Lateralis techs mod **warning-large screenshot**

[lateralis]

ok mac folks, I'm working on a mod (finally now that I got the editor working in a way that I like ) And I'm gonna ask for input from my mac bretheren on it. Basically, I'm reworking the tech tree to handle religion in a better way, I've always been fed up with the way that civ deals with religion in terms of when religious advances are discovered, how they relate to government, and happiness. i've reworked the ancient age and heres a screen shot:

here's the changes that may or may not be apparent:

1. There are three religious paths you can take directly after cerimonial burial.
a) monotheism
b) polytheism
c) eastern mysticism

all religious techs will be OPTIONAL but many will be required to get other "attractive" optional techs (such as governments)

MONOTHEISM
you will notice that montheism has been moved back into the ancient age from the midddle ages. I did this because judaism is a montheistic religion and is currently in it's 6th millenium, (and probably the oldest religion still actively practiced by many) I felt that putting monotheism in the middle ages was a little wrong.

Monotheism is now a requirement for monarchy in the tradition of "church of england" style monarachic goverments. This will allow a Great Wonder called "The 10 Commandments" which I'm thinking will add the effects of a courthouse in every city on the continent.

POLYTHEISM
Polytheism is now a requirement for Republic in the tradition of "greek and roman" style republican governments. Philosophy has been moved to the middle ages and will be a requirement for education now that all religious techs will be optional. This will allow the "Oracle" Great Wonder which will be unchanged from it's previous incarnation.

Eastern Myticism
This has been the hardest to quantify. it will be the cheapest of the three to encourage it's research (since there is no government attached to it as yet) This will allow the Great Wonder "The Wisdom of Confucious" which will add 2 happy faces to every city in the empire. (hey when people hear wisdom, they get happy, what can I say?)

Now here's the rub:
These wonders will be negated by researching something from another religion. IE, the 10 commandments are rendered obsolete by researching one of the others (as it stands, only one tech can render a wonder obsolete, still working on a way to make this make sense) The idea being that you could not research all three and steal all the wonders and actualy use them. any input anyone has on this would be much appreciated.

Governments
Monarchy
as mentioned, the techs for monarchy have been switched. it now requires monotheism and horseback riding. why? because that way Monarchy requires 6 total techs to be researched to get that government, the same as republic. This was neccesitated by the splitting of the religion branch into seperate branches. Not sure yet what to do about the hanging gardens, as it stands the monarchy path would allow lots of great wonders, looking into how to work with this.

Republic
Republic now requires code of laws and polytheism instead of philosophy (which has been moved forward an age - more on this above) To help balance the oracle with the other ancient religious wonders, It will not become obsolete unless you shift from your chosen path of religious worship.

where will it all go in the next age?

my thoughts for the middle ages are thus:
Monotheism will be continued by Theology
Polytheism will be continued by Pagan/Wiccan ritual
Eastern Mysticism will be continued by Meditation Principles

Theology would still bring the sistine chapel but also the ability to build cathedrals (as monotheism has been moved back)

Pagan ritual might bring the ability to build 2 of the same small wonder (thanks for the idea GOTM17) called the "Sacrificial Altar" which might bring extra food or production to the city it's built in. (not sure how to do this) or maybe just a simple reduce corruption or happiness addition.

Meditation principles would bring a new building (or set of small wonders) possibly called the "Meditation temple" which might add 4 or 5 happy faces in a city to balance it with a possible civ that has cathedrals and/or sistine/oracle/10 commandments/confucious.

And that's as far as I've thought it out. at some point I would like to add something like "atheism" and possibly an "enlightenment" (tech or wonder) "renaissance" (probably small wonder) and possibly more governments like fascism (sp?) paraimentary monarchy, totalitarian yadda yadda yadda.

So anyhow, If you all have any ideas, Please, by all means, let me know. I'm sure some of you out there have opinions about these ideas I've posed. Also, I'm not really sure how to balance tech research amounts so input there would be helpful too.

Thanks a bunch!

