Tech Tree Revisions

Modern Art as a tech covers the various art movements that sprung up after Realism; techs need to have content in order to make them worth researching, and individual techs for art movements just don't cut it in my opinion. An umbrella tech can gather enough stuff to be worth researching in its own right, and not just because it's a prerequisite to another tech. One of the reasons I created Modern Art was to hook Realism into the tech tree by eventually leading to Mass Media. This is how I plan to set it up:

Era: Industrial
Requirements: Industrialism + Psychology + Realism
Leads to: Mass Media
Allows: Bauhaus School (wonder), Cristo Redentor (wonder)
Bonuses: +2 :culture: from all Art Gallery, Artists' Guild, Theatre

Cristo Redentor moves here from Radio. It fits the technology and it fits the timing better (dedicated 1931, with the Modern Art technology coming along around 1919).

Bauhaus School is a new Wonder. It combines form and function, giving you +2 :hammers: from all Artist specialists and +2 :commerce: from all Engineer specialists. I'd like it to give +:culture: to Engineers, but the XML doesn't exist for that right now.

I may put a free Great Artist here as well, but that will come later as part of a proposal to rebalance all of the free Great People on the tech tree. It's very unbalanced right now, with 5 Great Scientists and only 1 Great Artist.
 
Damn meant to mention this earlier but having an Asymmetric Warfare tech either near end of Renaissance would be awesome. At some point in the past maybe it was civ4 or civ3 or I may be totally insane but there was a hidden nationality guerilla I would love to see make a return in some form.
 
Propaganda is another tech from Realism Invictus. The tricky part was dating this tech, as advertising agencies date to the late 1800's, but heavy government propaganda doesn't appear until WWI. I went with the second option, and put an Advertising Agency building here to give it some content.

Here is how this tech plays out.
Era: Industrial
Requirements: Motion Pictures + Psychology + (Communism OR Fascism)
Leads to: Consumerism
Allows: Advertising Agency (building)

The Advertising Agency is the least I want to do. There should probably also be a Propaganda Office national wonder that reduces war weariness across your civ, but I haven't pinned down the stats yet.

The Advertising Agency grants the following benefits:
  • +10% :gold:, +10% :culture:
  • Can turn 1 citizen into Artist and 1 citizen into Merchant
I also want it to do something with corporations, but the XML isn't there at the moment. This might be enough for now.
 
Combat Wombat said:
Damn meant to mention this earlier but having an Asymmetric Warfare tech either near end of Renaissance would be awesome. At some point in the past maybe it was civ4 or civ3 or I may be totally insane but there was a hidden nationality guerilla I would love to see make a return in some form.
Click to expand...

I don't think it needs to be a separate tech -- there is already a Partisans event in the game that spawns units when you lose a city. I think that fits the American Revolution and the Peninsular War better; Hidden Nationality is for units that you want to attack an enemy without declaring war, and Partisans are units that spring up during a war in your territory. The event may need some fine-tuning for it to work right; the event seems to need to be running the Liberal civic to work at all, which isn't right.

Hidden Nationality is a very dangerous thing to play with. I'm trying to build a foundation and keep the new techs to a minimum. Once that's done, then we can start experimenting.
 
Vokarya said:
Hidden Nationality is a very dangerous thing to play with. I'm trying to build a foundation and keep the new techs to a minimum. Once that's done, then we can start experimenting.
Click to expand...

I agree on everything, and especially I agree with this last sentence. :)
 
Here are the last two levels of the Industrial Era. This includes a few techs that are currently Modern Era, but are about to get shoved backwards. I draw the line between the Industrial and Modern eras at pre-/post-WWII.

