Nikis-Knight
Deity
Simple things are way low on the priority list. 
Feedback: Tech tree
- Thread starter Kael
- Start date
Chandrasekhar
Determined
i did
about getting the AI to pick wisely, its also about helping new players, but from what ive heard theyve tried helping the AI, but the AI still knows how to wander around the tech tree aimlessly.
Are you sure? 'Cause I got lizardman assassins roaming near my city before turn 20.
Sureshot
Goddess
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2006
- Messages
- 3,771
Chandrasekhar
Determined
Unser Giftzwerg
UgLe Game Promoter
Sureshot, forgive me asking the obvious, but this "tech tree only" mod is the most recent version/patch for FfH, just with the various tech tree alterations?
Sureshot
Goddess
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2006
- Messages
- 3,771
it is for the most recent patch (patch J), it does not include patch J if thats what you're asking.
it includes the tech tree i use in my mod, so the civtechinfos.xml file, along with all dependencies, such as:
-building infos because of Heroic epic which was in Honor but now in Chivalry
-game text ffh because i changed Armored Cavalry to Chivalry to fit better (since it branches off of feudalism and holds everything that was in Honor)
-unit infos because a few units were in techs that were removed and the change to hunters to put them on the same tech tier as all other tier 2 units (i.e. tech tier 3)
-civic infos because liberalism and constitution were removed and the civics within them were moved else where (mercantilism and taxation respectively)
-2 python files, FFH spells and custom functions, to fix assassin recruitment and lair spawning due to change from poisons to deception.
it includes the tech tree i use in my mod, so the civtechinfos.xml file, along with all dependencies, such as:
-building infos because of Heroic epic which was in Honor but now in Chivalry
-game text ffh because i changed Armored Cavalry to Chivalry to fit better (since it branches off of feudalism and holds everything that was in Honor)
-unit infos because a few units were in techs that were removed and the change to hunters to put them on the same tech tier as all other tier 2 units (i.e. tech tier 3)
-civic infos because liberalism and constitution were removed and the civics within them were moved else where (mercantilism and taxation respectively)
-2 python files, FFH spells and custom functions, to fix assassin recruitment and lair spawning due to change from poisons to deception.
Unser Giftzwerg
UgLe Game Promoter
I wondered basically if it was as close to 'normal' FfH as you could get, considering the TT changes. (It sounds like it is.) I haven't played Civ ofr FfH in almost two months ... playing mods of the mod is just more than I want to wrestle. But Chand has mentioned the TT work you two have done. So whenever I decide to boot up Civ again I'll look at your TT work. It's great you've made a version available to people like me, who do not want to wrestle with the modmods. Thanks.
Chandrasekhar
Determined
We ought to play a multiplayer game with the tech tree mod sometime. Seeing how it affects the AI is one thing, but I'd like to see what implications is has for competitive play. Also, I think a whole extra tier of techs between the tier-3 units and the tier-4 units would help a lot, but barring that:
1) I like what you've done with the tier-4 mounted units. I'd suggest taking it a bit further. Try making camel archers require Bowyers and Feral Bond, war elephants require Feral Bond and Metal Casting, war chariots require Bowyers and Metal Casting, and knights require Feudalism and Metal Casting.
2) A similar system might work for tier-4 melee units. I'd make all of them except berzerkers stem off Mithril Working. Lames can require Engineering, Mithril Weapons can require Arcane Lore, and Divine Essence is good as it is (requiring Theology). Berzerkers will come a bit earlier, but they require extensive research down the religious line as well. They're good as they are.
3) Marksmen already require Mithril, so you might as well change the requirement of Military Strategy on them to the more appropriate Mithril Working. Now, Celerity should be the one that requires Military Strategy instead. Also, I'd strongly suggest upping the cost of Military Strategy and putting another requirement on it, so it becomes effectively a higher tier tech than it is now.
4) Machinery should really require Metal Casting. It makes sense, and it'll move heavy crossbowmen back a little bit.
That's all for now.
1) I like what you've done with the tier-4 mounted units. I'd suggest taking it a bit further. Try making camel archers require Bowyers and Feral Bond, war elephants require Feral Bond and Metal Casting, war chariots require Bowyers and Metal Casting, and knights require Feudalism and Metal Casting.
2) A similar system might work for tier-4 melee units. I'd make all of them except berzerkers stem off Mithril Working. Lames can require Engineering, Mithril Weapons can require Arcane Lore, and Divine Essence is good as it is (requiring Theology). Berzerkers will come a bit earlier, but they require extensive research down the religious line as well. They're good as they are.
3) Marksmen already require Mithril, so you might as well change the requirement of Military Strategy on them to the more appropriate Mithril Working. Now, Celerity should be the one that requires Military Strategy instead. Also, I'd strongly suggest upping the cost of Military Strategy and putting another requirement on it, so it becomes effectively a higher tier tech than it is now.
