Tech Tree Revisions

I'll look at them now that I have the major stuff that I wanted to do out of the way. I currently count 18 overrides so let's see if we can get that number down.
 
I have a question about tech costs. I don't know how the tech cost gets multiplied based on the player's empire development(number of cities? population? relative technological level? Era?), but the cost seems to go up absurdly in some games. In a gigantic map with marathon speed, I managed to build a civilization of 40+ cities with population ranging from max 30 to min 5. My civ was the largest, but far behind in technology. It took almost 20 turns to research what other small civs of 4~5 cities have already finished researching. The leading AI player had roughly 20 cities, and did not seem to suffer much penalties(AI leader was researching Constitution while I was researching Optics). I think the difficulty was the prime determining factor. I played a similar game in a same map with a same leader in Noble difficulty, and easily had the lead in technology. I had an empire of similar size in that game, but the tech cost was almost 1/3 of the game I played in Emperor difficulty. I am worried if some sort of error was involved. Well, if it was meant to be that way, I have no problem either though.
 
AFAIK on Emperor your techs cost 200%, while the AIs' techs cost only 80% (if I'm reading HandicapInfo.xml properly).
Empire size doesn't matter, though having a big empire may mean a high maintenance cost which means you may generate less :commerce: to convert into :science: than a smaller civ.
 
There are many factors involved in the final tech cost. Each tech cost is scaled for mapsize, gamespeed and handicap. Also they're scaled differently for AI and humans depending on handicap. Then they are adjusted to real world Era if Realistic Timescale is selected. So if your difficulty is high, AI is low and you're already far ahead of the time you are supposed to be (like researching Steam Engine in 1100AD), yes, the tech cost will skyrocket. It's meant to balance the game and prevent a runaway/steamrolling effect when a civ is getting too strong.
 
Vokarya, I heard you're tinkering with Medieval-Education and adding a tech called Rhetoric. Can you PM me new logic? I'll work on it and Ancient F6 in parallel.
 
Rhetoric's been done for a while. It fits in exactly where Code of Laws used to fit in the Classical Era.

About the only change to the Tech Tree I am still considering is moving Controlled Plasma up to Transhuman-3. From the trick perspective, Controlled Plasma is on very shaky ground. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor doesn't actually do anything until you reach Fusion and Plasma Armor is shared with Railgun tech. Removing Railgun would, at least in my opinion, place Plasma Armor too close to Modern Armor. Moving it up would give a little more room.
 
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, here is a tech tree updated with fewer tech overrides for the F6 screen.

Looks pretty good to me. I'll have to tweak a few things. The one thing that I will say is outright wrong is what you did with Meditation. Ethics and Scriptures cannot both be OR prerequisites. Otherwise, Scriptures doesn't have a mandatory exit, which is one of my basic tech tree rules. But fixing it isn't a huge problem. We just move Ethics back to an AND prerequisite and then it's good to go.

The Agriculture to Herbalism arrow also will have to go, unfortunately. I think no matter what we do, it's going to overlap the Ritualism-Herbalism arrow and that causes a little confusion.

I also want to tweak a couple of placements (Sanitation, Feudalism) up or down a bit to straighten out the arrows and have the arrow to Alchemy come off Theology rather than Ancient Medicine. I don't really like long arrows. The Politics-Papacy arrow threw me off a little bit but I can understand that it's the only way to get all 3 arrows leading into Paper so I can live with that.

Otherwise, I'll re-sort it (if you don't do the techs in order, some of the shadows overlap the actual tech boxes) and it will be part of my next upload.
 
I hadn't noticed that I changed the logic on Meditation. I dun goofed.

I despaired about Herbalism. If only we could control the arrows.

EDIT: Hold off on putting any work into it, Vokarya. If Herbalism cannot co-operate with my drawings, then the alternative tree from my previous post is just as good.
I'm working on another rearrange for Philosophy off of Mathematics, and it would require flipping the tree back over again.
 
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Tinkering has proven positive that, in this version of the tech logic, the Medieval line of Smithing -> Engineering has to run along the bottom of the F6 screen. The 10 lane bottleneck comes into play again.
So there isn't an option of flipping the tree back over.

But you can put Philosophy from Mathematics, instead of the farther Ethics, if you do it up like this:
MedievalPhiloshort.jpg

I've already prepared an xml file modified in three other ways... one to put Alchemy the way you wanted, one to switch Wheel and Archery (so Archery line is shorter), and one to fix the Meditation gaffe. I can do up the medieval era whichever way you want.
 
I want to do some tweaking on Controlled Plasma. This is a tech that is on very shaky ground with both of its tricks. Controlled Plasma is currently Transhuman-1, but its International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor doesn't do anything until you get Fusion (which is Transhuman-4) so it is a waste of hammers to build until then. Also, its Plasma Armor is shared with Railgun and I think it's too close to the Modern Armor.

This is what I want to do:
  • Move Controlled Plasma's prerequisites to Railgun + Wireless Electricity. This puts Controlled Plasma into Transhuman-3, making it much closer to Fusion. it also makes Railgun redundant as a prerequisite for both the Plasma Armor and Warmachines tech. Warmachines is fine because Warmachines is Transhuman-5 and has three other prerequisite techs without Railgun.
  • Move the Great Scientist from Artificial Life to Controlled Plasma. I am doing some shuffling of tricks from Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life and so A-Life does not really need the GSci any longer. This gives Controlled Plasma a third trick.
 
I want to add Naval Tactics as a prerequisite for Screw Propeller. I noticed that SP has only prerequisite (Steam Power) and NT has only one exit point (Grand War). I would prefer if every tech had at least two exit points. I've already made sure that every tech has at least one exit so there are no dead-ends. I would prefer if every tech had at least two prerequisites and two exit points, but it's not absolutely necessary.
 
