HR Tech Tree Plausibility

[Leoreth]

Okay, the current state is an attempt to improve on the Artisanry/Machinery situation. Essentially, Warrior Code and Feudalism move up one row and Machinery takes the free place. This way:
- Machinery derives from Architecture and Artisanry (I had the intention of linking it to Architecture anyway)
- Machinery now links to Guilds instead of Crop Rotation
- Warrior Code now leads to Siegecraft (makes sense I think)
- possible link of either Warrior Code -> Crop Rotation or Feudalism -> Siegecraft. Might also be left out entirely.
- I think I'll keep indirect links from Machinery to Siegecraft and Printing
- Guilds is probably a good candidate for Feudalism AND (Alchemy OR Machinery)
- removed the Artisanry -> Civil Service link
- Civil Service probably needs another prereq?

I think it's overall better this way.

 

[Leoreth]

Had a minor crisis of faith about Journalism and Civil Society ... kind of realized that Journalism is kind of anachronistic for the Renaissance and that those two terms mean basically the same thing (journalism being the major expression and medium of a functioning civil society), so I just put Journalism in its place in the Industrial age.

I wasn't quite sure what to put in the freed space and was almost ready to rearrange a couple of other techs (it's weird how Horticulture is neither related to Urban Planning nor to Biology). Instead I just put Social Sciences there, which has been suggested earlier and is an important development that was left out earlier. Urban Planning and Civil Liberties work well as a requirement, and Representation is a fitting consequence. I flipped the other link so that Social Sciences now leads to Biology.

 

[Panopticon]

Had a minor crisis of faith about Journalism and Civil Society ... kind of realized that Journalism is kind of anachronistic for the Renaissance and that those two terms mean basically the same thing (journalism being the major expression and medium of a functioning civil society), so I just put Journalism in its place in the Industrial age.

I wasn't quite sure what to put in the freed space and was almost ready to rearrange a couple of other techs (it's weird how Horticulture is neither related to Urban Planning nor to Biology). Instead I just put Social Sciences there, which has been suggested earlier and is an important development that was left out earlier. Urban Planning and Civil Liberties work well as a requirement, and Representation is a fitting consequence. I flipped the other link so that Social Sciences now leads to Biology.

Good stuff.

 

[citis]

Currently there are both the technology guilds and the civic guilds. It feels somewhat awkward. Maybe expell Guilds the tech, the civic can go to artisanry, because guilds appeared in early middle ages, so it makes sence.

What to put in its position? Maybe Add Calculus in the renaiscance era between astronomy and physics. Humanities will go from renaiscance to medieval era.

 

[Leoreth]

Calculus is nice, but it doesn't fit where it needs to go and I cannot think of what it would enable. It's okay to think of Calculus as part of being Physics.

I agree that duplicate names for techs and civics are awkward and I want to move away from that. In the mid term I will more likely just get right of the Guilds civic.

 

[srpt]

this might be more of a modding Q&A thing but does HR change the way the tech tree change displays ie does it use connecting arrows for AND prereqs, unlike vanilla which only displays them for OR prereqs?

 

[Leoreth]

Yes. There are only AND prereqs in HR so this is possible. I'm tending towards allowing OR in some cases, in which case I have to come up with a way to show that.

 

[srpt]

Yes. There are only AND prereqs in HR so this is possible. I'm tending towards allowing OR in some cases, in which case I have to come up with a way to show that.

are colored arrows possible?

 

[Leoreth]

I haven't tried yet, but if they are that's what I'll do.

 

[Xyth]

this might be more of a modding Q&A thing but does HR change the way the tech tree change displays ie does it use connecting arrows for AND prereqs, unlike vanilla which only displays them for OR prereqs?

Yes, I reversed the way AND and OR prerequisites are displayed. AND prerequisites use the arrows, and OR prerequisites use the icons in the top right corner. Techs in HR never have more than one OR prerequisite though, so they effectively become AND prerequisite too. But I can use use them for tidily linking techs from different parts of the tree together.

HR's techtree started out as a part of a never-finished Civ3 mod. Some influence from that carried forward.

 

[Leoreth]

I compiled a complete list of requirements and forward links to make it easier to assess individual techs in there, including indirect connections (link).

There are no dead end techs that lead to nothing. There are some intentional "narrow end" techs that only lead to one other tech. However, for most techs I would prefer them to lead to at least two things. Especially some techs like Astronomy should lead to another thing. Also there are techs left that lead to four other techs, which is a bit much.

Otherwise I think all prereqs at least make some kind of sense. But feedback welcome.

I also added some tentative religion founding techs.

