***TECH TREE***: General Discussion

[OrangeSfwr]

I agree with GC. I remember I was so surprised about Elephants being in Civ2 when I first played it and I kinda thought "why?". But I guess it's kind of a normal unit now. There are very few units actually in the game if you think about it. Each unit now can be broken down into about 3 sub units (like the Armor situation that was discussed in another thread, Riflemen, etc.) Should we consider getting rid of the Elephant or will that result in another "save the camel" thread? :-)

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[S. Kroeze]

Currency:
In both the East and the West, coinage proper was preceded by more primitive currencies, nonmonetary or semi-monetary, which survived into the historic age of true coins, and may have derived originally from the barter of cattle, implements, and the like. The earliest currency of China of the 8th century BC consisted of miniature hoes and billhooks (pruning implements), with inscriptions indicating the authority. The small bronze celts (prehistoric tools resembling chisels) frequently found in hoards in western Europe probably played a monetary role. Even in modern times such mediums of exchange as fishhook currency have been known.

Metal has always achieved wide popularity as an exchange medium, being durable, divisible, and portable; and the origins of true coinage lie there. Ancient Egypt, which never developed a true coinage, was using gold bars of set weight from the 4th millennium BC; and a currency of gold rings was thereafter common. In the Middle East, also, gold rings long served the dual purposes of adornment and currency, supplemented by gold and silver bars from which segments could be cut. The choice of metal was, as usual, determined by availability. Around the Aegean Sea heavy talents (ancient units of weight and, later, of monetary value) of copper, ingots of 55 pounds (25 kilograms) or more, were in currency several centuries before true coinage, and the discovery of an iron bar with a handful (drachma) of fractional iron spits (obeloi) dedicated in the Heraeum (a temple of the goddess Hera) at Argos, perhaps as part of King Pheidon of Argos' reforms of weights and measures in the 7th century BC, shows such currency continuing until historical times. Similar bundles of spits have been found elsewhere and are evidence of the desire to subdivide a cumbersome unit into smaller fractions for normal use. At the other end of the scale, there was, ultimately, the desire to express the value of a talent of copper or iron in terms of gold or silver; and Homer, who speaks of metal basins, tripods, and axes as gifts and prizes in a way that shows them as a recognized standard of wealth, also speaks of the talent of gold (i.e., the value of a heavy base-metal talent expressed in a little pellet of gold). In Italy rough lumps of bronze (aes rude) formed a currency from early times, being succeeded by bars of regular weight; and Julius Caesar's record of the ancient British use of iron bars as currency (following his raids on Britain in 55 and 54 BC) is still borne out by not infrequent finds.

Such "heavy" currencies, mainly characteristic of European lands, show the employment of metals from which implements would normally be made. The impact upon this system of the gold of the East, and later of the silver of Greece, produced the need to value such metals in gold and silver, and this in turn resulted in the need to control and guarantee the quantity of gold and silver so used to avoid constant weighing. Once gold (and then silver) gained acceptance as conveniently small expressions of relatively high value, with a visible mark of guarantee, the stage of true coinage, as it first appeared in Asia Minor and India, had been reached. Not all lands, however, adopted true coinage: the easternmost fringes of the Greek world lacked it, and Carthage and Etruria were without coinage until the 5th century.

True coinage began soon after 650 BC. The 6th-century Greek poet Xenophanes, quoted by the historian Herodotus, ascribed its invention to the Lydians, "the first to strike and use coins of gold and silver." King Croesus of Lydia (reigned c. 560-546 BC) produced a bimetallic system of pure gold and pure silver coins, but the foundation deposit of the Artemisium (temple to Artemis) at Ephesus shows that electrum coins were in production before Croesus, possibly under King Gyges. Croesus' earliest coins were of electrum, which the Greeks called "white gold." They were stamped on one side with the facing heads of a lion and a bull; this type was later transferred to his bimetallic series of pure gold and pure silver. (Some recent scholarship, however, suggests that this latter series was struck, in fact, under Croesus' Persian successors.)

The early electrum coinage consisted of small, thick, bean-shaped pieces, with a device stamped in relief on one side, the other being roughly impressed. Their intrinsic value fluctuated according to their gold and silver content; but the weight of the unit was fairly steady at about seven to eight grams, and the types stamped on them were the guarantee of authority.
(source: Britannica.com, article 'coin')

NB: Money and currency/coinage are not identical. Every sensible person will affirm that Trade is of course some millennia older than Currency. Mick Uhl introduced Barter in the Tech Tree.

