Tech Tree Reworking

[Sureshot]

TechTree2
thats got the most recent changes

forgot to mention i put Horse Archers on Trade.. right now Trade gets you Horse Archers and Chariots, but each requires an additional tech to build them so i think its fine and ideal. horse archers and chariots are pretty equal, horse archers definitely shouldnt be a tech tier higher

 

[onedreamer]

This is what I don't like (the rest I of course like). In order of importance.

1- Bowyers require a hell load more techs than Iron Working.
2- Warfare requires too many techs. Also I think it should be an OR between Bronze Working and Archery, and not an AND.
2a- The Assassin line doesn't make much sense. If anything, I would invert Leather Working and Poisons prereqs, as Poisons icon itself suggests. But I wouldn't even do that. The recon line should be indipendent from melee and archery line.
2b- I dislike the later removal of the 2 techs either. As I said the recon line should... well, at least exist.
3- Either Trade or Feudalism should be non tradable.
4- The former Stirrups units should be moved to Feudalism, unless you already did it and I don't see it.
5- Engeneering should NOT award a free Engeneer.

About your tests on Education, this is bad because it makes civs starting with Ancient Chants a bit too favoured.

 

[gibbon_malus]

A few comments:

1. Bowyers is probably too expensive (2000ish vs. 1600 for Iron Working), while Warfare is very cheap (300 vs. 1200 for smelting) leading to very uneven progress down the archery line. Ditto for Precision and Military Strategy. Further, Precision is way too expensive at 6400. To put it in perspective, Commune with Nature, Righteousness, Theology and few others cost 3200, while Strength of Will which costs 6400 gives a far more powerful T4 unit. I would reduce Bowyers to 1600 and increase Warfare to 700ish. Similarly, I would increase Military Strategy from 650 to either 1200 or 1650, and shave Precision from 6400 to 3200.
2. Order/Veil are about 500 research cheaper than Emp/CoE, so you might want to cut Way of the Wise/Wicked from 600 back to 300ish.
3. Mithril Working might be a little too expensive at 6400 (since it doesnt actually grant mithril weapons and doesnt contain any unit). While its a pre-req for two very powerul techs, those are already very pricey at 9600, so theres little need IMO for an overpriced gateway tech. Reduce cost to 3200 to bring it in line with similarly tiered techs.
4. Tracking really should have some wonder/building/civic/unit. It needs something other than a mediocre promo... Kael? A little help here?
5. At 6400, armored cavalry might be slightly overpriced. But then again, it does give two national units (if you are CoE) so its probably fine as is.

 

[Sureshot]

one dreamer:
for 1:
i reduced bowyers cost
for 2:
i took off the bronzeworking req on warfare.. im thinking Archery should be renamed to Ranged Weaponry, or Drill, or Practice... something to connotate more the military reasons for archery, to fall more in line with warfare and military strategy. making it an archery/strategy line, as opposed to the melee/industry line
for 2ab:
main recon still exists (hunting through to animal mastery), and my most recent tree has assassins on currency, which is right below the recon line, and keeps assassins in the same tech progression as shadows who are on guilds
for 3:
why?
for 4:
i moved the stirrups units to Trade
my thinking is that both Chariots and Horse Archers are comparable, and both require additional techs anyways (construction and archery respectivelY).
for 5:
engineering is indeed loaded up.. would be nice to move around some of its bonuses to empty-ish techs, not sure what to do exactly that would make sense

the tests on education havent been bad, niki is right that the reasoning behind adding the agri req just aren't needed anymore.. tho i might be thinking more with my Improvements-Anywhere mod where you have plenty of alternatives early on to SE or CE (like plantations give 2 commerce which is decent since they can find incense and such for even more).

 

[Sureshot]

gibbon:
for 1:
i did reduce bowyers a bit, but generally i didnt touch the costs too much yet, but you're right about what needs to be done, generally ive found most of the tier4 techs to be way expensive when you compare them to beastmasters, druids, and to a lesser degree high priests. definitely need to change around the warfare/military strat costs, but so far ive tried to not change too much for costs since i was mostly concerned with getting the basic structure to look nice and follow a design that people can understand and get into it and know what they need.
for 2:
i made those changes because i think Order/AV are supposed to be midgame religions, and Emp/Esus late.
for 3:
refer to 1
for 4:
ive tried things in the past to make tracking better.. not sure what would work
for 5:
refer to 1 heh

 

