Randomize that tech tree!

[My Wife Hates CIV]

One thing that kills MP (IMHO) is the tech tree. It's always a race through the same old tree.

Sure, you have to have the wheel before armor and flight before stealth but you can still randomize the periods. It wouldnt take much but I bet it would add a cool new twist to the game.

Just an idea.

I think we should double the amount of sciences from Civ 2 to 3 and keep the ratio about the same. This way trading techs with other civs is a must in order to stay in the battle. I also think that you should be able to offer money for a tech. As you may or may not know, the Russians made their great leap into industrialization by paying German Scientists to teach them the secrets of navigation, steel, and industry. You shouldn't have to Steal a tech. But each tech should have a price tag equivelant to it's AI worth. No consequence for paying for a science. Also, certain sciences should be learned if a number of Civs have them (similar to Great Library but this is for everyone) Monotheism and trade are two examples of sciences that spread to other Civs. (E.G. how can a caravan trade in a foreign city if that city has no knowledge of trade?!?!) Monotheism spread to the Middle East, Africa, and SE Asia from European Missionaries. I think that for certain techs, if 3 civs have the knowledge than all other civs have knowledge of that science. Obviously not for all sciences or small midevil civs could learn the knowledge of nuclear fission. And that would just be silly :-)

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[Atahualpa]

A completely random tech tree would require hours of work for excellent algorithms or it would mess the whole game up.

Ata

[MidKnight Lament]

I sort of went nuts on this topic about a month ago. If anyone wants to know where it is, then ask for it, and I'll go find the thread some other time.

In short though, it's not the tech tree itself that should be randomized. But the different ways that you can get to a certain advance should be. Each advance would require a certain number of 'prereq points'. These points could be gained and summed from a number of different previous advances. On top of that, the number of points which you may get from a previous advance should be randomised to a certain degree. (eg. one might give a mean of 5 prereq points, but have a standard deviation of 2 points). In this way, you might be required to discover a certain advance to progress in one game, but not need it in the next. The tech tree remains familiar, but you can never be sure that what you're researching will get you to where you want to go.

If anyone is sick of me talking about this from last time, then just yell out and I'll shut up

- MKL