Tech Tree Revision

[Boris Gudenuf]

Moderator Action: this post was copied from the Humankind thread to start a discussion about a Tech Tree Revision.
@Boris Gudenuf : feel free to edit this post as you like, including removing this tag if you want to clarify the OP
-Gedemon

As to nomadic civs: is it already established that, as traditionally in civ, all civilizations have the same tech tree? I think that choosing a civ for each era would make individual tech trees achievable. Maybe not really unique ones, but with some techs coming earlier for some civs. Combined with Endless Legends‘ many small bonuses, modifiers and uniques per civ, that could make later age nomadic civs an interesting option. You would pass on certain things for extra mobility etc.

Also: I really hope for a classical persia and a safavid one. It always bugged me that Persia = Achaemenids in civ when the region has such a rich history.

I also wonder if we‘ll see both England and the UK. 60 civs is a lot, but 10 per era is Gilles fast as soon as we start dividing empires on the time line.

So far, I don't think we've seen even a whiff of the Tech 'Tree' (shrub? Matrix? Dodecahedron?) for the game. On the other hand, I don't remember anything about different Tech progression for different Factions, either.
I confess I rather like the Civ/EL system of having the identical Tech Progression but varying bonuses in the speed and ease with which you get certain Techs based on the Faction/Civ you are playing and what is happening to you your specific game, but while Civ VI's 'Eurekas' were a nod in that direction (it's still much too easy to research Techs without any bonus at all) I don't think we know yet exactly what they are doing in Humankind.

You are right, of course, that a bunch of 'technologies' were developed by the pastoral peoples First. Just for an obvious one, I'd have any Pastoral Civ/Faction start with Animal Husbandry or its equivalent instead of Agriculture. The early pastorals knew all about agriculture - Herodotus and the archeologists agree that the Scythians grew crops to some extent - but horse domestication and riding, the composite bow, the wheeled cart and chariot all seem to have started in the steppes, even if not all in exactly the same place. Bonuses for all of those to the Pastorals while the 'settled' farmers have to struggle to reach them would very accurately show rthe early and deadly difference between them.

 

[Krajzen]

The problem with different tech trees is, they mostly differ in early eras and in later eras they need to be similar anyway. You need mathematics for engineering, optics, physics, navigation and so on. You need basic 'philosophy' 'tech' for more advanced concepts. You need steam machine for railway, iron working for metallurgy, currency for banking and so on. Well unless you wanna imagine quasi-fantasy alternate history which can go to steampunk or whatever weirdness. But Civ-like games have to be based on teleological view of history, where everything leads to the Internet and expedition to Mars.

I'm not even sure if early eras allow that much of a freedom of choince regarding tech and civilizations. Pre-Colombian guys had very special circumstances which have to be avoided in a game for balance reasons anyway (no horse, almost no useful animals, limited grains limiting cultivation, no access to Eurasian tech exchange etc). Every civilization by definition needs to invent writing and central authority early on, trade is a cultural universal known to all societies, spear is cultural universal weapon found damn everywhere on Earth etc.

I'd honestly even argue that civ has slightly too much freedom regarding tech progress and access to the next era shouldn't be only about jumping to it via shortest path but some Breakthrough technologies are needed before you can access it at all (such as steam machine, Adam Smith's capitalism and Enlightenment/scientific revolution for industrial era).

Personally I'd take every bit of realism and immersion I can after civ6 'silly arcade cartoon board game' approach.

It'd be also wonderful if eras were named in less eurocentric way. Iron Era instead of "classical" era (though this one is not that bad for Iran, China and India), Feudal Era intead of "medieval" (the name comes from "middle ages as in between ancient and "contemporary" renaissance), and especially Exploration era or whatever (even Enlightenment) instead of damn Renaissance. 'Renaissance' makes no sense at all not only outside of Western European civs, it also doesn't make sense in a universe without context of Latin Europe rediscovering classic Greeks by Muslim and Byzantine scholars.

 

[KayAU]

Well unless you wanna imagine quasi-fantasy alternate history which can go to steampunk or whatever weirdness.

It may or may not fit well into a civ game depending on what level of realism you are going for, but it would be kind of fun to semi-randomize something like this, so that technology could develop in different directions between games.

 

[AntSou]

Civ 6 did well with tech boosts, but I would like to see this concept milked further, where your environment strongly affects the direction of technological development.

My opinion is that tech development in historical 4x is currently done backwards. What I would like to see are technologies locked behind achievements.

E.g. Using your workers to fish along the coast or lakes provides XP to the Fishing tech. Once the Fishing tech bar is full, two things happen: a) Fishing becomes more efficient; b) certain buildings (harbours?) and units (fishing ships) are unlocked and constructing these contributes XP to the techs further down the tree from Fishing.

Other examples (using Civ 6 tech tree):

- Shipbuilding: Building ships contributes XP to this tech. When full, shipbuilding becomes faster and a new stronger unit becomes available.
- Cartography: Discovering Coast and Ocean tiles contributes XP to this tech. You may send your units into Ocean tiles, but they take attrition. Once fully researched, your ships will not take attrition in Ocean tiles, and navigation becomes faster (for instance).
- Archery: You gain XP towards this tech everytime you build or use a slinger to attack an enemy unit. Once fully researched, you may produce archers.
- Bronze Working: You gain XP for creating and using bronze units in combat. Once full, you may produce bronze units faster and you unlock the ability to mine and use Iron to create swordsmen, both at a penalty. Doing so contributes points to Iron Working, which allows you to mine iron faster and create swordsmen faster. It also unlocks early lumber camps, which add XP towards Machinery. Building lumber camps may add up to 50% of the Machinery bar, the remaining requiring Engineering to have been fully researched and other buildings / units to have been built to fill the other 50%. Once the Machinery bar is full, you may upgrade lumber camps to lumber mills.

Alpha Centauri used the concept of prototypes, where the first type of a unit was costly and took longer to create (iirc). This draws on that a bit.

