Flight before combustion

[Ryika]

Does it work gameplay-wise right now? Yes. Will it work gameplay-wise if we try to rearrange the tech tree? Certainly.

Yeah, but will it actually work better or at least just as good? I don't think so, because the status of having Archery be an investment that stands on its own is a pretty good thing in my opinion, because if you want archers you have to make an investment that doesn't get you anywhere on its own, so if you're not trying to play a strategy that desperately needs archers at some point you're encouraged to delay archery, or skip it (and with it Slingers) completely - which works perfectly fine for defensive and/or rush-into-defense-strategies.

Any change made to "correct" the "flaw" of Archery not being required for things it's "logically" required for would destroy that dynamic and make Archery just one of many technologies that you need sooner or later. That wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would certainly make the decisions less impactful.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I don't think there is any significant damage done to decisions made in-game even if every tech is a prerequisite of another. Civ 5 BNW's tech tree has no dead-ends, and early tech choices still pretty much defines your strategy in the ancient and classical era. The flaw in BNW's tech tree lies in the fact that some strategies, and thus some techs, are just much more useful than the others. But decisions-wise, even with the lack of dead-ends it has enough impact as it is.

Taking your arguments into the realm of absurdity, you can actually win the game without building a mine or chopping a forest, ever. Basically, you can have Mining (or any number of any other tech) as a dead-end tech if you want to. Sure it will make decisions to research or skip Mining or other techs altogether even more impactful. That shouldn't be a primary goal around which to revolve the design of a tech tree.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that realism isn't necessarily mutually exclusive to compelling design. Making a tech tree without dead-ends does not severely lessen the impact of decisions - but it will certainly significantly improve the credibility of the design.

BTW, in the Community Balance Patch mod, all techs other than the first ones have at least two pre-requisites, basically being even more intertwined than BNW's. However, the importance of planning around the tech tree and choosing wisely is undoubtedly more pronounced with the mod.

 

[Ryika]

Taking your arguments into the realm of absurdity [...]

Taking your argument into the realm of absurdity would mean that every technology must be researched in chronological order in which they were discovered in real life. What a silly idea!
Saying "taking your arguments into the realm of absurdity" is like saying "If I reframe your arguments so they look dumb, then they look dumb!" - well, d'oh.

We had a specific example, one that provides a decision that I think is better than the alternative you're proposing, if you can't actually argue for why you think your alternative is better and instead have to "take it into the realm of absurdity" then you've already lost the plot. The only argument you brought forward is that it is "more historically correct", my argument is that I prefer the gameplay the way it is now. Historical accuracy does not trump gameplay and therefor imho your argument is not a counter-point to my argument. For other people it may be, but if those are the two things that we're pitting against each other then I don't see much use in discussing this further, we clearly have different goals and won't convince each other of anything.

If however you still somehow want to argue that your position would lead to better gameplay then you should bring an actual argument for that. That "credibility of the design"-thing is just an empty phrase that means absolutely nothing, and I'm not sure what the CBO has to do with anything, it's design goals are clearly different from Civ VI as the target audience of the modpack is a specific sub-group of the overall playerbase.

 

[TruthfulCake]

Taking your argument into the realm of absurdity would mean that every technology must be researched in chronological order in which they were discovered in real life. What a silly idea!
Saying "taking your arguments into the realm of absurdity" is like saying "If I reframe your arguments so they look dumb, then they look dumb!" - well, d'oh.

We had a specific example, one that provides a decision that I think is better than the alternative you're proposing, if you can't actually argue for why you think your alternative is better and instead have to "take it into the realm of absurdity" then you've already lost the plot. The only argument you brought forward is that it is "more historically correct", my argument is that I prefer the gameplay the way it is now. That's the end of the story right there.

That "credibility of the design"-thing is just an empty phrase that means absolutely nothing, and I'm not sure what the CBO has to do with anything, it's design goals are clearly different from Civ VI as the target audience of the modpack is a specific sub-group of the overall playerbase.

Wow, you are starting to get offensive here. Try not to turn a cordial discussion into personal attacks.

