This thread is dedicated to generating a list of ideas for Brian Reynolds to incorporate into Civ III regarding technology. I serve as "Thread Master" for this thread, which makes me a facilitator of discussions and summarizer of things past. I have no desire to squash ideas, misrepresent people's ideas, etc. The list will be delievered as a concise list of ideas, each with a brief explanation. At the end of the list, the names of all of the posters who have contributed to the list will be included. If, in any of my summaries, you believe that I have missed something, changed something inappropriately, or could explain something better, please point it out. My goal with the summaries is to convey ideas as clearly and quickly as possible. Any and all discussion of any idea is allowed and encouraged, just becasue something appears in a summary does not make it "official" or "final". This is
your list, I'm just trying to help you compile it.
This summary includes items that were posted in:
<a href=http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000300.html>the SMAC forums technology thread</a>
<a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000511.html>CIV3: THE MASTER LIST (v1.0)-TECHNOLOGY</a> from the "Civ3 General" Forum
<a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000006.html>TECHNOLOGY(v1.1): Hosted by Octopus</a>
<a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000038.html>TECHNOLOGY(v1.2): Hosted by Octopus</a>
The suggestions are in roughly chronological order. Items 39 to 66 are new. Bold indicated comments that I wanted to draw your attention to, either because they affect items mentioned in previous summaries (which many of you will probably skip) or because I thought they were important points to consider. Please don't read too much into them.
I know that the organization of this summary is horrible -- I need to break it into sections. I think I'll get around to that very soon. Also, near the end, there are some "laundry list" posts with technologies. I'll figure out a better way to do that...
And now, the summary you've all been waiting for
:
1) REDUNDANT TECHS -- have multiple different ways to achieve the same in-game effect (say, a 2-1-1 unit or a "makes one unhappy person content" building) with different technological paths (for example, either "Religious Fanatacism" or "Professional Standing Army" techs might allow the 2-1-1 unit over the 1-1-1 unit). This allows different civilizations to take a less "cookie-cutter" approach to technological development, since there are no longer an "vital" technologies.
2) MULTIPLE PATHS TO A PARTICULAR ADVANCE -- Instead of having rigid prerequisites, allow several different ways to achieve a particular advance (for example, the prerequisite for "Labor Union" might be "Capitalism" and "Assembly Line", because the workers band together naturally to fight for rights, OR "Communism" and "Mass Media", because the communist activists are able to convince large numbers of workers to bargain collectively. However, "Capitalism" and "Mass Media" wouldn't do anything to advance "Labor Unions" without the other techs.).
3) RANDOM!!!! -- As long as there are multiple paths to each tech, there can be a probability that each path may or may not exist in a particular game. This adds to the excitement, and also the realism, since you can never quite be sure what your scientists will come up with until they come up with it.
4) CONCEPTS vs. APPLICATIONS -- Instead of an "all techs are equivalent" way of looking at the world, break techs into "concepts" and "applications". A "concept" might be "Gunpowder", while an "application" might be "Musket" or "Tunnel Construction".
5) TECH SYNERGY -- you can research multiple techs simultaneously, and researching related techs provides synnergistic effects, i.e. researching "Physics" and "Calculus" together would get you done faster than researching "Physics" and "Communism".
6) PREREQUISITE EQUIVALENCE -- instead of having a hard and fast prerequisite, allow some of them to be 'equivalence classed'. For example, if you wanted to develop "Technocracy", you need the advance on "Microchip", as well as knowledge of three government types, such as "Democracy", "Fascism", and "Monarchy".
7) PREREQUISITE POINTS -- Number 6 is actually a special case of this. In this suggestion, different technologies each contribute a certain point value to satisfying the prerequisite of a follow-on technology. For example, If you were interested in researching "Trench Warfare", you might need to gather 10 prereq points, where "Machine Guns" would give you 4, "Artillery" would give you 7, "Chemical Warfare" would give you 3, and "Conscription" would give you 3.
The conflict rages over whether this is too complicated... I'll try to do a better job summarizing this soon...
8) NEW TECH: MUSIC -- A dead end tech that adds +50% to the effectiveness of entertainers. So an entertainer gains an early boost of +100% with the discover of music and construction of a market place.
This suggestion seems to be even more unpopular than last time. Should it be removed or altered to make it more palatable?
