Announcement

**WesW** · January 15, 2001, 01:55

Continued....

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2001 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances

> By the way, Wes, Check out the article: War, Technology of, at the Britannica site at: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...110174,00.html
>
>Its got tons of useful info for you, plus links to the rest of military technology. I was just looking something up there, and noticed that the Composite Bow was invented around 3000 BC. Perfect timing as a
replacement name for the too vague Ballistics.
If some kind of Siege Tower unit gets in the game, will you need a Seige Warfare tech and graphic?
Feel free to shoot thoughts by me if you're wondering about the relative merits of this or that technology, or whatever. I should be home for the next bunch of hours.
>
>
> Harlan
>
Yeah, I have gone over the War, Tech of list a number of times. I have already re-named Ballistics to Archery. I will keep Composite Bow in mind.
Thanks for clearing up the Compass and Magnetism. I think I will re-name Magnetism to Electrical Engineering.
I will review your tech-age list, and let you know of anything I would like changed.
If Siege Engine gets into the game, a Siege Warfare Tech would probably be needed.
Also, I am treating the Industrial age as going from 1800 to 1975, the Computer age until about 2100, and the Diamond age from 2100 to 2200.

Wes
>
>Please change that, cos I've already got a bunch of backgrounds done with the break being around 1900. In any case, take a look at the number of techs per age. If you combine the 1800s with the 1900s, you're gonna have WAAAYYY too many in one age. Then post 2000 will have not so many, since its hard to just make stuff up.

Well, this is the way the chart is shaping up. I guess you could say the break is about 1950, but it's the units that are determining things right now. And yes, the Industrial Age is pretty crowded, but I am managing ok.
>
> As I said a few days ago, the introduction of Mass Production slightly after 1900 is a natural break between ages. You seemed to agree at the time.

I said I pictured the Industrial age as being the 1800's, if you kept the Modern age, thereby having 8 ages in the game. I will send you the chart as soon as I have things pretty well placed, which should be in a couple of hours.
>
> I could move the end date of this age to around 1975, when computers caught on in a big way, and then call the 1900s age the Mass Production age or whatever, and the next age the Computer age, then the Genetics age. Stuff like this is why I haven't touched the future yet!
>
>>Yeah, I have gone over the War, Tech of list a number of times. I have already re-named Ballistics to Archery. I will keep Composite Bow in mind.
>
>Problem with Archery is it started thousands of years earlier.
>
>>Thanks for clearing up the Compass and Magnetism. I think I will re-name Magnetism to Electrical Engineering.
I have changed these two to Composite Bow and Electro-magnetism.

Wes
>
> Keep in mind I already made a picture is of a magnet and a lodestone. I think your engineering background is betraying you here! Electromagetism is another possibility.
>
> Harlan
>
Ok, attached here is a list of the advance changes. I have moved several of the original advances to new eras, which are not included on the list. The
Advances chart shows the 8 ages, so that you can tell which age each advance belongs in by its column. The first 6 ages occupy two columns each, while the last two ages occupy three columns each.
It worked out better having 8 ages. The Industrial age goes from 1800 to 1900. The Modern age goes to about 1960, and the last two ages will finish up the game.
I have not started on the linking of advances yet, so pay no attention to the arrows and so-forth.

Wes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2001 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances

> Wes,
> Just few a quick comments, I'm in a hurry. Your chart is shaping up really really well. I'll look at it more later, but the only things I see missing that would be really needed are Immunization, and Seige Warfare. Also something else occurred to me: on all these lists there has been no Flight. That's pretty key!

I am going to wait on Seige Warfare until we see how the slic stuff goes. I decided to move Modern Medicine to where Immunization was placed, and let Sanitation and Indoor Plumbing suffice for the health improvements of the 19th century. Aerodynamics is the same as Flight in the game. I just need
enough to spread out the aircraft.
>
> One other thing: please try to get "adv." out of the titles, there are still a few. Generally I really like how you've renamed things.

I did the best I could, but it's hard to come up with new things for the evolution of unit types from age to age. If you come up with any alternatives, let me know.

Wes
>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 1:28 AM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances

> Wes,
> Some comments. I have the envious position of being able to fire off random thoughts without having to do the heavy lifting of agonizing over the tech tree .
>
> Trade should come before Currency- people were trading long before there was coinage. So Currency should be the Classical one.

When using these advances for the game, it's important to remember that the game's placement may not be when a thing first appeared historically. It may be when the thing became widespread or when it had its biggest impact on society.
When I think of Trade in the game, I think of Caravans and such. I would think that you would have to have a medium of exchange worked out before trade could really develop between nations. Also, its current placement serves much better as far as gameplay goes, imo.
>
>Arabic Numerals- I see it in the chart, but not on the list.

Thank you for seeing that. I left Numerals off the list, and Conscription off the advances and uniticon texts. I had counted to see if the numbers
matched.
>
> City State should definitely be in the Classical era. The move from one supreme leader (Despotism or Monarchy) to having an oligarchy ruling (most city states) is an advance that comes later.

Ok.
>
> I also mentally have Republic and Democracy come much later. Republic being a late Renaissance, and Democracy being a Modern. Reason? Early "Republics" like Venice's were actually City States, where it was just a very very small group of rich people who voted. Note these were few and far between, and only in small countries- just like a city state. Republics didn't come until the French Revolution, and you can see how mad the rest of Europe was about that- it was a totally new thing that was very threatening. That's why City State is needed, to tide the peaceful player
> over from Classical until the Renaissance. So if Republic is that late, then what's Democracy? People get the two confused cos the words are used interchangably. The US didn't become a Democracy (if in fact it is) until early this century. The key time there was in the 1910s, with some constitutional amendments making direct voting for Senators (they weren't before!), giving women the right to vote, and other reforms of the Progressive Era. You really need mass literacy and an active press for Democracy.

Well, I run into a government jam if I move Democracy that far "forward" in the game.
I have set City State like you said. I have Republic as an early Ren, Imperialism as late Ren, and Dem as early Industrial. The next 3 spots are taken up by Comm., Fascism and Fundamentalism, which I forgot to mark as a new advance and have subsequently left off of everything.
I think this arrangement will work fine for gameplay purposes.
>
> Geometry should come in the Classical. Catapult was already an established weapon in Alexander's day (and he was one of the first to make effective use of Seige Towers).

Well, then what would I use for the Medieval ranged unit? Remember that Longbowmen were pretty much an English-specific unit at this time.
>
>Gunpowder should be Medieval. It was invented in China around 800 AD. The Christian crusaders were frequently pelted with primative hand grenades made of gunpowder. The Britannica article on War is wrong about some of this stuff. I did research on this for a Civ2 Mongols scenario once, and their use of it didn't stagnate, they had all kinds of wicked gunpowder based weapons, but like everything else development stopped when the Mongols conquered them. Only backwards Europe didn't have it way back, but even they were making primitive cannons in the 1300s. And you certainly don't want Arqubusier with Gunpowder. Logically cannons come earlier than any handgun, since it requirement more developments to make a hanggun. Cannons were already effective weapons by end of 1300s, but handguns weren't more effective than archers until the 1500s. So Arquebusier would be two techs away from Gunpowder, coming after Cannon Making.

I have Bombards as a late-Medieval wonder militia unit, and Arquebusiers as early-Ren defensive wonder units. The techs don't really match up, but I am
trying to hold the new techs down as much as possible.
>
> Frankly, I wonder if Arquebusier is even necessary as a unit. I read a book once on the history of warfare, and during this time Crossbowmen were way more numerous and more effective. The game really needs a crossbow unit- maybe that's something to put on Morgoth's list. A Trebuchet would be nice too.

I think it depends upon which crossbow you are talking about. The weapon went through many evolutions. By the time it became powerful enough to pierce heavy Knight armor, I think they were about as expensive and
slow-firing as an arquebuse. A Trebuchet would allow me to move Catapults to the Classical age, and
Archers to the Ancient age. I could have the Composite Bow allow Horse Archers in the early Medieval age like I have wanted to all along. We need to get Tom to work on this just as soon as he finishes up the
Chariot.
>
> I'm really glad you have Vauban Fortress, though I think Bastions, Fortress, Star Fortress or Citadel or something is better namewise (I don't like the Vauban, I've never heard them called that as a group).

Whatever you think would be most appropriate. This area of warfare is unfamiliar to me. My interest has mostly been on the last 150 yrs., especially WWII.
>
> Why the need for both Sanitation and Indoor Plumbing? Neither seem to have anything attached to them, both could be lumped into Sanitation.

I have been debating that myself. I have removed Indoor Plumbing and replaced it with Pasteurization, which I think certainly deserves to be in the game.
>
>Compass doesn't belong in the Renaissance, as I said earlier. Even the Europeans had it well before then (around 1200). Its timing fits well with
> the Cog, but not the Carrack, which as I've mentioned somewhere else, isn't really different from the Galleon (only about 50 years separate them, and its more of a size thing- more masts- than a technological leap).

Ok, this clears up another problem area. I only had Compass in the Ren age because I needed the Carrack to be equipped with cannon. I have moved the Compass back one spot, and slipped Carrack in with Galleon.
>
> No way Submarine goes with Oil Refining. There had to be a bunch of electronics advances first.

Agreed. I have moved it to Internal Combustion.
>
> AA Guns too soon- you need to airplanes to fire against first.

Well, I called it the AA gun because it can bombard air units, but it is also the standard ranged unit of the Ind-Modern age. It represents the development of rifled artillery.
>
> Dive Bomber can't go on Radio- radios were invented 4 decades before dive bombers existed.

Yeah, but the Radio didn't come into wide commercial use until the 1920's, I believe, which coincides with its wide use by the military, especially the air corp.
>
> I think there's a clear gameplaying need for some changes with the nuclear stuff. Rather than a single nuke, there needs to be an Atom Bomb and then an ICBM. Atom Bombs of course have a short range, but ICBMs can cover most of the world. Atom Bombs would need the Nuclear Fission prereq, and the ICBM the Nuclear Fusion prereq. Nuclear Plant, Nuclear Sub and Nuclear Carrier would go under Nuclear Fusion, since all came in the 1950s. This would mean the Adv. Naval Aviation tech is no longer necessary, so no extra techs needed here. If you think 4 things for one tech is too much, you could have Nuclear Navy be a branch off, giving the Nuclear Sub and Nuclear Carrier.

Funny, I have already done all that, except for the ICBM part. Nuke is under Quantum Physics, and the Nuke Carrier beside the Nuke Sub. I used Plastics to replace Adv Naval Tactics. Where would we be without
plastics?
We can see about an ICBM later.
>
> WW2 is a special interest of mine, and I have a lot of thoughts in this era, which I think needs the most reworking. Jet planes came during WW2, rockets were a separate development at the same time, and supersonic
flight was a few decades after.
>
> I'd do it like this:
>
> Flight, gives airport and airbase
>
> leads to Aeronautics, gives Fighter, Bomber and AA Gun
>
> leads to Radar, giving Radar Station, Frigate and Flak Tower
>
> leads to Jet Propulsion, gives Jet Bomber and Interceptor
>
> leads to Supersonic Flight
>
> leads to Advanced Composites, gives Stealth Fighter and Stealth Bomber
>
> branching off of Aeronautics, you get:
>
> Vertical Flight, giving Cargo Helicopter
>
> leads to Vertical Warfare, giving Attack Helicopter
>
> branching off of Supersonic Flight:
>
> Rocketry, giving Mobile SAM
>
> leads to Guided Weapons, giving Cruise Missile, and Missile Cruiser
>
> That's for air.

I will have to think about all this tomorrow night. The air units are not right compared with the rest of the game currently, but I don't know what to do without other sprites right now.

> Then for ground:
>
> Conscription should be earlier, it started big-time in the French Revolution.

Putting it this early would cramp Musketeers.
>
> leads to Automatic Weapons, giving Machine Gunner (but you have to get a
> whole slew of techs from other branches in between, so there's time for the Rifleman), also giving Stormtroopers but only to Fascist gvmts

Stormtroopers are a 21st century unit right now, available to anyone. I'm short on infantry sprites.
I have moved Armor to Mobile Warfare, and Marines to Combined Arms, and deleted Amphibious Warfare. I had been thinking of doing those moves anyway.

Wes
>
>leads to Mobile Warfare, giving the Tank and Dive Bomber. Radio is a prereq
>
> leads to Heavy Armor, giving the Self Propelled Gun and Armor or whatever you want to call it
>
> also branching from Tank Warfare is Combined Arms, giving Paratroopers and Marines. No need for a separate Amphibious Warfare, cos the concept of Combined Arms is that you're utilizing land, sea and sky together.
>
>The above I think makes more sense. It also gets rid of two Adv. names, and the total number of techs is the same since you gain some (Flight) but lose some (Amph. Warfare).
>
> Those are my thoughts for now, I'll wait till you put in the arrows and get things more arranged. You probably hadn't worked out the details of the later years just yet, so I'm probably jumping the gun here.
>
> Harlan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 5:43 AM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances
>
> When you think of impact or first appearing, the question is where? Lets not be so Westcentric to think something only had an impact if it was widespread in the West. A good half the world's population has lived in Asia throughout history, and a quarter of that in China. If its widespread there, its a lot more widespread and impactful than if its used in Europe and not China. Just to keep that in mind.
>
> Current placement of Trade doesn't really matter does it, if you just swap Trade and Currency? There was tons of trade before currency, which came pretty late. For instance, doing my Alexander scenario in 300 BC or so, the only part of the world to have currency at that time is Greece, Rome and Carthage. The Persians, Indians and others don't, yet they have tons of trade going on. People bartered pretty well.

Ok, I switched them.
>

>>I think it depends upon which crossbow you are talking about. The weapon went through many evolutions. By the time it became powerful enough to pierce heavy Knight armor, I think they were about as expensive and slow-firing as an arquebuse.
>
> Again, getting back to China, which I seem to have a habit of doing, the Crossbow was huge there for a really long time, from the Classical era. The Romans also invented the crossbow near their end, but the knowledge was immediately lost in the Dark Ages, and as with many things, Europe was near last to get this. If you have Archer as something you get nearly from the beginning, and then Crossbow as the ranged unit till gunpowder weapons, that would be more historical.
>
> When you're thinking having a ranged unit, I hope you think it terms of both an archer like good on defense ranged unit, and artillery type ranged units. They're pretty different, and its good to build both.
>
>>A Trebuchet would allow me to move Catapults to the Classical age, and Archers to the Ancient age. I could have the Composite Bow allow Horse Archers in the early Medieval age like I have wanted to all along.
>
>
> Wait- Composite Bow doesn't give anything in the Medieval Age. Stirrup would be better to give that. Europeans didn't figure it out till early Medieval, though others did first (the Huns probably used them). I'd also like to see Horse Archer as a fairly powerful unit, but limited by gvmt type to the simpler types and barbarians. The more advanced civilizations just didn't have the horse riding skills you got from riding on a horse every day of your life to be horse archers.

