{The List} - Technology

[Fosse]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Non tech requirements for techs.

Hear, hear!

This would be a lot of fun to play, and lead to real flavor in each and every Civ game being potentially different.

[EnduringBlue]

I think that the more developed "pre-ancient" tech trees from mesoamerica and mesopotamia should be added as an extra age at the beginning. stone age, basically. or just keep it ancient but fleshed out.

I like the idea of having to choose among basic techs "do i want mining or irrigation?" because they're not handed to you on a silver platter. I always felt the ancient world wasn't primitive enough to explain civs not already having cities in 4000 AD since you have so many intrinsic abilities already.

I also wouldn't mind seeing fun specific names for some of the future techs, like "flying cars", "cold fusion", "spam", "warp drive" etc.

although legitimate futuristic tech/knowledge that are clearly around the corner could be extrapolated, like cloning, dark matter/energy, etc.

[Merp]

I love the idea of major and minor techs!

I also support the idea of non-tech requirements for other techs, but caution is advised. Otherwise, we risk severly handicapping the unlucky player or incompetent AI.

One solution would be in the implementation of the idea as a change in the cost of the tech, rather than making it an impossibility.

A different solution would be to ensure that regardless of techs that are not allowed in any situation, the player or AI always has an alternate path forward - There are no 'showstoppers'.

One way of directing major tech availabilities or costs would be to base it on the worked terrain of the player's / AIs cities. For example:

• Predominately plains with horses - encourage horseback riding
• Extensive roads - encourage the wheel
• More hills - encourage mining and masonry

Just a thought The intersection of the chosen culture and their technological development is another issue worthy of debate, but I can't think of any ideas for this one.

Edit - For grammar, bullet code and a final thought

[Plotinus]

I like the idea of distinguishing between "scientific" techs and "cultural" techs, although I fear it might get horribly complicated.

It is true that it is odd to have the nation researching something like the Theory of Gravity or Printing Press. However, bear in mind that in this game you are not just playing the government, although usually you are. You are guiding the *whole* civilisation. So I like to think that when I, the player, decide we're researching Gravity next, what that means "in" the game is that a few bright sparks in some city start jotting ideas down on envelopes, unknown to the government.

What I *would* like to see is the addition of cultural-grouping-specific techs. Maybe not completely different trees, but enough differences to be interesting. It would mean that there might be units, improvements, even Wonders that are available to only some civs. As it stands, the tech tree is extremely Euro-centric, most clearly in the Middle Ages - Monotheism, for example, is an utterly Western concept. Why not make it so that Chivalry, for example, is only researchable by European civilisations, making Knights and the Templars available only to them? Similarly, I would introduce some kind of Military Tactics tech into ancient times, available only to Mediterranean civs, that would allow them to build Legions and Phalanxes (better versions of Swordsmen and Spearmen). Or how about a Blood Sacrifice tech for Amercian civs only, which allows an Altar improvement to be built in a city, on which slaves can be sacrificed for culture, as in the Mesoamerican Conquest?

It seems a shame to divide the civs into cultural groups but have that reflected only graphically. This way, each civ would differ from the others in more ways than just its traits and its UU. It would, of course, require care to ensure that it wasn't too unbalancing - that you didn't make some killer Wonder unavailable to most civs, for example.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker
good point

New tech: Archaeology (optional)

meh

More generally, how about non-city improvement ways for a tribe to generate culture and science?

What would be nice are ways for smaller tribes to compete with bigger ones. In the current Civ model the USSR would've won, followed probably by China or maybe Brazil. Pakistan would have it all over Japan.

Even after all these years (12 now, I think) Civ is still about grabbing land. It is, of course, also what you do with that land, which is good.

But perhaps settling should be costlier and perhaps war should be, too.

[ok]

[Brent]

okblacke:

Would Separation of Church and State require drastic change in how religion works in the game? Would religious improvements become purely cultural?

Archaeology: strange but interesting

JW:

Flavors: yes.

Conquests Techs

Put many techs from the conquests into the main game, especially if the total number of techs is expanded significantly.

Plotinus

I want culture- specific techs, but I think it's important for them to become available to anyone who meets that culture.

Losing Tech

You should be able to lose tech if you haven't been doing well for a long time, especially if you haven't done any research in a specific field in a long time. The Mayas forgot how to build cities. There are many minor things that individuals in the past knew how to do that have been forgotten. I guess forgetting tech should be more common for computer- controlled civs than for human- controlled ones.

[joncha]

I think the archaeology idea has some merit to it.

There should be some way of gaining knowledge from the past beyond the goodie hut stage... maybe a late medieval/industrial era advance like "classical knowledge" or something that allows for culture-producing archaelogists (either as units performing "digs" or as city-screen specialists).

Alternatively, if they do opt for multiple tech paths in Civ4, maybe researching archaeology would give you access to a second path.

jon.

[Filippo]

These is my rough idea of a tech system quite revamped, tell me what you think about it.


