Building/Unit Prerequisites: Cleanup and Tweaks

[Vokarya]

Since I finished my additions to AND to flesh out my new techs, I want to start another thread for my next project. I'm still interested in adding more stuff to AND, but I want to add stuff with a plan in mind. Ideally, I want to add new buildings either to give content to a tech with very little content of its own right now, or to create or enhance a building line. So I went through each tech and listed what it offered, but while I was doing this, I noticed there were many redundant prerequisites on units and buildings that I think should be cleaned up before I add anything else. I don't think redundant prerequisites really add anything to the game and can be misleading, so I'd like to have this cleaned up in order to give a true picture of what each tech really has to offer.

This first post is specifically limited to cleaning up existing prerequisites. I have a few actual changes in mind for a later post.

Some of these redundancies came about because of my not-yet-uploaded Tech Tree changes. I would ask that we don't make any of these changes right now. I have new BuildingInfo and UnitInfo XML files ready to go, so I can make these changes as part of adding the new techs and content.

The list of redundant tech prerequisites on units is quite long. I've spoilered it to keep the space down.

Spoiler :

• A-10: Delete Supersonic Flight
• Airship: Delete Thermodynamics
• Anti-Air Halftrack: Delete Automatic Weapons
• Armor M60: Delete Computers, Manufacturing, and Radar
• Attack Submarine: Delete Submarine Warfare and Sonar
• Battlecruiser: Delete Combustion
• Carrier: Delete Radar
• Cavalry: Delete Stirrup
• Crafts Master: Delete Guilds
• Crossbowman: Delete Archery
• Dropship: Delete Military Robotics
• Early Destroyer: Delete Assembly Line
• Fusion Nova: Delete Fusion
• Fusion Submarine: Delete Guided Weapons and Sonar
• Heavy Tank: Delete Radio
• Hybrid Gunship: Delete Vertical Flight
• Hydrogen Bomb: Delete Modern Warfare
• ICBM: Delete Fission
• IRBM: Delete Fission and Jet Propulsion
• Iron Frigate: Delete Steam Power
• Jet Fighter: Delete Jet Propulsion, Manufacturing, and Semiconductors
• Light Tank: Delete Radio
• Longbowman: Delete Archery
• Man-O-War: Delete Naval Cannon
• Missile Cruiser: Delete Microprocessor and Sonar
• Mobile Artillery: Delete Artillery
• Modern Battleship: Delete Manufacturing
• Modern Carrier: Delete Naval Aviation
• Modern Destroyer: Delete Submarine Warfare
• Modern Fighter F35: Delete Supersonic Flight
• Modern Grenadier: Delete Industrialism
• Modern Infantry: Delete Automatic Weapons
• Modern Paratrooper: Delete Supersonic Flight
• Mounted Infantry: Delete Bronze Working
• MRBM: Delete Fission
• Nanite Cloud: Delete Nanobotics
• Nuclear Submarine: Delete Sonar and Submarine Warfare
• P59: Delete Manufacturing
• Paratrooper: Delete Automatic Weapons
• Peace Maker: Delete Fuel Cells, Nuclear Power
• Pre-Dreadnought: Delete Assembly Line and Screw Propeller
• Rifleman: Delete Flintlock
• Rocket Artillery: Delete Artillery
• Servants Master: Delete Guilds
• Ship of the Line: Delete Naval Cannon
• Siege Quinquireme: Delete Naval Warfare
• Special Forces: Delete Automatic Weapons
• SR-71 Blackbird: Delete Modern Physics
• Stealth Fighter: Delete Guided Weapons
• Stealth Submarine: Delete Guided Weapons, Sonar, and Submarine Warfare
• Strike Fighter F15: Delete Supersonic Flight
• Tactical Nuke: Delete Fission
• Tank: Delete Radio
• Transport: Delete Screw Propeller
• Trireme: Delete Naval Warfare
• Victuallers Master: Delete Guilds

Buildings aren't as bad, but there are a few redundancies that can be trimmed.

Spoiler :

• Accelerator: Delete Photography and Quantum Physics
• Baray: Delete Masonry
• Chemical Plant: Delete Refining
• Coal Plant: Delete Assembly Line and Thermodynamics
• Hammam: Delete Masonry
• Mind-Control Center: Delete Mass Media
• Oil Power Plant: Delete Assembly Line
• Orbital Factory: Delete Magnetic Levitation
• Rubber Plant: Delete Organic Chemistry
• Skyscraper: Delete Physics and Steel
• Temple of Heaven: Delete Architecture
• UN Mission: Delete Applied Economics

Does this sound fair? I can explain any of this if you want. Some of these units might actually need their final prerequisite changed to something else instead. I worked only with the prerequisites as they currently stand.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I believe many of these are carry overs from the RoM to AND transition. I see no problem with any xml prereq clean up. Is there anything I can do to help? Or do you have a good handle on this like you always seem to have.