First, the timeline:
Date Tech Event
1922 Sonar ASDIC developed
1925 Consumerism Sloan introduces annual model years for GM cars
1929 Aviation Instrument flying developed
1936 Applied Economics Keynesian School established
1938 Fission Hahn splits the atom
1939 Guerrilla Warfare Polish resistance movements in WWII
1939 Mechanized Warfare German blitzkrieg tactics
1939 Radar Chain Home station operational
1940 Logistics Blackett develops Operational Research
1940 Naval Aviation HMS Illustrious with armored flight deck
1942 Amphibious Warfare Allied landings at Guadalcanal

Industrial-9 doesn't have many changes, mostly pruning back.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Amphibious Warfare Automatic Weapons Automatic Weapons
Aviation Machine Tools + Radio + Rocketry Automatic Weapons + Flight + Radio
Consumerism NEW Industrialism + Propaganda
Fission Industrialism + Quantum Physics Industrialism + Quantum Physics
Guerrilla Warfare Automatic Weapons + Fascism + Radio Automatic Weapons + Communism + Fascism + Radio
Mechanized Warfare Armored Vehicles + Automatic Weapons + Machine Tools + Radio Armored Vehicles + Automatic Weapons + Radio
Sonar Radio + Submarine Warfare Submarine Warfare
  • Aviation and Mechanized Warfare both lost Machine Tools when I moved it back into the early Industrial Era.
  • Aviation also seems to fit Flight better than Rocketry. Rocketry will be needed for Jet Propulsion.
  • Guerrilla Warfare got Communism because I needed to fold it in somewhere.
  • Sonar lost Radio when I added it to Submarine Warfare.

Industrial-10 contains 3 techs borrowed from the Modern Era, plus the one outlier of Logistics.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Applied Economics Computers + Representative Democracy Consumerism
Logistics Machine Tools + Mass Transit + Military Science Mass Transit + (Amphibious Warfare OR Mechanized Warfare)
Naval Aviation Aviation + Military Science + Radar Aviation + Mechanized Warfare
Radar Radio + (Electronics OR Machine Tools OR Sonar) Sonar
  • Applied Economics comes before Computers, so I moved it backwards and gave Consumerism its follow-up tech.
  • Logistics lost Machine Tools, so it needed something to place it at the appropriate level on the tree. I felt either Amphibious Warfare (Allied island attacks) or Mechanized Warfare (German blitzkrieg tactics) would lead to the level of Logistics knowledge to create the tech. Military Science is just redundant at this point.
  • Naval Aviation lost Radar because I didn't want the tech to be an outlier.
  • Radar got really trimmed down just to keep it in the right place. I suppose Electronics as an alternate prerequisite would work.
 
Consumerism is the follow-up to Propaganda and represents a serious shift towards the consumer-driven economy.

Era: Industrial
Prerequisites: Industrialism + Propaganda
Leads to: Applied Economics
Allows: Shopping District, Madison Avenue (Wonder), various corporations

Madison Avenue is a new Wonder that follows up the Advertising Agency from Propaganda. I'm looking at it granting a free Advertising Agency in every city and +2 :commerce: from all Artists and Merchants. That will need testing for balance.

I'm not completely sure which corporations should move to this tech: I think at least Civilized Jewelers. Several of the new corporations could also go here.
 
Here is the remap of the Industrial Era. The only level that had 9 techs and needed to be broken up over two columns was Industrial-8. Everything else fits into one column.
Thermodynamics Organic Chemistry Psychology Public Schooling
Public Health Medicine Refrigeration Fascism Propaganda Consumerism Applied Economics
Military Science Marxism Labor Union Radio Theory of Relativity Quantum Physics Fission
Agricultural Engineering Realism Motion Pictures Communism
Machine Tools Assembly Line Steel Electricity Civil Engineering Industrialism Armored Vehicles Mechanized Warfare Logistics
Steam Power Screw Propeller Automatic Weapons Amphibious Warfare
Repeating Weapons Imperialism Modern Art Aviation Naval Aviation
Railroad Refining Artillery Plastics Guerrilla Warfare
Photography Combustion Automobile Mass Transit Submarine Warfare Sonar Radar
Journalism Telegraph Meteorology Flight Rocketry

