Rename Civ Eras- they're too Eurocentric!

[Evie]

What's so ridiculous about Civ II's system?

 

[sir_schwick]

Exactly, I hate how limiting the Civ 3 system was. In Civ 3 you follow exactly WEstern History, in Civ 2 you really felt liek you were playing an alternate history.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm sorry but, IMHO, going back to a single, all-ecompassing tech tree would be a massive step backwards-and not for the better!
What really bugged me about civ2's tech tree was how you could be so incredibly advanced in one area (or possibly two) and yet have made nearly no development in others! Eras, OTOH, allowed a much stricter delimitation of how much you could beline on certain techs! Beelining would be even more reduced if tech advancement was made more 'semi-directional'! Also, I do agree, as I have stated above, that tech advance limits on era advancement should not be absolute as it is in civ3, but be in some way tied to your civ characteristics!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh and, btw, another way to make eras more flexible in the way that they effect tech advances, you can use the previously suggested 'Socio-economic prerequisite' method for era advancement. That is, make era advancement FAR LESS dependant on tech aquisition, and instead have it based on things like your current culture value, the number of cities you have, how many resources you are connected up to, and how connected your cities are to each other AND to other civs! Each era advancement would have different 'socio-economic' criteria but, if you met them, then you could begin acquiring techs from the new age. The flip side is that, should you lose your PR, then you slide back into the previous age (a Dark Age), and potentially lose the new techs you have gained or, at the very least, lose the ability to gain any more techs from the more advanced era. This could, of course, work concurrently with the more flexible 'minimum tech' system for era advancement that I mentioned above!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I don't know if the "beelining" thing is such a bad thing. It's actually more realistic (since it's more flexible) than the confined ages. Not to say I'm married to the Civ 2 tech tree, but it has its merits. A nation can be very socially progressive without being a technological powerhouse... and technological powerhouses can exist while still being a very "primitive" socially (if I can use that politically incorrect word).

I'd like to see a certain amount of flexibility in how a society can progress socially and technologically. In different orders, at different times...

 

[Gogf]

Better yet, ditch the idea of ages and return to the previous one big tree style of technology (with some enhancements - I would love to see the flavor concept enhanced). By dividing into ages you force the game into a small number of fixed development patterns (you essentially listed the history of Western Civ with bland names based on the key resource of the era and by doing so forced the game to do exactly what you stated you didn't want). The one tree scheme is a little more open and will occasionally yield a game where technology progresses in an unusual pattern. If you combined this with the limited selection or blind research this could be more interesting.

I agree. That sounds reasonable.

 

[warpstorm]

I don't know if the "beelining" thing is such a bad thing. It's actually more realistic (since it's more flexible) than the confined ages.

The problem with beelining is I can map out my entire strategy for the entire game and come up with the "One True Path" that will work in nearly every game. This is a bad thing.

 

[sir_schwick]

Reading all this has made me think that maybe the tech tree should also include non-technology related criteria for advancement, like Aussie_lurker was suggesting. Here are a couple directions that could go:

(1) Resource requirements: This should probably be for non-compulsory resources. Civs with access to these resources would get richer in all areas, not just military or industry. This should extend to luxuries and bous resources as well as strategic. It could also be used as a way you could not research a lot of the modern gas guzzlers without oil around to promote use.
(2) Developemental requirements: This would be minimum culture or population before certain techs could be researched or aquired. This would prevent someone from trading techs 500 years ahead in 2 turns. It would also still allow applied research in one area, but not to ridiculously far.
(3) Global base knowledge: Some techs would require that there be a certain % of the world population who has access to previous techs. This is more of a play-balancer than a real-world model. Also, this would be used for the next principle.

By combining some of these requirements, you could also get a set of second tier techs whenever 3 is hit for a tech.
(1) Resource lacking - You society doesn't have access to a resource, but understands the applications. THese techs would offer some solution, though not as good as the original. If they had access to grain, they could try using Ethanol fuels instead of Oil, though units produced this way would be a lot worse.
(2) Underdeveloped - Underdeveloped nations would now have access to special versions of techs. These versions usually have the same effects, but they casue unhappiness or other negative affects. As soon as the civ rises above the developemental standards, you revert to normal improvements operation and such forth.

