HR Tech Tree Plausibility

[BenZL43]

1) Since it looks like Astronomy in this tree means to represent archaeoastronomy, I'd suggest to rename it to more simpler name like Constellations because I'd associate Astronomy with the science of calculating Jupiter's gravitation, distance between Alpha Centauri A and Earth, etc etc.

Spoiler :

the science (or pseudoscience) in building holy sites that align with stars and constellation like Abu Simbel, Stonehenge, Borobudur, Macchu Picchu and who knows what else.

2) Also, it looks like as we come nearer to the future era, the tech name become more specific (e.g. Quantum Gravity, Particle Physics, Supermaterials), while it's very broad and too general in the more ancient era (e.g. Agriculture [of what plants?], Riding [which animal?], Ethics [bio? socio?]. I hope we can create consistency in a similar fashion. I'd prefer a more detailed one with shorter duration.

3) In eastern Asia, there's tech unknown to the West previously such as creating porcelain [aka china], lacquerware [aka japanning], then domestication of water buffallo, religious syncretism.. etc.. maybe this can be represented somewhere in the tree. Similarly, techs such as priesthood, alchemy, dogma was unknown in the East.

4) Medicine could be renamed Herbal. We certainly don't have cancer drugs by then (beside surgery, which is found in Egyptian papyrus scrolls) but there's definitely TCM, Ayurvedic medicine etc by then.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

No, really, why does everybody have such a hard on for thermodynamics? I think it's an awful and needlessly generic name for a tech that is perfectly fine the way it is.

 

[Panopticon]

Proposed revision of Classical/Medieval era social science. Step by step...
1. Change Record Keeping to "Number System". I don't care much about this one; the next steps don't depend on it.

2. Change Employment to "Currency". It comes from Masonry and Record Keeping/Number System; essentially, the power of the state to command economic resources through tax for purposes like public works and military upkeep. That was the role of currency. The tech currently called Currency should be "Market", "Commerce" or "Long-Range Trade" and should not lead to Nobility, just Artisanry.

3. Skipping forward a little, change Charity to "Judiciary" or "Court System" / "Legal Profession"...

4. Politics is caused by Law and Philosophy, and leads to Civil Service, Land Tenure/Feudalism and the tech we now call Judiciary. I get the sense from these that Politics should be "Code of Laws".

5. Law is caused by Writing and Currency (from step 2; previously called Employment), and leads to Nobility and Code of Laws (from step 4; previously called Charity). This may be "Contracts" or, as I prefer, "Social Status". That is to say, here's an elite of people who command the written word and economic power, and who will eventually give rise to a hereditary elite class, and the distinction between them and the rest of us is fundamental to a code of laws.

 

[Panopticon]

Here's a rough attempt to make Communism and Nationalism work in the Industrial Era. Obviously, some of the links are still not perfect, e.g. Biology-Nationalism, though Biology-Anthropology might work. Please improve it at your leisure...

 

[citis]

No, really, why does everybody have such a hard on for thermodynamics? I think it's an awful and needlessly generic name for a tech that is perfectly fine the way it is.

Awful and generic? What are talking about? Thermodynamics it's all about heat engines. On the other hand I would say steam power is false.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Awful and generic? What are talking about? Thermodynamics it's all about heat engines. On the other hand I would say steam power is false.

Steam Power is what kickstarted the industrial revolution.

 

[Panopticon]

Steam Power is what kickstarted the industrial revolution.

Surely you mean, the blood and sweat of the dispossessed landless Lancastrian workers!

What have you done with the real Imperator?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Well yes, in the final analysis everything humanity has achieved is of course the result of work, but that's not exactly relevant in this semantic discussion.

 

[citis]

Ok here it is complete.

DICLAIMER: It a proposal. Leoreth has the final word on tech tree.

EDIT: updated (here to avoid flooding the thread)

Spoiler :

NOTE: Renaiscance era is completely reworked. Its changes won't be described below but in a separate section.

