Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

[splangy]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

Chariots were very expensive

(they were basically the tanks of their era)

Jon Miller

your joking right? they could be sloughtered by many other types of weapon EASILY, they were hard to ride, it was hard to fight in them, they were cumbersom. Just look at one! a spear could kill one of the horses well before the driver got within attacking range, thus fliping it, or the other horse would lose control. they were rarely ever used on the battle feild, Wyptians used them alot but in the end they got there ases whooped by the Assyrians.

[splangy]

ooooops, double post

[Fidel]

yes, that is why hixes overrun egypt in those cumbersome chariots

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Printing has nothing to do with the mill.

What do you think books are printed on?
Right. No mass-production of paper without mills.

Also Arts should be ancient. A lot of arts we know (singing, dancing, painting, etc.) date back to antiquities lost in the mists of time.

True, there could be an additional advance called "ancient arts", but it didn't lead to something until much later, so it wouldn't add anything to the game. Unless you have an idea, of course

Chariots indeed had preceded horsemen in warfare.

Many cultures discovered Horseback Riding without ever making chariots or even inventing The Wheel. Chariots were used in just a small part of the world. The point is, that The Wheel as a prereq for Horseback Riding is not right. But neither is the opposite.

Harlan/Kenobi: early horses were the size of ponies, and therefore perfectly suited for Horseback Riding. It is for Chariots that larger (stronger) horses needed to be bred, and since horses on chariots were often killed (much more than horses that were ridden) they were scarce. So your point is valid, only it speaks in favor of the opposite point of view

Ralf: The Wheel as a prereq for Horeback Riding has nothing to do with simplifications. It is simply historically wrong. Non-intersecting tech lines like:
Pottery -> The Wheel -> Engineering and
Warrior Code -> Horseback Riding -> Chivalry
are in fact simpler.

Kenobi: While it is true that the printing press allowed the masses to read, and this should be represented in the tech tree, too, there had to be a certain treshold of Literacy taken BEFORE anybody ever considered mass-production of books. After the Bible, almanaks were soon to follow. Still I would not make Agriculture a prereq of Printing. Do you at least agree that Theology shouldn't be either?

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Harlan
A couple of thoughts I'm surprised that no one else has brought up so far (as far as I know).

One, am I the only one, or does anyone else find the whole Polytheism and Monotheism thing annoying? There is no reason why Monotheism should be considered more advanced a religious form than Polytheism. The Hindus and many other groups today do just fine with Polytheism. Much better would be to have, say, the development of a religious heirarchy be one religious "advance" and the development of a holy book(s) be another.

I absolutely agree with you on this
I would much prefer deleting both Polytheism and Monotheism and replacing them with Mythology and Ethics. The tech lines could look like this:

Mysticism -> Mythology -> Literacy, Ethics
Ethics -> Fundamentalism, Theology

As far as I can see, ignoring the moving of techs between ages
The Ancient Age loses: Seafaring, Bridge Building, Trade
The Ancient Age gains: nothing
The Middle Ages lose: Navigation, Medicine, Leadership
The Middle Ages gain: Printing Press, Free Artistry, Music Theory

I am hoping that we didn't see the full picture and at least Seafaring, Trade and Medicine are still in there somewhere. I am also missing some major advances that weren't in Civ2 either, such as Canal Building, The Plough and The Mill.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by splangy
your joking right? they could be sloughtered by many other types of weapon EASILY, they were hard to ride, it was hard to fight in them, they were cumbersom. Just look at one! a spear could kill one of the horses well before the driver got within attacking range, thus fliping it, or the other horse would lose control. they were rarely ever used on the battle feild, Wyptians used them alot but in the end they got there ases whooped by the Assyrians.

You sounds like a true "desktop-general", sitting comfortably in a cosy armchair, drawing conclusions from selfmade theoretical ideas, 2000+ years away from the nearest attacking chariot in action. I wonder what the ancient infantry soldiers who had to fight against assyrian 3-horse/4-man chariots (around 600 BC) that charged against them in amassed ranks, would have commented on your remark. We will never know, do we?

