New tech tree suggestions.

Ahriman · Oct 3, 2008

There has been a lot of dissatisfaction with the tech tree, particularly with the lack of distinct tech lines and the irritating requirements for some military units. This tree tries to fix many of those problems, while incorporating the current units and basic design.

I really like partially separating the metalworking line (which boosts melee, archery and cavalry units) from the melee line, particularly given that spearman units are 1 strength less than swordsman units.

Non-tech changes:

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The new tech tree (no beaker costs included for now)

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Basic techs:

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Tech lines:
Metal working line:

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Tactics line:

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Archery line:

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Recon line:

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Beast taming line:

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Cavalry line:

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Trade line:

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Construction line:

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Chemistry line:

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Mechanisation line:

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Naval line:

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Government line:

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Religion line: Philosophy, salvation, corruption and eternal life provide a free missionary to all civs that can adopt these religions (that way, non-shrine builders can still get the religion early).

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Education line:

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Other:

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Elemental magic line:

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Winds of magic line:

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Chaos line:

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Other Magic line:

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Humakty · Oct 3, 2008

I really don't know if a total rework of the tech tree must be our priority, as the mod still needs lots of filling in terms of factions, units and spells. As of now it's mostly empty.

Ahriman · Oct 3, 2008

I agree that its not necessarily a top priority, but PL is very bothered by the tech tree and I definitely think it could use some work.

This isn't a total rework; almost all the techs in the tree are existing techs in the current tree. All this does is move some of the unit requirements around and change some of the tech prerequisities. This would be relatively simply to implement.
The only "important" new techs in the tree are Tactics, Advanced Archery and Arcane Lore, and I think there is a pretty strong design need for these techs (names obviously subject to change). And then other techs necessary for implementing the magic systems (elemental mastery, etc.)

It is also much easier to do design work implementing new units for factions with a "final" tech tree to work off. That saves having to go back and redesign every faction when the tech tree changes. Much more efficient, really.

Ajidica · Oct 3, 2008

I agree that the tech tree needs revisions. Too many techs are needed early on and too many seem like 'filler' techs.

Squirrelloid · Oct 3, 2008

So, I'm interested in the mod, but those techs are a mess. Is this a CivIV mod, or is it a CivIII mod? I mean, they did away with a lot of those techs for good reason, and I see little compelling reason to ressurect them.

Trade is just a bad idea as a tech. Trade happens long before anyone settles down in permanent villages - it predates the start of the game by thousands of years. It should not be a tech.

Warrior Code is also a bad idea. Especially as it fails to reflect anything real. The only warrior codes come from feudal societies (Medieval Japan, Medieval Europe, etc...), not early agricultural ones.

I don't understand why Lordship isn't Monarchy or Code of Laws.

Basically, a lot of the tech changes seem to hark back to CivIII with no real purpose, and a lot of the tech changes seem to be made just for the sake of change rather than functionality/playability. The first thing I'd do is try to fit it into the CivIV tech tree as closely as possible, and then make the changes which can't be made to fit otherwise. The mod will be more successful if there's enough familiar material for people to recognize the basic structure.

Now, one place to deviate from this is areas where the game clearly needs more details. Ie, Stirrup as a technology is actually a really good idea - it was an important technological innovation in the early medieval period.

The thing about a WH game is it really wants to hit ~medieval technology and stagnate for the last half of the game. Whereby stagnate I mean rather than technologies that actually advance unit tech or similar, there should be technologies which do things like enable cool endgame wonders. Because we want people to ultimately play games involving medieval warfare with magic, which means we need techs that are otherwise junk (and preferably not just an infinite trek into future tech land). Make the technologies relatively expensive so people have to pick and choose. This serves a number of purposes. (1) It allows all the opponents to catch up in the military end if a player neglects warfare to eliminate weak rivals. This is Warhammer - playing a completely peaceful game shouldn't happen, and parity in military technology will make those wars more interesting. (2) It lets you play most of the game at the desired tech level, with new techs being infrequent and not necessarily game-changing. (Certainly not as game changing as things like bombers and tanks in normal CivIV).

