Ideas for a tech tree, and request for help

[Steph]

After the redesigning of the unit stats for my mod, I started today to work on the tech tree.

For the first era, I have 8 subperiods:
- Early bronze age
- Late bronze age
- Early Iron age
- Late Iron age
- Barbarian invasions
- Early medieval
- High medieval
- Late medieval.

Strangely, it's close to what Sandris is doing in his packs

To implement these periods, I have "chock point" tech, such as "Late bronze age", and you need to research most of the techs from the early bronze age before you can reserach it, and late bronze age is a prerequesite to all the techs of the corresponding period.

This way, you HAVE to discover some techs before you can move forward. It may be a bit to deterministic, but it helps with the flaw of the game and balance.

At first, I contemplated using civ specific tech tree, to have named period. Like for China "Zhou dinasty", "Han dinasty"... But I can't find a good way to make it work.

If I use "Han dinasty" as chock point, then all the following techs would require it, and it won't work....

So I decided to keep a Eurocentric naming of the period. Not perfect, but I don't see how to make it work. I take ideas!

Now, I need to find a way to have nice upgrade paths for all of Sandris units...

I could try to find a nice tech for each of them, but first it would too require many techs. If we count swordsman + spearman + archer + horseman + horse archer, and then later crossbow, knights, for 8 periods, that's roughly 40 techs just for new units :


Beside, I would find it strange that for China for instance, the spearman is Han dynasty, and the Swordsman remains Shang!

So, my idea is to have the "subperiods" tech upgrade ALL the units at once.

Some military techs would still be useful to find NEW units.

Example with Germany :
- In the first period, they start with

The Tribal wars tech unlock the spearman line, and they can make this

The Warrior cast tech gives this

And ther Bow tech givs this

Then, when they have discovered enough techs (including non military such as Bronze working), they can research the Late Bronze Age period tech.
When they get it, they immediately get updates to all their units, with

During this period, they can research Horseback riding and Range warfare to unlock new types of unit.

At the end of the era, they will be able to discover Early Iron Age. And all their old bronze age units are immediately upgradable to new units.

Some techs later, they'll reach the Late iron age.

Again some techs, and they'll get to the Dark Ages...

 

[Steph]

Here, a side note. When changing period, the whole current military units are upgradable at once. And sometimes, it can lead to units which are not necessarily better. For instance the Roman units of the Dark Ages may be slightly weaker than the Imperial Legions. You can still keep the existing Legion, but you'll have to be careful as you will not be able to replace them easily should they disappear. I think it can lead to interesting gameplay.

Anyway, our German friends starts the Dark ages with Goth units.

In that case, the Horse Javelin is the only cavalry they would have. During the Dark ages, one of the tech that can be discovered is Heavy Cavalry, giving a new unit line.

.

And later, the German can move to Late Dark Ages. In the case of Germany, this does not really give an updates, but for the sake of variery, they would give bonus units in the form of the Saxons.

But for other civs, the upgrade path may be slightly different. For instance, France would not get a bonus heavy cavalry immediately when researching Heavy Cavalry as the Frankish units from Sandris do not include one, but they would get it when reaching Late Dark Ages in the form of Carolingian cavalry.

In some cases, some civs could have a bonus tech. For instance, Germany, Britain and Scandinavia could get a Heavy Axeman.

, that would of course not be a requirement for the next period.

Well, let's continue the history of the Germans...

Still a few techs later, they discover High Medieval

During this period, they can open new unit lines by discovering Chivalry and Invention.

And of course, the last period, Late Medieval, upgrades the whole German army.

 

[Steph]

I can stress that the techs may not immediately give a benefit, comparing to the standard game, except when they open a new line.
Getting iron working will not immediately give a swordsman, as you already have a bronze swordsman. Instead, it will give some other benefit, such as revealing iron.
And it's only later, when your civilization has advanced as a whole, and you are intering a new age, that you will get the new units. Consider you needed sometimes to master iron working, to the point where the use of iron weapon can be spread to your whole civilization.