You seems to overlook some important factors with the chariot:

- most importantly: Speed over the battle-field
- the shock-effect of 1-3 charging horses joined together, and several 3-horse chariots side by side
- moving hard-to-hit battle-platforms with driver + 1-3 archer/spearmen in them
- sometimes long slicing iron-knives sticking out from the wheel-naves
- the demoralizing fear-effect of all above.

a spear could kill one of the horses well before the driver got within attacking range, thus fliping it, or the other horse would lose control

The horses obviously had armour, of course. Particulary at the front. Hitting galloping horses from the side was hard for enemy-archers and almost impossible for infantry spearmen. Im not saying chariots where invincible in anyway. The chariots had its limitations and (as always) counter-measures where of course developed over time. But for a while they really where "prized items" - the expensive battle-tanks of the day.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by tniem
But it is not an alphabet. It is a picture.

Something I forgot to explain in my previous post is that they are equivalent. Our own alphabet is derived from the one that the ancient Romans used, who borrowed it from the ancient Greeks, who borrowed from an even older culture. Most of the letters have been simplified over time from the original forms.

In the earliest alphabets, the pictograms and letters were indistinguishable. Chinese is still written this way with ideograms, where a single symbol represents an idea. The alphabet that eventually evolved into the one we use changed in its manner of use so that the letters represented sounds instead of concepts.

Most of the letters we now use bear little resemblance to the original concept. But I understand that the letter "A" was originally a symbol that meant "ox". Turn the letter sideways and you'll see the ox!

[star mouse]

Re: Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

Originally posted by star mouse
In some cultures, the earliest use of writing was for accounting purposes, such as who grew the grain in storage. I think of this use as "alphabet", where certain symbols acquired specific meanings. You cannot write down complex histories with symbols that only mean "ox", "goat" or "amphora of grain".

Only later did this alphabet expand into a general-purpose tool that could be used to record histories. I think of this phase as "writing" where the "alphabet" is put to general use.

In response, Urban Ranger wrote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The earliest writings wereglyphs or pictograms [em]a la[/em] Egyptian writings. Later on symbols representing abstract concepts were added, making them into ideograms. The Chinese used this system exclusively. Now tell me they couldn't write down complex histories.

Alphabets are only used in phonetic languages, which were a later development.

You are correct, of course. I tried to define "alphabet" as a set of symbols with limited use, and "writing" as those symbols adapted for general use. One cannot write complex histories with symbols that only mean "ox" and "goat"; one needs to include symbols that represent other concepts such as verbs and other parts of speech. Chinese adopted the concepts in the pictograms directly, whereas Roman, Greek, Hebrew and other scripts of similar origin changed the pictures into sounds and used them that way.

I think this is the concept that Civilization may be portraying. Alphabet doesn't do much on its own, but is a prerequisite for writing and other similar early technologies.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ribannah
What do you think books are printed on?
Right. No mass-production of paper without mills.

You don't need mass-production of paper before the invention of printing. Maybe for things such as libraries in every city, though.

Originally posted by Ribannah
True, there could be an additional advance called "ancient arts", but it didn't lead to something until much later, so it wouldn't add anything to the game. Unless you have an idea, of course

Not necessarily. It can be a prerequisite to other civ advances in the "middle ages." Also remember that a civ must complete all advances in an epoch before moving forward, this can simply be a pain in the posterior

Originally posted by Ribannah
Many cultures discovered Horseback Riding without ever making chariots or even inventing The Wheel.

The only major cultures that made do with out The Wheel were the South American ones. But this still doesn't prevent chariots to come before horseback riding in the timeline.

Originally posted by Ribannah
Chariots were used in just a small part of the world.

Perhaps, but the most influential parts no less.

Originally posted by Ribannah
The point is, that The Wheel as a prereq for Horseback Riding is not right. But neither is the opposite. There could be a separate advance called "Chariots" with both The Wheel and Horseback Riding as prerequisites, but I think that's to meager to take a full slot.

It's hard to say what Firaxis wants "The Wheel" to include. Since you can't just have wheels you also need the horses it seems to indicate that domestication of horses is included in this advande, however strange that may sound. If that's the case it makes perfect sense for it to be the prereq for Horseback Riding.

Originally posted by Ribannah
Harlan/Kenobi: early horses were the size of ponies, and therefore perfectly suited for Horseback Riding.

Again it's not just the horses. You need to develop riding skills, skills to use weapons from horseback, and also larger horses.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You don't need mass-production of paper before the invention of printing

Not technically, but without it the Printing Press would be merely a curiosum. You could develop Flight without ever discovering Explosives, but it would not make the tech tree in that case.

(Ancient Arts) It can be a prerequisite to other civ advances in the "middle ages."

Possibly, but I would be interested to hear which advances!
There are a lot of disciveries that could be placed much earlier in the tree, such as Medicine, Trade, Invention and Espionage, but the question has to be asked: when did it have an impact?

