Standard Clash Tech Tree: Copper Age

[alms66]

This thread is for discussion of the Copper Age portion of the tech tree. You may want to check the general thread for more information.

[alms66]

*Please note that I will eventually divide these into Applications, Skill Techs, Field Techs and Theory Techs.*


Copper Age Technologies:


Alphabet
Anchor
Annealing
Anvil
Ard
Arithmetic
Auger
Awl
Balance
Bloomery
Boat
Brewing
Brick
Brick Construction
Brick Palisades
Bridle
Canal
Capitol City
Casting
City
City Walls
Clay Lamps
Copper Working
Diplomacy
Dynasty
Emissaries
Faience
Farm
Fermentation
Flax Oil
Forge
Glass Making
Glass working
Government
Grindstone
Horse Domestication
Horse Riding
Irrigation
Jettons
Ladder
Linen
Longboat
Loom
Marketplace
Midwifery
Olive Oil
Ox Cart
Pan Mining
Phonogram
Pictogram
Prostitution
Saddle
Shovel
Shrine
Slavery
Smelting
Soap
Stilts
Stone Palisades
Stone Quarry
Stone working
Sundial
Taxation
Terrace Farming
Treaty
Walls
Wedge
Wheel
Wine
Wood Construction
Wooden Hoe
Wooden Palisades
Wooden Plow

[alms66]

***Space Reserved for something***

[LDiCesare]

I'm not sure of the level of detail we want to get into, but Alphabet is actually a very evolved form of Writing. For instance, Chinese don't have an Alphabet system but lots of ideograms, which don't help if you want to create things like keyboards. It also hinders reusable characters printing press, but less so. I don't remember whether Koreans invented printing press before or after the hangul alphabet.
So I think you'd need pitcograms and ideograms tech, which comes before alphabet. My knowledge of writing history hints that all alphabets evolved from pitcograms to ideograms to syllabic alphabets to phoneme alphabets. There are variants for semitic languages sicne vowels aren't that important in these languages, but the pattern of writing evolution remains.
I think it's important because ideograms or syllabic alphabets are as useful as an phonemic alphabet until you start using keyboards. So inventing a computer without having phonemic alphabet tech would be harder than with an ideogram writing system, but before it wouldn't make much difference.

Edit:
I may not get the difference between phonogram and alphabet in your list. I think pictogram/ideogram/syllabic/phonemic alphabet are the way written language evolved (China remaining in an early phase which didn't help them and let Europe get past them as the latter could use printing press for instance).

[alms66]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I'm not sure of the level of detail we want to get into, but Alphabet is actually a very evolved form of Writing. For instance, Chinese don't have an Alphabet system but lots of ideograms, which don't help if you want to create things like keyboards. It also hinders reusable characters printing press, but less so. I don't remember whether Koreans invented printing press before or after the hangul alphabet.

This is why I posted my lists so early and incomplete. I knew someone would point out areas that I'm not all that familiar on/don't currently have books on (such as language evolution), and could use expansion. As for the amount of detail to get into, for now, I say as detailed as possible. We can always aggregate and cut where needed later.

[Gary Thomas]

It is my belief (I could probably support it, but I don't want to get into another unfruitful argument about such things) that the first real city ever built was Eridu, near modern Basra in Iraq. Eridu was on the border of the salt marshland but near the Euphrates river. For some reason the people dug a circular ditch, with a temple in the middle dedicated to the Goddess (possibly God, but Goddesses are generally prettier) of Sweet Water. This ditch filled with water, and from that the concept of irrigation developed. And the city grew from that beginning.

So we need a Goddess of Sweet Water technology to precede irrigation (and cities).

For those who want to argue, please read "Mesopotamia, the Invention of the City", by Gwendolyn Leick first.

Cheers

[Max Sinister]

I don't know about Korea, but the Chinese invented the printing press first. Don't know exactly how they used it, since they had the alphabet problem - I think they used it to print their paper money. Maybe they could use it for pictures or texts that have to be printed many times. Did they use leaden letters like Gutenberg, or only "one big block at a time", if you know what I mean?

[LDiCesare]

Korea (and later Gutenberg) invented mobile characters. That's the real interest of the printing press, as it allows to write different texts, whereas the previous method of printing could only be used to produce copies of the same text easily.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Government should be moved back to Stone Age. Government is considered one of the first inventions before relgiion even.

Prostitution should similarly be moved back as well as it is also considered "the first proffession"

I do not know if we need to go into the detail of horse domesticating if we don't do others, most notably wolves which were as important, if not moreso. But also the domestication of other pack animals work as well and also the domestication of farm animals is important. Not only that plant domestiation, seems far more broad than the simple grain/staple category in comparison. There may not be much to help this, but it would be nice as the domestication of grains came after other plants in most areas (usually root plants came first, but not always), but it was the varios grains (corn, wheat and rice) that made the argicultural boom possible.

