HR Tech Tree Plausibility

[Leoreth]

As promised, this is the first of a couple of threads to discuss how to modify and integrate the HR tech tree into DoC.

Edit: work in progress spreadsheet here.

At this stage, I don't want to talk about which tech does what, and if techs are useless or "empty". While that is a valid concern, I want to assess what assets will be part of the game at the point of inclusion to be associated with techs, and is something for later.

This is more about whether the tech tree itself is historically plausible. So the questions to ask if tech names are universal enough, and if the prerequisites are appropriate. And in turn proposing ideas of how to rename/replace/reorder them.

Again the screenshot for reference:

Spoiler :

Things I am personally unhappy with:
- Record Keeping / Writing works I think, Writing being more of a formalized writing system and a concept of literacy. Thinking about renaming Record Keeping to Administration though.
- Employment would work better as Contract I think, it ties in with all prereq techs and the ones it leads to, and the things it enables. (By the way, cottages will be moved to earlier in the tech tree.)
- Chivalry: I think it works as a concept of having the idea of some sort of warrior elite, but the name is kind of constrained to Europe. Better ideas?
- Land Tenure: I would have no qualms calling this Feudalism actually.
- Charity: this can be removed, not sure what to put in the spot though.
- Gunpowder: should be in the medieval era imo. Logistics feels more like a filler, instead there could be some sort of Combined Arms tech later in the Renaissance for that row.
- Constitution: doesn't work here imo. I think it's alluding to Magna Carta stuff but I'd rather reflect proper constitutional thought. Maybe the tech can take the place of Insurance in the late Renaissance.
- Nationhood: I think that represents the idea of statehood and organized state insitutions and standing armies and the like that were developing at that time. Maybe there's a better name for this? Nationalism as an idea is certainly later.
- Theology/Dogma/Evangelism: I think there's one too religious techs in this row. Evangelism could go I think, but not sure what to put in its place.
- Charter: it's been argued that it's not universal enough but I like it as a much better encapsulation of what Astronomy does in the current tech tree.
- Civil Liberties: I think Humanities makes more sense as a requirement than Economics
- Insurance: as I said this tech is out of place, and Constitution would make sense in its place.
- Steam Power: someone suggested renaming it Thermodynamics and I actually like the idea.
- Nationalism: I think this should exist somewhere in the Industrial era, question is how to make space. I think Photography/Film and Telephone/Radio are the pairs that could conceivably be merged. Radio should be in the industrial era anyways.
- Communism: should also be in the industrial era. Arguably it could be seen as part of the Labour Unions tech but considering how fine grained the tree is in other areas the tech has its own merits. The current position of Healthcare seems to be the natural place for it.
- Space Exploration: could just as well be called Spaceflight imo.
- Particle Physics: it's kind of weird that this is a tech ... not sure.

Similar thoughts along those lines?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

- Communism: should also be in the industrial era. Arguably it could be seen as part of the Labour Unions tech but considering how fine grained the tree is in other areas the tech has its own merits. The current position of Healthcare seems to be the natural place for it.

But labor unions were a result of Communism, not the other way around.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, but considering that techs allow implementing things and labour unions were implemented before communism proper, I think it makes more sense this way.

To speak in terms of the current civics, Labour Unions would enable Public Welfare and Communism would enable Central Planning.

 

[citis]

My first impression:
No fire tech? No speech tech? No painting tech? Farming should be a very important tech.

I would like to see painting as prerequisite of carving.
Fire should be prereq for ceremonial burial. Farming should require fire (try to eat uncooked grains! )
Or rename "ceremonial burial" to fire.
Also fire should give all tiles +1. (Let them start with -1).

Pastorialism should require hunting. (If you don't know how to hunt what will you domesticate?)

Ritual, property should require painting.

Well ok enough about prehistoric techs for the moment. Let's see the rest of the tree.

EDIT: Stone tools? I know prehistoric techs won't be added but for the sake of a completed post.

 

[Leoreth]

The first column can be removed without consequences, it literally does not matter. Adding techs further back in the timeline is even more pointless.

 

[citis]

Riding: I cannot understand the prereqs.
Record keeping: it enables administration, but you renaming to one word is ok. Maybe name it cuneiform or even Numbers, because in final analysis that's exactly what all cuneiforms are. (and it is a scientific fact that numbers preexisted the alphabet and writing in general).

Employment: It seems to me ok either way.

