This is a working tree, with only rough pre-requisites. If a tech is in the same row or a row above or below another tech, it is a possible pre-requisite. Only the early eras are filled in. I was unsure about the length of the scenario. For now, I think we should discuss what could be a technology before setting the tree and paring it down.

I was unsure about the length of the scenario.

500 turns over 1300 years, 500AD to 1800AD is the current consensus.
100 turns at 4year/turn (500-900)
200 turns at 3year/turn (900-1500)
100 turns at 2year/turn (1500-1700)
100 turns at 1year/turn (1700-1800)

I personally would recommend we decide on all the provisional stuff to include (civics, units, wonders, buildings), then apportion it out onto a tech tree. No reason that can't be done in this thread though.

I'm worried about the complexity of this. I certainly don't mean to dismiss all your hard work, but this seems like it would cause an insane amount of balancing issues. Perhaps it would be better to just use an appropriate section of the vanilla tree.

I tend to agree with Umarth. Balancing a completely different tree might be too much. We probably should take portion of the original tree and extend that, i.e. add a few techs here and there.

It would be nice to see a few new units and perhaps a few governments, but overall balancing from scratch would be very hard.

Balancing a revamped tech tree will be a challenge, but sticking with the vanilla one isn't going to be enough for the scope of the mod, so we'll have to do some reinvention one way or the other.

That being said, while I'm really impressed by the work you've done here, it might be better to expand outwards from the existing skeleton of vanilla techs, rather than reinventing from scratch. I realize that many of these (i.e. astolabe, corned gunpowder) are such extensions, and I love how you've done techs in all fields (military, art, agriculture, machinery, culture, science) - but if this is just the early eras of the mod, as Umarth said, we're setting ourselves up for imbalance as there's so much going on here.

Disenfrancised's suggestion about reverse-engineering techs from units/buildings/civics/wonders seems like a potentially good approach to me. Let's keep this table as a loose template for now, and start thinking about approaching it from the other end. If we can think of units/buildings/wonders/civics that should correspond to a given technology, that tech should definitely be included. If the connection is less clear, we may want to rethink the tech.

Thanks for putting this together - I'm really impressed.

While I agree that building an enhanced tech tree is an important task which we must tackle sometime, I feel we've still got a lot of unfinished business at hand. We haven't finished fleshing out our civs with their UU's, UB's, UP's and UHV's etc. Nor have we finished our civ settler maps either. Then there's the question of corporations, guilds, military orders and the other civ-specific features. Wouldn't it be wiser to finish the projects we've already started than commence new ones? That way we will develop a better understanding of which existing or additional techs will be required. IMHO:)

I can't see any reason why we should do those things before the tech tree. As for the settler maps, well that's just leg-work. And besides, Whitefire has already done a great deal of work towards it as we can all see.

I can't see any reason why we should do those things before the tech tree. As for the settler maps, well that's just leg-work. And besides, Whitefire has already done a great deal of work towards it as we can all see.

I'm not diminishing Whitefire's work at all and you may be right about other aspects not having to preceed the tech tree. But surely we should settle a few outstanding issues and start fleshing out the wiki in a progressive way as well. It would be nice to see everybody's individual efforts result in
a few concrete decisions on paper. I thought that was the wiki was for. Am I wrong?:confused:

Speaking of listing stuff to have in the mod, here is a list of all the things in the normal game with highlights for my opinions on how they should be used here. Red=not used, Lime=used under a different name (name possibly suggested), Orange=graphic used for something else. For the looks of it I think we need more wonders and units, whilst being pretty okay on the building front.

Buildings
Academy
Airport
Apothecary
Aqueduct
Assembly Plant
Bank
Barracks
Bomb Shelters
Broadcast Tower
Bunker
Castle
Christian Cathedral
Christian Monastery
Christian Temple
Citadel
Coal Plant
Colosseum
Cothon
Courthouse
Customs House
Drydock
Dun
Factory
Forge
Forum
Granary
Madrassa
Mall
Market
Mint
Ger>>Magyer UB
Grocer
Hammam
Harbor
Hospital
Hydro Plant
Inkanda
Industrial Park
Intelligence Agency
Islamic Monastery
Islamic Mosque
Islamic Temple
Jail
Jewish Monastery
Jewish Synagogue
Jewish Temple
Laboratory
Levee
Library
Lighthouse
Market
Masoleum >> whatever the Cordoban UB is
Nuclear Plant
Obelisk
Observatory
Odeon
Pavilion
Public Transportation
Recycling Center
Research Institute >> its brick and oldish looking...
Sacrifical Altar
Salon
Secruity Bureau
Seowan
Shale Plant
Stock Exchange
Supermarket
Terrace
Theatre
Trading Post
University
Walls

National Wonders
Forbidden Palace
Globe Theatre
Hermitage
Heroic Epic
Ironworks
Moai Statues
Mount Rushmore
National Epic
National Park
Oxford University
Palace
Red Cross
Wall Street
West Point

Wonders
Angkor Wat
Apostolic Palace
Broadway
Chichen Itza
Cristo Redentor
Hollywood
Shwedagon Paya
Rock N Roll
Notre Dame
Stonehenge
The Church of the Nativity
The Colossus
The Dai Miao
The Eiffel Tower
The Great Library
The Great Lighthouse
The Great Wall
The Hagia Sophia
The Hanging Gardens
The Kashi Wishwanath
The Kong Miao
The Kremlin
The Mahabodhi
The Masjid Al-Haram
The Mausoleum of Maussollos
The Oracle
The Parthenon
The Pentagon
The Pyramids
The Sistine Chapel
The Space Elevator
The Spiral Minaret
The Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Zeus
The Taj Mahal
The Temple of Kukulkan >> Habsberg Military Frontier?
The Temple of Solomon
The Three Gorges Dam
The Temple of Artemis
The United Nations
University of Sankore
Versailles

Units
Airship
Anti-Tank Infantry
Archer
Artillery
Attack Submarine
Axeman
Ballista Elephant
Battleship
Beserker
Bomber
Bowman
Camel Archer
Cannon
Caravel
Carrack
Carrier
Cataphract
Catapult
Cavalry
Chariot
Cho-Ko-Nu
Conquistador
Cossack
Crossbowman
Cuirassier
Destroyer
Dog Soldier
East Indiaman
Explorer
Fast Worker
Fighter
Frigate
Galleon
Galley
Gallic Warriors
Great Artist
Great Engineer
Great Merchant
Great Prophet
Great Scientist
Great Spy
Grenadier
Guided Missle
Gunship
Holkan
Horse Archer
Hwacha
Impi
Immortal
Infantry
Ironclad
Jaguar
Janissary
Jet Fighter
Keshik
Knight
Landsknecht
Longbowman
Maceman
Machine Gun
Marine
Mechanized Infantry
Missionary
Missile Cruiser
Mobile Artillary
Mobile Sam
Modern Armor
Musketeer
Navy SEAL
Numidian Cavalry
Oromo Warrior
Panzer
Paratropper
Phalanx
Pikeman
Praetorian
Privateer
Quechua
Redcoat
Rifleman
SAM Infantry
Samurai
Scout
Settler
Ship of the Line
Skirmisher
Spearman
Spy
Stealth Bomber
Stealth Destroyer
Submarine
Swordsman
Tactical Nuke
Tank
Transport
Trebuchet
Trireme
Vulture
War Chariot
War Elephant
Warrior
Work Boat
Worker

Thanks for your very complete list. However there are several units in red that we may have some use for. I therefore propose the following:

Skirmishers as Berber tribesmen/ javeline throwers
Numidian Cavalry as Berber light cav (poss. UU for Al Andalus)
Praetorians as early Byzantine Imperial Guard swordsmen
Oromo Warriors as late Arabian native (Nubian?) musketmen

We might also borrow the odd unit from Civ 3 esp. the scenarios, if the graphics are OK. I'm thinking of of heavy cavalry, halbardiers, Swiss mercenaries, Templar knights and Ansar warriors in particular but I'm sure there are others.

I'm researching Arab and Andalusian military histories at the moment. One thing is becoming clear. Arabs really didn't use camels much in battle but more as transport, whereas the bulk of their mounted units were horse-mounted. So the camel archer may have to be down-graded with the Arabian UU being changed to Immortals as elite shock cavalry. However If I find some more interesting units have we got anyone who can reskin existing units to make them civ-specific?:)

Thanks for your very complete list. However there are several units in red that we may have some use for. I therefore propose the following:

Skirmishers as Berber tribesmen/ javeline throwers
Numidian Cavalry as Berber light cav (poss. UU for Al Andalus)
Praetorians as early Byzantine Imperial Guard swordsmen
Oromo Warriors as late Arabian native (Nubian?) musketmen


Sure why not, though I don't think the Oromo warrior would look appropriate.


We might also borrow the odd unit from Civ 3 esp. the scenarios, if the graphics are OK. I'm thinking of of heavy cavalry, halbardiers, Swiss mercenaries, Templar knights and Ansar warriors in particular but I'm sure there are others.


Civ3 graphics are not compatable.


I'm researching Arab and Andalusian military histories at the moment. One thing is becoming clear. Arabs really didn't use camels much in battle but more as transport, whereas the bulk of their mounted units were horse-mounted. So the camel archer may have to be down-graded with the Arabian UU being changed to Immortals as elite shock cavalry. However If I find some more interesting units have we got anyone who can reskin existing units to make them civ-specific?:)

Yes Camels were a strategic weapon rather than a tactical one, but the camel archer is already associated with the Arabs thanks to the lazy CIV4 designers so we might as well just keep it ;).

May I ask what the green colour signifies?

Sure why not, though I don't think the Oromo warrior would look appropria

Civ3 graphics are not compatable.

Yes Camels were a strategic weapon rather than a tactical one, but the camel archer is already associated with the Arabs thanks to the lazy CIV4 designers so we might as well just keep it ;).

I agree the Oromo warrior doesn't really look right, does it?

To bad we can't use the Civ3 ones. What about units from Civ 4 scenarios like the following units
in Charlemagne?

Mounted Infantry
Light Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry
Light Swordsman
Heavy Swordsman
Heavy Crossbowman
Papal Pikeman
Supply Train

I meant we could still use the Camel Archer as an early unit which upgrades to Knights, along with Immortals for the Arabs and Numidian Cavalry for the Andalusians. The knight or cataphract unit then might also be used by the Arabs and and Andalusians as a higher grade as well I think.:)

May I ask what the green colour signifies?

Green is lime. Could be used under another name.:)

Green is lime. Could be used under another name.:)
uh, of course. On the other laptop, it seemed that orange was sometimes another colour (brown) which I associated (please don't ask why;)) with lime. Thanks

a very imporatnt tech was forgotten: Gothic architecture (preq. VAULTED ARCHES/ARCHED BRIDGES) Many European civ will build gothic buildings. a tech for early part of the Late MA. (to build chatedrals, Notre Dame,...)

Iron working should be taken out, iron working was spead to the whole of Europe during the Roman age (I think)

Don't forget about paper and parchment , very important techs. Alchemy could be nice for renaissance

a very imporatnt tech was forgotten: Gothic architecture (preq. VAULTED ARCHES/ARCHED BRIDGES) Many European civ will build gothic buildings. a tech for early part of the Late MA. (to build chatedrals, Notre Dame,...)

Iron working should be taken out, iron working was spead to the whole of Europe during the Roman age (I think)

Don't forget about paper and parchment , very important techs. Alchemy could be nice for renaissance

You're very right about iron. Even the Celts were able to improve upon Roman smelting techniques.
I think that steel should feature early in the techs as steel sword making originated in India in the
4th. C. and the Arabs in Damascus and Toledo were forging superior tempered steel swords by 1100AD.
To quote from H. Runciman's A History of the Crusades;
"The rapid spread of Islam should be attributed solely to three things,
Absolute faith, Damascus steel and the Arabian horse." :)

The Mongol camp (from warlords) MOD as magyar UU?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=8847

I have a list of techs I was thinking for a possible medieval mod, will post it later. The list from Whitefire is a good start but needs much polishing IMO. For example Milling + Watermills + Windmills seems a bit redudant. I suggest we don't use too many techs but make them longer to research.

I have a list of techs I was thinking for a possible medieval mod, will post it later. The list from Whitefire is a good start but needs much polishing IMO. For example Milling + Watermills + Windmills seems a bit redudant. I suggest we don't use too many techs but make them longer to research.

I was wondering about that myself. How detailed do we want to be with the techs? If we are extremely explicit, the tech tree may, if I'm following Onedreamer correctly, look redundant.

I was wondering about that myself. How detailed do we want to be with the techs? If we are extremely explicit, the tech tree may, if I'm following Onedreamer correctly, look redundant.

Ideally, I'd like to have a balance between the extremely specific techs and a longer duration for research. I LOVED the double your pleasure mod for Civ 3, but I'm not sure that duplicating its approach is feasible or advisable. I like whitefire's tech tree a lot, but it's definitely on the specific end - if we can find a balance between this level of detail and longer research times, I'm happy.

On the millwork issue - while it may seem redundant to have three types of milling listed, I'm actually in favor of spreading it out. Having both watermills and windmills (and maybe even sawmills) become possible with the same tech is extremely powerful. I'm not crazy about the way it's done in Civ4, and I'd rather not repeat the error on what should be a finer scale.

Looking at the tech tree from the Civ 3 Conquests Middle Ages scenario and it has a pretty good tech tree from which to expand and merge with the current Civ4 tech tree. Just an idea.

I am also in favour of a lot of techs. If you have few techs, every tech neams a big jump and eccas to stronger units and a big difference between civs with one tehc and those whom don't have it. Lots of tech with unit that don't have much difference in stats will be better.

Also, this MOD will be about a specific time and area, so it's techtree should be specific too.
The MOD will inlarge an area and age, so the tech tree should be too.

I'll gve an example:
horseman no tech or horsebackriding
heavy horseman tech: stirrups
knight tech: feudalism
heavy knight tech: chivalry
Dragoon tech: military tactics
Cavalry : military stategy

it is so that knights of the first crusade (1095-1099) would have had obseleted outfits if they fought together with knights of the later crusade (2nd :1147-1149). The time has been expanded and if you'll have knight for more than 200-300 years, it gonne be borring.

Also aggriculture and economy change a lot during the timespan of the MOD. Starting from something of the Roman age to dominion economy (very closed) based upon agreculture with Three-field crop rotation to an economy with more and more trading witch would end up with mercantelism and importing goods from the colonies.

The vanilla tech tree could be used as a start, and many tech could be added. The tech tree is a bit Eurocentristic anyway, so that will be a good start.

Maybe using this MOD could be nice:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9441
but is doesn't seem to be functioning to good.
It gives a civspecific techtree. Good for the Muslim Empires whom have a bit different way of technological advance than the European feudal Empires, but that might be taking it a bit to far.

What about units from Civ 4 scenarios like the following units in Charlemagne?

Mounted Infantry
Light Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry
Light Swordsman
Heavy Swordsman
Heavy Crossbowman
Papal Pikeman
Supply Train
:)

Just to follow up my earlier suggestion, I've now noticed that many generic units like
spearmen, pikemen and the several grades of swordsmen and cavalry in the Charlemagne
scenario use different art than the ones in BTS or RFC.
I think we have real scope here for new units and civ-specific ones with these as well.
Worth a look at all the units in that scenario I think. These are some of them:)

Looking at the tech tree from the Civ 3 Conquests Middle Ages scenario and it has a pretty good tech tree from which to expand and merge with the current Civ4 tech tree. Just an idea.

I did take techs from that tree, although I forgot to post them yesterday, will do later today when I'm at home.

I am also in favour of a lot of techs. If you have few techs, every tech neams a big jump and eccas to stronger units and a big difference between civs with one tehc and those whom don't have it.

Not necessarily. It depends on the design of units, not on the tech tree.
In fact, I'd say we could have not many units but promotions added to existing units. This because in the MA what changed mostly were tactics and equipment.

So for example I suggest something like this:
building: blacksmith / armorer or both
technology: Chain Mail.

An armored unit (eg: pikeman) that will walk in that city will gain the chain mail promotion that either adds to base strength or adds % strength.
We can also limit what promotions a unit can get, for example a spearman would only use light armors while pikeman can use heavy armors.

I know: it would be extra programming work (not much really since this kind of stuff is already written more or less like this in other mods like TAM and FFH), but since the timeframe of the modmod is quite different from basic RFC we wouldn't have so many units to choose from, or we would simply create redudant units (like pikeman or halberdier) or imprecisions.

With this I'm not saying eliminate base units alltogether. But to take the example of Sado Macho, Horsemen and Knights would be the same units, and the "heavy" part would be represented by heavier armors as described in my example above.

Lots of tech with unit that don't have much difference in stats will be better.

Well this also means quickly obsoleting units, which is not so good IMHO.

Also, this MOD will be about a specific time and area, so it's techtree should be specific too.

actually, specific = less options IMO, not more ^^

I'm not in favor of FEW techs but in favor of the right number of techs. What I find incorrect is this kind of stuff:

early in the MA you research "Milling". This is a general tech, that should enable a civ to use mills. This means any mill. Then in the Late MA you have to research watermills. This is a redundancy, although having 3 techs for each kind of mill is eventually ok.

Have you looked at the units from Charlemagne that I've suggested?
Tell me what you think. That goes for everybody, of course.:)

I realize that many of these (i.e. astolabe, corned gunpowder) are such extensions, and I love how you've done techs in all fields (military, art, agriculture, machinery, culture, science) - but if this is just the early eras of the mod, as Umarth said, we're setting ourselves up for imbalance as there's so much going on here.

Disenfrancised's suggestion about reverse-engineering techs from units/buildings/civics/wonders seems like a potentially good approach to me.

For some reason I uploaded the wrong version, or didn't save the extra work I did. I added in the High Middle Ages era and included the appropriate vanilla techs up to Industrialism. That ended up in giving 110ish total techs, shooting for 20-25 for each era. Working backwards is fine, and several techs in there are already wonder based (strategikon) and civics based (aristocracy). If you want, I can rename this to a flavor thread and toss in everything I've done and compiled.

For some reason I uploaded the wrong version, or didn't save the extra work I did. I added in the High Middle Ages era and included the appropriate vanilla techs up to Industrialism. That ended up in giving 110ish total techs, shooting for 20-25 for each era. Working backwards is fine, and several techs in there are already wonder based (strategikon) and civics based (aristocracy). If you want, I can rename this to a flavor thread and toss in everything I've done and compiled.

Don't worry about renaming the thread - I'd love to see what you've got. Just slap a 2.0 on the updated tech tree, and post it. It'll be easier to argue approaches with a full set.

Don't worry about renaming the thread - I'd love to see what you've got. Just slap a 2.0 on the updated tech tree, and post it. It'll be easier to argue approaches with a full set.

Posts 17, 24 and 26 are there for your information as well. If you have the time.to comment,
of course. Thanks.:)

Posts 17, 24 and 26 are there for your information as well. If you have the time.to comment,
of course. Thanks.:)

Sorry, not trying to ignore you - just trying to stay on topic as much as possible. :) I agree that the Charlemagne artwork should be usable, as might some of the artwork from the Silk Road and Mongol scenarios.

what about post #25 ? :p

what about post #25 ? :p

I've been reading what you're saying all along and as I broadly agree with it there's little point in commenting on it. Though my view is that techs should be chosen as prerequisites for the units and buildings we require rather than the other way around. So perhaps we should first focus on which units we will need and whether we have art to support them first. Expanding the tech tree after that will be easy. IMO :)

something I've allways wanted to see more in CIV is that tech give some bonus to already excisting stuf, but that isn't much in the game.

I'll give an example: a tech that give a unit a +1 attack, like refrigiration gives +1 movement to ships. Stuff like that doesnt' make unit obselete, but lets a unit evolve a bit, and gives some changes in the game.

Same with civics, a tech could open up a advantage or disadvantage when it's researched, making the civs wanting to change to a civic that was open for a long time.
Representation is a civic that is a good example: there were civs with representation nearly the whole time in history, but they had different forms: The Greeks and Romans had a representation (Roman Senate), the Germanic tribes had representation (Thing counsil), during the Middle Ages there was representation (feudal class representation, republics in Italy, England and USA (no texation without representation)), during the French revolution the concept of democracy was born, and during the industrial revolution serveral forms of representation leads to democracy.

I know this will be hard to do, but it could be nice to see civics evolve too. The best example is the civic slavery: There was a big difference between the slavery in Roman times and in the American South. In Roman times, slavery was a normal way of living and producing, as everybody used it. Using slaves gave no advantage. In the USA, using slaves could give extra profit because you're workers were cheap to pay (you didn't pay them), but people were against slavery in the north. So: if you discovery tech liberalism and you run slavery, planations get +1 gold, but give 1 :( to all cities in you civ.

This stuff i'd realy like to see in a MOD (and in CIV)

I would like to opt for few techs!
a) simplicity: Easier to enter for new players,
b) complexity: The more techs, the more interactions, the more spoils, the more imbalance
c) work load: It is easier to find graphics, names, correct stats, etc. for fewer things. Thus, I would first go to look what sort of units can we have (incorporate the Charlemagne stuff in the list above and more stuff into it first, then go calculate the number of techs and create the tree).
d) Bigger jumps doesn't have to mean boring, too many small jumps doesn't let you use the stuff. As we are in about the same turn/time frame as the normal game (right?), we should NOT expand onto the number of techs!

Sorry, not trying to ignore you - just trying to stay on topic as much as possible. :) I agree that the Charlemagne artwork should be usable, as might some of the artwork from the Silk Road and Mongol scenarios.

I see what you mean but as I've already said, adding more detailed techs to the tech tree should be largely determined by the types of units and buildings we wiil need in the game. That's why I've been looking into civ-specific units and how they could be represented by any art from other sources. I've made a few suggestions along this line in the wiki lists for the Arabs and Al Andalus. I've also been thinking about whether we should have two or more UU's for each civ or several units unique to each civ. This will depend largely on the amount of suitable art we can borrow. New techs, in my view, will then naturally follow. To introduce a lot of new techs before knowing what units or buildings we'll be using is just putting the cart before the horse, I think.:)

I would like to opt for few techs!
a) simplicity: Easier to enter for new players,
b) complexity: The more techs, the more interactions, the more spoils, the more imbalance
c) work load: It is easier to find graphics, names, correct stats, etc. for fewer things. Thus, I would first go to look what sort of units can we have (incorporate the Charlemagne stuff in the list above and more stuff into it first, then go calculate the number of techs and create the tree).
d) Bigger jumps doesn't have to mean boring, too many small jumps doesn't let you use the stuff. As we are in about the same turn/time frame as the normal game (right?), we should NOT expand onto the number of techs!

I think you and I are thinking in the same direction on this one. There will be a lot fewer techs,
I think, because we are losing so many from the beginning and the end of the tech tree. But
there's no need to introduce dozens of new techs just to make up the numbers.
Only those necessary to new units, buildings and economic activity should be added, in my view.
More is not necessarily better, as you've said. So we should decide first on units and
buildings before we think about new techs, as you've said. Again, we agree.:D

I sign Jessiecat about determining what we want in terms of units, buildings, improvements and civics. After that building a tech tree will be easier. If we do the other way around we risk redundant or empty or useless/sub-par techs.

RFC Europe starts 500AD, so many of the early ancient units would be obsolete at the start (historically). However, we can simply shift those units to later (newer) techs and keep the original Civ IV balance.

What I am talking about is:
Warrior = early peasantry conscript.
Axeman, Swordsman, Spearman = early infantry.
Archers and later Longbowman = defensive units.
Chariots = graphically obsolete, but some sort of early support mounted unit. (or obsolete altogether)
Horsearcher = graphically may be obsolete, early trained mounted unit.
Elephant = replace this unit with light armored Cavalry.
Knight = heavy mounted Cavalry.
and so on...

We can keep most of the graphics and simply associate the units with new techs. Everybody in Europe in 500 knew the Iron Working, add a tech like blacksmith or early steel that would be now associated with swordsman.

That is also what I had in mind.

something I've allways wanted to see more in CIV is that tech give some bonus to already excisting stuf, but that isn't much in the game.

I'll give an example: a tech that give a unit a +1 attack, like refrigiration gives +1 movement to ships. Stuff like that doesnt' make unit obselete, but lets a unit evolve a bit, and gives some changes in the game.

Same with civics, a tech could open up a advantage or disadvantage when it's researched, making the civs wanting to change to a civic that was open for a long time.
Representation is a civic that is a good example: there were civs with representation nearly the whole time in history, but they had different forms: The Greeks and Romans had a representation (Roman Senate), the Germanic tribes had representation (Thing counsil), during the Middle Ages there was representation (feudal class representation, republics in Italy, England and USA (no texation without representation)), during the French revolution the concept of democracy was born, and during the industrial revolution serveral forms of representation leads to democracy.

I know this will be hard to do, but it could be nice to see civics evolve too. The best example is the civic slavery: There was a big difference between the slavery in Roman times and in the American South. In Roman times, slavery was a normal way of living and producing, as everybody used it. Using slaves gave no advantage. In the USA, using slaves could give extra profit because you're workers were cheap to pay (you didn't pay them), but people were against slavery in the north. So: if you discovery tech liberalism and you run slavery, planations get +1 gold, but give 1 :( to all cities in you civ.

This stuff i'd realy like to see in a MOD (and in CIV)

I like this idea, and it seems workable. I will point out that in America there's a lot of controversy over whether or not slavery was actually economically advantageous to the South - it made plantation agriculture possible, but was far less efficient than the small farms of the midwest and north, and ultimately wrecked the soil across SE America - it still hasn't recovered much, 150 years later. Still, I take your point - and with some types of plantation (sugar in the Azores, in particular), it's hard to see them being worked without slave labor.




On the general question of techs updating units and that sort of thing - while we could allow buildings to give certain promotions, it seems to make more sense to me for them to allow upgrading, but at a cost. For example, Germany discovers Plate Steel (hypothetical tech), and builds a blast furnace (hypothetical building) in Magdeburg. Units can be moved to Magdeburg and upgraded for a cost, and the city of Magdeburg should be able to build any unit with plate mail - but it doesn't make sense that the city of Regensburg should be able to build units with plate mail without a blast furnace, and they shouldn't be able to build cheaper/weaker units and go have them outfitted for free.
For much of the Medieval period, armies in the field used a wide array of technologies and armors, mostly out of cost and availability. Leather armor was still in use when chainmail arrived; chain and ring mail were still in use when heavy plate was developed - people used what they could afford, and few feudal lords or kings had the money to outfit all of their armies with up-to-date equipment. Hell, for much of Europe, the main body of the army was a horde of peasants with pitchforks, axes, and clubs. While this creates some extra work for us in terms of finding artwork and potential unit redundancy, I think that it can be worked around in part by having a series of base units (i.e. swordsman, pikeman, etc.) and creating differentially armored versions of each (i.e. swordsman - chainmail; knight - reinforced chainmail, etc.)
I'm not married to this idea, but I do want to make sure that we don't end up with an RFC Germany situation where hordes of warriors/peasants can be upgraded into the equivalent of tanks (knight - full plate(?)) at no cost. :)

Here's tech tree v2.0.

Here's tech tree v2.0.

