Dev Diaries: Plans for 1.15

[Ani Taneen]

(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?)

I think Orthodoxy is easy to plan. There should be a relationship between Jerusalem being captured and Christianity spawning.

Now the new tech tree has threaters be available supper early, So confucianism could be founded by any city that builds a Pavilion? Or a city that has both a theater and a cemetery? Similarly, any city that has confucianism, and builds baths founds Taoism?

 

[BenZL43]

Since it's about techs tree, maybe you'd like to check out Firaxis' plan for Civ6?
I think disallowing players that haven't saw any ocean tiles to research sailing, etc is a good move - it makes more sense.

 

[Leoreth]

Just a quick update on how this will proceed going forward, I've already mentioned that this will come with some changes to units, buildings, civics etc. I have decided to complete those changes first before pushing to develop, so that you don't have to deal with an incomplete intermediary version and I won't be getting feedback on a configuration that won't be final anyways.

I'll of course post updates of my WIP and start discussion threads. There will definitely be an official "which techs could be replaced/moved/named more universally" thread, and probably one on civics as well. Holding off until 1.14 is officially released.

 

[ozqar]

I also don't feel like the Tech Tree is needs a complete re-structuring (nor I know if it will be that beneficial), but it's your mod, and, as you said, if you're willing to put in the effort, time and energy into this, then that's all your decision.

I'm going to be very honest here, I feel that the long term solution will require a lot of work, but well...
I wonder if it is possible to have a cultural tech tree? What I mean is a seperate tech tree which uses culture to unlock the techs instead of science. What is unique is that tech tree will unlock the more ideological mechanics. What could be cool about this tech tree is that Ideologies spread based on your culture.
...
To limit this tech tree, I'd say there be three lines in it.

1. Economic (Representing choices between capitalism and communism), unlocked with Economics in the renisance era, it will make running Guilds, and eventually merchantilism, harder as things are unlocked
2. Social (Representing choices between liberalism and totalitarianism) Unlocked with humanities, it will have more religion related effects (reflecting the relationship between state & Church/Mosque in the late middle period. With industrialism and modernity it will have more pushes towards Democratic or Authoritarian goverment
3. Administartive (Unlocked with nationhood) The options in this line deal with colonialism and empire. Making you choose between running a common wealth of nations (vassals), a singular nation with a powerful core, or a wide empire stretching into historical and foreign lands

Seriously though, I'm actually in favor of this idea. Imo divorcing religions and politics from the tech tree and giving them their own trees based on accumulating faith and culture respectively instead is one of the things Civ5 got right, at least in theory.

Removing ideological "techs" from the tech tree sounds like a really cool idea. Administrative, Social, Economic, and Religious branches (and I could think about others) would be perfect.

While I do agree that historically tech development has permitted new ideologies, I also think that the opposite is true as well. That said, I see no reason why we should think that these influences were of a necessary nature, ie, I could imagine many alternative scenarios (and I guess some historical ones) where any ideology could successfully emerge in the world without the technologies we associate with them.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I'll of course post updates of my WIP and start discussion threads. There will definitely be an official "which techs could be replaced/moved/named more universally" thread, and probably one on civics as well.

:itshappeningintensifies:

 

[Ani Taneen]

While I do agree that historically tech development has permitted new ideologies, I also think that the opposite is true as well. That said, I see no reason why we should think that these influences were of a necessary nature, ie, I could imagine many alternative scenarios (and I guess some historical ones) where any ideology could successfully emerge in the world without the technologies we associate with them.

I must confess that my world view on this stems from the spread of democracy. As a Latin American, I come from a country that had no magna carta, no bloodless revolution, no rights of the subject. And yet democracy was yearned for. Granted implimitatio sucked (hence why my country's UHV requires so many great generals ).

But given my perspective, I'd say that the culture techs should be unlocked through one of two ways
1) maybe when a civ discovers a certain tech, they unlock that cultural techtree (like rationalism or scientific thought unlocking the secularism tech tree). It could be limited to researching the tech (not trading it).
2) Culture spreads points that bring civs slowly into unlocking the culture techs.

I'd say that these ideologies schould carry both positive and negative bonuses, that they should replace the "runing outdated policies" hit to stability.

Since it's about techs tree, maybe you'd like to check out Firaxis' plan for Civ6?
I think disallowing players that haven't saw any ocean tiles to research sailing, etc is a good move - it makes more sense.

Maybe an argument could be made that certain policies make it easier to research some idologies. Like running serfdom could make it easier to research communism (or in my vision, unlock communistic techs)

 

[baseballpie]

As I see it, I think that your decision depends on your prospective audience:

Right now, DoC has a very large audience. As you add more features, it will keep the attention of your current fanbase, having them awaiting each new feature. Most of the crowd here at the moment knows the game as it is right now. For them, it will be easier to adapt to upcoming game mechanics, and they will usually be most receptive.