Chivalry: So is it warrior code? Then you can name it warrior code or honour.

land tenure: Why it requires architecture or mills? Anyway Feudalism or vassalage, yes they work.

Charity: No reason to remove it, it is the public welfare of middle ages. You can put the court bulletin board somewhere in this row however, it was invented in early middle ages in Rome and China.

Logistics: It is very important, its discovery should decrease the maintainance cost of units dramatically.

Gunpowder: It should be the child of alchemy that's for sure.

Constitution: yes.

Nationhood: Put it two techs later? So civil rights represent the french revolution and nationhood is it's product after some time? Also, it solves the problems of what to put in its place and how to find a void to put it later on.

Theology/Dogma/Evangelism: I feel it represents the formation of christianity, theology being its foundation, Dogma being the ecumenical councils and evangelism being the great schism. Two important religious techs are missing: syncretism and personal cult. Maybe put one of them in this row in classical era somehow.

Charter: yes

CL: yes

Insurance: In fact it is the child of Charter and it could be the prereq of economics.

Steam power: Thank you, yes I proposed to rename it thermodynamics.

Communism: Let it be part of labour unions. Public welfare can go to healthcare.

Space exploration: Rename it to orbitics?

Particle physics: Well it might represent X-rays and several radio-tests that exist today in healthcare.

Telephone/radio or Photography/film: Do NOT merge them. There is no reason really. Telephone radio already have eaten the telegraph.

Other thoughts:

Currency: Back in ancient era please. Put it immediately after mining. All civs that had access to any metal (silver, gold, iron, copper) had currency.

Mathematics: Rename it Geometry? Admitedly mathematics is a vast collections of subjects, and geometry is what it represents here. Moreover, that's why I would like to see currency somewhere earlier, it isn't a product of geometry

Mass media: aka television. It should require film making and radio.

I would like to see these depedencies:

Metal casting (bronze working)->Alchemy->Chemistry

Mathematics->Physics->Thermodynamics

Computers: The should be researchable only via electronics. You cannot transform a television into a computer .

Globalisation: Why is it a tech? And it cannot come without global communications aka telecommunications aka internet.

EDIT: Horticulture cannot go to economics.

Medicine: It is misplaced. It should require votanology, and votanology should require calendar. It should not require plumbing.

Employment-currency: exchange positions.

Stee working: Rename it to steel. And it should require solely alchemy, and not researchable via engineering.

Architecture should lead to nothing where it is.

Machinary cannot lead to crop rotation.

Horticulture: Why is it here? Can we have medicine in classical era nd horticulture here?
EDIT: And it cannot lead to economics.

Compass: it should require steel working and cannot be researched via guilds.

Paper: it should require neither CS nor machinary. Alchemy is the best alternative I cathink of. Printing press should require machinary.

Education: it should require paper.

metallurgy: it should require steel.

Electricity: It should require compass (magnetism).

Infrastructure: It is misplaced.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Yeah, but considering that techs allow implementing things and labour unions were implemented before communism proper, I think it makes more sense this way.

To speak in terms of the current civics, Labour Unions would enable Public Welfare and Communism would enable Central Planning.

Wittgenstein is gloating in his grave, for we are using the same word to refer to different concepts: I would define the Communism tech as the original teachings of Karl Marx, which sparked the organization of labor and hence labor unions, while you seem to define it as the practical application of Marxism ala Soviet Union, which itself could be seen as a result of labor unions. By my definition Communism was first discovered by Germany or England in the middle of the 19th century, while by yours it was first discovered by Russia about 70 years later.

We could have a similar argument about Democracy (or Liberalism) in the current tech tree: Did John Locke discover it for England in the 1600s or America in the 1770s?

The general question is: Do we base techs that are actually ideologies on when their assorted civics were first implemented by a civ in game terms or when their ideological fundament was laid?

Edit: Also if you go around putting lots of -isms in the tree I'd really prefer Nationhood to be Nationalism.

 

[Doodlefish]

Hi, I'm a habitual lurker, but I was bored today and decided to go through the tree pretty exhaustively. First of all I'll say that one thing that puts me off about the tree currently is how 'just-so' it feels. It looks to me like emphasis was put on designing a lot of nice linear paths that fit neatly into place (18 techs per era!), at the expense of some of its power to describe history. In revising this tree, I suggest that we focus on connections that make sense historically, and worry about how to arrange it graphically as the very last concern. This is as opposed to needing to shoehorn in a replacement every time we remove a tech, just to fill the space it left.

