Technologies that aren't... am I the only one bothered?

[Buccaneer]

Or learn how pottery revolutionized agriculture and the growth of early cities and trades.

 

[elprofesor]

Even though I'm not saying that pottery isn't a "technology", you can't justify it saying that "someone needs to teach you how to do it, therefore it's a technology". Salsa is very difficult, yet I wouldn't call it a technology...

And I agree that the term "technology" is used very liberally, but since we don't have a better word to describe the "pot-pourri" of concepts that form the tech tree, it doesn't bother me too much. Sure, there are more accurate terms, but they are more awkward.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Actually the "technologies" were called Civilization Advances for Civ1-3, just as "buildings" were called City Improvements.

Not counting Alpha Centauri, it took until Civ4 for Firaxis to give up those more precise but less easy to use terms, and just go with how everybody including themselves would call them.

I just looked and you're right. Everyone called it the tech tree, though, so it makes sense that they changed it.

 

[Drill IV]

Everyone called it the tech tree, though, so it makes sense that they changed it.

In my opinion, this is the point exactly. It is sufficient if the game uses the terms established by the community, and since it *is* a game, terminology may well deviate from word usage in real life.

Beakers, for instance, have no real equivalent except perhaps "scientist-time", and what are hammers supposed to be? In the game, they are only represented as their respective symbols, but I guess it would be tedious and not much fun if we started to talk about the game in terms of scientist-time, advancement tree or city improvements. Beakers, tech tree and buildings are realistically inaccurate, but short and to-the-point. When talking about the game, those words just work.

What's more, ciV becomes immersive not chiefly because of realism, but because of strategic elements which merely resemble real history to some degree. We rewrite world history using our own strategic wits, and in most instances we *want* a result that looks quite different from the world we live in.

More accurate or more realistic terms would therefore not contribute much to the quality of the game. The words we use for talking about things are appropriate because we use them, and not inappropriate because they would not link well to the real world in some aspects.

 

[LordMalice]

A good point. Personally I would like for them to come up with some future technologies to research. The Death bot was probably one of the few times(save for Next war) where they were creative with what kind of tech we would have in the future.

But as one person said, their not so much as technologies but discoveries.

 

[MadDjinn]

A good point. Personally I would like for them to come up with some future technologies to research. The Death bot was probably one of the few times(save for Next war) where they were creative with what kind of tech we would have in the future.

But as one person said, their not so much as technologies but discoveries.

yeah, that's always been a let down for Civ games - lack of 'near or far' future techs. Maybe they just didn't want to 'guess' about them, but there's plenty of potential advances that could be considered 'near future' techs.

If we did get those, then ofc all space ship parts and some other really late game stuff could hide out there.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Technically, there are several instances where something was near future, like the "Cure for Cancer" wonder in Civ 3.. I mean, I don't think they actually found a perfect pernament cure for it.. did they? We never had real Techs like that.. but.. close enough I guess.

 

[Gatsby]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

Here is an extract:



Special emphasis on crafts, systems and methods of organization. Guilds are definitly a method of organisation, and pottery is definitly a craft. If you want to be a little abstract poetry and literature could be seen as a method of organisation (organising the world?), but thats pretty borderline.

Regardless, I accept that to most people technology means either science or tangible developments. Then you need to understand that civs tech tree does not and should not limit itself to 'technology', thats pure semantics.

This post deserves to be repeated. As the same wikipedia article says, the term "technology" comes from the Greek term technología, which literally means "study of art, skill, or craft". So it is perfectly appropriate to refer to civilization advances as "technologies". It is only because of popular contemporary misconception and cultural bias that people assume "technology" only refers to applied knowledge which is primarily physical, mechanical, or scientific in nature.

As has been well represented in tech trees of past Civ games, 'hard' (i.e. mechanically- and physically- oriented) and 'soft' (i.e. social and cultural) technologies are closely interrelated in terms of building upon one and other. For example, both the scientific method - and, by extension, subsequent advances in 'hard' sciences - and democracy have a common origin in philosophy, while the 'hard' technology of the printing press and the 'soft' technology of literature are both logical consequences of the written word.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I like the Civ V techs more than the Civ IV techs. The ones that provided religions and governments in IV were really stretching the definition of technology. Meditation? Come on.

 

[OsmarChito]

it doesn't have to be science to be a technology in civilization game

 

[Zhahz]

gameplay > all

 

[Gatsby]

it doesn't have to be science to be a technology in civilization game

It doesn't have to be science to be a technology in real life either.

 

[Ribannah]

Art has a strong scientific component though.