The Tech Tree - Why Bother?

Hello Folks,

I will show my ignorance here...

Why bother with having the Tech Tree? You need each techpiece, anyway, to get to the next stage; the techs are intertwined/interdependent. Therefore,why bother even having this in the game?

Sure, you can bias yourself a small amount of turns down one avenue, but, so what? You need to backtrack and fill-in the other tech pieces anyway, sooner vs than later.

What am I missing? At present, it's just a silly micromanagement piece, like that of constantly having workers being clicked, knowing that auto AI management doesn't always work (another thread)...

Regards,

Marc

Not sure I follow your question, but having to make decisions about what and when to research various techs is pretty core to strategic decisionmaking in this game, not micromanaging.

Despite the interconnectedness of the tech tree, most tech paths do not depend on having researched all of the techs in an earlier era before proceeding. So, a given civ in a given environment will make different choices about what techs to prioritize. Yes, you will EVENTUALLY research most of the early era techs, but by the time you do so, they will be cheap to research (1-3 turns) and, in the meantime, you've advanced to later era techs that will reinforce your desired victory condition.

You will see many references to beelining certain techs to gain advantages--perhaps unlock a powerful unique unit to go warmongering (e.g., Machinery for Chinese Chu-ko-nus), or unlock a critical new building (e.g., Education for universities to really boost your tech rate), or grab a wonder important to your ambitions for that game (e.g., Civil Service for Chichen Itza in a culture game). I cannot fathom being interested in this game if I didn't have those choices (e.g., the computer randomly decides what tech you get when you "finish" a round of research).

Not really sure why you're asking this now when you joined as early as 2006. Didn't all the previous Civ games have tech trees?

The reason is very simple. You are supposedly creating a civilization. Technology is a big aspect of each civilization and you know in history different civilizations often prioritize different technologies. Civ games try to reflect this.

Gameplay wise it adds a whole layer of customization in exactly how to shape your civilization. Just because civs will eventually all have the same tech doesn't mean it's a pointless system. If Harold gets Berserkers while I got Acoustics to get Sistine Chapel, there will be some obvious differences in that period in terms of diversity among civs. It is this diversity in addition to all the other variables that makes Civ games have an obscenely long entertainment value for some people.

All the previous Civs had Tech Trees and I have always thought it pointless...

The advantages are small, you bias over a few turns one tech direction over another.

Marc

If you think it is pointless, I think you are not playing this game for the strategic decision making, but rather for the flavor and the simulation. Still, the tech tree has an excellent purpose for both, so if you still think it is pointless I don't know why you are playing this game. That's not to say your reason is a bad one! I simply don't know what it is.

For gameplay, making a decision to prioritize one tech over another gives you an advantage in a certain category over other players. If you use that advantage, you can gain advantages in more areas and eventually have enough of an advantage to win.

For flavor, discrepancies in tech allow for differences in the feel of civilizations, which is exactly the flavor you want. If everything were the same, then nothing would be interesting, everything would be average. If you just want to watch your civilization build up and progress over time, and don't care about whether or not it was YOUR good decision making that made it happen, then yeah sure I guess you don't need the tech tree. But at that point you are just watching the game for pretty graphics, not playing it to make decisions.

I don't play the game for the pointless Tech Tree. What I mean by this is having me chose the tech is pointless: All Civs must pass through it, and, all techs have inter-dependencies that can't be avoided or fast-tracked. Your being too far ahead or too far behind in technology has nothing to do with your picking the next tech in the tech tree.

I play the game to dominate the globe by force and by paying off City States and other Civs. The technologies come anyway...

Marc

JohnYoga said:

All the previous Civs had Tech Trees and I have always thought it pointless...

The advantages are small, you bias over a few turns one tech direction over another.

Marc

Click to expand...

what? You can have very different games depending on what techs you research.

A simplistic view of the game's tech tree would be that it's split in branches, a military branch, a science branch, an economic branch, an artistic branch. In each era, you have to make a choice between science, military, economy, culture in your research choices.

If you play at your top difficulty, these choices will decide whether you win or lose. Researching for 20-30 turns outside of the branch that suits your situation/goal most can mean losing a window of opportunity.

If you play at a lower difficulty than what you can handle, maybe for score or to see how fast you can go to space or whatever, prioritizing the branches will make your game more/less efficient, your progress more/less interesting.

With a tech tree, I often have choices like "go for chemistry for huge production bonus or go to scientific theory for better research", or "machinery for early-midgame war vs education for science" and so on.

Nice comment Crow.

Your "window of opportunity" comment is perfect.

Yes, that is the only place where manually going through the tech tree makes any sense. It is those brief "windows of opportunity". The key is "window", and it's a tiny window at the fastest game speed + low-to-normal difficulty settings.

Now, I play on quick and fairly easy settings, therefore, these windows are tiny at best.