With that said, here are my proposed changes, arranged roughly by era. I'm throwing out so many suggestions here that it's impossible that someone will agree with me on all of them, but I hope that they'll be at least considered.

- Merge Ceremonial Burial and Ritual: You can't really say one came before other, especially with such a broad name as 'Ritual.'

- Oratory is far too Greek a concept to be universal; I think this should be changed to 'Oral Tradition' and its prereqs should come from the religion path, not Property or Calendar. If this tech is actually going for Greek oratory, then it should be moved to the Classical era, in the Law/Politics/Philosophy area.

- Carving seems too far into prehistory for me; I think this can be removed.

- Leather working should develop out of Pastoralism as well as Hunting, although this is a case where OR gates are much better than AND. Also I think that Riding should require Leather Working and Pastoralism rather than the Wheel. Horsemen and Chariots were really more parallel developments than one being an upgrade of the other.

- Sailing –> Seafaring –> Shipbuilding: This is either too many techs for the same thing or too generic names. If you're going for granularity, these should be named for specific technologies that made new types of ships possible.

- Make Priesthood require Property: A large part of the rise to prominence of priests was the wealth they accumulated from grants from kings/the rich in combination with good stewardship that ensured it didn't leave their hands. Also I'd remove the Astronomy prereq; it seems that astrology existed in most cultures but was not always associated with the priesthood’s power. Priests’ role as guardians of information in society is already covered by Oratory.

- I like the name Record Keeping, since this is referring to the use of rudimentary cuneiform to keep mercantile and administrative records before the development of writing proper. I think 'Administration' is too close to the name of the Politics tech.

- Divination: I assume this refers to the practice of priests providing magic charms or other forms of supernatural aid for the populace, and if so it might be good to have a more general name for this. Also this is the one of the only techs whose name is something that doesn't exist ("You have discovered Divination!" would make me feel like I'm playing Fall from Heaven).

- Maybe remove Wheel –> Construction: Carts would make projects easier, but I don't think it's required. I believe (may be wrong though) that a good number of ancient constructions were built on the backs of laborers, not with wheeled vehicles.

- Leather Working is needed for Copper Working: Why? Instead, Copper Working should need Pottery, on the strength of this sentence from Wikipedia's 'Smelting' article: "Campfires are about 200 °C short of the temperature needed for that, so it has been conjectured that the first smelting of copper may have been achieved in pottery kilns."

- Change Iron Working's dependence on Construction to Masonry. Bloomeries would not require the Construction tech.

- I don’t much like the Plumbing tech, especially as a prereq for Engineering. This is actually pretty interesting in that a number of classical cultures had plumbing, but it was not known much after that until the Industrial era. I might remove it, but this one isn't that important.

- 'Employment' kind of a clunky term. History texts usually use term “specialization” for this phenomenon, but that’s too broad. I would suggest Artisanry, but that's used by another tech. More generally, Employment –> Currency –> Artisanry seem like they’re describing concurrent developments bound by the common thread of classical era economic expansion, but not necessarily causative of each other.

- 'Politics' is a weird name for a tech. I think this is referring to the establishment of institutions to maintain power without needing frequent wars of subjugation? If so, I'd suggest 'Statecraft' as the name for this.

- I'm not sure if Nobility is needed; it's somewhat Eurocentric and the concept seems covered by Chivalry, Land Tenure, and Politics. I think 'Privileges' is a better term, although someone else could probably come up with something better.

- Machinery –> Crop Rotation doesn’t make sense, and a Horticulture tech divorced from Crop Rotation doesn’t either. I would rename the current Crop Rotation tech to 'Heavy Plow', and rename the current Horticulture to Crop Rotation. Horticulture, on the other hand, is a much better name for the currently far-too-specific Industrial Age tech 'Fertilizer,' and can be used to represent the wide variety of agricultural experiments carried out by European and American planters.

- I agree that Combined Arms deserves a place as a tech somewhere, but Logistics is also an important part of military theory. Its current position on the tech tree sort of makes sense (it is somewhat related to siegecraft and agriculture), but finding a new home for it wouldn’t be bad either. It certainly shouldn’t be a prereq for Gunpowder, though.

- The tree rightly distinguishes between Gunpowder and Firearms, but in that case Gunpowder should be moved up a bit earlier, to the late medieval era.