Lateralis

 

[ejday]

No specific critique yet (maybe tonight), but on first glance, looks very well thought out.
***
Okay, one bit to consider: Monarchy after monotheism? What about all the small time kings -- or kinglike positions -- from the totemistic religions? Egypt had God knows how many gods, but they were a royal society.

 

[jwill]

The lines are all over the place, but this tree looks like it'll make the ancient times (the most annoying part of the game in my opinion) a lot shorter.

One question: does Monotheism take as long as it did when it was in the middle ages? If it does it's gonna take a while to discover that one..

 

[lateralis]

ejday:
I'm not ignoring those regiems, merely trying to make religion fit into everything a little better. Yes, most of the early "feifdoms" were in fact "a government having an hereditary chief of state with life tenure and powers varying from nominal to absolute" but as monotheism pre-dates the time of jesus by a good 3000 years (right around the time of egypt as a matter of fact) I wanted it in there. It has always been my take that the monarchy we are researching is more the medieval monarchy than the ancient monarchy (as you reserach it shortly before entering the middle ages) I've always assumed that despotism (in the game) was analogous to these earlier monarchic governments.

But like I said, mostly I want to get the timelines and religious diversity in there as much as possible.

Jwill:
I never thought of that, but I guess you're right. with that many optional techs, you could probably get to the middle ages quicker. hmmm I wonder what that might do to playability.

And no, I took the cost way down so that it's on par with the other ancient age techs with resepct to how long research will take. I'm sure there will be some balancing involved as I refine it though.

thanks for your interest guys!

lateralis

 

[jbouklas]

If you want to get historical, I think polytheism really should be a requisite to monotheism (but still included in Ancient Times). Actually, there is a lot of evidence that suggests that the original Jews were polytheistic, and Yahvisim (I mispelled that) became a strong force within the union of Semitic peoples. When the Yahvists (the monotheistic Jews) first emerged, their ideas were not too popular. After several hundred years, their monotheism took hold, and the Bible, as it was reduced to writing, began to take a monotheistic form. True, the Jews (practicing monotheism) were around long before any other major monotheistic religions (the only other major monotheistic religions, Islam and Christianity, are directly derived from Judaism, from 700AD and 25AD respectively).

Since only one civilization had monotheism for three thousand years before the rest of the world, it seems that it might be accurate to only allow a select few civilizations to have the ability to research it in Ancient Times (is this possible?). Here's an idea (if it's possible): make monotheism possible only through two wonders: one available only to a few civilizations (available in the Ancient Times with a primitive prerequisite) and one available to everybody else in the next age.

-Jim

 

[lateralis]

As great of an idea as that is (and I really do think it is) There is unfortunately no way to implement it on a global scale, only within a certain scenario. They kind of did this with the mac version of GOTM17 to allow commercial civs to build a wonder by giving them a resource needed to build it right from the go. But that would have to be hard coded onto the specific map.

I have to say, on further thought, I tend to agree with you. I'm gonna ponder this for a while.

 

[lateralis]

ok I lied...

see I keep bashing my head up against this:

I feel like monotheism as an actual belief SYSTEM/RELIGION has existed in one form or another as long as polytheism has been an actual belief SYSTEM/RELIGION. The middle ages is WAAAY too late to be researching it. I understand that game time is gonna be a little different than real time but the middle ages are really from like 1000ad on right? Christianity even had been around for almost a thousand years by then.

Maybe if I took monarchy back to not needing horseback riding, just warrior code and montheism and made polytheism a prereq for montheism? and kept republic where it is? could that work maybe?

 

[jbouklas]

Hmm. I would make monotheism have significantly more prerequisites needed to research it over polytheism and Eastern Mysticism. Monotheism in Ancient Times was a rareity, and if a player wants in in Ancient Times, the list of prerequisites should be fairly high, I think. I like the idea of the Ten Commandments Wonder, and maybe you should add second Wonder to monotheism.

