a lot of good stuff in there. :goodjob:

Before we get down into details, however, I'd like to hear your answers to some general questions.

Your objective is to provide a new Tech Tree for Civ5. You then put four constraints on its design. Three of these are basically negative (can't be complex; can't unbalance game play; need not be turned on). Only one constraint is positive: Players should be able to research more than one tech at a time.


While they are phrased negatively, from my perspective they are positive. The goal is to produce a popular historical game, not a niche historical simulation. If my goal was the latter, those three options wouldn't exist. However, since it's the former, I have to make sure I don't build a model so overly complicated (or requires so much micromanagement) that it does the opposite and turns people off. Ditto the Classic Tech Tree: there's a huge built in fan base, and there are many players who love their slingshots and their strategies. This system throws wrenches into both, and they might not like that.


My first question is this: Why would a new tech tree for Civ5 be a major drawing point? True, the tech tree has changed as the game has evolved, but those changes have never been a compelling feature of the upgrade. (Quite often, those changes have been disorienting.) Moreover, changes in tech trees are basically the stuff of mods. Even the idea of "parallel" trees is a mod-like idea. (Way back when Civ2 was the latest thing, I built a scenario that had four parallel but mutually exclusive tech trees, which is an idea even more radical than you're playing with here.) A game that features parallel tech trees strikes me as the stuff for an expansion pack, not for an evolution of the game.


This is a question for dh_epic's thread, not this one. While it would be nice that this system ends up being a "back of the box" seller, the goal is to build the system first. Then we'll worry about marketability.


My second question: Why is the idea of being able to research more than one tech at a time a compelling one? It seems to me that it's the "research" equivalent of the idea that a city should be able to build more than one unit at a time. So you research for eight turns, at the end of which you get two techs simultaneously, whereas in Civ 4 you spent four turns to get one tech and another four turns to get the second. It seems to me one of those "six of one" vs. "half dozen of the other" situations.


The parallel research isn't one of the selling points of this system, imo, or at least, it's not my intention for it to be one. The problem with the current system is that there is no strategy involved within the tech research: you figure out what tech you want next and say 'Go!'. This system doesn't work that way. One, you don't have a lot of control over what Techs you discover. You may reallllly want Iron Working, but you get Bronze Working instead. Do you still keep focus on that branch in the hopes of getting Iron Working, or do you work towards something else since you have Copper nearby? (Dammit, I forgot something in the Research section ... I'll get to it in a second) Two, because of the modifiers, and because of changing game situations, it's not the same thing as split research. You might start off on a path where you'll adopt two techs in 8 turns, and then all of a sudden you discover a valuable tech you really need, and you end up not adopting those two techs for another 100 turns! It adds flavor, it adds strategy, and I really don't see it as six of one/half dozen of the other.


Third: Why do you need separate tech trees in order to "weight" research toward Military, Philosophical, or Scientific directions? Back in Civ2 (I'm not sure if it is the same in 3 or 4) the techs were assigned these sorts of categories without being separated into separate trees. You could do the same thing here without changing the actual tech tree structure. In fact, shorn of the idea of "new tech trees," this part of the idea sounds like a return to Civ2. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess.)


There is only one tech tree; that hasn't changed. In fact, the only difference between the current Civ 4 tech tree and this one is that some hard prereqs (for example Bronze Working -> Iron Working) has been replaced by soft prereqs (can discover/adopt Iron Working before Bronze Working, although it is harder without the latter), making the tree less rigid. The separation of the the tree into virtual branches is really for gameplay reasons; it allows some focus by the player, and it allows other game elements (Civ Traits, Great Persons) to interact with the Tech Tree.


Fourth: Is the Discover-Adopt-Embrace concept an intrinsic part of the idea for a new tech tree? Is the idea of a new tech tree an intrinsic part of the Discover-Adopt-Embrace concept? I ask because it seems to me that they have nothing to do with each other. Today anyone could build a mod with parallel tech trees without using the DAE concept, and the DAE concept (even with all the steps you describe) could be applied with little change to the tech tree that exists in Civ4.

I don't mean this to sound brutal, but I am going someplace with these questions: It's the DAE idea that is interesting in your proposal, not the tech tree stuff. You've devoted a lot of time and thought to the DAE stuff, and it sounds extremely promising. That's what you should be concentrating on. I think bringing in the tech tree stuff just brings in an unnecessary layer of complexity and runs the risk of distracting you and commentators.

I may be misunderstanding what you're saying, so take the following comment for what it's worth. Unless you create a system where there is no prereqs, there is always a Tech Tree of some sort. In this situation, though, I've placed the Tech Tree in the background; it exists as a virtual construct for the AI in determining if all hard prereqs are met before allowing a tech to be discovered (or even 'examined'), and if there are any soft prereqs that have not been met, penalizing DAE ability appropriately. That's it. While the player may get a Tech Tree screen so they can see what their overall progress looks like, they can't do anything with it (unless they choose the Modern Age Tech Tree option). There is no clicking on Fusion and seeing the 80 techs you need to research before you can get it.

Now, is the Civ 4 Tech Tree perfect for the DAE? NO. Some techs exist merely as prereqs. You'd have to do a little shuffling to balance the six branches. And some Techs open up too much. But I'm not concerned about that here. The beauty of the DAE system imo is, playtested appropriately, it can work for any game with knowledge advancement. So while I have focused on Civ-specific issues (Great Persons, Civics), they are not the core of the system. And while I have some imagination, trying to describe the system without a frame of reference is beyond my powers :)

Why would a new tech tree for Civ5 be a major drawing point? This is a question for dh_epic's thread, not this one. While it would be nice that this system ends up being a "back of the box" seller, the goal is to build the system first. Then we'll worry about marketability.

Okay, I wasn't sure what kind of discussion you wanted here. :)

The parallel research isn't one of the selling points of this system, imo, or at least, it's not my intention for it to be one.

There is only one tech tree; that hasn't changed.

In this situation, though, I've placed the Tech Tree in the background.

Well, I concentrated so hard on "tech tree" questions because your first post in the thread describes your proposal completely in "tech tree terms." In fact, you headline it with "The goal of this thread is to provide a new Tech Tree system for Civilization 5." It's more accurate, I think, to say the goal is to provide a new model for research. I don't mean to cavil over terms ("tech tree" vs. "research"), but I wanted to be sure I understood you clearly—especially since "changes to the tech tree" is a persistent suggestion for the game.

EDIT: I want to be sure that I do understand you, so let me make the following stab at characterizing the project:

It seems to me that with this Discovery-Adoption-Embracing concept you are taking up and working out the implications of the following observation: Most inventions are combinations of earlier inventions; these later inventions attain a permanent existence only when their disparate parts are unified in a context in which the unified whole has an obvious and permanent utility.

Example: Ironclad warships. These require cannon, steam engines, and sophisticated metal-working and ship-building techniques. They appear and thrive in maritime cultures that have an interest in attaining or contending for mastery of the sea lanes. As a matter of contingent fact, this complete set of conditions did not appear until the mid-19th century in the Atlantic theater. (Earlier attempts (like this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship)) at ironclads lacked key elements, and so the technology didn't "take.")

This large claim, in turn, can be broken down into three smaller claims:

1. Most inventions can consist of more or less discrete components.

2. A civilization must acquire and hang onto these discrete components before it can realize more advanced inventions.

3. A civilization must see the need for developing and keeping the inventions that result from combining discrete components.

Civilization (from 1 through 4) actually does model these observations. It does so by arranging technologies into a rigid framework of "early" knowledge and the "later" knowledge that depends upon it, so that the early inventions (both physical and conceptual) gradually coalesce into the more and more useful inventions that appear later in the game. As for applicability and sustainability: SMC counts upon the player recognizing the utility of the earlier knowledge for the creation of later inventions. Hence, it assumes that the tech will be sustained by the player's civilization until such time as it can be fruitfully applied.

Now, where Civ1-4 made the "sustainability" choice for the player, you want to put the onus on the player. If he's not smart enough to retain and apply the earlier knowledge, then he doesn't deserve to keep it.

Is this a fair description?

* * * * *

Can you explain "adoption" a little more clearly? I must be missing something, but I've read and reread that post, and I don't see anything about how you move from "adoption" to "embracing." I only see "When a Tech has been embraced ..." But how does that work? And why do you want a difference between "adoption" and being "embraced"? What's the reasoning behind having these two different concepts?