I believe this approach can be interesting, as it keep the unit animation consistent with each other, and removes the need to imagine complicated tech trees to give all the units, and so it helps keeping a more balanced tech tree, as you don't have to put too many military techs!!! Beside, if you invent iron weapons, you would not give it only to swordsmen, and keep spearmen with bronze weapons!

We could think it will create bigger "gaps" where your whole army is upgraded at once, but I also plan to have less difference between two periods. So late iron age army will be stronger than early iron age, but not to much.

I plan to use this principle for all the human units, so from the ancient time to WWI.

After that, for mechanical units (tanks, ships, aicrafts), it may be different, with individual upgrades (ie you'll have to research new aviation techs to get jet fighter).

So...

After this long introduction... What do you think of this idea?

And second, I need help to design the tech tree.

I have a first draft, based on my old mod, but I want to redo it.

To start with, I'm focusing on the first era only, so I need a tech tree where the first 8 subperiods can appear.

I think we should have 7-8 techs for each period, so that's roughly 50 to 60 techs in the first era.

The next eras will have less subperiod, but probably more techs for each.

As we don't have to focus so much on military techs, it means the techs have to give buildings, resources, wonders, etc rather than units

 

[Virote_Considon]

Looks pretty good. I once had a mod with the "choke point" techs separating "eras-within-eras", too.

I like the idea of the armies all upgrading at once, giving some kind of "uniform" effect. I'm sure it will make your mod very unique!

 

[Steph]

And it has the big advantage of making the tech tree relatively simple, even when trying to incorporate all of Sandris units, and it means I could effectively... finish it

 

[Babylon746]

This is very well thought-out!
I, for one, strongly dislike the term "Dark Ages", but I guess I'm fighting windmills on that...

Apart from that, I'll be glad to help with the tech tree. Let me have some time to think.
But in the start (1st sub-period), go for basic techs like weaving (unlocking silk?). Pottery, agriculture and such was already known in the bronze age, so they shouldn't be included.

 

[Fanatism]

50 to 60 techs in 1 ERA!!!??
No joking... Can you Imagine how to fit 60 techs in one page! (Screen)...
Not yet mention the line to link those techs. The more advance of the tech the harder to make the links.

It is best to make techs that give buildings and units in the same time

Like Tribal wars: Unlock Barrack and Spearman.

Btw, What kind of mods you're going to make?

Just some ideas from bronze to medieval hope will help:

Spoiler :

PS: Thanks for CEC editor, It really helpful.

 

[Steph]

Here are roughly the dates for the subperiods.

- Early Bronze / Late Bronze = 2000 BC - 800 BC
- Early Iron / Late Iron = 800 BC - 300 AD
- Barbarian invasions / Early medieval = 300 AD - 900 AD
- High medieval = 900 AD - 1200 AD
- Late medieval = 1200 AD - 1450 AD

I know that some techs such as pottery, agriculture, etc were already known, but I plan to include them anyway, just for gameplay reason. People are relatively used to it, and it will be useful to give basic buildings such as granary and reveal some resources.

But they will of course be the very first techs.

I'll try to post the first draft this evening.

@Fanatism: The first version of my mod already had more than 50 techs per era, but I used a lot of military techs. With the new approach, it makes things easier, as military techs are not longer so important.

And as most units will be given by the change of period, there will be little cases where a tech gives a building and a unit.

However, it is likely that a new period may make building obsolete.

 

[Fanatism]

I agreed. Its a good idea for create a tech tree that is not too war-oriented.
Tech such as Pottery, agriculture, etc is basic so that player would easily adept to your mod's game play.

 

[Steph]

In the OP, I have added an attachment. It's a zip file, with a word document inside showing the first draft of the tech tree for the first era.

I think the first 4 subperiods (bronze age and iron age) are more than covered.
- 14 techs for Early bronze age
- 16 techs for Late Bronze age
- 15 techs for Early Iron Age
- 13 techs for Late Iron age.

However, the dark ages and medieval times are not covered well enough.

Any ideas about techs I could add?