Reductio ad absurdum exists to point out the limits of a principle - if it can lead to ridiculousness, certainly it cannot be the only principle to rely on. In your case, the principle is to allow freedom in tech-tree choices.

To clarify my stance, I don't think every technology has to be researched chronologically - in fact, the chronology is not even uniform across the world. Some civilizations discovered certain things earlier than others. Therefore I don't agree with a completely linear tech "tree". I advocate making all techs at least related one to another. If you want to employ reductio ad absurdum to my stance, you would thus give an example of a tech tree where every tech in the next column can only be researched if you have researched all techs in the previous column. It is certainly not ideal, but with 4 techs in every column, you still have a semblance of decision-making.

On the other hand, taking freedom into absolute absurdity also means that most techs can be researched independently of each other. Basically, it is even possible to research Rocketry while skipping Animal Husbandry. I know it's not what you are advocating - I am merely pointing out that prioritizing freedom in building a tech tree can result in incredible impossibilities like this.

Therefore, a good tech tree should take both freedom and tech interrelations into account. I just think that freedom, while desirable, is very much secondary compared to having a tree that is intuitive.

And bringing up the CBP is not telling you that Civ VI should be like CBP. It is to illustrate that even with a tangled tech tree where all techs have 2 or more prerequisites, decisions can still be very impactful if the tree is well-designed. The impactful decisions are something that you think is good - and something that doesn't necessarily clash with the idea of no dead-end techs. When they are historically accurate, it is merely the icing on the cake.

 

[Ryika]

Wow, you are starting to get offensive here. Try not to turn a cordial discussion into personal attacks.

Could you please quote what exactly you think was a "personal attack"? I don't think I did any such thing, I merely called out the bad arguments you were trying to push.

Reductio ad absurdum exists to point out the limits of a principle - if it can lead to ridiculousness, certainly it cannot be the only principle to rely on. In your case, the principle is to allow freedom in tech-tree choices.

To clarify my stance, I don't think every technology has to be researched chronologically

It is fascinating that you're willing to use two different standards for yourself and for me. On the one side you're taking my argument to an absurd level that I've never said we should even think about implementing as if it that refutes my position, on the other side you think you can just "clarify your stance" and everything is fine.

Let me clarify my stance: I do not want unlimited freedom, that's a silly assumption. What I want is a decision that works out well to not be changed based on non-gameplay related nonsense. There's good gameplay-related reasons against unlimited freedom, being able to research high-end technologies too early is an obvious one. So again, that reduction to absurdity-stuff is entirely meaningless, and it doesn't help your argument in any way, you're just distracting from the fact that you have no case.

And bringing up the CBP is not telling you that Civ VI should be like CBP. It is to illustrate that even with a tangled tech tree where all techs have 2 or more prerequisites, decisions can still be very impactful if the tree is well-designed.

Yeah, I understand that. It's just a meaningless argument. Nobody said you can't have different systems that also work well, my argument is that the current positioning of Archery is fine the way it is, that it promotes an interesting decision about how long you can delay it and/or if you can skip it completely, and that you have no argument for why it needs to be changed other than historical context which is still entirely irrelevant for me.

I'm asking you to provide a gameplay-related reason for why it totally has to be changed, if you respond to that by naming alternative ways that also work, but result in a different system, then that's not much more than an attempt to justify that something hould be changed although there's absolutely nothing wrong with the current system.

 

[Draco84]

Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I just wanted to point out something that happened in my last game that never hit me until I was half-way done.

I was attacking people using subs, before I researched the wheel. that seemed crazy to me. I kinda liked it. but still crazy.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I'm asking you to provide a gameplay-related reason for why it totally has to be changed, if you respond to that by naming alternative ways that also work, but result in a different system, then that's not much more than an attempt to justify that something hould be changed although there's absolutely nothing wrong with the current system.

I think you are approaching "gameplay-related" in a very one-dimensional way though. For you, the freedom that you believe you enjoy by having archery as a dead-end tech translates as good gameplay. However, many would believe the intuitiveness and credibility of these decisions lend to the immersion - another part of gameplay that you may not value as much as others, but nevertheless is deemed important by many. A dead-end archery tech breaks credibility on many levels, and it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

It's the reason why threads such as this one exist in the first place - because when you stretch credibility in a game that is largely rooted in reality, then players start posing questions when they should be enjoying the game.

