[Civ 5] Rise of Mankind design discussion

[Falcon 1967]

Personally i think giving future era as an option is a nice idea: lot of people seems enjoy playing to modern era only (it's done in ROM already, shouldn't be a big issue).

Multiple tech trees would be a very intriguing idea, but i think it's a very hard work? (I know Zapp is not easily scared, but...)
Maybe could be done this way: every civilization has the same tech tree BUT some techs are more longer to discover than others depending on civilizations. An example: chineses learn faster gunpowder but require longer research times for naval techs (they weren't great naval explorers in the past). It's just an example and i'm not even sure it's totally accurate, but i think you understand the point. (Germans can discover tanks before, let's say, Romans etc etc)

As first release i think you could take as starting point your tech tree for 3.0 (IF will be different from actual relase), modifying it as you are doing now collecting new ideas and suggestions. I think ROM is virtually perfect as general structure.

Hidden techs idea is really intriguing, hope can be done.

About eras and balancing: i don't think this is a priority, since i dont think ancient era can have the same number and complexity of techs of a modern or even future era.

As very personal request i'd like to see a more expanded tech tree in the first 50 years of 20th century, since the 2 wars era was a very enjoyable period from a game point of view. A lot of (mainly military) discoveries were made in those years and i'd like to see that expanded. (again, just a VERY personal point of view).

 

[civhelp121]

I have an idea, but I'm not sure if its done already. Does the distance in a trade route matter? Not like, the farther away it is the more lucrative, but like if you build a shorter road to the same destination the amount of gold goes up. Like if you have A and B, and you build a trade route that goes through 10 tiles, but later you build a more direct one that is 6 tiles, the gold received increases.

 

[Nightguard]

One thing I'd always considered for the Civ4 RoM (or possibly a different Civ4 mod, since it could be very controversial and game changing) was seeing more of the technologies that *could* have developed in the past but were abandoned for some reason or another. The tech tree that exists currently in Civ4 (and most every mod that doesn't completely rebuild the game) reflects only the most general trending that occurred through our own history. There were plenty of exceptions to the tech progression that could have changed history, had they been followed up on.

For example, take the discovery of various devices created by the Tinker of Alexandria (last I checked, his real name was not known due to the loss of virtually all records from that area/time.) There is evidence that he had developed something that bore a strong resemblance to modern machine language that was powered, not by electricity and switches, but by a gravity-driven pulley system and pegs that allowed movement reversal. He also created a 'steam ball', something which was considered nothing more than a novelty in his day but was only a single drive belt away from being the first ever steam powered engine. Who during the time of the Pax Romana needed any of that technology? They could buy slaves to perform any labor they needed, and there was little use in a 'programmable' device when every device being used was either hand-wielded or human monitored.

Another example would be the physicians of the late Roman era. They were experimenting in human dissection when they could get away with it, as it was technically illegal under Roman law. Through this, and the dissection and live exploration of the human body, they were actually developing a fairly advanced body of medical knowledge. There are tools from over 1500 years ago that look like resonable substitutes for a number of modern medical tools made from the materials of the day, and bodies discovered that show evidence of advanced medical treatment, even to the point of primitive brain surgery.

In short, I'd like to see if it is possible to have potential 'short cuts' and 'side paths' in the tech tree. I understand how this could potentially unbalance the game and be difficult to implement, but it could also open up new options for gameplay, especially if certain tech paths are only accessible under certain limited, otherwise undesirable circumstances, as people find ways to manage with the challenges of their society.

Feel free to argue/discuss/flame at will. This is very 'blue sky' theorizing at this point, not any request for specific technologies at this time.

 

[Arakhor]

That's Hero/Heron of Alexandra and his aeolipile.

 

[konradcabral]

@Nightguard,

another example of "lost technology" is the roman architecture and even its cement. The Agrippa Pantheon's "duomo" was only repeated 1500 years later by Brunelleschi in Florence. Maybe a Technology Decay Mod would be suitable.

 

[zappara]

@Nightguard

I considered implementing such "lost techs" in Civ 4 RoM. The few "techs" that I did use where added through random events like the wootz steel promotion event etc because I couldn't find another good way to implement such techs that would get "lost" over time.

