Tech Tree Discussion

[Hydromancerx]

I've been looking at the Industrial Era Tech Tree, and I noticed that, for some inexplicable reason, Impressionism is granting +1 move to naval units. I don't think this is deliberate, and it feels like this belongs on some other tech. Any ideas which one it should be?

Currently, the other +1 sea move techs are:

• Weather Lore (Classical Era)
• Compass (Medieval Era)
• Astrolabe (Renaissance Era)
• Naval Tactics (Renaissance Era)
• Navigation (Renaissance Era)
• Sextant (Renaissance Era)
• Refrigeration (Industrial Era)
• Sonar (Industrial Era)

Also, there seems to be a cluster of +1 sea move techs in the Renaissance. I'd suggest removing the +1 sea movement at Naval Tactics, because you're also getting an effective +1 sea movement from the Naval Academy building that becomes available.

Yeah that's just weird about impressionism. that should not be there. But I think Naval Tactics should still get the boost. Especially since its only for NEW units from the Naval Academy. Old units should still benefit from the movement increase at that tech.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I'm planning a revamp of the Industrial Era Tech Tree (I think v28 will be delayed over the holidays, so I will probably have enough time to finish this). Like I did with the Renaissance Era, I came up with a system for tying technologies to individual dates/events to sort them out. I ran into a few questions that I'd like to ask of the people who have been around for a while and maybe know the mod's history better than I do.

• Compulsory Education: The first establishment of compulsory education was in 1763 Prussia, but it didn't spread to England until 1870. So it is possible that Compulsory Education is a very late-Renaissance tech instead of an Industrial tech. Is there a particular date that this tech is tied to?
• Advanced Metallurgy: I can see two really good events to tie this to: one is the Hall–Héroult process for producing aluminum by electricity. This is in 1888. The other is Koll producing titanium metal in 1932. I think the second event is correct, but that means breaking the chokepoint that is Advanced Metallurgy, as at the very least Motorized Transportation needs to come before this. Would this be a problem?
• Electricity: This one is a monster, because it is such a broad tech. I'm looking to make the main event the 1873 publication of Maxwell's Laws. This leaves Telegraph behind, since the Morse telegraph is 1837, but I really feel that it's too easy right now to beeline certain techs (like Radio and Refrigeration) that shouldn't be showing up so early in the Industrial Era.
• Submarine Warfare: Do the U-boats of World War I count for this? If so, then the tech requirements need some radical changing.
• Logistics: I can't even peg this one to a date. I suspect it's supposed to be related to US advances in World War II, but that's the best I can do.

Its probly a good ideas to do the same to this era. Some issues ...

1. I don't know about reasoning of placement for Compulsory Education since it has been in since RoM/AND.

2. If Advanced Metallurgy and Motorized Transportation are moved around the Parts Plant needs to come before the Automobile Plant because it requires Parts.

3. Yeah Electricity is so broad, however some things have at least been spread out over different tech such as Electronics, Telegraph, Hydroelectricity, etc.

4. Well the U-boats were added later. We may want an earlier tech just for the U-boats and other early submarines.

5. Logistics is another RoM/AND relic so yeah its anyones guess. In the info text it says it enabled units that we either don't have anymore or have been renamed and moved. Not to mention a "Contracting" civic that I do not even remember we had.

 

[Vokarya]

Yeah that's just weird about impressionism. that should not be there. But I think Naval Tactics should still get the boost. Especially since its only for NEW units from the Naval Academy. Old units should still benefit from the movement increase at that tech.

But I don't think that tactics benefits ocean movement on the scale of the Civ4 map. In my experience, ships mostly go from Point A to Point B and attack once per turn, since ships rarely get Blitz. Plus, I just think +4 moves in one era is a lot.

 

[Vokarya]

Its probly a good ideas to do the same to this era. Some issues ...

1. I don't know about reasoning of placement for Compulsory Education since it has been in since RoM/AND.

2. If Advanced Metallurgy and Motorized Transportation are moved around the Parts Plant needs to come before the Automobile Plant because it requires Parts.

3. Yeah Electricity is so broad, however some things have at least been spread out over different tech such as Electronics, Telegraph, Hydroelectricity, etc.

4. Well the U-boats were added later. We may want an earlier tech just for the U-boats and other early submarines.

5. Logistics is another RoM/AND relic so yeah its anyones guess. In the info text it says it enabled units that we either don't have anymore or have been renamed and moved. Not to mention a "Contracting" civic that I do not even remember we had.