You could still use Science buildings to give TINY boosts to it per turn in early eras (e.g. 1XP per turn per Library), which can become considerable boosts in later eras,, and Great Scientists to contribute significant boosts to a particular tech. You would also be able to trade knowledge with other Civs. Doing so would provide, for instance, 5XP per turn to a single tech which the other Civ has fully researched, while you would provide 5XP per turn to them towards a tech which you have fully researched.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Part of the challenge that @Krajzen and @AntSou have highlighted arises, in my opinion, from the very idea of having "science" as a yield in an historical 4x game.

Historically, technological advancement came about as a result of what people were exposed to. On the coast? You developed fishing. Near horses? You learned how to ride them. Mining coal from deep, wet caves? You learned how to create steam engines. And when they happened, those technological changes were things societies and governments needed to adjust to, not something they sought out.

Even viewing your role in the game as an immortal, guiding force behind your society, directing people in the pre-industrial world to work on a particular research just feels off to me for a game in the 2020s. This is a mechanic from the 1990s, and I'd like to see it shelved for something that offers newer, fresher, and more interesting game play opportunities.

You could set your society to be more or less open to change, make decisions on how to deal with new technologies as they arrive, model the flow of knowledge from one society to another with the benefits that come to both first-mover and last-mover societies on any particular change, etc. Build a modern military like Frederick the Great and then try to get the most out of them you can, because once they've had success, your military elite will become reluctant to embrace new tactics until they suffer a horrible defeat. Schools become a way of managing your society and improving your economic output, and then secondarily can be used as a way to speed up (or slow down) the pace of new technological change. There's a lot of fun game play opportunities here trying to balance the ebbs-and-flows of history.

Basically, I'd like to see technological advancement moved away from science yields and tech trees, and instead have them handled as things that happen as a result of your people's (and your neighbours') actions on the map, and then how you deal with the constant flow of technological change becomes your gameplay focus.

 

[AntSou]

Mining coal from deep, wet caves? You learned how to create steam engines.

Not so sure about the relationship of that last one, but yeah, that's essentially the idea I'm getting at. However, RESEARCH is obviously a thing too, but the game should also reflect how the Scientific Method came into being. In later ages you should be able to rely mostly on Scientific Labs (or whatever) to research new techs, but the first prototypes should still be more expensive and less efficient.

 

[Jkchart]

Part of the challenge that @Krajzen and @AntSou have highlighted arises, in my opinion, from the very idea of having "science" as a yield in an historical 4x game.

Historically, technological advancement came about as a result of what people were exposed to. On the coast? You developed fishing. Near horses? You learned how to ride them. Mining coal from deep, wet caves? You learned how to create steam engines. And when they happened, those technological changes were things societies and governments needed to adjust to, not something they sought out.

Even viewing your role in the game as an immortal, guiding force behind your society, directing people in the pre-industrial world to work on a particular research just feels off to me for a game in the 2020s. This is a mechanic from the 1990s, and I'd like to see it shelved for something that offers newer, fresher, and more interesting game play opportunities.

You could set your society to be more or less open to change, make decisions on how to deal with new technologies as they arrive, model the flow of knowledge from one society to another with the benefits that come to both first-mover and last-mover societies on any particular change, etc. Build a modern military like Frederick the Great and then try to get the most out of them you can, because once they've had success, your military elite will become reluctant to embrace new tactics until they suffer a horrible defeat. Schools become a way of managing your society and improving your economic output, and then secondarily can be used as a way to speed up (or slow down) the pace of new technological change. There's a lot of fun game play opportunities here trying to balance the ebbs-and-flows of history.

Basically, I'd like to see technological advancement moved away from science yields and tech trees, and instead have them handled as things that happen as a result of your people's (and your neighbours') actions on the map, and then how you deal with the constant flow of technological change becomes your gameplay focus.

Oh yes. Replace "technologies" with "inventions" and you have to gain them by doing certain actions. I'd be game to see that in a 4x.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Part of the challenge that @Krajzen and @AntSou have highlighted arises, in my opinion, from the very idea of having "science" as a yield in an historical 4x game.

Historically, technological advancement came about as a result of what people were exposed to. On the coast? You developed fishing. Near horses? You learned how to ride them. Mining coal from deep, wet caves? You learned how to create steam engines. And when they happened, those technological changes were things societies and governments needed to adjust to, not something they sought out.

Even viewing your role in the game as an immortal, guiding force behind your society, directing people in the pre-industrial world to work on a particular research just feels off to me for a game in the 2020s. This is a mechanic from the 1990s, and I'd like to see it shelved for something that offers newer, fresher, and more interesting game play opportunities.

You could set your society to be more or less open to change, make decisions on how to deal with new technologies as they arrive, model the flow of knowledge from one society to another with the benefits that come to both first-mover and last-mover societies on any particular change, etc. Build a modern military like Frederick the Great and then try to get the most out of them you can, because once they've had success, your military elite will become reluctant to embrace new tactics until they suffer a horrible defeat. Schools become a way of managing your society and improving your economic output, and then secondarily can be used as a way to speed up (or slow down) the pace of new technological change. There's a lot of fun game play opportunities here trying to balance the ebbs-and-flows of history.

Basically, I'd like to see technological advancement moved away from science yields and tech trees, and instead have them handled as things that happen as a result of your people's (and your neighbours') actions on the map, and then how you deal with the constant flow of technological change becomes your gameplay focus.

If I may sum up, Technological Progress could come from a combination of:
Need - as in, I Need those Fish off-shore, or I Need to defend against fast-moving raiders, or I Need to understand why the Gods have chosen to shake the ground out from under me every once in a while.
and
"Civics" or Social Changes - as in, Glorify the Military because they are the people keeping them Raiders off our backs or Our Enemies got better Trading Ships than we do: we need to Innovate to catch up! or The Gods Are Angry With Us for departing from the Old Ways: Innovation is Death!