I also went back and re-arranged the gunpowder techs to a little better sequence, and I think I found a good way of solving the Horse Archer placement problem.

The problem with all this is the unit progression. The things you keep commenting on are good historically, but the game just doesn't play completely historical. You need progressively better units, and I can't
figure out what you are suggesting in that regard. If you want to send me a version of the Med charts that outlines your vision for all this, then I would be happy to look at it. But you keep suggesting units that there are no sprites for, and then you have the AI unit build lists, which are already at the breaking point.
If Trebuchet's are only good for taking cities, then I would suggest Tom move on to something else after finishing the Chariot.
>
> Fortress is probably best, but if you think it sounds too much like Fortifications, go with Bastions.

I can call it a Bastion with no problem.
>
>>I have been debating that myself. I have removed Indoor Plumbing and replaced it with Pasteurization, which I think certainly deserves to be in the game.
>
> I think the work of Pasteur needs to be in the game, but he did so much more than that. If you look at the wonders I've made, there's a Pasteur Institue, I think that would be a better way to represent that. I do seriously think Immunization is really key, as I keep pushing. Doesn't necessarily need anything attached to it, but I'd like to see a huge Feats of Wonder type effect of a food growth boom for any civ that discovers it. In importance, Immunization blows Pasteurization out of the water- think about all those diseases that were overcome, and the huge change in life expectancy.

Well, I had in mind pasteurization representing the canning of foods as well, not just preserving milk. This concept opened up an entirely new way to preserve and store food, and, I think was one of the main factors in improving the health of people, and especially children's growth. Immunization can be considered part of Modern Medicine. It's not that I
disagree with you, but I am cramped for space right where this would need to go, and there is really nothing in the game linked to it. (And I already
have more new advances than I planned on.)
>
>>Well, I called it the AA gun because it can bombard air units, but it is also the standard ranged unit of the Ind-Modern age. It represents the development of rifled artillery.
>
> The problem here, is if you get air technology first, you should have a field day attacking enemy cities from the air. But if AA Gun comes when you have it, odds are good those cities will be much better prepared than they should be. Not good. If you're worried about having too many units at this time, I'd simply go for regular artillery, but if you could handle two then have regular and AA. But not just AA. Mobile SAM comes pretty quickly in any case, and there's Flak. AA Guns only had about 10 prime
years.
>
Ok, I have spent about an hour reading Brittanica and studying the adv. chart.
I have re-named the AA Gun to Artillery, and changed the Computer age's Artillery to Howitzer. I placed the SAM with Rocketry, and put Rocketry up in Engineering.
I moved Subs to Radio, which makes sense if you think about it, Selp. Prop. Guns to Internal Comb., and Dive Bomber to Mobile Warfare. This does make more sense, it's just hard to manipulate everything.
I replaced Naval Aviation with Flight, and made some of the changes you outlined. The ones I didn't do were because of gameflow constraints (things
in the wrong era, units cramped together, etc.).

>>Stormtroopers are a 21st century unit right now, available to anyone. I'm short on infantry sprites.
>
>Maybe you shouldn't call it Stormtroopers then. Is that just cos you're lacking an alternative name?

I am open for name suggestions. I have Stormtroopers paired with Storm Marines, and Hover Infantry paired with Hover Marines right now.

Wes
>
> Harlan

**WesW** · January 15, 2001, 01:57

Continued 2....

Starting a new title here.
I have been working with on the chart all night, and have made a lot of changes since I sent the chart out to Harlan a few hours ago. The main thing I did was get rid of most all of the Government advances. It occurred to me while I was going over everything that opportunities for new ways of governing were the result of advances in either social or cultural areas, generally speaking. Folding governments into standard techs has greatly reduced the total number of advances added to the game, as well as allowing me to place them in better spots historical-wise. On the chart, governments are in dark blue, and listed below all other items in their block. I think the only exception is Ecotopia, which is enabled by the Ecotopia advance.
The result of all this is that, at this time, the game only has 23 more advances than it did originally. Below I have posted a list of all the changes. We were up to about 40 additional advances at one time. Charles, its too bad you can't find an IBM pc somewhere so that you can see the chart. I have implemented some of what you laid out in your last letter.

Anyway, this leaves us with about a dozen advances to play with, so look the list over, and give me your choices one more time. Everything has been so hectic I can't remember what all has been said in the last few days.

Wes
NEW:

1) ADVANCE_DOMESTICATION

2) ADVANCE_WHEEL

3) ADVANCE_ARISTOCRACY

4) ADVANCE_CITIZENSHIP

5) ADVANCE_PAPER

6) ADVANCE_CURRENCY

7) ADVANCE_INFANTRY TACTICS

8) ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY

9) ADVANCE_STIRRUP

10) ADVANCE_COMPASS

11) ADVANCE_ARABIC NUMERALS

12) ADVANCE_MECHANICAL POWER

13) ADVANCE_MECHANICAL CLOCK

14) ADVANCE_FLINTLOCK

15) ADVANCE_MACHINE TOOLS

16) ADVANCE_COMBAT ENGINEERING

17) ADVANCE_STEAM ENGINE

18) ADVANCE_CONSCRIPTION

19) ADVANCE_SANITATION

20) ADVANCE_ELETRO-MAGNETISM

21) ADVANCE_REFRIGERATION

22) ADVANCE_RADIO

23) ADVANCE_PASTEURIZATION

24) ADVANCE_ROCKETRY

25) ADVANCE_COMBINED ARMS

26) ADVANCE_PLASTICS

27) ADVANCE_CONTRACEPTION

28) ADVANCE_AUTOMATIC WEAPONS

29) ADVANCE_VERTICAL WARFARE

30) ADVANCE_INTEGRATED MOBILE WARFARE

RE-NAMED:

>> AGRICULTURE TO PLOUGH

>> CONCRETE TO ENGINEERING

>> BALLISTICS TO COMPOSITE BOW

>> RELIGION TO ORGANIZED RELIGION

>> BANKING TO PAPER CURRENCY

>> AGRICULTURAL REV. TO CROP ROTATION

>> NAVAL TACTICS TO CHRONOMETER

>> DEMOCRACY TO CIVIL RIGHTS

>> ELECTRICITY TO ELECTRIFICATION

>> NAVAL AVIATION TO FLIGHT

>> TANK WARFARE TO MOBILE WARFARE

>> ADV. INFANTRY TACTICS TO ASSAULT INFANTRY TACTICS

>> ADV. NAVAL TACTICS TO STEEL

1)REMOVED:

2)MONARCHY

3)COMMUNISM

4)FASCISM

5)TECHNOCRACY

6)CORP. REP.

7)VIRTUAL DEM.

Yeah, I got the earlier email, though I apparently didn't read all of it until just a few hours ago.
The reason I kept the Med mod name was mostly for name recognition. There is also an affinity I have developed for it over the past 16 months, plus the
website and scenario icons are built around the era.
At this time a year ago I was putting together the Modern mod, which would have carried the Med mod 2 into the latter half of Ctp1. There was a mysterious bug in the code, however, that we were never able to figure out.
I ultimately went back to the Ren age and realized that it needed a lot more work. This became the Med mod 3- The Renaissance, which never made it to Apolyton. After that was the Med mod 4- The Age of Wonders. I am comfortable with the current naming system. It has the name recognition along with a version name for each evolution.

I will get Charles a screen shot version of the chart tomorrow.
The tech recommendations you have made in the last two emails I will study
tonight.

Wes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker" ; "Charles Sharp"

Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:12 AM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances

>
> I think this idea is a fine one. Gvmts don't really always need their own techs, if you have space limitations. If this frees up space, I'd say Agro-industry definitely, and I'm still a fan of Immunization. Another one that just occurred to me while writing earlier about the Drilling Platforms would be Oceanography. It would be the tech for Drilling Platforms, coming in the 1950s roughtly, and also let you see underwater for the first time (which also occurs around then). Then it would be an important prereq for all the later underwater stuff, which really could be its own branch of the tree.
>
> This may provide an opportunity to properly flesh out the future, as well.
>
> Also, I'm unsatisfied with Pikeman being attached to not only Crop Rotation, but Cavalry Tactics as well. That isn't really a great solution. It may need a tech of its own. With prereqs of Cavalry Tactics and Feudalism, you could just have a tech called The Pike, unless a better name can be thought of.
>
> I'll think more of what else is needed. If you're losing all the gvmt techs, I think there's a need for some more theoretical, cultural types of techs, cos otherwise the list is too heavily dominated by physical things, its like there's no change in culture or thinking. Some of those could double as gvmt prereqs as well. For instance, you may not need a tech called the Republic, but a tech reflecting the ideals of liberty and democracy in the late 1700s with Voltaire, Rousseau, Tom Paine and all
that is very essential and the natural prereq for Republic gvmt. Perhaps call it Liberty. But a prereq to something like City State certainly isn't necessary and there are good fits like Theocracy going under Theology.
>
> It could also be that you find extra techs don't really slow the game down as much as you thought. since CTP2 is after all differently wired than CTP1, and reinstating the gvmt techs would be very easy.
>
> In your hecticness, it seems you missed an email, so I've reposted it
> below. Oh, and about Charles not being able to see the tech tree, what if you took a screen shot of it and sent him a .jpg or two? Those can be
seen on any computer. I transfer stuff like that between a PC and home and a Mac at work all the time. Or post such jpgs on your website for anyone to see. Which reminds me, did you get all the graphics I sent yesterday?
>
> Harlan
>
> PS- I'd still like an explanation of Arabic Numerals. Britannica doesn't
> really help out on that one.
>
> ----
>
> Charles,
> Thanks for the reply. I didn't even notice this came into my inbox, for some reason.
>
> I think you've falled behind a bit on the tech discussions. Wes and I have had a few emails based on his latest tech tree, and I didn't see the point in CCing you since you couldn't see the tree we were discussing.
You need to get your computer woes fixed, or another text version from Wes.
>
At 09:36 AM 12/31/00 -0800, Charles Sharp wrote:

> >Harlan & Wes:
> >Here are my explanations for the questionable Advances...
> >>>Joinery (U: LongShip)
> >>
>Why not just the current Hullmaking?

ANS: HullMaking I'm reserving for the Trireme, a First Combat Naval Unit.
Joinery, representing the Keelson-equipped clinker-built hulls that led to all the subsequent game wooden ships (Cog, Carrack, Galleon, etc) I thought would make a good title for the progression, and a hook for the Longship.
>
> Wes, how about Joinery as a name replacement for Hullmaking?

> >>I was wondering about the name Hullmaking, cos don't ALL ships have hulls?
>
> >>>Naval Architecture (U: Ship of the Line)
> >>
> >>Explain.

>The way I understand, it was instruments that were key- Astrolabe, Sextant, more than architecture. The ships of Zheng He for instance dwarfed the Ships of the Line, and were built a couple centuries earlier.

ANS: Actually, the Astrolabe is an 'ancestral' navigation instrument, first invented in Alexandria about 130 BC. The Ship of the Line was quintessentially acollection of inventions, but the structural basis was a set of continuous gun decks, no superdeck castling, three masts with a suite of lateen and square sails, sophisticated rigging for same. We
could include some extra Advances for instrumentation, rigging, and specialized gun carriages, but the collective Advance that makes the Ship of the Line package possible is Naval Architecture.
>
> That may be all true, but I still don't like the name Naval Architecture. All boats have naval architecture, none more than others. Can you think
of a better name?
>
>>>Warrior Spirit (U: Warrior)
>
> I get the idea, but is this something that needs "inventing"? Its more something every civ starts with at 4000 BC and loses as they get more civilized. Perhaps limit the Warrior unit by gvmt type?

ANS: Completely, this is the "Exaltation of the Warrior Spirit" - the premise in a society that warriors are of supreme or nearly supreme importance and every little cretin should grow up to become one. While wide-spread, this is not universal and it makes a good Advance to hang the Warrior on.
>
> I guess not all had such spirit, but again the thing that bothers me here is the name. With this name it sounds like something you either have or don't, not something that can be gained. Any ideas?
>
> >>>Epic Poetry (U: Swordsman)
> >>
> >>Explain, esp. connection with Swordsman.

> >ANS: The first epic poetry, and the development of the iambic verse form in Greece more especially, was to allow bardic types to remember long stories glorifying individual ancestors of the paying host. Frequently, these were Warrior types, outfitted with the supreme individualist's weapons - the expensive long bronze sword, armor, spear, etc. Therefore, I used it as an early Advance to hand the first primarily offensive unit on: the Bronze Age Swordsman. Alternatively, both Spearman and Swordsman (Defense-Offensive) would probably come from the same Advance, and I wanted to avoid that.
>
> On this one, I think the link is pretty weak. There were more direct things leading to Swordsman.
>
> >>>Steam Power (U: Ironclad)
> >>
> >>Doesn't this naturally follow from Steam Engine, and isn't that more key?

> >ANS: Primitive Steam Engines were used to drain mines in Britain almost a hundred years before Steam Power was applied to moving goods or powering machines in factories. We could use either title, I think it's a semantic thing. Specifically, I expect Steam Power/Engine to allow steam ships, which were steaming 25 - 40 years before railroads, and to be a prereq for the Factory or Industrial Revolution advance.
>
> Sounds good. I'm a little fuzzy on the whole progression of science in the Industrial Era- I hope you can fix any errors in Wes' mod that might occur
> there. Sounds like you know a lot on this.
>
> >>>Citizenship (U: Legion)
> >>
> >>Explain

> >ANS: The legion started as a citizen militia in Rome, developed into its full form when citizens of the state were willing to voluntarily enlist for 25 years as full time soldiers. Legion and Samurai are two units I want to argue very strongly for as Wonder-enabled. They are and should be distinct to individual civs and their statistcis should be distinct from any other units in their time frame. I'd actually like to see a Wonder with the Citizenship Advance (which is a prereq for Republic government/advance), but I haven't decided what to call the wqonder. Appian Way would be a
little off but useable, I suppose.
>
> In the wonder pics I've done, there is a Forum wonder.
>
> >>>Operational Art (U: Paratrooper)
> >>
> >>Really explain!