I don't really like the idea of having polytheism necessary for the Republic. I really think that the Republic system of government should be much harder to obtain in Ancient Times (Greeks had a good form of it for 40 years, and the Romans had an okay form of it for a very long time). The ancient idea of the Republic is very different from the modern idea, and it really is a Middle Ages form of government, I think. Monarchy should be available to monotheistic cultures (sooner to the monotheistic culture), with the Republic available to both in the Middle Ages. Is there a way to add another government type? Republic just seems out of place. There should be something like a modified republic that has Corruption and Waste set to Problematic (up from Nuissance). That way, the Corruption/Waste is the same as Monarchy, but they experience low war weariness (where in Monarchy they experience none), plus they still get trade bonuses. A second Republic type should be avaible in the Middle Ages to cultures with either monotheism or polytheism, which lowers the corruption rate even further. Maybe iEditCiv (available on these forums) would enable you to do this.

-Jim

 

[lateralis]

unfortuantely, there is no way to limit who can research a tech and when. I don't consider that to be a huge problem, just because the whole Idea of this mod is to give the player more options in the religion department.

Although, splitting up more government types is definately worth looking into. I could do something like "roman republic" in the ancient times and then another, more advanced type of republic that comes before democracy.

Just cause I'm curious (not a HUGE history buff) most of the middle ages cultures and countries I'm familiar with were monarchies/kingdoms and such. what countries were using a repubilc/democratic form of government between, say 1000 ad and the industrial ages?

lateralis

 

[jbouklas]

That's why this entire thing is hard to pin to history. After the creation of the Roman Empire, I don't think there were any major Republics in the world (please correct me if I'm wrong). But, you can select the Republic in the game and keep it through the Middle Ages, which is no better (even worse) than only offering the technology in the Middle Ages. Actually, it might not be a bad idea to create another Monarchy-type government and not reintroduce the Republic until Industrial times (make the Republic have a very high prerequisite). That is almost historically accurate, as the British (I think in the 1600s) really had what we might today call a Republic, but not before that. Then, Democracy can come in during Modern Times (I don't know if it's like this already).

-Jim

 

[lateralis]

discovery civ channel is showing a "history of roman empire" type thing right now which is focusing heavily on christianity and religion within the empire, maybe I'll learn something and shed some light on this topic.

 

[lateralis]

ok hears a thought for you...

Take away some of what makes Republic attractive (not sure what yet, but include something like war weariness) and then make a SMALL WONDER called the senate which then helps to bring republic back into what it was before. But here's the key thing, make it's effects expire when you research another government type. This actually might be a good thing to add to all the governments, a small wonder which brings the rest of the effects of that government. that way, the initial switch takes longer to get itself worked out (as it would in real life)

how about this:

Republic : Senate small wonder -- maybe take corruption and WW down. and no ability to hurry production till completed

Monarchy : National Church small wonder-- maybe before this wonder have less military support and no hurry production

Democracy : Constitution small wonder

Communism : Communist Manifesto small wonder

What do you think of this idea? I would have to delve a lot deeper into the goverment model, But there is a flag in the build options that says "government required". Not sure if this is to build the item, or to recieve it's effects. If anyone else knows, that might be good to find out. I'll check the other mod forums to find out.

 

[jwill]

Originally posted by lateralis

how about this:

Republic : Senate small wonder -- maybe take corruption and WW down. and no ability to hurry production till completed

Monarchy : National Church small wonder-- maybe before this wonder have less military support and no hurry production

Democracy : Constitution small wonder

Communism : Communist Manifesto small wonder

That would be pretty good. What exactly would the Constitution do? I think it could do a lot of things. It could make people happier, but besides that, I'm not sure. I don't know anything about the Manifesto, so I'm not going to suggest anything for that.

 

[lateralis]

well I've done some more research and I've basically figured out that there is only really a few things that could work with this "government small wonder brings that government up to speed" concept.

