Tech tree milestones list

[6K Man]

I made this list for a friend learning Civ4 a while ago. It may be helpful for new players trying to beeline to some particular goal, or wanting to avoid accidentally obsoleting a key wonder or resource.

Civ4 key techs (BtS updated).

First to it gets "free" stuff (free GPersons appear in the capital):

Music (free GArtist)
Liberalism (free technology)
Economics (free GMerchant)
Physics (free GScientist)
Communism (free GSpy)
Fascism (free GGeneral)
Fusion (free GEngineer)

Religions founded at:

Meditation
Polytheism
Monotheism
Code of Laws
Philosophy
Theology
Divine Right

Corporations Foundable: Corporation PLUS (Tech + Great Person)

Railroad + Engineer = Mining Inc (hammer bonus, consumes Gold/Silver/Coal/Iron/Copper)
Medicine + Merchant = Sid's Sushi (food and culture bonus, consumes Fish/Crab/Clam/Rice)
Combustion + Engineer = Creative Constructions (hammer and commerce bonus, consumes Iron/Copper/Aluminum/Marble/Stone)
Refrigeration + Merchant = Cereal Mills (food bonus, consumes Wheat/Corn/Rice)
Rocketry + Scientist = Aluminium Co (creates aluminium and science bonus, consumes coal)
Mass Media + Artist = Civilized Jewelers (cash and culture bonus, consumes Gold/Silver/Gems)
Plastics + Scientist = Standard Ethanol (creates oil and science bonus, consumes Corn/Rice/Sugar)


Obsoleting techs:

Economics - Castle
Rifling - Walls, Chichen Itza
Corporation - Great Lighthouse (but +1 trade route, so on drier maps, can actually be a net bonus)
Astronomy - Monument, Stonehenge, Colossus
Steam Power - Hagia Sophia
Scientific Method - Great Library, Parthenon, Temple of Artemis, Monastery
Combustion - Whale
Industrialization - Ivory
Plastics - Fur
Computers - Angkor Wat, Spiral Minaret, University of Sankore
Mass Media - Apostolic Palace
Advanced Flight - Stable
Fibre Optics - Kremlin

Other:

Mathematics - +50% chopping yield
Currency - +1 trade routes
Civil Service - farms spread irrigation
Guilds - +1 hammer workshop
Printing Press - +1 commerce villages/towns
Replaceable Parts - +1 hammer windmill/watermill
Corporation - obsoletes Great Lighthouse BUT +1 trade routes/city
Chemistry - +1 hammer workshop
Biology - +1 food farms
Electricity - +1 commerce windmill, +2 commerce watermill
Satellites - reveals map
Genetics - +3 health in all cities
Future Tech - +1health/+1happy in all cities

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Adding techs unlocking civics may be valuable.

 

[mariogreymist]

Also the worker techs, including things like optics, combustion and calendar.

Also the techs that reveal resources.

 

[Fluroscent]

Also the worker techs, including things like optics, combustion and calendar.

Also the techs that reveal resources.

It really would be easier listing the techs that do nothing particular at this point

 

[J-man]

Perhaps also add tech with great trade value:
Like Aesthetics. (Good trade value at monarch and emperor, probably also on higher difficulties but not sure)

 

[dalamb]

It really would be easier listing the techs that do nothing particular at this point

Nah: 6k Man's approach is organinized by purpose, which is quite valuable.

 

[kossin]

Era unlocking techs could also be included but really aren't that important.

 

[Soirana]

not calling writing milestone pretty much shows idiocy of list.

 

[BaronVonCP]

how are people being so nitpicky. every tech unlocks something, obviously. might as well just map out the tech tree and what each tech unlocks to satisfy everyone.

 

[mariogreymist]

not calling writing milestone pretty much shows idiocy of list.

Why? If every tech that was a multiple pre-req or which allowed a new building were included, the list would be too long to be useful. Writing is not even necessarily the first tech to unlock specialists. While I agree it is an important gateway tech, it's not a milestone tech.

 

[naterator]

writing does unlock open borders, so it could be considered a milestone, same with sailing unlocking trade on coast. Still, the "race" techs (religion, great people, liberalism corporations) and the obsoleting techs are very handy to have listed for you like that.

 

[Soirana]

Writing:

enables open borders:
Foreign trade. At least as milestone as Currency.
Scouting opponets - not less milestone as satelites [you have some problems, IMHO, if satelites reveal anything]

enables hiring scientists:
which leads to different beaker generation via bulbing [GS has inner value of giving something like 1.5 as other GP] - so it obsoletes commerce slider.
on any reasonable level bulbing is best chance at founding tao, so it clearly leads to religion.

If writing is not milestone rest is surely not.

 

[Fluroscent]

Nah: 6k Man's approach is organinized by purpose, which is quite valuable.

Sure, it is just another way of organizing info, which may or may not be useful. But calling it a list of milestone or key techs, and then listing almost every tech on the tree is kinda funny

Milestone techs are better reserved for those that always are long term goals, and of such importance that they funciton as reference points for your entire development.

Usually this will be something like:

-Writing, which is almost always the first tech to pursue after the needed worker techs are in.

-Alphabet, which grants a great tech boost if you can get there first.

-Currency, to fix your troubled economy (build more cities if it isnt troubled).

-Civil Service through Caste System, for the tremendous capital bonus, usually best to use some sort of gambit to get there.

-Liberalism, for obvious reasons

-Biology, as the last star tech, unless you are going for pure CE, in which case Democracy takes its place.

Everything else pretty much comes along the way, and is rarely worth delaying the beeline to the above.

But alternate lists can surely be of great value to inexperienced players. But it is best to list things that are not immediately obvious, because it is easy to see things like what obsoletes what, but not easy to know that, say, construction is a key tech to keep a BC era war going.
How many times have you seen a good early axe rush get stopped cold by a mass of archers in a capital on a hill? I know I used to forget the need of catapults until I faced that situation, and by then needing several prerequistite techs, forcing an end to the war before planned, effectively putting me in the dilemma of a big tech detour or waiting for another era entirely to finish off the victim.

A list of critical techs to warfare in certain eras, or say, good trade fodder techs (eg. Aesthetics), would be useful on the merit of providing information that otherwise only comes with experience.

 

[6K Man]

*Ahem*

I wrote out the list based on things I had trouble remembering when I first started playing. It is therefore skewed in favour of:

- points that were less than intuitive (e.g. Astronomy obsoleting Stonehenge) as opposed to ones that seemed straightforward to me as a new player (Bronze Working allows Forest chop); and
- things that I needed to know as a new player (so no "Aesthetics is tech trade bait" notation)

If your memory works differently than mine does, the above list may be less useful to you. Feel free to write your own version.