The cost scheme looks like this:
Level # Techs Cost/Tech
Industrial-1 3 3200
Industrial-2 5 3400
Industrial-3 4 3600
Industrial-4 6 3800
Industrial-5 6 4000
Industrial-6 7 4200
Industrial-7 6 4400
Industrial-8a 5 4600
Industrial-8b 4 4800
Industrial-9 8 5000
Industrial-10 4 5200

The original total cost for this era was 249,410. Under my plans, the Industrial Era gets 5 techs from other eras (Photography, Realism, Applied Economics, Naval Aviation, and Radar) and 5 new techs (Journalism, Imperialism, Modern Art, Propaganda, and Consumerism) and gives up Electronics and Modern Physics to the Modern Era. The total cost for the era will be 246,600 - only 1% of difference.
 
Before I start posting my Modern Era revisions, I'd like to discuss what is probably the last radical change I want to make, and that is concerning the Globalization technology. This is a tech that covers a very broad range of time (not unlike the Electricity tech), and seems to fit two different concepts: political globalization, with international agreements (a lot of which are immediately post-WWII) like the United Nations and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and business globalization, with multinational corporations. I'd like to have the Globalization tech fit the first definition, and repurposing the current Transhuman-era tech of Conglomerates for the second. This will mean moving Globalization out of where it currently is, about two-thirds of the way through the Modern Era, and placing it at the very beginning of the era. Probably the biggest problem is that the term globalization didn't reach academic status until the 1960's, and didn't reach the popular press until the 80's, but I can't find a better name. Internationalism and Multilateralism, to me, look like awful technology names.

I also found that after revising the Modern Era, there were only two starter techs: Electronics and Modern Physics, and I think we could use a third, especially one that isn't purely technological.

So, this is what I am looking to do:
  • Globalization moves to very early in the Modern Era. United Nations (the Wonder, not the Mission) and International Monetary Fund/World Bank go here.
  • Conglomerates moves from the Transhuman Era to the Modern. This covers the rise of truly large businesses, and gets some of the content currently at Globalization, including the World Trade Center.
  • Megacorporations is a new tech to fill in the spot previously left by Conglomerates, and is about the incredibly large businesses, especially in cyberpunk fiction, that act as governments in themselves. This tech would keep the Global Stock Exchange and I'd also like a new world wonder/project of Zurich-Orbital (a corporate space station) here.
Does this look workable? I've got things covered from the mechanics perspective, but I want to know if you think it looks right from the historical angle.
 
Combat Wombat said:
Change Megacorporations to Transnationals.
Click to expand...

Transnationals are what we have now. Megacorporations are orders of magnitude larger. The idea is that these are corporations that have gotten so powerful that they can act as governments (although the game really isn't capable of handling that right now). I have some more ideas for what to do with this later; Global Stock Exchange and Zurich-Orbital are enough for the moment.
 
Vokarya said:
Before I start posting my Modern Era revisions, I'd like to discuss what is probably the last radical change I want to make, and that is concerning the Globalization technology. This is a tech that covers a very broad range of time (not unlike the Electricity tech), and seems to fit two different concepts: political globalization, with international agreements (a lot of which are immediately post-WWII) like the United Nations and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and business globalization, with multinational corporations. I'd like to have the Globalization tech fit the first definition, and repurposing the current Transhuman-era tech of Conglomerates for the second. This will mean moving Globalization out of where it currently is, about two-thirds of the way through the Modern Era, and placing it at the very beginning of the era. Probably the biggest problem is that the term globalization didn't reach academic status until the 1960's, and didn't reach the popular press until the 80's, but I can't find a better name. Internationalism and Multilateralism, to me, look like awful technology names.

I also found that after revising the Modern Era, there were only two starter techs: Electronics and Modern Physics, and I think we could use a third, especially one that isn't purely technological.