> >ANS: The joys of being a semi-professional military historian! Operational Art is the generic term I give to the Soviet doctrinal developments in the 1920s and early 30s that led them to develop the first Paratroop units (5-6 years before Germany did, or anyone else). The gist of it was to attack an opponent "throughout the entire depth of his defenses" - even back to his capital if you could reach it. Stemming from this came Paratroops, large tank forces to exploit into an enemy rear, and heavy bombers to reach his factories, but in the development of tanks and bombers Fuller's and Douhet's doctrines were more generally important.
>
> This may be something they called it, but there's something about the phrase Operational Art that rubs me the wrong way, it sounds like the start of the Operational Art of ..., not a phrase in itself. I prefer Mobile Warfare- its clearer.
>
> >>>International Law (U: Privateer)
> >>
> >>Explain

> >ANS: As opposed to merre pirates, the Medieval concept of International Law (Erasmus, et al) led to the formulation of conventions of conduct of conflict and trade between states. I'm using it particularly for building ships that can attack enemy trade routes without causing automatic warfare, and as a stepping stone to Absolutism, Age of Reason, etc
>
> In the game, shouldn't this be represented by what you work out or don't with other civs, instead of enshrined in a tech? Which reminds me, I don't really understand the tech Criminal Code that CTP2 has. There were criminal codes long before the period they put it in, so what special is happening there?
>
> I think for the time you're referring to, Legal Code would be a more important tech, historically speaking.
>
> >>>Absolutism (W: Versailles, U: Dragoons)
> >>
> >>Explain

> >ANS: Machiavelli et al: the state must be led by a ruler with supreme authority, not divided among barons, church, etc. This led to Louis XIV, Henry VIII, and eventually o the Age of reason, so I want to use it for the supreme symbol of the Age, the Palace of Versailles - which would give the owning civ better relations with its neighbors (awe factor) among other things.
>
> Unfortunately I didn't find a good picture of Versailles to be able to add it to the wonders I did. I don't think the rise of Absolutism had anything to do with Machiavelli. Rather, technological changes like better transportation and printing allowed kings to control feudal barons and regional power better, for a time. But if you don't make it a separate gvmt, there may not be room for it in a streamlined tech tree.
>
> >>>Husbandry (U: Cavalry)
> >>
>Didn't animal husbandry come thousands of years before Cavalry?

> >ANS: Right, including artificial insemination, which was developed by the Arabs' way back in the 8th century AD. BUT it was the breeding of large and fast horses in Europe (the Pomeranian, Norman breeds) that allowed the 18th century Cuirassier and other pre-modern cavalry types, I'm using a general term again for a specific application that allows a unit to be associated with a specific advance.
>
> If what you're saying is true, that it sounds like the title Articifical Insemination fits the bill better. I'm a big fan of not having tech names of things that existed before the start of the time frame, like Agriculture. Which reminds me, I think Toolmaking still needs a better name. Toolmaking implies such simplicity- one might as well have a
Walking tech. Any ideas?
>
> >>>Deep Battle Tactics (U: Mech Infantry), Dive Bomber)
>
> >>Not surprisingly, another puzzler.
> >ANS: A development fo the "Operational Art" above. Soviets used the term
> >before WWII, but it's become common only in the last 25 years or so in western armies, so I can place it almost anywhere in this century. It refers to the concepts of fast and long range tactical strikes that are usually termed "Blitzkrieg" warfare, but since blitzkrieg is a term made up by journalists and never even used by the German army, I like this better.
>
> Wes, this sounds like a better name for one of your more advanced techs, instead of something like Advanced Mobile Warfare.
>
> >Hope the above clarifies some things. I have notes for Great Library strings for all of these, but haven't actually gotten around to writing them. Obviously, I'd better get started before I release these to the gaming world!
> >
> Sounds good. Thanks again for explaining.
>
> As long as the subject of names is up, I think Corporatism is better for the gvmt type and tech that goes with it than Corporate Republic. Why add the republic part- rule by corporations should be called Corporatism.
>
> And speaking of names! Wes, why do you call your mod the Med Mod, and now Med Mod II? Maybe way way long ago it was because you added the Medieval Age, but its so far beyond that now. You have 4 extra ages, for instance. I think its time for a better name, whatever that may be.
>
> Harlan
>
Here is the latest advances chart.
I have added an advance which I think will solve the Ren units problem. I also added some futuristic advances to spread out some of the stuff in those
eras.
Arabic Numerals are much easier to multiply and divide than Roman Numerals, and their adaptation by the West as well as Arabic countries allowed the development of Algebra, Trig and all modern mathematics.
When I paired the Tank and War Walker together under Integrated Mobile Warfare, I was emphasizing the advances in communications and GPS that allowed the maneuvers of Desert Storm.
Below is the current list of tech changes. I have added 10 new advances in all since last night.
I have decided to leave the Computer Age ground units essentially where they are for game-play purposes. I chose the name Howitzer for the Computer age
defensive ranged unit mostly because I already had an Artillery and an All-Terrain Artillery unit, and didn't want to use the name "Artillery" again. I wish I had a sprite of the Paladin, currently under development, but you do what you can with what you have.
What I am really short on is infantry units. Currently, the Rifleman, Marine, Airborne and Storm Marine units all use the Ctp2 Marine sprite, the
only difference being that they are different colors, as seen in the W.W.II-scenario's Paratrooper units. What do you think about combining the Modern and Computer ages' marine and paratrooper units into a single, Special Forces unit for each age? This would eliminate two of the redundant sprites. I would use the Ctp2 Marine as the Modern age special forces unit,
and the Ctp2 Paratrooper unit as the Computer age unit.

Wes

NOTE: I have spent close to 2 hours making this thread, editing the lines so that they would be easier to read. I don't have another 2 or so to do this, so I am just going to try and arrange things in the order in which they were written, and leave it at that.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Charles Sharp" ; "Wes Whitaker"

Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: Med mod II advances

>
> >>> Also, I'm unsatisfied with Pikeman being attached to not only Crop
> >>> Rotation, but Cavalry Tactics as well. That isn't really a great
> >>solution.
> >>> It may need a tech of its own. With prereqs of Cavalry Tactics and
> >>> Feudalism, you could just have a tech called The Pike, unless a better
> >>name
> >>> can be thought of.
> >COMMENT: Aside from cheap armies like the Scots, who simply couldn't
> >afford anything better, the pikemen in the late Middle Ages arose not
only
> >from the need for defense against cavalry but also from the rise of
> >Mercenary Troops - pikemen were cheaper to buy in large quantities
because
> >you didn't have to pay for horses and heavy armor. The Swiss and the
German
> >Landsknecht pike "blocks", while they could certainly drive off cavalry,
> >were primarily offensive - Swiss charged Burgundian and Austrian cavalry
on
> >several occasions. This means you could tie the Pikemen unit to the rise
of
> >money economy: maybe to Banking or Paper Currency or some other medieval
> >economic Advance.
>
> These sounds loads better than the current Crop Rotation.
>
> >>> is very essential and the natural prereq for Republic gvmt. Perhaps
call
> >>> it Liberty. But a prereq to something like City State certainly isn't
> >>> necessary and there are good fits like Theocracy going under Theology.
>
> >COMMENT: Let's see, the "non-technical" advances from the late 17th
century
> >to the 19th century included Rationalism (Hume, Voltaire, et al),
discovery
> >of Laws of Motion, Calculus and Differential Calculus, start of the first
> >public newspapers, circulating libraries, joint Stock Companies,
Academies
> >of Sciences in England, France, and other countries, first Patent and
> >Copyright Laws, the foundation of sociology in de Montesquieu's "The
Spirit
> >of the Laws", publication of first Encyclopedias (Diderot's in French).
> >Should be enough in there to hang a few units, governments, and
> >improvements on...
>
> Of these, I like the Press (or something along those lines- having an
> outspoken media is a key prereq to Democracy and other things), and
> Rationalism.
>
> >>> PS- I'd still like an explanation of Arabic Numerals. Britannica
doesn't
> >>> really help out on that one.
> >COMMENT: 975 AD, approx, and the notation system was Indian originally,
> >Called Arithmetic Notation (which no one will recognize compared to
Arabic
> >Numbers) the key concept was that numbers had Place as well as Quantity,
> >and by having a symbol to take the place of a number ('0') the place
could
> >be accounted for in all notation, making calculations much easier than in
> >the Roman system. As kids (in my day, anyhoo) we recited "...the 100s
> >place, the 10s place, the 1s' place, the tenths place, the hundredths
> >place, etc". It's no accident that by 808 AD, right after, the first Bank
> >for depositing money openned in Italy, and double-entry bookkeeping
> >(primitive) was invented.
> > Related to this, first Paper Money (printed with wood blocks) was
> >issued in China in 1023 AD, and in the same century Italian bankers
> >invented Intruments of Credit - paper drafts which allowed funds to be
> >transfered between banks in different countries On Paper - no physical
gold
> >need travel. One history I read said that this "made possible business by
> >remote control" - and international banking and trading firms started up
at
> >the aame time, based on it.
>
> I know you say no one will recognize it, but I much prefer Arithmetic
> Notation to Arabic Numerals. Just like its better to have a tech called
> Alphabet than one called English Alphabet. Paper Money actually came
> earlier in China. 800 something, I recall. They're always pushing dates
> further into the past with new research.
>
> >COMMENT: I went back and looked at the progresion again, in my copies of
> >Casson's books on ancient ships and the volume on rebuilding the Athenian
> >Trireme, and the first Advance should probably be Hull Making - the
> >earliest vessels were hollow log canoes types or rafts, and actually
having
> >a built-up hull propelled by paddles or sails was the first step towards
> >(coastal) sea traversing vessels. The key advance for the Trireme was the
> >Bronze Ram and the banks of oars that concentrated the propulsive effort.
> >Maybe then, Trireme (which the reconstructors called the First Warship
> >type) should be linked to Bronze Working and Naval Geometry (organization
> >of oars, oarlocks, and rowers in the hull)? I still stand by Joinery for
> >the later, more sturdy hulls that made the bigger Round Hulled ships
> >possible.
>
> I like both naming ideas. Official CTP2 people didn't really know their
> history and science I imagine.
>
> >>> That may be all true, but I still don't like the name Naval
Architecture.
> >>> All boats have naval architecture, none more than others. Can you
think
> >>of
> >>> a better name?
>
> >COMMENT: Don't have to. All boats have naval construction, not formal
> >architecture, which is the Planned system and design of the construction.
> >Along with the purpose-built warship (Frigate, Ship of the Line) from the
> >1630s on came formal Naval Architects, not just Master Builders. This is
> >also when you start seeing meticulous models of the hulls being built for
> >the shipyards, which are still around today. Previous disasters like the
> >Vasa or the Mary Rose became much less likely as the construction and
> >design got better planned before they started pegging timbers together.
>
> If you put it that way, the name makes sense.
>
> >>> >>>Warrior Spirit (U: Warrior)
>
> >>> again the thing that bothers me here
> >>> is the name. With this name it sounds like something you either have
or
> >>> don't, not something that can be gained. Any ideas?
>
> >COMMENT: Warrior Cult - a name which emphasizes the Hold that the idea of
> >the warrior had among some populations. Warrior Caste would also work,
> >because the idea seems to inevitably leads to Warriors thinking of
> >themselves as apart and different from the rest (read: and better).
>
> I like these options better. Another one is what Civ2 called it, the
> Warrior Code.
>
> >COMMENT: Fershur: swords sprang directly from the development of good
> >bronze forging. Problem is, so did the shields and points that allowed
> >Spearmen, which means both the early Attack and Defense units come from
the
> >same Advance. I don't like that, but I can live with it if you can...
>
> I don't like that either, but I still think there are other things than
> Epic Poetry one could use.
>
> >>> This may be something they called it, but there's something about the
> >>> phrase Operational Art that rubs me the wrong way, it sounds like the
> >>start
> >>> of the Operational Art of ..., not a phrase in itself. I prefer
Mobile
> >>> Warfare- its clearer.
>
> >COMMENT: Operational Warfare isn't quite as accurate technically, but it
> >might convey a better image. Operations is, roughly, the conduct of war
> >above the level of tactics and below the level of strategy in 20th
century
> >military terminology. Since this is right where 'mobile warfare' like
> >tanks, mech infantry, and paratroops have their greatest effect, it would
> >be a shame not to refer to it when you're trying to find Advances for
those
> >units.
>
> Operational Warfare sounds tons better, even if it isn't as accurate.
>
> COMMENT: Actually, biggest tech change that led to consolidation under
> >kings was Gunpowder: Bombards made the baron's castles obsolete, and were
> >too expensive for the barons to afford the way the king could. However,
> >France and England both had major civil wars between the barons and the
> >kings in the 15th and 16th centuries, and it wasn't until kings
established
> >a monopoly on military force in the late 17th century that the concept of
> >Absolutism became universally accepted as a principle of secular
authority
> >- coincident with Louis XIV and Versailles, and with the rise of the
> >Absolute Monarchy's classic armies composed of smoothbore cannon,
flintlock
> >musketeers, and cavalry.
>
> That's true. The ones I mentioned weren't all of them. The point I was
> trying to make though was that Machiavelli didn't have much to do with it.
> Personally I don't think he had much of an effect on history. People were
> Machiavellian long before he gave us the word.
>
> >>>COMMENT: instead of Toolmaking, how about Metal Working - meaning the
> >>>primitive casting of copper, gold, silver, and lead in sand molds,
> >>>low-temperature forging and hammering of metals in shape. American
> >>>Indians even had cold-worked copper for edges, knives, etc. This
> >>>establishes the basic techniques that will be massively improved later
on
> >>>for working all metals. Makesa good start for a progression that
includes
> >>>Bronze Working, Iron Working, and Metallurgy.
> >
> Metal Working- bingo! I love it. Works great with the Spearman it gives.
> Wes, I hope you like some of these names too.
>
> Harlan
>
>>> Also, I'm unsatisfied with Pikeman being attached to not only Crop
>>> Rotation, but Cavalry Tactics as well. That isn't really a great
>>solution.
>>> It may need a tech of its own. With prereqs of Cavalry Tactics and
>>> Feudalism, you could just have a tech called The Pike, unless a better
>>name
>>> can be thought of.
>COMMENT: Aside from cheap armies like the Scots, who simply couldn't
>afford anything better, the pikemen in the late Middle Ages arose not only
>from the need for defense against cavalry but also from the rise of
>Mercenary Troops - pikemen were cheaper to buy in large quantities because
>you didn't have to pay for horses and heavy armor. The Swiss and the German
>Landsknecht pike "blocks", while they could certainly drive off cavalry,
>were primarily offensive - Swiss charged Burgundian and Austrian cavalry on
>several occasions. This means you could tie the Pikemen unit to the rise of
>money economy: maybe to Banking or Paper Currency or some other medieval
>economic Advance.

