Announcement

**Shining1** · May 25, 1999, 01:25

TECH SYSTEM

The main issues covered by the work Octopus did:

1) MULTIPLE PATHS -- it seems to be generally felt that the tech tree in CivII is too rigid - while a lot of the prereqs are only inspirational in nature, for instance masonry as a prereq to mathematics, you still have to take the same path each time.

Whether multiple paths to the same tech works practially is debatable - but there are some cases where it seems appropriate. In addition, there are some techs, particularly later into CivII, where seemingly necessary prereqs are left out. At the moment, it seems a 2-3 prereq system, with alternative paths, is the accepted idea. (invitation to respond/flame this)

2) MULTIPLE TECHS -- A research model that allows research into two or more areas at the same time is proposed. Whether unconnected (some research points go to military, some to science) or connected (researching calc and physics at the same time, for a bonus to each), this seems a popular approach to the tech tree.

3) MINOR TECHS -- my own idea, but a way of including a large number of 'smaller' tech ideas in the game, without creating a massive tech tree. Each minor tech has a single prereq, and can only occur while the current tech remains at the top of the tree (for instance, you don't get the minor tech for longbows when you are well into the mobile warfare era). These are also civ specific to an extent - some civs might always get the advance, according to history (e.g the english invented the longbow)

4) MORE GAME RELEVANCE -- while everything else in CivII was affected by the tech tree, nothing in that game actually changed your research options. Hence you could research seafaring when trapped in the middle of a desert. These ideas concern making research dependant upon terrain, government, and infrastructure - linking nicely with 2. Some ideas:

* Naval techs should require a harbour city.
* Building contribute towards research in each area - for instance a barracks gives you military research points, while a marketplace gives you economic research points, etc.
* Certain government types cannot discover (or are penalised) certain advances. For instance, a fundamentalist state has less chance (or more chance, when you look at it ) of discovering democracy.

5) CIV SPECIFIC TECHS -- different civs get a different tech tree, as they see the world differently. Personally, I hate this idea. Other people don't. Another option was to randomise the benefits at the start of a game.

6) MORE EMPHASIS ON THE ARTS -- including the arts as techs that improve the effectiveness of entertainers, improve your civ score (e.g better to be a civilised winner than a barbarian), and otherwise reflect the fact that 6000 years worth of effort hasn't purely focused on science, military, and industry.

7) RANDOMNESS -- allowing some variation in the pathes to each tech, and in the time it takes to research it (for instance, getting 290 research points gives you a 55% chance of learning the tech that turn). Not a bad system, when you think about it. But potentially infuriating on the downside. Also the idea of having advances occur randomly - free gifts from the game, and that some techs give different outcomes in each game.

8) COOPERATION AND TRADING -- two civs can share research points on a single tech. Also, you must have the prereqs to a tech before you can obtain it through trade or conquest.

9) BLIND TECH -- love it or loath it, the option is there, in many forms. The best compromise seems to be having a historical system - you start out blind, and get more options as you advance through the ages.

10) LIMITS -- setting a maximum limit for research per turn (e.g total number of citizens) to reflect the limits of your society (possibly influenced by soc settings).

11) SET COSTS -- each tech has a set cost, instead of the current model, where tech cost is based upon the number of techs you already own.

12) LOST TECHS -- under some set of circumstances (e.g entering a dark age) a civilisation can forget some techs.

Phew. And that covers only a small fraction of the total ideas. Please repost anything left out, and ESPECIALLY, include ideas for units/etc and prereqs for each tech suggestion. We can go all the way on this - I'd like to see an agreed system and a complete list of techs that fit that system. This isn't as ambitious as it sounds - but it will take YOUR input and your criticism (good or bad) of ideas.

Shining1

[This message has been edited by Shining1 (edited May 25, 1999).]

**the Octopus** · May 25, 1999, 01:37

Please hold off on this, Shining1. First off, yin asked if I had any nominations for a replacement. Second, I had intended to do a better job of the summary. Third, I think it's very bad form to announce someone else's resignation for them.

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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

**Shining1** · May 25, 1999, 02:16

Will do, man.

(Yin announced you resignation in the tech 1.3 thread, though. Please don't blame me for any of this...)

**the Octopus** · May 25, 1999, 02:23

"Yin announced you resignation in the tech 1.3 thread, though. Please don't blame me for any of this..."

I realized that after the fact. Sorry for jumping to conclusions .

To any of the contributors who are a bit puzzled by this: If yin reopens the old thread, I intend to post an explanation. I don't see how locking it does any good to anybody, and as I already said, I think announcing someone else's resignation is inappropriate.

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FORMER TECHNOLOGY THREAD MASTER

**Shining1** · May 25, 1999, 02:28

Just to make my position perfectly clear - it would be a good thing for octopus to unresign and resume his post. He actually did a good job - the relevant issue here.

Shining1

**Travathian** · May 25, 1999, 03:05

Actually a dyson sphere should be plenty stable.