Can you explain "adoption" a little more clearly? I must be missing something, but I've read and reread that post, and I don't see anything about how you move from "adoption" to "embracing." I only see "When a Tech has been embraced ..." But how does that work? And why do you want a difference between "adoption" and being "embraced"? What's the reasoning behind having these two different concepts?

Moving from adoption to embracing is the same mechanism as moving from discovery to adoption, i.e., you continue putting lightbulbs into the tech until it is embraced (if that is your choice).

I'll use an example.

To Adopt Iron Working, you need to have 100 lightbulbs in it for 10 turns. You start with 0 lightbulbs, put 15 lightbulbs into it from your pool of lightbulbs being generated, and the modifiers are -5 lightbulbs, so you are netting 10 lightbulbs a turn into Iron Working.

So, at turn 10, you have reached the 'adopt' threshold of 100 lightbulbs. If you maintain 100 lightbulbs for 10 turns, your Civ adopts Iron Working and can start mining for Iron. Now, since you've hit the threshold, you can reduce the amount of lightbulbs being put into Iron Working; you can go down as far as 5, so that you're net is 0. Of course, this very risky because if the modifiers change so that you're -1, you lose any turns put into adopting (since it must be consecutive turns). But let's say you keep putting 15 lightbulbs into it (and no modifiers change). So, on turn 20, this is the situation:
You adopt Iron Working because you have been above 100 lightbulbs for 10 turns, and you currently have 200 lightbulbs invested in it.

Now, you have a couple choices here. Since it's adopted, you could remove all lightbulbs from Iron Working, and then you'd have 40 turns before it would be abandoned. You could only put 5 lightbulbs in it to maintain adoption, so you'd have an extra 10 lightbulbs to use on other techs. Or, since you've already built up 200 lightbulbs, you might want to go for Embrace, which in this example is 300 lightbulbs for 15 turns.

So, for the next 10 turns you continue to put 15 lightbulbs in until you reach 300. You are now at the Embrace threshold. You drop your lightbulbs per turn invested to 6 or 7, and keep an eye on it each turn (just to make sure you don't go below 300). After 15 more turns, Iron Working is Embraced. Since Iron Working is Embraced, you will never lose it, so you can put all of those per-turn lightbulbs into another Tech.

And that's the main reason for Embracing a Tech (and why a Great Person is very valuable in this system): so you no longer have to commit lightbulbs to the tech (oh, and you can trade it, but that's a lesser concern) because you will never abandon it. Lightbulbs invested could drop to 0, and it means nothing (in fact, once a tech is embraced, invested lightbulbs are no longer tracked).

So there's a trade-off with the Adopt -> Embrace mechanism. If you pursue Embrace vigorously, it will take longer to Adopt other techs. On the other hand, if you ignore Embracing, at some point you may have too many techs you're keeping afloat that makes it harder to Adopt new ones.

Or if you're a daredevil, you can keep Adopting, remove all lightbulbs and let it plummet towards zero, and then "rescue" it. Now that sounds like a fun Succession Game variant ...

Now I know it looks a little complicated, but the Automated Tech Advisor will actually handle most of that (in fact, if you indicate you want it Adopted/Embraced, the ATA will make sure that once it's over the threshold it will stay above the threshold -- presuming there aren't too many techs simultaneously above the threshold and adverse conditions don't strike.

One final note: in the example I used a negative modifier because the Civ had not discovered/adopted Bronze Working yet, and no other neighbors had Iron Working. In reality, especially with the earlier techs and at lower difficulty levels, you may have a positive lightbulb modifier ... in which case you don't have to invest *any* of your research in the tech, and it'll slowly get adopted anyway!

This is a sort of continuation of the above post, but I wanted to use it discuss modifiers.

In the example, I gave a -5 lightbulb modifier to adopting/embracing Iron Working. The -1 is based on difficulty level (here, it's Noble or easier) and it simulates the "if you don't do nothing, you're going to lose it" effect. -4 came from the fact that you don't have Bronze Working discovered. No other modifiers are in effect, but over the length of the example, 30 turns elapsed. Here are some things that could happen on the road to adoption:

One, you discover bronze working. Buh-bye -4 penalty!
Two, you discover metal casting. Now you'll be getting a bonus, as X% of lightbulbs committed to metal casting go to iron working as well (and to bronze working!).
Three, one of your neighbors adopts Iron Working before you, and you have Open Borders, so you get a lightbulb bonus.

At this point, it's feasible that all you have to do is put lightbulbs into metal casting, and iron working will adopt on its own!

After you adopt it, other things could happen. Every iron mine you build gives you a burst of lightbulbs towards embrace. Also, every iron resource you have hooked up will add a per-turn lightbulb bonus (first one gives a greater bonus than each subsequent one). Build a spearman (requires iron), and you get another burst towards embrace. And so on.

Also don't forget: soft pre-reqs are cumulative now. Guilds has Machinery as a soft prereq, and Metal Casting as a soft prereq, and thus Iron Working as a soft prereq, and thus Bronze Working as a soft prereq. Therefore, when you're working on Guilds, all these other techs are getting lightbulb bonuses.

The upshot is that techs in previous ages will adopt/embrace even if you don't care about them (barring high difficulty/frequent warfare). So my example in the last post made it look like embracing Iron Working was going to be a chore; in reality, it probably ends up being something that happens without you even trying.

Simply put, it's too much. This will never make it into civ, because it's not simple enough.

Simply put, it's too much. This will never make it into civ, because it's not simple enough.

Are you talking front end or back end?

Are you talking front end or back end?
If 'Tech Tree Branches' doesn't immediately get this idea ignored by Firaxis, The 'Four Stages of Technology' will. That's where I stopped reading. Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's too complex for me, or that I don't want to see things like this in future versions of civ, I simply don't want to waste my time on something I know will never make it into civ - that just gets my hopes up, that the next version will be better. That's probably why civ3 and then civ4 were such major disappointments for me. I kept hoping it would get more complex, but now I realize it never will (not out of the box anyway ;)).
Remember, Firaxis' first run at religion included 'levels' of religion in a city, and ultimately they reduced the complexity until the religion was either there or not. That's the way the tree works now, you either have the tech or you don't - it can't be any more simple, and you're trying to go the other way, so this idea will be ignored for sure.

If 'Tech Tree Branches' doesn't immediately get this idea ignored by Firaxis, The 'Four Stages of Technology' will. That's where I stopped reading. Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's too complex for me, or that I don't want to see things like this in future versions of civ, I simply don't want to waste my time on something I know will never make it into civ - that just gets my hopes up, that the next version will be better. That's probably why civ3 and then civ4 were such major disappointments for me. I kept hoping it would get more complex, but now I realize it never will (not out of the box anyway ;)).
Remember, Firaxis' first run at religion included 'levels' of religion in a city, and ultimately they reduced the complexity until the religion was either there or not. That's the way the tree works now, you either have the tech or you don't - it can't be any more simple, and you're trying to go the other way, so this idea will be ignored for sure.


Don't worry, this is purely an intellectual exercise. I doubt Firaxis will even care that this thread exists. I'm just providing an alternative to the current system.

Remember: the current system hasn't changed much since Civ I. Some would argue that means the current system is perfect; I would argue the exact opposite: it's obsolete, because the rest of the gameplay has evolved so much.

What I personally would love is some way for there to be strategy within tech research outside of "what should I research next?". This system provides a way of adding another layer of strategy for the player that wants it (hence the Classic Tech Tree option), one in which simply dedicating lightbulbs to a tech isn't the end of strategy. If not this system, it could be another one. Just give me something else to do with technology besides setting all systems 'Go!'.

One thing I want to comment on regarding the Tech Tree Branch Pools:

They already exist in the game!

That's right, they do. It's the Research Tech option for Great Persons. Each Great Person has a listing of Techs they can research over the course of the game, and a linear mechanism for determining which one is currently available. The Branch Pools in my system would do something similar: each of the six branches would have a listing of Techs that can be 'examined' over the course of the game, but instead of a linear mechanism to determine which one becomes available, a percentage mechanism is used.

See? Firaxis doesn't have to reprogram anything to integrate the discovery section! ;)

Okay, my head has almost stopped spinning ...

I really don’t have an organized way of presenting my questions, so I'm just going to hop around, between questions about detail, theory, and gameplay.

