The tech tree is silly

[bladex]

what you no like beelines?

 

[player1 fanatic]

To train a mechanized infantry, the strongest infantry unit in the game, you only need 24/68 (35%) of the techs in the tree. Here's an incomplete list of techs that you DON'T need to train a mechanized infantry:

Mining, Wheel, Bronze Working, Iron Working, Construction, Engineering, Machinery, Gunpowder, Metal Casting, Ballistics, Rifling, Steel, Replaceable Parts, Combustion.

Actually, I think this is primary reason why AI armies are so poor.
This kind of beeline makes AI stay at medieval army level for way too long. While proper player would get musketmen and field cannons, and later infantry, AI would stay at swordsmen and knights.

 

[Returning Lurker]

To the guy who wrote a big wall of text theorizing about how mech infantry could be made without all that tech, that's very creative, but I forgot to mention that Civ 6 mech infantry also don't require Electricity. So back to the drawing board

EUREKA! While I'm not allowed to use electricity to conduct heat, nor am I allowed to use a mechanical combustion engine, I AM allowed to use chemistry! Rather than burning the kindling and natural gas with heat from electrical conduction we can simply use a concotion of chemicals which, when sparked, will result in a prolonged and stable exothermic reaction (read: burn artificially produced coal) contained in clay vessels so as not to set fire to the wooden body of the vehicle (I checked, I am allowed to use pottery) to heat up the air in the baloons and spin the propeller (since I'm allowed steam power). And, since I'm allowed chemistry, the men aboard the APC could wield plastic explosive based grenades (as opposed to gunpowder based bombs) in combat and it doesn't break any of the rules since according to the combustion entry in Civ5 "Here we're speaking specifically about the use of combustion inside of an engine (hence, "internal combustion") to create energy to turn a crank or move a piston." thus an explosion isn't combustion by their definition.

 

[Nefelia]

For those who do not like the sparse tech tree: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/jz-tech-tree.603281/

Ii is in the alpha stage, but it is definitely worth checking out. Lots of new techs and units.


For those who do not like how quickly they zip through the techs and ages: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/8-ages-of-pace.601504/

Read the comments if you want to know how to customize it. I went hard core and customized it to the point that learning Astrology would take 80 turns on Epic (with starting science... growing the city and getting a science CS made it significantly faster).


While I'm at it, here is a good balance mod that isn't getting the attention it deserves due to its misleading name (i.e. It has nothing at all to do with Sumeria): http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/gilgameshs-generous-gifts.603779/#post-14552758


Edit: Took a brief glance around the Creation and Customization forum. Apparently there are quite a few mods that address the tech tree. There are also more mods that tackle research speed. If you are having an issue with the tech tree and research speed (or anything else, really), go take a look at the many mods that have already been produced.

 

[MyOtherName]

Actually, I think this is primary reason why AI armies are so poor.
This kind of beeline makes AI stay at medieval army level for way too long. While proper player would get musketmen and field cannons, and later infantry, AI would stay at swordsmen and knights.

I like to think I'm a "proper player", and I'd rather be stuck at warriors/slingers than waste time researching technologies I don't need.

 

[Jarms48]

To the guy who wrote a big wall of text theorizing about how mech infantry could be made without all that tech, that's very creative, but I forgot to mention that Civ 6 mech infantry also don't require Electricity. So back to the drawing board

You do have steam power, steam punk mechanized infantry? With legs instead of wheels?

 

[Returning Lurker]

You do have steam power, steam punk mechanized infantry? With legs instead of wheels?

I thought about that but a walking tank seems like it would have to require machinery as it would rely on gears, springs, counterweights, gyros, and other such parts to make the legs move and keep them balanced. Unless someone here can think of a low tech work around, I'd love to have me so steam powered spider tanks!

 

[player1 fanatic]

I like to think I'm a "proper player", and I'd rather be stuck at warriors/slingers than waste time researching technologies I don't need.

Human players can be creative and perform decent even with outteched army.

AI that tries to do the same, on the other hand, would be obliterated with his swords/knights against anyone who got to field cannons, muskets or infantry.

The mere existence of this beeline, and actual willingness of AI to use it, hurts AI combat readiness badly.

Field Cannons are just so good. Especially against Niter starved opponents, or those that try to get modern era without getting gunpowder tech branch.

 

[MRM]

You do have steam power, steam punk mechanized infantry? With legs instead of wheels?

Actually. IMHO alternate tech branches would be a cool idea, plus they would often make sense if certain resources are missing. Without oil, no combustion, so why not try to do more based on coal/steam? People are creative, they would invent workarounds for missing ressources. But it must be implemented in the tech tree, and the AI have to know how to make use of it.

The mere existence of this beeline, and actual willingness of AI to use it, hurts AI combat readiness badly.

IMHO beeline in general make sense if you have no use for certain techs ( no ressources or other reasons ), it is just this tech tree that often don't make sense.