I mean, think of it this way. If you only made it an inch thick, how much matter would it take to make it? Now, how much matter is there in the solar system minus the sun?
(sorry, I am not going to do the math this late at night)

But back to my point . . . It would require quite an advanced civ to do this, plus all of the matter in the solar system, but a sphere is quite strong. Incoming asteroid or comet, bah, blast it away. Remember, you have ALL the energy the sun radiates as a power source.

But yeah, you're right, the tech required would be far past that of the game =(

**the Octopus** · May 25, 1999, 05:02

I wanted to put this in the other thread, but it is still locked.

I am posting this letter of resignation to explain why I am leaving my position as Thread Master. I apologize for the length, and hope that you'll indulge me.

I am very sorry to announce that I am resigning as Thread Master for this thread. I have enjoyed the Technology thread very much, and it has been a pleasure interacting with all of you (even those of you I disagreed with ). My resignation has absolutely nothing to do with the way this thread has been progressing, any posts in this thread, or disagreements with anybody in the context of this thread. I've been very pleased with this thread, and I had looked forward to being a part of it into the future.

The resignation of my position is caused by disagreements with the other Thread Masters. I feel that it is vital to the process of compiling this list for Firaxis to have an organization which is capable of dealing with the many challenges that are going to present themselves in the weeks and months ahead. I felt that it was important that we establish the Thread Masters as a group of people who could discuss issues, work out solutions, and come to consensus. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the desire of the other thread masters.

In the <a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000014.html>THREAD MASTER'S WAR ROOM</a> I was trying to get the other thread masters to discuss and come to consensus on the topics such as standardizing our thread naming/numbering scheme (at the time there were several competing numbering systems), and some other issues. I felt it was important for all of the Thread Masters to work out their differences, and make their opinions known, so we could decide. After a few people commented on the topic of thread numbering, yin changed all the thread titles without much warning to a system which it was not clear that there was support for (ver1, ver2, ver3). I was greatly annoyed by this, because I thought it was highly inappropriate for yin to act in such a rash and arbitrary manner, when it was not at all clear what the majority (or even a substantial minority) had wanted. Yin then changed the names again after I complained, to the ver1.x system that you can see on threads right now (this is a system similar to the one I supported). Yin admitted that he shouldn't have acted without waiting to see what the other Thread Masters thought, and asked me to serve as "Organization Leader" to try to coordinate the discussion and work out a solution to the various issues. Toward that end, I started the <a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000064.html>Standardizing the List Process</a> thread.

I thought I did a reasonable job of summarizing the issues and explaining the various sides, and left the thread open for debate. After a few other people had put their opinions in, I felt it was safe for me to post my own personal views on the issues without fear of having them confused with my "official" capacity (see post by "the Octopus" on May 23, 1999 12:51, as well as JT's post earlier in the thread to which I was responding, and his response to my post immediately following mine). JT (and others) apparently took offense at my characterization of his system as "nuts", although I thought his concern was that I was expressing personal opinions at all, not the manner in which I expressed them (it is still unclear to me if he would have objected if I had not used the word "nuts", which I had intended in a joking, collegial manner).

It is at this point that my understanding of the situation gets a bit murky. I recieved e-mail from yin saying: "Forum politics has raised its ugly head again. I have received several mails telling me that "Yin should be the one to organize us. Having another Thread Master do it only invites problems." I was completely amazed by this, since I had not heard anything from anyone before. After some more e-mail was exchanged and forum messages were posted, I explained that I thought that the other Thread Masters were headed down a foolish path of complete reliance upon yin and refusal to self-organize. While I was completely out of the loop on the discussion, I assume that there was general consensus that my recognition as "Organization Leader" for the purposes of defining some standards was found to be inappropriate. I personally am amazed by this, because trying to the the Thread Masters to even talk to each other at all has been like pulling teeth, so I don't understand how they could have decided this so quickly and surely.

I think it is foolish to say that yin must control and be the leader of every discussion. I think it is unwise to make any person a central, indispensible decision maker. I think it is stupid to create an organization in which there are no checks on a single individual's power. As moderator of this forum, yin can do a lot of things. He has not demonstrated a reluctance to do any of them. He has not demonstrated a reluctance to take action without popular support. He has not demonstrated a reluctance to act without regard to the needs of the posters (e.g. locking threads before new ones are started). Why any organization would place unquestioned authority in the hands of anyone who is so demonstrably fallible is beyond me. I am not trying to single yin out as particularly error-prone. I would have the same concerns if anyone else was the head of this organization as currently constituted (even me). I think it is wrongheaded and misguided to run things the way that the other thread masters appear to want them run. Since the other Thread Masters are unwilling to rethink their position on this matter, the only option left to me is to resign.

If anyone thinks that I am leaving because I think I was somehow "betrayed" or "wronged" and am walking out in a huff, all I can say is that you are wrong. I really meant the things I said in this post. I'm not speaking in code, or trying to get you to read between the lines. The "paper trail" for about half of this can be seen in some threads on this forum, so you can check some of it out for yourself. Unfortunately, I am just as in the dark as the rest of you about half of it, because it occurred in e-mail exchanges between yin and Thread Masters who's identities I am not aware of (although tfs99 at least posted some of his side in the "standards" thread).

