Tech Tree Revisions

You can show the slider by making gold a flexible commerce, but I don't really see the point. As long as the percentages have to add to 100%, then there's really only 3 decisions you can make and one category becomes whatever is left over. That's what the gold category winds up being. If we had a "waste" category, then we'd need an extra slider for taxes, but I wouldn't want to introduce a whole extra set of mechanics for what seems to me isn't a decision to make.

 

Taxes could however be something that you expand upon later. It would certainly be a good way to expand the realistic corporations mechanics if nothing else.

 

I started looking at the random events to see which ones cost gold. So far, I've got three rough categories:

• Events that cost gold, but their trigger conditions are far enough into the game that you're past the early phase where the sliders are locked. An example would be the Careless Apprentice event that forces you to pay gold or lose a Forge. The Forge requires Metal Casting, which is Classical Era. I wouldn't expect the gold-lock to remain past Writing at the very latest. So we wouldn't have to modify anything here.
• Events that are "pay gold to get something good" or "nothing happens", like the Joyous Wedding event; you can pay 15 gold for +1 relations or 60 gold for +3 relations with the target.
  
• Events that are "pay gold" or "something bad happens", like the Washed Out event that causes you to pay 20 gold or lose a route.

For these last two categories, there is a very easy variable to manipulate: <iMinTreasury>. This sets a minimum treasury before the event will fire.

For a good event, <iMinTreasury> should be equal to the gold spent to get the lowest good option; that way, the event will never fire for no effect. So Joyous Wedding would require at least 15 gold in your treasury to go off. The actual trigger condition is sharing a border with another civilization with the same State Religion.

For a bad event, <iMinTreasury> should be very low, maybe 1 or 5. That way, if you are still in the "no treasury" phase, the event won't even fire. But if you have a treasury and then spend it down, then you are vulnerable.

 

How about setting it it to the double? Like 30 for Joyous wedding. So even if a player has a -1/turn income and accidentally clicking on the pay 15 he will still have some time left to fix his situation.

 

That's plausible. I don't want to stop these events from firing too often. Under current conditions, these events can go off even if you don't have any gold, and I'd like it to at least be a choice for the player.

 

The 'waste' category could be Public Works points which are used to build infrastructure like roads, in the style of Civ:Call to Power... Hehe, I know, I'm dreaming right.

 

I went through the events and found 24 that can fire in the early era and cost you gold. I'll work up the list of which ones need modifications to avoid problems with the early treasury-less game situation.

 

I want to get this posted so I can get it off my to-do list. I have a complete list of events that could go off before you reach the tech that allows altering the gold/science rate. I'd like to try it with the ability to alter that rate set at Trade tech. I know Trade tech is stuffed at the moment, but I think it's a good one to try.

These events have a minimum treasury of 1 to go off. These are bad events -- pay money or something bad happens.

• Forest Fire
• Washed Out
• Spoiled Grain
• Blizzard
• Ancient Mercenaries
• Sandstorm
• Dissident Priest
• Farm Bandits
• Slave Revolt
• Careless Apprentice

These events cost money, but there is at least one good choice that doesn't cost money. So if these events turn up before you have a treasury, you can get a lesser bonus but not the maximum possible.

• Famine (this is the event that allows you to lose food and possibly send gold to another player in exchange for a relations boost)
• Papyrus
• Great Beast
• Heresy
• Miracle
• Hi Yo Silver
• Antelope
• Looters
• Inspired Mission

These events are good if you pay money, but nothing happens if you don't. Their minimum treasury is equal to twice the amount of gold needed for the lowest good effect.

• Chariotry Founded
• Man Named Jed
• Joyous Wedding
• Wedding Feud

Is there anything else that you might want to spend gold on in the very early game, pre-Classical Era? This is before gold trading, gold rushing, and improvements that cost gold are available.

 

Seriously though could you confirm what the new logic is on the tree? I really want to show off what becomes possible. Aristocracy used to clog up the space above Monarchy, but now that one single space lets you put Glassblowing in there, which means Metal Casting can squeak by with just one lane into late classical, and .... it's just awesome.

 

All I have currently done is remove Aristocracy. I haven't moved anything else.

 

I noticed the icon for "adjust culture" seems really weird. It looks more like a currency icon than anything else. Would it be too much of a problem to use the same icon for the "Build X" process and the "Can adjust X" ability? So both "Can Adjust Culture" at Drama and "Build Culture" at Music get the same blue note icon. That's one option. Another might be a different-colored button (like a red note).

 

This is still the best one I can recommend.

 

I have worked with a model for long enough to be confident in the unavoidable tradeoff relationships of the tech tree appearance.

The above is still the best way to get the most OR lines into the picture. Alternately, Sailing can be drawn onto Trade, but with less freedom for Agriculture (see attachment). HBR -> Warfare is in a tradeoff with any option for Trade. I can now show my work. Pottery limits Agri/Hunting/Ritualism as well as force Sailing on Woodworking, and at that point Calendar is in the way.