1. Would all techs have a basic negative modifier (before other modifiers come into play)? That is, if there were no modification from war, open borders, resources, etc., would there still be a penalty that requires the player to invest lightbulbs just to stay even? Related: Would you structure modifications in such a way that there will likely always be a net penalty applied to a tech? (That is, situations like you describe with Iron-working, where you might get it without investing any research at all, would be relatively rare?)

2. "You need to have 100 lighbulbs in it for 10 turns ... (since it must be consecutive turns)" Are lightbulbs and turns two different and independent investment conditions for adopting/embracing a tech? So, if I invested 9000 lightbulbs per turn in a tech, it would still take me at least 10 turns to secure it? On the other hand, if I made a net investment of 1 lightbulb per turn, it would take me at least 100 turns to secure it? (And since the turns must be consecutive, it might even take me 199 turns, if something bad happened on turn 99?) If these are independent conditions, why do you have them instead of Firaxis's much more elegant "lightbulb investment" model?

3. "And that's the main reason for Embracing a Tech: so you no longer have to commit lightbulbs to the tech [in order to keep from losing it.]". Ummmm... So that players will "embrace" a tech, you have made "adopted" techs susceptible to loss. But why make them susceptible to loss? "Embracing" sounds like a solution for which you have invented a problem. More fundamentally, it sounds like you're unsure whether you want techs to be permanent or not. You could have made all techs permanent upon adoption; you could have made all techs impermanent with no chance of being "embraced." Why do you propose a two-step first-it's-tenuous-and-then-it's-permanent model? What game purpose is served by this?

4. You note the many ways that bonuses could accrue (either positively or negatively). Wouldn't the player then be opening and closely studying the tech screen almost every single turn? Do you expect this or want it?

5. How many technologies might a player find himself tracking? There are the ones being adopted, the ones being embraced, and also the ones that have been abandoned (because these could be resurrected). Might a player who loses too many techs and concentrates on adopting rather than embracing find himself facing a tech screen that displays two or even three dozen techs in various stages of development or decay?

6. Are you suggesting a way of modeling a particular theory of how technology appears and evolves? Or are you more interested in trying integrate a lot of separate ideas you have had? That is, are you starting with a basic theory of the way technology advances and trying to develop a compelling, intuitive, and simple model for it? Or are you trying to find a system that will combine lots of ideas you've had over the years (dark ages! lost tech! parallel research! technological osmosis!)? If it's the latter, I don't know how someone could offer constructive suggestions; you could always meet such suggestions with "Oh, but that's a feature I've always wanted the game to have." That might not stop other people, but if it is your Erector set, I'd be very shy about telling you to screw it together in a different way.

EDIT: I finally figured out what's bugging me about the parameters you've put on this thread:

The system must contain an underlying Tech Tree so that players will have the option not to use the new system (since the new system is different enough that it may turn off old fans of the game, hurting sales of Civilization 5).

Don't worry, this is purely an intellectual exercise. I doubt Firaxis will even care that this thread exists. I'm just providing an alternative to the current system.

If Firaxis's opinion doesn't matter, why insist that the new system has to be built so that it can "turned off" and the old one run instead? I keep wanting to develop and refine a lot of the tech-tree behavior you propose, but do so by scrapping or heavily modifying the underlying structure. But I can't do that because it would fall afoul of the above constraint. Moreover, the current Civ system is about as simple and intuitive as you can get, which means redesigns that work from that base risk needlessly complicating a very elegant system. This is a very frustrating condition for me ...

Don't want you to think I haven't been following along. I have, and the idea is pretty exciting. Don't worry if Firaxis never reads it. It never stopped me. I genuinely just like talking about Civilization as a game. I'm glad someone else feels the same way.

That said, the technology tree was (arguably) invented by Sid Meier. It's a staple of the game and pretty much the entire GENRE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4x). It's notable enough to qualify for its own wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_tree). You're messing with sacred ground. But if Nintendo can give us the Wii, then Sid Meier can re-invent the tech tree as we know it. Hey, you never know.

The idea of modelling a dark age, which is rare, seems more like a bonus to this idea. What really might sell a LOT of people on the idea is that technology is influenced by what you do, rather than choosing what you want at a specific time. Seriously, I've heard a lot of people say they'd like military techs to come faster if they're at war, or economic techs to come faster if they're rich... believe it or not, your idea is the furthest along to realizing that goal. I hate to say it, but that's kind of sad. I'm not attacking you -- that's not your fault, obviously. But I mean that to say how many people suggest an idea, but cannot communicate how it might work.

The crux of your suggestion is actually quite simple: distinguish "Ideas" from "Applications". Beyond that, what civics or buildings help which branches, how great people might help adoption, and how to prevent permanent abandonment of a key tech are good questions. But not right now. The biggest challenge is drawing a prototype of this split tech tree, especially one that might let ancient China have guns, or ancient Rome have electricity. That's the biggest challenge. Is it two seperate trees? Is it two tiers that interact somehow? Is it a pyramid? A bunch of pies with slices?

Furthermore, how do you represent an era without going beyond the level of complexity that Firaxis seems to have now? That's about 15 techs for an era, and 6 eras for all of history. Each era has a certain amount of "stuff" as well, never much more than 40 or so units/wonders/buildings. (I once tried to reinvent the tech tree, with lots of parallel branches... until I realized that some eras had literally tripled in their amount of detail. No good.)

Okay, my head has almost stopped spinning ...

I really don’t have an organized way of presenting my questions, so I'm just going to hop around, between questions about detail, theory, and gameplay.

1. Would all techs have a basic negative modifier (before other modifiers come into play)? That is, if there were no modification from war, open borders, resources, etc., would there still be a penalty that requires the player to invest lightbulbs just to stay even? Related: Would you structure modifications in such a way that there will likely always be a net penalty applied to a tech? (That is, situations like you describe with Iron-working, where you might get it without investing any research at all, would be relatively rare?)


Yes, all techs will have a basic negative modifier. This is the "use it or lose it" penalty. The higher the difficulty level, the larger the penalty will be.

That said, the goal is NOT to make it very hard to adopt a tech. The modifiers are designed to make it harder when:

You do not have one or more of the prereqs
You're at war (presuming not Always War)


If those aren't true, then your modifiers should be at least zero, if not positive. Not enough that you can adopt/embrace every tech without committing any lightbulbs, but as long as the techs you research are happening "normally" and you're not racing ahead of your neighbors, it shouldn't be a huge deal to adopt/embrace techs.

Now, for those two conditions above, the reason I'm penalizing them is because I'm trying to simulate real-world experience (in the case of War penalties -- it's much harder to research Democracy when you're drafting Rifles from the population) and because I don't want to break the system (if you get a miraculous discovery pop of Rifles in 100 AD, it has to be hard for you to adopt it otherwise you'll be over-running everyone)


2. "You need to have 100 lighbulbs in it for 10 turns ... (since it must be consecutive turns)" Are lightbulbs and turns two different and independent investment conditions for adopting/embracing a tech? So, if I invested 9000 lightbulbs per turn in a tech, it would still take me at least 10 turns to secure it? On the other hand, if I made a net investment of 1 lightbulb per turn, it would take me at least 100 turns to secure it? (And since the turns must be consecutive, it might even take me 199 turns, if something bad happened on turn 99?) If these are independent conditions, why do you have them instead of Firaxis's much more elegant "lightbulb investment" model?


Yes, they're independent. Once you've "filled the lightbulb meter" you need to keep it there for X number of turns (although if you put 9000 into a 100 lightbulb tech, you don't need to put anymore in it unless you have a -1000 modifier). But if you have no negative modifiers, once you get it to the threshold, you don't need to invest any more lightbulbs.

The DAE requires the X number of turns system because of the following:
You discover Iron Working. You need 100 lightbulbs to research it. In the DAE system, you could pull away per-turn lightbulbs from every other tech you have for one turn just to get Iron Working to 100 as soon as possible. So let's say you're producing 100 lightbulbs. You have 4 other techs each receiving 25 lightbulbs a turn. You discover Iron Working. If you don't have the time restraint, you could cut off lightbulbs to all other techs so that you adopt Iron Working the next turn. By requiring the time restraint, that's a bad idea; depending on modifiers you probably can't afford to pull away research from other techs for the ten turns ... I just realized that makes no sense. If you have no negative modifiers, you could 'spike' a tech for one turn and then drop the lightbulbs from it since you just have to maintain the threshold.