Anyway, that's my take on the tech tree.

Ahriman · Oct 3, 2008

I agree that the tech tree needs revisions. Too many techs are needed early on and too many seem like 'filler' techs.

What did you have in mind?
The techs I'd consider removing or merging would be festivals, herblore/brewing, chronicles/contemplation, roads/wildpaths, bloodbowl, astrology, and lordship/tyranny and steampower/steel.

I'm pretty indifferent about names, but this is a compromise between the existing tech tree and something that might work slightly better.

Remember that this is designed to represent a *fantasy* environment, rather than a historic one. The tech-tree for this mod is much more inspired by the FFH tech-tree than the vanilla civ one. I completely disagree that we should try and keep close to the vanilla civ tech-tree. There is no real variation in the vanilla civ tech-tree; you get the same techs every game. This tech tree (and the FFH one) is deliberately designed so that you can focus on melee military, or archers, or cavalry, or nature/recon troops, or religion, or magic. You can get 2-3 of these, and different factions will be stronger or weaker with different lines, but it is prohibitively expensive to get all of them.
Each research line has ~3 levels of important techs, with increasing tech costs.

The vanilla civ tech-tree focuses on real historic technological developments. Thats not really true in a fantasy mod; instead we focus on entertaining fantasy archetypes.

I'd be fine with renaming lordship -> monarchy, though I think the idea of lordship is to have connotations of a Gondor-style honorable leadership system, as opposed to rule by a brutal tyrant (both of which can still be monarchies).

The trade tech represents the creation of real inter-city trade routes. And those post-date civilisation; sure, people always traded one thing for another, but there is a difference between the first settled villages (that are entirely self-sufficient) and towns which traded goods with each other over long distances. The tech makes sense, along with the bonus to marketplaces; its the difference between a marketplace just representing a place where townspeople trade with each other and a caravan stop for trading between cities.

I'm fine with renaming warrior code something else. But the idea is for it to be a basic tech representing the beginnings of a coherent military structure. Its the ability of local lords to be able to gather warbands together to fight and to train them, and to have huscarl-type semiprofessional troops rather than just forcing ragtag peasants into arms. And it hardly matters whether warrior codes only existed in human society; I'm pretty sure that high elves had a warrior code from early on. A fantasy world is full of anachronisms; we have galleons with cannons fighting elven ships with ballistas on a roughly equal footing

and a lot of the tech changes seem to be made just for the sake of change rather than functionality/playability

Are you talking about changes from the existing tech-tree in this mod, or from a vanilla civ tech-tree? I can definitely explain the design motivations for my changes from the existing tech-tree in this mod. I found that metal-working techs were critical and did too much; I like the idea of metals being a boost to other tech lines rather than also providing all of the military muscle. I like the idea of "synergies" between tech lines; following metals and cavalry gets you knights. Following melee and government gets you mercenaries. Following nature and beasts gets you a dragon. etc.

there should be technologies which do things like enable cool endgame wonders

We're very much starting to implement that. Check out the chaos magic techs, which now allow some very powerful very expensive wonders, which will form a victory condition path. We might find similar value in other high-end techs.
But we don't want to weight the end-game techs too much, because many civs are deliberately truncated at the high-end of the tech tree. Uncivilised nations can't research cannons, rifling, advanced engineering, steam power, etc., so by design they need to be relatively stronger in the early-mid game and somewhat weaker in the end game, or to get better goodies from other tech paths (monsters, magic).

Because we want people to ultimately play games involving medieval warfare with magic, which means we need techs that are otherwise junk (and preferably not just an infinite trek into future tech land)

I don't understand this statement. Why would we ever want to include junk techs that are a waste of resources? Thats just bad design.
Keep in mind that some of the high-end technologies (steam power, flight etc.) are warhammer world staples, for some factions.

Make the technologies relatively expensive so people have to pick and choose.