If you have read my posts in this thread, and I am sure you have, all I ever wanted is to have a tech tree that allows for a lot of diverse choice (freedom) as well as fidelity. You may think that it is not a valid point, and that is your prerogative, but I have made a point regardless.

 

[Ryika]

For you, the freedom that you believe you enjoy by having archery as a dead-end tech translates as good gameplay. However, many would believe the intuitiveness and credibility of these decisions lend to the immersion - another part of gameplay that you may not value as much as others, but nevertheless is deemed important by many.

You're mixing terms here. Immersion is by definition not gameplay. Both can work together and gameplay can be designed in a way that creates a deep sense of immersion, but immersion is not a form of gameplay, no matter how you look at it.

A dead-end archery tech breaks credibility on many levels, and it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

It's the reason why threads such as this one exist in the first place - because when you stretch credibility in a game that is largely rooted in reality, then players start posing questions when they should be enjoying the game.

If you have read my posts in this thread, and I am sure you have, all I ever wanted is to have a tech tree that allows for a lot of diverse choice (freedom) as well as fidelity. You may think that it is not a valid point, and that is your prerogative, but I have made a point regardless.

Well, as I said twice: I don't think a person whose immersion into the game-world is destroyed by the fact that they can build walls that allow cities to shoot arrows while they don't have archery is really in "the right mindset" for a Civ game. I think there's many, many other such things, and most of them can't be fixed. Why can you construct anti-air units while your opponents are still in the medieval era and have no air units to speak of? Why can you even be in the modern era while your neighbors are still in the Renaissance? Hell, how can leaders live for 6000 years, and why are there no elections in your democracy that can take the lead from you? Why is it that there's still Barbarian Camps in the Atomic Era, and how the hell did they establish themselves in those few empty tiles between your cities? Why can you build the Broadway while your scientific advancement is still on the level of the medieval era? Is it logical that you can Unlock Capitalism without ever having built a single Bank in your Empire? So many things that just don't make sense because Civ is not a simulation, it's a game. A game with a strong focus on board-gamish abstraction.

You're playing a game that has tons and tons of stuff that doesn't work when you think too closely about it, yet, in this one case it's suddenly your main argument in this one very specific example. I'm sorry, but I can't take that seriously. It's just not a good argument when you consider how the whole game is structured the same way.

 

[Quintillus]

The title says it all. It makes no sense and it bothers me.

Show me a steam-engined plane and I might accept it

I still love the game though.

Anyone else noticed oddities in the tech tree?

I don't know of a steam-powered plane, but I do know of Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered airplane that has flown around the world. You don't need an internal-combustion engine for an airplane. You just need a wingspan larger than a 747's that's covered in solar cells.

 

[KmDubya]

Going back to the original complaint of flight without combustion:

Flight lets you build biplanes, combustion lets you build tanks. Other than the method of powering their engines there is not much in similarity, even then biplanes use gas engines and tanks use diesels. Gameplay wise I like that one can go for tanks and another could go for planes and both would be a viable way for combat.

As far as going on deep tech beelines there is the downside of increasing the cost of districts as you enter later eras.

I like being able to skip techs if I don't want them. Plenty of games I've not researched pikes until I had AT crews and could still produce spearmen in the modern era. I'm glad that unlike in ciV, the optimal tech path for a Space victory does not also get you the best modern military units. If you want Rocket Artillery you need to go out of the path.

 

[TruthfulCake]

You're mixing terms here. Immersion is by definition not gameplay. Both can work together and gameplay can be designed in a way that creates a deep sense of immersion, but immersion is not a form of gameplay, no matter how you look at it.

