Ancient tech tree looks mighty weird

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Harlan
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?

There wasn't papyrus in China anyway Before paper people used sliced up bits of bamboos tied together by strings or rolls of silk. The former was very bulky and the latter, expensive. So you are completely correct in pointing out that paper was an important contributing factor to literacy (should be a prerequisite to literacy in civ ).

Originally posted by Harlan
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.

Still the movable type was an improvement. First of all it saved time. No longer pages after pages had to be labourously written on blocks of wood and then "negatively" engraved. Secondly, this allowed for the types to be made beforehand, creating an assembly line of sorts.

Sadly the wooden types weren't really re-usable, since they'd absorb water and change shape. They weren't very durable, either. The thing was for a long time the craftsmen couldn't get ink to stick on metal surface. They would have to solve this problem before using broze or other metals for types.

[Ribannah]

This is part of what Firaxis says about the Babylonians:

"Since they were continually being attacked,"

by civilizd neighbours, not nomads - Rib

"the Babylonians knew a thing or two about siege
tactics. Their on-again, off-again relationship with
the Assyrians taught them the value of armored,
yet maneuverable archers. Babylonian bowmen
wore tunics of scale mail armor and helmets, and
carried a composite bow that allowed them to
strike targets from a long range (though not very
accurately). The Babylonians also used cavalry
and chariots, but the bowmen corps were the
dominant force in their army."

Cavalry AND chariots!

[Harlan]

Wheel vs. Horse Riding - the argument that will not die. Sigh. I think a problem here is the fixation on the fact that some people were riding horses fairly early on in one very unique geographical area, and giving that great importance.

(As an aside, a good parallel between the Asian nomads and horse riding could be made with the Polynesians and navigation. The very fact that Polynesians lived only on tiny islands led to good navigation skills early on. But you wouldn't want to change the entire tech tree for that - we're dealing in generalities.)

The civ tech called "Horse Riding" is actually a combo of numerous things, including horse breeding, riding skills, archery skills and the invention of riding implements. We're talking about more than just having a person able to ride a horse. Its obvious that no people were able to combine all of these into a package that brought about the possibility of massive conquests until at least after 1000 years of the chariot having its heyday (and in some areas, much longer).

Was this just chance, and in an alternative universe "Horse Riding" (the whole package) could have come first? I don't think so, unless maybe in that alternate universe horses started out much bigger than in this universe. Its a much simpler technology to take already small horses and put a wheeled object behind them than to develop that whole package.

And don't even say horses being too small wasn't a problem. We have the testimony of Homer living around 800 BC who says even at that time in Greece adult males couldn't ride horses because they were too small. He should know - he lived there and saw it with his own eyes!

Is there a logical connection between the Wheel and Horse Riding? Given that they're being looked at for their practical military aspect, yes. The Chariot was the natural first step while the development of "Horse Riding" in all its aspects was still incomplete - people weren't just going to wait around and not use the horse at all in battle even when they couldn't be ridden yet. And look all over the tech tree - there are many jumps from one seemingly very tenously connected tech to another. These things need to happen when you're reducing all of history to less than 100 technological steps.

In addition, there is the added complexity that horses were naturally smaller in all areas where advanced civilizations were located, because of some natural facts about horse size and geography that I explained in an earlier post. For instance, India still used Chariots many centuries after they were obsolete in other places, because there were no vast empty plains in India to facilitate horse development (the plains already being filled with people, plus farms and grazing to support the people). This even after they had been invaded on occasion by horse riding nomads (whom also, after conquering, could only keep up their horse stock by importing fresh ones from Central Asia). Since this game is about only playing advanced civilzations, what the Scythians did is even more irrelevant. Civ3 doesn't even include the Mongols.

At the level of complexity Civ3 is dealing with, it definitely needs to go Wheel -> Horse Riding. At the level of detail this problem is being analyzed, objections could be found to a majority of all the tech links in this or any other tech tree. Time to move on, already.

[Harlan]

Urban Ranger,
Yes of course movable type was an improvement, but as I was trying to make clear, only for civs with an alphabet. If your langauge has tens of thousands of characters, you have to make up multiple copies of each one. How much easier to only have 26 or so! Then the process of going through and finding and laying out each one is a pain in the butt. The Chinese tried it out, but it proved no better for them than wood blocks, for all their problems. Some say movable type was a major reason why Europe leaped ahead of China, but I think that's bunk. But no doubt the Chinese would have been better off with an alphabet.

Ribannah,
If you're going to take what Firaxis has to say about the Bablyonians as the complete truth, I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you. Already in another forum some people are scratching their heads about the Bablyonians being somehow better at "Bowmen" than their neighbors. I also have no idea what the Firaxians were smoking on that one. "Cavalry and chariots" - yes, at one time they used chariots, and these were eventually replaced by cavalry, with there being a period of overlap. Even as late as Alexander the Great the Persians were stupid enough to use some chariots in a battle, which of course was a complete failure (duly mocked by Alex) since they were long obsolete.

