I've been offline for a little while -- no need to go into the mundane reasons for that -- but I've noticed this thread when I returned, and wanted to submit a small comment. You didn't really respond or react to my questions, so I suppose the points are moot.
Not at all; indeed, your thoughts & comments have been much appreciated
I've been up to my eyeballs researching the era, nudged, in part, by your suggestions.
General historical note:
"Commodities such as lace and woolens were seen as critical components of the new mercantilist economies of Western Europe. The wealth and power of kings was to be based on good stewardship of their realms, and access to a comprehensive array of resources: peasants to till the ground and harvest the food of the kingdom; skilled artisans to produce everything the kingdom needed for its own consumption; merchants to carry surplus produce and goods beyond the kingdom's borders and bring back the wealth of one's neighbours; adventurers to explore, plunder, and open up distant lands as future depositories of the burgeoning trade and population; ministers and bureaucrats to organise it all and ensure that the State received its due share; clergy to see to the spiritual needs of the king's subjects and to educate them on his Divine Right to rule over them; and soldiers... Soldiers: the unwanted and idle of the lower orders, led by an aristocracy with a birthright to wage war, and to consume that wealth so hardly won by the peasants, artisans, merchants, and adventurers, to such a degree that the king himself, his kingdom wracked and groaning under the taxation required to pay his army, might be reduced to penury. Thus the need for new markets, and soldiers to conquer them..."
On a macro-political level, I start in 1715 because the War Of The Spanish Succession is over, Great Britain is unified, and most of the rest of the period retains relatively stable alliances (yes, the War Of The Austrian Succession being the most notable exception re: Great Britain, but there I believe effective workarounds for that
some I'm making "artificial" for play balance. The Great Northern War haunted me, but it ended in the 1720s and I didn't want Sweden at perpetual war; my attempted "workaround" is to (1) put Sweden and Russia into different Culture Groups (2) Make Sweden's "Least Favorite Gov" be "Tsardom" - Russia's will be "Ottoman Empire (3) Set Sweden's aggression to 5.
Civs to date are all the Usual European Suspects + Qing China, Mughal India, Persia, Afghanistan, Oman, whatever I decide to call the Uighurs/Khazaks, 2 SE Asian States TBD, Algonquian, Iroquois, Caribbean Pirates; others TBD.
4 "Fixed Alliances" 2 at perpetual war:
1 - Great Britain, Prussia & Portugal
2 - France, Spain & Bavaria
3 - Qing China v. 4 - Uighurs/Khazaks
Regarding military technology: "In general the period from 1700 to 1800 saw no major innovations in firearms and weapons in general. Some new ideas though helped to improve arms that were already in use. There was also a number of outstanding military inventions such as explosive-filled artillery shells, rockets, the 5.5-inch mortar-fired explosive projectile, the Shrapnel explosive sub-projectile shell, and a few more all of which were considered to be very cruel weapons and were disregarded. Eighteenth century armies used what they were issued with some refinement and cared for no major improvement."
Nonetheless, Techs to date (most certainly borrowing from your list!) (plus add the above-mentioned) -
MILITARY:
- Letters Of Marque & Reprisal (Privateers)
- French (first) introduced artillery including mounting the gun on wheeled carriages and the trunnion to improve aiming.
- Linear Deployment (many armies still used massed deployment until well into the century.)
- (Congreve) Rockets
- Ballistic Pendulum (This gave gunners the ability to measure the power of a given quantity of gunpowder.)
- Standard Sized Iron Ramrod.
- Whole-cast cannon barrels.
- Kentucky Longrifle
- Light Troops (Austrian hussars first.)
- Swedish Naval Reform (1756.)
- Frederick the Great's development of the "Oblique Order" (7 Years War.)
- Frederick the Great's introduction of horse-drawn field artillery (ditto.)
- The introduction of the Division (combined arms) formation by the French in 1760.
- Russian Military Reform.
Rather than 5 ranks of ambiguous comparison, Techs will allow "2nd Class" the "First Class" SOLs.
ECONOMIC/SOCIAL:
- Increased Taxation.
- Government Reform.
- Central Bank (starting Tech for a few.)
- Jacobite Rebellion
- Many Types of Plantations/Mines
- "Port Of Disembarcation" (generates New World Settlers)
TECHNOLOGICAL:
- First Commercially Successful Iron Plough (1730)
- Measurement Of Longitude
- The Flying Shuttle (1733) doubled the output of a weaver, worsening the imbalance between spinning and weaving.
- Sextant (1757)
- Spinning Jenny
New Improvements & Wonders:
- MUCH borrowing from timerover1951's suggestions
- Mill
- Playhouse
- Slave Port (generates Slave Worker Units)
-
Already Built
- Several Central Banks
- Hagia Sophia
- Vatican
MUCH more to follow ...
-
z