4) Machinery should really require Metal Casting. It makes sense, and it'll move heavy crossbowmen back a little bit.
That's all for now.
Ok, firstly - This is my first post, so hi everyone and all that jazz.
Secondly, I have been playing FFH for a few weeks, maybe a month, completed 6 games and ran through about 20 games which I played about 300 turns. Not to mention the dozens of games which I played only the first 100 turns. Most of these games were on standard-large maps set to quick.. I found that any of the slower game speeds made the first 100 turns very very very slow - basically click click click, due to the reduced speed of learning techs. I wanted to give this information so that my statements on the Tech tree are put into perspective for the game settings I have used.
Overall? The tech tree "works". It is obvious that a lot of work went into the tech tree development. But I do have a few comments regarding the tree which may be considered slight criticisms.
1) I never felt that I was following any technology path. The religeous techs are dead ends, so grab the religeon of choice and almost every other tech decision is the same as any other game. My biggest thought on correcting this would be if each of the different religeous techs led to priesthood - and you continued on with the religeous track with your religeon.
2) The tech tree is very front loaded. About 200 turns, maybe 250 turns, into the game my civ will have expanded and grown to the point where I will be producing soo many research points that the list of things to research will be about 8 items which are 1 turners, and 2-3 items which are 6 turns. This ratio tells me that there are too many early techs and not enough late techs, or maybe that it is another signal of too many short branches.
3) Many techs give bonuses - which aren't applicable. A great example which comes to mind is the +1 to lumbermills provided by commune with nature -- but if I am playing elves and made a beeline for the tech, then I never have the lumber mills - and infact, since the lumber mills are given by iron working, which seems to be more closely related to the dwarven area of the tree - When I play the elves, I never have lumber mills until end game when I research the metal working techs just to get points. And if I follow the metal working list - no reason to go for commune. This is just one example: there are actually many places where bonuses are given which may or may not be relevent.
With all of this being said - I think that Fall from Heaven 2 is an Amazingly good job. I only came onto this site so that I could learn some basic modding for this game to fix one thing (which your mod does not fix, imo) - but in learning how to make the change, I stumbled across this "mod", decided to download, and have loved it ever since. (by the way, the change which I feel your mod does not fix is the Open Borders thing. I hate the fact that every civ wants open borders right at the begining of the game and pester me about it until I give in. Very easy to change - which I have already done - but look at the real world, how many countries allow other countries to move armies through thier cities/countryside without even some warning?)
Secondly, I have been playing FFH for a few weeks, maybe a month, completed 6 games and ran through about 20 games which I played about 300 turns. Not to mention the dozens of games which I played only the first 100 turns. Most of these games were on standard-large maps set to quick.. I found that any of the slower game speeds made the first 100 turns very very very slow - basically click click click, due to the reduced speed of learning techs. I wanted to give this information so that my statements on the Tech tree are put into perspective for the game settings I have used.
Overall? The tech tree "works". It is obvious that a lot of work went into the tech tree development. But I do have a few comments regarding the tree which may be considered slight criticisms.
1) I never felt that I was following any technology path. The religeous techs are dead ends, so grab the religeon of choice and almost every other tech decision is the same as any other game. My biggest thought on correcting this would be if each of the different religeous techs led to priesthood - and you continued on with the religeous track with your religeon.
2) The tech tree is very front loaded. About 200 turns, maybe 250 turns, into the game my civ will have expanded and grown to the point where I will be producing soo many research points that the list of things to research will be about 8 items which are 1 turners, and 2-3 items which are 6 turns. This ratio tells me that there are too many early techs and not enough late techs, or maybe that it is another signal of too many short branches.
3) Many techs give bonuses - which aren't applicable. A great example which comes to mind is the +1 to lumbermills provided by commune with nature -- but if I am playing elves and made a beeline for the tech, then I never have the lumber mills - and infact, since the lumber mills are given by iron working, which seems to be more closely related to the dwarven area of the tree - When I play the elves, I never have lumber mills until end game when I research the metal working techs just to get points. And if I follow the metal working list - no reason to go for commune. This is just one example: there are actually many places where bonuses are given which may or may not be relevent.
With all of this being said - I think that Fall from Heaven 2 is an Amazingly good job. I only came onto this site so that I could learn some basic modding for this game to fix one thing (which your mod does not fix, imo) - but in learning how to make the change, I stumbled across this "mod", decided to download, and have loved it ever since. (by the way, the change which I feel your mod does not fix is the Open Borders thing. I hate the fact that every civ wants open borders right at the begining of the game and pester me about it until I give in. Very easy to change - which I have already done - but look at the real world, how many countries allow other countries to move armies through thier cities/countryside without even some warning?)
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
I agree with most of what you say.
Could you please list the other places where you feel this is the case?