Any chance of converting it to a zip file? I can't get rar to work for me. Thanks:)

same thing just zipped

same thing just zipped

Thanks. I take it these are additions to the existing RFC tech tree? So where in the RFC tech tree do these additions start? And what years are you suggesting for the beginning of each age? While mostly we could agree on 1000AD, 1300AD and 1600AD I think, the Renaissance is usually thought of as the 14th to the 17th. C's and the Age of Discovery the 1400's to the 1600's.as well.
So both of them completely overlap with the others and can't just follow each other in linear order unless we alter the dates somewhat. Also the Industrial Revolution is thought to have started no earlier than 1770 so how important is it in a mod that ends in 1800? Wouldn't it be better for us to end our techs just before the I.R. happens?
Could I suggest instead:

Early Middle Ages 500 to 1000AD
High Middle Ages 1000 to 1300AD
Renaissance 1300 to 1500AD
Age of Discovery 1500 to 1700AD
Early Modern Era 1700 to 1800AD

Just a rough idea. What do you think?:)

On the general question of techs updating units and that sort of thing - while we could allow buildings to give certain promotions, it seems to make more sense to me for them to allow upgrading, but at a cost. For example, Germany discovers Plate Steel (hypothetical tech), and builds a blast furnace (hypothetical building) in Magdeburg. Units can be moved to Magdeburg and upgraded for a cost, and the city of Magdeburg should be able to build any unit with plate mail - but it doesn't make sense that the city of Regensburg should be able to build units with plate mail without a blast furnace, and they shouldn't be able to build cheaper/weaker units and go have them outfitted for free.
For much of the Medieval period, armies in the field used a wide array of technologies and armors, mostly out of cost and availability. Leather armor was still in use when chainmail arrived; chain and ring mail were still in use when heavy plate was developed - people used what they could afford, and few feudal lords or kings had the money to outfit all of their armies with up-to-date equipment. Hell, for much of Europe, the main body of the army was a horde of peasants with pitchforks, axes, and clubs. While this creates some extra work for us in terms of finding artwork and potential unit redundancy, I think that it can be worked around in part by having a series of base units (i.e. swordsman, pikeman, etc.) and creating differentially armored versions of each (i.e. swordsman - chainmail; knight - reinforced chainmail, etc.)
I'm not married to this idea, but I do want to make sure that we don't end up with an RFC Germany situation where hordes of warriors/peasants can be upgraded into the equivalent of tanks (knight - full plate(?)) at no cost. :)


Well, that's not what I was proposing. My point was that since there aren't as many units as in RFC (no ancient age or industrial and modern units) we would have a smaller array of units to fill the techs with. The result would be redundant units with little sense, like "heavy knight". A Knight is heavy by its very definition. So my idea was to split the progress of units in 2 kinds:

- strategic units
- equipped units

Strategic units represent the progress in tactical warfare. For example Dragoons or Hussars replacing Middle Ages horsemen. Equipped units represent the progress in manufacturing. Steel weapons vs iron etc. Also I even said that strategic units would be limited in what equipment they can wear. Hence a peasant could never be outfitted into a knight ^^
Also, I'm afraid that your concerns about people equipping themselves for fighting are a bit impractical in Civ, and btw this regards mostly the age of Feudalism... from the advent of professional / regular armies it shouldn't be a concern anymore, so you risk to come up with an upgrading system that must become obsolete at a certain point.

Well, that's not what I was proposing. My point was that since there aren't as many units as in RFC (no ancient age or industrial and modern units) we would have a smaller array of units to fill the techs with. The result would be redundant units with little sense, like "heavy knight". A Knight is heavy by its very definition. So my idea was to split the progress of units in 2 kinds:


Well a case could certainly be made for a progression like "Armored Horseman" >> "Knight" >> "Plate-and-Lance Knight".

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "equipped" verses "strategic", are you suggesting singular unit lines that can pick up weapons ala the Ancient Mediterranean mod? That does seem like an interesting idea though it would increase the complexity of the mod and code significantly...

I think of Industrialization as something similar to the Future Tech in RFC. The mod would have to end with it.

We should agree first on the Units/Buildings and then do the Techs around those. I am not sure why Knight vs Heavy Knight is redundant, it would be redundant if they were the same unit, but if one significantly different from the other we should be fine. Early Knight (you pick the exact name) strength 8, Heavy Knight strength 10. In civ iv the elephant and the knight were not redundant.

I had the idea for a variety of production buildings. In civ iv we have Forge, Factory, Power Plant, but the last two are obviously out of place here. We should have two or three different forges and they could give bonus to production and upgrades to the units build in the corresponding cities.

Well, that's not what I was proposing. My point was that since there aren't as many units as in RFC (no ancient age or industrial and modern units) we would have a smaller array of units to fill the techs with. The result would be redundant units with little sense, like "heavy knight". A Knight is heavy by its very definition. So my idea was to split the progress of units in 2 kinds:

- strategic units
- equipped units

Strategic units represent the progress in tactical warfare. For example Dragoons or Hussars replacing Middle Ages horsemen. Equipped units represent the progress in manufacturing. Steel weapons vs iron etc. Also I even said that strategic units would be limited in what equipment they can wear. Hence a peasant could never be outfitted into a knight ^^
Also, I'm afraid that your concerns about people equipping themselves for fighting are a bit impractical in Civ, and btw this regards mostly the age of Feudalism... from the advent of professional / regular armies it shouldn't be a concern anymore, so you risk to come up with an upgrading system that must become obsolete at a certain point.

Heh, great minds think alike I guess. About 2 years ago I was working on a FF 6/3 mod. I ran into a wall when my utter inexperience with C made incorporating FFH's magic system, which was integral. Anyway, I was making weapons, armor and items into purchasable upgrades dependent on what metals and shops you had in a city (armor shop, weapon shop, item shop). AFAIK, it's all python work, and I had it nearly figured out before I abandoned the project. I don't know if I saved the work, but it shouldn't be too hard to get working.

Thanks. I take it these are additions to the existing RFC tech tree? So where in the RFC tech tree do these additions start? And what years are you suggesting for the beginning of each age? While mostly we could agree on 1000AD, 1300AD and 1600AD I think, the Renaissance is usually thought of as the 14th to the 17th. C's and the Age of Discovery the 1400's to the 1600's.as well.
So both of them completely overlap with the others and can't just follow each other in linear order unless we alter the dates somewhat. Also the Industrial Revolution is thought to have started no earlier than 1770 so how important is it in a mod that ends in 1800? Wouldn't it be better for us to end our techs just before the I.R. happens?
Could I suggest instead:

Early Middle Ages 500 to 1000AD
High Middle Ages 1000 to 1300AD
Renaissance 1300 to 1500AD
Age of Discovery 1500 to 1700AD
Early Modern Era 1700 to 1800AD

Just a rough idea. What do you think?:)

These are additions to the Vanilla tech tree, which is the same as the RFC tree. Although for our purposes we'll be starting from scratch since the pre-requisites will be different from the current XML and modifying it would be more tedious than building it from the ground up.

The Age of Discovery can be changed to The Age of Imperialism. Conversely, The Renaissance can be replaced by The Age of Discovery and The Age of Imperialism added in. Of course The Age of Imperialism overlaps with the Industrial Revolution, so you have to make a compromise regardless. And it's such a trivial point that I would go with the one that fits the flavor of the mod best.

As far as time frame goes, that's the last thing we need to worry about. Right now we need to focus on getting a working skeleton then balance through gameplay. Right now it would be impossible to peg the beaker costs correctly.

Sorry for not responding more quickly. I've had to put together a business plan for a new restaurant opening in 12 days. :cry:

While I agree that building an enhanced tech tree is an important task which we must tackle sometime, I feel we've still got a lot of unfinished business at hand. We haven't finished fleshing out our civs with their UU's, UB's, UP's and UHV's etc. Nor have we finished our civ settler maps either. Then there's the question of corporations, guilds, military orders and the other civ-specific features. Wouldn't it be wiser to finish the projects we've already started than commence new ones? That way we will develop a better understanding of which existing or additional techs will be required. IMHO:)

Everyone has different talents and interests. I really don't care about the map and city names beyond balancing. Same goes for the UB's, UU's, UP's and UHV's. I'm more interested in creating the atmosphere and flavor of the mod, which is units, techs, culling artwork, adding new abilities and tactics for warfare, making civics and interesting combinations, etc. So I'll keep on this path with whomever else is not up to the task of making the map and civs. ;)

I'm not diminishing Whitefire's work at all and you may be right about other aspects not having to preceed the tech tree. But surely we should settle a few outstanding issues and start fleshing out the wiki in a progressive way as well. It would be nice to see everybody's individual efforts result in
a few concrete decisions on paper. I thought that was the wiki was for. Am I wrong?:confused:

I agree. As nice as it is to have a consensus, someone needs to step in and make final decisions for the alpha version of the mod. Remember guys, everything can be updated and changed later. We just need to get a set working idea and throw it together. We need to get it running - and I expect many days of bug reporting until we have a working version that won't crash - before fretting over the flare.

Speaking of listing stuff to have in the mod, here is a list of all the things in the normal game with highlights for my opinions on how they should be used here. Red=not used, Lime=used under a different name (name possibly suggested), Orange=graphic used for something else. For the looks of it I think we need more wonders and units, whilst being pretty okay on the building front.

Thanks for the list!


I know this will be hard to do, but it could be nice to see civics evolve too. The best example is the civic slavery: There was a big difference between the slavery in Roman times and in the American South. In Roman times, slavery was a normal way of living and producing, as everybody used it. Using slaves gave no advantage. In the USA, using slaves could give extra profit because you're workers were cheap to pay (you didn't pay them), but people were against slavery in the north. So: if you discovery tech liberalism and you run slavery, planations get +1 gold, but give 1 :( to all cities in you civ.

I like your general idea, however I want to point out how your specific example is not so good. First off, slavery will not be a civic, because slaves were treated as a commodity in the era we're looking at, not a way a life. This means that colonies will supply slaves and alter the base production, commerce, food, corporation production in every city. Then you can tie obsolecence of this resource to Liberalism or something.

Any chance of converting it to a zip file? I can't get rar to work for me. Thanks:)

Free download (http://rarlab.com/download.htm)

While I see onedreamer's point about the limited amount of units, and the difficulty of differentiating units I think this whole idea of strategic and equipped units and armour represented through promotions is needlessly complicated. It's interesting, yes, and similar things work in FfH and the like but you have to remember that what we're doing here is adapting RFC to a new scenario not building a new mod from the ground up. For that reason why shouldn't be introducing any new features that aren't absolutely necessary to "Medievalise" RFC and so I don't see why we shouldn't just have separate "Chainmail Knight" and "Plate Knight" in the normal way.

I'm not diminishing Whitefire's work at all and you may be right about other aspects not having to preceed the tech tree. But surely we should settle a few outstanding issues and start fleshing out the wiki in a progressive way as well. It would be nice to see everybody's individual efforts result in
a few concrete decisions on paper. I thought that was the wiki was for. Am I wrong?
I agree. As nice as it is to have a consensus, someone needs to step in and make final decisions for the alpha version of the mod. Remember guys, everything can be updated and changed later. We just need to get a set working idea and throw it together. We need to get it running - and I expect many days of bug reporting until we have a working version that won't crash - before fretting over the flare.
You're absolutely right, and for that reason we decided some time ago that st.lucifer is the "project leader" and as such has the final say.

Since we're talking about units, here's my list up to the Late Middle Ages. Please note that this was actually for the Charlemagne mod. These ideas were just pitched too late to be included =/.

UNITS

Non-Combatants

Serf
Same as BTS worker

Fortifications

1 for walls, 2 for high walls, 3 for castles.

Boiling Tar: walls
Strength: 2
Movement: 0
+100% defense vs. siege weapons. Immune to collateral damage.

Ballista: walls
Strength: 4
Movement: 0
+100 defense vs. Melee units


Siege Weaponry

Onager: None
Strength: 3
Movement: 1
Bombard Defense: 5%
Collateral Damage: 50% that of Catapult
Upgrades to Catapult

Mangonel: Mathematics
Strength: 4
Movement: 1
Bombard Defense: 10%
Collateral Damage: 75% that of Catapult
Upgrades to Catapult

Catapult: Siege Weaponry
Same as BTS. Obsoletes the Mangonel and Onager units.

Sapper: Military Engineering
Onager: None
Strength: 1
Movement: 1
Bombard Defense: 25%

Trebuchet: Engineering and Siege Weaponry
Strength: 4
Movement: 1
+100% City Attack
+50% current collateral damage
Cannot bombard city defenses.

Melee

Peasant Levy: None (replaces Warrior)
Strength: 2
Movement: 1
+25% City Defense

Burgher: Feudalism (?)
Strength: 4
Movement: 1
+50% City Defense
Obsoletes Peasant Levy

Spearman
Same as BTs

Axeman
Same as BTS

Light Swordsman: Chain Mail
Same as current Charlemagne

Heavy Swordsman: Blast Furnace
Same as current BTS

Pikeman: Engineering + Blast Furnace
Strength: 7
Movement:1
+100% vs. Mounted

Man-At-Arms: Plate Armor
Strength: 9
Movement: 1
+10% City Attack
Immune to First Strikes
Requires Iron

Maceman: Unsure
Strength: 12
Movement: 1
+50% vs. Melee
Requires Iron and Coal

Serjeant: Strategikon
Strength: 10
Movement: 2
+25% vs. Archery units
Requires Iron and Coal.

Archers

Archer
Same as BTS

Longbowman: Longbow
Same as current Charlemagne

Crossbowman: Crossbow
Same as current Charlemagne

Heavy Crossbowman: Blast Furnace + Engineering
Same as current Charlemagne
Requires Iron + Coal

Mounted
We'll just assume these all require horses so I don't have to type it everytime.


Page: None (Replaces Mounted Infantry)
Strength: 4
Movement: 2
Starts with Sentry

Sentry was added to make the unit worth building and keeping. I think it would be cool if there were some synergy between Pages and Knights. Since Pages become obsolete and easy to kill by the time Knights are around, I think giving a serious buff, like +15% heal rate for all knights on the same tile as a Page would be appropriate.

Standard Bearer (Replaces Horse Archer)
Same as current Charlemagne

Light Cavalry: Chain Mail + Stirrups
Same as current Charlemagne

Heavy Cavalry: Plate Armor + Stirrups
Same as current Charlemagne

Knight: Courtly Manners + Chivalry
Strength: 12
Movement: 3
+10% vs. Melee
Requires Iron + Coal

I like all of these units, and the page idea. I think the supply train feature was one of the better innovations of the Charlemagne mod, and it might be a good idea to try and include something like that in ours. Due to the quality of Medieval medicine, I'm going to suggest that we disable medic promotions - except for supply units and cities where the Hospitaller military order have spread.

Depending on what resources we end up with, we may want to tweak the resource requirements for some units - I like how knights require coal (for steel); while we don't have a timber resource and have no plans to add one, I'd be in favor of restricting longbows to cities working a forest tile. This isn't much of a restriction for most civs, but makes those forests around big cities that much more precious (especially for places like Spain, S. Italy, and N. Africa.)

For artwork and unit upgrades - how easy is it to re-skin a unit to reflect an upgrade in armor? If it just involves going into a paint program and replacing one color pixel with another (as was the case for Civ II and Civ III), I'm all in favor of doing that - it can be a little tedious, but it's not as hard as finding or creating new artwork from scratch.

For artwork and unit upgrades - how easy is it to re-skin a unit to reflect an upgrade in armor? If it just involves going into a paint program and replacing one color pixel with another (as was the case for Civ II and Civ III), I'm all in favor of doing that - it can be a little tedious, but it's not as hard as finding or creating new artwork from scratch.

It's extremely tedious. AFAIK, the only way to change unit art is to change the unit into a different one. This means we would have to include art for every possible combination of upgrades and do some tedious upgrade trees to make sure that previous upgrades were not lost AND that previous upgrades which are being replaced by new ones are appropriately removed and replaced. We'd end up with more art files and upgrade paths than I can think of, definitely over 1k if we have 20-30 base units with 20ish upgrades. Of course, all of that goes away if you forgo changing the art.

I like all of these units, and the page idea. I think the supply train feature was one of the better innovations of the Charlemagne mod, and it might be a good idea to try and include something like that in ours. Due to the quality of Medieval medicine, I'm going to suggest that we disable medic promotions - except for supply units and cities where the Hospitaller military order have spread.

If you want, you can take it even further. I was thinking that all units lose 5% health every turn they are in enemy territory. This makes supply trains vital to keep armies alive and simulates the supply problems commonly found by invading armies - peasants burning crops rather than letting them be captured, for example.

It's extremely tedious. AFAIK, the only way to change unit art is to change the unit into a different one. This means we would have to include art for every possible combination of upgrades and do some tedious upgrade trees to make sure that previous upgrades were not lost AND that previous upgrades which are being replaced by new ones are appropriately removed and replaced. We'd end up with more art files and upgrade paths than I can think of, definitely over 10k if we have 20-30 base units with 20ish upgrades. Of course, all of that goes away if you forgo changing the art.

Thanks for your list of Medieval units which should easily apply to most of the civs in our mod.
But I do think that the 3 Islamic civs need as many unique units as we can muster.
As I've already described, I've been looking at incorporating units from the Persian, Carthaginian
and others to provide such units like using Numidian cavalry as Berber or Moorish horsemen.
Hopefully we can borrow enough of these to make reskinning unnecesssary.
I've summarized my suggestions so far for the Arabs and Andalusian civs in the wiki civ lists if
anyone wants to look at them. There will need to be some new building types for these civs as well
and appropriate techs to go with them. I'll continue my research on the Islamic civs if you want,
and post anything else I find here.:)

It's extremely tedious. AFAIK, the only way to change unit art is to change the unit into a different one. This means we would have to include art for every possible combination of upgrades and do some tedious upgrade trees to make sure that previous upgrades were not lost AND that previous upgrades which are being replaced by new ones are appropriately removed and replaced. We'd end up with more art files and upgrade paths than I can think of, definitely over 1k if we have 20-30 base units with 20ish upgrades. Of course, all of that goes away if you forgo changing the art.

Yuck. I remember doing it for units in Civ II and III, so I assumed it was simple - that sounds awful. Disregard the suggestion.

If you want, you can take it even further. I was thinking that all units lose 5% health every turn they are in enemy territory. This makes supply trains vital to keep armies alive and simulates the supply problems commonly found by invading armies - peasants burning crops rather than letting them be captured, for example.

I'm totally in favor of that. Considered proposing it, but thought it might be too drastic - but I heartily approve of the idea, and think we should go for it. Along those lines, I'm going to propose some sort of weak light cavalry/scout unit that specifically goes after supply trains the way that some units go after siege equipment or mounted units first in many existing scenarios.

But I do think that the 3 Islamic civs need as many unique units as we can muster.

Do you want to give them unique skins and names or make an entirely different unit set? I think the former is beneficial to the mod, while the latter is more work for little atmosphere and reality, since the differences in warfare were less equipment based and more strategic.

Thanks for your list of Medieval units which should easily apply to most of the civs in our mod.
But I do think that the 3 Islamic civs need as many unique units as we can muster.
As I've already described, I've been looking at incorporating units from the Persian, Carthaginian
and others to provide such units like using Numidian cavalry as Berber or Moorish horsemen.
Hopefully we can borrow enough of these to make reskinning unnecesssary.
I've summarized my suggestions so far for the Arabs and Andalusian civs in the wiki civ lists if
anyone wants to look at them. There will need to be some new building types for these civs as well
and appropriate techs to go with them. I'll continue my research on the Islamic civs if you want,
and post anything else I find here.:)


Unique artwork, sure. But multiple unique units seems a little drastic - tactics weren't so different between Muslim and Euro civs, and in fact the Euro civs borrowed liberally from Muslim tech and tactics alike. That being said, the UU for the Arab civs shouldn't be camel-based - we might consider putting camels in as a resource (not many of them, to prevent the ridiculous camel trades of ages past. :D :D :D), which allow the construction of a camel-based supply/support unit which allows armies to cross deserts without loss of health. Without them, I'd argue that armies should get hit pretty hard for each turn they have to spend in deserts. Creating a supply unit requiring camels for construction would be in effect giving the Arab civs an extra unit without eating up their UU slot on something of questionable historical merit or value.

I understand that one size does not fit all, and there should be regional differences - but one of the great things about RFC and Civ in general is that the buildings, units, techs, etc do NOT require a massive learning curve from 1 civ to another - as radically different as China and Portugal are, they're functionally equivalent in terms of tech possibilities, buildings, wonders, and units, with the exception of two units and two buildings. Now, the play styles for each civ are very different, and should be, and part of the challenge of RFC is that puzzle aspect of figuring out how to best utilize each civ's strengths - but the differences in gameplay are based on a combination of each civ's goals/powers and their geography, which are usually related. I'm not willing to subvert that basic principle of Civ and RFC for this mod, when it seems to me like it's arguable that such a change is even justified. Is a Damascus steel furnace functionally that different from a Cardiff steel furnace, other than the fact that the Arabs had it first? The Arabs will start out with a pretty substantial set of advantages in tech and infrastructure - I don't think there's justification for doing more than that.


edit: Also, what Whitefire said.

Just to clarify: I wasn't exactly saying there should be multiple unique units in the sense that they would have enhanced powers over their equivalents in other civs. I was really thinking that the Islamic artwork should be quite different where possible. So a horse archer in every civ would have the same strength but use different art it it's available without reskinning. I agree with you that every civ should have only 1 UU but have other units with civ-specific names and unique art where possible.
BTW I agree about camels. Arabs usually either used them as supply train or rode them to battle before fighting on foot or mounting the horses they brought with them. Only rarely were they used as a tactical battle formation except for raiding or scouting. So I think they should just be another available unit similiar to the horse archer, not a knight equivalent. As for using them as a supply train unit, I think there is art available for that (In the Crossroads scenario, I think?) :)

Great. No problems, then. Anyone object to the inclusion of camels or a camels-required supply unit for desert travel?

So I think they should just be another available unit similiar to the horse archer, not a knight equivalent.

By the Middle Ages, Europe had largely abandoned the use of Horse Archers. The only people who used them on a large scale with any result were steppe and desert dwellers, since their efficacy was limited to large expanses of tree-less, level terrain. IMO, they should be relegated to UU's and not included in this mod at large.

Alright, here's some more work for the day. I updated the tech tree with a few more ideas and fleshed out the units to about 1700AD. Do you guys see anymore that should be added in?

Non-combatants

Supply Train




Melee

Halberdiers:?
?
?





Mounted

Curraisier: Flintlock
?
?

Dragoons: ?
?
?

Lancers: ?
?
?



Siege Weapons

Bombard: Corned Gunpowder (?)
?
?

Horse Artillery: ?
?
?

Cannon: Explosives
?
?




Gunpowder Units

Arquebusier: Corned Cunpowder
Strength: 9
Movement: 1


Cavaliermen: Matchlock
Strength: 7
Movement: 2
+50% vs. Melee and Archery. Lower hammer cost.


Musketmen: Flintlock
Strength: 10
Movement: 1
+50% vs. Melee and Archery.


Regulars: ?
Strength: 12
+50% vs. Melee, Archery, Cavalry.

Grenadier: Explosives
?
?

Line Infantry: ?
?
?


Navy


Caravel: ?
?
?

Fluyte: ?
?
?

Sloop: ?
?
?

Galleon: ?
?
?

Ship-of-the-line:?
?
?

Frigate: ?
?
?

Clipper:?
?
?

Techs added

Patronage
Gothic Architecture
Polygonal Fortifications
Matchlock
Flintlock
Explosives
Amalgamation Process
Scholasticism
Naval Convoying
Swiss Tactics
Blast Mining

By the Middle Ages, Europe had largely abandoned the use of Horse Archers. The only people who used them on a large scale with any result were steppe and desert dwellers, since their efficacy was limited to large expanses of tree-less, level terrain. IMO, they should be relegated to UU's and not included in this mod at large.

I agree with you. Though some form of horse archer should remain in N. Africa and Russia but be upgradeable to musket units like the curasssier at the appropriate moment. My view of UU's for Islamic civs is that they be specific light or medium cavalry units like Berbers (using Numidian art) and Ghazzis (using Persian Immortal art) respectively. The horse archer and camel archer units should, I think, be inferior basic units from the start requiring no techs but upgradeable or made obsolete by technology.:)

Two early techs come to mind in the development of naval units. First was the introduction
of "clinker-built" ships like the Norse galley and the North European cog in the early years
of our mod. Later, via India came the Arab intoduction of the "lateen sail" which led to the
zebec, caravel and finally the carrick (the archetype of all naval sailing vessels). Along with the
introduction of navigational aids like the compass, astrolabe. etc., we should have a separate
tech thread for naval development.
And I think it's worth emphasizing that unlike in BTS or RFC where the galley unit soon
becomes obsolete, we should retain the large war galley ("galleas") as an important unit
in naval warfare, esp. in the Mediterrranean, up till at least the 17th.C. IMO.:)

That does seem like an interesting idea though it would increase the complexity of the mod and code significantly...

While I see onedreamer's point about the limited amount of units, and the difficulty of differentiating units I think this whole idea of strategic and equipped units and armour represented through promotions is needlessly complicated.

Don't know, a building that grants a promotion is far from complicated IMHO, especially since the code is already available. I think it would have greatly enhanced the medieval feel of the modmod, and I am not just referring to the units but mainly to the buildings. The representation of medieval citadels should be something we should have thought of. A building such as forge or smithy that merely adds to production is completely flavorless IMO.

Great. No problems, then. Anyone object to the inclusion of camels or a camels-required supply unit for desert travel?

I do!

How many desert tiles are there on the map? Few!
Where are they located? At the borders of the map.
Will there be much travel or warfare going on? unprobable.
Is it therefore worth to do the big work of what you proposed? I'd say no.

Sincerely Mik ;)

I do!

How many desert tiles are there on the map? Few!
Where are they located? At the borders of the map.
Will there be much travel or warfare going on? unprobable.
Is it therefore worth to do the big work of what you proposed? I'd say no.

Sincerely Mik ;)

So you're saying the Arabs can't have camels even for transport? It's not as if anyone's trying
to force camels on the Vikings or something. Where's the problem if one or two civs have them?
The rest can have donkey carts or something. Whatever we can find the art for. IMO:)

I do!

How many desert tiles are there on the map? Few!
Where are they located? At the borders of the map.
Will there be much travel or warfare going on? unprobable.
Is it therefore worth to do the big work of what you proposed? I'd say no.

Sincerely Mik ;)

Logical. Let's just do it with artwork, then - we can modify desert to damage unsupplied units, and that'll be fair.

Logical. Let's just do it with artwork, then - we can modify desert to damage unsupplied units, and that'll be fair.

Just to clarify. Do you mean we discard the camel archers and give each civ the same transport unit like the supply train in Charlemagne? If so, I agree. Camels were marginal at best in most Arab armies, so maybe they're not worth keeping at all.:)

Just to clarify. Do you mean we discard the camel archers and give each civ the same transport unit like the supply train in Charlemagne? If so, I agree. Camels were marginal at best in most Arab armies, so maybe they're not worth keeping at all.:)

Yeah, I was already in favor of dropping camel archers. What I was proposing was camel-based supply units - like supply trains for the deserts. But really, there's not much justification for it - it might be cool to have the Arab supply trains include camels if we can find the artwork, but it's hardly a requirement. :D

Mitsho's right about the difficulties involved with adding in the resource. It wasn't one of my better ideas.

I was just wanting to say that we should concentrate on the core engines of the mod to get a working alpha out as soon as possible. Supply trains are cool, interesting, important and a good concept. BUT hardly integral, as it can be added in in a later step without much balancing problems.
Camel supply units for the desert though are not important, as there won't be much fighting done in the desert... If you can change the vision of the supply unit for the Arabs to camels, that'd be cool though ;)

@Whitefire: regarding the tech tree I think 'Age of Revolutions' is a better name for the last age than 'Industrial Revolution' as thats mainly the 19th and only just starting in the 18th century whilst a range of agricultural, capitalist, scientific and political revolutions typify the 1720+ period.

Since we're talking about units, here's my list up to the Late Middle Ages. Please note that this was actually for the Charlemagne mod. These ideas were just pitched too late to be included =/.

I like your ideas but I've got two problems, one minor and one major, the minor being that 'Burgher' is middle class towns folk isn't it, wouldn't 'militia' make a better name ;)? and the major is the focus on the medevil period for a mod that spans 500-1800AD. The page idea is cool for example, but that type of arrangement will only exist for 50 turns in the mode a most.

