***TECH TREE***: General Discussion

[Ian_Notter]

Youngsun In the main I agree with your statements. There was a more serious point in my note, which I did not make enough of. It should be possible for a civilisation to "forget" a technology, as happened to the Chinese in this case.

[S. Kroeze]

Dear Yin26,

I understand that you are truly busy and of course I have sympathy for it. But if you wish some fanatics including myself to continue our contributions to the Tech Tree, I think you could at least repost the "Master List", so people might possibly read it!

Granary:
'Phase 1B, dating to the 7th-6th millennium, is characterized by the emergence of pottery and improvements in agriculture. By the beginning of Phase 1B, cattle (apparently Bos indicus, the Indian humped variety) had come to predominate over game animals, as well as over sheep and goats. A new type of building, the small regular compartments of which identify it almost certainly as a granary, first appeared during this phase and became prevalent in Period II, indicating the frequent occurrence of crop surpluses. Burial took a more elaborate form--a funerary chamber was dug at one end of a pit, and, after inhumation, the chamber was sealed by a mud brick wall. From the latter phase of Period I also come the first small, hand-modeled female figurines of unburned clay.

The Period I evidence at Mehrgarh provides a clear picture of an early agricultural settlement exhibiting domestic architecture and a variety of well-established crafts. The use of sea shells and of various semiprecious stones, including turquoise and lapis lazuli, indicates the existence of trade networks(!) extending from the coast and perhaps also from Central Asia.

Striking changes characterize Period II. It appears that some major tectonic event took place at the beginning of the period (c. 5500 BC), causing the deposition of great quantities of silt on the plain, almost completely burying the original mound at Mehrgarh. Nearly all features of the earlier culture persisted, though in altered form. There was an increase in the use of pottery. The granary structures proliferated, sometimes on a larger scale. The remains of several massive brick walls and platforms suggest something approaching monumental architecture. Evidence appears of several new crafts, including the first examples of the use of copper and ivory. The area of the settlement appears to have grown to accommodate an increasing population.

While the settlement at Mehrgarh merits extensive consideration, it should not be perceived as a unique site. There are indications (not yet fully explored) that other equally early sites may exist in other parts of Baluchistan and elsewhere on the Indo-Iranian borderlands.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'India, history of')

I have to admit to be a bit sceptical about granaries in India(present-day Pakistan) antedating granaries in the Middle East by many centuries, while the Middle East was in every aspect ahead of the rest of the world. In the Fertile Crescent agriculture became an established way of life from ~8000BC, in western Pakistan from ~6500BC.

About Mesopotamia:
'This Samarra culture(~5600BC-5000BC) was revealed in the 1960s by the Iraqi excavations at Tell es-Sawwan. The inhabitants of Tell es-Sawwan were peasants like their Hassunan ancestors and used similar stone and flint tools, but in an area where rain is scarce they were the first to practise a primitive form of irrigation agriculture, using the Tigris floods to water their fields and grow wheat, barley and linseed. The yield must have been substantial if the large and empty buildings found at various levels were really 'granaries' as has been suggested. The central part of the village was protected from invaders by a 3-metre-deep ditch doubled by a thick, buttressed mud wall. The houses were large, very regular in plan, with multiple rooms and courtyards, and it must be noted that they were no longer built of pressed mud, but of large, cigar-shaped mud bricks plastered over with clay or gypsum. A thin coat of plaster covered the floors and walls.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

About Egypt:
'The archaeological remains of these earliest farmers are known as the Fayum A assemblages. They are dated to around 7000 to 6600 years ago. The Neolithic Fayumians cultivated wheat, three forms of barley and flax. The Fayum evidence provides us with exceptionally rich information on grain storage. This was done in groups of subterranean containers (silos) made of plaited straw. It is estimated that each container may hae contained up to 400 kg of grain, which could have represented a yield of a plot of land of about half a hectare. Groups of up to more than one hundred such containers -called granaries- were found in apparent association with the settlement, and may have originally been the 'property' of a given social group. Remains of equipment for transporting, threshing, parching and grinding the grain were also found in or near the containers; these are groups of wide-mouthed vessels for parching which stand in ashes, harvesting sickles, lower and upper grindstones, baskets made of woven straw, linen sacks and wooden sticks for threshing.

The Neolithic Fayumians also participated -as did other Neolithic groups in Egypt- in the large exchange network through which Red Sea shells as well as turquoise and amazonite from the Red Sea hills and the Sinai were acquired.'
(source: 'History of Humanity vol.I', S.de Laet(ed.))

Map Making:
'Centuries before the Christian Era, Babylonians drew maps on clay tablets, of which the oldest specimens found so far have been dated about 2300 BC. This is the earliest positive evidence of graphic representations of parts of the Earth; it may be assumed that mapmaking goes back much further and that it began among nonliterate peoples. It is logical to assume that men very early made efforts to communicate with each other regarding their environment by scratching routes, locations, and hazards on the ground and later on bark and skins.

The earliest maps must have been based on personal experience and familiarity with local features. They doubtless showed routes to neighbouring tribes, where water and other necessities might be found, and the locations of enemies and other dangers. Nomadic life stimulated such efforts by recording ways to cross deserts and mountains, the relative locations of summer and winter pastures, and dependable springs, wells, and other information.

Markings on cave walls that are associated with paintings by primitive man have been identified by some archaeologists as attempts to show the game trails of the animals depicted, though there is no general agreement on this. Similarly, networks of lines scratched on certain bone tablets could possibly represent hunting trails, but there is definitely no conclusive evidence that the tablets are indeed maps.

The earliest specimens thus far discovered that are indisputably portrayals of land features are the Babylonian tablets previously mentioned; certain land drawings found in Egypt and paintings discovered in early tombs are nearly as old. It is quite probable that these two civilizations developed their mapping skills more or less concurrently and in similar directions. Both were vitally concerned with the fertile areas of their river valleys and therefore doubtless made surveys and plats soon after settled communities were established. Later they made plats for the construction of canals, roads, and temples--the equivalent of today's engineering plans.

A tablet unearthed in Iraq shows the Earth as a disk surrounded by water with Babylon as its centre. Aside from this specimen, dating from about 1000 BC, there appear to have been rather few attempts by Babylonians and Egyptians to show the form and extent of the Earth as a whole. Their mapmaking was preoccupied with more practical needs, such as the establishment of boundaries. Not until the time of the Greek philosopher-geographers did speculations and conclusions as to the nature of the Earth begin to take form.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'map')

Trireme:
1500BC warships in Aegean frescoes
~700BC development of the trireme (East Mediterranean)
260BC quinquireme(East Mediterranean)
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'In the fifth centuryBC, the ship of the line throughout the ancient world was the trireme, and, except for a few centuries of experiments with larger types, it retained this distinction down to the days of the later Roman Empire. "Trireme" is the English rendering of a word found only in Latin literature; the technical name for the ship, in the Roman navy as well as the Greek, was trieres "three-fitted".