Two things about this: first, as seen in the second set of 'examples', a Society can go all kinds of different ways from the same circumstances. Second, as a result your Technological Progress is going to be largely Blind - you cannot 'choose' what you are going to research, because in general there is always more than one 'technological' solution to any given problem.
Just for instance, the 'enemy raiders' problem could be solved by developing your own professional army (which eventually leads to Friedrich the Great's Professional Prussians) OR by hiring the raiders to protect you, which in turn requires emphasis on Gold production (Trade, Luxury Goods, etc) to 'pay off' the raiders (the 'Chinese Solution' for a large portion of their history).

Among the other 'Historical' things this would add to the game:
1. There would be Technologies available (learned from a neighbor, developed while looking for something else) that you would not bother to use because you have another solution to the perceived Problem. As in, steam and hydraulic mechanisms were available by the first century CE (developed in Alexandria, specifically) to be developed into Industrial Machinery of a sort, but the Roman Empire never developed them because they already had cheap slave labor from the conquests that the efficient Roman Imperial Army made easy. Now there's a place for an 'Alternate History' based solidly on Alternate Developments - Rome without an all-conquering army to bring in slaves! (NOTE: There's even a historical precedent: in the 6th century BCE the Greeks developed cranes to move masonry and stone in construction, because the Greek City States that wanted to build grand temples did not have access to the huge gangs of labor available to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Kingdoms and Empires: Need = Invention)
2. There would be certain "Wonders" or other specialized Mechanisms that could 'direct' Technological Innovation. Some specific, some more general. The Great Libraries are an example of the second, the Ortygia Workshop in Syracuse of the first (they developed the Quinquerime warship, the crossbow and the catapult there, all within 4 years!). Those are Classical examples, later you have the Medieval House of Wonders in Baghdad, the Translation projects in Toledo, and even 'unrelated' developments like the Scots Presbyterian Church demanding that every adult (including women!) be able to read the Bible for themselves, so they sponsored virtually 100% literacy in Scotland in the 17th century CE, leading in the next century to a mass of innovative Scottish engineers (among other things, they could Read Instructions) fueling the Industrial Revolution.

This is all exciting stuff, but I doubt that Humankind is going this way or they would have hinted at it by now, and it certainly isn't going to be included in any Civ VI expansion - it would require a massive remake of Tech Tree, Social Policies and Civics all at once - and probably some of the Religious Policies as well.

So, anybody else think it's time for a new Thread of: Ideas for The Perfect 4X Historical Game?

 

[Krajzen]

Part of the challenge that @Krajzen and @AntSou have highlighted arises, in my opinion, from the very idea of having "science" as a yield in an historical 4x game.

Historically, technological advancement came about as a result of what people were exposed to. On the coast? You developed fishing. Near horses? You learned how to ride them. Mining coal from deep, wet caves? You learned how to create steam engines. And when they happened, those technological changes were things societies and governments needed to adjust to, not something they sought out.

Even viewing your role in the game as an immortal, guiding force behind your society, directing people in the pre-industrial world to work on a particular research just feels off to me for a game in the 2020s. This is a mechanic from the 1990s, and I'd like to see it shelved for something that offers newer, fresher, and more interesting game play opportunities.

You could set your society to be more or less open to change, make decisions on how to deal with new technologies as they arrive, model the flow of knowledge from one society to another with the benefits that come to both first-mover and last-mover societies on any particular change, etc. Build a modern military like Frederick the Great and then try to get the most out of them you can, because once they've had success, your military elite will become reluctant to embrace new tactics until they suffer a horrible defeat. Schools become a way of managing your society and improving your economic output, and then secondarily can be used as a way to speed up (or slow down) the pace of new technological change. There's a lot of fun game play opportunities here trying to balance the ebbs-and-flows of history.

Basically, I'd like to see technological advancement moved away from science yields and tech trees, and instead have them handled as things that happen as a result of your people's (and your neighbours') actions on the map, and then how you deal with the constant flow of technological change becomes your gameplay focus.

Oh yes. Replace "technologies" with "inventions" and you have to gain them by doing certain actions. I'd be game to see that in a 4x.

Eh, I don't know. How would you gain such intangible technologies as Political Philosophy, Theology, Socialism, Mathematics, Astronomy, Quantum Physics etc without stupidly abstracting them to the point of pointlessness of an entire mechanic? I am already critical of civ6 where you have to do the same basic moves, usually utterly disconnected from particular technology (arcade once again) and given filmsiest excuse. Such system also immediately restricts the choice of technologies in a tech tree - they cannot be too cool and too specific, they should be as generic as possible so their 'organic generation' feels just moderately forced, not very forced.

However, I do agree that it is very strange how human player has complete deterministic knowledge of what tech leads where. Maybe somebody could experiment with a system where you choose general direction of research and the way to progress depends on the particular age (ancient era primitive technologies should require different approach than medieval ones, or industrial ones), so you have baseline research yield and you can boost it with some 'organic' actions, events etc. And only then you see what technology have you got - UNLESS it is well known (and not a secret) of civs you do know well, in which case you do indeed get a path to get it directly, like in civ traditional system. The last mechanic would help make this semi-realistic system much less frustrating - without it you'd have the problem of "goddamn my lucky neighbor has planes and I can't get planes or anti air, I just keep getting tanks and infantry from my pool". Such mechanic would also be kind of realistic - when you are the innovator and move into completely unknown direction, just with the vague hope that something may be here to discover by human mind, you move in the dark but are rewarded by an edge, which however can be quickly copied by everybody else. So you have to either guard it and make it secret (but it naturally limits its usage) or use it to full extent and try to quickly rush overpower other civilizations before they can counterattack. Then your overextended empire decreases to its original size but worry not, Fame was generated, the game doesn't play for some silly endgame conditions, you left your mark on history as an innovator.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Not so sure about the relationship of that last one, but yeah, that's essentially the idea I'm getting at.

As I understand it, one of the first, practical industrial-era steam engines were employed in British coal mines as a way to get water out of the mine: first, use the coal to boil the water so the steam escapes, later, use the steam to power a pump to push the water out. From those beginnings the more general purpose steam engine was inspired.

