Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

[DarkCloud]

Alphabet deserves to be before writing, the way I consider it that Firaxis considers writing is in written letters.

Pictorgraphs can be considered an alphabet and thus you needed it to write letters.

[korn469]

darkcloud

in civ3 horsemen come later in the techtree than do chariots and elephants are gone, so most likely chariots will be either 2-1-2 (most likely) or 3-1-2 (doubtful) and horsemen will almost certianly be 4-1-2

[Harlan]

So, do we have closure on the wheel - horse riding issue? Are we in agreement that wheel should come before, and that Firaxis actually got this right? If there's anyone needing more evidence about horses being too small to ride, the superiority of chariots until horses and horse riding skills improved, etc..., speak now or forever hold your peace. Otherwise, we're just beating a dead horse (...drum roll).

I'd like to weigh in on the alphabet issue. China does not have an alphabet to this day, and Japan mostly doesn't use one. A hieroglyphic or sign based writing system is not just an alphabet with a lot of letters, it is a different thing altogether. That's why the invention of the first alphabet was such a big deal. Yet, China and Japan are centers of civilizations, doing pretty dang well without an alphabet. Conclusion: Alphabet does not belong in Civ3's tech tree, especially in the place that it is.

Regarding the Wheel, I see things a bit differently. Yes, the Mesoamerican civs and others didn't have the wheel. But that doesn't mean they didn't discover or know of it. In fact, toy carts with wheels have been found in Mesoamerican ruins, showing that they knew of the wheel, but just didn't choose to use it. Why not? Try walking through the jungle of Yucatan sometime, and you'll see. It was just as fast to walk as use a cart, and given the widespread use of slave labor, carrying stuff was no big deal. In game terms, liken these civs to civs that discovered Wheel, but simply chose not to build any Chariots (a unit moving 2 in flat terrain) because in their terrain they couldn't move any faster than a unit with a max move of 1. No problem!

[Harlan]

One more issue: monotheism and polytheism. Its true that monotheism is a development than came after polytheism ... in the west. But what about the east - China and India, not to mention Mesoamerican cultures? India of course primarily had and has Hinduism, and the main religious belief in China until today has been a mix of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism that is polytheistic (even those the founders of some of those religions might be surprised about that).

Is anyone willing to argue that people who believe in a monotheistic religion are somehow better or more enlightened than those who believe in a polytheistic religion? Can it be proven that without such an advance a society couldn't develop such things as "education", "printing press", "astronomy", "banking" and so on (as the Civ3 tech tree indicates)? I'd like to see them try, cos many such things were first invented in non-monotheistic societies. For instance "Astronomy" (I assume they mean the invention of the Compass, Astrolabe and the like), Printing Press, and Banking first appeared in China (Printing Press was Korea, I think, actually).

With just a simple renaming of Polytheism and Monotheism, Civ3 could have a tech tree that was much less blatantly Western-only.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Harlan
One more issue: monotheism and polytheism. Its true that monotheism is a development than came after polytheism ... in the west.

All early monotheists where originally converts from polytheism.
No monotheists have ever converted back to polytheism, or at least extremely few compared to the opposite flow. Isnt this enough to set the advance-order?

But what about the east - China and India, not to mention Mesoamerican cultures? India of course primarily had and has Hinduism, and the main religious belief in China until today has been a mix of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism that is polytheistic (even those the founders of some of those religions might be surprised about that).

As I said before: The Civ-3 tech-tree is an abstraction - a simplification. Dont try squeeze the whole damn world into it, please. Also, games must be developed according to clear and exclusive design- and play-rules.

With just a simple renaming of Polytheism and Monotheism, Civ3 could have a tech tree that was much less blatantly Western-only.

Any suggestions?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

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

Interesting, unfortunately that doesn't mesh with history very well. Ancient advances in science and technology were made when polytheism held sway. After monotheism dominated Europe there was the Dark Age.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Harlan
The Middle Ages lose:

Navigation, Medicine, Leadership (I'm assuming Military Tradition is essentially Conscription renamed)

Navigation is there. What are you talking about?

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Harlan
So, do we have closure on the wheel - horse riding issue? Are we in agreement that wheel should come before, and that Firaxis actually got this right?

