Tech Tree Revisions

An interesting idea, certainly.
 
The lowest number of resources is revealed by Ritualism/Stone Tools
That's a good reason (IMO) to move Marble reveal to Stone Tools. It's not just a luxury, iirc it boosts many buildings production. Not a big thing but I think it would bit slightly better at ST.

Authority
Sounds good to me.
 
(...) and I'm planning to have Slavery be after Code of Laws rather than before it.

I think this is a good idea.

Right now with early coming Slavery AI is switching to it's new Tribute civic right away giving -2 unhappiness in their cities due to fixed science slider. This cripples their cities/economy at early stage a lot. So i think it would be better to have it come later when your cities have more happiness or you can adjust your science slider manually.
 
That's a good reason (IMO) to move Marble reveal to Stone Tools. It's not just a luxury, iirc it boosts many buildings production. Not a big thing but I think it would bit slightly better at ST.

Stoneworker's Hut is the only building that could be affected between Stone Tools and Masonry, but even then it doesn't have an effect. City vicinity resources need to have the appropriate improvement on them before they count towards being available. I found that out when I was playing with Stoneworker's Hut. Altering that rule would take DLL work.
 
Stoneworker's Hut is the only building that could be affected between Stone Tools and Masonry, but even then it doesn't have an effect. City vicinity resources need to have the appropriate improvement on them before they count towards being available. I found that out when I was playing with Stoneworker's Hut. Altering that rule would take DLL work.
No, I only meant revealing for planning future expansion. No need to change SwH.
 
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.
 
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.
How about Settlement?

I like all the rest :)
 
You need Stone Tools for Warfare, isn't that good enough? ... actually, you could slap a materials prerequisite onto Writing (have to write on something, right?) and then you know it'll be there for Monarchy.
I like the Community name and I like the Crafting name, no issues there. But Crafting requiring Agriculture has me bothered.

The injection of agriculture is almost like starting the game with it as Civ V does. .. that's neither here nor there. No, what it really has me in mind of is , where do you stand on the centrality of agriculture in the development of cities and civilization? Is RoM putting Agriculture as an essential tech? If it's entirely a gameplay decision, I mean... do players actually get away with not researching agriculture for as long as you say it's possible?

Tradition could be called Traditions.
 
Every tech is essential eventually. I made sure there weren't any dead-ends in the tech tree. But I do want Agriculture to be more essential than it currently is.

From a pure gameplay perspective, I don't like techs with only one prerequisite, like how Woodworking currently only requires Stone Tools, so that's one reason to me for adding Agriculture to the Crafting prerequisites. "Long jumps" like Agriculture -> Crop Rotation are another thing I want to see if we can get rid of and this will help a little. On top of that, I also want to avoid deep beelines and slingshots like the Civil Service jump in vanilla BTS. That feels like an exploit.

I'm not making everyone absolutely start with Agriculture like Civ5 does, but I think it is extremely important. The Code of Laws path is going to be the heart of the Ancient Era, but you can prioritize some of the side Ancient Era techs like Horseback Riding or Mythology if that's what you want. One thing I want to look at is comparing how far down the tech tree you can go before you absolutely have to research a particular tech.
 
Here are some other ideas I have regarding prerequisites. Mostly I am adding a few prerequisites to tighten the tech tree up and prevent going too deeply with no breadth.

Rhetoric: This is a new tech to fill the slot where Code of Laws is vacating by moving to the Ancient Era. I want to keep the Monarchy prerequisite but change Writing to Alphabet. This pushes a broader approach to the early Classical. Rhetoric is a requirement for Politics, Drama, and Literature.

Literature/Philosophy: I feel that Philosophy should come a bit earlier on the tech tree. Classical level 2 feels like where the classical Greek techs should be, and Philosophy is emblematic. I'm willing to push Literature off a bit to compensate. Philosophy is currently pinned to level 3 by both Literature and Meditation, so its requirements need to be reworked.
  • Philosophy's requirements become Ethics + Mathematics.
  • Literature's requirements become Mythology + Philosophy + Rhetoric. Mythology needs a second mandatory outward point.
  • Theology's requirements become Literature + Meditation + Music. I think this works better. Meditation is necessary here because it's no longer necessary for Philosophy.
Ancient Medicine: Removing Code of Laws from the Classical Era kicks the supports out from underneath Ancient Medicine. Despite its name, it really is the Classical Era medical technology. I have concluded that there is only room for one medical tech per era: Herbalism - Ancient Medicine - (no Medieval) - Anatomy - Medicine - Antibiotics - Nanomedicine. I just never found a better name.