Few techs that I had on design board when I was making RoM tech tree:
Ancient Steam works (they never realised what could be done with steam... but what if they did?)
Ancient Electricity (pictures in pyramids show battery / lamp like inventions which probably where used in religious ceremonies as it must have been like magic to see electricity at that time, google Baghdad battery)
Wootz Steel (also known as Damascus steel, Crucible steel, google also Iron pillar of Delhi)
Wind Furnace (works with monsuun winds, better quality steel, asian invention, could be building for Wootz Steel)
Wax-Casting (bronze statues etc.)
Cement (as said before, Romans used it)
Cranes and lifting (how did they move 1500 ton stones when building some sites?)
Rock sawing (egyptions sawed granite but how? today for this task diamond blades are required since granite is hard material)
Oil lamps
Ancient Surgery (ancient egyptians and later romans were quite good at this)
Mirrors (not exactly lost tech but they were very valuable items in ancient times and the manufacturing secrets where hidden from public)
City plumbing
Aluminium (chinese belt from 3th centery, 1500 years before industrial era! How did they know how to extract aluminium?)
Floor heating (romans again)
Gliding / Ancient planes (some artifacts describe things that could have been made only if aerial views were available - so did the ancient people have ways for flying? some artifacts also look like miniature planes)
... and so on

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Rock sawing (egyptions sawed granite but how? today for this task diamond blades are required since granite is hard material)

They had saws made from stone! Five or so were found in a phaeroh's tomb. Much of their detailed carving and carving of hard stone was done using stone tools which don't need sharpening like the metal ones do, and when they break you are left with a working tool. It explains all the flint chips found in quarry sites.

 

[Dharmaserf]

I have a few ideas too...

"One thing I'd always considered for the Civ4 RoM (or possibly a different Civ4 mod, since it could be very controversial and game changing) was seeing more of the technologies that *could* have developed in the past but were abandoned for some reason or another."

This. One of the things that I would find extremely attractive in a civ style game would be the 'what if' scenario regarding possible divergent techs that may have played out in history. There are many examples of this in history, and I like that there was already a list above in the thread. Two examples that come to mind are the Maya agriculture, where the base was heavily legume dependent (instead of grains) and they had developed a 3-tier system of long growth shelves. It is hard for me to describe because it is late, but think bunk beds with layers of produce on each level. Imagine if a system like that became produced in the industrial age? If one looks at the energy input vs. nutrition output vs. environmental effect of modern grain-farming and meat production and compare it with an equivalent legume-based system... our world would be dramatically different. Another example is what we call conventional medicine. At some point in its development there were three possible avenues for it to develop towards, but one was chosen. I forget which scholar was writing about this for the reference, but it was interesting to see him argue that, whether or not it was the best choice, it really dramatically affected the way we think about health and the body, etc.

Tied to this whole discussion for me is the heavy Eurocentric bias of the whole Civ enterprise. The tech tree, the whole trajectory of the game is based on a model that assumes a very Eurocentric stagist view of history. That is, the world as we know it is precisely such because of colonialism. However, in Civ we are told to imagine that perhaps the Iroquois became a colonial power etc. As it stands, the Iroquois would have developed exactly like Europe. But of course, this is from a view of history with Europe as the colonially dominant power. What if we radically rethink this as if the Iroquois were the dominant power etc. Take world history from that point of view, looking back 500 years to when the Iroquois crossed the Atlantic and 'settled' Europe, everything would look different. Political structures would have evolved quite differently, and even the way we think about economy would have been so different. The market system developed in northern Italy and imported to France and England that became capitalism, might have been some other model based, say on a robust and complex gift-economy. Now, of course, it is probably impossible, or very difficult to implement and try and imagine what this would look like and then model it in a CIV5 mod, but I would still love to see anything like this be reflected in ROM.

Other more European examples of this would be, for example, if the CIA hadn't busted up the post-WWII anarchists that were taking over Northern Italy in the 40s and 50s. What if something like Ursula La Guin's Dispossessed were developed there? Or, what if somehow Lenin had taken power instead of Stalin or some more sustainable communist development had happened? I do like the idea of corporations, and agree that implementing them would be cool, but I'd also like to see other options. What about self-sustaining industrial communes?

Related to this is that I really like the idea of the post-modern age having whole trajectories of incommensurable post-human technology paths. One idea I thought of, inspired by many contemporary sci-fi novels, is say one path that was heavily AI-human integration, another that was say heavy on bio-natotech inter-relations, and another that was, I dunno, psychically heavy or something. I dunno.

