{The List} - Technology

[Fosse]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Non tech requirements for techs.

Hear, hear!

This would be a lot of fun to play, and lead to real flavor in each and every Civ game being potentially different.

[EnduringBlue]

I think that the more developed "pre-ancient" tech trees from mesoamerica and mesopotamia should be added as an extra age at the beginning. stone age, basically. or just keep it ancient but fleshed out.

I like the idea of having to choose among basic techs "do i want mining or irrigation?" because they're not handed to you on a silver platter. I always felt the ancient world wasn't primitive enough to explain civs not already having cities in 4000 AD since you have so many intrinsic abilities already.

I also wouldn't mind seeing fun specific names for some of the future techs, like "flying cars", "cold fusion", "spam", "warp drive" etc.

although legitimate futuristic tech/knowledge that are clearly around the corner could be extrapolated, like cloning, dark matter/energy, etc.

[Merp]

I love the idea of major and minor techs!

I also support the idea of non-tech requirements for other techs, but caution is advised. Otherwise, we risk severly handicapping the unlucky player or incompetent AI.

One solution would be in the implementation of the idea as a change in the cost of the tech, rather than making it an impossibility.

A different solution would be to ensure that regardless of techs that are not allowed in any situation, the player or AI always has an alternate path forward - There are no 'showstoppers'.

One way of directing major tech availabilities or costs would be to base it on the worked terrain of the player's / AIs cities. For example:

• Predominately plains with horses - encourage horseback riding
• Extensive roads - encourage the wheel
• More hills - encourage mining and masonry

Just a thought The intersection of the chosen culture and their technological development is another issue worthy of debate, but I can't think of any ideas for this one.

Edit - For grammar, bullet code and a final thought

[Plotinus]

I like the idea of distinguishing between "scientific" techs and "cultural" techs, although I fear it might get horribly complicated.

It is true that it is odd to have the nation researching something like the Theory of Gravity or Printing Press. However, bear in mind that in this game you are not just playing the government, although usually you are. You are guiding the *whole* civilisation. So I like to think that when I, the player, decide we're researching Gravity next, what that means "in" the game is that a few bright sparks in some city start jotting ideas down on envelopes, unknown to the government.

What I *would* like to see is the addition of cultural-grouping-specific techs. Maybe not completely different trees, but enough differences to be interesting. It would mean that there might be units, improvements, even Wonders that are available to only some civs. As it stands, the tech tree is extremely Euro-centric, most clearly in the Middle Ages - Monotheism, for example, is an utterly Western concept. Why not make it so that Chivalry, for example, is only researchable by European civilisations, making Knights and the Templars available only to them? Similarly, I would introduce some kind of Military Tactics tech into ancient times, available only to Mediterranean civs, that would allow them to build Legions and Phalanxes (better versions of Swordsmen and Spearmen). Or how about a Blood Sacrifice tech for Amercian civs only, which allows an Altar improvement to be built in a city, on which slaves can be sacrificed for culture, as in the Mesoamerican Conquest?

It seems a shame to divide the civs into cultural groups but have that reflected only graphically. This way, each civ would differ from the others in more ways than just its traits and its UU. It would, of course, require care to ensure that it wasn't too unbalancing - that you didn't make some killer Wonder unavailable to most civs, for example.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker
good point

Quote:

New tech: Archaeology (optional)

meh

More generally, how about non-city improvement ways for a tribe to generate culture and science?

What would be nice are ways for smaller tribes to compete with bigger ones. In the current Civ model the USSR would've won, followed probably by China or maybe Brazil. Pakistan would have it all over Japan.

Even after all these years (12 now, I think) Civ is still about grabbing land. It is, of course, also what you do with that land, which is good.

But perhaps settling should be costlier and perhaps war should be, too.

[ok]

[Brent]

okblacke:

Would Separation of Church and State require drastic change in how religion works in the game? Would religious improvements become purely cultural?

Archaeology: strange but interesting

JW:

Flavors: yes.

Conquests Techs

Put many techs from the conquests into the main game, especially if the total number of techs is expanded significantly.

Plotinus

I want culture- specific techs, but I think it's important for them to become available to anyone who meets that culture.

