Tech Tree Discussion

[Hydromancerx]

Looks interesting. When merging it might not be exact, but I do like some of what you have. That's assuming we use what is already in C2C prehistoric era. Note that I was also building onto SO's Prehistoric NWA too. Which is why things are a little funky in the Prehistoric Era.

I do have a question though. What is "Culture 1 - Our Houses"? I also think some are already covered such as "Simple Wood Working" is our normal "Wood Working" and "Pigment Use" is our "Natural Pigments".

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

Looks interesting. When merging it might not be exact, but I do like some of what you have. That's assuming we use what is already in C2C prehistoric era. Note that I was also building onto SO's Prehistoric NWA too. Which is why things are a little funky in the Prehistoric Era.

I do have a question though. What is "Culture 1 - Our Houses"? I also think some are already covered such as "Simple Wood Working" is our normal "Wood Working" and "Pigment Use" is our "Natural Pigments".

That is why I said it did not make sense without the pedia "Culture 1 - our houses" is about the art style. The style of housing for (nomadic) cultures depends mostly on the climate and secondly on resources available. In cold climates you need to keep out the wind and cold and keep in heat. In hot dry climates providing shade is important and in wet hot climates walls aren't needed but roofs are. Originally there was a "Culture 0 - the way we do things around here" but that is not restricted to hominids since it is true of some birds and many of the apes.

"Simple Wood Working" is nothing like "Wood Working" nor is "Pigment Use" anything like "Natural Pigments" both are precursors to the latter. we are talking "baby steps" in these techs. "Simple Wood Working" is taking a bowl shaped bit of wood and making a bowl or a long thin branch and making a simple sharpened stick using fairly simple tools. You select the wood based on what it currently looks like. "Pigment Use" is more the earth colours ochre and such like rather than plant based colours which require preparation.

[Hydromancerx]

@Dancing Hoskuld

Check out my changes so far to the tech tree. The new ones would be red.

My plan so far to combine the 2 tree is this ...

*removed*

I am totally not done yet. Please give some feedback and more info on later techs. I am also not sure where to fit in the culture related techs.

Note that I combined Hammer Stones and Percussion Stones into "Stone Working". Since those would be the first types of stone tools.

Techs from Prehistoric NWA like "Microliths" and "Fine Edge Tools" I am not sure where they should go.

You should also notice that some dramatic changes have occurred to fit your style tree such as Fire Making coming very early. Please try to work with me on this to make use of the techs we already have. Thus becoming a hybrid tree of C2C and RoH.

[Hydromancerx]

@Dancing Hoskuld

I sent you and SO an updated list via PM. Once those changes are made we can re-tweak and add more.

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Fire making does not come early, controlled fire is captured fire. If it goes out you need to find some wild fire to capture. Al la the movie "Quest for Fire".

I/Johny have two or three more eras, each with 20 or so techs, before or covering the prehistoric era in C2C. Doing knee jerk merging before seeing how things work out is a bad idea. My main bug with the wording in Johny's tech tree is the confusion between the technique/technology and the resulting tools and resultant manufactured goods. I am still not happy with some of the techs because they are linking techs that don't provide something to the game play.

[Hydromancerx]

Fire making does not come early, controlled fire is captured fire. If it goes out you need to find some wild fire to capture. Al la the movie "Quest for Fire".

Wouldn't that be called "Captured Fire" then? Also where would fire making be then? Because there are different ways to make fire.

Doing knee jerk merging before seeing how things work out is a bad idea.

Well that's why I only added the stuff that made sense to what we have. The rest is just compacting the tree to have more room. Things can be moved around if we need more space.

My main bug with the wording in Johny's tech tree is the confusion between the technique/technology and the resulting tools and resultant manufactured goods.

Yeah I could see that. I both looked at what I already intended or the prehistoric techs to cover and then looked up the words he used (specifically for the stone tool types).

I am still not happy with some of the techs because they are linking techs that don't provide something to the game play.

In general just about any tech can have a building, unit or promotion made for it. But I understand what you mean. That's why many existing techs are based on game features and not necessarily real life (ex. Gathering representing Plant Identification and Scavenging representing Animal identification).

