Tech Tree Revisions

I had some ideas about adding additional OR prerequisites to early technologies. I think that up to about the Renaissance Era, civilizations develop with a great deal of independence. (At that point, Europe jumps on the accelerator pedal and we don't get as much in the way of alternate paths.) So I think that for some of the early techs, we should allow multiple plausible possibilities.
Game-wise, this would also encourage moving vertically on the tech tree, within a column, rather than going horizontally down the tree. The cost-reduction for multiple OR prerequisites would make it more valuable to research all the OR prerequisites first.

These are the three ideas that I came up with.

Naturopathy: Requires Ritualism OR Agriculture.
I think that a civilization that is capable of producing food plants in quantity would be able to experiment with other plants. Herbal medicine is older than the Ancient Era, but I'm willing to let that go in the name of having ONE Ancient Era medical tech.

Calendar: Requires Mathematics and (Sailing OR Fermentation).
I want to make Fermentation a little bit more valuable. Fermentation only leads to Ancient Medicine, which in turn leads to Sanitation and Alchemy. Sanitation is pretty skippable depending on your overall health. Alchemy leads to the big gateway of Invention. But you can still put off Fermentation until the Medieval Era, which isn't very good.
My initial idea here was to put Agriculture as the alternate OR tech, but Agriculture is too far back to be a meaningful replacement. In terms of simulation, I think of it as timing the planting and harvesting, but needing more advanced techniques than just Agriculture. (If the Ancient Era wasn't larger than the Classical and Medieval Eras, I would probably have added Stargazing as an early astronomy tech.)

Currency: Requires Metal Casting and (Mathematics OR Monarchy).
Here, I want to dilute the necessity of Mathematics. Mathematics is currently required for all of Calendar, Construction, Currency, Music, and Philosophy. Mathematics itself is somewhat nebulous to me; since it's a Classical Era tech, I usually assume it means geometry and maybe some advanced arithmetic. It certainly is not basic counting and arithmetic. I think the slightly more sophisticated governments of Monarchy could develop Currency as a way to gather taxes more efficiently.

Vokayra-

I'm trying out a game now using the most recently updated version of AND. I decided to beeline for Athletics to found Hellenism (I am the Etruscans, so it's just appropriate), and I noticed that Athletics does not require Polytheism. This doesn't make sense from a historical or logical perspective. Was this an oversight? Polytheism doesn't have a high tech cost anyway, so making it a pre-req doesn't change much. Might as well have that part of the tree be accurate.

By the way, 48 Degrees, so far in the Classical Era, the tech costs are reasonable and appear to be balanced with 14 civs.

Snoop

I'd caution against adding dependencies if they complicate the tech arrows. You should be able to see which tech each flows into just by the arrows.

SnoopDogg23 said:

Vokayra-

I'm trying out a game now using the most recently updated version of AND. I decided to beeline for Athletics to found Hellenism (I am the Etruscans, so it's just appropriate), and I noticed that Athletics does not require Polytheism. This doesn't make sense from a historical or logical perspective. Was this an oversight? Polytheism doesn't have a high tech cost anyway, so making it a pre-req doesn't change much. Might as well have that part of the tree be accurate.

By the way, 48 Degrees, so far in the Classical Era, the tech costs are reasonable and appear to be balanced with 14 civs.

Snoop

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I think religions are spread like that to avoid the same civ gets different regions. Also, which mapsize and gamespeed are you using? I'm rebalancing a bit modern and Transhuman because they're still a bit too slow for AI.

45°38'N-13°47'E;14368943 said:

I think religions are spread like that to avoid the same civ gets different regions.

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They are definitely spread out that way. There is no way I am giving Athletics a dependency on Polytheism. The only way that I have been able to found an early religion of my own is by going down the Warfare-Athletics line, and I play on Noble. The AI just gets to the Ancient Era religions too fast.

I need to do some benchmark testing, but one thing that I think a player should be allowed to play to their strengths. In this case, on Noble Difficulty, a player that starts with Ritualism or Storytelling (there isn't a civ that starts with both) and the Scientific trait should be able to get Kemetism. If not, then we should tone down AI science in the Ancient Era. I'd settle for some larger bonuses throughout the game if the Ancient Era didn't favor the AI so much.

Arakhor said:

I'd caution against adding dependencies if they complicate the tech arrows. You should be able to see which tech each flows into just by the arrows.

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There are already a lot of connections that are overridden because there were too many complaints about the lines crossing. To be honest, I don't particularly care too much about how the F6 screen looks. It's a tool, not a be-all and end-all.

I'm not saying it should be inviolable, but if you end up having to check the Civilopedia to find out a tech's connections, then the tech screen is not much a tool.

Arakhor said:

I'm not saying it should be inviolable, but if you end up having to check the Civilopedia to find out a tech's connections, then the tech screen is not much a tool.

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There are already 15 places where we have to use <TechArrowOverrides> to prevent particular arrows from showing up in a way that causes some people to get confused. I don't want to sacrifice that in-game flexibility, and I don't see what is too wrong about extending that flexibility a little further. What we really need is for the F6 screen to show the icons for overridden OR techs the way it shows AND tech requirements. There has to be a way to do this in CvTechChooser.py, but I think it needs an alternate to WIDGET_HELP_TECH_PREPREQ to differentiate between "This tech requires X" and "This tech alternatively derived from X". I don't know how to do that.