I really like the supply train idea, and here's my, as usual vastly (over)detailed thoughts on the land unit tree:


http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/8568/unitsvy4.gif



New promotions:
-Needs Supply: -5% Health per turn outside borders

Basic Melee
(Crummy troops, resourseless, moderately good at city defense, represents the peasents and small folks, often produced by events)
Peasent Levy
3/1 +25% city defense: Basic warrior Equivalent
Militia
6/1 +25% City Defense
Irregulars
9/1 +25% City Defense
Partisans
13/1 +25% City Defense, 1 First Strike

Light Infantry
(Generally weaker open order infantry with ability to retreat, get terrain promotions, and doesn't need supply trains, bonus against light cavalry)
Skirmisher
4/1 30% Retreat Odds 1-2 First strike: Hit at run/softening up force, can get terrain promotions and operate independent of supply
Light Infantry
7/1 30% Retreat Odds 1-2 First strike:
Screening Troops
10/1 30% Retreat Odds 2 First strike +25% verses gunpowder:

Heavy Infantry
(Big close order infantry blocks, needs supply and metals)

(Melee heavy attack line, goes obsolete quickly due weakness verses Armoured Cavs and joins in heavy attack horse units)
Axeman
5/1 +50% vs melee, +10% City attack, P:Needs Supply, R:Metals: Starting attack infantry
Maceman
8/1 +50% vs melee, +10% City attack, P:Needs Supply, R:Metals: More developed attack infantry

(Anti-cavelry line, becomes main weapons of the infantry forces later on)
Spearman
5/1 +50% vs Mounted, P:Needs Supply, R: Metals: Starting anti-cavalry infantry
Pikeman
8/1 +50% vs Mounted, P:Needs Supply, R: Metals: Heavier pike using infantry
Marching Pike
12/1 +50% vs Mounted, P:Needs Supply+Drill I, R: Metals: Pike with better formations and tactics as explemified by the Swiss and Landsknecht
Mixed Pike
16/1 +50% vs Mounted, P:Needs Supply+Drill I, R: Metals: Later pikes with less armour designed to be mixed with muskets to protect vs cavalry

Armoured Cavalry
(Expensive cavalry that needs supply, strong verses most things except anti-cav infantry, causes collateral damage)
Armoured Horseman
8/2 +25% Melee, Archers, -50% vs cities, P:Needs Supply R:Metal, Horses: Your basic armoured horseman pre-stirrups, plate, spurs et al, see Cataphracts
Early Knight
10/2 +25% Melee, Archers, -50% vs cities, P:Needs Supply R:Metal, Horses:
Chainmail Knight
14/2 +25% Melee, Archers, -25% vs cities, P:Needs Supply R:Metal, Horses: Apogee of the knight line strenght verses others before marching pikes dethrone it
Plated Knight
18/2 +25% Melee, Archers, -25% vs cities, P:Needs Supply R:Metal, Horses: With further development Knights can beat pike and longbows but are much more expensive (which eventually prices them out of warfare as Pike-and-Shot takes over)
Cuirassers
24/2 +25% vs gunpowder -25% vs cities, P:Needs Supply R:Horses: Return of heavy cavalry with breastplates and pistols/carbines to crush slow reloading muskets but still fairs badly to pikes
Heavy Cavalry
30/2 +25% vs Grenadiers -50% vs cities, P:Needs Supply, Blitz: With better carbines, tactics and lighter arms, heavy cavalry can smash anything on the battlefield (maybe not guard infantry) but is expensive and has problems with dug in troops

Light Cavalry
(Fast cav with retreat abilities, doesn't need supply trains, used for raiding and pillaging)
Horse Archer
5/3 30% Retreat odds, +50% vs artillary, -50% vs cities
Raiding Cavalry
8/3 30% Retreat odds, +50% vs artillary, -50% vs cities
Light Cavalry
16/3 30% Retreat odds, +50% vs artillary, -50% vs cities, P:Sentry: Now armed with light pistols the light cavalry is an invaluable recon and raiding unit
Hussar(western european use of the term)/Dragoons
22/3 30% Retreat odds, +50% vs artillary, -50% vs cities: With carbines and sabres arassing enemy skirmishers, overrunning artillery positions, and pursuing fleeing troops.
Medium Cavalry
25/3 30% Retreat odds, +50% vs artillary, -50% vs cities:

The eurasian steppe nomad is a special case of a horse archer remain effect due to bow technology and massive amounts of remounts not available in europe.
Steppe Horseman
12/3 70% retreat odds +25% vs cities, P: Mobility, Blitz: Barbarian only

Archery
(First half of the game only, good on defense and can get terrain promotions, good against melee)
Archer
3/1 +50% City, Woods, Hills Defense, P: Needs Supply: Early archers, good at holding ground
Bodkin Archers
6/1 +50% City, Woods, Hills Defense, P: Needs Supply: Archers with improved technology
Crossbowman
9/1 +25% City, Woods, Hills Defense, +50% Vs Melee P: Needs Supply: Replacing the bows with crossbows reduce the training required and gives more force against melee units
Longbowman
8/1 +50% City, Woods, Hills Defense, P: Needs Supply
Heavy Crossbowman
12/1 +25% City, Woods, Hills Defense, +50% Vs Melee P: Needs Supply

Gunpowder
(Strong verses most things except late heavy cavalry and counters, varied types)

The main gunpowder line of units strong vs melee and archers, and increasingly strong proportional to cavalry
Hand Cannoneer
12/1 -25% Attack, 1 First strike P: Needs supply: First gunpowder units pack a strong punch but are not very mobile for attacks
Arquebuser
12/1 +25% Melee, Archers, 1 First strike P: Needs supply
Musketman
16/1 +25% Melee, Archers, 1 First strike P: Needs supply: Improved musket design and tactics allows effective blocks of infantry to be fielded in larger and larger numbers
Mixed Musket
18/1 +25% Melee, Archers, 1 First strike P: Needs supply: Combined with Mixed pike the era of the dominance of the Horse is ended
Bayonet Infantry
22/1 +25% Melee, Archers, Heavy Cavalry, 1 First strike P: Needs supply: By affixing blades onto the muskets and rifles the power of the musketmen and the anti-cavalry aspect of the pike is combined in one unit
Line Infantry
26/1 +25% Melee, Archers, mounted units, 1 First strike P: Needs supply: Advances in tactics and resource management lead to huge armies of infantry facing off against each other, as sign of the industrialised bloodbaths to come

Later Technology allows specialised gunpowder troops
Rifle Regiments
20/1 40% retreat odds 2 First strikes +25% verses gunpowder:The capping of the light infantry line with rifles allowed great firing power to augment the units mobility and use of terrain

Guard Infantry
28/1 +25% defense, 1 First strike, P:Needs supply :Guard infantry were typically high quality troops issued with heavy weapons for holding a point or stronghold

Grenadiers
28/1 +25 City attack, +50% vs gunpowder, P:Needs supply:Grenadiers were typically high quality troops issued with grenades used to assult lines and positions, but have weakness to cavalry

Seige
(Can only bombard cities (but does it well), and is less affected by castles and bastions)
Battering Ram
0/1 Bombards 5%, P:Needs supply
Seige Tower
0/1 Bombards 10%, P:Needs supply
Sappers
0/1 Bombards 15%, P:Needs supply

Artillary
(Bombards and causes collateral damage, cannot kill units on own)
The basic line
Catapult
4/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 4% P:Needs Supply
Mangonel
6/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 6% P:Needs Supply
Trebuchet
6/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 8% +100 City Attack P:Needs Supply
Early Cannon
10/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 10% P:Needs Supply

Bifuricates into artillary good on the battlefield...
Field Guns
12/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 2%, -50% City Attack, P:Needs Supply, Barrage I
Light Cannon
18/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 4%, -50% City Attack, P:Needs Supply, Barrage I
Field Artillary
26/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 6%, -50% City Attack, P:Needs Supply, Barrage I+II

...and Artillary good for taking cities
Heavy Cannon
12/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 12%, -50% Non-City Attack, P:Needs Supply, City-Raider I
Mortar
18/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 14%, -50% Non-City Attack, P:Needs Supply, City-Raider I
Heavy Battery
26/1 Causes a maximum of 75% damage to enemy, Causes collateral damage, bombards 16%, -50% Non-City Attack, P:Needs Supply, City-Raider I+II

Supply
(Provides healing, particulary useful in enemy terrirory where most units don't get healing)
Supply Train
0/1 Medic 2: Basic one, perhaps limited availablity? 1+(#ofCities)/3 maybe?
Baggage Train
0/1 Medic 3: Later and improved version as armies lose less men to disease

Burghers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare#Personal_equipment_for)

This scenario ends at 1800. So mortars and early howitzers are out.

Militia, as opposed to royal armies, did not take hold until the 1660's, and that was in the American colonies. You'd have to wait until the French Revolutions for militias to have any efficacy. This evolution is primarily contributed to the advancements in gun design, making them light, cheap and reliable enough for everyone to afford one.

Handcannons were ineffective in battle except in rare instances. I see no reason to have 3 knight units. Field guns and light canons are essentially the same thing, just with advances in barrel construction and, more importantly, gunpowder. There is no reason to have such distinctions since they both serve the same function (removing defenses) and would be given the same movement value.

Catapults come after the mangonel to indicate the advancements n siege weaponry. Remember that mangonels date back to 400BC. Bodkin archers and heavy crossbow are both rather redundant. Mixed pike was never a regiment, it was a tactical idea. Read above about HA's and what is raiding cavalry? Skirmishers were not used during this period - slings were too weak and lacked the range of bows. They didn't come back until the handgun advances of the late 18th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirmisher)

Other than that, I like it.

and the major is the focus on the medevil period for a mod that spans 500-1800AD. The page idea is cool for example, but that type of arrangement will only exist for 50 turns in the mode a most.

The thing is, gunpowder weapons were not in wide use until the 1600's. Even then, traditional weaponry was mixed in. Breechloading Rifles and the Bayonet come in around 1720, so I can see including early rifle units. However, rifled barrels, which is what the last part of your unit tree relies on, was not invented until after the scope of this mod. It would be anachronistic to include them.

If we build a unit tree from scratch we get imbalance and we will need to work hard later to balance it. The way I see it, it has too many units, like too many artillery units, civ iv has 4 and here there are 10. Also why would anyone build peasant or militia if they have axeman (obviously superior). Also it looks like the axeman might be overpower as it is right now, there is no chariot counter for the axeman. I don't see the strategic use of light cavalry.

Those are some of the problems I see in a minute or two. I might be wrong about some of those, but with any list of units there are guaranteed problems. Civ IV has been balanced and rebalanced for years now, why discard that completely.

Burghers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare#Personal_equipment_for)

That links to the Bourgeoisie page :lol:. Burgher seemed to be a class designation for those serving rather than a military unit.

This scenario ends at 1800. So mortars and early howitzers are out.


Recogniseable Mortars were in use from 1650 onwards, Howitzers (i.e. short barreled pieces) from 1400 onwards. Whats the problem?


Militia, as opposed to royal armies, did not take hold until the 1660's, and that was in the American colonies. You'd have to wait until the French Revolutions for militias to have any efficacy. This evolution is primarily contributed to the advancements in gun design, making them light, cheap and reliable enough for everyone to afford one.



Handcannons were ineffective in battle except in rare instances. I see no reason to have 3 knight units. Field guns and light canons are essentially the same thing, just with advances in barrel construction and, more importantly, gunpowder. There is no reason to have such distinctions since they both serve the same function (removing defenses) and would be given the same movement value.


Three knight units represent the enormous technological evolution the armoured mounted warrior underwent over the course of the centuries in response to the threats they faced.


Catapults come after the mangonel to indicate the advancements n siege weaponry. Remember that mangonels date back to 400BC. Bodkin archers and heavy crossbow are both rather redundant.

However Mangonels superceded catapults to become the most common medevil seige weapon even if they were invented earlier. Its really a tossup how to order them of course. Both show upgrades in technology much like the regular games Tank->Modern Armour, and merging them into one average unit would make them harder to balance.

Mixed pike was never a regiment, it was a tactical idea.

Yes, the unit had a different name in every language, but the changes made to the mens equipment and operation were significant as were its enormous effects on the battlefield

Read above about HA's and what is raiding cavalry?

I read the above, which is why horse archers are right at the based of the tech tree, but they need to be somewhere, to show early barbarian swarms at least. Raiding Cavalry, much like Mixed pike, is something that had different names in different states - 1400-1600cen light horse that used small unit tactics for recon and suprise attacks on enemy weak points.

Skirmishers were not used during this period - slings were too weak and lacked the range of bows.

Umm completely wrong, slings just being weapons some skirmishers used, skirmishers being any light infantry with light arms and minimal armour and use a volley of projectiles. They were extensively used to screen and distrupt enemy formations and scouting.


hey didn't come back until the handgun advances of the late 18th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirmisher)


When you quote a wiki page, be sure to read it :lol:


History

Pre-modern

In ancient and medieval warfare, skirmishers typically carried bows, javelins, slings, and sometimes carried light shields. Acting as light infantry with their light arms and minimal armor, they could run ahead of the main battle line, release a volley of arrows, slingshots or javelins, and retreat behind their main battle line before the clash of the opposing main forces. The aims of skirmishing were to disrupt enemy formations by causing casualties before the main battle, and to tempt the opposing infantry into attacking prematurely, throwing their organization into disarray. Skirmishers could also be effectively used to surround opposing soldiers in the absence of friendly cavalry.

Once the preliminary skirmishing was done, the skirmishers would participate during the main battle by shooting into the enemy formation, or could participate in melée combat with daggers or short swords. Alternatively, they could also act as ammunition bearers or stretcher-bearers.

Due to their mobility, skirmishers were also valuable for reconnaissance, especially in wooded or urban areas. During the gunpowder era, a skirmish line could be used to discover the extent of the enemy front line.


The thing is, gunpowder weapons were not in wide use until the 1600's. Even then, traditional weaponry was mixed in. Breechloading Rifles and the Bayonet come in around 1720, so I can see including early rifle units. However, rifled barrels, which is what the last part of your unit tree relies on, was not invented until after the scope of this mod. It would be anachronistic to include them.


Cannons were making an impact from the middle 15th century on, and arquebuses from the late 15th. Plus remember time is not equal in the mod 1500-1800 is 40% of the game time. The only units with rifled barrels on the tree I suggested are the rifle regiments, and they could be using very long bore muskets along with irregular tactics. The infantry and cavalry are all using muskets and smoothbore carabines, all developed before the cut off.

My main objection to the tree proposed is the high percentage of promotions built into each later unit, particularly the artillery. A unit which starts with barrage II, built in a city with a barracks and/or any other building that gives xp to units (citadel, military academy, or other hypothetical building) is a pretty devastating force on a battlefield for something that's just rolled off the production line.

Other than that, I like the general thrust of it. I do think we may want to trim the gunpowder tree a little bit, and maybe elongate the siege tree (and increase the effectiveness of those units - 5% for a battering ram makes it an unattractive unit to build.)

Also missing from the melee tree - there's no heavily armored foot soldier in there, just the various pike units. I'd think we'd need a man-at-arms type unit to represent that niche.

I'll try to come up with my own suggested version of this next week, but I like the versions that have been suggested so far.

Those are some of the problems I see in a minute or two. I might be wrong about some of those, but with any list of units there are guaranteed problems. Civ IV has been balanced and rebalanced for years now, why discard that completely.

[overlapping the start of the mod]
Axeman
Swordsman
Archer
Horse Archer
Catapult

[In the mods time]
Pikeman
Maceman
Knight
Crossbowman
Explorer
Knight
Longbowman
Musketman
Trebuchet
Cuirassier

[overlapping the end of the mod]
Cannon
Cavalry
Grenadier
Rifleman

19 land units to cover 500 turns and 1300 years? With only 2, sometimes 3 levels in each upgrade chain? When 80% of the time should only be using the 10 in the middle? The CIV unit set is really not going to cut it IMO, and just because somethign has been used for years and years, doesn't mean we can't try something better - isn't that what mod making is about ;)?


Also missing from the melee tree - there's no heavily armored foot soldier in there, just the various pike units. I'd think we'd need a man-at-arms type unit to represent that niche.


You could remain the Maceman a 'man-at-arms' as they are essentially the same thing, heavy infantry was really outclassed by the armoured horsemen until the pike came along and there really isn't a case to be made IMO for pikeless heavy infantry to have an intrinisic advantage over the pike block. Armoured Horse, heavy infantry with pikes, and missile troops/rabble were the three mainstays of the middle ages...

add of course the unit stats are completely open to discussion :).

My idea was that we do not keep the same units as names and year of appearance but as game play concepts.

First 100 turns:
Start with peasant with pitchfork = warrior 2/1
Discover some tech, get early medieval infantry (pick your favorite name) = axeman 5/1 + 50% vs mele
Discover elementary siedgecraft get early city raider = swords man 6/1 +10% city raid
early cavalry = HA 6/2 ....
Most civs would not have all of those in the first 100 turns.

100 - 300 before 1500
Improve from the early units to the late medieval, Knights Maceman and so on. Also add some equivalent of elephant as early armored knights.

300 - end
do early gunpowder

From the above, I we can add some units in the 100 - 300 range, but I support the idea to add and work around already existing units. The names off almost all units should be different to reflect the mod, but as far as they go in terms of game play I believe we should try to minimize deviation from existing units.

Another idea is to push the boundary between gunpowder and med. units. For example, put the first musketman at strength 20 in place of infantry and Cavalry with strength 28 as Tanks. Musketman with strength 9 could be called late medieval well trained army or whatever your favorite name is.

All of this is just my opinion of course.

A couple of points in general;

What happens with swordsmen? Would they only upgrade to macemen? There are plenty of civs
that used them throughout the mod. Arabs and Spanish Rodeleros are just 2 examples. We have
the Heavy Swordsman art. Why not use it?

Other than UU's, will we be allowing civ-specific units in some cases if we have the art available?
My idea of using Mali skirmishers as Berber skirmishers for Al Andalus is one example. I'm sure
there are others as well, esp. with the Muslim civs where different art is desirable.

What about galleys as I've said? They were important in Mediterranean naval warfare as late as
the 17th.C. The Arab and Ottoman zibecs and the Venetian war galleys are obvious examples.

Finally, where will the starting point for our tech tree be? Knowing what techs we begin with
in 500AD will help everybody who wants to refine or add new techs.:)

My idea was that we do not keep the same units as names and year of appearance but as game play concepts.

First 100 turns:
Start with peasant with pitchfork = warrior 2/1
Discover some tech, get early medieval infantry (pick your favorite name) = axeman 5/1 + 50% vs mele
Discover elementary siedgecraft get early city raider = swords man 6/1 +10% city raid
early cavalry = HA 6/2 ....
Most civs would not have all of those in the first 100 turns.

100 - 300 before 1500
Improve from the early units to the late medieval, Knights Maceman and so on. Also add some equivalent of elephant as early armored knights.

300 - end
do early gunpowder

From the above, I we can add some units in the 100 - 300 range, but I support the idea to add and work around already existing units. The names off almost all units should be different to reflect the mod, but as far as they go in terms of game play I believe we should try to minimize deviation from existing units.

Another idea is to push the boundary between gunpowder and med. units. For example, put the first musketman at strength 20 in place of infantry and Cavalry with strength 28 as Tanks. Musketman with strength 9 could be called late medieval well trained army or whatever your favorite name is.

All of this is just my opinion of course.

To some extent, this is what we're doing - the proposed heavy cavalry unit, for instance, is a lot like a modern armor (collateral damage, stronger than anything else out there, resource requirements, presumably expensive as hell.)

We'll be working from existing units where possible, but as stated previously, the mod is intended to be detailed enough that we'd be selling it short if we reduced ourselves to the 19 listed from existing civ4/RFC stretched over 400 turns. It's logical that not every civ should start with the ability to build all of the first listed units in the tree (particularly the siege units), but keep in mind we're starting at 500, and most civs don't show up for a few hundred years - by the 700s, even the dullest barbarians are going to have some sort of mounted troops, a bunch of burly guys with axes or maces, and some sort of device to throw projectiles a long distance. Those that didn't, and they certainly existed, failed to make it into the history books. :D

You are correct in saying that we'll have more balance issues this way, certainly - but the same would be true if we started to tweak the power of existing units, as we'd surely have to. I think we've all accepted that we're not going to get things completely right the first time, and working from the knowledge that there'll be a lot of testing and balancing to do, I feel like we should be ambitious at this point. If we run into something that turns out to be impossible to code, or ends up being extremely unbalanced, we'll re-assess things. You're right to be asking these questions now, but I think that the majority of us are in favor of an expanded tech and unit tree.

@3Miro: The CIV designers didn't just look at gameplay but also flavour and history to make their units - hence the huge jump to oil-based navies, the replacement of specialised infantry with riflemen, its also linked to the change production capacities of the cities as the game goes on. We shouldn't try to shoehorn that structure into a fundamentally different technological scope.

Plus musketmen coexisted with other foot units for some time before taking over, and it had huge effects on tactics and strategy that really should be shown by units.


What happens with swordsmen? Would they only upgrade to macemen? There are plenty of civs
that used them throughout the mod. Arabs and Spanish Rodeleros are just 2 examples. We have
the Heavy Swordsman art. Why not use it?

Its quite possible to have a heavy swords man unit, but what would the stats be? and it would still go into the mixed pike formation - the Tercio in the Spanish case. Or we could just rename the maceman the man-at-arms and use a different graphic :mischief:


Other than UU's, will we be allowing civ-specific units in some cases if we have the art available?
My idea of using Mali skirmishers as Berber skirmishers for Al Andalus is one example. I'm sure
there are others as well, esp. with the Muslim civs where different art is desirable.


I for one don't see why we wouldn't ;).


What about galleys as I've said? They were important in Mediterranean naval warfare as late as
the 17th.C. The Arab and Ottoman zibecs and the Venetian war galleys are obvious examples.


I was going to see how contentious the land units were going to be before moving onto naval, and remember they are essentially independent systems so we can sort one out before looking at the other.


Finally, where will the starting point for our tech tree be? Knowing what techs we begin with
in 500AD will help everybody who wants to refine or add new techs.:)

We should probably decide what abilities we want the starting civs to have, and then work out the next step from that, looking at whitefires tech tree is a good start, though I'm firmly of the belief that every tech should do something and there seems to be quite a lot in his tree to give stuff too.

On the axeman: don't used them. Axeman are not medieval, they were used by the Germanic people. The typical Frankian startegy was to throw you axe at the enemy, take you sword and try to catch up with you axe and the kill you enemies. During the battle of Poitiers, the Frankian leaders noticed that there heavy cavalery (early knights, cataphracts) where the way of the future battles, as they destroyed the Arab forces. So around 600AD, axefighting wasn't a very important part of battle.

Also, on technological front, making a stong long sword is much harder than making an axe, but by 600AD iron working and metal casting had advanced enough to make good swords. Axes still were in use, but less then swords. The art of the axeman used in civ, is more something for barbarian ages, so Europians during the migrations at the end of the Roman age.


And now for something different:

a small idea. I don't like the liberary concept for medieval Europe. During ancient times, king would build liberaries, but in the MA, Europian lords would do that very much. Liberaries were part of a monastery, so I'd like to change the liberary to the scriptorium, needing a monastery to build them.. Universities will need the scriptorium, as many early univeristies liked to the church, often for the education of priests. (The oldest one in Belgium, Leuven, or Louvain is still a Catholic University with a number of catholic bound subject like Clerical Law and so). This would give Europe is dark ages until monasteries are build and science output is raised.
I would change the Arabian UP to every conquered city getting a temple and a Madrassa. In this way, the Arabs will have a larger science output and will be technological leading during the begin of the game, but as Europians will trade more techs (more civs with same religion) and the Arabs will have less tech trading (wrong religion to trade with Europe and less Muslim civs) the will slowly get behind in the race. Also, the madrassa is a religion shool, so it will be a good UB to replace the scriptorium.

On the axeman: don't used them. Axeman are not medieval, they were used by the Germanic people. The typical Frankian startegy was to throw you axe at the enemy, take you sword and try to catch up with you axe and the kill you enemies. During the battle of Poitiers, the Frankian leaders noticed that there heavy cavalery (early knights, cataphracts) where the way of the future battles, as they destroyed the Arab forces. So around 600AD, axefighting wasn't a very important part of battle.

Would replacing axemen with a halberdier unit work? Your point about swords vs. axes is a good one, but perhaps we should keep them around for barbarians? Also, didn't the Vikings continue to use axes (not the ridiculous double-winged things of fantasy games, but single-bit) with round shields long after most other civs had gone to swords? Not exclusively, but in conjunction with swords?

Also, on technological front, making a stong long sword is much harder than making an axe, but by 600AD iron working and metal casting had advanced enough to make good swords. Axes still were in use, but less then swords. The art of the axeman used in civ, is more something for barbarian ages, so Europians during the migrations at the end of the Roman age.


And now for something different:

a small idea. I don't like the liberary concept for medieval Europe. During ancient times, king would build liberaries, but in the MA, Europian lords would do that very much. Liberaries were part of a monastery, so I'd like to change the liberary to the scriptorium, needing a monastery to build them.. Universities will need the scriptorium, as many early univeristies liked to the church, often for the education of priests. (The oldest one in Belgium, Leuven, or Louvain is still a Catholic University with a number of catholic bound subject like Clerical Law and so). This would give Europe is dark ages until monasteries are build and science output is raised.
I would change the Arabian UP to every conquered city getting a temple and a Madrassa. In this way, the Arabs will have a larger science output and will be technological leading during the begin of the game, but as Europians will trade more techs (more civs with same religion) and the Arabs will have less tech trading (wrong religion to trade with Europe and less Muslim civs) the will slowly get behind in the race. Also, the madrassa is a religion shool, so it will be a good UB to replace the scriptorium.

I really like this idea. I agree that we should emphasize the role of monasteries in learning, particular in the early stages of the game, and the proposed 'scriptorium' building is a great way of doing that. I'm less certain about the proposed Arabian power, but it's certainly worth thinking about. Great suggestions, though.

Vikings were the last remaining Germanic tribes during the Viking ages. They still had the Germanic religion and became christians very late. The Beserker UU uses axes, so no proples with that. After 900-1000 AD the became more and moe part of christian Europe and forgot the "barbaric" past too, example: Normandy.

I wouldn't use halberdier to early, the were developed to counter the knight, so after 1200-1300, and a halberdier is a pikeman. A light swordsman would be the best early melee unit IMO, they can evolve to a heavy sordsman (or footknight or maceman later) or a pikeman to show the differentiation of melee units later on.

Also, Check out the Saints and Sinner mod by isau
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=247762
it has something named a Secret Society, many this could be changed somewhat and used as the knightorders, but I think the use of the corporations would be better still. Maybe you could use the Secret Society as Hanze league or something like it, if it were changed a bit

Vikings were the last remaining Germanic tribes during the Viking ages. They still had the Germanic religion and became christians very late. The Beserker UU uses axes, so no proples with that. After 900-1000 AD the became more and moe part of christian Europe and forgot the "barbaric" past too, example: Normandy.

I wouldn't use halberdier to early, the were developed to counter the knight, so after 1200-1300, and a halberdier is a pikeman. A light swordsman would be the best early melee unit IMO, they can evolve to a heavy sordsman (or footknight or maceman later) or a pikeman to show the differentiation of melee units later on.

Also, Check out the Saints and Sinner mod by isau
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=247762
it has something named a Secret Society, many this could be changed somewhat and used as the knightorders, but I think the use of the corporations would be better still. Maybe you could use the Secret Society as Hanze league or something like it, if it were changed a bit

I agree with your point about swords. Sword-making evolved through several stages by the improvement of forging techniques. Steel swords became available to Arab armies through the Persians using Indian technology which originated as early as 300BC.
One of the Arabs early advantages, along with the Arabian horse, was their steel swords which were superior to the iron ones available in Europe at the time.
But it was not till about 900AD in Damascus and later in Toledo that steel sword- forging really began in Europe. I think we should reflect these technological changes in the swordsman unit which should improve and remain important in the game until at least the early 18th.C.
I disagree with Disenfranchised's point about "Tercios" or other mixed arms units though as such battle formations can't really be represented in our mod due to the nature of combat in Civ. People could arrange their stacks in that fashion if they want but that's hardly the point.
I do think, though, that the swordsman unit should be an important one throughout the length of of mod. more so than the maceman, which was a more specialized unit, mostly confined to the High Middle Ages and not as widespread as sword-bearing infantry, in my view.:)

[overlapping the start of the mod]
Axeman
Swordsman
Archer
Horse Archer
Catapult

[In the mods time]
Pikeman
Maceman
Knight
Crossbowman
Explorer
Knight
Longbowman
Musketman
Trebuchet
Cuirassier

[overlapping the end of the mod]
Cannon
Cavalry
Grenadier
Rifleman

19 land units to cover 500 turns and 1300 years? With only 2, sometimes 3 levels in each upgrade chain? When 80% of the time should only be using the 10 in the middle? The CIV unit set is really not going to cut it IMO, and just because somethign has been used for years and years, doesn't mean we can't try something better - isn't that what mod making is about ;)?


You can do it in a much better way with the equipment system. Enlisting units such as "axeman" or "militia" will take away the medieval feel of the mod.

You can do it in a much better way with the equipment system. Enlisting units such as "axeman" or "militia" will take away the medieval feel of the mod.

I agree that unit upgrades should be based on tech advances which give better equipment. But we do have enough art available in Civ incl. existing mods to give a sparate unit to each upgrade. I've tried to incorporate that in the following proposed list which expands a bit on Disenfranchiseds list:
All these should be available for each civ not including UU's:

Axeman >>>Maceman >>>Heavy Maceman >>>Grenadier

Spearman >>>Pikeman >>> Halbardier >>>Musketman

Archer >>>Longbowman >>>Crossbowman >>>Musketman

Swordsman >>>Medieval Swordsmen >>>Arquebusier >>>Musketman

Horseman >>>Mtd. Infantry >>>Light Cavalry >>>Curassier

Horse Archer >>>Heavy Cavalry >>>Knight >>>Dragoon Cavalry

Catapult >>>Trebuchet >>>Bombard >>>Cannon

So, that's 7 starting units, each with 3 upgrades based on new techs, each replacing it's predecessor. A total of 28 units throughout the mod but only 7 available to each civ at any time excluding unique units which can be additional or replace one of these. Just my idea. What do people think?:)

EDIT It might be a good idea for each set of upgrades to only become available at the start of a new
age.