The trireme, a galley whose design was particularly suited for fighting with the ram, was the culmination of an evolution sparked by the introduction of that weapon into naval warfare. The ram was invented probably some time after 1000BC. It inevitably brought into being a more powerful vessel, this inevitably led to attempts to improve speed and maneuverability, and the result was the two-banked warship. By 700BC, such craft, now fitted with raised decking over the centerline to carry a fighting contingent, were in use in Greek and Near Eastern navies.

And then, very likely during the next hundred years, the crucial step was taken of adding a third bank of rowers, and the trieres was born. Two-banked galleys were powered by one line of rowers working their oars through ports in the hull and a second working theirs on or just below the gunwale. Greek naval architects created the trireme by adding an outrigger above the gunwale and projecting laterally beyond it to accommodate a third line.

The new design, though it was eventually to dominate Greek naval architecture, was accepted only gradually. The shipwrights of Corinth seem to deserve the credit for launching the first Greek triremes; when they did so is unsure, but sometime during the seventh centuryBC seems a safe guess. By about 600BC, fleets outside of Greece had taken up the new craft. Yet, during the next half century, the penteconter, presumably the two-banked version, continued to serve as the ship of the line. Finally, toward the end of the sixth centuryBC, the new warship, which far outclassed its predecessor, came into its own.'
(source: L.Casson:'Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World',1971)

So I hope it becomes clear that the trireme certainly wasn't the first warship, but was the temporary result of a long development.

Diplomat:
'The late medieval view that the first diplomats were angels, messengers from heaven to earth, is perhaps fanciful, but diplomacy predates recorded history. Early tribes negotiated about marriages, trade, and hunting. Early societies had some attributes of states, and the first international law arose from intertribal relations. War was uncommon, but defensive alliances existed. Messengers and envoys were accredited, sacred, and inviolable; they usually carried some emblem, such as a message stick, and were received with elaborate ceremonial. Women were often sent as envoys because of their mysterious sanctity and their use of sexual wiles to prevail. As peace negotiations were most important, women were assigned this task.

Knowledge of the diplomacy of early peoples depends on sparse evidence. Traces exist of Egyptian diplomacy in the 14th century BC, but none has been found in West Africa before the 9th century AD. China had leagues, missions, and an organized system by the 8th century BC. Proof exists of sophisticated Indian diplomacy in the 4th century BC, implying earlier activity.

The most consistent evidence of early diplomacy, however, has been found among eastern Mediterranean peoples. Records of treaties between Mesopotamian city-states date from 2850 BC. Thereafter, Akkadian (Babylonian) became the first diplomatic language, serving as the international tongue of the Middle East until it was replaced by Aramaic. There exists a diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian court and a Hittite king on cuneiform tablets in Akkadian, the language of neither, from the 14th century BC. The oldest treaties of which full texts survive, from about 1280 BC, were between Ramses II of Egypt and Hittite leaders. There is much evidence of Assyrian diplomacy in the 7th century and of the relations of Jewish tribes, found chiefly in the Bible, with each other and other peoples.

But the tradition leading to the present world system of international relations began in ancient Greece. The earliest evidence of Greek diplomacy is in its literature, notably the Iliad and the Odyssey. Otherwise, the first traces of interstate relations concern the Olympic Games of 776 BC. Later, the amphictyonic leagues, initially religious, became diplomatic centres in the 6th century as interstate entities with assemblies, extraterritorial rights, and permanent secretariats. In the mid-6th century, Sparta was actively forming alliances. By 500 BC, it had created the Peloponnesian League. In the 5th century, Athens led the Delian League against the Persians. By then, arbitration was common among the Greek states.

Greek diplomacy took many forms. Heralds were the first diplomats, originating in prehistory, and were protected by the gods with an immunity that other envoys lacked. Their protector was Hermes, messenger of the gods, who became associated with all diplomacy. The herald of Zeus, he was noted for persuasiveness and eloquence but also for knavery, shiftiness, and dishonesty, imparting to diplomacy a reputation that its practitioners are still trying to live down.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'diplomacy')

Library:
'In earliest times there was no distinction between a record room (or archive) and a library, and in this sense libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept. A temple in the Babylonian town of Nippur(the religious centre of Sumer), dating from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, was found to have a number of rooms filled with clay tablets, suggesting a well-stocked archive or library. Similar collections of Assyrian clay tablets of the 2nd millennium BC were found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-c. 627 BC), the last of the great kings of Assyria, maintained an archive of some 25,000 tablets, comprising transcripts and texts systematically collected from temples throughout his kingdom.

Many collections of records were destroyed in the course of wars or were purposely purged when rulers were replaced or when governments fell. In ancient China, for example, the emperor Shih huang-ti, a member of the Ch'in dynasty and ruler of the first unified Chinese empire, ordered that historical records other than those of the Ch'in be destroyed so that history might be seen to begin with his dynasty. Repression of history was lifted, however, under the Han dynasty, which succeeded the Ch'in in 206 BC; works of antiquity were recovered, the writing of literature as well as record keeping were encouraged, and classification schemes were developed. Some favoured a seven-part classification, which included the Confucian classics, philosophy, rhymed work (both prose and poetry), military prose, scientific and occult writings, summaries, and medicine. A later system categorized writings into four types: the classics, history, philosophy, and miscellaneous works.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'library')

[yin26]

S. Kroeze,

I was actually waiting on something from somebody before continuing, but I'm still here. Look for an update hopefully soon.

[Kerinsky]

I'm not sure where the latest version of the information you've gotten so far is posted, so just ignore this information if it's a repeat.

Mass Production - I don't think in Civ2 this specifically applies to the assembly line (a la Ford) but rather interchangeable parts, Eli Whitney's greatest invention. This can be dated to 1797 or 1801. See http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...+76879,00.html

Also about stealth technologies. This can be dated back to much early than the 80's. All the basic knowledge was present in the mid to late 1940's. After radar was first uesd Trial and error produced planes that were less visible to radar, if not "stealthy". Three things really allow the development of true stealth aircraft. First: Powerful computers that could handle the calculations of radar propagation and reflection (groundbreaking work was published by Russians in the 1920's (I belive)) Second: Radar absorbing, yet strong materials like plastics and carbon composites. Third: Fly-by-wire control systems allowed designers to largely ignore control stability issues. Thus if war had pushed the technology we could have easily seen true stealth aircraft in the mid (or even early) 1960's. See http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...110184,00.html
[This message has been edited by Kerinsky (edited April 20, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Kerinsky (edited April 23, 2000).]

