Several mods have touched on the problem but none give what I believe would be the ideal solution : require all technologies of one era be researched before advancing to the next era.
Get on a hill and fortify, incoming wall o' text!
In a recent game Rome had gunpowder units but I don't believe they even had writing or mathematics discovered. This solution would prevent the abrupt technological jumps that occur with longswords to gunpowder, for example. It would extend the duration of eras and useful lifespan of unit types without drastically altering the overall game duration or balance.
It's simple enough to force prerequisite technologies, however it looks like crap in the technology tree. I was thinking the community at large may enjoy this mod, however to properly implement this is beyond my limited modding capabilities.
In an effort to straighten the tech tree visual issues out I hit upon a great mod, "Dark Ages - Prolong Medieval Warfare" by Jeremy Norton. My efforts to find and contact Jeremy directly have failed utterly (and perhaps he has no interest in this anyways), however I really liked his solution of a new and blank technology between eras. This works out well visually for the tree structure when you have so many dependencies, once you require all techs of one era before moving to the next. I was thinking a 0 research cost Classical, Renaissance, Industrial, etc technology that is required to change eras with all pre and post dependencies linked to it would work nicely.
Not sure how the mechanics of the game would handle a 0 cost technology, if you could auto-grant it when all the pre-req's are met, or if you'd still be limited to using a turn to "research" it; I suppose that wouldn't be too drastic of a penalty and could even be compensated for to preserve overall game duration.
If anybody has the knowledge to knock this surprisingly code-heavy yet simplistic in theory mod out, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm guessing the community at large may as well, based on the prevalence of posts and mods concerning these issues.
Or if you have an even more elegant solution to the technological pacing flaws of this game, present them here!
I suppose if you see some flaw with my idea you could post it here as well.
Get on a hill and fortify, incoming wall o' text!
In a recent game Rome had gunpowder units but I don't believe they even had writing or mathematics discovered. This solution would prevent the abrupt technological jumps that occur with longswords to gunpowder, for example. It would extend the duration of eras and useful lifespan of unit types without drastically altering the overall game duration or balance.
It's simple enough to force prerequisite technologies, however it looks like crap in the technology tree. I was thinking the community at large may enjoy this mod, however to properly implement this is beyond my limited modding capabilities.
In an effort to straighten the tech tree visual issues out I hit upon a great mod, "Dark Ages - Prolong Medieval Warfare" by Jeremy Norton. My efforts to find and contact Jeremy directly have failed utterly (and perhaps he has no interest in this anyways), however I really liked his solution of a new and blank technology between eras. This works out well visually for the tree structure when you have so many dependencies, once you require all techs of one era before moving to the next. I was thinking a 0 research cost Classical, Renaissance, Industrial, etc technology that is required to change eras with all pre and post dependencies linked to it would work nicely.
Not sure how the mechanics of the game would handle a 0 cost technology, if you could auto-grant it when all the pre-req's are met, or if you'd still be limited to using a turn to "research" it; I suppose that wouldn't be too drastic of a penalty and could even be compensated for to preserve overall game duration.
If anybody has the knowledge to knock this surprisingly code-heavy yet simplistic in theory mod out, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm guessing the community at large may as well, based on the prevalence of posts and mods concerning these issues.
Or if you have an even more elegant solution to the technological pacing flaws of this game, present them here!
I suppose if you see some flaw with my idea you could post it here as well.