These sounds loads better than the current Crop Rotation.

>>> is very essential and the natural prereq for Republic gvmt. Perhaps
call
>>> it Liberty. But a prereq to something like City State certainly isn't
>>> necessary and there are good fits like Theocracy going under Theology.

>COMMENT: Let's see, the "non-technical" advances from the late 17th century
>to the 19th century included Rationalism (Hume, Voltaire, et al), discovery
>of Laws of Motion, Calculus and Differential Calculus, start of the first
>public newspapers, circulating libraries, joint Stock Companies, Academies
>of Sciences in England, France, and other countries, first Patent and
>Copyright Laws, the foundation of sociology in de Montesquieu's "The Spirit
>of the Laws", publication of first Encyclopedias (Diderot's in French).
>Should be enough in there to hang a few units, governments, and
>improvements on...

Of these, I like the Press (or something along those lines- having an
outspoken media is a key prereq to Democracy and other things), and
Rationalism.

>>> PS- I'd still like an explanation of Arabic Numerals. Britannica
doesn't
>>> really help out on that one.
>COMMENT: 975 AD, approx, and the notation system was Indian originally,
>Called Arithmetic Notation (which no one will recognize compared to Arabic
>Numbers) the key concept was that numbers had Place as well as Quantity,
>and by having a symbol to take the place of a number ('0') the place could
>be accounted for in all notation, making calculations much easier than in
>the Roman system. As kids (in my day, anyhoo) we recited "...the 100s
>place, the 10s place, the 1s' place, the tenths place, the hundredths
>place, etc". It's no accident that by 808 AD, right after, the first Bank
>for depositing money openned in Italy, and double-entry bookkeeping
>(primitive) was invented.
> Related to this, first Paper Money (printed with wood blocks) was
>issued in China in 1023 AD, and in the same century Italian bankers
>invented Intruments of Credit - paper drafts which allowed funds to be
>transfered between banks in different countries On Paper - no physical gold
>need travel. One history I read said that this "made possible business by
>remote control" - and international banking and trading firms started up at
>the aame time, based on it.

I know you say no one will recognize it, but I much prefer Arithmetic
Notation to Arabic Numerals. Just like its better to have a tech called
Alphabet than one called English Alphabet. Paper Money actually came
earlier in China. 800 something, I recall. They're always pushing dates
further into the past with new research.

>COMMENT: I went back and looked at the progresion again, in my copies of
>Casson's books on ancient ships and the volume on rebuilding the Athenian
>Trireme, and the first Advance should probably be Hull Making - the
>earliest vessels were hollow log canoes types or rafts, and actually having
>a built-up hull propelled by paddles or sails was the first step towards
>(coastal) sea traversing vessels. The key advance for the Trireme was the
>Bronze Ram and the banks of oars that concentrated the propulsive effort.
>Maybe then, Trireme (which the reconstructors called the First Warship
>type) should be linked to Bronze Working and Naval Geometry (organization
>of oars, oarlocks, and rowers in the hull)? I still stand by Joinery for
>the later, more sturdy hulls that made the bigger Round Hulled ships
>possible.

I like both naming ideas. Official CTP2 people didn't really know their
history and science I imagine.

>>> That may be all true, but I still don't like the name Naval
Architecture.
>>> All boats have naval architecture, none more than others. Can you think
>>of
>>> a better name?

>COMMENT: Don't have to. All boats have naval construction, not formal
>architecture, which is the Planned system and design of the construction.
>Along with the purpose-built warship (Frigate, Ship of the Line) from the
>1630s on came formal Naval Architects, not just Master Builders. This is
>also when you start seeing meticulous models of the hulls being built for
>the shipyards, which are still around today. Previous disasters like the
>Vasa or the Mary Rose became much less likely as the construction and
>design got better planned before they started pegging timbers together.

If you put it that way, the name makes sense.

>>> >>>Warrior Spirit (U: Warrior)

>>> again the thing that bothers me here
>>> is the name. With this name it sounds like something you either have or
>>> don't, not something that can be gained. Any ideas?

>COMMENT: Warrior Cult - a name which emphasizes the Hold that the idea of
>the warrior had among some populations. Warrior Caste would also work,
>because the idea seems to inevitably leads to Warriors thinking of
>themselves as apart and different from the rest (read: and better).

I like these options better. Another one is what Civ2 called it, the
Warrior Code.

>COMMENT: Fershur: swords sprang directly from the development of good
>bronze forging. Problem is, so did the shields and points that allowed
>Spearmen, which means both the early Attack and Defense units come from the
>same Advance. I don't like that, but I can live with it if you can...

I don't like that either, but I still think there are other things than
Epic Poetry one could use.

>>> This may be something they called it, but there's something about the
>>> phrase Operational Art that rubs me the wrong way, it sounds like the
>>start
>>> of the Operational Art of ..., not a phrase in itself. I prefer Mobile
>>> Warfare- its clearer.

>COMMENT: Operational Warfare isn't quite as accurate technically, but it
>might convey a better image. Operations is, roughly, the conduct of war
>above the level of tactics and below the level of strategy in 20th century
>military terminology. Since this is right where 'mobile warfare' like
>tanks, mech infantry, and paratroops have their greatest effect, it would
>be a shame not to refer to it when you're trying to find Advances for those

>units.

Operational Warfare sounds tons better, even if it isn't as accurate.

COMMENT: Actually, biggest tech change that led to consolidation under
>kings was Gunpowder: Bombards made the baron's castles obsolete, and were
>too expensive for the barons to afford the way the king could. However,
>France and England both had major civil wars between the barons and the
>kings in the 15th and 16th centuries, and it wasn't until kings established
>a monopoly on military force in the late 17th century that the concept of
>Absolutism became universally accepted as a principle of secular authority
>- coincident with Louis XIV and Versailles, and with the rise of the
>Absolute Monarchy's classic armies composed of smoothbore cannon, flintlock
>musketeers, and cavalry.

That's true. The ones I mentioned weren't all of them. The point I was
trying to make though was that Machiavelli didn't have much to do with it.
Personally I don't think he had much of an effect on history. People were
Machiavellian long before he gave us the word.

>>>COMMENT: instead of Toolmaking, how about Metal Working - meaning the
>>>primitive casting of copper, gold, silver, and lead in sand molds,
>>>low-temperature forging and hammering of metals in shape. American
>>>Indians even had cold-worked copper for edges, knives, etc. This
>>>establishes the basic techniques that will be massively improved later on
>>>for working all metals. Makesa good start for a progression that includes
>>>Bronze Working, Iron Working, and Metallurgy.
>
Metal Working- bingo! I love it. Works great with the Spearman it gives.
Wes, I hope you like some of these names too.

Harlan

**WesW** · January 15, 2001, 01:58

Continued 3....

Hi guys. I am getting swamped with trying to keep up with the advances
letters, the other aspects of the mod, uploading stuff, the forums, etc. If
I skip some things, that is the reason.

Harlan, are the last batch of pics you sent me going to be the last ones, at
least for a while? If so, I can get those uploaded tonight or tomorrow
sometime.

Moving Pikemen to Paper Currency sounds fine to me as well.
The problem we had with the Ren advances is Gunpowder being in the Ren
rather than the Medieval age.
I plan on the game progressing one year a turn once the Modern age begins,
with each age lasting 80 turns. Does this sound ok?
Grenadiers use the Infantryman sprite, and are the assault infantry of their
age, therefore it makes sense to me that they would be an elite unit.
The Cannon is the mobile ranged unit of its age, and I envision it as being
the horse-drawn version. I placed it with Machine Tools because it was new
boring techniques, among other things, which ushered in its increased
battlefield use in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Chronometer coincided with the things Charles listed with Absolutism and
allowed monarchs to send fleets all over the globe establishing colonies and
conquering nations. This is what I call Imperialism.
The C-17 Transport sprite you mentioned doesn't look as advanced, imo, as
the Stealth Bomber, and I am not familiar with an Me262 pic, but I don't
know how it would help the situation anyhow. Stealth will probably be the
shape of things to come in aircraft design for some time to come, so the
current sprites will be good enough.
I am pretty sure Rationalism is what they call Age of Reason in the game. I
went over all this in detail when making the Med mod 3. Romanticism is what
I settled on in that mod for the next social advance. I can take it out with
no problem. How about replacing it with Psychology, and placing it after
Evo. Theory?
I think that Civil Rights can sum up the suffrage movement, Bill of Rights
and other social movements which led to your definition of Democracy.
The other advnces which you called fat can be cut if the game gets slow, or
if someone comes up with better ideas. Didn't you say last night that we
needed more non-military-type stuff? With the shortening of the last two
eras, I think that the future is fairly well taken care of, though I would
be happy to hear new suggestions.
How about Decimal System for Arabic Numerals?
I will change Toolmaking to Metal Working.
Operational Warfare can replace Vertical Warfare. I was just trying to come
up with something.
For the early shipbuilding, how about moving Hull Making to the earliest
advance, followed by Ship Building, which can represent all the improvements
Charles listed with oars and so-forth and allows the Trireme. Then comes
Alchemy, which allows the Fire Trireme, and finally Joinery, which allows
Longships and Berserkers. I will move Astronomy down to the Agriculture
line, and have it allow Graneries, to emphasize its effect on agriculture. I
will remove mapmaking to make way for Joinery.

The success of Desert Storm was more than accepting the surrender of the
Iraqi infantry. They left their right flank open because they thought no one
could navigate the open desert. Using the new GPS, the army was able to do
just that, sweeping behind the Iraqi entrenchments, destroying the armored
units which were supposed to close any Allied breakthroughs of the trenches,
and cutting off the infantry. This integration of new communication
techniques has been revolutionizing warfare since the turn of the last
century, as you well know, and will continue to do so for decades to come. I
envision the Ctp2 Tank as a further evolution of today's armor.
I don't disagree with what you said about Kosovo, etc., but I think there
will still be tanks in the future, and the Ctp2 unit represents that.
The report I saw on the Paladin is probably about 10 yrs old by now, but it
is a 155mm Self-prop. gun which uses ignited hydrogen gas and something else
to propell the shell. The gun can therefore have a relatively high rate of
fire, needs no powder carriage, and uses GPS and computers to aim and fire
practically on the move. It's a devastating improvement to the current
weapons available.
As for the Machine Gunner, I need "something" to represent the Computer
age's standard defensive ground unit. Look at the sprite. It's not meant to
represent the first use of machine guns. All that futuristic armor is out of
place as a World War One-era unit. I have it placed in the latter third of
the 20th century, which isn't much better, but it can represent the M-16 of
the modern infantryman.
I have switched the units enabled by Mass Prod. and Int. Combustion. This
should set things about right.
Glad you support combining the Marine and Paratrooper.
I don't see how Deep Battle Tactics sounds any better than Assault Infantry
Tactics, especially given the units the advance enables.
I can take the Adv. out of Adv. Urban Planning with no problem, though urban
planning did begin at least by the 19th century with city design and sewer
systems and so-forth.
I tied the Secret Agent to Electro-magnetism because I figured it was the
advent of electronic communication that allowed higher forms of espionage to
take place. It also puts it in with the advent of Communism and the
traditional time period for the unit in the game. Remember Cyber Ninja is
the late-game unit.

I am still working on the links, but normally the things in a row are preqs
for the next tech in the line.
The new improvements you mentioned generally sound alright to me, I just
haven't really gotten to that part of the game yet. I need to see how the
mod changes affect science before thinking of adding new science
improvements, for example.

Wes
> >Moving Pikemen to Paper Currency sounds fine to me as well.
> >The problem we had with the Ren advances is Gunpowder being in the Ren
> >rather than the Medieval age.
> >I plan on the game progressing one year a turn once the Modern age
begins,
> >with each age lasting 80 turns. Does this sound ok?
>
> Yeah, that sounds just about right. So the game ends at 2120, correct?

I messed up on this. I am going to have to go into the diffdb and figure out
exactly what I need to do before I can say how long the ages will last.
I got Charles' email after I began writing this one, so I will address his
points last.
Here is what I did before reading Charles' last letter:

I am calling the Modern age marine/paratrooper unit the Ranger, and the
Computer age unit Special Forces. I plan to use the Ctp2 Marine sprite for
the Ranger, and the Ctp2 Paratrooper for the Special Forces.
Since the name Marine is not being used anymore, I have re-named the Hover
Marine to simply Marine.
I have re-named the Tank to Battle Tank, and the Machine Gunner to Modern
Infantryman.
I have made all the changes agreed to in the remaining part of the letter.
In addition, I changed Vertical Warfare to Deep Battle Tactics and Automatic
Weapons to Automatic Rifles.
I brought back the Communism advance, and re-named it Socialism, which has
been more successful in the long run. It gives the Comm. govt type and the
Secret Agent. I think it is a better fit for both those two items than the
previous arrangement.
I have added the Automobile as an advance, and moved Armor to it. I moved
Modern Metallurgy next to Mass Prod. I have made other changes to the units
available in this time period after reviewing Charles' letter. Considering
the links and items associated with this pack of advances, I think it is a
better arrangement.
I have also added four other new advances to the game: Telephone, Internet,
Equal Rights and Superstring Theory.
I forgot to mention last night that I intend on adding Future advances to
the game. Maybe a dozen or so total in 4 areas. It didn't really dawn on me
until tonight what the absence of future advances meant. I think that they
kept the number of standard advances in the game the same as in Ctp1, so
this means that there are 40 fewer advances in Ctp2 than there were in Ctp1.
I don't know about you two, but I am very happy with this final selection of
names and advances. This gives us a net addition of 40 standard advances,
which sets us equal to the number of total advances in Ctp1. Thus, there
should be no problem with the game slowing down, even with adding a dozen or
more future advances. I guess this means that we can add even more advances
if we need to after the beta is out and we get some gameplay experience.