PS- It would have made much more sense for the Bablyonians to have Scythed Chariot or Seige Tower as their special unit, since those were things they were actually well known for. Bowmen - scratch, scatch, scratch.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ribannah
This is part of what Firaxis says about the Babylonians:

"Since they were continually being attacked,"

by civilizd neighbours, not nomads - Rib

"the Babylonians knew a thing or two about siege
tactics. Their on-again, off-again relationship with
the Assyrians taught them the value of armored,
yet maneuverable archers. Babylonian bowmen
wore tunics of scale mail armor and helmets, and
carried a composite bow that allowed them to
strike targets from a long range (though not very
accurately). The Babylonians also used cavalry
and chariots, but the bowmen corps were the
dominant force in their army."

Cavalry AND chariots!

According to Drews (End of the Bronze Age) the dominant force in their armies was chariots from 1700BC to 1200bC. The only exception would have been the relaiance on infantry by the Assyrians for their wars against barbarians in the Zagros mountains, where terrain prevented the use of chariots.
Around 1200BC infantry became dominant in the battlefield, Cavalry gradually replaced chariotry in this period, but never became dominant over infantry in the entire ancient period.

Conflict among civs dominated until 1200, because the "barbs" couldnt match the chariot armies of the civs. In 1200 infantry changed everything around.

In sum, Firaxis doesnt appear a sound historical source at this time, sad though it is to say

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Harlan
Wheel vs. Horse Riding - the argument that will not die. Sigh. I think a problem here is the fixation on the fact that some people were riding horses fairly early on in one very unique geographical area, and giving that great importance.

(As an aside, a good parallel between the Asian nomads and horse riding could be made with the Polynesians and navigation. The very fact that Polynesians lived only on tiny islands led to good navigation skills early on. But you wouldn't want to change the entire tech tree for that - we're dealing in generalities.)

The civ tech called "Horse Riding" is actually a combo of numerous things, including horse breeding, riding skills, archery skills and the invention of riding implements. We're talking about more than just having a person able to ride a horse. Its obvious that no people were able to combine all of these into a package that brought about the possibility of massive conquests until at least after 1000 years of the chariot having its heyday (and in some areas, much longer).

But wheel is more than just wheel as well its a composite that allows chariots that dominate the battlefield - thus (per drews) it included spoked wheels and composite bows. It surely doesnt belong at the very beginning of the tech tree - clearly what they were thinking of there were solid wheels, not late bronze wheels.
And (in defense of Ribannah) why do we limit horseback riding to that complex of technologies that make possible conquest? When i play Civ2 I seldom use horsmen for conquest (of course I'm not a hot shot player) I use them for exploration and hut-popping - it seems quite possible that pre-1700 horses could have been used for that. Certainly by 1200 BC. Drews argues that the biblical reference to "the horse and its rider" thrown down at the crossing of the red sea, is a reference to cavalry alongside the egyptian chariot - and the song of the sea is one of the oldest portions of the Hebrew bible, so it probably does represent some memory of actual late bronze tactics (whether in quite the same geographic conctext or not) Admittedly this is NOT earlier than chariot dominance, but its not 1000 years later either.

LOTM

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Harlan
I think a problem here is the fixation on the fact that some people were riding horses fairly early on in one very unique geographical area

Apparently I have missed something. Which unique area is that?

The very fact that Polynesians lived only on tiny islands led to good navigation skills early on. But you wouldn't want to change the entire tech tree for that

There is no need. You are confusing order of appearance with causal relationships. From the moment the Polynesians knew about Map Making and The Canoe (or equivalent), they had every opportunity to discover Seafaring.

The civ tech called "Horse Riding" is actually a combo of numerous things, including horse breeding, riding skills, archery skills and the invention of riding implements

It is? Even archery? Wow. And wheeling, too. Wait a minute! You didn't mention The Wheel at all!

It's obvious that no people were able to combine all of these into a package that brought about the possibility of massive conquests until at least after 1000 years of the chariot having its heyday (and in some areas, much longer)

Why? If these tribes had only been slower developing carts, mounted warfare could have arrived first and maybe no chariot would ever have been made.

Its a much simpler technology to take already small horses and put a wheeled object behind them than to develop that whole package.

It only is if you already have that wheeled object. You are merely stating that The Wheel plus Animal Domestication leads to The Chariot.

We have the testimony of Homer living around 800 BC who says even at that time in Greece adult males couldn't ride horses because they were too small. He should know - he lived there and saw it with his own eyes!

Yes, and apparently he knew about the technology of Horseback Riding, or he couldn't have made the complaint about only Greek females and children being able to ride a horse!

The Chariot was the natural first step while the development of "Horse Riding" in all its aspects was still incomplete

If so, it still doesn't make The Wheel a p-r-e-r-e-q-u-i-s-i-t-e.

These things need to happen when you're reducing all of history to less than 100 technological steps.

But there's no need to do it WRONG. Gameplay would not suffer in any way if the tree grew:
Pottery -> The Wheel -> Engineering and
Warrior Code -> Horseback Riding -> Chivalry