[Il Principe]

I got an idea, that would mean a lot of work, but would add to the diversity of the game:
Alternative tech trees based on culture.
There are already a few things only buildable if you got the right native culture. I propose increasing this and having techs dependent on culture as well, and more units as well. Like limiting the ancient rocketeer to Asians, and needing an "Early Gunpoder" tech unavailable to other cultures.
That would make conquest more interesting , because you could get a lot by diversifying your empire. ( Maybe countered by increased instability due to ethnic diversity, that could become positve with certain civics, or worse with others).

Prehistoric and most modern and post modern stuff could be left untouched, with the diversity coming in the eras where different cultures were refined enough to differ and not globailzed enough to blend.

If there is interest in such an Idea, I would gladly work out a more detailed concept over the next few days, let´s say till tuesday, got an exam on monday.

Edit: Another thing about techs and culture I just thought of while typing in the civics thread: Could having diverse cultures give resarch boni or mali to certain techs? The concept of Nationalism is harder to develop if you have nation of about 10 different cultures, some american, some european, some asian. Developing of universal translators on the other hand would benefit from such a diversity.

[Hydromancerx]

@Il Principe

Much of this has been brought up before. So far the consensus has been that its hard enough to build one tech tree let alone cultural ones.

I also think that it would be unfair to limit technology based on culture. What happened if roles were reversed where say Africa developed gunpowder before Asia? Or the Americas discovered the Old World and wiped out the Europeans?

[Il Principe]

Fair points both of them.
Especially with nomadic start and multimaps being in the works.

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Il Principe

I got an idea, that would mean a lot of work, but would add to the diversity of the game:
...
That would make conquest more interesting , because you could get a lot by diversifying your empire. ( Maybe countered by increased instability due to ethnic diversity, that could become positve with certain civics, or worse with others).

Prehistoric and most modern and post modern stuff could be left untouched, with the diversity coming in the eras where different cultures were refined enough to differ and not globailzed enough to blend.

...

Edit: Another thing about techs and culture I just thought of while typing in the civics thread: Could having diverse cultures give resarch boni or mali to certain techs? The concept of Nationalism is harder to develop if you have nation of about 10 different cultures, some american, some european, some asian. Developing of universal translators on the other hand would benefit from such a diversity.

I like the idea of traits giving research boni and mali but not culture.

However I do like your idea of Nationalism being more difficult for multiple cultures and Universal Translator benefiting from multiple cultures.

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Previously in C2C we had a tech Stone Tools in RoH this was expanded into

Hard-hammer Percussion - provides the first unnatural weapon, a sharp stone held in two hands to hit things. IE earliest axe. This leads to a better way of working with stone and getting sharper axes.

Soft-hammer Percussion more controlled way of hitting things which leads to the discovery of specialist tools for special needs. IE

Chopping or the tool burins

Piercing or the tool awl

Scrapping or scrapers

So where chopping, piercing and scrapping are now in C2C is wrong.

C2C Fire Making is replaced with Controlled Fire and Fire Making in RoH. Where controlled fire is fire captured from the wild and kept alive as a fire when camped and fire stick or similar when moving about.

C2C Wood Working is replaced in RoH with a number of techs

Simple Wood Working - starting with stripping the bits off a branch or lump off wood to simple shaping of wood that is already mostly the correct shape using the chopping and piercing tools.

Heat Treatment (with Controlled Fire ) leads to the discovery that a poking stick (spear) has a harder point when heat treated and that stones break to provide sharper edges and points when heat treated.

Binding (tying things together with grass, twisted grass (early rope or string) and rawhide), glue - sticky stuff like tar and rawhide working have not been added to my version of the RoH tree yet. All of which are needed for Wood Working (RoH) and Hafting.

[Hydromancerx]

@Dancing Hoskuld

A few questions ...

1. Whats the difference between Hard-Hammer Percussion and Soft-Hammer Percussion. Can't they just be combined into a single tech called "Stone Tools"? And then have Chopping, Piercing and Scrapping branch off from that?

2. Where's "Fire Making (RoH)" fit into the tree in RoH?

3. Whats the difference between Simple Wood Working and Wood Working can't we just have Wood Working take the spot of Simple Wood Working?

