WTF moments in the Civ5 tech tree - share your favorite examples!

[Biologist]

You can unlock frigates (Navigation) without knowledge of cannons (Chemistry). Yet the frigates clearly fire cannons to attack....

 

[dopingman]

Plastics before Oil.

We can now synthesize this sophisticated polymer out of a substance we do not yet know and their ingredients are also unknown!

 

[Talcove]

We can now synthesize this sophisticated polymer out of a substance we do not yet know and their ingredients are also unknown!

I don't know about that...

 

[Antiphon]

My only WTF moment was Nuclear Fission which enable Giant Death Robots. I had played that Mod which would let you play further in the future, with all those futuristic City Bubbles, clone armies and Robots, but would not have thought something like that would make it into the retail . At least it is way to late in tech tree to have any significance for the games I play .

 

[Holmium]

My 2 favorite weirdos in the Tech Tree is that you can discover both rocketry and satellites without combustion. Imagine building the Apollo Program without having combustion driven rockets.

My second favorite is that your civilization could have discovered lasers before they discovered optics, that´s really crazy because lasers are created through optics, the same goes for Nanotechnology which also doesn't require optics.

 

[Homusubi]

Both plant and animal farming before hunting. (=trapping)

 

[pilot00]

Both plant and animal farming before hunting. (=trapping)

Yeah indeed thats very odd indeed. Moreso considering farming is a starting researched tech.

 

[SirPepsi]

My major concerns with the illogical tech tree have already been addressed, so I'll describe the mechanics flaws.

By the time you get Iron Working for swords (if you're not purposely bee-lining for them), you're pretty close to unlocking Steel, and not 10 turns after Steel, you can unlock Gunpowder for Musketmen. It seems that they've snubbed the poor Longswordsman, who I never have a chance to use.

At the same time that all your melee type units are rapidly undergoing a series of upgrades, the pikemen, around from the time of Civil Service aren't upgraded until Metallurgy - so your swords have undergone 2-3 upgrades before your pikes have even had one.

 

[bdporter]

In BNW, you can research the Internet before Computers.

 

[Halcyan2]

Relevant techs in the early/late 1800s

And if things had gone differently, alternative technologies could very well have been discovered and used then!

Heck, Damascus Steel apparently used rudimentary nanotech! Unfortunately that technology was lost to time (same with Greek Fire).

Apparently not because the game seems to simulate earth. Albeit with poetic license

Unfortunately, Civ V's tech tree is quite linear. I remember Civ IV which had a lot more branching options, so you could go quite deep while completely ignoring many techs....

Plastics before Oil.

You can make plastics without oil. Not a big deal.

 

[pilot00]

And if things had gone differently, alternative technologies could very well have been discovered and used then!

Heck, Damascus Steel apparently used rudimentary nanotech! Unfortunately that technology was lost to time (same with Greek Fire).

It was actually a byproduct of somekind of plant fiber that merged with the steel on a nano (too small) scale. Not actual nanotechnology i.e. this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

And modern blades are way better. That said there is a whole scenario with ifs and whats, with steampunk tech in the game And a mighty interesting one too.

However I like it realistic in CiV. We have Eldorado as a 'natural wonder' lets keep human/earthbased/real tech relevant

Now then again there are GDRs and the X-Com squad so....