Missing tech prerequisites late-game

I mentioned this in a general discussion thread but it will quickly get swamped where it is.

Late-game there are 2 resources that are essential for units to be built but neither tech that reveals them are needed to actually research the techs that reveal them.

All are at least 1 tier ahead of the unit tech but not all are in differing eras.

Oil is revealed by Biology but the techs that reveal units that need oil:
Flight - Triplanes & bombers
Combined Arms - Tanks
Radar - Heavy Bomber, fighters & B17
all do not need that tech.

The same applies to aluminium revealed by Electricity. Mobile Tactics, which is much later, reveals Helicopter Gunships but Mobile Tactics doesn't need Electricity to be researched first.

This is a serious mistake if this is by design. I understand the desire to have the separate lines... separate, but it is absurd to have a unit needing a resource researched when your civ has not researched that resource!

 

I've noticed this a long time ago but it didn't bother me. Just remember the Chariot Archer.

I think it's mostly fine that your enemy who's only a few techs ahead of you cannot suddenly have access to super powerful units such as aircraft and tanks just by beelining to those techs. Especially true in standard speed where there tends to be a lot of military upgrades during a war. You start a war and then your enemy has aircraft before you know it. I think it's best that such absurdities are minimized.

 

It's intentional. By the modern period, technologies for war often exceeded the capacity to produce them. This isn't a 'domesticate the tank' situation as with horses, it's an R&D versus manufacturing division.

G

 

It maybe intentional but I stand by my assertion that it is absurd.

Just how do you imagine these planes and tanks are developed without a fuel to run them?
That's just not how these things came to be. ALL motorised inventions were built on the technology that preceded them. If it wasn't an oil based fuel to power the motor then it was steam or coal or animal dung or something.
Clearly the landship takes this into consideration and it is assumed some other means of fuelling it is provided rather than an oil based fuel. The tank therefore should be the logical development of that tech PLUS the discovery of oil.

Oil and aluminium are different to horses in that these resources are primarily used for the development of military units. Whilst it is true aluminium is used for the construction of some buildings, I know of no other use for oil in Civ other than to power these units, aside from the general yield increase from improving its tile.

Or, as is sometimes argued, the resource isn't necessarily required as part of the functionality of the unit but rather the R&D of it, the argument still stands, why need a resource to be revealed and improved if the knowledge of the unit can still be gained without it? Completely defeats the purpose of said tech revealing that resource.

As I'm writing this I have the pedia open and now I'm seeing other inconsistencies with the techs revealed.
How can Rocketry, which allows for the production of guided missiles and rocket artillery be developed without knowledge of oil from Biology?

I'm not making the argument that every unit NEEDS a resource to be built, this is a game and that is not an option. BUT I am saying there needs to be some logical development from one tech to the next and I can't see it with these.

To me the steps are straight-forward. If a unit NEEDS a resource, then that tech which reveals that resource is also NEEDED.

I'm going to need a bit more convincing if this is the way it is meant to be.

 

Da Vinci allegedly made plans for something that resembled a modern day helicopter, if I remember correctly. Yet he had no way of actually creating it at the time, as he lacked the materials or other technologies needed to make it functional. While it is true that a lot of things these days are created from the things we have already, it very much does make sense to have the materials needed to create a unit not be unveiled from a prerequisite technology. It can very much just unlock the idea of that unit, but not the means to create it.

In fact, there is a very similar problem in our modern day society. The theory for the "warp drive" has existed for quite a while now, with scientists saying that it might be possible to build in the future. Why in the future? Because we don't have the necessary technologies to produce the vast amounts of energy needed to operate one, to create these disturbances in space-time.

 

You didn't need biology to have oil.
You can have some with corporation or city-state, or trade (even if the display bar doesn't show them).
Same for uranium, probably also for aluminium&coal.

Biology is the tech for extracting oil, imo.

 

Pretty strange you noticed it only on modern era techs, because the whole tree is like this, especially in regards to National Wonders.
You can get to Heroic Epic without Barracks. Hermitage without Opera Houses. International Finance Center without without Stock Exchanges. Foreign Bureau without Wire Services. National Intelligence Agency without Police Stations.

 

Very true. I have always taken the techs in Civ to be the point where these "problems" are now solved, allowing the Da Vinci helicopter to be built, not the point when Da Vinci thought of it!

Also true however this only obfuscates the problem even more. Now we're building units using resources we don't know about. Similar thing to being granted a swordsman when you haven't revealed iron on the map or a horseman without horses, except seems to be useful ONLY for late-game units. Iron and horses have other uses.

I didn't mention it in this thread, only in the general discussion one, this "problem" only came to my attention because of the odd way I chose to research in one of my last games. I purposely selected a late-game military unit to beeline research and geared my empire to go for war once I researched it. I naturally assumed clicking it would allow the game engine to pick all the prerequisites fro me, as I had been used to. Only after reaching that point did I see the change in tech selection CBP introduced. This is what sent my on this investigation. In normal games I would have already researched Biology and these whole argument would be moot.

 

in vanilla ciV, you can also research the flight without biology, if i remember well.

 

The way I see it is that you don't not know about those resources by the time you have any building or unit that uses them, but you lack the means of extracting them. So even if you knew where they were, they'd be useless. Sadly this is only really represented late game with oil and oil wells and very early on with luxury resources, but having super specific improvements for each and every resource would just add clutter at this point.

So instead of getting "unique improvement for resource #34723484" from a technology, it just doesn't reveal it until you have it.

Again, as an actual example, we are very much able to create certain elements with those silly high proton counts or build a testbed for a fusion reactor, we're certainly at no point where we can make those on a large scale for military or commercial use.

 

Somewhat related, this same conversation has left me often to wonder if you should have access to one (unit) of any given resource, *without improvement*. It lends the ability to build an early unit, but not multiples of them before the resource can be exploited.

I recognize that this conversation overlaps with when would should a resource be *discovered*, too. Can you see bananas before you can build a plantation? Sure.

 

You know, it's been so long I had to go in and see for myself. Damn it, would you believe it, you're right. You can research Flight to reveal triplanes, that need oil, without the need to research Biology.

That being the case I will now get off my soapbox and slink back into the masses, to hide my face from the mass of mocking voices about to come my way.