I agree with this completely. We've just increased the tech costs once, and we might need to do so again. If a faction wants to get late game technological goodies like cannons and steam tanks, it should be infeasible for them to also get archmages and powerful religious units and monsters, except in the extremely late game.

Thanks for the comments, but I get the impression you haven't played Fall from Heaven 2, the fantasy mod that this draws a lot of inspiration from. I think that works a lot better for a fantasy setting than the regular civ tech tree.

The idea of this post really was to shake up this mod's existing tech tree with a few significant but easy to implement changes, and in particular removing some of the really key critical military techs by sharing their requirements with other techs as well. So, bronzeworking doesn't give you a metal boost AND the axemen anymore. Now, warrior code gives you spearmen, and you need both warrior code and bronze working to get the more powerful axemen. Astronomy will give you frigates by itself, and the more powerful ship of the line with cannons. Invention only gives you crossbowmen along with advanced archery.

Psychic_Llamas · Oct 4, 2008

nice changes there ahriman

before we get all set in our ways though id like you guys to look at this alternate (complete rework) of the techtree that masada and myself came up with ages ago. if anything it could give you some more ideas for simplifying/streamlinging the tech tree....

Ahriman · Oct 4, 2008

This tree isn't really that different.

What exactly do you imagine that all these extra religious techs (polytheism, religious law, etc.) would provide?

Also, what clockwork units are there in the WH world that would need a clockwork machinery tech?

A few techs also seem very strange, and hardly like significant advances.
What would honor give that isn't in Words of Salvation?
What would Inspiration do?
What would Mortuary do?
Should Assassination really be a tech by itself?

I think the current tree works better than this one really.

I very much like explicitly splitting out the tactics, metal, archer, recon, monster and cavalry lines, there's nothing like this in your tree.

Psychic_Llamas · Oct 4, 2008

fair enough, this one was based on discussions which i have actually forgotten about... but you are right

chaos dwarves will be getting a lot of clockwork/daemonic 'robotic' (for want of a better word) units, also it would increase water wheel, windmill etc tile boosts... think of chaos dwarves as increadibly evil luchiurp from FfH

your proposed changes are simpler and better anyway

i just wanted to throw that old tech tree proposal out there

Ahriman · Oct 5, 2008

increase water wheel, windmill etc tile boosts...

Advanced engineering already does this.

I hadn't realised that chaos dwarves get steampunk clockwork monstrosities... that definitely increases their coolness x1000. Probably though we could fit such units into the existing Steam Power, mechanisation and advanced engineering techs.

Psychic_Llamas · Oct 5, 2008

I hadn't realised that chaos dwarves get steampunk clockwork monstrosities... that definitely increases their coolness x1000. Probably though we could fit such units into the existing Steam Power, mechanisation and advanced engineering techs.

yeh true again

there is probably a lot of awsome stuff you are unaware of the more obscure factions such as lizzies and chaos dwarves

orangelex44 · Oct 5, 2008

And again, I just want to reiterate that the tech tree goes way too fast. I'm about two or three techs from finishing it in my game, and it's not even turn 400 yet! Granted, no one else is even close to me and I'm a 1-2 levels low on my test run, but still - that's insane.

Although I suppose there's no reason not to let the tech tree be finished relatively early in the game. That way, everyone has a few hundred turns to play with all their cool toys, which never get outdated! Yay yay yay! Seriously, though, a quick tech tree has never been tried by any other mod that I know of. It's probably OK to leave it as-is for a while - focus on weakening the economy a little bit, that will slow tech speed. Who knows, maybe you'll actually end up leaving it like it is once it's been tested for a while.

I suppose I should ask, because I forgot to check - what is the game length, here? IIRC, FFH is 600 turns. Is that what Warhammer is?

Ahriman · Oct 5, 2008

And again, I just want to reiterate that the tech tree goes way too fast. I'm about two or three techs from finishing it in my game, and it's not even turn 400 yet! Granted, no one else is even close to me and I'm a 1-2 levels low on my test run, but still - that's insane.