Binding (tying things together with grass, twisted grass (early rope or string) and rawhide), glue - sticky stuff like tar and rawhide working have not been added to my version of the RoH tree yet. All of which are needed for Wood Working (RoH) and Hafting.

4. Ok so how do those connect? Also is there 2 types of wood working? Note I am not talking about Heat Treatment (RoH) , Bark Working (RoH) or Carpentry (C2C).

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

@Dancing Hoskuld

A few questions ...

1. Whats the difference between Hard-Hammer Percussion and Soft-Hammer Percussion. Can't they just be combined into a single tech called "Stone Tools"? And then have Chopping, Piercing and Scrapping branch off from that?

2. Where's "Fire Making (RoH)" fit into the tree in RoH?

3. Whats the difference between Simple Wood Working and Wood Working can't we just have Wood Working take the spot of Simple Wood Working?



4. Ok so how do those connect? Also is there 2 types of wood working? Note I am not talking about Heat Treatment (RoH) , Bark Working (RoH) or Carpentry (C2C).

The RoH has when things were discovered not the connections between them. Plus the confusion between technique/technology and the tools or manufactured resources. I am still working on them but today, ie just now everything went pear shaped and crashed.

RoH does not have a fire making tech. It does go into great detail on stone tools though.

Wood Working in C2C may indeed be the same as "Simple Wood Working" in my RoH but I am not sure yet. Heat Treatment may be considered part of c2C Wood Working which is why I called the tech Simple Wood Working. Heat Treatment includes fire hardening and bending techniques for wood which you may have included in your wood working. Carpentry in C2C on the other hand suggests tools - EG saws (stone ones have been found) and vices (living tree branches with rope twists held in place by a stick and stone weight.

Hafting requires some way of getting the wood handle and stone head to stay together. This is done with sticky stuff, tar or tree sap (resin), and binding with grass, grass string or strips of hide (rawhide not tanned hide). So Hafting and binding may be the same thing with rawhide being the resource produced by Skinning.

Art probably should be Culture - Art (painting) or Art - Representational Painting not sure which.

[Hydromancerx]

Take a lookt a the updated tech tree.

1. What are the RoH requirements for ...

- Binding
- Glue
- Rawhide Working
- Bark Working
- Slash and Burn

Ot the better question is what techs are you using from RoH?

2. Carpentry also includes Bone Saws.

3. I think "Petroglyphs" (aka Cave Paintings) covers "Art".

[Dancing Hoskuld]

1. All 220+; 60 Paleolithic, 20 Mesolithic, plus about 30 each for Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, the plus 21 for Antiquity which gets us up to the Classic era. Although there are some tech missing like felt and many of the sea going ones in particular.

3. Well you could just put them all in one tech and call it stone age if you like.

[Hydromancerx]

1. Are all those techs new or are some repeats of stuff we already have?

4. When you say "wrong" please tell me how it should be fixed. I cannot fix them if you do not tell me what is wrong.

[strategyonly]

see latest post of SVN thx.

[Sgtslick]

can't beleive your adding more prehistoric techs, its already so boring. It needs to be faster definately not slower!

[DRJ]

Originally Posted by Sgtslick

can't beleive your adding more prehistoric techs, its already so boring. It needs to be faster definately not slower!

Yes, I admit it is boring at times atm. But with the added flavor, with autoend turns option, with wind, rain, ice ages, nomad start and early quests it will be really fun. Redoing the techtree is paving the way for this. After all this is SVN, which means beta, which means if you don't like it play the normal v22 or play ancient start with custom game.

[Koshling]

Originally Posted by DRJ

Yes, I admit it is boring at times atm. But with the added flavor, with autoend turns option, with wind, rain, ice ages, nomad start and early quests it will be really fun. Redoing the techtree is paving the way for this. After all this is SVN, which means beta, which means if you don't like it play the normal v22 or play ancient start with custom game.

I'd say we should split prehistoric (with these changes) into two eras, so that anyone who doesn't want this even-more-extended early game can start in the second era, without having to miss out on the original prehistoric hunting-oriented fun by going all the way to ancient.