Tech Tree Revisions

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I think it's to put some distance between the Despotism and Monarchy civics. I'm not sure how much difference there really is between despotism and some of the ancient monarchies.

@stoferb, I agree with Vokarya on this one.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Vokarya, everything looks great except for one thing. There's a bottleneck with Code of Laws-Philosophy-Meditation-Theology which are all religion-founding techs. We'll definetly have to split these up (or change founding-religion techs), because if you're the tech leader, you'll found all religions, don't you think?

 

[Vokarya]

Vokarya, everything looks great except for one thing. There's a bottleneck with Code of Laws-Philosophy-Meditation-Theology which are all religion-founding techs. We'll definetly have to split these up (or change founding-religion techs), because if you're the tech leader, you'll found all religions, don't you think?

You also need Literature to get to Philosophy, so that it breaks it up somewhat, but I see what you are saying. What if we add Music to the prerequisites for Theology? That would space it out a little more. I don't see anything else on the tree that is appropriate.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

You also need Literature to get to Philosophy, so that it breaks it up somewhat, but I see what you are saying. What if we add Music to the prerequisites for Theology? That would space it out a little more. I don't see anything else on the tree that is appropriate.

Sounds good to me.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Religion "hogging" is very bad in AND because it still only has the base set of religions with the old tech tree pathing. So separating and breaking up the paths to each religion founding tech is a must do. Otherwise this glaring fault will never go away.

Sometimes you need to fudge on reality to help game play and this is most definitely one of those situations.

JosEPh

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

to stop that, I just use limited religions. i.e. you can't found a new religion, if you have an existing one, it works quite well. I've been tech leader, researched a religious tech, not gotten the religion, and had it founded later by an AI. The reverse is also true, an AI, with a religion, hasn't founded the religion, and I've researched it later, and founded that religion.

Seems to me its game play semantics, if you play with multiple religion founding, you're going to get that.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@IPEX,
Yes there is that Option, but even playing with Multiple Religion the techs should Not be back to back that found the religions Period. Multiple religion Option was not designed as a Grab All Religions Option. In fact it was to help facilitate the Free Church Civic.

Limited on the other hand Was developed to stop the Religion Grab but from a different viewpoint. It in fact neuters the Free Church Civic, makes it totally worthless. And it was to Help players that used REV.

And again No if you play with Multiple Religion On you should Not found every Religion, that was not nor should ever be MR's purpose.

JosEPh

 

[Vokarya]

Religion "hogging" is very bad in AND because it still only has the base set of religions with the old tech tree pathing. So separating and breaking up the paths to each religion founding tech is a must do. Otherwise this glaring fault will never go away.

Sometimes you need to fudge on reality to help game play and this is most definitely one of those situations.

JosEPh

Let's test out my proposed revisions and see if it helps. If it's still a problem, then we can go down the route of creating separate techs to found each religion. The biggest problem I see with the separate-techs option is that we have to be able to get the AI understand that a founding tech is useless once the religion is founded.

 

[Vokarya]

The second half of the Medieval Era is two fairly small levels and one large one.

Medieval-3 is only 3 techs, including the critical choke-point tech of Invention. Alchemy figures into all three of these techs, but in one case only as an OR prerequisite.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Invention Civil Service + Engineering + (Agricultural Tools OR Guilds) Alchemy + Civil Service + Engineering + (Agricultural Tools OR Guilds)
Optics Glass Blowing + Invention Alchemy
Paper Guilds + (Civil Service OR Theology) Guilds + ( Alchemy OR Civil Service OR Theology)

I added Alchemy as a mandatory prerequisite for Invention and as a replacement for the former prerequisites for Optics. I wanted Alchemy to lead at least two techs and cut down a little on the number of techs Invention leads to. Invention still leads to a lot of techs.