So, this is what I am looking to do:
  • Globalization moves to very early in the Modern Era. United Nations (the Wonder, not the Mission) and International Monetary Fund/World Bank go here.
  • Conglomerates moves from the Transhuman Era to the Modern. This covers the rise of truly large businesses, and gets some of the content currently at Globalization, including the World Trade Center.
  • Megacorporations is a new tech to fill in the spot previously left by Conglomerates, and is about the incredibly large businesses, especially in cyberpunk fiction, that act as governments in themselves. This tech would keep the Global Stock Exchange and I'd also like a new world wonder/project of Zurich-Orbital (a corporate space station) here.
Does this look workable? I've got things covered from the mechanics perspective, but I want to know if you think it looks right from the historical angle.
Click to expand...

So far sounds good to me. :)
 
OK, I'm going to go ahead and start the Modern Era now. Compared to the Industrial, the Modern Era doesn't break down by time so easily. Aerospace technologies especially wind up with a higher level than you would expect from looking at a pure timeline. I feel right now that I've got things close enough for gameplay purposes, but playtesting will be the final arbiter.

Timeline of Events
Date Tech Event
1947 Aerodynamics Bell X-1, first supersonic plane
1947 Electronics Transistor invented
1947 Modern Physics Quantum electrodynamics coined
1948 Globalization GATT goes into effect
1951 Computers UNIVAC first mass-produced computer
1951 Mass Media United States has coast-to-coast television service
1951 Vertical Flight K-225, first gas turbine-powered helicopter
1952 Jet Propulsion de Havilland Comet, first purpose-built jet airliner
1952 Manufacturing Numerical Control machines patented
1952 Tourism Mass media and airliners open up travel to masses
1954 Biological Warfare Plum Island facility established
1954 Modern Health Care First organ transplant
1954 Nuclear Power Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant first nuclear plant on power grid
1960 Conglomerates Company diversification
1960 Laser First laser operated
1961 Semiconductors First sales of integrated circuits
1965 Modern Seismology Acceptance of plate tectonics theory

Modern-1 is the three starter techs of the era.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Electronics Plastics + Radio Plastics + Radio
Globalization Applied Economics + Computer Networks + Mass Media + Satellites + (Derivatives OR Microprocessor) Applied Economics + Logistics
Modern Physics Fission + Flight + Public Schooling Fission + Flight + Public Schooling

The big change here is Globalization. What I did was to pull it out from about two-thirds of the way through the Modern Era and put it at the beginning of the era, and therefore I needed to cut out virtually all of its current prerequisites.

Modern-2 has some removals and changes.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Aerodynamics Aviation + Modern Physics + Radar Aviation + Modern Physics + Radar
Biological Warfare Electronics + Organic Chemistry Electronics + Guerrilla Warfare
Computers Electronics + Modern Physics Electronics + Modern Physics
Manufacturing Electronics + Logistics + Modern Physics Electronics + Logistics
Mass Media Electronics + Motion Pictures Electronics + Globalization + Modern Art
Modern Health Care Laser + Organic Chemistry + Refrigeration Modern Physics + Refrigeration
Modern Seismology Modern Physics + Sonar Modern Physics + Sonar

There are fairly minor changes here.
  • Biological Warfare is another tech that's very difficult to pin down. I swapped out a redundant Organic Chemistry and swapped in an otherwise going-nowhere Guerrilla Warfare.
  • Manufacturing lost Modern Physics because it didn't seem to make sense. Electronics keeps it in the right place on the tree.
  • Mass Media gained Modern Art so Modern Art wouldn't be left behind. Motion Pictures is subsumed under Motion Pictures - Propaganda - Consumerism - Applied Economics - Globalization.
  • Modern Health Care wanted to be before Laser. I didn't want to overuse Electronics or overuse the Electronics + Modern Physics combination, so I just left it at Modern Physics.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Conglomerates Mesh Networks Manufacturing + Mass Media
Jet Propulsion Manufacturing + ( Advanced Rocketry OR Aerodynamics) Aerodynamics + Manufacturing + Rocketry
Laser Electronics + Modern Physics Manufacturing + Modern Physics
Nuclear Power Computers + Logistics Computers + Logistics
Semiconductors Computers + Manufacturing Computers + Manufacturing
Tourism Aerodynamics + Mass Media Aerodynamics + Mass Media
Vertical Flight Aerodynamics Aerodynamics

