Dev Diaries: Plans for 1.15

[Imperator Knoedel]

The point Leoreth made about incremental steps is a very good one, I would note.

I'm not too sure about that, transferring an entire expansive tech tree wholesale from another mod without also transferring all the buildings, units etc. it added runs the risk of having some techs that don't really do anything. Even now we have some techs like Fiber Optics that do literally nothing (except obsolete a wonder) but unlock another tech if you aren't specifically going for a space victory. I know some other techs are overly crowded, but that could just as easily be rectified by adding half a dozen new techs here or there.

Also I am still waiting for an explanation as to why the History Rewritten tech tree is better than the one from Realism Invictus.

 

[Novicenoble]

Take Alphabet and Writing in vanila for example. Chinese never developed Alphabet, but using OR allows them to go pretty far in tech tree without ever needing to research Alphabet. Or think about Wheel and pre-Columbian. OR allows to do Construction without Wheel, but with HR tech tree that will no longer be possible. History in general has more OR feel than AND anyway.

Well Leo already made preemptive FAQ, but I must say some about this

I strongly agree with Tigranes' perspective here. In vanilla techs, each tech represents larger and more general idea, technology, or system that changed the society in whole. HR techs in general represents much more specific inventions and smaller field of technology. With strictly confined AND links in tech tree, I actually wonder whether it can represent any civilizations in human history. Maybe few western European ones? Of course vanilla tech tree also got some similar criticisms in past, but HR ones are much more severe. Evangelism, Charity, Chivalry, Charter... These kind of idea even may not exist in some cultures on the modern days of the Earth.

I think that HR-kind of tech tree structure would works much better in EU or CK for example. They are focused on much more specific era and the region. But with 5000 year of history in 500 turns, with every region on the earth, I don't think '7 techs per each stage' is good approach.

Still, however, it is your mod and you decide which way to go. So I wish you would gonna streamline overall structure and more generalize some 'confined' techs.

Hope it'd be smooth to implement into new techs and keep the good work.

 

[citis]

An interesting kind of "tech tree" exists in Civilization Beyond Earth. Instead of tree there is a "tech web". The initial tech was in the center and major concepts spread around it from the center to the periphery. Minor concepts had only one requirement, the associated major concept.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm not too sure about that, transferring an entire expansive tech tree wholesale from another mod without also transferring all the buildings, units etc. it added runs the risk of having some techs that don't really do anything. Even now we have some techs like Fiber Optics that do literally nothing (except obsolete a wonder) but unlock another tech if you aren't specifically going for a space victory.

I'm currently trying to figure out if that would happen. Empty techs are obviously not what we want.

I know some other techs are overly crowded, but that could just as easily be rectified by adding half a dozen new techs here or there.

Also I am still waiting for an explanation as to why the History Rewritten tech tree is better than the one from Realism Invictus.

It seems that is what the RI has done. Not to rag on RI or anything but for our purposes this seems too much of a patch job.

But I know you only like it because it has a Proletarian Dictatorship tech

I strongly agree with Tigranes' perspective here. In vanilla techs, each tech represents larger and more general idea, technology, or system that changed the society in whole. HR techs in general represents much more specific inventions and smaller field of technology. With strictly confined AND links in tech tree, I actually wonder whether it can represent any civilizations in human history. Maybe few western European ones? Of course vanilla tech tree also got some similar criticisms in past, but HR ones are much more severe. Evangelism, Charity, Chivalry, Charter... These kind of idea even may not exist in some cultures on the modern days of the Earth.

I'm aware, but I would argue that the same problem exists in the current tech tree. Sure, you could pass up Alphabet as China, but you won't, because you need tech trading.

But sure we can talk about specific examples and try to improve them. I'd even wager that Xyth might be happy to take some of our conclusions as feedback to make it more universalist.

Of your specific examples, you have mentioned quite a few that I am also not too fond of and would like to replace/rename. I actually like Charter because it gives a socio-economic component to European exploration that is currently subsumed under technological changes that aren't as relevant. And it would make tons of sense to associate Trading Companies and a lot of special rules that currently apply with Astronomy with that tech instead. I would argue all of these techs can be understood to in a somewhat broader way that applies universally, it just happens that those names are more evocative to a European context. I'm prepared to wrack my brain over trying to come up with better ones.

I think that HR-kind of tech tree structure would works much better in EU or CK for example. They are focused on much more specific era and the region. But with 5000 year of history in 500 turns, with every region on the earth, I don't think '7 techs per each stage' is good approach.

Still, however, it is your mod and you decide which way to go. So I wish you would gonna streamline overall structure and more generalize some 'confined' techs.

Hope it'd be smooth to implement into new techs and keep the good work.

I'm doing my best. The technical side was surprisingly easy, I've gotten good enough at large scale merging and text replacement that the tech tree itself (besides text and art) is in the game already. Which is good because that helps a lot visualizing where the gaps are.

 

[Makudomi]

Looking forward to this with both curiosity and caution. I'm confident that if it breaks everything to the degree where the mod is unplayable for several months you won't stubbornly keep with it, but if it doesn't, well, I'm eager to see how it plays out.

