Tech Tree Help

[Azmorg]

I'm in the process of working out a fun, new scenario called The Dragon & The George. It's about knights and dragons. In order to have more races, and to increase the fun factor, I've also added Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Orcs & Goblins, along with a number of other creatures.

Right now I'm working on the Tech Tree but am finding myself lacking ideas. As you'll see, I'm making two trees, one for the good guys, & one for the bad guys. You'll also see that the first two ages are looking ok, with the first age being really set. But the 3rd & 4th age are needing a lot of work.

This isn't some epic mod so I'm not needing a lot of standard type techs you'd see in say, MEM, or WH2. All I'm looking to do is place the techs needed to allow units & buildings, etc. Also, I need to find bad guy alternates to some of the good guy techs, like in the first two ages.

I haven't fleshed out the various buildings yet, which will help a lot, but I thought I'd throw this out there to see what you all might come up with regarding what I've got so far. Take a look at the Tech Tree as it is right now, and the units and if anyone has any suggestions of techs that could be added, I'd be appreciative.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Looks good so far. I like to think of techs as a delivery system to control the pace of the game and when and how units and buildings come into play. Since you haven't figured out the buildings and units completely, building a complete tech tree at this point might not be good.

The other thing to do is to brainstorm and write down any buildings and any techs you'd like to see in the game, and as you go add anything else that comes to mind. When you're through, compare the lists and see what techs go with what units and buildings and such.

 

[tom2050]

Remember, for Good and Bad, you cannot seperate them as you have in some instances. For example, you have different techs' that allow the clear forest; one deforestation for bad guys, and wood cutting for good guys. You can only assign clear forest to a single tech in the editor. Just something to keep in mind (I don't believe there is a way to have different civ's see the same tech with a different name).

Otherwise looks good so far. And there are many spell unit graphics available if you are looking to add something of that sort since it is fantasy based.

 

[Azmorg]

I've done this with units; hopefully it'll work with techs. You can add units that have the same name (just put a space after it) or different names but that have the same PRTO entry. I don't see why this wouldn't work with techs, thus allowing you to have two differently named techs that so the same things. But now that I'm writing this, maybe not. I'll try & report back.

 

[tom2050]

You can use Steph's editor to make units have the same name without the spaces behind it.

The problem is this though, for worker actions such as Plant Forest, you cannot set it to become available IIRC on 2 completely different techs.

Each worker action can only be made available for a singe tech. It would be nice if it could be done though, because it would make things alot more customizable.

 

[Azmorg]

Yes, I believe you are correct.

But to get back to what I originally posted about, what I'm asking for from the community is ideas about specific techs, particularly for the bad guys. One I came up with yesterday would be something like Elixer that would allow healing; similar to the concept from Lord of the Rings; both the Elves & the Orcs had an elixer with great restorative properties.

Anyway, that's the sort of thing I'm hoping for.

 

[timerover51]

Are you looking for more of what I would call "hard science" techs, or more fantasy techs, like you would get in say, Dungeons and Dragons?

 

[Azmorg]

Some of both, but more so of the fantasy type.

Actually, I found an old fantasy mod in the forums from PTW days. I've downloaded it and have started playing it. There are some decent tech ideas that I can take from it. So with that and having to figure out techs for buildings & wonders, I think I'll be set.

But any suggestions are much appreciated.

 

[Plotinus]

There are all kinds of magical abilities you could have:

Clairvoyance (allows a unit that can do Recon missions)
Invisibility (speaks for itself)
Elemental destruction (allows cruise missiles, nukes, etc.)
Dark battle arts (blitz)
Divine aid (doubles worker speed)

etc.

Plus you can think up more in-genre names for some of the standard abilities or the techs that grant them. For example:

Speaking with forked tongue (the Dragon tech to allow diplomacy)
Prelude to betrayal (evil races' tech to allow ROP agreements)
Calling on the rain gods (tech to allow irrigation without rivers)

And so on and so forth...

 

[Azmorg]

Excellent suggestions. I knew that the brain trust on these forums would come through. Ray Lucia has nothing on Civ Fanatics.

 

[Takhisis]

Of course, you can use telepad (magic portal/planar travel/summoning rituals) and charm (stun/freeze/poison arrows) with the cracked editor, too…

 

[Zefyrinus]

Maybe some kind of poison tech? There's not any good way to implement a poison unit, though I added a poison archer to my scenario that was otherwise like the normal archer except had better bombardment (the kind where when the poison archer gets attacked, the poison archer gets to attack first before the real battle begins).

EDIT: Oh, I guess someone mentioned poison already.

 

[WildWeazel]

The obvious question: is this based on the books?

 

[Azmorg]

Only in that it gave me the idea for the title. Really it's a fantasy scenario in which there are bad guys, Dragons, Orcs & Goblins, and there are good guys, Men, Elves, Dwarves & Halflings. It will be a combination Regicide & Reverse Capture the Flag game with some elements that I hope make it fun to play, such as changing the Scripts.txt file so that the dialogue reflects the book somewhat. But other than that, I don't think the book really lends itself to being replicated in Civ.

 

[tom2050]

You can use Charm ability for poison (in hacked editor, Steph's editor, or Quintillus editor) which halves unit's defense for the turn.