Medieval-4 contains several important techs, all of which require at least one, if not both, of Invention or Paper. Optics doesn't do anything until it's time for Astronomy.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Armored Cavalry Armor Crafting + Feudalism + Invention + Smithing + Stirrup Armor Crafting + Elephant Riding + Invention + Stirrup
Banking Currency + (Paper OR Usury) Currency + Paper + Usury
Cartography Paper Paper
Clockworks Calendar + Invention Calendar + Invention
Education Architecture + Philosophy + (Invention OR Paper) Architecture + Philosophy + (Invention OR Paper)
Mountaineering Engineering + Invention Invention
Perspective Architecture + Invention + Paper Architecture + Invention + Paper

What I did here:

• Armored Cavalry loses redundant Feudalism and Smithing prerequisites (both are required for Armor Crafting already). I felt this was the best place to put Elephant Riding so that ER isn't totally skippable.
• Banking had its prerequisites modified so you couldn't skip Usury by going through Paper.
• Mountaineering simply loses a redundant Engineering.

Finally, Medieval-5 is two unchanged techs, one pruned of redundancies, and one modified a little.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Algebra Education + Perspective Education + Perspective
Anatomy Education Education
Chivalry Armor Crafting + Armored Cavalry + Civil Service + Guilds + Heraldry Armored Cavalry + Guilds + Heraldry
Compass Iron Working + Sailing + (Clockworks OR Education) Rudder + (Clockworks OR Education)

• Chivalry gets pruned of redundant prerequisites the same way Armored Cavalry did. I'm not sure if Guilds is really necessary, but it's not redundant, so I will leave it in for now.
• Compass gets Rudder replacing its two mandatory techs in order to get Rudder woven into the tree. Also, the two prerequisites are really far back on the tree (we are at the end of the Medieval Era, but Sailing is early Ancient Era and Iron Working is early Classical). I'd prefer prerequisites to be closer together.

 

[Vokarya]

Here is the Medieval Era map. I think I've got it right this time; I just did a bit of reworking to make sure that the arrows to Paper don't get too ugly.

Holy War
Theology Papacy Optics Banking
Alchemy Cartography
Engineering Rudder Architecture Paper Perspective Algebra
Civil Service Usury Education Anatomy
Guilds Clockworks Compass
Crop Rotation Invention Mountaineering
Feudalism Agricultural Tools
Heraldry Armored Cavalry Chivalry
Armor Crafting

The new cost scheme comes straight off from the Classical Era.

Level # Techs Cost/Tech
Medieval-1 4 700
Medieval-2a 6 800
Medieval-2b 5 900
Medieval-3 3 1000
Medieval-4 7 1100
Medieval-5 4 1200

The target here was 27,620. This adds up to 27,600, an almost invisible difference.

Let me know what you think of this and then I'll move on to the Renaissance. I'm going to suggest some bigger changes to the Renaissance and later techs that I think better fit the historical developments of particular techs. Certain technologies come too early and I'd like to push them further down the tree. Some are a little bit late.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Looks good to me. If no one else has issues, we can move on to Renaissance Era

 

[JosEPh_II]

No problem for me, Green Light On

JosEPh

 

[Combat Wombat]

So when you say there are will be no skipable techs that includes horse back riding and archery and their derivatives? Having totally optional technology is good for gameplay and historically accurate(at least as far as riding and archery). I would actually like to see other tech moved to being more optional. Gunpowder comes to mind as a tech that shouldn't be required. Steam Power is another. No reason why a player shouldn't be able to skip steam power and the units and whatnot that go along with it and then pickup combustion later if they wanted. Or skip both of those and get fission/fusion down the line and just rock sailing ships and infantry till they get there if that's how they want to roll.

edit: Also along those lines why not for instance add some modern sailing ships with near strength of their coal/oil/nuclear powered counter parts minus speed. No reason why a civ skipping out on steam engines wouldn't put turrets on a sailing ship or skipping combustion put missiles on a sailing ship. Obviously this kind of thing would take more work but having these alternate tech paths would be quite interesting.

 

[Vokarya]

For the Renaissance to the Modern Eras, I'm using a timeline to try and place techs relative to each other. I'm not going to insist on absolute adherence to this line, but I like it because it really helps tell what subsection (early, middle, late) of an era the tech should be in. Prerequisites will push some techs up and down the tree, so you will see some techs out of place and some overlap between time periods.