It's Arquebusier or something like that ;)
It seems fine as a basis. It needs to be diversified though, not all 7 should come right at the same time, I mean if we take that as a basis, we need to construct the tree now.
Does the crossbowman really replace the longbowman?
How would the two different sort of units act? Do we need two of those?

Could you make a A beats B beats C and so on list?
Is it:
Axeman > Swordman > Archer
Axeman > Spearman > Horseman > Horse Archer > Axeman
Catapult

?

It's Arquebusier or something like that ;)
It seems fine as a basis. It needs to be diversified though, not all 7 should come right at the same time, I mean if we take that as a basis, we need to construct the tree now.
Does the crossbowman really replace the longbowman?
How would the two different sort of units act? Do we need two of those?

Could you make a A beats B beats C and so on list?
Is it:
Axeman > Swordman > Archer
Axeman > Spearman > Horseman > Horse Archer > Axeman
Catapult

?

Ya, thanks for that. I've edited it above.
How do you mean diversified? Much more than 28 units would be hard without the art to support it. And no, I don't think the upgrades should come all at the same time. Each upgrade should require several new techs to enable it. Examples would be the mounted infantry to require the stirrup, the curb bit and chain mail techs while the medieval swordsman might require sword-forging, the kite shield and chain mail techs..

I'm not sure about retaining both the longbowman and crossbowman for very long in this mod unless there is a very good reason to have both. AFAIK the crossbow eventually replaced the longbow in most areas until it was itself overshadowed by gunpowder weapons.

I will take a look at what units beat others but I think the present Civ method of granting bonuses like pikemen having +50% over mtd. units is a good one and should be retained, I think.

You might have noticed that I didn't include riflemen at all. This is because the first introduction of rifled muskets was doing the Napoleonic Wars right at the end of this mod. It makes no sense, in my view, to introduce a superior firearm which will last, at best, only a couple of turns at the end of the game.:)

I'd like to see crossbowmen as a counter to Knights and heavy infantry. IE their real role.

I don't mean to butt in, but I think the longbow upgrading to the crossbow doesn't really give a true picture of the Medieval warfare. Neither the crossbow nor the longbow actually "evolved" from the other: both are descendants of the composite bow. The crossbow is easier to learn, while longbows fire farther and faster.

I would propose that the English UU be longbowmen, hearkening back to the most famous ranged unit in Medieval European history. Crossbowmen would be the base unit. The revised progression could read:

Javelin>>Archer>>Crossbowman>>Musketman

A couple of UUs spring to mind in this tree: The Javelin could be replaced by axe-throwers for the Franks (if you wanted to give them two UUs, with heavy cavalry), and the Crossbowman with the Longbowman for the English. Obviously, the javelin isn't perfect to start the tree - perhaps dividing Archer into two categories might be better?

Bowman>>Archer>>Crossbowman>>Musketman

That might help symbolize the slow professionalization of armies/more defined roles of infantry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow#Medieval_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin_(weapon)#Middle_ages

As far as I know the composite bow was actually a great deal more effective than both the longbow and crossbow, as shown quite clearly by the Mongol conquests. But thanks for the input.

Good points made about various bows. It would be nice to accomodate all types if we can
find the art for them. Not sure about javelins though, except for the Arabs/Berbers but we
do have the Mali skirmisher as art as for them.:)

I'd like to see some other paths for the unit:

For mounted units:

horseman (classic) >>> cataphract (early MA) >>> knight (late MA)
>>> curassier(Renaissence) >>>> cavalry (industrial)

Dragoon (renaissence) >>> cavalry (industrial)

Dragoons are elite units of the cavalry that fight on foot on the battle feeld.

Horse Archers should be UU for some civs. Cataphracts are horsmen with a very basic armour, a phase in the evolution to the heavy armoured knight. Knight were very slow during a charges, what made them weak against longbowman and musketman. Once gunpowderunits were the base units of armies, cavalry should be able to charge faster to break the enemy lines.

For the Archers, I had this in mind:

Archer (classic + eraly MA) >>> Bowman (late MA)>>>> Musketman (renaissence)
Line Infantry(industrial?/Napoleontic age) >>> Rifleman (industrial)
and
Archer (classic + eraly MA) >>> Crossbowman (late MA) >>>Musketman (renaissence)...

A bowman should be more expensive (longer time to train) but with better bonuses
A longbowman should be an English UU, as the destroyed a French knightarmy at Agincourt in 1415. This was the start of the end of the knight armies.With there very long bows, they could geve more speed to the arows that could pierce armour

Changes the Medieval Swordsmen into footknight and the Heavy Maceman into Man-at-Arms.

Thanks for your suggestions. But as I've already pointed out, rifles or rifiled muskets come
too late in history to be of any use in this mod, which ends in 1800AD. In fact, the very first
rifled flintlock musket, the "Baker rifle" was only introduced in 1800 for use by "sharpshooting"
skirmishers in the British Army.
Even your use of the word "industrial" is misleading. The Industrial Revolution only began in the
1770's at the earliest so should play no part in the techs or the units of this mod. So therefore
our most advanced units should be musketeers, grenadiers, curaissiers and dragoons, in my view :)

Industrial Era could be something like the Future Tech, the last thing to be discovered on the Tech Three.

Industrial Era could be something like the Future Tech, the last thing to be discovered on the Tech Three.

That's a good point. Rather than being an Age stuck on the very end of the
mod which wouldn't have much effect, I think. I like that idea.:goodjob:
BTW I believe you were revising my Bulgaria and Byzantine settler maps and
posting them to the wiki so they could be put into code. How's that going?:)

Ops, they were revised but not added to the wiki. My bad on that one.

I also need to finish the Ottoman map.

Ops, they were revised but not added to the wiki. My bad on that one.

I also need to finish the Ottoman map.

Were you revising the Ottoman one too? That's already posted to the wiki files.:)

The ottoman map is a simple realignment of th e cities to be consistent with the other two maps. That's all that I am doing. And I am going only the Balkan area anyway, everything outside the Balkans is exactly as you made it initially.

The ottoman map is a simple realignment of th e cities to be consistent with the other two maps. That's all that I am doing. And I am going only the Balkan area anyway, everything outside the Balkans is exactly as you made it initially.

OK. Great. Can you post all of them to the wiki files, when you get a chance? Thanks:)

Sorry I've been gone for the last month guys. School+work=no free time. I'll put up another revision of the tech tree i the next couple days.

to Talkie Toaster;

Need to talk about access to wiki as moderators for st. lucifer and I if poss.
Can you help? Have sent messages. Have you been away?:confused:

to Talkie Toaster;

Need to talk about access to wiki as moderators for st. lucifer and I if poss.
Can you help? Have sent messages. Have you been away?:confused:

Hey! I'm really sorry about that, I've had exams for the last few months...I hope to start contributing again though ^_^

There's a mod in the modcomp section that allows you to have different tech trees per civ. Should we use it, or would that overcomplicate things?

There's a mod in the modcomp section that allows you to have different tech trees per civ. Should we use it, or would that overcomplicate things?

I think it would overcomplicate things esp for 20 diff. civs. Though there's definitely a case for the
3 Muslim civs to reflect their early tech advantage historically. This was already done in the Civ3
Middle Ages scenario, you might recall. It could provide a guide for us, I think.

For example, the Arabs esp in Al Andalus were miles ahead of Europe in terms of Mathematics,
Intensive Agriculture and Irrigation, Astronomy, Medicine and Navigation, chiefly through
their preserving early Greek and Roman science and literature and then expanding on that.
One good example is steel swords, as I described earlier. While Europe only had iron swords,
the Arabs in 650 were already using tempered steel ones due to Indian and Persian technology.
Later they developed steel forges at Damascus and Toledo which produced superior steel
weapons to anything in Europe until at least 1300AD. So a different early tech tree for the
Arabs and Al Andalus is essential, in my opinion.:)

I really don't want to do different tech trees. I understand the logic behind it, but it doesn't seem to me like the difference between the Muslim and European side of the world was so much a question of what was researched, but when. Muslim civs are obviously going to have a tech lead over Dark Ages Euro civs, as should the Byzantines - but a whole, separate tech tree? Including what? If you can come up with 20 technologies and innovations by the Muslims that were not eventually stolen, co-opted, or adopted by European civs, there might be a case for it.

I think a more logical way to reflect this is to give them a large tech lead in the beginning but a slower research rate. This is also somewhat deterministic, but fits in with the RFC research mode, where a far-flung empire (such as the Byzantine or early Arab empires) suffers a huge research penalty from decentralization.

I realize we're re-inventing several other wheels in this process, but I don't think the cost/benefit ratio for this one adds up.

I really don't want to do different tech trees. I understand the logic behind it, but it doesn't seem to me like the difference between the Muslim and European side of the world was so much a question of what was researched, but when. Muslim civs are obviously going to have a tech lead over Dark Ages Euro civs, as should the Byzantines - but a whole, separate tech tree? Including what? If you can come up with 20 technologies and innovations by the Muslims that were not eventually stolen, co-opted, or adopted by European civs, there might be a case for it.

I think a more logical way to reflect this is to give them a large tech lead in the beginning but a slower research rate. This is also somewhat deterministic, but fits in with the RFC research mode, where a far-flung empire (such as the Byzantine or early Arab empires) suffers a huge research penalty from decentralization.

I realize we're re-inventing several other wheels in this process, but I don't think the cost/benefit ratio for this one adds up.

I do agree that separate tech trees are a problem and certainly wouldn't like to see 20
of them. Prob. your idea of giving the Arabs more techs at the start would work. Like being
able to research steel-forging at a earlier date which enables better swords, as I described.

One problem will be medicine. As we know European medicine was really backward until the
1700's while the Arabs had the benefit of Greek, Roman and Eastern texts from the 700's,
and greatly expanded on that knowledge in the next few centuries.
Maybe they could benefit from early hospitals and sanitation to reflect this. In fact,
it's what I've proposed for Al Andalus in the wiki as a UP, as you may have seen.:)

I do agree that separate tech trees are a problem and certainly wouldn't like to see 20
of them. Prob. your idea of giving the Arabs more techs at the start would work. Like being
able to research steel-forging at a earlier date which enables better swords, as I described.

One problem will be medicine. As we know European medicine was really backward until the
1700's while the Arabs had the benefit of Greek, Roman and Eastern texts from the 700's,
and greatly expanded on that knowledge in the next few centuries.
Maybe they could benefit from early hospitals and sanitation to reflect this. In fact,
it's what I've proposed for Al Andalus in the wiki as a UP, as you may have seen.:)

Medicine is definitely a big difference. It might make sense to have one of the more advanced medicine techs give buildings additional health benefits (grocer or apothecary gives an extra +1 health with discovery of sanitation, for example), and have them start with that tech. As it would be pretty far up in the tech tree, they couldn't trade it to anyone until fairly late in the game, assuming they were willing to trade it in the first place.


We'll have a better idea of how to represent the tech difference when we've got a beta tech tree up. Certainly, there are going to have to be adjustments made for steel, medicine, agriculture (dryland irrigation), optics, and maybe algebra.

It's not medicine that made the big differences in the health of medieval Europe, it was observed results from different practices and, later on, Germ Theory. I think "Medicine" needs to be broken into several major conceptual advances.

It's not medicine that made the big differences in the health of medieval Europe, it was observed results from different practices and, later on, Germ Theory. I think "Medicine" needs to be broken into several major conceptual advances.

Sure. I listed 'sanitation' as an example of that, but it's just a hypothetical. Sanitation itself could be broken down into a couple of smaller techs like sewers (from an unnamed engineering tech), germ theory (from microscope <- optics), etc. I agree that a single 'medicine' tech is inadequate for our purposes.

This thread brought up to date to continue tech tree discussions.:)

As there hasn't been much discussion on the tech tree lately, I'd like to put forward my proposal for this mod. Based as much as I can on the BtS tree this is how I think it should start in 500AD. Assuming of course that each civ has all previous techs. I've tried to suggest the buildings and units each tech would enable but it's only a rough guide so far. I haven't taken it to the very end of the mod yet so there's probably a few to add, and many to change I expect.

Calendar
(plantation) leads to Clock Making (with Mathematics), leads to Gregorian Calendar (with Monasticism), leads to Optics (with Machinery)

Mapmaking
(harbour, work boat, galley, longship) leads to Astrolabe and Lutine Sail leads to Ship Building(lighthouse), with Optics (caraval, carrack, privateer)leads to Navigation and Astronomy (galleon, galleas and frigate) (with Navigation and Engineering)

Literature
(library) leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers (with Monasticism), leads to Scholasticism
leads to Drama and Music (with Mathematics)leads to Chivalry(knight), leads to Geometry(academy) with Scholasticism, leads to Architecture (with Guilds)

Monasticism
(monastery)leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers, leads to Alchemy) leads to Herbal Medicine (with Mathematics and Fermentation), leads to Gunpowder

Mathematics
(aqueduct) leads to Currency (market) and Geometry (with Music and Scholasticism), with Gunpowder leads to Arab Science(apothecary), leads to Arab Medicine(hospital)

Fermentation
(brewery) leads to Herbal Medicine (with Monasticism), and with Engineering, Machinery and Geometry leads to Gunpowder, leads to Arab Science and to Arab Medicine.

Engineering
(water wheel),with Mathematics leads to Vaulted Arches (castle, seige towers) and Chain Armour(heavy cavalry , with Chivalry, knight, heavy swordsman), with Civil Service and Guilds leads to Plated Armour (heavy crossbowman), with Machinery and Guilds leads to Architecture(fortress, heavy maceman, heavy knight), with Gunpowder enables hand gunner, bombard, and cannon (with Combined Arms)

Code of Laws
(courthouse) leads to Feudalism(manor house) and Composite Bow(bowman), leads to Guilds(grocer) with Chivalry and Chain Armour leads to Town Charters(town hall, longbowman), with Civil Service and Gunpowder leads to Combined Arms(halbardier +arbusquier with Military Tactics)

Machinery
(blacksmith) leads to Civil Service (windmills, pikemen) and Chained Armour, macemen,), leads to Town Charters with Guilds and Chivalry, leads to Blast Furnace (steel swords, bayonets)and to Plate Armour and to Musketry(musketman, musket cavalry, with Gunpowder and Architechture

Stirrups
(Stable) leads to Farriers (Lt. cavalry), with Chained Armour enables heavy cavalry, knights.,
with Plate Armour and Chivalry enables heavy knight. with Guilds, Paper and Gunpowder leads to Military Tactics( cuirassiers), with Gunpowder and Architechture leads to Musketry(arbusquiers, musketmen and musket cavalry)

Calendar should be associated with the Julian and Gregorian calendars (IMO).

Also I think we need to agree on Civics as soon as possible.

Good start, however.

As there hasn't been much discussion on the tech tree lately, I'd like to
suggest my proposal for this mod. Based as much as I can on the BtS tree
this is how I think it should start in 500AD. I've tried to suggest the buildings
and units each tech would enable but it's just a rough guide so far.

Calendar
(plantation) leads to Clock Making, leads to Optics(caravel), leads to Astronomy(galleon, frigate) with Shipbuilding, Navigation and Engineering and Machinery.

Astrolabe
(lighthouse) leads to Cartography and Latine Sail, together(with Optics) leads to Navigation

Mapmaking
(harbour) leads to Ship Building (with Mathematics), leads to Astronomy (with Navigation, Engineering and Machinery)

Literature
(library) leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers (with Monasticism), leads to Scholasticism
leads to Drama and Music (with Mathematics), leads to Geometry(academy) with Scholasticism

Monasticism
(monastery)leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers, leads to Gunpowder ( with Alchemy)
leads to Alchemy and Herbal Medicine (with Mathematics and Fermentation), leads to Gunpowder

Mathematics
(aqueduct) leads to Currency (market) and Geometry (with Music and Scholasticism), with Gunpowder leads to Arab Science(apothecary), leads to Arab Medicine(hospital)

Fermentation
(brewery) leads to Herbal Medicine (with Monasticism), and with Engineering, Machinery and Geometry leads to Gunpowder, leads to Arab Science and to Arab Medicine.

Engineering
(water wheel),with Mathematics leads to Vaulted Arches (castle, seige towers) and Chain Armour(heavy cavalry, with Chivalry, knight), with Civil Service and Guilds leads to Plated Armour (heavy crossbowman), with Machinery and Guilds leads to Architecture(fortress, heavy knight)

Code of Laws
(courthouse) leads to Feudalism(manor house) and Composite Bow(bowman), leads to Guilds(grocer)
with Chivalry and Chain Armour leads to Town Charters(town hall, longbowman), with Civil Service and Gunpowder leads to Combined Arms

Machinery
(blacksmith) leads to Civil Service (windmills), leads to Town Charters with Guilds and Chivalry, leads to Blast Furnace (steel swords, bayonets) and to Musketry with Gunpowder and Architechture

Stirrups
(Stable) leads to Ferriers (Lt. cavalry), with Chained Armour enables heavy cavalry, knights.,
with Guilds and Paper leads to Military Tactics( musket cavalry), with Gunpowder and Architechture leads to Musketry

Nice list! This looks like a good first rung, although I might suggest reworking Map making, Astrolabe, and Cartography - it seems like there's a lot of overlap between MM and Cartography, and one of either MM or Astrolabe should possibly be a second-level tech - but in general, I like the proposed branches and their interplay.

Nice list! This looks like a good first rung, although I might suggest reworking Map making, Astrolabe, and Cartography - it seems like there's a lot of overlap between MM and Cartography, and one of either MM or Astrolabe should possibly be a second-level tech - but in general, I like the proposed branches and their interplay.

I think you're right. I've edited it to drop Astrolabe as a starting tech and substituted it for Cartography. Could we make a new Tech Tree page on the wiki so I can post my ideas there as a first rung then?:)

Calendar
(plantation) leads to Clock Making (with Mathematics), leads to Gregorian Calendar (with Monasticism), leads to Optics (with Machinery)Clock making should be linked to either Mathematics or Machinery.

Georgian Calendar is very specific religiously linked calendar. I do not believe we should use such a name if we are using more generic names for other stuff, especially when you link it to religious tech.
Mapmaking
(harbour, work boat, galley, longship) leads to Astrolabe and Lutine Sail leads to Ship Building(lighthouse), with Optics (caraval, carrack, privateer)leads to Navigation and Astronomy (galleon, galleas and frigate) (with Navigation and Engineering)seems fine
Literature
(library) leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers (with Monasticism), leads to Scholasticism
leads to Drama and Music (with Mathematics)leads to Chivalry(knight), leads to Geometry(academy) with Scholasticism, leads to Architecture (with Guilds)Well...i don't like Arabic numbers since that knowledge originated in China and it would seem odd that China would discover something they historically learned first from the arabs. Advanced Numbering Systems or Chinese Numbers would be better, though even there, it doesn't make sense if in the game, Rome discovers it first. Geometry should also be a directly linked to that tech (whatever it's called) without any other requirements.

Monasticism
(monastery)leads to Classical Knowledge and Arabic Numbers, leads to Alchemy) leads to Herbal Medicine (with Mathematics and Fermentation), leads to GunpowderChemistry should change to require Alchemy and either Engineering or Military Science.

Mathematics
(aqueduct) leads to Currency (market) and Geometry (with Music and Scholasticism), with Gunpowder leads to Arab Science(apothecary), leads to Arab Medicine(hospital)Again, naming...it wouldn't be right if India discovered Arab ideas before Arabs were formed, especially as many of those ideas weren't originally founded in Arabia, but India and China (not all of course).

Fermentation
(brewery) leads to Herbal Medicine (with Monasticism), and with Engineering, Machinery and Geometry leads to Gunpowder, leads to Arab Science and to Arab Medicine.No need to use Engineering with gunpowerder and Geometry should just be the previous math tech you mentioned, whatever it'll be named. Geometry isn't needed for mixing chemicals...unless you want to change the name of Geometry.

Engineering
(water wheel),with Mathematics leads to Vaulted Arches (castle, seige towers) and Chain Armour(heavy cavalry , with Chivalry, knight, heavy swordsman), with Civil Service and Guilds leads to Plated Armour (heavy crossbowman), with Machinery and Guilds leads to Architecture(fortress, heavy maceman, heavy knight), with Gunpowder enables hand gunner, bombard, and cannon (with Combined Arms)Nothing seems wrong here except the path shouldn't be mandatory for Architecture. It only developed that way in Europe and other areas had just as advanced architecture without going through a route like that.

Code of Laws
(courthouse) leads to Feudalism(manor house) and Composite Bow(bowman), leads to Guilds(grocer) with Chivalry and Chain Armour leads to Town Charters(town hall, longbowman), with Civil Service and Gunpowder leads to Combined Arms(halbardier +arbusquier with Military Tactics)Feudalism should still require monarchy. Guilds shouldn't require Chivalry. Feudalism + Currency (don't know why this wasn't in already) should be required for Guilds. Chain Armor and Chivalry as optional 1/2 required if you must.

Machinery
(blacksmith) leads to Civil Service (windmills, pikemen) and Chained Armour, macemen,), leads to Town Charters with Guilds and Chivalry, leads to Blast Furnace (steel swords, bayonets)and to Plate Armour and to Musketry(musketman, musket cavalry, with Gunpowder and ArchitechtureMachinery should not lead to Chained Armor. Iron Working + Metal Casting should lead to Chain Armor. Chained armor came about before advent of more complex machinery, however Blast Furnace should require Chained Armor. Remove the inbetween Town Charters as it's irrelevant to the tech, even indirectly and could push it back to far. Musketry shouldn't require Architecture, just Gunpowder and Engineering.

Stirrups
(Stable) leads to Farriers (Lt. cavalry), with Chained Armour enables heavy cavalry, knights.,
with Plate Armour and Chivalry enables heavy knight. with Guilds, Paper and Gunpowder leads to Military Tactics( cuirassiers), with Gunpowder and Architechture leads to Musketry(arbusquiers, musketmen and musket cavalry)musketry, see above

Clock making should be linked to either Mathematics or Machinery.

Georgian Calendar is very specific religiously linked calendar. I do not believe we should use such a name if we are using more generic names for other stuff, especially when you link it to religious tech.
seems fine
Well...i don't like Arabic numbers since that knowledge originated in China and it would seem odd that China would discover something they historically learned first from the arabs. Advanced Numbering Systems or Chinese Numbers would be better, though even there, it doesn't make sense if in the game, Rome discovers it first. Geometry should also be a directly linked to that tech (whatever it's called) without any other requirements.
Chemistry should change to require Alchemy and either Engineering or Military Science.
Again, naming...it wouldn't be right if India discovered Arab ideas before Arabs were formed, especially as many of those ideas weren't originally founded in Arabia, but India and China (not all of course).
No need to use Engineering with gunpowerder and Geometry should just be the previous math tech you mentioned, whatever it'll be named. Geometry isn't needed for mixing chemicals...unless you want to change the name of Geometry.
Nothing seems wrong here except the path shouldn't be mandatory for Architecture. It only developed that way in Europe and other areas had just as advanced architecture without going through a route like that.
Feudalism should still require monarchy. Guilds shouldn't require Chivalry. Feudalism + Currency (don't know why this wasn't in already) should be required for Guilds. Chain Armor and Chivalry as optional 1/2 required if you must.
Machinery should not lead to Chained Armor. Iron Working + Metal Casting should lead to Chain Armor. Chained armor came about before advent of more complex machinery, however Blast Furnace should require Chained Armor. Remove the inbetween Town Charters as it's irrelevant to the tech, even indirectly and could push it back to far. Musketry shouldn't require Architecture, just Gunpowder and Engineering.
musketry, see above

Thanks for your comments. Just a brief reply to your points.

Clockmaking (Mathematics already known at start of this mod.)
Gregorian Calendar (could be changed or dropped in favour of some other link.)

Arabic Numbers (of course from the Chinese but introduced to Europe by the Arabs via
India and Persia. Also Greek and Roman knowledge was temporarily lost in Europe but
reintroduced and developed much further by Arab scholars.And we still call them Arabic
numerals today, don't we?)

Chemistry (Left deliberately late in the European tech tree. Because the Arabs were
miles ahead of Europe in chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and all other sciences.)

Architecture (As this is a Europe mod, then yes a European tech path to architecture.
The development of Islamic architecture is a completely different path.)

Feudalism (Monarchy and Currency already known in 500AD. Guilds require Feudalism.
Not Chivalry which itself stems from Feudalism and Music. One could argue that Chivalry only
developed through the acquiring of Arabic Knowledge but that's an entirely separate debate.

Chained Armour should require a blacksmith, I think (available with Machinery).
And it yes, it does lead to Blast Furnace. Check again.

Town Charters (Just an idea so far but should be linked with Guilds and should empower
a civic but not sure what as yet.

Hope I've addressed your concerns. Just to remind you that this proposed tech tree only
really apples to the European civs, not the Byzantines, the Arabs, Al Andalus or the Ottomans,
all of whom would start with a substantial tech lead, which is historically accurate.
This will be mitigated in the mod by the different research speeds for the various European
civs as they spawn in the game, so they can mostly catch up with the early Arab advantage
until after the Renaissance.:)

What do you mean by Chivalry, Bulgarians and Hungarians had large amounts of mounted armored soldiers (aka knights), and that way way early.

The rest looks good to me.

What do you mean by Chivalry, Bulgarians and Hungarians had large amounts of mounted armored soldiers (aka knights), and that way way early.

The rest looks good to me.

I think it would really be a further tech to enable heavy knight (maybe with
enhanced morale and experience points, also to allow building of orders like
the Templars, Hospitallers, etc. as corporations?).

What would be a medieval corporation, the Knight Templar order?

What would be a medieval corporation, the Knight Templar order?

Yeah, we'd looked at doing monastic orders, banking houses, and military orders to fill corporation slots. That's one of the things that may end up being too complicated, but they essentially functioned like today's multinationals, so it would be neat if we could use the existing corporation model to reflect that.

I think the final list of 7 was the Knights Templar and Hospitaler, the Medici bank, the Hanseatic league, the Jesuits... I'm going to have to look it up, it's buried in one of these threads.

...
I think the final list of 7 was the Knights Templar and Hospitaler, the Medici bank, the Hanseatic league, the Jesuits... I'm going to have to look it up, it's buried in one of these threads.

Ausberg Banking Families, Medici Bank, Templars, Teutonic Knights, Hospitallers, Jesuits and Hanseatic league are the 7, aren't?

I was wondering is we should make Judaism as a corp. It cannot be introduced realistically into the mod as a religion. What do you think, or should we think of something else.

I was wondering is we should make Judaism as a corp. It cannot be introduced realistically into the mod as a religion. What do you think, or should we think of something else.

Might offend some people, but if it's not workable as a religion (did you see the proposals? Are they uncodable?), replacing the Fugger/Ausberg banking family with a corporation called something like "Jewish Quarter" would work for me.

Note: I recognize that 'Jewish Quarter' is a bad name. So are 'Jewish Intellectual Elite', 'Jewish Intellectuals', and especially 'Jewish Bankers'. Oy gavolt! Just naming the corporation might prove the hardest part.

First off, I missed the part about it being European. Sorry. :blush:
Thanks for your comments. Just a brief reply to your points.

Clockmaking (Mathematics already known at start of this mod.)
Gregorian Calendar (could be changed or dropped in favour of some other link.)Well then it should also require machinery. European clocks were mechanised. If you want something pre-clock it would be sundial.

