HR Tech Tree Plausibility

[Leoreth]

Office:
Office is too similar as idea to civil service. Maybe rename civil service to office and keep Politics?

I'm somewhat worried about that too. But then I'd prefer Politics -> Civil Service.

 

[Panopticon]

I agree that the theme of this HR tech tree is techs named after very specific things, and being succinct is in keeping with the theme.

I think Judiciary -> Guilds could be an indirect dependency. I also think that if Leather Working now leads to nothing, consideration should be given to renaming it Textiles or even (less generally) Weaving and making Textiles -> Seafaring. It depends on what units you want to put where.

Some additional commentary on the current WIP tech tree:
- Generalship is an attempt to connect military developments to social changes, i.e. nobility growing out of a military class. Could use a better name but I can't come up with one. Contract or Law as an indirect prereq.

I feel Strategy or Tactics could also work as a summary of the reasons why Generalship is needed. As a warlord, you used to provide a small group of dudes with your own personal charismatic leadership, but once you have bigger populations and detailed plans, you need to delegate generalship to other people.

- Office (political office of course), not sure if it's actually a better name than politics.
- Scholarship: alternate name idea: Academia

Politics and Scholarship sound like the better options. As mentioned earlier, I feel an even better option would be to move Contract and Law forward space each into the gaps left by Law and Politics respectively, so Currency + Contract -> Law, Law + Scholarship -> Judiciary, etc. Also, Writing -> Contract which while not essential seems sound! But I don't feel this has a satisfactory conclusion when you seek a tech for the gap between Numbers/Oratory and Contract.

I never would have thought of as Literature as a late medieval tech, but it makes a lot of sense and fills that spot quite nicely.

Yeah, you know exactly what I mean, I think. The stuff around the time of Genji, Rumi, Morte d'Arthur, Chaucer. When people realised, hey some of these religious texts have a cool dramatic or emotional quality, let's write similar stories but in the language our people use nowadays because it's the 13th century and we don't speak classical languages any more.

 

[Leoreth]

I agree that the theme of this HR tech tree is techs named after very specific things, and being succinct is in keeping with the theme.

That's exactly it, but at the same time those succinct names manage to suggest broader concepts or developments that are applicable in several seeminly separate fields. I've never been able to put that into words when I first defended it in the initial thread about it but yes.

I think Judiciary -> Guilds could be an indirect dependency.

Something to keep in mind. I don't want to associate three requirements with too many techs because then the tree becomes really straight-jacketing, but it could come into play as an OR prereq.

I also think that if Leather Working now leads to nothing, consideration should be given to renaming it Textiles or even (less generally) Weaving and making Textiles -> Seafaring. It depends on what units you want to put where.

Right, this is a case where despite the OP we can't completely ignore what to put where (this also might retroactively tank some other results of this thread but I'll worry about that later). In this case, I need to put Archers somewhere, as well as Camps now that Hunting is gone, and this is the natural candidate. Leather Working still indirectly links Riding though.

I feel Strategy or Tactics could also work as a summary of the reasons why Generalship is needed. As a warlord, you used to provide a small group of dudes with your own personal charismatic leadership, but once you have bigger populations and detailed plans, you need to delegate generalship to other people.

Yes, I arrived at that point trying to work in the earlier suggestion to include Tactics/Strategy (did you suggest that? Sorry it's hard to keep track). But I realized that those concepts themselves were hard to connect to anything. I thought mostly about the Roman Empire, but also the general tendency of armies to become more professionalized and led in an organized way. I also had the goal to move Nobility up so that it could connect to Chivalry and Feudalism, so I decided to link those together by playing up the military leadership and how medieval nobility evolved from that (or at least took up the role). It somewhat disrupts the technological focused top row but I almost consider it a good thing to mix up chains that are a bit too obvious and clean looking.

Politics and Scholarship sound like the better options.

I'm starting to come around on that too.

As mentioned earlier, I feel an even better option would be to move Contract and Law forward space each into the gaps left by Law and Politics respectively, so Currency + Contract -> Law, Law + Scholarship -> Judiciary, etc. Also, Writing -> Contract which while not essential seems sound! But I don't feel this has a satisfactory conclusion when you seek a tech for the gap between Numbers/Oratory and Contract.

The Writing -> Contract argument is really compelling, haven't thought of that before. The gap could just be Employment again, it's not that bad of a theme for a tech. I'll think it over.

Yeah, you know exactly what I mean, I think. The stuff around the time of Genji, Rumi, Morte d'Arthur, Chaucer. When people realised, hey some of these religious texts have a cool dramatic or emotional quality, let's write similar stories but in the language our people use nowadays because it's the 13th century and we don't speak classical languages any more.

Exactly. My first association was Dante Alighieri actually. I wanted something cultural that was dependent on religious things and led to more political things and this is exactly it. We both have literature as art but also literature as political work in here, say Thomas More or Machiavelli.

(Of course the tech needs Printing or at least Paper as an indirect requirement.)

