TECHNOLOGY (v2.0)- hosted by SnowFire

[NotLikeTea]

Thanks for mentioning Invention! I had forgotton that it was an actual tech, and a dumb one at that.

Invention? Invention? What do you call the creation of the wheel??

I like the idea of necessity, as I mentioned earlier... Caravels wouldn't need two continents.. let's just say two coastal cities further apart than 30 squares. Why not use boats to go from the north to south of a continent? Just as handy as from one continent to the next...

Of course, you should be able to research caravels in any case. Necessity hastens invention, but it doesn't have to be the only force. Of course, researching caravles if you don't need them won't serve as the same inspiration.

[korn469]

Flavor Dave,

your idea though stated in different manner is on the same wavelength as mine.

my idea works kind of like how the gateway techs in the summary do but not exactly so if your having problems grasping this idea look at the gateway techs part of the summary

yeah you are missing my point because i'm having a hard time articulating myself. but your idea is virtually identical to mine. my idea is that technology by itself doesn't do anything for you. so if you turned on cheat mode and gave yourself every tech in the the tech tree, you would still only be able to build warriors.

the various applications associated with technology (by applications, i mean units, special ablities, buildings, wonders) wouldn't be triggered by just discovering the tech alone, you'd have to have an enabler. and enabler is like a technology but you can't research it. it happens, and it'd happen like in your example...if you build five libraries then the conditions are right for your people to get the renassanse enabler education

ok civ2 has ages, ancient, renassance, industrial, and modern...CTP has even more ages than that. what i'm trying to do with the enabler idea is represent the underlying reasons why we went from one age to another. I mean there is a reason that the renassance happned when it did, and that reason was more because of non technilogical factors than some inventor saying..."oh i created the renassance!" this explains why taking the blueprints for an AK-47 back in time to ancient rome wouldn't mean that they could suddenly outit all their legions withs Ak-47s

here's an other example (maybe it will be easier to understand than the one in my previous post) you just started the game and a goody hut is right beside of your city. you step into the the goody hut and you get the technology for bronze working. in civ2 this means that you now can build the colosses and the phalanx unit. under my system you wouldn't be ale to build the phalanx or the colosses. you would need an enabler to let you utilize bronze working capabilities. lets say when you built 5 military units you'd get the ancient era enabler organization that would then enable you to build a phalanx. this wouldn't enable the colosses, some other thing would enable it. that is an example of how it would work. in the ancient era maybe you wouldn't have enablers for strictly play balancing reasons. however to advance to the renassance age you'd have to set up the conditions it would take to start the renassance. maybe you'd have to switch out of despotism and build four libraries to trigger the renassance. these conditons would be partially random and partially "build 5 libraries to start the renassance". it's work like this you build 5 libraries then you'd have a good chance (%80) of the renassance starting. the enablers for the renassance might be like this

-reach a population of 50 in your empire, and be a monarchy: triggers one enabler(%80 chance of this happening)
-build five libraries: triggers another enabler (%80 chance of this happening)
-establish an embassy with one other civilization: triggers a different enabler (%80 chance of this happening)

it could be like a scenario victory condition except that would be what triggers the renassance era.

therefore enabler+tech=applications (which are units, buildings, wonders, special abilities)

this to some extent seperates techs from units. it gives you intermediate goals for your empire, (i wanna make the industrial revolution happen fast! how can i get 100 people in my empire and demacracy by 800A.D.?) it also means that even if you are the first one to discover a tech you aren't necesarily the one to put it to a good use. for example China invented gun powder in the early 1100's i think. but they didn't equip their armies with guns. because they didn't have the right mindset and factors to do this. the enablers would represent the midset and the infrastructure present that triggered the each age.

maybe that makes some sence. i'm still stiking to my main defense of this idea. it'd be alot of fun! especially when you played your first game and didn't know what triggers the modern age. (perhaps 5 cities size 10 or larger along with the knowlegde of electricity) and then to accidently stumble upon the combination of events thats triggers your modern age it'd be awsome. i'm also sure that techniques would develop for getting to each age as fast as possible. also a player who took advantage of infinite city sprawl and just built elephants would never trigger the renassance. so it'd strike more of a balance between war and development

korn469

ps if you still don't get it tell me and i'll try to explain it even better...if you do get it tell me if it needs improvment and if so how

[EnochF]

I think necessity should be a prerequisite for invention.

[Icedan]

well I'm lost

p.s. I love the new look - you know what i'm talkin about

[Flavor Dave]

korn--I think you need to be careful about the enablers--if you make this too much a part of the game, you're just slowing it down.

How about this-
You have one enabler for units, and one for buildings, in each age. Wonders never need enablers. The enabler is different and random each game.