The only major cultures that made do with out The Wheel were the South American ones.

How about North America, Central Africa, Polynesia, the Polar regions?

But this still doesn't prevent chariots to come before horseback riding in the timeline.

They still can as long as Horseback Riding is not a prereq for The Wheel.

It's hard to say what Firaxis wants "The Wheel" to include. Since you can't just have wheels you also need the horses ...

Why is that hard to say? The Wheel seems to be very clear and obvious to me, in contrast to say Engineering or Tactics. Actually, both dogs and human slaves have been used to pull war wagons. (Hey, how about Ostriches? )
But Chariots are just a very minor application of The Wheel. Surely most uses of The Wheel don't involve horses!

Again it's not just the horses. You need to develop riding skills, skills to use weapons from horseback, and also larger horses.

Again: smaller horses are much better for learning Horseback Riding. It is for Chariots (later: Agriculture and Cavalry) that larger horses were bred.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Ribannah

Many(?) cultures discovered Horseback Riding without ever making chariots or even inventing The Wheel. Chariots were used in just a small part of the world. The point is, that The Wheel as a prereq for Horseback Riding is not right. But neither is the opposite. There could be a separate advance called "Chariots" with both The Wheel and Horseback Riding as prerequisites, but I think that's to meager to take a full slot.

Only one civilisation only 'discovered' Horseback Riding in the military sense: the Assyrians. Then quick as lightning this 'technique' spread all over Eurasia. Chariots were used in the Middle East, Egypt, southern Russia, Greece, the Asian steppe, China and India -I am not 100% sure about the last. This is the same region as that of Cavalrymen.

Harlan/Kenobi: early horses were the size of ponies, and therefore perfectly suited for Horseback Riding. It is for Chariots that larger (stronger) horses needed to be bred, and since horses on chariots were often killed (much more than horses that were ridden) they were scarce. So your point is valid, only it speaks in favor of the opposite point of view

You are truly stubborn!

'The horse that homo sapiens first knew was a poor thing; so poor, indeed, that man hunted it for food. Equus, the ancestor of equus caballus, our modern horse, was actually hunted out of existence in the Americas by the Amerindians who crossed into the New World at the end of the last ice age. In the Old World the return of the forests after the end of the last ice age drove equus caballus out of Europe on ot the treeless steppe, where it was first hunted and then domesticated for its flesh. In the settlements of the so-called Srednij Stog culture on the River Dnieper, above the Black Sea, the bones of apparently domesticated horses from a majority among those excavated from village sites dated to the fourth millennium BC. Stone Age man chose to eat the horse rather than drive or ride it, because the animal they knew was almost certainly not strong enough in the back to bear an adult male human, while men themselves had not yet designed a vehicle to which a draught animal might be harnessed. The relationship between man and the equine species is, in any case, extremely complex. Unlike the dog, which, though a pack animal, appears to associate itself as an individual quite easily with a human individual, and may have begun to do so about 12,000 years ago, the horse has to be cut out of a herd and tamed if a useful 'mutualism' is to arise between it and its human master.

'There was no reason, moreover, why Stone Age man should have identified the horse as potentially more useful to him than its equine cousins which we now know lack, for genetic reasons, the potentiality for selective breeding to larger, stronger or faster varieties. The early equus caballus outwardly resembled the still-existent equus przewalskii (Przewalski's horse) and the equus gmelini, the tarpan which survived on the steppe until the last century; all in turn resembled the asses, hemiones and onagers, in colour, size, and shape. Caballus, in particular, with its short legs, thick neck, pot-belly, convex face and stiff mane must have defied distinction from the tarpan, which apparently resisted before its extinction all efforts to refine its appearance or performance.

Man seems to have approached neither driving nor riding through the horse or its allied equids at all, but via the cow and perhaps the reindeer. Cultivators in the fourth millenniumBC discovered that castrating the male domesticated cow, to produce the ox, gave them a tractable animal that could be harnassed to a simple plough such as men themselves pulled; the attachment of such draught animals to a sledge, in treeless environments like the steppe and the alluvial plains, was a natural development. Mounting the sledge on captive rollers then followed, and from the captive roller the wheel, rotating on a fixed axle as the potter's already did, must have evolved quite simply. A set of pictographs from the Sumerian city of Uruk, dated to the fourth millenniumBC, shows the progression from the sledge to the sledge-on-wheels in a fairly direct line. A famous representation known as the Standard of Ur, of the third millenniumBC, shows a four-wheeled cart drawn by four onagers as a vehicle for a king and a platform for his weapons -axe, sword and spear- on the battlefield. This cart, with its two-piece wooden wheels, descends from the solid-wheeled prototype, and we may suppose that the Sumerians had recognised the onagers as superior draught-animals -faster and more spirited than oxen.