- I can see where they’re coming from, but I think Optics being dependent on Cartography and Printing is getting causation backwards. I think Optics and Cartography should switch places on the tree, with the latter representing expanding knowledge of the world outside one’s local region caused by the circulation of maps and travel accounts. Even so, “Cartography” isn’t a very good name because maps are as old as history, so I hope someone can think of something better.

- Dogma and Theology being separate techs is strange to me. It looks like Dogma is the one that lets you do persecutions and stuff? I think 'Religious Unity' would be a better name for it then. And as others have said, Evangelism doesn't deserve to be a tech and isn't even very present as a concept in some cultures.

- Patronage: As I see it, medieval patronage came from the church, the state, or the wealthy. Thus the prereqs for Patronage should be some combination of Theology, Civil Service, and/or Guilds, but not Land Tenure.

- As you mentioned, Constitution is out of place.

- Meteorology comes laughably early in this tree, imo. Any “meteorology” in terms of predicting weather in this period would have been confined to farmer’s almanac hocus-pocus stuff, and the real study of climate and the atmosphere that was going on would be better described as Chemistry, Physics, or Geology. I think this should be moved up past Chemistry, and can take the + ship movement effect from Refrigeration.

- With the new Charter tech, Corporation certainly doesn’t need to come this early. I believe the economic techs should come in a line, going Finance –> Charter –> Economics (which I think of as more Wealth of Nations, less mercantilism) –> Corporation, which should come sometime in the industrial age. Replaceable Parts can require Economics rather than Corporation if this change is made.

- Insurance like you said doesn’t really deserve its own tech; I feel like the concept is covered by Charter.

- Jurisprudence and Civil Liberties can be combined, I think. The former is included in the latter.

- Regarding Physics and Particle Physics: As far as I can tell, the Physics tech represents “Classical” physics like Newtonian motion, speed of light experiments, the Foucalt pendulum, etc. Given this, there is a need for another tech to represent the later breakthroughs of relativity and quantum mechanics, but ‘Particle Physics’ isn’t a good name for this and comes too late in the tech tree anyway. Unless someone comes up for better names for these, I propose renaming Physics to 'Classical Physics,' and adding a new ‘Modern Physics’ tech somewhere in the early modern era.

- As someone mentioned before, Refrigeration before Electricity makes no sense. Yes, it’s technically possible to do it chemically, but that's contrary to how the technology developed historically.

- One big question mark I see is the Fertilizer -> Labo(u)r Unions ->Healthcare -> Civil Rights -> Pharmaceuticals path, which mixes advances in medicine with those in social consciousness for no apparent reason. This happens earlier in the tree as well; I have no idea why Ethics should require Medicine, except for maybe that the Hippocratic oath sounds nice? These two fields should be separated on the tech tree. Also, Fertilizer –> Labor Unions implies that organized labor was mainly an agricultural movement, which is false. Labor Unions should require Machine Tools or Steam Power + Representation instead.

- I really hate the name ‘Combustion’ as it’s far too general. Why not call it what it is, Internal Combustion Engine, or Combustion Engine if that’s too long?

- Why does Explosives come so late, require Plastics, and enable tanks of all things, when its image is just dynamite? I do think there needs to be a tech to reflect the shift in military doctrine from World Wars I to II, but it should be called something different and probably should require Pneumatics and Combustion. Unfortunately, “Modern Warfare” isn’t really an accurate name for this, but I can’t think of anything better at the moment.

- Mass Media, Tourism, and Globalization is one tech too many I think, with Tourism being the weak link here. I would combine the first two into a new tech called “Global Economy” or some such to represent the economic and cultural consequences of globalization, while the current Globalization tech represents its political effects.

- Telecommunications is a bit strange as a tech of its own, and it should probably require laser or satellites, possibly instead of globalization. Also, minor nitpick: change ‘Laser’ to ‘Lasers’

- And finally, at the end of the tree it goes into some science fiction techs, and some that I’d say we’ve only partially researched. It’s up to you to decide how much of that you want.

Whew, I went on way longer than I should have! Thanks for reading all that!

 

[Force44]

I didn't spot the tech warrior code. Might be a good replacement name for chivalry, because that is basically what it is.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for the extensive feedback so far, that's exactly what I was hoping for when opening this thread.

I'm on mobile right now so I cannot reply in detail, will come back later.

