Early modern tech tree makes no sense.

SS-18 ICBM said:

Haven't explained this part yet, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I was wondering how the Internet functioned in my last game without computers. Maybe it was based on radios?

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Vacuum tube based computers the size of small houses, interconnected via telegraph cables.

This is something that has always bothered me about this game: You should need more than one tech to produce certain things (or even more than one resource). To be able to have infantry but not rifling is crazy, to have gatling guns without gunpowder is silly too. Civ IV's tech tree twisted and turned but no one complained that I recall, because it also made sense. You had incentives to research certain paths to get bonuses quickly (like found a religion, or get a free great person, or a military/improvement/government choice) but it always made sense.

Being able to train Cavalry but not Riflemen is the worst kind of this silliness in the game. You can just hear some poor soldier saying:

"Say what if instead of riding and shooting our strange new guns, we dismounted and fired them? It might be better for defending our civilization..."
"Silly soldier, we don't know how to do that yet! Wait 12 turns, then we'll know how to fire while dismounted AND what these silly guns are called."

The tech tree as a whole needs to be redone and expanded in general, mostly because it feels a bit like getting modern-day techs in the 1800s is the norm rather than the exception, as even on mid levels you and the AI are all going to be in the Information Era well before that time in reality without real concerted effort. Really, stuff like Railroads and even Combustion to an extent should be Industrial Era.

And yeah, flight is very overpowered, simply because you can cram so many airplanes into a city. There should definitely be a limit, and the actual capacity for air units made into an actual factor. I think that, at base, any given city should start with 3 slots for air units, with an additional one added in the Atomic and Information eras. The Airport should give another three, and the Military Base three more. A city itself gains 1 more slot for each Fort in radius, and two for each Citadel, while Forts and Citadels themselves are able to hold air units, Forts having three slots, and Citadels having five. Of course, if they're pillaged or stolen from your territory, they obviously will lose that capability, but it makes sense, especially considering the late-era update that depicts those two improvements as more advanced military base installations. And of course I guess additional policies and stuff could give more slots: maybe something in Autocracy adds some, and I definitely think a revamped Pentagon that gives free B-52 Bombers (since I am in support of America having those replaced with a UB/I) and an additional two air unit slots in each city would be a good idea. If Future Tech is ideally made to do things, it could also add more. As it stands, it seems a bit heavily unbalanced that any crappy town can hold hundreds of combat airplanes when those have always been extremely complicated machines requiring specialized facilities to maintain and deploy them.

superliminal said:

Vacuum tube based computers the size of small houses, interconnected via telegraph cables.

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Right, Electronics is needed for that tech path. I still think they were wirelessly connected by Radio though (since there were no satellites) . I guess Computers in Civ V refers to miniaturized electronic calculating devices.

Gyra Solune said:

And yeah, flight is very overpowered, simply because you can cram so many airplanes into a city. There should definitely be a limit, and the actual capacity for air units made into an actual factor.

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I really like this idea. I see nothing wrong with it.

roymend said:

However, in my opinion, the kind of realism the OP mentioned is not worth changing. Everybody knows that in real life flight "requires" combustion, then why change it in game?

I agree, though, that if a civ has an inaccurate UU, for example, then this needs changing, because you really learn from this kind of things.

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But it's the gameplay that suffers most from this particular unreality. Early planes are far more dominant in CiV than they should be from a gameplay perspective; non-oil requiring AA should be available alongside aircraft because it would improve the gameplay.

early AA was really ineffective though. Hitting a moving aircraft from the ground was not easy. During WW1 the best chance to stop bombers was fielding defensive fighters. It wasn't till WW2 that AA became prevalent. The iconic "flak" gun which the in-game AA is based on, (made by the Germans) was just being prototyped in 1928.

Socratatus said:

I care. Think out of the box and you`ll see:

GAMEPLAY + REALISM = EVEN BETTER GAMEPLAY.

(I can do all caps too!)

No doubt some will take what I say totally too far, but I talk of logical, reasonable realism that will add to the fun, yet make you realise `Wow! this can happen in REAL LIFE!" and, "So that`s how that works!"

You get SMARTER AND HAVE FUN. What`s there not to like?

