HR Tech Tree Plausibility

[Soviet elf]

cause in principle nuclear reactor is an internal combustion engine that uses fission instead of flame.

Wrong. In ICE products of combustion (hot exhaust gas) move engine. Nuclear power plants use steam turbines (like traditional coal power plants and steam ships before diesel ones): fission heats water, steam generates electricity. ICE: fire -> mechanical energy. Steam: fire/fission -> steam -> mechanical energy.

 

[Leoreth]

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.

To me, Hydraulics is about using water to direct force. It enables Drydocks and Levees. It's a useful connection toward Thermodynamics that is historically accurate. I agree that the Corporation connection is weak though.

Yeah, I preferred Horticulture -> Hydraulics -> Biology to Horticulture -> Geology here.

I also only stumbled upon Metrology by wikiwalking and might still revert it to Measurement. It's one of those wide concept techs, encompassing both standardization in measurements as well as the tools for it (in fact I also considered Instruments as its name). Statistics seems too narrow in scope to me.

Have a good flight.

 

[Soviet elf]

By the way, levees are ancient invention. Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Indus Valley Civilization had levees. Invention of levees in late Renaissance/early Industrial era is not historically correct.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

By the way, levees are ancient invention. Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Indus Valley Civilization had levees. Invention of levees in late Renaissance/early Industrial era is not historically correct.

But wouldn't it be a bit overpowered to have so much production so early? Perhaps the Levee should indeed be moved to some ancient tech, but instead of providing +1 hammer per river tile it maybe should give just a flat production boost or modifier?

 

[Leoreth]

Serious large scale channel construction and river engineering started with the early Industrial era, which this building represents in my opinion, considering the production bonus.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Serious large scale channel construction and river engineering started with the early Industrial era, which this building represents in my opinion, considering the production bonus.

But perhaps it would still make sense to have an additional building to represent ancient hydraulics technology? Riverside cities should be more productive than non river cities, and before the Watermill that isn't really the case.

 

[Soviet elf]

But wouldn't it be a bit overpowered to have so much production so early?

Yes, of course. I would rather remove levees completely (and hydraulics tech), remove power bonus from hydro plants (because ability to power China/India/Britain/France/Egypt with hydro power alone is unrealistic) and give them +1/river tile instead.

Serious large scale channel construction and river engineering started with the early Industrial era, which this building represents in my opinion, considering the production bonus.

I know, in Britain before railroads small canals were constructed for freight transport, but railroads made them obsolete. Suez Canal and Panama Canal were very important for trade, but in the game they are represented by forts/cities, definitely not by levees, and hydraulics doesn't help in their construction.
For me large bonus for rivers in early Industrial era looks unjustified.

 

[Leoreth]

But perhaps it would still make sense to have an additional building to represent ancient hydraulics technology? Riverside cities should be more productive than non river cities, and before the watermill that isn't really the case.

There's already enough advantages for being at a river.

 

[Panopticon]

How about Macroeconomics -> Infrastructure? I don't really know what the latter is meant to be. At that point, I am about done (until a next pass!).

 

[Leoreth]

That works! I think the tech is about civilian automobiles plus the infrastructure built around that, like highways and public transit.

 

[Panopticon]

Tanning + Sanitation -> Jersey Shore

 

[Panopticon]

Just to alert Leoreth that the Connections sheet has a few small inconsistencies. I'll mention the tech where the link is missing, regardless of whether the connection should be present or absent:

Spoiler :

Tanning -> Seafaring is absent from Tanning.
Gunpowder -> Scientific Method is absent from Gunpowder.
Bloomery -> Engineering is absent from Engineering.
Engineering -> Sanitation is absent from Sanitation.
Nobility -> Civil Service is absent from Civil Service.
Robotics -> Aerodynamics is absent from Robotics.
Computers -> Spaceflight is absent from Computers.

I found these because I was making a matrix of dependencies. A large power of a one-zero matrix is a good way to identify the total number of dependencies quickly. For instance, given some assumptions about the aforementioned links, we can say Heritage has 55 prerequisite and 59 consequent technologies. Tanning has 0 prerequisites and 120 consequents.

When looking at number of total prerequisites, the columns are most variable in the Early Medieval era: Warrior Code has 19 total prereqs while Civil Service has 34. I interpret this to mean that Warrior Code is a lot more bee-line-able than Civil Service, which is very dependent on many earlier techs. In particular, it turns out that you don't need Worship or Sailing to research Warrior Code! This begins with Bloomery (which has 6 total prerequisites) and runs through the top 2 lines until Feudalism and Siegecraft, which have prereqs from the social-political part of the tree through Aesthetics -> Architecture.

 

[Leoreth]

Tanning + Sanitation -> Jersey Shore

I have to admit, I laughed

Just to alert Leoreth that the Connections sheet has a few small inconsistencies. I'll mention the tech where the link is missing, regardless of whether the connection should be present or absent:

Spoiler :

Tanning -> Seafaring is absent from Tanning.
Gunpowder -> Scientific Method is absent from Gunpowder.
Bloomery -> Engineering is absent from Engineering.
Engineering -> Sanitation is absent from Sanitation.
Nobility -> Civil Service is absent from Civil Service.
Robotics -> Aerodynamics is absent from Robotics.
Computers -> Spaceflight is absent from Computers.