Georgian Calander could be replaced with "Leap Year [Calander]". Other societies used something like this.
Arabic Numbers (of course from the Chinese but introduced to Europe by the Arabs via
India and Persia. Also Greek and Roman knowledge was temporarily lost in Europe but
reintroduced and developed much further by Arab scholars.And we still call them Arabic
numerals today, don't we?)Well...if Middle East nations start with them or get them easily (before Europeans) then it's okay, otherwise it would look bad if Germany discovered "Arabic numbers" before the Arabs.
Chemistry (Left deliberately late in the European tech tree. Because the Arabs were miles ahead of Europe in chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and all other sciences.)It should still require Alchemy. Alchemy lead to Chemistry and right now it doesn't need to. Also because learning newer techs don't disallow learning other techs (at least in Rhye's games) then it would seem counter-intuitive for a nation to learn Chemistry and then start working later on Alchemy.
Architecture (As this is a Europe mod, then yes a European tech path to architecture.
The development of Islamic architecture is a completely different path.)What about pagan or quasi-pagan areas in northern Scandinavia (Othodox Christian nations outside Byzantium I assume will use similar tech to the latter) that did not use flying buttress style architecture that much? Or are you going to make those nations basically not develope tech fast until they adopt a religion? or just barbarians?
Feudalism (Monarchy and Currency already known in 500AD. Guilds require Feudalism.
Not Chivalry which itself stems from Feudalism and Music. One could argue that Chivalry only
developed through the acquiring of Arabic Knowledge but that's an entirely separate debate.Well then why not allow a path that comes from Arabic knowledge of some kind? Music + specific Arab tech?
Chained Armour should require a blacksmith, I think (available with Machinery).
And it yes, it does lead to Blast Furnace. Check again.I mean directly to Blast Furnace. Town Charter should be removed from the link.
Town Charters (Just an idea so far but should be linked with Guilds and should empower
a civic but not sure what as yet.Town charters were a very late development idea, after the idea of mercantile City-States developed.

First off, I missed the part about it being European. Sorry. :blush:
Well then it should also require machinery. European clocks were mechanised. If you want something pre-clock it would be sundial.

Georgian Calander could be replaced with "Leap Year [Calander]". Other societies used something like this.
Well...if Middle East nations start with them or get them easily (before Europeans) then it's okay, otherwise it would look bad if Germany discovered "Arabic numbers" before the Arabs.
It should still require Alchemy. Alchemy lead to Chemistry and right now it doesn't need to. Also because learning newer techs don't disallow learning other techs (at least in Rhye's games) then it would seem counter-intuitive for a nation to learn Chemistry and then start working later on Alchemy.
What about pagan or quasi-pagan areas in northern Scandinavia (Othodox Christian nations outside Byzantium I assume will use similar tech to the latter) that did not use flying buttress style architecture that much? Or are you going to make those nations basically not develope tech fast until they adopt a religion? or just barbarians?
Well then why not allow a path that comes from Arabic knowledge of some kind? Music + specific Arab tech?
I mean directly to Blast Furnace. Town Charter should be removed from the link.
Town charters were a very late development idea, after the idea of mercantile City-States developed.

Good point about Clock Making. I will alter that.

Will prob. change Gregorian Calendar to something else as you suggest.

I can easily change Arabic Numbers to require Arabic Knowledge and Alchemy but not let the European civs get Arabic Knowledge too early.

I think Northern European civs should get their own tech (maybe via Monasticism) as the early Church did not suppress Classical Architecture the way it did other Greek and Roman knowledge) which leads to Architecture. And as you say, Music should provide another link.

I take your point about Blast Furnace. And I think I'll figure out a slightly different pathway for Town Charter, maybe including Banking which I have so far omitted for some reason.

I'm going to rework the tech tree maybe in spreadsheet format taking on board yours and other ideas. So bear with me for now. It could be a few days. Thanks for your help.:)

Might offend some people, but if it's not workable as a religion (did you see the proposals? Are they uncodable?), replacing the Fugger/Ausberg banking family with a corporation called something like "Jewish Quarter" would work for me.

Note: I recognize that 'Jewish Quarter' is a bad name. So are 'Jewish Intellectual Elite', 'Jewish Intellectuals', and especially 'Jewish Bankers'. Oy gavolt! Just naming the corporation might prove the hardest part.

Lets see .... "Judaism, inc."?:crazyeye: That is definitely stupid. Lets see if by the end of this post I will get banned.

There are three things that spread spontaneously in RFC, those are:
1. Religion, 2. Corporations and 3. Plague.

Judaism is a religion, however, we are making an European mod and the religious part of the mod would represent the struggle of the three Christian groups (Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants) and Islam for control over Europe. We will have Crusaded, Jihad and Inquisition. From that perspective, Judaism is not like the other religions and it would be inaccurate (from a game point of view) to be represented as a religion.

The benefits given by the Jewish people would resemble those of the Corporations i.e. more trade and resources. However, corporations are centralized and more or less under the player's (the ruler's) control. What would be the Jewish headquarters (Temple of Solomon?, it is inaccurate) and since Jews were not truly centralized that would be a gap in our mod. Also, corporations spread in an controlled manner, corps build new branches wherever the headquarters (the player) decides (do we train Jewish settlers? - No!). Jews were more spontaneous, without centralized power pulling them (other than trade and opportunity which are outside the player's direct control).

So that leaves the last option, lets model Judaism as the Plague (banned!). And yes I am absolutely serious (double banned!!!).

Is anyone still reading? Good! Here is what I mean. In RFC Plague is actually a building, in a certain year/time period it appears spontaneously in some cities and then it spreads out looking for a) Large cities, b) cities with a lot of trade routs. Don't religions spread the same way (I mean that way and by force of course). The difference between the Plague and Judaism would be, that unlike Plague, which kills people and units, Judaism would give benefits to the cities.

Building: Jewish Community: +1 trade rout in the city, +1 culture (Jews had a lot of crafts) and either +3 raw commerce or +1 free merchant.

The buildings would not be build by any single player, but they would spontaneously appear around Europe. They would prefer large cities, capitals and cities with a lot of international trade (Constantinople/Venecia/Genoa).

What do you think?

Lets see .... "Judaism, inc."?:crazyeye: That is definitely stupid. Lets see if by the end of this post I will get banned.

There are three things that spread spontaneously in RFC, those are:
1. Religion, 2. Corporations and 3. Plague.

Judaism is a religion, however, we are making an European mod and the religious part of the mod would represent the struggle of the three Christian groups (Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants) and Islam for control over Europe. We will have Crusaded, Jihad and Inquisition. From that perspective, Judaism is not like the other religions and it would be inaccurate (from a game point of view) to be represented as a religion.

The benefits given by the Jewish people would resemble those of the Corporations i.e. more trade and resources. However, corporations are centralized and more or less under the player's (the ruler's) control. What would be the Jewish headquarters (Temple of Solomon?, it is inaccurate) and since Jews were not truly centralized that would be a gap in our mod. Also, corporations spread in an controlled manner, corps build new branches wherever the headquarters (the player) decides (do we train Jewish settlers? - No!). Jews were more spontaneous, without centralized power pulling them (other than trade and opportunity which are outside the player's direct control).

So that leaves the last option, lets model Judaism as the Plague (banned!). And yes I am absolutely serious (double banned!!!).

Is anyone still reading? Good! Here is what I mean. In RFC Plague is actually a building, in a certain year/time period it appears spontaneously in some cities and then it spreads out looking for a) Large cities, b) cities with a lot of trade routs. Don't religions spread the same way (I mean that way and by force of course). The difference between the Plague and Judaism would be, that unlike Plague, which kills people and units, Judaism would give benefits to the cities.

Building: Jewish Community: +1 trade rout in the city, +1 culture (Jews had a lot of crafts) and either +3 raw commerce or +1 free merchant.

The buildings would not be build by any single player, but they would spontaneously appear around Europe. They would prefer large cities, capitals and cities with a lot of international trade (Constantinople/Venecia/Genoa).

What do you think?

At first I thought you were kidding. But thinking about it, I like it. Plague is just a way of coding it in, so no worries there. And as an event, it should be partly triggered by choice of civics as well as city size, trade etc.. And obviously some civs would have more of the conditions favourable to it than others. I'm all for it, not just as a random event but one the human player could encourage.:)

Actually Mongols brought Buddhism with them, although it didn't spread very much.

Also this mod should still represent the struggle of Shia & Sunni as well as Christian branches.

High trade, large city size, capital, civics, definitely there would be ways to affect the spread of Judaism, but there would be a random factor (not like missionaries and executives).

Jinnai, this mod in particular is Eurocentric and a religion such as Buddhism that had virtually no effect will be ignored for the purpose of the mod (If you want a good Buddhist experience play Khmer in the original RFC mod. Employ my chain of caravels strategy posted on the wiki.)

For Shia Sunni, I am kind of ignorant. Here is something that I read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Shi'a-Sunni_relations
The majority of the Shia Muslims live around Iran and Iran is not included in the mod. (look at the WB map) It appears that the Muslims that were directly involved in European history were in fact Sunni (two groups of Arabs and the Turks). I am not ignoring the importance of the Islamic schism for the history of the Middle East, but I don't see how it would affect Europe.

Lets see .... "Judaism, inc."?:crazyeye: That is definitely stupid. Lets see if by the end of this post I will get banned.

There are three things that spread spontaneously in RFC, those are:
1. Religion, 2. Corporations and 3. Plague.

Judaism is a religion, however, we are making an European mod and the religious part of the mod would represent the struggle of the three Christian groups (Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants) and Islam for control over Europe. We will have Crusaded, Jihad and Inquisition. From that perspective, Judaism is not like the other religions and it would be inaccurate (from a game point of view) to be represented as a religion.

The benefits given by the Jewish people would resemble those of the Corporations i.e. more trade and resources. However, corporations are centralized and more or less under the player's (the ruler's) control. What would be the Jewish headquarters (Temple of Solomon?, it is inaccurate) and since Jews were not truly centralized that would be a gap in our mod. Also, corporations spread in an controlled manner, corps build new branches wherever the headquarters (the player) decides (do we train Jewish settlers? - No!). Jews were more spontaneous, without centralized power pulling them (other than trade and opportunity which are outside the player's direct control).

So that leaves the last option, lets model Judaism as the Plague (banned!). And yes I am absolutely serious (double banned!!!).

Is anyone still reading? Good! Here is what I mean. In RFC Plague is actually a building, in a certain year/time period it appears spontaneously in some cities and then it spreads out looking for a) Large cities, b) cities with a lot of trade routs. Don't religions spread the same way (I mean that way and by force of course). The difference between the Plague and Judaism would be, that unlike Plague, which kills people and units, Judaism would give benefits to the cities.

Building: Jewish Community: +1 trade rout in the city, +1 culture (Jews had a lot of crafts) and either +3 raw commerce or +1 free merchant.

The buildings would not be build by any single player, but they would spontaneously appear around Europe. They would prefer large cities, capitals and cities with a lot of international trade (Constantinople/Venecia/Genoa).

What do you think?

Actually, that mechanic is very similar to what we proposed for the spread of the religion. We felt that there should be a happiness penalty involved, to offset the benefits involved, but that any city over a certain population (it was either 8 or 10) should be eligible. If you can code it in using the plague mechanic, that would fit perfectly.

Now we'll all get banned together. :D

Actually Mongols brought Buddhism with them, although it didn't spread very much.

Also this mod should still represent the struggle of Shia & Sunni as well as Christian branches.

I'm going to agree with 3miro on this one - the Shia/Sunni schism was a much bigger issue in areas not included in our map (I'm not sure if you've looked at it, but it doesn't include Mesopotamia or the Arabian peninsula.) We are differentiating the Islamic civs by having the Umayyad Caliphate a separate entity from the Abbassid Caliphate (or more simply, 'al-Andalus' vs. 'Arabia'), but both were Sunni.

Buddhism doesn't really have a place in this mod.

I'm going to agree with 3miro on this one - the Shia/Sunni schism was a much bigger issue in areas not included in our map (I'm not sure if you've looked at it, but it doesn't include Mesopotamia or the Arabian peninsula.) We are differentiating the Islamic civs by having the Umayyad Caliphate a separate entity from the Abbassid Caliphate (or more simply, 'al-Andalus' vs. 'Arabia'), but both were Sunni.

Buddhism doesn't really have a place in this mod.

I agree also. Shia influence was especially shortlived in all territories west of Mesopotamia. The brief Shiiite or "Fatimid" dynasty based on Cairo only last officially from 909 until 1171 but had already collapsed except in Western North Africa many decades before that. It was Saladin himself that reunited Islam with a "Kurdish" Ayyubid dynasty based on Cairo which restored the total Sunni domination of all Islam west of Persia. The Sunni/Shia schism which had already occured within a few years after the death of the Prophet should have no place in the time period or geographical setting of our mod whatsoever IMO.
BTW The Umayyad emirate of Cordoba from 756 saw itself as the true inheritors of the deposed Umayyad Caliphate based at Baghdad. But it was not until the installation of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad in 929 and the Fatimid coup in Egypt that Abd ar Rachman III declared the independent Ummayad Caliphate of Cordoba and thus began the "Golden Age" of Al Andalus.

Well there is also the Mamluks and most of the Berber tribes started out as Shia converts.

As for Buddhism, it was a suggestion since it did play a brief role in the map area during Mongol invasions, but i'm not going to press the issue since it was even less of a role than Sunni/Shia splinter.

OK. Here it is. I've stuck pretty close to the RFC Tech Tree but with some additions. I've tried to include all the necessary connections between techs but please point out if I've missed anything.
Also I've indicated the buildings enabled by each tech as it is researched. Obviously the civs starting in 500AD would already know the previous techs on the RFC Tech Tree, so this is our starting point.

EDIT Constitution should require Paper and Philosophy (Not Representation)
which will enable Representation (with Printing Press and Education)

also castles should be enabled by Divine Right IMO.

Hey Jessiecat,

Would it be possible to post this in some other format? I'm using Open Office, and for some reason it's having problems with the conversion. Even just saving as an older version of Word might be enough, but rtf would be great too. From what I can tell (since some of the formatted is distorted) it looks good so far. I spot one small error, which is that you list Stirrups as enabling barracks. Presumably you mean stables. Hopefully I can give you more feedback when I can tell more clearly what's supposed to rely on what.

Hey Jessiecat,

Would it be possible to post this in some other format? I'm using Open Office, and for some reason it's having problems with the conversion. Even just saving as an older version of Word might be enough, but rtf would be great too. From what I can tell (since some of the formatted is distorted) it looks good so far. I spot one small error, which is that you list Stirrups as enabling barracks. Presumably you mean stables. Hopefully I can give you more feedback when I can tell more clearly what's supposed to rely on what.

Yes. You're right of course. Stirrups should enable stable. As I see it, each civ in the
beginning should be able to build a granary and a barracks, with further buildings being
available with the techs. as they are researched. Later civs should already have most
of the early techs and the buildings enabled by them IMO.
I'll make a a few minor changes and repost today in Open Office format.:)

Edit. This should open with Open Office (version 2.40)

In looking at the 1.02 version, it looks like you took out a number of the intermediate techs - chained armor, etc. The current tree is very straightforward, but I feel like we're leaving too much out given that the mod runs from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance.

Some proposed changes:

-I think it's worth putting more medieval war techs back in - chain armor; some form of early steel (required for any sort of gunpowder-based arms and plate mail), and probably tying crossbows to machinery.
-I think the top branch of the tech tree (from calendar) should be reorganized a little - in particular, optics should require one of the Arab knowledge techs, and should also be required for scientific method, though I'm not sure that navigation should. If we switched out navigation and optics, that might work - maybe rename navigation as 'rudders' or 'mapmaking'.
-Given that we go up to 1800, Arabic knowledge can't be the peak of the tech tree, and should probably be somewhere about 1/2-2/3 of the way up. There's all kinds of Renaissance tech that flows from Arabic knowledge - examples being optics (which can then also lead to astronomy, germ theory, etc.), explosives, medicine, and chemistry-related techs.
-We're pretty heavily tied to the original civ tech tree here, which I think sells the period short. Art and architecture, in particular, aren't given much weight, and they're certainly notable. It might be worthwhile to have a branch of the tech tree devoted to culture, with successive steps being possible through other tech advances. For example, Gothic Architecture becomes possible with Engineering, and is required to build cathedrals; other examples might include Orchestral Music, Impressionism, Baroque Art, Opera, and others.
-Why does Feudalism require machinery?
-Might it make sense to rename 'corporations' to 'trading company'?

Again, I think we've got something to work with here, but to make a compelling period mod, we've got to offer more detail. If this is intended as a skeleton, it's great; if it's the full thing, I think we've got to think more about the late game.

In looking at the 1.02 version, it looks like you took out a number of the intermediate techs - chained armor, etc. The current tree is very straightforward, but I feel like we're leaving too much out given that the mod runs from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance.

Some proposed changes:

-I think it's worth putting more medieval war techs back in - chain armor; some form of early steel (required for any sort of gunpowder-based arms and plate mail), and probably tying crossbows to machinery.
-I think the top branch of the tech tree (from calendar) should be reorganized a little - in particular, optics should require one of the Arab knowledge techs, and should also be required for scientific method, though I'm not sure that navigation should. If we switched out navigation and optics, that might work - maybe rename navigation as 'rudders' or 'mapmaking'.
-Given that we go up to 1800, Arabic knowledge can't be the peak of the tech tree, and should probably be somewhere about 1/2-2/3 of the way up. There's all kinds of Renaissance tech that flows from Arabic knowledge - examples being optics (which can then also lead to astronomy, germ theory, etc.), explosives, medicine, and chemistry-related techs.
-We're pretty heavily tied to the original civ tech tree here, which I think sells the period short. Art and architecture, in particular, aren't given much weight, and they're certainly notable. It might be worthwhile to have a branch of the tech tree devoted to culture, with successive steps being possible through other tech advances. For example, Gothic Architecture becomes possible with Engineering, and is required to build cathedrals; other examples might include Orchestral Music, Impressionism, Baroque Art, Opera, and others.
-Why does Feudalism require machinery?
-Might it make sense to rename 'corporations' to 'trading company'?

Again, I think we've got something to work with here, but to make a compelling period mod, we've got to offer more detail. If this is intended as a skeleton, it's great; if it's the full thing, I think we've got to think more about the late game.

Thanks for your comments. It's these kind of suggestions that I need to push forward with this.

I took out the medieval war techs because I wondered whether other techs might enable more advanced units. But I'm happy to reinstate them if you think it's best. My worry was the total no. of techs in the mod. It's already 42 techs in my version. What is our upper limit in this timescale?

I'll look again at the top branch bearing in mind what you said. You're right about Arabic Knowledge. It should be available fairly early. (Historically, about 1200, helping to spark the Renaissance). I think we should add Arabic Science as an intermediary to Arabic Medicine and Scientific Method. I'll try to expand on that.

I've stuck pretty close to the RFC tech tree to help simplify coding but I admit I've sold Art and Architecture a bit short so another branch is required. Though again I'm worried how many more techs we can add. There must be some finite limit surely even with 500 turns of gameplay. And as you once said, what use is a new tech if it doesn't enable something like a building, unit or a even a civic?
Still, I'll start again bearing in mind what you've said. I'll take a little time, esp. if I try to incorporate enabling links to units as well as buildings. Thanks again.:)

Thanks for your comments. It's these kind of suggestions that I need to push forward with this.

I took out the medieval war techs because I wondered whether other techs might enable more advanced units. But I'm happy to reinstate them if you think it's best. My worry was the total no. of techs in the mod. It's already 42 techs in my version. What is our upper limit in this timescale?

I'll look again at the top branch bearing in mind what you said. You're right about Arabic Knowledge. It should be available fairly early. (Historically, about 1200, helping to spark the Renaissance). I think we should add Arabic Science as an intermediary to Arabic Medicine and Scientific Method. I'll try to expand on that.

I've stuck pretty close to the RFC tech tree to help simplify coding but I admit I've sold Art and Architecture a bit short so another branch is required. Though again I'm worried how many more techs we can add. There must be some finite limit surely even with 500 turns of gameplay. And as you once said, what use is a new tech if it doesn't enable something like a building, unit or a even a civic?
Still, I'll start again bearing in mind what you've said. I'll take a little time, esp. if I try to incorporate enabling links to units as well as buildings. Thanks again.:)

Let's see if we can hammer out a list of civics. I think we're pretty close anyway, but give me a day or so to think about it and I'll put out a proposed list. Having that in place gives us another thing to build the tech tree around, and is one less thing to worry about.

I still stand by my statement about techs needing to have a purpose, but I think that all of my examples had at least one obvious link. That is one potential failing of the artistic tree, but I don't think it'll be possible to ignore the branch completely - especially if we make some of the architectural techs prerequisites for certain buildings (gothic architecture = cathedral, for instance). We've also got wonders and national wonders to think about - and some of the obvious possibilities (Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame, St. Basil's Cathedral, Mona Lisa) fit this general model. Coming up with wonders for the mod will be interesting, because most of the great works of the era were artistic or scientific, rather than building projects.

If we've got 500 turns of gameplay, we should probably shoot for a similar number of techs to standard RFC or BTS. Advances should be slow at first and fast towards the end, as in history - so we've got to plan this at least up to the industrial revolution.

Here's what I came up with. There's an attached zip file with the same thing in spreadsheet form for a point of comparison, and some notes in a word document.




Proposed new civics:

Government:

Despotism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.

Theocracy: Gold production increased 25%, research decreased 25%. Stability bonus for small empires (+12 (1 city), +9 (2 cities), +6 (3 cities); stability penalty for large ones (-2 for each city above 3?) No spread of non-state religion. High upkeep.

Electorate: Espionage bonus (10%). Specialists give 1 extra science and culture. -1 stability for each city beyond capital. Low upkeep.

Feudalism: +1 happiness per military unit in cities. +2 XP for units. Research and gold production decreased by 20%. -1 stability for each city over 10. High upkeep.

Absolute Monarchy: +1 happiness per military unit in cities. Specialists give +2 extra culture. High upkeep.

Merchant Republic: +50% unit build costs; each unit requires 1 extra gold in maintenance cost/turn. +25% research and gold production bonus. +100% penalty to war weariness (twice as powerful). -2 stability for each city beyond capital. Low upkeep.


Legal

Barbarism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.

Feudal law: 5 free units. 10% culture penalty. Low upkeep. Incompatible with merchant republic.

Religious law: 50% reduced cost for religious buildings. 25% penalty to research. +1 happiness in cities with state religion; -1 happiness for other religions present. High upkeep. Incompatible with electorate.

Thing Law: Reduces stability penalties from # of cities by 50%. Low upkeep.

Common Law: 10% bonus to research; +2 trade from town. -1 happiness for each military unit above 4 stationed in a city. Low upkeep. Incompatible with feudalism, theocracy.


Labor

Tribalism: Same as original RFC. Default setting.

Serfdom: Workers complete tasks 50% faster. Cottages, hamlets, and villages grow at half speed. Medium upkeep.

Manorialism: +10% gold bonus. Low upkeep.

Apprenticeship: Commercial buildings (bank, grocer, forge, mill, etc.) give +1 gold. Workshop gives +1 hammer. High upkeep.

Free peasantry: +100% growth for cottages, hamlets, and villages. Happiness penalty for civs with tribalism, serfdom, or manorialism. Low upkeep. Incompatible with feudalism and theocracy.

Economy

Decentralization: Same as original RFC. Default setting.

Guilds: +10% gold bonus. -1 trade route in each city; 1 free specialist in each city. High upkeep.

Mercantilism: +20% gold bonus. No foreign trade routes. Inflation +100%. Medium upkeep.

Laissez-faire (free market): +10% research bonus, +10% gold bonus. Corporation costs -50%. -1 stability for each corporation besides the first in a city. Risk of speculation bubble (like current great depression – do we want to keep this?). Low upkeep.

Communalism: Corporations have no effect. 25% gold penalty. +1 food from watermill and windmill, +1 hammer from mine and lumber mill. Low upkeep. Incompatible with apprenticeship.

Religion

I propose eliminating all religious civics in favor of organized religion. Arguments can be made for the inclusion of paganism, and for gradations in organized religion, but I can’t come up with more than a couple of good religious civics.

Expansion

Subjugation: Same as in RFC – default setting.

Vassalage: +8 stability for each vassal. Distance maintenance costs increased 25%; stability penalty for expansion decreased 25%. Medium upkeep.

Colonialism: Allows construction of colonial projects; +1 trade route in each city. High upkeep.

I've had a good look at your proposals and while I agree with most I think you may be trying to overly alter the RFC system which, on the whole, works in my view. And a couple seem to overlap to a great extent and could be combined. It might be easier if I offered my own version, combined with yours.

Government...................................Legal ..................................Labor

Despotism...................................Tribal Law.............................Slavery
Electorate..................................Feudal Law............................Serfdom
Absolute Monarchy......................Bureaucracy......... ................Free Peasantry
Constitutional Monarchy...............Religious Law.........................Apprenticeship
Representation...........................Common Law..........................Free Labor

Economy.....................................Religi on...............................Expansion

Decentralisation...........................Paganis m............................Subjugation
Manorial System.....................Organised Religion.......................Vassalage
Guild System..............................Theocracy..... .......................Occupation
Mercantilism.............................State Religion..........................Imperialism
Merchant Republics.....................Free Religion..........................Colonialism

You can see that our systems are fairly similiar. I've differentiated between Theocracy as in Islam with State Religion as in Tudor England. And made Bureaucracy the equivalent of Civil Law. I do think that Slavery should be retained however, as it existed in many places throughout our time period. Though I can't see much case for Communalism in history saving a brief flirtation with the Levellers and Diggers during the English Civil War.
However, I'm sure that between us we can find a good compromise.:)

I'll leave you to argue over the history. I want to address implementation and how this bears on the Tech Tree.

Implementation:

It seems easy to have different number of civics in each category. The only reason to keep the number relatively balanced is the (important) aesthetic issue.

For some of the proposed changes it is not immediately obvious how to implement them. Basically, mix-and-matching from the default civic abilities is trivial and just requires modifying some XML files. Some totally new ability like
Theocracy: Gold production increased 25%, research decreased 25% will require significantly more coding in a place I haven't found yet, but must exist. Anything that changes stability is easy too, 'cause that's all coded by hand already in one place.

There's no restriction that I can see to placing religion-influenced civics (such as Theocracy and Religious Law) across multiple categories. I feel that this approach is more correct, but it may be more confusing.

I'm not sure if there's a vanilla-Civ way to make civics completely incompatible, but we can certainly make this happen in Rhye's and Fall simply by slapping giant stability penalties on those combinations. Will this be sufficient?

Tech Tree:

The aim of this discussion was to help with the Tech Tree. Please assign technologies which enable each of these civics.

Anyhow, I'm not sure how decisions get made in this communalistic project, but it seems like the two of you should agree to one list of civics and we'll adopt it.

Anyhow, I'm not sure how decisions get made in this communalistic project, but it seems like the two of you should agree to one list of civics and we'll adopt it.

OK here is how decisions are made. Just as in any communist society, everything depends on the leader and the leader is:

3Miro: Power of the coder: basically stuff would be placed in the mod if I decide, however I decide and whenever I decide. :king: :D ;)

Unlike most communist leaders, however, I will listen to what people have to say. Least of all reasons is that I am unable to do all the coding and simultaneously research everything else.

I would be for renaming Thing Law or getting rid of it. It was primarily a germanic system that all but disapeared with the conquering of Anglo-Saxon England. Almost 800 turns (if you go by year/turn) the civic was not in use historicly.For medieval civics and techs, I reccomend looking at EMA by Head Serf.

OK here is how decisions are made. Just as in any communist society, everything depends on the leader and the leader is:

3Miro: Power of the coder: basically stuff would be placed in the mod if I decide, however I decide and whenever I decide. :king: :D ;)

Unlike most communist leaders, however, I will listen to what people have to say. Least of all reasons is that I am unable to do all the coding and simultaneously research everything else.

The way this project has developed recently, I vote we retain st.lucifer as supreme
leader who makes the final decisions while 3Miro has the overall responsibility for coding
and implementation. Sort of a President/ Prime Minister division of responsibility I think.
My role (as befits an admitted anarchist in this communistic set-up) should remain chiefly
as historical researcher and Guardian of the sacred Wiki who has an editing brief over the
details as they develop (not unlike the KGB or it's equivalent).:D

As far as the civics lists go, mine and st. lucifer's are not very far apart so I think we will
come up with a workable version very soon.:)

I've had a good look at your proposals and while I agree with most I think you may be trying to overly alter the RFC system which, on the whole, works in my view. And a couple seem to overlap to a great extent and could be combined. It might be easier if I offered my own version, combined with yours.

Government...................................Legal ..................................Labor

Despotism...................................Tribal Law.............................Slavery
Elected Monarchy........................Feudal Law............................Serfdom
Absolute Monarchy......................Bureaucracy......... ................Free Peasantry
Constitutional Monarchy...............Religious Law.........................Apprenticeship
Representation...........................Common Law..........................Free Labor

Economy.....................................Religi on...............................Expansion

Decentralisation...........................Paganis m............................Subjugation
Manorial System.....................Organised Religion.......................Vassalage
Guild System..............................Theocracy..... .......................Occupation
Mercantilism.............................State Religion..........................Imperialism
Free Market...............................Free Religion..........................Colonialism

You can see that our systems are fairly similiar. I've differentiated between Theocracy as in Islam with State Religion as in Tudor England. And made Bureaucracy the equivalent of Civil Law. I do think that Slavery should be retained however, as it existed in many places throughout our time period. Though I can't see much case for Communalism in history saving a brief flirtation with the Levellers and Diggers during the English Civil War.
However, I'm sure that between us we can find a good compromise.:)

Ok, these are good distinctions in the religious civics. I felt that theocracy was more a system of government than a religious system, but that's fine - the one potential issue I have with your list is that there wasn't really free religion during the scope of the mod, although it starts to creep in at the end. Still, a minor issue. I think the state religion/theocracy distinction is good.