A couple techs get changes.
  • Conglomerates moves in from the Transhuman Era to help fill the gap left behind by moving Globalization. I gave it appropriate prerequisites.
  • Jet Propulsion comes before Advanced Rocketry, which I equate with ICBM's and human-carrying rockets. So I removed Advanced Rocketry as a prerequisite and put in Rocketry.
  • Laser needed a prerequisite that would keep it out of the first level of Modern Era techs (since the first part of the Modern Era is the late 1940's and early 1950's). I felt Manufacturing would work.

Does this look good?
 
I view the term transnational more as transcending/operating beyond nationality. Multinational would describe what we have now. IMO anyways
 
Can't wait to see all this in the Mod. I know how it helped C2C 1st hand and am looking forward to better play from this effort.

Go Vokayra! :D

JosEPh :)
 
JosEPh_II said:
Can't wait to see all this in the Mod. I know how it helped C2C 1st hand and am looking forward to better play from this effort.

Go Vokayra! :D

JosEPh :)
Click to expand...

Well, we still have a ways to go, with finishing out the Modern Era, then the Transhuman Era (not many changes there, just making sure that all techs lead to something else until Future Tech is reached), and then a separate thread for the new content for all these new techs (I currently count 8 new buildings, 4 new units, 11 new Wonders [yes, I like Wonders], 1 new improvement, and 1 new promotion). That alone is pretty close to enough to make a new AND version on its own.
 
Levels 4 and 5 of the Modern Era cover most of the 1960's and into the very early 1970's. The only techs left out at this point are Space Flight, Composites, and Fuel Cells. Whether this represents historical focus on space technology (beelining) or over-specificity on the aerospace techs is up to you. (Personally, I think one aerospace tech in this era could be axed without problems, but I'm not going to suggest removing any techs at this point. It is a bit strange to see Fuel Cells -- a Modern-7 technology -- and Modern Seismology -- a Modern-2 technology -- both dated to 1965, but I guess odd things happen.)

Timeline for this section:
Date Tech Event
1954 Supersonic Flight Supersonic fighter aircraft in use
1957 Advanced Rocketry First ICBM (Soviet R-7)
1957 Satellites Sputnik I launched
1961 Hydroponics Nutrient film technique
1962 Ecology Silent Spring launches ecological movement
1964 3D Modeling CAD systems in use
1964 Modern Warfare US engagement in Vietnam
1967 Counterculture Summer of Love
1969 Climate Models First climate model at NOAA
1969 Computer Networks ARPANet launched
1969 Legalized Gambling First Las Vegas megaresort
1969 Robotics Stanford Arm, first computer-controlled robotic arm
1970 Aquaculture Commercial fish and shrimp farms in operation
1970 Fiber Optics Practical fiber optic cables developed
1970 Recycling Recycling symbol developed
1971 Microprocessor Intel 4004 (first single-chip microprocessor)

I would like to move both Hydroponics and Aquaculture from the Transhuman Era to the Modern. The techniques get developed during this time and then take off. We will eventually need some content for Hydroponics, as I think it's empty right now.

