Tech Tree Discussion

[Toffer90]

Sorry, but these proposals are not more civ-neutral. Age of Reason seems to cover something that has happened more than once (the first time that we know of during the Golden Age of Athens), Age of Discovery is no less eurocentric than Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment is not that different from Age of Reason.

I think "Age of Discovery or Renaissance" are good category names for a group of the techs commonly invented in Europe between 1500-1700.

Iron Age does not cover civilizations where there is no iron, Antiquity and Middle Ages has the same long-term problem that Modern Age has (but far less urgent - I think it would take centuries if not millenia to really question what should be called "Middle Ages"). The early eras are clearly not eurocentric, so you might say every age is somewhat defined by the first culture group to reach that point.

The middle ages is smack in the middle of the classical era and the Renaissance, and will probably never be renamed. Antiquity will never become a weird name for a period that was far back in time. The relative name "Modern era" is a name preserved for the present era, and is just a placeholder until it can get a retrospective name that will be absolute. The same can not be said about antiquity or the middle ages. If history class, 500 years in the future, use the name modern era about today, it would astound me.

It is true that nations that didn't have iron available stagnated technologically and remained in the copper era; there are many more examples such as a lack of work animals in america preventing them from entering the classical era.
I really don't want civ to simulate this too much.
Regions that skipped such an era would in civ terms either have bought a lot of the techs in that era or been conquered by a more technologically advanced civ.

 

[Toffer90]

The Nok are the ones that come to mind.

Link
They most likely got the knowledge of iron working from trade.

If we want to simulate this we could perhaps add a tech called "Early Iron Working" that requires a building, that requires the resource iron, that can be gained trough trade if revealed at an earlier stage than it currently is.
A few select techs that requires "Iron Working" could have "Early Iron Working" as an OR requirement.

 

[tmv]

I certainly think that the term "Modern Age" is very problematic and would gladly see this name replaced by e.g. "Atomic Age".

Regarding the Middle Ages: Another possible name for that time period would be "Late Iron Age" since iron is the predominant ressource at this point. Without something like the Migration Period (which is overrated IMO) it would be strongly coupled with Classical, but less so with Renaissance, since (apart from Feudalism) pretty much every idea that determined everyday life in that time was from the Classical time period. And even Feudalism itself has some predecessor ideas from Antiquity (patrocinium, germanic nobility).

In the Renaissance, however, iron quickly gave way to other materials at least regarding weapons, new ideas were introduced that were completely foreign to medieval thinking (humanism, scientific method, proto-nationalism, secular art), the previously dominant chuch became challenged by many countries adopting various reformed confessions (thus leading to proto-nationalism), and discovering the New World upturned many aspects of european constellation of power (at first dominant Portugal and Spain, later France and England whereas the Hanseatic League took a hit it never recovered from).

 

[Toffer90]

Updated my post on Era split name suggestions. ←Link

 

[Thunderbrd]

Except sometimes nations skip steps eg go from the Stone Age to the Iron Age without bothering with the Copper or Bronze Ages.

There's a good show on History channel that explains this completely.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Updated my post on Era split name suggestions. ←Link

I didn't look too closely at the early stuff but as for the later side, this is the first naming proposal I would be completely content with.

 

[Hydromancerx]

The Nok are the ones that come to mind.

Wow i never knew! That's amazing! I read more here and it said what you said.

http://www.mrdowling.com/609-nok.html

"The Nok discovered that they were able to smelt iron by heating certain rocks to a high temperature. Iron is very malleable. A malleable material can be reshaped, and the Nok used iron to make weapons and plows. Most ancient cultures discovered other metals such as copper and bronze before iron, but the Nok apparently moved directly from the Stone Age to the Iron Age without having a Copper or Bronze Age."

One thing though is that they apparently were really good at pottery. Perhaps their advanced pottery was the catalyst for jumping directly to iron working.

 

[Toffer90]

If we want to simulate this we could perhaps add a tech called "Early Iron Working" that requires a building, that requires the resource iron, that can be gained trough trade if revealed at an earlier stage than it currently is.
A few select techs that requires "Iron Working" could have "Early Iron Working" as an OR requirement.

One thing though is that they apparently were really good at pottery. Perhaps their advanced pottery was the catalyst for jumping directly to iron working.

Perhaps the building should be a great or national wonder unlocked at pottery tech. It could be some sort of a rock furnace named "Rock Pit Bloomery" or "Great Kiln of Nok" that requires iron ore in city vicinity. The "Early Iron Working" tech could then open up 1-3 new tech opportunities dealing with the development of low quality iron usage.

Edit:
The tech should be called "Bloom Shaping or Bloom Hammering" instead of "Eearly Iron Working"

 

[Thunderbrd]

Perhaps the building should be a great or national wonder unlocked at pottery tech. It could be some sort of a rock furnace named "Rock Pit Bloomery" or "Great Kiln of Nok" that requires iron ore in city vicinity. The "Early Iron Working" tech could then open up 1-3 new tech opportunities dealing with the development of low quality iron usage.