9) FACTION/CIVILIZATION SPECIFIC TECH TREES -- different cultures look at the world in different ways, so it wouldn't be surprising to see that they would follow different paths or discover different technologies in different orders.
10) MAKE TECH TREE REFLECT GAME SITUATION -- the current game situation should affect the tech tree. A land-locked civ is unlikely to develop "Navigation", and a civ with poor mineral resources is unlikely to develop "Advanced Mining".
11) GREATER EMPHASIS ON THE ARTS -- The tech tree in general focuses on military hardware and hard science, leaving the Arts somewhat unaddressed (this suggestion probably needs to be fleshed out more).
Like 8, there is some question about this. However, see items 35 and 36
12) MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY -- Developing one technology might not make sense when another one already existed. "Green Industries" and "Advanced Toxic Waste Disposal" might be examples of this.
13) REVERSE ENGINEERING -- Fighting and destroying or capturing enemy units with superior technology should aid in the discovery of that technology.
14) LESS DETERMINISTIC RESEARCH PROGRESS -- Instead of just "100 Research Points gets you an advance" it should be "100 Research Points gives you a 5% chance of discovering tech, 110 RP gives you 10%, etc". This should follow some sort of curve (A bell curve was suggested, but I think other curves might be interesting -- discussion?)
15) BASIC THEORETICAL RESEARCH -- Have some reserch points devoted to "basic research" that isn't likely to produce any specific advances (i.e. won't give you a specific building or unit or something), but which enhance research in other areas (e.g. research in "Basic Physics" might enhance the speed at which you research "Lasers", "Nuclear Fission", and "Nuclear Fusion", but you could achieve those advances without doing the basic research, just at a higher cost. This would be a tradeoff -- Do I want Fission now, or do I want to invest a little more up front, and be sure of getting all three sooner in the long run, even though I wouldn't get any specific advance until later).
16) RESEARCH SYNERGY THROUGH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS -- We should get bonuses to our technology development rate if we are on friendly diplomatic terms with other civs researching similar technology because of international science conferences, wider circulation technical journals, access to each other's research, etc.
17) HAVE GOVERNMENT/DIPLOMATIC CHOICES AFFECT TECH DEVELOPMENT -- Would a Democratic government ever research "Doctrine: Loyalty"?
18) AI TECH TRADING INTELLIGENCE -- Make sure that the AIs only make tech trades that make sense. Why trade for "Mass Transit" if you don't have "Automobile"?
19) FORBID 'OUT-OF-ORDER' TECH -- If you don't have the prereqs for a tech, you shouldn't be able to use it, even if you trade for it, etc. If (through some quirk of fate) Columbus has plans for an A-Bomb, and traded them to the Native Americans he met, it is unlikely that they would have been able to nuke Europe, since they didn't have the infrastructure to make use of the idea.
Suggested enhancement to this suggestion -- link things to "literacy", or possibly "era" (e.g. bronze-age tribe can't use Renaissance idea).
20) DEVELOPMENT INERTIA -- It doesn't make sense that the same researchers who just gave you "Nuclear Fission" would be able to turn around and give you "Television, because they are only peripherally related. Scientists are specialized, and can't easily be pushed around to different fields. You should have multiple "teams", each of which is working on a different project. When they are done with one, they will research a second project in the same field at a faster rate than an unrelated field (or pay a higher cost to research an "outside our expertise" field -- the effect is the same). This idea can work closely with 21...
21) HISTORICAL ERA SHOULD PLAY A ROLE -- Since in ancient times scholars studied a wide variety of fields (they were real Renaissance men
) it makes sense to have tech specialization only play a role in more modern types of research (e.g. an ancient Greek philosopher might have contemplated both the role and practice of government as well as the laws of motion).
22) LOCATION DEPENDENT RESEARCH -- Research is done in labs and universities, and labs and universities have to actually exist somewhere. If you are counting on your scientists who are developing "Nuclear Fission" to win the war for you, but the city they are conducting the research in gets captured, you should be up a creek...
23) MULTIPLE TECHS RESEARCHED SIMULTANEOUSLY -- Some of the previous ideas require this. Only really makes sense if there is some benefit to doing things in parallel rather than in series (e.g. the "research point interest" in MoO does this, as do some other schemes put forward in the suggestion threads)
24) DIFFERENTIATED 'SCIENCE BUILDINGS' -- Have buildings which enhance the scientific output of a city differentiated: You have your choice of a Physics Lab, a Biological Research Hospital, etc., which only add their bonus when the city is contributing to the appropriate kind of research.