I just use the popup screens and the top bar to find which techs are available. The game will say "Speeds Up <Tech>" to let you know that researching one tech will speed up another. F6 will give you one possible path to your desired tech, and it will hit every mandatory tech. But I think clicking your target tech will give you the fastest route, skipping OR techs that might have additional benefits.

45°38'N-13°47'E;14368943 said:

I think religions are spread like that to avoid the same civ gets different regions. Also, which mapsize and gamespeed are you using? I'm rebalancing a bit modern and Transhuman because they're still a bit too slow for AI.

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I'm running a Huge Smartmap on Epic speed with 14 civs. 4 continents.

There are still two renames that I want to do to existing techs. I think we have talked about these before. I don't plan on changing anything else about these techs that I haven't already posted.

Naturopathy -> Herbalism. I don't like Naturopathy as a name. It sounds way too much like trying to put a modern stamp on an ancient practice. I think Herbalism is far more appropriate to the time period. It is very important to me not to break immersion, and I think Naturopathy does this.

Modern Seismology -> Seismology. I want to get rid of the word Modern wherever possible in names (everything is modern from its own perspective, and not-modern to what comes after it). The only other tech left with Modern in its name is Modern Warfare. This would be Combined Arms if I hadn't used that name for the late-Industrial amalgamation of Amphibious Warfare, Guerrilla Warfare, and Naval Aviation.
With the tech tree depth that we have available, I do think it is appropriate to have a tech for 20th-century developments in earth sciences, especially the theory of plate tectonics. Without any other Seismology techs, we don't need to use the word "Modern" to differentiate this one. I would prefer an even more descriptive name if it is possible, but I can't come up with one.

Ironically, 'Herbalism' sounds more natural than 'Naturopathy'.

Here is something else I noticed. Discovering Electricity gives -15% maintenance costs from numbers of cities and distance to Palace. I don't think we need this any more.

There are several reasons why I think this. There is a lot of gold floating around in the late game and I would like to make gold more dependent on player decisions, not a side effect of a tech. I don't think it is appropriate for a tech to change maintenance costs by itself; I think this should be the domain of buildings and civics. I especially noticed when we changed Telegraph Office and Telephone Network from increased maintenance + increased trade routes to decreased maintenance + increased culture. Electricity is also in the very high trick range and would be totally solid without this.

Vokarya said:

Here is something else I noticed. Discovering Electricity gives -15% maintenance costs from numbers of cities and distance to Palace. I don't think we need this any more.

There are several reasons why I think this. There is a lot of gold floating around in the late game and I would like to make gold more dependent on player decisions, not a side effect of a tech. I don't think it is appropriate for a tech to change maintenance costs by itself; I think this should be the domain of buildings and civics. I especially noticed when we changed Telegraph Office and Telephone Network from increased maintenance + increased trade routes to decreased maintenance + increased culture. Electricity is also in the very high trick range and would be totally solid without this.

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I didn't even remember this. Looks good, get rid of that -15% maintenance.

Here are a few thoughts that I have had regarding the early eras. This is a wish list, not something I currently have a plan to do. I don't expect to actually implement any of these any time soon, but I think it is something that might be worth pursuing later on.

1. Equalize the number of technologies in the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Eras. The current spread of technologies over the first four eras is 37-29-29-35. I don't like the Ancient Era being that high, although it does have to do more duty, covering some prehistoric concepts (hunting, storytelling, ceremonial burial) as well as the Bronze Age. I would like to get the Classical and Medieval Eras up to 30 techs each. I know it's arbitrary, but I like round numbers. After that, I think some Ancient Era techs could get weeded out. Among others, I think Caste System, Chariotry, Dualism, Naval Warfare, and Sacrifice are all pretty weak and wouldn't be too much of a stretch to get rid of them or move them.
2. Give the Classical Era another Religious tech. Mostly, this is to break up the Literature-Philosophy line that makes it easy to snag Hinduism and Taoism together. There are a lot of religious techs in the Ancient Era: Ritualism, Ceremonial Burial, Mysticism, Polytheism, Sacrifice, Priesthood, Dualism, Monotheism, and Scriptures. That's 9 techs out of the 37. The Medieval Era has Theology, Holy War, and Papacy, which are collectively an expansion of the Theology tech in BTS. The Classical Era has only two religious techs: Meditation and Philosophy. As it is expressed in AND, Philosophy is almost completely religious, with Angkor Wat, Shaolin Temple/Shaolin Monk, Taoism, and Pacifism. So an additional religious tech could move the religions around a bit more and break this up.
3. Merge Machinery and Agricultural Tools, resulting in a Machinery tech in the Medieval Era. This is an idea that I had a few days ago. Agricultural techs in general have difficulty fitting into the rest of the tree. Agriculture itself is not required for most of the early tree. It is necessary for Agricultural Tools/Crop Rotation, Fermentation-Ancient Medicine-Sanitation-Anatomy, and Ancient Medicine-Alchemy. Crop Rotation itself leads only to Biology. Agricultural Engineering fed only into Ecology, which was one reason why I cut it. Having a separate tech for Agricultural Tools has always seemed unnecessary to me. We could reshuffle the tricks among the remaining techs (Smithing could probably get one or two tricks out of this).
4. Merge Perspective and Oil Painting, resulting in a Perspective tech in the Renaissance Era. Perspective is always said to be a Renaissance invention. Oil Painting is another tech that I think is exhausted after two tricks. I think combining these would be great, but I still want to keep the number of Medieval techs up.
5. Delete Armored Cavalry as a tech. Armored Cavalry is one of the narrowest technologies I can imagine. If it wasn't for the Equestrians Guild and having Knights and Noble Knights as separate units, and the need to keep up the number of technologies in the Medieval Era, I would have merged this with Chivalry a long time ago.