 

[Wessel V1]

Unfortunately I don't have many things to add to this thread, while at the same time admiring people's knowledge on this subject and in threads like this in general. However, I would like to make a point about Horticulture as a prerequisite for Economics. While the theories of Adam Smith may nowadays be most well known, in the late 18th century the solely land based Physiocracy was formed in France which influenced Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". Similarly, it advocated a laissez-faire economy, so the ties between Economics and Civil Liberties are justified. Of course, an OR connection makes sense in this case.

EDIT: I meant Civil Liberties instead of Civil Rights.

 

[citis]

Wittgenstein is gloating in his grave, for we are using the same word to refer to different concepts: I would define the Communism tech as the original teachings of Karl Marx, which sparked the organization of labor and hence labor unions, while you seem to define it as the practical application of Marxism ala Soviet Union, which itself could be seen as a result of labor unions. By my definition Communism was first discovered by Germany or England in the middle of the 19th century, while by yours it was first discovered by Russia about 70 years later.

We could have a similar argument about Democracy (or Liberalism) in the current tech tree: Did John Locke discover it for England in the 1600s or America in the 1770s?

The general question is: Do we base techs that are actually ideologies on when their assorted civics were first implemented by a civ in game terms or when their ideological fundament was laid?

Edit: Also if you go around putting lots of -isms in the tree I'd really prefer Nationhood to be Nationalism.

The tech tree is so big we can have both techs.
But for the sake of game, the tech that enables the civic should be the later.

 

[Panopticon]

Forgive me for only commenting on other people's ideas for now, but it's a huge topic and I can't really visualise it well at the moment.

Record Keeping: works for me. It's quite elegant in its role, except the name. Number System might be a good name too.
Chivalry: tech seems to describe military nobility, but knighthood describes it pretty well too. Knighthood is a little more general to my mind than chivalry and a little less specific to Europe.
Land Tenure: Feudalism sounds like a good name.
Charity: if you want to replace something that is caused by Politics and Ethics, and causes Education and Patronage, I feel that this should be something to do with the legal profession, law court system or justice system.

I don't have much input on the other, more complex topics.

 

[citis]

Hi, I'm a habitual lurker, but I was bored today and decided to go through the tree pretty exhaustively. First of all I'll say that one thing that puts me off about the tree currently is how 'just-so' it feels. It looks to me like emphasis was put on designing a lot of nice linear paths that fit neatly into place (18 techs per era!), at the expense of some of its power to describe history. In revising this tree, I suggest that we focus on connections that make sense historically, and worry about how to arrange it graphically as the very last concern. This is as opposed to needing to shoehorn in a replacement every time we remove a tech, just to fill the space it left.

With that said, here are my proposed changes, arranged roughly by era. I'm throwing out so many suggestions here that it's impossible that someone will agree with me on all of them, but I hope that they'll be at least considered.

- Merge Ceremonial Burial and Ritual: You can't really say one came before other, especially with such a broad name as 'Ritual.'

- Oratory is far too Greek a concept to be universal; I think this should be changed to 'Oral Tradition' and its prereqs should come from the religion path, not Property or Calendar. If this tech is actually going for Greek oratory, then it should be moved to the Classical era, in the Law/Politics/Philosophy area.

- Carving seems too far into prehistory for me; I think this can be removed.

- Leather working should develop out of Pastoralism as well as Hunting, although this is a case where OR gates are much better than AND. Also I think that Riding should require Leather Working and Pastoralism rather than the Wheel. Horsemen and Chariots were really more parallel developments than one being an upgrade of the other.

- Sailing –> Seafaring –> Shipbuilding: This is either too many techs for the same thing or too generic names. If you're going for granularity, these should be named for specific technologies that made new types of ships possible.

- Make Priesthood require Property: A large part of the rise to prominence of priests was the wealth they accumulated from grants from kings/the rich in combination with good stewardship that ensured it didn't leave their hands. Also I'd remove the Astronomy prereq; it seems that astrology existed in most cultures but was not always associated with the priesthood’s power. Priests’ role as guardians of information in society is already covered by Oratory.

- I like the name Record Keeping, since this is referring to the use of rudimentary cuneiform to keep mercantile and administrative records before the development of writing proper. I think 'Administration' is too close to the name of the Politics tech.

- Divination: I assume this refers to the practice of priests providing magic charms or other forms of supernatural aid for the populace, and if so it might be good to have a more general name for this. Also this is the one of the only techs whose name is something that doesn't exist ("You have discovered Divination!" would make me feel like I'm playing Fall from Heaven).

