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Continued from <a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000089.html">Technology 1.5</a>. Older threads may be found at <a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000079.html">Technology 1.4</a>, <a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000038.html">Technology 1.2</a>, and <a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000006.html">Technology 1.1</a>.
Welcome to the Technology 1.6 Thread. In response to popular demand, the summary has been chopped up into more categories. Still doesn't mean it's perfect though; keep posting suggestions on not just how to make technology better, but to make the letter/summary better.
And as a reminder, I will not try to squash or destroy your idea; but I will try and summarize them fairly and impartialy here in the summary and in the final letter to Brian.
<u>Section I: The Research Process (How do I do research into technology?)</u>
1) MULTIPLE TOPIC RESEARCH -- Many of the following ideas require that you be able to research several ideas at once. There must be some advantage to researching things in parallel rather than serially, or else no one will do it.
2) TECHNOLOGICAL FIELDS -- Many of the following ideas require that the techs be placed into a small number of broad categories. So far, the suggestions have been: Philosophy, Agriculture & Biology, Economics, Math & Physics, and Psychology. Effort should probably be made to make the different fields roughly equal in terms of number and usefulness of techs (trying to put the old tech tree into these categories give Math&Physics a big advantage...)
3) DEVELOPMENT INERTIA -- It doesn't make sense that the same researchers who just gave you "Nuclear Fission" would be able to turn around and give you "Television, because they are only peripherally related. Scientists are specialized, and can't easily be pushed around to different fields. You should have multiple "teams", each of which is working on a different project. When they are done with one, they will research a second project in the same field at a faster rate than an unrelated field (or pay a higher cost to research an "outside our expertise" field -- the effect is the same). See 16 for a similar idea.
4) RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' -- There should be several fields of research (see item 2) and you can set different allocations for the different fields (e.g. 25% of research points to Philosophy, 25% to Ag, 50% to Econ.) representing the number of scientists in that field and the money/work poured into it. However, whenever you change the allocation, you take a hit to the "efficiency" at which you research the topic you changed(i.e. number of research points per turn decreases), which is proportional to the magnitude of the change. This "efficiency hit" gradually diminishes over time until your society reaches "scientific equilibrium" at the new settings. This effect is likely to result in a "character" for different civs, because some will emphasize one field over another depending on their AI, and be unlikely to change because of the cost.
5) TECHNOLOGICAL "FIELDS" CONTAINING MINOR TECHS- 15-20 general fields of science are created to look into, like "Medicine," Agriculture," "Industrialization," and "Metallurgy," each containing many, many minor techs. You can choose which field (or fields, under option 1) you want to research (And, under ideas 2 &4, perhaps you research 3 fields at once each in different categories with different amounts of work on each), and you get minor techs from that field until you switch. This allows a far, far greater amount of minor techs (in Medicine alone, you might have "Anatomy," "Germ Theory," "Antiseptics," "Circulation of Blood..." It also allows you to have some direction to your research, but have some element of randomness still exist (see OFFSHOOT TECHS idea for a similar idea).
6) "GATEWAY" TECHS- If you have an era system (Antiquity, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern?), there should be a "gateway" tech for each new era that allows it to truly flourish. If you haven't researched that tech, then all other techs of the same era cost double the amount (or some other penalty). So researching The Corporation before Railroads will be possible, but expensive (if Railroads is the gateway tech to the Industrial era).
7) AI TECH TRADING INTELLIGENCE -- Make sure that the AIs only make tech trades that make sense. Why trade for "Mass Transit" if you don't have "Automobile"?
8) STARTING POSITION DEPENDENT CIV SPECIALTIES -- When a civ is placed on the map, give it a tech specialty. This solves the problem of saying "the Phoenicians should get a seafaring bonus because they had a maritime empire" by instead giving a civ that starts close to water a maritime bonus (and if that happened to be the Phoenicians, then you could play the Phoenicians like the existed historically, although hopefully they'd last longer
). A tech specialty would be a small bonus to research in related fields (or simply a higher beginning allocation to a certain field, if the RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' system is used). The bonus should disappear in modern times. (not necessary with SLIDER BAR system) Maybe give user the option to decide which type of place to start in, so that he or she can determine character of civ?
9) HISTORICAL ERA SHOULD PLAY A ROLE -- Since in ancient times scholars studied a wide variety of fields (they were real Renaissance men
) it makes sense to have tech specialization only play a role in more modern types of research (e.g. an ancient Greek philosopher might have contemplated both the role and practice of government as well as the laws of motion).