Eh, I don't know. How would you gain such intangible technologies as Political Philosophy, Theology, Socialism, Mathematics, Astronomy, Quantum Physics etc without stupidly abstracting them to the point of pointlessness of an entire mechanic? I am already critical of civ6 where you have to do the same basic moves, usually utterly disconnected from particular technology (arcade once again) and given filmsiest excuse. Such system also immediately restricts the choice of technologies in a tech tree - they cannot be too cool and too specific, they should be as generic as possible so their 'organic generation' feels just moderately forced, not very forced.

There's a lot of different ways you can go. Theology, Political Philosophy, Communism and the like could be part of a different system, one that reflects the beliefs of your people regarding the proper way to organize human society. I personally don't feel like any of these are a great fit with the current science/tech tree mechanic, and I expect you could incorporate them in the game without treating them the same way that technological-advancement is treated.

I do understand your comment about "same basic moves", but I anticipate that a lot of that is because Civ 6's inspirations and eurekas - although generally a good idea, in my opinion - are so small scale in action, that it's easy to, as an aside, have a Military Engineer build these structures to trigger a boost, etc., or divert a few resources to something you don't need just so you get the boost (in effect, buying Science with Gold/Production through an indirect mechanism). The root of this, in my opinion, is that you're still beholden to a tech tree and there's an in game incentive to move through that tree as quickly as you can, so you run your empire to trigger boosts instead of getting boosts from running your empire. It's a challenge to be managed, but I believe it should be possible to structure the tech opportunity triggers such that the game incentive is to play the map and your neighbours as best you can, and the relevant technology choices for your current situation then appear at relevant times.

As to your last point about cool choices in the tech tree, I'd be fine with relegating tech trees and all the possible ways they could evolve to 4x sci fi games, where imagination can run wild. I don't personally mind the idea of a historical 4x game that sticks to giving us historical choices about forms of government, historical choices about military units, historical choices about how to adapt to new technologies, etc., at least until the final stage of the game. Then you could throw some fanciful "future tech" ideas at the players.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Eh, I don't know. How would you gain such intangible technologies as Political Philosophy, Theology, Socialism, Mathematics, Astronomy, Quantum Physics etc without stupidly abstracting them to the point of pointlessness of an entire mechanic? I am already critical of civ6 where you have to do the same basic moves, usually utterly disconnected from particular technology (arcade once again) and given filmsiest excuse. Such system also immediately restricts the choice of technologies in a tech tree - they cannot be too cool and too specific, they should be as generic as possible so their 'organic generation' feels just moderately forced, not very forced.

However, I do agree that it is very strange how human player has complete deterministic knowledge of what tech leads where. Maybe somebody could experiment with a system where you choose general direction of research and the way to progress depends on the particular age (ancient era primitive technologies should require different approach than medieval ones, or industrial ones), so you have baseline research yield and you can boost it with some 'organic' actions, events etc. And only then you see what technology have you got - UNLESS it is well known (and not a secret) of civs you do know well, in which case you do indeed get a path to get it directly, like in civ traditional system. The last mechanic would help make this semi-realistic system much less frustrating - without it you'd have the problem of "goddamn my lucky neighbor has planes and I can't get planes or anti air, I just keep getting tanks and infantry from my pool". Such mechanic would also be kind of realistic - when you are the innovator and move into completely unknown direction, just with the vague hope that something may be here to discover by human mind, you move in the dark but are rewarded by an edge, which however can be quickly copied by everybody else. So you have to either guard it and make it secret (but it naturally limits its usage) or use it to full extent and try to quickly rush overpower other civilizations before they can counterattack. Then your overextended empire decreases to its original size but worry not, Fame was generated, the game doesn't play for some silly endgame conditions, you left your mark on history as an innovator.

Let's throw this out for consideration - and then probably should move Tech Tree Revision to a new Thread!

General Research would be the Principle/Generic 'advances in knowledge' or 'ways of looking at/examining/manipulating the world':
Secular Philosophy
Scientific Method
Humanism
Animal Domestication
Masonry

Some of these 'slop over' into Civics or at least have Civic/Social/Religious Consequences

BUT none of these would yield anything concrete by themselves - they can spring from either generalized thought processes, or proximity to potential domesticable animals (Sheep, Cattle, Horses, but not Bison, Zebra or Hippopotomai) or workable Stone. From them, however, there would be specific Applications - several from each.
For example:
Secular Philosophy could be applied as Mathematics, Geometry, Astronomy, or Medicine - because elements of all of those were studies under the general Greek rubric of 'Natural Philosophy', and all could lead to something even more specific, like Architecture, Catapults, or Clockwork Devices (I'll leave it to you to figure out the connections)

Bronze-Working could be a 'generic' advance under Metal-Working when you get access to Copper and any one of several alloy metals (under the general term 'bronze' could be arsenical alloys, tin, or zinc for Brass - which was what the Romans usually meant when they wrote 'Bronze'). Under that would be Bronze Tools to work that stone in Masonry, Bronze Weapons for your Hoplite armor and everybody's axes, spears and helmets, and Advanced Casting which allows Lost Wax techniques for statues, household goods, and leads (eventually) to Cast Iron and Cast Steel, among other things.

What you could 'choose' to research would be specifics to 'solve' a specific problem - like, a way to work stone that doesn't require you to slowly pound it into shape with a harder stone, which would give you a pressing need for Bronze Tools IF you have Copper, or Obsidian Blades if you have Obsidian (volcano nearby) or Trade if you have neither and desperately want at least one of them (and, yes, people were trading long distances for both copper and obsidian back before the nominal Start of Game - in 5000 BCE)

And lots of specific applications could spread quickly by contact - you don't have to see a wheel too many times to figure out how to make one and how useful it would be to have some. Later (post-Renaissance) general developments get publicized by scientists and 'natural philosophers' everywhere, the only restraint being how easy it is to put out a book/article/scroll - Printing spreads things Fast, but specific applications may be Trade, Industrial, or Military Secrets to be worked out on your own or stolen.

 

[AntSou]

As I understand it, one of the first, practical industrial-era steam engines were employed in British coal mines as a way to get water out of the mine: first, use the coal to boil the water so the steam escapes, later, use the steam to power a pump to push the water out. From those beginnings the more general purpose steam engine was inspired.