I agree. Partly this is all the free specialists and building bonuses increased in the latest version, and partly its that we haven't increased tech costs enough yet.
Still, 400 turns is plenty, on normal speed. The game should be mostly over by then.

Squirrelloid · Oct 7, 2008

Some of the late game techs do need to be more expensive. But most of the tree is probably fine. And honestly, tech buildings like Library have been made weaker because they provide a flat bonus rather than a percentage multiplier. The ability to tech in this in purely numerical terms is rather low relative to the basic game. Its just that the mid-late game techs don't increase in cost fast enough.

Flight, for example, takes 3900 bulbs at Noble difficulty. Ie, about 30x entry-level techs. It should probably be more like 100x as many bulbs (~13000).

The mid game in normal civ IV is approximately the start of the renaissance. Tech costs are in the ballpark of 4000 bulbs at monarch, which is probably 3000ish bulbs at Noble. You can seriously hit 1000+ bulbs/turn not too long after that and not be at the front of the tech race. 1000+ bulbs per turn in the mod is basically 1 tech/turn barring a few of the very end ones, and they don't take that much longer. I believe the normal game tops out around 25000ish bulbs at Noble, though I'd have to check.

Part of the problem may be that no one civ has enough total techs to last ~500 turns and be interesting (at any research rate), especially because a large number of techs are only available to certain factions. It looks like the game needs another complete era of technology. The question is where to get these techs from.

One thing to do would be to separate out the spellcasting techs into 3 techs each, one for each level of investment in a type of magic. However, that's really more early-mid game techs, not late game techs, so that's not a complete solution.

It may be necessary to start extrapolating beyond current army lists a little bit to provide a 'next era' level of play at the end of the game. Which probably involves brainstorming advanced unit types for every faction, and then seeing how well these group into technologies that would (hopefully) be available to everybody. The other possibility is to have the 'next era' consist mostly of techs that open up new buildings/promotions/etc... which do things like provide more xp for new units, provide better weapons, etc... so that you don't have to deal with yet more new units, and just let everybodies troops get stronger. (I am surprised that there is no 'steel' metal enhancement for weapons, since that should be as significant an improvement as iron is to bronze).

Ahriman · Oct 7, 2008

Flight, for example, takes 3900 bulbs at Noble difficulty. Ie, about 30x entry-level techs. It should probably be more like 100x as many bulbs (~13000).

I disagree with this. Flight is a fairly weak tech that provides access to only one unit that isn't game-changing, and only to a couple of civs. Tech costs should be related to the utility of the tech, not just to how far along in the tech tree it is.
So, Advanced Smithing, Meteoric iron (once implemented), Tournaments, Economics, Advanced Engineering, Rifling and Arcane Lore (once implemented) should all have high tech costs. Steam power and flight, not so much.

The mid game in normal civ IV is approximately the start of the renaissance. Tech costs are in the ballpark of 4000 bulbs at monarch, which is probably 3000ish bulbs at Noble. You can seriously hit 1000+ bulbs/turn not too long after that and not be at the front of the tech race.

The vanilla civ tech tree is not really a useful comparison for this mod. First, it is much harder to get up to the really high levels of beaker output because of the lack of so many stackable multiplicative research buildings. Second, the mod has many fewer eras of warfare than vanilla civ (ancient, medieval, renaissance/industrial, ww2, modern) vs (warrior/scout, warband, militia regiment, advanced units).
The FFH tech tree is a much more useful comparison.

It looks like the game needs another complete era of technology. The question is where to get these techs from.
It may be necessary to start extrapolating beyond current army lists a little bit to provide a 'next era' level of play at the end of the game.

I suspect that this would be very unpopular with many of the more fluff-oriented people interested in this mod. I think much of the idea for the mod is to have everyone be able to tech up to the level where they have access to all of the units available in the tabletop game, and then fight it out with those units for a while, with a few high-powered techs that increase the ability to produce more stuff, or money, or culture, or win the game through wonders.
Different design mission to vanilla civ.

