{The List} - Technology

[Jaguar]

This is the thread for all technology-related ideas. I will post a few ideas of my own once this thread gets going.

[Kuciwalker]

I like C3's tech system

[Jaguar]

So do I. The eras were extremely good for organizing the tech tree, and I like the system that has lasted for three generations of civ games. However, there are a few problems I wish to address, such as the idea of using a spy to "steal" the concept of Fascism from another country.

[Sandman]

Some ideas:

Fewer redundant, dead-end techs.

Make empire size a factor in research costs.

Remove eras. They're not much fun, IMO.

Remove stealth, smart weapons and integrated defense from the modern tech-tree. Replace them with a single tech like 'precision warfare' or something like that.

Restore fusion to its rightful place at the head of the tech tree.

There are innumerable little changes I'd make. For example, sanitation (I'd call it public health, myself) should be a requirement for medicine, not the other way around.

[Kuciwalker]

Stealth and Smart Weapons should be seperate, IMO.

[Roman]

Originally posted by skywalker
Stealth and Smart Weapons should be seperate, IMO.

Agreed!

[Brent]

Culture- Specific Technology

At the beginning of the game, let different Culture Groups have their own technology tree. At the very beginning, maybe even let individual standard civilizations have their own tree. The trees gradually merge. When you meet another civ, their technologies become available for you to research. The American Culture Group cannot research writing until late ancient times. There can be multiple writing technologies, but they would not correspond directly to Culture Groups. Writing technologies can include Pictographs, Cuneiform, Glyphs, Hieroglyphs, Syllabary, and Alphabet.

Scientific Trait

Scientific Civs can have their actual research rate actually faster, like the University faction in SMAC.

[gopher]

I like the C3's idea of ages, i.e must get enough of them to move on. How about as time goes on, older techs become cheaper to research? Or as more civs get techs, it costs less, representing the ability to not only reverse-engineer, but also of the fact that the civ knows the idea can be done, and therefore has a higher probability of sucess?

[Cras]

Originally posted by gopher
I like the C3's idea of ages, i.e must get enough of them to move on. How about as time goes on, older techs become cheaper to research? Or as more civs get techs, it costs less, representing the ability to not only reverse-engineer, but also of the fact that the civ knows the idea can be done, and therefore has a higher probability of sucess?

This is already true. The more civs that have the technology, the cheaper it is and the quicker it is to develop for your self.

[Optimizer]

The tech tree in Civ 3 is too deterministic, too "narrow". Players - both human and AI - should have to make more decisions on what branches of technology to research. (My experience tells me that the tech tree of Civ 3 was made as streamlined as it was to help the AI.)

[JDexter]

Originally posted by Sandman
Remove eras. They're not much fun, IMO.

Eras are great, keep them!

For example, sanitation (I'd call it public health, myself) should be a requirement for medicine, not the other way around.

In history only the Black Death thaught people the concept of sanitaion/public health. The plague was ONLY fought back because Medics (and other smart people ) proposed to clean the cities (i.E. Nuremberg was one of the first cities to lock the plague out by enforcing some sanitation/cleanliness).

[Sandman]

Eras are great, keep them!

Why, what's so great about them? Removing eras allows for greater customisation for your civ, for example, shooting towards navigation for an island civ, or ignoring warfare techs for a peaceful civ. Makes each civ more unique.

In history only the Black Death thaught people the concept of sanitaion/public health. The plague was ONLY fought back because Medics (and other smart people ) proposed to clean the cities (i.E. Nuremberg was one of the first cities to lock the plague out by enforcing some sanitation/cleanliness).

Realising the link between filth and disease is not the same as medicine. Doctors were still prescribing all sorts of crazy cures well into the nineteenth century. Pasteurs germ theory of disease was the turning point.

[Fosse]

I'd like to see a system with two tech trees.

One that is full of theory and cultural "technologies" - monotheism, democracy, theory of gravity, etc.

This tree would not be directly impacted by the player or AIs. Instead, this one will grow "naturally" depending on various factors such as Game Year, Size of Population (world and civ), "openess" of society (fundamentalism vs. democracy), relative education levels of civs, and your populations exposure to other civs (basically, do you have contact? And with whom?).

This technology tree represents those things that people know, but governments don't actually devote time or resources into figuring out, for the most part. The English monarchy never ordered Newton to discover the theory of gravity... he did it on his own. Technologies in this tree are still discovered by individual civs, but once they are then the learning of them by others (who have contact) are greatly sped up. No country every "traded Philosophy" for gold!

The other tech tree would represent those things that a country could reasonably pour research into... such as military technology and infrastructure. Most of the techs that enable improvements, diplomatic options, nuclear weapons and units would fall into this category.