10) FAMOUS SCIENTISTS -- Scientific personalities, such as Einstein or Pasteur might provide some "flavor" to the scientific experience. Maybe these are random events that give you one time bonuses? ("Pasteur has established a laboratory in Paris, science output doubles in Paris for one turn" or something).
11) SERENDIPITOUS ADVANCES -- Technology discovered "accidentally". Basically a random event that gives you a tech advance.
12) TECHS SHOULD BE HARDER TO RESEARCH -- It is unrealistic for a civ to have the ability to realistically research every tech in the game without help -- historically nobody has developed everything. Techs should have a higher cost relative to the number of research points that are expected to be produced by an empire than in previous games. Another poster says this feature takes away the option if isolationism. Ideas?
<u>Section II: The Tech Tree (How do I get specific techs?)</u>
20) LOTS OF TECHS -- Some people think we need lots, and I mean LOTS of techs. Others think that too many techs may be bad, because they would grow hard to differentiate. Another problem is that lots of techs would also mean lots of techs with no immediate help from them, aside from them being pre-requisites to other techs. Many of the tech suggestions below depend on this system.
21) MULTIPLE PREREQS -- More than just two should be possible. This suggestion is probably implicit in some of the more ambitious prereq schemes.
22) MULTIPLE PATHS TO A PARTICULAR ADVANCE -- Instead of having rigid prerequisites that demand that a civ follow a particular research path to get to a tech, allow several different ways to achieve a particular advance. There are several alternatives...
23) BOOLEAN PREREQS -- The prerequisites should be specified with Boolean logic, i.e. AND, OR, NOT. For example, the prerequisite for "Labor Union" might be "Capitalism" and "Assembly Line", because the workers band together naturally to fight for rights, OR "Communism" and "Mass Media", because the communist activists are able to convince large numbers of workers to bargain collectively. However, "Capitalism" and "Mass Media" wouldn't do anything to advance "Labor Unions" without the other techs. -- Labor Union <= (Capitalism AND Assembly Line) OR (Communism AND Mass Media).
24) PREREQUISITE POINTS -- In this suggestion, different technologies each contribute a certain point value to satisfying the prerequisite of a follow-on technology. For example, If you were interested in researching "Trench Warfare", you might need to gather 10 prereq points, where "Machine Guns" would give you 4, "Artillery" would give you 7, "Chemical Warfare" would give you 3, and "Conscription" would give you 3. Supporters of this concept argue that many of the other suggestions in this list can be incorporated into this new scheme (for example, DIPLOMATIC SYNNERGY can be implemented by giving you a prereq point for having diplomatic relations with a civ that already has the tech in question) and that it will allow multiple different strategies, making the new complexity worthwhile. Others oppose the system because it seems too complex. The debate rages Sorry, still not an optimal explanation. I'd like to have a better example -- Bell, can you come up with one, preferably using techs we are familiar with from Civ or SMAC, not very low level like longbow/crossbow, so people can relate a bit more easily?
25) PREREQUISITE EQUIVALENCE -- instead of having a hard and fast prerequisite, allow some of them to be 'equivalence classed'. For example, if you wanted to develop "Technocracy", you need the advance on "Microchip", as well as knowledge of three government types, such as "Democracy", "Fascism", and "Monarchy".
26) REDUNDANT TECHS -- have multiple different ways to achieve the same in-game effect (say, a 2-1-1 unit or a "makes one unhappy person content" building) with different technological paths (for example, either "Religious Fanaticism" or "Professional Standing Army" techs might allow the 2-1-1 unit over the 1-1-1 unit). This allows different civilizations to take a less "cookie-cutter" approach to technological development, since there are no longer an "vital" technologies. (Maybe this and MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY are redundant, or at least related?)
27) MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY -- Developing one technology might not make sense when another one already existed. "Green Industries" and "Advanced Toxic Waste Disposal" might be examples of this.
28) RANDOM TECH TREE!!!! -- As long as there are multiple paths to each tech, there can be a probability that each path may or may not exist in a particular game. This adds to the excitement, and also the realism, since you can never quite be sure what your scientists will come up with until they come up with it. This is probably more easily accomplished if the REDUNDANT TECHS idea is implemented, since there is less likelihood of a civ being stranded without easy access to an important feature.