- Maybe remove Wheel –> Construction: Carts would make projects easier, but I don't think it's required. I believe (may be wrong though) that a good number of ancient constructions were built on the backs of laborers, not with wheeled vehicles.

- Leather Working is needed for Copper Working: Why? Instead, Copper Working should need Pottery, on the strength of this sentence from Wikipedia's 'Smelting' article: "Campfires are about 200 °C short of the temperature needed for that, so it has been conjectured that the first smelting of copper may have been achieved in pottery kilns."

- Change Iron Working's dependence on Construction to Masonry. Bloomeries would not require the Construction tech.

- I don’t much like the Plumbing tech, especially as a prereq for Engineering. This is actually pretty interesting in that a number of classical cultures had plumbing, but it was not known much after that until the Industrial era. I might remove it, but this one isn't that important.

- 'Employment' kind of a clunky term. History texts usually use term “specialization” for this phenomenon, but that’s too broad. I would suggest Artisanry, but that's used by another tech. More generally, Employment –> Currency –> Artisanry seem like they’re describing concurrent developments bound by the common thread of classical era economic expansion, but not necessarily causative of each other.

- 'Politics' is a weird name for a tech. I think this is referring to the establishment of institutions to maintain power without needing frequent wars of subjugation? If so, I'd suggest 'Statecraft' as the name for this.

- I'm not sure if Nobility is needed; it's somewhat Eurocentric and the concept seems covered by Chivalry, Land Tenure, and Politics. I think 'Privileges' is a better term, although someone else could probably come up with something better.

- Machinery –> Crop Rotation doesn’t make sense, and a Horticulture tech divorced from Crop Rotation doesn’t either. I would rename the current Crop Rotation tech to 'Heavy Plow', and rename the current Horticulture to Crop Rotation. Horticulture, on the other hand, is a much better name for the currently far-too-specific Industrial Age tech 'Fertilizer,' and can be used to represent the wide variety of agricultural experiments carried out by European and American planters.

- I agree that Combined Arms deserves a place as a tech somewhere, but Logistics is also an important part of military theory. Its current position on the tech tree sort of makes sense (it is somewhat related to siegecraft and agriculture), but finding a new home for it wouldn’t be bad either. It certainly shouldn’t be a prereq for Gunpowder, though.

- The tree rightly distinguishes between Gunpowder and Firearms, but in that case Gunpowder should be moved up a bit earlier, to the late medieval era.

- I can see where they’re coming from, but I think Optics being dependent on Cartography and Printing is getting causation backwards. I think Optics and Cartography should switch places on the tree, with the latter representing expanding knowledge of the world outside one’s local region caused by the circulation of maps and travel accounts. Even so, “Cartography” isn’t a very good name because maps are as old as history, so I hope someone can think of something better.

- Dogma and Theology being separate techs is strange to me. It looks like Dogma is the one that lets you do persecutions and stuff? I think 'Religious Unity' would be a better name for it then. And as others have said, Evangelism doesn't deserve to be a tech and isn't even very present as a concept in some cultures.

- Patronage: As I see it, medieval patronage came from the church, the state, or the wealthy. Thus the prereqs for Patronage should be some combination of Theology, Civil Service, and/or Guilds, but not Land Tenure.

- As you mentioned, Constitution is out of place.

- Meteorology comes laughably early in this tree, imo. Any “meteorology” in terms of predicting weather in this period would have been confined to farmer’s almanac hocus-pocus stuff, and the real study of climate and the atmosphere that was going on would be better described as Chemistry, Physics, or Geology. I think this should be moved up past Chemistry, and can take the + ship movement effect from Refrigeration.

- With the new Charter tech, Corporation certainly doesn’t need to come this early. I believe the economic techs should come in a line, going Finance –> Charter –> Economics (which I think of as more Wealth of Nations, less mercantilism) –> Corporation, which should come sometime in the industrial age. Replaceable Parts can require Economics rather than Corporation if this change is made.

- Insurance like you said doesn’t really deserve its own tech; I feel like the concept is covered by Charter.

- Jurisprudence and Civil Liberties can be combined, I think. The former is included in the latter.