I still think they need just one giant tech tree, but with these kind of requirments games could go in all kinds of directions.

The problem with beelining is I can map out my entire strategy for the entire game and come up with the "One True Path" that will work in nearly every game. This is a bad thing.

That's the main reason I support Blind Research. In SMAC it was very hard to aim for a certain tech, you rather had to aim for the kind of techs you needed. Sometimes it was too blind, but that could easily be tweaked.

 

[dh_epic]

Word, I do agree that even in the situations where the game opens up a choice, there's often a distinct singular best path.

You think the solution to bee-lining for a singular strategy, if not distinct ages (which we both agree is kind of limiting in its current form), is blind research? I'm certainly for this idea, but this strikes me as one of those things that changes a fundamental aspect of the game. But I've been repeating over and over that they can't keep selling to the same audience.

Or did you have a different solution in mind?

 

[sir_schwick]

Unfortunately I can't think of a more elegant and intuitive solution to precision research strategies. A non-static research tree would alienate even more players, plus be horridly complicated to learn and implement.

Here is a solution to the same kind of problem in M:TW. In Medieval, you can build all the buildings, but you can't get certain units until certain years. Of course the primary difference is that M:TW simulates a specific history and Cvilizatoin is rewriting history. A variation would be that in order to get past certain techs, certain global qualifiers would need to be met. Maybe a certain amount of research per turn(encourage by trade of course) or overall development. Or maybe certain techs could be researched but not implemented until other techs had existed for a time. I still think Blind Research is a lot more fun and less complicated and I don't understand why players are afraid of it.

 

[warpstorm]

The Early Civ games gave you a limited subset of the possible research items. While you may have the prerequisites for, say, 10 techs, the game would only allow you to choose from 4 of them (randomly selected). This would allow some control over your research but also vary it from game to game so that you sometimes had to deal with unusual research paths.

 

[thestonesfan]

I would have to say I prefer the tree split into eras, and four is about the right number. It might be a good idea to split the middle age into middle and renaissance, but that's not really necessary. There are a lot of benefits to the split era system. It slows the game down, and emphasizes unique periods of historical development. It adds a lot of flair, I think. I like how your buildings change, the music changes, and the leaderheads change, and I like how you can't totally abandon one string of development. I understand why some people would want to, but it's really not very realistic.

I really don't think it's eurocentric the way it is. The techs represent the ages, not the other way around. There is nothing eurocentric about the idea of Music Theory. If it was called "German Music" it would be Eurocentric. And just because Meso-American civs never became Industrialized, it doesn't mean they wouldn't have. If the Aztecs built factories, as they can in the game, they would have entered an Industrial Age just like England.

That said, the idea of completely independent tech trees per era isn't one I particularly care for. The current system could stand some tweaking.

 

[dh_epic]

I remember civ one: your tech screen was more or less a radial button menu.

I'm okay with this. Would the 4 / 10 possibilities be determined randomly, or would they be affected by other aspects:

- resources: having a lot of oil results in more technologies involving oil
- the strengths / needs of your empire: fighting a lot results in more military techs
- civ-linked preference (China is more likely to produce burocratic technologies early on)
- culture-linked preference (European civs are more likely to produce individualistic technologies)
- trait linked preference (Agricultural civs are more likely to produce agricultural techs)

By all means there would be little difference to player control, since the calculations of which techs to become available would be done by the system. The difference would strictly be trying to create an algorithm to provide more immersion than a pure-random algorithm.

But all in all, three cheers for blind research.

 

[sir_schwick]

This is going ot be really hard to explain and it will sound like a terrible idea, but just try to imagine it in your head. I call it "Fluid Technology Tree". Currently Civilization uses a "Static Technology Tree". The Tech Tree is the exact same each game. The same advances always lead to the same next advances. In a "Fluid Tech Tree" techs don't always lead to other techs in the same order. Sound horribly complicated already?

I'll start with the concept of how techs become 'developeable'. Each tech will have requirements to even be developable. Some of those requirements are partial, while ohter are complete. Partial would be, have researched 2 of these 4 techs. Complete would be own at least 2 size 4 cities. It might also be, have at least 2 trading partners, or be in a war wiht only 1 other civ in the last 30 turns. This way you wouldn't see the entire tech tree, just what could be researched. ALso, at the end of each game the tech tree would be unique. For those who don't like fluid research, you could also play with a custom built or standard static tech tree.