29) OFFSHOOT TECHS -- Minor technologies related to Major Technologies (i.e. Major techs are the ones we are familiar with) that are received as a random bonus for researching the Major Tech. They're not available every game, and only give a small bonus. Example: Researching "Warrior Code" might give you "Longbow" technology, which would give you better archers. Hypothetically these "minor techs" could be linked to specific civs to give them "character".
30) FORBID 'OUT-OF-ORDER' TECH -- If you don't have the prereqs for a tech, you shouldn't be able to use it, even if you trade for it, etc. If (through some quirk of fate) Columbus has plans for an A-Bomb, and traded them to the Native Americans he met, it is unlikely that they would have been able to nuke Europe, since they didn't have the infrastructure to make use of the idea. Suggested enhancement to this suggestion -- link things to "literacy", or possibly "era" (e.g. bronze-age tribe can't use Renaissance idea).
31) CONCEPTS vs. APPLICATIONS -- Instead of an "all techs are equivalent" way of looking at the world, break techs into "concepts" and "applications". A "concept" might be "Gunpowder", while an "application" might be "Musket" or "Tunnel Construction". The application techs would all have a concept tech as a prerequisite, and the concept techs only (mostly?) have other concepts as their prereqs. This way, a civ can be very advanced in general principles, or concentrate on developing known techniques. This might reflect the differences between invention and innovation.
32) RANDOMIZED APPLICATIONS -- Techs shouldn't always give you the same benefit. Some games, a specific tech might give you a particular unit, in others it might give you a building, etc. Or, after developing the technology, you have to pay money to actually develop each separate application of the technology, or at least pay a prototype fee. See 43.
33) ARMS RACES -- There should be more differentiation between "identical" techs. All of the major powers had "tanks" in World War II, but the designs of some countries were superior to those of others. (How might this be implemented without too much micromanagment? Since the rate of "obsolescence" is relatively quick, would this effect be too small to bother modeling in Civ III?)
34) MAKE TECH TREE REFLECT GAME SITUATION -- the current game situation should affect the tech tree. A land-locked civ is unlikely to develop "Navigation", and a civ with poor mineral resources is unlikely to develop "Advanced Mining".
35) SUPPORTING TECHS FOR OTHER IDEAS IN OTHER THREADS -- Some ideas in other threads give new abilities (such as specific types of specialist citizens) so it makes sense to have techs that bestow these abilities.
<u>The Techs Themselves...</u>
Currently existing advances are in quotes.
40) TECH ADVANCES TIED TO GAME FEATURES -- Features such as 'borders' should only be enables once the appropriate tech is discovered. See point 35 for an example.
41) RESOURCE LIMITATION LIFTING TECHS -- In SMAC there were some techs that you needed to research before you could gather more than 2 resources of each type. While an interesting idea, the implementation in SMAC was too limiting. The techs which lifted the limits were too indispensable, and came in too late, often choking off an empire until they could be found. Perhaps there should be a more gentle gradation over the ages? I'd like to include some concrete suggestions for improving this. Shining1 suggested that resource limits should be a function of Social Engineering. Other thoughts?.
42) TECHS SHOULD HAVE SOME 'BASIC' BENEFIT -- Each tech should have some effect of the 'basic' parameters of a civ, the kind of things that are likely to be influenced by Social Engineering (e.g. "Trade" should benefit your Economy rating, and "Crop Rotation" should benefit your Growth).
43) AN OPTION FOR A LESS 'MECHANISTIC' WORLDVIEW -- Some people feel that Civ emphasis science and technology, not allowing for the possibility of a civilization that has a less mechanistic worldview, and focuses instead on other pursuits, like philosophy or psychology. Is this workable? Suggestions? Could this have happened, even if it didn't historically?
44) MORE EMPHASIS ON FOOD MAKING TECHS -- Plants cultivation, Farming, Irrigation, Genetic manipulation... see 41 for what purpose they would serve.
45) GREATER EMPHASIS ON THE ARTS -- The tech tree in general focuses on military hardware and hard science, leaving the Arts somewhat unaddressed (this suggestion probably needs to be fleshed out more). more than a few posters question whether this is a good suggestion.
46) MAKE ARTS ADVANCES 'SCORE BOOSTERS' -- Maybe Art and Culture advances should simply be score boosters (like "Future Tech") or one time benefits.
47) TECHNOLOGY SHOULD INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ENTERTAINERS -- Certain technologies should enhance the effectiveness of your "entertainer" specialists in the city screen (e.g. Television).