 

[El Justo]

that's an awful lot of techs imho...i mean, you've calculated the base unit of time against research time? i have mid-20 something in my latest project and thought that was alot or too much. but 60? good luck

as for filling out the tech tree, i always take the top-down approach in that i fill the tech tree w/ buildings, resources, units, and other abilities. iow, the tech tree fills itself out rather than force feeding techs in there just to fill out the roster.

 

[Steph]

With my idea, as the units are mostly given my "period" techs, if I use your method I would have only 8 techs in my tech tree, one for each period ...

So I need to flesh it out a bit.

But so far it may a bit to mutch...

Spoiler :

 

[El Justo]

you're trying to force feed them and that is the kiss of death - trust me

don't put a "number" on them. instead, plug them in as needed (ie resources, abilities, units, etc). believe me, you will fill in the tech tree if you find things for the techs rather than find techs for the things.

 

[Steph]

Not really, what I'm trying to do is find enough techs for each period so you actually have to do some research before you can move to the next period. I try to give some use to the techs, as much as possible, but I can't just have one big tech, can I?

BTW, see screenshot above. Warning, it's big!

 

[Babylon746]

I can understand that you want to have the "basic" techs (agriculture, domestication...), but they were known already in the early Bronze Age. So was bronze working. In your tech tree, it would come late in this sub-era.
How about renaming the first sub-era to Neolithic Age? Then, you can have all the "basics" while it is still historically correct.

And the religion in the Bronze Age (at least in Scandinavia) was essentially a sun cult (the Danish sun wagon, the Nebra sun disk). Maybe you can put that in there somewhere?

 

[El Justo]

"yes" really...you posted it right there: "trying to find enough techs". you will find plenty, believe me. i used to labor over this much like you're doing here. and i finally came to the realization that the meat and potatoes of the scenario (ie units, buildings, resources, civ abilities, worker jobs etc etc) make the tech tree, not the other way around. now, there is no set number of techs when taking this approach; however, in your case, it seems that there are plenty of basic functions able to be unlocked (e.g., build roads).

so i would imagine that you'd have plenty to choose from in order to fill out a tree. i'd even go as far as to say that you could likely find 40 or 50 of them per era (and then break them down into your sub-eras).

i guess if i were to sum it up, i'd say that you are taking the hard route in drafting a tech tree. and trust me on this - i've drafted many-a-tree and i used to absolutely loathe it. but now w/ this method, it's almost ready-made. one just needs to sort out the sequence and specifics of what is to be unlocked...

 

[Steph]

I don't think it's sufficient. I want something that is a bit balanced between religion, government, agriculture/industry, science, military...

Let say there are 5 domains, and we use 3 for each period, it means 15 techs/periods.

If I don't have at least these techs, it means the periods would have only 4/5 techs each? It would look quite strange I think.

@Babylon746: The scenario starts at the very end of the Neolithic age. The first basic techs are here to give the first units/resources. Beside, knowing a tech is not enough, it also needs to become "widespread".
So I consider that's why you master the techs in the first era that you advance to the Late Bronze Age.

 

[El Justo]

you're not understanding what i'm posting or i have not been clear enough please try and pay attention

the 5 sub-techs has nothing to do w/ what i'm suggesting. that is all well and good and i have a similar arrangement. the point that is not getting across is that you should assemble the fruits of those techs (ie religious entities whether they are units, buildings etc, govt types & abilities, agro & ind buildings and/or wroker jobs etc, science enhancers, and units) and go from there. designing a tech tree w/out such things is analogous to swimming upstream and against the current...

and furthermore, you seem to be stuck on a sum of techs...trust me - assemble your "fruit" and i 110% guarantee you will be able to plug your system into place.

 

[Steph]

And here is a link to the webpage where I have listed all the technologies for my mod, with their icons. Don't look after "Late middle ages", this part is not up to date.

http://stephane.f.david.free.fr/CivMod/technologies.htm

If you think some of the techs are not appropriate and want to suggest something else, you are welcome.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

If you have so many techs, are you going to make them really cheap?