As anyone who has kept a donkey as a childhood pet knows, this lovable animal has severe drawbacks. These characteristics, which no amount of selective breeding succeeds in altering, relegate the ass, with the hemione half-asses, to a menial role. As a beast of burden both its range and load-carrying capacity are limited; as a mount it is an animal of last choice.

It is therefore not surprising that, about the beginning of the second millenniumBC, the domesticated horse should have begun to have its role transformed from that of meat-giver to load-puller. Even the small horses of the wild vary in size, and while small mares of the Stone Age stood less than twelve hands at the shoulders (a hand is four inches), the larger stallion could exceed fifteen hands. Herdsmen had already learnt the rudiments of selective breeding through their management of sheep, goats and cows; to apply it to the horse was a natural step.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'No one knows for sure when the practice of riding on horseback first became normal, nor where. But early representations of horseback-riding show Assyrian soldiers astride.(!)
Men occasionally rode horseback as early as the fourteenth century BC. This is proved by an Egyptian statuette of the Amarna age, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The difficulty of remaining firmly on a horse's back without saddle or stirrups was, however, very great; and especially so if a man tried to use his hands to pull a bow at the same time- or wield some other kind of weapon. For centuries horseback riding therefore remained unimportant in military engagements, though perhaps specially trained messengers used their horses' fleetness to deliver information to army commanders. So, at least, Yadin interprets another, later, representation of a cavalryman in an Egyptian bas-relief recording the Battle of Qadesh(1298BC).'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

Yet these 'mounted soldiers' were no cavalrymen! All ride bareback, without stirrups, and straddle the hose toward its rump, not a control position. That indicates, indeed, that these horses were not yet strong enough in the back to be ridden in the modern style.

So originally the horse was too weak to bear the weight of a human. Only when it was discovered as a draught animal -so after and as a result of the discovery of The Wheel- did selective breeding begin, resulting in larger and stronger horses. Even then -after about a millennium- only with the development of Saddle and Stirrups became Horseback Riding in a military sense possible!

Finally a quote about the effectiveness of the Chariot:
'Toward the middle of the second millennium BC, the peoples who had learnt the skills of making and using chariots and composite bows discovered -by what means we cannot surmise- that the defenders of the settled lands could not stand against the aggressive methods they had initially devised to oppose the predator that attacked their flocks. Charioteers who descended from the highlands to the open and level plains were able to inflict crippling casualties on the Mesopotamians and Egyptians with impunity. Circling at a distance of 100 or 200 yards from the herds of unarmoured foot soldiers, a chariot crew -one to drive, one to shoot- might have transfixed six men a minute. Ten minutes' work by ten chariots would cause 500 casualties or more, a Battle of the Somme-like toll among the small armies of the period. In the face of such an attack by an enemy against which it coud not manoeuvre out of trouble, the stricken host had only two choices: to break and run or to surrender. In either case, the outcome for the charioteers would have been a large booty in prisoners, probably rapidly destined to become chattel slaves.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

[lord of the mark]

a scenario point of view

I am currently working on a set of descriptions for Paul Cullivans "Seeds of Greatness" scenario, and have encountered some of these issues.


1. Horseback riding, chariots, and pre-horse chariots

Yes chariots were pulled by horses before horses were ridden individually inwarfare. The 2 man chariot was very powerful, one driver and one archer, made possible archery on the move, it dominated the middle-eastern (and apparently Indian and Chinese battlefields) for several hundred years. Once appropriate reins were developed so that it was easier for a man to ride AND fight from a horse, the chariot, which was much more expensive was replaced. But it was on its way out earlier, with more effective iron age infantry weapons, notably new sword types (see Robart Drews, "End of the Bronze Age")

And yes, donkey drawn chariots were known before horsedrawn ones, but they were much less effective

so tree goes like this

wheel - (early chariot)

wheel + horse training = chariot advance (Chariots)

horse training + single rider reins = horseback riding (horseman)

In a full length game, with tech slots at a premium, there probably isnt room for horse training and single rider reins, so some abstraction must be made.