Well, as I said twice: I don't think a person whose immersion into the game-world is destroyed by the fact that they can build walls that allow cities to shoot arrows while they don't have archery is really in "the right mindset" for a Civ game. I think there's many, many other such things, and most of them can't be fixed. Why can you construct anti-air units while your opponents are still in the medieval era and have no air units to speak of? Why can you even be in the modern era while your neighbors are still in the Renaissance? Hell, how can leaders live for 6000 years, and why are there no elections in your democracy that can take the lead from you? Why is it that there's still Barbarian Camps in the Atomic Era, and how the hell did they establish themselves in those few empty tiles between your cities? Why can you build the Broadway while your scientific advancement is still on the level of the medieval era? Is it logical that you can Unlock Capitalism without ever having built a single Bank in your Empire? So many things that just don't make sense because Civ is not a simulation, it's a game. A game with a strong focus on board-gamish abstraction.

You're playing a game that has tons and tons of stuff that doesn't work when you think too closely about it, yet, in this one case it's suddenly your main argument in this one very specific example. I'm sorry, but I can't take that seriously. It's just not a good argument when you consider how the whole game is structured the same way.

Which is why, as I said, I am giving many things a pass since they are abstractions. A scout that can live 5000 years? Not complaining. I gave these things a pass because the alternative would be ridiculous - i.e. your units suddenly disappearing because they died of old age, having to handle successions and coups because your mortal leader can only stay in game for 10 turns, etc. I am okay with finding a problem with the dead-end techs simply because the alternative of fixing them is nowhere near as ridiculous. In fact, fixing them does not beget any gameplay-related problems.

We have pretty much agreed that both models (Civ VI style vs. BNW/CBP style) would work. If the sacrifice is minimal, then I find no problem in enhancing the enjoyment of people who would otherwise think it unintuitve to have flight before combustion. After all, immersion is an important aspect regardless - divorce it from gameplay if you will, it still affects enjoyment and to me that is what gameplay should take into account.

In fact, if you strip immersion away from gameplay as a premise, it is entirely okay to have Rocketry without Animal Husbandry, just like it is okay to research Nanotechnology without Archery currently. There is nothing wrong with such a design if you don't scrutinize it with any other lens than whether it provides freedom, no matter how minimal. You can complete the game just fine too, just as I am doing right now with the current design. But the fact that you agreed that such an example is dumb means that, at least to a certain degree, you do understand that a tech tree with credibility is more desirable than one that is devoid of it.

 

[Ryika]

Which is why, as I said, I am giving many things a pass since they are abstractions. A scout that can live 5000 years? Not complaining. I gave these things a pass because the alternative would be ridiculous - i.e. your units suddenly disappearing because they died of old age, having to handle successions and coups because your mortal leader can only stay in game for 10 turns, etc. I am okay with finding a problem with the dead-end techs simply because the alternative of fixing them is nowhere near as ridiculous. In fact, fixing them does not beget any gameplay-related problems.

So you're saying that you're able to overlook all the other immersion-breaking things and be fine, but for the sole reason that archery is something that can be fixed in your opinion you can't just overlook it? That's ridiculous. Just treat it like you treat everything else. It's not a big deal.

We have pretty much agreed that both models (Civ VI style vs. BNW/CBP style) would work. If the sacrifice is minimal, then I find no problem in enhancing the enjoyment of people who would otherwise think it unintuitve to have flight before combustion. After all, immersion is an important aspect regardless - divorce it from gameplay if you will, it still affects enjoyment and to me that is what gameplay should take into account.

The sacrafice is not "minimal", it's two entirely different systems and I very much prefer the one where you have more long-term freedom over having to get everything and really only being able to decide between technologies that are closely related.

The fact that I think both systems work and do what they were designed for does not mean that I like them equally.

In fact, if you strip immersion away from gameplay as a premise, it is entirely okay to have Rocketry without Animal Husbandry, just like it is okay to research Nanotechnology without Archery currently.

Yeah, that's perfectly fine, why would it not be? The fact that you didn't pick up Animal Husbandry doesn't mean that your people are too stupid to farm animals, all it means that there was a tech that you didn't need early on so you skipped it and never picked it up. Abstraction.

There is nothing wrong with such a design if you don't scrutinize it with any other lens than whether it provides freedom, no matter how minimal. You can complete the game just fine too, just as I am doing right now with the current design. But the fact that you agreed that such an example is dumb means that, at least to a certain degree, you do understand that a tech tree with credibility is more desirable than one that is devoid of it.