Finally complex Ideograms can also be useful for shortening space though as well.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Lord God Jinnai
Government should be moved back to Stone Age. Government is considered one of the first inventions before relgiion even.

Prostitution should similarly be moved back as well as it is also considered "the first proffession"

I do not know if we need to go into the detail of horse domesticating if we don't do others, most notably wolves which were as important, if not moreso. But also the domestication of other pack animals work as well and also the domestication of farm animals is important. Not only that plant domestiation, seems far more broad than the simple grain/staple category in comparison. There may not be much to help this, but it would be nice as the domestication of grains came after other plants in most areas (usually root plants came first, but not always), but it was the varios grains (corn, wheat and rice) that made the argicultural boom possible.

Finally complex Ideograms can also be useful for shortening space though as well.

Government in the form I was thinking here is equal to city states and such, not rule by the most powerful, which is the equivilant of Stone Age government as far as I can tell.

Prostitution is cetainly up for debate, though I would think to move it to the Bronze Age, when actual money (coins) existed, than to move it to the Stone Age.

As for animal domestication, you're correct. I was considering having it as a skill tech and all the various types of domestication (cattle, pigs, wolves, etc.) as applications, ditto for plant domestication, though I'm not sure if I should go that way or not.

[Lord God Jinnai]

I understand, but it is still a form of government in rule bt might.

If you want to go by when it was set pretty much like it is today, it was during the Rome's Empire age. The coins used represented the acts and were worth about the same values used even to this day.

I don't think its nessary except for major ones. For animals dogs are a must, maybe horses or just pack animals (as deserts FE have camels instead of horses being native and then you have those like oxen), and maybe basic farming animals we know today, but they could be just in 1 group. Maybe later you could add For plants just the domestication of grains are key. The only other things i can think of are more modern inventions such as fish farms, domesticated lab rats, etc. domestication of medicinal herbs and stuff like in modern times such as tree famrs and the like.

[Gary Thomas]

There is a principle of economy that indicates that one should manage with the least number of objects that will do the job.

While it may be fun to debate whether prostitution, as a technology, belongs in the stone age or some other age, before even considering the matter I would ask "What is the impact on the game?" If it does not impact significantly on other matters, then it does not have any place in the game.

The way the technology model works, technologies (using the word loosely, to include applications) can only have an effect by making other technologies possible, or at least helping them, or are themselves a useable application.

For this reason I see no point in incuding prostitution in the system.

I can't see any point in having dogs in the system either.

Cheers

[alms66]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
There is a principle of economy that indicates that one should manage with the least number of objects that will do the job.

While it may be fun to debate whether prostitution, as a technology, belongs in the stone age or some other age, before even considering the matter I would ask "What is the impact on the game?" If it does not impact significantly on other matters, then it does not have any place in the game.

The way the technology model works, technologies (using the word loosely, to include applications) can only have an effect by making other technologies possible, or at least helping them, or are themselves a useable application.

For this reason I see no point in incuding prostitution in the system.

I can't see any point in having dogs in the system either.

Cheers

For Prostitution, you may be right. Though I was thinking that it could allow a brothel (sp?) type infrastructure, which could help happiness but hurt health. It could also add an additional value to unit attrition in the field (or lower health there as well, I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with the military model to say which).

Dog Domestication, OTOH would be vital to Inuit tribes for the development of Dog Sleds. I don't know how detailed we're going to get in developing such tribes, but the info will be here for when/if we need it.

The technologies, I had always assumed would also allow for flags, such as the additional attrition value I mentioned for Prostitution above. Am I wrong?

[PresidentMarcos]

Temple prostitution, right? It actually has an ancient history, what with fertility cults and the like. That type of religion is obviously quite fun, if somewhat unsafe. Also, as others have pointed out, alphabet came after various writing advances. Why not simply have a writing field which would increase in sophistication as time went on? The higher the percentage, the more modern the language system (i.e. pictographs, combo, phonetic) .

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
I can't see any point in having dogs in the system either.

There impact is important.

First they were the first domensticated animal (wolves that is, not dogs) because it was easier to domsticate them than others because of their pack nature. Thus they serve as the basis because they're the easiest to tame other animals such as horses, boars, buffalo, moutain goats, etc. The fact man learned that he could domesticate an animal to do his will is a major impact, one you can't just shrug off.

Second their impact allowed for the hunting of prey much more easily, thus it takes less time and more time for other stuff, like farming.

Finally in artic regions they were used as a primary means of transportation over ice and secondary of snow (reindeer, carabu, moose, etc would do better over snow because they're larger and can cover ground easier). Horses wouldn't survive long here, even less survivable than in a desert.