I hate the way base base tech tree handles food development

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I know I will regarding goblin forts btw, I think Zarcaz should spawn from one of them with a band of assorted goblins going with him , and Orthus should spawn in a barb city with some assorted orcs going with him. and you already know I think they should be random events

 

[Sephi]

Zarcaz defends a random goblin fort. I think Orthus is good as it is. random events get outcrowded too easily (that's probably why you see the other heroes so rarely)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

oh, so Zarchie doesn't go around causing mischief? that sounds like a waste of a cool barb hero

honestly I'm fine with Orthus the way he is now, it's mostly Acheron that I'd like to see less common

 

[Fafnir13]

Acheron isn't an event. He is spawned in the barb city that builds the dragon's horde. I think it costs a very low amount of hammers right now. Putting it a higher level, with the current warning as well, would allow players to respond and attack the city as well as delay when he appears.

Redacted to keep thread on topic. See other thread for my barb thoughts.

Erm...not that it has much to do with the original post.

More on topic: What if camps are allowed with hunting but roads are pushed back to, say, Cartography. Roads, while a fairly basic idea, do take some amount of technological aptitude to make.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Acheron isn't an event. He is spawned in the barb city that builds the dragon's horde. I think it costs a very low amount of hammers right now.

I know, that's why I was suggesting it could be better if he got moved to a random event.

but you're right, let's not strain off topic

 

[Pazyryk]

Here's what I have so far. I've been too busy at work to implement, but I'll do it this weekend and post some XML files (I do know how to modify XMLs, but I'll have to figure out the modular stuff later). The left hand techs are all available for research from the start. I've only listed enabled items that I've moved from one tech to another.

Ag (clear forest) --> Calendar --> Festivals (reveals wine, winery)
Animal Husbandry --> Horseback Riding
Fishing --> Sailing, Cartography (explorer,*)
Exploration (camps) --> Hunting --> Animal Handling (hawks)
Crafting --> Mining**, Masonry (roads)
Ancient Chants --> Mysticism, Education (--> Writing (open borders))

* move map trading to Optics
** remove Mining --> Archery connection

My two main priorities were to make food development possible earlier (all 1st techs) and to make map revealing later (hence the changes for hawks, explorer, map trading, and open borders). A few other changes: I moved winery to Festivals, and made wine a revealed resource. I left D's Brewing House under crafting, partly because beer is more along the Dwarfish line and also because there was nothing else under crafting. I'm considering putting apprenticeship under crafting and then moving city states to education (it fits, but would people object to having civic enabled by 1st tier tech?). I thought the explorer unit was too powerful (for map revealing) to enable with a starting tech, and it fits Cartography well (galleys are generally better but can't go in rival territory, which is important since I made open borders more difficult). Masonry was previously useless unless you happen to have rocks or marble (or are Clan), so roads makes it more critical (and it fits: these are empire-spanning roads, not primitive trails). I don't understand why mining allows archery so I'll removed this connection (maybe it was there because archery was needed for forest clearing?; the metal-line is strong militarily so there seems to be no military need for this connection). Speaking of clearing forests, I can't see any sense in it being under archery, so I moved it to Ag (agriculturalists have been clearing forests long before the metal ages).

I lifted many ideas from Orbis, but it's not exactly Orbis.

 

[Fafnir13]

A lot of things are being delayed needlessly and with little relevance to the technology. Optics and map trading are the big offender, but I also disagree with masonry/roads and festivals/wine.

 

[Pazyryk]

Fafnir: Yes, but some things have been accelerated, like food development (including forest clearing).

Map trading is just a particular pet peeve of mine. Once the AIs have cartography, they quickly trade maps around, with or without human player. It depends on the map of course, but very often the whole world (or at least the important parts) are completely available before turn 100. Yes, the human can simply choose not to buy in. I can't help it though, if I can trade some sorry tech (like Ag) to some looser civ to reveal the whole world, I do it. Great, now the whole world is revealed and half the fun of the game is shot in one blow.

