Tech tree glitch

[Danapoppa]

I'm relatively new to Civ4 (just got the Complete package) and am trying to complete Age of Ice before I download FfH2. In my most recent game, however, I've run in to a glitch that makes it difficult to proceed further.

My problem is, I can't seem to research Bowyers. Every time the game asks me to select a technology to develop I click on it, but it starts working on something else.

I didn't notice this was happening at first. I clicked on Bowyers and it went ahead and researched Writing for me, and was almost all the way through that before I noticed. Then I selected Bowyers and it started researching Mathematics. Now when I select it, it wants to research Construction.

(UPDATE)

Okay, I found in the Civilopedia where it says both Archery and Construction are required for Bowyers. That would explain why I'm seeing this phenomenon.

I guess I was thrown by the fact that in the tech tree as displayed by the Technology Advisor there is no arrow from Construction to Bowyers (undoubtedly because the former is a couple levels deeper into the tree). Is this really the way it's supposed to be? Why would Construction be a prerequisite for Bowyers?

 

[xienwolf]

If there is a pre-req which is not linked by an arrow, the icon of that pre-req shows up in the upper right hand corner. You'll run into that a couple times in the main mod as well

As for why construction might be needed.... I guess because you have to create the workshop for them to do their precision work in? Not entirely sure, but seems to make some sense.

 

[Danapoppa]

Ah, thanks for drawing my attention to the icons in the upper right corner. I hadn't caught on to that concept yet.

Hmm, there's a lot of that in this particular tech tree. And lots of AND gates, too! As a result, in order to get to longbowmen one absolutely has to have mastered all of the following technologies:

• Bowyers
• Archery
• Hunting
• Exploration
• Construction
• Mathematics
• Writing
• Animal Husbandry (or Agriculture and Pottery)
• Masonry
• Mining (or Ancient Chants and Mysticism)

That's the bare minimum you can get away with: ten technologies (or as many as twelve if you choose one of the alternate routes). Setting aside the question of whether it's realistic to have something like construction as a prerequisite for bowyers, it seems clear that the tech tree displayed by the Technology Advisor isn't serving as a very good visual guide to what you need to get the technology.

Having the preqs show up in the upper right corner is a useful way around a situation where an arrow isn't possible, I suppose. The problem is that the Bowyers is displayed two tiers to the left of its prerequiste. If Bowyers had instead been positioned to the right of Construction, with the Archery icon in its upper right corner, then I wouldn't have spent a couple hours playing toward it with misplaced high hopes.

I understand now that longbowmen are supposed to be a late-game unit in this scenario, and I suppose I can live with all of the AND gates (though I'd usually like to see fewer of them). But I really wish the tech tree displayed by the Technology Advisor had been made a bit more rational.

(UPDATE)

I just checked the tech tree in BtS and verified that there is no instance of a technology having a preq which appears to its right in the tech tree. And there are only two instances where a technology and its preq appear in the same tier: Flight (which requires Combustion) and Computers (which requires Plastics).

It seems the folks at Firaxis understood that the Technology Advisor is most useful if it can be read left-to-right. This would be a good principle for mod designers to keep in mind as they set up their tech trees.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I believe you need Construction because of the engineering principles involved in learning that tech.

 

[Gooblah]

I know what you mean. I melded a few screenies of the FFH2 v0.30 tech tree, then added lines for prerequisites- it got real confusing real fast; at least 5 pairs of techs in the same tier were linked.