Ok, here's my reasoning: historical realism. Discovery->Adoption is rarely instantaneous in the real world. Look at this thread: I "discovered" the DAE a couple days ago, but we still haven't adopted it yet even though I've been putting plenty of lightbulbs into it (probably to the dismay of my employer).


3. "And that's the main reason for Embracing a Tech: so you no longer have to commit lightbulbs to the tech [in order to keep from losing it.]". Ummmm... So that players will "embrace" a tech, you have made "adopted" techs susceptible to loss. But why make them susceptible to loss? "Embracing" sounds like a solution for which you have invented a problem. More fundamentally, it sounds like you're unsure whether you want techs to be permanent or not. You could have made all techs permanent upon adoption; you could have made all techs impermanent with no chance of being "embraced." Why do you propose a two-step first-it's-tenuous-and-then-it's-permanent model? What game purpose is served by this?


No game purpose. Historical realism purpose: techs get lost. Dark ages occur. Egyptians develop batteries and Romans develop steam engines and no one does it again for millenia. Greeks get invaded by the "Sons of Hercules" and lose the ability to write Linear B. To quote the philosopher: sh1t happens.

It also has gameplay function, though, because of the ability to pop an advanced tech earlier. Let's say I pop Steam Power in 100 AD. If all it takes is adoption to make it permanent, it's a lot easier to keep Steam Power in 100 AD. The Adoption->Embrace model forces the Civ not only to work to use Steam Power, they have to work to keep it. They've been given potentially a great tech benefit in the game essentially at random; there has to be a negative otherwise you chance becomes a great factor in who wins the game. The negative is the lightbulb investment necessary to keep Steam Power adopted makes it harder to adopts other techs. So: a decision is necessary. Do I keep Steam Power and risk falling behind otherwise, or do I leverage it to make up for my other deficiencies?



4. You note the many ways that bonuses could accrue (either positively or negatively). Wouldn't the player then be opening and closely studying the tech screen almost every single turn? Do you expect this or want it?


Not if they let the Automated Tech Advisor do the work. The ATA will autoallocate lightbulbs based on what you've stated before, and if there's a situation where the ATA can no longer do its job you'll be notified.

At the same time, the player is free to do what they want with the screen (even as far as turning off the ATA). Even still, an increase in lightbulbs (say, from population growth) will get proportioned out appropriately so the only time you'll need to really keep track is if you're at war or changing civics, etc.

One more thing(tm): this system is another check on infinite city sprawl. If you need to drop your research because the expense of empire is getting too large, you might end up having a tech problem. As the game currently goes, all that happens is you delay researching the next tech some turns. With this system, you could lose a tech.


5. How many technologies might a player find himself tracking? There are the ones being adopted, the ones being embraced, and also the ones that have been abandoned (because these could be resurrected). Might a player who loses too many techs and concentrates on adopting rather than embracing find himself facing a tech screen that displays two or even three dozen techs in various stages of development or decay?


Embraced techs don't show up on the Active Techs screen (they'll have a specific color on the Tech Tree screen), so you're left with Abandoned, Discovered, and Adopted techs on the screen. This can end up having a dozen techs on it. However, it shouldn't be too hard to deal with. Because of cascading prereq bonuses you probably only need to focus on the most recent techs. And older techs will start embracing automatically as the game progresses even if you don't try to embrace them. Obviously some design work will need to be done, but I can't imagine it being any more onerous than the 'list of cities' screen.


6. Are you suggesting a way of modeling a particular theory of how technology appears and evolves? Or are you more interested in trying integrate a lot of separate ideas you have had? That is, are you starting with a basic theory of the way technology advances and trying to develop a compelling, intuitive, and simple model for it? Or are you trying to find a system that will combine lots of ideas you've had over the years (dark ages! lost tech! parallel research! technological osmosis!)? If it's the latter, I don't know how someone could offer constructive suggestions; you could always meet such suggestions with "Oh, but that's a feature I've always wanted the game to have." That might not stop other people, but if it is your Erector set, I'd be very shy about telling you to screw it together in a different way.


The basis of this model came to me three days ago, I am in no way shape or form wedded to it. I would say I'm most interested in providing an alternative research system that allows strategy within the tech research. How that is accomplished is what I hope this thread can do. That said, I like the idea of fits and starts and dead ends in technology development, and I would hope that makes it into the final product.


EDIT: I finally figured out what's bugging me about the parameters you've put on this thread:

If Firaxis's opinion doesn't matter, why insist that the new system has to be built so that it can "turned off" and the old one run instead? I keep wanting to develop and refine a lot of the tech-tree behavior you propose, but do so by scrapping or heavily modifying the underlying structure. But I can't do that because it would fall afoul of the above constraint. Moreover, the current Civ system is about as simple and intuitive as you can get, which means redesigns that work from that base risk needlessly complicating a very elegant system. This is a very frustrating condition for me ...

Well, Firaxis' opinion might matter if they do see this thread and say "Hey ChrTh, we love it, here's $$$$" :mischief:

That said, the underlying Tech Tree can be modified/scrapped, but understand that you'll need to provide concrete examples of what you're then describing. The Tech Tree functions as a frame of reference; eliminating the frame of reference is a dangerous step to take when discussing theoretical structures.

That might not stop other people, but if it is your Erector set, I'd be very shy about telling you to screw it together in a different way.

Ah, screw it.

One of the many terrific ideas you have is that the possession of some techs should give a boost to the research of other, related techs. The idea is intuitive, easy to grasp, seems realistic, is highly useful, etc. But to realize it in game terms you have to describe some rather complex notions like "soft" and "hard prereqs" and of percent bonuses that would be applied to the tech that is currently under research or which could be applied to some "soft" prerequisite tech in case there is a-- And now I've got a headache again.

It's complicated because you're still working with the old and (you're right to call it this) obsolete tech structure in Civ. True, it's still around because it's elegant and easy to play with, but if you want a different research model, I think you ought to work deeper into the very idea of technological evolution and not just staple a lot of complications onto the skeleton Sid Meier created fifteen years ago.

I'm not saying I've got the last word on this (I doubt I've even come up with the idea first), but here's a notion I've been toying with:

In Civ a tech is basically a node in a network (albeit, a network stretched out along a single axis) that also carries a license to build stuff. So, Fishing powers up a channel leading to Pottery while also giving you a license to build work boats. Because it has no other structural features, ideas like yours can only be implemented by adding a lot of extraneous connections and relations (like bonuses), and this kind of stuff can be hard to keep track of. It's also inelegant.

Now, it's not really possible to construct an alternate and elegant way of modeling techs and their relations that perfectly captures what you have proposed: after all, your proposal is crafted with the current system at its base. Still, I think there is at least one alternate structure that could capture behavior very much like what you describe, and in a simpler way.

Basically, techs could be modeled not as nodes in a network but as integral components of larger structures. Just as a car is made up of simpler parts that blend together into a larger whole, later techs could be modeled as composites of earlier techs. These later techs would be discovered as soon as all of their components (the earlier prerequisite techs) had been discovered. So, for example (I'm making up examples on the fly): Cannon and Steam Power would not be techs whose discovery would allow you to research Ironclads. Rather, each would be (in addition to whatever other benefits it conferred) 1/2 of the Ironclads tech. Once the second of these precursor techs (whichever it happened to be) were discovered, the Ironclad tech would "pop."

By itself, of course, this doesn't seem like a big change; in the example above it would only mean that you wouldn't have to pursue the extra step of researching or acquiring the independent Ironclad tech. But when techs are elements in more than one combine, the savings accumulate. So suppose that Steam Power were also an element (along with Corporation) in Railroad. Then instead of having to research five techs to get both Ironclads and Railroad (Cannon, Steam Power, Corporation, Ironclads, and Railroad) you would only need to secure three (Cannon, Steam Power, Corporation): Ironclads would appear when you had two (Cannon and Steam Power), and Railroads would appear when you added Corporation. The more overlap there is between techs, the tighter these shortcuts are. The effect is not built like a bonus, but it would have a similar effect: By researching a cluster of closely related techs, you would draw closer more quickly to a series of more advanced techs. If the basic techs accumulated in the right order, you might find a situation in which two or three or even more later techs "popped" on the same turn.

To offset the quickened pace, though, techs would probably have to be composed of more than two prerequisites. (But the new structure—which takes techs as sets, not nodes—would make it easier to implement techs with more than two immediate prerequisites; the need to describe tech advances in a tree seems to be one reason that techs right now have a maximum of two prerequisites.) So instead of having two, Ironclads might actually require as many as five components (oh, let's say: Cannon, Steam Power, Propeller, Iron-Rolling, Advanced Shipbuilding). This would probably manage to do two things: first, it would slow down the pace of advance, but it would also make it easier to create the kind of clusters that could lead to "bonus-like" behavior.