Requirements:
-Riding requires only pastorialism.
Reason: Riding should be researchable in parallel with chariots.
-Coinage requires mining.
Reason: Any metal is required to mine coins.
-Gunpowder doesn't require plow.
-Logistics require finance instead of cartography.
Reason: Logistics has to do more about maintainance which is a financial issue.
-Music requires only paper.
Reason: It isn't highly connected with the religious techs evangelism was involved.
-Microbiology requires biology.
-Refrigeration requires electricity, microbiology intead of fertiliser.
Reason: Electricity is required for heat pumps. Microbiology/vaccination/pastorisation justifies the nead for refridgeration.
-Agronomy requires microbiology and horticulture instead of biology.
Reason: Microbiology more suitable than Biology. Agronomy is the evolution of horticulture.
-Socialism requires biology instead of insurance.
Reason: Evolution is central in marxist and product philosophies.
-Healthcare doesn't require socialism
Reason: Deplex health and social concepts.
-Civil rights require socialism.
Reason: Connection with latest social science tech.
-Cement requires hydraulics instead of telephone
Reason: Cement making requires hydraulic systems, not electric systems.
-Control systems require electronics.
Reason: Electronics greatly developped this field.
-Tourism requires flight instead of aviation.
Reason: Flight merged with aviation.
-Semiconductors do not require cement.
-Lasers do not require fission.
-Rocketry requires pneumatics.
Reason: Rocketry requires control of fuel flaw.

Renamings:
-Record keeping renamed to Numbers.
Reason: All primitive writing systems were numbering systems. Number systems preexisted other kinds of writing.
-Plumbing renamed to hydraulics.
Reason: 1) It's the same thing in different language (Latin and greek). 2) It represents all the pneumatic and water systems of alexandrian era like archimedes water clock, justifying its connection to engineering.
-Mathematics to Geometry
Reason: 1) Given the requirements and results it represents geometry. 2) Differentiate from arithmetics that developped indepedently and before mathematics.
-Astronomy to astrology.
Reason: Release the name for modern astronomy.
-Navigation to astrolabe.
Reason: More specific name of a tech instead of a movement.
-Currency to Coinage
Reason: Potential differentiation of coins and paper money.
-Chivalry to Honour
Reason: More universal name that includes both european (chivalry) and far eastern concepts like Japanese warlords.
-Land tenure to vassalage
Reason: More specific and familiar name.
-Crop rotation to plow
Reason: One word name.
-Steam power to thermodynamics.
Reason: One word name, more generic and scientific.
-Feriliser to agronomy.
Reason: More generic and scientific name.
-Labour unions to socialism.
Reason: One word name. Includes marxist and product philosophies and political movements. Wider term than communism.
-Infrastructure to cement.
Reason: Better understanding of the tech in relation to its requirements.
-Space exploration to orbitics.
Reason: One word name. More generic and scientific.
-Mass media to television.
Reason: One word name. Name more consistent in relation to names with previous and next techs.
-Explosives to materials.
Reason: More generic and more suitable name given previous, next techs and what it enables.

Replacements:
-Jurisprudence replaced evangelism.
Reason: Evangelism is too specific to christianity. Juriprudence is a more universal concept that fits the requirements.
-Music replaced constitution.
Reason: Practically, constitution moved later on and music filled the gap. Magna Carta is represented by Jurisprudence
-Microbiology replaced representation and partially feriliser.
Reason: Practically, representation moved to renaiscance where it belongs. Microbiology appeared in industrial era where it belongs.
Microbiology represents vaccination and pastorisation, better than fertiliser.
-Control systems replaced aviation.
Reason: Control systems more suitable for 1) late military techs and 2) the techs former aviation led to. 3) Important tech that needs representation in the tech tree.
-Semiconductors replaced electronics.
Reason: Perfectly fits previous and next techs.