The techs that cover the first three levels of the Renaissance appear historically between 1350 - 1600.

Date Tech Event
1350 Gunpowder Petrarch writes cannons are common
1400 Metallurgy Cast iron cannonballs
1425 Oil Painting Jan van Eyck painting for Philip the Good
1445 Leadership first Western European standing army
1450 Humanism Humanist education common
1455 Printing Press Gutenberg Bible
1475 Matchlock First dated illustration of matchlock
1532 Political Philosophy Machiavelli publishes The Prince
1543 Astronomy Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
1545 Battlefield Medicine Paré's first book on treating gunshot wounds
1550 Cavalry Tactics Caracole tactics
1560 Jurisprudence School of Salamanca
1569 Navigation Mercator projection
1576 Divine Right Jean Bodin publishes Les Six livres de la République
1590 Naval Cannon Cannon broadside
1597 Free Artistry Ballet, opera, commedia dell'arte established

This is how it will play out in-game. Renaissance-1 is the starter techs for the era. It gets trimmed down by losing Navigation, Physics, and Political Philosophy, but gains Humanism.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Astronomy Calendar + Education + Optics Algebra + Calendar + Compass + Optics
Gunpowder Education + Guilds + Invention Education + Guilds + Invention
Humanism Drama + Music + Political Philosophy + Printing Press Education + Music
Oil Painting Education + Perspective Education + Perspective
Printing Press Education + Invention + Literature + Paper Education + Invention + Paper

Changes:

• Astronomy replaces Education with Algebra; I'm pushing Physics farther forward, and I would like to keep the lines from a tech to its successors as short as I can. Compass also gets moved back from Navigation to Astronomy.
• Humanism gets changed the most by dropping backwards. It basically swaps places with Political Philosophy; Pol Phil will require Humanism instead of the other way around. I also dropped Printing Press to keep Humanism at the beginning of the era. Printing Press is still required for Scientific Method. Drama is just redundant with Music.
• Printing Press loses a redundant Literature.

Renaissance-2 changes by losing Divine Right, Humanism and Weather Forecasting, but gaining Free Artistry, Leadership, Navigation, and Political Philosophy.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Free Artistry Divine Right + Humanism + Oil Painting Humanism + Oil Painting
Leadership Divine Right Chivalry + Gunpowder
Matchlock Clockworks + Gunpowder Clockworks + Gunpowder
Metallurgy Armor Crafting + Gunpowder Armor Crafting + Gunpowder
Navigation Cartography + Clockworks + Compass + Ship Building Astronomy + Cartography + Clockworks
Political Philosophy Banking + Education Banking + Democracy + Humanism

Changes here:

• Free Artistry didn't seem to fit with Divine Right, so I dropped the Divine Right prerequisite. I think requiring both Humanism and Oil Painting is enough.
• Leadership dates to a century before Divine Right, so I felt changing the prerequisites was in order. I think the pairing of Chivalry and Gunpowder works.
• Navigation had Compass and Ship Building swapped out for Astronomy.
• Political Philosophy changed places with Humanism. I also added Democracy since I pushed Constitution out of the Medieval Era; it's going all the way to the late Renaissance.

Renaissance-3 gets a couple of technologies that were originally much farther along the tech tree.

Tech Old Prerequisites New Prerequisites
Battlefield Medicine Anatomy + Chemistry + Nationalism Anatomy + Leadership + Matchlock
Cavalry Tactics Flintlock + Stirrup Leadership + Matchlock + Mounted Archery
Divine Right Chivalry + Constitution + Gunpowder + Political Philosophy + Theology Chivalry + Holy War + Papacy + Political Philosophy
Jurisprudence Divine Right + Political Philosophy Political Philosophy
Naval Cannon Metallurgy Metallurgy

Changes:

• Battlefield Medicine is being practiced earlier than the current tech tree places it. Ambroise Paré developed his techniques for dealing with gunshot wounds, therefore the Matchlock technology requirement. Leadership happened to be on the same level as well, so I added it.
• Cavalry Tactics is a hard tech to pin down; I went with the caracole as one of the first examples of using gunpowder weapons with cavalry troops. Caracoles were usually done with wheellock pistols, but that's too narrow for a tech. I like Matchlock (as the first gun technology) and Flintlock (as a major upgrade that served for two centuries), but Wheellock is just too specific for a tech. Mounted Archery lands here too as well.
• Divine Right got redefined. I didn't think Gunpowder was necessary and dropped it. I decided to let Holy War and Papacy land here to work them into the tech tree, and that made Theology redundant. Constitution is on the other side of Divine Right now.
• Jurisprudence lost Divine Right to keep it on the near side of the 1600 dividing line.

Another note: moving Cavalry Tactics backwards means we will probably need to lower the strength of the Cuirassier unit. I think we should take it down by a point or two, and then give it an equal bonus at Flintlock. The +X Strength at particular techs is, to me, far more elegant than a promotion-based equipment system.

Let me know what you think of this.

 

[Vokarya]

So when you say there are will be no skipable techs that includes horse back riding and archery and their derivatives? Having totally optional technology is good for gameplay and historically accurate(at least as far as riding and archery). I would actually like to see other tech moved to being more optional. Gunpowder comes to mind as a tech that shouldn't be required. Steam Power is another. No reason why a player shouldn't be able to skip steam power and the units and whatnot that go along with it and then pickup combustion later if they wanted. Or skip both of those and get fission/fusion down the line and just rock sailing ships and infantry till they get there if that's how they want to roll.

edit: Also along those lines why not for instance add some modern sailing ships with near strength of their coal/oil/nuclear powered counter parts minus speed. No reason why a civ skipping out on steam engines wouldn't put turrets on a sailing ship or skipping combustion put missiles on a sailing ship. Obviously this kind of thing would take more work but having these alternate tech paths would be quite interesting.

I'm not going to go down that route. I think trying to balance too many alternate tech paths would take way more time and effort than I plan on putting into this. Possibility isn't enough; it needs to be plausible, and I'm not seeing it. In your ship example, I'm really not believing it - a sailing ship would be so outmaneuvered and probably outgunned by an engine-powered ship that it would be no contest, especially on the strategic level that the game is being played on.

I don't think it's good for gameplay to have skippable techs. The problem is that techs need to have content (or else they are just "filler" techs), but whatever content is there needs to be balanced against what else is available immediately or else it becomes too much of an advantage. Later content has to be better to keep research going (if the new stuff isn't better, why research?) but that rewards the player who does skip the skippable techs. I think making techs unskippable makes for better gameplay in the overall picture.

The one exception that I would make is for splitting off religion-founding into its own technologies; those will dead-end. This would make founding religions a real effort on the player's part, especially for a player that wants more than one. Religion offers so many benefits in this game that we almost need a mechanic to hold them back. I find Revolutions does that pretty well for me, but as some people don't care for Revolutions and it is an option, then some other check needs to be included as well.

 

[Arkatakor]

to stop that, I just use limited religions. i.e. you can't found a new religion, if you have an existing one, it works quite well. I've been tech leader, researched a religious tech, not gotten the religion, and had it founded later by an AI. The reverse is also true, an AI, with a religion, hasn't founded the religion, and I've researched it later, and founded that religion.

Seems to me its game play semantics, if you play with multiple religion founding, you're going to get that.

I play with this option too. It also ensures that most AI's found at least 1 religion and that the game has religious diversity. I do, however, miss the advantages of combining two or more different religion benefits. Thus I am very much looking forward to seeing the religions split into different tech paths.

I don't think it's good for gameplay to have skippable techs. The problem is that techs need to have content (or else they are just "filler" techs), but whatever content is there needs to be balanced against what else is available immediately or else it becomes too much of an advantage. Later content has to be better to keep research going (if the new stuff isn't better, why research?) but that rewards the player who does skip the skippable techs. I think making techs unskippable makes for better gameplay in the overall picture.