Since Ancient Medicine comes from spiritual practices rather than analytical science, I think an appropriate set of requirements would be Fermentation + (Meditation OR Philosophy). This keeps it at the Classical-3 level. Classical-1 and -2 are pretty crowded. -3 and -4 not so much.

Feudalism: Add Stirrup to the requirements. The "Stirrup Hypothesis" is that adoption of the stirrup and therefore heavy cavalry was necessary to the development of European feudalism. Whether or not that is true, adding Stirrup to the Feudalism requirements does solve two things that I think are problematic:
  • Feudalism has only one real prerequisite: Vassalage. Code of Laws is a redundancy that I simply have not removed yet. I don't like techs with only one prerequisite.
  • The tech line that runs Animal Husbandry - Horseback Riding - Horse Breeding - Stirrup - Chivalry is theoretically possible to skip until close to the end of the Medieval Era. I don't like having a loose thread this long. Tying it off at Stirrup seems much better.
Mercantilism: Add Political Philosophy to the requirements. Like Feudalism, Mercantilism only has one prerequisite right now: Colonialism. This is not a good thing. Political Philosophy itself only leads to Jurisprudence. This is another thing I don't particularly like. Adding a connection won't cause any other problems.
 
You could always call it something like Early, Classical or even Hippocratic Medicine.
 
I just never found a better name.

Craft of Medicine? Medical Ethics? Or just simply Healing?

...or rename Medicine to something, like Pharmaceutics (that name is okay in the Industrial era, isn't it?) and use it for AM.
 
So I've loaded up my tree modeler again, and want to ask...
just to be clear, what is happening to Slavery and Caste System? Where are they moving? I didn't see. Sorry if I'm just blind :blush:

=> Cures, Treatments, Healing, Remedies

edit: Oh and here's a thought: If "Code of Laws" unlocks the science slider, and it's something like record-keeping and the emergence of hierarchy, how about: Recorded History ? Or, snappier, just History?
 
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The proposed revisions can't be displayed. Ancient-4 would need 11 rows and there are, of course, only 10. Not unless you let me change the column of some techs...
Heck, there are several ways that the tree is now impossible. I'll have some options presentable by Wednesday.


Also, I don't think you're right about Agriculture being so on its lonesome prior to intervention. It's necessary for Stargazing (much to my chagrin), and that means Agriculture is needed for Calendar, too. You can't have Seafaring without it.
 
edit: Oh and here's a thought: If "Code of Laws" unlocks the science slider, and it's something like record-keeping and the emergence of hierarchy, how about: Recorded History ? Or, snappier, just History?
No... History doesn't sound like a tech. And anyway, Vokarya tries to wants to keep vanilla names if possible. I think CoL is a good name.
We could shorten it to just Laws but I think CoL is still better.
 
Craft of Medicine? Medical Ethics? Or just simply Healing?

...or rename Medicine to something, like Pharmaceutics (that name is okay in the Industrial era, isn't it?) and use it for AM.

Pharmaceuticals would be more appropriate for the Modern Era tech, but Antibiotics has that spot already and I think names the tech so elegantly that I really wouldn't want to change it.

Medicine represents several concepts tied up in one tech, especially germ theory, antisepsis, anesthesia, and public health. It's not just medications. I don't want to give up the name there.
 
The proposed revisions can't be displayed. Ancient-4 would need 11 rows and there are, of course, only 10. Not unless you let me change the column of some techs...
Heck, there are several ways that the tree is now impossible. I'll have some options presentable by Wednesday.

Ancient Level 4 is supposed to have 7 techs: Ethics, Fermentation, Sculpture, Ship Building, Slavery, Warfare, Writing. Slavery is going to Ancient-4 (Code of Laws + Trade) and Caste System is going away.

Ancient Level 3 is still going to be 10 techs: Archery, Bronze Working, Code of Laws, Horseback Riding, Masonry, Mythology, Pottery, Priesthood, Sailing, and Trade. That needs to be split across 2 columns. I split columns when I get to 9 techs on a single level.

Also, I don't think you're right about Agriculture being so on its lonesome prior to intervention. It's necessary for Stargazing (much to my chagrin), and that means Agriculture is needed for Calendar, too. You can't have Seafaring without it.

Agriculture is not necessary for Stargazing; it's that OR Mysticism, and it's supposed to be OR Sailing as well. Stargazing is Ancient-2 because the minimum requirement to get there is Agriculture, but it's not the only way. There are several paths to it.
 
What Agriculture has at the moment is a bunch of OR prerequisites (Animal Husbandry, Herbalism, Pottery, Stargazing), plus a couple mandatory requirements that are easy to put off (Fermentation, Crop Rotation). I really want to emphasize how important Agriculture is to developing civilizations.
 
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