- Regarding Physics and Particle Physics: As far as I can tell, the Physics tech represents “Classical” physics like Newtonian motion, speed of light experiments, the Foucalt pendulum, etc. Given this, there is a need for another tech to represent the later breakthroughs of relativity and quantum mechanics, but ‘Particle Physics’ isn’t a good name for this and comes too late in the tech tree anyway. Unless someone comes up for better names for these, I propose renaming Physics to 'Classical Physics,' and adding a new ‘Modern Physics’ tech somewhere in the early modern era.

- As someone mentioned before, Refrigeration before Electricity makes no sense. Yes, it’s technically possible to do it chemically, but that's contrary to how the technology developed historically.

- One big question mark I see is the Fertilizer -> Labo(u)r Unions ->Healthcare -> Civil Rights -> Pharmaceuticals path, which mixes advances in medicine with those in social consciousness for no apparent reason. This happens earlier in the tree as well; I have no idea why Ethics should require Medicine, except for maybe that the Hippocratic oath sounds nice? These two fields should be separated on the tech tree. Also, Fertilizer –> Labor Unions implies that organized labor was mainly an agricultural movement, which is false. Labor Unions should require Machine Tools or Steam Power + Representation instead.

- I really hate the name ‘Combustion’ as it’s far too general. Why not call it what it is, Internal Combustion Engine, or Combustion Engine if that’s too long?

- Why does Explosives come so late, require Plastics, and enable tanks of all things, when its image is just dynamite? I do think there needs to be a tech to reflect the shift in military doctrine from World Wars I to II, but it should be called something different and probably should require Pneumatics and Combustion. Unfortunately, “Modern Warfare” isn’t really an accurate name for this, but I can’t think of anything better at the moment.

- Mass Media, Tourism, and Globalization is one tech too many I think, with Tourism being the weak link here. I would combine the first two into a new tech called “Global Economy” or some such to represent the economic and cultural consequences of globalization, while the current Globalization tech represents its political effects.

- Telecommunications is a bit strange as a tech of its own, and it should probably require laser or satellites, possibly instead of globalization. Also, minor nitpick: change ‘Laser’ to ‘Lasers’

- And finally, at the end of the tree it goes into some science fiction techs, and some that I’d say we’ve only partially researched. It’s up to you to decide how much of that you want.

Whew, I went on way longer than I should have! Thanks for reading all that!

-Oratory: Drama was invented from seasonal festivities, so it make sence that it comes from calendar. Moreover, it was invented even before Greco-Persian wars so it does belong to ancient age.

-Wheel construction: Admitedly sled is the prereq of construction, and wheel is it's child.

-Plumbing: It is a very important of all cultures from rome to China. Let it as it is.

-Physics represent classical mechanics. Relativity is represented by fision and quantum physics is represented by electronics.

 

[citis]

On logistics:

Logistics represent the leap from mercenaries and levitary armies to professional armies.
Increase the unit maintainance cost and by discovring logistics the cost of units should decrease by at least 50%. So maybe:

Logistics:
- -15% unit maintainance cost
-Enables professional armies

And professional armies decrease unit maintainance cost by additional 35%.

 

[citis]

Unfortunately I don't have many things to add to this thread, while at the same time admiring people's knowledge on this subject and in threads like this in general. However, I would like to make a point about Horticulture as a prerequisite for Economics. While the theories of Adam Smith may nowadays be most well known, in the late 18th century the solely land based Physiocracy was formed in France which influenced Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". Similarly, it advocated a laissez-faire economy, so the ties between Economics and Civil Rights are justified. Of course, an OR connection makes sense in this case.

Ok, I understood the connection Horticulture-economics.

EDIT: Switch Logistics and gunpowder? So its tech belongs to the right era. But economics should be researchable via logistics and not gunpowder.
EDIT:

- Meteorology comes laughably early in this tree, imo. Any “meteorology” in terms of predicting weather in this period would have been confined to farmer’s almanac hocus-pocus stuff, and the real study of climate and the atmosphere that was going on would be better described as Chemistry, Physics, or Geology. I think this should be moved up past Chemistry, and can take the + ship movement effect from Refrigeration.

Metereology: Doesn't represent forecasting. People were able to predict the weather via observation, i.e. birds fly low, so it gonna rain and so on.

On health techs:

I would like to see something like:

Votanology->medicine (classical tech)
SM->Biology (evolution theory)->Microbiology/Pastorisation/Vaccination->Sanitation (sterilisation) (req plumbing, enables sanatorium/hospital)->Healthcare (it represents the national helathcare systems, it enables public welfare)

Vaccination: +1 health in all cities, stops plague
Pastorisation: enables supermarket? (maybe in combination with refrigeration)
Microbiology+Chemistry->Pharmaceutics
Microbiology+?->Genetics

Where is sociology/psycology?
Sociology may be the combination of civil rights, civil liberties and so on.
What about psycology?

