Does the Tech Tree need an overhaul?

I've played quite a few games where I have the following happened:

• Pikemen before Spearmen
• Infantry before Riflemen
• Nuclear Submarines before Submarines

For me, I think it isn't the greatest thing that you can spearhead your way far into the Tech Tree and start getting Units and Buildings before logical predecessors.

 

Flight before combustion?

 

Mechanized Infantry before Tanks is the worst feature of the tech tree, but otherwise, I think it's fine.

 

It could use some tweaks. I'd like to see the classical age extended a bit so that you can't just magically rush to the middle ages in one tech, while the industrial and modern ages of the tree feel like they go on forever and ever.

As for things like getting pikemen before spearmen, that doesn't really bother me. The society simply didn't need spearmen, so they didn't develop them until later. Getting horse archers before archery bothers me far more.

 

Fix ALL THE THINGS!!!

 

There are issues to fixed, yes. The OP mentioned some important ones.

I also dislike how you can beeline the top part of the tech tree disregarding pretty much most of it for most of the time.

 

Infantry before rifles is the worst. I had one GOTM game where I just clicked on the globalization tech and let the techs run via the tree and found myself with mech infantry alongside pikes and crossbows that I couldn't upgrade because rifling is an independant branch.

 

I think a lot of techs should take a little longer to research so that they're proportional to construction speeds.

 

There are some techs that are just wierd and feel like complete filler. Some of the pathing is illogical.

Navigation for example. We already have Optics; Compass; Astronomy... that pretty much covers Navigation. A tech that lets you build cannon-armed Frigates before you have the tech for actual cannons, or gunpowder for that matter. Someone pointed out the industrial era equivalent stupidity already: Flight before Combustion (also Battleships without combustion).

Metallurgy also feels like pure filler.

How does Acoustics lead to Scientific Theory? Its highly questionable as a tech in general, but this particular leap is ridiculous.

How does Stealth lead to Nuclear Fusion? I'm pretty sure we'd have deuterium reactors popping up outside every city if this was actually the case. I've never been a fan of Stealth as a tech in any Civ game. I understand its there so that people can build Stealth Bombers (though if you ever actually get to use them seriously something has probably gone very badly wrong), but it at least shouldn't lead to anything. Its just a countermeasure to radar.

 

And it's strange that they have filler techs despite there being even less techs in V than IV.

 

Streamlined is not always better. I would prefer a return to OR conditions on techs ala Civ IV, as well as bottlenecks at certain points and crossing up the top and bottom.

Best of all would be tech trees unique to all civilizations. Nothing too drastic, but another wrinkle to give each civ more personality and extend the replayability of the game. Balance on that issue would be a major headache perhaps not worth the investment *shrug*

 

Not being able to build tanks because you need biology to find oil is pretty annoying.

 

without oil, why would you try to build a combustion engine?


for the OP -

Yeah, it'd be nice if we scrapped the entire concept that Civ has used for the tech trees. It'd be the only way to get a good representation of 'historic' tech progress.

but, as long as the 2D no line crossing model is used, we can't do it effectively. It's the model that's broken, not the tech flows. (ok, some flows are bad, but if the model was different, it would be easier to make the correct cross connections)

 

You'd build it to use something else; the first internal combustion engines didn't use fossil fuel.

For me, that'd be like making a Civilization game without any tiles. The tech tree as we know it is kind of a staple of the series, and while Sid didn't invent the concept the game largely popularized it. Not everything needs to be 'historic'.

 

I'd be all for techs giving part-functionality to units.

but the whole system would require a change.

and you just reiterated my point re: tech tree. The whole thing would need a redo to ensure that the 'techs' required to build the units/whatever actually appeared before the unit could be made. (or prevent it's build until they are teched)

it's not the same 'game' anymore, but well, adaptation keeps things alive.

 

Things like this need to be corrected. Otherwise tho, it's absolutely fine.

 

There are a few weird parts to it, like Acoustics as mentioned above.

I'm perfectly fine with the fact that you can skip huge parts of it in the early game, that gives your Civ some flavour really so I think it's a vital part of the game that you can focus your Civ and get Medieval level in one area while you're still Ancient/Classic in others.

I would like to see some more purpose from the Modern\Future techs though. They do seem rather last minute in terms of functionality.

 

I love it overall, would make a few changes in line with the convo in this thread.

I like the tech balance; speaking as someone who plays Prince normally (and just came off a non-cooked King win yay!), I find that I rarely beeline too hard; just hard enough that I always feel like I'm making real decisions.

In Civ4 I found there were more situations where there was only 1 tech to choose, or only 1 tech that I would reasonably want to pick at the time.

 

Navigation is inexplicable, but for the other two it's just the chronological order of how they were invented in real life.