Tech Tree Revisions

If Slavery gets the boot, will anything take its place?

Every time I swap out of Barter, my gold income goes up and I shave 2 or even 3 or 4 turns off of whatever I'm researching at the moment. Can I still be tech leader while running Barter? Yes, but the sooner I get out from under it the better - and Slavery is often for me at least the earliest chance to be rid of it.

In C2C there's civics even worse than Barter, so going into it is actually not all that bad, but in AND it's one of my first priorities - Get out and away from it
Second priority is gunning for my religion of choice for the game, assuming it's not already taken.

Rezca said:

If Slavery gets the boot, will anything take its place?

Every time I swap out of Barter, my gold income goes up and I shave 2 or even 3 or 4 turns off of whatever I'm researching at the moment. Can I still be tech leader while running Barter? Yes, but the sooner I get out from under it the better - and Slavery is often for me at least the earliest chance to be rid of it.

In C2C there's civics even worse than Barter, so going into it is actually not all that bad, but in AND it's one of my first priorities - Get out and away from it
Second priority is gunning for my religion of choice for the game, assuming it's not already taken.

Click to expand...

In both AND and C2C Barter is designed to slow down early expansion thru it's restrictions, which have been stated. And it is intended that you don't dwell in it for long when another civic option becomes available. But sometimes you must wait for the next option that is viable for your play style. Many of you use Slavery to escape barter, I do not.

Like Rezca, I too try to beeline a favorite religion in AND and C2C as well, Judaism for AND and Tengrii for C2C. Sometimes I miss out too. Which generally increases the games difficulty level by at least 1 level.

JosEPh

Quantum Teleportation is another technology that I don't think is ever going to meet the two-trick threshold necessary to be a viable tech. I'm still looking at the one-trick techs to see what we can salvage or cut. At this point, it's only a handful of techs (less than 25, but I don't have a perfect count at the moment). QT feels like a "curiosity" tech that feels okay on a list of inventions but isn't broad enough to count as a tech in-game; in fact, it feels a lot like Neural Networks. Also. QT's only exit point is Quantum Computers. Advanced Computers pushes Quantum Computing reasonably far into the Transhuman Era, so losing QT wouldn't make QC show up too early. I think cutting it out completely is the best choice.

The Quantum Lab is still usable, though. I think we should move it to Quantum Computing, give it an additional +20 beakers/turn, and have it count Research Labs instead of Universities. QC is actually a 1.5 on my trick scale, and its only building is a defense/espionage, not a lab, so I think giving QC the Quantum Lab would help it out as well.

Go for it.

No problems there.

I decided to download this and check out the new changes last night. You have done an excellent job with the tech tree. I applaud you on your choice of techs. All of the important techs that have had major historical impact are there. Even the future tech choices are well thought out. I really didn't see any unnecessary techs. Keep up the good work! This is still the best mod out there.

I will make a list of things that are still making me scratch my head...

I noticed the Climate Models tech is still on the tree. Were we going to do something with it? All it does right now is +2 range for Aircraft.

I must have missed it in the Meteorology purge. Feel free to remove it.

I'm a bit of a tech tree junky. I spent well for over a year researching a tech tree for a mod I'm constructing for Civ 5. But right now I'm in the mood for some ROM-AND. There are a few things on the tech tree that have jumped out at me that don't seem quite right. I'm sure some things are the way they are for game play reasons. But I'm such a stickler for realism I would like to point them out.

Here goes:

- The Wheel as a prereq for Pottery: Archaeological evidence shows that Pottery was around for millennia before the invention of The Wheel. Archaeological evidence also suggests that The Wheel was originally invented for transportation and not making Pottery which came sometime later. The Wheel was most likely invented to support draft animals which suggests that Animal Husbandry should lead to The Wheel.

-Agriculture as a prereq for Animal Husbandry: Archaeological evidence shows that Animal Husbandry and Agriculture pretty much occurred simultaneously. As a matter of fact there is some evidence that suggests Animal Husbandry came before Agriculture. In my opinion these two techs should both be in the second row of techs. And something like Gathering, Intensive Gathering or Forest Gardening should lead to Agriculture.

-Naturopathy: Naturopathy and Ancient Medicine are one and the same. This is a Classical era tech.

-Woodworking and Construction: Woodworking is a big part of Construction. Since the tech Construction symbolizes the more complex construction techniques that were used in the Classical era it's my opinion that Woodworking should also be a prereq. Most early buildings and rigging devices were constructed out of wood.

I'm sure I'll find more things. Hopefully you'll consider my suggestions.

UncivilizedGuy said:

-Naturopathy: Naturopathy and Ancient Medicine are one and the same. This is a Classical era tech.

Click to expand...

Disagree. Naturopathy has to do with alternative medicine that is related to "natural" treatments (eating various plants, etc). Naturopathy does not include surgery of any kind.