Merges:
-Hunting and leather working as Hunting.
-Carving and mining as Minings.
-Ceremonial burial and ritual as Ritual.
-Fishing, sailing and seafaring: practically Fishing and Sailing merged as Fishing, Seafaring renamed to Sails.
Reason: Ommit first coloumn.
-Flight and aviation as flight.
Reason: Same word in different languages english and french.
-Radio and electronics as electronics.
Reason: Radio is made with electronics.

Switches:
-Coinage and employment
Reason: Coinage has been developped before geometry.
-Gunpowder and logistics
Reason: Gunpowder belongs to medieval era. Logistics belong to renaiscance era.

Renaiscance era:
NOTE: the changes are many, so only important changes are noted here.
-Astronomy replaced metereology, it requires optics and leads to physics.
Reason: Suitable given the requirements and the leadings. Metereology is arguable.
-Hydraulics renamed to hydrodynamics.
Reason: Hydraulics means plumbing which is already present in the tech tree.
-Urban planning moved as requirement of hydrodynamics and requires optics and charter.
Reason: 1) Optics more suitable as requirement than constitution.
2) Urban planning more suitable as requirement of hydrodynamics than corporation and metereology/astronomy.
-Economics require charter. Corporation does not lead to hydrodynamics.
Reason: Economics developped after colonial empires.
-Sanitation removed.
Reason: See below
-Representation entered renaiscance era.
-Jurisprudence, civil liberties and nationhood are in inverse row.
Reason: Casuation and chronology.
-Constitution product of civil liberties.

Icon:
-Calendar took metereology icon, astrology took calendar icon, astronomy took astronomy icon.
Reason: The clouds are suitable for seasons, the stone carvings are suitable for astrology and coustelations suitables for astronomy.
-Microbiology took biology icon
Reason: Cells are suitable more for microbiology
-Biology took evolution icon
Reason: In this tech tree biology represents mainly evolution theory.

Effects:
-Logistics: Reduce unit maintainance by 35%
Reason: That's what logistics are for: Unit maintainance
-Electronics: +1 in hospitals
Reason: Radiological diagnosis devices.

 

[ozqar]

Some general comments:
- I really don't like the way techs are arranged symmetrically, I think that this approach has some aesthetic value and is a simple way to organize techs, but this is at a very high cost in the what relationships between the techs can have.
- I also think that the tech tree, as it is, is extremely biased to the history of western thought and western science. I think there's a lot of room for non-western social ideas and techs to be included. There would be a lot of value in having many techs as dead-ends and perhaps even have them provide culturally-restricted buildings/units/civics. BenZl provided some examples for this already.
- The last age seems a bit short, so perhaps we can have a couple more techs there.

Some specific comments:
Ancient era:
- There's no real point in having the row with the 4 earliest techs; leather working is quite irrelevant and can be merged with hunting. Carving can simply go. Ceremonial burial and ritual can be merged as ceremonial burial (ritual is an extremely non-descriptive term). Fishing can be pushed farther if sailing/seafaring/shipbuilding are collapsed into two techs (I would remove seafaring). Hunting should be a prerequisite of pastoralism - although it would be quite ok if hunting was removed altogether from the tech tree since it emerged thousands of years before 4000 BC when the game starts. I have actually doubts of whether ceremonial burial and fishing even merit being in the game since they were developed also way before the start of the game. If hunting is to stay, it should not be a prerequisite for copper working.
- A tech for fermentation (representing food processing techniques including cheese-making and meat smoking, could also be named food processing or food conservation) should follow (Pastoralism OR agriculture OR fishing) AND (pottery) would be a nice addition; it should provide 1 health in every city and 1 food in every granary and smokehouse.
- I would change divination to astronomy and make astronomy a prerequisite for the calendar (not the other way around). If astronomy sounds a very advanced term, then something like "star tracking" or "celestial tracking" or whatever else would do. There can't be calendar without a recording of the movements in the sky. Also, I would give the calendar a boost in food production (perhaps a single extra bread for the granary building).
- Oratory is a nice tech but (as said before) I'm not sure of how applicable it is in non-western (ie greek) concepts. It could stay as a dead-end tech, or be replaced by another word - drama, as a generic word for performances not referring to greek theater, is not a bad one actually (don't know why it was removed).
- Milling shouldn't come after engineering. If milling has to be there, it should come right after pottery; windmills and watermills can remain as part of machinery, or they should get a more appropriate name since the point of these two things is not that they can grind the grain, but that they can harness wind and water power for mechanical work.