This isn't really a problem about the tree specifically, but I'm hoping that when you're rebalancing all of this, you keep an eye on the global tech rate. At least for 3000 BC starts, I've observed the world being a good 70~90 turns behind where it should be, starting in the Renaissance and lasting to the end of the game. WWII is often fought by riflemen and colonies invariably spawn with more advanced technology than their masters. Hoping to see this tweaked.

(I know you mentioned looking into a context-sensitive starting tech setup down the line, but even in those cases, spoilt civs like America, Brazil and Canada still end up discovering Medicine in the 1990s.)

 

[Leoreth]

Looking forward to this with both curiosity and caution. I'm confident that if it breaks everything to the degree where the mod is unplayable for several months you won't stubbornly keep with it, but if it doesn't, well, I'm eager to see how it plays out.

Yeah, I'm quite stubborn but not that stubborn And Git makes reverting easy.

This isn't really a problem about the tree specifically, but I'm hoping that when you're rebalancing all of this, you keep an eye on the global tech rate. At least for 3000 BC starts, I've observed the world being a good 70~90 turns behind where it should be, starting in the Renaissance and lasting to the end of the game. WWII is often fought by riflemen and colonies invariably spawn with more advanced technology than their masters. Hoping to see this tweaked.

(I know you mentioned looking into a context-sensitive starting tech setup down the line, but even in those cases, spoilt civs like America, Brazil and Canada still end up discovering Medicine in the 1990s.)

That's another reason why I'm starting this now, because tech rate with the new tree needs to be smoothed out anyway, so we can fix this problem at the same time.

Maybe I can even do the context-sensitive tech thing as well then.

 

[J422]

Some observations on the new tech tree :

Ancient era :

-Calendar is super early, I guess plantations will have to move to... Crop Rotation ?

Medieval :

-As already pointed out, Chivalry and Evvangelism are terribly eurocentric.
-Charity is a weird name for a tech, and I really have no clue what could be associated to it in DoC, as it's not a particularly charitable game
-Constitution in the middle ages ?? What is it supposed to represent ?

Renaissance :

-Charter : again pretty eurocentric
-Nationhood should be either in the industrial era, or at the end of Renaissance
-Humanities should be named Education
-Heritage ? Insurance ? Unless we implement Triads and Mafia, sounds kinda useless

Later :

-Flight should be in the Industrial era, swap with Plastics ?

 

[need my speed]

I imagine Constitution represents the Danelaw (800something), the English parliament (1000something... 1066?), and other such things.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Vanila tech tree was around for such a long time, that one can say it withstood the test of time. Why fix something that was not broken? OR really allowed for some flexibility and DECISIONS, which is always fun, AND takes away that fun

If anything HR has another tech tree, not a better one, certainly not the best possible one! While it feels more historical in some instances it becomes less historical in others. Take Alphabet and Writing in vanila for example. Chinese never developed Alphabet, but using OR allows them to go pretty far in tech tree without ever needing to research Alphabet. Or think about Wheel and pre-Columbian. OR allows to do Construction without Wheel, but with HR tech tree that will no longer be possible. History in general has more OR feel than AND anyway.

Writing firmly belongs to ancient era, not classical (literature belongs to classical if anything). You already need to know writing of some form to keep records, or create a calendar. Plumbing and Sanitation sound very much alike, and yet they are separated by 2 eras, did Harappa have plumbing or sanitation? Or both? Metallurgy needs Chemistry more than Physics. Why would Bombards come before Muskets? Gunships do not belong to digital era. Development of Chemistry preceded development of Biology. National Gallery fits Heritage better than Civil Liberties. Etc, etc, etc. I can't even imagine how much rebalancing would be required for the mod with UHVs, such as "discover entire tech tree" or be first to build, etc -- we did spend so much time adjusting everything to the existing tree.

In short -- I pity all that energy, time and work which will go into this overhaul. Nothing in this new tech tree is too exciting in my opinion. Internal logic is at best debatable -- I really cannot image for the core players of this mod to look forward to this big blow to the existing balance, which was polished and fine tuned for years now. If one can imagine 3 dimensions in any mod -- length, width and depth, I think DoC is fine in width and length dimensions and at this stage can afford to focus on depth only. But now we will be facing width and length adjustments after all this years of fine tuning...

Agreed. Why fix something that's not all broken?
Especially after literal years of adjustments to it, to at whim overhaul the entire thing for something that likely will be full of bugs, imbalances and weird exploits for years? Why?

To me it sounds like you're rationalizing ways for you extend your project indefinitely. It's a great mod, but I'd start thinking of expanding onto new projects at this point. The game feels truly finished at this point, and I'm sure the community will be making it's own adjustments for a long time to come without your input.

Tl;dr you're a talented modder, the game feels done, time to move onto new projects.

 

[DC123456789]

Declaring a mod finished is how a mod dies. Any sort of computer program is never truly finished; there is always more to add, more to streamline, more to fix.

 

[Novicenoble]

I agree with DC123456789's perspective in this case Any mod can be better and more polished.