Losing Tech

You should be able to lose tech if you haven't been doing well for a long time, especially if you haven't done any research in a specific field in a long time. The Mayas forgot how to build cities. There are many minor things that individuals in the past knew how to do that have been forgotten. I guess forgetting tech should be more common for computer- controlled civs than for human- controlled ones.

[joncha]

I think the archaeology idea has some merit to it.

There should be some way of gaining knowledge from the past beyond the goodie hut stage... maybe a late medieval/industrial era advance like "classical knowledge" or something that allows for culture-producing archaelogists (either as units performing "digs" or as city-screen specialists).

Alternatively, if they do opt for multiple tech paths in Civ4, maybe researching archaeology would give you access to a second path.

jon.

[Filippo]

These is my rough idea of a tech system quite revamped, tell me what you think about it.


Research is too fast, and it is too easy to trade techs. I would change this as follows:

Make research a complex tree and not a linear one. For every era, there should be some "important discoveries" (3-4), these discoveries lead to technologies, some immediate, and some that are connected with other discoveries and/or technologies. Discoveries shouldn't be researched traditionally but a discovery would be made each time a certain cultural level is reached. Discoveries are the prerequisite to Eras. Discoveries would give some very basic units while technologies advanced ones. A discovery would be made randomly among the Eras ones, not in a preset line/order. Example of discovery: Wheel, Iron, vapor energy, atom, etc...

Trading would change as follow. To trade or buy a discovery both parties need to have 50% or maybe 75% (not sure about the game balances) of the cultural value needed for a new discovery. To trade or buy a technology both parties would need half the science points needed to research it.

Also, I would change the city improvements such as library, university, market, bank, etc... so that they give a base value of science/money income, and then allocating the Country's money to one or the other (or luxury) will add or take to this base value . If you think about it, in the third case (luxury) things already work like this. Eg: Temples gives 1 happy face and allocating more money to luxury will add to it.

[Filippo]

Originally posted by Sandman
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.

Sorry man but you can't win this debate. The science of Medicine is WAY older than Sanitation. Actually in Civ it comes by far too late, and you want to delay it even more ? How can there be any sanitation or health care, without Medicine ?

[coreman]

I like the cultural influence factor in Civ3 (they borrowed, improved it a bit from SMAC), but I also like how certain cultural choices affected unit choices in CTP, except some of the cultural choices really had no impact until the end-stage of the game.
UUs are not so bad, but I like some of the cultural units (Slavers, Preachers, etc) from CTP as well, and how some of the cultural choices had different effects throughout one's civ.

As far as earlier notes about Sanitation being linked to Medicine techs, ever notice how much worry there is in public health about cholera and typhoid are when the public water supply and sewage systems are knocked out, even in the US? Treating them is not a medical issue (medicine cannot deal with a Cholera epidemic, although it can in smaller cases).

[okblacke]

Originally posted by Brent
okblacke:
Would Separation of Church and State require drastic change in how religion works in the game? Would religious improvements become purely cultural?

No and no. In Civ, you really are the Church and the State and most of the people. The struggle between secular and religious power is worthy of its own game.

In Civ terms (Marxist influence?), religion keeps people happy. Freedom of religion would enhance that feature. This could be as simple as making one unhappy person content or it could encompass a variety of effects:

1. It could increase assimiliation of foreign pop.

2. It could increase war weariness. (Less conformity = greater dissent.)

3. If your civ had separation of Church and State and you tried to switch to a non-representative government, the result could be more turns of anarchy, unless perhaps you had some fascism-type pop reduction going on.

4. It could allow you to build an additional temple or other holy structure.

5. It could perhaps be diasllowed for Religoius civs.

All these things are well within Civ's usual structure.

[ok]

[Fosse]

Remember that if a social engineering idea is adopted that Civs can have several attributes that are analagous to SMAC's Planet, Support, Industry, etc.

So enacting "Separation of Church and State" could be, for example, +1 Unrest, -1 Research. Or something.

