Tech Tree Revisions

UncivilizedGuy said:

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.

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IMO, the first things I would do with Civ5 is add back health to cities, rework Social Policies to be more of a reward system for high culture (instead of a replacement for civics) then add in Civics again... maybe with a more complex legal system where you can enact individual laws, not sure..

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• Aerodynamics: Requirements become Aviation + Radar. Radar is still at the very end of the Industrial Era, so I don't think there is any danger of jumping from Industrial to Modern too early.
• Biological Warfare: Requirements become Guerrilla Warfare + Modern Health Care. This keeps it in the same place.
• Modern Health Care: Requirements become Refrigeration + Logistics. I'd like to just rename this tech to Antibiotics. I don't think tech names should try to be so general that they cover everything associated with the tech; we can hit the high point with a reasonably-specific name and let the tech cover what it needs to (for the record, I despise "X and Y" tech names).
• Modern Seismology: I'd actually like to get rid of this tech too. It feels like a very narrow topic for a tech. Otherwise, it could easily be changed to Electronics + Sonar and actually stay where it is.
• Vertical Flight: This drops back a column because Aerodynamics moves back. It actually doesn't change except becoming cheaper because it's in an earlier column.

Arakhor said:

What does Seismology do? Anything terribly important?

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Afforess said:

Speaking of Superstring Theory, that tech should be renamed (or removed) as String theory has been largely discredited. The work at CERN with the Higgs Boson has greatly weakened String theory.

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Afforess said:

Speaking of Superstring Theory, that tech should be renamed (or removed) as String theory has been largely discredited. The work at CERN with the Higgs Boson has greatly weakened String theory.

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Vokarya said:

I haven't gotten around to posting the OTP list for the Modern Era yet, but we have a run of late-Modern-Era, content-starved physics techs with Superconductors, Magnetic Levitation, and Superstring Theory that are sharing only 4 pieces of content: Supercollider, Maglev improvement, Great Scientist, and Theory of Everything project. I think we should replace both Magnetic Levitation and Superstring Theory with Particle Physics, give Superconductors the Great Scientist and the Maglev, and Particle Physics gets Supercollider and Theory of Everything. Do you think that would work?

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Vokarya said:

I think we should replace both Magnetic Levitation and Superstring Theory with Particle Physics, give Superconductors the Great Scientist and the Maglev, and Particle Physics gets Supercollider and Theory of Everything. Do you think that would work?

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• Elephant Riding
• Journalism
• Sonar
• Vertical Flight
• Personal Robots

• Content reassignment: Elephant Rider gets reassigned to Horseback Riding. The next two Elephant units (War Elephant, Elephant Bombardier) get moved to Horseback Riding as an additional requirement as well. It is possible to get all the way to Gunpowder without getting even Chariotry, although you would have to be dedicated to do that. The horse-tech chain (Chariotry, HBR, Horse Breeding, Stirrup, Armored Cav, Chivalry) rejoins the rest of the tech tree at Leadership, which is one tech after Gunpowder.
• Incoming techs: Animal Husbandry is the only tech required for ER. AH is required for Chariotry and is also an OR requirement for Sacrifice and Trade. Losing ER will not hurt AH at all.
• Outgoing techs: The only tech ER leads to is Armored Cavalry, all the way in the Medieval Era. This is a huge red flag for me whenever a tech's only outgoing point is more than an era away. On the other hand, AC will not miss ER a bit.

• Content reassignment: The Press Agency gets reassigned to Telegraph. The Publishing House gets assigned to Photography. I'm going to go with Photography here just to balance things out; Corporation would be my second choice, but Corporation is in a weird place because it's hard to count one tech being required for virtually all Corporations and Corporate Stores. The only exceptions are the four Modern corps (the three at Tourism and Mapster) along with Universal Soldiers.
• Incoming techs: This is a big one, as Journalism is the only exit for both Photography and Representative Democracy. I think it would be best to add Rep Dem to the prerequisites for Labor Union and Photography as a prerequisite for Marxism.
• Outgoing techs: Journalism leads to Marxism and Telegraph. Marxism is already covered; Telegraph would become Railroad + Machine Tools. I just want one more tech between the beginning of the Industrial Era and Telegraph.