Modern-4 has some shifting around of techs.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
3D Modeling Computer Networks + Microprocessor Semiconductors
Advanced Rocketry Aerodynamics + Electronics + Modern Physics Computers + Jet Propulsion
Computer Networks Computers + Semiconductors Semiconductors
Ecology Agricultural Engineering + Nuclear Power Agricultural Engineering + Globalization + Modern Seismology + Nuclear Power
Legalized Gambling Mass Media Tourism
Robotics Laser + Semiconductors Laser + Semiconductors
Supersonic Flight Aerodynamics + Computers + Jet Propulsion Computers + Jet Propulsion + Naval Aviation
What got changed:
  • 3D Modeling predates Computer Networks and Microprocessors, so I moved it backwards to the previous electronics technology of Semiconductors.
  • Advanced Rocketry is a tech that I did not want so close to the beginning of the Modern Era. There is a good decade between the beginning of the era and the creation of ICBM's and spaceflight-capable rockets, and I wanted the tech prerequisites to reflect that.
  • Computer Networks lost a redundant Computers.
  • Ecology gained both Globalization to represent growing awareness of worldwide problems and Modern Seismology to give that tech a place to hook into the rest of the tree.
  • Legalized Gambling is another tech that is hard to pin down. I decided to place it at the time of the first Las Vegas megaresorts. When we get finished with all the new tech tree and new content and can add more content to existing techs, Las Vegas Strip is on my list of Wonders to propose.
  • Supersonic Flight lost Aerodynamics because that tech was folded into the requirements for Jet Propulsion. I wanted to give Naval Aviation a tech to feed into, and Supersonic Flight seemed to be the best choice.

Modern-5 is home to techs moved from other levels and some more pruning. It's also home to one of the two new techs in the Modern Era: Counterculture.
Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Aquaculture Ecological Engineering Ecology
Climate Models 3D Modeling + Computer Networks + Ecology + Meteorology 3D Modeling + Ecology + Meteorology
Counterculture NEW Ecology + Guerrilla Warfare
Fiber Optics Computer Networks + Laser Computer Networks + Laser
Hydroponics Ecological Engineering Ecology
Microprocessor Computers + Semiconductors (Computer Networks OR Robotics)
Modern Warfare Composites + Globalization + Guided Weapons + Mechanized Warfare + Robotics Amphibious Warfare + Globalization + Guerrilla Warfare + Supersonic Flight
Recycling Ecology + Globalization + Mass Transit Ecology
Satellites Advanced Rocketry + Manufacturing Advanced Rocketry
  • Aquaculture and Hydroponics both move here from the Transhuman Era and get an appropriate new prerequisite.
  • Climate Models loses the Computer Networks that comes around at the exact same time. The models didn't use networks, so I just sliced it out.
  • Microprocessor needed a tech between it and Semiconductors, but I wasn't sure what the most appropriate tech was, so I made it an OR requirement between Computer Networks and Robotics -- I think either of these would lead in the direction of creating microprocessors to speed up computing performance.
  • Modern Warfare is a tech that I think needs a lot more definition. The tech covers a lot of units, from the fairly-early Hydrogen Bomb to some units that actually won't show up until the Transhuman Era (like the ACV). I chose to pin it to the beginning of American combat units in Vietnam and convert its prerequisites to a sort of "combined arms" tech. We will have to fix the SAM Infantry, because it will now predate the Mobile SAM that it's supposed to replace. At a first glance, I would consider moving SAM Infantry to Modern Warfare and Mobile SAM later on the tree.
  • Recycling has redundant prerequisites, so I trimmed it back to just Ecology.
  • Satellites also has redundant prerequisites.

Does anyone see any problems here?
 
Counterculture is the first of the two new techs for the Modern Era.

Era: Modern
Prerequisites: Ecology + Guerrilla Warfare
Leads to: Virtual Reality
Allows: Burning Man (Wonder), Woodstock (Wonder)

Counterculture is, for the moment, a Wonder-producing tech. I thought this was a good artistic technology and I think it makes a good place to put some modern civics if we rework the civic system.

Woodstock comes first. It offers a few long-term effects (+1 :) in all cities, probably -5 national stability) but its primary effect is to trigger a Summer of Love event that provides +1000 :culture: per city and +3 temporary :mad: per city.

Burning Man would require Communication Networks in addition to Counterculture and be a culture-producer in all cities. I'm thinking about a +% culture in all cities and something like +5 culture from all specialists (a super-Sistine Chapel). I really like the idea because I don't think we have nearly enough Modern wonders and I was able to create a building graphic by taking the Pyre Zombie from Fall from Heaven and removing its club in Blender.
 
I envy your skills. :goodjob:

JosEPh
 
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