[Az]

About the issue :

what if the chinese were more militarily agressive?

the story of Mongolia and Jingys khan ( I am totally sure I've misspelled it so plz correct me ) shows that science and technology didn't make a big difference .
the truth is the Mongols were illiterate and their ABC is the ABC of another prairy tribe , that was more literate ( perhaps becoz of its proximity to china ) . at the time of Jingys Khan ( or whatever his name is spelled ) China was devided to 3 or 4 separate Kingdoms , one of which he ruined regardless the Huge population and massive City walls . also he oplundered the fertile Valley of the euphrates , a devastation which the Middle East hasn't recuperated from fully even those days! . So saying that using the tech as a the only measure for military superiority isn't true. fierce warriors like Khan's and like the Medieval Europeans ( Skilled from Crusades and bitter Wars with the Muslims which were "playing on their home grounds ") also during those times the reinessance were just at it's cradle and the " Dolche Vida " , "the good life" concept wasnt so deep inrouted inside the population of europe .
as it's known the same concept led to the destruction of the Mighty Roman Empire , because of the change from a relatively small comunity of Hard-Working Peasants and Fierce Warriors the Romans transfered into Luxury Eating (50% Luxury ) lasy City life Civilans .


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Enslave the enemy .
[This message has been edited by Dalgetti (edited April 24, 2000).]

[The Mad Viking]

OrangeSfwr:

I thoroughly agree that most of our sources are West biased, and overlook many eastern achievements. However, we should try to keep a balanced view, free from propaganda. I don't know what the source of your info was, but if the rest of it was as inaccurate as the "Cast iron" section, then it is certainly propaganda, IMHO.

Cast iron weapons were used by the Dorians as they swept through Greece, starting around 1000 BCE.

MASONRY - I personally think that pressed clay does not constitute masonry. Working stone with tools, and/or using fired clay brick, is masonry. As both S Kroeze and I have posted previously, that development is first known with the Temple of Janna, in Eridu, Temple of Al Ubaid in Ur, and the White Temple at Uruk. ABout 3100 BCE.

Bronze working- Eqyptions used bronze alloys around 4000 BCE; I don't know if they had tin or made something approximating bronze. Bronze became a widespead technology in Britain and western Europe about 2000BC.

Port Facility- (OT?) The great harbour in Bristol, opened 1809, was a breakthrough in marine design and technology. This seems to fit in chronologically with the other advances.

[S. Kroeze]

Dear 'Mad' Viking,

I agree with you that its very important to keep a balanced view and to avert a silly debate about the 'superiority' of East or West. That the Middle East with offshoots in Egypt and the Indus valley was for millennia the most advanced civilization is a fact beyond dispute. Irrigation technique, the first cities and writing did all originate in this region. Especially the Sumerians contributed more to the development of civilization and mankind than any other people, though unfortunately they get rarely the esteem they deserve. The dominance of the Middle East lasted until about 500BC.

My opinion, which is the prevailing view of most historians, has nothing to do with being 'Western' or nationalistic feeling. The Sumerians were neither western nor eastern; they lived in Mesopotamia, the 'cradle of civilization', which happens to lie in the middle of the great Eurasian-African landmass. When Gilgamesh built the walls of Uruk, probably most of my ancestors walked around as cavemen, dressed in bear skins.

Road building

'Ancient roads of the Mediterranean and Middle East

The first roads were paths made by animals and later adapted by humans. The earliest records of such paths have been found around some springs near Jericho and date from about 6000 BC. The first indications of constructed roads date from about 4000 BC and consist of stone-paved streets at Ur in modern-day Iraq and timber roads preserved in a swamp in Glastonbury, England. During the Bronze Age, the availability of metal tools made the construction of stone paving more feasible; at the same time, demand for paved roads rose with the use of wheeled vehicles, which were well established by 2000 BC.

Cretan stone roads

At about this time(I suppose this means ~2000BC) the Minoans on the island of Crete built a 30-mile (50 kilometre) road from Gortyna on the south coast over the mountains at an elevation of about 4,300 feet (1,300 metres) to Knossos on the north coast. Constructed of layers of stone, the roadway took account of the necessity of drainage by a crown throughout its length and even gutters along certain sections. The pavement, which was about 12 feet (360 centimetres) wide, consisted of sandstone bound by a clay-gypsum mortar. The surface of the central portion consisted of two rows of basalt slabs 2 inches (50 millimetres) thick. The centre of the roadway seems to have been used for foot traffic and the edges for animals and carts. It is the oldest existing paved road.

Roads of Persia and Babylon

The earliest long-distance road was a 1,500-mile route between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. It came into some use about 3500 BC, but it was operated in an organized way only from about 1200 BC by the Assyrians, who used it to join Susa, near the Persian Gulf, to the Mediterranean ports of Smyrna (Izmir) and Ephesus. More a track than a constructed road, the route was duplicated between 550 and 486 BC by the great Persian kings Cyrus II and Darius I in their famous Royal Road. Like its predecessor, the Persian Royal Road began at Susa, wound northwestward to Arbela, and thence proceeded westward through Ninive to Harran, a major road junction and caravan centre. The main road then continued to twin termini at Smyrna and Ephesus. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in about 475 BC, put the time for the journey from Susa to Ephesus at 93 days, although royal riders traversed the route in 20 days.

In Babylon about 615 BC the Chaldeans connected the city's temples to the royal palaces with a major Processional Way, a road in which burned bricks and carefully shaped stones were laid in bituminous mortar.

The Indus civilization in Sindh, Balochistan, and the Punjab probably flourished in the period 3250-2750 BC. (This is a somewhat unusual early dating) Excavations indicate that the cities of this civilization paved their major streets with burned bricks cemented with bitumen. Great attention was devoted to drainage. The houses had drain pipes that carried the water to a street drain in the centre of the street, two to four feet deep and covered with slabs or bricks.

Evidence from archaeological and historical sources indicates that by AD 75 several methods of road construction were known in India. These included the brick pavement, the stone slab pavement, a kind of concrete as a foundation course or as an actual road surface, and the principles of grouting (filling crevices) with gypsum, lime, or bituminous mortar. Street paving seems to have been common in the towns in India at the beginning of the Common era, and the principles of drainage were well known. The crowning of the roadway and the use of ditches and gutters was common in the towns. Northern and western India in the period 300 to 150 BC had a network of well-built roads. The rulers of the Mauryan empire (4th century BC), which stretched from the Indus River to the Brahmaputra River and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya Range, generally recognized that the unity of a great empire depended on the quality of its roads.

China had a road system that paralleled the Persian Royal Road and the Roman road network in time and purpose. Its major development began under Emperor Shih huang-ti about 220 BC. Many of the roads were wide, surfaced with stone, and lined with trees; steep mountains were traversed by stone-paved stairways with broad treads and low steps. By AD 700 the network had grown to some 40,000 kilometres. Traces of a key route near Sian are still visible.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'roads and highways')

So I hope it becomes clear that Road Building is not one of the oldest advances, certainly not in comparison with Pottery or City Walls. Apparently there is no good reason to consider it common knowledge, familiar to all civilizations from the start of the game. Only with the rise of the Assyrian empire did Road Building become widely practised.