I have pasted Charles' letter in here, since I addressed Harlan's letter in
the above statements.

Wes & Harlan:
With the help of a newly-acquired update of MacLink software (which I should
have done first, but yatdahey) I got the MedMod Advances chart downloaded,
unzipped and printed out in two variants (thanx to both the gif and Word
files) and spent lunchhour making notes on same, this evening writing them
up. here goes my first shot at direct comments:
Governments:
As near as I can tell from first glance, the government types and the
Advances with which they are associated are as follows:
Ancient Age
Monarchy Writing
Classical Age
City State Citizenship
Medieval Age
Theocracy Theology
Renaissance Age
Imperialism Chronometer
Republic Nationalism
Industrial Age
Democracy Civil Rights
Communism Corporation
Modern Age
Fascism Radio
Fundamentalism Mass Media
Computer Age
Virtual Democracy Neural Interface
Technocracy Digital Encryption
Corporate Republic Global Communications
Diamond Age
Ecotopia Ecotopia

So, there is almost no advance in governance after the Computer Age, and
Republic is associated with a period almost 2000 years after the first
Republic? Not Good.
I suggest that Republic be moved back to the slot now occupied by City
State, and City State placed under Trade, which puts it approximately as
early as I'd intended it to be when I made it up. This gives the early-game
a choice between militaristic Monarchy and Economic City State.

Answer: I think that the Roman Republic was the only one in history until
the French Republic, as Harlan noted, so I don't have a big problem with its
placement. Moving it to the ancient age would really mess up the gameflow,
which I will cover at the end of your govt. section.

Imperialism was a government policy, not a government. How about Absolute
Monarchy , reflecting the concentrated authority of the 18th century
European kings and emperors: high on expansion, military support, loyalty,
but expensive to maintain.

Answer: My name for this govt. was Constitutional Monarchy, based upon the
British. Would this work better?

Civil Rights has a very modern ring to it, compared to the era in which it
is placed. How about making Democracy's Advance Rights of Man or Humanism.
I'd also think that Emancipation Act Wonder belongs about here instead of
back in the Renaissance: opposition to slavery on principle didn't really
gather steam until the late 18th century.

Answer: I agree with moving the Eman. Proc. to this advance. With the
addition of Equal Rights in the 20th century, I think that this name seems
alright. IIRC, the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's was really aimed at
implementing the rights laid out in the 14th amendment.

Finally, to even things up towards the late game, how about moving Virtual
Democracy to Arcologies, based on the idea that such units would become the
basis for highly 'netted' communities interacting like Voting Blocks in the
post-modern cities?
This would give the gamer a choice of two new governments in each age except
Classical, Medieval and Renaissance.

Answer: When it comes to governments, you can't really go by ages. You have
to go by the types of AIs in the game, and the gameflow for each of them.
Currently, you have 5 types of AIs: Militarist, Scientist, Diplomat,
Economist and Ecotopian.
The Militarist sequence is currently Monarchy, Imperialism, Fascism and
probably Corp. Rep. (I am not that familiar with the Ctp2 future govts yet.)
The Scientist would go City State, Democracy, Virt. Dem.
The Economist would pick City State, Republic, Technocracy.
The Diplomat would go City State, Republic, Virt. Dem.
The Ecotopian would go Theocracy, Fundamentalist, Ecotopian.

These are a general sequence. Anyway, the point is that spreading them out
by age is not the way to go. You need to spread them out dependent upon who
will be using them.

A thought, just to throw outS How about an Improvement under Feudalism of
Castle? Effects would be higher Defense (taking the place of Ballista
Towers, which I dislike because they were never historically effective),
possibly enabling the city to produce Knights, but effectively Increasing
the distance between the city and the capital - reflecting the 'centrifugal'
actions of the local barons. This might give gamers a real incentive to go
back from Republic or City State to Theocracy or Monarchy in order to
maintain Loyalty and avoid Revolts in a farflung civ - rather as happened in
the Middle Ages.

Answer: Interesting idea. I don't know if the flags are there to do all that
you want or not.

Names and Characteristics of Advances:
"Combat Engineering" is what occurs in battle. A better title would be
Military Engineering, which is the construction of military structures
before the battle, and better fits the Improvements associated with it. This
advance should also come before Machine Tools-Cannon: the Italian Trace
system of fortifications was perfected by Vauban in the late 17th century,
almost 100 years before the developments associated with Machine Tools and
horsed artillery.

Answer: I changed the name to Military Engineering, and made it a preq to
Machine Tools.

You have SANITATION, REFRIGERATION, IMMUNIZATION, PASTEURIZATION. All at
about the same time, and all, I assume, affecting Population Increase. Seems
like overkill to me, even though I know they were all important and the
population surge associated with them was massive. My suggestion:
Keep Sanitation, associated with an Improvement: Public Water Supply. The
cleaning up of the drinking water in large cities, among other things
stopped the recurring cholera epidemics that were still killing 50,000+ a
year in London in the 1850s!
Leave Refrigeration and Food Silo as is.
Combine Immunization and Pasteurization into Immunization, and (I hate to be
adding Improvements like crazy butS) add another Improvement: Public Clinic.
This reflects the growth of the city health services pioneered by Josephine
Baker in the USA at the end of the 19th century: dropped infant mortality
rates among the working class enormously. The improvement would have two
effects, making it doubly popular: population increase and increased
Happiness ("My child lives!")

Answer: I would support doing all this. One of the reasons I wanted all
these to be in there was for added pop-growth improvements.

Let me introduce you to the Modern Problem in ALL CIV GAMES SO FAR: there
STILL ain't no modern infantry. After the Rifleman all you get are the
specialized types: Marines, mech, or paratroopers. This has just got to
stop, guys, 'cause it's been driving me crazy ever since CivII!
What I think will work, without bollixing your Advances too much, is this:
Move MachineGunner to Explosives with Artillery. The smokeless powder
developments coincided with the first gas- and -recoil-operated automatic
weapons, the Browning and Maxim heavy machineguns: The first long range
artillery (1897-1902) entered service about 10 years after the very first
machineguns, and the MG will be cheaper to build, so this will fit
historically and in game terms. The MG will have a higher defense than
attack factor, reflecting the fact that the first years of this century saw
the Defense on the rise: infantry simply could not advance against
machineguns and artillery.
Throw away Automatic Weapons, move Assault Infantry Tactics to right after
Repeating Rifles, but the prerequisites are Explosives, Modern Metallurgy,
and Repeating Rifles (check the forums, a guy found out you can use 3
prereqs to an Advance, and I've tried it, it works). The unit would be
Infantry or Assault Infantry, the icon/sprite, if we can get someone to work
it up, would be the classic WWII infantryman, maybe on a US (olive green) or
German (light gray-green) model. Now put StormTrooper and Storm Marine under
Advanced Composites, because the next big advances in infantry will be very
light high powered weapons (AT Rocket, assault rifle, grenade launcher
combos), personal body armor suits, and special vision/recon sight gizmos -
all of which the US Army was already working on 10 years ago, and all based
on advanced Kevlar and Composite materials, computers, and advanced
optics...

Answer: Given the way the Machine Gunner sprite looks, I think that
re-naming it Modern Infantry is a good choice. The other changes I made to
the units and their associated preqs work out pretty well too. I want the
game to play well, at the expense of historical accuracy if forced to
choose. I think that the current setup will provide that. A WW I era with
defense dominant is historically accurate, but it doesn't make for a good
game.
The War Walker is a rocket-firing artillery unit in the mod.

Other Unit/Advance SequencesS
I was a professional artilleryman for 20 years, so I'll try not to devolve
into technical jargon here, but let me lay out the chronological order of
artillery development since Gunpowder.
Bombards - massive and immovable wall/city crackers
Culverin - a generic term in the 15th - 16th centuries for everything from
Bombards down to pivot-mounted oversize muskets.
Cannon or Piece : the long barreled, bronze cast smooth-bore mounted on a
2-wheeled and trailed wooden carraige, the basic field and seige gun of the
late 17th to the mid-19th centuries.
Artillery. Guns using smokeless powder charges and having a recoil mechanism
on the carraige: much faster firing, longer range, and after about 1912,
able to fire Indirect Fire at targets they couldn't see (and who couldn't
see them to fire back!)
Howitzer. The basic artillery of WWII: the premier Indirect Fire piece,
light enough to move fast and respond quickly to infantry's calls for fire
support. Since WWII, almost all artillery has technically been Gun
Howitzers, with a longer barrel than a pure howitzer but able to elevate the
gun tube to fire all kinds of indirect fire like a howitzer.
Self-Propelled Artillery. Take the above artillery and mount it on a wheeled
or (more commonly) a tracked armored carraige. First done in 1941-43 by
Germany and the USA, now nearly universal in all major armies.
Battlefield Rockets. The best (I'm slightly prejudiced here) is MLRS, which
can unload the equivalent of a battery of 203mm artillery from one launcher
in a few seconds. Can move faster, shoot farther, and is completely armored.
Semi-Automated Tube Systems. Don't know what else to call them, but these
are the Paladin-type liquid-charge computer-controlled GPS guided SP
gun-howitzers of the future - still outranged by the rockets, though.
All of which means that you need to move Mech Infantry and SP Artillery to
After Mobile Warfare, because they were added to the tank forces after the
first fast tank units were developed. They could be part of Combined Arms,
or you could split some off to Deep Battle or Operational Warfare advances.

Answer: Ok, I generally agree with you on this, and I think I have finally
found the perfect arrangement for both historical and gameplay purposes.

Finally, Advances Costs. I did a brief test using the CtPII costs cut in
half, and the rate of tech advance at the Medium difficulty level was 'way
too fast. I suggest for a first test taking the current costs and
multiplying by about .75, except for the very first, no Prereq Advances,
which should stay at the current costs. All this is assuming Locutus or
someone doesn't find an actual math formula for costing Advances, but I
think it would come close to matching the Advance rate to the historical
timeline, at least on the Medium - Hard difficulty levels.
I'm going to take the printout of the Advance chart to work with me tomorrow
and make some more notes, maybe get another (hopefully smaller) email back
to you tomorrow night.

Answer: Chris Whitaker (Gedrin) has already made such a spreadsheet for
costing advances, which is available at my website. He is waiting on me to
send him the final advance list and the turn or year that I want them to
become available so that he can put them into a more advanced version of the
spreadsheet for me to use in play-balancing.

Charles Sharp

>
> >Grenadiers use the Infantryman sprite, and are the assault infantry of
their
> >age, therefore it makes sense to me that they would be an elite unit.
> >The Cannon is the mobile ranged unit of its age, and I envision it as
being
> >the horse-drawn version. I placed it with Machine Tools because it was
new
> >boring techniques, among other things, which ushered in its increased
> >battlefield use in the 17th and 18th centuries.
> >The Chronometer coincided with the things Charles listed with Absolutism
and
> >allowed monarchs to send fleets all over the globe establishing colonies
and
> >conquering nations. This is what I call Imperialism.
> >The C-17 Transport sprite you mentioned doesn't look as advanced, imo, as
> >the Stealth Bomber, and I am not familiar with an Me262 pic, but I don't
> >know how it would help the situation anyhow. Stealth will probably be the
> >shape of things to come in aircraft design for some time to come, so the
> >current sprites will be good enough.
>
> The Me262 could have replaced the current Interceptor graphic as the Jet
> Fighter, thus freeing up the Interceptor graphic to be some post Stealth
> thing. I agree these aren't more futuristic than Stealth planes, but it
> works better than having different colored Fascist units for things. But
I
> guess you don't want post-Stealth planes in any case.
>
> >I am pretty sure Rationalism is what they call Age of Reason in the game.
I
> >went over all this in detail when making the Med mod 3. Romanticism is
what
> >I settled on in that mod for the next social advance. I can take it out
with
> >no problem. How about replacing it with Psychology, and placing it after
> >Evo. Theory?
>
> That sounds better. Better check with Charles on this stuff though.
>
> >I think that Civil Rights can sum up the suffrage movement, Bill of
Rights
> >and other social movements which led to your definition of Democracy.
> >The other advnces which you called fat can be cut if the game gets slow,
or
> >if someone comes up with better ideas. Didn't you say last night that we
> >needed more non-military-type stuff? With the shortening of the last two
> >eras, I think that the future is fairly well taken care of, though I
would
> >be happy to hear new suggestions.
>
> Yep, but I didn't anticipate most of those all falling in the same time
> period, roughly. The 20th and 21st century could use some, for instance.
> The future is pretty well taken care of, though not at solid as the era
> before it. And I still worry about the lack of Future Tech. What happens
> when someone runs out of things to research? The last few techs are still
> giving useful things, but there's really no time to use them if they're
the
> very last techs, if you know what I mean. Perhaps there could be a few
> future techs that don't give anything at all but some minor bonuses, the
> way future techs worked in CTP1 and Civ2.
>
> >How about Decimal System for Arabic Numerals?
>
> Works for me.
>
> >I will change Toolmaking to Metal Working.
> >Operational Warfare can replace Vertical Warfare. I was just trying to
come
> >up with something.
> >For the early shipbuilding, how about moving Hull Making to the earliest
> >advance, followed by Ship Building, which can represent all the
improvements
> >Charles listed with oars and so-forth and allows the Trireme. Then comes
> >Alchemy, which allows the Fire Trireme, and finally Joinery, which allows
> >Longships and Berserkers. I will move Astronomy down to the Agriculture
> >line, and have it allow Graneries, to emphasize its effect on
agriculture. I
> >will remove mapmaking to make way for Joinery.
>
> All sounds good.
> >
> >The success of Desert Storm was more than accepting the surrender of the
> >Iraqi infantry. They left their right flank open because they thought no
one
> >could navigate the open desert. Using the new GPS, the army was able to
do
> >just that, sweeping behind the Iraqi entrenchments, destroying the
armored
> >units which were supposed to close any Allied breakthroughs of the
trenches,
> >and cutting off the infantry. This integration of new communication
> >techniques has been revolutionizing warfare since the turn of the last
> >century, as you well know, and will continue to do so for decades to
come. I
> >envision the Ctp2 Tank as a further evolution of today's armor.
> >I don't disagree with what you said about Kosovo, etc., but I think there
> >will still be tanks in the future, and the Ctp2 unit represents that.
>
> Desert Storm was all very impressive, but it was gonna be a slaughterhouse
> no matter if they did an end run or not. The Iraqis were completely
> decimated, like a machine gunner up against a hoplite. There's hardly
been
> a more lopsided war in history, and it was a combo of a zillion little
> things that created that. I think the Iraqi army was just like the Red
> Threat of the Cold War- hyped up far beyond reality. Most were
unwillingly
> forced into an army they would have gladly defected from at the first
> chance they had, and were a pathetic Third World army only impressive with
> numbers. Even the vaunted Revolutionary Guard was destroyed like shooting
> apples in a barrel.
>
> However, I too think there will be tanks in the future, as one always has
> to physically hold the ground. What really threw me was the name Tank.
> You might want to come up with a more futuristic sounding variation.
>
> >The report I saw on the Paladin is probably about 10 yrs old by now, but
it
> >is a 155mm Self-prop. gun which uses ignited hydrogen gas and something
else
> >to propell the shell. The gun can therefore have a relatively high rate
of
> >fire, needs no powder carriage, and uses GPS and computers to aim and
fire
> >practically on the move. It's a devastating improvement to the current
> >weapons available.
>
> I just typed paladin and artillery into a search engine, and instantly
came
> up with this: http://www.ksfoe.ang.af.mil/ksng/paladin.htm
>
> It looks like an improved SPG to me, not artillery in the CTP2 sprites you
> have sense.
>
> >As for the Machine Gunner, I need "something" to represent the Computer
> >age's standard defensive ground unit. Look at the sprite. It's not meant
to
> >represent the first use of machine guns. All that futuristic armor is out
of
> >place as a World War One-era unit. I have it placed in the latter third
of
> >the 20th century, which isn't much better, but it can represent the M-16
of
> >the modern infantryman.
>
> I agree with this, but again naming is a problem. If you say Machine
> Gunner brought about by the invention of Automatic Weapons, what's a boy
to
> think? Perhaps another renamer.
>
> >I have switched the units enabled by Mass Prod. and Int. Combustion. This
> >should set things about right.
> >Glad you support combining the Marine and Paratrooper.
> >I don't see how Deep Battle Tactics sounds any better than Assault
Infantry
> >Tactics, especially given the units the advance enables.
> >I can take the Adv. out of Adv. Urban Planning with no problem, though
urban
> >planning did begin at least by the 19th century with city design and
sewer
> >systems and so-forth.
>
> Yeah, but generally speaking in tech trees you don't have an Advanced
> something unless you had the unadvanced version earlier.
>
> >I tied the Secret Agent to Electro-magnetism because I figured it was the
> >advent of electronic communication that allowed higher forms of espionage
to
> >take place. It also puts it in with the advent of Communism and the
> >traditional time period for the unit in the game. Remember Cyber Ninja is
> >the late-game unit.
>
> I still think that's a far cry from a fit. Rememeber electromagnetism at
> this point had no practical application, it was just a step on the way to
> getting electricity. There are no spy gadgets involved. The time is
> right, the tech is not.
>
> >I am still working on the links, but normally the things in a row are
preqs
> >for the next tech in the line.
> >The new improvements you mentioned generally sound alright to me, I just
> >haven't really gotten to that part of the game yet. I need to see how the
> >mod changes affect science before thinking of adding new science
> >improvements, for example.
> >
> I think you're getting near the finish line with this. Links can be
> changed on the fly much easier than adding and removing techs. Esp. given
> how you have to have everything in proper alphabetical order for them to
> show up that way in the GL. UGH- what a pain!
>
> Harlan
>
>
> But is that a rough ballpark, instead of 2300?