JosEPh

 

[Vokarya]

I believe many of these are carry overs from the RoM to AND transition. I see no problem with any xml prereq clean up. Is there anything I can do to help? Or do you have a good handle on this like you always seem to have.

JosEPh

Some of these prerequisites are actually leftovers from BTS. For example, in BTS, Archery doesn't lead to any other tech, so it has to be listed for Longbowman and Crossbowman. But with what I changed in the Tech Tree, Archery leads to Warfare, Warfare leads to Siege Warfare, and from there to Feudalism for Longbowman and Engineering for Crossbowman, so Archery doesn't have to be listed separately anymore.

I think I've got this pretty much under control, but if you see something, let me know. The only thing I didn't try to work with were the Guilds and Corporations. Technically, Corporation technology is redundant on every single Corporation in the game, but I don't know if removing the Corp tech will cause any problems with options elsewhere. We can probably remove Corporation from all the corporate store buildings, because those are just ordinary buildings. It's the HQs and their interaction with Realistic Corporations that I am not sure about.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Looks very good to me Vokarya!

FYI, in the latest revision I've changed some schema files (units, buildings and gameinfo mainly); there were redundant couples of schema files which I've merged (for example CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml and Afforess_Civ4GameInfoSchema.xml which were merged into AND_GameInfoSchema.xml; same for buildings and units). So I had to change the reference in most xml files to these new schema files. It's all uploaded in the latest revision.

 

[Vokarya]

Looks very good to me Vokarya!

FYI, in the latest revision I've changed some schema files (units, buildings and gameinfo mainly); there were redundant couples of schema files which I've merged (for example CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml and Afforess_Civ4GameInfoSchema.xml which were merged into AND_GameInfoSchema.xml; same for buildings and units). So I had to change the reference in most xml files to these new schema files. It's all uploaded in the latest revision.

If that's all you did, then I can change the schema references in my versions easily. Just let me know when you are done updating the DLL file for a while and ready for me to upload. Before I upload, I will update my SVN download and do a field test to make sure that everything I have done will not break the game when I do upload.

 

[Vokarya]

I also found a few cases of the reverse of the redundant prerequisite: the hidden prerequisite. This is when you have a building (it's a building in the cases I found) that has one technology as a prerequisite, but also requires something else (another building, civic, or other requirement) with a different tech prerequisite. I think in these cases, the building tech prerequisite should be changed to more accurately reflect the point at which you will be actually able to build the building. An example would be the Statue of Liberty: its original listed tech requirement was Representative Democracy, but as the Statue also requires a Steel Mill, it should reflect that by showing Steel as a tech prerequisite, making it immediately clear that you will have to wait for the mid-Industrial Era to build the Statue. This particular change is already made.

I found five other examples of this:

• Ascension Gate: Add Weather Control to the list of prerequisites. Weather Control is required to build the Paradise Gardens that are required to build the Gate.
• National Mint: Move from Metal Casting to Banking. National Mint has three different prerequisites: a nominal tech prerequisite of Metal Casting, a civic prerequisite of Coinage (requiring Currency) or Free Market (requiring Economics), and a building requirement of X Banks (requiring Banking). The combination means that you will not be able to build the Mint before Banking, so that is the tech that the Mint should show as its prerequisite.
• Recycled Goods Factory: Move from Ecology to Recycling. The Recycled Goods Factory requires a Recycling Center, which requires Recycling tech. The Manufacturing requirement can stay; Manufacturing is not on the tech path to Recycling.
• Telephone Network: Move from Telegraph to Electricity. Telephone Network requires Power. None of the Power Plant buildings are available before Electricity. I will create a Telegraph Office building to fill the hole, because removing Telephone Network leaves Telegraph as an empty tech.
• Think Tank: Move from Communication Networks to Knowledge Management. This is to synchronize the Think Tank's technology requirement with the tech requirement for its required civic. Think Tank requires the Technocracy civic, which requires the Knowledge Management tech.

 

[Vokarya]

Now for some actual changing that I think should be done. First up is the Cavalry unit. I don't think that Steam Power is the best prerequisite tech for this unit. I think Cavalry should be moved to either Military Tradition or Military Science. Right now, Military Tradition has no units of its own, and Military Science has only two naval units, the Ironclad and the Iron Frigate (both of which have other prerequisites as well). I really believe that a tech with Military in its name should unlock a new unit.