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The thing is that you're only referring to _some_ realism.

Gameplay + Realism = playing as Rome your game ends around 600AD.

Playing as America you don't get to start until the 17th Century.

And the point has been made (already) that you're only considering this aspect unrealistic because you've decided that the Combustion tech reflects the first use of an oil (or oil derivative) fired internal combustion engine. It doesn't actually reflect that, IMO.

Early airplanes dominate if only one side has them. This is entirely realistic.

Perhaps what you want is for technology to spread to other Civs faster, so you don't get to have airplanes on your own?

chazzycat said:

early AA was really ineffective though. Hitting a moving aircraft from the ground was not easy. During WW1 the best chance to stop bombers was fielding defensive fighters. It wasn't till WW2 that AA became prevalent. The iconic "flak" gun which the in-game AA is based on, (made by the Germans) was just being prototyped in 1928.

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Early bombers were really ineffective too, which is not well-modeled in game. I guess I'd be fine with it if Great War Bombers got nerfed into oblivion. I mean, there weren't any planes that could be classified as "bombers" fielded for the entirety of the war; there were just a few biplanes that were fitted to drop artillery shells or grenades.

ellgieff said:

Early airplanes dominate if only one side has them. This is entirely realistic.

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Not really. Hot air balloons were almost as effective as airplanes in their early roles, and biplanes and triplanes had only a minimal effect on the ground war in WW1. Air superiority was basically irrelevant to anything other than reconnaissance until the Spanish Civil War, just before WW2.

Peng Qi said:

Early bombers were really ineffective too, which is not well-modeled in game. I guess I'd be fine with it if Great War Bombers got nerfed into oblivion. I mean, there weren't any planes that could be classified as "bombers" fielded for the entirety of the war; there were just a few biplanes that were fitted to drop artillery shells or grenades.

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well I think towards the end of the war they were getting better, hence the need to develop AA. But yeah it's true for the most part, they weren't that effective.

But remember in WW1 the main belligerents were roughly of the same tech level. In game, the WW1 bombers are only powerful if you are going against someone with no air defense. Any AA or interceptors at all will destroy them, and if you are fighting someone of the same tech level, they should have fighters.

Flight and railroad at the same time is what bothers me most. I always seem to be researching something crazy like the space program and then find myself going back for railroad...

Peng Qi said:

But at least those things don't have in-game ramifications to them that make the game less fun. Flight before combustion is stupid not just from a logical point of view, but also a gameplay one.

(Besides, silver and gold are actually easier to mold than bronze so the currency thing actually makes sense. xD)

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Currency before mining then

kamex said:

And currency before bronze working! Look with have stones with the emperors head etched into them.

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There are plenty of examples of people using currency that isn't metallic. This precise moment with 200+ nations using fiat paper money is a good example if you don't want to go back to rice-based currency or seashells or clay chips or feathers ...

pozz said:

Currency before mining then

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Open pit mining covers that too.

You can dig up ancient relics even if you haven't ever thought about mining. You also know how to make frigates and know they require iron even though you havenät ever heard of a thing called iron and how to work it. You know the principles of architecture and have the knowledge and ability to build giant world wonders while not knowing the principles of basic construction.

There's a wide list of inconsistencies. I don't know if they are there for balancing the game or is it just plain ignorance. I would really like to try a mod with "realistic tech tree". How hard it is to make such a mod?

pozz said:

Currency before mining then

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Cowrie shells.

Sotanorsu said:

You can dig up ancient relics even if you haven't ever thought about mining. You also know how to make frigates and know they require iron even though you havenät ever heard of a thing called iron and how to work it. You know the principles of architecture and have the knowledge and ability to build giant world wonders while not knowing the principles of basic construction.

There's a wide list of inconsistencies. I don't know if they are there for balancing the game or is it just plain ignorance. I would really like to try a mod with "realistic tech tree". How hard it is to make such a mod?

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I mentioned it upthread; not a tech tree, but a tech line. Everything has one precedent and one antecedent is the only way to do this, and you're still going to have arguments like this, about whether "Combustion" means "Internal Combustion Engines" and if "Radio" means "Broadcast Radio," &c.

Oh, and whether Nanotechnology should come before Steel, I guess.