25) BLIND TECH -- People seem to either love or hate the blind research from SMAC. Suggested addition: "Historical Tech" -- research follow Blind Tech model up until Industrialization, after which they can use the Directed model, emulating the superior control and direction that people have over scientific discovery with modern methods.
Suggested addition to the suggested addition: Have a 'ratio' which controls how many techs you get to pick. When you first start, all of your tech choices are blind. Then after some time, you get to pick every 5th tech. Then every 4th tech, etc.
26) SERENDIPITOUS ADVANCES -- Technology discovered "accidentally". Basically a random event that gives you a tech advance.
27) LOTS OF TECHS -- Some people think we need lots, and I mean
LOTS of techs. Others think that too many techs may be bad, because they would grow hard to differentiate.
28) TECH BLEED -- Scientific Advances should be able to "leak out" from high-tech civs to low-tech civs. The rate of leakage should be proportional to the age of the tech (If we drove up to a stone-age tribe they would probably realize the significance of our advanced "wheel" technology before we even got out of the car...) and also proportional to the level of diplomatic relations (if we constantly interact with another society, we are likely to be more familiar with their technology).
29) TECH ADVANCES TIED TO GAME FEATURES -- Features such as 'borders' should only be enables once the appropriate tech is discovered.
(Any discussion about this? Good, bad?)
30) SCIENCE CITY IMPROVEMENTS MORE IMPORTANT FOR SCIENCE THAN ECONOMIC BUILDINGS -- Apparently in CtP, buildings which boost your economic output are more worthwhile for your research progress than Libraries and such. Don't do that in Civ 3.
31) DIFFERENT BUILDINGS HELP WITH DIFFERENT KINDS OF RESEARCH -- Barracks can conduct military research, temples can conduct religous/philosophical research, etc. (Ecce Homo, is this accurate?)
32) MULTIPLE PREREQS -- More than just two should be possible. This suggestion is probably implicit in some of the more ambitious prereq schemes.
33) SPACING OF TECHS IN THE TREE -- Make sure that the techs are judiciously placed in the tree so we don't have too few in one era and too many in another. Try to keep it balanced.
34) RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' -- There should be several "fields" of research (e.g. Philosophy, Agriculture, Economics, etc.) and you can set different allocations for the different fields (e.g. 25% of research points to Philosophy, 25% to Ag, 50% to Econ.). However, whenever you change the allocation, you take a hit to the "efficiency" at which you research, which is proportional to the magnitude of the change. This "efficiency hit" is reflected in the rate at which you acquire research points. This "efficiency hit" gradually diminishes over time (an exponential decay?) until your society reaches "scientific equilibrium" at the new settings. This effect is likely to result in a "character" for different civs, because some will emphasize one field over another, and be unlikely to change because of the cost.
(This could probably use a better summary, too. We should work on trying to develop some more "categories". See discussion in Tech thread 1.2)
35) TECHNOLOGY SHOULD INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ENTERTAINERS -- Certain technologies should enhance the effectiveness of your "entertainer" specialists in the city screen (e.g. Television).
36) MAKE ARTS ADVANCES 'SCORE BOOSTERS' -- Maybe Art and Culture advances should simply be score boosters (like "Future Tech") or one time benefits.
37) RESOURCE LIMITATION LIFTING TECHS -- In SMAC there were some techs that you needed to research before you could gather more than 2 resources of each type. While an interesting idea, the implementation in SMAC was too limiting. The techs which lifted the limits were too indispensible, and came in too late, often choking off an empire until they could be found.
I'd like to include some concrete suggestions for improving this. Shining1 suggested that resource limits should be a function of Social Engineering. Other thoughts?.
38) FAMOUS SCIENTISTS -- Scientific personalities, such as Einstein or Pasteur might provide some "flavor" to the scientific experience. Maybe these are random events that give you one time bonuses? ("Pasteur has established a laboratory in Paris, science output doubles in Paris for one turn" or something).
39) MAXIMUM RESEARCH RATE -- Have a maximum rate at which research can be accumulated. No amount of "prodding" will enable your scientists to research faster than some basic human limit (probably limited by communication?)