[ThePlagueRat]

Here is my opinion about techs:
------------------------------------------------
(also vaguely mentioned in diplomacy wishlist)

There should be no tech-whoring, but you should be able to trade a chosen amount of research points (RP) so if you are behind, you can eventually catch up if you got a lot of desirable goods and you are nice to people. The reason for this is that tech-whoring makes up an unrealistic and sometimes unbalanced game... S

Why Research Points:
An RP would represent the flow of invetions, intellectual ideas and statesmen between societies dealing with eachother.
So that's one way to gain RP, by trade. Then it must be balanced so that if you sell off some RP to get some resources, you will lose a bit of your own research, but not so much that RP-trading becomes a silly thing. You will gain these RP specifically through buildings, and some by trade routes like we had before in Civ2, but also some by happy faces 'cause the happy ones would be the class that makes inventions. Some specialists may produce an RP bonus too, such as it has always been.

Example:
If you are 6 turns away from a tech you need it now, you might be able to get it for 24 RP, since you produce 4 RP per turn. Your trading partner has more RPs than you and by trading many of you precious resources to him, he gives you 24 from his research, but only loses 25% points off his tech project or so, something in which must be well balanced.

[Jaguar]

That might be cool, but it's a little weird. hmmm.

[ThePlagueRat]

Ok, but I mean just a little bonus from happy faces, such that turning them into entertainers rather than scientists, or setting luxuries higher than science budget won't be helpful for gaining RPs.

In earlier Civ games the RP is coded transparently to the player, and you would gain them from science budget only, and that system might also be a bit weird.

[Kuciwalker]

There should be no tech-whoring, but you should be able to trade a chosen amount of research points (RP) so if you are behind, you can eventually catch up if you got a lot of desirable goods and you are nice to people. The reason for this is that tech-whoring makes up an unrealistic and sometimes unbalanced game... S

I think a lot of merchant empires (or whatever you want to call them) could be considered "tech-whoring".

[ThePlagueRat]

No, ideas and invetions were floating over the borders as the population became more liberated to do thinking, especially during the renneissance, and later during the industrial revolution.

The Hanseatic league and Netherlands, etc. were such merchant empires. Tech-fragments (RP) was often floating to and from those empires who were closest and had much trade. Usually the diplomats had nothing to do with it, but the state often rallied foreign intellectuals and engineers (RP) to certains tasks.

In WW2 the great powers managed to hold their techs more or less a secret, but skilled scientists flew to USA from Germany,
giving USA, quite a few RPs.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by ThePlagueRat
In WW2 the great powers managed to hold their techs more or less a secret, but skilled scientists flew to USA from Germany, giving USA, quite a few RPs.

And culture points. Otto Preminger ("Laura", "Anatomy of a Murder"), Fritz Lange ("Metropolis", "M") and Billy Wilder ("Sunset Blvd.", "Some Like It Hot"). Three of Americas greatest directors.

Boy, wouldn't [i] that just kill Fascism as a government in Civ? When you switch to it, your opponents all get a boost in culture and research.

[ok]

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Filippo
Sorry man but you can't win this debate. The science of Medicine is WAY older than Sanitation. Actually in Civ it comes by far too late, and you want to delay it even more ? How can there be any sanitation or health care, without Medicine ?

Oh really? How old is the 'science' of medicine then? Presumably bloodletting and pigeon-dropping poultices are scientific cures, then?

Before medicine adopted a scientific approach, it was largely useless.

It's quite simple how there can be sanitation without medicine: you don't need a germ theory to realise the link between filth and disease, and you don't need doctors to build pipes.

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by okblacke

Boy, wouldn't [i] that just kill Fascism as a government in Civ? When you switch to it, your opponents all get a boost in culture and research.

[ok]

Spain had Fascism until the 80's. That worked pretty much as a dictatorship republic. It was just because Germany prosecuted so many individuals, that they fled to USA. It was a safe haven far away. It was not because of fascism in itself, in fact they were National-Sozializt, hence the word Nazi.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by ThePlagueRat Spain had Fascism until the 80's. That worked pretty much as a dictatorship republic. It was just because Germany prosecuted so many individuals, that they fled to USA. It was a safe haven far away. It was not because of fascism in itself, in fact they were National-Sozializt, hence the word Nazi.