Could you please list the other places where you feel this is the case?
Thats great feedback, I dont like how long the research list gets, and I agree that we need to thin out the options a bit. I'll try to see if it can be improved in "Fire". And I know Maniac changes some requirements that are probably good changes too.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
I think the cause is the basic design of the tech tree: you have a limited number of "level 1" techs and the amount of techs available more or less doubles for every next level. The cost of a level 2 tech is also more or less always the double of level 1, level 3 the double of level 2 etc. Combine this with each individual tech branch being rather short and you end up with the issue of having a huge list of tech choices, with some being very cheap and others being very expensive. While it is usually beneficial to follow one branch for a while despite the tech costs vastly increasing, after a while you usually return to researching all those cheap lower level techs first, which only increases the list of available tech choices, most of them being false and meaningless choices/options due to their high cost as IIRC Chandrasekhar pointed out a while ago.
Personally I don't like Chandrasekhar's and Sureshot's solution to this issue: simply adding more tech prerequisites to higher level techs, even if those extra prerequisites don't really fit. Reason for me not liking it is it reduces the variety of possible research strategies and thus game strategies available to you. While I feel the wide differences in playstyles depending on what civ you play and research path you follow is exactly what makes FfH fun.
A solution I'd like to suggest is to reduce the difference in research costs between the different levels, but instead add a certain percentage to ALL tech's research costs for each tech you have researched. As in SMAC, but less extreme. This would cause the lower level tech costs to increase if you choose to pursue one branch first. As a consequence the difference in research costs will become less extreme, and the choice whether to research a low level or high level tech next will be less obvious (and as a side-effect of pursuing a limited number of branches further, reduce the number of techs to choose from at a given time and encourage specialization, FfH's strongpoint).
Said otherwise, Sureshot/Chandrasekhar's and my solution both reduce the list of researchable techs, but Sureshot/Chandrasekhar's solution would reduce meaningful choices, while my solution would increase meaningful choices.
Chandrasekhar
Determined
Actually, I would say that the main difference between our approaches is that while Sureshot and I have a finished tech tree that accomplishes its purpose, I still haven't seen any evidence that your approach would work.
In any case, I've been working on an entirely new design for the tree, instead of just a "wiring together" of the current one. You might actually like its design, once I post it. I have heeded your suggestions, or at least the ones I agree with.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Actually, I would say that the main difference between our approaches is that while Sureshot and I have a finished tech tree that accomplishes its purpose, I still haven't seen any evidence that your approach would work.
The approach works in SMAniaC, my SMAC mod.
It has a tech tree encouraging specialization, and the SMAC research cost is almost solely determined by how many techs you already have (which creates its own problems, hence something in between would be best IMO).Anyway, if this could be implemented without an SDK change, I'd do it right away, instead of posting the idea here for the very small chance it might actually be implemented.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
While I wouldn't say anything is perfect, I don't think a situation where you have several techs that cost 1-2 turns and a few that cost, say, 10-12 turns means the choice is meaningless.
Presumably those expensive techs are porportionaly better than the cheap ones. While I could get a bonus in 1 turn by researching festivals, maybe I'd rather put it off and get mace men 1 turn sooner, for example.
Because if there are several 1 turn techs, that's equivalent the research time of one or two longer term techs, and maybe it would pay-off to put off the cheap ones, all or some of them, to get the more expensive one several turns sooner.
If the choice is the same in every game, then it isn't balanced. If the choice is always diferent depending on my civ, terrain, opponents, tide of war, etc., then it works.
Maybe I don't analyze/play as well as I could, but I rarely know exactly what tech to go for next. (Although there are some that I always put off)
Chandrasekhar
Determined
Maybe it would work well here, maybe it wouldn't. I'm just saying that the tech tree that Sureshot and I designed serves its purpose very well, as I evaluate it.The approach works in SMAniaC, my SMAC mod.
Anyway, if this could be implemented without an SDK change, I'd do it right away, instead of posting the idea here for the very small chance it might actually be implemented.
Here's where the concept runs into trouble. The later techs often aren't as good as the late ones. Of course the military techs can be quantified and said to be better than the ones previous, but many of the buildings and other economica bonuses don't have that sort of progression.
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
Indeed. And usually you only need one tier 3 military unit to do whatever you want. So my approach is usually to focus on one tech branch until I have a tier 3 unit, and then start researching all the cheap techs I temporarily passed by.
Also, I guess I should add that I spent a number of hours piecing together what I thought would be a good tech tree. Admittedly it isn't complete (pretty far from it), but I am working on it mostly as a means of figuring out how difficult it is to put together a fully implemented tech tree ... so far? Seems like even a simple tree is quite complex. Especially if I then try to get the techs to "look" right on the tech page. Once I have a fully functional tech tree I'll be sure to share it .. probably just in time for it to become outdated with Fire.