The two tech trees would have required technologies in the other tree.


I think that this will greatly enrich the game. For one thing, it gives the player another strategic option when it comes to increasing tech levels. If they opt for the direct approach, then they pick the techs they want and pour the money into them. If they opt for the indirect one, they can build universities, open more trade routes with far off nations, and raise the standard of living in their country.


Potential problems with this idea:

Tech dead ends... Okay... if I want to build nukes but "tactical nuclear weaponry" has a required "theory" tech that I don't have yet.... then I'm understandably frustrated. How to avoid this, while keeping the system in place?

One solution will be to allow me to try researching nukes anyway, which would appreciably speed up the "discovery" of fission, allowing the practical application of vaporizing cities. This would simulate the leaders of a country saying "I want a better way to transport the masses from one end of the country to another," which gets some creative mind thinking, "what if they FLEW!" and he goes off to dream up the theory of aerodynamics.

Potential problem 2: It isn't Civ.
The argument that change is bad, drastic change is worse, and that this proposal is a drastic change. I put little stock in this argument, but recognize that others do.

Potential problem 3:

... I don't know... but I'd be glad to think about any that the rest of the posters might have.

Comments? Questions?

[POTUS]

I like this idea, but how about that the player can support research on the "theory" tree, i.e. research grants.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by POTUS
I like this idea, but how about that the player can support research on the "theory" tree, i.e. research grants.

Okay... how about on the tech screen, after you discover universities, you can click on a button called "grants," and set various categories to fund. Sort of like SMAC's blind research.

Grants would have a small influence on the discovery of theory-based.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sandman
Why, what's so great about them? Removing eras allows for greater customisation for your civ, for example, shooting towards navigation for an island civ, or ignoring warfare techs for a peaceful civ. Makes each civ more unique.

Eras keep the game pretty coherent. I always hated when I had "Electricity" and "Genetics" both as choices on the C2 research screen

(btw, the C3 tech tree has an error in it - Integrated Defense requires among other things Satellites and Precision Weaponry, while Precision Weaponry already requires Satellites )

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker


Eras keep the game pretty coherent. I always hated when I had "Electricity" and "Genetics" both as choices on the C2 research screen

This just means reworking the prerequisites, not forcing a more linear play through several eras.

I agree, some options in Civ 2 could get out of hand in being unbalanced. That's one of the things that my above proposal tries to address, but that can still be done in a carefully planned traditional tech tree with no eras.

Eras automatically cut way back on the possiblity for a unique experience in every game. Eras were a step that should not be repeated.

[TimeTraveler]

If I could change Civ3 in one way, it would be to either get rid of technology eras, or at least make them much more flexible.

First of all, IMHO, the current system seems fairly unrealistic. Each technology at the end of one era shouldn't necessarily have to lead to all or none of the techs in the next era. For example, Flight should be able to lead to Rocketry without Computers also having to require it. At the same time, Construction should be able to be a prerequisite for Engineering without also being required for Monotheism. In fact, I don't think Democracy should require Construction either.

Second of all, it does indeed make the tech tree too narrow, with the only options to loosen it be to make a lot of techs into dead ends, or simply not lead to or require much else in its own era, which would further complicate the problem of the tech tree being too unrealistic.

So please... let's get the Civ4 chart back to something similar to the other Civ and Civ-like games.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by TimeTraveler
Each technology at the end of one era shouldn't necessarily have to lead to all or none of the techs in the next era.

Great point, TimeTraveler. Aside from the modding problems, this is one of the major flaws of the "era" system.

[Adagio]

I haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know if this idea exists already... anyway, here it is:

There shouldn't just be one tech tree, but a tech-tree which divides with time:

There's one Ancient Age... all Civs starts here. But during the research of this one, you can go two ways: Middle Ages 1 or Middle Ages 2
If you during your research in Ancient Age first tries to get economic techs, you'll go to Middle Ages 1, while if you get the war researches first, you go to Middle Ages 2.
In Middle Ages 1 you get the economic techs first (e.g. you get the bank before those who gets to Middle Ages 2, but you'll be slower on getting to the war techs)
From that age you can go to Industrial Age 1, 2 & 3. IA1 is only avaliable to those who got to MA1, while IA3 is only avaliable to those who got to MA2... IA3 is in the middle of the road, and avaliable for both
The first one always gives better economic research, the last one always gives a better war research... those in the middle (There's two "middle roads" for the Modern age) doesn't turn to a specific way




Maybe my explenation I made a couple of years ago (Before PTW) makes more sense:

Just had an idea about making the "age" system different (attached picture). Here I have tried to make one ancient age (The one everybody has), two medival ages, three industrial ages and four modern times. E.g. if you "invent" medieval times 1, you can't "invent" modern age three and four!