 

[Takfloyd]

The problem isn't the existence of beelining or the fact that you can skip techs and even whole eras.

The problem is how often you can research a technology without having what should be a prerequisite technology, just because they're in different places in the tree and Firaxis apparently decided that having the tech tree look nice and orderly with no overlapping lines is more important than having it make sense.

In Civ 4, when a tech logically would require an earlier tech but drawing a line between them would look messy, they instead put a small icon in the top right of the tech box showing the earlier tech as an extra requirement. But I guess that's too "inelegant" for today's form-before-function designers.

 

[need my speed]

In Civ 4, when a tech logically would require an earlier tech but drawing a line between them would look messy, they instead put a small icon in the top right of the tech box showing the earlier tech as an extra requirement. But I guess that's too "inelegant" for today's form-before-function designers.

Actually, the lines are or-requirements.

http://apolyton.net/civ4/files/info-images/civ4techtree.jpg (this is basic IV's tech tree, not Beyond the Sword's - CivFanatics no longer has a good image of it, ever since the site's update)

So, to research Philosophy, you need or Drama, or Code of Laws, and also Meditation (the small icon in the top right). So you can research Philosophy with Drama and Meditation, or with Code of Laws and Meditation.

 

[LDiCesare]

The current tech tree allows too many beelinings that are unbelievable (mech inf without wheels or guns), but it also provides dead end techs (archery - it's not needed ot build crossbows for some reason).
For instance, why would you research the tech to build pikemen? It lets you build pikemen and, well, it's not a game-changing unit and you've just wasted tons of beakers. Even as Japan it doesn't feel compelling.

In my current game, I beelined for flight, and it doesn't feel fun actually, but I feel the civics tree is much worse than the tech tree. I never finihsed the whole civics tree, most entries there are just useless.

 

[Becephalus]

I don't think it's such a problem that you can beeline to space tech without having researched things like masonry or construction

On the other hand, the OP makes a good point about some techs not having the correct prereqs. It should seem reasonable that mech infantry should require the rifling tech (how can mech infantry shoot guns if rifling technology is unknown?), steel (they need that for armor, don't they?) & combustion (they are mechanized, right?), so being able to skip those sounds ridiculous and I don't see how the devs wound up missing that.

??? These two thoughts are in the same post, and make zero sense together.

 

[elitetroops]

I must agree the tech tree is quite poorly implemented. Beelining is fine, with a limit. Civ IV had this right when you could do some pretty deep beelines, but still had to go back to pick up the rest. More importantly, in Civ IV you were actually also giving up something if doing too deep beelines. It was an interesting choice to decide whether to do a deep beeline or not. It was usually an interesting choice every time you picked a tech, because there would often be 5-6 options that you knew you want sooner rather than later, and weighing the options wasn't always that easy.

In Civ VI there are really no interesting choices. To get your economy up, you need campuses, commercial hubs and industrial zones, all on the same beeline. To boost your economy, you need universities and factories, all further down on the same beeline. To boost it further you need powerplants, found a bit further down the road on the same beeline. The lower part of the tech tree is complete rubbish in a single player teching game, since you don't need those techs to beat the AI. So far I've never teched past machinery before I'm building space ports in a science game. Sometimes not even machinery, nor it's two prereqs, if archers are enough to grab all the land I want. I guess the intention was to create an interesting choice between developing your economy or your military, but with the AI in the current poor state, this is no interesting choice.

Despite it being mostly a straight line, I find the civics tree comes with a lot more interesting choices than the tech tree.

 

[Xyriach]

Depends how you look at it really.

"The earliest known rudimentary steam engine and reaction steam turbine, the aeolipile, is described by a Greek mathematician and engineer named Heron of Alexandia in 1st century Roman Egypt." (Lifted from Wikipedia)

Regrettably there was no real practical application for it at the time, however, it's conceivable that someone could have seen it's potential and then you're a stones throw away from having the Roman Empire with the steam engine. Granted, metallurgical advances made what we know as railroad possible, but unlocking that particular technology in 1AD (turn 115 - we should totally measure time in Civ turns!) would have resulted in a very different world.

So there is precedent for technology we consider to be "advanced" appearing in an classical or ancient world in terms of time scale. You wouldn't have had industrialization or even gunpowder (although the Chinese had this well into BCE), but you would have the steam engine so it's not exactly unrealistic to "beeline" to technologies without picking up what seem like logical precursors, in fact, they're only logical precursors because that's how our history turned out.

 

[UWHabs]

Depends how you look at it really.

"The earliest known rudimentary steam engine and reaction steam turbine, the aeolipile, is described by a Greek mathematician and engineer named Heron of Alexandia in 1st century Roman Egypt." (Lifted from Wikipedia)

Regrettably there was no real practical application for it at the time, however, it's conceivable that someone could have seen it's potential and then you're a stones throw away from having the Roman Empire with the steam engine. Granted, metallurgical advances made what we know as railroad possible, but unlocking that particular technology in 1AD (turn 115 - we should totally measure time in Civ turns!) would have resulted in a very different world.

