Tech Tree Revisions

I want to devote one post just to Monarchy, because I feel its prerequisites are incredibly messy. Currently, Monarchy requires:

• Metal Casting
• Trade
• ONE of Bronze Working OR Caste System OR Monotheism OR Priesthood OR Writing

Despite looking imposing, it's easy to meet Monarchy's prerequisites midway through the Ancient Era. Metal Casting, Trade, Caste System, and Priesthood are all Ancient Level 3 techs. I have played a few games on Noble difficulty/Normal speed and I have regularly seen Monarchy reached by someone before 3000 BC, which is too early in my opinion.

The least I am going to do is to make Bronze Working a mandatory prerequisite. There are some other changes that I could do:

• Make Writing mandatory. Having two level-4 prerequisites would make it harder to beeline to Monarchy.
• Use Warfare instead of Bronze Working. This would push things up a little.
• Delete Caste System and Priesthood from the list of possible OR choices. Like making Writing mandatory, this would require you to have two level-4 techs before launching the Classical Era.

Let me know what you think would work best.

If this helps break the Poly, Dual, Mono, and Buddhism chain then very much yes to all of it.

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

If this helps break the Poly, Dual, Mono, and Buddhism chain then very much yes to all of it.

JosEPh

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This doesn't have anything to do with religions - it's a question of how much of the Ancient Era do we want players to have to research before beginning the Classical Era. I think it needs to be more of what it currently is, but not as much as Civ 3 required, where you had to research almost the entire era before you could start the next one.

Vokarya said:

I want to devote one post just to Monarchy, because I feel its prerequisites are incredibly messy. Currently, Monarchy requires:

• Metal Casting
• Trade
• ONE of Bronze Working OR Caste System OR Monotheism OR Priesthood OR Writing

Despite looking imposing, it's easy to meet Monarchy's prerequisites midway through the Ancient Era. Metal Casting, Trade, Caste System, and Priesthood are all Ancient Level 3 techs. I have played a few games on Noble difficulty/Normal speed and I have regularly seen Monarchy reached by someone before 3000 BC, which is too early in my opinion.

The least I am going to do is to make Bronze Working a mandatory prerequisite. There are some other changes that I could do:

• Make Writing mandatory. Having two level-4 prerequisites would make it harder to beeline to Monarchy.
• Use Warfare instead of Bronze Working. This would push things up a little.
• Delete Caste System and Priesthood from the list of possible OR choices. Like making Writing mandatory, this would require you to have two level-4 techs before launching the Classical Era.

Let me know what you think would work best.

Click to expand...

Agreed. This will probably unbalance things sensibly but I've always thought that Monarchy was being developed too soon. And the game will need to be balanced again anyway after all this work and when we will introduce civic changes that are currently being tested by Joseph. So that's ok with me.

Ok, for Monarchy I'm going to go with requiring Bronze Working + Trade + (Monotheism OR Warfare OR Writing). That will require at least two level-4 Ancient techs before researching Monarchy; Warfare is just off Bronze Working, but you still have to research the tech if you want to go down that route. I will post the first part of the Classical Era soon.

Vokarya said:

This doesn't have anything to do with religions - it's a question of how much of the Ancient Era do we want players to have to research before beginning the Classical Era. I think it needs to be more of what it currently is, but not as much as Civ 3 required, where you had to research almost the entire era before you could start the next one.

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But it could if the Prereqs get changed along with the Tech tree alignment. Why not kill 2 brds with one stone?

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

But it could if the Prereqs get changed along with the Tech tree alignment. Why not kill 2 brds with one stone?

JosEPh

Click to expand...

Well, I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, so I'm just going to post the first half of the Classical Era and you can let me know if you like the results.

Here is the first half of the Classical Era. The Classical Era has the fewest levels of any era, with only 4 levels of depth. The Medieval Era has fewer technologies, but it has a prerequisite chain that makes it 5 levels deep (although it's a fairly complex chain with a lot of OR prerequisites).

Classical-1 is 8 techs. Each of these is one possible gateway into the era.

Monarchy is, as I said before, the big change here. The only other change is requiring Scriptures as a prerequisite for Monotheism. It'll break up the religion chain somewhat. Probably the fastest way into the Classical Era with these changes is to go Writing - Alphabet or Writing - Mathematics. We'll have to test to find out.

Classical-2 is the most populated level. There are 11 techs here, so this is the only Classical level that will take up 2 columns.

Changes to this level:

• Aesthetics now requires Athletics and Sculpture (in addition to Alphabet). I made them both mandatory because otherwise you could completely skip one of them.
• Construction requires Slavery because I needed to hook Slavery into the rest of the tree somewhere. This seemed like the best point.
• Iron Working loses Bronze Working because it will be redundant when Bronze Working is required for Monarchy.
• Mounted Archery loses Archery because it will be redundant when Archery is required for Warfare, which is required for Horse Breeding.

