Tech Tree Revisions

45°38'N-13°47'E;14306694 said:
Vokarya, what do you think about this proposal? Once we're done with techs cutting, we might want to revise techs costs increase between columns from industrial onwards. I have some good reasons for this proposal: first, I think science output is increasing faster up to renaissance because you're still expanding. After that era, most of the map is taken so assuming you'll keep expanding is at least flawed. Of course you can still expand, but you'll have to conquer other civs and keeping a big cost increase between columns (bigger than previous era, at least), can only give an advantage to bigger civs, which is not what we want in terms of balance. Second thing, if we want techs costs to always increase as the game is developing through eras and if we want that at least some civs can discover every tech by the end of the game, the only way to do it is decreasing tech costs by reducing the gap between columns. I've seen more or less that each industrial column has a distance of 200 in terms of cost, 250 for modern and at least 1000 for transhuman. I think we should reduce that to 100, 150 and 500 and then play with techcostmodifier until we reach a good balance.
What do you think? I could easily do it once you're done with your work on the tech tree, I really think we need it to keep the game balanced through the later eras. But this is something we can do only after the work on tech tree is done, if we agree to do it.

I'm fine with recosting techs. The costing scheme that I used was to get something that we could get up and running without breaking things wide open. I don't know if there is a really good systematic way to recost techs. I looked at BTS and costs are all over; in BTS, Communism and Fascism are much cheaper than Assembly Line, Electricity and Railroad, while Mass Media and Refrigeration are really cheap compared to other Modern techs. I have idly considered taking into account the total number of prerequisites needed to get to a particular tech when costing it, but I haven't gone anywhere with the idea.
 
Here is another cut to the Transhuman Era. The Transhuman Era is currently sitting on 50 techs. I won't be able to get it to 40, but I'd like it to be a little smaller. I think that we could merge all of Smart Dust, Nanoelectronics, and Nanobotics into one tech under the Nanobotics name. I especially don't think Smart Dust is distinct enough to deserve its own technology. (I also think that Modern-Era Nanotechnology might fall under the "not ready for prime time" banner, but I have enough targets in the Modern Era and don't see it as necessary to cut.)

The three techs have similar prerequisites and almost form a loop. It's not a major loop or the mod would crash. The only major exit is Nanomining.
  • Smart Dust: Requires Nanoelectronics OR Wireless Electricity. Leads to Nanomining.
  • Nanoelectronics: Requires Nanotechnology + Advanced Computers. Leads to Nanobotics, OR prerequisite for Smart Dust.
  • Nanobotics: Requires Nanoelectronics. Leads to Nanomining, Planetary Economics.

The other tech that I am looking at changing is Smart Drugs. I think Smart Drugs is just a little too narrow for a tech and I would like to broaden it to cover just about all Transhuman Era medicine. (After removing Replacement Organs and Regenerative Medicine, there isn't any other pure-medical tech. Cloning, Artificial Evolution, and Homo Superior come close.) The name I am looking at is Nanomedicine. I'd be interesting in any other suggestion. Nanomedicine would require Nanobotics in addition to Cloning and Thought Scanning. Broadening this tech out would also make it more applicable as a prerequisite for other Transhuman Era techs.

So this is the final result of the cutting and renaming. Several techs would also be moving up or down a level, but I haven't completely calculated that yet.
  • Nanobotics: Requires Micromechanics + Wireless Electricity. Leads to Nanomining, Planetary Economics, Nanomedicine.
  • Nanomedicine: Requires Cloning + Nanobotics + Thought Scanning. Leads to Homo Superior, Organic Cities, Space Colonies.

The one thing that these techs did have was a large number of tricks. Combining all three under one tech would give it an extremely high trick count of 12.5. Double-digit trick counts aren't a good thing. Here is what I want to do as far as parceling out the tricks.
  • Nanofactory building: Stays with Nanobotics.
  • Regenerator building: Moves to Nanomedicine.
  • Utility Fog building: Moves to Nanomining. I think it deserves to be one tech after Nanobotics.
  • SS Docking Bay project: Moves to Space Colonies. SS Life Support moves to Organic Cities. I think the spaceship parts should be on separate techs and fairly close to the end of the Tech Tree. The lowest level for a spaceship part is Transhuman-4 for Superstrong Alloys (SS Casing) and Holographics (SS Cockpit).
  • Nanite Lab national wonder: Stays with Nanobotics. This is the production wonder for Nanobots.
  • Nanite Defuser world wonder: Stays with Nanobotics.
  • ACV unit, ACV SAM unit: These are the Transhuman Era upgrades of the Mechanized Infantry and Mobile SAM. They could go just about anywhere in the Transhuman Era, although I would prefer the middle of the era. Advanced Computers seems like a good place.
  • Fusion Cruiser unit: The placing tech for this is actually Warmachines, which comes along later. I think we can just drop the Nanoelectronics requirement.
  • Nanite Spy unit: Stays with Nanobotics.
  • Nanite Swarm unit: Stays with Nanobotics.
  • Nanoids promotion: Moves to Nanomedicine.
  • Power Source Upgrade MK I promotion: Stays with Nanobotics. There isn't any spectacular place to put it and it needs to be after Fusion. Fusion Power Source is a prerequisite promotion for this.
  • Sensors I promotion: Moves to Cybernetics. Cybernetics has only 2 tricks and could use a minor trick.