Birds:
1. Open borders with neighboring civ
2. fly to neighbor's city
3. scan to find next city or next civ
4. go back to 1, repeat until whole settled world is revealed (again, by turn 100 if you push it).

I guess some of the delays won't be to everyone's taste, but I have to disagree with your comment about "little relevance to technology". Masonry -> roads. Festivals -> winemaking. Animal Handling -> birds that can explore and map the civilized world (doesn't really fit any named tech, but I'd say some sort of advanced animal handling). Ag -> forest clearing. These are all at least as fitting (if not more) than the original.

 

[Fafnir13]

I completely agree with the birds. That's one I like. Give more benefit for the next level of the recon techs as well, something that is really needed for that particular line.
I'm not bothered by the map being revealed fairly quickly. It doesn't have much effect on gameplay and I do kind of like to know just what kind of game I'm buying into.

On technological relevance:

Masonry-->Roads
That's more Romanesque highways. Anyone can make a beaten path of dirt given enough time and traffic. No need for stone-cutting at all.

Festivals-->Winemaking
The ability to ferment and process organic matter comes from having the necessary tools about (crafting), not from making an organized attempt to celebrate various things at various times of the year. Might work with the old standby of revealed and workable with crafting but not actually put in use until festival (like incense and philosophy).

Agriculture-->Forest Clearing
You can till the soil with stone tools, but serious land clearing is extremely difficult unless you've got sturdier tools. Mining demonstrates the ability to get at the resources required for such tool making. Plus, it would allow player to focus solely on growth techs while chopping forests for early game production. Players should be having to make strategic choices between the two as with the current tree. Want growth? Agriculture and Animal husbandry. Want production? Crafting and Mining.

 

[TowerWizard]

I agree with that the tech tree is strange. There is, as you say, only two (or three) feasible options as starting techs: Agriculture or Mysticism (the third beeing Fishing). I totally agree that more than one food tech should be available as the starting techs.

Pazyryk's list:
Ag (clear forest) --> Calendar --> Festivals (reveals wine, winery)
Animal Husbandry --> Horseback Riding
Fishing --> Sailing, Cartography (explorer,*)
Exploration (camps) --> Hunting --> Animal Handling (hawks)
Crafting --> Mining**, Masonry (roads)
Ancient Chants --> Mysticism, Education (--> Writing (open borders))

My suggested changes:
Ag should not be able to clear forests. Although that may be true historically, it has two impact that makes this a bad idea. First, ag is probably the best food tech as it is (Fishing may be better in some cases), since farms can be built anywhere and gets better later, so there is no need to make ag even better. Second, forest clearing should come later in the game, after mining is teched, so as to not circumvent the problem with forests too easily.

Cartography should include map trading! The name might be a bit misleading otherwise... (Come to think about it, native people have maps way earlier than everyone else. What is the secret? )

About exploration and road building... Why not include a new type of road that only connects resources and towns, but do not make units move faster? Call it Path instead of road, and make it take only half the time compared to roads to build. This could be available in Exploration. Then, proper roads could (and should) be included under Masonry. Also, upgrading a Path to a Road should only take half the time required to build a Road.

I have no problems with including Apprenticeship under Crafting. It fits really well. I would like to have wine here as well, though, as in the current tech tree.

Otherwise, great work! Much better than the current tech tree. I like that camps are available with exploration.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Come to think about it, native people have maps way earlier than everyone else. What is the secret?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophophora_williamsii

 

[Pazyryk]

OK, I'll put wine back with crafting. Separating the +1 happy to Festivals (like incense is for philosophy) is an idea I kinda like and dislike at the same time. It fits, but this mechanism is already a little confusing for incense.