Trade can't be maximized, but we can at least show two of the ways onto it and thus Writing/Monarchy. The graph in post #832 exchanges the HBR line for one on Trade and also Stargazing-Priesthood. It is the most lines. And Aesthetics can move onto Athletics.

 

I have an idea waiting in the wings that might need a bigger rework of the Ancient Era. I'm holding it back until I get done with the things I have currently proposed.

 

... heh.

Well, when it comes to light, I'll be equally intrigued by the implicate puzzle.

 

I think it's time for a few articles about techs that I still think are weak and need something to strengthen them. Weaving is the first problem tech.

The reason for my concern is to make sure that the tech tree is not overstuffed. The player should, without having to resort to exploits, be able to complete the tech tree in the regular course of a game, while still having each tech feel like a meaningful accomplishment and not have to fly through techs.

• A standard speed game of BTS is 500 turns.
• A standard speed game of AND is 1200 turns.
• We have a multiplier of 2.4, so we can increase the total number of techs by 2.4 and still have techs appearing at the same pace.
• Not counting Future Tech, BTS has 91 techs.
• AND currently has 248 techs.
  
• This is a ratio of 2.73, so a slightly faster pace in terms of turns/tech.

I've also worked very hard to cut out filler techs. Every tech should, in theory, unlock at least 2 "tricks" worth of content. (If you haven't read the rest of this thread and certain other threads, most things unlocked at a given tech count as one trick each. Health and happiness resources, bonuses to existing buildings/improvements/units, promotions, and items not fully unlocked until a later era count as 1/2 trick each.)

What I noticed recently is that Weaving doesn't have an accurate trick count. While its current count seems to be a healthy 3.5, there are actually so many other conditions on its tricks that it's practically a one-trick tech. What Weaving currently does:

• Slinger unit. This is actually the only pure trick for Weaving.
  
• Weaver building. Technically unlocked here, but it also requires Sheep or Cotton or Hemp or Silk. The first is available at Animal Husbandry, the rest not until Calendar.
• Tailor building. This counts as half a trick because it is not fully unlocked until Aesthetics, which is Classical Era.
• Sheep resource. This is a minor trick, and not fully available until you reach Animal Husbandry. It does increase tile yields, but that is all.
• Silk resource. Like Sheep, Silk boosts tile yields but does nothing else until Calendar.

For what to do about Weaving:

• Moving the Weaving tech upwards to (Agriculture OR Animal Husbandry) is possible. Making Animal Husbandry mandatory for Weaving is not a good idea because that pushes up Sailing and Ship Building into the next column and requires substantial gymnastics for Ship Building. Ship Building would effectively become an "orphan" tech in its column, which I really want to avoid.
  
• Slinger would have to be moved, probably to Hunting, or deleted completely. If Slinger's tech requirement is moved up, that puts it too close to Archery.
• Weaver could lose its resource requirement, but I'm not sure how many little buildings with flat yields and no requirements is a good idea. It's nice to have a few buildings like this to give early cities something to do, but I don't really want to see many more.

So another possibility would be to cut the tech entirely. I haven't committed to this. I'm posting this because I noticed it and want to solicit some feedback.

 

I think this is the simplest yet best solution. Make it another "no resource requirement but extra bonus with them" building. I know we already have many of these kind of buildings but removing Weaving would mean a lot of extra work: It's a starting tech for many civs and finding a good replacement for each and every civ in the MegaPack too... It's not something I'm really up to for the moment

[a few minutes later]
Okay, I checked: There are only 2 civs in the main mod and 25 in the MegaPack. Maybe it would't be that big work but I still don't feel comfortable seeing this tech moved or removed.

 

Revealing resources should be counted as another tick, as they are significant for future city planning. Granted that sheep and silk aren't key resources, but it means the difference between having a newly founded city being able to use them once the tech arrives to having to build a new city if you want to exploit them. As for weaver I agree, make it no requirement building but make it give 1 gold, that is less useful than commerce. It should be a cheap low benefit building

As for tech progression, I believe the main problem is how meaningless the slider is in AND, being normal to be able to run it at 100-90% though most of the games, mainly because there is a lot more commerce and gold sources in the mod ( the city connection change is huge, and make buildings like caravanserai mandatory for every city). I know that in vanilla you could finish the tree by 1800 (or even sooner if you are ultra good) but it requires to be really gods at the game. In And I never feel that running my economy was difficult. Nerfing commerce from buildings that don't employ citizens may be a good step foward and reducing the amount of direct gold you gain so commerce is the main source of wealth

 

Leave the Slingers, don't delete them,
1) it gives an upgrade path to Archery units.
2) It rounds out the base units, warrior, slinger, Javelineer.

As well, weaving is a base tech, in the Neolithic age, it should be a base tech, lots of 1/2 tricks by you count.

 

My only problem with Slingers is that it's too close to Archers.
In Chronicles I'm considering to move Archers up the tech tree closer to Warfare further from and further from Weaving but my ancient era has far more techs.