I think the problem is that by the 18th century it's all far less linear. No amount of demand in the world would have mattered if other prerequisites weren't in place. E.g. Had England had the kind of Inquisition felt in Spain and Portugal in the 18th century, the first attempt at such an engine would likely have booked you an appointment with the Inquisition; Had there been no protection of property rights, there would have been no incentive to create a steam engine. That's just two off the top of my head prerequisites which aren't even technological but institutional (civics, I guess) in nature.

On the other hand, because steam engines had so many applications and coal was cheap fuel for them, which was why coal extraction became synonym with the age, it might make even more sense to implement it the other way around in the game: unlocking the steam engine would allow you to deep mine coal (i.e., build a coal mine on coal deposits, or give a huge boost to mines previously built on coal).

 

[Krajzen]

I think the problem is that by the 18th century it's all far less linear. No amount of demand in the world would have mattered if other prerequisites weren't in place. (...)

Honestly, when I think of all stuff like that (the general insane improbability of mankind reaching space age) combined with countless prerequisites of humanlike intelligence developing in the first place just in the way enabling us to reach us space... Then I remind myself why I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find "humanlike intelligent civilizations flying with space ships" ever. Ever. So what if universe is so monstrously gigantic? Maybe us reaching space was so improbable that we truly are alone space exploring civilization in universe or at least galaxy. I'm pretty sure there are some bacterias somewhere, maybe even complex multicellular life, maybe even something approaching homo sapiens neanderthalis, but to go from "monkey" to "the form optimal for mastery of elements and space travel" is to make extremely improbable journey.

Give human intelligence to dolphins or crows and they will never reach space because they have no opposable thumbs or anything to manipulate tools. Give it to lonely animals and they will never form society. Give it to plants and they can't move at all. Give it to some 'optimal' animal form - and they have not enough geological fuels on the planet to make through tech bottlenecks and advance. Give it to some animal but change some detail in the brain and it won't figure out astrophysics. And so on, and so on... Who knows how long would we have to wait for industrial revolution if Newton or whatever person needed for thermodynamics or some aspect of Enlightenment philosophy died early? Maybe two thousand years, who know, I've read of several potential windows of opportunity when it could have happened before but didn't.

Civ is, also for gameplay reasons, a teleological view of history where certain developments had to happen. From stone age it is race to space, who reaches it first. But nobody had to reach anything, unless you are religious person or marxist or whatever. Of all possible states of history of civilization, homo sapiens, mammals and evolution - how low was the probability of our success? (it is worth noting that it took 500 millions years of multicellular life evolving and almost all of it dying out before in last one few hundred thousand years one species learned how to make fire). And yet we assume it was natural and we are surprised that the entire space is not littered with aliens who went almost identical way and ended up with a similar civilization. Well I think it's not unreasonable to assume humans could be the only species in the universe capable of leaving orbit of their planet.

Sorry for the digression from the subject but I've been thinking of it just recently.

 

[Gedemon]

Moderator Action: all posts above were posted in the Humankind thread and moved here for a discussion about a Tech Tree Revision

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

As I understand it, one of the first, practical industrial-era steam engines were employed in British coal mines as a way to get water out of the mine: first, use the coal to boil the water so the steam escapes, later, use the steam to power a pump to push the water out. From those beginnings the more general purpose steam engine was inspired.

It was the Newcomen Engine, developed around 1704 - 1705 CE in England to pump the ground water out of deep mines.
BUT it illustrates some interesting points about 'research and development'
The Newcomen was a huge stationary machine designed for a single purpose: pump.
But, back in 1679 a Frenchman named Denis Papin invented a "steam digester' - the world's first Pressure Cooker, which used steam under pressure to cook. In 1690 - almost 15 years before Newcomen, he evolved his Steam Digester into a piston-moving steam cylinder - a small model only.
Then, in 1704 just as the English were starting to pump water, Papin built a 'steam pressure engine' based on his little piston model and used it to power a small paddle-wheeled boat - the world's first steam-powered vehicle of any kind, a full century before the supposed 'invention' of the steam boat by Fulton and Symington.
So why wasn't Admiral Nelson steaming into Trafalgar in 1805?
Because of another missing development: precision. Aside from the gross ineffciency of the Newcomin and Papin engines, which didn't have Watt's condenser, there was in 1690 - 1710 no way to bore a cylinder precise enough to keep masses of steam from escaping with every stroke of the piston. This reduced the engine to a fraction of its possible power - and incidentally added Boiled Alive to the dangers of being an 'engineer' on one of these things.

It was 1774 CE before John Wilkinson invented a boring machine, a cutting device sometimes called the first 'machine tool' that could cut a cylinder both perfectly straight and round and to a tolerance of less than 00.10 inches. Within 50 years, machine tolerances were down to 00.001 inches and the Machine Age took off. In the meantime, precision cylinders meant efficient steam engines (and also more accurate and lighter cannon barrels, another 'unintended consequence')
Could there have been Precision Cylinders earlier? Now we're into Alternate History, but note that Maritz invented a horizontal cannon-boring machine in 1715 CE in Switzerland, which could have been developed with more precision had there been a need. But there wasn't - Maritz' machine was already a quantum jump in the technology, reducing the time required to bore out a ship or land cannon by by 60% and making the resulting guns more accurate - nobody conceived of a need for more at the time. BUT since clockwork mechanisms had already been around small enough and precise enough for pocket watches and calculating machines for almost two centuries (1524 CE - Henlen's first pocket watch), more precision was possible IF a need had been conceived.

To sum up: to get a Steam Engine you need:
1. A use for such a thing - pumping water, raising weights, moving vehicles on land or sea.
2. Metal Casting in bronze or iron with enough quality control that you don't have air pockets or weak spots in the casting that will 'blow out' when pressure is applied - this came from building Cannon since the 14th century, and having a couple of kings (French and Scottish) and numerous 'gunners' blown up by their own cannon - multiple disasters tend to concentrate Research.
3. Precision Boring and metal fabrication to build the engine and its components.
4. a mind or minds that designs an engine with components that maximizes its efficiency (as much as possible at the time) - but note that Watt fiddled with his engine design for almost 20 years before Wlkinson's 'machine tool' made it possible to build one that worked well enough to 'take off'.