Finally, looking at the world around us, global warming is screwing us right the hell up, and if the BP thing is any indication corporations have a dramatically negative impact on this. Think about two CIV 'what if' scenarios. What if, across the world a New world that was never colonized goes to war with Europe in order to combat the hugely polluting economy that developed there? Or, what if, and I really like this idea, corporations become independent of civs and can potentially become a hugely negative force--where as a player you have to somehow fight corporations (economically, politically or culturally) in order to not have them drain or exploit your own civ/cities if they get too powerful or too multi-national. Or that one has to do some sort of crazy balancing act, where there are pros and cons and one has to walk a knife's edge in dealing with them.

Anyway, my thoughts here are quite meta-, but they are things I've thought about ever since I first played Civ.

 

[Snofru1]

They had saws made from stone! Five or so were found in a phaeroh's tomb. Much of their detailed carving and carving of hard stone was done using stone tools which don't need sharpening like the metal ones do, and when they break you are left with a working tool. It explains all the flint chips found in quarry sites.

They used stone tools that were harder than granite like diorite.

But for sawing they usually used copper saws (at least before the invention of iron) together with sand. In the end the sand was doing the work, but it was very tedious and the copper saws had to be sharpenend many many times. But with a high devotion (nearly) everything can be accomplished.

 

[primordial stew]

@Nightguard

I considered implementing such "lost techs" in Civ 4 RoM. The few "techs" that I did use where added through random events like the wootz steel promotion event etc because I couldn't find another good way to implement such techs that would get "lost" over time.

Just have powerful buildings or resources that go obsolete with a later tech.

In RFRE the Romans discover the "cemento" resource, which doubles production of aqueducts, the Pantheon, and a couple other things. Cemento goes obsolete with the 425-475AD timer tech. So while these things were still built, it was more effort to do so.

In the case of wootz steel have a building provide that promo. Also, I'd add some python code to gid rid of the promo with some future tech if keeping it giving +15% strength (?). As is I'd have some riflemen still getting +15% from it! Better to do like the poison arrow and give a bonus vs melee, etc so that even if the promo survives it's benefits do not.

 

[skritch]

I think it might be a good idea to make certain techs - say, the Theory of Relativity - have to be first discovered by a great person, a scientist in that case, with a benefit of some sort for the civilization to discover.

Also, perhaps Language could be implemented in some way? if it's not already included under 'culture' - maybe it could be a way of gaining influence over territories or barbarians. Also barbarians maybe could be organized into tribes, and sometimes be non-hostile and able to assimilated peacefully into your civilization, or turned into a colony that gives you resources but costs you some support, and perhaps relies on you somewhat for defense.

 

[Hyronymus]

I have a suggestion about techs and leader traits: if you have a leader with the financial trait you should be able to research finance-related technologies faster. Much like financial buildings can be build faster by leaders with the financial trait. Of course this was just an example for one trait.

I also like to see pure prehistoric technologies or a slower game progress in the BC years. Even though time passes better in RoM it's still to quick. Also, research shouldn't be sp damn quick after you have some universities. I really feel we're lacking technologies there but it's hard to pinpoint them and describe them, together with units / buildings / improvements etc.

I would be thrilled not to have technologies like legalized gambling though. It's not an 'invention' but it stems from state-run lotteries. Maybe that's something worth looking into: not sure if it came with Mercantilism but perhaps that can allow the construction of a state lottery (National Wonder). In later times, when you researched Electricity, you can constuct a casino.

Finally: how about a crime index? We have happiness, health, espionage and culture. Why not crime and crime-reducing buildings / wonders?

 

[JosEPh_II]

With CIV 5 being Steam only I think this is all moot now.

I won't be playing CIV 5, so I won't be playing RoM CIV 5 either.

Really sad.

Guess I need to learn how to Mod the current RoM.

JosEPh

 

[generalstaff]

@Nightguard

I considered implementing such "lost techs" in Civ 4 RoM. The few "techs" that I did use where added through random events like the wootz steel promotion event etc because I couldn't find another good way to implement such techs that would get "lost" over time.

I think this is the reason that people want the Dark Ages mod as part of AND. The reason being a Dark Age will likely cause an advanced ancient civ to fall behind to point of being at a disadvantage or cause the same civ to be overrun by barbarians, causing their beeline of research of Machinery, Canal Systems, etc. to be lost (or at least cause that edge to be lost, preventing them from forming a stable empire the size of Russia in 1,000BC).

Finally: how about a crime index? We have happiness, health, espionage and culture. Why not crime and crime-reducing buildings / wonders?