So Nanobotics winds up with a trick count of 5.5 (Nanofactory, Nanite Lab, Nanite Defuser, Nanite Spy, Nanite Swarm, Power Source Upgrade MK I) and Nanomedicine with 3.5 (Regenerator, Research Hospital, Cure for Cancer, Nanoids). This is solid enough for me.
 
The two grouped techs sound good, but perhaps Nanoengineering would be a better term than Nanobotics. I think the latter sounds too artificial.
 
Artificial Evolution and Homo Superior also sound like very similar, though I don't recall their content.

Homo Superior gives the Super Soldier, the Universal Translator and a Great Prophet. (I put the GP here because I couldn't find anywhere better and HS needed the help. I tried to equalize the Great Persons among the eras, with the Transhuman Era getting one of each except for General, which is harder to use in the end game.) I find it very strange that the Superhuman civic is not at Homo Superior (it's at Cloning) but I suspect it may be there because HS comes so late in the game that there isn't much time to really use the civic.

Artificial Evolution gives the Incubation Center, the Plague Bringer, Dinosaur Park, and several bonuses to improvements.

The two are very similar; Super Soldier could be folded into Artificial Evolution and the other HS tricks moved around. Universal Translator would be good for a computer tech.
 
Nanomachinery could also work and it's shorter than my earlier offering.
 
I'm doing the revision work on the tech tree for the removal of Nanoelectronics/Smart Dust and I'm removing Homo Superior at the same time. I agree that HS overlaps with Artificial Evolution and can be broken up, with Super Soldier going to Artificial Evolution and Universal Translator to Quantum Computing. I think we are on track to get the Transhuman Era down to 45 techs. The other two techs on my radar are Automated Traffic and Powered Exoskeleton; removing those will get us down to 45. The Industrial and Modern Eras will have 40 techs when I am done, so 45 is solid and a small increase from the previous eras but within reason.

The thing I have noticed is that there is not a very good spot to put the Great Prophet that Homo Superior currently has. There is one of each Great Person in the Transhuman Era except General. On the other hand, Great Prophets tend to run out of things to do after all the Shrines are built. Right now, I am looking at Mind Uploading. Mind Uploading has only 2 tricks (Mind Storage and Meeting of Minds) so I think this is a good place to put it.
 
The thing I have noticed is that there is not a very good spot to put the Great Prophet that Homo Superior currently has. There is one of each Great Person in the Transhuman Era except General. On the other hand, Great Prophets tend to run out of things to do after all the Shrines are built. Right now, I am looking at Mind Uploading. Mind Uploading has only 2 tricks (Mind Storage and Meeting of Minds) so I think this is a good place to put it.

I think it would be safe to forget the Great Prophet in TH era :mischief: Wouldn't hurt much IMO.
 
I'm doing the revision work on the tech tree for the removal of Nanoelectronics/Smart Dust and I'm removing Homo Superior at the same time. I agree that HS overlaps with Artificial Evolution and can be broken up, with Super Soldier going to Artificial Evolution and Universal Translator to Quantum Computing. I think we are on track to get the Transhuman Era down to 45 techs. The other two techs on my radar are Automated Traffic and Powered Exoskeleton; removing those will get us down to 45. The Industrial and Modern Eras will have 40 techs when I am done, so 45 is solid and a small increase from the previous eras but within reason.

The thing I have noticed is that there is not a very good spot to put the Great Prophet that Homo Superior currently has. There is one of each Great Person in the Transhuman Era except General. On the other hand, Great Prophets tend to run out of things to do after all the Shrines are built. Right now, I am looking at Mind Uploading. Mind Uploading has only 2 tricks (Mind Storage and Meeting of Minds) so I think this is a good place to put it.
Sounds great to me. In the meantime I'm experimenting with changing some tech cost and modifiers for Transhuman in order to have always increasing costs for techs but to let AI some chance to get to the end of the tech tree.
 