 

[Just an idea]

I don't think robotics makes sense as requirement for Aerodynamics if Aerodynamics is tech that enables Jet Fighters. Supersonic flight was first achieved in 1946 and jet fighters were deployed in large numbers in Korean war 1950-1953 while the first digitally operated robot was installed in 1961. Rocketry would make more sense as requirement for Aerodynamics since it was essential for developement of jet engines. Considering that Aerodynamics should not be in Future Era.

I also don't realy understand connection between Rocketry and Nuclear Power. Why should peaceful use of fission require rockets? Electronics would be more fitting requirement, in my opinion, since power plants need some sort of monitoring devices to control fission.

If Catholicism is founded by discovery of Clergy, Catholicism is founded after Islam. That leads to question, should founding of Catholicism present the founding of the Papacy or the actual Great Schism. Personally I would prefer if Catholicism was founded around the First Council of Nicaea(325) and Catholicism and Orthodoxy would not suffer diplomatic penalty between each other until the Great Schism event around 1054.(Could caused by Christian civ discovering Clergy.)

 

[Leoreth]

I know there are some flaws in the later end of the tech tree, I might revisit them later on but overall I think it works, and it's not that important because most games are decided when they get there.

The religion techs should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, Clergy -> Catholicism could become the new alternate "late" way for Catholicism to be founded but the Schism event would continue to exist as the primary way to found it.

In a similar way, there will be Judaism autofouding and possible requirements linking Buddhism to Hinduism and Taoism to Confucianism.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I also don't realy understand connection between Rocketry and Nuclear Power. Why should peaceful use of fission require rockets? Electronics would be more fitting requirement, in my opinion, since power plants need some sort of monitoring devices to control fission.

Even disregarding peaceful use of fission it doesn't make sense, as the Manhattan Project was completely independent from rocket technology.

 

[citis]

I don't think robotics makes sense as requirement for Aerodynamics if Aerodynamics is tech that enables Jet Fighters. Supersonic flight was first achieved in 1946 and jet fighters were deployed in large numbers in Korean war 1950-1953 while the first digitally operated robot was installed in 1961. Rocketry would make more sense as requirement for Aerodynamics since it was essential for developement of jet engines. Considering that Aerodynamics should not be in Future Era.

I also don't realy understand connection between Rocketry and Nuclear Power. Why should peaceful use of fission require rockets? Electronics would be more fitting requirement, in my opinion, since power plants need some sort of monitoring devices to control fission.

If Catholicism is founded by discovery of Clergy, Catholicism is founded after Islam. That leads to question, should founding of Catholicism present the founding of the Papacy or the actual Great Schism. Personally I would prefer if Catholicism was founded around the First Council of Nicaea(325) and Catholicism and Orthodoxy would not suffer diplomatic penalty between each other until the Great Schism event around 1054.(Could caused by Christian civ discovering Clergy.)

Nuclear power/Reactor should require fission and Combustion, cause in principle nuclear reactor is an internal combustion engine that uses fission instead of flame.

About Clergy/Dogma I prefer the later name, because this way the tech represents the formalisation of religion Dogmas and not the creation of clergies. And let's say that Arabia discovered the tech in 620AD, while Europe discovered it between ~850AD and 1054AD.

 

[Just an idea]

Nuclear power/Reactor should require fission and Combustion, cause in principle nuclear reactor is an internal combustion engine that uses fission instead of flame.

Combustion is already requirement for Explosives which is requirement for Fission, so you can't discover Nuclear Power without Combustion.

 

[Panopticon]

About Clergy/Dogma I prefer the later name, because this way the tech represents the formalisation of religion Dogmas and not the creation of clergies. And let's say that Arabia discovered the tech in 620AD, while Europe discovered it between ~850AD and 1054AD.

Clergy is more general than dogma, which is not so relevant east of Islam... except in the sense that all religions have beliefs, but that's definitely a long time pre-600 AD, maybe even pre-the discovery of Clergy in all cases (Christianity).

 

[Panopticon]

I compiled a complete list of requirements and forward links to make it easier to assess individual techs in there, including indirect connections (link).

There are no dead end techs that lead to nothing. There are some intentional "narrow end" techs that only lead to one other tech. However, for most techs I would prefer them to lead to at least two things. Especially some techs like Astronomy should lead to another thing. Also there are techs left that lead to four other techs, which is a bit much.

Otherwise I think all prereqs at least make some kind of sense. But feedback welcome.

I also added some tentative religion founding techs.

I've been reading about Venice lately so these ideas will arise from that perspective, but I'll be re-reading my book about the English medieval economy in the next few days for another perspective.