[mwaf]

A comment on units in the thech tree:

Units (and why not buildings) shouldn't be bounded to advances, neither should adcances be bounded to units.

A good example is that Mathematics require Masnory (and Writing). Maths doesn't even really require Writing and especially not Masonry. However, it's understandable that the unit Catapult requires Masonry. But therefor the unit Catapult should be available when both Mathematics and Masonry isdiscovered and discovering Mathematics wouldn't require Masonry.

Also the Catapult seems to have some sort of wheels on it, so according to my idea of a none-bounded thech tree the Catapult would also require The Wheel (which it in my opinion shouldn't). This little detail could however be solved by having different 'grades' (or something) of a unit (in this case the Catapult). Meaning that the original catapult would be a none-wheel catapult with movement 1. After discovering The Wheel, new Catapults produced would have wheels and therefor should have a movement of 2. The old ones would be upgradable in a city with barracks.

[DanM]

HaHa
I'm sure others have had this,but I've had many games where I was pumping out tanks and mechanized infantry and I didn't even have the wheel yet.I always thought it was stupid.

Anyways,something else I was thinking about.
Wouldn't it be more realistic if; for example,a civ lagging behind in the tech tree makes contact with a more advanced civ.These two civs remain on good terms for a long period of time.
My question is this,
shouldn't it be possible that this lesser civ should be able to,over a given period of time,automatically acquire new advances from the more advanced civ,without research,or 1 for 1 deals,or by getting gifts?Basically,in the real world,advances will be spread to your neighbors eventually,no matter how hard you try to stop it.And anyways,if a country that has the automobile thinks it might be able to make money by selling them in another country,they do it.And the other country gets the advance wheather they researched it or not.
Maybe certain"high end" techs such as Nuclear Weaponry or Space Flight may not spread so easily,but general techs would.
You might say,then why bother researching if it is just"given away"?Well,I think that the nation who first possesses an advance should get some kind of an economic boost from it,wheather it be monetary or city growth or whatever.This might be enough to still want to be first in getting new advances.

quote: Originally posted by The Mad Viking on 04-24-2000 01:12 PM OrangeSfwr: I thoroughly agree that most of our sources are West biased, and overlook many eastern achievements. However, we should try to keep a balanced view, free from propaganda. I don't know what the source of your info was, but if the rest of it was as inaccurate as the "Cast iron" section, then it is certainly propaganda, IMHO.

Well I triple checked my soure with other sources. I first heard that the Chinese first developed Cast Iron during class one day, than I verified that online at two different sources and asked an expert on Chinese history. i am not saying I'm right but do me a favor and re-check your source again. Maybe there are two different definitions of cast iron.

As for the most recent comment "no wheel, producing armor..." how about advances through trade? That's one way that civs have spread information throughout history. Maybe there should be some sort of bonus for trade with a country. One advance for every 100 gold aquired from trade? Or less, something along those lines. Just an idea...


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

[mwaf]

Some points on some technologies.

Ships shouldn't require MapMaking, there should be a separate advance as ShipMaking for that. MapMaking on the other hand should be what is says. The map shouldn't be visible before MapMaking is discovered, you should only see the unit you're moving at the moment. When MapMaking is discovered the terrain should be 'mapped'. The distance to the capital, any other city or units shouldn't be correct, meaning the world map would consist of puzzle parts, then if a unit (with it's map part) reaches another map part they are fitted together. If all units on a map part are lost the map information is lost. This would infect both ground and naval units, air units probably won't be an issue, well of course you could leave MapMaking form you discovery plans but that would be some sort of strategic suicide.
Maybe also if a ship goes around the world -> finding out that it came back to the same places -> realizing the world is round -> give an extra boost in science.


My other point is concerning what CAN be discovered. For example how can a civilization that haven't been in contact with water discover ShipMaking (MapMaking if above if forgotten)? Same goes for advances like IronWorking and BronzeWorking, would isolated islands research in IronWorking, no, unless they've had some kind of trade with civs that know of Iron.

quote: Originally posted by mwaf on 05-01-2000 11:18 AM MapMaking on the other hand should be what is says. The map shouldn't be visible before MapMaking is discovered, you should only see the unit you're moving at the moment. When MapMaking is discovered the terrain should be 'mapped'.

Ooooh I have often wondered this myself and spoke of it in another thread. I had an idea similar to yours. I don't see why map making leads to trieme, and I don't see why you can have a map without mapmaking as a science.


A few things...
Alphabet should not be a prereq. for Mapmaking. You don't need letters to draw a map...

Mapmaking + Mathematics = Seafaring (trieme)
Seafaring + Astronomy = Navigation (caravel)
Physics + Iron Working = Magnetism (Frigate)
Magnetism + Navigation = Advanced Navigation (Galleon)

Also, your units should get increased range with map making...Going by the current Civ 2 system it would only see the square it's on without map making. With, it has increased range. Once a unit moves out of a square it should be black again. That's the way I see it anyway..comments?

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

[S. Kroeze]

It seems my previous post about Temple isn't clear so I'll summarize the main points:
In Eridu, one of the oldest cities of Sumer, a series of seventeen temples built on top of one another was excavated. The oldest of these temples was built during Ubaid 1, shortly after 5000BC. And it is possible that someday a still older temple will be excavated. Another, inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the Eridu temples is that the same religious traditions were handed down from century to century on the same spot from about the middle of the sixth millennium BC until historical times.

Polytheism:
'In the early period of agriculture, before the full development of the Neolithic Period, deposits of human skulls appear that suggest the presence of ancestor cults. A spiritual identification between humans and plants apparently played a predominant part in conceptions connected with headhunting and cannibalism. The death of a god was often considered a prerequisite to the appearance and prospering of the plants, and this mythical event was repeated through human sacrifice that was either accompanied by or replaced by animal sacrifice.

At an early stage, in addition to an agricultural connection with the earlier feminine aspects, the masculine aspect appears in the form of portrayals of sexual union and, perhaps, of the "holy wedding," or sacred coupling, as well as in portrayals of couples and families. Among the material remains, however, the direct representation of the male element recedes sharply, yet perhaps the symbol of the axe and probably also that of the bull may indicate the male element. This dualism of the masculine and feminine aspects can possibly be interpreted in terms of father sky and mother earth, and in their union as a couple by which they become parents of the world. In the early civilizations, the conception of a supreme being or a heavenly god (which cannot clearly be recognized either in pictures or in other material objects) plays a minor role. That does not mean, however, that such a conception is necessarily of recent origin but rather that it probably existed at an early period in places where there was no literate tradition (predominantly among pastoral cultures).

