Tech Tree Revisions
- Thread starter Vokarya
- Start date
I have a couple more ideas that I would like to put on the table. I'm not going to force them, but I really like them and would like to see them implemented. The first is removing Romanticism and Realism as technologies. I'll give the what would happen first, followed by the rationale.
What would happen
Reasons why
What would happen
- Delete Romanticism and Realism as technologies.
- Add Acoustics as a new technology in the Renaissance Era. Requirements are Physics and Free Artistry; leads to Telegraph.
- Content reshuffling: Opera House and J. S. Bach's Cathedral move to Acoustics. Great Artist moves to Photography. Neuschwanstein moves to Civil Engineering. Bolshoi moves to Telegraph. Modern Art Theatre moves to Modern Art.
Reasons why
- I think the Industrial Era has too many technologies (57), more than any other era and almost twice as many as the Medieval. I don't think this is good overall and forces the tempo of techs too much. I think several of the Industrial Era techs are overly narrow and would like to see more them go (Naval Aviation, Submarine Warfare, Mass Transit, Machine Tools, and Marxism [collapsed with Labor Union] would all be possible candidates).
- I don't think art movements make for good technologies. The problem with art techs is that the possible tricks you can do with an art tech are so limited. I think it is highly unlikely that you would get a new military unit, civic, or diplomacy option out of an artistic development. There a few wells you can go to once (Drama allows adjusting the culture rate, Music allows building culture), and you can do Great Persons once in a long while, but beyond that, the only real options are buildings and wonders. Artistic buildings seem very limited in what they can do, being some combination of culture, happiness, gold (very little, certainly not as much as a building from an economic tech) and Artist specialist slots. Wonders are also easy to overuse and while I really like Wonders, I don't think Wonders are enough to support a tech. There has to be something for the civilizations that come along later. Technologies that represent new media (Sculpture, Drama, Oil Painting, Photography, Mass Media) work for me because they are easy to tie ordinary buildings to. Movements wind up with Wonders and not much else.
- I'm not happy with the current placement of Opera House. It's always been tied to the Realism tech to avoid bringing Realism below the two-trick minimum. Realism used to be a Renaissance Era tech before I started revising the tech tree, and I moved it to the Industrial Era because that is when the capital-R Realism movement started. I think realism as a technique (non-capitalized) is far too broad to be a good technology. In the Renaissance Era, we have Humanism, Oil Painting and Free Artistry in the early part of the era, and to a lesser extent, Liberalism, Nationalism, and Military Tradition (plus Acoustics) to cover the later Renaissance. I think that covers artistic development in the Renaissance enough that we don't need Realism as well. What I do want is Opera House to be available in the late Renaissance, and not quite so close to the Movie Theater which is also in the mid-Industrial Era.
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
Sounds very good to me Vokarya. Among other techs you've mentioned, I think I could go without Machine Tools, but I actually like the other ones.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
Sounds convincing to me too.
Agree with the removal of art movement techs.
Also ok with merging Labour Union and Marxism.
I'd keep the others.
Rather, I would prefer the Industrial era to be longer, instead of forcing each era to be roughly the same lenght in turns.
Also ok with merging Labour Union and Marxism.
I'd keep the others.
Rather, I would prefer the Industrial era to be longer, instead of forcing each era to be roughly the same lenght in turns.
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
It's not that easy to make some eras longer when Realistic Timescale is working. The rationale behind the same length of eras is that I want to finally balance advanced starts, and having the same length for each era would help in this sense.
Here is the other idea that I have been considering for a while. This is the tech of Holographics. It is a Transhuman Era tech. The reason I'm considering it is that while I don't think artistic movements or techniques are great ideas for technologies, new artistic media are, and we don't have any artistic techs in the Transhuman Era. I think Holographics is at least plausible, although it's going to show up about halfway through the era, because I think it should require Advanced Computers (one of the primary choke-point techs of the Transhuman Era).
I had to think very hard about whether Holographics should lead to Invisibility or the other way around. I think it will be better with Holographics first. (In the Mars Now! mod, Holographics leads to Stealth.) This will bump Invisibility from Transhuman-2 to Transhuman-5, making it take much longer to get Fusion Transports and Fusion Destroyers. (The Special Infantry is already slated to move to Railgun.)
For content, I am planning to take several content pieces from other techs.
In fact, the primary inspirations for creating Holographics as a tech are: I don't think the Virtual Reality Theater is really a good Modern Era building and is too close to the Movie Theater; I think the SS Cockpit comes too early, unlike the other spaceship parts which are clustered at the end of the Tech Tree (I would rather have players have to commit several cities at once rather than one city over a long period of time to build the spaceship efficiently); and I always felt that putting the Great Artist at Androids was more forced than it should be.
Unfortunately, moving the content around like this moves several techs below the two-trick threshold. Androids is fine, with the Android Worker unit, Android Factory building, and Post-Scarcity civic. The other three techs will need some help, and this is what I am thinking of doing.
- Prerequities: Advanced Computers AND Wireless Electricity
- Leads to: Invisibility, Terra Computer
I had to think very hard about whether Holographics should lead to Invisibility or the other way around. I think it will be better with Holographics first. (In the Mars Now! mod, Holographics leads to Stealth.) This will bump Invisibility from Transhuman-2 to Transhuman-5, making it take much longer to get Fusion Transports and Fusion Destroyers. (The Special Infantry is already slated to move to Railgun.)