Edit:
The tech should be called "Bloom Shaping or Bloom Hammering" instead of "Eearly Iron Working"

Metal Punk

 

[Hydromancerx]

Metal Punk

"Ironpunk" is not a bad idea for getting access to Iron Age technology before the iron age.

 

[Thunderbrd]

"Ironpunk" is not a bad idea for getting access to Iron Age technology before the iron age.

We now have the ability to have a tech require a building, so we can make a tech require a world wonder building that only a particular GP can build so by proxy we have the ability to have a tech require a GP... So I'm back to suggesting this is the prereq we require for all punk techs. Something to give other GPs like engineers and scientists a little more value. This bloom iron sounds much like a real world example of a punk tech so yeah, I like the idea.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I was trying to point out that there are a number of places where a nation does not necessarily need to get intermediate techs to get a later one. The Nok are one of my favorite, hence the trade good in their name. Other examples are mobile phones and GPS, both are being used in nations that have not developed microcomputers or even telephony. They don't need those techs to use the products of those techs.

This is one of the problems with later eras. Up until recently there was only need for one Rare Earths mine in the world. It is not that Rare Earths are rare, they are almost everywhere, it is that so little was needed on top of that the mine and processing plants so expensive to set up the first time.

We don't support either of these cases. Each nation has to provide all its own tech and all its own resources for its industry. This does not model the real world.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

We now have the ability to have a tech require a building, so we can make a tech require a world wonder building that only a particular GP can build so by proxy we have the ability to have a tech require a GP... So I'm back to suggesting this is the prereq we require for all punk techs. Something to give other GPs like engineers and scientists a little more value. This bloom iron sounds much like a real world example of a punk tech so yeah, I like the idea.

We also have the ability to have the cost of a tech be varied if you have a resource eg if you have Copper then the cost of learning Copper Working can be reduced. Works for teams as the way it is done is the contribution of each member is adjusted based on if they have the resource or not. I have not added this in in any way to C2C as it allows for all sorts of interesting adjustments.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Other examples are mobile phones and GPS, both are being used in nations that have not developed microcomputers or even telephony. They don't need those techs to use the products of those techs.

This is a reflection of the goods being traded to them before they could make these goods themselves, isn't it?

Each nation has to provide all its own tech and all its own resources for its industry.

Not sure about more modern stuff but I've been finding that trading for ingots so I can build forges is a common deficiency where I need the resources of others, slightly processed as trading for the Ore is useless, is necessary.

We also have the ability to have the cost of a tech be varied if you have a resource eg if you have Copper then the cost of learning Copper Working can be reduced. Works for teams as the way it is done is the contribution of each member is adjusted based on if they have the resource or not. I have not added this in in any way to C2C as it allows for all sorts of interesting adjustments.

This a good example of the kinds of cool final refinement stuff that can take place when you know the tech tree isn't going to get shattered and readjusted again soon.

 

[Sir_UristmcAmon]

I have more tech ideas for the Future era. They come from Alpha Centuri and they deal with ascension mostly and i noticed some of the techs from the Transhuman and Galactic era are from Alpha Centuri.

They are Astro Empathy (Centauri Empathy), Astroecology (Centauri Ecology), Intergalactical Utopian Destiny (Eudaimonia), Secrets of The Galaxies (Secrets of Alpha Centauri) Secrets of The Big Bang (Secrets of Creation), Secrets of The Superstings (Secrets of the Manifolds), Threshold of Ascension (Threshold of Transcendence) and Ascensional Thought (Transcendent Thought).

I dont know where they may go, but for now, you my add this to core or not, like peppers space mod.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

This is a reflection of the goods being traded to them before they could make these goods themselves, isn't it?

Except if you don't have the tech you can't have any access to the resource since it is the tech that makes the resource available. So if you neighbour has telephones but you don't have the tech that enables telephones then you can't get them via trade.

This is one aspect of trade that we need to look at a bit more since there are numerous examples of peoples trading for a good that they don't have the technology themselves to produce in RL.

 

[Thunderbrd]

So if you neighbour has telephones but you don't have the tech that enables telephones then you can't get them via trade

I'll need to verify that. I'm almost positive I have been able to trade goods to nations that can't yet tech qualify to create them.

 

[pepper2000]

If my understanding is correct, every manufactured good has a Reveal tech, a Trade tech, and an Obsolete tech. How functional are they? I think that if you reach Mind Uploading books are obsolete, yet Book Factories continue to work just fine. The Reveal tech applies to bonuses that appear on the map, but for manufactured goods I don't think it matters. For instance, in Faustmouse's mod, you can get Androids on the Moon before the Androids tech.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The Reveal tech applies to bonuses that appear on the map, but for manufactured goods I don't think it matters.

Pretty sure that's correct.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Manufactured resources behave exactly the same as map resources.

They need to be revealed for you to see them on the map, enabled for them to be available in your cities and for trade. Obsolete means the resource is no longer available.

The book factory continues to work because it makes books. Making a resource that goes obsolete does not stop the building working. It just stops the resource being made, IE it wont appear in the city or for trade. If it used them it would stop working when they went obsolete.