Civilizations

The decisive factors that brought about the early civilizations were the new kinds of economic and social organization, the large-scale exploitation of human energy, the formation of ruling classes, hierarchical organization, and the administrative division of labour. Under such conditions polytheism, which had undoubtedly been nascent before, could develop fully. The social order is mirrored in the conception of city and state gods and of a hierarchically organized "state of gods" with a division of labour. The concentration of power and people in one place, in contrast with the wandering of earlier nomadic cultures, enabled fixed central shrines to become influential. Yet the old traditions continued, and not least among them, that of animalism, in the form of conceptions about a ruler of the animals, animal cults, and similar phenomena. Female fertility figures remain generally prominent, such as the Great Mother and the Earth Mother.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'prehistoric religion')

'Our knowledge of Mesopotamian religious and moral ideas derives from a variety of texts -epic tales and myths, rituals, hymns, prayers, incantations, lists of gods collections of precepts, proverbs, etc.- which come, in the main, from three great sources: the sacerdotal library of Nippur (the religious centre of Sumer), and the palace and temple libraries of Assur and Ninive. Some of these texts are written in Sumerian, others are usually Assyrian or Babylonian copies or adaptations of Sumerian originals, even though, in a few cases, they have no counterpart in the Sumerian religious literature discovered so far. The dates when they were actually composed vary from about 1900BC to the last centuries before Christ, but we may reasonably assume that they embody verbal traditions going back to the Early Dynastic period and possibly even earlier, since a number of Sumerian deities and mythological scenes can be recognized on the cylinder-seals and sculptured objects from the Uruk and Jemdat Nasr periods. Before these, positive evidence is lacking, but the unbroken continuity of architectural traditions, the rebuilding of temple upon temple in the same sacred area suggest that some at least of the Sumerian gods were already worshipped in southern Iraq during the Ubaid period.

Uruk (biblical Erech, modern Warka) is one of the most important sites of the Near East, not only by its huge size (four hundred hectares), but also by its virtually uninterrupted occupation from Ubaidian to Parthian times and by the rich archaeological and epigraphic material it has yielded.

The city of Uruk was born of the coalescence of two towns half a mile apart: Kullaba, devoted to the sky-god An (or Anu), the supreme god of the Mesopotamians, and E-Anna ('House of Heaven'), the main abode of the love goddess Inanna (called Ishtar by the Semites). In the centre of E-Anna can still be seen the remains of a mud-brick stage tower (ziqqurat) built by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu(~2112-2095BC) over a large temple raised on a platform and dating to the Jemdat Nasr period. It is in this area that the German archaeologists, who since 1912 have been digging on and off at Warka for about fifty years, have unearthed at least seven adjacent or superimposed temples and various other cultic installations dating to the second half of the Uruk period. It is also there that they sunk a twenty metre deep well reaching the virgin soil and obtained a stratigraphic section of the site, apparently founded during the Ubaid period.

The archaic temples of Uruk were very similar in plan to those of the Ubaid period at Eridu already described: the buttressed façade, the long cella surrounded by small rooms, the doors on the long side testify to the persistence of architectural traditions as well, probably, as of belief and cult. In E-Anna, they were arranged in pairs, a fact that led Professor H. Lenzen to suggest that they were dedicated not only to Inanna but also to her lover the fertility-god Dumuzi. Particularly remarkable were the lowermost levels with their enormous temples -one of them built on limestone foundations, measured 87 by 33 metres- and their extraordinary 'mosaic building'. One of the archaic temples of E-Anna, the so-called 'Red Temple', owes its name to the pink wash which covered its walls, and at Tell ‘Uquair, fifty miles south of Baghdad, the Iraqis excavated in 1940-41 a temple of the Uruk period decorated with frescoes which, when discovered, were 'as bright as the day they were applied': human figures, unfortunately damaged, formed a procession, and two crouching leopards guarded the throne of an unknown god.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

Though the pantheon of the gods perhaps wasn't complete yet the conclusion can be drawn that several gods were worshipped in considerable temples in Uruk and other Sumerian cities from the day they were established. The question how far this tradition reaches back in time cannot be properly answered because we don't have written sources. Considering the conservative charcter of the Sumerians a rather long polytheistic tradition is at least a possibility.

Elephant:
According to the 'Times Atlas of Archaeology' in about 600BC the first war elephants were used in India.

'The war elephant was first used in India and was known to the Persians by the 4th century BC. Though they accomplished little subsequently, their presence in Hannibal's army during its transit of the Alps into Italy in 218 BC underscored their perceived utility. The elephant's tactical importance apparently stemmed in large part from its willingness to charge both men and horses and from the panic that it inspired in horses.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'military technology')
So they weren't very useful; I like their trumpeting though.

Possibility for Elephant:
Double defense/offense against horsemen?

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

[general_charles]

I don't think that there were a lot of battles involving war elephants, they were mainly used as a mental weapon, because of their size to scare the enemies off. I think that there are a lot units that are not into civ2 and that are much more important historically:
- indians (native americans) used hit an drun tactics that were first used in Europe in the XXth century, they had querilla tactics already.
- mounted archers in Mongolia were highly skilled horse riders that managed to inflict heavy casualties amonst their enemies before the main army moved in.

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-- Capitalism slaughterer --

I agree with GC. I remember I was so surprised about Elephants being in Civ2 when I first played it and I kinda thought "why?". But I guess it's kind of a normal unit now. There are very few units actually in the game if you think about it. Each unit now can be broken down into about 3 sub units (like the Armor situation that was discussed in another thread, Riflemen, etc.) Should we consider getting rid of the Elephant or will that result in another "save the camel" thread? :-)

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

[S. Kroeze]

Currency:
In both the East and the West, coinage proper was preceded by more primitive currencies, nonmonetary or semi-monetary, which survived into the historic age of true coins, and may have derived originally from the barter of cattle, implements, and the like. The earliest currency of China of the 8th century BC consisted of miniature hoes and billhooks (pruning implements), with inscriptions indicating the authority. The small bronze celts (prehistoric tools resembling chisels) frequently found in hoards in western Europe probably played a monetary role. Even in modern times such mediums of exchange as fishhook currency have been known.