Forrest clearing: I could put this with mining. In my opinion, having it under archery has no flavor justification at all. (Anyway, folks pursuing the exploration/hunting line don't need it as much because you can build camps in forest.) However, here is my reasoning for Agriculture. I think your Growth vs. Production choice, Fafner, is not a real choice at all (even though the base tech tree seems to imply a choice). Really, it's food development first, no matter what. It does no good to have a mine before you have population to work it. After food, then you have many choices: production (mining), economy (education) civics (god king or education), etc. What happens if you start in forest (and you are not elf)? From a gameplay point of view, you're hosed because you can't grow the city and it takes forever to get those techs needed just to get started (this is the main thing I want to change the tech tree for). From a "realism" point of view, Native Americans were doing slash and burn (without metals) very early for agriculture and to promote grasslands for buffalo. Really, I don't think any people have waited for metal axes to get rid of some pesky forests. OK, large scale Amazon removal is harder, but this is "jungle."

Roads: Are these really just primitive routes and not Romanesque roads? My argument for the latter is based on what they actually do in the game. They make your empire much smaller (by a factor of two) for military control purposes. My other 3 reasons are: 1) primitive societies just had to make due with river travel for a while any way; 2) masonry is already a little empty; 3) if roads have to go somewhere, doesn't the crafting/masonry/construction line seem more appropriate than the exploration/hunting/animal handling line? (trails: nice idea in concept, but they are already in other modmods and most folks hate them)

Map trading: I'll probably dig in my heals on this one. I know it doesn't bother everyone, but the quick map revealing (without having to explore) really does spoil the game for me. "Cartography" implies map making. Really, you should need this tech to "permanently" reveal map by any means of exploration (it took Lewis & Clark to really start "mapping" the west; it's not enough that some crazy hunter goes out on his own), but this would be hard to implement and really strange. After scouts (and ignoring birds), I find that the explorer unit is the most important unit for revealing territory in the early game (in preparation for coastal trading). The explorers only real purpose is map making, so I think it is a better fit to Cartography than map trading. I hate to appeal to the "real world", but good maps of the world were a rather later development.

 

[Sephi]

mining currently allows to clear forrests, not archery. Archery allows lumbermills.

 

[Fafnir13]

OK, I'll put wine back with crafting. Separating the +1 happy to Festivals (like incense is for philosophy) is an idea I kinda like and dislike at the same time. It fits, but this mechanism is already a little confusing for incense.

Confusing as it is, there are many instances of it including the various metals. It's mostly only a problem for teh newbs, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

What happens if you start in forest (and you are not elf)?

The answer to that is "Don't start in forests." Its a bad place to start. Even with all the right techs, you still need to spend time building workers and the like before anything can be done. Relatively cleared land with plenty of food resources and some hills for production will always be the prime starting location. Still...

From a "realism" point of view, Native Americans were doing slash and burn (without metals) very early for agriculture and to promote grasslands for buffalo. Really, I don't think any people have waited for metal axes to get rid of some pesky forests. OK, large scale Amazon removal is harder, but this is "jungle."

I'll concede the point. How about Agriculture lets you clear forests but you don't get any hammer yield from it. For that, you need to research mining with the later tech (archery was it?) giving the bonus amount like normal.

Roads: Are these really just primitive routes and not Romanesque roads? My argument for the latter is based on what they actually do in the game. They make your empire much smaller (by a factor of two) for military control purposes. My other 3 reasons are: 1) primitive societies just had to make due with river travel for a while any way; 2) masonry is already a little empty; 3) if roads have to go somewhere, doesn't the crafting/masonry/construction line seem more appropriate than the exploration/hunting/animal handling line? (trails: nice idea in concept, but they are already in other modmods and most folks hate them)

My only problem with trails are the aesthetics of them. They don't interconnect and they all look the same. If they could instead be reworked as a road with a different color setting (is that even possibl?) I would be all for them. If a recolor could be done, I would go so far as to suggest a third type called highways which give double the bonus of roads. It would replace engineering's bonus to road movement.
Some more stuff:
Trails negate terrain cost, making them primarily useful for workers and scouts in the early game.
Only roads/highways get bridges at construction.
Mazatl get bonus movement on trails.
Workers can build a road from nothing but require a road to build a highway (no need to spend time building trails in the later portions of the game.).

"Cartography" implies map making. Really, you should need this tech to "permanently" reveal map by any means of exploration (it took Lewis & Clark to really start "mapping" the west; it's not enough that some crazy hunter goes out on his own), but this would be hard to implement and really strange.

