Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

[Harlan]

"Without printing it's impossible to explain the source for that gigantic central bureaucracy of ancient China. All these bureaucrats had to be literate, and most of them had to pass nation-wide exams. Without widespread use of printing presses this would have been impossible."

Several reasons for this. First, the invention of paper (about 100 AD), one of the most important inventions of all time, and a sadly missing item in the Civ3 tech tree. People don't understand its importance, cos one can say, what about papyrus? But paper was so much cheaper it made widespread literacy possible. More than half of Chinese adults were literate while Europe was still in the Dark Ages. The other key factor was wood block printing, which worked well with China's writing: create a wood block image of a page and suddenly you can make thousands of copies. But to move from there to movable block printing wasn't mcuh of an improvement in China due to the sheer number of pictographs in the Chinese language.

But paper was vital for the printing press everywhere. Its no coincidence that Gutenberg "invented" the printing press not long after paper became widely used in Europe.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I agree with Ribanah on several points.

Firstly, horseback riding and the wheel are unrelated techs that should not be prerequisites for each other.

Horseback riding was not discovered by a Civilization. It was developed by Steppe nomads. Civilizations, generally little more than city-states, located on the fringe of the steppes came in contact with these nomads- as they were raided by them. After a time, two things happened. One, the nomads were hired as mercenaries. Two, the nomadic bands grew in size to the point that they could capture an entire city, and occupy it, gradually losing their nomadic roots and becoming more civlized. Through both of these, horseback riding became introduced to civilization.

Further, there has been recent reconsideration of the age of the stirrup. Although still disputed, the possibility that Steppe nomads had stirrups a millenium earlier than previously thought is now held by a number of scholars. Non-metallic stirrups of nomadic peoples would be virtually impossible to find archaelogicallly. One such (disputed) find has been made.

The inventors of horseback riding clearly did not have the wheel. The inventors of the wheel clearly did not have horseback riding.

A word on chariots.
They were unwieldy, cumbersome and required smooth ground. They were very expensive. But in the absence of a mounted opponent- they were highly mobile, and more importantly, terrifying. In early war, the first massed infantry that panicked, broke and ran invariably lost. Chariots were very effective in invoking panic. However, as stirrups were developed, chariots soon lost their value. A proper horseman was faster, more agile, worked on rougher terrain and far cheaper.

I am completely unconvinced! Could you please mention the source of this revelation?

And: how do you explain why the civilised was not constantly harrassed before the seventh century BC, when the technique of Horseback riding was developed earlier elsewhere? As you should know, after Horseback Riding was discovered the military advantage -until then enjoyed by the 'civilised' people, though already diminished by the War chariot- shifted to the 'barbarian' inhabitants of the steppe. For two millennia, until the 'Gunpowder revolution', civilisation was always and everywhere on the defense!

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze
How do you explain why the civilised was not constantly harrassed before the seventh century BC, when the technique of Horseback riding was developed earlier elsewhere?

They weren't?
Well, if so, there could be several reasons. For instance:
(a) the civilized possessed little that was of interest to the nomads;
(b) good horses were still hard to find;
(c) the nomads were few;
(d) the nomads were friendly.

[hetairoi22]

About the Polytheism - Monotheism issue:

In Civ2 you didn't HAVE to discover monotheism, it didn't lead to any great advances (only theology and fundy).

In Civ3 it looks like you have to discover monotheism to discover ANYTHING of interest, so you NEED it to advance to the industrial age!!! So if you chose to play like a hindu civ, you will never advance past the middle ages, never discover education, physics, metallurgy, navigation, electricity!!! NOTHING!!! This should be changed.

Just me, err, comments

[jsw363]

"So if you chose to play like a hindu civ" I am assuming that you are providing an example of a polytheist civ and not really to gamestyle, so does it really matter if you discover an advance and never use it. Since religion doesn't really enter into the game (i.e. you can't switch from a polytheist civ to a monotheist one) I don't know if they assume that you become monotheist (I guess this is what you're saying.) Basically I think you can pretend to be whatever religion you want since it's never identified. (Having cathedrals makes this harder, but you can still pretend they were large Shiva shrines or something

[N35t0r]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Also seashells.

and cocoa beans.

[Will 5001]

How can we speculate on so much on just seeing one screenshot!!

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Will 5001
How can we speculate on so much on just seeing one screenshot!!

Because that's what we do

I'm still hoping that what the screenshots show is not the final tree. It makes sense if the tech tree is one of the last things that get fine-tuned, since it takes some serious play-testing to find out if it works as intended.

[The Mad Viking]

S. Kroeze:

Ride of the Second Horseman by Robert F O'Donnell.

You might not like it if you choose to believe in historical facts, of which there are far fewer than the Encyclopedia Brittanica would have us believe.