Now galley is moved to shipbuilding, should the free galley be on shipbuilding as well instead of sailing?
 
I think it would be safe to forget the Great Prophet in TH era :mischief: Wouldn't hurt much IMO.

I don't want Great Prophets to feel left out. Every GP gets 3 scattered throughout the tree. Diplomats get 4 but I suspect that there might not be a need for all 4. In unmodded BTS, Great Prophet is the only GP to never show up for free.
 
I'm recalibrating the advisors again. Each tech has an Advisor that gives you the recommendations on the popup tech choice window. There are six advisors to choose from: Culture (techs with cultural impact), Economy (techs with production/commerce/gold impact), Growth (techs with food/health/happiness impact), Military (techs with military impact), Religion (techs with religious impact), and Science (techs with scientific impact). I went and compared the listed advisors to the tricks you actually got for researching the tech. I found over 50 techs where I thought another advisor was more appropriate. I'm going to change this in my next upload. Overall, I think it will make the recommendations much more accurate. I've spoilered the list because it is so long.
Spoiler :
  • Androids: Science to Economy
  • Artificial Evolution: Military to Growth
  • Artificial Life: Military to Science
  • Astronomy: Growth to Science
  • Brain-Machine Interface: Science to Military
  • Civil Engineering: Growth to Economy
  • Civil Service: Growth to Economy
  • Cloning: Science to Growth
  • Combustion: Military to Economy
  • Communism: Growth to Economy
  • Explosives: Military to Economy
  • Fermentation: Economy to Growth
  • Fusion: Science to Economy
  • Heraldry: Culture to Military
  • Humanism: Science to Culture
  • Imperialism: Growth to Economy
  • Jurisprudence: Religion to Economy
  • Knowledge Management: Economy to Military
  • Liberalism: Economy to Science
  • Logistics: Economy to Military
  • Megastructure Engineering: Military to Growth
  • Mercantilism: Growth to Economy
  • Metamaterials: Science to Military
  • Micromechanics: Science to Military
  • Microprocessor: Science to Economy
  • Mind Uploading: Science to Growth
  • Modern Seismology: Science to Economy
  • Nanomachines: Growth to Economy
  • Nanomining: Growth to Economy
  • Nanotechnology: Growth to Economy
  • Nationalism: Military to Culture
  • Networking: Economy to Culture
  • Nuclear Power: Economy to Military
  • Optics: Growth to Economy
  • Organic Chemistry: Science to Growth
  • Political Philosophy: Science to Economy
  • Pottery: Economy to Growth
  • Psychology: Growth to Science
  • Robotics: Science to Military
  • Rudder: Military to Economy
  • Screw Propeller: Economy to Growth
  • Sculpture: Economy to Culture
  • Seafaring: Growth to Economy
  • Semiconductors: Science to Military
  • Slavery: Military to Economy
  • Social Contract: Growth to Economy
  • Space Flight: Military to Science
  • Space Stations: Military to Science
  • Steel: Military to Economy
  • Superconductors: Growth to Science
  • Superstrong Alloys: Military to Economy
  • Teleportation: Science to Economy
  • Thought Scanning: Science to Growth
  • Virtual Reality: Science to Military
  • Weather Control: Economy to Growth
 
When I was looking at the Transhuman Era to consolidate the nano- techs and remove Homo Superior, I noticed a few places where I could add an additional prerequisite to a tech and thereby tighten up the tree a little bit, requiring you to research more of the early technologies and make it harder to go too deep.

There are four easy changes to make:
  • Brain-Machine Interface requires Genetic Engineering instead of Antibiotics. The only other prerequisite is Knowledge Management and I think a little more biological knowledge is in order here. Antibiotics is all the way at the beginning of the Modern Era. Genetic Engineering is at the end of the Modern and Brain-Machine Interface is at the very beginning of the Transhuman.
  • Vertical Farming adds Ecological Engineering as a prerequisite. Vertical Farming currently only requires Metamaterials and Hydroponics and I think that another prerequisite wouldn't hurt. Ecological Engineering carries large-scale manipulation that I think would be better to lead into VF.
  • Artificial Life adds Nanomedicine as a prerequisite. Since Homo Superior was removed, Artificial Life only requires Artificial Evolution. Nanomedicine and Artificial Evolution are both Transhuman-4, so this doesn't change Artificial Life's placement any. I don't like techs having only one prerequisite and I think adding Nanomedicine doesn't hurt anything.
  • Weather Control adds Planetary Economics as a prerequisite (and removes Planetary Economics from the prerequisites for Future Tech). I think that Future Tech has too many prerequisites and this narrows down the end of the tree a little more.