<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited June 03, 1999).]</font>
Welcome to the Technology 1.6 Thread. In response to popular demand, the summary has been chopped up into more categories. Still doesn't mean it's perfect though; keep posting suggestions on not just how to make technology better, but to make the letter/summary better.
And as a reminder, I will not try to squash or destroy your idea; but I will try and summarize them fairly and impartialy here in the summary and in the final letter to Brian.
<u>Section I: The Research Process (How do I do research into technology?)</u>
1) MULTIPLE TOPIC RESEARCH -- Many of the following ideas require that you be able to research several ideas at once. There must be some advantage to researching things in parallel rather than serially, or else no one will do it.
2) TECHNOLOGICAL FIELDS -- Many of the following ideas require that the techs be placed into a small number of broad categories. So far, the suggestions have been: Philosophy, Agriculture & Biology, Economics, Math & Physics, and Psychology. Effort should probably be made to make the different fields roughly equal in terms of number and usefulness of techs (trying to put the old tech tree into these categories give Math&Physics a big advantage...)
3) DEVELOPMENT INERTIA -- It doesn't make sense that the same researchers who just gave you "Nuclear Fission" would be able to turn around and give you "Television, because they are only peripherally related. Scientists are specialized, and can't easily be pushed around to different fields. You should have multiple "teams", each of which is working on a different project. When they are done with one, they will research a second project in the same field at a faster rate than an unrelated field (or pay a higher cost to research an "outside our expertise" field -- the effect is the same). See 16 for a similar idea.
4) RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' -- There should be several fields of research (see item 2) and you can set different allocations for the different fields (e.g. 25% of research points to Philosophy, 25% to Ag, 50% to Econ.) representing the number of scientists in that field and the money/work poured into it. However, whenever you change the allocation, you take a hit to the "efficiency" at which you research the topic you changed(i.e. number of research points per turn decreases), which is proportional to the magnitude of the change. This "efficiency hit" gradually diminishes over time until your society reaches "scientific equilibrium" at the new settings. This effect is likely to result in a "character" for different civs, because some will emphasize one field over another depending on their AI, and be unlikely to change because of the cost.
5) TECHNOLOGICAL "FIELDS" CONTAINING MINOR TECHS- 15-20 general fields of science are created to look into, like "Medicine," Agriculture," "Industrialization," and "Metallurgy," each containing many, many minor techs. You can choose which field (or fields, under option 1) you want to research (And, under ideas 2 &4, perhaps you research 3 fields at once each in different categories with different amounts of work on each), and you get minor techs from that field until you switch. This allows a far, far greater amount of minor techs (in Medicine alone, you might have "Anatomy," "Germ Theory," "Antiseptics," "Circulation of Blood..." It also allows you to have some direction to your research, but have some element of randomness still exist (see OFFSHOOT TECHS idea for a similar idea).
6) "GATEWAY" TECHS- If you have an era system (Antiquity, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern?), there should be a "gateway" tech for each new era that allows it to truly flourish. If you haven't researched that tech, then all other techs of the same era cost double the amount (or some other penalty). So researching The Corporation before Railroads will be possible, but expensive (if Railroads is the gateway tech to the Industrial era).
7) AI TECH TRADING INTELLIGENCE -- Make sure that the AIs only make tech trades that make sense. Why trade for "Mass Transit" if you don't have "Automobile"?
8) STARTING POSITION DEPENDENT CIV SPECIALTIES -- When a civ is placed on the map, give it a tech specialty. This solves the problem of saying "the Phoenicians should get a seafaring bonus because they had a maritime empire" by instead giving a civ that starts close to water a maritime bonus (and if that happened to be the Phoenicians, then you could play the Phoenicians like the existed historically, although hopefully they'd last longer
). A tech specialty would be a small bonus to research in related fields (or simply a higher beginning allocation to a certain field, if the RESEARCH PRIORITY SLIDER BARS WITH 'INERTIA' system is used). The bonus should disappear in modern times. (not necessary with SLIDER BAR system) Maybe give user the option to decide which type of place to start in, so that he or she can determine character of civ?9) HISTORICAL ERA SHOULD PLAY A ROLE -- Since in ancient times scholars studied a wide variety of fields (they were real Renaissance men
) it makes sense to have tech specialization only play a role in more modern types of research (e.g. an ancient Greek philosopher might have contemplated both the role and practice of government as well as the laws of motion).10) FAMOUS SCIENTISTS -- Scientific personalities, such as Einstein or Pasteur might provide some "flavor" to the scientific experience. Maybe these are random events that give you one time bonuses? ("Pasteur has established a laboratory in Paris, science output doubles in Paris for one turn" or something).