For content, I am planning to take several content pieces from other techs.
- Free Great Artist for the first discoverer (taken from Androids)
- Holographic Combat Simulator (taken from Wireless Electricity)
- Holographic Flight Simulator (taken from Wireless Electricity)
- Holotheatre (rename of the Virtual Reality Theatre, taken from Wearable Computers)
- SS Cockpit (taken from Artificial Intelligence)
In fact, the primary inspirations for creating Holographics as a tech are: I don't think the Virtual Reality Theater is really a good Modern Era building and is too close to the Movie Theater; I think the SS Cockpit comes too early, unlike the other spaceship parts which are clustered at the end of the Tech Tree (I would rather have players have to commit several cities at once rather than one city over a long period of time to build the spaceship efficiently); and I always felt that putting the Great Artist at Androids was more forced than it should be.
Unfortunately, moving the content around like this moves several techs below the two-trick threshold. Androids is fine, with the Android Worker unit, Android Factory building, and Post-Scarcity civic. The other three techs will need some help, and this is what I am thinking of doing.
- Artificial Intelligence: Add Free technology for first discoverer. This is currently only done at Liberalism. Our tech tree is about 3x the size of the BTS tree. I think we can do this once more without breaking anything, but it's not a card that can be played often. This is a tech that I very much want to keep.
- Wearable Computers: I am halfway considering axing this technology. Out of 47 Modern Era techs, I count twelve that deal with computers. I think that is a bit too much concentration on one topic, and one or two of these computer techs could be cut. I think the Modern Fighter could be moved to Unmanned Air Vehicles. If we must keep it, this is where I would put the Surveillance Network building that I proposed. The Modern Era doesn't get any Magistrate slots and the Surveillance Network would provide some. Communication Networks is an equally good fit and is where the Surveillance Network would go if we do cut Wearable Computers.
- Wireless Electricity: This is where I am a little unsure of what to do. I think a new unit might be appropriate here. I noticed we don't have an anti-vehicle unit and maybe I could build one for here. In thinking about it, maybe EMP Infantry would be a good name. I'm not sure. I do want to keep this tech.
<Nexus>
Traveler of the Multiverse
I didn't realize we don't have Holographics tech 
Good idea and really like the Holotheatre name
Good idea and really like the Holotheatre name
- Artificial Intelligence: I consider any "free stuff for the first to discover" thing (tech, GP, religion) only a half trick. Good as a sort of flavor content but not that tempting to discover as a second or third or etc. I more like stuff that is available for everyone. How about a flat +25%
? - Wearable Computers: Keep it or cut it. I am neutral on this one. Whichever solution you find better.
- Wireless Electricity: I'm okay with the new unit AND/OR add a flat +25%
bonus.
As I said, I just think 12 computer techs before the end of the Modern Era is too much. Here's the ones that I consider computer techs.
- Computers
- Semiconductors
- Computer Networks
- Robotics
- Fiber Optics
- Microprocessor
- Communication Networks
- Knowledge Management
- Virtual Reality
- Machine Learning
- Wearable Computers
- Cyberwarfare
Wearables is one of the two that I am on the fence about keeping. The other is Computer Networks as its own tech. I think we're cutting the concept of computer networking into too many techs, between Computer Networks, Fiber Optics, and Communication Networks, and I'm straining to get 2 tricks on all of these techs. This is why I created The Agency.
I don't think I want to get rid of any Transhuman Era techs at this point. If I had to pick one, it would probably be Powered Exoskeleton, but I actually want Transhuman to be the biggest era.
I want to get rid of both. I don't think we need this much of a concentration on computer techs in the Modern Era. I have similar feelings about having so many aerospace techs in the Modern Era, but I think it's better since we got rid of Vertical Flight and Space Tourism.
The Computer Network building is going to stay. I like it as a linchpin building for the late Modern and entire Transhuman Eras. I think it would be best transferred to Fiber Optics (matches up with the Internet - I don't want to have any mandatory paths between the two; I think if you really want to be isolationist, you can build individual networks without a worldwide Net; furthermore, to ward off any suggestions, the XML does NOT support building requirements for projects at all). Mapster would go to Communication Networks.
The real question would be keeping some distance between Semiconductors and Microprocessor. Historically, there are 10 years between the two (which is a good-size gap for the Modern Era) so I would like to keep it. I think I would change Microprocessor's requirements from its current (Computer Networks OR Robotics) to (Robotics OR Satellites) AND Semiconductors.
Although I did have another idea; what if Network Node was also an upgrade of Computer Network? (It currently tops off the Broadcast Tower and Telephone lines of buildings). It wouldn't be difficult to rewrite the computer buildings to require a Computer Network or Network Node.
Does anyone else like Computer Networks enough to keep it as a separate tech?
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
Networking sounds better IMO.
Does this look okay as an icon for Acoustics tech? I took Civ 5's icon and cropped it down to a square. I haven't found a better one yet. (I don't want a waveform; I would rather have something that looks artistic, not scientific.)
View attachment 403288
EDIT: I think I like this one better. I turned the contrast up to 35 in GIMP. It makes the organ pipes stand out a little more.
View attachment 403289
View attachment 403288
EDIT: I think I like this one better. I turned the contrast up to 35 in GIMP. It makes the organ pipes stand out a little more.
View attachment 403289
45°38'N-13°47'E
Deity
I know. That's what I keep seeing too. I'll go hunting for something better.
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