(I am surprised that there is no 'steel' metal enhancement for weapons, since that should be as significant an improvement as iron is to bronze).

Check the suggested tech tree design in the thread you're posting in. This has been suggested. A truly huge bonus from steel is probably not a good idea balance-wise, since many/most civs won't be able to get access to the steel tech.

Masada · Oct 7, 2008

Now me & PL back in the day debated Warhammer techs for quite a while, there were many arguments which tended to get Masada to swear which I normally refrain from doing (on various subjects, Rhyes, tech reform, unit reform, differentiating factions etc, most of which have been accomplished more or less how I wanted it), but he came around to the idea which Squirrelloid has hit on the head, we play Warhammer for the canon stuff, I dont give a flying **** for the warrior horde, or the other early units, they are just a waste of time to me.

And lets face it Warhammer is a war-game, lets not pretend its anything else, you dont go and play Warhammer as a builder, you play Warhammer to kill stuff. So lets treat it radically different to FFH, because lets face it, being a peacenik should not be an option.

So what do we need to do, cut down the huge amount of early game bull****, mostly derived from waiting 17 turns to research a tech merely to allow my worker to do something so how do we solve this? Personally Im all for stealing the starting techs of Vanilla BTS, because they work.

Tier 1: Hunting, Agriculture, The Wheel, Fishing, Mining, and Mysticism should all be first tier techs, they should allow you to make camps, farm, cottages (optional could be in tier 2), make roads or forest tracks (nifty idea), fish, mine, and build an obelisk for culture; from there on you can add stuff to them, preferably not much. All the basic core improvements should be here.

Tier 2: Nature Lore was Herblore and Tracking mixed together (Herblore is a dead tech it really serves no other purposes than clutter, tracking is useful; why pipeweed and tea are invisible at the start is beyond me), Archery likewise should here because alternatives to just spamming warrior warbands is immensely desirable, animal husbandry is one of the most useful techs in the game it shouldnt come from hunting it should come from hunting or agriculture because its absurd to force players to route into just hunting which is meh (I would be all for getting rid of scouts, and replacing them with hunters as the scouting unit), Pottery in this was an amalgamation of brewing with the option to put cottages here (it also had Tavern, and I wished to abolish tailor), sailing was moved down because having it as a tier 4 tech is just plain silly (Galley would go in here, as would Triremes, dock or lighthouse (depends) and coastal trade), Masonry should be keep the same and moved down the tech tree because not having walls is an annoyance, bronze working should likewise be moved down because there is no reason for it to be tier 3 likewise why we have to rely on warrior warbands for so many turns is beyond me, story telling was a mixture of contemplation and chronicles because lets face it contemplation serves no purpose (other than speeding up the tech tree, we can drop the free GP), and well magic is plain ugly however we do it but its functioning now surprisingly.

Tier 3: Calendar would have plantation, which would handle tea etc I would move agrarianism down to animal husbandry simple because everyone will be getting that tech, tracking was basically naturelore (another tech on the road to no where), horseback riding is horseback riding (I still dislike trade wonders and the like, not very warhammerish), crafting had market and a few other of the trade buildings sitting on it, ironworking was ironworking with iron since metal casing is just a meh tech which is better of as a tier 4 tech after iron working this was done for the simple reason that having to wait another 20+ turns to get away from axes is just plain silly, ceremonial burial was the same as in this version maybe with temples in tier 2 (Necromancy was moved, it was not suited to be there), records was a mix of philosophy and festivals (both meh techs), the mythology tree was to contain all the religious techs.