LIke most Seminal Inventions, it is not a single Invention, but a series of separate developments, some (metal casting for cannon, precision work for making clocks, watches and instruments) that come together with different applications in the 'new' device.

I do understand your comment about "same basic moves", but I anticipate that a lot of that is because Civ 6's inspirations and eurekas - although generally a good idea, in my opinion - are so small scale in action, that it's easy to, as an aside, have a Military Engineer build these structures to trigger a boost, etc., or divert a few resources to something you don't need just so you get the boost (in effect, buying Science with Gold/Production through an indirect mechanism). The root of this, in my opinion, is that you're still beholden to a tech tree and there's an in game incentive to move through that tree as quickly as you can, so you run your empire to trigger boosts instead of getting boosts from running your empire. It's a challenge to be managed, but I believe it should be possible to structure the tech opportunity triggers such that the game incentive is to play the map and your neighbours as best you can, and the relevant technology choices for your current situation then appear at relevant times.

This has been 'batted around' in these Forums and even tried in some Mods. Having multiple possible Eurekas/Bonuses for each Tech; having 'blind Eurekas' in which the exact Tech being boosted changes from game to game . . .

I have come around to the idea that any Technical Development should be almost entirely based on Perceived Need and very closely and completely integrated with Social, Civic and Religious developments/policies and the in-game Environment. The common example (I've used it often enough!) is that you start on the coast, you have a Pressing Need to exploit the fish off shore, so you develop Boating or Boat-Building as a Technology. And perhaps if you have nothing but fish/coastal seafood as a food source (on a desert coast, for instance) you may also be 'pushed' to develop weaving for Nets - if you can find anything to weave.

Developing basic 'technologies would require a Need and, sometimes, boosts - many of those civic/social or religious. Developing from those basic Technologies the actual useful Applications would require a much more pressing and specific Need, and the right materials ('Resources'), fabrication techniques ('Production') and, probably, several different technologies to come together if it's anything complex.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Honestly, when I think of all stuff like that (the general insane improbability of mankind reaching space age) combined with countless prerequisites of humanlike intelligence developing in the first place just in the way enabling us to reach us space... Then I remind myself why I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find "humanlike intelligent civilizations flying with space ships" ever. Ever. So what if universe is so monstrously gigantic? Maybe us reaching space was so improbable that we truly are alone space exploring civilization in universe or at least galaxy. I'm pretty sure there are some bacterias somewhere, maybe even complex multicellular life, maybe even something approaching homo sapiens neanderthalis, but to go from "monkey" to "the form optimal for mastery of elements and space travel" is to make extremely improbable journey.

Maybe. We have, after all, only a single set of data to go by, our own. Even on this one planet, we now have evidence that several different sets of Primates were all aiming at Intelligence in various degrees, but we may have outcompeted and killed them off. An observer (anthropologist) recently commented that Chimpanzees are estimated to be about 4000 years into their own Stone Age.

Put another way, 'modern' Humans emerged alone on the planet as 'sapiens' between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago (last of the Neanderthals). IF we had started moving at the Speed of Light at that time, we still wouldn't be out of our own galaxy. Space is big, time is vast, we aren't, and so far everything we thought we new about solar systems, for instance, has proven to be so much gibberish.. Now that we've found 1000s of planets in other systems it turns out that they are in completely different combinations of orbits that we never imagined (I've been reading Science Fiction since the mid-1950s, so I've read a lot of the Imagining, and all of it was Dead Wrong)

Give human intelligence to dolphins or crows and they will never reach space because they have no opposable thumbs or anything to manipulate tools. Give it to lonely animals and they will never form society. Give it to plants and they can't move at all. Give it to some 'optimal' animal form - and they have not enough geological fuels on the planet to make through tech bottlenecks and advance. Give it to some animal but change some detail in the brain and it won't figure out astrophysics. And so on, and so on... Who knows how long would we have to wait for industrial revolution if Newton or whatever person needed for thermodynamics or some aspect of Enlightenment philosophy died early? Maybe two thousand years, who know, I've read of several potential windows of opportunity when it could have happened before but didn't.

Civ is, also for gameplay reasons, a teleological view of history where certain developments had to happen. From stone age it is race to space, who reaches it first. But nobody had to reach anything, unless you are religious person or marxist or whatever. Of all possible states of history of civilization, homo sapiens, mammals and evolution - how low was the probability of our success? (it is worth noting that it took 500 millions years of multicellular life evolving and almost all of it dying out before in last one few hundred thousand years one species learned how to make fire). And yet we assume it was natural and we are surprised that the entire space is not littered with aliens who went almost identical way and ended up with a similar civilization. Well I think it's not unreasonable to assume humans could be the only species in the universe capable of leaving orbit of their planet.

Sorry for the digression from the subject but I've been thinking of it just recently.

No worries. You touch on an important point: Because the game requires Technological Progress to reach certain goals (space flight) or compete successfully (military technology for defense or attack) it is, By Design, a teleological construct, and forces a technological 'race' to the goal.

I find it interesting that Humankind game is using 'Fame' as (apparently) the only Victory Condition. That implies that there could be a victory without any technological requirement, or even a requirement for your civ/faction to finish the game. That's an intriguing concept, depending on how they implement it: the Roman Empire has been gone these 1500 years (5 - 6 Eras, depending on how you count 'em) yet a case could be made that they are still one of the most Famous Civilizations in history.

Now that would be a different way to play a 4X game. It would also place a different emphasis on Technology and 'development' than any such game has had in the past, even negating 'technology' completely in some cases:

Who is more famous? The Zulus who charged rifles with spears or the English soldiers who shot them down?

And is it really Defeat when you leave behind lines like:
"Go and tell the Spartans, Stranger passing by
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie."
or
"Hear me, my chiefs! From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
or
"They were here, less than 60 against an army.
Its numbers crushed them.
Life, rather than courage abandoned these French soldiers . . ."

