Rethinking Techs and Policy Cards

[jsciv69]

This is just a rough suggestion. Have each Tech placed into categories. For instance there are Techs that can be grouped into a land improvement category, Defense/ Military category, Culture and Religious, Science and Industrial. Policy Cards should be grouped in similar fashion. And instead of selecting one Tech and One Policy Card at a time. let the Civs multi-task. Select one Tech/Policy from each category. Just as with the City production choice suggestion. Let Civs select more than one Tech/Policy at a time. This will give Civs the ability to grow and develop better. And also be more prepared for the challenges of each coming Era. And let those choices increase as we enter each new Era. This way we are able to develop our Cities, our Forces, and Lands at the same time. After all that's what all the Empires, Kingdoms, and Nations do in real life.

 

[Saint Leibowitz]

Hmm, I do like that idea. It's basically what Alpha Centauri did unless you play as Zakharov. But I do think that late enough in the game you should be able to direct research. I would enjoy something like the eureka system where you can more easily get certain techs tailored to circumstance, e.g. more naval techs if you sail more.

 

[Ranger0001]

Select one Tech/Policy from each category. Just as with the City production choice suggestion. Let Civs select more than one Tech/Policy at a time. This will give Civs the ability to grow and develop better.

And this would allow specialization depending on what a civs strengths were. This is what a lot of paradox games do (I know CK2, EU4 and HOI4 do) where there are three or more categories and you research each of them separately and it works quite well in those games.

 

[mitsho]

So, more micro-work at first and then a lot of 1-turn-research-time catch-up techs? Sorry, not convinced. It‘s a game, and that means making choices and priorities. You are right that your concept better represents history, I‘m just not sure it‘s a good idea for gameplay. Can you answer that, how would it enhance gameplay? Being better prepared for everything just means less variation and more stability, not something I‘d actually want.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I've thought about this kind of system a lot over the years, because I still think so many things in SMAC were so well done and their "Tech Bush - Nearly Blind Research" was one of them.

Unfortunately, it is a nightmare trying to shoehorn any given Technology into a single category. In most cases, basic Technology is just that: basic, and basic to a number of different developments.

For one early and simple example, fired Pottery was a very early technology - it's been dated back to 18,000 BCE, well before any reasonable Start of Game. It can be pretty fairly assumed that Fired Pottery allows better storage of Food, so is an EconomicPopulation Tech, right?

Except that the same kilns that fired pottery also concentrate enough heat to smelt metal, so the "Pottery" technology also leads to the smelting and working of Copper, Silver, Gold, Lead, and Bronze. Silver, Gold and Lead were all used as 'decorative' metals from very early (4 - 5000 BCE), so Cultural/Artistic Tech. Copper was the first 'tool metal' so Production. But it was also the first metal applied to weapons, so Military. And Bronze is even worse: Bronze saws made it possible to saw smooth cuts across the grain of even hard woods, so it made possible the construction of solid wheels on wagons (in every place that the first solid wheels are found, bronze-working was developed at virtually the same time in the same places) and much better weapons which, because Bronze was expensive (requiring two different metals not usually found together) it also stimulated the development of elite Warrior Aristocracies that cornered the bronze weapons - a Social as well as Production/Transportation and Military Technology.

Now, trying to develop any kind of Tech Tree for all that and divide it by category is flatly impossible. Or at least, results in so many compromises that it is meaningless.

My (tentative) solution is a much better development of the 'branching' Tech Tree of Beyond Earth. Divide the Tech Tree not by category, but by Basic technologies and Applications.

Example:
Basic Technology: Terracotta Pottery
Applications:
Low-Temp Metal Smelting: can exploit Copper, Gold, Silver
Gold, Silver give bonuses to Money and Culture
Copper gives bonuses to Production and Military
Amphorae: fired clay storage containers, allows construction of Granaries and bonus to Food
Decorated Pottery: Provides a new Trade Good, Bonus to Money and Culture

Further up the Tech Tree comes:
Basic Technology: Bronze-Working: (Requires Terracotta Pottery AND Low-Temp Metal Smelting) allows Spearmen, Heroic Warriors Units, Bonus to Wheel Technology
Applications:
Stoneware Pottery (requires Amphorae) - Bonus to Trade, Food storage, Culture
Wheel (solid-wheeled carts and wagons), allows Pastoral Culture, bonus to Trade and Production and Food
Masonry (Requires Stone-Working Technology) can exploit Marble, bonus to construction of many Wonders, bonus to Production

The Specialization of your technologies would derive from which Applications you choose to research, because I envision most Basic Techs would have 3 or more Applications, and you would be allowed to research 1 Tech and 1 Application at the same time (Applications being a little faster to research) so you could not research all the Applications in a timely manner: you would have to choose and specialize.

I would also include the Eureka system from Civ VI, but with much more specific application of the Research Bonuses to both Basic techs and Applications, and much more integration of bonuses from Civics or Social Policies, Terrain around your cities, Resources available, as well as other technologies. As an example from above, having Copper, Gold, or Silver Resources in the radius of your city would obviously give a Bonus to researching Low-Temp Metal Smelting, while having someone to Trade with will provide a Bonus to researching Decorated Pottery.