Classical era:
- Agreed that Mathematics should be renamed geometry, since record keeping is already arithmetics, which is math as well.
- Plumbing is a nice tech, it should stay with as health bonus, but as said, it can be a dead-end tech, since it's not really required for Engineering. Aqueducts should move back to engineering.
- Currency should be moved back to require record keeping (it shouldn't require mining or anything related to metal work).

Medieval Era:
- Perhaps we should consider whether guilds should also be a dead-end tech, because I'm not sure it's a very universal tech. Patronage should derive from nobility and artisanry directly. The compass could come from navigation, not from guilds.Chivalry/Feudalism should also be a dead-end tech, for the same reasons.
- Dogma is quite confusing for me, I see it as a very non-descriptive word. Could someone explain what it means and provides? Evangelism is definitely a very non-universal tech, it should be dropped or be a dead-end.
- Perhaps printing should come from machinery and paper, instead of paper and education.

Renaissance:
- Biology should not require sanitation, scientific method should be fine by itself as prerequisite.
- Alternatively to having plumbing as a dead end, it could be the prerequisite for sanitation (along with urban planning) - humanities should have nothing to do with sanitation.
- As a note, I'm very happy to see urban planning and heritage as techs here - but I'm not sure if the cultural meaning of heritage (as the tech implies, with Versailles there) and the legal meaning of heritage (as it's going to insurance) are the same thing, as it's implied, or if they merit being different pathways.

Industrial Era:
- Fertilizers should come from chemistry and biology, and could be renamed as "Agrochemicals" if you want.... but even better would be to rename Fertilizers to Agronomy.
- Not really sure why chemistry would be needed to develop electricity - just something to reconsider.
- Refrigeration, as pointed out before, should come from electricity and chemistry (chemistry for the production of the refrigerants themselves) but not from fertilizers.
- The most obvious link between refrigeration and healthcare that I can think of is the refrigeration of pharmaceuticals, but those don't show up in the techtree until the next era. If there isn't another strong reason to link the two, the prerequisite should be removed.
- Medicine should have a second appearance in this era (and the ancient era tech should be renamed traditional medicine, herbalism, or whatever similar) - medicine should have chemistry, biology (and perhaps the humanities?) as prerequisites. Healthcare, which I understand more as the institutions through which health services are provided to people, could still exist as a tech and enable hospitals, of course.
- Chemistry should be a necessary requirement for refining.
- Combustion is confusing - do they mean the internal combustion engine? Then it should come before refining.

Modern Era:
- Globalization seems completely out of place in the tech tree. Globalization is not a science, a technological development, an ideology, a practice, a social contract, nor a field of studies. This is like saying the Renaissance should be a tech by itself. I see the UN flag there, so maybe you want to change to "Global Governance" as a tech, or perhaps you want to emphasize the trade related aspects, then name it "Free Trade" (you can also have both).
- Ecology should not come from tourism (the implication is actually a bit offensive!), but from agronomy and journalism (agronomy since it was the agricultural revolution which triggered most of the environmental damage that encouraged the development of ecology, and agronomy already has biology as a prerequisite - and journalism since ecology, which I imagine includes environmentalism, became a strong political movement only when it gained public attention).
- Tourism and civil rights are great to have there, but they should be dead-ends.