• Content reassignment: Sonar promotion gets reassigned to Submarine Warfare. Missile Destroyer gets changed to Semiconductors + Submarine Warfare. The bonuses to Fishing Boats just get dropped. We have a lot of these bonuses, and I think not enough attention was paid to how these bonuses stack.
• Incoming techs: This is Submarine Warfare's only exit point. I think we should make Modern Seismology require Submarine Warfare, and Radar require Relativity + (Aviation OR Submarine Warfare).
• Outgoing techs: Sonar leads to both Modern Seismology and Radar. I've covered both of these.

• Content reassignment: Helicopter goes to Aerodynamics. Gunship keeps Modern Warfare. MW is already on the path from Aerodynamics (AD - Jet Propulsion - Supersonic Flight - MW).
• Incoming techs: VF is straight off Aerodynamics. Aerodynamics is required for both Jet Propulsion and Tourism, so no problems there.
• Outgoing techs: VF is required for Space Flight and Unmanned Air Vehicles. Most of the other aerospace technologies are already required for Space Flight (Aerodynamics, Jet Propulsion, Advanced Rocketry, Satellites) and Satellites is also required for Communication Networks which is a prerequisite for UAV. Losing VF really makes no difference to these techs.

• Content reassignment: There is nothing to reassign; Personal Robots grants +1 happiness per city and +1 production from all improvements in the Cottage line. Both of these can be safely removed.
• Incoming techs: Personal Robots requires Androids and Plastic Electronics. PE also leads to Nanoelectronics, so that's fine. Androids can step in for Personal Robots for the OR requirements of Artificial Evolution and Mind Uploading. This will need just a little reworking of arrows, but with the current ability to keep the arrows clean, it won't be difficult.
• Outgoing techs: Personal Robots leads only to Planetary Economics. Planetary Econ has four other required techs, but I'm adding Androids to give Androids a required exit point as the other two exits are OR requirements.

UncivilizedGuy said:

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.

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1. The Medieval Era is currently the lightest by tech count. It has only 28 techs, and all other eras have at least 30, with the Industrial Era currently clocking in at 57 techs, more than twice as many. I'm not going to insist that the eras be equal, but I would like the gap to be a little bit narrower. Adding a Medieval tech would help.
2. Certain techs are magnets for particular types of trick. I've started to consider trick distribution in addition to raw trick count, and I don't like when too many of the same type of trick are attached to the same tech. I think more than 2 World Wonders attached to a tech is a bad thing, and Architecture currently has 4 (Notre Dame, Leaning Tower, Itsukushima, Alhambra). [Masonry currently has the most World Wonders with 5, but all except Sphinx are shared with another tech, so Masonry serves more of as a check that your civilization is advanced enough to build anything large and stone, so I think it's okay.] Patronage will break this up a little by moving Itsukushima and splitting Leaning Tower. Architecture is not redundant as Architecture is an OR requirement for Patronage.
3. I don't think Currency is as woven into the tech tree as it should be. Currency only leads to Democracy (which in turn isn't necessary for any tech until Political Philosophy in the Renaissance - a jump over an entire era is not a good thing, but I can live with it) and Banking (which is also only necessary for Pol Phil), meaning you can get into the Renaissance Era without Currency. I don't like leaving techs behind this way, so Currency is a prerequisite for Patronage, which is in turn required for Education, which is the great bottleneck tech of the late-Medieval and onward.
4. Patronage cleans up a few out-of-place buildings; I've never liked Artists Master Guild requiring Music (because Music is Classical Era while guilds are enabled in the Medieval Era) or Artists Guild in the Renaissance Era when everything else with Guild in its name is Medieval. This puts them both in the Medieval Era which I think is a better fit.