[onedreamer]

one dreamer:
for 1:
i reduced bowyers cost
for 2:
i took off the bronzeworking req on warfare.. im thinking Archery should be renamed to Ranged Weaponry, or Drill, or Practice... something to connotate more the military reasons for archery, to fall more in line with warfare and military strategy. making it an archery/strategy line, as opposed to the melee/industry line
for 2ab:
main recon still exists (hunting through to animal mastery), and my most recent tree has assassins on currency, which is right below the recon line, and keeps assassins in the same tech progression as shadows who are on guilds
for 3:
why?
for 4:
i moved the stirrups units to Trade
my thinking is that both Chariots and Horse Archers are comparable, and both require additional techs anyways (construction and archery respectivelY).
for 5:
engineering is indeed loaded up.. would be nice to move around some of its bonuses to empty-ish techs, not sure what to do exactly that would make sense

the tests on education havent been bad, niki is right that the reasoning behind adding the agri req just aren't needed anymore.. tho i might be thinking more with my Improvements-Anywhere mod where you have plenty of alternatives early on to SE or CE (like plantations give 2 commerce which is decent since they can find incense and such for even more).

1) Fine but it still requires more techs. That I may not want to waste time on. Or, on the contrary, I could trade/bribe for them and get Bowyery more easily than Iron Working.
2) hmmmm.... (should se how it plays)
2ab) Well... it shrinks the tech tree and makes those techs quite more useful. Two things I don't really agree on. But again I should first try it ^^ How are your impressions on this change, though ?
3) it is a feature available in BtS and I would use it with one of this 2 key techs. They just look suitable.
4) Fine.
5) Just remove the Engeneer. Guild of Hammers is very powerful, and with the free Engeneer it is readily built. If this must be the case, then just make it like other Guilds which are founded on tech discovered.

6) Education. I always interpreted the Agriculture prereq as a balance between civs starting with Agriculture and civs starting with Ancient Chants. Education is just TOO good to only require a tech and this tech being a starting tech for some civs. Imagine popping Education at turn 2-3 from a hut....

 

[Sureshot]

1) still more refining to be done to make the archery line decent, that i agree on heh
2ab) i like it trim and easier to follow with well sectioned unit upgrade pathes heh. the placement is perfect, since it puts all recon in a defined spot (like you can make a closed shape around all the recon techs now that wont include other units). also, assassins being on currency makes them synergize well with Council of Esus since that religion is all about money
3) never heard of that.. didnt play BtS much at all heh.. might be a good idea for Trade
5) ya the great engineer with the guild of hammers is a bad setup. i almost think itd be better to move the guild of hammers rather than the great engineer.. hard to say.
6) agriculture is also pretty powerful on its own compared to education. agriculture means fast workers, fast growth, fast settlers, needed for any for SE, which has multiple early routes like festivals, mysticism, writing. and agriculture is much much better than Ancient Chants atm. right now explo civs get the worst deal, crafting is a bad startup tech too

 

[Grey Fox]

I kinda agree with onedreamer on Education. Education requiring Agriculture is both a balance versus those that start with Agriculture and Ancient Chant, but it's also a way to make writing appear later.

 

[MrPopov]

crap. I just saved this over my BTS base assets folder. Is there an easy way to restore those files or do I have to reinstall civ now?

EDIT: Actually it seems I just did it to vanilla civ 4. Who needs vanilla civ 4 anymore anyhow?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm pretty sure BtS does. The BtS folder doesn't contain all the info in itself. It looks first in the BtS folder, the Warlords folder, then the vanilla folder.

 

[onedreamer]

6) agriculture is also pretty powerful on its own compared to education. agriculture means fast workers, fast growth, fast settlers, needed for any for SE, which has multiple early routes like festivals, mysticism, writing. and agriculture is much much better than Ancient Chants atm. right now explo civs get the worst deal, crafting is a bad startup tech too

You have to consider the beginning of the game, where you have 1, 2, max 3 citis, not in general, since by then you will have both techs and comparing which is better to start with wouldn't be relevant anymore.

Early Education means:
1- Apprenticeship, +2 xp on new units.
2- City States, good for early expansion
3- Cottages, good for an early GREAT research boost, which incidentally will also help you research Agriculture very fast. For cottages you only need a tile without a forest.
4- Allows popping Writing and Code of Laws, if I'm not wrong. Both superb for expansion, and more research.

Early Agriculture means:
1- Farms, provided you have fresh water or a proper resource, and no forests in those tiles. Farms allow fast settlers, but fast settlers aren't very useful in FFH2, since before being able to improve land to a point where colonizing is actually profitable and not just a money sink due to maintenance costs of Despotism, it will take quite some time.
2- Agriculture civic, which provides a bonus on grassland tiles for Settlers training. No bonus on plains tiles however.
3- It doesn't help specialists at all, since you don't have the buildings needed to allow specialists.
4- Allows popping of Calendar, good for research if your bonus resources aren't under a forest (or if you're alfar), and Animal Husbandry. Good for capturing animals and improving cows/pigs but could be crippling to the economy.

Early Ancient Chants means:
1- Allows grabbing resources in the fat cross of the second city.
2- Allows popping Mysticism.


