Prehistoric technology thoughts

[SlapstickMojo]

OK, let's start with the difference between Tool Use and Tool Making. I would think a tool use tech should come before tool making, and allow for Stone Thrower and Clubman, since neither of those are tools that are made, but tools that are just found. You could also put nut cracking stone and ant/termite catcher here or under tool making, since both require shaping twigs or grass for fishing them out.

We have weaving, basketry and binding, but we don't really have fiber working where the first threads would be made, and knot-tying would be a nice tech too, unless that is covered by binding. I'm just thinking something describing that making of threads and cord would come between basic weaving of flat leaves or pliable sticks and making knots and ropes. Maybe rope-making would be more advanced than binding.

Since all the other techs have "Lifestyle" as the funnel point, should "Nomadic Lifestyle" be the first tech of the prehistoric era?

Just a few thoughts I had while restarting a game for the millionth time. Take or leave them as you will!

 

[Somebody613]

Definitely vote for generic (and situationally useful) Nomadic Lifestyle as the Very First Tech that would literally mirror the Very Last Tech in how it's a focus focal point of tech focus, lol.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Interesting thoughts. I can see the point on the threading though I think binding is indeed where that's supposed to be covered. Knot development would seem a more advanced thing to consider at some point later as well as you put it, though I'm not entirely sure if it would be useful for the perspective of what it would unlock in the game, or almost problematic in that it would invite other issues. And a lot of times, that's the reluctance for tech tree changes - it's the fundamentally hardest thing to arrange and everything else in the game is based on it, which often means it comes together to meet the needs to unlock certain things rather than necessarily as a construct of thought standing on its own merits of what leads to what and what stages there actually historically would be.

I get the idea of the lifestyle tech starting things off, BUT I don't think it's good game design to introduce the game with only one tech path choice to start with. There needs to be an 'interesting decision' to be made there right away in terms of game flow for generating interest in further play, and all options need to vie equally for being the 'best' choice, aka, it's like choosing between an apple and an orange, just depends on what you want, but maybe adaptable between a few things based on the starting situation. Have always hoped that the Nomadic gamestart option would open play with a locked down tribe (family) that is too adapted to the locale to want to move on until that tech is achieved.

 

[Toffer90]

In my xml modmod I made some big changes to prehistoric tech tree:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/my-take-on-stuff.547757/post-13824370

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/prehistoric-tech-tree-png.465901/

 

[Somebody613]

I get the idea of the lifestyle tech starting things off, BUT I don't think it's good game design to introduce the game with only one tech path choice to start with. There needs to be an 'interesting decision' to be made there right away in terms of game flow for generating interest in further play, and all options need to vie equally for being the 'best' choice, aka, it's like choosing between an apple and an orange, just depends on what you want, but maybe adaptable between a few things based on the starting situation. Have always hoped that the Nomadic gamestart option would open play with a locked down tribe (family) that is too adapted to the locale to want to move on until that tech is achieved.

The point was to make it the TREE STARTING tech, not the FIRST RESEARCH CHOICE tech.
It would be given to everyone by default, would allow for forcibly adjusting/enforcing certain parameters like all the other Lifestyles do, and would nicely mirror the End Tech as well.
It wouldn't so much be a real tech, but a bunch of parameters also providing an aesthetic improvement to the Tech Tree itself.
Dunno, but I like this idea.

 

[Praetyre]

I'm all in favour of a starting gateway tech (that everyone but certain NPC factions gets, of course); it would not only provide a useful thing to attach various mechanics to, it would also serve another useful purpose further down the line when the Neanderthal (and, I hope, other hominids like Denisovans or Floresiensis) NPC factions/mechanics get fleshed out; I think they should have a parallel tech tree of their own, though with some overlap with the player tech tree and perhaps a better way to do this would be via some other mechanic, so as not to cause issues with display of techs in the interface and Civilopedia.

In my (still in concept stage) modmod, I had the idea of players starting with a tech called "Homo sapiens knowledge", representing all the technologies that Homo sapiens would have had access to from the very beginning. While I wouldn't suggest that for C2C proper (it would include a number of things that would clash with the very granular design philosophy of C2C, which I feel sometimes runs into "You Have Researched Breathing" syndrome), I think "Homo sapiens Lifestyle", "Paleolithic Lifestyle", "Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle" or even "Prehistoric Lifestyle" could work as names for this ur-tech.

 

[Somebody613]

I'm all in favour of a starting gateway tech (that everyone but certain NPC factions gets, of course); it would not only provide a useful thing to attach various mechanics to, it would also serve another useful purpose further down the line when the Neanderthal (and, I hope, other hominids like Denisovans or Floresiensis) NPC factions/mechanics get fleshed out; I think they should have a parallel tech tree of their own, though with some overlap with the player tech tree and perhaps a better way to do this would be via some other mechanic, so as not to cause issues with display of techs in the interface and Civilopedia.