Let me know if you see any problems, and we can move onto the second half of the Classical Era.

Vokarya said:

Let me know if you see any problems, and we can move onto the second half of the Classical Era.

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Looks good to me, keep up your great work!

Here is the second half of the Classical Era.

One name change I would like: shorten Canal Systems to just Canals. The word Systems seems clunky, and I'm not sure why it was added. In the XML code, it's actually referred to as Waterworks. I'd prefer Canals as it's the shortest name.

Classical-3 gets one new tech, and that is Ancient Medicine. I can't think of a better name for it, but I like the idea of having a medical technology in the Classical Era. It also serves as a way to get Fermentation integrated into the tech tree.

Other changes:

• For Democracy, Mathematics and Monarchy are both simply redundant. Mathematics is required for Currency, and Monarchy is required for Code of Laws.
• For Insurance, Trade is also redundant (required for Currency).
• Siege Warfare requires a few more difficult techs to reach. I thought Construction was a good fit, and that makes Mathematics redundant. The Wheel is redundant as the tree is written (The Wheel - Pottery - Metal Casting - Bronze Working - Iron Working). I also added Warfare because I thought some level of military organization would be required for sieges, and Warfare is the best tech to encapsulate that requirement. (With just Iron Working and Construction, you can get to Siege Warfare without Warfare.)

Classical-4 is a relatively small level with only 6 techs. I think the Classical Era does a better job of lining up the end technologies with the next era's beginning techs. The Ancient Era had more overlap with the beginning of the Classical.

Changes here:

• Sanitation gets Ancient Medicine as a prerequisite. This is one of two technologies that Ancient Medicine will lead to.
• Vassalage gets Siege Warfare as a prerequisite to push it a little closer to the end of the era and prevent you from getting Feudalism too quickly.
• Weather Lore loses Mathematics because it's redundant.

The one tech that I want to add to the Classical Era is Ancient Medicine. This is a tech from Caveman 2 Cosmos; I looked through the forums and I can't seem to find another mod that uses it.

I like this tech for weaving Fermentation into the rest of the tech tree (Fermentation currently dead-ends) and gives us a pattern of at least one medical tech per era:

• Ancient: Naturopathy
• Classical: Ancient Medicine
• Medieval: Anatomy
• Renaissance: Battlefield Medicine
• Industrial: Medicine
• Modern: Modern Health Care
• Transhuman: Regenerative Medicine, Anti-Aging Medicine, Smart Drugs

I don't like using the word Ancient as part of a tech name, but I can't think of anything that really fits. The tech feels like it's too late to be Herbalism, it's too sophisticated to be Folk Medicine, and Physik looks too much like Physics. If anyone has a better name, I'd be happy to hear it.

Here's the parameters:
Era: Classical
Prerequisites: Code of Laws + Fermentation
Leads to: Alchemy, Sanitation
Allows: Apothecary (building), Hippocratic Oath (Wonder)

Apothecary is currently the Persian Unique Building. I would suggest converting it to a regular building, give it +1 , have it be replaced by Pharmacy, and increase Pharmacy's bonuses so that it is an upgrade. I would like to see Pharmacy get the following:

• +1 normally
• +1 with Medicine tech
• +2 with Chemicals (the +1 only offsets the -1 from the Chemicals resource in the first place)

Persia's Unique Building becomes the Satrap (inspired by the Satrap's Court from Civ 5). I was thinking the Satrap would be a Courthouse replacement that grants +2 .

Hippocratic Oath would be a World Wonder that grants +2 in all cities. The ideal bonus would be +1 from Scientist specialists, but there isn't an XML tag that can grant + or + from Specialists.

And here is the new map and cost scheme for the Classical Era.

The map looks like this:

The cost scheme proved to be very simple.

Tech costs in the Classical Era were all over the place, from Ship Building at 160 to Canals at 1000 and Sanitation at 1050. The original target number for this era was 12,940. This scheme adds up to 12,700 -- only 2% less.

So let me know what you think of this.

Vokarya said:

Hippocratic Oath would be a World Wonder that grants +2 in all cities. The ideal bonus would be +1 from Scientist specialists, but there isn't an XML tag that can grant + or + from Specialists.

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Well done; about Hippocratic Oath, it should be possible to add an xml tag for Scientist specialists but it requires dll coding; I've done a similar work before but it's not that easy. I'd say for the moment it's ok to have +2 ; if I'm able to code this xml tag, we'll change it in a future version.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12257477 said:

Well done; about Hippocratic Oath, it should be possible to add an xml tag for Scientist specialists but it requires dll coding; I've done a similar work before but it's not that easy. I'd say for the moment it's ok to have +2 ; if I'm able to code this xml tag, we'll change it in a future version.

Click to expand...