Moving Cavalry away from Steam Power would also allow removing the Cavalry Tactics technology requirement as a redundancy, since Military Tradition requires Cavalry Tactics and Military Science requires Military Tradition. Steam Power has enough of its own right now, with the Levee, the Pioneer, revealing Coal resource, and the +50% bonus to Worker Speed. I also would like to add a Paddlesteamer unit to bridge the jump from the Galleon (mid-Renaissance) to the Transport (late-Industrial).

What do you think?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Sounds good to me Vokarya

 

[Ajes]

Hi, i just started to play civ 4 again. and looked up one of my favourite mods, to see if there are anything new. Good to see people working on it
I have a question and comment regarding this:

Telephone Network: Move from Telegraph to Electricity. Telephone Network requires Power. None of the Power Plant buildings are available before Electricity. I will create a Telegraph Office building to fill the hole, because removing Telephone Network leaves Telegraph as an empty tech.

Can you research Electricity without knowing Telegraph? If you can, the Telephone Network should keep Telegraph as requirement. It looks odd that you can build the network without knowing the function of telegraphs.
Telegraph Office office would be good to have until you can build the telephone network, then it should be obsolete.

Some buildings and units can require more than one tech. Especially if the techs are not related to each other.

 

[Vokarya]

Hi, i just started to play civ 4 again. and looked up one of my favourite mods, to see if there are anything new. Good to see people working on it
I have a question and comment regarding this:



Can you research Electricity without knowing Telegraph? If you can, the Telephone Network should keep Telegraph as requirement. It looks odd that you can build the network without knowing the function of telegraphs.
Telegraph Office office would be good to have until you can build the telephone network, then it should be obsolete.

Some buildings and units can require more than one tech. Especially if the techs are not related to each other.

This is for a future version. When I upload my tech tree changes, Telegraph is a direct prerequisite of Electricity. I prefer the replace option to the obsolete option as I think that handles the fact that buildings rarely become directly obsolete due to tech changes.

 

[Vokarya]

There are a couple of changes that I would like to make regarding Globalization, since it's going to be moving from the middle of the Modern Era to the beginning. The changes are:

• International Monetary Fund and World Bank move from Applied Economics to Globalization
• United Nations moves from Mass Media to Globalization (UN Mission stays at Mass Media)
• World Trade Center moves from Globalization to Conglomerates

This puts most of the international organizations together at Globalization and gives something to Conglomerates (since Global Stock Exchange is now at Megacorporations). Let me know if you see any problems with this.

 

[Vokarya]

One thing that I think is a little clearer with my new tech tree is that the line between the Industrial Era and the Modern Era is more clearly drawn at the end of World War II. So, I think you should be able to build WWII-era units with only Industrial Era techs.

The changes I made to the tech tree will work for everything except for some of the air units. To fix this, I would like to move ABomb, Bomber, and Paratrooper from Aerodynamics to Aviation. Aerodynamics would keep the Commercial Airport and the Extra Fuel Tank and Range I promotions.

I also think that maybe we have one aerospace technology too many in the Modern Era, and that one of Aerodynamics/Jet Propulsion/Supersonic Flight should be cut, but I don't want to remove any techs just yet. What do you think?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

One thing that I think is a little clearer with my new tech tree is that the line between the Industrial Era and the Modern Era is more clearly drawn at the end of World War II. So, I think you should be able to build WWII-era units with only Industrial Era techs.

The changes I made to the tech tree will work for everything except for some of the air units. To fix this, I would like to move ABomb, Bomber, and Paratrooper from Aerodynamics to Aviation. Aerodynamics would keep the Commercial Airport and the Extra Fuel Tank and Range I promotions.

I also think that maybe we have one aerospace technology too many in the Modern Era, and that one of Aerodynamics/Jet Propulsion/Supersonic Flight should be cut, but I don't want to remove any techs just yet. What do you think?

I support your idea about techs in Industrial/Modern era, I only want to be sure that's not possible to rush for nuclear weapons while still in middle modern era.
As for Aerodynamics/Jet Propulsion/Supersonic Flight, I actually like them how they are and I don't feel they're redundant. I would also leave them as they are, at least for the moment.

 

[Vokarya]

I support your idea about techs in Industrial/Modern era, I only want to be sure that's not possible to rush for nuclear weapons while still in middle modern era.
As for Aerodynamics/Jet Propulsion/Supersonic Flight, I actually like them how they are and I don't feel they're redundant. I would also leave them as they are, at least for the moment.

I can live with keeping the techs. I just thought I would suggest it. What I want is that the first nuclear unit (the A-Bomb) is available in the Industrial Era, but then you have to wait for the really powerful units. The next nuke is the MRBM, which is available at Jet Propulsion. That takes some Modern Era researching to get to, and then further down to Advanced Rocketry and Guided Weapons for the ICBM and everything else.

