Apolyton CS: Civilization III: The List v1: Technology

TECHNOLOGY
-Summarized by Thread Master: SnowFire-
snowball56@worldnet.att.net

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Mr. Reynolds:

I just wanted to thank you for your obvious eagerness to take customer input for Civilization III. If you remember me from the IRC chat, the SMAC forums, and AGFAC (alas, my newsreader's been broken for awhile), I'm SnowFire and once ran the e-zine The Mindworm. In any case, the Technology summary follows. The posts made by people have been broken down into separate points. Some points work well together, some work only with the original CivX system, and others work only with certain radical changes to game structure.

Also, there are some problems inherent in these systems. People have presented entire research systems, and only the "new" parts of it were added to the list- not the parts removed, and not which suggestions were originally intended to work together. I'm not sure what to say about that, except that by checking the previous lists, you can find a good bit of explanation not in this summary.

Lastly, I'd like to thank Octopus, who was the original thread-master of Technology. He was a superb organizer who set the style for this list.

1. THE RESEARCH PROCESS (How do I do research into technology?) TOP

1.1) MULTIPLE TOPIC RESEARCH -- Many of the following ideas require that you be able to research several ideas at once. There must be some advantage to researching things in parallel rather than serially, or else no one will do it.

1.2) TECHNOLOGICAL FIELDS -- Many of the following ideas require that the technologies be placed into a small number of broad categories. So far, the suggestions have been: Philosophy, Agriculture & Biology, Economics, Math & Physics, and Psychology & Theology. Another suggestion was Growth, Culture, Military, and Trade. Effort should probably be made to make the different fields roughly equal in terms of number and usefulness of technologies (trying to put the old technology tree into these categories give Math & Physics a big advantage...)

1.3) 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). See 16 for a similar idea.

1.4) RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' -- There should be several fields of research (see item 2) and you can set different allocations for the different fields (e.g. 25% of research points to Philosophy, 25% to Ag, 50% to Economics) representing the number of scientists in that field and the money/work poured into it. However, whenever you change the allocation, you take a hit to the "efficiency" at which you research the topic you changed (i.e. number of research points per turn decreases), which is proportional to the magnitude of the change. This "efficiency hit" gradually diminishes over time until your society reaches "scientific equilibrium" at the new settings. This effect is likely to result in a "character" for different civilizations, because some will emphasize one field over another depending on their AI, and be unlikely to change because of the cost.

1.5) TECHNOLOGICAL "FIELDS" CONTAINING MINOR TECHNOLOGIES- 15-20 general fields of science are created to look into, like "Medicine," Agriculture," "Industrialization," and "Metallurgy," each containing many, many minor technologies. You can choose which field (or fields, under option 1) you want to research (And, under ideas 2 &4, perhaps you research 3 fields at once each in different categories with different amounts of work on each), and you get minor technologies from that field until you switch. This allows a far, far greater amount of minor technologies (in Medicine alone, you might have "Anatomy," "Germ Theory," "Antiseptics," "Circulation of Blood..." It also allows you to have some direction to your research, but have some element of randomness still exist (see OFFSHOOT TECHNOLOGIES idea for a similar idea).

1.6) "GATEWAY" TECHNOLOGIES- If you have an era system (Antiquity, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern?), there should be a "gateway" technology for each new era that allows it to truly flourish. If you haven't researched that technology, then all other technologies of the same era cost double the amount (or some other penalty). So researching The Corporation before Railroads will be possible, but expensive (if Railroads is the gateway technology to the Industrial era).

1.7) AI TECHNOLOGY TRADING INTELLIGENCE -- Make sure that the AIs only make technology trades that make sense. Why trade for "Mass Transit" if you don't have "Automobile"?

1.8) STARTING POSITION DEPENDENT CIVILIZATION SPECIALTIES -- When a civilization is placed on the map, give it a technology specialty. This solves the problem of saying "the Phoenicians should get a seafaring bonus because they had a maritime empire" by instead giving a civilization that starts close to water a maritime bonus (and if that happened to be the Phoenicians, then you could play the Phoenicians like the existed historically, although hopefully they'd last longer). A technology specialty would be a small bonus to research in related fields (or simply a higher beginning allocation to a certain field, if the RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' system is used). The bonus should disappear in modern times. (not necessary with SLIDER BAR system) Maybe give user the option to decide which type of place to start in, so that he or she can determine character of civilization?

1.9) 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 technology 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).

1.10) 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). On the other hand, some have suggested scientist "units" given as a bonus that can sit in a city and give extra research, but are prone to assassination or defection.

1.11) SERENDIPITOUS ADVANCES -- Technology discovered "accidentally". Basically a random event that gives you a technology advance.

1.12) TECHNOLOGIES SHOULD BE HARDER TO RESEARCH -- It is unrealistic for a civilization to have the ability to realistically research every technology in the game without help -- historically nobody has developed everything. Technologies should have a higher cost relative to the number of research points that are expected to be produced by an empire than in previous games. Another poster says this feature takes away the option if isolationism.

1.13) BUDGET SCIENCE FROM TAX BUDGET- instead of the classic tax/science/luxuries system, count the science rate as taxes spent on science. Thus higher scientific spending has the same effect as high taxes- greater unhappiness, greater unemployment (if you're a Republican, at least).

1.14) "PROBLEM BASED" TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH- you tell your science advisors what problems or needs your society has, like more food or better defense in battle, and they research something along those lines, perhaps getting you granaries or advanced irrigation or shields. Combined with redundant technologies, this is another way different civilizations can have comparable units but wildly different technologies and philosophies (since the two civilizations found different ways of increasing defense in battle, say).