Tier 4: Irrigation was to be the same, except for giving +1 food (up to people), construction would be exactly the same with maybe a few of the waif buildings I havent covered in there, compass would be the same as navigation (with maybe a middle tier of ships) but keep in mind that the sea combat in this mod is cripe and needs expansion thats where we can slip a few choice techs into, warrior code and warfare got mixed together because they were both silly to have on there own a beautiful example of why we have a massively cluttered tech tree which just serves to look ugly annoy players and turn of noobs, advanced smithing is really just metal casing, maths is the same as in this, literature can probably be gotten rid of (or have the free sage, with libraries in there), Polytheism contains priesthood and monasteries or whatever we have instead nowadays.

Simply put, we dont need half the techs we have, as Squirrelloid pointed out, likewise we can get rid of a lot of buildings, cut down heavily on early game frustration (its boring, its there only to setup your Empire, and get ready for the fun stuff to roll out). This is a war mod, having lots of peaceful do nothing buildings is not a good thing, if were going to add any techs itll be to differentiate factions not to bulk out the tech tree (tech costs, and a cutting of gold and science buildings can accomplish that).

As to this statement,

This tech tree (and the FFH one) is deliberately designed so that you can focus on melee military, or archers, or cavalry, or nature/recon troops, or religion, or magic. You can get 2-3 of these, and different factions will be stronger or weaker with different lines, but it is prohibitively expensive to get all of them.

No, we are not FFH, yes this tech tree was designed to do that, and yes it was a total utter abject failure, because it ignores the fact that in Warhammer everyone has a mix of everything, there is no just mage team which only uses mages, the proper game is designed so you have to have a balance of troops to win. You dont need to specialise the damm tech tree to accomplish this you specialise the units (and yes I understand the reasons why FFH has it, I cant understand why we need to go down that garden path which is wholly unsuitable).

You cannot tell me that, oh your Empire you must focus on one tree, Im going to look at you and go why? My team has cavalry, mages, recon, archers and melee why the bloody hell cant I use them together? Were seeking to give the player a tabletop game, on a bigger scale, simple. I should be able to get all my troops no trouble, I should be able to field an army with all my tabletop troops, if we go any other way were bonkers.

Magic heavy civs should just have better magic units, they shouldnt be forced to deliberate between having Silver Helms and having Arch Mages, they should be able to have both. Take the High Elves as an example, they might be magic heavy, but imagine stripping down the High Elves list to just mages, its immediately not high elves (and don't you dare say, oh but you'll be able to have a few), strip one unit away from there full roster and they are not high elves anymore, strip two and they are just magic heavy team with pointy ears...

We are not FFH, we shouldn't pretend to be, we shouldn't copy their tech tree because it works for them, we should not get the fundamental parts of the game the army list and tell a player no you may not have the full list because we want specialisation, Im fairly darn certain the player is more than capable of building the better units from the list on there own without us forcing them with the tech tree.

A simple tech tree, which feeds back into itself, allows you to build your full range of troops and isn't splattered with peaceful options would be nice... this is warhammer.

Psychic_Llamas · Oct 7, 2008

very nice argument masada, ill wait for other peoples replies before i give my opinion

Darkform · Oct 7, 2008

I think I like Masada. I'm sorta flustered how Sylvania and Lahmia currently are getting pieces of the Vampire Counts and not everything they can normally get. (based on ideas of what they will get. I know they are not completed yet but the talk of what they get after complete made me sad.)

orangelex44 · Oct 7, 2008

I agree. FFH does many things well; it is NOT a model for every other mod out there, though. There's really no good reason to force the player to choose one specific branch of the tree.

Ahriman · Oct 7, 2008

And lets face it Warhammer is a war-game, lets not pretend its anything else, you don’t go and play Warhammer as a builder, you play Warhammer to kill stuff. So let’s treat it radically different to FFH, because lets face it, being a peacenik should not be an option.