Contemporary:
- Genetics and computers should be the prerequisites for biotechnology, renewable energy and telecommunications shouldn't. Also, the link between biotech and AI is very weak.
- A Biomedicine tech would be a nice addition, coming from robotics and genetics.
- Something related to decentralized production methods (ie, 3D printing, even crowdsourced services) would be also a great tech to complement this last era, and it would come from telecommunications or automation.

 

[Force44]

Perhaps rename Insurance to something that involves stocks or financial markets.
Insurance was already pretty common in the classical (and according to Wikipedia even bronze) age.

 

[Novicenoble]

Some suggestions:

I thought the siege craft came from advanced fortification, not from chivalry and heavy Cavalry. Also it shall not be lead to gunpowder and logistics. logistics must go to somewhere else and chivalry may removed from the tech tree.

Ecology and Genetics can be in the same row of the tech, leaded from pharmaceuticals. Put renewable energy in the incoming row.

Change the location of the Cement and Pneumatic.

 

[Doodlefish]

Some notes:

-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.

On Greek drama, it had a very long development from crude religious ritual to what we think of today, but I wouldn't say they had 'discovered' the tech until Sophocles and Euripides, both of whom wrote after the Persian wars. Also it's true that drama developed out of seasonal religious festivals, but the point is that happened basically only in Greece. That's why I propose to change it to Oral Tradition, which is a lot more universal and makes sense as a prereq for Priesthood and Writing.

About Physics, that does make sense, but with how granular this tech tree is I'd prefer to have a tech to represent the theory of relativity and QM before their applications, which is done in other parts of the tech tree (Alchemy, Biology, Geology) and is closer to how things happened historically. Concepts like the uncertainty principle also led to a lot of new social ideas by non-scientists, and played a part in the intellectual climate of interwar Europe.

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.

Fine, but people have been doing that (with varying success) since sailing and agriculture. The only things I can think of that were new in the Renaissance were barometer studies and climate surveys, which fit better under Physics and Geology, respectively.

About Currency: it's a little more than just coinage, as anyone can just shape some metal and it doesn't mean much. Instead I think this represents the economic or political clout needed to guarantee a currency that becomes accepted over a wide region, which would make trade much easier. Don't call this long-distance trade, though, since that was happening basically as far back as we can look in history (with Egypt, Sumeria, and the Indus Valley forming such a network).

3) In eastern Asia, there's tech unknown to the West previously such as creating porcelain [aka china], lacquerware [aka japanning], then domestication of water buffallo, religious syncretism.. etc.. maybe this can be represented somewhere in the tree. Similarly, techs such as priesthood, alchemy, dogma was unknown in the East.

It's true that Priesthood and Dogma weren't very present in East Asia, but they were important from Europe and West Africa to India and SE Asia, so I think they're pretty good at being universal. On alchemy though, I was under the impression that it had a long and important history in China, from Daoist mystics searching for an immortality drug to (possibly) the invention of gunpowder.

I don't see what people's problem is with the Record Keeping name, but I support the renaming of Astronomy, Medicine, and Mathematics to something more historical or ancient.

 

[BenZL43]

It's true that Priesthood and Dogma weren't very present in East Asia, but they were important from Europe and West Africa to India and SE Asia, so I think they're pretty good at being universal. On alchemy though, I was under the impression that it had a long and important history in China, from Daoist mystics searching for an immortality drug to (possibly) the invention of gunpowder.

1) I admit I was being wrong with priesthood. Previously, I always associate priesthood to Christian priest - turns out Hindu religious leader, Tao elders can also be known as priest. Then it's fit everywhere.

2) Dogma : Buddhism isn't a dogmatic religion.