For example, imagine three composite techs: Ironclads (Steam Power, Iron Rolling, Propeller, Cannon Making, Advanced Shipbuilding); Railroad (Steam Power, Iron Rolling, Corporation); and Armored Artillery (Steam Power, Iron Rolling, Cannon Making, Modern Explosives). To acquire the three later techs you would have to research seven precursors. (If classic Civ had these prerequisites, you'd have to research ten.) But once you were researching within this closely interrelated cluster (all three require Steam Power and Iron Rolling; two require Cannon Making) the three could pop in close succession. In fact, if either Steam Power or Iron Rolling were the last to be researched, all three would pop on the same turn. Again, it doesn't work in the same way that "bonuses" provided by techs in a tree would work, but it would lead to a very similar effect.

This new structure would also provide an easy way of characterizing and capturing the difference between "being adopted" and "being embraced." An "adopted" tech is one that has been discovered, which can be used, but might be lost because it is only weakly woven into the fabric of the civilization; an "embraced" tech is one that is a component of at least one other discovered tech. That's because technologies are permanently acquired when they are transcended, which happens either when they have been made completely obsolete by later techs or when they have been incorporated into them. In the first case, the later tech simply replaces the earlier one, as Modern Explosives (based on modern chemistry) replaces Gunpowder (based on primitive chemistry); Gunpowder doesn't become a permanent tech so much as it becomes useless one. In the second case, any civilization that knows how to operate a tech would know how to operate any of its components; any civilization that knew how to build Ironclads would necessarily also know how to build cannon and steam engines and how to roll iron plating.

The more discovered techs an earlier tech is a component of, the more securely it is embedded: steam power would be solidly possessed by any civilization that possessed (in the above example) Ironclads, Railroads, and Armored Artillery. In fact, you wouldn't even need to separately develop and model the concept of being "embraced" because that concept would already be realized as a necessary structural feature of the overall tech model.

This structure would also have room for eccentricity—the kind of thing Wodan was talking about. Up above, I mentioned "Armored Artillery." What's that? For lack of a better phrase, it's steam-driven tanks. Now, because later techs are composites of earlier techs, there could be (in mathematical theory) as many possible improvements/buildings/wonders/units as there are combinations of techs—Armored Artillery might be one of them. Now, it would be pointless and impossible to create a unit, etc., for every such possible combination of techs; you'd have to create [(2 to the nth power) minus 1] units, where n is the number of techs in the game. (Imagine 2 to the 80th power units in the game!) But you could provide units, etc., for some of these combinations, as I've playfully provided Armored Artillery. Here would be a natural place for mods to exploit.

(In fact, mods or designers could provide a huge number of units or improvements while also putting an easy limit on their appearance. It structures advanced techs as sets of earlier techs, but it could also structure some of them as ordered sets of earlier techs, which would sharply limit the chances of some of these advanced techs appearing. For instance, it might structure "Armored Artillery" as the ordered set <Modern Explosives, Cannon Making, Steam Power, Iron Rolling>. Only if you discovered these techs in this precise order would "Armored Artillery" appear. By making the "vanilla" techs unordered sets but alternate-world techs ordered sets, the designers could actually hide whole alternate tech lines inside the game.)

Some of your other ideas, I think, could also be more intuitively realized within this kind of framework. For instance, once techs are conceived as sets (ordered or otherwise), it is easy enough to make non-techs into elements of such sets. For instance, the set for Ironclads could be (Steam Power, Iron Rolling, Propeller, Cannon Making, [Tool Works]), where "[Tool Works]" is a city building (a proto-factory). Before the Ironclad tech can be realized, at least one Tool Works would have to be built, and the tech would remain active only so long as one such building were in operation. If during a war the all such buildings were destroyed, the civ would lose the ability to build Ironclads. Of course, the conceptual elements of the tech would probably not disappear, and the civ could quickly get Ironclads back if it built another Tool Works. But if the civ suffered serious reverses of a sustained nature, that ability might vanish for a very long time. If enough such reverses occurred, the civ might even enter a dark age, possibly an irreversible one. (I have read that Iran never fully recovered from Timurlane's destruction of its irrigation works. If Farms were an integral part of some very early techs, imagine the collapse that could follow if you lost all your Farms!) However, it would be a dark age whose causes would be transparent to the player and an outcome of gameplay, and therefore unlikely to be a source of frustration. (Well, it would be the kind of frustration you feel when a war is going badly.)

I've got other ideas. But I'll wait and see the reaction to this one.

Don't want you to think I haven't been following along. I have, and the idea is pretty exciting. Don't worry if Firaxis never reads it. It never stopped me. I genuinely just like talking about Civilization as a game. I'm glad someone else feels the same way.

That said, the technology tree was (arguably) invented by Sid Meier. It's a staple of the game and pretty much the entire GENRE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4x). It's notable enough to qualify for its own wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_tree). You're messing with sacred ground. But if Nintendo can give us the Wii, then Sid Meier can re-invent the tech tree as we know it. Hey, you never know.


Well, I am deeply respectful of the Tech Tree because of its stapleinity (tm ChrTh 2007). This is why I placed the option to revert to the Classic Tech Tree, and why under this system you'd still be able to look at the Tech Tree via the Science Advisor screen. It's still there. You just don't have the same level of control to move forward through like you used to do.


The idea of modelling a dark age, which is rare, seems more like a bonus to this idea. What really might sell a LOT of people on the idea is that technology is influenced by what you do, rather than choosing what you want at a specific time. Seriously, I've heard a lot of people say they'd like military techs to come faster if they're at war, or economic techs to come faster if they're rich... believe it or not, your idea is the furthest along to realizing that goal. I hate to say it, but that's kind of sad. I'm not attacking you -- that's not your fault, obviously. But I mean that to say how many people suggest an idea, but cannot communicate how it might work.


When I discussed the Discovery Phase, I made sure that the player has control over how the percentages are allotted on a per-turn base, with only the min and max as parameters. Maybe I need to take it out of the players' hands and thus allow bonuses/penalties based on situations to come into play. If I rework how Discovery is calculated, I could probably make it even more in tune with what the player is doing ... hmmm ... let me come back to this later.


The crux of your suggestion is actually quite simple: distinguish "Ideas" from "Applications". Beyond that, what civics or buildings help which branches, how great people might help adoption, and how to prevent permanent abandonment of a key tech are good questions. But not right now. The biggest challenge is drawing a prototype of this split tech tree, especially one that might let ancient China have guns, or ancient Rome have electricity. That's the biggest challenge. Is it two seperate trees? Is it two tiers that interact somehow? Is it a pyramid? A bunch of pies with slices?


Well, I use Civics/Buildings/Great People/etc as ways of doing internal testing to the system. It helps me develop ideas about the system and keeps me grounded -- too many times I've seen ideas go like this "Well, how would Civics be affected" "Oh, I'd take Civics out" ... in other words, their solution to a problem to a suggested idea is to suggest changing something else, until eventually they've created a brand new game just to deal with one change. If I can implement DEA without changing anything in Civ 4, I'd be ecstatic. (Obviously, some re-balancing of tech effects needs to occur, but if I can leave Religions, Civics, Buildings, et al., as if nothing changed, I'm golden in my opinion)

And you're right: I'm distinguishing Ideas from Applications. As I said in your thread, Techs should have 3 components: Ideas (the Discovery phase), Practicability (the Modifiers to Adoption) and Sustainability (the move towards Embracing or Abandonment). I left out that in this thread because a lot of it is blurred (some of the Modifiers deal with both Practicability and Sustainability), but it's still there.

As for the biggest challenge ... well, actually, I think it's done -- it just needs some decision making. I should be able to take the DEA model and apply it to the current Civ 4 Tech Tree. What needs to be done is:
Every Tech needs to be applied to a Branch
Every Prereq (cascaded back through the entire chain) must be evaluated as to whether it's a Soft or Hard Prereq

Once that's determined, everything else is playtesting and assigning numbers, to be honest. Take Steam Power. It currently has Prereqs of Chemistry and Replaceable Parts. Replaceable Parts is definitely a soft prereq in my opinion, as is Chemistry (I don't consider 'boiling water' as Chemistry). Printing Press is a prereq of Replaceable Parts, but I see no reason to make it one of Steam Power (Paper is out too). You know something? This whole Replaceable Parts line is a crock. So Replaceable Parts isn't even a Soft Prereq.