I would like to see this in game. Would help nicely with making the world around you feel more oppressive as all you can see beyond your borders is a blackness without end.
One addendum:
Allow map trading at cartography, but only what's visible within cultural borders. Full on map trading would require at least mathematics or some such similar tech.

Anyways, I think most of this post is just a pipe dream. I'm certainly not savvy enough to mod any of it and it sounds like a lot of work. Oh well, the internet is for dreaming.

 

[Pazyryk]

mining currently allows to clear forrests, not archery. Archery allows lumbermills.

Thanks for the correction! It can be confusing switching between different modmods. But I have a beef with that one too. What does archery have to do with lumber production? This one seems to me to be better as a high level metal line improvement (wasn't it smelting before?). I remember playing some non-elf civ and getting FoL. I had all lumbermilled ancient forests pretty early in the game, which seemed a little too powerful (and took some of the specialness away from elves). I know the lumbermills in ancient forests was an intentional change, and I don't have a strong objection to it. But I think large scale lumber production should be put back at a higher level tech.

(On lumbermills in ancient forests: What I hated in base FFH was my munchkin urge to build them before taking FoL. If I designed the system myself, I would make it either/or. Can't build lumbermills in ancient forests. And if you already have a lumbermill, it will never become ancient.)

I like Fafnir's idea of forest clearing with no production (with Ag) but I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe base from chopping could be set to some trivial level (say 1 production) and then have a big 20x modifier at mining.

 

[readercolin]

Lumbermills were put at archery because otherwise forests just get chopped, period, and therefore lumbermills never get seen. This is the same reason why you don't see windmills ever - they are unlocked at engineering, a tech most people don't even bother to research before winning the game. I believe the justification for putting them at archery (aside from bringing it earlier to allow them to actually be used) was that archers can defend a lumbermill much easier from wild animals, and archers need for a large supply of arrows/bows would lead to early exploitation of forests.

If you want to show how lumbermills didn't really kick off until later in the game, give them +1 hammers at optics or later, to show how ships needed a large supply of good lumber. Alternatively, have a lumbermill give +1 commerce at archery, and can be constructed, and +1 hammer at smelting. On the note of lumbermills and ancient forests however, this was allowed mostly to make it so that people OTHER than just the elves might actually use FoL, because not allowing lumbermills to be built on ancient forests just got people to chop down ancient forests, plant a new one, build a lumbermill, and then let it upgrade again. This was however, very micro intensive, so WildMana made lumbermills able to be built on ancient forests.

-Colin

 

[Pazyryk]

I think the problem is that it was previously possible to have lumbermilled ancient forests, but very micro intensive. The current solution is to remove that micro, which is an improvement from base. My preferred solution would be to make the two incompatible by making lumbermilled forests never upgrade to ancient (probably in conjunction with making lumbermills unbuildable by elves as was the case some time ago). But I'm perhaps the only one who thinks that FoL is vastly underrated by players, even for non-elf civs (it just seemed weak for non-elf because it's hard to resist comparing with elf; but compare, say, Kuriotates+FoL with Kuriotates+[any other religion]. The former is more powerful even without early lumbermills in ancient forests. Same argument for Calabim and many other civs).

I guess I don't see the problem with most civs chopping forests, especially in the core old empire area. If a country has any meaningful lumber production, it's out in the recently settled frontier area (as in US, Canada and Russia; and even those are getting hardwood from the tropics). It's a pretty natural progression. It's a difficult trade-off for the player, but this has been an interesting trade-off historically (it impacted the Spanish Armada after they chopped all their forest). Also, forests weren't always considered good and happy places, as we (if you're a backpacker like me) think of them now. Clearing them is part of the flavor of human civilization.

I'm no expert, but I also wonder if anyone ever made a bow or arrow from a lumbermill.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Apropos of nothing I think the Archery tech should be renamed Woodcraft. The tech is the clearinghouse for lumber-related skills and it would be nice to put semantic arguments about the tech name to bed.