In my (still in concept stage) modmod, I had the idea of players starting with a tech called "Homo sapiens knowledge", representing all the technologies that Homo sapiens would have had access to from the very beginning. While I wouldn't suggest that for C2C proper (it would include a number of things that would clash with the very granular design philosophy of C2C, which I feel sometimes runs into "You Have Researched Breathing" syndrome), I think "Homo sapiens Lifestyle", "Paleolithic Lifestyle", "Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle" or even "Prehistoric Lifestyle" could work as names for this ur-tech.

I meant it in a more generic way being useful precisely as a "dummy tech" on one hand and as a "humans are us" moniker on the other hand.
It would be auto-given to every Human civ to begin with, and could be easily used for "all-Human" modifiers that could be then stripped out of the civ files.
For example, when we finally get to multiple functional non-Human civs, this would be the way to "define a civ" as a Human or something else.
And I don't see much of a problem with multiple (even mutually hidden, if possible) tech trees all along.
Not sure how to do it, but the Fall From Heaven series mods do have MAGIC as another separate Tech Tree, so it's technically doable.
And if Equipment eventually crops up as a viable mechanic, it could be given its own Tech Tree as well, following different mechanics for even more fun (say, using Resources to unlock stuff, lol).

 

[Thunderbrd]

The point was to make it the TREE STARTING tech, not the FIRST RESEARCH CHOICE tech.
It would be given to everyone by default, would allow for forcibly adjusting/enforcing certain parameters like all the other Lifestyles do, and would nicely mirror the End Tech as well.
It wouldn't so much be a real tech, but a bunch of parameters also providing an aesthetic improvement to the Tech Tree itself.
Dunno, but I like this idea.

IMO, as long as we then replace the existing one with something like 'Wandering' that gives everything the current Nomadic Lifestyle tech gives because the things it gives access to are weighed against the other options for the starting research selection. It COULD be nice to give that initial 0 line tech you don't have to research the building and unit options there so that then literally nothing in the game has no 'access giving tech', which would be helpful in a few ways. I've previously lamented this issue to myself a bit. Stone Throwers, for example, have NO prereq tech and therefore are harder to identify as being Prehistoric in some search functions. It's possible to grant that first tech free to all as well so... I could see the benefit.

Prehistoric Lifestyle might be a better name for the 0 level tech and then Nomadism for Nomadic Lifestyle perhaps.

We have spoken about having different kinds of tech trees, like cultural, warfare, etc, but more in context of if we start over with a new game entirely.

 

[Thunderbrd]

In my xml modmod I made some big changes to prehistoric tech tree:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/my-take-on-stuff.547757/post-13824370

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/prehistoric-tech-tree-png.465901/

I can't say this isn't deeply interesting - and it may in a lot of ways be better. I almost wonder if it could be made a game option setup choice - well, I don't wonder, it COULD be done, and I think it would be interesting if you took the whole thing and DID just that... It would make it so much easier to playtest.

 

[Somebody613]

IMO, as long as we then replace the existing one with something like 'Wandering' that gives everything the current Nomadic Lifestyle tech gives because the things it gives access to are weighed against the other options for the starting research selection. It COULD be nice to give that initial 0 line tech you don't have to research the building and unit options there so that then literally nothing in the game has no 'access giving tech', which would be helpful in a few ways. I've previously lamented this issue to myself a bit. Stone Throwers, for example, have NO prereq tech and therefore are harder to identify as being Prehistoric in some search functions. It's possible to grant that first tech free to all as well so... I could see the benefit.

Prehistoric Lifestyle might be a better name for the 0 level tech and then Nomadism for Nomadic Lifestyle perhaps.

We have spoken about having different kinds of tech trees, like cultural, warfare, etc, but more in context of if we start over with a new game entirely.

I definitely have seen Dummy Tech's in the past in mods, not sure which ones.
This would be that, and also would be a good mirror for the Final Tech aesthetically.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Might be reluctant if it means all techs must add 1 to their xgrid though.

 

[Somebody613]

Might be reluctant if it means all techs must add 1 to their xgrid though.

Given how I see the tech tree being somewhat recompiled recently anyways - how's that a problem?
Or even without that?
Okay, it'd take a while to manually do the adding, but it's not something HARD, just tedious and boring.
Would take a couple of hours, max.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Given how I see the tech tree being somewhat recompiled recently anyways - how's that a problem?
Or even without that?
Okay, it'd take a while to manually do the adding, but it's not something HARD, just tedious and boring.
Would take a couple of hours, max.

If someone were to do a script or something that did it right away...

 

[BlueTemplar]

Another upvote here for THE starting free tech, would represent the "Dawn of Man", when Lucy's first ancestor got pushed from the receding forests into the savanna...

There would be still minor issues here with that "You Have Researched Breathing" syndrome, for the behaviours that other animals and especially other apes also engage in, like gathering and scavenging, but, like with Tool Making representing the Lomekwian stone tool industry (?) compared to the more basic tool making by other animals, this would represent (proto)humans making gathering and scavenging quite a bit more sophisticated ??