In any case, there is little dispute that horseback riding was invented by nomads and not a civ. Given that nomads left little for the archaeologists, it is in fact highly unlikely that the first appearance of horseback riding in the dogmatic, change resistant military would be coincidental with the invention of horseback riding by barbarian nomads.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
S. Kroeze:

Ride of the Second Horseman by Robert F O'Donnell.

You might not like it if you choose to believe in historical facts, of which there are far fewer than the Encyclopedia Brittanica would have us believe.

In any case, there is little dispute that horseback riding was invented by nomads and not a civ. Given that nomads left little for the archaeologists, it is in fact highly unlikely that the first appearance of horseback riding in the dogmatic, change resistant military would be coincidental with the invention of horseback riding by barbarian nomads.

Thanks for responding!
Unfortunately you didn't react on my main critical point:
How do you explain why the civilised world was not constantly harrassed before the seventh century BC, when the technique of Horseback riding was developed earlier elsewhere?

Ribannah's answer was quite funny, yet it does again show his lack of overview of Ancient History. After all, when the nomads possessed a decisive military advantage, they didn't hesitate to take full advantage of it.

'Few fortifications yet stood when charioteers first drove forth to topple thrones and found dynasties of their own. Such as did exist offered little obstacle to their conquests. About 1700BC a Semitic people, known to us as the Hyksos, began to infiltrate Egypt through the Nile delta and soon set up a capital of their own at Memphis. A little later, Mesopotamia, then united under the Amorite dynasty founded by Hammurabi about 1700BC was overrun by people from the northern mountains between modern Iraq and Iran; they appear to have made themselves overlords of the ancient inter-riverine kingdom by 1525. Shortly afterward Aryan charioteers from the steppe lands of eastern Iran, speaking an Indo-European language, entered the Indus valley and utterly destroyed its civilisation. Finally, about 1400, the founders of the Shang dynasty, perhaps also originating from the Iranian steppe, arrived with their chariots in northern China and set up the first centralised state, based on a superior military technology and the institution of the walled camp.'
(source: J.Keegan: 'A History of Warfare',1993)

Which shows:
(a) the civilized in all parts of the world definitely possessed many resources that were of interest to the nomads, like a constant supply of food and luxuries and cheap workmen;
(b) the nomads possessed a sufficient amount of horses for charioteering;
(c) the nomads were numerous enough to conquer vast and populous areas;
(d) the nomads were rather aggressive and prone to violence and destructive behaviour.

After the spread of Horseback Riding -regardless of where it was first systematically applied- the nomads didn't hesitate at all to assault the civilised world with their usual fierceness:

'At any rate, the fall of the Assyrian empire was due to the irruption, at the end of the seventh century BC, of a horse people known to us as the Scythians, an Iranian race whose place of origin may have been as far away as the Altai mountains in eastern Central Asia. They appear to have ridden on the heels of another Iranian horse people called the Cimmerians, who raided into Asia Minor about 690BC, leaving a shaken world behind them; the Assyrians themselves, at the moment of the Scythians' appearance, were hard pressed at the borders of their empire -to the north in Palestine, to the south by the allegedly vassal state of Babylon and to the east by the Medes of Iran. All these pressures might have been resisted, for Assyria had recovered from troubles before. In 612BC, however, the Scythians joined the Medes and Babylonians in a siege of the great city of Nineveh, which they succeeded in taking. Two years later, despite help from Egypt, the last Assyrian king was again defeated by an alliance of Scythians and Babylonians at Harran and in 605 the power of Assyria passed to Babylon.

[The Persian] empire passed to Alexander's successors, and a fragile form of the Alexandrian military system defended it for a century after his death. Along the 1500 miles of borderland that separates the steppe from settled land between the Himalayas and the Caucasus, however, neither charioteering nor Alexander's European tactics were appropriate once the horse peoples had learned that civilisation was vulnerable to their attack. Thus the first Scythians who made their raid into Mesopotamia at the end of the seventh century BC were harbingers of what was to be a repetitive cycle of raiding, despoliation, slave-taking, killing and, sometimes, conquest that was to afflict the outer edge of civilisation -in the Middle East, in India, in China and in Europe- for 2000 years. These persistent attacks on the outer edge of civilisation of course had profoundly transforming effects on its inner nature, to such an extent that we may regard the steppe nomads as one of the most significant -and baleful- forces in military history. The innocent agents of the harm they were to do were the descendants of the little, rough-coated ponies which man had been breeding and eating on the Volga only a few dozen generations before the Scythians made their first ominous appearance.'
(source: J.Keegan: 'A History of Warfare',1993)

The importance of the fall of Assyria(612BC) can hardly be exaggerated; it is comparable with the sack of Rome(410AD) by the Goths, another horse people. This was after all the very heartland of civilisation! Babylon was also soon brought low.
Nor do I think the military of Assyria was change resistant: they constantly tried to develop new or better military tactics.