 

[Gedemon]

Thanks for this good discussion again.

Speaking as someone who've tried to implement some of the great ideas in such threads on CFC, I'd like to add my 2 cents here.

An extension of the "tech boost" concept and the "environment affecting" your research are things that can be added relatively easily to the game with a bit of scripting.

Hidden/semi-random tech trees are possible, but I'm unsure of the interest as a player, as it remove some decision making.

Unlocking techs (when it can be researched or has been researched by a civilization you're in contact with) seems a good concept, not adaptable to civ6 with its current modding capabilities, but fitting in this thread.

I also like a lot the concept of a separation between "general research" and "applications", but at the scale of the game it may have the opposite effect (too many choices to make per turn or not enough game's turns in relation to the number of possible applications, if each "general research" as a few applications to unlock)

This could be kind of mitigated with a separation between "global" and "local" research ("global" being the standard tech tree, local being a kind of city project unlocking an application), but the general research tree and the application branches (with prerequisites) could become very complex very fast, think of the UI feedback you'll need to give to the player, even if there was only 2-3 applications per research.

Now, as I have applied some of the concept above in my W.I.P. total overhaul, have something working for people interesting in testing it, and because I'd like more feedback that what I can gather from the C&C forum in its current state of hibernation, I'm going to present it here.

Because it was easier to add something on top of the current mechanism that completely starting from scratch, the classical "science per turn" value is still here, but it's completed by specific research fields and is not always the main progression factor in a research.

Think of "science per turn" as "academic research", and, based on your actions, your city placement, your buildings, etc... you also get points in "military", "social", "economic", "craftsmanship", "naval", "exploration" and "inspiration" research fields.

You still chose an unlocked "development item" (tech and civics are combined back in my mod under a "development tree", which ATM also include what could be considered as "applications") to focus your research on, but other items can also progress each turn based on actions and events.

Each item can be linked to multiple research field, for example the "Bronze working" item is linked to the craftsmanship, economic and military fields, but some of them won't be enough alone to complete the research (military can contribute to a maximum of 50% of the research cost, economic to 25%, while craftsmanship can contribute to 100%)

Events and action can also contribute (directly or indirectly) to research this item, like working copper resources.

Spoiler Bronze Working example :

 

[AsH2]

If I may sum up, Technological Progress could come from a combination of:
Need - as in, I Need those Fish off-shore, or I Need to defend against fast-moving raiders, or I Need to understand why the Gods have chosen to shake the ground out from under me every once in a while.
and
"Civics" or Social Changes - as in, Glorify the Military because they are the people keeping them Raiders off our backs or Our Enemies got better Trading Ships than we do: we need to Innovate to catch up! or The Gods Are Angry With Us for departing from the Old Ways: Innovation is Death!

Two things about this: first, as seen in the second set of 'examples', a Society can go all kinds of different ways from the same circumstances. Second, as a result your Technological Progress is going to be largely Blind - you cannot 'choose' what you are going to research, because in general there is always more than one 'technological' solution to any given problem.
Just for instance, the 'enemy raiders' problem could be solved by developing your own professional army (which eventually leads to Friedrich the Great's Professional Prussians) OR by hiring the raiders to protect you, which in turn requires emphasis on Gold production (Trade, Luxury Goods, etc) to 'pay off' the raiders (the 'Chinese Solution' for a large portion of their history).

But to this I think crowd control has to be more than just one (variable) factor (in game).
The Loyalty concept feels (imho) too simplistic.

Among the other 'Historical' things this would add to the game:
1. There would be Technologies available (learned from a neighbor, developed while looking for something else) that you would not bother to use because you have another solution to the perceived Problem. As in, steam and hydraulic mechanisms were available by the first century CE (developed in Alexandria, specifically) to be developed into Industrial Machinery of a sort, but the Roman Empire never developed them because they already had cheap slave labor from the conquests that the efficient Roman Imperial Army made easy. Now there's a place for an 'Alternate History' based solidly on Alternate Developments - Rome without an all-conquering army to bring in slaves! (NOTE: There's even a historical precedent: in the 6th century BCE the Greeks developed cranes to move masonry and stone in construction, because the Greek City States that wanted to build grand temples did not have access to the huge gangs of labor available to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Kingdoms and Empires: Need = Invention)

You mean: The Greek CSs wanted to have what Minoans had before Mycenaeans went to Crete, ripped off all they could do and made it characteristically Greek.

Spoiler Some palace links :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos

Rulers want to stay on top and of course they want to keep it that way their way - if possible claiming anything great as a result of their reign.
Ie if succeed, no unwanted civic needed to be adopted.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/absorbing-a-conquerors-culture.650312/#post-15558890

2. There would be certain "Wonders" or other specialized Mechanisms that could 'direct' Technological Innovation. Some specific, some more general. The Great Libraries are an example of the second, the Ortygia Workshop in Syracuse of the first (they developed the Quinquerime warship, the crossbow and the catapult there, all within 4 years!). Those are Classical examples, later you have the Medieval House of Wonders in Baghdad, the Translation projects in Toledo, and even 'unrelated' developments like the Scots Presbyterian Church demanding that every adult (including women!) be able to read the Bible for themselves, so they sponsored virtually 100% literacy in Scotland in the 17th century CE, leading in the next century to a mass of innovative Scottish engineers (among other things, they could Read Instructions) fueling the Industrial Revolution.

While we're at "wonders"..
Some changes from the civ6 ways to handle them:
I'd rather prefer them as initally era specific monumental buildings that may or may not become wonders during that era and/or beyond - depending on era points spent on them.

This is all exciting stuff, but I doubt that Humankind is going this way or they would have hinted at it by now, and it certainly isn't going to be included in any Civ VI expansion - it would require a massive remake of Tech Tree, Social Policies and Civics all at once - and probably some of the Religious Policies as well.

So, anybody else think it's time for a new Thread of: Ideas for The Perfect 4X Historical Game?