No, I do not agree with this at all, and if you go back and read my post you will see that I have actually given a gameplay-reason for why freedom must be reasonably limited.

 

[onlysky1]

The title says it all. It makes no sense and it bothers me.

Show me a steam-engined plane and I might accept it

I still love the game though.

Anyone else noticed oddities in the tech tree?

I agree with you, there are certainly something odd about it.

 

[Karmah]

Well, it's completely out of topic but having a queue of mortal leaders Ala great people with various bonuses (probably in an acquired format) could be quite fun. Not that I'd want that as a format for civ maybe as a mod. On the other hand it's a bit like reconstructing the current civic tree.

End of topic, you can resume arguing at the meta level of what is arguing.

 

[Cuneiform]

Seems to me, they don't even bother to make a descent vanilla game, they just created new mechanics for the game and let the modding comunity finish the game, for me that's insulting, charging 60 bucks, AAA price game for somethnig that WAS NOT FINISHED, and i'm not sure if it was tested correctly even... Anyway, at least they can release the SDK so we can start to do our job modding this lame game into something legendary, there's a LOT of potential in this game to be the best Civ EVER, but for now, it really really sucks...

What a complete exaggeration!

Maybe we should also get the modding community to finish off the spelling in your post. I guess Civ6 isn't the only thing that's not perfect...

 

[TruthfulCake]

So you're saying that you're able to overlook all the other immersion-breaking things and be fine, but for the sole reason that archery is something that can be fixed in your opinion you can't just overlook it? That's ridiculous. Just treat it like you treat everything else. It's not a big deal.

Why is it ridiculous? I can make concessions, but I don't have to make them all the time? Do I have to be okay with every single immersion-breaking aspect of the game if I can accept some of them? See also:

The fact that I think both systems work and do what they were designed for does not mean that I like them equally.

The fact that I accept certain unrealistic elements of the game does not mean that I have to tolerate them all equally.

The sacrafice is not "minimal", it's two entirely different systems and I very much prefer the one where you have more long-term freedom over having to get everything and really only being able to decide between technologies that are closely related.

The sacrifice is minimal in the long run because when you go back to research Archery, having opted to skip it early, you will likely be able to complete the research within 1-3 turns. It is not an entirely different system gameplay-wise since the impact on your gameplan is about 3 turns at most. However, the difference between making this Archery tech an inevitable pick sooner or later and allowing players to skip it entirely is quite pronounced in another way.

In my opinion, the long-term freedom to skip Archery diminishes the importance of having the tech. Currently, skipping Archery is no big deal in the long run because you will gain access to crossbowmen regardless, at which point Archery is just a pointless tech. Having prerequisites means that you are guaranteed to have to go back to Archery at one point if you want to use advanced ranged units, which gives the decision of delaying the tech a lasting impact on your mid and late game.

This is, of course, speaking strictly about the gameplay aspect devoid of any concerns about immersion.

No, I do not agree with this at all, and if you go back and read my post you will see that I have actually given a gameplay-reason for why freedom must be reasonably limited.

Fair enough.

 

[montreal]

Just to elaborate on my original post... I don't have any problems with skipping seemingly basic techs (up to a degree). After all, the Incas didn't have the wheel. We are dealing with an alternate reality scenario so we have to accept a certain level of freedom.

But I draw the line at being able to build units that absolutely require a certain tech without having said tech. The social media without computers example that someone else mentionned would be another one of those instances (although I didn't test that one personally).

 

[Ryika]

In my opinion, the long-term freedom to skip Archery diminishes the importance of having the tech. Currently, skipping Archery is no big deal in the long run because you will gain access to crossbowmen regardless, at which point Archery is just a pointless tech. Having prerequisites means that you are guaranteed to have to go back to Archery at one point if you want to use advanced ranged units, which gives the decision of delaying the tech a lasting impact on your mid and late game.

It's not a pointless tech, it's a tech that is required if you want to attack early, or if you want an easier time defending yourself, which can also pay out, because archers allow you to actually kill enemy units instead of just fortifying and waiting for the opponent to become bored, leading to a quicker, and more favorable peace treaty.