There are a bunch of new XML tags that I'd like to do, but they are not a high priority. The one tag that I am surprised does not exist is a tag for a given +commerce (gold, science, culture, or espionage) from a particular specialist type. You can do commerces for all specialists (like Sistine Chapel's +2 from specialists) and you can do yields for a particular specialist (like Angkor Wat's +1 from Priests) but not the intersection.

As far as monarchy goes it seems to me that it historically actually is an ancient and not a classical invention so I don't understand the need to push it into classical times. And historically writing were invented by the adminstrations of already established royal courts to keep track of the royal economy, taxation, tributes e.t.c.

stoferb said:

As far as monarchy goes it seems to me that it historically actually is an ancient and not a classical invention so I don't understand the need to push it into classical times. And historically writing were invented by the adminstrations of already established royal courts to keep track of the royal economy, taxation, tributes e.t.c.

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I think it's to put some distance between the Despotism and Monarchy civics. I'm not sure how much difference there really is between despotism and some of the ancient monarchies.

The Medieval Era has the lowest number of techs of any era, having only 29 techs when all is said and done. However, it's a little more constricted, so that it manages 5 levels with fewer techs than Classical did (32 techs, 4 levels).

Era change: Constitution gets sent to the Renaissance Era, where it originally was. I don't think it is a good fit for the Medieval Era, despite the tech quote coming from the Magna Carta.

Name change: Fundamentalism becomes Holy War. Fundamentalism is a 20th-century concept, and I don't think it quite fits the concept of what is going on here. I think Holy War captures both the ideas of the Crusades and the Muslim conquests.

Medieval-1 originally had only 3 techs, but I added a fourth by changing the prerequisites.

All four of these techs get changed a little.

• Civil Service can be researched with Sanitation (representing growing urbanization and bureaucracy to deal with public works) as an alternative to Feudalism. Code of Laws is redundant either way (Code of Laws - Ancient Medicine - Sanitation or Code of Laws - Feudalism)
• Engineering requires Canals and Smithing to tie up some more of the loose ends from the Classical Era. Construction is redundant since it's required for Siege Warfare, which is one of the prerequisites for Machinery.
• Feudalism loses Warfare because it is part of the chain now (Warfare - Siege Warfare - Vassalage - Feudalism). I never understood why City Planning was a component of Feudalism, so I took that out. City Planning is still important because it leads to Canals, and from there to Engineering and Sanitation.
• Theology gets Philosophy as a required prerequisite so that it doesn't overlap so much with the end of the Classical Era; Literature was only Classical Level 2, which wasn't nearly far enough. Dualism is just added to get players to research it eventually, although it can be skipped for a while.

Medieval-2 is packed with technologies that stem off of Feudalism, along with two new techs that I would like to add: Alchemy and Rudder.


The only change here is removing a redundant City Planning from Architecture (City Planning leads to Canals, then to Engineering).

The Alchemy tech comes from a surprising source: the XML code for A New Dawn itself. Every tech has both an internal name and a description to tell the game what name to show the player (this is how the game handles multiple languages). The tech that in-game is known as Invention is named TECH_ALCHEMY in the code. So I would like to split Invention into Alchemy and Invention.

Alchemy
Era:Medieval
Prerequisites:Ancient Medicine + Glass Blowing + Philosophy + (Engineering OR Theology)
Leads to:Invention, Optics
Allows: Alchemist's Lab (building), Greek Fire (Wonder)

Alchemy gets the Alchemist's Lab along with a new Greek Fire Wonder. This will grant a Greek Fire promotion that offers fairly good bonuses against both Wooden Ships and most pre-gunpowder units. I think it will be eligible for both siege units and ships. I think Greek Fire fits the definition of a Wonder by itself: it was legendary, no other nation knew how to make it, and once it was lost, it was lost forever.

Invention keeps the Heavy Cavalry unit, Artesian Well building, and Rubber resource, which I think is enough for a tech. It's still also a major gateway for the later Medieval Era techs.

The Rudder tech comes from Realism Invictus. This represents early medieval advances in shipbuilding.

Rudder
Era: Medieval
Prerequisites: Engineering + Ship Building
Leads to: Compass
Allows: Cog (unit), Galleass (unit), Hanseatic League (Wonder)

The Cog is a medieval transport ship, fitting between the Galley and the Fluyt. I'm looking at about Strength 6, Speed 2, Cargo Space 2, can enter Ocean at Astronomy.

The Galleass is a medieval warship, between the Trireme and the Frigate. I'm thinking here about Strength 8-10, Speed 2, no cargo space. It can enter Ocean at Astronomy as well.

Hanseatic League is a Wonder requiring both Guilds and Rudder. I would like to have it offer +1 trade route in all cities and +1 trade route in all coastal cities. That is enough for the moment.

Note: Instead of Ancient medicine, why not Classical Medicine - From the Greeks had the father of medicine (Galen of Rome, or Hippocrates the Greek, from which we get the modern medical oath to do no harm) Plus its in the Classical era, seems a clean fit