Yes.
>
>
> Maybe keep it Hover Marine, cos when people see the name Marine they think
> of one thing, and what it is is different from that expectation.

Ok.
>
>
> Let me know which techs are still lacking pictures in the final shape of
> things, and I'll make them.

Ok.
>
> Glad to hear the future tech news. CTP2 screwed up big time on that one.
> You just gonna have them called Future Tech 1 and so forth, or give them
> names?

I guess just call them Future Tech 1, etc.
>
> I think the tech tree is looking very good. I haven't really gone through
> the links with a fine tooth comb yet, and I don't think Charles has
either.
> There may be some changes there. Charles, keep in mind that in CTP2 one
> tech can have up to 4 prereqs, if need be.
>
> Also Wes, keep in mind that the order of the techs in the Advance.txt file
> is the order they show up in the GL. So you may want to alphabetize them
> from the get go to avoid frustration later. You probably know this, but I
> mention it cos I don't recall things being alphabetized in your Med Mod 4.
> One totally frustrating thing is that the terrain file isn't alphabetized,
> and I think if one does it, it will screw up the preexisitng maps. Talk
> about lame- how could they not even bother to alphabetize?

I didn't realize it until you mentioned it yesterday. And yes, it will be a
pain.
>
> >Imperialism was a government policy, not a government. How about Absolute
> >Monarchy , reflecting the concentrated authority of the 18th century
> >European kings and emperors: high on expansion, military support,
loyalty,
> >but expensive to maintain.
> >
> >Answer: My name for this govt. was Constitutional Monarchy, based upon
the
> >British. Would this work better?
>
> Personally I don't like that one. One can't say that marked imperialist
or
> colonialist gvmts as a rule. Constitional Monarchy is Republic in all but
> name, with the king a mere figurehead. I think Absolutism or Absolute
> Monarchy is better. Personally I don't have a problem with Imperialism
> either.

Thinking about it, I have named it Absolute Monarchy, and moved it back to
Cannon Making. This will put it in a better place as far as spreading out
the govts for militaristic types, and be a good fit historically.
>
> Howabout Human Rights instead of Civil Rights?

Ok.
>
> Corporate Republic (though I'd prefer it to be called Corporatism) is an
> economic type I think, not military. Technocracy is the ultimate science
> gvmt.

Yeah, you're right. I was just trying to give a general idea of the
sequence.

>
> Harlan

Charles, you are mostly right about the units. The War Elephant and
Javelineer are both wonder units as well. I don't like the name Javelineer,
either, but I couldn't think up anything else. The sprite is the Zulu
Spear-thrower from EB. What do you two suggest? I may just leave it
"Spear-thrower", since I intend for the Wonder to give both Zulu units.
The Rifleman is the defensive unit of the Modern age. Now that there are
more ages than unit progressions, the Ren age and Modern ages will bleed
into the Industrial age as far as land units go.

Wes

**WesW** · January 15, 2001, 01:59

Continued 4....

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Sharp"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Cc: "Harlan Thompson"
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2001 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: Jan. 5th letter

> Wes & Harlan:
> Couple of things here, after some reading and thinking this weekend...
> >> Glad to hear the future tech news. CTP2 screwed up big time on that
one.
> >> You just gonna have them called Future Tech 1 and so forth, or give
them
> >> names?
> >I guess just call them Future Tech 1, etc.
> COMMENT: I'm about 80% through with Michio Kaku's "Visions" book,
subtitled
> "How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century". From the book, so far,
> here are a few 'Future Tech' designations that might be useful:
> Neural Nets - computing advance
> DNA Computers
> Quantum Computers - the Ultimate Computer?
> Bionics - man/machine interface
> Molecular Medicine
> Gene Therapy - connect with Cure for Cancer Wonder?
> Antimatter Power - faintly possible by the end of the century: an
> interstellar
> victory alternative?
> Weather Modification - requiring vast energy and computation
> Also note that in CtPII, unlike CivII, there is no indication of
> any Multi-national organization: no UN or any possible successor. In fact,
> Global anything in the Advance tree is most unlikely without some kind of
> international legal institution. Maybe need to add Modern Advances (or
> Wonders) of International Court, United Naitons, or (controversial) World
> Trade Organization?
> Finally, one Future Tech from H. Beam Pper's science fiction
> universe that I've always really liked:
> Collapsed Matter - ultimate armor
> >>
> >> I think the tech tree is looking very good. I haven't really gone
through
> >> the links with a fine tooth comb yet, and I don't think Charles has
> >either.
> >> There may be some changes there. Charles, keep in mind that in CTP2
one
> >> tech can have up to 4 prereqs, if need be.
> COMMENT: In that case, I suggest identifying certain Key Advances that
will
> each have 3 - 4 prerequisites. Off the top of my head, my first choice
> candidates would be:
> Bronze Working
> Industrial Revolution
> Mobile Warfare
> Computers
>
> >> Howabout Human Rights instead of Civil Rights?
> >Ok.
> COMMENT: Agreed. It fits without being either American or French
revolution
> specific.
>
> >Charles, you are mostly right about the units. The War Elephant and
> >Javelineer are both wonder units as well. I don't like the name
Javelineer,
> >either, but I couldn't think up anything else. The sprite is the Zulu
> >Spear-thrower from EB. What do you two suggest? I may just leave it
> >"Spear-thrower",
> COMMENT: I haven't actually looked at either of the Zulu sprites, but
there
> is a lovely pun or contradiction built in there. The switch from throwing
> spears to stabbing with them was precisely the Military Revolution
> instituted by Shaka Zulu. Therefore, by definition anybody using a
throwing
> spear is not a Zulu, but some other southern African tribesman!
>
Thanks for the info, Charles. I am afraid there are similar advances to the
future techs you named already in the game. The ones I added are in
different subject areas.
I thought about putting in the "International Diplomacy" advance that I had
in the Med mod I, but without a U.N. wonder to attach to it, I didn't think
it was really needed. I have already alphabetized the advances and
everything, so it would be a lot of work to go in and start changing things
at this stage.
I will keep the key advances in mind when I get around to making the links.

Wes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Sharp"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Cc: "Harlan Thompson"
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 12:05 AM
Subject: Re: Improvements

> Comments...
>
> >> Here's a summary of buildings ideas. Note that when I was thinking of
> >> these, I generally thought of buildings that could use the regular
> >building
> >> flags, and not something totally SLIC dependent.
> >
> >Yeah, I don't want any slic stuff unless absolutely necessary, and none
of
> >the new buildings are "absolutely" necessary, imo.
> >>
> >> Sewer System. Replaces Drug Store and steals its function. Should
come
> >> with Sanitation, not Steam Engine. Think about it- sewer systems and
> >> sanitation- the logic is screaming. Plus last I checked Steam Engine
had
> >> stuff attached to it and Sanitation did not.
> >
> >I remember Charles talking about Steam Power being used to drain mines,
and
> >when I read in Britannica about this subject, it said that steam engines
> >were also used early on to pipe in potable water to small towns and
cities.
> >It said this was the first improvement in supplying water to cities since
> >Aqueducts. I thought that players may be in bad need of a reduction in
> >overcrowding by the time they got to the Industrial age, since the only
> >improvement up to that time for reducing overcrowding was the Aqueduct.
This
> >would also give a little spacing before you got the Hospital.
> >Your idea makes sense as well, so I don't have a preference.
> COMMENT: The provision of water using steam pumping was important, but
> equally critical was the cleaning up of the water using the techniques
> coming out of germ theory - sanitation. In practice, it means the
> Improvement of Sewer System can be tied to whichever Advance comes at the
> right point in the tech tree and isn't already linked to another
> Improvement.
> >>
> >> Food Silo I recommended as going with Refrigeration. I think this is a
> >> much better fit than Supermarkets, which didn't really get going in the
> >way
> >> we think of them until post-WW2. Supermarkets I think add to a later
> >time,
> >> if they prove necessary.
> >
> >I thought if you were going for a 20th century pop boom, then you needed
to
> >get Food Silos going in the mid-19th century, and then the Supermarket in
> >the early 20th century. Or, I could re-name it Public Clinic and
associate
> >it with Immunization? I had also thought of using the name "Cannery" or
> >"Warehouse" or "Meat Locker".
> COMMENT: I disagree that refrigeration was important at all. Long before
> the mechanical refrigerator, railroads were shipping cold goods using
> insulated cars with bunkers of ice at either end, and wagons were
> delivering ice to ice boxes in most (middle class) homes. This type of
> 'refrigeration' dates back to the Romans, the difference being that once
> railroads reduced long-range shipping costs, it was available to almost
> everyone instead of just the Emperor. The advent of the railroad in
> shipping food cannot be underestimated. A wagon on a good road could carry
> maybe 5 tons and cover 15 miles a day. A small train in 1860 could carry
> 500 tons and cover 100 miles a day: it's an order of magnitude change. In
> 1800 New York City got its fresh meat from Long Island. In 1880 it came
> from Abilene or Wichita. There has to be a major Food+++ Improvement
> connected with Railroad. I'd love to see an automatic Food + when railroad
> connects two cities, but that would definitely take some slic changes.
> Instead, how about Improvement: Warehouse and increase both commerce (a
> little) and food (a lot) with railroad?
> >>
> >> City Clock. Bring it back from CTP1, with the same function as that,
and
> >> the same prereq, Mechanical Clock.
> >
> >Fine with me. The extra gold may well be needed with the new
> >improvement-cost-by-pop system.
> >>
> >> Harbor. Coastal cities only can build them, they boost commerce. Civ1
> >and
> >> Civ2 had it, but Activision doesn't find this important, bizarrely
enough.
> >> Locutus is writing some pretty simple SLIC code to make this coastal
only
> >> in the Alexander scenario.
> >
> >Can't you use the Battlements trigger to tie an improvement to a coastal
> >city without the need for slic? Or did you mean river-only in the Alex
> >scenario?
> >The improvement sounds fine, btw. A good way to simulate the real world.
> COMMENT: How to reconcile it with the PW: Port? Maybe make Port a food
> improvement representing Fishing Villages along the coast, while Harbor
> would be a Commerce booster in the coastal city. btw, can that code be
> written to include river cities also? Rivers were the railroads of
> ancient-medieval-renaissance cities. In this case, though, Harbor would
be
> an earlier Improvement: first artificial harbors date back to 700 BC or so
> (Delos in Greece) and Athens, Alexandria, and Ostia all had pretty
> elaborate shipping and docking facilities in ancient times. Could be
> related to either a construction advance like Masonry or Engineering, or a
> Seafaring advance like Ocean Faring or Hull Making...
>
> >> Get rid of Orbital Laboratory, since its silly to associate that with a
> >> particular city, when its flying all over the world.
> >
> >How about I bring in the Public Education advance I had in the Med mod 4,
> >and have it enable the Public School, which would replace the Lab? There
are
> >no science improvements between Printing Press and Computer Center. This
> >would fill in the gap. Academies are expensive private institutions to
me.
> >>
> >> Just an idea: Library, possibly to come with Paper. Another random
idea:
> >> Monastery.
> >
> >Library wouldn't be a bad idea, except that you already have Academies,
Pub.
> >Houses and Universities in the first half of the game. Public Library
could
> >be an alternative for Public Schools. Or, we could put Public Library in
the
> >Public Ed. advance, and move Schools to Socialism. That would leave 3
> >science improvements in each half of the game, roughly speaking.
> COMMENT: Public Schools-Public Libraries can either work: public education
> was one of the basic tenets of the early Industrial Age (to train workers,
> if no other reason) so would be tied to Industrial Revolution, Public
> Libraries like the ones sponsored by A. Carniegie all over the USA could
> come later in the Industrial/Modern Age, say with Mass Production or
> Internal Combustion.
> >>
> >> Castle. This was suggested by Charles as a replacement to Ballista
> >Towers,
> >> and I think that's a good idea, though I'm not entirely sure how it
should
> >> be implemented.
> COMMENT: Characteristics of a Castle as I see it would be the + Attack
from
> Ballista Towers, a + defense which would be in addition to the+ from City
> Walls (but would be obsoleted by Bastions or other more modern defenses
> like the walls). Appian Way has a DecreaseEmpireDistance trigger in it: is
> there some way to make that Increase Distance for the city with a castle
in
> it, thus increasing the 'break away' chance? And if units are being tied
to
> Wonders, can't they be tied to Improvements? - Just asking, I know from
> nothing about Slic or any other modern coding. If Castle increased the
> physical safety of the city and made Knights a possible unit build they
> could be placed fairly well into a militaristic strategy tree. If they
> increase the distance to capital in the city, they'd also foment the kind
> of separatism the middle ages were notorious for. Be nice to have all of
> that, but if we can only get the Defense/Attack bonus and replace the
> Ballista Towers, it's still be worth it.
> >
> >Harlan, do you know for sure what Ballista Towers do? Do they help you on
> >defense, or only if you attack from a city?
> >>
> >> Barracks. Haven't mentioned this yet, but it might be nice to bring
back
> >> this idea from Civ2 as well, giving veteran status to units produced
> >there.
> >> One could also have similar Air Base and Naval Base for air and sea
> >units.
> >
> >This would be an slic thing, I assume, and I worry about the AI knowing
how
> >to take full advantage of it.
> COMMENT: There's a thread going in CtPII: Creation, I forget exactly
where,
> on the coding to make Barracks build Veterans. I think Locutus has had a
> hand in that, and even though it's probably a slic thing, it might be
worth
> it...
> >>
> Now A few more Improvements for discussion...
>
> Container Depot: This is the modern version of the Warehouse,
> representing the huge increase in speed and flexibility of shipping using
> standard Containers, as in Container railroad cars, Container Ships, and
> air freight. This could be attached to an Advance like Supersonic Flight,
> Robotics, or Jet Propulsion. Effect would be increased Commerce. Would
also
> be nice to have it increase the effect of Harbor, Warehouse, or Airport
> since it speeds up movement and volume of shipping through any of those.
>
> City Park or City Zoo. Industrial Age Happiness booster
>
> Shipyard. Industrial Age. Modern warships can only be built in certain
> intensively industrialized, very specialized construction yards. With
> Industrial Revolution or Machine Tools, these can be built in a coastal
> city, makes repair of ships faster and allows non-wooden ships to be built
> in that city. Unfortunately, that kind of exclusivoity will probably
> require some slic - I don't know of any regular trigger for it in the
game.
>
> Science Park. This is my preferred title for the Computer Age Science
> Booster. The concentration of tech industry in such places (San Jose,
> Boston, Renton, WA, etc) boosts innovation much more than any single
> "computer center" would.
>
> Just another random thought, but whenever something boosts commerce
> or gold production (jobs) shouldn't it also boost population, from the
> immigration of workers to the new or growing industry or enterprise? This
> might be tricky to implement, because the boost is usually temporary
except
> in the case of political centers (capitals) which seem to keep attracting
> ambitious folk forever...
>
> Charles
>
>
Ok, I have given all this a lot of thought, and tried a number of different
setups, and this is what I finally decided upon:
Re-name Anatomy to Germ Theory, and have it be the preq to Sanitation and
Modern Medicine.
Re-name Refrigeration to Public Education, and have it give the Public
School. I think the concept of everyone being entitled to an education
regardless of economic status deserves to be represented in the game, and
fits in well between Human Rights and Criminal Code. The Public School would
replace the Orbital Lab.
Re-name Drug Store to Sewer System, and place it in Sanitation, like Harlan
suggested.
Keep Food Silo with Railroad.
I will change the Supermarket to City Clock.
I would support re-naming Ballista Towers to Castles, but I don't think
buildings can be obsoleted without slic. I will try and run a test to check.