I disagree here. It was the option to choose different tech paths whilst ignoring others, based on circumstances that has always made civ a fun game throughout the series. Taking extreme approaches such as enforcing no skippable techs is never a good thing for any game. However I do not feel that there should be too many skippable techs; for example I do not agree that techs such as steam power, which was integral to the industrial age, should be skippable. However it should be possible to to research military science without going thru horse archery or elephant riding.

Don't get me wrong, I do support overall the tech changes you are making, I just dont support taking making it such that no techs are skippable. Middle ground is always a good thing.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

My idea is that there shouldn't be totally skippable techs like it's now. I agree that different paths should be offered, but from what I see this is something that Vokarya is doing well with OR requirements and by weaving techs in different parts of the tech tree. For example weaving Mounted Archery in Cavalry Tactics is a very smart idea to allow different tech paths without making MA a totally skippable tech. After all, sooner or later you always research all techs or trade them with other civs. I don't think you've ever reached transhuman era without Mounted Archery. So having it skippable or having it woven into the tech tree like Vokarya is doing, doesn't force you along a predefined tech path but at the same time doesn't leave you totally ignorant in a field that, even if it hasn't been chosen by you as your tech path, you should be required to know one way or another, sooner or later. So I think I can say that this IS kind of a middle ground.

 

[Arkatakor]

My idea is that there shouldn't be totally skippable techs like it's now. I agree that different paths should be offered, but from what I see this is something that Vokarya is doing well with OR requirements and by weaving techs in different parts of the tech tree. For example weaving Mounted Archery in Cavalry Tactics is a very smart idea to allow different tech paths without making MA a totally skippable tech. After all, sooner or later you always research all techs or trade them with other civs. I don't think you've ever reached transhuman era without Mounted Archery. So having it skippable or having it woven into the tech tree like Vokarya is doing, doesn't force you along a predefined tech path but at the same time doesn't leave you totally ignorant in a field that, even if it hasn't been chosen by you as your tech path, you should be required to know one way or another, sooner or later. So I think I can say that this IS kind of a middle ground.

Ok, I will be looking forward to trying it out. Its always totally impossible to get a total grasp on the big picture until one has actually tried out the newer version which encompasses all the changes.

 

[Combat Wombat]

My idea is that there shouldn't be totally skippable techs like it's now. I agree that different paths should be offered, but from what I see this is something that Vokarya is doing well with OR requirements and by weaving techs in different parts of the tech tree. For example weaving Mounted Archery in Cavalry Tactics is a very smart idea to allow different tech paths without making MA a totally skippable tech. After all, sooner or later you always research all techs or trade them with other civs. I don't think you've ever reached transhuman era without Mounted Archery. So having it skippable or having it woven into the tech tree like Vokarya is doing, doesn't force you along a predefined tech path but at the same time doesn't leave you totally ignorant in a field that, even if it hasn't been chosen by you as your tech path, you should be required to know one way or another, sooner or later. So I think I can say that this IS kind of a middle ground.

I would like to see the dumb techs that I would personally never research like mounted archery get something else to make them worthwhile. Have MA give a food bonus to hunting camps for instance. If you force people to research the tech at least give them a token bit of usefulness. The reason people don't research some of that tech till its essentially free is because its useless completely and utterly useless I can't even think of the last time I used mounted archers.

 

[Vokarya]

I would like to see the dumb techs that I would personally never research like mounted archery get something else to make them worthwhile. Have MA give a food bonus to hunting camps for instance. If you force people to research the tech at least give them a token bit of usefulness. The reason people don't research some of that tech till its essentially free is because its useless completely and utterly useless I can't even think of the last time I used mounted archers.

That's not a bad addition to Mounted Archery. There are several other techs that could use some additional content -- Neural Networks and Hydroponics have no content at all, and others like Modern Health Care and Legalized Gambling have only one thing to offer for researching them. Once I get through my current ideas, we can start beefing up the low-content techs. We should be trying to strike a balance between "good stuff now" and "better stuff later" throughout the tree.