TECHNOLOGY (v2.0)- hosted by SnowFire

[Gregurabi]

This matches some of the ideas in the summary, but I'd like to throw some support behind the idea of technologies which don't just allow you to build things. I'd like to see a better variety of advances which, having been learned, give immediate benefits.

Examples of this in past Civ games include Navigation (in Civ2, your Trireme units have less chance of sinking if they end a turn away from shore), Nuclear Power (sea units get 1 extra movement point), Mysticism (doubles the effect of temples), and so on.

I'd like to see this expanded. The first one that comes to mind is Mass Production -- this should boost the effect of factories. Nuclear Power should not give extra movement points to Triremes, but it could (continue to) give a boost to Submarines and other high-tech sea units. Someone just suggested that Nationalism should give a small happiness boost -- good idea, but it might vary with one's government type. Crop rotation and certain other techs should give a bonus to food production -- you shouldn't have to go build "rotating farm" tile improvements or something equally silly; the farmers will just farm more efficiently.

(CTP takes this to an extreme, and lets you build Lawyer units which can actually be killed in battle. If you want to engage in economic warfare, that's great, but not by *building* and sending Lawyer *units* into enemy territory -- it should be done from a central menu, perhaps spending money and diverting resources into an economic warfare system.... So along with the tech of Economics (or equiv.) you'd get the ability to wage economic war, but this wouldn't mean building some silly unit.)

Automobiles should increase happiness. (They should do a lot of things, actually -- the introduction of the automobile triggered some of the biggest social changes of this century. But this implies that you can actually build the things, which ties back to the notion of acquiring techs well beyond one's current level of development....)

There should also be more of an obsolescence effect as well -- the other side of this coin. There's already a precedent for this, too -- Communism decreases the effect of Cathedrals in Civ2, and the Automobile increases pollution. Again, I'd like to see this expanded. Rationalism (call it what you like -- the Enlightenment, Secularization, etc.) should decrease the effect of religious institutions, before Communism does, but should increase research speed and lead (eventually) to non-religious means of happiness. Reliable Contraception (a good and useful tech, I agree -- unreliable alternatives have existed for thousands of years...) should decrease your growth rate (but increase productivity and happiness).

Anyway, I could come up with more examples, given more time, but the overriding point is that I don't think that technologies should be defined by what they let you build.

[NotLikeTea]

Agreed!

As a note on contraception... this is where Civ and the "Real World" (tm) diverge. In Civ, all population is good population, the more the merrier! In the real world, over population is as much a problem, if not more, than underpopilation. In the real world, population grows without surplus food all the time.

If there were bad aspects to overpopulation, contraception would be a wonderful, and needed tech. If this is not changed, it would only be a penalty.

[FinnishGuy]

There's an interesting discussion going on in CIVILIZATIONS about barbarians = minor civs and civs splitting. Anyway, the concept of nationalism was brought up by Zakalwe. So, a proposal for a new advance: Nationalism.

(I see in the summary someone has suggested "the Enlightenment" advance. It could be a prerequisite for Nationalism.)


from CIVILIZATIONS thread:

Zakalwe:
"Later, Nationalism should really open the can of worms. In my opinion, it would have to be a 'gateway' tech for many other advances, such as consription (levee en masse), but also carry a heavy burden. All those cities your civ captured during the last few centuries should be much harder to control, and the chances of them slipping off to form their own states should be increased."

me:
"I agree with the comment about Nationalism being a gateway tech. BTW, I proposed "the Great Revolution" WoW in WONDERS thread (civs can't switch to modern republic/democracy before it has been built, gives half military unit costs for 20 turns to the civ that builds it, ...). It could well be linked to Nationalism tech advance."

Zakalwe:
"The "Great Revolution" wonder sounds like a good idea. Combined with nationalism, it would be a sort of a turning point in the game - ushering in the new era of nation-states and increased unrest."

[EnochF]

I guess this would be the right forum to make this suggestion...

One aspect of Alpha Centauri I think would be perfect for Civ III is the "datalinks"-style of presentation for technology. By that I mean that, whenever you discover a technology, a window will pop up that describes the technology and also begins playing a sound file. In fact, I think that the sound files would be a lot more entertaining for genuine technologies than for the imaginary technobabble found in SMAC.

