Does the Civ V tech tree even make sense?

That's not a bad idea, but the no backtracking thing would be kind of annoying. What if some techs had upgrade teirs you could get at different times?

Something like
Writing, enables libraries and libraries give +25% reserch
Specialized Writing, 2X the beaker cost of writing, adds +5% to all libraries
Advanced Writing, 3X the cost of writing, +10% research to all libraries
Mass Literecy, 5X the cost of of writing, requires education, +10% to all libraries

So improving a tech line is worthwhile at some point, but when its the most important thing is always in question.

Similarily,

Gunpowder, enables Musketeers (Matchlock)
Advanced Gunpowder, enables Musketeers with +1 base strength (Flintlock)

Or something like that?
 
The problem with the tech tree isn't so much that it is illogical but that it offers no meaningful choices - you basically have to just progress from left to right with everything in order to advance. This is not interesting.

It is one of many places in the game where there is a complete lack of viable strategic decisionmaking and thus the game is boring. All terrain is irrelevant except luxury resources so choosing city sites is boring. Trading posts are absurdly overpowered so improving terrain is boring. Most of the buildings and wonders absolutely suck so it's not like there is any good choice there. And the social policies can never be changed, so basically you have to decide before you even start what your goal will be. This is extremely, painfully boring and it is essentially the way the entire game works.
 
Sigh, even with CivIII's eras there where always meaningful choices. Swordsmen or Republic? Knights or no Knights, Education or Guns? City growth or the ability to draft? Ecology or computers?

Dependencies are not all bad, but liner is certainly not fun.
 
This simply means your brain is not smart enough to develop Railroad if you couldn't think about riding a horse instead of walking or shooting arrows for hunting. Totally makes sense to me. Fertilizer, Metallurgy, Rifling and Archaeology, aka techs that you don't need for Railroad are located near the similar time-line. This is since Civ 5 chose not to have tech trading. So choosing 'What' branch to research became choosing 'When' to research the branch. It will matter that you chose Railroad-Combustion to get tanks first instead of Rifling-Dynamite for 3 range artillery. Shouldn't it matter though, that you chose Archery instead of Horseback riding when you're pondering between Railroad and Rifling.
 
it makes as much sense as a theater in one town making people in another happy.
 
You've never gone to see entertainment in another city? Especially earlier game when theaters aren't everywhere that makes a lot of sense.

Though the idea that resources trigger technologies rather than technologies triggering resources makes a lot of sense. Lets tech HBR, what's a horse? No idea, but if ever we found one we could train and ride it :)
 
You've never gone to see entertainment in another city? Especially earlier game when theaters aren't everywhere that makes a lot of sense.

Though the idea that resources trigger technologies rather than technologies triggering resources makes a lot of sense. Lets tech HBR, what's a horse? No idea, but if ever we found one we could train and ride it :)

Tourism, really? That's your answer?
 
What, you don't think people came from the provinces to see the coliseum events? Or that midevil countryside people never gathered in London to see the theater? Or can you simply not fathom people traveling to other cities without cars?
 
What, you don't think people came from the provinces to see the coliseum events? Or that midevil countryside people never gathered in London to see the theater? Or can you simply not fathom people traveling to other cities without cars?

Im sorry your right your country has been at war for say 100 years, and the people are made happy by you building a colosseum "hey one of our sons just died in the war but we have a colosseum."
 
Suddenly this is about war weariness? You're proposing that happiness buildings should become ineffective while at war now or something?

Not very coherent are you? Meh, anyone here still interested in the topic?
 
Though the idea that resources trigger technologies rather than technologies triggering resources makes a lot of sense. Lets tech HBR, what's a horse? No idea, but if ever we found one we could train and ride it :)

OMG you just put into words so well what I've been thinking with respect to that tech (and to a lesser extent IW as well).
 
Tourism, really? That's your answer?

Actually, with the post-patch cap, you can no longer use one city to make another happy, as the happiness provided by an entertainment structure is capped at the city population size.

I discovered one of the other least logical pieces of the game. If you are building a national wonder, and you capture a city without the required structure, you must stop building the national wonder immediately.
 
JohnnyW

Cool. Necessity is the mother of invention not invention the mother of necessity right? But I agree this is less true with Iron working, as you could understand a generic metalworking\toolmaking and this is just a different application of the previous knowledge.

I tend to agree a building should only help locally, but a little of the excess applying to a wider area is not that unrealistic to me.

The National wonder rule sounds downright terrible. It is certainly not a good design decision.
 
I discovered one of the other least logical pieces of the game. If you are building a national wonder, and you capture a city without the required structure, you must stop building the national wonder immediately.

Are you kidding me? That obviously makes perfect realistic sense!! :confused:

I actually would like it if they made it so NWs only required a number of cities with prereqs OR 1 in each city. That way large empires could build these eventually.

Example: NC takes 8 libraries OR 1 library in every city (like say, only the capital).

edit: is it possible to mod this in?
 
Making that an Either\Or Mechanic would be a good solution for both small and large empires. Kudos on a clearly good idea. Chaulk that up as an idea so good it probably won't even be controversial on the internet.
 
Are you kidding me? That obviously makes perfect realistic sense!! :confused:

I actually would like it if they made it so NWs only required a number of cities with prereqs OR 1 in each city. That way large empires could build these eventually.

Example: NC takes 8 libraries OR 1 library in every city (like say, only the capital).

edit: is it possible to mod this in?

As long as the cap scales with map size like it did in Civ IV, it'll work wonders. Great idea.
 
As people have said earlier, replacing the linear tree with an intricate and not exactly apparent web of 'smart research choices' is bad game design. You'd only get a steeper learning curve for the few power players to master and get a fleeting bit of fun while doing so. And on a general level you'd merely replace linearity with an system that effectively penalizes non-linear choices. Sure, everyone's free to research any tech anytime. Go on, you silly noob, bang your head against the wall of undocumented 'smart choices' I've erected.
 
Suddenly this is about war weariness? You're proposing that happiness buildings should become ineffective while at war now or something?

Not very coherent are you? Meh, anyone here still interested in the topic?

so you think its realistic that you can stay at war for 100 years and just because you build a happiness building the people are like "hey its cool we got a new stadium take over the world and send our sons off to die".
 
so you think its realistic that you can stay at war for 100 years and just because you build a happiness building the people are like "hey its cool we got a new stadium take over the world and send our sons off to die".

So you're upset with every Civ since war weariness was added.
 
Top Bottom