With the government civics, I like 'Electorate' better than 'Elected Monarchy' just for the aesthetics (elected monarchy seems like an oxymoron). In each case, we're talking about the Germanic baronies, right?

Representation does belong on the list, and the Constitutional/Absolute monarchy split makes more sense than the way I had it.

While it's a little clunky to have odd numbers of civics, if it's possible to code it (Sedna?), I want to keep merchant republic if possible. It represents a very different style of gameplay than the others, and reflects the challenges (and advantages) of civs like Venice, Genoa, and the Dutch - small land areas, few cities, big trading and tech advantages. While the advantages are powerful, the drawbacks are severe, especially when combined with the usual issues of stability. If there's no room for it, that's fine - but I think it would provide an interesting change of pace, and make smaller, more limited civs more viable in the large game.

Did you have proposals for the specifics of the civics on your list?

I'll leave you to argue over the history. I want to address implementation and how this bears on the Tech Tree.

Implementation:

It seems easy to have different number of civics in each category. The only reason to keep the number relatively balanced is the (important) aesthetic issue.

For some of the proposed changes it is not immediately obvious how to implement them. Basically, mix-and-matching from the default civic abilities is trivial and just requires modifying some XML files. Some totally new ability like
will require significantly more coding in a place I haven't found yet, but must exist. Anything that changes stability is easy too, 'cause that's all coded by hand already in one place.

There's no restriction that I can see to placing religion-influenced civics (such as Theocracy and Religious Law) across multiple categories. I feel that this approach is more correct, but it may be more confusing.

I'm not sure if there's a vanilla-Civ way to make civics completely incompatible, but we can certainly make this happen in Rhye's and Fall simply by slapping giant stability penalties on those combinations. Will this be sufficient?

Tech Tree:

The aim of this discussion was to help with the Tech Tree. Please assign technologies which enable each of these civics.

Anyhow, I'm not sure how decisions get made in this communalistic project, but it seems like the two of you should agree to one list of civics and we'll adopt it.

To address your points in order:

-I picked %bonuses and penalties because it seemed like it would be easy to implement. If that ends up not being the case, I'll rethink them. My biggest fear there was that they were too powerful.

-As proposed by Jessiecat, it seems to make sense to just move Theocracy back to the religion category. Simple is probably better here.

-Giant stability penalties was basically what I had in mind for incompatible civics. I thought it would be worthwhile to put warnings in (civilopedia-style), and also note that combinations which would be too powerful are somewhat mitigated by these incompatibilities.

-My thinking was that identifying the civics we wanted came before assigning them techs. Once we agree on the list, and it's been basically approved by everyone who's currently working on the project, then we'll do techs. That part seems easier than creating and balancing the list in the first place.

I would be for renaming Thing Law or getting rid of it. It was primarily a germanic system that all but disapeared with the conquering of Anglo-Saxon England. Almost 800 turns (if you go by year/turn) the civic was not in use historicly.For medieval civics and techs, I reccomend looking at EMA by Head Serf.

-You're right about Thing Law. It sounded cool, but in researching it in more detail last night, I couldn't really come up with anything special that it did, and the short period in which it was important is another vote against it.

Do you have a link to EMA? I don't want to rip them off, but it does make sense to make sure we're not reinventing their wheel.

The way this project has developed recently, I vote we retain st.lucifer as supreme
leader who makes the final decisions while 3Miro has the overall responsibility for coding
and implementation. Sort of a President/ Prime Minister division of responsibility I think.
My role (as befits an admitted anarchist in this communistic set-up) should remain chiefly
as historical researcher and Guardian of the sacred Wiki who has an editing brief over the
details as they develop (not unlike the KGB or it's equivalent).:D

As far as the civics lists go, mine and st. lucifer's are not very far apart so I think we will
come up with a workable version very soon.:)

Honestly, if 3Miro wants to be in charge of this, as he's doing the coding, I don't have a problem with that. I feel like I abdicated my leadership over the summer as the project went into the hiatus death spiral, and he's the one doing the work. It's always hard to devote as much time to the project as I'd like to during the school year - before I could touch this today, I had to figure out what I was teaching tomorrow, grade a few pounds of papers, and rent a banana costume.

So, if we need to reorganize things, I'd be happy with 3Miro in charge. Your fearless leader should not be the guy wearing a banana suit.

Thanks for everbody's contributions. I think we're nearly there. Let me deal with the remaining differences between our lists.
1. Free Religion: This was brought up by Andrew who pointed out that Hungary introduced a measure of religious tolerance by the Edict of Turda (1532?) which officially recognized Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Catholics as having freedom of practice in their territory. I also think there was increasing tolerance of non-state religion in the Netherlands, German territories and England by the mid-18thC. Therefore I think Free Religion should be kept as a civic but dependant on others like Common Law and Representation and certain techs. and only available in the last 100 years of our mod and maybe like Industrial Era as similiar to Future Tech in RFC.
2.Free Market: Although theories of free market economics arose partly in the Netherlands with their independance from Spanish rule, and later with the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo in the late 18thC. Free trade was never really practised before 1800 in any tangible form. I think even today Free Market is more an aspiration than a workable reality. Instead I propose we replace it with Merchant Republics as st. lucifer has suggested.
3. Electorate: I have no problem with the word itself if it describes the system of monarchs elected from the nobility as in the German or Polish example. So it replaces Elected Monarchy. Agreed!

Can I then propose the following list?

Government...................................Legal ..................................Labor

Despotism...................................Tribal Law.............................Slavery
Electorate..................................Feudal Law............................Serfdom
Absolute Monarchy......................Bureaucracy......... ................Free Peasantry
Constitutional Monarchy...............Religious Law.........................Apprenticeship
Representation...........................Common Law..........................Free Labor

Economy.....................................Religi on...............................Expansion

Decentralisation...........................Paganis m............................Subjugation
Manorial System.....................Organised Religion.......................Vassalage
Guild System..............................Theocracy..... .......................Occupation
Mercantilism.............................State Religion..........................Imperialism
Merchant Republics.....................Free Religion..........................Colonialism

Can everybody agree on this as a finalized list?:)

BTW I agree with 3Miro as coordinator/ chairman/ supreme leader as long as we retain st. lucifer as
father figure/ executive president/ spiritual advisor (with or without the banana suit:lol:).

The more time I devote to research and discussion coordination the less time I have for coding. I follow all discussions, however, I would rather have you guys do the bulk of research. That way we complement each other's skills.

As for the civics, I am unclear about one thing. In the early history one of the biggest issues was the relation between the church and the state. In the west, the Pope was the supreme authority over all secular matters, while in Byzantium the Emperor has all the power over the church. That was actually the main reason for Bulgaria and Russia to adopt Orthodox Christianity. How is that reflected in the game right now.

We don't have to do this with civics, we could use wonders. Some effects that Hagia Sophia and the AP would have for all Orthodox/Catholic nations.

The more time I devote to research and discussion coordination the less time I have for coding. I follow all discussions, however, I would rather have you guys do the bulk of research. That way we complement each other's skills.

As for the civics, I am unclear about one thing. In the early history one of the biggest issues was the relation between the church and the state. In the west, the Pope was the supreme authority over all secular matters, while in Byzantium the Emperor has all the power over the church. That was actually the main reason for Bulgaria and Russia to adopt Orthodox Christianity. How is that reflected in the game right now.

We don't have to do this with civics, we could use wonders. Some effects that Hagia Sophia and the AP would have for all Orthodox/Catholic nations.

A very good point. But as you say, there are ways to deal with that without depending on the civics which themselves could carry penalties and rewards for civs favouring papal or temporal power. By the time of HenryVII of England, royal power should begin to match and later overshadow the authority of the Pope. I'll look into that issue as well though.
Happy to see you take charge esp as you are willing to delegate the work. Playing to our strengths can only enhance our efficiency IMO.:)

BTW If you and st. lucifer can agree the above civics list I'll add the enabling techs. to it and resume
working on the tech tree.

The more time I devote to research and discussion coordination the less time I have for coding. I follow all discussions, however, I would rather have you guys do the bulk of research. That way we complement each other's skills.

As for the civics, I am unclear about one thing. In the early history one of the biggest issues was the relation between the church and the state. In the west, the Pope was the supreme authority over all secular matters, while in Byzantium the Emperor has all the power over the church. That was actually the main reason for Bulgaria and Russia to adopt Orthodox Christianity. How is that reflected in the game right now.

We don't have to do this with civics, we could use wonders. Some effects that Hagia Sophia and the AP would have for all Orthodox/Catholic nations.


Would it be possible to have an Orthodox and an Islamic equivalent to the AP? That seems like the logical solution to me. There was never any equivalent for the Protestant church, so we don't have to worry about them. We could use the Dome of the Rock for Islam, and the Hagia Sophia for the Orthodox church. Any objections?

Thanks for everbody's contributions. I think we're nearly there. Let me deal with the remaining differences between our lists.
1. Free Religion: This was brought up by Andrew who pointed out that Hungary introduced a measure of religious tolerance by the Edict of Turda (1532?) which officially recognized Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Catholics as having freedom of practice in their territory. I also think there was increasing tolerance of non-state religion in the Netherlands, German territories and England by the mid-18thC. Therefore I think Free Religion should be kept as a civic but dependant on others like Common Law and Representation and certain techs. and only available in the last 100 years of our mod and maybe like Industrial Era as similiar to Future Tech in RFC.
2.Free Market: Although theories of free market economics arose partly in the Netherlands with their independance from Spanish rule, and later with the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo in the late 18thC. Free trade was never really practised before 1800 in any tangible form. I think even today Free Market is more an aspiration than a workable reality. Instead I propose we replace it with Merchant Republics as st. lucifer has suggested.
3. Electorate: I have no problem with the word itself if it describes the system of monarchs elected from the nobility as in the German or Polish example. So it replaces Elected Monarchy. Agreed!

Can I then propose the following list?


This sounds reasonable to me. It might be worthwhile to have a national wonder which unlocks free religion (the Hungarian model), while it's also possible to get there by tech.

As long as merchant republic is available fairly early (Venice and Genoa followed this model during their respective golden ages), I'm fine with moving it to the economics section.

Do you have specifics on what the civics you proposed should do, as I did with my proposals? Proposed changes on any of mine?

I'm happy with your final list, but I'd like more than just our two opinions.

This sounds reasonable to me. It might be worthwhile to have a national wonder which unlocks free religion (the Hungarian model), while it's also possible to get there by tech.

As long as merchant republic is available fairly early (Venice and Genoa followed this model during their respective golden ages), I'm fine with moving it to the economics section.

Do you have specifics on what the civics you proposed should do, as I did with my proposals? Proposed changes on any of mine?

I'm happy with your final list, but I'd like more than just our two opinions.

Yes. I'd like more opinions too, esp. 3Miro, sedna and a couple more. Though to use our communistic analogy, sometimes the Central Committee needs to decide on behalf of the comrades.I think :D

I agree that Merchant Republics should be available early esp for Genoa and Venice. I also like your idea of a wonder unlocking Free Religion. Other wonders could make other late civics available too, I think. And the Hagia Sophia would be perfect for the Byzantine AP. For the Arabs it should be the Masjid-al-Haram in Mecca as it is the focal point for prayer and the object of haj or pilgrimage. And we could build it in Damascus as easily. But Al Andalus could have it's own in the "Mesquita" or Grand Mosque of Cordoba completed in 987, once one of the holiest shrines in Islam.
I know I haven't given much thought to specific effects of the civics, though I'm happy to follow your lead in that as I think you and 3Miro have a better understanding of their effects on balance. So if you'd like to flesh out all the civics in this way, I would be content. I will get back shortly however with the enabling techs for each civic and am still labouring at a greatly expanded civ list though it's slow-going at the moment.:)

I am not sure about the Islamic nation, but Orthodox nations were never centralized like the Catholic ones. There were gatherings of religious leaders to decide issues, but there was no way to enforce them without everyone's agreement. Maybe Orthodox nations could work together in more of a Congress type of way as opposed to AP type of way. I will think about it.

Yes. I'd like more opinions too, esp. 3Miro, sedna and a couple more. Though to use our communistic analogy, sometimes the Central Committee needs to decide on behalf of the comrades.I think :D

I agree that Merchant Republics should be available early esp for Genoa and Venice. I also like your idea of a wonder unlocking Free Religion. Other wonders could make other late civics available too, I think. And the Hagia Sophia would be perfect for the Byzantine AP. For the Arabs it should be the Masjid-al-Haram in Mecca as it is the focal point for prayer and the object of haj or pilgrimage. And we could build it in Damascus as easily. But Al Andalus could have it's own in the "Mesquita" or Grand Mosque of Cordoba completed in 987, once one of the holiest shrines in Islam.
I know I haven't given much thought to specific effects of the civics, though I'm happy to follow your lead in that as I think you and 3Miro have a better understanding of their effects on balance. So if you'd like to flesh out all the civics in this way, I would be content. I will get back shortly however with the enabling techs for each civic and am still labouring at a greatly expanded civ list though it's slow-going at the moment.:)

The problem with the Masjid-al-Haram (and why I went with the Dome of the Rock) is that it's in Mecca, which is off the map. I proposed the Dome because it's in Jerusalem, and is a holy site shared by multiple religions. Then again, the AP usually gets built in Frankfurt - so maybe it's better to go with the holiest site.

I'd be ok with including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba as an architectural wonder, but we're not doing the Islamic schism, so it doesn't make sense to have multiple Islamic AP equivalents.

3Miro, I don't remember the terminology very well, but didn't the Orthodox church have something like a Grand Synod which worked much like the Catholic college of cardinals? While the Orthodox church might not be as centralized as the Catholic church, very few of the AP functions are binding (defying war resolutions is pretty easy, etc.) - so while the framing of it may look funny, it won't be all that different from the way things actually work. I could be wrong on this, but I think we can make the argument that it's not a total historical anachronism. Certainly, the patriarch of Constantinople wielded great power in the Orthodox church, even if he wasn't the exact equivalent of the pope.

As promised, my idea of which techs enable which civics:

Feudalism Should enable Electorate, Feudal Law, Serfdom, Manorial System and Vassalage.

Divine Right Should enable Absolute Monarchy, Religious Law and Theocracy.

Code of Laws Should enable Electorate and Organized Religion

Civil Service Should enable Bureaucracy, Occupation and Free Peasantry

Guilds Should enable Apprenticeship and Guild System

Banking Should enable Common Law, Mercantile System and Imperialism

Constitution Should enable State Religion and Free Labor

Liberalism Should enable Representation and Free Religion

Ship Building Should enable Merchant Republics and Colonialism

I think that covers everything. Ideas and suggestions anyone?:)

I'm happy with this list of civics. I was wrong about -25% research +25% money not being easy to implement, it is just like +25% espionage for nationalism, and hence easy. Barring further objections I will move this list over to the wiki as a reasonably final list (again, just for the first alpha release, these kind of things are easy to tweak and will require tweaking).

As promised, my idea of which techs enable which civics:

Feudalism Should enable Electorate, Feudal Law, Serfdom, Manorial System and Vassalage.

Divine Right Should enable Absolute Monarchy, Religious Law and Theocracy.

Code of Laws Should enable Electorate and Organized Religion

Civil Service Should enable Bureaucracy, Occupation and Free Peasantry

Guilds Should enable Apprenticeship and Guild System

Banking Should enable Common Law, Mercantile System and Imperialism

Constitution Should enable State Religion and Free Labor

Liberalism Should enable Representation and Free Religion

Ship Building Should enable Merchant Republics and Colonialism

I think that covers everything. Ideas and suggestions anyone?:)

A couple of suggested changes:

-Common law should probably be further down the tree - maybe with constitution? Or is constitution after liberalism?

-If ship building is an early tech, it probably shouldn't have colonialism attached to it. If it's a late tech, it probably shouldn't have merchant republic.

If we're making merchant republic available early, we could have a national wonder make it available, in the same way we proposed unlocking free religion. The disadvantage of this approach is that for a civ with very few cities, the limitations on national wonder slots make them that much more precious. It's going to be a tricky balance, and we can't stick it in the UP for those civs as we had others in mind.

What I'd propose doing is making merchant republic available fairly early, and attach colonialism to a late tech post-astronomy. If it's possible to code in an extra turn of anarchy for the transition to and from merchant republic to anything else, that'll prevent it from being abused as an early civic that's transitioned out of while the empire grows. The stability penalties with incompatibility might have that effect as well.

OK. We've now got a civics list with enabling techs.

GOVERNMENT....................................LEGA L.....................................LABOR

DESPOTISM ....................................TRIBAL LAW...................................SLAVERY
(default)........................................( default)....................................(defau lt)
ELECTORATE....................................FEUD AL LAW.................................SERFDOM
(Feudalism)...................................(Feu dalism).................................(Feudalism )
ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.......................BUREAUCRACY........ ...................FREE PEASANTRY
(Divine Right)................................(Civil Service).............................(Civil Service)
CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.............RELIGIOUS LAW..........................APPRENTICESHIP
(Constitution).................................(Di vine Right)................................(Guilds)
REPRESENTATION..............................COMMON LAW..............................FREE LABOUR
(Liberalism)....................................(C onstitution)...............................(Consti tution)

ECONOMY......................................RELIG ION......................................EXPANSION

DECENTRALIZATION................................PA GANISM.................................SUBJUGATION
(Default)......................................... ....(default)....................................d efault)
MANORIAL SYSTEM.............................ORGANIZED RELIGION.........................VASSALAGE
(Feudalism)....................................... ..(Theology)................................(Feuda lism)
GUILD SYSTEM.......................................THEOC RACY................................OCCUPATION
(Guilds).......................................... ...(Divine Right)..............................(Civil Service)
MERCANTILISM.....................................S TATE RELIGION.............................IMPERIALISM
(Banking)......................................... ...Constitution)................................(B anking)
MERCHANT REPUBLICS.............................FREE RELIGION..............................COLONIALISM
(Banking + Civil Service)........................(Liberalism)...... ............................(Astronomy)

Edit. Double post.

OK. We've now got a civics list with enabling techs. Behold.

It's up on the wiki, but there aren't any techs attached. Any thoughts on the tech realignment suggestions?

It's up on the wiki, but there aren't any techs attached. Any thoughts on the tech realignment suggestions?

Sorry. sedna put it on the wiki before I could add the techs.
See above, 3 posts back. Sorry too about the messy spacing.:)

EDIT And I've added the techs to the civics list on the wiki.

Meanwhile, back at the tech tree.:hammer2::wallbash:

On the Synod, I am not sure if it ever did any actual international work, mostly internally for the corresponding country. Byzantium and Bulgaria were at almost constant war and Russia did not gain strength until Turkey had the Balkans. Anyway, we can add something like it.

I am trying to work on the tech tree myself (from coding point of view). I have almost stripped the out of the old tree, the only problem I have is that the game crashes on turn 15, but I will figure it out.

On the Synod, I am not sure if it ever did any actual international work, mostly internally for the corresponding country. Byzantium and Bulgaria were at almost constant war and Russia did not gain strength until Turkey had the Balkans. Anyway, we can add something like it.

I am trying to work on the tech tree myself (from coding point of view). I have almost stripped the out of the old tree, the only problem I have is that the game crashes on turn 15, but I will figure it out.

Would it help you if I posted just the first 2 or 3 in each pathway which are pretty much agreed? Coding them in would at least enable most of the civics and buildings. I should have the middle techs ready soon for people to decide on. It's just the later ones that are the problem now.:)

Also I agree with you about the AP, which shouldn't really apply to the Orthodox and Muslim civs.
I've never really been comfortable with its role in CFC either.

Well, I've gone as far I can on the tech tree without more input from everybody. The latest version has grown from 42 to 57 techs, covering two pages and has all the links to civics, buildings and some units. My real concern is the end of each tech path. To me they seem arbitrary and awkward. What does everybody else think?

I think a good point to keep in mind with the tech tree is that in base Civ every tech gets you something. We should stick to this same rule, as it improves gameplay. Currently, a lot of your new techs aren't listed as having any benefit. While this would give us more room to eventually add in extra things (principally gradations of units I suppose), they don't serve any purpose right now.

I wouldn't worry too much about the ends of the tech tree seeming arbitrary -- they are! We're arbitrarily ending this mod at a certain point in time.

I was looking at the tech tree and have couple of comments:

IMPORTANT: There are four technologies after Map Making that leads to Ship Building, however, the map is Pangaea, all techs related to water are mostly useless unless they give wonders of some sort. We would not have 10 types of ships anyway. That should be revised IMO.

LESS IMPORTANT: It is very easy to build a vertical tree, just split all techs into categories and work on them kind of independently. However, the tree in civ IV is horizontal, we have 6 initial techs and everything builds upon them. This mode is doable, just not very pretty on the screen.

I was looking at the tech tree and have couple of comments:

IMPORTANT: There are four technologies after Map Making that leads to Ship Building, however, the map is Pangaea, all techs related to water are mostly useless unless they give wonders of some sort. We would not have 10 types of ships anyway. That should be revised IMO.

The one argument I'll make in favor of this, Miro, is that most of the colonial projects should require advanced shipbuilding techniques. Naval tech also ties in with the development of artillery, optics, and replaceable parts - so I think it's ok to have some advanced naval techs out there, especially if they're required to develop these other branches. We might be able to cut one or two, and you're right that we don't need 10 types of ship - but I think there's some justification for having multiple naval techs.

I agree for colonial projects, however, most of the techs that are listed are basic techs. It seems to me that ship building tech should start with lateen sails and not be the before last tech. Also colonial techs should tie with other techs, such as Banking, Trading Companies, Guilds and so on. Look at the word file to see what I mean.

I coded the tech tree, except for proper tech costs and there are no building associated (there are no buildings yet)

I would like to open a few discussions:
1. First is the ship-building thing. All the ship building techs are very early, we should put later techs starting with Lateen Sails and going on. (according to my limited research those placed the beginning of the colonization from a technological prospective)

2. Now we have Alchemy -> Herbal Medicine, should they not be in the opposite way.Herbal Medicine existed long before the Alchemy's lust for gold (again according to my limited research)

3. Should Alchemy also require Classical Knowledge (i.e. Philosopher's stone)

4. Should Scientific Method be also in the picture, it is mentioned once but does not exist as a tech.

Will post the next build in a half an hour or so.

I coded the tech tree, except for proper tech costs and there are no building associated (there are no buildings yet)

I would like to open a few discussions:
1. First is the ship-building thing. All the ship building techs are very early, we should put later techs starting with Lateen Sails and going on. (according to my limited research those placed the beginning of the colonization from a technological prospective)

2. Now we have Alchemy -> Herbal Medicine, should they not be in the opposite way.Herbal Medicine existed long before the Alchemy's lust for gold (again according to my limited research)

3. Should Alchemy also require Classical Knowledge (i.e. Philosopher's stone)

4. Should Scientific Method be also in the picture, it is mentioned once but does not exist as a tech.

Will post the next build in a half an hour or so.

Let me try to address your points as best I can.

1. I made it that Shipbuilding requires a lot of basic techs so that it doesn't become available too early. Historically, oceangoing ships like the caravel and carrack were't developed until the 1400s. So we should delay Shipbuilding as long as we can. And despite our map being a pangea, naval transport and warfare should play an important role. esp. in the Mediterranean.
2. I think you're right about Herbal medicine preceeding Alchemy. And Alchemy could require Classical Knowledge for the European civs. Though the Arabs would have it quicker through having Classical Knowledge already by 700AD. Alchemy is, of course, an Arabic word which was coined by Jabir ibn Hayyan (721-815) who is regarded as the "father of chemistry and the experimental method". The practice seems to have been first introduced from Cordoba via the French after 1000AD.
3. Scientific Method is the tricky one. Where to put it? In European terms it surely began to develop in the early Renaissance 1300s despite the opposition to scientific inquiry by the Church. But how much does it owe to Arab scientists who had codified the details of scientific investigation as early as the 900s in Baghdad and Cairo? A good example is the "Book of Optics" by Ibn al Hatham (965-1039) who is generally regarded today as the "father of modern optics" and "the pioneer of the modern scientific method". If the Europeans have it much later and the Arabs can research it from the start, where should it go in the tech tree???:confused:

EDIT Looking again at the tech tree, maybe it could follow Arabic Knowledge.

ie. MONASTICISM...>CLASSICAL KNOWLEDGE...>ARABIC KNOWLEDGE...>SCIENTIFIC METHOD
.................................................. ...............................................(re q Alchemy?)

1. I see your shipbuilding point, however, we could do that without introducing a host of less valuable techs. We could simply made Banking or some other later tech be the requirement for shipbuilding. It would be somewhat unhistorical, but server better purpose for the gameplay. I am not dismissing naval warfare, we would have that in the Mediterranean, some of the colonial powers and definitely Viking naval raids. I don't see the use of all four technologies and then having shipbuilding with no other colonial techs afterwards.

2. There could be an "or" requirement for Alchemy. CoL in RFC is available either vial Writing or Priesthood (or was it Math, ... anyway). We can make Alchemy reachable via Classical Knowledge or Herbal Medicine and the Arabs would start with Herbal Medicine.

3. Scientific Method. The largest contribution to it i Europe was due to Galileo Gallilei and IMO he was ahead in it then the Arabs. Some people were using some of Sci. Method as early a the classical era (Aristotle and Archimedes), but it wasn't until much later that it became the foundation of Science. The Scientific Method should be there at some point after Arabic Knowledge and it should not be available for anyone until later in the game (more or less where you put it).

There are a lot of tech concepts that have not been addressed yet. One is the cost of the techs, with different cost we can enforce some techs to appear later in the game. Another is the weight of the different techs for the AI, that would be decided after we are clear on the units and buildings, but it is another way to enforce historical accuracy. Further more, every civ in RFC has additional coded preferences and tech cost modifiers for every tech. We could give some tech penalty to the Western civs, i.e. make the early techs more expensive for them and then gradually make them cheaper so they can catch up by colonial times.

1. I see your shipbuilding point, however, we could do that without introducing a host of less valuable techs. We could simply made Banking or some other later tech be the requirement for shipbuilding. It would be somewhat unhistorical, but server better purpose for the gameplay. I am not dismissing naval warfare, we would have that in the Mediterranean, some of the colonial powers and definitely Viking naval raids. I don't see the use of all four technologies and then having shipbuilding with no other colonial techs afterwards.

2. There could be an "or" requirement for Alchemy. CoL in RFC is available either vial Writing or Priesthood (or was it Math, ... anyway). We can make Alchemy reachable via Classical Knowledge or Herbal Medicine and the Arabs would start with Herbal Medicine.

3. Scientific Method. The largest contribution to it i Europe was due to Galileo Gallilei and IMO he was ahead in it then the Arabs. Some people were using some of Sci. Method as early a the classical era (Aristotle and Archimedes), but it wasn't until much later that it became the foundation of Science. The Scientific Method should be there at some point after Arabic Knowledge and it should not be available for anyone until later in the game (more or less where you put it).

There are a lot of tech concepts that have not been addressed yet. One is the cost of the techs, with different cost we can enforce some techs to appear later in the game. Another is the weight of the different techs for the AI, that would be decided after we are clear on the units and buildings, but it is another way to enforce historical accuracy. Further more, every civ in RFC has additional coded preferences and tech cost modifiers for every tech. We could give some tech penalty to the Western civs, i.e. make the early techs more expensive for them and then gradually make them cheaper so they can catch up by colonial times.

.1 Agreed. Though I think it should still req. Lateen sail and Optics IMO.

.2 I'd prefer that Alchemy req. both Herbal Medicine and Classical Knowledge.

.3 Agree in principle though historically the Arabs were using Scientific Method well before Galleo, certainly after Ibn al Hatham's works in the early 11th.C.

BTW Any thoughts on the basic units I've suggested and techs which enable them?:)

1. Agreed.
2. Agreed.
3. Put it after Arabic Knowledge, but leave it open for tweaking afterwards (depending on the gameplay)

Units looked OK on the first glance, I will look at them i n more details when I code them, then together with the tech tree they would be easier to spot any problems/inconsistencies. I was working on the religions, I have to associate religions with technologies, so Liberalism -> Protestantism looks reasonable to me. Orthodoxy would require Classical Knowledge so that Byzantines start with it and get Orthodoxy. Where do I put Catholicism, Theology? Rome would be independent for now (until we add Papal state or if we add a papal state). Arabic Knowledge -> Islam and Arabs could start with it to ensure they get the Islam.