Hire some competent actors to read the parts, so we hear Socrates for Philosophy, Sun Tzu for Tactics, St. Augustine for Theology, Solomon for Monarchy, Hammurabi for Code of Laws, Aristarchus or Ptolemy for Astronomy, and later on maybe Gustavus Adolphus for Gunpowder, Newton for Gravity, Marconi for Radio, Watt for the Steam Engine, Carnegie for Steel, Einstein or Oppenheimer for Atomic Theory, Jefferson for Democracy, Marx for Communism, Patton for Mobile Warfare. Maybe for Seafaring, have an excerpt from Homer's Odyssey, or the Iliad for Bronze Working.

Sure, there should be an option to switch off the tech blurbs, because after a while, hearing the same future tech blurb over and over is no fun. (I'm so sick of the Planet-voice saying "eternity lies ahead of us...") But it would make the first few games a lot more fun, and it would really help to rope in the first-time players.

What others? Uh, for mathematics, Pythagoras... or maybe Euclid, or perhaps that should be for Geometry. For Chivalry, an excerpt from Sir Thomas Malory would do. The Wright Brothers for Flight, perhaps, or maybe Montgolfier. Dalton for Chemistry. Keynes for Economics. Goddard for Rocketry, or maybe Von Braun, just to be perverse. For Monotheism, something biblical (probably the commandment "thou shalt have no other gods before me" would be apropos). Lorenzo de' Medici for Banking. Henry Ford for Automobile. Some of the early techs might be difficult... I can't think of a proper blurb for Writing or Ceremonial Burial, for example, though perhaps some Amerindian sources might help.

[loinburger]

This will likely be my one and only contribution to this forum--

Trade. In CivI and CivII trade was only good for increasing the 'trade' output at your bases and thus was only indirectly resonsible for aiding in technological advances. However, trade (and contact with other civilizations in general) should do more towards assisting research. As the example is, you don't 'know' you're trying to develop gunpowder, it just happens; BUT, if you're on a (un)friendly visit to a civilization that posesses gunpowder, say your caravan just arrived at China and you've got yourself a trade pact cemented, and lo and behold you witness the glory of gunpowder! "I must have the secret to this stuff so that I can conquer later on," you blurt out, but alas! the chinese keep the secret of gunpowder to themselves and will not give you the tech. BUT, your contact with the Chinese should boost your research efforts, and should help you direct them towards gunpowder instead of blindly researching. The closer you are with other civilizations (not to mean that you are on friendly terms, but just the closer you are to each other and the more often your units meet either in communication or combat) the more research bonuses you should get from them. Johnny Civilization in the mountains isn't near water, and Billy Civilization isn't near mountains, but they both expand and meet on the plains and trade whatever. Eventually they expand elsewhere where there are both mountains and water--they will both be prepared for this change with water/mountain units, as they have learned the secret art of boating/skiing from each other. They're not perfect at it, but they've got a good start.

[Theben]

Gregurabi,
I agree, sir (good name, btw)! I had some ideas regarding the expansion of techs that give you small bonuses w/o needing a unit or city structure to implement:

Medicine: +1 food for every 4 citizens/city. It's not really food, but reflects extra growth for longer lives.

Sanitation: As medicine; combined you get +1 food per 3 citizens.

Public Health: +1 per 3 citizens on it's own; w/ one above tech=+1 per 2; both=+1 per 1 citizen.

The construction of a factory creates 1 unhappy person per 4 citizens in a city; combined w/ a manu. plant= 1 unhappy per 2 citizens. Labor Union tech would negate this unhappiness.

Techs such as mapmaking, literacy, flight would add a small % bonus (2-5%) to both espionage missions and to the combat bonus of units.

These are older ideas, now I think that happiness should be % based, and the "food" bonuses above could be represented by a bonus to happiness instead. A happy pop grows quickly, while unhappy ones grow slower or shrink (emmigration).

Other ideas tommorrow.

[SnowFire]

Sorry all for the delay. My connection/Netscape crashed alternately several times yesterday (and I hadn't saved my work- argh!). And Apolyton was down today.

