Tech Tree Discussion

[Arakhor]

For Consciousness, since Sedentary Lifestyle requires both those techs anyway, it seemed sensible to just list Sedentary Lifestyle as the acting tech.

Road Building is the tech right before Construction in the tech tree, which requires Mathematics itself, and it seemed logical that you'd need proper roads in place before committing to any large constructions. Plus, Concrete, which results from Construction, was used in Roman road construction, so I thought that made for a rather elegant chain of events.

Board Games comes from Ceremony, rather than being a requirement itself, so I'm not sure I understand your question.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Currently Ceremony requires Ideograms and Board Games. At least according to the TechInfos I am using to compare.

edit On the SVN Ceremony requires

			<OrPreReqs>
				<PrereqTech>TECH_BOARDGAMES</PrereqTech>
			</OrPreReqs>
			<AndPreReqs>
				<PrereqTech>TECH_IDEOGRAMS</PrereqTech>
				<PrereqTech>TECH_ANCESTOR_WORSHIP</PrereqTech>
			</AndPreReqs>

 

[Arakhor]

And yet Board Games has a higher cost and is in a later column. Ceremony also requires Ancestor Worship, hence its arrow in my revision.

I'm not sure why Ceremony should come from Board Games, especially as BG is apparently a later, more difficult tech, but given that Senet, one of the earliest known board games, seems to be a part of ancient Egyptian burial rituals, BG coming from Ceremony (rather than the reverse) doesn't seem to be out of place.

(Incidentally, I'm not trying to claim a secret master plan for this cunning ruse, as I don't actually recall flipping the prereqs like that, but it does make sense, I think.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It is possible that TECH_BOARDGAMES actually means the technology Games not the technology Board Games. I'll check.

edit no it is Board games.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@DH/Arakhor: Have we sorted this out to completion? I need to work with some things here and it would be very helpful if I could know what the current tech order would/should be. Are these recent changes on the SVN already or is this still under indefinite consideration? (I know... SVN down at the moment and all.)

 

[Arakhor]

As far as I know, they didn't reach the SVN yet, but obviously I can't check. I don't think there are any other issues with my tweaks.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

They are not yet because it is down. I only have the one two issues with the tweaks at the moment.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've found 1 error and that would be TECH_TOURNAMENTS and TECH_CLOCKPUNK have the same x and y settings. Shifting TECH_TOURNAMENTS up to y1 fixes it just fine.

@DH: So that I can work with things as they'll be after your desired adjustments, what are they?

 

[Arakhor]

I completely forgot about Clockpunk, as I normally have the Alt Timelines switched off. I'd recommend shifting Clockpunk up to 50,1 and leave Tournaments at 50,3. That way, those people with Clockpunk off like me don't see Tournaments lurching upwards abruptly for no reason.

Which two issues are those, DH?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

For Consciousness, since Sedentary Lifestyle requires both those techs anyway, it seemed sensible to just list Sedentary Lifestyle as the acting tech.

Except if you want to you can get it before Sedentary Lifestyle. Mostly I would like to keep it the way it is because I expect to add a few other techs that belong in one era but come straight of techs in the early part of the earlier era. It is the cost of learning the tech not the prequisites that give the challenge.

Ceremony is the other, I think.

I have made the new change to Clockpunk. Now all we need is the SVN to be up.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, you get terribly messy arrows if you have techs located in one era but which spring from an earlier era. Added to that, I think that Sedentary Lifestyle should be the gateway tech to Ancient techs, so having just one other tech randomly available without it seems silly.

As for Ceremony requiring Board Games (rather than the more sensible reverse), no tech should have an AND prereq later in the tech tree (for common sense requirements), which is why I blitzed Canaanism's Polytheism requirement and why Ceremony should not require Board Games.

(As an aside, techs shouldn't have an OR prereq that isn't to its left because it makes for horrible vertical arrows if its "arrow tech" is directly above or below it.)

 

[Publicola]

I don't know if this has been previously mentioned or discussed, but one issue I have with the prehistoric tech tree is the fact that 'Canine Domestication' comes so late in the tree. It's practically lumped in with the other domestication techs, when historically speaking dogs were domestically many thousands of years before the rest. The usual date attached to the domestication of dogs is 30,000 BC, though most dates go even earlier than that. Pigs and sheep were domesticated much later, around 9000 BC, and finally cattle and goats were domesticated in 8000 BC, paving the way for farms and sedentary communities.

Given how crucial dogs were to the early hunter-gatherer societies, I'd suggest reorganizing parts of it to ensure that dogs appear sooner and are necessary for various buildings and benefits in the prehistoric era.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I don't know if this has been previously mentioned or discussed, but one issue I have with the prehistoric tech tree is the fact that 'Canine Domestication' comes so late in the tree. It's practically lumped in with the other domestication techs, when historically speaking dogs were domestically many thousands of years before the rest. The usual date attached to the domestication of dogs is 30,000 BC, though most dates go even earlier than that. Pigs and sheep were domesticated much later, around 9000 BC, and finally cattle and goats were domesticated in 8000 BC, paving the way for farms and sedentary communities.

Given how crucial dogs were to the early hunter-gatherer societies, I'd suggest reorganizing parts of it to ensure that dogs appear sooner and are necessary for various buildings and benefits in the prehistoric era.

I've been considering taking another look at the tech tree for things like this. I can buy that canine domestication was much earlier than we place it. However, is it possible that some of the other mentioned animals were domesticated after sedentary communities? I know that civilization as we know it really sprang up from 6k to 3k BC but that doesn't mean that wasn't many years after some agricultural societies had developed does it?