 

[citis]

I think social concept and technological conepts of medieval militarisation should be deplexed.
Specifically feudalism/vassalage/land tenure and warrior code/honour/chivalry should be in the low region to be complexed with politics ethics and religious techs. And not in the high ones that are technological.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't think that's convincing, especially in the medieval era warfare had an overwhelming social implication, more so than in later eras where the military became increasingly compartmentalized as its own entity. I see why you want to make a religious connection, but not why you would want to emphasize Politics and Ethics over Nobility.

A religion/military connection in some way is reasonable though, maybe Clergy should continue to depend on Warrior Code like in the original tree.

 

[Hightower]

Perhaps we could use "Clericalism" or "Church Hierarchy" (or "Religious Hierarchy") instead of "Clergy."

Alternately, if we want to stick closer to the original 'Dogma', we could go with "Systematic Theology" or "Religious Philosophy."

Systemics was the word I was looking for! Too bad it has a more scientific, less religious connotation these days.

 

[citis]

I don't think that's convincing, especially in the medieval era warfare had an overwhelming social implication, more so than in later eras where the military became increasingly compartmentalized as its own entity. I see why you want to make a religious connection, but not why you would want to emphasize Politics and Ethics over Nobility.

A religion/military connection in some way is reasonable though, maybe Clergy should continue to depend on Warrior Code like in the original tree.

Contrary, every social concept should come from nobility. So Feudalism is Nobility+Politics, Warrior Code/Honour/Chivalry is Nobility+Steel, Guilds is Nobility+Artisanship.

 

[Leoreth]

All three techs you mention require Nobility.

 

[citis]

Literature belong in classical era. How about music in its place?

 

[Leoreth]

Literature belong in classical era. How about music in its place?

Do you read my posts.

 

[citis]

Do you read my posts.

Yes, we agree that Literature being in medieval era is a little problematic. Anyway fairwell.

Is Riding a dead end? You can make it requirement of generalship, although I still don't like this tech much.

EDIT:
Rename Bourgoiesie to Urbanism or Urbanisation? It shounds better and corelates more with urban planning.

 

[Leoreth]

Yes, we agree that Literature being in medieval era is a little problematic.

We don't agree, so the answer is apparently no.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Wait, so all the stuff that was written by Homer or Virgil or Suetonius or Caesar doesn't count as Literature?

 

[Leoreth]

Remember this?

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.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

So you are implying Dante is more important to history than Homer?

 

[Panopticon]

Greco-Roman-centrism. The vast majority of interesting civs did not have much in the way of literature in the age of Homer. A lot more interesting civs started to do so in the early 2nd millennium. And there was metallurgy before Metallurgy, constitutions before Constitution, tourism before Tourism, hydraulics before Hydraulics, clergy before Clergy, theology before Theology.

tl;dr propose something better

 

[Ani Taneen]

So you are implying Dante is more important to history than Homer?

No, the implication is that in the middle ages modern languages (therefore modern state identity) is reflected by literature that covered important topics in that language's dialect.

Personnaly, I also don't like it being called "Literature". I think of this tech being called "Comedic Literature" Given that Dante's work was called "Comedy" because poems in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy"). Low poems were written in everyday language, whereas High poems treated more serious matters and were written in an elevated style. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of humanity, in the low and "vulgar" Italian language and not the Latin one might expect for such a serious topic.

And Leoreth's thinking is along this line:

My first association was Dante Alighieri actually. I wanted something cultural that was dependent on religious things and led to more political things and this is exactly it. We both have literature as art but also literature as political work in here, say Thomas More or Machiavelli.

Similarly, Chauser's and Cervante's work were actually both Comedy in the sense of being ment to entertain, but also Commedia in the sense that they spoke about the social structures and political positions of their societies. Specifically they were satires of the nobility, pesantry, and celergy.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Greco-Roman-centrism. The vast majority of interesting civs did not have much in the way of literature in the age of Homer. A lot more interesting civs started to do so in the early 2nd millennium. And there was metallurgy before Metallurgy, constitutions before Constitution, tourism before Tourism, hydraulics before Hydraulics, clergy before Clergy, theology before Theology.

tl;dr propose something better

Eurocentrism. What about India and China?

 

[Panopticon]

Clever of you to leave out Persia and Japan there...

 

[Ani Taneen]

Eurocentrism. What about India and China?

Chinese literature of the Qing dynasty remained mostly unaffected by European influence. However, the true vernacular novel was developed in China during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). Fictional novels published during the Ming period include the Water Margin and the Journey to the West, which represent two of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.

In India, classical Sanskrit literature went into decline in the High Middle Ages, to the benefit of Middle Indic vernaculars such as Old Hindi, notably in use for Late Medieval Bhakti poetry. Also, the Mughal era sees the development of various literary dialects such as Dakkhini or Urdu, the latter showing heavy Persian influence.

Clever of you to leave out Persia and Japan there...

The Early Modern period in Persia corresponds to the rule of the Safavid dynasty. After the 15th century, the Indian style of Persian poetry (sometimes also called Isfahani or Safavi styles) took over. This style has its roots in the Timurid era and produced the likes of Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, and Bhai Nand Lal Goya

In Japan, the "Early Modern period" coresponds to the Edo period. During that time literature flourished with the talented examples of the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1724) and the poet, essayist, and travel writer Matsuo Bashō (1644–94). Don't forget that this period also saw the rise of a new kind of noble, a literate warrior who lived according to bushido