Alchemy has 4 children. I think Alchemy leading to Paper and Gunpowder are necessary and sensible. Alchemy to Guilds is not necessary, but ties two parts of the tree together nicely; otherwise Guilds just arise from military-themed ideas. The child which makes least sense to me is Alchemy to Compass as this doesn't rely on mixing materials in any way, but Machinery (the other obvious choice) already has 3 children anyway!

How did people respond to Siegecraft? They banded together for communal protection in cities. So Siegecraft -> Bourgeoisie. If you want to go even further, call it Fortification. Of course, we're still mainly talking about cities, but now the tech refers to the physical expression (common defence) that coexisted with the social phenomenon (urban specialisation). Add a Fortification -> Heritage dependency instead of Cartography -> Heritage. I know I suggested renaming Bourgeoisie as "Charter" a while back basically to refer to town charters, but Fortification might be a better idea.

I think Compass -> Finance is a very important addition. The earliest banks were financing long-distance trade. However, you could also have Crop Rotation -> Finance, as many early financial markets involved speculation in crop prices, like rice brokers. If finance is speculation and insurance about uncertainty, then these reflect two important causes of uncertainty for early societies: weather and the safety of ships. The only problem now is that both Guilds + Compass lead to both Finance + Cartography. While I was inclined to say remove Patronage -> Finance, perhaps Guilds -> Finance is the actual superfluous connection? Or maybe both are unnecessary, and just Crop Rotation + Compass -> Finance? Still, I see the relevance of guilds in particular to banking. That's all for now.

 

[Leoreth]

Alchemy:
It's also my current problem child. After some revisions it's the only tech left leading to four other ones. I also considered flipping the crosslink so that Machinery connects to Compass, but as you noted that just shifts the issue to Machinery and the Alchemy -> Guilds link is also useful. My reasoning for the Compass connection is that Alchemy is generally about early chemistry and metallurgy and that seemed to me the most sensible path to the discovery of magnetism.

Bourgeoisie:
If there's one thing I learned when working on this tech tree it's that at some point you have to cheat a little and make a tech broad enough that if manages to tie different strands in the tree together. I think this is one of the techs, as it represents the growth and independence of cities, urban communities, the rise of a middle class and independent businesses. I'm still looking for a different name and considered Enteprise, but that ignores the urban aspect, so maybe it's just Urbanism after all. In any case, a connection to Siegecraft makes a lot of sense. The thinking behind the Cartography -> Heritage connection is how national identities arose and solidified once borders started being drawn of maps. But Urbanism -> Heritage is also very solid, so the previous idea might also be reflected through Cartography -> Statecraft. This has the advantage that we get a connection from Cartography to Logistics which should be there.

Finance:
I see your point about Compass -> Finance, but I would rather see the connection the other way around: you need financial tools to be able to finance long range sea travel, which is why we have Finance -> Exploration. I'm willing to drop the Patronage prereq though. As for Crop Rotation -> Finance, that is something I could see myself doing. However, that would cut off Guilds -> Urbanism. In itself I would find that tolerable, but it also severs the Guilds -> Firearms connection which should be preserved. Thinking about your post as a whole I was almost tempted to do this anyway, and then make Guilds a Gunpowder prereq. This would fix the Alchemy situation because it's now only a transitive prereq for Gunpowder. The reason why I don't like this is the China/Europe divide. One of the prevalent historical explanation why China didn't field militaries with firearms and didn't start to explore the world even though they were first to discover Gunpowder and Compass was the lack of a distinct middle class and the financial advancements that were made in Europe at the time. This is very well represented in the tech tree at the moment: I consider the second row to be "European techs" in particular, which China would be encouraged to ignore. This way you can get to Gunpowder and Compass but not easily to Firearms and Exploration. So I hesitate to make Guilds a Gunpowder prereq even though it would tie the tree itself together more neatly.

 

[Panopticon]

I don't understand Hydraulics. If it refers to buoyancy and so forth, Astronomy might be a good prerequisite. I don't see why Corporation -> Hydraulics apart from being beside each other in the tech tree, but I suppose I am not as wedded to the clever linear structure. Who looks at the tech tree ingame?
I've come around to really like the concept of Horticulture against myself. It sounds silly at first, but when you think about it, it makes sense. It's currently not an indirect prerequisite for Biology, which might be worth thinking about (as well as the direct Horticulture -> Geology I suggested previously).
I would consider the name Statistics instead of Metrology. I'm well-read, but I never saw the word Metrology in my life before now. We mathematicians think of the golden age of statistics being around 1900, but of course it started around this point in the tech tree, in the era of Bayes and Laplace, or perhaps just afterward in the time of Gauss. Also, I think the prerequisites and consequences make sense.
Flying now, more later.