 

[Vokarya]

When I revised the Tech Tree, one of the big changes that I made was moving Machine Tools from the end of the Industrial Era to nearly the beginning. I'd like to do a couple of other prerequisite changes to take this into account. The two changes that I would like to make are:

• Move International Port from Machine Tools to Logistics.
• Move Cannery from Nationalism to Machine Tools and delete the Power requirement.

International Port needs to be moved to not shorten Commercial Port's lifespan (the Commercial Port currently lasts two eras, from the end of the Medieval to the end of the Industrial) and to avoid the hidden prerequisite resulting from the Oil requirement on the International Port. I also feel Logistics is a much better fit for the International Port.

Cannery should be moved to give something to Machine Tools. Food preservation starts right around the beginning of the Industrial Era, and I don't want to have a separate Food Preservation tech (too narrow for a tech, in my opinion). I also want to drop the power requirement so Electricity isn't a hidden prerequisite. I really don't like hidden prereqs.

Do you think this is workable?

 

[Vokarya]

I support your idea about techs in Industrial/Modern era, I only want to be sure that's not possible to rush for nuclear weapons while still in middle modern era.
As for Aerodynamics/Jet Propulsion/Supersonic Flight, I actually like them how they are and I don't feel they're redundant. I would also leave them as they are, at least for the moment.

I took another look and for the moment, the Bomber can stay at Aerodynamics while we have the IL2 at Aviation. I think the Air units could use a little cleanup - I'm not sure what the IL2 is supposed to be, as by statistics it's a pure bomber, by unit name and Civilopedia text it's a ground-attack plane, and by its base unit class it's supposed to be a fighter-bomber. I guess this is a later project.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

When I revised the Tech Tree, one of the big changes that I made was moving Machine Tools from the end of the Industrial Era to nearly the beginning. I'd like to do a couple of other prerequisite changes to take this into account. The two changes that I would like to make are:

• Move International Port from Machine Tools to Logistics.
• Move Cannery from Nationalism to Machine Tools and delete the Power requirement.

International Port needs to be moved to not shorten Commercial Port's lifespan (the Commercial Port currently lasts two eras, from the end of the Medieval to the end of the Industrial) and to avoid the hidden prerequisite resulting from the Oil requirement on the International Port. I also feel Logistics is a much better fit for the International Port.

Cannery should be moved to give something to Machine Tools. Food preservation starts right around the beginning of the Industrial Era, and I don't want to have a separate Food Preservation tech (too narrow for a tech, in my opinion). I also want to drop the power requirement so Electricity isn't a hidden prerequisite. I really don't like hidden prereqs.

Do you think this is workable?

Sounds good to me.
As for IL2, I agree we can clean up air units later.

 

[Vokarya]

There are a few more adjustments that don't have a theme, so I just thought I would post them here and get them out of the way. This is what I would like to do:

• Move Irrigation Canals from City Planning to Canals. This looks to me like an oversight -- if it carries water, I think it should be at Canals tech.
• Move Apollo Program from Satellites to Space Flight. I think this is left over from regular BTS, but we have a separate tech for manned spaceflight, which is what Apollo is.
• Move ACV SAM from Modern Warfare to Guided Weapons. You can get to Nanoelectronics (which is the other required tech for the ACV SAM) without Modern Warfare or Guided Weapons, so a second tech is required, and with Guided Weapons now after Modern Warfare, that should be the required tech.
• Move Walker Droid from Machine Learning to Military Robotics. Machine Learning is now a Modern Era tech and we really don't have Walker Droids yet, so I think it should be moved to a Transhuman Era tech. Also, Military Robotics does not have any ground units of its own. It only has the Littoral Combat Ship and Precision Attack Missile. I think Military Robotics should have a Robot unit. Machine Learning keeps the Global Hawk and Constructor Ship.

I'm also not sure what to do about SAM Infantry versus Mobile SAM. SAM Infantry is currently at Guided Weapons, after the Mobile SAM which is at Modern Warfare. I'm thinking about putting the SAM Infantry at Jet Propulsion, possibly also requiring Vertical Flight. What do you think about that? The other option would be to move the Mobile SAM further down the tree, but I don't see many good techs for that.

 

[Combat Wombat]

I would eliminate SAM Infantry entirely and build a line of mobile AA vehicles. IMO it is a unit that doesn't make much sense it seems much like having a sniper unit.

AAA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-inch_M1918_gun
Mobile Flak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm_gun
Mobile SAM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot
Mobile AA Laser