Research is too fast, and it is too easy to trade techs. I would change this as follows:

Make research a complex tree and not a linear one. For every era, there should be some "important discoveries" (3-4), these discoveries lead to technologies, some immediate, and some that are connected with other discoveries and/or technologies. Discoveries shouldn't be researched traditionally but a discovery would be made each time a certain cultural level is reached. Discoveries are the prerequisite to Eras. Discoveries would give some very basic units while technologies advanced ones. A discovery would be made randomly among the Eras ones, not in a preset line/order. Example of discovery: Wheel, Iron, vapor energy, atom, etc...

Trading would change as follow. To trade or buy a discovery both parties need to have 50% or maybe 75% (not sure about the game balances) of the cultural value needed for a new discovery. To trade or buy a technology both parties would need half the science points needed to research it.

Also, I would change the city improvements such as library, university, market, bank, etc... so that they give a base value of science/money income, and then allocating the Country's money to one or the other (or luxury) will add or take to this base value . If you think about it, in the third case (luxury) things already work like this. Eg: Temples gives 1 happy face and allocating more money to luxury will add to it.

[Filippo]

Originally posted by Sandman
Realising the link between filth and disease is not the same as medicine. Doctors were still prescribing all sorts of crazy cures well into the nineteenth century. Pasteurs germ theory of disease was the turning point.

Sorry man but you can't win this debate. The science of Medicine is WAY older than Sanitation. Actually in Civ it comes by far too late, and you want to delay it even more ? How can there be any sanitation or health care, without Medicine ?

[coreman]

I like the cultural influence factor in Civ3 (they borrowed, improved it a bit from SMAC), but I also like how certain cultural choices affected unit choices in CTP, except some of the cultural choices really had no impact until the end-stage of the game.
UUs are not so bad, but I like some of the cultural units (Slavers, Preachers, etc) from CTP as well, and how some of the cultural choices had different effects throughout one's civ.

As far as earlier notes about Sanitation being linked to Medicine techs, ever notice how much worry there is in public health about cholera and typhoid are when the public water supply and sewage systems are knocked out, even in the US? Treating them is not a medical issue (medicine cannot deal with a Cholera epidemic, although it can in smaller cases).

[okblacke]

Originally posted by Brent
okblacke:
Would Separation of Church and State require drastic change in how religion works in the game? Would religious improvements become purely cultural?

No and no. In Civ, you really are the Church and the State and most of the people. The struggle between secular and religious power is worthy of its own game.

In Civ terms (Marxist influence?), religion keeps people happy. Freedom of religion would enhance that feature. This could be as simple as making one unhappy person content or it could encompass a variety of effects:

1. It could increase assimiliation of foreign pop.

2. It could increase war weariness. (Less conformity = greater dissent.)

3. If your civ had separation of Church and State and you tried to switch to a non-representative government, the result could be more turns of anarchy, unless perhaps you had some fascism-type pop reduction going on.

4. It could allow you to build an additional temple or other holy structure.

5. It could perhaps be diasllowed for Religoius civs.

All these things are well within Civ's usual structure.

[ok]

[Fosse]

Remember that if a social engineering idea is adopted that Civs can have several attributes that are analagous to SMAC's Planet, Support, Industry, etc.

So enacting "Separation of Church and State" could be, for example, +1 Unrest, -1 Research. Or something.

[ThePlagueRat]

Here is my opinion about techs:
------------------------------------------------
(also vaguely mentioned in diplomacy wishlist)

There should be no tech-whoring, but you should be able to trade a chosen amount of research points (RP) so if you are behind, you can eventually catch up if you got a lot of desirable goods and you are nice to people. The reason for this is that tech-whoring makes up an unrealistic and sometimes unbalanced game... S

Why Research Points:
An RP would represent the flow of invetions, intellectual ideas and statesmen between societies dealing with eachother.
So that's one way to gain RP, by trade. Then it must be balanced so that if you sell off some RP to get some resources, you will lose a bit of your own research, but not so much that RP-trading becomes a silly thing. You will gain these RP specifically through buildings, and some by trade routes like we had before in Civ2, but also some by happy faces 'cause the happy ones would be the class that makes inventions. Some specialists may produce an RP bonus too, such as it has always been.

Example:
If you are 6 turns away from a tech you need it now, you might be able to get it for 24 RP, since you produce 4 RP per turn. Your trading partner has more RPs than you and by trading many of you precious resources to him, he gives you 24 from his research, but only loses 25% points off his tech project or so, something in which must be well balanced.

[Jaguar]

That might be cool, but it's a little weird. hmmm.

[ThePlagueRat]

Ok, but I mean just a little bonus from happy faces, such that turning them into entertainers rather than scientists, or setting luxuries higher than science budget won't be helpful for gaining RPs.

In earlier Civ games the RP is coded transparently to the player, and you would gain them from science budget only, and that system might also be a bit weird.