Like this--you can only build warriors until you get organization. Organization might be triggered whenever you have 2 warriors in the same city. Or it might be when your military has 5 units total. At that point, you are enabled to build anything up to musketeers and dragoons.

You can't build anything except city walls and temples until you've discovered architecture, which is triggered by a total of 5 buildings, or if your science output per turn equals 20 beakers, etc. Then you can build everything up to banks and universities, which need the renaissance trigger/enabler. Etc.

Change the tech for dragoons to mounted war or something, and make leadership the tech for musketeers and dragoons and everything this side of MIs and tanks and howies, which need another tech to enable modern warfare. And leadership might be enabled by having killed a certain number of enemy units, or by a certain size army, or embassies with over half of AI civs. The random thing might be cool.

The renaissance and industrial and modern (may not want industrial to be its own age, tho) could be triggered by a combo of techs, or even a combo of 3 of 5 techs and a certain number of cities, or population, whatever.

I see what you mean about ICS, but at deity, I don't really know if this works against the AI that well anyway. HG is a necessity, and even with it, you kinda run out of steam after a while. I've had stronger games with modified perfectionism, where I have 10-12 great cities entering the industrial era, and then go to war after I've finished Hoover Dam.

That's the best I can do with your idea right now. I still think the other idea is better, that navigation means Magellan's but not caravels until something else happens. Higher learning doesn't allow universities unless XX happens also.

But I kinda think that the above idea would be better with random triggers, where possible. It's a neat twist--more realistic, more fun, helps avoid the strategy funnels. But if it adds too much luck to the game, then this should be an option.

[SnowFire]

korn/Flavor: Check out #39. Rather short, I know, but is there anything I'm missing? Tell me if so.

Alexander: Cool idea, but I think that's more a job for the SOCIAL ENGINEERING thread than this one.

[Miner]

QUOTE:
"One little niggling note, though, just to intimidate one more time: the study of the earth's crust, which is related to the exploration for oil and other undergrond resources, is Geomorphology - had a roommate in college majoring in it years ago.
Geology is a better title for the game, though: CivIII as a College Catalog won't sell any extra games to anyone! "

Ahem!

The study of mineral deposits is called Mining Geology. Geomorphology (lit: shape of the earth) is just Physical Geography, ie glaciers make valleys.

My alibi isn't Miner for nothing!

Here endeth the lesson

From the point of view of Civ, Geology as an advance should enable things like advanced/deep mines or increased resource production from mines. It represents the change from mining being "I'll dig here because the rock is glittery" to the formal study of rocks & minerals. Therefore a prerequisite should be University.

[Jon Miller]

hope this gets read, this thread has not been used much recently

I think that you should learn theories and learn seperate applications of those theories, getting some free applications for each theory based on your current condition, like if you are at war and there is a war application you might learn it for free, while if you aren't at war you would have to seperately study each military application

what application you learned would be somewhat based on chance (you would get like one free application with each theory)

if you decide to study like war applications, then you could get past applications, applications from the most recent theory, or an application from a theory only one step up, and you would not know what one you would get (like in blind research

there would be certain ages where you could no longer get past applications (why learn longbows when you have guns)

some theories would require different sets or groups of sets previous theories and applications as prerequisites

some applications might have different sets and groups of sets of previous theories and applications in order to build them too

an example would be a frigate, you would have to have the theory of map making, navigation, metalurgy, magnetism, and have the application of cannons (following the old civ2 techs and applications)

I'm sure that some better set of theories and applications could be thought of

theories would do nothing but allow more applications

this is realistic to have them seperate because they where throughout history that is how it has been

it takes theories and previous ideas on how to use them to make up new ides on how to use those already thought up applications for a new application

there should always be a chance (maybe affected by how obvious that application is, which would be a factor based on how many historical civilizations thought of it) of getting a related when you learn a theory or application

even if you don't get the related application it should get easier and easier for you to learn it when you learn a related theory or application (this makes sense, as you delve more and more into one area your understanding of that area grows)

these additional applications would be the sudden flashes of insight mentioned earlier

this would handle the longbow and other advances that not every civilization had because in this idea as in real life what you learn is based on your need, if you ask for war application at the proper time and you have the proper prerequisites then the longbow will be one of the applications that you will be able to get, (which one would be figured by blind research, if you wanted to complicate it farther the whole process could be affect on some level by nearby resources, such as no ship applications (nor maybe certain theories) if you have no cities by the sea or longbow comes up more often if there are a lot of trees by you)

people seem to often misinterpret or ignore my ideas so if you don't understand something please post or email the question


Jon Miller

[Theben]

Enablers: do you really want them?