Completely disagree. There are lots of fans of the warhammer universe, many of whom have never played the Tabletop game. There are tons of people who like the "feel" of the universe, and the entertaining fluff, and the fantasy earth setting (ie not just Tolkein, but also HRE, Spain, Arthurian Britain, Russians, Renaissance Italy, Egyptian mummies, India, Imperial China, Shogunate Japan, etc.). There are people who liked Mark of Chaos (though that game was pretty bad) and who played its recently release expansion. There are people who will have got into Warhammer from Warhammer Online, the new MMO which has received good reviews and could generate a huge player base. There are people who liked Dawn of War and its expansions and want to give the fantasty setting a try. There are even people who played the warhammer roleplaying game decades ago.
And there are tons of general civ and FFH fans who are tired of the FFH lore and want a fantasy game in a different world, still with an established lore, but to roleplay different factions. I can't roleplay a backstabbing ratman game in FFH.

This is a Civ mod. Civ players, fundamentally, like more than just killing stuff and blowing things up. There's no reason to alienate such a huge portion of the fanbase; it dramatically reduces the scope of the mod.
If you just want to get into killing things with warhammer units, play an advanced start or scenario (I'd argue for a "present day" version of the warhammer map with established cities/empire/armies and nearly all techs researched).

War is *encouraged* in the warhammer mod by having lots of civics that allow for low unit support costs, and by having units be very cheap. Hammers go a lot further hear than in FFH, its much easier to construct large armies to fight with.

And lets face it, many MANY of the complaints you have could be entirely fixed by starting in era 2, and using advanced start, with all the initial techs researched and a few cities.

Tier 1: Hunting, Agriculture, The Wheel, Fishing, Mining, and Mysticism should all be first tier techs, they should allow you to make camps, farm, cottages (optional could be in tier 2), make roads or forest tracks (nifty idea), fish, mine, and build an obelisk for culture; from there on you can add stuff to them, preferably not much. All the basic core improvements should be here.

This is different from the current (or my proposed) tech tree how???

Nature Lore was Herblore and Tracking mixed together (Herblore is a dead tech it really serves no other purposes than clutter, tracking is useful

I'd be fine with this. What I would do is swap the names of the nature lore and tracking techs, so nature lore reveals herbs, allows herbalist, and hunters, while tracking allows rangers.
I'd be fine with pipeweed/herbs available from the start.

(I would be all for getting rid of scouts, and replacing them with hunters as the “scouting” unit)

I disagree. I like having an initial scouting unit that is basically useless in combat, and then a stronger one that can fight with a tech requirement.

Pottery in this was an amalgamation of brewing with the option to put cottages here (it also had Tavern, and I wished to abolish tailor)

I would have no problem with merging crafting and brewing.

sailing was moved down because having it as a tier 4 tech is just plain silly

I'm fine with that; if you look at my suggestions, sailing requires only fishing as a prereq.

story telling was a mixture of contemplation and chronicles because lets face it contemplation serves no purpose

I'd be fine with this.

sea combat in this mod is cripe and needs expansion

Sea combat is basically crap in every version of civ (it only gets even slightly interesting with aircraft carriers and bombers). Basically, this happens because there is no terrain. The sea is a really, really boring, because every tile is identical.
We could at least create something of a rock/paper/scissors though.
But the AI basically sucks at naval stuff anyway - it can't handle intercontinental wars - so I tend to play on Pangaea's or 2-3 continent maps anyway.

records was a mix of philosophy and festivals (both meh techs)

I'd suggest keeping philosophy and just drop festivals, its boring.

advanced smithing is really just metal casing

Disagree, I like the metal line. Advanced smithing for weapon smiths and as meteoric iron prereq, and for units with advanced equipment. I like how the metal line and tactics line interact in my suggestions above.

warrior code and warfare

I like keeping them separate to push chariots later - these units are really really strong. I also like the idea of having to proceed further down tactics techs to get city raider/defender promotions.

literature can probably be gotten rid of (or have the free sage, with libraries in there)

I like literature and education separate, to separate libraries from universities. I'd be fine with a free sage at literature.

Polytheism contains priesthood and monasteries or whatever we have instead nowadays.

Religion is pretty tight now; there is Priesthood (which will have a ton of priest units based off it), there is Fanaticism (for advanced religious units and inquisitors). Works well.

