{The List} - Technology

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hang on, though, it flew fine for SMAC-and I found that system of blind research TOO harsh, but I still bought the game!! My system of research, though, is semi-blind, in that WHAT you discover, and how quickly, is connected to how much of your 'resources' you invest into each broad category, your civ characteristics, and access to appropriate resources (like iron for iron working, oil for refining, combustion etc)!

Of course, if they did have a choice between the two systems, then it wouldn't bother me !

[MORON]

SMAC blind research harsh????

Try playing moo2 with uncreative.....now thats harsh.

[Kuciwalker]

SMAC blind research wouldn't work in C3; you can't divide real techs into such broad and overlapping categories.

[Max Sinister]

You can't? Would you (if you were a ruler IRL) tell your scientists "I want you to research television" or "I want you to research a new kind of entertainment, my people are unhappy"? Right. Divide it in "weapons / strategic", "traffic / communication", "pure science", "culture / religion / entertainment" and a few other categories, and you have it.

[snoopy369]

At least in the modern day -- and undoubtedly in the ancient times as well -- the ruler, or more likely the rulers' advisors -- would have an inclination of what was being researched. It's inefficient to just research in a broad category; individual scientists research in very specific features, and test their hypotheses etc. by first making a hypothesis -- ie, a thought of how things might be.

I think you underestimate researchers, both ancient and modern, if you think they don't have a solid idea of what they're researching before they actually discover how to do it. But, *for gameplay purposes*, perhaps it would be interesting to throw something like this in...

Perhaps pre-scientific method you research semi-randomly and post-scientific method you get to choose specific technologies. IE, until you develop scientific method you choose an area like SMAC, but once you're in the 3rd era you have the option of researching Scientific Method (either by choosing one branch of the tree that has it in it, or it specifically) and after that you can choose specific techs.

[Max Sinister]

The researchers may know (at least when they're working on it), but the leader who is neither a scientist nor a technician doesn't...

[Az]

My only request for technologies is:

Make information technologies in the tree. Those would affect corruption and waste, just as the governments do.

[trolluscaius]

stop era
i don't want to spend my time in ROYALITY OR FEODALISM by example

[trolluscaius]

minor and major tech should be Assimilated by civilization Inhabitant of the border zone (minor tech more quickly of course)
and of course if civilization are tech' equivalent.
if one civilzation is more advanced then the other civilization can aquire a older tech

[Zoetstofzoetje]

I'd like to see religion to be of more effect on technological advance. In many a society where religion was strongly integrated into a culture, several rules and tales were established. Everytime an insight threatened to make a rule or tale ridiculous or not specific enough, the religion was sure to deny it, which withheld or at least slowed technological progress. For example, the theory of evolution, but also medicine, etc. I propose: the amount of cathedrals, temples and other religious buildings amount to a certain religious level. The higher this gets, the happier people are overall, but this also slows progress. Thus, there should be more kinds of "contents-making" buildings, perhaps more expensive then the religious type.

Also, perhaps scientists could be made more permanent. That's to say, you can't take a farmer off the land and put him in a laboratory. Any system taking care of this problem though, would make micro-management probably very necessary and I therefore doubt that it would ever be incorporated.

[Quezacotl06]

Eras I like, but you should be able to be in between eras, like you still need to research construction, but you can start on monotheism because you have polytheism and philosophy.

Every tech should get a number (like they did in cit) to tell which era it belongs to (1 for ancient, 2 for middle, 3 for industrial, etc), and once the average number of available techs goes up (ie the amount of techs you can research are mostly at level 2, you upgrade to middle ages).

I think a lot of the AI problems with having an open-end tech tree could go away if you coloured the techs like they did in SMAC or Galactic Civilizations.

In SMAC they techs were classified as either explore, discover, build, or conquer. 'explore' gave u techs that helped with culture/expansion, while 'build' gave u techs dealing with industry, economics, metallurgy advancements, etc.

Techs could just be 'coloured' according to what civ trait they have (militaristic, industrial, commercial, etc), just like wonders are. And civs with the trait are more likely to research that technology.

[dexters]

The AI shouldn't have preferred Tech researches as it would make certain Civs very weak and have the AI overly predictable.

AI research needs to be finetuned, but it needs to emulate how the human play. That is, have a fully formed decision making capacity to weigh and decide what to research next. Actually, it already has this capability in Civ3, but there is so much to research and the valuation on some of the techs are a little off making it easy for humans to exploit the AI in this regard.

One thing I do like from the above suggestion is to classify techs into general categories. This classification may make it easier for the AI to figure out and prioritize what to research. The caveat being the AI should do so with a full set of decision making criteries.

[Trifna]

There are tons of techs that have an extreme effect on economy, trade, unrest, education level... For example, transport: this is an extreme case, since charriots or steam boats changed everything. Technology has the broadest effects on a society, espescially when Civ techs include ideologies and anything "new".

[The Rusty Gamer]

Hopefully, in the editor, we will be able to define any kind of prerequsites for a tech (or anything else for that matter) that we like.

An example of a tech prerequsite might be: You must have at least 7 cities, have a horse resource, have built 5 barracks, and know at least 2 other civilizations.

With this kind of flexiblity, anything's possible.

I think also that a tech should not necessarily be a specific cost or be able to be calculated in advance just exactly when it's going to be discovered. I think discovery should be more along the lines of the original MOO where the percentage possiblity of discovery went up each turn with more research.

[Maniac]

I haven't read this whole thread, so forgive me if someone already suggested this:

An idea I had was that some technologies would have several 'applications' attached to me, of which you would only be able to select one.

For example if you invented Chivalry, you could have the choice between 'Light Cavalry' or 'Heavy Cavalry/Knights'. The light version could give an extra movement point, while the Heavy version could give one extra attack and defence point.

Likewise if you discovered some tech giving you a medieval archer unit, you could be given the choice between 'Longbowmen' or 'Crossbowmen'. The former could give an extra attack point or a larger fire range (eg you can bombard two tiles far). The latter could make the archer unit cheaper to produce (IIRC learning to shoot with a crossbow was easier than with a standard bow).

I'm sure other stuff like this could be invented, and not only regarding military units. I think such applications could make the game more fun, more interactive-with-each-game, and give more choices and strategy than preset civilization advantages (such as commercial, industrial etc...) in 4000 BC could ever give.