[S. Kroeze]

Mining:
Archaeological discoveries indicate that mining was conducted in prehistoric times. Apparently, the first mineral used was flint, which, owing to its concoidal fracturing pattern, could be broken into sharp-edged pieces that were useful as scrapers, knives, and arrowheads. During the Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age (about 8000-2000 BC), shafts up to 100 metres (330 feet) deep were sunk in soft chalk deposits in France and Britain in order to extract the flint pebbles found there. Other minerals, such as red ochre and the copper mineral malachite, were used as pigments. The oldest known underground mine in the world was sunk more than 40,000 years ago at Bomvu Ridge in the Ngwenya Mountains, Swaziland, to mine ochre used in burial ceremonies and as body colouring.

Gold was one of the first metals utilized, being mined from streambeds of sand and gravel where it occurred as a pure metal because of its chemical stability. Although chemically less stable, copper occurs in native form and was probably the second metal discovered and used. Silver was also found in a pure state and at one time was valued more highly than gold.

According to historians, the Egyptians were mining copper on the Sinai Peninsula as long ago as 3000 BC, although some bronze (copper alloyed with tin) is dated as early as 3700 BC. Iron is dated as early as 2800 BC; Egyptian records of iron ore smelting date from 1300 BC. Found in the ancient ruins of Troy, lead was produced as early as 2500 BC.

One of the earliest evidences of building with quarried stone was the construction (2600 BC) of the great pyramids in Egypt, the largest of which (Khufu) is 236 metres along the base sides and contains approximately 2.3 million blocks of two types of limestone and red granite. The limestone is believed to have been quarried from across the Nile. Blocks weighing as much as 15,000 kilograms (32,000 pounds) were transported long distances and elevated into place, and they show precise cutting that resulted in fine-fitting masonry.
(source: Britannica.com, article 'mining')

So it becomes clear that -though certainly older than Road Building- Mining of metals wasn't known to all cultures from the dawn of history. Compared with Pottery it might be considered a relatively late development. There were many civilizations far less advanced than the Egyptians at that time. I still hope the successive use of stone, copper, bronze and iron by most cultures will be treated in a more convincing way. I have never understood the relation between iron and legions....

[Andz83]

Uhh. Another long-post-thread led by S. Kroeze. Aren't you tired of posting comments being able to fill books (every single post), S. Kroeze? I mean noone needs such detailized information!

EDIT: I won't edit this out but I regret it! I've apologized to S. Kroeze in a special thread! Sorry again!
[This message has been edited by Andz83 (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Markus The Mighty]

quote: Originally posted by OrangeSfwr on 05-01-2000 04:06 PM Ooooh I have often wondered this myself and spoke of it in another thread. I had an idea similar to yours. I don't see why map making leads to trieme, and I don't see why you can have a map without mapmaking as a science.

Why don't we introduce a "fog of war" like in SMAC, where the map can be viewed but not the units on it?
This fog of war could be available with MapMaking, and until you research this you only see black spaces unless you place a unit here and there.


[This message has been edited by Markus The Mighty (edited June 18, 2000).]

[Par4]

tech:
Cloning

What it does, don't know

Maybe a boost in food production(clone dem sheep) a lowering of the happiness level and a boost in science

Whatacha think?

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I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
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Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse
HappyLand
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[UltraSonix]

Ah, wouldn't the most obvious apsects of cloning be

*Population boom (as governments seek to replace everyone with intelligent, useful people)

*And of course, military benefits (ie super soldiers). In fact if cloning was to be implemented, how about genetically modified soldiers who can't feel pain?

having said that, I think the above points would unbalance the game. Even if cloning did lower your happiness, so what? Your unlimited soldiers could still kill every other civ...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Par4]

Well we don't have human cloning yet, I was going to say that there was problems with chromoson tips that gauge the age of the clone so clones only last a certain amount of time but I've got my new scientific american here that says that was probably a fluke and won't happen anymore. We still aren't sure human cloning is possible but animal and plant cloning is possible so humans shouldn't be too far behind. I'm guessing 2050 at least considering all the flak it's getting. More ideas people?

------------------
I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse
HappyLand
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[tonic]

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 03-27-2000 01:08 AM Many has blamed Confucianism for the stagnation because it totally neglects science and technology.