In fact, I'd argue archery IS a standard tech for most people, when you ask people what their early game strategy/build order is they'll more often than not have a few slingers in there that get upgraded to Archers asap. Skipping archers completely is more of a unicorn strategy. But one that works, and that's great.

Just to elaborate on my original post... I don't have any problems with skipping seemingly basic techs (up to a degree). After all, the Incas didn't have the wheel. We are dealing with an alternate reality scenario so we have to accept a certain level of freedom.

Yeah, sorry... we went a bit offtopic it seems.

But it's still the same thing in my opinion:

But I draw the line at being able to build units that absolutely require a certain tech without having said tech. The social media without computers example that someone else mentionned would be another one of those instances (although I didn't test that one personally).

That's taking things way too literally. Why not just see it this way: Computers, just like everything, get created as a byproduct of what your everyday citizens do, and spread, like everything, between Civilizations. By putting active research into computers as a Civilization you're just working on refining them and getting the most use out of them on an empire-wide level. That's why Social Media can spread before you research computers. Easy.

This example is especially critical because Computers is a technology and Social Media is a Civic. Those trees are meant to be independent from one another and the player is specifically meant to be able to focus more on one than the other if he so desires. "Fixing" this "logic-problem" would require that freedom to be removed, at which point having two trees becomes really pointless.

Again, I think a much better solution is to just not try to translate the technological progression into a real life scenario.

 

[Totibbs]

If Im not mistaken you can launch your space shuttle to Mars without the research of computers

 

[TruthfulCake]

It's not a pointless tech, it's a tech that is required if you want to attack early, or if you want an easier time defending yourself, which can also pay out, because archers allow you to actually kill enemy units instead of just fortifying and waiting for the opponent to become bored, leading to a quicker, and more favorable peace treaty.

In fact, I'd argue archery IS a standard tech for most people, when you ask people what their early game strategy/build order is they'll more often than not have a few slingers in there that get upgraded to Archers asap. Skipping archers completely is more of a unicorn strategy. But one that works, and that's great.

Yeah, archery is probably a standard pick 99% of the time (which probably is more the reason why there is no need to make it a dead-end, but I digress because we are talking about the merits of dead-end techs in general). The purpose of my argument was simply to illustrate how even skipping archery does not have a long-term impact beyond the first two eras, after which it becomes a pointless tech. It thus really isn't a decision that impacts the long term, unless you make it affect your ability to unlock things beyond the classical era.

You have clarified in response to my reduction to absurdity example that you do not want freedom for freedom's sake in the tech tree. If I understand you correctly, you just want the tech choices to be meaningful and have a lasting impact. So I tried to illustrate how both models still have the "lasting impact" factor that you want, although maybe in different forms. Ultimately, whichever brand of tech tree you choose, with or without dead-end techs, they both facilitate impactful decisions. Hence why I believed that there is actually little difference in this regard.

You obviously can prefer one model over the other - it's not my job to change your mind. But all things considered, a tech tree that makes sense AND allows for diverse and meaningful choices will click with a greater part of the fanbase than one that does only the latter.

This example is especially critical because Computers is a technology and Social Media is a Civic. Those trees are meant to be independent from one another and the player is specifically meant to be able to focus more on one than the other if he so desires. "Fixing" this "logic-problem" would require that freedom to be removed, at which point having two trees becomes really pointless.

Yup, this is one of those things I am okay with not fixing. Not that I wouldn't try if I could, but I don't see a way to force realism on this one unless we are willing to give up either tree, which I'm not.

Just to elaborate on my original post... I don't have any problems with skipping seemingly basic techs (up to a degree). After all, the Incas didn't have the wheel. We are dealing with an alternate reality scenario so we have to accept a certain level of freedom.

But I draw the line at being able to build units that absolutely require a certain tech without having said tech. The social media without computers example that someone else mentionned would be another one of those instances (although I didn't test that one personally).

I think we would agree that we can make dead-end (thus skippable) techs if the subsequent items on the tech tree will never depend on those techs. I find archery a bit too questionable, but I am pretty okay with the several dead-ends in the civics tree right now.

However, unless we move the social media item to the tech tree instead of civics (and one can easily make a case for this), I don't think we can solve this... computerless Twitter problem.