Each different age number has something special, e.g. some wonders other ages might not have, or better planes, stronger tanks, etc.

To get to a certain age number, you need to have invented certain techs before other techs, e.g. if you invent money making techs as first priority, then your next age will contain more money making techs!

Hope you get my idea. It was just a thought on how to make the inventing area a little more different, since it's now just there, not much difference between the civs...

This would defently give a more varied tech-tree

[Lorizael]

I'd like to see a difference between theories and technologies, and between sociological (philosophy, religion, politics, economics, etc...) and scientific (physics, biology, chemistry, etc...) research. Don't know specifically how I would want to express these differences, though.

[POTUS]

Seems like a good idea, but if a country wants to build an army, they don't first get knights, then muskets, then machine guns. They just get machine guns.

[DarkCloud]

This would defently give a more varied tech-tree

It might give a more varied tech tree- but culture groupings would make more sense than arbitrary choices... for example: nowadays the weapons in the US and China are pretty much the same- Tanks, Nukes, Missiles... civ can't really detail the exact types of tanks because civ is a strategy game, not a wargame... and even in elder days the weapons were quite alike, they just differed slightly in implementation.

Example: a warrior in china would be just as powerful as a warrior in india and a warrior in europe.

BUT a warrior in europe wouldn't have access to elephants... so the Indians/Carthaginians could use war elephants and have men with spears when the Europeans could only use Pikemen. (same basic weapon concept but different implementations)

[Kuciwalker]

That's what resources and/or UU's are for

[Adagio]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
It might give a more varied tech tree- but culture groupings would make more sense than arbitrary choices... for example: nowadays the weapons in the US and China are pretty much the same- Tanks, Nukes, Missiles... civ can't really detail the exact types of tanks because civ is a strategy game, not a wargame... and even in elder days the weapons were quite alike, they just differed slightly in implementation.

Example: a warrior in china would be just as powerful as a warrior in india and a warrior in europe.

BUT a warrior in europe wouldn't have access to elephants... so the Indians/Carthaginians could use war elephants and have men with spears when the Europeans could only use Pikemen. (same basic weapon concept but different implementations)

Why did you quote me?

We're talking about two different things..!

/me starts readin what he wrote

Ahhh... now I see, I used a wrong word... I didn't mean 'better' weapons, etc. I ment 'faster' (as in faster research).
Eg. when taking the economic 'road' you get the bank earlier than new 'wartoys'... or at least the tech-tree is better setup for getting the bank faster...

[Az]

Also posted in my thread.

Let technologies influence government and society in different ways than just government techs allowing governments, and techs cancelling the effects of wonders. corruption, war weariness.... all of those.

[Elias]

Id like to see sub groups of each tech and I think they could add in another era to two I like how they did the eras in rise of nations with what was it? 9 eras instead of 4 the. In the current civ its hard to say where the agricutral eveloution fits. i like how they seprated ww1 from ww2 this is hard to see in civ3. Id like to see tech effect units more directly.
Example to all of these Your in the info age you reaserch precison guided wepons now you research the integreation of it into bombers/Fighters after you finish all fighters/Bombers recive a + bonus to bombardment. maby a graphic change to?
This way civs who dont want it only have to research the bare minimum of techs and units can very in strength for each civ.
If anyone else has herd about the unit workshop idea this would work good with that too.

[DarkCloud]

That's what resources and/or UU's are for

Which is why I don't see much point in tech-tree variation...

ADG-

Ahhh... now I see, I used a wrong word... I didn't mean 'better' weapons, etc. I ment 'faster' (as in faster research).
Eg. when taking the economic 'road' you get the bank earlier than new 'wartoys'... or at least the tech-tree is better setup for getting the bank faster...

ah, now I understand. that makes more sense!

[Jaguar]

Bump.

Once we agree on some things then I'll put them up in the list.


I think that the first thing we can agree on is that there should be a difference between techs like Democracy and techs like Steel. They should be treated slightly differently. You can't "steal" the concept of Communism with a spy. It's just silly.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Bump.

Once we agree on some things then I'll put them up in the list.


I think that the first thing we can agree on is that there should be a difference between techs like Democracy and techs like Steel. They should be treated slightly differently. You can't "steal" the concept of Communism with a spy. It's just silly.

Yes I agree that stealing Communism is silly.

Especially as when we look into the history of this planet, and we find the Communist nations treated communism as a great religion that had to be shared with as many nations as possible as fast as possible, sending out people and training to many nations that would have them etc... and unto all people groups and races...

I feel that some of these "Tech's" should be removed from the tech tree, as they are more cultural developments than scientific research.