I'm trying to pay attention to where I move things. Here's a couple of thoughts that I have had but haven't crystallized yet:

• I'm not quite sure how to balance Railroad vs. Steel. I think the Steel tech is supposed to represent the Bessemer converter, which is invented in 1855 (crucible steel is much earlier, but it's not being produced in the quantity that the Steel tech provides). The locomotive is invented earlier, in 1825, but it takes the Bessemer converter to really make large-scale railways.
• I think Machine Tools needs a major movement backwards; they start becoming commercially available around 1800. Maybe the Parts Plant should wind up there? It's a thought.
• I understand the problems with Electricity. I was noticing that trying to match up dates with prerequisite levels causes the whole Electricity line of techs to be placed much earlier than it should be. Right now, Radio is about 1/3rd of the way through the Industrial Tree, and I think it should be closer to 1/2. If I force Electricity forwards, it means breaking the link between Electricity and Telegraph.
• With Submarine Warfare, I think the thing to do is move the technology backwards, since submarines were used effectively during World War I. That will open up a gap between the regular Submarine and the Attack Submarine, as Submarine Warfare is currently very close to the end of the Industrial Era, and Advanced Rocketry, which is the defining tech for the Attack Submarine, is at the beginning of the Modern Era.
• I just found the term I was looking for to tie Logistics to: Operations research, which was started in 1940, so at exactly the right time for its placement on the tree.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

... Plus, I just think +4 moves in one era is a lot.

If we were going for realism it would need to be +10 or +20. So I think +4 is good for the game.

1. I don't know about reasoning of placement for Compulsory Education since it has been in since RoM/AND.

iifc this is about getting children out of the workforce so adult men can get jobs. It is equivalent to primary school education ie from age 5 to about 10-12. It ended up having such a good effect on reducing poverty that it stuck. Unfortunately it lead to the invention of teenagers as wealth increased and the school age was raised and schools became places to train people to be apprentices in the new industries.

 

[Vokarya]

If we were going for realism it would need to be +10 or +20. So I think +4 is good for the game.

All right, if I'm that outvoted, I'll let it stand. On a separate note, should we have even more late-game unit movement bonuses? I think I would like to see +1 land and sea movement with Logistics, as I think it's as much a military tech as an industrial one.

 

[Vokarya]

iifc this is about getting children out of the workforce so adult men can get jobs. It is equivalent to primary school education ie from age 5 to about 10-12. It ended up having such a good effect on reducing poverty that it stuck. Unfortunately it lead to the invention of teenagers as wealth increased and the school age was raised and schools became places to train people to be apprentices in the new industries.

Yes, but the trick is finding the most appropriate place to put it. I'm especially looking for technologies who pre-date or post-date the era-defining technologies (Printing Press, Steam Power, etc.) to see if they need to be moved forward or backward an era. That's what happened to Impressionism-Photography-Romanticism-Realism - they were originally in the Renaissance Era, but they were significantly after the development of Steam Power, so they needed to be moved to the Industrial Era. After I find the placement, I can then tweak the prerequisites appropriately.

I think the most appropriate spot to put Compulsory Education is tying it to the Jules Ferry laws of 1882, which established free, compulsory, and secular public schools. I'll take a look and see what that might do to its placement on the tree.

 

[Hydromancerx]

All right, if I'm that outvoted, I'll let it stand. On a separate note, should we have even more late-game unit movement bonuses? I think I would like to see +1 land and sea movement with Logistics, as I think it's as much a military tech as an industrial one.

Land units are a bit different since the various roads have a big improvement on how fast you can cross land tiles. Rails and Highways I think represent well the increase in speed over land. However where there are not roads even the fastest car will go slow. Not to mention things like trains need tracks.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Land units are a bit different since the various roads have a big improvement on how fast you can cross land tiles. Rails and Highways I think represent well the increase in speed over land. However where there are not roads even the fastest car will go slow. Not to mention things like trains need tracks.

That's fine within your own borders, but if you're really going for realism land units would still need vastly increased speed because Modern (and Industrial) armies had a lot more strategic mobility outside their territory than their predecessors.

Once in the Industrial era, around the time of Napoleon (especially with the introduction of canned food, which gave his French army a huge leap in strategic mobility since they no longer had to forage). A +1 to land unit movement would not be inappropriate here, doubling infantry and giving cavalry a 33% increase sounds about right.

The second should come around the World War II techs with the Blitzkreig doctrine and the various Allied and Axis responses. It's in this era that mechanization of the "infantry" begins and combined arms warfare starts to take its immediately premodern form. The problem is that this should probably be a 2 to 4 point jump for "realism's" sake, which, as usual, makes for bad gameplay. +1 land unit movement with Logistics would be a good compromise.

You could make a case for a third coming some time during the Modern age but I think the switch to different units like Mechanized Infantry better represents that. It's less a shift in overall logistics and strategic doctrine and more a function of the vehicles that are available to infantry.

Mind, I have no idea how this would play out. It seems like post-Logistics you'd be in a situation where enemies could strike almost anywhere if you shared a land border, but that's not necessarily bad for the gameplay. At the moment, the computer struggles to deal with the player's ability to use the rails to concentrate invincible defensive forces. If the attacking army had better mobility it might be able to take cities or at least pillage before you could organize a response.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@MoogleEmpMog

Many of the land units come with the Commando promotion which allows you to use enemy roads. Such as Mounted and Wheeled Units.