I think that more key concepts show up in the Ancient Era than in nearly any other era, so I'd expect it to have more techs than the other early eras. I could see making it level with the Renaissance at 35, but it would be a shame to have it cut down to 30, just to maintain parity with the Classic and Mediaeval eras.

Edit: For the record though, as I forgot to add this previously, I think that 3, 4 + 5 are probably sensible ideas.

1) I agree with Arakhor. Some people even think that the Ancient era is too short, so please don't cut any Ancient techs.

2) Adding a completely new tech is okay, but moving one from the Ancient era... see #1
Maybe Syncretism? It could help your state religion take over other religions in your cities by increasing its spread rate and decreasing the spread rate of non state religions.

3) 4) and 5) Okay.

We can adjust the overall research times if a particular era is too short or long. I think the Ancient Era could be slowed down myself. I'm leaning towards a 33-30-30 distribution for the tech counts of the first three eras. That would mean removing only 4 techs, and I would be more inclined to move what are currently Ancient Era techs to the Classical Era to make them fit better (like Caste System and Metal Casting).

What I'm really leaning towards is kicking Ritualism up to the Classical Era (RI does this) and making Ceremonial Burial the first religious tech. Ceremonial Burial is extremely old, and was one of the first techs available in the original Civ1. Ritualism is vaguer than I would expect for a tech, and so I think it can be combined with CB.

Vokarya said:

We can adjust the overall research times if a particular era is too short or long. I think the Ancient Era could be slowed down myself. I'm leaning towards a 33-30-30 distribution for the tech counts of the first three eras. That would mean removing only 4 techs, and I would be more inclined to move what are currently Ancient Era techs to the Classical Era to make them fit better (like Caste System and Metal Casting).

What I'm really leaning towards is kicking Ritualism up to the Classical Era (RI does this) and making Ceremonial Burial the first religious tech. Ceremonial Burial is extremely old, and was one of the first techs available in the original Civ1. Ritualism is vaguer than I would expect for a tech, and so I think it can be combined with CB.

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I feel eras lengths are pretty good right now. But if we chop some techs we can compensate by increasing remaining techs costs. I'm also running some test with huge and larger maps (guys, they're SLOW on my current setup on modern!!) and I think I can make research a bit faster for those maps, about 7-8% otherwise AI never has a chance to discover all the tech tree.

There are only a few techs that I want to cut out of the Ancient Era. I think Sacrifice is an easy cut we can make. As a tech, it has a few problems.

First, I think we have too many religious techs in the Ancient Era. We really don't need Sacrifice for any major purpose. It does not found any religions. I think it may have founded Naghualism at some point, but it certainly doesn't do that now, and I would like to keep the bulk of the religion founding out of the Ancient Era. I also don't think it really slows down the acquisition of any religion. It is a requirement for Monotheism only, and only adds 2 early Ancient techs (either Animal Husbandry or Slavery, plus Sacrifice) to the requirements. Compare Scriptures: this adds two expensive Ancient Era techs (Writing and Scriptures itself) to the jump from Monotheism (and Judaism) to Meditation (and Buddhism), and you can choose to beeline Writing, build School of Scribes, and then get Monotheism/Meditation a bit quicker, but risking someone else beelining Monotheism, getting there first, and founding Judaism.

Second, Sacrifice seems exhausted after getting two tricks. It would be difficult for me to think of an additional trick to give it, even theoretically. There are all kinds of things that certain techs suggest even if we choose not to include them for complexity reasons (Medic units, civics in new categories, etc.)

Third, Sacrifice does not have a trick to call its own. Ceremonial Altar is shared with Priesthood (it's classified as a Temple) and Chichen Itza is shared with Masonry (which serves as a general check on multiple Ancient Era Wonders that require substantial building). Chichen Itza generally doesn't show up in other Civ games until at least the Classical Era. It is Classical in BTS, Medieval in Civ5, and somewhere in the middle of the Ancient Era in Call to Power 2, but the Ancient Era there covers everything up to the Renaissance. I think leaving Ceremonial Altar at Priesthood, where it serves as a Temple for civilizations without religions, and moving Chichen Itza back to Code of Laws would be good.

I don't really see any point in keeping Sacrifice as a tech, if it's that limited in scope.