Just to expand this earlier strand on China. One could think of its tech progression in terms of the current Civ2 model where the spectacular advances in science and technology gave rise to rapid expansion and a population explosion that was possible with Monarchy. As in civ there arose the need to tackle the problems of taxation, corruption and communication in a large empire. The result was the adoption of a nationwide system of bureaucracy based on Confucianism with national examinations based on rote learning of the Confucian literature determining the choice of governors and bureaucrats throughout the land. The uniformity and conformity and respect for authority which were advantageous for administration and control were of course the ingredients for the demise of science which demands intellectual freedom and innovation ie at this stage the TLS ratio was set T high and L high and S virtually zero. One could postulate a dead-end path in this case from the lines Philosophy/Religion to Bureaucracy.

The other interesting point to note is that discovery in itself does not always lead to the realization of potential. I am thinking of the Chinese invention of gunpowder. With their perhaps rather arrogant dismissal of things military (the soldier being low down in the Confucian status scale), gunpowder was celebrated in fire-crackers and fireworks rather than heralded the appearance of musketeers!

And I still believe Marco Polo got pasta from the Chinese.

[Par4]

Actually gunpowder was used as a weapon, a horrible one at that I don't remember why they stopped using it though.

Chinese soldiers a few in each archer brigade were equipt for a short time with gunpowder arrow launchers. Effectively it was like a modern bullet, bamboo case filled with gunpowder, fuse stilling out the back the fuse would like the powder powder goes boom, arrows fly out. The arrows and cases were carried in a large square thick wooded box type case that was slung over the shoulder to provide recoil support. The archer could take a torch, lite the fuses sticking out of the box, and then aim them at the enemy. The result was devenstating as the metal arrows flew at an amazing yet unaccuate rate. A line of 10 of these men out stop a cavalry company in its tracks. I do not remember why they stopped using this devestating weapon but gunpowder was utilized, just not for long.

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gamma_par4@hotmail.com
There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai

[tonic]

Interesting detail. Is there a picture of the weapon? It sounds like a miniature harpoon. If they had persisted China would have had musketeers before the West.

It seems China's military history is full of mysteries. One other unexplained phenomenon that I'm aware of is their abandonment of sea power after its peak in the 16th Century when the large fleet under the eunuch admiral Cheng Ho made its base in Malacca on the Malayan Peninsula well before the Portuguese. How different the political world map would be today if only...

The start-stop phenomenon seem to have affected both their science and their military fields.
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited June 26, 2000).]

[S. Kroeze]

Before some smart number makes the brilliant request to post this sort of posts in the off-topic Forum I'll quote Yin26 to bring to the notice of all newcomers the original purpose of this thread:

quote: As Markos said in the news item, I think it would be a great idea to get down all the actual/approximate dates of the units, improvements, advances, and wonders from Civ2. Future discoveries could be listed as 2020 AD and nothing should be earlier than 4000 BC, in which case we can just call it 'Pre-historic.' This will be fun for a lot reasons: 1. As Markos mentioned, we can compare Civ and CtP to see which one is "truer" to history. 2. This will serve as a great resource for us as we play the game. 3. And, last but not least, I'm really hoping Firaxis might take these dates and be able to use them to do some cool indexing for the Civilopedia--if they aren't already planning such a thing. Funny, actually, that the dates of these things were never included in the Civ games! Let's fix that. I realize getting dates on some of these things will be impossible, but let's try our best. When possible, please include a link to your source if you found the information on-line, as I certainly will be doing it that way. This will allow us to compare sources if there is a dispute. Thanks guys!

WARNING!: This post is only meant to be red by intelligent people who like Yin26 believe it might be helpful to the creation of CivIII to make an outline of the historical dates of the advances of the Tech Tree, which might also indirectly aid the development of a more accurate Civilopaedia.

Archers:
~16,000BC stave bow and flint-tipped arrowhead
2500BC composite bow in Mesopotamia
400BC crossbow in China
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'The men of the Old Stone Age, in any case, had not yet invented the bow. At the beginning of the New Stone Age, however, some 10,000 years ago, there occurred 'a revolution in weapons technology... four staggeringly powerful new weapons made their appearance... the bow, the sling, the dagger... and the mace'. The last three were refinements of weapons already in existence: the mace derived from the club, the dagger from the spear point and the sling from the bolas, the last a pair of stones covered with leather and joined by a thong, thrown to entangle the legs of deer or bison which had been herded into a killing-place. The atlatl, or spear-throwing lever, was probaby also an indirect precursor of the sling, since it worked by the same principle. The bow, however, was a real departure. It may be seen as the first machine, since it employed moving parts and translated muscular into mechanical energy. How the men of the New Stone Age hit upon it we cannot guess, though it spread very rapidly once invented; why they did so has most probably to do with the progressive retreat of the last ice-shields. The warming of the temperate zones completely changed the movement and migration patterns of the hunters' prey, abolishing the old pelagic areas where game was predictably found, and, by liberating animals to roam and feed further and more widely, forced the hunter and the hunting-party to find a means of bringing down a more fleeting target over longer ranges.