EDIT: I like more and more this tech tree.

EDIT:
It seems Infrastructure represents Cement. It makes more sence.

EDIT: Rename labour unions to Socialism

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Perhaps Plumbing could be a dead end tech that unlocks a health building and an early Industrial tech, but that's it? So Rome and Arabs would research it, but medieval Europeans start without it and only backfill it quite a bit later?

I really don't see the problem with leaving Steam Power be, or maybe renaming it to Steam Engine, but Thermodynamics is too general a term.

 

[Ani Taneen]

Forgive me for only commenting on other people's ideas for now, but it's a huge topic and I can't really visualise it well at the moment.

yep, same here

Currency: Back in ancient era please. Put it immediately after mining. All civs that had access to any metal (silver, gold, iron, copper) had currency.

Employment-currency: exchange positions.

First, citis I agree with just about evrything you posted, thank you for your imput. However, I feel this tech should be renamed Coinage. Ancient trade was batter, with some objects, such as precious metals, being used as symbols to represent value stored in the form of commodities. Whenever the semitic peoples (Akkadians, Arameans, Hebrews, etc) talk about shekels, they are refering to weights of those commodities. Phoenician trade in the 10th and 9th centuries BC saw the appearance of real coinage, possibly first in Anatolia with Croesus of Lydia and subsequently with the Greeks and Persians. In China, early round coins appeared in the 4th century BCE.

As for employment? Well there is a law in Vayikra (The Levitical codex) protecting employees. And even earlier, the Code of Hamurabi establishes the payments owed to the field laborer, herdsman, day laborer, and the skilled artizan, among others. Employment laws predate coinage

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Perhaps we could Remove Currency as a tech, and instead add a Coinage tech in the ancient era after Mining and a Paper Money tech in the Renaissance after Paper?

 

[citis]

Forgive me for only commenting on other people's ideas for now.

No problem for me I do it all the time.

Here's some proposals:

Spoiler :

-Record keeping renamed to Numbers.
-Coinage requires mining and numbers.
-Employment leads to artisantry.

-Gunpowder and logistics belong to the right era.
-There is the raw finance-charter-economics-corporation
-Economics can be researched via logistics or horticulture instead of charter.
-Insurance is the child of charter, does not require replacable parts (wrong image ).
-Removed hydraulics. Not happy about it.

This include many changes:
-Deplex health and social sciences.

On social sciences:
-Jurisprudence, cicil liberties and nationhood have switched their order.
-Jurisprudence represents Magna Carta. The arch wonder moved to nationhood.
-Constitution researchable by humanities, in parralel with nationhood.
-Representation is in renaiscance era instead of inmdustrial.
-Socialism represents labour unions/communism, researchable by civil planning too.
-Civil rights require socialism.

On health sciences:
-Sanitation changed completely. It is renamed microbiology representing all microbiology, vaccination and pastorisation. It belongs to industrial era and requires biology and optics (microscope).
-There is a line biology-microbiology-healthcare.
-Pharmaceutics require microbiology (out of the image).

The full tree.
Moreover:
-Steam power renamed to thermodynamics.

The proposal isn't final. Still working on it.

EDIT: full proposal:

Spoiler :

Additional changes:

Spoiler :

Mass media renamed to Television
Medicine does not require plumbing.
Mathematics renamed to geometry.
Chemistry, gunpowder require alchemy.
Television cannot go to computers.
Architecture leads only to guilds (freemasonres)
Renamed crop rotation to plow.
Compass requires steel working instead of navigation.
Navigation renamed to astrolabe.
Sailing renamed to seafaring.
Seafaring renamed to sails.
Politics require property.
Switched Optics and cartography.
Refregeration requires electricity.
Medicine requires calendar instead of plumbing.
Removed Evangelism.
Dogma can lead to juriprudence.
Replaced Evangelism with Music, it requires paper.
Riding requires only pastorialism.

Kept Medicine as child of priesthood (Egyptian/greek medicine).
Kept steel working as it is looking after copper bronze and iron working.
Kept paper/education as they are.
Kept globalisation as it is.
Kept plumbing. It transforms into engineering through Archimedes.