I have come up with what I think will be a good buildup path to the new Ancient-Era
Code of Laws tech.
I want 4 of the 6 starting techs to be required to get CoL:
Agriculture, Ritualism, Stone Tools and
Storytelling. I am willing to leave out
Fishing and
Hunting. Fishing is very variable in its use depending on how much water is on your map. Hunting is more geared towards early warfare and I think you will have to pick it up eventually to get
Archery and later
Warfare.
- One thing that I don't currently like is that Agriculture is not nearly tied into the Tech Tree as I think it should be. It currently is part of only the following MANDATORY tech paths (it is part of several OR paths, but I'd like one-two more mandatory paths):
- Agriculture -> Fermentation -> Ancient Medicine -> Sanitation -> Anatomy
- Agriculture -> Fermentation -> Ancient Medicine -> Alchemy -> Invention
- Agriculture -> Crop Rotation [Medieval Era] -> Biology [Industrial Era]
- The first two paths are easy to skip until the Medieval Era or later, and the third isn't truly necessary until the Industrial.
These starting techs will, in total, lead to 3 techs, all of which are required for Code of Laws and the move from the very early game to the early.
- Community
- Crafting
- Tradition
Only one of these techs is new. The other two are renames.
Community
This is the new tech. I went looking for something that covered early cities and I could not find a name I was happy with. This is the closest I could find, but to me Community invokes the social aspect of cities rather than the physical. I will be very willing to look at suggestions for something that might replace it.
- Requirements: (Ritualism OR Storytelling) + Agriculture
- Allows: Menagerie, Palisade, Village Hall.
- The open question for me is what other techs should Community be required for, especially Priesthood and/or Trade. I think I will just make it lead into Trade.
Crafting
This is a rename of
Woodworking. It is kept mostly the same, but I think this is a broader concept that still fits. The other changes are:
- Add Agriculture as a tech requirement.
- Loses Palisade (to Community).
- Gains Beadmaker's Hut (from Trade).
- I want to pare down Trade's trick count. I have brought it down from its high points but it could still afford to share.
The main reason for making Crafting a prerequisite for Code of Laws is to make sure that
Stone Tools isn't left out of the Code of Laws prerequisite path. I tried to find an "early cities" tech that could require
Agriculture + Stone Tools, but nothing looked good. I didn't want to borrow the names
Construction or
Architecture, and I thought
Sedentary and
Urbanization sounded too modern.
Community came closest, but the social aspect won out over the physical so it didn't ring true to have Stone Tools be a requirement.
Tradition
This is a rename of
Mysticism. I wanted something with tech requirements Ritualism + Storytelling, and I don't think there is enough room for two techs with the same prerequisites, especially this early when possible tricks are limited.
Ritualism covers early religious practices fairly well. I normally don't want to get rid of names that come direct from BTS, but I think Mysticism is vague enough that replacing it is better. The rest of the tech is not changed.