11) SERENDIPITOUS ADVANCES -- Technology discovered "accidentally". Basically a random event that gives you a tech advance.
12) TECHS SHOULD BE HARDER TO RESEARCH -- It is unrealistic for a civ to have the ability to realistically research every tech in the game without help -- historically nobody has developed everything. Techs should have a higher cost relative to the number of research points that are expected to be produced by an empire than in previous games. Another poster says this feature takes away the option if isolationism. Ideas?
<u>Section II: The Tech Tree (How do I get specific techs?)</u>
20) LOTS OF TECHS -- Some people think we need lots, and I mean LOTS of techs. Others think that too many techs may be bad, because they would grow hard to differentiate. Another problem is that lots of techs would also mean lots of techs with no immediate help from them, aside from them being pre-requisites to other techs. Many of the tech suggestions below depend on this system.
21) MULTIPLE PREREQS -- More than just two should be possible. This suggestion is probably implicit in some of the more ambitious prereq schemes.
22) MULTIPLE PATHS TO A PARTICULAR ADVANCE -- Instead of having rigid prerequisites that demand that a civ follow a particular research path to get to a tech, allow several different ways to achieve a particular advance. There are several alternatives...
23) BOOLEAN PREREQS -- The prerequisites should be specified with Boolean logic, i.e. AND, OR, NOT. For example, the prerequisite for "Labor Union" might be "Capitalism" and "Assembly Line", because the workers band together naturally to fight for rights, OR "Communism" and "Mass Media", because the communist activists are able to convince large numbers of workers to bargain collectively. However, "Capitalism" and "Mass Media" wouldn't do anything to advance "Labor Unions" without the other techs. -- Labor Union <= (Capitalism AND Assembly Line) OR (Communism AND Mass Media).
24) PREREQUISITE POINTS -- In this suggestion, different technologies each contribute a certain point value to satisfying the prerequisite of a follow-on technology. For example, If you were interested in researching "Trench Warfare", you might need to gather 10 prereq points, where "Machine Guns" would give you 4, "Artillery" would give you 7, "Chemical Warfare" would give you 3, and "Conscription" would give you 3. Supporters of this concept argue that many of the other suggestions in this list can be incorporated into this new scheme (for example, DIPLOMATIC SYNNERGY can be implemented by giving you a prereq point for having diplomatic relations with a civ that already has the tech in question) and that it will allow multiple different strategies, making the new complexity worthwhile. Others oppose the system because it seems too complex. The debate rages Sorry, still not an optimal explanation. I'd like to have a better example -- Bell, can you come up with one, preferably using techs we are familiar with from Civ or SMAC, not very low level like longbow/crossbow, so people can relate a bit more easily?
25) PREREQUISITE EQUIVALENCE -- instead of having a hard and fast prerequisite, allow some of them to be 'equivalence classed'. For example, if you wanted to develop "Technocracy", you need the advance on "Microchip", as well as knowledge of three government types, such as "Democracy", "Fascism", and "Monarchy".
26) REDUNDANT TECHS -- have multiple different ways to achieve the same in-game effect (say, a 2-1-1 unit or a "makes one unhappy person content" building) with different technological paths (for example, either "Religious Fanaticism" or "Professional Standing Army" techs might allow the 2-1-1 unit over the 1-1-1 unit). This allows different civilizations to take a less "cookie-cutter" approach to technological development, since there are no longer an "vital" technologies. (Maybe this and MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY are redundant, or at least related?)
27) MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY -- Developing one technology might not make sense when another one already existed. "Green Industries" and "Advanced Toxic Waste Disposal" might be examples of this.
28) RANDOM TECH TREE!!!! -- As long as there are multiple paths to each tech, there can be a probability that each path may or may not exist in a particular game. This adds to the excitement, and also the realism, since you can never quite be sure what your scientists will come up with until they come up with it. This is probably more easily accomplished if the REDUNDANT TECHS idea is implemented, since there is less likelihood of a civ being stranded without easy access to an important feature.
29) OFFSHOOT TECHS -- Minor technologies related to Major Technologies (i.e. Major techs are the ones we are familiar with) that are received as a random bonus for researching the Major Tech. They're not available every game, and only give a small bonus. Example: Researching "Warrior Code" might give you "Longbow" technology, which would give you better archers. Hypothetically these "minor techs" could be linked to specific civs to give them "character".
