Missing Techs in the tree

I can think of a few but the one that sticks out is
"jet engine" and just how to automobiles advance lead to battleships? And don't you need automobile for freights? Just commenting.

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[Dis]

well we could get really picky about the modern advances if we wanted to. Its not like we started on seti when we firt brough the ENIAC online

but jet engines is the very blatant one. I usually add jet fighters. sometimes I go a while before getting stealth, and jet fighters and bombers really help.

also there needs to be more modern naval techs. having ww2 subs fighting into the 21st century is preposterous. I usually put boomer subs in with nuclear power or rocketry.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Many ancient advances could be added, such as weaving (between pottery and building triremes, one must think of sails). I've seen ancient mods take this into account and stretch the tech from nut collecting to gun powder.

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[Dis]

I never liked the ancient adances so I don't care that they are out of order. I still don't think archers should be available so early. wtf?. at least they seem like it. maybe because I get them from huts?

[RedWhiteArcher]

Actually you do need to have archer so early. There was acutlay a really civilization even before the great egyptian that discovered not only archery but astronomy

[Chris 62]

The facist patch addressed some of these problems, Dis, but not all of them. There are only so many slots in the game engine, so a lot of abstracting had to be done with the tech tree. True accuracy is beyound this game system. It can simulate some aspects of history quite well, but others are blatent distrortions.

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[Dis]

yeah I guess so

I always imagined archers as the long bow archers of england. perhaps there need to be 2 different kinds.

[Scouse Gits]

I have always admired the planning of the tech tree. It is a very clever and well-conceived progression of knowledge. The one thing that really bugs me, is that you can build Ironclads without Iron Working!

SG(2)

Well, I think CivIII will address some of our complaints. And archers came along quite a while before the longbow(which doesn't pre-date gunpowder by all that much). Indians had it long ago and so did many acient civilizations.

And the cannon should results from gunpowder since cannons came before muskets.

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[Marquis de Sodaq]

quote: Originally posted by RedWhiteArcher on 04-18-2001 04:50 AM Actually you do need to have archer so early. There was acutlay a really civilization even before the great egyptian that discovered not only archery but astronomy

Actually, astronomy was one of the first "advances" by almost EVERYBODY in the world. Calendars are all astronomy based. Almost universally, Saturn is the keeper of time in myth, or the one who gave knowledge of it to man. Saturn the planet is used for long time count - it meets Jupiter in the sky every ~20 years, and the 42nd meeting is at the same place in the sky as the first. It took good observation and tradition to do, but everybody managed to note this. Famous astronomy examples are the Sphynx (faced the rising constellation of Leo about 12000 years ago, when it was built; the great pyramids point to a sky that existed when the sphynx was built 7000 years before; the Lascaux Cave paintings of the bull/7 sisters matches the stars in the sky near the winter solstice. That civ2 can justify astronomy coming so late may be that they intended applied uses...

Archery has been around for many thousands of years, as well. This was no invention of dark-age englishmen...

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"There is no fortress impregnable to an ass laden with gold."
-Philip of Macedon

[Ecthy]

I think there's a lot of technologies missing in the middle ages and the 19th century (tech level that is)... alone the fact you can build destroyers before you can build artillery is very weird... and you don't want to use feeble cannons togethger with cavalry now do you?

[East Street Trader]

Astronomy allows Cope's (which seems about right) and leads on to Navigation. So I think the developers had in mind, both the intelectual breakthroughs which came with thinking out the implications of the ancient observations plus the specific and vital application to seamanship.

I too am a great admirer of the tech tree. I encouraged my daughter to play, years ago now, because I think the game does lead to an improved intuitive grasp on the exciting fact that the thinking and experience of one man or one group can both dramatically affect all those in the immediate vicinity but also cross fertilises in wonderfully exciting ways with thinking elsewhere or from an entirely different age.

I remember as a lad being struck forcefully by somewhat similar ideas when studying economic history at 16. The way that the work of, say, Turnip Townsend pushed on the agricultural revolution and then the way that the Kay's flying shuttle or Cartwright's power loom led to the industrial revolution partly because of the existence of a pool of free labour created by the agricultural developments is intriguing.

It is easy to wonder whether there is an inevitability about the way all the synergies work or whether it might, had various butterflies not beat their wings exactly as they did, been totally different.

Because of the way it sometimes happens that two complementary discoveries don't get put together for an age and a half (and because of things like the dark ages) I rather incline to the "it might have been very different" school.

One of the glories of life, for me, that the thought of just one man, on one day, with chance playing a huge part, has affected and can still affect the whole sweep of the development of mankind at large.

PS Oh, and "Printing" is a rather glaring omission. It could improve the effectiveness (a la electronics and the Colosseum) of one of the science improvements or influence availability of one of the religious advances. But so well balanced is the existing tree I can well believe it figured in the developers thinking but finished up on the cutting room floor because when they were striving for that balance.
[This message has been edited by East Street Trader (edited April 27, 2001).]

[Exile]

The invention of the bow & arrow technology came about during the mesolithic period of development in Europe, and it was there that it was earliest. Archery was one of a whole host of food-gathering technologies devised by mesolithic groups in Europe from c. 20,000-10,000 bp. Prior to this time, upper paleolithic groups were apparently big-game hunters but the gradual climactic change that occurred with the recession of the last ice sheet altered the landscape so that new methods of food-gathering had to be devised and implemented. Europe changed from a periglacial environment to a more modern deciduous forested environment, and food sources became much more scarce. Other similar developments were fishing nets and traps, and the harvesting of shellfish. Fishing, in general, is a mesolithic technique. Fowling with specialized arrow-points was an offshoot of the mainline of archery.

Dissident, EST, perhaps you should take a look-see at a scenario called The Modern Age, it contains a very different tech tree than the default, and might suit your tastes more.

Thanks for the weaving idea; I'm developing a scenario now in which I am looking for archaic techs to include. That's a good one.

Salutations,
Exile