There is one more big change that I want to make, and that is removing Cloning from the prerequisites for Advanced Computers. Advanced Computers is a giant choke-point tech in the middle of the Transhuman Era. It has four prerequisites other than Cloning (Artificial Intelligence, Mesh Networks, Military Robotics, Particle Physics) and leads to 6 other techs.

I plan to completely remove Powered Exoskeleton as a tech and combine it with Military Robotics. This will pull Military Robotics back a level to Transhuman-1 and Advanced Computers will wind up at Transhuman-2, making several techs Transhuman-3 instead of 4. However, this leaves Transhuman-2 with 10 techs. I don't like having more than 9 techs in one column, and Transhuman-2 would have 10 (Advanced Computers, Biomimetics, Cloning, Fusion, Megacorporations, Railgun, Skyroads, Thought Scanning, Vertical Farming, Wireless Electricity).

I'm thinking about moving up either Megacorporations or Skyroads. Megacorporations is pretty flexible. I think it would be okay if Megacorporations required Advanced Computers instead of Mesh Networks.
 
So here is a question that I am trying to figure out. Would Unmanned Warfare be acceptable as a late Modern Era civic?

I am trying to make the last cuts I want to do to the Transhuman Era and some of the last cuts to the Modern as well by condensing Machine Learning, Unmanned Air Vehicles, Powered Exoskeleton, Automated Traffic, and Military Robotics down to two technologies, one Modern Era and keep the Machine Learning name and one Transhuman Era -- probably named Automated Vehicles, but I could name it something else. I just think that all of Unmanned Air Vehicles, Powered Exoskeleton, and Automated Traffic are so narrow that they exhaust their content with two tricks. It will get us down to 45 techs in the Transhuman Era, which I think is enough. It will be the largest era, but not that much larger than the preceding eras.

These five techs share 15.5 tricks (there is one minor trick, the Small Diameter Bomb promotion). If these are cut down to 2 techs, that is a lot of stuff to go around. I want to cut out the Global Hawk entirely and leave the Drone Bombers as the only drone-type unit for the Modern Era. Most of the other tricks are military, and I would like to spread them around if possible.

I think Unmanned Warfare would make a good move to Machine Learning, with Automated Defenses (the civic building) moved to Artificial Intelligence.
 
So here is a question that I am trying to figure out. Would Unmanned Warfare be acceptable as a late Modern Era civic?

I am trying to make the last cuts I want to do to the Transhuman Era and some of the last cuts to the Modern as well by condensing Machine Learning, Unmanned Air Vehicles, Powered Exoskeleton, Automated Traffic, and Military Robotics down to two technologies, one Modern Era and keep the Machine Learning name and one Transhuman Era -- probably named Automated Vehicles, but I could name it something else. I just think that all of Unmanned Air Vehicles, Powered Exoskeleton, and Automated Traffic are so narrow that they exhaust their content with two tricks. It will get us down to 45 techs in the Transhuman Era, which I think is enough. It will be the largest era, but not that much larger than the preceding eras.

These five techs share 15.5 tricks (there is one minor trick, the Small Diameter Bomb promotion). If these are cut down to 2 techs, that is a lot of stuff to go around. I want to cut out the Global Hawk entirely and leave the Drone Bombers as the only drone-type unit for the Modern Era. Most of the other tricks are military, and I would like to spread them around if possible.

I think Unmanned Warfare would make a good move to Machine Learning, with Automated Defenses (the civic building) moved to Artificial Intelligence.
Looks good to me. FIY, I'm considering the idea of adding a National Wonder called NORAD or something similar, which requires MAD civic to be built (but stays after you switch out of MAD), which should enable the Nuke Manager Screen and nuke pretargeting feature. But it requires dll coding I think. What do you think?
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;14331255 said:
Looks good to me. FIY, I'm considering the idea of adding a National Wonder called NORAD or something similar, which requires MAD civic to be built (but stays after you switch out of MAD), which should enable the Nuke Manager Screen and nuke pretargeting feature. But it requires dll coding I think. What do you think?

BTW: Are you still planning MAD civic to require a building/project (First Nuclear Test or so)?
 
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