Wes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 4:25 AM
Subject: Re: Improvements

>
> >I am growing increasingly wary of using slic for "extras" in the game. I
am
> >still getting reports of bugs in the militia code. Also, as you point
out,
> >this feature would help the human more than the AI.
>
> Don't give up cos of that one thing. I use tons of SLIC in the Alex
> scenario, and it isn't that painful.
>
> A couple of questions/ comments about the tech tree. I do this cos I'm
> figuring out which techs still need pictures. You renmaed my suggested
> oceanography tech seismology. I went and looked up both words at
> Britannica, and I think oceanography makes better sense, if its a move
> towards undersea colonies:
>
> seismology:
> scientific discipline that is concerned with the study of earthquakes and
> of the propagation of seismic (elastic) waves within the Earth. A branch
of
> geophysics, it has provided much information about the composition and
> state of the planet's interior.
>
> oceanography:
> scientific discipline concerned with all aspects of the world's oceans and
> seas, including their physical and chemical properties, their origin and
> geologic framework, and the life forms that inhabit the marine
environment.

Ok, we can use Oceanography. I didn't really know what that was. I thought
that Seismology dealt with oil drilling and using sonar and sound waves to
map the sub-surface features of the earth. I thought it went well with the
Oil Platform.
>
> Also, what exactly do you mean by High Strength Polymers. You have the
> Stealth planes as the thing here, but I had their graphic for Advanced
> Composites. If I use that for High Strength Polymers, then what's
Advanced
> Composites?

This is part of the aircraft problem. Stealth aircraft do use advances
composites, which were developed in the 70's and 80's. Can't really use that
for the early-22nd century. High Strength Polymers I just made up; it
sounded good at the time.
I put advanced composites at their historical place, and put the Missile
Cruiser with them since today's latest ships use stealth technology.
>
> Also I'm puzzled by Molecular Synthesis. How to picture that?

Free your mind, Dude! I ended up using whatever I could find in the Med
mod I. The Corbis site was good for this type of stuff. I think I used a pic
of a lab experiment or something.
>
> When you say Microcomputer, how micro do you mean? I have a personal
> computer tech already done, but I think you're going smaller here.

I had a big debate with John LaMaitre, I think it was, over this last year.
He said that the pc is actually a micro-computer, so the pic you have is
fine.

And
> what happened to the Internet? I think that's better represented by a
tech
> than a wonder.

The Internet is already a Wonder in the game. We would have to re-name the
wonder to something else, which would involve pics and historical gls, etc.
Mostly, I don't know if a wonder isn't a better fit anyway. The Internet,
IIRC, basically used available technology, just in a new way. I saw a
program on its development a couple of years ago. The use of the server, a
computer used simply to figure out the best way to route mail, was the
biggest achievement. The act which made the internet possible was the
construction of all the servers, etc. began by the DoD, so a wonder fits
pretty well, imo.

Possibly a building, but its gotta be in the game somehow.
>
> One last thing. Looking at your latest tech tree, the last age still
looks
> scanty compared to the couple before it. I still think having two instead
> of one space related techs would be good. Its a long way from Sputnik to
> the Space Shuttle even, and things will advance even further than that
> soon. I'd say have plain Space Flight with a planned Apollo Program/ Moon
> Landing wonder of some sort, and then a Space Warfare tech with Space
> Transport come in the beginning of the last age. Better to have some
> concrete things there than more future techs.

I don't agree with you on this part. Considering the way the Space Plane
works in the game, I think that it represents a unit of the near future,
which is about where it is placed.
The last age is not as full as the ind/modern ages, for example, but
remember that it has 3 columns dedicated to it, while the other ages have
only 2. Reduce the chart to where you can see all of it at one time. It's
not so much that the last age is bare as that the prior 2 ages are crammed
full.

I am ready to stop adding new things at this point. We could go on tinkering
with it forever. I am going to get the files in order and send them off to
Chris soon, and I will begin working on the advances links. I am beginning
to have doubts about the game's stability as it is. Let's make sure it can
handle what we have now, and then we can tinker some more if need be after
play-testing.

Wes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Cc: "Charles Sharp"
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: Improvements

>
> >Ok, we can use Oceanography. I didn't really know what that was. I
thought
> >that Seismology dealt with oil drilling and using sonar and sound waves
to
> >map the sub-surface features of the earth. I thought it went well with
the
> >Oil Platform.
>
> I didn't really know exactly what Seismology was until I looked it up,
too.
>
> >> Also, what exactly do you mean by High Strength Polymers. You have the
> >> Stealth planes as the thing here, but I had their graphic for Advanced
> >> Composites. If I use that for High Strength Polymers, then what's
> >Advanced
> >> Composites?
> >
> >This is part of the aircraft problem. Stealth aircraft do use advances
> >composites, which were developed in the 70's and 80's. Can't really use
that
> >for the early-22nd century. High Strength Polymers I just made up; it
> >sounded good at the time.
> >I put advanced composites at their historical place, and put the Missile
> >Cruiser with them since today's latest ships use stealth technology.
>
> Dude, you can't just make stuff up! How about Thermal Imaging instead?
> That's the science of detecting things by their heat shadow. You could
say
> something like, only by truly understanding thermal imaging and how to
best
> counter that form of detection were stealth planes able to come into their
> own. I understand that the evidence so far is the stealth planes aren't
> really that stealthy, and even Yugoslavia was able to shoot one down.
>
> >> Also I'm puzzled by Molecular Synthesis. How to picture that?
> >
> >Free your mind, Dude! I ended up using whatever I could find in the
Med
> >mod I. The Corbis site was good for this type of stuff. I think I used a
pic
> >of a lab experiment or something.
>
> What the heck is it really? Something completely made up again?

Pretty much. I pictured Molecular Syn. as constructing materials on the
molecular level, similar to the superstring theory (The Man in the White
Suit, I believe was the name of the movie).
Thermal Imaging sounds ok to replace high-strength polymers. You could use
that one for a Diamond age tech. if need-be.
I can see your point about moving the Modern and Computer ages back some,
and shortening their length. Things come faster as the game goes on. I liked
the other dates better, too, I was just trying to set them all the same to
start the playtesting.
Due to the fact that there are 3 years per turn in the Ren age, I can't
really shorten it to make the Industrial age longer (which I don't want to
do, anyway). Right now, all ages after the Ren age last 80 turns.
I have no problem adding the Diamond age back in as a holder for the future
techs. However, I can't squeeze the computer and genetic ages into 2 columns
without totally upsetting the unit sequence, and it is not worth it to me
just to show the fluff future techs on the chart. If you and Charles want to
put your heads together and come up with some good names for the future
techs, I would be glad to put them in, but I think I have to move on with
other parts of the mod at this time.
School has started back this week, and I am going to have to start devoting
most of my "quality time", the time when my headaches aren't too bad, to my
schoolwork. I also hope to start my social activities and exercise program
again. I have been spending 8 to 10 hrs a day on the mod the last few weeks,
and this is going to be cut drastically now. This means that I have to
concentrate on getting the beta out as soon as possible or I may get bogged
down trying to juggle everything.
>
> > And
> >> what happened to the Internet? I think that's better represented by a
> >tech
> >> than a wonder.
> >
> >The Internet is already a Wonder in the game. We would have to re-name
the
> >wonder to something else, which would involve pics and historical gls,
etc.
> >Mostly, I don't know if a wonder isn't a better fit anyway. The Internet,
> >IIRC, basically used available technology, just in a new way. I saw a
> >program on its development a couple of years ago. The use of the server,
a
> >computer used simply to figure out the best way to route mail, was the
> >biggest achievement. The act which made the internet possible was the
> >construction of all the servers, etc. began by the DoD, so a wonder fits
> >pretty well, imo.
>
> I think the Internet wonder could be renamed with a minimum of effort
> simply by calling it Silicon Valley. The thing I want with a wonder is
> some connection to a place, however tenuous. For instance, if you have a
> DaVinci wonder in a game, you place it where he lived. Or if you had a
> Moon Landing wonder in a modern scenario, you'd place it in Houston or
> Miami. But there are wonders so geographically absurd that there's no
> place to put them. For instance, Contraception has no "place" attached to
> it- its a technology. I'm glad they got rid of that one as a wonder. The
> whole point of the internet is that is frees you from geography. Even
> though the DoD started it, there's no place associated with it, no central
> hub. The other problem with this kind of wonder is that it benefits only
> one civ, whereas something like Contraception or Internet benefits all
> civs. Which is why Silicon Valley would work better- the economic
> heartland of the new computer economy, benefitting just one civ. You
could
> use the same graphic and text, just supplement the text a bit. I'd be
> willing to make the text tweak just to get rid of Internet as a wonder.
>
> Perhaps Internet could be instead of the vague Computer Center/ Research
> Park thingy. As cities build this, they get hooked into the internet
network.
>
I agree that Silicon Valley fits better than Internet as a wonder. I will
change that. I think that Research Park works better for a science
improvement, though.
>
> >> One last thing. Looking at your latest tech tree, the last age still
> >looks
> >> scanty compared to the couple before it. I still think having two
instead
> >> of one space related techs would be good. Its a long way from Sputnik
to
> >> the Space Shuttle even, and things will advance even further than that
> >> soon. I'd say have plain Space Flight with a planned Apollo Program/
Moon
> >> Landing wonder of some sort, and then a Space Warfare tech with Space
> >> Transport come in the beginning of the last age. Better to have some
> >> concrete things there than more future techs.
> >
> >I don't agree with you on this part. Considering the way the Space Plane
> >works in the game, I think that it represents a unit of the near future,
> >which is about where it is placed.
> >The last age is not as full as the ind/modern ages, for example, but
> >remember that it has 3 columns dedicated to it, while the other ages have
> >only 2. Reduce the chart to where you can see all of it at one time. It's
> >not so much that the last age is bare as that the prior 2 ages are
crammed
> >full.
>
> The Computer Age also has 3 columns. Here's a breakdown of how many techs
> by age:
>
> Ancient 17
> Classical 13
> Medieval 12
> Renaissance 13
> Industrial 18
> Modern 23
> Computer 31
> Diamond 19
>
> Two things stick out here: one, perhaps Ancient has a tad more than one
> would think. Two, there is a steady increase in techs until the last age,
> when it drops off significantly. That's my gripe. What if you end that
> age with some filler things that don't actually do anything, but have real
> names and pictures associated with them, instead of just Future Tech 1 and
> so forth? In terms of processing, the effect will be the same.
>
> We can all put on our thinking caps and come up with some creative stuff.
> Because this comes at the very end, it shouldn't slow you down from moving
> forward on tightening up the rest of the tech tree or interfere with the
> links there.
>
> I know you're ready to stop adding, but I realized something very
important
> is missing, and will at least put the Diamond Age to a more respectable
> sounding 20 . Solar Energy. Everybody knows that someday that will be
> huge, and replace fossil fuels, its just a matter of when. Have it as an
> early Diamond Age thing, even though it reality its going to come long
> before 2080. Steal a page from Civ2 again, and have it give the Solar
> Plant, which is the same as the Nuclear Plant, but without the pollution.
> But as with Civ2, you can only have one or the other, so the question is
> get more industrial early and dirty, or wait and be clean.

