How do I set a tech limit?

[Lagg]

Greetings!

Long-time reader, first-time poster.

Anyway, to the point, I'm trying to build a very basic scenario, in which the gameworld is set in a perpetual Renaissance. How do I go about disabling technological research after the last Renaissance tech has been discovered?

I could see Future Techs appearing right after as a viable solution.

 

[69king]

Do you want all civs to start with all renaissance and previous techs? Or do you want them to start at the beginning of renaissance and have to learn the renaissance techs?

If it is the first option then you could increase the base research rate astronomically so that it would take 1000's of turns to research anything. I don't know how the AI would react to that.

Another idea might be to fool around with the tech prerequisites so that , For example, techs A,B,C,D,E,F etc. require tech X and tech X requires tech A. So no techs would be available to be studied. I don;t know what that would do to the program though (infinite loops maybe?)

 

[McBierle]

"just" put all techs before renaissance in the staring techs of the civilizations and remodel the techtree :-/

Ahhhhh it might even not be a thing to do, to remodel the tree, just put all techs in starting.... try it and report

 

[Lagg]

Thanks for your feedback.

First of all, I tried adding all techs as starting techs and then remodeled the tech tree. It does work, and I suppose I could increase the research cost of Future Tech so that it would take thousands of turns to complete, but it's still not an acceptable choice, since it changes all my cities into modern atrocities.


Anyhow, I'll explain my intentions in a little more detail.

The basic premise is that there are 4 civs living on two continents (2 civs on each continent). One continent is blossoming and at peace, with the two civs living peacefully together (adorned by a permanent alliance) in a period of Renaissance. The other continent is engaged in a brutal war somewhere in the Medieval era.

The two peaceful civs have just recently discovered Optics (perhaps as the last Renaissance tech) and can now travel the oceans. This, of course, is how they will discover the other continent at war.

You take the role of one of the more advanced "peaceful" civs.


Now my problem is two-fold:

1) I don't want anyone to evolve beyond the Renaissance era. It's safe to state that the two peaceful civs have discovered everything (Optics being the coronation of their work). The other two battling civs are definitely not to have access to (most) Renaissance technologies yet. Whether or not they may still be able to gain new technologies through research doesn't really matter. The whole deal is that the player may choose to interfere and help out one of the two warring civs, either by providing them with new technologies or by sending in troops directly. (motives behind all of this will become clear later -- well, if I can think of something, that is)

2) The player will need Galleons in order to cross the oceans with more than just Explorers and the likes. To do this, however, one must have access to Astronomy, which is an Industrial tech, if I'm not mistaken. Now, this problem can be solved in two manners. Astronomy could be the one and only tech that can be researched (or at least researched beyond Renaissance). This, however, should take an incredibly long time to do and, moreover, does drag your civ up into the Industrial age (once more: changes the look of your cities), though I do think it's possible to specify that Astronomy still belongs to the Renaissance. If all else fails, the Galleon should become available with the discovery of Optics, along with the Caravel.

 

[zyphyr]

In reverse order, Astronomy is a Renaissance tech, not industrial, so nothing needs to be done there. If it were an Industrial tech, it would be trivial to change it. To alter the era of a tech, make a copy of CIV4TechInfos.xml for your mod, open the copy, find the tech in question, and change the

			<Era>ERA_RENAISSANCE</Era>

to whichever era you desire.

To eliminate useful research, I would go with the idea of shortcircuiting the tech tree right to Future Tech (possibly renamed), and change the era of FT to renaissance so it doesn't pop you into a new era by its development. The reason I would go with that option is that it allows the 2 primative nations to develop if they so desire without the absolute reliance on aquiring techs from the developed nations that jacking the research costs through the roof would cause. Of course, if you want the primatives to have to go to the developed ones to get the techs then just skyrocket the cost. Or, perhaps do a hybrid. Put the Devs into researching Future Tech, and at the same time increase the research cost by a factor of 2 or 3 so that the Prims will have trouble researching and will be more likely to want to bargain with the Devs.

 

[Lagg]

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

I'll give this method a try and report back as soon as possible.