Right. It'd be a one time boost.

Actually, I suppose you could represent it by redistributing the player's vanishing pop points. Say, half. The other half assumed dead.

[ok]

"This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead." -- Jane Curtin, Weekend Update, "Saturday Night Live"

[marcthornton]

Originally posted by Filippo

Make research a complex tree and not a linear one. For every era, there should be some "important discoveries" (3-4),

I like the idea of a very non-linear path. You and the AI should be able to choose a path that suits your Civilization, and the items around you to your benefit. It would be very easy to make this system modable as well so that you could make any number of changes to it.

I like the idea of having tech requirements, however let's change it a little so that you must have this there are some explicit requirements, and some you can opt out of... I could see the path being very divergent, but me and the AI both getting to railroad, and then maybe diverging again. Some people also noted that maybe I want irrigation but not mines, I would expnad on this and say that maybe it is in my interest at the moment to research an advanced form of irrigation that would allow my civ to grow faster but to do it I need to have acquired a certain base knowledge.

I would also like to see greatly varying costs to research items, say opportunity cost. It could cost more to research one thing without having another. I like the idea of some research just going to a few things out there that you could be working on.

Lot's of ideas here. Let me know what you think.

[CiverDan]

It drove me nuts in one Civ3 MP game when I my opponent didn't have Printing Press yet was in the Industrial Age. I say get rid of ages per se. Currently the same techs are often skipped because they are optional. I never research Monarchy for example.

Some Specific comments:

1. Why do I need the Wheel to know Horseback Riding? Make the wheel a Pre-requisite of Mathematics instead. Catapults without Wheels are silly and the circle is very important in math. People will need the wheel to build horsemen anyways because the tech shows you where the horses are.

2. Modern Age is still a problem, mainly because its a means to and end, building a spaceship, that cannot be built with todays tech. Superconductor for Fuel Cells? nonsence. do you really plan on getting to Alpha Centuri with Chemical Rockets/Nuclear Propulsion. Start thinking Antimatter if you want to be more realistic. Make the goal Mars if you want to end it with todays tech.

Someone brought up the resource connection to techs. not needed. For example a civ may have discovered
Iron Working from a small amount of iron, but did not have a suitable source of ore to build a sword army, or lay rails for that matter.

I agree that certain techs must be learned and not bought or stolen. This limits certain tactics, such as living off the Great Library and mass tech bribing, and makes the game tougher at the hardest levels where these tactics are used to keep tech parity.

I know people dislike future techs, but certain current and near future techs could be included

Cloning - Req. Genetics - Gives food bonus to cities to represent longer lifespan and benefits to food production.
Electrogravitics (aka Anti-gravity) - Req. Stealth: a few people believe our government already knows this - important Spaceship tech which also allows better air units also
Fusion Power - Req. The Laser - Fusion Plants, Spaceship tech
Magnetic Levitation - Req. ??? - Better Railroads - These should allow no movement cost. The first rails should be 1/6 movement cost.
Nanomachines - Req. Robotics & Synthetic Fibers.- ???

It is intersting to hote the real-time advancement of tech itself from the release of Civ1 to Civ3. When Civ1 was released, The Internet was not in common usage, certainly not worthy of a wonder at the time, and existance of Stealth aircraft had only recently be decalssified.

[lajzar]

Boolean tech requirements. Instead of a simple X and Y allows Z, allow for complex AND / OR / NOT statements. The NOt would probably be irrelevant to conventional progress, but it would allow you to do interesting things with magitech and differented national techs. For example:

fireball NEEDS pyromancy NOT hydromancy
zerg towers NEEDS zerg_tech NOT (terran_tech OR protoss_tech)

---

Next idea. Have maintenance for your technology. As you gain technology, you should need to spend increasing amounts of science simply to maintain what you have. If you don't, the beakers for you newer projects diminish, and if that goes on long enough, you lose a tech.

---

Get rid of ages. I found it too constraining, although perhaps that was teh graphical representation they forced on us. It makes it almost impossible to have a decent amount of customisation (on that point, go wild on the number of different tech allowed). Modders who want them can use a long boolean AND string anyway.