Metal has always achieved wide popularity as an exchange medium, being durable, divisible, and portable; and the origins of true coinage lie there. Ancient Egypt, which never developed a true coinage, was using gold bars of set weight from the 4th millennium BC; and a currency of gold rings was thereafter common. In the Middle East, also, gold rings long served the dual purposes of adornment and currency, supplemented by gold and silver bars from which segments could be cut. The choice of metal was, as usual, determined by availability. Around the Aegean Sea heavy talents (ancient units of weight and, later, of monetary value) of copper, ingots of 55 pounds (25 kilograms) or more, were in currency several centuries before true coinage, and the discovery of an iron bar with a handful (drachma) of fractional iron spits (obeloi) dedicated in the Heraeum (a temple of the goddess Hera) at Argos, perhaps as part of King Pheidon of Argos' reforms of weights and measures in the 7th century BC, shows such currency continuing until historical times. Similar bundles of spits have been found elsewhere and are evidence of the desire to subdivide a cumbersome unit into smaller fractions for normal use. At the other end of the scale, there was, ultimately, the desire to express the value of a talent of copper or iron in terms of gold or silver; and Homer, who speaks of metal basins, tripods, and axes as gifts and prizes in a way that shows them as a recognized standard of wealth, also speaks of the talent of gold (i.e., the value of a heavy base-metal talent expressed in a little pellet of gold). In Italy rough lumps of bronze (aes rude) formed a currency from early times, being succeeded by bars of regular weight; and Julius Caesar's record of the ancient British use of iron bars as currency (following his raids on Britain in 55 and 54 BC) is still borne out by not infrequent finds.

Such "heavy" currencies, mainly characteristic of European lands, show the employment of metals from which implements would normally be made. The impact upon this system of the gold of the East, and later of the silver of Greece, produced the need to value such metals in gold and silver, and this in turn resulted in the need to control and guarantee the quantity of gold and silver so used to avoid constant weighing. Once gold (and then silver) gained acceptance as conveniently small expressions of relatively high value, with a visible mark of guarantee, the stage of true coinage, as it first appeared in Asia Minor and India, had been reached. Not all lands, however, adopted true coinage: the easternmost fringes of the Greek world lacked it, and Carthage and Etruria were without coinage until the 5th century.

True coinage began soon after 650 BC. The 6th-century Greek poet Xenophanes, quoted by the historian Herodotus, ascribed its invention to the Lydians, "the first to strike and use coins of gold and silver." King Croesus of Lydia (reigned c. 560-546 BC) produced a bimetallic system of pure gold and pure silver coins, but the foundation deposit of the Artemisium (temple to Artemis) at Ephesus shows that electrum coins were in production before Croesus, possibly under King Gyges. Croesus' earliest coins were of electrum, which the Greeks called "white gold." They were stamped on one side with the facing heads of a lion and a bull; this type was later transferred to his bimetallic series of pure gold and pure silver. (Some recent scholarship, however, suggests that this latter series was struck, in fact, under Croesus' Persian successors.)

The early electrum coinage consisted of small, thick, bean-shaped pieces, with a device stamped in relief on one side, the other being roughly impressed. Their intrinsic value fluctuated according to their gold and silver content; but the weight of the unit was fairly steady at about seven to eight grams, and the types stamped on them were the guarantee of authority.
(source: Britannica.com, article 'coin')

NB: Money and currency/coinage are not identical. Every sensible person will affirm that Trade is of course some millennia older than Currency. Mick Uhl introduced Barter in the Tech Tree.

[S. Kroeze]

Mining:
Archaeological discoveries indicate that mining was conducted in prehistoric times. Apparently, the first mineral used was flint, which, owing to its concoidal fracturing pattern, could be broken into sharp-edged pieces that were useful as scrapers, knives, and arrowheads. During the Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age (about 8000-2000 BC), shafts up to 100 metres (330 feet) deep were sunk in soft chalk deposits in France and Britain in order to extract the flint pebbles found there. Other minerals, such as red ochre and the copper mineral malachite, were used as pigments. The oldest known underground mine in the world was sunk more than 40,000 years ago at Bomvu Ridge in the Ngwenya Mountains, Swaziland, to mine ochre used in burial ceremonies and as body colouring.

Gold was one of the first metals utilized, being mined from streambeds of sand and gravel where it occurred as a pure metal because of its chemical stability. Although chemically less stable, copper occurs in native form and was probably the second metal discovered and used. Silver was also found in a pure state and at one time was valued more highly than gold.

According to historians, the Egyptians were mining copper on the Sinai Peninsula as long ago as 3000 BC, although some bronze (copper alloyed with tin) is dated as early as 3700 BC. Iron is dated as early as 2800 BC; Egyptian records of iron ore smelting date from 1300 BC. Found in the ancient ruins of Troy, lead was produced as early as 2500 BC.

One of the earliest evidences of building with quarried stone was the construction (2600 BC) of the great pyramids in Egypt, the largest of which (Khufu) is 236 metres along the base sides and contains approximately 2.3 million blocks of two types of limestone and red granite. The limestone is believed to have been quarried from across the Nile. Blocks weighing as much as 15,000 kilograms (32,000 pounds) were transported long distances and elevated into place, and they show precise cutting that resulted in fine-fitting masonry.
(source: Britannica.com, article 'mining')

So it becomes clear that -though certainly older than Road Building- Mining of metals wasn't known to all cultures from the dawn of history. Compared with Pottery it might be considered a relatively late development. There were many civilizations far less advanced than the Egyptians at that time. I still hope the successive use of stone, copper, bronze and iron by most cultures will be treated in a more convincing way. I have never understood the relation between iron and legions....

Uhh. Another long-post-thread led by S. Kroeze. Aren't you tired of posting comments being able to fill books (every single post), S. Kroeze? I mean noone needs such detailized information!

EDIT: I won't edit this out but I regret it! I've apologized to S. Kroeze in a special thread! Sorry again!
[This message has been edited by Andz83 (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Markus The Mighty]

quote: Originally posted by OrangeSfwr on 05-01-2000 04:06 PM Ooooh I have often wondered this myself and spoke of it in another thread. I had an idea similar to yours. I don't see why map making leads to trieme, and I don't see why you can have a map without mapmaking as a science.

Why don't we introduce a "fog of war" like in SMAC, where the map can be viewed but not the units on it?
This fog of war could be available with MapMaking, and until you research this you only see black spaces unless you place a unit here and there.


[This message has been edited by Markus The Mighty (edited June 18, 2000).]

[Par4]

tech:
Cloning

What it does, don't know

Maybe a boost in food production(clone dem sheep) a lowering of the happiness level and a boost in science

Whatacha think?

------------------
I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse
HappyLand
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[UltraSonix]

Ah, wouldn't the most obvious apsects of cloning be

*Population boom (as governments seek to replace everyone with intelligent, useful people)

*And of course, military benefits (ie super soldiers). In fact if cloning was to be implemented, how about genetically modified soldiers who can't feel pain?

having said that, I think the above points would unbalance the game. Even if cloning did lower your happiness, so what? Your unlimited soldiers could still kill every other civ...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Par4]

Well we don't have human cloning yet, I was going to say that there was problems with chromoson tips that gauge the age of the clone so clones only last a certain amount of time but I've got my new scientific american here that says that was probably a fluke and won't happen anymore. We still aren't sure human cloning is possible but animal and plant cloning is possible so humans shouldn't be too far behind. I'm guessing 2050 at least considering all the flak it's getting. More ideas people?