 

[citis]

Let's say Leoreth has unlimited resources (like time, will, etc...) or something more realistic, let's say that there always be someone who will evolve this mod.

When will the mod end? Let me be a little prophet here:

There will a point with no tiles, no turns. You can zoom in and out in the game indefinately, you can see your army fight as a single unit or zoom in and see clearly the battle. You will be able to see the roads, or decide how they should pass. You will be able to see the cities or even manage them.

When starting you will control a character and the game will be like an RPG, and gradually you will reach the point of a space empire.

Even then new ideas will come: Why not begin a single organism. Why not pusshing back into chosing the variables of the universe and watch the creation of the matter that will consist life?

 

[Leoreth]

Can we move on from discussing what my personal motivations are? It's inappropriate and patronizing.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Can we move on from discussing what my personal motivations are? It's inappropriate and patronizing.

Besides, we already know it's because some capitalist is bribing you.

 

[Makudomi]

Getting back on topic, here's one thing I'm a little curious about: How do you plan on handling religions under this hypothetical system?

I can see that the tree in general discourages beelining, which is debatably all well and fine from the perspective of gameplay balance, but...keep in mind that many religions in the most recent revisions of DoC are founded because certain AI civilisations are scripted to prioritise them.

Even on the current revision, I've seen a particularly successful Egypt steal Taoism from China (who as far as I can tell all but beelines for Mathematics and Calendar to guarantee their religions despite their potentially open-ended start), along with other oddities like Orthodoxy in India or AI Judaism outside of Jerusalem.

Assuming that with this new system, all of the AI civs will be more-or-less confined to the same track, won't this be disastrous for maintaining the balance of religious distribution in 3000 BC starts? It's pretty easy to tell AIs "don't go for this tech" or "go for this tech" when the number of paths you can take in the tree is so much larger, but no so much when researching a higher-tier tech is actively restricted by the "AND" requisites.

EDIT: Whoops, missed a couple of posts on the first page of the thread about this, haha. But I guess I can at least echo that this is my primary concern for the tree's long-term effects on gameplay -- DoC is very much close to perfect in terms of religious distribution right now (way, way more than the original RFC) and it'd be a pity to see that balance upset for what could be months. Perhaps, if you are going to implement a new religious system to get around this, that should come before implementing the tech tree itself...because I absolutely cannot see this sort of tree working for Civs like China and Rome.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm looking to find that out right now.

 

[Makudomi]

Godspeed to you.

 

[Ani Taneen]

EDIT: Whoops, missed a couple of posts on the first page of the thread about this, haha. But I guess I can at least echo that this is my primary concern for the tree's long-term effects on gameplay -- DoC is very much close to perfect in terms of religious distribution right now (way, way more than the original RFC) and it'd be a pity to see that balance upset for what could be months. Perhaps, if you are going to implement a new religious system to get around this, that should come before implementing the tech tree itself...because I absolutely cannot see this sort of tree working for Civs like China and Rome.

It's cool, yea like I said

The more I think about, the more I realize that the biggest nightmare is religions at the moment. Already we see Confucian Rome and Taoist Egypt.

Does Judaism require Record Keeping? Is Hinduism a product of Divination? Should Confucianism be earned from employment? Is the Tao learned from Philosophy? Is Christianity a product of Charity or Theology? Is Islam born from Dogma?

The UHVs? That is easier to an extent. But maybe this will lead to splitting religion from the Tech tree

I like how Buddhismis founded, to be fully honest. I wonder if there is a way to make more religions be founded in relation to game actions. It should be noted that Confucianism, Taosim, and Buddhism are all products of the 6th century BCE, so by focusing on what techs/actions should occur then, maybe the system can work

 

[Makudomi]

Haha, yeah, I wasn't paying attention. My bad!

But I do think (personally) that this is the first major hurdle for any hypothetical tech tree to cross, and is paramount to discussion in this thread. Religion-founding in any edition of RFC has always been a fragile balance...I'm tempted to play a game of vanilla RFC again just to see how badly I can ruin theological history.

I like how Buddhismis founded, to be fully honest. I wonder if there is a way to make more religions be founded in relation to game actions. It should be noted that Confucianism, Taosim, and Buddhism are all products of the 6th century BCE, so by focusing on what techs/actions should occur then, maybe the system can work

Seconded on that. This sort of thing (action-based foundation) is much easier to enforce in the AI, as well -- or at least offers more creative possibilities to discourage ahistorical spreads. I'd prefer that to something like the "Faith" resource of Civ 5, honestly...I found that system very bland and uninspired, even if I do think divorcing techs from religions (at least in terms of a direct relationship) is the right call. (For instance, I think that Orthodoxy should be in some way bound to Judaism. If Hinduism and Buddhism are connected, why not Judaism, Christianity and maybe even Islam?)

 

[Leoreth]

But on the other hand, the current tech tree already relies on crutches everywhere, and where it doesn't (Confucianism and Taoism) there are frequent reports about it being founded in the wrong places. Religion is essentially divorced from the tech tree already.