Tech tree questiona

I think macemen are just supposed to represent more organized and elite medieval troops, which if you look at civil service as an organizational tech that makes sense. They also require machinery don't forget, so you have the physical aspect of better equipment plus the philosophical aspect of organizing an army better with civil service.

I don't think banking as a pre-req into replaceable parts is that weird. You need a financial system to support investment to even have a need for parts and "mass production."

There are other, weirder incongruities than these, like why does chemistry require engineering? Except that engineering needs to be a pre-req to all the modern techs in there somewhere. And why does communism require liberalism and scientific method while constitution and democracy don't require either? First I don't get why scientific method is needed for it, unless it's just supposed to be it's place in history as developing around the same time or something, but second isn't democracy just as liberal in the civ sense as communism? Or why do you even need the printing press for scientific method for that matter?

A lot of it is just for balance.

 

The one that has always bugged me the most is why is Railroad the prerequisite for Machine Guns? It bugs me enough I have come close several times to modding Machine Guns to need Industrialism instead.

 

This is actually one of those progressions that fits very well, either the people who designed the tech tree did their research or it's a fortuitous coincidence. Marx simultaneously represented the fulfillment of classical political economy (coming from the tradition of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, etc) yet also broke its bounds. He saw himself as a "scientific socialist"--hence our term "utopian socialist" for the likes of Robert Owen or the 1848 revolutionaries, coined by Marx in disdain for these supposedly head-in-the-clouds dreamers.

Since Communism basically is the system Karl Marx's thought (or, at least, a selective version of Marx's thought with much of his later writings ignored) this is clearly relevant, as Marx would not have been able to write Capital without the foundation of classical political economy (Liberalism) that had been established in the two generations before his, and he also represented an early attempt to describe human society in terms of the Scientific Method which was already beginning to be consciously applied to the natural sciences.

 

Yeah what civver said.

Modulo the sketchy combat balance (i.e. ) you could take your middle ages productivity levels and still assemble a war machine , but there's also subtle changes in military theory and in concepts of organization and leadership that make the units more effective, that make the armed powers, pound for pound, better (concretely, they need less of that per unit maintenance). It would be nice to see some incremental changes like this throughout the eras: unit ehancements that have the same hammer:might effectiveness, but you pay less upkeep, and in turn, the weapons get stronger and you can see it, but military advantage is sometimes not drastic (but sometimes it is, gunpowder being obvious). Civ IV did it very well actually on the tech tree, but screwed it up in the combat math where any slight difference in strength meant one side had at least the 67% odds, or whatever, which prevents this from occurring.

I also give some credit to a more subtle notion in the same lines. Changes in social organization, like say the social environment that presented people with a certain view of martial excellence which lead to militia adopting a particular weapon style or suitability to kinds of armament, could be a factor. The factors that make one people adopt sharp, heavy weaponry adroitly wielded in light armor, and another forge straight steel bihanders and fight in heavy armor. That seems to suggest permanent bifurcation for different civs, but I just mean that maybe Civil Service and Chivalry are playing that role... they're not just (or at all) making possible the mace, they're making possible a maceman.


I still wonder the original question. Yeah so Banking helps to gate Replaceable Parts, but.... what exactly does it promise from previous eras? If it's not Banking that literally makes sense, what should be required?
It might be a nonsense to get to Rifling without some of the top and bottom, but it could also be a nonsense to get there without the research power granted from keeping up with the joneses, or a nonsense to get there without dying because you weren't keeping up with the joneses. So Banking you don't need.
edit: I mean I get how Banking helps to line up with some history for RP, but the alternative history could be there. Replaceable Parts was a value proposition - so Banking is one way it could be possible, another is .... I dunno, something more military-industrially complex. Military Science, though that would be weird to work "backwards"
yeah okay it's a fair compromise. I talked myself out of it. Really it amazes me how small Civ IV's tech tree is for how grand and comprehensive it feels.

 

I think you messed up your quote. I did not say what it says I said.

 

Just to add a bit more pedantry to this discussion, a "ball on a chain" is technically a flail. A mace is just a weighted club.