Simply put, we don’t need half the techs we have

Half is a massive overstatement. There are a handful of techs I wouldn't mind losing/merging, but I'd want to keep the rest. Simply put, researching things is fun.
Incremental advancement is one of the single most fun things about the civ design. Waiting 30 turns to research a single really powerful tech is boring as hell; I would much rather have 3 techs that take 10 turns each and each do something interesting.

likewise we can get rid of a lot of building

s

There are a few buildings I wouldn't mind losing (tailor, circus/festival, merge inn/tavern, maybe merge castle/citadel), but by and large I *like* buildings. Once again, incremental progress is fun. They add flavor.

This is a war mod, having lots of peaceful do nothing buildings is not a good thing, if were going to add any techs it’ll be to differentiate factions not to bulk out the tech tree (tech costs, and a cutting of gold and science buildings can accomplish that).

Completely disagree. Once again, this isn't just a war mod.
What do you lose by having a few peaceful things to do? I want a fantasy civ mod in a cool setting.
There are only a handful of techs I think we should add; an advanced archery tech for longbowmen/crossbowmen, a militiarism tech so that feudalism doesn't give you everything, and an arcane lore tech for archmages (so that you don't have college mages and archmages both having the same tech requirement, because the college needs a university to build).

No, we are not FFH, yes this tech tree was designed to do that, and yes it was a total utter abject failure, because it ignores the fact that in Warhammer everyone has a mix of everything, there is no just mage team which only uses mages, the proper game is designed so you have to have a balance of troops to win. You don’t need to specialise the damm tech tree to accomplish this you specialise the units … (and yes I understand the reasons why FFH has it, I can’t understand why we need to go down that garden path which is wholly unsuitable).

A fair point. I'm ok with a a design that encourages combined arms rather than specialisation. It makes every game a little bit much the same (that was the point of the FFH design, to add replayability, so not every game is the same) but hopefully we can differentiate factions enough so that it doesn't matter if every Empire game plays the same, because an Empire game is very different from an Orc game or a Dark Elf game.

What do you think is the best way to achieve this? I do really dislike throwing all units into the same tech requirements (like how Feudalism used to give basically everything). Perhaps a good way is to make the tech costs for each tier progressively even more expensive.
So, Tier 3 unit techs cost triple what tier 2 techs cost.
That way, its much more effective for you to get most of the tier 2 techs before moving on to the tier3 techs. This discourages beelining, and encourages generalisation.
*edit*
Obviously unit caps help this to some extent; you can't just tech to knights and then spam these forever. If you want more top-notch units, you have to build different ones.

*edit2* Another way is to increase the number tech requirements at each level, forcing research of most of a level in order to proceed to the next tier. So, for example Stirrups requires Horsebackriding AND (Warfare OR Archery). Tournaments requires Stirrups AND (Advanced smithing OR Military tradition).
The downside of this is that it makes pretty illogical tech requirements.

Magic heavy civs should just have better magic units, they shouldn’t be forced to deliberate between having Silver Helms and having Arch Mages, they should be able to have both

Ok, its a different design philosophy but I'm happy to go that way. It makes faction balance hard, but not undoable. And the combined arms design philosophy probably does fit the subject material better.

strip one unit away from there full roster and they are not high elves anymore

That is a completely ridiculous statement.

I’m fairly darn certain the player is more than capable of building the better units from the list on there own without us forcing them with the tech tree.

But is the AI? It is important to make sure that design is something the AI can handle; war is no fun if the AI is just a pushover even on Immortal/Deity. Removing access to techs that don't do anything useful is a pretty good and simple way to steer the AI into being effective, by not wasting resources on low value techs.

So, I'm ok with a combined arms military design philosophy, as long as we can still make the factions play differently. I'm fine with some tech tree simplification, but not with a skeletal tech tree so that I only get a new tech every 25 turns. I completely reject the idea that this mod can be only about war. Its about flavor and setting, too.

At the end of the day, this is a mod of Civilisation, not Total War.

New tech tree suggestions.

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