Point being, that we've theorized that herd animal domestication would've developed only once sedentary practices were adopted, or perhaps just before - becoming one potential initial impetus to settle. Although I can see how perhaps there were some small families of herd animals long before that point depending on the creature. I'm just curious, what do the scholars say on the subject?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

From what I have read domestication of cattle and other large animals was a delaying factor in sedentary lifestyle. Birds and small mammals converse - would you really expect a cat to even consider being domesticated if there is not somewhere safe, dry and warm for it

Having said that I think that we should only have two domestication technologies in the tech tree, canine and animal. The others could be replaced by National Wonders which cost less if you have herds or other buildings related to the wonder. After all a nation with many herds of horses is much more likely to domesticate them than a nation which has none.

I was considering something along the lines

- NW Equine Domestication (requires camel, horse or zebra; maybe deer and giraffe if we can extend the units) when built you choose which if you have both but all resources of the other type become the one you chose.

- NW Donkey/Llama Domestication

- NW Cattle Domestication (requires cattle, bison etc)

- NW Poultry Domestication (poultry) any one type as per poultry animals (turkey, peacock etc)

- NW Elephant Domestication ( either or both elephants or mammoths)​

Just an idea to try and make the nations unique.

 

[Publicola]

(Darn, looks like my original reply got lost....)

As far as I know, it was the domestication of cattle that enabled the first sedentary communities by allowing more efficient plowing, irrigation, etc. That was the biggest hurdle before farming became really competitive with foraging. Besides the sheep and pig, pretty much everything we think of as 'domesticated' happened after that point. Wikipedia has a pretty helpful list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals

That said, that list relies on a very specific definition of 'domestication,' particularly related to physical or even genetic changes that occur as a result of close contact with humanity. The predecessors to these animals were tamed and herded for many thousands of years before the 'official' moment of genetic drift.

In game terms, I'd recommend moving canine domestication much earlier and keeping the same 'herd' mechanic as is currently used. I'm not sure about the idea of moving all domestication events to the same tech, though.

For instance, given that domesticated cattle was perhaps the primary driving force behind the move to sedentary living, I'd recommend either making it a separate tech (and direct pre-requisite for advancing to the ancient era) or making the NW itself a pre-req for moving on. One possibility would be to treat it like the Apollo Program wonder in vanilla Civ, where only one player has to build it for everyone to reap the benefit (or perhaps just make it much cheaper to domesticate cattle after that point).

Parallel to this, I'd also suggest making each animal domestication event an actual in-game event -- whoever gets there first receives a particular benefit, ranging from the major (perhaps a free settler if you're the first to get domesticated cattle) to the minor (a slight boost to disease preventation if you're the first to domesticate cats?)

Besides treating cattle properly, I think the next biggest thing would be ensuring that the animals are 'staggered.' Perhaps each animal domestication wonder could have two tech pre-reqs, one being the generic Domestication tech, the other pushed further down the line in the ancient era.

I do like the diverse possibilities related to 'megafauna domestication' and the alt-history content, so I'd encourage you not to trim things down too far. If anything, I'd suggest expanding the role of other domesticates -- perhaps separate 'waterfowl' from generic 'poultry,' for instance. As for the megafauna, since they are alt-history, there are obviously bigger obstacles to overcome, but I really think there should be bigger benefits to doing so as well, and not just slightly better military units and specialized workers. I'd like to see something comparable to what you have with the clockpunk, steampunk, and the other alt-history content.

 

[Arakhor]

Megafauna would likely include elephants, mammoths, rhinos, hippos and the like, so I'm fine with losing Elephant Domestication. I don't see why donkeys would not count as equines (you could bundle llamas with camels), but other than that, having just two techs (Canine Domestication and Animal Husbandry) seems fine to me. You could even keep Megafauna Domestication as the separate alt-history tech (or otherwise), for a total of three.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

My understanding of sedentary lifestyle is that it proceeded domestication of all plant and animals, besides dogs.

 

[Noriad2]

(Darn, looks like my original reply got lost....)

Before posting, press CTRL-A (select all), CTRL-C (copy) and then post. If the post doesn't appear after a while, you can retrieve the text by pressing CTRL-V (paste) in the message box or for example Notepad. If you accidently delete a post (CTRL-A then hit another key) you can get it back with CTRL-Z (undo)

 

[Arakhor]

My understanding of sedentary lifestyle is that it proceeded domestication of all plant and animals, besides dogs.

According to this webpage, canine domestication could have started as early as 35,000 BC, with documented dog/human burials as early as 11,000-7,500 BC. Those three dates are in the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic Eras, respectively.

Before posting, press CTRL-A (select all), CTRL-C (copy) and then post. If the post doesn't appear after a while, you can retrieve the text by pressing CTRL-V (paste) in the message box or for example Notepad. If you accidently delete a post (CTRL-A then hit another key) you can get it back with CTRL-Z (undo)

Or you can use the Lazarus plugin. I'm a big fan.

 

[Hydromancerx]

From what I have read domestication of cattle and other large animals was a delaying factor in sedentary lifestyle. Birds and small mammals converse - would you really expect a cat to even consider being domesticated if there is not somewhere safe, dry and warm for it

Having said that I think that we should only have two domestication technologies in the tech tree, canine and animal. The others could be replaced by National Wonders which cost less if you have herds or other buildings related to the wonder. After all a nation with many herds of horses is much more likely to domesticate them than a nation which has none.

I was considering something along the lines

- NW Equine Domestication (requires camel, horse or zebra; maybe deer and giraffe if we can extend the units) when built you choose which if you have both but all resources of the other type become the one you chose.

- NW Donkey/Llama Domestication

- NW Cattle Domestication (requires cattle, bison etc)

- NW Poultry Domestication (poultry) any one type as per poultry animals (turkey, peacock etc)

- NW Elephant Domestication ( either or both elephants or mammoths)​

Just an idea to try and make the nations unique.

Please don't remove/change the animal domestication techs.