3) Alchemy - I was under impressions that QSH's attempt to find immortality drug more similarly to herbalism / in-tech Medicine; but I guess I'm wrong again here =)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternatively, how about having several trees (aesthetically I prefer it's vertical, if possible) that will intertwine at some point, getting more and more complex and dependent on other trees. So there's "Tree of Agriculture", "Tree of Religion", "Tree of Maritime", "Tree of Science", "Tree of Health", "Tree of Manufacture".

Some civilization start with some earliest tech in the "tree's branch" unlocked leading to a more complex "twigs", but other civilization needs to meet this civilization first before able to learn it.
e.g: Egypt start with "Chariot" branch opened. Mongol start with "Horseback riding" branch opened. France start with "Chivalric code" twigs unlocked, but remain unusable until the branch unlocked. Therefore:
1) China can't learnt Chariot until they meet Egypt or some number of barbarian chariot killed , whichever comes first (which is a bit historical since there's 500 years delay between Chariot knowledge in East and West.)
2) Horseback riding also can't be learnt until a number of barbarian horseman from Scythia/Steppe killed or meet Mongols.
3) When technology of horse riding make way to Europe (presumably during Roman times), French's "Chivalric Code" twigs will allow training of knights - this can be the start of heavily-armed-and-decorated horses used in Europe but not the Middle Eastern / Central Asia.
4) Maya, Aztec or Inca can not learn any horse-related techs in the branch until they meet the Europeans, which will come later during their doom.
4) Japan will learn the horse riding tech from Han China or Korea, not from random civilization sailing nearby and selling techs. Maybe tech selling should be banned too, sometimes this cause a civilization becoming more advanced than they should be and disrupt balance.

Sounds complicated? Haha. I thought so too.
I don't play HR, but I feel that rather than trying to fit HR's values into DoC... we should instead create new tech trees that's unique to DoC. The community will certainly help.

 

[citis]

I played a little HR. The prereqs are AND and not OR so that changes some things. And it makes more sence.

I think we should keep this characteristic in DoC else the different choices you will have are too many and then many AND prereqs should be added.

Calendar-astronomy: Calendar means you understand the seasons, i.e. the movement of the sun-moon-earth. Astronomy means you understand the movement of stars, so the years too.
Moreover, it could be renamed astrology if we want to add Kepler's astronomy later on.

Hydraulics (Plumbing)->Engineering->Mills->Machinary:
I start to like this branch more and more.
Hydraulics are the various archimedes invantions like buoyancy and water clock, engineering is the transformation of mathematics into something practical like arches,
mills are the early rotational devices and then we have gears.
Although, I completely understand the mills were present in ancient times, their consolidation happened in late classical era, just before the collapse of roman empire.

Theology-Dogma-Evangelism: HR has an interesting civics-like system for religion specialisation. So the many religious techs have a meaning there, the player can specialise the religion as they wants.

Dogma: Dogma is a sentence that describes a core belief of a certain religion.
It represents the fact that religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddism took their final form, with very specific believes, rituals and ethics. This ofcourse had a cost, all three religions broke into branches.

On Greek drama, it had a very long development from crude religious ritual to what we think of today, but I wouldn't say they had 'discovered' the tech until Sophocles and Euripides, both of whom wrote after the Persian wars. Also it's true that drama developed out of seasonal religious festivals, but the point is that happened basically only in Greece. That's why I propose to change it to Oral Tradition, which is a lot more universal and makes sense as a prereq for Priesthood and Writing.

Drama was invented specifically by Thespis, not Sophocles or Euripides.

About Physics, that does make sense, but with how granular this tech tree is I'd prefer to have a tech to represent the theory of relativity and QM before their applications, which is done in other parts of the tech tree (Alchemy, Biology, Geology) and is closer to how things happened historically. Concepts like the uncertainty principle also led to a lot of new social ideas by non-scientists, and played a part in the intellectual climate of interwar Europe.

No, that means you will have void techs as prereqs for techs with effects. There is no reason to do it, Firaxis tried it in the CivII and it was an failure.