This could be done if someone went through all the buildings and add Revolution penalties for "crime buildings" (i.e. Casino, Bazaar, Port) and Revolution stability for "order buildings" (i.e. Police Station, Jail, Castle). I tried to represent this in Early Buildings, but I do not plan to go through the entire building set and edit every building, since I have a few projects and updates planned.

 

[Malchar]

@Nightguard

I considered implementing such "lost techs" in Civ 4 RoM. The few "techs" that I did use where added through random events like the wootz steel promotion event etc because I couldn't find another good way to implement such techs that would get "lost" over time.

Few techs that I had on design board when I was making RoM tech tree:
Ancient Steam works (they never realised what could be done with steam... but what if they did?)
Ancient Electricity (pictures in pyramids show battery / lamp like inventions which probably where used in religious ceremonies as it must have been like magic to see electricity at that time, google Baghdad battery)
Wootz Steel (also known as Damascus steel, Crucible steel, google also Iron pillar of Delhi)
Wind Furnace (works with monsuun winds, better quality steel, asian invention, could be building for Wootz Steel)
Wax-Casting (bronze statues etc.)
Cement (as said before, Romans used it)
Cranes and lifting (how did they move 1500 ton stones when building some sites?)
Rock sawing (egyptions sawed granite but how? today for this task diamond blades are required since granite is hard material)
Oil lamps
Ancient Surgery (ancient egyptians and later romans were quite good at this)
Mirrors (not exactly lost tech but they were very valuable items in ancient times and the manufacturing secrets where hidden from public)
City plumbing
Aluminium (chinese belt from 3th centery, 1500 years before industrial era! How did they know how to extract aluminium?)
Floor heating (romans again)
Gliding / Ancient planes (some artifacts describe things that could have been made only if aerial views were available - so did the ancient people have ways for flying? some artifacts also look like miniature planes)
... and so on

I always found this to be a very interesting concept to explore. From my understanding, the main reason that these technologies were never developed further is because the civilization collapsed shortly thereafter. Had the civilizations been stable, it's likely that they would have gone on to dominate the world in the way that "western" culture has done today. It's kind of a fluke that Rome collapsed, which basically lead to a thousand years of rebuilding.

This could be implemented in tandem with the revolutions mod. If a civilization has a revolution, they might lose some of their technologies. Perhaps there could be different severities of revolutions/collapses. Or you could just go all out and grant the possibility of these early techs. They could be very expensive to research, and only larger empires could afford them. Of course, the larger empires would be more vulnerable to a revolt. Also, certain techs on their own don't really make that big of a difference. For example, electricity without steam power isn't particularly powerful. Steel is also essential in order to really take advantage of those techs. You could just allow civs to research a lot of these techs early, but they would be rather useless until they had a number of them.

They used stone tools that were harder than granite like diorite.

But for sawing they usually used copper saws (at least before the invention of iron) together with sand. In the end the sand was doing the work, but it was very tedious and the copper saws had to be sharpenend many many times. But with a high devotion (nearly) everything can be accomplished.

I saw a recreation of this in a history show on TV. It looks like they would set up forges at the rock cutting sites, and smiths would constantly be resharpening the metal saws. They basically would have an entire village built to support the creation of the pyramids. I'm sure stone tools were also used on some pyramids though, since pyramids were created over a long period of time.

 

[Sonereal]

Since Civ5 may actually run faster on my computer than Civ4 does, I think the first thing I want to request is more turns.

Say....3000 or so?

 

[zappara]

Just saw the civ 5 tech tree and all I can say is that there's lot of room for improving it...

The social policies seem to be quite nice system... also there's room for improvement since each social policy can be upgraded over time by unlocking new modifiers for them...

 

[zappara]

Browsed through Civ 5's files and folder structure this evening (pre-load available in steam ) and got to say that there's some really interesting files... the file structure looks similar to Civ 4, so it's probably going to be easy to get into civ 5 modding...

 

[Monyu]

Browsed through Civ 5's files and folder structure this evening (pre-load available in steam ) and got to say that there's some really interesting files... the file structure looks similar to Civ 4, so it's probably going to be easy to get into civ 5 modding...

Great to know you're going to work on CiV! Couldn't play without your mod in cIV, looking forward to it!

 

[Tekener]

I agree on both The file structure looks familiar. Even though the interface is now in LUA, there seems also the way to simply have influence on it by XMLs.

Let's hope you're getting along with it well, zap. Civ V will be hopefully pretty cool, but compared to RoM it'll be a small, "simple" game