------------------
I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse
HappyLand
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[tonic]

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 03-27-2000 01:08 AM Many has blamed Confucianism for the stagnation because it totally neglects science and technology.

Just to expand this earlier strand on China. One could think of its tech progression in terms of the current Civ2 model where the spectacular advances in science and technology gave rise to rapid expansion and a population explosion that was possible with Monarchy. As in civ there arose the need to tackle the problems of taxation, corruption and communication in a large empire. The result was the adoption of a nationwide system of bureaucracy based on Confucianism with national examinations based on rote learning of the Confucian literature determining the choice of governors and bureaucrats throughout the land. The uniformity and conformity and respect for authority which were advantageous for administration and control were of course the ingredients for the demise of science which demands intellectual freedom and innovation ie at this stage the TLS ratio was set T high and L high and S virtually zero. One could postulate a dead-end path in this case from the lines Philosophy/Religion to Bureaucracy.

The other interesting point to note is that discovery in itself does not always lead to the realization of potential. I am thinking of the Chinese invention of gunpowder. With their perhaps rather arrogant dismissal of things military (the soldier being low down in the Confucian status scale), gunpowder was celebrated in fire-crackers and fireworks rather than heralded the appearance of musketeers!

And I still believe Marco Polo got pasta from the Chinese.

[Par4]

Actually gunpowder was used as a weapon, a horrible one at that I don't remember why they stopped using it though.

Chinese soldiers a few in each archer brigade were equipt for a short time with gunpowder arrow launchers. Effectively it was like a modern bullet, bamboo case filled with gunpowder, fuse stilling out the back the fuse would like the powder powder goes boom, arrows fly out. The arrows and cases were carried in a large square thick wooded box type case that was slung over the shoulder to provide recoil support. The archer could take a torch, lite the fuses sticking out of the box, and then aim them at the enemy. The result was devenstating as the metal arrows flew at an amazing yet unaccuate rate. A line of 10 of these men out stop a cavalry company in its tracks. I do not remember why they stopped using this devestating weapon but gunpowder was utilized, just not for long.

------------------
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[tonic]

Interesting detail. Is there a picture of the weapon? It sounds like a miniature harpoon. If they had persisted China would have had musketeers before the West.

It seems China's military history is full of mysteries. One other unexplained phenomenon that I'm aware of is their abandonment of sea power after its peak in the 16th Century when the large fleet under the eunuch admiral Cheng Ho made its base in Malacca on the Malayan Peninsula well before the Portuguese. How different the political world map would be today if only...

The start-stop phenomenon seem to have affected both their science and their military fields.
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited June 26, 2000).]

[S. Kroeze]

Before some smart number makes the brilliant request to post this sort of posts in the off-topic Forum I'll quote Yin26 to bring to the notice of all newcomers the original purpose of this thread:

quote: As Markos said in the news item, I think it would be a great idea to get down all the actual/approximate dates of the units, improvements, advances, and wonders from Civ2. Future discoveries could be listed as 2020 AD and nothing should be earlier than 4000 BC, in which case we can just call it 'Pre-historic.' This will be fun for a lot reasons: 1. As Markos mentioned, we can compare Civ and CtP to see which one is "truer" to history. 2. This will serve as a great resource for us as we play the game. 3. And, last but not least, I'm really hoping Firaxis might take these dates and be able to use them to do some cool indexing for the Civilopedia--if they aren't already planning such a thing. Funny, actually, that the dates of these things were never included in the Civ games! Let's fix that. I realize getting dates on some of these things will be impossible, but let's try our best. When possible, please include a link to your source if you found the information on-line, as I certainly will be doing it that way. This will allow us to compare sources if there is a dispute. Thanks guys!

WARNING!: This post is only meant to be red by intelligent people who like Yin26 believe it might be helpful to the creation of CivIII to make an outline of the historical dates of the advances of the Tech Tree, which might also indirectly aid the development of a more accurate Civilopaedia.

Archers:
~16,000BC stave bow and flint-tipped arrowhead
2500BC composite bow in Mesopotamia
400BC crossbow in China
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'The men of the Old Stone Age, in any case, had not yet invented the bow. At the beginning of the New Stone Age, however, some 10,000 years ago, there occurred 'a revolution in weapons technology... four staggeringly powerful new weapons made their appearance... the bow, the sling, the dagger... and the mace'. The last three were refinements of weapons already in existence: the mace derived from the club, the dagger from the spear point and the sling from the bolas, the last a pair of stones covered with leather and joined by a thong, thrown to entangle the legs of deer or bison which had been herded into a killing-place. The atlatl, or spear-throwing lever, was probaby also an indirect precursor of the sling, since it worked by the same principle. The bow, however, was a real departure. It may be seen as the first machine, since it employed moving parts and translated muscular into mechanical energy. How the men of the New Stone Age hit upon it we cannot guess, though it spread very rapidly once invented; why they did so has most probably to do with the progressive retreat of the last ice-shields. The warming of the temperate zones completely changed the movement and migration patterns of the hunters' prey, abolishing the old pelagic areas where game was predictably found, and, by liberating animals to roam and feed further and more widely, forced the hunter and the hunting-party to find a means of bringing down a more fleeting target over longer ranges.

The simple bow, as the original is called, is a piece of homogeneous wood, typically a length of sapling, and it lacks the opposed properties of elasticity and compression that gave the later composite and long bows, made of both sapwood and heartwood, their greater carrying and penetrative power. Even in its simple form, however, the bow transformed the relationship of man with the animal world. He no longer had to close to arm's length to dispatch his prey, pitting at the last moment flesh against flesh, life against life. Henceforth he could kill at a distance. Was man the archer also man the first warrior?

Cave art of the New Stone Age undoubtedly shows us scenes of bowmen apparently opposed in conflict. Arthur Ferrill claims to perceive in the painting from caves in the Spanish Levant roots of battlefield tactics, with warriors forming columns behind a chief, shooting arrows in a ranked formation and even practising an outflanking movement in an encounter between what he calls the 'army of four' and the 'army of three'.

Scholars dispute how to date the appearance of the composite bow; it may have been in use as early as the third millenniumBC, if a Sumerian stele has been correctly interpreted; it was certainly in existence by the second, since its distinctive ogival or 'recurved' shape is clearly depicted in a golden bowl of 1400BC, now in the Louvre. It cannot have appeared overnight, for the complexity of its construction, like that of the chariot, speaks of a variety of prototypes, and decades, if not centuries, of experimentation. In its finished form, which did not vary between its perfection in the second millenniumBC and its supersession as a weapon of war in the nineteenth centuryAD (it was last used by Manchu bannermen), it consisted of a slender strip of wood -or a laminate of more than one- to which were glued on the outer side ('back') lenghts of elastic animal tendon and on the inner side ('belly') strips of compressible animal horn, usually that of the bison. The glues, compounded of boiled-down cattle tendons and skin mixed with smaller amounts reduced from the bones and skin of fish, might take 'more than a year to dry and had to be applied under precisely controlled conditions of temperature and humidity... a great deal of art was involved in their preparation and application, much of it characterised by a mystical, semi-religious approach'.