No, absolutely not. So far my arguments for separating the two have not been defeated in any way. Whether the earliest discovery of Horseback Riding was before or after the earliest discovery of The Wheel is a different issue, when neither is a prereq for the other both orders of appearance are feasible in Civ3.
In actual history they happened in a different order in different parts of the world. The truth is, that we simply don't know which came first in the world as a whole.

Glad you agree with me on both Monotheism and the Alphabet though

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Kenobi
You don't need a separate tech to create surplus workers - that's what food surpluses are for. Technological advances of ANY kind were only possible after societies created enough food to let brainy people think about the world around them rather than looking for their next meal. This settlement was permitted by the development of agriculture, which we already have in the form of the basic tech, "irrigation" - all tribes start off with the ability to settle.

While it is true that Agriculture is a given in both Civ2 and Civ3, there were many technological advances in prehistoric times without the need of Agriculture to discover them. Examples are: Fire, Stonecutting, Herding (a prereq for Agriculture), Mining, The Canoe. Even some advances which are in the cive tree like Ceremonial Burial, Bronze Working, Writing and Map Making are independent of Agriculture.

The key technological (as opposed to social) development required for the printing press was not mass-produced paper; it was moveable type, which requires machinery/metal working skills. The early printing presses did not need mills to generate power - they could be worked by hand.

Technologically that is true, but it would be superfluous since those skills are already needed to arrive at The Mill (my tree runs: Iron Working + The Wheel = The Plough, + Construction = The Mill). Note that from playing Civ we are used to count only two prerequisites at the most for all advances, but in real history of course there could have been more.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by korn469
Ribannah

i'm not sure if the tech tree is finished but i do hope that they clean up a few things especially thing like you can have chariots before people know how to ride horses

The technology is called horseback riding. It is not domestication of horses. You do not need to ride on the back of a horse to ride a chariot, which can be pulled by a horse. So this isn't really a relevant issue.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Harlan
Is anyone willing to argue that people who believe in a monotheistic religion are somehow better or more enlightened than those who believe in a polytheistic religion?

Ancient polytheism:

"Our tribe/willage/people believes in our private setup of Gods that have us as their favourite pet-people. The Gods are not that different from us, morally speaking: They intrigue with each other according to our tales and myths, and they can get both angry and merciful towards us, but hopefully mostly hateful towards our enemies".

As you can see many monotheists still today have traits of naive and human mind-reflecting paganism/polytheism within them: "God have us as his favourites" (= this or that religious movement), "God is on our side - he favour our soldiers", "God gets wrathful/ merciful", "God hates ...", "God granted this to our people only", and so on.

However, the true untainted idea with monotheism is really:

• A belief in ONE universal God and eternaly active creator for anything and everything that actually happens in our universe.
• A deep meaning and plan (work in progress) with our lives, or personal faiths and our worldsituation, that deepest seen render all feelings of both martyrdom, unjustness and exclusive pet-treatment as 100% false (seen from the perspective of several lives or incarnations).
• A belief in forgiving, doing good and act humane as the only way forward, and that you cant personaly retaliate evil with evil, without mortgage your own future fate.
• A belief in one universally loving, wise, omnipresent God that cant be seen, mentally pictured or physically represented in any possible way, but who nevertheless listen to your deepest prayers, and fullfills them if it really helps your spiritual & intellectual progress towards understanding "life" better.

Now Harlan.
Surelely the latter represent a step forward comparing with pagan & naively local polytheism?

With just a simple renaming of Polytheism and Monotheism, Civ3 could have a tech tree that was much less blatantly Western-only.

I didnt get it at first, but I guess know that you want monotheism and polyteism to switch places with each other, depending on what Civ you play. Is that correct?

If so, its a bad idea. What next? Partly unique tech-tree for different cultures? No thanks! They shoudnt complicate game-design without asking if such a move really adds something to that elusive fun- and suspence-factor. You know; the gameplay-issue. THATS whats important.

[Zanzin]

I think we'd all just better accept that the tech tree can't be completely perfect, or a reflection of "the way it actually happened". Seeing civ isn't a history game, but a strategy game, the order of certain techs aren't all important, are they?