ON eras, era shifts would be based on a combo of technology, devleopement, and society evolution. Hard to say how it works though.

 

[dh_epic]

It makes some sense to me... have pre-requisites so the tech tree depends on other techs, and depends on other events. It doesn't have to be complicated in the front end -- which is what really matters to a game. The user only sees the handfull of technologies they can research, but they don't necessarily realize why they're coming in that way. (Although you might get an inkling that "well, there's not a lot of iron, so that explains why I haven't seen iron working come up")

 

[Longasc]

Even better, tie certain fields of research to the type of government.

Give Democracy the ability to research everything, Communism a military tech discount but some 50% on some other techs, no genetics while being a Theocracy...

urks. This would make some governments probably inbalanced. No, I dislike my own idea after thinking about it.

 

[sir_schwick]

It makes some sense to me... have pre-requisites so the tech tree depends on other techs, and depends on other events. It doesn't have to be complicated in the front end -- which is what really matters to a game. The user only sees the handfull of technologies they can research, but they don't necessarily realize why they're coming in that way. (Although you might get an inkling that "well, there's not a lot of iron, so that explains why I haven't seen iron working come up")

Exactly! The best part would be that you would not know what the tech tree would look like, because it would look different each game. PLus you might get different techs in different eras now, since theorhetically era progression is based on relative progress, not specific advances. That would add a lot to the idea of 'what-if' technology had progressed this way.

 

[Oni]

For my part, I actually PREFER Civ3's age-based tech tree over the ridiculous civ2 tech tree-because it gave me a FAR better sense of a movement through history. Thats not to say that it cannot be refined and finnessed!
For instance, I definitely feel that you should start with a 'Stone Age/Agricultural Age', and then move into an 'Ancient age' (early bronze age), followed perhaps by a 'Classical Age' (its interesting to note that the Mayan civilization also had a 'classical age' around the same time as the one in Europe! The Middle ages should be broken up into a Middle Ages and either 'Enlightenment Age' or an 'Imperial Age'. This could then move into the 'Industrial age'-which ends c1945, and then moves into an Atomic Age/Information Age-followed by a future age?? Each age also does require many more techs, with several gateway techs leading into 'flavour' branches of the tech tree!
Also, as I have stated in another thread, I also think that set Age-PR techs should be dropped in favour of a 'minimum techs' for age progression system. These minimum techs would be in areas related to your civ characteristics. So an Agricultural/Seafaring civ would need a minimum # of agricultural and/or seafaring techs in order to be considered in the next age!
Anyway, just some thoughts!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think that is very well said. It really would be better to have a # of techs rather than triggers... This would also allow certain races to move fastly through the progression skipping those achievments that are not ties to their civilization creating huge differences in these civs later on... BUT in that sence the tech tree needs to be completely reworked out to actually have meaningful pre-reqs and such. The current one has rediculous pre-reqs for later techs.. I mean it works but wouldn't if this change would be made. But this would be a really kel change IMHO.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hmmmm, note this is just a suggestion-but how about the tech tree is divided in the following fashion:

1) General Techs: These are techs that are equally available to all civs. They will still come under specific research areas-like military, agricultural, commercial etc.

2) Character-driven 'Gateway' Techs: These techs are ones which, though any civ can get them, they are VERY difficult to get unless your civ characteristics and culture match those of the tech itself. once you obtain this tech, it opens up a whole new branch of the tech tree to that civ! Such techs would be quite rare-limited to maybe 1 or 2 per age!

3) Situational Gateway Techs: These are techs which only appear for discovery if a certain 'trigger' condition is met. After that, the civ can study it like any other. Like 2 above, obtaining this tech might potentially open up a whole new branch to the tech tree!

This would allow a massive amount of cultural and situational diversity between civs!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Babbler]

I think the eras' names are okay.

As for the One Big Tech Tree (OBTT), it sounds like a good idea. It would increase the flexablity of the game a bit, and make for some interesting statgies. And the suggestion for improving the era tech tree is interesting (I like the civ-abitiy like eras).