The simple bow, as the original is called, is a piece of homogeneous wood, typically a length of sapling, and it lacks the opposed properties of elasticity and compression that gave the later composite and long bows, made of both sapwood and heartwood, their greater carrying and penetrative power. Even in its simple form, however, the bow transformed the relationship of man with the animal world. He no longer had to close to arm's length to dispatch his prey, pitting at the last moment flesh against flesh, life against life. Henceforth he could kill at a distance. Was man the archer also man the first warrior?

Cave art of the New Stone Age undoubtedly shows us scenes of bowmen apparently opposed in conflict. Arthur Ferrill claims to perceive in the painting from caves in the Spanish Levant roots of battlefield tactics, with warriors forming columns behind a chief, shooting arrows in a ranked formation and even practising an outflanking movement in an encounter between what he calls the 'army of four' and the 'army of three'.

Scholars dispute how to date the appearance of the composite bow; it may have been in use as early as the third millenniumBC, if a Sumerian stele has been correctly interpreted; it was certainly in existence by the second, since its distinctive ogival or 'recurved' shape is clearly depicted in a golden bowl of 1400BC, now in the Louvre. It cannot have appeared overnight, for the complexity of its construction, like that of the chariot, speaks of a variety of prototypes, and decades, if not centuries, of experimentation. In its finished form, which did not vary between its perfection in the second millenniumBC and its supersession as a weapon of war in the nineteenth centuryAD (it was last used by Manchu bannermen), it consisted of a slender strip of wood -or a laminate of more than one- to which were glued on the outer side ('back') lenghts of elastic animal tendon and on the inner side ('belly') strips of compressible animal horn, usually that of the bison. The glues, compounded of boiled-down cattle tendons and skin mixed with smaller amounts reduced from the bones and skin of fish, might take 'more than a year to dry and had to be applied under precisely controlled conditions of temperature and humidity... a great deal of art was involved in their preparation and application, much of it characterised by a mystical, semi-religious approach'.

The composite bow began as five pieces of plain or laminated wood- a central grip, two arms and two tips. Once glued together, this timber 'skeleton' was then steamed into a curve, opposite to that it would assume when strung, and steamed strips of horn were glued to the 'belly'. It was then bent into a complete circle, again against its strung shape, and tendons were glued to its 'back'. It was then left to 'cure' and only when all its elements had indissolubly married was it untied and strung for the first time. Stringing a compostie bow, against its natural relaxed shape, required both great strength and dexterity; its 'weight', conventionally measured in 'pounds', might amount to 150, against only a few for a simple or 'self' bow made from a length of sapling.

Similar 'weights' characterised the long bow, when toward the end of the Middle Ages west European bowyers learnt to use a billet containing both heart and sap wood to fashion their weapons; it worked by the same principle of opposing the forces of elasticity and compressibility, stored by the archer's arm when he bent the bow, and released by his fingers, to drive an arrow forward. The disadvantage of the long bow, however, was precisely its length; it could only be used by an archer on foot. The composite bow was short, reaching only from the top of a man's head to his waist when strung, and therefore suiting itself perfectly to use from a chariot or horse. It shot a lighter arrow -the best weight was about an ounce- than the long bow would, but could still carry to 300 yards with great accuracy (far longer ranges in free flight have been recorded) and penetrate armour at a hundred yards. The lightness of the arrow was actually an advantage, since it allowed the pastoral warrior to carry a large number -up to fifty in his quiver- into battle, which he counted on winning by subjecting the enemy to a disabling hail of missiles.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'Whether compound bows, which get extra power by facing wood with expansible sinew on one side and by compressible horn on the other, were new with the charioteers or had been known earlier is a disputed point. Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study, 2 vols.(New York,1963), 1:57, says that these bows were invented by the Akkadians of Sargon's era. The basis for this view is a stele representing Naram Sin(~2254-2218BC), Sargon's grandson and successor, with a bow whose shape resembles that of later compound bows. But how to interpret the curve of a bow recorded in stone is obviously indecisive.

