Ancient Times: changes in causality

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Ozymandias
Precious metals, being universally desireable and readily transportable, allowed different societies' (different civilizations) to engage in trade beyond barter. The old "Trade" advance seems to have disappeared -- recall that it allowed commodities to be exchanged for the game's universal currency. It seems reasonable that its equivalent be required to allow a civilization to pass from an "ancient" to a "middle" age.

An excellent point.

So I suggest that "Currency" be renamed "Coinage" and perhaps require "Bronze Working" and "Code of Laws" as predecessors.

I wouldn't rename it though because Coinage is just the technology to make coins, while Currency stands for the entire concept. As long as the description says something about what it means in the game, I'm happy.
In my complete tree I have The Council (leading to Code of Laws) as a prereq for Currency; Code of Laws would not be a bad choice at all in Civ3.

[Maniac]

Just a small suggestion. Shouldn't Bronze Working have Pottery as a prerequisite? After all, both require high temperature melting ovens, though for pottery the needed temperature is lower. So one can assume the discovery of ovens for Pottery is necessary before one can come on the idea or need to create higher temperature ovens, which then allows bronze working.

And why by the way is Steel treated as an industrial tech? Late-Medieval knights already had swords of steel, I thought.

My 2 eurocents,

M@ni@c

[KrazyHorse]

M@ni@c, your points about the relationship between pottery and bronze working are excellent. The point about "steel" is slightly off, though. I always imagined their version of "steel" as the ability to forge the precision pieces required for complex machinery.

[Grumbold]

The transition from medaieval to industrial is a difficult one because much of the progress was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Cannon did not suddenly appear that were capable of smashing down castle or city walls. Every century the quality of weapons, casting of cannon, refining of gunpowder, accuracy of firearms and size of the artillery was improved. Civ tries to wrap it all up in one tech and associated unit in each category. The invention isn't steel so much as it is steel processing methods of sufficient quantity and efficiency to make production of the associated units practical.

[Urban Ranger]

Pah.

Screwed up by vBB's sporadic auto-logout

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ribannah
I think Agriculture, which (via Irrigation) leads to The Calendar, is already a prerequisite for Mathematics. But that's a given in Civ3.
It isn't in my complete technology tree, but there Agriculture leads to Pottery, so having it as a prerequisite for Mathematics would be superfluous.
I also have The Calendar (wonder: Stonehenge) as a PREREQ for Astronomy.
The early Calendars were simply based on the seasons and the moon, which doesn't qualify as Astronomy IMHO. But they were an incentive for the discovery of Astronomy, which became feasible only AFTER Mathematics. Then it did lead to better calendars, but the impact of the early calendars is already too large to ignore.

Not necessarily. The early Egyptians based their calander on the star Sirus (something have to do with the flooding of the Nile). Even if that's not the case I'd count observations of the Sun and the Moon astronomy - some civs had lunar calanders but some others had solar calanders.

Making a lunar calander work year in and year out means it has to mesh with the solar cycle, which drives the seasons. Not an easy task.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ozymandias
Precious metals, being universally desireable and readily transportable, allowed different societies' (different civilizations) to engage in trade beyond barter. The old "Trade" advance seems to have disappeared -- recall that it allowed commodities to be exchanged for the game's universal currency. It seems reasonable that its equivalent be required to allow a civilization to pass from an "ancient" to a "middle" age.

Hm.

While currency itself is an universal idea, being a means of trade, the implementation of it is civ-specific. My one dollar probably has a different worth than your one dollar. So if these early traders wanted to go for currency they had to use some kind of precious metal, such as gold or silver. The problem with that of course is the measuring system. Your system probably has a different unit of mass than mine.

At any rate, gold and silver are soft and have low melting points

[Urban Ranger]

One big thing that's missing from Civ 3 ancient tree is paper.

Writing -> Paper -> Literacy, Mapmaking

[korn469]

i don't think everyone invented the calender because of irrigation...in fact i think the romans invented the calender because they had corrupt elected officials who would extend their terms out as long as possible because there wasn't an accurate way to determine the date...

also the census should in the extended tech tree...the census was a powerful tool in helping the romans to develop

urban ranger you don't always need paper to make a map...you could do it on cloth or an animal skin, but as far as i know you pretty much always need paper for printing, so it should be

paper --> printing

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
One big thing that's missing from Civ 3 ancient tree is paper.

Writing -> Paper -> Literacy, Mapmaking

I concur with Korn that paper is not essential before printing. Many early alternatives were found for scrolls and maps. The Egyptians, for example, learned how to mash reeds into papyrus.

[Urban Ranger]

Yeah you don't need paper to make maps on, though you do require skilled mapmakers, which means you need literacy, which means you need paper, more or less.

[korn469]

Originally posted by Urban RangerYeah you don't need paper to make maps on, though you do require skilled mapmakers, which means you need literacy, which means you need paper, more or less.

you don't need paper for literacy...clay tablets certainly come to mind...i mean the babylonians weren't illiterate were they?

[Ribannah]

For techs such as Astronomy and Map Making, it may seem somewhat arbitrary where you put them in the tree. There was Astronomy before there was an extensive understanding of Mathematics (from our present point of view), and certainly Paper made it possible to produce the demanded quantity of maps for seafaring nations. Nonetheless I think that these two techs are dealt with in a proper manner.
For a little Astronomy you need a little knowledge of Mathematics. When you learn more about Math, you can do more Astronomy. Therefore, the causality is correct.
With regard to Map Making, the question is when did this technology began to have a major impact on human civilization. IMHO map making already had a significant impact with land maps, so in my tree I assigned no naval units to Map Making. Only combined with The Canoe does it lead to Seafaring which allows Triremes. In Civ3, which has less techs, several discoveries (Map Making, The Canoe and Seafaring) are combined into one.