Theory on Tech Tree

[Seabastian Civ]

TLDR; The tech tree, especially the "future" era, will be expanded greatly in a DLC expansion.

Having now played through a few games of Civ 6, it's clear that the tech tree is nowhere near as developed as in previous iterations. Perhaps this is due to splitting out the civics, but I have a different theory. I suspect that the tech tree is in its Vanilla state, and will be expanded through DLC.

The current tech tree is terribly balanced and far too easy to fly right through. I've played a cultural game with England (Immortal, Standard) and reached the end of the tech tree around 1850 despite owning a single campus. I reached the end of the tech tree with Sumeria in a Domination game (Immortal, Standard) even earlier, due to conquering a few campuses. Even my religious Brazil game (Immortal, Standard) reached the end of history by the early 1900's.

Coupling this lack of development with the lack of X-Com, GDRs, and other "future" tech present in CiV, I speculate that a future expansion will add significantly to the far end of the tech tree. This expansion will probably borrow future techs from Beyond Earth, as those had some play testing.

Plausible? Or am I connecting dots that aren't there?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Probably unlikely... The tech tree is pretty fully developed (although it probably will be balanced, techs are too cheap and they need to be more expensive)..and they probably will not add a future era (except as a home for the Future Tech)..they will add some techs, but I doubt you would end up with as many as 80 techs, and most of those added in earlier eras.

True Future Eras are very unlikely...especially that nukes are now all the "superweapons" needed to speed up domination.

What may get more fleshing out is the Information Era Civic tree (as well as the civic tree in general).... probably going along with the implementation of "World congress" type mechanics in one of the two expansions.

 

[Ferocitus]

The current tech tree is terribly balanced and far to easy to fly right through. I've played a cultural game with England (Immortal, Standard) and reached the end of the tech tree around 1850 despite owning a single campus. I reached the end of the tech tree with Sumeria in a Domination game (Immortal, Standard) even earlier, due to conquering a few campuses. Even my religious Brazil game (Immortal, Standard) reached the end of history by the early 1900's.

Smallish maps, short times, and small numbers of civs aren't really good stress tests.
How did you go on the largest maps against the max number of AIs at epic or marathon?

 

[Esperr]

Smallish maps, short times, and small numbers of civs aren't really good stress tests.
How did you go on the largest maps against the max number of AIs at epic or marathon?

I play standard deity and finish the tech tree around 1500. The consensus for the most part is that the tech tree gets finished around 15-1700. So yeah, its way to fast.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Smallish maps, short times, and small numbers of civs aren't really good stress tests.
How did you go on the largest maps against the max number of AIs at epic or marathon?

I stick to standard speed. I don't care for the longer game speeds. I think they further unbalance the game. (At least they did in CiV.) Does a bigger map or longer game help extend the tech tree somehow? I will definitely check it out if so.

My concern isn't that I don't get enough time to play with samurai before muskets show up, it's that I finish the tech tree dozens of turns before the game is over.

It feels so strange to wrap up the tree by 1800 that I suspect it will be addressed with DLC.

 

[joncnunn]

The other theory is that like Civ IV; the first few balance patches will greatly increase the cost of techs in the second half of the tech tree.

 

[UWHabs]

Civ has pretty much always had pretty horsehockey modern eras until a few patches/expansions. It's just the nature of the game - as you're moving through development, every time they make other changes, I'm guessing internally it probably destroys any mid to late game test saves they would be playing with, so you basically have to run the game for a long time to get back to the modern era. Maybe that's not the case, but that's how I imagine it is. So early on, you basically spend most of your time in the earlier parts of the game, and it's only once that is more balanced and stable that you can spend effort to revisit the modern era and adjust accordingly.

As stupid as the GDR was, I do like the tech tree going a little bit into the future. I mean, we're building a spaceship to Mars - you're telling me we can do that, but military tech hasn't advanced past modern day? You're telling me there's been no new building in modern cities after the Airport, other than the space district? There's no wonder of the world built in the modern era other than a sports stadium?

Now, another part of the flaws of the modern era is that by that point, empires are well developed, so small bonuses don't really make that much sense anymore. But in the same token, you can't make bonuses too big as that unbalances things if you can beeline to get them first. But I do sincerely hope that an expansion really beefs up the modern era and can bring in some new fun mechanism (corporations?) that gives you something else to play for.

 

[Ferocitus]

I play standard deity and finish the tech tree around 1500. The consensus for the most part is that the tech tree gets finished around 15-1700. So yeah, its way to fast.

You won't know until you try
Longer times, more AIs, and larger maps will make it more difficult to get through the tree.
There are myriad ways to roll your own game from the options and available mods,
but maybe that doesn't suit your tastes, or the free time you have available.

 

[Esperr]

You won't know until you try
Longer times, more AIs, and larger maps will make it more difficult to get through the tree.
There are myriad ways to roll your own game from the options and available mods,
but maybe that doesn't suit your tastes, or the free time you have available.

Map size doesn't affect tech rate, more A.I's just makes tech speed faster and the tech is faster on epic and marathon, relatively speaking. On longer speeds theirs more time to move units, which means more conquest, which means faster tech speed.