I want to do some tweaking on Controlled Plasma.
I love these thoughts. Big thumb up. Yes.

I want to add Naval Tactics as a prerequisite for Screw Propeller. I noticed that SP has only prerequisite (Steam Power) and NT has only one exit point (Grand War). I would prefer if every tech had at least two exit points. I've already made sure that every tech has at least one exit so there are no dead-ends. I would prefer if every tech had at least two prerequisites and two exit points, but it's not absolutely necessary.
I less love these thoughts. My first reaction is that... one thing we have right now with RoM is that advancement, in particularly materials science, is removed from necessarily prerequiring a military motivation for having that advancement. Each way that we constrain alternative history to just be [some military doctrine] -> [the technological basis for another weapon], we lose that.

That fact probably seems less objectionable to different people. But I need it to preface the second worry I have, which I do think is objectively pressing, but speculative. And that is... I've had an intuition that your regularization of the tree, which you have sought in the name of 'removing the gilded edges' I believe was your term, has the risk that, if you actually succeed in this regularity becoming pervasive, it will result in the gameplay becoming repetitive. Like this: If the structure of tech requirements is really so rulebound from start to finish, it would mean that the thought process that occurs, when proceeding from an arbitrary point in the game, will weigh what one route through techs will do versus another route through techs will do (of course), but the factors of one route and the factors in the other route will be the same decision, you see what I mean?

Might be very distant from this one instance of change.

One thing I can definitely do , profitably, is work out any mathematical necessities of a tech tree's entry points and exit points. Like, you know, I bet that if you stipulate a peerage of techs that have just one prerequisite, that implies the previous generation can't have had more exit points since, from the other perspective, they equal, right? It would give you more penetrating understanding to work with, in designing any regularities like the 2-2 rule you just mentioned.
 
I understand what you're saying. I don't want the tech tree to be a straitjacket either. What I do want is something that feels natural and doesn't allow too much over-specialization. I don't think players should be allowed to neglect basic technologies and a diversity of techs in favor of a rush-strategy to one particular tech that leaves a lot of stuff behind. A few weeks ago, I was playing vanilla BTS and with just Monotheism, Priesthood, and Writing, I was able to get Theology through the Oracle and start the Medieval Era around 1000 BCE. I'm not in favor of chasing every little detail in favor of "realism", but that is really breaking the immersion.

I am certainly not going to force multiple exit points on every tech. Some techs (Slavery, Sanitation, Crop Rotation) had to stretch to get that first exit, and any others would look horribly inelegant. I would like to look for some techs that could benefit from a second prerequisite if they don't already have one. Two incoming techs makes it harder to work down the tech tree quickly.

One thing is that I am not particularly happy with Naval Tactics as a tech. I understand we need a tech at that point (just slightly forward of the halfway point) to separate the first wave of ocean-going warships (Caravel, Brigantine) from the second wave (Sloop, Frigate, Man'O'War) and eventually lay the foundation for multiple different strengths of warships. Frigate is the weak line, Man'O'War is the middle, and Ship of the Line is the strong line. I just wish we didn't call it Naval Tactics, but I don't have a better name.
 
. I just wish we didn't call it Naval Tactics, but I don't have a better name.
Oh! We have a lot of techs that have a name that is not "tech-ish". Usury and Meditation to mention only two.
I think you shouldn't worry for Naval Tactics either :)
 
Usury isn't exactly on my list of favorite added techs either (it dates back all the way to Rise and Rule). In fact, what I would like to replace it with is one of the top two wishes for the tech tree that I haven't been able to fill:
  • A Medieval-Era "long-distance trade" tech. This would replace Usury if I knew what to name it. Swipe the Caravan from Crop Rotation and Marco Polo's Embassy from Optics, have it lead into Banking and Compass, and you've got a solid tech right there.
  • A late Modern Era financial tech. This would be Globalization if the name wasn't already in use, but the existing one already has its niche in "international cooperation". I don't have a snappy name for the concept so I haven't tried to rename the existing Globalization tech.
 
  • A Medieval-Era "long-distance trade" tech. This would replace Usury if I knew what to name it. Swipe the Caravan from Crop Rotation and Marco Polo's Embassy from Optics, have it lead into Banking and Compass, and you've got a solid tech right there.
"Fairs" ?
 
I did some looking at incoming and outgoing arrows on techs and the length of the gap between techs and their prerequisites. I think in some places we have too many requirements and we can do some trimming. What I also noticed is there are some very long jumps (6+ columns) and I don't feel that a jump that long is meaningful as a prerequisite. Two or three requirements in the same column or close columns are meaningful, but a tech from a previous era (or even two) is harder to justify.

BTS tops out at 3 possible requirements for a tech. Printing Press and Artillery have 3 mandatory requirements, Writing has 3 OR choices, and 9 techs have one mandatory prerequisite and an additional choice of 2 OR prerequisites. For AND, we can go a little higher if necessary to make sure that we give an exit to every tech, but 4th incoming requirements -- or even 4th outgoing arrows -- strike me as probably stretching.

I think the best example is Philosophy as a prerequisite for Education. Education currently requires:
  • Patronage (a Medieval-3 tech)
  • Architecture (another Medieval-3 tech)
  • Either Invention or Paper (both Medieval-3 techs)
  • Philosophy (a Classical-2 tech)
Philosophy is clearly an odd tech out, and after researching three Medieval-3 techs, the cost to research a Classical-2 tech is a lot less. If we just trim Philosophy, I doubt it would ever make a real in-game difference.
 
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