Overall it seems that Education is much better, especially since having Education means reaching a situation with both these techs earlier than if you started with Agriculture.

 

[Alzara]

Just from my perspective it makes a lot of sense to put magical prerequisites on infernal pact etc (you really do need a certain knowledge of magic to summon demons lol).
The most logical thing would be to make Corruption of spirit require necromancy (as you can build diseased corpses with corruption of spirit, which are undead), and infernal pact should need summoning (to summon demons).

On the other hand someone suggested raising the cost of way of the wicked. This I disagree with. Summoning hyborem too late in many games results in him being unable to do anything, with only 1 rubbish city found on a tundra square lol. If combined with the ideas I have above, Hyborem would never get anywhere when he is eventually summoned

Al

 

[iceboy103]

Any new updates to this?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In my modmod I gave most spells tech requirements, so Ashen Veil priest won't be able to summon units until Summoning. (I also let Ritualists upgrade to Archmages or Profanes/Inquisitors, and gave them the Arcane and extension promotions)

I made cartography a prereq of astronomy, made animal husbandry available with either agriculture or hunting, moved subdue animal to hunting and mobility 2 to stirrups.


I'm thinking I'll switch Priesthood to require Mysticism instead of Philosophy, make Philosophy more expensive, allow Divination with either Knowledge of the Ether or Priesthood, make Orders from Heaven require Divination (probably as an "OR" requirement), make Way of the Wicked Cheaper, make Necromancy require Way of the Wicked, and allow trade through either horseback riding or Sailing (adding more tech requirements to the mounted units it allows)

 

[Sureshot]

nothing yet, not sure what more to do

need to get this moved to ffh mods forum

 

[Uberness]

Need more *OR* requirements, much like how in normal civ you can reach gunpowder by guilds OR education, the money or science techs.
Wouldn't hurt to have more economy mixed in between unit techs, like in normal civ you have religions>priesthood>monarchy and then comes feudalism with longbows and vassalage and knights.

For the focus supposedly being to specialize, it seems like it more rewards getting a single advanced unit as soon as possible while spreading out for the economy techs which are very important to keep you going, instead of going down the techs which only reward military related things.

I need to chime in with people earlier in the thread, the starting techs need to be cheaper, so your not set back 100 turns because your land isn't as good as it could be, makes for bad gameplay compared to normal civ where a capital with a lake forests and a unirrigated rice or cow could compete with a person who has gold and floodplains pigs and hills, also would make tech popping less overpowered and almost required.

Have the starting worker related techs be cheaper, but have a huge spike at the bronzeworking tech level.

Archery could use a economy bonus to have it compete with bronzeworking.

Is it possible to have two technology enable the same thing?

Have things like sanitation be accessed by construction OR horse line, stables had to be cleaned too.

Make the Ashen Veil require summoning OR soccery if your keeping it that late, have the order come earlier since it's abit weaker, and don't force people to go down the religious line -and- the cavalry line for feudalism for it, you will just have ordered vampire players.

Need alot of beaker balances and rebalance of the rewards of the technologys first and foremost, the worse the tech, the less it should cost, such as archery line or things which only give access to 1 or 2 things and are just leading to better techs.

 

[thFrgttn]

Need more *OR* requirements, much like how in normal civ you can reach gunpowder by guilds OR education, the money or science techs.

I was thinking just think something similar - Necomancy and Divination could be reached by priesthood (also Trade from somewhere on the nautical line)

 

[oyzar]

I just want to say that if there is any tech three reworking that needs to be done it is the early game. Sure it is fun to play deity speed early game on noble. Have you ever tried to start a huge deity map and landing without a river or an early commerce source though? Especially as a civ starting without AG(or AC). You can grow to max pop then build a worker before you are done with AG(assuming you have any irrigable land at all and not just forests). And getting to education takes 100+ turns. This is not what i call fun. Getting to BW if you are almost all forests takes another 50 turns of course. You are basically totally defendant on popping exactly what techs you need from huts or the game is basically unplayable. Of course because the AI is compleetly ridiculous you might end up winning anyways, but that is another story...

It really doesn't matter much exactly how the branches are though it is fine to bicker with but it doesn't help much when the whole picture is totally screwed. The early game techs are way to expensive and apparently it is easy to run out of techs to research(which i can understand) due to relatively short branches. Add more to the end and remove a bit at the start. I don't care much for having to "survive" if you can't actually play at all...

 

[Sureshot]

adding in OR requirements is tricky and ugly because youd have a bunch of lines crossing each other all over the place, making it hard to read, so you need to move things all over the place.
the whole starting point behind my rework was to make it look proper and sensical, eliminating cases where a tech is 2 or 3 tiers back from where it should be because of lack of room heh

 

[Caradoc]

Shouldn't Mercantilism require Trade?