Thanks, corrected the sheet. Nobility -> Civil Service and Engineering -> Sanitation were the only wrong entries, the other just had their counterparts missing. The latter is actually very interesting because of your second point.

I found these because I was making a matrix of dependencies. A large power of a one-zero matrix is a good way to identify the total number of dependencies quickly. For instance, given some assumptions about the aforementioned links, we can say Heritage has 55 prerequisite and 59 consequent technologies. Tanning has 0 prerequisites and 120 consequents.

When looking at number of total prerequisites, the columns are most variable in the Early Medieval era: Warrior Code has 19 total prereqs while Civil Service has 34. I interpret this to mean that Warrior Code is a lot more bee-line-able than Civil Service, which is very dependent on many earlier techs. In particular, it turns out that you don't need Worship or Sailing to research Warrior Code! This begins with Bloomery (which has 6 total prerequisites) and runs through the top 2 lines until Feudalism and Siegecraft, which have prereqs from the social-political part of the tree through Aesthetics -> Architecture.

Huh, interesting. Am I right that you just have to add up the rows/columns in the matrix to get the number of prereqs/enabled techs? I was going to do the same test by getting the current version of the tech tree into the game and using the tech advisor honestly

And your interpretation is correct. Good that you have spotted this weakness already, that's definitely too much bee-line-ability for a tech. I think it's connected to the fact that Engineering has only one child tech as you discovered above ... adding Engineering -> Steel could take care of both problem, because then Steel's prereqs go back to Sailing and Worship via Calendar. Maybe Bloomery also needs an indirect prereq that from a lower row than Masonry.

 

[Panopticon]

Huh, interesting. Am I right that you just have to add up the rows/columns in the matrix to get the number of prereqs/enabled techs? I was going to do the same test by getting the current version of the tech tree into the game and using the tech advisor honestly

You take a large power of the matrix; the number of rows will be enough by definition; ensure its diagonal is 1. Then get the sum of rows/columns for the matrix (ANS >= 1). Make the computer do it! Not sure how to solve the Bloomery/Generalship beeline right now.

 

[citis]

I propose to remove horticulture and unify urbanism and urban planning so that there is room for replacable parts and clockmaking.
Then you can have these depedencies:

Gunpowder+replacable parts=flintlock
Paper+replacable parts=printing press
Hydrodynamics+clockmaking=Machine tools

However, I don't know how easy it is, because urbanism and urban planning aren't in near tiles and horticulture is away from the machinary.

 

[Leoreth]

Okay so I'm quite far at getting the current design of the tech tree into the game. You can view the progress by checking out the hrtechs branch on git. Of course the game itself will not work at this point because none of the Python or DLL code has been done yet, but you could start a game and look at the tree.

I also need icons for some of the new techs:
- Ceremony (might find something in HR)
- Generalship (I'm thinking about a Roman or maybe Chinese general?)
- Sanitation (might find something in HR)
- Horticulture (I have something in mind already)
- Measurement (I think a good picture of a period mechanical clock would suit this tech, but I haven't found a good one yet)
- Social Sciences (??? this tech is very abstract by nature so I don't know a good way to represent it)

If you have ideas or images for those let me know.

 

[Temujin8k]

I also need icons for some of the new techs:
- Ceremony (might find something in HR)
- Generalship (I'm thinking about a Roman or maybe Chinese general?)
- Sanitation (might find something in HR)
- Horticulture (I have something in mind already)
- Measurement (I think a good picture of a period mechanical clock would suit this tech, but I haven't found a good one yet)
- Social Sciences (??? this tech is very abstract by nature so I don't know a good way to represent it)

If you have ideas or images for those let me know.

We can look for appropriate icons first in the other RFC modmods (SoI, RFCEurope, RFCA). Alternatively we could use icons from techs that were removed or renamed. I also have ideas in mind about replacing some of the other icons in the tech tree.

 

[Leoreth]

Sure, go ahead. I've checked SoI already and used some of its buttons.

 

[merijn_v1]

Some buttons I found in other mods.

Could you please add a link to the spreadsheet in the OP? That makes it a lot easier to find.

Spoiler :

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

There's already enough advantages for being at a river.

No? Health is meh, trade connection is situational, the only seizable perk of rivers (before the Industrial era, which doesn't do squat for representing the importance of rivers for ancient civilizations) is the extra commerce, and paradoxically that makes settling directly on river tiles even worse as you would gain more yield by settling on a dry tile and working the extra commerce tile instead. If this were still the year 2015 I would suggest buffing watermills, but what is really needed is a building that comes a bit earlier to affect Egypt and Babylon. It can only be constructed in cities next to a river, giving a little production and/or an extra trade route, and might as well obsolete at Steam Power or whatever early industrial tech enables levees.

Edit: Also do something about that awful Chinese starting losition in 3.000BC being surrounded by rivertiles wkthout being a river tile itself.