However, there is a flip side. As you grow farther and farther away from BtS and vanilla RFC, it comes at a cost. As each new feature comes, it will become harder and harder for someone that is used to either the base game or RFC. Even though it is natural entropy in modding, it dislocates you from a lot of casual gamers. This is what happens to mods like Caveman to Cosmos or Rise of Mankind. They become so inflated with a vast array of new features that the learning curve becomes just too steep for beginners. And even if they manage to adapt to the new features, they will be left in the dust as you continue to add.

So it comes down to a simple question. Which path do you choose?

My thoughts remain the same, unchanged from nearly two years prior. I feel the need to voice my concern, because I believe this change is drastic enough to raise many an eyebrow.

EDIT: Looking back at that thread, you did even say that you didn't want to touch the tech tree. I don't mind if your opinion has changed since then, but I'm still wary of an overhaul like this.

 

[hnrysml]

Perhaps an interesting idea to consider, if you are making changes to the tech tree, is that technologies simply shouldn't be traded in the way they currently are. It's one thing I've never liked about the Civ games, that you can simply ask another leader to tell your people how to do something and in return show them some of your technology...
My proposal would be that until perhaps the modern era technologies could only be acquired from other civilisations through, conquest, espionage, spread of religion, and perhaps culture spread.
The current technology trading method simply doesn't make sense throughout most of history.
Even in the part of the game representing today it would make more sense if civilisations, rather than trade technologies, could through diplomacy agree to research a technology more cheaply (quickly), together, but not have the option to outright trade existing tech.
And perhaps another modifier that could be added to better represent history would be that the more civilisations have researched a technology, the cheaper it would become for civs that haven't got it yet. This would illustrate how important knowledge becomes less valuable and more easily obtainable as more people have it.

What do people think of these ideas? I'd love to hear some feedback.. I know it'd be a big change.

 

[Force44]

Not as big a change as you might think.

What you are proposing is that technologies can be traded for an amount of beakers.
The amount of beakers a tech can be traded for is less than the tech requires. So after a techtrade you still have to do a little researching yourself to get the required amount of beakers.
(also conquest, culture, espionage and religion give some beakers in you your proposal)

Right now the AI trades tech with you at an unfavourable rate (so you also need more beakers than the trade of a tech require) But the AI will only trade you the tech if you manage to make up for the deficit before the techtrade takes place (note that techs cost less to acquire trough techtrade if you already researched a bit yourself).

This creates a handicap for the player vs your proposal. (and ads the benefit (for mod/gamemakers) that it slows down the over all research)

So what you are proposing is the removal of a small handicap. And the addition of several small bonuses (the beakers through conquest, espionage, religion and culture). This will come with the tradeoff that the techs need to become exponetially more expensive (beakerwise) to counter the ever expanding worldeconomy of civIV. (which, especially late game, will change gameplay)

 

[Leoreth]

I would prefer a different way to trade techs.

In my opinion tech trades should become ongoing deals. As long as the trade is active, you get access to the things it enables, but you don't actually get the tech and still have to research it for yourself.

I like such an approach because it removes the leapfrogging part of tech trading, and also encourages peaceful play because you lose tech trades after going to war.

 

[merijn_v1]

Realism Invictus has a tech transfer system. See the explanation from the player manual.

Spoiler :

Tech Transfer is a feature of Realism: Invictus mod that is intended to replace an unrealistic aspect of vanilla game that has civilizations diplomatically trading technologies – something that wasn’t there till at least mid-XX century. Historically, technological developments spread passively, and all that the kings and governments could do was encouraging or preventing that process by means of general diplomacy.
Therefore, in our new system, when a civ is researching a technology that another civ with open borders to this one already knows, it gets an additional significant discount towards the cost of that technology: 50% for first such civ and additional 25% for every next civ.

Open borders treaties, thus, become a very important decision with a lot of possible implications to consider. Since tech transfer process works both ways, if you have a tech lead, you will be aiding tech advancement of other civs that have open borders with you – so you will have to choose the civs you want to sign open borders with carefully, and also keeping in mind other important aspects of having open borders with another civ: free passage of troops, trade routes and spread of religions. Additionally, if your relations with another civ are high, you will get bonus culture from having open borders, as your peoples exchange their cultural trends with each other.

 

[Leoreth]

That's very passive though, and removing tech trades altogether as a diplomatic action leaves little to do in the diplo screen.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm beginning to reconsider my preferences regarding OR vs AND. I think with some additional AND requirements thrown in the HR tree could also work with all arrows representing OR.

The argument is rather convincing that historical play and interesting differentiation between both goals and AI benefits from more open requirements and are conversely inhibited by too restricting ones.