Ancient medicine might include non-natural treatments, such as trepanning, which was an invasive surgery common in ancient times.

The two are distinct concepts.

Sounds good to me I didn't take ancient surgeries into consideration. Next time I'll read your Civilopedia entry.

UncivilizedGuy said:

- The Wheel as a prereq for Pottery: Archaeological evidence shows that Pottery was around for millennia before the invention of The Wheel. Archaeological evidence also suggests that The Wheel was originally invented for transportation and not making Pottery which came sometime later. The Wheel was most likely invented to support draft animals which suggests that Animal Husbandry should lead to The Wheel.

-Agriculture as a prereq for Animal Husbandry: Archaeological evidence shows that Animal Husbandry and Agriculture pretty much occurred simultaneously. As a matter of fact there is some evidence that suggests Animal Husbandry came before Agriculture. In my opinion these two techs should both be in the second row of techs. And something like Gathering, Intensive Gathering or Forest Gardening should lead to Agriculture.

Click to expand...

I like these two. In fact, I'd like to see a few more Stone Age tech to start with (assuming that they fit into Vokarya's trick system). After all, my favourite mod besides RoM was always el Triturador's Stone Age Mod.

Disagree. Naturopathy has to do with alternative medicine that is related to "natural" treatments (eating various plants, etc). Naturopathy does not include surgery of any kind.

Click to expand...

After some thought I decided I still disagree. Naturopathy is under the umbrella of Ancient Medicine. For me there is still a sense of redundancy. If it were up to me I would move the Healer's Hut to Ritualism and reveal the wide variety of fruits under a new Gathering type of tech. Then axe Naturopathy.

UncivilizedGuy said:

After some thought I decided I still disagree. Naturopathy is under the umbrella of Ancient Medicine.

Click to expand...

I agree, but so what? Steam power is under the umbrella of Industrialism, yet we don't merge those techs.

I agree with your analysis, I disagree with your conclusion.

Arakhor said:

I like these two. In fact, I'd like to see a few more Stone Age tech to start with (assuming that they fit into Vokarya's trick system). After all, my favourite mod besides RoM was always el Triturador's Stone Age Mod.

Click to expand...

I would be strongly against the inclusion of more content for contents sake.

UncivilizedGuy said:

I'm a bit of a tech tree junky. I spent well for over a year researching a tech tree for a mod I'm constructing for Civ 5.

Click to expand...

As an aside, what mod?

UncivilizedGuy said:

But right now I'm in the mood for some ROM-AND. There are a few things on the tech tree that have jumped out at me that don't seem quite right. I'm sure some things are the way they are for game play reasons. But I'm such a stickler for realism I would like to point them out.

Click to expand...

Gameplay trumps Realism in most cases here, but we often try to achieve both. However, this is Civilization, a magical land where state governments apparently run all research, so...

UncivilizedGuy said:

- The Wheel as a prereq for Pottery: Archaeological evidence shows that Pottery was around for millennia before the invention of The Wheel. Archaeological evidence also suggests that The Wheel was originally invented for transportation and not making Pottery which came sometime later. The Wheel was most likely invented to support draft animals which suggests that Animal Husbandry should lead to The Wheel.

Click to expand...

This makes sense to me. I would be fine with that.

UncivilizedGuy said:

-Agriculture as a prereq for Animal Husbandry: Archaeological evidence shows that Animal Husbandry and Agriculture pretty much occurred simultaneously. As a matter of fact there is some evidence that suggests Animal Husbandry came before Agriculture. In my opinion these two techs should both be in the second row of techs. And something like Gathering, Intensive Gathering or Forest Gardening should lead to Agriculture.

Click to expand...

I agree that Agriculture and Animal Husbandry probably developed at the same time, however, adding Gathering or Forest Gardening techs does not make sense. Gathering is not a technology in the sense that picking up food on the ground is not a technological achievement. There is no evidence that ancient peoples did Forest Gardening before the development of Agriculture, it makes no sense for nomandic people to try and influence the landscape of one place - a place they will leave soon and possibly never return to.

I'd rather leave these techs alone. A little inaccuracy saves a lot of explanation.

I agree, but so what? Steam power is under the umbrella of Industrialism, yet we don't merge those techs.

I agree with your analysis, I disagree with your conclusion.

Click to expand...

Your right. I could this all day with other techs. I guess I would rather see this in the Classical Era. I get most of my info from Wikipedia.

As an aside, what mod?

Click to expand...

Here is a link to a mod I've been working on. My ultimate vision is something along the lines of ROM.
Universal Tech Tree

I agree that Agriculture and Animal Husbandry probably developed at the same time, however, adding Gathering or Forest Gardening techs does not make sense. Gathering is not a technology in the sense that picking up food on the ground is not a technological achievement. There is no evidence that ancient peoples did Forest Gardening before the development of Agriculture, it makes no sense for nomandic people to try and influence the landscape of one place - a place they will leave soon and possibly never return to.