 

[ls612]

All right, if I'm that outvoted, I'll let it stand. On a separate note, should we have even more late-game unit movement bonuses? I think I would like to see +1 land and sea movement with Logistics, as I think it's as much a military tech as an industrial one.

I don't know that we can do +land movement on a tech with the tags we have now. Granted I could probably make a new tag fairly easily, but it is something to consider. I do like that idea though for Logistics, I would also give another +land movement somewhere in the TH era.

 

[Vokarya]

I don't know that we can do +land movement on a tech with the tags we have now. Granted I could probably make a new tag fairly easily, but it is something to consider. I do like that idea though for Logistics, I would also give another +land movement somewhere in the TH era.

Does DOMAIN_LAND not work with <DomainExtraMoves>? I haven't tried it.

 

[ls612]

Does DOMAIN_LAND not work with <DomainExtraMoves>? I haven't tried it.

It should. I for some reason thought it was as simple integer tag for sea units specifically, but that's my ignorance speaking.

 

[CIVPlayer8]

I've always thought that the the techs "Industrialism" and "Assembly Line" should be switched, as the Assembly Line was an early 20th century invention, and it certainly came after Industrialization. As it currently is, Assembly Line comes quite a bit before Industrialism.

 

[ls612]

I've always thought that the the techs "Industrialism" and "Assembly Line" should be switched, as the Assembly Line was an early 20th century invention, and it certainly came after Industrialization. As it currently is, Assembly Line comes quite a bit before Industrialism.

Adam Smith envisioned the assembly line in 1776 with The Wealth of Nations, so that would potentially be an argument for leaving it. That said it is a rather weak argument IMO, and agree it could probably be moved.

 

[Vokarya]

I've always thought that the the techs "Industrialism" and "Assembly Line" should be switched, as the Assembly Line was an early 20th century invention, and it certainly came after Industrialization. As it currently is, Assembly Line comes quite a bit before Industrialism.

I was going to tie Assembly Line to the Portsmouth Block Mills, which were mass-producing blocks for ship production by 1803. Industrialism would be keyed to the mass production of the Model T Ford, so it would actually wind up after Motorized Transportation.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm going to post the first quarter of the timeline for the various Industrial techs. This covers technologies up to 1850. In terms of pure dates, there is some overlap between the beginning of the Industrial Era (with Steam Power in the late 1700's) and the end of the Renaissance (with Grand War and Military Tradition in the early 1800's), but Steam Power is the founding technology of the Industrial Era, so that has to be kept.

Date Tech Event
1765 Steam Power Watt engine
1792 Gas Lighting First lighting of a house
1798 Romanticism Wordsworth and Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads
1800 Machine Tools First commercially available machine tools
1803 Assembly Line Portsmouth Block Mills for Royal Navy
1806 Food Preservation Appert demonstrates preserving food in jars
1817 Bicycles Bicycle invented
1817 Paleontology Cuvier publishes The Animal Kingdom
1824 Thermodynamics Carnot publishes Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
1825 Railroad First public steam railway
1826 Photography First photographs taken
1827 Screw Propeller Ressel invents screw propeller
1828 Organic Chemistry Wohler synthesizes urea from inorganic compounds
1830 Mormon Joseph Smith publishes Book of Mormon
1832 Military Science Clausewitz publishes On War
1833 Firefighting London Fire Engine Establishment formed
1834 Agricultural Engineering McCormick reaper
1835 Journalism New York Herald published
1837 Meteorology Telegraph-powered observations
1837 Steampunk Alternate timeline (beginning with Victoria)
1837 Telegraph Morse telegraph becomes commercially successful
1841 Marine Biology Edward Forbes founds marine ecology
1844 Baha'i First followers of Baha'i
1847 Nitroglycerine Nitroglycerin synthesized
1848 Marxism Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto
1849 Realism Courbet paints Stone-Breakers

The location of Steampunk on this timeline is totally arbitrary. I think I'll just leave it right next to Steam Power, although the Military Science prerequisite is actually the farther advanced one, at least date-wise.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Vokarya

Did you happen to take a look at this topic again?

Renaissance and Industrial Era
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468669

 

[Vokarya]

@Vokarya

Did you happen to take a look at this topic again?

Renaissance and Industrial Era
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468669

I am looking. I don't think there is anything there that's broad enough for an entire technology; there may be some useful things, but I have to go over it in detail.

 

[Ellestar]

[*]Logistics: I can't even peg this one to a date. I suspect it's supposed to be related to US advances in World War II, but that's the best I can do.
[/LIST]

US supplied troops by sea, easiest supply by far. I think Germany WWII advances are much more important, they planned Blitzkrieg and logistics for it with a day-by-day precision months in advance. And it was a much harder supply on land on conquered territory.