 

[Ferocitus]

Small games are too easy, and other variations won't amuse you enough.
Sounds like you've won all there is to win then, and all in your head!

 

[TomKQT]

Smallish maps, short times, and small numbers of civs aren't really good stress tests.
How did you go on the largest maps against the max number of AIs at epic or marathon?

Why? Epic and marathon speed is not the standard way how to play the game, it's just an addition for players who want longer games. But Civ games never were even meant to be optimised and balanced for other speeds than standard.
And as far as map size and number of civs in concerned - this doesn't have any strong impact on you flying through the tech tree even when not focusing on science. And also - changing the map size and number of opponents always has been a much more "natual" option than game speed and a civ game should never be balanced just for huge maps. Btw, the "standard" map size is somewhere in the middle, so even the naming doesn't hint that the largest map should be the best choice.
Even if it was true that marathon on the largest map has quite balanced technology progression speed, it would have zero relevancy to complains about reaching the end of the tech tree in 1900 on a standard map size and standard speed (of course without any mods and expoits).

 

[Xen]

A game that isnt balanced for all its modes is a poor game indeed.

And I say that as a long time member here, and fan of the civ franchise

 

[Cyon]

Longer tech times and more stuff per tech would be nice, also icons for all effects like spies, tile upgrades and envoys.

Some techs only have one item two effects, like mathematics that unlocks one wonder and increase naval movement. I think all techs should give atleast three things but take much longer to research.

 

[TomKQT]

I also noticed in some YouTube playthrough that you can launch space projects without electricity, I don't remember the exact names of techs and haven't checked this myself, but it looked quite funny. Must have been steam-powered space ships.
Overall the tree seems to be less strict than in CivV - meaning that you can better focus on some branches and completely ignore other. Some techs even are dead ends and don't have to be reasearched at all. But while this may be good for gameplay, it also looks quite weird if you think about it more

 

[Jarms48]

I'd like to see another era between the Renaissance and the Industrial, the Enlightenment. The Renaissance represents the spark of new ideas and thinking. Where as the Enlightenment would represent "the age of discovery", the scientific revolution, and the rise of intellectualism. We could then relegate the Industrial era to the period between the end of the Enlightenment to WW1 - where old age thinking clashed with modern industrialization.

 

[Esperr]

Small games are too easy, and other variations won't amuse you enough.
Sounds like you've won all there is to win then, and all in your head!

Are you reading the same thread or playing the same game? Your like the only guy who disagrees. This is common knowledge that tech is to fast. On all map sizes. on all speeds.

 

[Victoria]

I played my first game like Civ5 focusing on tech and spamming those universities.
When I got to the end of the tree it was not the date I looked at but how far behind everyone else was.

I shrugged my shoulders and gave a little cheer, no more science pumping for me!.. I can enjoy the game for once.

It is only me playing the AI so I can do whatever I like.

On the note about additional era's... I like the idea of a post apocalyptic era, something like someone goes to mars and the martians come in and waste us and poison everything and mutations happen and we have to work our way through a chieftain phase again to show we are not just squishy steam driven rocket drivers.

EDIT: goodness, did I really just write that!

 

[Fierro]

The other theory is that like Civ IV; the first few balance patches will greatly increase the cost of techs in the second half of the tech tree.

I don't think we need to make later techs more expensive, they all are boring and add nothing in terms of gameplay. But earlier techs should be slightly more hard to research because ...well, they really quickly discovered. Reducing Eurekas to 30-20% (from 50%) along with regular tech cost increase by 10-15% may be enough.

 

[Ryika]

Or am I connecting dots that aren't there?

Yes, imho that's what you're doing.

Future DLC will most certainly change up the tech tree if patches don't already do the job, and it's likely that new stuff will be added to them, but the idea that the tech tree is emptier than it has to be on purpose is just silly. There's so much stuff they can add, so many things they can do, purposely stripping the basic product of content just to have even more stuff they can add would be really dumb.

The real explanation is probably that they very much knew that they don't have an unlimited amount of time to develop stuff and tried to set realistic goals, to build a game as complete as they possibly could. Building and releasing "the perfect game" just isn't possible, there's a lot of corners you have to cut, and I'd say in terms of features they have done reasonably well.

It's unfortunate that basic balance has to be delivered via patches, but oh well.

 

[Jarms48]

So much this. I think a mistake in Civ5 was adding a new era in the late game (ie going from Modern->Information to Modern->Atomic->Information) rather than adding the Enlightenment between the renaissance and the Industrial. At least Civ6 has got rid of the ridiculously short lived great war era units.

They way factories makes an instant huge difference is crying for the industrial revolution to be split across more than a single tech and building. Same thing for the lack riflemen. Give us a proper era for the French revolution, Napoleon, War of Independence and the scientific method!

I didn't mind the addition of another "modern" era, I think of them as follows: WW1 -> WW2 -> Cold War -> Today. Though I certainly agree with you that placing an era in-between the Renaissance and the Industrial could help the pacing of factory "auras". Adding the Enlightenment also gives civilizations like France and England a time to shine, considering their UU's are all based roughly in that period.