On metereology: They just want to find a prereq for physics but astronomy is already taken. well sotuion here is simple. Astronomy is renamed to astrology and metereology is replaced by Astronomy (Kepler's laws). Which is a prereq of physics.

Many tech trees: The problem is that some techs belong to completely different eras. For example plumbing, hydraulics, hydrodynamics belong to the same bracnh but belong in completely different eras.

 

[Leoreth]

Still don't have the time to reply to individual comments, but two general things.

First, I have noticed a tendency to favor removal of medicine related techs and the addition of political/societal techs. I think that is appropriate because HR has somewhat of an abundance in medical techs because of its Doctor specialist and the extra buildings it has to add to fit them in (and associate techs with Great Doctors to discover). Conversely, DoC has Statesmen and Great Statesmen, so besides the fact that societal techs are missing to properly model important changes in history, they are also important to fit those DoC specialists in GP discoveries in.

Second, one argument I have seen a couple of times about techs with name X is that "X has been used since much earlier than what the position of X in the tech tree implies". I don't think that approach is very useful. It's more important to think of a tech to describe some specific developments that took place during that time, and their effects on history. X is chosen as the name of the tech because that is what those developments were about, even though X could also be used to describe things that existed far earlier.

Take Cartography as an example. It's true that map making was not invented in the late middle ages or renaissance, and obviously map making has involved after that. But I think the tech makes a lot of sense in that position under that name. This is the time where (European) map making became a lot more formalized, and accuracy for coast lines and distances became the major concern instead of things like religious/mythological references. It's not an accident that this development coincided with the beginning of the age of European exploration and so I think it's a great tech because it both encapsulates actual changes in practices (rigor in how maps were made) and the impact those things had on what people were doing (going out exploring the seas). Or vice versa. There's even the argument that more accurate map making including borders etc. was essential in the formation of thought that regarded states as territorial entities instead of a bunch of personal relationships of people owning land (something that I'd like to see reflected actually).

Just a comment to keep in mind when approaching techs from this point of view.

 

[Ani Taneen]

3) In eastern Asia, there's tech unknown to the West previously such as creating porcelain [aka china], lacquerware [aka japanning], then domestication of water buffallo, religious syncretism.. etc.. maybe this can be represented somewhere in the tree. Similarly, techs such as priesthood, alchemy, dogma was unknown in the East.

I agree with you, exept with alchemy. Alchemy is a tech that i feel reprsents both the Zhouyi Cantong Qi and The Visions of Zosimos

Perhaps rename Insurance to something that involves stocks or financial markets.
Insurance was already pretty common in the classical (and according to Wikipedia even bronze) age.

Maybe Equity Exchange?

 

[ales_]

I have noticed a tendency to favor removal of medicine related techs and the addition of political/societal techs. I think that is appropriate because HR has somewhat of an abundance in medical techs because of its Doctor specialist and the extra buildings it has to add to fit them in (and associate techs with Great Doctors to discover).

Wouldn't it be easier to add Great Doctors to the mod?

 

[Leoreth]

I don't think there's much space for this, neither as a specialist, GP or tech flavor. That's part of the reason why I wrote this paragraph: even without keeping that angle in mind it's clear from this discussion that techs related to statesmen (politics, society, ideology) are more relevant and numerous than those for doctors. Some medical flavored techs should be removed anyways from the current conclusions of this thread, I was just arguing that they were probably only part of the HR tree for extraneous reasons in the first place.

 

[citis]

Counting the techs even if you ommit the first coloumn there 7*3=21 techs for 6 eras (ancient, classical, medieval, renaiscance, industrial, modern if future era belongs after score victory), So it's a total of 6*21=126 techs.

If the game keeps current turn count (500 turns), then each tech should be researchable in 3-4 turns or 6-8 taking into acount diplomacy. I hope turn count is increases in 612 turns, so each era has a full 105 turns. So each tech can cost a round 5 turns or 10 turns taking into acount diplomacy.