40) OFFSHOOT TECHS -- Minor technologies related to Major Technologies (i.e. Major techs are the ones we are familiar with) that are recieved as a random bonus for researching the Major Tech. They're not available every game, and only give a small bonus. Example: Researching "Warrior Code" might give you "Longbow" technology, which would give you better archers. Hypothetically these "minor techs" could be linked to specific civs to give them "character".
41) SUPPORTING TECHS FOR OTHER IDEAS IN OTHER THREADS -- Some ideas in other threads give new abilities (such as specific types of specialist citizens) so it makes sense to have techs that bestow these abilities.
42) RANDOMIZED APPLICATIONS -- Techs shouldn't always give you the same benefit. Some games, a specific tech might give you a particular unit, in others it might give you a building, etc.
43) AN OPTION FOR A LESS 'MECHANISTIC' WORLDVIEW -- Some people feel that Civ emphasis science and technology, not allowing for the possibility of a civilization that has a less mechanistic worldview, and focuses instead on other pursuits, like philosophy or psychology.
Is this workable? Suggestions? Could this have happened, even if it didn't historically?
44) STARTING POSITION DEPENDENT CIV SPECIALTIES -- When a civ is placed on the map, give it a tech specialty. This solves the problem of saying "the Phonecians should get a seafaring bonus because they had a maritime empire" by instead giving a civ that starts close to water a maritime bonus (and if that happened to be the Phonecians, then you could play the Phonecians like the existed historically, although hopefully they'd last longer
). A tech specialty would be a small bonus to research in related fields. The bonus should disappear in modern times.
45) HAVE THE NUMBER OF TECH POINTS REQUIRED FOR A TECH BE FIXED INSTEAD OF RELATIVE -- Pottery should not be just as hard to research as Nuclear Fission, even if you are actively researching them both in 1945. Basing the number of research points needed for a particular tech on the number of techs you already possess can lead to ridiculous situations like that.
(editor's note -- apparently the old civ's had anti-synergy, the more you know, the harder it is to learn )
46) EVERY TECH SHOULD HAVE SOME 'BASIC' BENEFIT -- Each tech should have some effect of the 'basic' parameters of a civ, the kind of things that are likely to be influenced by Social Engineering (e.g. "Trade" should benefit your Economy rating, and "Crop Rotation" should benefit your Growth).
47) TECHS SHOULD BE HARDER TO RESEARCH -- It is unrealistic for a civ to have the ability to realistically research
every tech in the game without help -- historically nobody has developed
everything.
48) MORE EMPHASIS ON FOOD MAKING TECHS -- Plants cultivation, Farming, Irrigation, Genetic manipultion...
49) ARMS RACES -- There should be more differentiation between "identical" techs. All of the major powers had "tanks" in World War II, but the designs of some countries were superior to those of others.
(How might this be implemented without too much micromanagment? Since the rate of "obsolecense" is relatively quick, would this effect be too small to bother modelling in Civ III?)
50) DOWNLOADING TECHS -- Firaxis should periodically expand the tech tree by posted new techs on the website to incorporate into the game
(Could this be done without ruining play balance?)
51) TECH PRESERVATION -- If a civ doesn't work to maintain a technology (e.g. by building libraries) they should lose the tech.
(Are there historical precedents for this? I'll grant that we have lost the knowledge of how certain ancient civilizations did certain things, but does that mean that they forgot?)
52) SENSIBLE TECH/ADVANCE CORRELATION -- Certain advances were linked to techs that really didn't make sense, e.g. "Labor Union" and "Mechanized Infantry". Don't do that.
53) DIFFERENT COST FOR 'TRAILBLAZERS' AND 'FOLLOWERS' -- The first civ to research a tech should have to pay a steeper cost than those who come after, since pioneering new technology is hard, while reproducing an already known advance is easier
(Maybe this should be based only on civs you have diplomatic contact with? It doesn't do you much good if a tribe on the other side of the planet discovers the wheel, but you never hear about it...)
54) ARTIFACTS -- Similar to the Alien Artifacts in SMAC, these would be similar to the "goodie huts", but would simply help research into a particular technology.