I am!
..but it's too late here now so I'll better get some sleep first.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But to this I think crowd control has to be more than just one (variable) factor (in game).
The Loyalty concept feels (imho) too simplistic.

I think that Civic/Social Factors need to be much more of a continuim than a simple Go/No Go.
So, "Loyalty" to take your instance, should not be Loyal/Disloyal, but a line from:
Loyal Enough To Die For You, Exalted Leader
to
I'll Risk A Mild Sunburn, But That's It
to
You're On Your Own, Leader Boy.

An a bunch of possibilities in between, so that if there was a mechanism, say, for using the population to Build a Wonder, at one extreme everyone shows up because it's considered a Religious Duty, but most of the time only some will show up and you'd better spend Gold to provide food and beer, at least, and if you've mangled your Social/Civics you may have to hire the tiny percentage of people available to hire at maximum wages and take decades to finish anything.

You mean: The Greek CSs wanted to have what Minoans had before Mycenaeans went to Crete, ripped off all they could do and made it characteristically Greek.

Spoiler Some palace links :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos

Knossos had a set of basements full of storerooms for the harvest and everything else being produced, which (like many places in Mesopotamia and the Near East) was collected by the Palace and then redistributed to the Loyal Masses. That implies a very stratified society in which those Loyal Masses - who are loyal enough to turn everything over to the Palace in the first place - can also be 'conscripted' as gang labor. Mycenea was at least as stratified, except that the Top Layer was Military, whereas we don't see a lot of military influence in Minoan Crete. Read Homer, though: the Myceneans conssted of a few named Heroes and a facelss mass of 'spear carriers' who, therefore, were also available for Willing Or Not labor.
By contrast, by the time you get out of the "Greek Dark Ages" the city states have a large middle class (that provide the Hoplites - they're rich enough to afford their own weapons and armor) and not so much in the way of peasents that can be rounded up to build the latest Temple, Mausoleum, or Colossus. Athens, in fact, to get slaves to work the Laurion mines, had to hire them from private owners, and pay top drachma for them. The Classical Greeks were so unfamiliar with the effect of mass labor that the massive fortifications built by the Myceneans they called 'Cyclopean', thinking they must have been built by giant Cyclopes folks instead of ordinary men!

Rulers want to stay on top and of course they want to keep it that way their way - if possible claiming anything great as a result of their reign.
Ie if succeed, no unwanted civic needed to be adopted.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/absorbing-a-conquerors-culture.650312/#post-15558890

Ah, but that brings up another delightful (I think) 'research' or Development problem: when the Grand Poobah decides that something will help him/her stay on top not realizing that there are some nasty Unintended Consequences. Like establishing a council to raise taxes so that you don't have to take the blame for sucking the population dry, and then discovering that (Horrors!) those buggers in the council actually want to know what you need the money for and are downright uppity about getting it for you. And Cue the Revolution and Civil War in England, the Revolution in France, etc., etc.

While we're at "wonders"..
Some changes from the civ6 ways to handle them:
I'd rather prefer them as initally era specific monumental buildings that may or may not become wonders during that era and/or beyond - depending on era points spent on them.

As I see it, there are two kinds of 'Wonders'.
There are times when people, or a person, sets out to build something Stupendous: a Massive Tomb for the God-King, the biggest Statue anywhere, etc. Then there are the people that just start building something useful, and it gets completely out of hand. Like, build a little wall to control traffic coming in off the steppes, and keep building until you're half-way to the Volga River and the damn thing is visible from Space. Romans, Persians, Afghans, Russians, all built Walls, but only one is The Long (Great) Wall, because they just kept on building . . .

I agree, though, that most of them start as a monumental Something (temple, statue, art gallery, canal, sewer system, etc) and become Wonderous either because they stick around for a 1000 years or so or because they got so big you've got to recognize them somehow.
The problem in Game Terms is that people want Specific Wonders: The Parthenon, the Colossus, the Great Library. Building some other Doric Temple, no matter how big, just isn't the Parthenon, and just won't be good enough for the player.

One possibility would be to give the gamer the same specific Restrictions for some Wonders that marked them: you build the Colossus only if your city has withstood a Siege without falling. You can build the Parthenon only after you've won a war against another major Civ. Many Wonders in each game, then, would never be built because conditions never are 'right'. On the other hand, these Forums have seen people post lists of potential Wonders 2 or 3 times longer than anything ever stuffed into a single rendition of the game, so having a much longer list of Potential Wonders from which, if you really work at it, you might meet the criteria for a tiny fraction of in any single game, might be just about right.


I am!
..but it's too late here now so I'll better get some sleep first.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Eddie Verdde]

Concerning revisions of the tech tree I'd ask for no more than a rebalancing of the pace at which technologies are researched and produce effects. This might be the most determinant factor when it comes to immersion in a game like civilization. Without a proper balancing of research, the years just fly by and you rarely get a flavor of each era: no sooner than you research iron working and finally have a decent army of swordsmen, than you're researching gunpowder or something else that makes the swordsmen obsolete with ever going to battle.

It's always sort of a streamlined, unstoppable and deterministic race, without ever going back. And after 5 iterations of the game, they still don't know how to fix this problem (or they just don't care). There's a bunch of mods that aim to slow research or introduce more technologies in the earlier eras to solve this problem, but some of them end up creating balancing problems in culture and wealth (the mods of Fenris Valren for Civ5 are the best I tried so far).

I'm afraid creating different ways of doing research would only add another layer of complexity in a game that already has a lot of things to keep an eye on. Every game is an abstraction of reality. The research process in civ games is an abstraction of how technology really happened in history: a mixture of state-driven directed efforts, discoveries and inventions by geniuses out of their curiosity or personal obsessions and the occasional serendipity moments by laymen.

One simple way of making things more interesting though, could be just by forcing civs to research techs again, every time they went through a dark age or a period of crisis. In times of crisis, technological progress is halted and knowledge is lost, only to be recovered a few centuries later. But while the crisis lasts, the game proceeds with whatever knowledge is retained, and this could also allow the players to spend more time on each era, using its units, buildings and social policies without being able to rush to industrialization, freedom of speech or the outer space.