wrting tech tree goes

pictographs -> alphabet -> writing

I have interpreted "pictographs" to include all hieroglyphic and cuneiform, with its strengths for accoutning and palace uses. Alphabet follows (as Sinaitic alphabets seem to be inspired by heiroglyphics) and alpabet allows "writing" ie a broader use of writing than palace uses, the use of writing for poetry, stories, etc, now that alphabet had made writing easier to learn, it became a broader tool. This is based principally on the discussion in Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

Polytheism and monotheism - here I think the issue is the Hegelian roots of the Civ2 tech tree (more about this later) to a Hegelian, i think, monotheism IS superior to polytheism, not because it is "true", but because it represents a step in the demystification of the world - I think a Hegelian would look at India and either say yes it is handicapped by its superstitious people, or, focusing on the high culture, he would look for strands in Hindu philosophy that became eseentially atheist, much like Buddism. Im not sure how he would deal with the "skipping" of the monotheist step, or perhaps such a phase exists in the history of Hindu philosophy.

LOTM

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze
Only one civilisation only 'discovered' Horseback Riding in the military sense: the Assyrians.

I am not limiting Horseback Riding to use in battle. Certainly there must have been other applications before such a demanding task.

You are truly stubborn!

I tend to try to do some thinking instead of just believing everything I read!

Stone Age man chose to eat the horse rather than drive or ride it, because the animal they knew was almost certainly not strong enough in the back to bear an adult male human ....

Both horses and humans vary in weight and size. Ponies, too, have their limits, still they have been used for riding by adults. The same holds for other cousins like zebras and donkeys.

No one knows for sure when the practice of riding on horseback first became normal, nor where.

Well, there you have it.

So originally the horse was too weak to bear the weight of a human.

How did we get here from "almost certainly" and "adult male"?

Only when it was discovered as a draught animal -so after and as a result of the discovery of The Wheel

"As a result of" is merely stated, but not proven or even argued in any way.


Lord of the Mark: Monotheism equals demystification?? That's a new one for me.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Harlan
One, am I the only one, or does anyone else find the whole Polytheism and Monotheism thing annoying? There is no reason why Monotheism should be considered more advanced a religious form than Polytheism. The Hindus and many other groups today do just fine with Polytheism. Much better would be to have, say, the development of a religious heirarchy be one religious "advance" and the development of a holy book(s) be another.

Hi Harlan! It's good to see you're still keeping tabs on things.

Although it's implicit in the tech tree that many of the later offerings are "more advanced" than their predecessors, sometimes it's just a matter of when something arrived on the scene, historically speaking. If memory serves (and I'll leave it to others to validate my claims with hard research) the earliest religions (after animistic beliefs, which can be considered polytheistic in a way) involved numerous spirits and deities. The consolidation to a single entity came later. I recall Joseph Campbell saying that Yahweh started as a Hebrew tribal war god, and the tribe would battle with other tribes (and, presumably, their gods.) Only later, as other gods/tribes were conquered, were those other deities relegated to the level of spirits or demons, and Yahweh grew in prominence.

Similarly, polytheistic ancient Egypt eventually gained a Pharoah who tried to institute a monotheistic belief system, but failed because he didn't have the support of his people (or something like that.) The gist of this vague diatribe is that monotheism isn't necessarily more advanced, though one might think so because it comes later on the tech tree, as aircraft carriers come sometime after caravels. But, historically, it did pop up after millenia of polytheistic beliefs.

OT, I sincerely hope (if the tools are available) that we will see a Civ3 version of your fabulous Lord of the Rings scenario.

-Adam

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ribannah




Lord of the Mark: Monotheism equals demystification?? That's a new one for me.

Absolutely - compared to polytheism - from a world where every force, every stream, every forest has its own god, nymph or spirit, and in which every natural phenomenon is intimately to tied to a supernatural being that explains it, to a world in which one supernatural being excludes all others. Now a civ MAY attempt to explain everything in terms of the DIRECT activity of this supernatural being, but the temptation arises to make the one god a "first cause" only, and to begin a naturalistic, scientific investigation of the intermediate causes. Now there are complications to be sure - for example many nominally monotheistic religions leave plenty of room for lesser supernatural beings - saints, angels, etc. And one may cite the growth of naturalistic thinking in Athens - I am far from an expert in the state of religious belief in 5th c Athens.

So i can certainly see counterarguments, but i assure you im not the first to see monotheism as demystification. Unfortunately I do not have any citations handy.

LOTM