Ok, let's look at Chemistry though. Chemistry is a Soft Prereq. Gunpowder, though, is not. Engineering, however, is. Machinery I would consider a Hard Prereq, as I would Construction. So:

Steam Power has 4 prereqs: Chemistry (soft), Engineering (soft), and Machinery (hard), and Construction (hard).

So: I can not discover Steam Power until I have Machinery and Construction. After I have those two, Steam Power can be discovered (although without Chemistry and Engineering it will be harder -- just not impossible). After I discover Steam Power, I may even be able to adopt it. There's a catch however: I don't have Iron Working adopted (yep, it's not a hard prereq for Metal Casting or Machinery)! Oy! Oh well, let me see if I can get that adopted so I can build Ironclads ...

See, that sounds like fun to me.


Furthermore, how do you represent an era without going beyond the level of complexity that Firaxis seems to have now? That's about 15 techs for an era, and 6 eras for all of history. Each era has a certain amount of "stuff" as well, never much more than 40 or so units/wonders/buildings. (I once tried to reinvent the tech tree, with lots of parallel branches... until I realized that some eras had literally tripled in their amount of detail. No good.)

Well, the eras are just labels in Civ 4, to be honest. They don't have the functioning that Civ 3 did with the required and optional techs for moving into the next era. So I like I said above, I should be able to do the DEA model on the Civ 4 Tech Tree. The only concern is that within each era there's roughly equal number of Techs per branches. That might require reworking.

So: three things
1) Rework Discovery Phase to make it non-interactive (the more I think about this, the more I like it)
2) Divide up the Techs into their Branch Pools
3) Determine the Soft and Hard Prereqs for each Tech

Some quick post-lunch notes/thoughts:

1) I want to mention something about my Steam Power example above. In reality, Ironclads should have Replaceable Parts as a prerequisite as well since I've removed it from Steam Power (and all Unit/Building prereqs should be Hard prereqs). So even with Iron Working, you wouldn't be able to build an Ironclad ... so the question becomes, what's the point of getting Steam Power early?

That's why I think the Techs need to be redone somewhat. Steam Power should provide +50% movement (rounded down? up?) to all Naval Vessels (Boats that require Steam Power to be built would have a base movement specified lower so that with the +50% it returns to its 'normal' value). So your Galley can now move 3 after you gain Steam Power. Again, this is all balancing/playtesting, I just wanted to illustrate where some advantages could be gained by adopting advanced techs early.

2) I'm beginning to think the Discovery mechanic should be separated from the AEA mechanic for discussion purposes. Since this thread has mostly focused on AEA, I think I'll create a new thread just for the Discovery mechanic.

3) @Mxzs: I'm not going to have a chance to read/answer your post for several hours, so don't think I'm ignoring you (especially if I do answer a subsequent smaller post)

Ok, I've got the Discovery Mechanic discussion started with a new implicit system of Discovery. I think I need to do a real example first, but go ahead and look.

EDIT: A Link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225053) would help :rolleyes:

Hmm, so the idea is closer to the original tech tree than once thought. The only reason I suggested working with one era is because it might be easier to put together a prototype. But if it's closer to the original tree, it will be easier to visualize. That's good.

It also makes the idea less "bold". But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The appeal isn't the boldness, or even the dark ages (which can be cool, in moderation). The biggest benefit is still the idea that techs can be developed by "necessity"... not just raw research. We have lots of cows... what do you know, we domesticated them faster than everyone else. We're at war a lot... what do you know, we discovered iron working.

This is the trade off:

(1) add an additional step after discovering the tech (adoption, and stability)
(2) ditch a lot of hard requirements, allowing much more tech flexibility

The first step adds complexity. That's always a strike against every idea, whether people like it or not. There's a rule that Firaxis (and indeed most designers) go by. If you put something in, take something out. If you add health, take out pollution. If you add great people, take out building maintenance. If you add combat bonuses, take out separate attack/defense values.

That's why I'm excited about your second step. As it stands now, the current tech tree requires a lot of mouse-overs and scrolling to figure out what all the pre-reqs for a tech are. ChrTh, you will be able to add a lot of value to your new system if the pre-reqs are more minimal, and more easy to visualize than what Firaxis has now. I think you might be able to pull it off, even.

That's your challenge, IMO. Can you make this easier to visualize than the current tech tree? It might be enough to develop one clear "branch" (e.g.: military), since that seems to be a better way to carve up your system than by "era".

Don't worry, this is purely an intellectual exercise. I doubt Firaxis will even care that this thread exists. I'm just providing an alternative to the current system.
Ahh...
Well, in that case, you can count me in the fun. In fact, after reading this thread and the other one, I think I have a way to depict all of this to the player visually that will be extremely familiar and simple to use...
I'll draw a mock-up and post it tonight.

Ok, first off, I may have misinterpreted a few things, since I must admit I have not wholeheartedly paid attention to both threads (I'll do so from now on though ;)) I'll post a series of pictures to discuss, and I'll simply call them 1, 2, 3, etc., based on the order of appearence, of course.

1 shows a typical tech tree (minus lines - to save time). I say, don't abandon the tree, it's a staple and it's an easy way to condense a vast amount of information... but it can hold more, as you can see. The functionality that is in civ4 basically remains, with a few minor alterations.



2 shows how the breakdown works visually. The big 6 categories are vertical on the lefthand side (only one shown to save time), and basically all techs of that category fall in line with it (think CtP2's tech tree sort of visual seperation, with each category having a unique background color). The categories must remain stationary, while the rest of the screen is scrollable in x and y directions.
Although not shown, in the upper lefthand of the technology block, there would be a node to expand the "application tree", which shows all the applications associated with this tech. And again, not shown, but to the right of the name of the application would be text like:
70/100____15 per turn____2 turns
showing the progress (70/100), how many points per turn (15) and the number of turns to the next level (discovered, adopted, embraced - once embraced, none of this is shown)
*I'd like to say here that it would be nice if the system didn't require a player to drill down into these nodes, but would allow it if he chose to go in and micromanage the priority of the applications (that user choice that was discussed somewhere).



3 shows how prerequisite chains could work over multiple categories. Simply select (or mouse over) the tech and a line is drawn back to the appropriate category, but is otherwise hidden to avoid clutter. Also, multiple colors can be used to show the hard/soft-ness of the prerequisite. Also, these same multiple colors can be used to for the text colors of the Application's (70/100____15 per turn____2 turns) as detailed above.



4 shows the different states of the techs by use of a colored border around the tech boxes.



Well, that's basically it. I'll leave it that simple and that open for discussion, as this is only meant to show a method of displaying the information and shows how the player can deal with this vast amount of info.

After posting yesterday, I realized that I need to make the extent of my enthusiasm for your idea much more clear. I love everything about it. Except the technical realization. I love the idea of random discovery within constraints. I love the idea of a bias toward abandonment. I love the idea of research clusters and bonuses. I love the idea of possible "dark ages." I love the idea of a multi-step research process--despite my skeptical and querulous tone, I love the distinction between "adopting" and "embracing." I even love things you haven't articulated but which I think are features of your idea. For instance, I think you are (whether you recognize it or not) working with a powerful and intuitive theory of technological development. It even possesses a powerful unity that belies its seeming improvisation. It is like a necessary idea that has finally been born.

For now, let me mention its merits as a model. Partly that's because "modeling" is the concept I always come back to when I look at a game like Civ. (Frankly, unless it embodies a "unified" theory of some historical process, I really can't be bothered with suggested changes to the game. To my mind "Oo! Oo! They oughta add dark ages!" is, by itself, almost as trivial as "Oo! Oo! Octavian oughta be the leader of the Romans!") Mostly, though, I think I can best be faithful to your suggestions by being faithful to the model you are (perhaps unconsciously) working from. Almost all of your proposals drop from that model like ripe fruit.

In essence, you are describing technological evolution as a complex process of discovery, development, exploitation, and transcendence. The key parts of that theory are these:

1. Technological advances are made by accident, but not all accidents are equally likely. Discoveries are made by accident (people notice things), but civilizations have tendencies and insistences. Thus, they are more likely to make discoveries of a certain kind. Techniques are discovered in a process that is randomized within constraints.