I'd rather leave these techs alone. A little inaccuracy saves a lot of explanation.

Click to expand...

I agree with you about Gathering. In my mod I used Intensive Gathering. It's the stepping stone to Agriculture. It's a more intelligent way of Gathering. All animals essentially Gather. I agree that Gathering isn't ideal. I feel the same way about Hunting also. Homo Sapiens have been Hunting since we evolved according some Anthropologists. I prefer Hunting Tactics. Also a more advanced concept. Forest Gardening was only practiced by a few societies. I agree this tech is not ideal.

UncivilizedGuy said:

Your right. I could this all day with other techs. I guess I would rather see this in the Classical Era. I get most of my info from Wikipedia.

Click to expand...

Right, we can nitpick the techs until the heat death of the universe. I think we should get them to a "good enough" state and stop.

UncivilizedGuy said:

Here is a link to a mod I've been working on. My ultimate vision is something along the lines of ROM.
Universal Tech Tree

Click to expand...

I was curious because when we "finish" RAND, which we are fairly close to doing (I would speculate < 6 months) I want to move to making a Civ5 ROM style mod. I will bookmark yours.

UncivilizedGuy said:

I agree with you about Gathering. In my mod I used Intensive Gathering. It's the stepping stone to Agriculture. It's a more intelligent way of Gathering. All animals essentially Gather. I agree that Gathering isn't ideal. I feel the same way about Hunting also. Homo Sapiens have been Hunting since we evolved according some Anthropologists. I prefer Hunting Tactics. Also a more advanced concept. Forest Gardening was only practiced by a few societies. I agree this tech is not ideal.

Click to expand...

Yep. I agree with everything you said.

I'm not interested in adding any more Stone Age techs. The start year is 6000 BCE, and I don't want to go farther back. When I revised AND's tech tree, I started with a copy of C2C's tech tree and then crossed out everything I didn't care for. I don't think there were more than about 10 survivors that weren't already in AND.

The Wheel has always been a prerequisite for Pottery, going all the way back to basic Civ 4 with no expansion. The recipe is Wheel + food source tech that produces in quantity enough for preservation. I think that's why Hunting is not a possible prerequisite.

I like to keep OR prerequisites and different possibilities open when working through the tech tree. I want to keep Animal Husbandry accessible through Agriculture OR Hunting, without necessitating both.

I will admit that Ancient Medicine has a terrible name; I wanted a Classical Era medical tech to give Fermentation an exit point (in the previous versions of AND, it led to nothing and I redesigned the tree in order to avoid any dead ends) and I simply could not find anything better; the only thing that was even close, and it's a long shot, is Physik, which is too close to Physics. I'm not fond of Naturopathy as a name either. It feels like a name imposed from a 20th-century academic perspective instead of what it was called at the time. I would much prefer calling it Herbalism, but I can leave it as it is.

Woodworking not being on the prerequisite path to Construction is weird. What if we add WW to the prerequisites for Masonry instead? Masonry currently requires only Mining. I don't like very long jumps from one tech to the next.

Herbalism sounds much better than Ancient Medicine, IMHO.

Woodworking as a prereq for Masonry also makes sense.

Well, I wasn't suggesting that we go anywhere near C2C extremes, as even the Neolithic era contains several interesting concepts for technologies, but as you wish.

I like the term Herbalism instead of Naturopathy, whereas Ancient Medicine describes what the tech is about (and is a very difficult name to replace). After all, ancient medicine wasn't all about herbs, as trepanning, amputation, acupuncture and the like will testify.

I like the term Herbalism instead of Naturopathy, whereas Ancient Medicine describes what the tech is about (and is a very difficult name to replace). After all, ancient medicine wasn't all about herbs, as trepanning, amputation, acupuncture and the like will testify.

Click to expand...

I agree. As Afforess said, Ancient Medicine encompasses more than just Herbalism. So I would leave that alone.

Herbalism does sound better than Naturopathy though IMHO. It's what I would choose.

. I was curious because when we "finish" RAND, which we are fairly close to doing (I would speculate < 6 months) I want to move to making a Civ5 ROM style mod. I will bookmark yours.

Click to expand...

I'm flattered you would even consider my work. The tech tree is only part of it. Resources Gone Wild is the other piece. I just want to warn you that that mod is very unbalanced right now. It was more experimental. I am planning on toning it down a bit. One reason I haven't finished is that ModBuddy really slows down when it's loaded up with a lot of graphics.

My problem with Civ 5 is it seems more limited in its modding flexibility. I would be surprised if anyone creates a mod anything close to ROM or C2C. Civ 5 is still a lot of fun but Civ 4 just seems to do more things right especially when it comes to mods. Where I find Civ 4's greatest strength is in the Civics mechanic which is much better than Civ 5 social policies. Civics can be undone but with Social Policies there is no turning back. Where Civ 5 shines is with Trade Routes and the Faith mechanic.