I'm working on a new list to send to BR that has all of the specific ideas to go along with all of the general ideas in the current list. I'm still here and watching this, don't worry!

Some comments:

Technophile: Check out idea 54, Diplomatic Research Synergy.

Nationalism: A big goal of CivIII should be discouraging huge, sprawling empires. The discovery of Nationalism should allow stronger armies and happier home cities, as well as any cities of yours that are captured violently hate your capturers. But it works both ways, too. All cities part of civs that were recently conquered by your empire, were conquered long ago and are still mistreated (i.e. they have imperial garrisons built from your home cities imposing martial law, rather than native-grown garrisons), will start to fester with nationalist feeling.

Well, that's my take on the subject at least, as a poster not a TM.

More on Monday, or earlier.

[loinburger]

Research Specialization:

An idea has been proposed by Korn in the Movement/Supply thread that in order to support troops one must create "Soldier Specialists" in the cities supporting the soldiers. His initial proposal was that each Soldier Specialist would give a +1 bonus to psych, -2 to econ, and -2 to labs. I liked his idea with one exception, that being the labs penalty. I proposed (and I think Korn agreed with me) that the Soldier Specialist should give a labs penalty ONLY TO "PEACEFUL" TECH ADNVANCEMENT! IOW, "agriculture" is a good peaceful tech, which means that if your civilization was allocating research to "agriculture" then each soldier specialist would give a -2 tech penalty (but only towards research in ag). However, if you were allocating research towards, say, Stealth Technology, then each soldier specialist would give a +2 penalty to research in that field. A neutral tech (neither peace or war oriented), such as Media (propaganda and National Public Radio) would receive neither a labs bonus nor penalty. This would essentially lock a civilization into researching only war-related techs so long as a standing army exists, or that civ would suffer severe lab penalties (once you start down the dark path, forever will it control your destiny).

What's this got to do with a tech thread? Well, what if ALL scientists could be specialized? Biologists, Chemists, Physicists, Anthropologists--they would all increase the effeciency with which you research your tech advances. Changing specialists around would cause a loss in effeciency, so once you give a guy a job you don't want to change it. However, if you MUST change a scientists specialty, then the amount of effeciency lost would depend on how related the scientists' old and new fields were (a Physicist could easily become a Chemist but would have problems becoming an Anthropologist). Scientist Specialist Specialists would receive additional lab bonuses if their city contained the proper city improvement (Physicists would function best if they had a Physics Lab, or whatever).

This would add another layer to research, as you don't want to be changing your specialists around too often (if ever) and you would therefore be locked into a research path. However, this might make the game too complex and/or tedious. You decide. This bevy of scientists could always be reduced to three-five scientist types (from least inclined to war to most inclined to war, for example).

[Iceman88888888]

I think cloning should be one of the most important advances you can get. I agree that religious groups and rights activitests would object, their should be lots of benifits as well, eg. Large untrained cloned armys, Cloned workers working for peanuts, Pefect entertainers, Pefect food there are millions of benefets

[NotLikeTea]

I disagree on the cloning issue.

Untrained Cloned armies - Why? An untrained cloned army would be just as succesful as an untrained normal army.

Cloned entertainers - Why? A cloned elvis would be physically identical, but might not be interested in music. Maybe they'd be a great rocket scientist..

Cloned workers working for peanuts - Why? A cloned person is just like an uncloned person, except physically identical.

[loinburger]

I agree with NotLikeTea about clones. It is feasible that you can genetically engineer a society into a biological machine by giving everybody a full frontal lobotomy, and this would mean that "nature" would describe a person while "nurture" would have no part whatsoever. But you can't just clone Einstein and expect to get another genius. Just for a primitive example, what if the cloned Einstein was brain damaged? (or worse yet, what if the REAL Einstein was brain damaged?) What if his foster parents beat him or something? Genetic engineering could play a major part in the game (biologically enhanced soldiers with no emotions to get in the way) but cloning should do nothing more than act as a population boom.

[SnowFire]

Check out <a href="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000176.html">Tech 2.1</a> for more. This thread has died an honorable death.
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