But I agree, you shouldn't be able to have chariots before wheel...

[jsw363]

I agree about the wheel and horseback riding (and domestication for that matter) should be prerequisites for chariot building.

I also think however that part of the fun of the CIV series is that you are MAKING YOUR OWN HISTORY. It's not supposed to come out exactly like it did historically, otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. So the technological evolution doesn't have to follow the historical progression necessarily. So I don't believe that providing dates for the invention of the wheel is really relevant.

However, the sequence of events should be logical and rational (that's why there's a tech tree). Whether or not you choose to resarch a particular tech isn't the point; it matters much more what options are available to you. The tree has to make sense and I think that in this case it doesn't, regardless of when, or in which order, the Abyssinians, Egyptians, Incas or whoever began to use wheels (or not use wheels as the case may be).

[Harlan]

Ralf,
I don't have any idea why you'd think I would want Monotheism and Polytheism to switch places - I clearly stated I wanted to see them both replaced by something else (presumably of a religious or ethical nature). Ribannah had a couple of good suggestions with Mythology and Ethics, and I had an idea of the development of a holy text, surely a big and essential step forward in any religion and society, though I can't think of a pithy title for it.

Regarding your "true, untainted" idea of monotheism, I'm guessing, you're thinking mainly about Christianity. In fact, no religion is pure enough to fit your definition, so why look at this "pure" version (for instance a "God that can't be seen, mentally pictured or physically represented in any possible way"- does the Bible not say that man was created in God's image?). All real monotheism is much more messy (for, instance, in what way is Satan not a God and Christianity not a dualistic religion?).

There are other monotheistic religions that aren't even part of the Judeo-Christian stream of thought that fit even fewer of your definitions. Maybe you consider them more "tainted", but they're just as monotheistic as any other monotheistic religions.

But you're not the only one to be essentially thinking of Christianity when saying "monotheism". Civ2 and now Civ3 do this as well (Civ2 actually having the Crusader unit with big crosses on their shields!, and don't even get me started with that game's nonsensical connection between Polytheism and war elephants). Look at the very location of Monotheism in the tech tree. If placed in context with when monotheism was first developed by the Egyptians (or even the Jews), it would be well into the Ancient Age.

Not only could it be argued that Monotheism is out of place in time even if one wanted it in the tech tree, but so is Ceremonial Burial and Polytheism. Can does anyone doubt that both of those concepts were widespread well before 4000 BC? Ceremonial Burial dates to something like 100,000 BC, in fact.

There are only a few things that prevent Civ3's tech tree (as much as we see of it, anyways) from being able to apply to more than just Western civilization. The main problem is Polytheism leading to Monotheism, then to Chivalry, plus Feudalism (interesting how the tech tree actually has a step backwards on it!).

Finally, Ralf, you didn't respond to my main point, which is should Monotheism be a prerequisite for future developments like the Printing Press, Education, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry and so forth? As I said before, non-monotheistic civilizations were the first to discover many of these.

Oh, and to respond to an earlier point: yes, monotheism has "devolved" to polytheism on occasion. For instance, Buddhism and Taoism became primarily practiced as polytheistic religions, even though their founders did not intend them that way. And this is no minor exception: these Chinese religious practices have been practiced by more than 1/5th of all of humanity for most of history.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by jsw363
I agree about the wheel and horseback riding (and domestication for that matter) should be prerequisites for chariot building.

After all the discussion I think that in principle the tree could grow thus:

Animal Domestication + The Wheel -> The Chariot
Animal Domestication + Exploration -> Horseback Riding

The drawback is, that this adds several extra advances to the tree, two of which
are way older than the starting date of civ3, and the third being a dead end.
Also, with Pottery as a prereq for The Wheel, and Agriculture needed for Pottery, Animal Domestication is superfluous as a prerequisite for The Chariot.

I also think however that part of the fun of the CIV series is that you are MAKING YOUR OWN HISTORY. It's not supposed to come out exactly like it did historically, otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. So the technological evolution doesn't have to follow the historical progression necessarily.

Yes, I fully agree!