1. Agreed.
2. Agreed.
3. Put it after Arabic Knowledge, but leave it open for tweaking afterwards (depending on the gameplay)

Units looked OK on the first glance, I will look at them i n more details when I code them, then together with the tech tree they would be easier to spot any problems/inconsistencies. I was working on the religions, I have to associate religions with technologies, so Liberalism -> Protestantism looks reasonable to me. Orthodoxy would require Classical Knowledge so that Byzantines start with it and get Orthodoxy. Where do I put Catholicism, Theology? Rome would be independent for now (until we add Papal state or if we add a papal state). Arabic Knowledge -> Islam and Arabs could start with it to ensure they get the Islam.

OK. Yes, Protestantism should arise with Liberalism though do you want to give it a time frame so it's not available too early? I think the Byzantines should start with Theology and Classical Knowledge and get Orthodoxy straight away. I think the Franks and Burgundy should start with Theology but Catholicism is founded in Rome on the first turn.
The Arabs in 632 should start with Herbal Medicine and have to research Classical Knowledge. Islam could be founded in Jerusalem when it flips, giving them Arabic Knowledge as a free tech when they get Classical Knowledge. For Al Andalus in 700, they should start with all three and have Islam by default IMO.:)

OK. Yes, Protestantism should arise with Liberalism though do you want to give it a time frame so it's not available too early? I think the Byzantines should start with Theology and Classical Knowledge and get Orthodoxy straight away. I think the Franks and Burgundy should start with Theology but Catholicism is founded in Rome on the first turn.
The Arabs in 632 should start with Herbal Medicine and have to research Classical Knowledge. Islam could be founded in Jerusalem when it flips, giving them Arabic Knowledge as a free tech when they get Classical Knowledge. For Al Andalus in 700, they should start with all three and have Islam by default IMO.:)

Why have the religions founded on the first turn? We've got the cities in already - it seems to me to make more sense (and provide less room for error) if we start out with Rome as the holy city for Catholicism, Jerusalem for Islam, and Constantinople for Orthodoxy - none with shrines built. (Incidentally, this also simplifies the shrine wonders: if we assign the holy cities in advance, Catholicism gets St. Peter's Basilica or the Vatican; Islam gets the Dome of the Rock, and Orthodoxy gets St. Sophia's or Hagia Sophia. Simple, no?)

Since two of our starting civs (Arabs, Byzantines) aren't going to start with settlers, and Rome will be independent, it seems like it's easier codewise to hardwire this stuff than to introduce other possible outcomes.

Why have the religions founded on the first turn? We've got the cities in already - it seems to me to make more sense (and provide less room for error) if we start out with Rome as the holy city for Catholicism, Jerusalem for Islam, and Constantinople for Orthodoxy - none with shrines built. (Incidentally, this also simplifies the shrine wonders: if we assign the holy cities in advance, Catholicism gets St. Peter's Basilica or the Vatican; Islam gets the Dome of the Rock, and Orthodoxy gets St. Sophia's or Hagia Sophia. Simple, no?)

Since two of our starting civs (Arabs, Byzantines) aren't going to start with settlers, and Rome will be independent, it seems like it's easier codewise to hardwire this stuff than to introduce other possible outcomes.

Sounds fine to me. Are you saying that the Arabs start with Damascus and Jerusalem but no settlers? I hope they'll have enough troops to able to conquer Tyre and maybe Antioch at least. Or would they flip too?:)

I am not sure, but I think a religion must be associated with a tech. The religions could be founded from the start, but those would be Orthodoxy and Catholicism only. Arabs should found their religion on the first turn hey appear, so it should be associated with a tech that only the Arabs have and no one can get before them. Cordoba would start with Islamic Missionaries (maybe a couple).

Rome and Constantinople would be founded on the start (no settlers needed). SO I guess it does not hurt to have Catholicism associated with Theology.

Why would the Arabs not have settlers, do we simply force the flip of some cities (Damascus and Jerusalem) and I am not sure if we can force Jerusalem to be the Islamic holy city. How about not having Damascus from the start, have the Arabs found it and have it become the Holy City. Then the Islamic Holy Shrine could be "The Road to Mecca". This way we would still get the income from pilgrims, but not the inaccuracy of having the Dome in the wrong city.

I am not sure, but I think a religion must be associated with a tech. The religions could be founded from the start, but those would be Orthodoxy and Catholicism only. Arabs should found their religion on the first turn hey appear, so it should be associated with a tech that only the Arabs have and no one can get before them. Cordoba would start with Islamic Missionaries (maybe a couple).

Rome and Constantinople would be founded on the start (no settlers needed). SO I guess it does not hurt to have Catholicism associated with Theology.

Why would the Arabs not have settlers, do we simply force the flip of some cities (Damascus and Jerusalem) and I am not sure if we can force Jerusalem to be the Islamic holy city. How about not having Damascus from the start, have the Arabs found it and have it become the Holy City. Then the Islamic Holy Shrine could be "The Road to Mecca". This way we would still get the income from pilgrims, but not the inaccuracy of having the Dome in the wrong city.

I think it would be much simpler if they just started with Damascus as the capitol and Jerusalem as the holy city (with the Dome of the Rock already built). And enough troops to start expanding very fast.:p

I am not sure, but I think a religion must be associated with a tech. The religions could be founded from the start, but those would be Orthodoxy and Catholicism only. Arabs should found their religion on the first turn hey appear, so it should be associated with a tech that only the Arabs have and no one can get before them. Cordoba would start with Islamic Missionaries (maybe a couple).

Rome and Constantinople would be founded on the start (no settlers needed). SO I guess it does not hurt to have Catholicism associated with Theology.

Why would the Arabs not have settlers, do we simply force the flip of some cities (Damascus and Jerusalem) and I am not sure if we can force Jerusalem to be the Islamic holy city. How about not having Damascus from the start, have the Arabs found it and have it become the Holy City. Then the Islamic Holy Shrine could be "The Road to Mecca". This way we would still get the income from pilgrims, but not the inaccuracy of having the Dome in the wrong city.

The Dome's in Jerusalem, which is why I proposed using it rather than the Qaaba. I guess we can give the Arabs a settler or two, but most of the cities in that area are far older than the Arabs - particularly Damascus, Jerusalem, and Tyre. If they need to spawn with a settler, that's fine - but I figured that we'd have the established powers work sort of like the established power (the Byzantines) in the 600 AD start. 600 AD has holy cities set and at least one civ starting with no settlers - it seems like the logical approach to take for us, too.

Sounds fine to me. Are you saying that the Arabs start with Damascus and Jerusalem but no settlers? I hope they'll have enough troops to able to conquer Tyre and maybe Antioch at least. Or would they flip too?:)

My preconception of this was that they'd start with the whole area flipped, but it would make sense to give them the southern/easternmost cities (Jerusalem, Damascus, Fustat) and enough of an army to conquer the rest. The one concern I have with the cities not flipping is that the AI always overestimates the strength of independents (and doesn't go for independent cities), which would make for a much weaker Arabia than the historical version. On the other hand, there were independent principalities in the region pretty much continually, so it wouldn't be that inaccurate to have a few independent cities.

The way I see the game playing out for the Arabs is to begin from a position of strength and tech advantage, and struggle to hang on as your Western rivals catch up (and ideally, start crusading.) Stagnation, stability, and unproductive land are the long-term challenges.

If anyone feels differently about it, suggestions are welcome.

Byzantines would be easy to fix just like in the RFC600AD. Arabs, however, a late spawners, they do not need to have settlers, but I am not sure if there is any way we can force Islam to be founded in Jerusalem, it might be founded in any random city that spawns. I will look at the code.

Just to be clear on the Eras:

Dark Ages ( the name might be inaccurate for the Arabs, Byzantines and Bulgarians)
Middle Age
Renaissance
Exploration
Industrial

What am I missing, what am I messing?

Just to be clear on the Eras:

Dark Ages ( the name might be inaccurate for the Arabs, Byzantines and Bulgarians)
Middle Age
Renaissance
Exploration
Industrial

What am I missing, what am I messing?

I don't think we should use "industrial" as the mod ends in 1800. By anybodys definition the Industrial Revolution isn't dated much before the 1780s is it?. And what is the function of splitting time up into Eras anyway? Merely a cosmetic indulgence, isn't it? And culturally prejudiced in practice maybe?

Byzantines would be easy to fix just like in the RFC600AD. Arabs, however, a late spawners, they do not need to have settlers, but I am not sure if there is any way we can force Islam to be founded in Jerusalem, it might be founded in any random city that spawns. I will look at the code.

If the Arabs start in 632 or so, how are they late spawners or much later than the Byzantines anyway? And if the Byzantines can be coded with Orthodoxy so easily in 500AD, why is it any harder to start the Arabs with Islam, and with Damascus as capitol and Jerusalem as holy city as I suggested before?:confused:
EDIT Or does the holy city have to be the capitol???

A couple of observations/suggestions:

I realize that carvel and clinker planking were separate innovations (and as I understood it, individually led to the development of the caravel and carrack, respectively), but not having anything associated with them is problematic. Is it worth reducing these to one tech, or perhaps to give each of them an associated ship? I'm in favor of Miro's suggestion that we reduce the number of naval techs, but arguably all of these are important. Let's see if we can think of ways to tie them in to other advancements - is there an architectural connection? What if we had buildings that went with them (Port, Wharf, Warehouse?) that were trade-based (give an extra trade route; give an extra domestic trade route, 10%/25% gold; extra :), etc.) If we went this route, those civs that didn't have many coastal cities would rightfully concentrate on land techs while coastal civs would have an added incentive to develop their naval techs. Thoughts?

I have problems with Arabic knowledge/medicine being the respective heights of their tech branches. In particular, putting printing press and education as requirements for Arabic knowledge seems egregious - I don't remember the printing press being much of a factor in the Arab world in the development of that knowledge, and it was widely disseminated before the printing press was a factor in the Western world.

It seems to me that the proposed tech tree is fairly well fleshed out in the early and middle game, but very thin in the post-Renaissance era. As we're running to 1800, we've got to have more modern and early industrial era techs - and it's possible to weave some branches together after education in interesting ways. For example, what about Calculus? Requires Arab knowledge (algebra) and education; leads to Physics and Military Science; required to build any advanced kind of artillery. There are a lot of similar developments that flow in similar ways - optics makes it possible to build telescopes and microscopes, leading both to astronomy and biology, which in turn can be hooked into the architecture branch for sanitation techs, or the learning/knowledge/philosophy branch for medicine, or the military branch for field hospitals. There's a lot of potential here; we've just got to figure out what's out of bounds on the upper limit (rifling, for example) and work back from there.

I do think the early stuff's pretty solid, though. Nice job.

Yes, the tree needs more work. I but shipbuilding and Lateen Sails as techs, but I would like to see another sea tech before the sails. In the late part, the game does get a little iffy. I wold like to see units and buildings in before we do any major changes, however. That way we would see it better in terms of the balance.

For the Eras, the issues are both cosmetic (makes little difference) and gameplay. There are tech, production, diplomatic, stability and growth modifiers for the different eras. We should have eras in the game. Industrial would be at the end, one gets there with the last couple of techs or the "Future Tech".

By late spawners i meant that Arabs do not start on turn 1, but have to wait. Even if they have to wait 1 turn, they have to be coded differently. Byzantines could be edited in the WB file to start with any size of an empire and since Orthodoxy would be already founded, we can put the holy city anywhere. Arabs, however, cannot have any units or cities until they spawn. Islam would not exist as a religion until Arabia spawns. We have couple of options:

1. Arabia spawns with a settler and since they would be the first one with Arabic Knowledge tech, they found Islam on their first turn. Since nothing flips until the second or third turn, Islam would be founded in the capital.

2. One turn before Arabia spawns, Islam gets founded in Jerusalem (similar to Judaism in RFC). However, we would have a problem if Jerusalem is Byzantines, since then the Byzantines would effectively found Islam without getting the corresponding tech.

3. Arabs start without settlers, have the Islamic tech but found the religion only after the cities in the area flip. The Islamic holy city would be then selected randomly.

I am personally in favor of the first option. Most of Europe at this time was settled, but we are letting different civs build their own capitals and core areas. IMO we should do the same with the Arabs.

Yes, the tree needs more work. I but shipbuilding and Lateen Sails as techs, but I would like to see another sea tech before the sails. In the late part, the game does get a little iffy. I wold like to see units and buildings in before we do any major changes, however. That way we would see it better in terms of the balance.

For the Eras, the issues are both cosmetic (makes little difference) and gameplay. There are tech, production, diplomatic, stability and growth modifiers for the different eras. We should have eras in the game. Industrial would be at the end, one gets there with the last couple of techs or the "Future Tech".

By late spawners i meant that Arabs do not start on turn 1, but have to wait. Even if they have to wait 1 turn, they have to be coded differently. Byzantines could be edited in the WB file to start with any size of an empire and since Orthodoxy would be already founded, we can put the holy city anywhere. Arabs, however, cannot have any units or cities until they spawn. Islam would not exist as a religion until Arabia spawns. We have couple of options:

1. Arabia spawns with a settler and since they would be the first one with Arabic Knowledge tech, they found Islam on their first turn. Since nothing flips until the second or third turn, Islam would be founded in the capital.

2. One turn before Arabia spawns, Islam gets founded in Jerusalem (similar to Judaism in RFC). However, we would have a problem if Jerusalem is Byzantines, since then the Byzantines would effectively found Islam without getting the corresponding tech.

3. Arabs start without settlers, have the Islamic tech but found the religion only after the cities in the area flip. The Islamic holy city would be then selected randomly.

I am personally in favor of the first option. Most of Europe at this time was settled, but we are letting different civs build their own capitals and core areas. IMO we should do the same with the Arabs.

Thanks for outlining the options - makes a lot of sense.

Personally, I prefer option #2. If the Byzantines don't start with Jerusalem (and I don't think they should), there's no way they get to it by the time the Arabs spawn.

We could also consider having the Arabs in as a starting civ, if the coding's that much different. It's a little bit of a stretch historically, but if anything, the Middle East was more settled than Europe at the time - having the Arabs found a new capital that isn't one of the cities on the map makes me more uncomfortable than bumping their start up a few turns.
(while it's true that some cities grew to new prominence after the Arab conquests, all that I can think of existed previously under different names.)
Also, where would you have the Arab capital if not in Damascus, Jerusalem, or Fustat/Cairo? If we put them in the desert SE of Sinai, they'll be crippled by the awful location.

Lots of food for thought from both of you, exactly what I need to push forward with this.:goodjob:

I realize, off course, that's there's plenty to do yet to make this right, esp. with the late techs. So far, I've devoted little time to the later techs (and it shows, I think). I like the idea of determining our final parameters and then working back as well as forward. Never really considered that approach. But in the coming days I'll have another bash at this and come up with a more balanced proposal.

As far as eras are concerned, I was a bit flippant as I couldn't see much value to them other than aesthetic but if they affect gameplay etc. I'll try to incorporate them in my next tech tree.

Regarding the Arab start, I would favour Option 1 where a settler and some troops found Damascus and Islam is born there. I wonder how we're going to start the Byzantines though. Will they just have Constantinople or would they control as far as Damieta in Egypt at least? If so, they would have Jerusalem already with Judaism already founded there. For this option to work at all historically, all the cities in the Levant should flip to the Arabs after a turn or two with a decent army in place to attack Egypt. Is that how you guys see it?:)

EDIT Sorry we crossposted there. We could start the Arabs in 500AD with Islam being founded
about 630 in Damascus. Would give them time to research a coulple of techs and build an army
to attack Egypt as well. I like that option too.

http://byzantium.seashell.net.nz/articlemain.php?artid=mapbase_565

Byzantines should pretty much control all of the middle east (the part of it on our map) and a good chunk of it should flip to Arabia.

Even if we make Arabia 500AD civ, I don't think we can make Islam founded at the exact date and much less the exact Holy City.

Unless we put some WW in Jerusalem, there would be very little benefit from capturing it. Judaism would not be a regular religion so there would not be any shrine income and the holy cities for the Christian denominations would be around Europe.

Would someone be interested in playing with a WB file that has all the cities for the Byzantines. Since they start in 500AD all we need to do is edit the file. Constantinople should be prebuild.

FYI: I will be busy on Thursday, then out of town Friday and over the Weekend. I will be back on Monday, but then I will be getting busier and probably I would be spending less time working.

Lots of food for thought from both of you, exactly what I need to push forward with this.:goodjob:

I realize, off course, that's there's plenty to do yet to make this right, esp. with the late techs. So far, I've devoted little time to the later techs (and it shows, I think). I like the idea of determining our final parameters and then working back as well as forward. Never really considered that approach. But in the coming days I'll have another bash at this and come up with a more balanced proposal.

As far as eras are concerned, I was a bit flippant as I couldn't see much value to them other than aesthetic but if they affect gameplay etc. I'll try to incorporate them in my next tech tree.

Regarding the Arab start, I would favour Option 1 where a settler and some troops found Damascus and Islam is born there. I wonder how we're going to start the Byzantines though. Will they just have Constantinople or would they control as far as Damieta in Egypt at least? If so, they would have Jerusalem already with Judaism already founded there. For this option to work at all historically, all the cities in the Levant should flip to the Arabs after a turn or two with a decent army in place to attack Egypt. Is that how you guys see it?:)

EDIT Sorry we crossposted there. We could start the Arabs in 500AD with Islam being founded
about 630 in Damascus. Would give them time to research a coulple of techs and build an army
to attack Egypt as well. I like that option too.

Don't worry about the era thing just yet - I'd agree that's probably the least critical calculation to make with the tech tree. I think there are some techs that will make the jumps obvious; for the others, we'll figure it out. There's no inherent problem there. I think that working backwards might get us to a look at a few things differently, and it can't hurt.

http://byzantium.seashell.net.nz/articlemain.php?artid=mapbase_565

Byzantines should pretty much control all of the middle east (the part of it on our map) and a good chunk of it should flip to Arabia.

Even if we make Arabia 500AD civ, I don't think we can make Islam founded at the exact date and much less the exact Holy City.

Unless we put some WW in Jerusalem, there would be very little benefit from capturing it. Judaism would not be a regular religion so there would not be any shrine income and the holy cities for the Christian denominations would be around Europe.

Would someone be interested in playing with a WB file that has all the cities for the Byzantines. Since they start in 500AD all we need to do is edit the file. Constantinople should be prebuild.

FYI: I will be busy on Thursday, then out of town Friday and over the Weekend. I will be back on Monday, but then I will be getting busier and probably I would be spending less time working.

For the Arab start issue, and what to do with the Byzantines:

-Is there a major Islamic holy site in Damascus? I'm not aware of any. We could go to Miro's suggestion of 'The Road to Mecca' (or maybe the Hajj?), but there are enough impressive Islamic holy sites that it seems like a shame to go with an abstraction instead.
The issue of making Jerusalem valuable is also an important one. We can make it attractive to everyone by putting a high settler value on it, and we can rework the crusade event (and possibly a crusading AP function, if it's not too hard to code?) to focus on Jerusalem specifically, but it would be nice if we could code in some of the things that made Jerusalem such an important focal point during the Medieval era.
If there's a way to have Islam founded in 630 in Jerusalem , as soon as the Arabs spawn, that seems to me like the best way to go. This might be worth asking Rhye about - it seems like it should be doable.

A third alternative is starting the Arabs with a settler at the extreme SE corner of the map to represent Mecca or Medina (out of place by a few hundred kilometers), and change the terrain to be more hospitable. We're already distorting the map around Damascus to represent the terminus of the Silk Road - this isn't really any worse.

-A gap of 130 years is a lot to gloss over. The 630 start makes more sense.

-The issue of what the Byzantines should control is a tough one. Historically, they should control most of the Eastern side of the map at the beginning of the game, Rome, Naples, Tunisia, Sicily, Ravenna, Dalmatia, and all of the major Mediterranean islands. However, if we give them the whole area, it creates two important problems for us.

First, this means that the Byzantine empire starts as a superpower. In some ways, this is appropriate, in others less so - they should be technologically way ahead of the various barbarian kingdoms in the beginning, and really, through much of the game. However, they weren't a superpower for most of the era, and underwent a slow crumbling until the fall of Constantinople.
The way that we'd typically deal with this issue in RFC brings us to problem #2 - stability problems. If we have the Arabs spawn and immediately take 30-40% of the land and population of the Byzantine empire, doesn't that pretty much guarantee collapse? Remember, they'll have the Bulgarians chipping away at their other border, as well - and if they survive the first evisceration of the empire, the Ottomans will repeat the process when they spawn. Certainly, this is historical - but for gameplay, might it be better to concentrate the Byzantine empire in areas that don't flip, lessening the impact of the inevitable and making them potentially viable for their historical duration?
The other problem that arises with the superpower issue is that great powers in Civ4 tend to stay great - a well-played or lucky start is often enough to ensure dominance for the rest of the game. To some extent, this is mitigated through RFC with the research penalties, stability issues, and plague - but stability's the thing I worry about most, because it's in some ways too powerful a leveler. Ideally, I'd like to see the Byzantine empire hanging around for hundreds of years, weakened but still viable, rather than going from a glorious early peak to a string of independents which the AI will never try to conquer.

What I propose for the Byzantines is this:
-Constantinople starts out as the capital; Adrianople, Thessalonica, Athens, Rhodes, Nicaea, Ephesus, Sinope, Caesarea (Anatolia) and Alexandria start out as parts of the empire. Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, Damietta, Fustat, Tunis, Cyrene, Acre, Tyre, and maybe Edessa start out as independents - although we can easily make arguments for any and all of them to be included, along with Cherson, Nicopolis, Aleppo, Beirut, and a host of others in Anatolia and the Levant. This minimizes the amount of territory lost in the Arab flip, and reduces their early power considerably (although starting with 10 powerful cities is already a hell of an initial bonus).

The alternative is coding it historically, and hoping that the empire doesn't completely collapse on the flip. I'm fine with giving them a few cities (maybe Antioch, Damascus and Cairo?) to lose, as this will increase the chance of immediate war with Arabia and a reasonable destabilization. It'll also increase the chances that Arabia goes after some of the Byzantine cities, which would be a positive thing - I rarely see conflict after someone spawns in RFC, aside from the American flip.

Whatever we end up doing, it seems likely that we're going to have to compromise historical accuracy somehow.

I agree that the Byzantines should start with the full empire, from Constantinople to Tunis. And that the Arabs should start in Damascus. But there is another way the Arabs could expand quickly but methodically. Think of this as a rough timeline (based on 4 years per turn).

632- Arabs found Damascus with 3 or 4 units, a worker, granary, barracks, madrassa and temple.
Islam founded. The Grand Mosque (called the "Ummayad Mosque) is built.
640- Jerusalem, Antioch, Tyre and Acre flip to the Arabs as scouting units approach. But Byzantine cities in Anatolia resist the flip as Tarsus and Edessa are reinforced by units fleeing Antioch.
648- an Arab army (6-8 horsemen) enters Egypt from Sinai, flipping Damietta, then Fustat (becomes Cairo) and Alexandria (becomes Al Iskandariya).
-Dome of the Rock (or Al Aqsa mosque) founded in Jerusalem.
656- Arab units approach Cyrene or Barca which flips. Army moves west toward Tunis.
664- Tunis and cities to the west flip to independent. Tunis under siege by Arabs.
(Each city flipped should have an archer, a worker and a granary at least.)

Most of this shouldn't be too hard to code and would be close historically, I think.:)

Not that hard to code?

You're talking about doing flips every few turns, and stage-managing an invasion that goes way, way beyond what I think the AI's capable of doing. Not to mention the superpower issue - and you're creating a second superpower in Arabia if you make things that easy for them.

I don't think this is the solution.

Not that hard to code?

You're talking about doing flips every few turns, and stage-managing an invasion that goes way, way beyond what I think the AI's capable of doing. Not to mention the superpower issue - and you're creating a second superpower in Arabia if you make things that easy for them.

I don't think this is the solution.

OK. I guess you're right. But surely the initial flip and an army attacking Egypt is doable isn't it?

OK. I guess you're right. But surely the initial flip and an army attacking Egypt is doable isn't it?

Yeah, I think that's probably the way to go - and they'll have the 'motive' from the settler maps to go after Cyrene/Barca and Tunis - whether or not the AI's capable of pulling it off remains to be seen. :D

My response wasn't meant to be as hostile as it sounded - sorry about that. It just seemed a lot more complicated and deterministic than it had to be.

I guess we should probably add Tarsus (and Caesaraea) to the Byzantine list, though. It wouldn't make sense to have Anatolia empty, and Tarsus wouldn't flip - it took the Arabs long enough to conquer it.

How about this:
1. Byzantines start with the full Empire.
2. They enjoy that for a few turns, fighting maintenance cost so for the first few turns their science would not be high, but they have many starting techs anyway.
3. Arabs spawn, found Damascus and Islam in Damascus. Hajj or something like that would be appropriate indicating that the real holy city is elsewhere. All important Islamic buildings would not be ignored, they could be added as world wonders to be build by the players.
4. Arabs flip large portion of the Byzantines and war would very probable (maybe I can even make it 100 percent).
5. Arabs go for other important Byzantine cities in the area.
6. Powerful Bulgaria spawns right next to the Byzantines. Probably no cities would flip, however, close borders and AI War maps would make those two go after each other fast. I see the Bulgarian UU being more powerful or at least equal to some Byzantine units in the open, forcing Byzantines to hide behind the city walls while Bulgarians pillage and even take weaker cities.
7. Byzantines are dethroned as superpower and put in the position of survivor, where the Byzantine UP would kick in. Stability would go to collapsing fast, but no city in the core would flip away and no civil war would occur. Science and production would be restricted to several cities only (moderate size empire) and the goal would switch to survival + culture building.

Basically Byzantines would loose everything except Greece which they would have to guard from the Bulgarians (and later Turks and even the Arabs can try to attack it).

It would work like that in theory, but we would not know for sure until we get to coding that part.

How about this:
1. Byzantines start with the full Empire.
2. They enjoy that for a few turns, fighting maintenance cost so for the first few turns their science would not be high, but they have many starting techs anyway.
3. Arabs spawn, found Damascus and Islam in Damascus. Hajj or something like that would be appropriate indicating that the real holy city is elsewhere. All important Islamic buildings would not be ignored, they could be added as world wonders to be build by the players.
4. Arabs flip large portion of the Byzantines and war would very probable (maybe I can even make it 100 percent).
5. Arabs go for other important Byzantine cities in the area.
6. Powerful Bulgaria spawns right next to the Byzantines. Probably no cities would flip, however, close borders and AI War maps would make those two go after each other fast. I see the Bulgarian UU being more powerful or at least equal to some Byzantine units in the open, forcing Byzantines to hide behind the city walls while Bulgarians pillage and even take weaker cities.
7. Byzantines are dethroned as superpower and put in the position of survivor, where the Byzantine UP would kick in. Stability would go to collapsing fast, but no city in the core would flip away and no civil war would occur. Science and production would be restricted to several cities only (moderate size empire) and the goal would switch to survival + culture building.

Basically Byzantines would loose everything except Greece which they would have to guard from the Bulgarians (and later Turks and even the Arabs can try to attack it).

It would work like that in theory, but we would not know for sure until we get to coding that part.

I like this solution. I would like to see Damascus founded at size 3 or 4 with some infrastructure - is there any way we can do that without having subsequent Arab cities founded at the same size?

We might even be able to ensure historical placement of some Islamic wonders by tweaking the requirements - for example, requiring that the Dome of the Rock be built in a coastal city. The Hajj thing works perfectly - the center of the Arab power structure soon shifted to Baghdad from Medina anyway, so the representation of religious authority being elsewhere is accurate and a good fix.

I like this solution. I would like to see Damascus founded at size 3 or 4 with some infrastructure - is there any way we can do that without having subsequent Arab cities founded at the same size?

We might even be able to ensure historical placement of some Islamic wonders by tweaking the requirements - for example, requiring that the Dome of the Rock be built in a coastal city. The Hajj thing works perfectly - the center of the Arab power structure soon shifted to Baghdad from Medina anyway, so the representation of religious authority being elsewhere is accurate and a good fix.