So there is precedent for technology we consider to be "advanced" appearing in an classical or ancient world in terms of time scale. You wouldn't have had industrialization or even gunpowder (although the Chinese had this well into BCE), but you would have the steam engine so it's not exactly unrealistic to "beeline" to technologies without picking up what seem like logical precursors, in fact, they're only logical precursors because that's how our history turned out.

It's also important to think of the difference between knowing a technology, and being able to use it to effectively produce stuff.

And in many ways, that's always been the problem with civ. Because we have to follow history, the order of techs has to be somewhat fixed. So you can beeline and get Steam Power before Metal Casting, but obviously if you don't know how to cast metal, you're probably not going to efficiently produce ironclads. Or you get other cases where you can get cavalry without gunpowder.

That's truly what Civ lacks that worked so well in Alpha Centauri. Because you could go along different lines, you could be at different places for engines, guns, and shielding on your units, and what units you get out of it would simply be different. I think civ would work better if they could have more units fill the gaps, and then potentially even for some units have multiple pre-reqs. So ironclads would require Steam Engine + Metal working, even though Steam Engine itself wouldn't require metal working. And Cavalry would need Gunpowder + Military Science, Infantry would need Rifling + Replaceable Parts, etc... If you did it this way, it might be easier to set up the tech tree with more logical connections, and then having units require techs along multiple paths it at least should guarantee that you can't build mechanized infantry without Steel (or mining).

And yeah, tech costs need to increase more. Flight should probably be at least double the cost of industrialization, not just 25% more.

 

[Draco84]

I would prefer if in a future version a couple ideas were lifted from previous games.

1. from Civ Rev, Allow uses to back-fill techs, if you have a high enough beaker output allow the player to skip technologies, researching a higher level tech gives you the lower level one, (the costs is something like lvl1 x 50% + lvl 2 tech)
2. Add requirements to units, allow the user to unlock crossbows at Machinery, but the unit can not be recruited without archery.

Something I wouldn't mind seeing is expanding of the Eureka system, instead of giving 50% of a tech, allows user actions to enhance techs that would use them.

I.E every mine built gives you 50 beakers towards all mining techs.
Every battle with a anti-cavalry unit provides 10 beakers towards that tech line

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

EUREKA! While I'm not allowed to use electricity to conduct heat, nor am I allowed to use a mechanical combustion engine, I AM allowed to use chemistry! Rather than burning the kindling and natural gas with heat from electrical conduction we can simply use a concotion of chemicals which, when sparked, will result in a prolonged and stable exothermic reaction (read: burn artificially produced coal) contained in clay vessels so as not to set fire to the wooden body of the vehicle (I checked, I am allowed to use pottery) to heat up the air in the baloons and spin the propeller (since I'm allowed steam power). And, since I'm allowed chemistry, the men aboard the APC could wield plastic explosive based grenades (as opposed to gunpowder based bombs) in combat and it doesn't break any of the rules since according to the combustion entry in Civ5 "Here we're speaking specifically about the use of combustion inside of an engine (hence, "internal combustion") to create energy to turn a crank or move a piston." thus an explosion isn't combustion by their definition.

Since we can use chemistry, you could fill the balloon with hydrogen for lift (or helium - but that would be boring), and propulsion could be solid fuel rocket boosters.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

In one of my games I totally forgot about ranged units and by midgame I had musketmen and knights and archers. I had totally missed the crossbowmen and the cannon updates

My problem with the tech tree is that it's too fast even when you don't invest in science. I literally build no campuses and I still discover teches so quickly that my army gets obsolete while still under production.

But I understand this is a design decision and some people like it. But personally I have the impression of rushing things out too much. I guess it's great for online games?

The tech tree is way too fast (on top of the techs directly boosting district costs).. I think they slightly overcompensated in nerfing Campuses.

As for the whole 'realism' that mostly comes from over literal interpretations of the tech names.

-does lighting a fire fall under Chemistry or Combustion?
-does an inclined plane fall under Machinery...what about a Wheel?
-does Computer include an abacus?
-why isn't Ballistics required to make Slingers?
-does bathing in water fall under Sanitation?
-why are Astrology and Astronomy separate techs?
-how do your people use techs before Education, or even Apprenticeship?

In any case you could easily say you have the theoretical knowledge of X tech by the time you have Y tech...but you haven't researched how to apply it to the particular units/buildings/ effects that are unlocked.

 

[Wulf38]

I've played up to turn 200 on standard/immortal now with Mad's tech tree, and it's much better. Everyone is still in the industrial era except for one civ in modern, and the AI have actually been using medieval and renaissance units so they're not pushovers in the mid game.