And finally: all peoples of the steppe produced pottery, while most of them also made figurines, animals in particular. Yet to my knowledge we have never found a picture or figure of a man (or woman or child) on horseback, older than those from the Middle East!

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze
Ribannah's answer was quite funny, yet it does again show his ...

I guess you have the Avatars switched off, and never check profiles?

May I also point out that you never responded to my main arguments:

(1) that it took a while after the discovery of Horseback Riding before this was turned into a skill used in actual battle (thus making the history books);
(2) that, even if in some timeline The Wheel was discovered before Horseback Riding, this would not automatically imply that The Wheel is a prerequisite for Horseback Riding. They are two vastly different technologies.

After all, when the nomads possessed a decisive military advantage, they didn't hesitate to take full advantage of it.

Keegan mentions four isolated happenings in a timeframe of 300 years, none of which involving obvious nomads by nature as they all settled down pretty quickly. That doesn't strike me as "nomads taking full advantage".

So my "funny" answer still stands.

And finally: all peoples of the steppe produced pottery, while most of them also made figurines, animals in particular. Yet to my knowledge we have never found a picture or figure of a man (or woman or child) on horseback, older than those from the Middle East!

Hey, where is your source? Surely you are not going to rely on your own knowledge all of a sudden? (And we did find lots of pictures and figures of wheels, I take it?)

[Nemo]

ok, perplexed by this debate i did some research and found some things. the wheel definately came before horseback riding. but, the quesiton is, did the chariot come before horseback riding? it is thought that the wheel was invented about 10,000 bc, but the oldest proof of a wheel that was dug up was from 5500 bc. Horseback riding was thought to be from about 2500 bc, untill they more recently found horse teeth with chuck bit nicks in its teeth in the ukraines from about 4300-3800 bc. But, this still means that horseback riding came after the invention of the wheel (by far).
well, the oldest found war used chariot was from about 3500 bc. in Ur.
Horses where shown to have been pulling hoes about 3500-4000bc (without wheels)

From all the research I did, it seemed as if the time lines were all "abouts" and not much was 100%. And since the time of the chariot and the time of horsebak riding was roughly the same, i could come to no solid conclusion that the chariot came before horseback riding. Although, i do believe (based on my readings) that it was possible, and even most likely, in the west that chariots came first, but just as likely that horseback riding came before chariots in the east.

From a "common" historical scense (i.e. the not so in depth, more commonly accepted -but not necessaritly correct point of view). I think horseback riding should come before chariot. Reason: the chariot is most noted during the period of 1500bc onward. Where as the domestication of horses is often associated with 4000bc onward.

conclusion: leave it how it was in civ 2.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ribannah


(2) that, even if in some timeline The Wheel was discovered before Horseback Riding, this would not automatically imply that The Wheel is a prerequisite for Horseback Riding. They are two vastly different technologies.

Timeline, she said timeline
Nice to see someone who knows alternate history terminology around here

But that does vastly complicate the tech tree question - in general I think the Civ2 tech tree can be explained in terms of OTL (original time line IE actual history) sequences, especially when fortified by some logic to the progression. However most of the tech tree sequences could occur differently in SOME ATL. Im sure someone could find some ATL where iron working didnt depend on bronze working (in fact OTL africa came close to that, although they MAY have gotten their iron working techniques from elsewhere) Nonetheless I think its fair to keep bronze working a prereq for ironworking, without going to far into the "history on rails" direction. I do think of Civ as an alt history game, but the tech tree is far too abstract to model alt hist tech paths - I think a linkage that occured in OTL is enough to justify a tech tree linkage.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Im a little confused here - are you arguing about when and where horseback riding was first developed, or when and where it became a dominant mode of warfare? it seems these are two seperate questions.

I have not read Keegan, but Krozee cites references to the period from 1700 BC to 1200BC. From my reading of Drews this was the period of chariot dominance - not necessarily because horses couldnt be ridden, but because chariots were superior. According to Drews horseback riding only began to replace chariots in warfare after the (infantry dominated!!!!) catastrophe of 1200BC, but did not do so completely until better reins were developed circa 900 BC. The dominant mode of chariot warfare was archery - it took development of saddles, harnesses, etc until first it was possible to shoot from horseback(with a parallel rider on another horse holding both reins) - which required a particular riding style - more difficult than from a moving chariot - and in 900 BC single rider reins, which made it possible for a single rider to control his own horse AND shoot at the same time.

It seems quite conceivable that horseback riding could have been useful in civilian herding work, or in military applications such as carrying messages or scouting, even when not yet capable of dominating the battlefield.

LOTM

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Harlan
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.

Hm.

Neither Taoism nor Buddhism can be considered as monotheism. Taoism is not a religion per se it's a philosophy attributed to Lao Tsu. Buddhism is a religion, but a strange type of godless religion.