I want to apologize to all of the posters in this thread for the disruption and confusion this will likely cause. Yin has asked me to nominate a successor, and I am working on finding one. Hopefully we'll be able to get a new Thread Master for you shortly. I sincerely hope that this little episode has not hindered the development of the Technology thread. Thank you.

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FORMER TECHNOLOGY THREAD MASTER

**Koyaanisqatsi** · May 25, 1999, 09:56

Shining1 writes:
Bell: Sounds quite simple when you put it like that - BUT I think the idea is too subjective when put into practise. Which four techs are responsible for mathematics, for instance?

Don't ask me, I'm not a historian (or a mathematician, for that matter.) But BR and crew have a pretty good track record on such things. I don't think it's any more subjective than any other prereq system (including the one in CivII.)

By the way, is the truncated summary because of the TM situation, or is that what you've actually distilled everything down to? (I hope not...)

**rainer** · May 25, 1999, 10:13

GATEWAY TECHS

I picked up this idea from someone somewhere on one of the civ2 forums, but I forgot who it was. So, this idea is stolen, but I think it's good.

Certain techs could have a gateway function, as they open up a new era for a civ that discovers them. Without the gateway tech for a certain era (Renaissance, Industrial, Modern), all the techs from that era cost twice as many beakers to discover.
A new tech called "printing press" was mentioned as a good candidate for the renaissance gateway science. "Railroad" would be the one for the industrial era. "Computers" for the modern era?

I have always hated that it is possible to acquire sciences without having the necessary prerequisites (trading, stealing, tribute). Others think this is a realistic feature, though. A good compromise is possible by means of the gateway-tech feature: You may steal, trade, get as tribute anything you want provided you have the necessary gateway tech. That way you may get sth without having all the prerequisites but Iron-Age Mongol hordes will not be able to get armor just because they threw a diplo at one of your cities.

**the Octopus** · May 25, 1999, 10:16

Shining1, you seem to have left a hell of a lot out.

Are you editorializing, or are you not finished? I was not under the impression that you being Thread Master was a done deal.

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FORMER TECHNOLOGY THREAD MASTER

**Koyaanisqatsi** · May 25, 1999, 10:26

I'd also add that I don't like the 'historical' option of blind techs... I think the best 'comprimise' is to make it a startup optioin.

**Harel** · May 25, 1999, 11:44

First off, no offenese guys, but can you sort out your disagreement over e-mails?
Beside, this isnt the forum to discuss problems on the thread idea, Octopus. Don't take the wrong way, you know I like you

Anyway, I wanted to give the list of techs I belive are nessecary:
( including those I allready posted )

Arts ( In general )
Sculpting ( Allow throne room )
Architecture ( Allows wonders )
Farming ( Can plow farms )
Irrigation ( Can dig water canels. Like in Civ )
Crop selection ( Give an increasing bonus over time to food )
Genetic botony ( Increase the bonus rate of crop selection )
Livestocks ( Increase happiness with food supply? )
Ground rotating ( Increase basic land-output of food )
Semi-conductors ( Allow advanced computers )
Super-conductors ( Allow mono-rail )
Therodynamics ( Pre-require off steam-engine, allow Baloons: good scouting unit )
Machinery ( Pre-require of steam-engines, allow primtive factories )
Pressure study ( Pre-require to engines )
Engines ( Increase all factories productions, pre-require to steam-engine
[ yes, steam-engine is a very hard thing to achieve ]
Ballistics ( Crossbows )
Radiation study ( Allow safer nuclear plants and can build H-bombs: more damage then nuke, less polution )
Differanial math ( Pre-require to Gravity theory, increase science output )
Science method ( Increase science output )
Quantum physics ( Allow colliders, a high-cost +100% science output building )
Digital networking ( Allow internet interface, increase science output by how many are around the world )
Telecomm ( Allow comm sats )

That's all i can think off for now.. Give bigger list, maybe, later.

**Travathian** · May 25, 1999, 19:54

Yeah, I like the ringworld idea, a bit more plausible given the need for resources.

**SnowFire** · May 25, 1999, 20:58

Ack! This is what happens when you don't log online for a day.

Shining1 and Octopus: Since you don't seem to enthusiastic about thread mastering another thread, Shining, I would be happy to take over for you if you wanted. Except for a European history essay (the reason why I wasn't on last night) and a physics lab (due tommorow), I'm going to be basically free for the rest of the summer (save a job... hopefully ) to devote a lot more energy to posting (so I can write that "more complete" summary of ideas). Of course, if you still want to thread master tech, that's also fine.

[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited May 25, 1999).]

Announcement

TECHNOLOGY (ver 1.4) - hosted by Shining1

TECHNOLOGY (ver 1.4) - hosted by Shining1

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