Since Han times, and perhaps before, crossbows had been the principal missile weapon of Chinese armies.
No satisfactory account of the development of the crossbow in China seems to exist. A Chinese text, Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yüeh, attributes the invention of the crossbow to a man named Ch'in, from whom the invention passed to three local magnates and from then to Ling, ruler of the state of Ch'u in south central China from 541 to 529BC. Archaeological evidence tends to support this dating, for several tombs of the fifth and fourth centuriesBC contained crossbows. The first notable improvement in crossbow design came in the eleventh century, when Li Ting invented the foot stirrup (about 1068), allowing use of the back and leg muscles for cocking the bow. Correspondingly stronger bows could then be brought into use.

The crossbow had two salient characteristics. First, a crossbow was about as easy to use as a modern handgun. No special strength was needed to **** it. A longbow required years of practice to develop sufficient strength in thumb and fingers to draw the bow to its full arc, whereas once a crossbow had been cocked, all the archer had to do was to place the arrow in firing position, and sight along the stock until a suitable target came into view. A few hours of target practice allowed an ordinary man to use a crossbow quite effectively. Yet Chinese crossbows of the thirteenth century were lethal up to four hundred yards.

Powerful crossbows checked the expansion of knighthood in the thirteenth century when these weapons became common in Mediterranean Europe. In China, crossbows may have helped to discourage reliance on the Iranian style of heavily armored cavalry, for if a crossbowman could knock even an armored cavalryman off his horse, it made no sense to invest in the heavy horse and the expensive armor that put Iranian barons and European knights at the apex of their respective societies. Heavily armored cavalry, after some three centuries of importance in China, disappeared in the seventh century. It is, however, not certain that Chinese crossbows were powerful enough to penetrate armor before the invention of the foot stirrup in the eleventh century.

Second, the simple skill required for using a crossbow was counterbalanced by the high skill needed for its manufacture. An army of crossbowmen had to rely on expert artisans to produce precisely shaped trigger mechanisms and other necessary parts. Moreover, to supply such craftsmen with everything required to manufacture crossbows in large numbers was not easy. A powerful crossbow was compounded of laminated wood, bone, horn, and sinew, all cunningly fitted together to assure maximal springiness when bent out of its unstressed shape. The art of making such compound bows, however, was highly developed throughout the Eurasian steppelands.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

[Lord Magnus]

quote: Originally posted by UltraSonix on 06-22-2000 02:11 AM ...having said that, I think the above points would unbalance the game. Even if cloning did lower your happiness, so what? Your unlimited soldiers could still kill every other civ...

Unlimited soldiers? Don't forget you need resources (nutrients) to build and maintain these armies, whether you're using artificial or natural wombs.

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Learn the mistakes of yesterday to prevent the ones of tomorrow...

[tonic]

I would have thought that the strand on China and Chinese history and technological development was to redress the rather Western-centric view of things here (as is exemplified by yet another verbatim quote from a Western source on Archery). Granted there seem to be a lack of Chinese scholars in the forum versed in consulting Chinese sources but that should not discourage those with a will to try to rectify this.

Par4: In the light of the Dutch admonition, what is your source for your claim for gunpowder-powered Chinese archery, with an estimate of the time of its appearance?

[tonic]

OK, I've found a relevant Chinese source gathering dust in my library. It's Ancient China's Technology and Science compiled by the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Language Press, Beijing 1983. It could probably have anticipated Yin26's requirements for this thread. I'll start with the briefest of summaries from the chapter on Gunpowder and Firearms by Zhou Jiahua

1st use of gunpowder in weaponry as incendiary devices - packages of gunpowder attached to arrows, at the end of Tang Dynasty (about 907AD), huojian (fire arrows),

Use of gunpowder as explosive devices - 1120s eg pilipao (thundering gunpowder charge) and zhentianlei (heaven-shaking thunder).

Bronze and iron gun barrels appeared not later than the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) as huochong (fire gun) and tongjiangjun (bronze generals, 'because of the great awe that these guns inspired'). 'The oldest tongjiangjun now reposing in Beijing's Historical Museum was cast in 1332.'

The weapon mentioned by Par4 is probably the feidaojian (flying-dagger arrow) or feiqiangjian(flying-spear arrow) used in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

When I get my scanner to work it would be worthwhile to reprint excerpts from the chapter (which BTW is written in perfect English). The book covers most of the discoveries attributed to China mentioned earlier in the thread and then some. Perhaps more later.

Nothing like a bit of challenge (or was that a slap on the wrist for children who should lurk rather than be heard?) to get research going.
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited July 09, 2000).]