2. Discovered technologies exist first as concepts; the civilization must then refine them into useful applications. Once a technique is discovered, the people who are interested in such things play around with them, figuring out how they work and what they can be used for. If, for whatever reason, they can't figure out a use, then the discovery disappears.

3. Concepts with proven applications must be applied in practice before they can become permanent. The acquisition of a technology is the acquisition of a habit: the habit of building and using the items that the technology creates. Those who habitually build jet aircraft are unlikely to lose the skills or underlying knowledge that they need to build them.

4. Exploited concepts attain permanence only when they are either transcended or universalized. A habit becomes impossible to lose when it is either subsumed or reinforced by other habits. In the first case: Technologies are incorporated into other technologies; so long as these later technologies are practiced, then the component technologies cannot be lost. So, any civilization that figures out how to make ironclads cannot lose more primitive metal-working technologies, because those techniques are an integral part of the later ones. In the second case: Technologies can be made permanent if they are widely disseminated. The widest possible dissemination occurs when they have been picked up by every civilization. Technological "irradiation" will then make it less likely that any particular technology will disappear in any particular locality.

To model this theory, you propose to set up the following (I describe the elements loosely, using my own terminology):

1. Discovery: Discoveries are not researched. Rather, they crop up. However, the chances of any tech's appearing are modified by the civilization's own attributes, by the player's own further preferences, and by the circumstances that hold at any particular moment within the game. So, for instance, militaristic civilizations are more likely to discover techs with military applications; the player himself can augment or diminish this tendency; and whether the player is at war or not will also augment or diminish the tendency. But within these probabilistic constraints, discoveries will be made randomly.

2. Development: Research, properly, is conducted by the "wise men" who then beaver away at it. The player can encourage or discourage this kind of research and modify the intensity with which it is conducted. More intensity means they will refine its applications more quickly; less intensity (at the limit) might lead them into simply abandoning it before its applications become apparent.

3. Exploitation: After a certain amount of effort, the applications can be realized and exploited: buildings can be built, units ordered up, actions performed. Doing this kind of thing will help keep the techniques in being, but it is still theoretically possible for them to be lost.

4. Transcendence: The technology becomes a permanent acquisition only when it is incorporated into further technologies or when it becomes so widely practiced that the civilization cannot fail to lose access to it.

Now, this does not perfectly describe what you've suggested. In particular, it does not describe the process of "embracing." But that—if I may be blunt—is because you have not fully developed that notion. At the moment, you have the idea of universalization, but in place of transcendence you only have "adoption-plus." Your instincts are on the button—there's a difference between having a habit and an "unloseable." But it's a difference in kind, not merely of intensity.

Everything you propose exists in embryonic form in this sketch. It even contains things that you don't develop—like Wodan's idea of alternate tech lines—in implicit form. (If discoveries come in a different order or in different circumstances, different techs are likely to appear.)

As I've grumbled, I'm not keen on the way you're trying to technically realize it, but in this thread I will do my best to work within the constraints that you've set. If the classic "tech tree" model as a network is going to stay in place, let's see what can be done with it! :)

@Mxzs: :wow: you nailed it. Exactly what I'm going for. I've just been putting more discovery points in Philosophy/Practical while you've been putting them in Philosophy/Theoretical. :groucho:

Is it ok if I link to your post from the two threads? I think it's a great primer for what we're trying to accomplish here.

I know you don't like the Tech Tree structure I'm still using, but you have to understand: Firaxis is not going to blow up the Tech Tree. I'm working on a compromise where they have the flexibility to use bold new ideas without sacrificing one of the core features of Civilization. Now, if they add the DAEA model to Civilization 5 -- and it's a hit -- then we can look at redoing the structure for Civilization 6 ;)

@alms66: I haven't look at the pics yet, I'll do so shortly.

One More Thing (TM):

I'm going to be changing one of the terminologies I've been using. I'm going to stop using 'soft' and 'hard' prerequisites. Instead, there will be:


Prerequisites: Your Civ must have these Techs to Discover/Adopt
Influencers: Having these Techs make it easier for your Civ to Discover/Adopt


Granted, not having an Influencer (and frankly, I'm not wedded to the name, if someone has a better idea?) still shows as a Negative Modifier during Adoption, but I don't see a way around that.

Is it ok if I link to your post from the two threads?

Well, sure!

I know you don't like the Tech Tree structure I'm still using

S'alright. ;) I decided what I was talking about was big enough that it needed to be broken off into its own thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5506144#post5506144). Now that I've got it off my chest, I'm happy to stick to "classic" tech tree here. :goodjob:

Alright, I'm back with some ideas. For once in my life, I'll try to keep things short. Specifics will be in the post; reflections of a more technical, theoretical nature will be in spoiler boxes.

Discovery
1. The player should have a Science budget (a percentage of his overall revenues, just as it works currently). This budget "buys" discoveries, and the player knows how long it will be before his next discovery occurs, but he doesn't know which discovery it will be. So, the info bar at the top of the screen would say "Next discovery in (X) turns)" instead "Democracy in (X) turns." The player could speed up or slow down the pace of his discoveries by changing the Science rate.

2. When the discovery is made, the program chooses from a set of possibilities (there is no single tech that it is being "examined"). It's not that each possible tech has a certain chance of being discovered; rather, there is a certain chance that it will be the tech discovered that turn. For instance, if there are four possible techs to be discovered (A, B, C, D), the chances might be distributed as A (24%), B (65%), C (10%), D (1%).

3. The chances associated with each tech would be a function of "influencer" techs. There would be no "hard" prerequisites. Instead, each tech in the game would come with a number of "eyeballs" (the Discovery equivalent of lightbulbs) that would be directed toward other techs. For instance, Mining might contain the following list of techs toward which it would act as an "influencer":

Mining
Bronze Working: 20 eyeballs
Iron Working: 20 eyeballs
Masonry: 15 eyeballs
Metal Casting: 10 eyeballs
Mathematics: 7 eyeballs
Physics: 3 eyeballs

Any of these techs would be discoverable to a civilization that had Mining. When it came time for a new discovery, the program would list the techs that had eyeballs directed at them, total up the number of eyeballs each one had directed at it, and calculate the percentage to be assigned to that tech by dividing its number of eyeballs by the total. Suppose the player had only two techs, Mining (described above) and Bronze Working, which has the following list:

Bronze Working
Iron Working: 25 eyeballs
Metal Casting: 25 eyeballs

That means only the following techs would be available for discovery, and each would have the following total of eyeballs directed toward it:

Iron Working: 45 eyeballs (20 from Mining and 25 from Bronze Working)
Metal Casting: 35 eyeballs
Masonry: 15 eyeballs
Mathematics: 7 eyeballs
Physics: 3 eyeballs

The percentages for each (chance of being the tech discovered on that turn):

Iron Working: 42.9%
Metal Casting: 33.3%
Masonry: 14.3%
Mathematics: 6.7%
Physics: 2.9%

Note that techs could just as easily have eyeballs pointing toward intuitively "earlier" techs as toward later ones. Physics (a fairly late tech) might have eyeballs directed at Mining. Of course, the chances that a civilization could get Physics before Mining ought to be remote; that could be controlled by having late techs direct whopping big numbers of eyeballs backward so that the anomaly doesn't last.

Why this system?

In another thread I observed that the tech tree is as much a delaying mechanism as it is a facilitating one; the designers use it, in part, to keep the player from advancing too fast. A revised model of tech advance has to respect this, which means that the element of chance needs to be restricted. There might be ways of making the pace of discovery random while trying to regulate its speed, but I suspect they would be complex, cumbersome, and impossible to fine-tune. The simplest way to regulate the player's speed of advance is to regulate the pace at which he acquires techs; restrict the "chance" element to the picking of which tech he discovers.

The distinction between prerequisites and influencers is a hard one to maintain, because a prerequisite is an "all or nothing" element while influencers are "matters of degree." That is why I suggest eliminating the idea of prerequisites entirely. So far as I can tell, the notion is useful only for two things: for delaying the appearance of advanced techs and for keeping the skeleton of a classic Civ-style tech tree in place. The latter goal could easily be met, I think, by picking out the precursor techs that contribute the most to the discovery of a successor tech and making them "prerequisites" if the classic tech tree is turned on. The former is the worry that, somehow, the player's first discovery might be Military Tradition or Robotics, and so a rigid series of phases has to be imposed on his progress.