30) FORBID 'OUT-OF-ORDER' TECH -- If you don't have the prereqs for a tech, you shouldn't be able to use it, even if you trade for it, etc. If (through some quirk of fate) Columbus has plans for an A-Bomb, and traded them to the Native Americans he met, it is unlikely that they would have been able to nuke Europe, since they didn't have the infrastructure to make use of the idea. Suggested enhancement to this suggestion -- link things to "literacy", or possibly "era" (e.g. bronze-age tribe can't use Renaissance idea).
31) CONCEPTS vs. APPLICATIONS -- Instead of an "all techs are equivalent" way of looking at the world, break techs into "concepts" and "applications". A "concept" might be "Gunpowder", while an "application" might be "Musket" or "Tunnel Construction". The application techs would all have a concept tech as a prerequisite, and the concept techs only (mostly?) have other concepts as their prereqs. This way, a civ can be very advanced in general principles, or concentrate on developing known techniques. This might reflect the differences between invention and innovation.
32) RANDOMIZED APPLICATIONS -- Techs shouldn't always give you the same benefit. Some games, a specific tech might give you a particular unit, in others it might give you a building, etc. Or, after developing the technology, you have to pay money to actually develop each separate application of the technology, or at least pay a prototype fee. See 43.
33) ARMS RACES -- There should be more differentiation between "identical" techs. All of the major powers had "tanks" in World War II, but the designs of some countries were superior to those of others. (How might this be implemented without too much micromanagment? Since the rate of "obsolescence" is relatively quick, would this effect be too small to bother modeling in Civ III?)
34) MAKE TECH TREE REFLECT GAME SITUATION -- the current game situation should affect the tech tree. A land-locked civ is unlikely to develop "Navigation", and a civ with poor mineral resources is unlikely to develop "Advanced Mining".
35) SUPPORTING TECHS FOR OTHER IDEAS IN OTHER THREADS -- Some ideas in other threads give new abilities (such as specific types of specialist citizens) so it makes sense to have techs that bestow these abilities.
<u>The Techs Themselves...</u>
Currently existing advances are in quotes.
40) TECH ADVANCES TIED TO GAME FEATURES -- Features such as 'borders' should only be enables once the appropriate tech is discovered. See point 35 for an example.
41) RESOURCE LIMITATION LIFTING TECHS -- In SMAC there were some techs that you needed to research before you could gather more than 2 resources of each type. While an interesting idea, the implementation in SMAC was too limiting. The techs which lifted the limits were too indispensable, and came in too late, often choking off an empire until they could be found. Perhaps there should be a more gentle gradation over the ages? I'd like to include some concrete suggestions for improving this. Shining1 suggested that resource limits should be a function of Social Engineering. Other thoughts?.
42) TECHS SHOULD HAVE SOME 'BASIC' BENEFIT -- Each tech should have some effect of the 'basic' parameters of a civ, the kind of things that are likely to be influenced by Social Engineering (e.g. "Trade" should benefit your Economy rating, and "Crop Rotation" should benefit your Growth).
43) AN OPTION FOR A LESS 'MECHANISTIC' WORLDVIEW -- Some people feel that Civ emphasis science and technology, not allowing for the possibility of a civilization that has a less mechanistic worldview, and focuses instead on other pursuits, like philosophy or psychology. Is this workable? Suggestions? Could this have happened, even if it didn't historically?
44) MORE EMPHASIS ON FOOD MAKING TECHS -- Plants cultivation, Farming, Irrigation, Genetic manipulation... see 41 for what purpose they would serve.
45) GREATER EMPHASIS ON THE ARTS -- The tech tree in general focuses on military hardware and hard science, leaving the Arts somewhat unaddressed (this suggestion probably needs to be fleshed out more). more than a few posters question whether this is a good suggestion.
46) MAKE ARTS ADVANCES 'SCORE BOOSTERS' -- Maybe Art and Culture advances should simply be score boosters (like "Future Tech") or one time benefits.
47) TECHNOLOGY SHOULD INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ENTERTAINERS -- Certain technologies should enhance the effectiveness of your "entertainer" specialists in the city screen (e.g. Television).
<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by SnowFire (edited June 03, 1999).]</font>
500-200BC) 
rovides 30x increase in winnowing grains over
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