Perhaps this is where the Tech Tree manual pickings comes into increasing relevance: when folks play above Normal speed and very difficult settings. Why? Because the turns between techs are so much longer and the tech-line focus gets accentuated by this expanded time, making an amplified difference when playing at very high difficulty levels.

Very nice comments.

Marc
By the way, "Quick" in Civ V is still extremely slow: It has taken us nearly 50 hours to finish our last hotseat...

You don't have to worry about a lot of game mechanics on easier settings.

What botters me with the tech tree in civ 5 that there is only 1 tech path

Most of the games you go straight to education.


There are a lot of techs wich people just ignore and go straight forward like going straight for scientific theory then fill up all the other techs same with plastics .

Thank you to everyone who has posted.

Regards,

Marc

Nope, not education...

Generally at higher levels, construction is the first priority, then civil service, then, maybe education

I was ready to type my initial response to the OP but then I thought about what has happened with the tech tree in Civ5. To me, the tech tree was the single greatest thing that has attracted me to the Civ series going back to the late 1990s. And what they did in with tech tree in Civ3 was the greatest among the many failures of Civ3. Fast forward to G&K and my fear that it is becoming more like the forced eras teching of Civ3 (i.e., having to complete all techs in an era before moving to the next). In my last game in which I won by space (having to research nearly the whole tree), that seems to be the pattern, esp. with Ballistics requiring Railroads.

I think this is the wrong trend. As others have said, the decision-making that the tech tree provides is one of the hallmarks of Civilization. Beelines still exist to some extent, esp. early game and they can make or break your success. But there used to be much more pronounced beelines until they did away with them and that, imo, takes away from consequence of action decision making. In other words, one should be able to purposely choose a high-rish, high-reward beeline (hypothetically, going into Industrial on military while ignoring other lines stuck in Classical). But now when you go to Industrial, you pretty much have everything prior already researched and that reduces decision making.

I think it would be nice if the tech tree had some variability or randomness, to enhance replayability. But I think the original poster should try the game at one of the highest difficulty levels. At those levels, the wrong choice of tech at the wrong time can be fatal, especially early on.

I'll do that, Grotius.

It will still feel a bit too "straight line" for me...

Perhaps there needs to be greater/further reaching tech stealing (and tech sabotage) abilities and more accidental discoveries in the game. Add-in a large cost factor, too. After all, tech stealing, accidental discoveries and cost considerations are happening around us in real-life, too...

Marc

This is not RTS, there is randomness in the lay of lands and neighbors around you, and each Civ got their own unique traits.

Hence the choices in what techs do you want to prioritize.

I suppose you want to get rid of the randomness too so that you can blaze through maps you know well?

JohnYoga said:

All the previous Civs had Tech Trees and I have always thought it pointless...

The advantages are small, you bias over a few turns one tech direction over another.

Marc

Click to expand...

To a certain degree i can see your point in the earlier games although there were still distinct branches but in V there are (for the most part) 3 distinct paths you can choose which will eventually meet at certain points but you for good chunks of the game can focus on/ignore certain paths.

Roughly you have naval at the top, science/culture along the middle and and land military/gold/happiness along the bottom.

For land military for example you could take around 20 techs (up to rifling) before being forced to look at science or naval techs in any great way.

With Naval you can get all the way to frigates, totally ignoring land military and only needing to take a few science based techs.

For science/culture you can get all the way to scientific theory without having to take many unrelated techs.

It all squashes up around the industrial era but then splits into distinct branches again.
You have military in the bottom 2/3, Science along the middle and diplomatic along the top.

Again you can progress along any of those tree with almost total freedom not to bother with the other sections.

Fluffball said:

To a certain degree i can see your point in the earlier games although there were still distinct branches but in V there are (for the most part) 3 distinct paths you can choose which will eventually meet at certain points but you for good chunks of the game can focus on/ignore certain paths.

Roughly you have naval at the top, science/culture along the middle and and land military/gold/happiness along the bottom.

For land military for example you could take around 20 techs (up to rifling) before being forced to look at science or naval techs in any great way.

With Naval you can get all the way to frigates, totally ignoring land military and only needing to take a few science based techs.

For science/culture you can get all the way to scientific theory without having to take many unrelated techs.

It all squashes up around the industrial era but then splits into distinct branches again.
You have military in the bottom 2/3, Science along the middle and diplomatic along the top.

Again you can progress along any of those tree with almost total freedom not to bother with the other sections.

Click to expand...

Hello Fluffball,

Thank you for your post. I appreciate the detail.

I am not understanding how there are three tracks. All Techs are intertwined; you can't move too far along one branch without being stopped and backtracking to fill-in the other "branches". One merely has small "windows of opportunity" where you can bias your tech researching for a tech block or two. But really, one is forced to pick all techs along the way, there is no real bias that lasts long.

Marc

Actually, you can go a long way without researching at all along one or even two of the branches, as shown in the game here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=445082
He got very very far without researching an ancient tech and any of the science branch techs.

You said you play faster speeds, so I don't know how it affects you, but on marathon, where I play, I can go a very long time without certain techs.