[MOD] Extended Tech Tree

[surt]

Extended Tech Tree Mod


This mod does far more, but the emphasis is on an extended tech tree in which many items that currently share a tech entry must be researched separately. This significantly increases the strategy involved in selecting techs to research, particularly early in the game.

Overall, you should find this a familiar, yet significantly varied mod to the traditional game. Watch out for the 3 food per population change: don't found your city in the middle of a bunch of one food tiles thinking you'll be fine!

I've attempted to rebalance the civics so that every civic is useful.

Every global wonder is converted to a per-civ wonder, but the costs are higher, so you have to decide when you want the particular effect.

Religions are currently all equal, and all foundable at the same point in the tech tree (with the goal being that the historical order doesn't have to be the same every game). In a future version I plan to make the religions more unique, and figure out how to help the AI found more easily.

If any of you serious civvers try this out, please let me know if anything is grossly unbalanced, and please explain why as I'm far from an expert strategic player.

I play primarily marathon/continents. If you try some other combo and it doesn't work well, I'd appreciate knowing that too.

Feedback very welcome. Please let me know what you like and dislike!

Version 1: Initial release

http://ptth.net/civiv/ExtTech1.zip

 

[surt]

(Large Image)
http://ptth.net/civiv/ExtendedTechTree.JPG

 

[ibcoltscrew]

Excellent idea. I'm gonna try this right now and let you know later. I'm gonna play with these settings: Small map/8civ/Epic Spd/Default Difficulty/Raging Barbarian/No Space Victory & No Time Victory.

I really like your idea about religion...

 

[RED DIAMOND]

Interesting. I use a modified tech tree that places all of the religions at the start of the game. I also removed mysticisism from a pre given tech to make it more balanced. I know that from your tech tree you have them all at the same place Based on that alone you are seeing quite a different game like me vs the boxed version. I also like the way you extended things out.

I have a modded tech tree I use as well, but I think I will implement some of your great ideas as well. Thx for sharing.

 

[surt]

I'd like to note that a few things I wanted to do didn't work. The primary culprits are integer (iXXXAttribute) attributes in the xml which don't work as expected. There are three kinds of errors involved:

1) iXXXAttribute treated as boolean rather than integer.
2) iXXXAttribute treated as unsigned (not allowing negatives). Example: -1 happy per non-state religion in a city.
3) iXXXAttributes not cumulative (taking either the largest or the first value). (cost per military unit not properly additive if you have multiple civics that cost per military unit)

I suspect a simple survey of how values are being used would get rid of a substantial number of minor bugs.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

I'd like to note that a few things I wanted to do didn't work. The primary culprits are integer (iXXXAttribute) attributes in the xml which don't work as expected. There are three kinds of errors involved:

1) iXXXAttribute treated as boolean rather than integer.
2) iXXXAttribute treated as unsigned (not allowing negatives). Example: -1 happy per non-state religion in a city.
3) iXXXAttributes not cumulative (taking either the largest or the first value). (cost per military unit not properly additive if you have multiple civics that cost per military unit)

I suspect a simple survey of how values are being used would get rid of a substantial number of minor bugs.

Yeah, when I worked on my civic additions I had to discover some of that hit and miss. The good thing with happiness is that you can attach it to buildings in civics and bypass some of things that look like limits.

 

[Optimizer]

Could you please provide some documentation?

 

[surt]

Could you please provide some documentation?

What kind of documentation are you looking for?

 

[Gunner]

I'm pretty sure Arbitrary Guy got a -1 happiness bonus per non state religion to work in the Europa Europa mod. You might be able to find out how if you took a look.

 

[Exavier]

Nice tech tree... I wrote my own though... because i wanted to expand the modern eras

Tell me what you think

Still have a little work to do on it

 

[surt]

Nice tech tree... I wrote my own though... because i wanted to expand the modern eras

Tell me what you think

Still have a little work to do on it

Looking pretty good. I agree that the modern era is a bit thin, I'm guessing the expack will probably make changes there too.

 

[surt]

A quick followup: if any civ artists find this interesting enough to want to provide some art, let me know. I'm a completely incompetent artist so I just used existing artwork.

 

[ice2k4]

Ummm, quick insight on the religions.There are a few things that aren't possible, unless I have read the tech tree wrong, which I might have. First off Christianity was a breakoff of Judiasm and Buddhism was a break off of Hinduism. Therefore Christianity should require Judiasm and Buddhism should require Hinduism.

 

[Adam7Eight]

Regarding religion, this may be a bit unrealistic but in gameplay terms I think it's a good idea that surt did it like this. I believe it would help cut down on the religion monopoly that would be easier to achieve with the default tree. Now if all the religions had their own advantages and disadvantages this tech tree would be even sweeter and make picking the first one all that more important.

The only thing I would like to see improved is the late industrial and modern eras. Communism, Biology, Refrigeration and Electricity offer too many improvements/units/etc. That's my biggest gripe with the vanilla tech tree. Some techs offer too many things.

Great work though. I'm going to try it out.

 

[DCBomB]

Don't forget Islam requireing Christianity. Muhammad studied the Bible before he started Islam.

 

[surt]

Yeah, I'm certainly aware of the historical innacuracy. But my focus is on gameplay over realism, always. I'm currently poking away at making the religions more unique, and I've already added some python to make it harder for one player to grab all the religions.