55) Techs: Computers, Programming, Systems Analysis
56) Techs: Copper Smelting (before bronze), Animism (early religion), Brewing (allows beer!), Herbal Remedies, Weaving, Potters Wheel, Geography, History, Tragedy/Literature, Rhetoric, Plumbing (essential for mining, which should appear much later), Lens Grinding, Heliocentrism, Orbital Mechanics, Calculus, Discipline, Training, Art of War, Standing Army, Mobilization, Credit, Mercantilism, Urbanization, Rationalization (a la Max Weber), Capital Markets, Regulation, Cash Crops, Crop Rotation, Agricultural Investment, Mechanical Farming, Artifical Fertilizers, Enlightenment, Revolution, Social Reform (for labor union), Women's Movement, Anatomy, Physiology, Botany, Cell Theory, Germ Theory, Immunization, Electromagnetism, Thermodynamics, Electric Light, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Ceramics, Periodic Table
57) GET RID OF OVERBROAD TECHS -- For example, "Industrialization" encompasses many things (technical, social, and economic), and should not be lumped into a single tech.
58) Techs: Arts ( require nothing ), Math ( require nothing, Alphabet? ), Masonry, Engineering ( Math and masonry ), Sculpture ( Arts and masonry ), Painting ( Arts ), Architecture ( Arts and Enginerring ), The Bow ( Architecture )
(some of these are already in Civ and Civ II, right?)
59) Techs: Germ Theory, Antibiotics, Genetics (at Mendel level, not modern genetics
maybe call it 'inheritance theory'?), Evolution, DNA, The Loom, Algebra, Relativity, Venture Capitalism, Herbalism, The Pump, Gearworks, Mercenary Warfare, Aristocracy.
60) Techs: Computing Machine, Stored Program Computer, The Transistor, The Vacuum Tube, the Integrated Circuit, High Level Programming Languages
(you won't find these in the old thread, I just added them myself)
61) Techs (future): cloning, orbital construction, commercial spacefaring, wakeways, artificial intelligence, spaceport, xenobiology (exobiology), terraforming, eugenics, metallic foam, neural interface, nanotechnology, laser induced fusion, zero point energy, hydroponics, microgee agriculture, xenopsychology, cryogenics, nanomedicine (cell repair), personality constructs, mass drivers
(without aliens, xenobiology is mostly useless, xenopsychology even more so , what is practical application of cryogenics in game terms? What are personality constructs and wakeways?)
62) Techs (future, and "possible in this universe" is questionable): warp drive, psychohistory, robopsychology, ICE, eptification, elite conscription, phaser, turbolaser, artificial gravity (antigravity), universal translator, scrith, hyperatomic motivator, twin ion engine, liquid metal (mimetic polyalloy), positronic matrix, spindizzy generator, planckscale machines, antimatter containment, ekumen, matter replication
(I don't know what a lot of these are, and a lot of the ones I do know are definitely impossible in the "real world")
63) Techs: Geology, Evolutionary Biology, Alloys, Imperialism, Total War, Internal Combustion Engine, Submersibles, Oceanography, after robotics: "Microbotics" (preq to nanotech), "Astrobotics", and "Hydrobotics", Satellites (after space flight), Superstrings (after q. mech), Environmental Ethic (after conservation, but before recycling), MultiNational Corporation, Keynesian Economics
(Should this be divorced from the name to give an 'international' flavor?), Entrpreneurialism, Globalization, Money Economy (13th-14th cent, contemporaneous with banks, but more of a social tech, results in "cash crops"), Surgery (15th-16th cent, before physiology - they could do amputations and simple operations well before they figured out how everything else worked.), Gunnery (as in cannons), Fortifications (16th-17th cent), Humanism (14th cent, before Age of Reason, but req Heliocentrism), Experiment (or Empiricism - 15th cent), Simple Machines, Clockwork, Calendar, Astrology (needed preq to astronomy)
64) Techs: Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Deterrence, Nuclear Warfighting, Nuclear Defense, Nuclear Disarmament
(This last one seems to me to be a matter of political policy, not 'research')
65) Techs: Anti- anything (matter, gravity, realisty...), Kinetic Weapons
(????), Inertia Nullification (thanks to the space operas of E.E. "Doc" Smith)
(Probably not realistic for this universe...)
66) Tech: Dyson Sphere
(Probably a bit beyond the scope of Civ III...)
[b]Let the discussion and suggestions continue!!!![b]
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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"