I forgot about Solar Power. I added a Solar Power Plant in the med mod I. I
have re-named Superstring Theory to Solar Power. I moved Ecotopia to the
Genetic age, and moved Thermal Imaging up to the military techs. This gives
you 30 computer and 20 genetic age techs, for those of you scoring at home
(or even if you are by yourself). I moved several techs and items around.
I think it is an overall improvement.
I don't know to flag it off-hand so that you can only have either Nuclear or
Solar power, but not both.
>
> Also a couple of age movements. Mechanical Clock belongs in Medieval.
> Here's Britannica:
>
> The first public clock that struck the hours was made and erected in Milan
> in 1335. The oldest surviving clock in England is that at Salisbury
> Cathedral, which dates from 1386. A clock erected at Rouen, Fr., in 1389
is
> still extant, and one built for Wells Cathedral in England is preserved in
> the Science Museum, London. The Salisbury clock strikes the hours, and
> those of Rouen and Wells also have mechanisms for ringing chimes at the
> quarter hour.
>
> Also, Electromagnetism could be late Renaissance:

I have moved these two as you suggested. Steam Engine has techs behind it,
so I am going to leave it where it is.

Wes
>
> Invention of the Leyden jar
>
> In 1745 a cheap and convenient source of electric sparks was invented by
> Pieter van Musschenbroek, a physicist and mathematician in Leiden, Neth.
> Later called the Leyden jar, it was the first device that could store
large
> amounts of electric charge. (E. Georg von Kleist, a German cleric,
> independently developed the idea for such a device, but did not
investigate
> it as thoroughly as did Musschenbroek.) The Leyden jar devised by the
> latter consisted of a glass vial that was partially filled with water and
> contained a thick conducting wire capable of storing a substantial amount
> of charge. One end of this wire protruded through the cork that sealed the
> opening of the vial. The Leyden jar was charged by bringing this exposed
> end of the conducting wire into contact with a friction device that
> generated static electricity.
>
> Within a year after the appearance of Musschenbroek's device, William
> Watson, an English physician and scientist, constructed a more
> sophisticated version of the Leyden jar; he coated the inside and outside
> of the container with metal foil to improve its capacity to store charge.
> Watson transmitted an electric spark from his device through a wire strung
> across the River Thames at Westminster Bridge in 1747.
>
> The Leyden jar revolutionized the study of electrostatics. Soon
> "electricians" were earning their living all over Europe demonstrating
> electricity with Leyden jars. Typically, they killed birds and animals
with
> electric shock or sent charges through wires over rivers and lakes. In
1746
> the abbé Jean-Antoine Nollet, a physicist who popularized science in
> France, discharged a Leyden jar in front of King Louis XV by sending
> current through a chain of 180 Royal Guards. In another demonstration,
> Nollet used wire made of iron to connect a row of Carthusian monks more
> than a kilometre long; when a Leyden jar was discharged, the white-robed
> monks reportedly leapt simultaneously into the air.
>
> In the United States, Benjamin Franklin sold his printing house,
newspaper,
> and almanac to spend his time conducting electricity experiments. In 1752
> Franklin proved that lightning was an example of electric conduction by
> flying a silk kite during a thunderstorm. He collected electric charge
from
> a cloud by means of wet twine attached to a key and thence to a Leyden
jar.
> He then used the accumulated charge from the lightning to perform electric
> experiments. Franklin enunciated the law now known as the conservation of
> charge (the net sum of the charges within an isolated region is always
> constant). Like Watson, he disagreed with DuFay's two-fluid theory.
> Franklin argued that electricity consisted of two states of one fluid,
> which is present in everything. A substance containing an unusually large
> amount of the fluid would be "plus," or positively charged. Matter with
> less than a normal amount of fluid would be "minus," or negatively
charged.
> Franklin's one-fluid theory, which dominated the study of electricity for
> 100 years, is essentially correct because most currents are the result of
> moving electrons. At the same time, however, fundamental particles have
> both negative and positive charges and, in this sense, DuFay's two-fluid
> picture is correct.
>
> Joseph Priestley, an English physicist, summarized all available data on
> electricity in his book History and Present State of Electricity (1767).
He
> repeated one of Franklin's experiments, in which the latter had dropped
> small corks into a highly electrified metal container and found that they
> were neither attracted nor repelled. The lack of any charge on the inside
> of the container caused Priestley to recall Newton's law that there is no
> gravitational force on the inside of a hollow sphere. From this, Priestley
> inferred that the law of force between electric charges must be the same
as
> the law for gravitational force--i.e., that the force between masses
> diminishes with the inverse square of the distance between the masses.
> Although they were expressed in qualitative and descriptive terms,
> Priestley's laws are still valid today. Their mathematics was clarified
and
> developed extensively between 1767 and the mid-19th century as electricity
> and magnetism became precise, quantitative sciences.
>
> ---
>
> The Industrial era really began in the late 1700s in England, so you could
> move the starting date for that era to 1780 if you wanted to make it an
> even 100 turns. Furthermore, I'd recommend moving the starting date of
> Computer Age to 1960, and having the Modern Era another 80 year one.
> Virtually everything in the first column of the Computer Age, including
the
> Computer, was invented in the 1940s or 1950s, so even 1960 is pushing it.
> Then, have the Computer Age end in 2040 (another 80 year era and the date
> there is also a better fit with the techs you have), and have BOTH the
> Genetic and Diamond Age, both 80 years also. That puts you exactly at
> 2200. Pretty tidy solution in many ways. The ages always get shorter,
and
> the end date and total turns is the same. Plus we already have the
> graphics and text for both of those ages. Of course both those ages will
> look now even scantier compared to previous ones, but we can pump the
> Diamond Age full of the dozen or so do-nothing essentially future techs
> you're talking about. So most of what you have now as Diamond would go in
> the Genetic Age, and the Diamond Age would be the wind down.
>
> You had the Computer Age start in 1960 and end in 2040 before, and I think
> that's much better, don't see why you changed it.
>
> Steam Engine can also be late Renaissance. It could be the last thing you
> get before you get Industrial Revolution and start that era:
>
>
> The earliest steam engines were the scientific novelties of Hero of
> Alexandria in the 1st century AD, such as the aeolipile, but not until the
> 17th century were attempts made to harness steam for practical purposes.
In
> 1698 Thomas Savery patented a pump with hand-operated valves to raise
water
> from mines by suction produced by condensing steam. In about 1712 another
> Englishman, Thomas Newcomen, developed a more efficient steam engine with
a
> piston separating the condensing steam from the water. In 1765 James Watt
> greatly improved the Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser to
> avoid heating and cooling the cylinder with each stroke. Watt then
> developed a new engine that rotated a shaft instead of providing the
simple
> up-and-down motion of the pump, and he added many other improvements to
> produce a practical power plant.
>
> A cumbersome steam carriage for roads was built in France by
> Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot as early as 1769. Richard Trevithick in England was
> the first to use a steam carriage on a railway; in 1803 he built a steam
> locomotive that in February 1804 made a successful run on a horsecar route
> in Wales. The adaptation of the steam engine to railways became a
> commercial success with the Rocket of English engineer George Stephenson
in
> 1829. The first practical steamboat was the tug Charlotte Dundas, built by
> William Symington and tried in the Forth and Clyde Canal, Scotland, in
> 1802. Robert Fulton applied the steam engine to a passenger boat in the
> United States in 1807.
>
>
> Harlan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harlan Thompson"
To: "Wes Whitaker"
Cc: "Charles Sharp"
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: Improvements

>
> >> What the heck is it really? Something completely made up again?
> >
> >Pretty much. I pictured Molecular Syn. as constructing materials on the
> >molecular level, similar to the superstring theory (The Man in the White
> >Suit, I believe was the name of the movie).
> >Thermal Imaging sounds ok to replace high-strength polymers. You could
use
> >that one for a Diamond age tech. if need-be.
> >I can see your point about moving the Modern and Computer ages back some,
> >and shortening their length. Things come faster as the game goes on. I
liked
> >the other dates better, too, I was just trying to set them all the same
to
> >start the playtesting.
> >Due to the fact that there are 3 years per turn in the Ren age, I can't
> >really shorten it to make the Industrial age longer (which I don't want
to
> >do, anyway). Right now, all ages after the Ren age last 80 turns.
> >I have no problem adding the Diamond age back in as a holder for the
future
> >techs. However, I can't squeeze the computer and genetic ages into 2
columns
> >without totally upsetting the unit sequence, and it is not worth it to me
> >just to show the fluff future techs on the chart. If you and Charles want
to
> >put your heads together and come up with some good names for the future
> >techs, I would be glad to put them in, but I think I have to move on with
> >other parts of the mod at this time.
>
> Good, glad you like these ideas. A bit curious about your tech tree
> comment though- why not just make the chart even wider by another column
or
> two? I'll think of future tech stuff (hopefully with Charles' help),
> meanwhile you can move on.

I want the chart to print out to a single page. I have spent half the
afternoon altering stuff and getting the page set up properly. I had to
clear the first column, and shift everything to the right. Then I had to
take the 4 techs in the last column and fold them into the next-to-last
column. There was plenty of room, though now the Genetic age only has two
columns devoted to it. I am going to keep the computer age at 3 columns
because it has so much stuff in it.
I have probably been spending closer to 12 hours a day on the mod the last
few weeks, but it's depressing to admit it.
I have not added a Solar Plant yet. If another production or cleaning
improvement is needed, I can add it easy enough.

Wes
>
> >School has started back this week, and I am going to have to start
devoting
> >most of my "quality time", the time when my headaches aren't too bad, to
my
> >schoolwork. I also hope to start my social activities and exercise
program
> >again. I have been spending 8 to 10 hrs a day on the mod the last few
weeks,
> >and this is going to be cut drastically now. This means that I have to
> >concentrate on getting the beta out as soon as possible or I may get
bogged
> >down trying to juggle everything.
>
> Wow, 8 to 10 hours! You've made an incredible amount of progress.
>
> >I agree that Silicon Valley fits better than Internet as a wonder. I will
> >change that. I think that Research Park works better for a science
> >improvement, though.
>
> Good, as you can tell, the Internet being a wonder was a real pet peeve of
> mine.
>
> >I forgot about Solar Power. I added a Solar Power Plant in the med mod I.
I
> >have re-named Superstring Theory to Solar Power. I moved Ecotopia to the
> >Genetic age, and moved Thermal Imaging up to the military techs. This
gives
> >you 30 computer and 20 genetic age techs, for those of you scoring at
home
> >(or even if you are by yourself). I moved several techs and items
around.
> >I think it is an overall improvement.
> >I don't know to flag it off-hand so that you can only have either Nuclear
or
> >Solar power, but not both.
>
> Some of us are scoring at home! I'm also glad you got rid of
> Superstring Theory, cos that means I don't have to find a picture
depicting
> the theory's 10 or so extra dimensions! Did you add a Solar Plant for
> Solar Energy to give something? Having either Nuclear or Solar would have
> to be a SLIC thing, I think.
>
> >I have moved these two as you suggested. Steam Engine has techs behind
it,
> >so I am going to leave it where it is.
>
> No prob. That one is very borderline, could go either way.
>
> Harlan

THE END.........FOR NOW

**Harlan** · January 15, 2001, 06:02

Wes,
Taking a look at your most recent tech tree, I think its seriously flawed and needs a complete overhaul .... just kidding!

Thanks for the compliments though. I also must say I'm very impressed with the way you respond to criticism. Most people, if they suggest thing A and someone else says thing B is better, will defend thing A anyways because they've invested some ego into it, and will only change their minds, if at all, after a knock down, drag out fight. But when you're given some new information you didn't know about, you just say okay, that changes things, lets do it this way instead. That openmindedness I think will make your mod strong in all areas, and not just from tech tree comments by Diodorus and I. One can see it frequently in the mega-thread about the mod- you're constantly making improvements based on any and every useful comment.

**Pintello** · January 15, 2001, 11:54

Wes, Harlan, and Charles,

Hi guys, I have just finished looking at the Advance Chart Wes and you guys have come up with and it is really impressive. I found absolutely nothing wrong with it. This has got to be the best Tech Tree I have ever seen on any Civ game or Scenario I have ever looked at. Way to go guys. You did an outstanding job!

Timothy Pintello

**bladerunner** · January 15, 2001, 23:38

WoW great job
[This message has been edited by bladerunner (edited January 15, 2001).]

**bladerunner** · January 15, 2001, 23:43

ok i got the info, thanks. The chart looks excellent. Great job Wes.

**MrFun** · January 16, 2001, 01:34

All I have to say is - WOW! My tech-tree project, although it's only a rough-draft yet, will probably pale in comparison once I complete it.

From what I have read, this project you have done was indeed extensive.

**WesW** · January 16, 2001, 10:47

Yeah, putting this tree together was a memorable experience. It's nice to work with people who share your interests and enthusiasm about a topic. Also, if anyone has questions about why this or that is in the chart, like "What the hell is Joinery?", I will simply refer them here and say "It's all laid out there for you, if you really want to know."

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Med mod II Tech Tree chronology

Med mod II Tech Tree chronology

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