The most obvious being corruption and waste. and a second being a trade bonus of some sort. Also, through some clever meddeling with worker rates, I might be able to do something about that. and war weariness can be somewhat played with by using the universal sffereage ability with something like a small wonder.

i don't think I can change the type of hurrying with a small wonder, nor the millitary support. Dilomats cannot be changed nor can any of the other government modifiers.

and here's something else I learned from researching around: The effects of a government specific BUILDING will dissapear when a new government is enterered, but not a WONDER or SMALL WONDER. which means that any small wonder ability would have to be balanced with all the other government types in conjunction and by themselves. this might be too massive of an undertaking, but I will continue my research.

One way to overcome this MIGHT be to make governments of the same ilk (ie war based or money based) have the small wonders be cummulative but opposites sort of cancel each other out in some way.

 

[jbouklas]

That's a good idea. Is this possible (pardon me if you addressed this earlier): just have the Small Wonder voided by an immediate prerequisite to another government form (or the government form itself). You mentioned this. Why wouldn't it work? I'm not understanding the explanation. Thanks.

-Jim

 

[dojoboy]

Lateralis, this is very interesting stuff.

 

[senecasax]

Originally posted by lateralis

Just cause I'm curious (not a HUGE history buff) most of the middle ages cultures and countries I'm familiar with were monarchies/kingdoms and such. what countries were using a repubilc/democratic form of government between, say 1000 ad and the industrial ages?

The large-scale representative republican form of government we know today as "democracy" was established in the 18th century. Before this time republics were usually small independent city-states (aside from rome).

Perhaps you could include say "Constitutional Monarchy" (i.e. the Magna Carta) as a bridge for the middle ages. Another government to think about is a Theocracy (given the power of the Catholic Church & the Middle Eastern Muslims during this time period).

 

[dojoboy]

Lateralis, how many governments are you considering? I'm wondering how difficult numerous gov't swithes would be w/ anarchy, except for religious civs. But, I guess a person wouldn't be switching to all of them.

 

[lateralis]

ok couple of things:

jbouklas: Unfortunately SMALL WONDERS don't become obsolete, only FULL WONDERS (annoying, I know.) This is the problem I'm butting up against because of this:
government specific CITY IMPROVEMENTS: can only be built within that gov. and exprire when you switch gov.
government specific SMALL WONDERS: can only be built within that gov. DO NOT expire when you switch gov.
government specific WONDERS: can only be built within that gov. can be made obsolete by reaserching a tech, ie a new government tech.

and that's the story there. Still researching how to make this all work out well in the end.

dojoboy: No idea really, as many as it would take to make the game fun, interesting and at least a little more historically based. ironically, The main reason I began this idea was not to mod new government options but new RELIGIOUS options. The governmental questions came out of the discussion of what religion's role has been in the religious development of politics and government over the ages. The KEY thing that always bugged me was how late you research montheism, because of judaism which is almost 6000 years old. the second most was the lack of diversity in religious buildings and wonders. I mean come on, where are the mosques and hindu temples? why only "temple"= 1 happy and "cathedral"= 3 happy? I'm also playing with idea that a temple (or other building) has to be somehow linked to the general religious persuasion of your people. hence the idea that government (as one of the few limiting factors in the editor that has not really been used) can be somehow linked to these improvements. And also along the lines of "how many" : I've always noticed that a religious civ will probably (unless a very focused player) use most if not all of the governments in a given game. Having a bunch of subtly diferent govs might make for some more interesting choices for the human player with respect to what the overall goals of the specific game are.

lateralis

 

[n8mac]

Lateralis,

Would these small wonders be available within the discovery of the government or in a future tech? (i.e. advanced democracy). Another tech to get the wonder would make it more realistic, but would mean a new handful of techs.

Is it possible to mod the game so that a small wonder only benifits a civ when in its specific government? That way if the small wonder is built and later you switch government, it will still be their if you decide to switch back. (i.e. normalcy/wartime changes rules only temporary)

Idea,
Advanced Democracy Great wonder: Statue of liberty - Recieve a population increase on cities on same continent instead of other civs when they would recieve one. Limited # pop increase per turn. Limited to a set # of turns. (immigration) Effect= you recieve other civs population increases. Rule - civs other than owner cannot change food income.

n8mac