1) Tech advances, while not really accurate, do represent advances of society accurately enough. To take korn469's 3 examples:

-Reach pop of 50: Already in Civ you research quicker if you have higher pop
-Build 5 libraries: Libraries enable quicker research
-Establish embassy: If other civ has tech you can trade or demand it. Even if no new techs, trade routes enhance research,and there are players who demand research treaties for civ3.

Defeats strategy funnel: Instead I see a different style of strategy funnel developing here. The player will race for all the enablers before the AI -which is too stupid to understand what it should research 1st- gets them, especially once the player is familiar with the game. This might be avoidable if Firaxis had random enablers for certain things, but they'd have to be VERY creative AND do A LOT of extra research to find variants that sound reasonable to players. And for all that, there'd still be people unhappy with this system. So I vote NAY to enablers.

Jon Miller,
perhaps if you used commas correctly and didn't have run on sentences and made a list before you post and read the list and then posted it cause if you don't follow it easily then maybe other people will have difficulty following you and then they will be frustrated trying to follow it and then won't post so if you did that we could respond to your ideas better.

[Scooter]

Per Snowfire's request, I'm posting this here. It was originaly in the unofficial GAME OPTIONS, PREFERENCES, & UNIT OPTIONS list.

How about a Tech accelerater option. If Civ A has twice the accumulated science as Civ B, then Civ B get's double science points for X turns. I use these numbers as an example, they would have to be tested of course. This would be nice for newbies who get far behind, but more importantly it would extend the games of experts by "cheating" on behalf of the AI to get them back in the race. I stop playing a lot of my games once it's academic that I've won, just systematic, boring mopping up remains. With this option, the game would still be interesting till the end.

Other ways to accomplish the same goal would be to grant the "technologically challenged CPU opponent" an Edison's Lab type of effect until it recovers, or for X turns. Or give them a few spies placed throught the world that have a better chance to steal advances.

Just some way to extend the challenge would be really great.
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"BEEFCAKE, BEEFCAKE!!!

-E. Cartman
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Scooter (edited July 09, 1999).]</font>

[Harel]

Talking about sci.fi games, I just got a copy of a grand space-conquering game: Malkari.
Now, Malkari has a wonderful idea on how to handle technology. This idea, put into civ III could allow us several key ideas people asked: theortical/pratical research, catgorial research, improvment, etc.
Now, this is how the Malkari research model works:
You have several catagories for models: propulsion, weapons, computers, etc. in Civ III, ofcourse, it can be: combat, biology, physics, etc. Every section contained several concepts. Things you allready know are colored green, and new items to acquire are noted red and with a progress bar.
You spend points on allready available models. For every model, you have another bar: pratical/theortical research. More practial research allows improve the current model: cheaper, faster, works better, etc. Theoritcal research boost the speed in which you acquire new models. When you gain a certain amount of new models, you move into a new tech level, which allows you a totaly new set of new models. You can still build the older ones: they would probaly be improved and cost a lot more.

In civ III, for example, you gain Phalanxs. Do you spend research to improve it ( gaining speed/attack/defence bonus, and reducing cost ) or speding more or theortical research which will boost the speed which you will gain legions?
We can divide the entire game into 9 tech levels:
1: bronze age
2: iron age
3: old age ( advanced-roman )
4: middle-ages
5: borok
6: industrial
7: pre-modern ( 1900-1950 )
8: modern ( 1950 - 2010 )
9: futuristic ( 2010 -

[Jon Miller]

Theben, if you had read my passage you would have read that if you wanted say a war application, what you actually get depends on chance and which one has the most chance, affected by previous enablers as I have said

the human couldn't be sure what they would get either and since you choose the applications you study based on need (and you study theories if you need more knowledge), if a human needs a war application he will get one the same way as the computer player

and since it is possible to get application from one level higher in theory, the computer player won't get stuck there, especially if they are programed properly on when to get military applications, different types of domestic applications, and theories

Jon

[Ecce Homo]

Harel, is there any info about Malkari on the Internet?

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[Harel]

Yes there is Ecce homo, MINE. For all my information, I have the second site on the net which is only dedicted to Malkari.
The interface is a little blocky, but enjoy:
http://members.xoom.com/Chronicals

Also, check IMagicGames:
http://www.imagicgames.com/Malkari

Hope this help! Malkari is a grand game!

[wonderdog4]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this or not, but MING suggested I post it so here it is.

How about a new tech called nationalism which follows monarchy or republic but precedes conscription. It was nationalism, afterall, which allowed Napoleon to "invent" national conscription.

Nationalism could make cities more difficult (or expensive) to bribe. It might also make
one unhappy person content.

If it does these things, then it need not be accompanied by a special wonder or a new unit.