[POTUS]

That might work.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by lajzar
Boolean tech requirements.

*gapes*

why didn't I think of that?

That is an AMAZINGLY good idea. all the way

[lajzar]

Here's an idea on how eras could be used.

Every tech is placed in a particular era. These eras have no direct in-game effect regarding research.

At the start of a game, players select two options. The first is the starting era, the second is the ending era. Suppose the eras are:

Ancient
Medieval
Industrial
Modern
Near Future
Far Future

Basically, if the player chooses to start in an era more advanced than ancient, then all techs from an earlier era start off as being already researched, or perhaps researchable at token costs.

Second, any techs designated as being in an era more advanced than the chosen ending era are forever unreachable. If you want no futuristic techs at all, you'll choose to end at the modern era. This leaves the option present for those who want a longer game.

The algorithm for the number of beakers required per tech should adjust so that if the tech tree gets shortened, the time taken to research gets increased.

"Future Tech" can be handled as follows. Any time the "what can I research next" algorithm cannot find a valid tech, it gives future tech as the only research option.

Thoughts?

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by lajzar

Next idea. Have maintenance for your technology. As you gain technology, you should need to spend increasing amounts of science simply to maintain what you have. If you don't, the beakers for you newer projects diminish, and if that goes on long enough, you lose a tech.

Nice one...
Would be more realistic than the well known "failing budget --> building sold" messages. Ok, you fire the professors rather than tearing down the university to sell out nice red bricks.
So we gotta figure a realistic way of implementing that. Perhaps each population unit could have those values attached to itself, such as culture, knowledge, wealth, etc. ?

The sum of all pop-values would make up the city's tax and tech output, as well as cultural level. ( The entertainer special pop could have a + on cultural value, but a - on wealth and tech. )
A professor would in effect just be part of a happy pop-unit who had accumulated much knowledge by being part of a flourishing city for some time. Together with all other pops, that would be the knowledge basis. If you lose too much of that basis, techs would be forgotten, and if you lose just some of your that basis, then your tech-budget would be less efficient. The tech-output could just be a multiple of the knowledge basis * budget spending, plus modifiers...

e.g.
A small 1-pop-settlement w\library, 75% reaserch spending:
(1 * 0.75 + 0.50 = 1.25 rp ) rp > knowledge basis,
thus the pop-unit's knowledge increases slightly.

A small 1-pop-settlement w\library, no reaserch spending:
(1 * 0.00 + 0.50 = 0.50 rp ) rp < knowledge basis,
thus the pop-unit's knowledge decreases slightly.

Ok, this first example shows a way of building a knowledge basis though libraries and positioning the slider. In Civ3 the slider doesn't work right, it opens for exploits and funny stuff.
So that it the first thing they have to make right if they create Civ4. By this, you would gain a customised basis for both knowledge, wealth and culture by positioning the slider to your taste, and you population will reflect that as well !

This feature would be even more realistic if they implement pop-unit migration from one civ to another instead of that city-flipping @$€¤&# shït. Thus, knowledge, culture and wealth values would change on certain events, making your pops prone to both global and local effects.

[Rasputin]

the only thing i hate about civ3 tech tree is the "fill in techs"
techs that give you nothinhg but are jsut techs you have to research along the path,

I want all techs to give sometihng, whther it be new units , wonders or city imoprovments


Hoepfully all techs will have an attached gain for it.

[lajzar]

Would be more realistic than the well known "failing budget --> building sold" messages. Ok, you fire the professors rather than tearing down the university to sell out nice red bricks.

I was actually figuring this as an addition to the sold buildings, not a replacement. Screw your economy, lose buildings (or whatever uses gold as maintenance). Screw your beakers, and whatever uses beakers for maintenance (techs) will be lost.

So we gotta figure a realistic way of implementing that. Perhaps each population unit could have those values attached to itself, such as culture, knowledge, wealth, etc. ?

I think I see where you're going with this, but I don't like it. It places more attributes on individual population points, something that seems to have killed gamespeed in Civ3, and it makes the tie between tech and population too close. The current system favours cities built in deserts, plains and grasslands. Your system would give an extra reason to build in mountains.