I'm happy with that solution as well. Historically the Arab watershed in the east was
between Antioch and Tarsus. In fact the front line was fairly static in a line from Tarsus
to Edessa for about 400 years, with each making gains and losing them in turns.
Until first the Seljuks then the Ottomans overwhelmed the Byzantines in Anatolia.
So an initial flip of cities between Antioch and Sinai makes sense with a good army in place
ready to attack Egypt. The Hajj seems fine for Damascus but the Dome of the Rock should
be built as a wonder in Jerusalem (not sure why it should be in a coastal city?). Damascus
of course has to be the center of power though historically it was Baghdad (Unavailable to us).
I think it should be quite developed from the start as befitting it's age and importance if we
can do it. Maybe a granary/barracks/temple/madrassa with a worker and a couple of archers
and horsemen, as I suggested earlier.
A note about the Byzantines. I agree with 3 Miro and suggest the Bulgarian UU should
be the "konnik" using the Mongol keshik art, fast, all-terrain and maybe with a second
strike attack function to counter the heavier cataphract UU for the Byzantines.
Again I think we've reached a consensus. We march on.:)

I'm happy with that solution as well. Historically the Arab watershed in the east was
between Antioch and Tarsus. In fact the front line was fairly static in a line from Tarsus
to Edessa for about 400 years, with each making gains and losing them in turns.
Until first the Seljuks then the Ottomans overwhelmed the Byzantines in Anatolia.
So an initial flip of cities between Antioch and Sinai makes sense with a good army in place
ready to attack Egypt. The Hajj seems fine for Damascus but the Dome of the Rock should
be built as a wonder in Jerusalem (not sure why it should be in a coastal city?). Damascus
of course has to be the center of power though historically it was Baghdad (Unavailable to us).
I think it should be quite developed from the start as befitting it's age and importance if we
can do it. Maybe a granary/barracks/temple/madrassa with a worker and a couple of archers
and horsemen, as I suggested earlier.
A note about the Byzantines. I agree with 3 Miro and suggest the Bulgarian UU should
be the "konnik" using the Mongol keshik art, fast, all-terrain and maybe with a second
strike attack function to counter the heavier cataphract UU for the Byzantines.
Again I think we've reached a consensus. We march on.:)

To explain the Dome thing, requiring that it be built in a coastal city ensures that it doesn't get built in Damascus or Cairo. Although thinking about it, this may not work, as I don't think Jerusalem's coastal on the current map. Oh well - it was just an idea to induce the AI to follow history.

And yes, I think the Konnick's a great UU for the Bulgarians. Give it an extra first strike, 30% withdrawal chance, and no terrain penalties, and that's a pretty good (and accurate without being ridiculous (a 'historical' alternate power might be 'kills opposing units without taking damage':D) unit.

This sounds good. I'm sure we'll end up repeating it for other contested regions, but I'd say it's a good compromise solution.

Just to get this thread back on topic, I've been thinking how to finish off our
proposed tech tree. Just an outline as yet, but how would this be?

ASTRONOMY..\>SCIENTIFIC METHOD.....>PHYSICS
....................\....(With Education)...........(With Biology)
.....................\............................ ..................\
.......................\>STEAM POWER..............\.........\
.........................\(With Replaceable Parts)..\.........\
.................................................. .............\>MACHINE TOOLS
PUBLIC WORKS.....>CIVIL ENGINEERING.........../..............\(With Physics)
..............................(With Economics)........./.......... .....\
.................................................. ...............................\
NATIONALISM....>LIBERALISM....>RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY......\
......................(With Education)....(With Scientific Method)..\
.................................................. ..................................\INDUSTRIAL
MUSIC THEORY..................>FREE ARTISTRY.......................>/REVOLUTION
..............................................(Wit h Liberalism).............../....(future tech?)
PRINTING PRESS.........>BIOLOGY................>MEDICINE........./
.................(With Scientific Method)...(with Arabic Medicine)/
EDUCATION...........>ECONOMICS.............>FREE MARKETS../
.....................(With Liberalism).........(With Rational Philosophy)

A couple of suggestions here:

-I don't see the connection between biology and printing press. Why not just have it flow from scientific method?

-As a follow-up to biology, do we want to have something representing the agricultural/green revolution?

-As a final military tech, do we want to do something like 'formations', or 'military drill' to represent the development of line infantry? (I guess 'line infantry' would also work.)

-Do we have Constitution up before Nationalism? It seems to me like it should flow directly from Liberalism.

-For another military/industrial tech, what about Explosives? This way, we lose the dubious connection of grenadiers and military science (if any unit should be connected with military science, it's probably dragoons), and it can have some industrial ramifications as well.

Other than that, it doesn't seem like we're leaving much out.

A couple of suggestions here:

-I don't see the connection between biology and printing press. Why not just have it flow from scientific method?

-As a follow-up to biology, do we want to have something representing the agricultural/green revolution?

-As a final military tech, do we want to do something like 'formations', or 'military drill' to represent the development of line infantry? (I guess 'line infantry' would also work.)

-Do we have Constitution up before Nationalism? It seems to me like it should flow directly from Liberalism.

-For another military/industrial tech, what about Explosives? This way, we lose the dubious connection of grenadiers and military science (if any unit should be connected with military science, it's probably dragoons), and it can have some industrial ramifications as well.

Other than that, it doesn't seem like we're leaving much out.

You're right about Biology. Will think again. An agricultural improvement from it is a good idea too.
I thought about formations but figured it was already covered by Military Tactics. But I'll look at it again. Constitution preceeds Nationalism but at the moment I've got Liberalism a bit later. I see Constitution more as representing the establishment of Parliamentary power over the monarch in the 17thc., which would enable Constitutional Monarchy (ie William of Orange), rather than the French or American examples in the 18thC. In any case, I may have it enabled too early. I'll look again at that again too..Good idea about explosives enabling grenadiers though. Not clear what cavalry we'll end up with. I figured two types per civ from the start. Heavy plus ranged or light for scouting. But which ones? I'll do some research on that.Thanks for the suggestions.

You're right about Biology. Will think again. An agricultural improvement from it is a good idea too.
I thought about formations but figured it was already covered by Military Tactics. But I'll look at it again. Constitution preceeds Nationalism but at the moment I've got Liberalism a bit later. I see Constitution more as representing the establishment of Parliamentary power over the monarch in the 17thc., which would enable Constitutional Monarchy (ie William of Orange), rather than the French or American examples in the 18thC. In any case, I may have it enabled too early. I'll look again at that again too..Good idea about explosives enabling grenadiers though. Not clear what cavalry we'll end up with. I figured two types per civ from the start. Heavy plus ranged or light for scouting. But which ones? I'll do some research on that.Thanks for the suggestions.

Your version of Constitution is the right way to go - it's an important step in political development and does predate the Englightenment. What if we call the French/American version 'Democracy', gross oversimplification that it is?

Formations would probably be covered by Military Tactics - I was just thinking that there was a distinction between the line infantry of the late 1700s and the less advanced musket square formations of the early Colonial period. It may not be a distinction worth making - I just figured that we should have a powerful end-game military unit right on the border of future tech, and rifling is a little bit too distant to be included. One important difference between the early and late versions is the upgrade from matchlock to flintlock muskets - that might be worth looking into. (requires replacable parts?)

Couple of musket units would be fine, but I don't see the need for two types of Cavalry (or at most what is in Civ IV already). Those would be late units and I don't know how they would affect the gameplay (if at all). The emphasis time-wise is on mele units anyways.

Couple of musket units would be fine, but I don't see the need for two types of Cavalry (or at most what is in Civ IV already). Those would be late units and I don't know how they would affect the gameplay (if at all). The emphasis time-wise is on mele units anyways.

I've allowed for a progression of gunpowder infantry in the unit list I posted earlier but we could add a late one.
ie. MUSKETMAN...............> MUSKETEER..................>LINE INFANTRY
....(musketeer art)......(French musketeer art).........(Rifleman or Redcoat art)
(needs Gunpowder).....(needs Military Science........(needs Military Tactics
....................................and Nationalism?)...........,and Replaceable Parts?)

As far as cavalry go, we've got the main progression to Cuirassier and then Cavalry in the list already but I've left in a separate thread for light cavalry which I think is doable as low-cost scouting/recon cavalry with extra terrain/withdrawal points.
ie. MOUNTED INFANTRY...........>LIGHT CAVALRY..............>HUSSAR
...(needs Stirrups)...................(needs Farriers).........(needs Gunpowder and Military Science)
...(Charlemagne art)...............(Charlemagne art).........(art to be found from another mod?)

How about that?

I've revamped and expanded the end of the tech tree incorporating all your suggestions.
Any thoughts? Ideas? Anyone?

ASTRONOMY>>>SCIENTIFIC METHOD>>>>>>PHYSICS
........................(With Education)..........................\
.................................\................ .......................\
...................................\.............. ........................\
.........................STEAM ENGINES..............................\
.........................(With Replaceable Parts)....................\
.................................................. ...\........................\
.................................................. .....\>>>>>>>>>>>MACHINE TOOLS
PUBLIC WORKS>>>>>>CIVIL ENGINEERING/...........................\
...............................(With Economics)/..............................\
.................................................. ....................................\
.................................................. .....................................\
NATIONALISM>>>>LIBERALISM>>>>>RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY........\
......................(With Education)......(With Scientific Method)........\
.................................................. ..............\..........................\
.................................................. ...............\..........................\
.................................................. ................\..........................\INDUST RIAL
MUSIC THEORY>>>>FREE ARTISTRY>>>>>>RIGHTS OF MAN>>>>>>>>/REVOLUTION>>>>>>>>DEMOCRACY
............................(With Liberalism)........(With Economics)............/(future tech1).............(future tech 2)
.................................................. ........................................./
.................................................. ......................................../
......................BIOLOGY>>>>>>>>>>>>>MEDICINE..................../
................(With Chemistry).............(with Arabic Medicine)......../
................./and Scientific Method)......................................./
................/..............\................................... ................../
EDUCATION/................\>AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION............/
................\.............../....(With Scientific Method)............../
.................\............./................................................../
..................\>ECONOMICS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>FREE MARKETS
...................\(With Liberalism)...........................(With Rational Philosophy)

CHEMISTRY>>>>>>>>>>>>>EXPLOSIVES
.................................(With Scientific Method)
................................(enables musketeer,)\
..........................grenadier and field artillery\>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>COMBINED ARMS
.................................................. .........../.....................(With Physics and Machine Tools)
MILITARY TACTICS>>>>MILITARY STRATEGY/.......................(enables cavalry, line infantry
..................................(With Civil engineering)...........................and heavy artillery)
..........................(enables fortifications and naval blockade)

I've revamped and expanded the end of the tech tree incorporating all your suggestions.
Any thoughts? Ideas? Anyone?


-It doesn't seem like you should need biology for physics, or physics for medicine.

-Civil Engineering and Rights of Man are good additions. Steam power is a little uncomfortable - while steam engines were starting to show up towards the end of the mod timeline, they arguably represent the transition to the industrial revolution. Then again, the starting date for the Industrial Revolution is generally held to be somewhere between 1780 and 1820...so it wouldn't be unreasonable to have it up there.

Other than the first distinction, then, I'm pretty happy with it. Others?

-It doesn't seem like you should need biology for physics, or physics for medicine.

-Civil Engineering and Rights of Man are good additions. Steam power is a little uncomfortable - while steam engines were starting to show up towards the end of the mod timeline, they arguably represent the transition to the industrial revolution. Then again, the starting date for the Industrial Revolution is generally held to be somewhere between 1780 and 1820...so it wouldn't be unreasonable to have it up there.

Other than the first distinction, then, I'm pretty happy with it. Others?

Just a couple of tweaks then. Biology for physics and physics for medicine are scubbed. Quite right too. Have changed steam power to steam engines and made the Agricultural Revolution require only Scientific Method instead. More realistic and easier to research IMO. I could have split it into Enclosure, 4 Crop Rotation, Selective Breeding etc. but it'd be awkward and over-complicated. One tech to cover all is enough, I think.

BTW Feel like making the WB file for the Byzantine start that 3Miro's asking for on the Discussion thread? I might see what's left to be done of the CityName maps. I don't know what's happened to ijnavy lately. He's supposed to have finished the Russia/Kievan Rus map weeks ago.:confused:

Just a couple of tweaks then. Biology for physics and physics for medicine are scubbed. Quite right too. Have changed steam power to steam engines and made the Agricultural Revolution require only Scientific Method instead. More realistic and easier to research IMO. I could have split it into Enclosure, 4 Crop Rotation, Selective Breeding etc. but it'd be awkward and over-complicated. One tech to cover all is enough, I think.

BTW Feel like making the WB file for the Byzantine start that 3Miro's asking for on the Discussion thread? I might see what's left to be done of the CityName maps. I don't know what's happened to ijnavy lately. He's supposed to have finished the Russia/Kievan Rus map weeks ago.:confused:

Send me the link to the file you want it built from, and I'll put it together.

This should be the current .WBS file.

This should be the current .WBS file.

Thanks, Sedna. I'll post a Byzantine start file sometime this Sunday.

Still moving forward with the tech tree which is now linked together as a unit of 72 techs. Have shortened the naval thread and tweaked some of the connections. Everybody please tell me if you spot an inconsistency or broken link. So apart from a few units and buildings this is getting close to the playable version. Your comments and suggestions please before it gets posted on the wiki.:)

This probably belongs in the code thread, but I'm trying to create the Byzantine start, and I'm running into all kinds of problems. When I open the file, it gives me 'invalid mod directory', despite having a RFC Europe mod folder in the BTS folder.

Initially, when I opened the savefile, any civ played would instantly lose the game. So I went in through notepad and added a settler for the Byzantines somewhere in the desert, and I can open the game as the Byzantines without losing - but any use of the WB editor to create or edit cities ends in a crash. I'm going to try doing this from settlers, but that's likely to create some problems, and I'm still not confident the WB will work.

I'm using the file Sedna posted. Any suggestions?

Just a guess (sorry, I don't have access to the game myself right now), but it might be easier to ues the World Builder Save included with the mod -- I don't believe this has changed in a long while. This is guaranteed to be in the right place.

I would think you could just start a new game as the Byzantines, go into world builder, make the changes required, and then save that file out somewhere into your normal directory tree.

I am back, but will not be able to code until tomorrow.

Anyway, sedna17 is right about the WB file, just start a game (that you know would start) then go to WB, add whatever you feel like and save the file as something.civ.....

Any thoughts on the tech tree posted above from anybody?:)

I am back, but will not be able to code until tomorrow.

Anyway, sedna17 is right about the WB file, just start a game (that you know would start) then go to WB, add whatever you feel like and save the file as something.civ.....

Ok. I've got a big pile of grading to get through before I can touch it again, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

jessiecat, economics should follow banking, not the other way around. Banks were around as substantial institutions well before the concept of Economics. Or am I wrong? I am worried that Banking is now a very late technology.

EDIT: Never mind, I red your file wrong. It is hard to work on this from a doc file.

jessiecat, economics should follow banking, not the other way around. Banks were around as substantial institutions well before the concept of Economics. Or am I wrong? I am worried that Banking is now a very late technology.

EDIT: Never mind, I red your file wrong. It is hard to work on this from a doc file.

OK. Economics follows Education (needs Liberalism). Are you using the latest version? Prob. a bit messy. I forgot one early point. Code of laws gives you courthouses, of course. Have you spotted anything else that is wrong. Must be lots.:D

Not exactly "Wrong", but in the current version Liberalism comes way after Constitution and Nationalism and Music Theory and in general I am worried it may be coming late. I will leave it like that, look at the next test version when I post it.

Not exactly "Wrong", but in the current version Liberalism comes way after Constitution and Nationalism and Music Theory and in general I am worried it may be coming late. I will leave it like that, look at the next test version when I post it.

As st. lucifer and I discussed earlier, Constitution is meant in its earlier form like parliament limiting the powers of the Monarch from the early 17thC so Liberalism would come about in the 18thC. ie. The Age of Reason, Rights of Man etc. You may be thinking of Constitution in the post-revolutionary late 18thC like in America and France.:)

How about Liberalism then, currently Protestants appear with the discovery of Liberalism, however, that is no longer accurate. Which should be the Protestant tech?

How about Liberalism then, currently Protestants appear with the discovery of Liberalism, however, that is no longer accurate. Which should be the Protestant tech?

I think we decided that Protestantism would be available with Free Religion which is enabled
by Liberalism. However it would be more historically accurate to make it available with State
Religion which is enabled by Constitution, wouldn't it? The only danger I think is the possibility
of beelining to it. You don't want players getting it by 1200 or something. That would be dumb,
I think. One way of avoiding that is a time block or maybe fixed to an era. What do you think?

EDIT Looking at the tech tree again, I do think it should be Liberalism. It's possible to beeline to it by
researching about 13 techs (out of 72). Not so late in the game afterall. Maybe we should keep it
like that for now anyway. I think where we differ is the definition of Liberalism. I'm thinking in terms
of the Renaissance and the challenge to divine rule and established church in the 16th.C. Whereas
you might be thinking of the Enlightenment and political liberalism in the 18thC. As already shown in
discussions in the OffTopic forum, it does seem that Europeans and Americans often have a very different definition of what the word "liberalism" means.:)

In Civ IV religion get founded by the first discovery of some techs. Catholicism and Orthodoxy would be founded by Theology and Classical Knowledge and since nations would know those from the start, those two would be pre-founded. Islam gets founded with the start of Arabia and the founding of Damascus (see the Arabia start discussion). Where do we put Protestants? Free Religion is a civic not a tech. We need a tech that would be first discovered around 1500AD. Constitution as associated with diminishing the secular authority could also be viewed as somewhat diminishing the religious authority and thus giving rise to the Reformation movement (hearing the hammer driving nails into the cathedral door).

In Civ IV religion get founded by the first discovery of some techs. Catholicism and Orthodoxy would be founded by Theology and Classical Knowledge and since nations would know those from the start, those two would be pre-founded. Islam gets founded with the start of Arabia and the founding of Damascus (see the Arabia start discussion). Where do we put Protestants? Free Religion is a civic not a tech. We need a tech that would be first discovered around 1500AD. Constitution as associated with diminishing the secular authority could also be viewed as somewhat diminishing the religious authority and thus giving rise to the Reformation movement (hearing the hammer driving nails into the cathedral door).

I think we've just cross-posted. See above. Constitution comes pretty early. Maybe too early.
Liberalism would be better IMO.:)

Hey all,

I'm interested in making some minor modifications to the tech tree and also improving how it is displayed (i.e. modifying some of the X,Y positions of the techs). My plan is to work on this and present the results to people for their approval and comments.

I just want to check to make sure no one else is looking at doing the same thing, because I don't want to overlap work.

sedna17, use the latest version that I am uploading now. I changed the Eras so that we don't see skyscrapers in the Middle Ages. Also, if you change the order of the Techs, could you provide with updated Consts.py as well.

Sure thing. Also, I don't know if you've figured out by now you can sign up for a free Rapidshare account with a Collector's Zone https://ssl.rapidshare.com/cgi-bin/collectorszone.cgi to remove the "only 10 downloads" limit they implemented on anonymous uploads.

liberalism should imo be reserved for the last 80 to 20 turns...

i would put protestantism with printing press (or some tech that requires printing press) for it seems unlikely to have ocurred without the widespread availability of their holy scripture on which they lay so much emphasis

liberalism should imo be reserved for the last 80 to 20 turns...

i would put protestantism with printing press (or some tech that requires printing press) for it seems unlikely to have ocurred without the widespread availability of their holy scripture on which they lay so much emphasis

This is a good suggestion. One of the biggest tenets of the Protestant Reformation was that the Bible and services should be in the vernacular, rather than Latin, an advance that was only possible with the development of the printing press. Linking the tech with the religion means that it will show up earlier, and that we can have Liberalism be the late tech that it probably should be (and which makes available Free Religion).

Sorry if I'm a little late for commenting on this topic posted awhile ago, but it just stuck out at me. Referring back to the list of units and buildings done by Disenfrancised on the first page, I noticed he wanted to cut the Temple of Solomon from the buildings list. Judaism is a religion in the game, and I believe it should still have a shrine, even though it is a special religion. Since the temple was destroyed by the Romans I recommend we do one of the Western Wall, using the graphics of maybe a Dun for it. Since I am Jewish, I know the Western Wall is probably the most holy place in Judaism today, since its all that's left of the second temple.

I just started reading these forums for RFCe and I didn't have time to sift through all of the pages in the threads to see if this was mentioned before. And if this isn't the right thread, tell me, and I'll try to post it in the correct one or something.

We discussed adding either the Temple of Solomon or the Wailing Wall or the Western Wall (whichever is appropriate). It would be pre-build in Jerusalem. We just haven't reached that point of the coding yet.

Also to clarify, Judaism would not act like a regular religion in this mod. In terms of religion, we wanted to accurately represent the fight between the three major groups of Christians and the Muslims for control over Europe. Judaism would be represented as Jewish communities or quarters, spreading throughout Europe giving boost to culture and commerce.

Oh, thanks! Sorry that I didn't see the discussion before. There are just so many pages of comments and that I've come pretty late in the game for discussing this stuff.

Hey all,

Here's what I've come up with as a revised tech tree. A lot of the connections and links are substantially the same as before, but here are the major changes:

1) Fewer independent/concurrent lines of research. In particular, I combined all the "navigation-like" stuff into one branch up top, merged a lot of the art/architecture branches together, and relentlessly stuck previous short little bits of tech tree inside other branches. This is necessary to make a good display because we're limited to 7 techs in the vertical direction. The old tech tree ran to 19 columns, the new layout only takes 13, a substantial scrolling-savings.

2) Added some new techs, such as Manorialism and Vassalage to ease into Feudalism. Started modifying art buttons (thanks to the old European Middle Ages mod).

3) Changed some techs. We had too many "Military X". So some of these got renamed to things like Professional Army and Polygonal Fort

4) Moved many of the units and some of the civics around to avoid some bunching problems we had. Longbows now come late.

So, here are my schematic plan, which divides tech up into 4 periods: Early/High/Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. This was useful for trying to stack techs together at the appropriate year. Here is also a screenshot from in-game, showing the connections and benefits in more detail. I need a little more polish before I upload this for your enjoyment.

a small thing, move the Industrial tech one to the right, it would better signify the end of the tech tree (and mess up the first screenshot).

a small thing, move the Industrial tech one to the right, it would better signify the end of the tech tree (and mess up the first screenshot).

A very logical tech tree, but I think we need to enable libraries and courthouses earlier so I propose these changes of order, which I think make more sense historically. For example monks studied classical literature through which they learned classical knowledge and music. Same with Code of Laws which should predate Feudalism IMO;

Monasticism>>>Literature>>>Classical Knowledge>>>Music

Manorialism>>>Code of Laws>>>Vassalage>>>Feudalism

A very logical tech tree, but I think we need to enable libraries and courthouses earlier so I propose these changes of order, which I think make more sense historically. For example monks studied classical literature through which they learned classical knowledge and music. Same with Code of Laws which should predate Feudalism IMO;

Monasticism>>>Literature>>>Classical Knowledge>>>Music

Manorialism>>>Code of Laws>>>Vassalage>>>Feudalism


I'm in favor of leaving libraries late. Apart from the Islamic world, most of the libraries of Europe were in monasteries.

I'd be ok with increasing the research bonus of monasteries from 10% to 25%. Actually, I think this might be the way to go - and keep libraries late, so the research rate doesn't get out of control.


Nice work on the tree, Sedna.

Can we make it so that only the state religion monasteries have the 25% bonus, multiple monasteries would seem OP. I put Catholicism and Orthodoxy both in Jerusalem and with Islam, Arabia gets three religions and three Monasteries. You probably don't want to spread Christianity because of the UHV, but still. Bulgaria can easily get both initial Christian religions.

Can we make it so that only the state religion monasteries have the 25% bonus, multiple monasteries would seem OP. I put Catholicism and Orthodoxy both in Jerusalem and with Islam, Arabia gets three religions and three Monasteries. You probably don't want to spread Christianity because of the UHV, but still. Bulgaria can easily get both initial Christian religions.

If it's codeable, sure. If it isn't, you're right about the possibility of overpowering it. Maybe 15% is more appropriate.

I do feel strongly that libraries should be later, as I've put them here. There doesn't seem to be an XML tag to limit research bonus based on current state religion.

One option would be a "Scriptorium" building, adjacent to a monastery (i.e. it requires a monastery to build and is available with the same tech), which gives the science bonus (perhaps +25% and then a monastery would not get a science bonus). This would only allow one Scriptorium per city.

As for Code of Laws, I could move it a bit earlier. I was attempting to model the re-discovery of the Corpus Juris Civilis around the turn of the millennium in Western Europe. Byzantium, of course, could just start with this tech out-of-sequence. I'm flexible on this point, though. Do early empires get out-of-control maintenance costs before a reasonable chance to get courthouses?

I do feel strongly that libraries should be later, as I've put them here. There doesn't seem to be an XML tag to limit research bonus based on current state religion.

One option would be a "Scriptorium" building, adjacent to a monastery (i.e. it requires a monastery to build and is available with the same tech), which gives the science bonus (perhaps +25% and then a monastery would not get a science bonus). This would only allow one Scriptorium per city.

As for Code of Laws, I could move it a bit earlier. I was attempting to model the re-discovery of the Corpus Juris Civilis around the turn of the millennium in Western Europe. Byzantium, of course, could just start with this tech out-of-sequence. I'm flexible on this point, though. Do early empires get out-of-control maintenance costs before a reasonable chance to get courthouses?


I like the scriptorium option, although I think that monasteries should still provide a small tech bonus. Maybe we leave the monastery at 10%; add a scriptorium for 20-25% and make it fairly expensive, and make a one-per-city rule.

I think CoL is fine where it is - 3 legal advances/systems crop up around that time in W. Europe, between the Corpus, Thing Law among the Vikings and the founding of Iceland's Althing, and finally the Magna Carta (although that's 200 years later). I'm fine with Byzantium starting with the tech out of sequence, but we'll have to add another little hit to their tech rate to make up for it.

I'm OK with leaving Literature as it is with improved research for Monasteries but I think Code of Laws should move a bit earlier. All societies from Babylon onward had some form of law if only the kings' edicts. The Roman legal custom did not completely die out in Europe in the so-called Dark Ages. The Visigothic kingdoms in France and Spain had courts and judges who enforced laws. I'd compromise with it though by suggesting that Code of Laws follows Vassalage and leads to Feudalism. How about that?

Maintenance cost for all civs has been reduced to accommodate large empires. You can go on for a while without courthouses.

I like the Scriptorium idea. In Civ IV we have research bonus from Library, University, Observatory and Lab (last come in late), total 100% bonus and we don't count the Monasteries that go obsolete at some point. In RFC Europe we only have the Library, University and Observatory, total 75%. Add Scriptorium for early 25% bonus (similar to library and would allow scientists), Public School comes in with Public Education for another %25, then University that allows another scientists or two +25% and last Observatories +25%. What do you think?

Maintenance cost for all civs has been reduced to accommodate large empires. You can go on for a while without courthouses.

I like the Scriptorium idea. In Civ IV we have research bonus from Library, University, Observatory and Lab (last come in late), total 100% bonus and we don't count the Monasteries that go obsolete at some point. In RFC Europe we only have the Library, University and Observatory, total 75%. Add Scriptorium for early 25% bonus (similar to library and would allow scientists), Public School comes in with Public Education for another %25, then University that allows another scientists or two +25% and last Observatories +25%. What do you think?

I like the Scriptorium too. So along with the rest that would probably be enough boost for research. I am a bit worried about lack of early courthouses unless maintenance costs will be much reduced. The other thing I mentioned earlier is inflation. Why is that taking up 50% of all revenue? Can we reduce it somehow?

Inflation is a general problem in Civ IV, I don't know if you go to Apolyton Forum, but I spend some time there trying to figure out the inflation mechanics. It turns out no one knows how it works. It is not representative of real inflation, it is just a number that grows during the game and increased the cost of everything. In RFCE, I made a mechanism to decrease the inflation if it becomes a problem (i.e. same way we have tech and growth modifiers we have an inflation modifier).

Maintenance cost for all civs has been reduced to accommodate large empires. You can go on for a while without courthouses.

I like the Scriptorium idea. In Civ IV we have research bonus from Library, University, Observatory and Lab (last come in late), total 100% bonus and we don't count the Monasteries that go obsolete at some point. In RFC Europe we only have the Library, University and Observatory, total 75%. Add Scriptorium for early 25% bonus (similar to library and would allow scientists), Public School comes in with Public Education for another %25, then University that allows another scientists or two +25% and last Observatories +25%. What do you think?

You're right about observatories coming late, so it makes sense to increase the early science this way.

I would be okay with putting code of laws before feudalism. Let's wait and see how much of a pain maintenance is. I'll post my next update of the xml files (mostly relating to this tech tree) later today.