The composite bow began as five pieces of plain or laminated wood- a central grip, two arms and two tips. Once glued together, this timber 'skeleton' was then steamed into a curve, opposite to that it would assume when strung, and steamed strips of horn were glued to the 'belly'. It was then bent into a complete circle, again against its strung shape, and tendons were glued to its 'back'. It was then left to 'cure' and only when all its elements had indissolubly married was it untied and strung for the first time. Stringing a compostie bow, against its natural relaxed shape, required both great strength and dexterity; its 'weight', conventionally measured in 'pounds', might amount to 150, against only a few for a simple or 'self' bow made from a length of sapling.

Similar 'weights' characterised the long bow, when toward the end of the Middle Ages west European bowyers learnt to use a billet containing both heart and sap wood to fashion their weapons; it worked by the same principle of opposing the forces of elasticity and compressibility, stored by the archer's arm when he bent the bow, and released by his fingers, to drive an arrow forward. The disadvantage of the long bow, however, was precisely its length; it could only be used by an archer on foot. The composite bow was short, reaching only from the top of a man's head to his waist when strung, and therefore suiting itself perfectly to use from a chariot or horse. It shot a lighter arrow -the best weight was about an ounce- than the long bow would, but could still carry to 300 yards with great accuracy (far longer ranges in free flight have been recorded) and penetrate armour at a hundred yards. The lightness of the arrow was actually an advantage, since it allowed the pastoral warrior to carry a large number -up to fifty in his quiver- into battle, which he counted on winning by subjecting the enemy to a disabling hail of missiles.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'Whether compound bows, which get extra power by facing wood with expansible sinew on one side and by compressible horn on the other, were new with the charioteers or had been known earlier is a disputed point. Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study, 2 vols.(New York,1963), 1:57, says that these bows were invented by the Akkadians of Sargon's era. The basis for this view is a stele representing Naram Sin(~2254-2218BC), Sargon's grandson and successor, with a bow whose shape resembles that of later compound bows. But how to interpret the curve of a bow recorded in stone is obviously indecisive.

Since Han times, and perhaps before, crossbows had been the principal missile weapon of Chinese armies.
No satisfactory account of the development of the crossbow in China seems to exist. A Chinese text, Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yüeh, attributes the invention of the crossbow to a man named Ch'in, from whom the invention passed to three local magnates and from then to Ling, ruler of the state of Ch'u in south central China from 541 to 529BC. Archaeological evidence tends to support this dating, for several tombs of the fifth and fourth centuriesBC contained crossbows. The first notable improvement in crossbow design came in the eleventh century, when Li Ting invented the foot stirrup (about 1068), allowing use of the back and leg muscles for cocking the bow. Correspondingly stronger bows could then be brought into use.

The crossbow had two salient characteristics. First, a crossbow was about as easy to use as a modern handgun. No special strength was needed to **** it. A longbow required years of practice to develop sufficient strength in thumb and fingers to draw the bow to its full arc, whereas once a crossbow had been cocked, all the archer had to do was to place the arrow in firing position, and sight along the stock until a suitable target came into view. A few hours of target practice allowed an ordinary man to use a crossbow quite effectively. Yet Chinese crossbows of the thirteenth century were lethal up to four hundred yards.

Powerful crossbows checked the expansion of knighthood in the thirteenth century when these weapons became common in Mediterranean Europe. In China, crossbows may have helped to discourage reliance on the Iranian style of heavily armored cavalry, for if a crossbowman could knock even an armored cavalryman off his horse, it made no sense to invest in the heavy horse and the expensive armor that put Iranian barons and European knights at the apex of their respective societies. Heavily armored cavalry, after some three centuries of importance in China, disappeared in the seventh century. It is, however, not certain that Chinese crossbows were powerful enough to penetrate armor before the invention of the foot stirrup in the eleventh century.

Second, the simple skill required for using a crossbow was counterbalanced by the high skill needed for its manufacture. An army of crossbowmen had to rely on expert artisans to produce precisely shaped trigger mechanisms and other necessary parts. Moreover, to supply such craftsmen with everything required to manufacture crossbows in large numbers was not easy. A powerful crossbow was compounded of laminated wood, bone, horn, and sinew, all cunningly fitted together to assure maximal springiness when bent out of its unstressed shape. The art of making such compound bows, however, was highly developed throughout the Eurasian steppelands.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

[Lord Magnus]

quote: Originally posted by UltraSonix on 06-22-2000 02:11 AM ...having said that, I think the above points would unbalance the game. Even if cloning did lower your happiness, so what? Your unlimited soldiers could still kill every other civ...

Unlimited soldiers? Don't forget you need resources (nutrients) to build and maintain these armies, whether you're using artificial or natural wombs.

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Learn the mistakes of yesterday to prevent the ones of tomorrow...

[tonic]

I would have thought that the strand on China and Chinese history and technological development was to redress the rather Western-centric view of things here (as is exemplified by yet another verbatim quote from a Western source on Archery). Granted there seem to be a lack of Chinese scholars in the forum versed in consulting Chinese sources but that should not discourage those with a will to try to rectify this.

Par4: In the light of the Dutch admonition, what is your source for your claim for gunpowder-powered Chinese archery, with an estimate of the time of its appearance?

[tonic]

OK, I've found a relevant Chinese source gathering dust in my library. It's Ancient China's Technology and Science compiled by the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Language Press, Beijing 1983. It could probably have anticipated Yin26's requirements for this thread. I'll start with the briefest of summaries from the chapter on Gunpowder and Firearms by Zhou Jiahua

1st use of gunpowder in weaponry as incendiary devices - packages of gunpowder attached to arrows, at the end of Tang Dynasty (about 907AD), huojian (fire arrows),

Use of gunpowder as explosive devices - 1120s eg pilipao (thundering gunpowder charge) and zhentianlei (heaven-shaking thunder).

Bronze and iron gun barrels appeared not later than the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) as huochong (fire gun) and tongjiangjun (bronze generals, 'because of the great awe that these guns inspired'). 'The oldest tongjiangjun now reposing in Beijing's Historical Museum was cast in 1332.'

The weapon mentioned by Par4 is probably the feidaojian (flying-dagger arrow) or feiqiangjian(flying-spear arrow) used in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

When I get my scanner to work it would be worthwhile to reprint excerpts from the chapter (which BTW is written in perfect English). The book covers most of the discoveries attributed to China mentioned earlier in the thread and then some. Perhaps more later.

Nothing like a bit of challenge (or was that a slap on the wrist for children who should lurk rather than be heard?) to get research going.
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited July 09, 2000).]