But if you're going to go that route, it seems to me you'd be best off just keeping Civ system exactly as it is while letting the computer randomly pick the player's tech choices for him. ("Oh, you'd like to research Steam Power, eh? Too bad; the die roll says you'll be researching Democracy instead.") It would pretty much come to the same thing: the prerequisites mean he can only advance in certain specified directions, and the computer randomly picks which direction he goes. Anyway, one of the attractive features of ChrTh's proposal is that it could let the player get certain techs surprisingly early (like, yes, Steam Power in ancient times) which could make each game more unique. While the problem of "getting Robotics in 2500 BC" needs a solution, I think there should be a more elegant one than using prerequisites.

Research
My ideas for research (the phase between discovery and adoption) are only slight refinements and simplifications to ChrTh's original theory. They are so slight they might not even be worth bothering with. The most noticeable changes, in fact, will be those that anticipate my suggested changes to the Adoption/Transcendence phase.

1. When a player discovers a tech he is given a choice between researching and abandoning it. Abandonment does not take place immediately, however.

2. If he goes to his Science screen, the player will find all the techs that he has discovered by not yet adopted. These techs will be displayed with the following: The name, a lightbulb track, a number indicating if the track is advancing or decaying, and a button that toggles between "Active" and "Inactive." His research money (a function of the amount of money he devotes to science) will be divided equally among his "Active" techs.

3. When a tech is added to the research screen, it gets a certain number of lightbulbs: say, 20 (but no more than 10% of the total that would fill the track). If it is inactive, then the negative modifier that applies to all techs would naturally lead its lightbulb track to decay; when it reaches zero, the tech disappears from the screen.

4. There are only two ways the player could regulate the speed of research for his techs: by increasing or decreasing the number of techs he has active, or by increasing or decreasing his total Science funds. The more techs he has active, the slower they will advance; if he has too many active techs and insufficient funds, they will all decay. If he wants to concentrate on one or two that, he can turn off the others (gambling that he can turn them on again before they hit zero).

5. Techs would differ in the number of lightbulbs they need in order to be "adopted." This would be reflected in the length of the lighbulb track or the density with which they are packed in.

Why this system?

This is basically ChrTh's system, even down to the ability to shift resources to only a few active techs. Relying on a binary "Active/Inactive" status instead of sliders makes it more rough-grained, but what it loses is the ability to fine-tune to a fare-thee-well it makes up, I think, in simplicity. The more sliders the player has to deal with, the harder it will be to get the settings exactly as he wants. (Remember how much fun it was to play with the three "Tax/Science/Luxury" sliders in earlier versions of Civ? Multiply that by five or six.)

Having a small number of lightbulbs appear in the tracks of new techs is another way of simplifying his proposal: it captures the idea that the player has time to change his mind without building in a clock as a separate element.

Regulating the length of lightbulb tracks might be another way of keeping advanced techs out of the hands of early civs. The number of lightbulbs certain advanced techs need in order to be adopted might be set very high early in the game and gradually decrease as the game progresses. Even if the player kept beavering away at the advanced tech, it might take an ungodly amount of time to finally secure it

Adoption/Transcendence
1. A tech would be adopted once it filled its lightbulb track. At that point the player could use it to build units and buildings; it would also begin contributing "eyeballs" toward other techs.

2. Once a tech was adopted, it would remain on the research screen but switch to "Inactive"; however, the player would not have the option of rendering it active. This means that it would no longer receive lightbulbs and would begin to decay. If it reached zero, it would fall back into the "undiscovered" category and have to be both discovered and researched all over again.

3. To permanently secure the tech, the player would have to either build whatever unit, building, or improvement it licensed, or he would have to discover, research, and adopt a "successor tech." (The "successor tech" relations would be specified, like the "eyeball" list.) Once he adopted a successor tech, the adopted tech would disappear from the research screen, migrating into a list of "permanent techs." If he built at least one building, unit, and/or improvement licensed by the adopted tech, the tech would remain on the research screen but the lightbulb track would be reset as "full" and the negative modifier would disappear. If, however, he lost all of the elements it licensed, then the modifier would reappear.

4. If an adopted tech is lost, then the techs to which it is a successor would move from the list of permanent techs back to the research screen and begin to decay.

Why this system?

As I suggested in my "historical reflections," there is a difference between being adopted and being made an "unloseable"; this is not a difference in degree but in kind. Basically, a tech is "unloseable" if the habits it licenses are either regularly exercised or become elements in other habits. The player can keep his new techs only if he uses them; otherwise, he will eventually lose them through disuse.

The "successor tech" relation in a sense represents a new use for the "prerequisite" relation, but it would serve a different purpose; instead of being used to secure an advanced tech by mastering an early tech, it would secure an early tech by mastering a later tech.

I prefer my term "transcendence" on anal-retentive grounds: "adoption" and "embracing" are not parallel grammatical constructions. I am trying to work on this character flaw, but I am a former copy editor, and the habits I picked up in that job are not decaying fast enough.

Alternate Way of Relating Techs
I return from my sojourn in the desert (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225220) chastened into moderate radicalism with nothing to offer. Never mind.

I make the following suggestion purely on a FWIW basis. Obviously, it couldn't not be directly plugged into the proposals outlined above; they would have to be modified in various ways.

I start by introducing a distinction between two kinds of techs: theoretical techs and applied techs.

Theoretical techs are techs that do not allow you to build anything or make any changes to your civilization. They represent the real-life theories that scientists play with in the abstract.

Applied techs are the techs that let you build things or change your settings: build Musketmen, Grocers, or Watermills; increase the yield from towns; change over from Hereditary Monarchy to Representation. They represent the techs that develop after the engineers have gone to work on the theoretical techs. It takes an Einstein to come up with the theory of relativity, but an Oppenheimer to build the atom bomb.

My suggestion (the longer justification enclosed in a spoiler box below):

1. The player can only discover, research, adopt, and embrace theoretical techs. By itself, not one of these techs would allow him to build anything.

2. The applied techs that let the player build things are modeled as sets: once the player has secured the requisite elements, he would instantly gain the applied techs. Once he had techs A, B, and C, for example, he would automatically gain D (an applied tech) without further effort.

3. The elements that go into the applied techs would consist of theoretical techs, other applied techs, buildings, units, terrain improvements, and basic terrain.

4. Some of the applied techs would be realized as ordered sets, so that only if those elements were secured in a specified order could the applied tech itself be secured.

Why this system? The longer justification can be gleaned from this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225220). Shorter version follows.

Once upon a time Civ basically had the theoretical/applied distinction; Civ 1 (IIRC) was full of theoretical techs, little road stops you had pass through in order to get to the techs that let you build Infantry or The Manhattan Project. Now, in practice Civ has moved more and more toward using only applied techs, and with good reason: the player always wants new toys, and it would be cumbersome for the designers to come up with (let alone force the player to research) multiple techs in order to get to the good stuff. This is dh_edit's recurrent aria: "What, are you gonna come up with 80 new techs?"

But in formal terms it is quite easy to model a tech like Steam Power as the merger of a theoretical tech and an applied tech: there's the theoretical tech called "Steam Power" (which even the Romans had) and the applied tech called "Ironclads" (that lets you build the Ironclad unit), and Civ's "Steam Power" just blends them into one. But if you keep them conceptually separate you can see that Civ already includes hundreds of techs: the 80+ in the tech tree and a bunch more that are attached to a unique unit (the "Ironclad" tech), to a unique building (the "Grocer" tech), to a unique ability (the "Build Pasture" tech), to a unique civic (the "can institute Slavery" tech), and even to changes in yield (the "can now draw an extra coin from towns" tech). It just unifies and relates these techs through the 90-tech tech tree.

An example to illustrate what I mean: Take Steam Power, which (in this example only) has Chemistry as a prerequisite; leads to Industrialization; lets you build Ironclads; and reveals Coal. How many techs are here? Well, in the game there are only three: Steam Power, Chemistry, and Industrialization. But if you count the number of relations and define the "techs" they connect as uniquely attaching to those relations, then there are: Chemistry, which leads to Steam Power A; Steam Power B, which leads to Industrialization; Steam Power C, which lets you build Ironclads; and Steam Power D, which reveals Coal. That's six (Chemistry, Industrialization, Steam Power A, Steam Power B, Steam Power C, Steam Power D). Civ simply unifies the four "Steam Power" techs into one. There are, however, as many "techs" as there are relations in the game.