1.15) TRICKLE-DOWN LIST OF RESEARCH- You have a list of technologies, ordered based on as soon as a certain technology was made available to you. 10-60% of your research points goes to the first topic, 10-30% goes to your second topic, 5-20% goes to your third topic on the list, etc. The degree of specificity depends on things like how many libraries and universities you have. When you discover a technology, new technologies you can now research go to the bottom of the queue and wait to be moved up. You can pay a certain efficiency cost to take technologies closer to the bottom and move them farther up on the list.

2. THE TECHNOLOGY TREE (How do I get specific technologies?) TOP

2.1) LOTS OF TECHNOLOGIES -- Some people think we need lots, and I mean LOTS of technologies. Others think that too many technologies may be bad, because they would grow hard to differentiate. Another problem is that lots of technologies would also mean lots of technologies with no immediate help from them, aside from them being pre-requisites to other technologies. Many of the technology suggestions below depend on this system.

2.2) MULTIPLE PREREQUISITES -- More than just two should be possible. This suggestion is probably implicit in some of the more ambitious prerequisite schemes.

2.3) MULTIPLE PATHS TO A PARTICULAR ADVANCE -- Instead of having rigid prerequisites that demand that a civilization follow a particular research path to get to a technology, allow several different ways to achieve a particular advance. There are several alternatives...

2.4) BOOLEAN PREREQUISITES -- The prerequisites should be specified with Boolean logic, i.e. AND, OR, NOT. 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 technologies. -- Labor Union [= (Capitalism AND Assembly Line) OR (Communism AND Mass Media).

2.5) PREREQUISITE POINTS -- 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 prerequisite 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. Supporters of this concept argue that many of the other suggestions in this list can be incorporated into this new scheme (for example, DIPLOMATIC SYNERGY can be implemented by giving you a prerequisite point for having diplomatic relations with a civilization that already has the technology in question) and that it will allow multiple different strategies, making the new complexity worthwhile. Others oppose the system because it seems too complex.

2.6) 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".

2.7) REDUNDANT TECHNOLOGIES -- 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 Fanaticism" or "Professional Standing Army" technologies 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. (Maybe this and MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY are redundant, or at least related?)

2.8) 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. Some posters disagree with this quite severely.

2.9) RANDOM TECHNOLOGY TREE -- As long as there are multiple paths to each technology, 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. This is probably more easily accomplished if the REDUNDANT TECHNOLOGIES idea is implemented, since there is less likelihood of a civilization being stranded without easy access to an important feature.

2.10) OFFSHOOT TECHNOLOGIES -- Minor technologies related to Major Technologies (i.e. Major technologies are the ones we are familiar with) that are received 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 technologies" could be linked to specific civilizations to give them "character".

2.11) FORBID 'OUT-OF-ORDER' TECHNOLOGY -- If you don't have the prerequisites for a technology, 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. A suggested enhancement to this suggestion -- link things to "literacy", or possibly "era" (e.g. bronze-age tribe can't use Renaissance idea). Also see GATEWAY TECHNOLOGIES idea.

2.12) CONCEPTS vs. APPLICATIONS -- Instead of an "all technologies are equivalent" way of looking at the world, break technologies into "concepts" and "applications". A "concept" might be "Gunpowder", while an "application" might be "Musket" or "Tunnel Construction". The application technologies would all have a concept technology as a prerequisite, and the concept technologies only (mostly?) have other concepts as their prerequisites. This way, a civilization can be very advanced in general principles, or concentrate on developing known techniques. This might reflect the differences between invention and innovation.

2.13) RANDOMIZED APPLICATIONS -- Technologies shouldn't always give you the same benefit. Some games, a specific technology might give you a particular unit, in others it might give you a building, etc. Or, after developing the technology, you have to pay money to actually develop each separate application of the technology, or at least pay a prototype fee. See 43.

2.14) FURTHER RESEARCH ON ONE TECHNOLOGY -- There should be more differentiation between "identical" technologies. All of the major powers had "tanks" in World War II, but the designs of some countries were superior to those of others. If you could devote some research points to further "experimentation" with the technology "tank warfare" or "bows" after you've already received the advance, you might end up with bonuses to your tanks or archers.

2.15) MAKE TECHNOLOGY TREE REFLECT GAME SITUATION -- the current game situation should affect the technology tree. A land-locked civilization is unlikely to develop "Navigation", and a civilization with poor mineral resources is unlikely to develop "Advanced Mining".

2.16) SUPPORTING TECHNOLOGIES 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 technologies that bestow these abilities.

2.17) TECHNOLOGY GAIN BY USAGE- Perhaps if there are copper deposits near a city and they are worked for 10 turns, you get "Copper Working" (or perhaps a 10% bonus on the price of researching that per turn reached, to a maximum of a 50% discount?), and if you work a tin deposit for 10 turns after that, you get "Bronze Working."

2.18) TECHNOLOGY HORIZON- If the RANDOM TECHNOLOGY TREE idea is used, you should only be able to see "so far" down the technology tree to a horizon, as your wise men/scientists can only guess so much about future technologies (imagine how easy getting bananas will be with a human brain, says the ape.). This means you don't have to worry about an optimal path to certain crucial technologies.

2.19) NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION- In Europe, countries were diverse and anything they could use to get ahead was applied, triggering fast growth in many technologies. The Chinese, on the other hand, while they developed many technologies they never had to apply them to things like weapons use because they did not need to. If the major/minor civilization idea is not used, this could perhaps be used as a balancer against nations that quickly destroy everyone but themselves in their region of the world, like the Chinese- stagnation.

2.20) ENABLING TRIGGERS- Just as how you might get the Magellan's Expedition wonder by sailing around the world, you might get the technology "Organization" when you have 5 military units, or "University" when 40% of your population has access to libraries.

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