{The List} - Technology

[TitanTim]

Other suggestions:

- Instead of investing all research into a particular area make it so that half the research actually gets applied to the tech you are trying to research and the other half would randomly go to other techs. This would show that some ideas are funded while others are accidental.

- Instead of research being applied to "the current tech" the research points should be accumulated on a "per tech" basis. Let's say "The Wheel" costs 50 and your research is 10 points per turn. If you are researching "The Wheel" for 2 turns then change your research focus to "Horseback Riding" then "The Wheel" remains at 20 out of 50 researched and you start at 0 with "Horseback Riding".

- The cost of the tech should be fixed (not sure if Civ3 did this but I know that Civ2 increased the difficulty of the tech as you discovered each tech). For example, "The Wheel" should cost 50 research points in BC 2000 or 1000 AD, not 50 now and 300 later.

- Research points should "spill" over into the next tech (or maybe allow "lost" research to be invested randomly). You should be allowed to discover more than one tech per turn if you can. If you get 200 research points and "The Wheel" costs 50, "Horseback Riding" costs 100, and "The Republic" costs 300 then you should be able to discover "The Wheel" and "Horseback Riding" with the 50 left-over research points being applied to "The Republic".

- You should be able to allocate research funding to more than one tech at a time. This could be beneficial if the tech cost goes down (as mentioned earlier).

- As more civilizations discover a particular tech the cost of the tech should be reduced. This could be modified such that this only applies to the number of civilizations with which you have contact.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by TitanTim
- Instead of research being applied to "the current tech" the research points should be accumulated on a "per tech" basis. Let's say "The Wheel" costs 50 and your research is 10 points per turn. If you are researching "The Wheel" for 2 turns then change your research focus to "Horseback Riding" then "The Wheel" remains at 20 out of 50 researched and you start at 0 with "Horseback Riding".

Agree... I have a simular idea, but it's not very Civ'ish
Maybe I'll post it later...

[Kuciwalker]

That's how it works in C3, except research degrades when you aren't researching a tech.

[DarkCloud]

except research degrades when you aren't researching a tech

Which makes good sense

[DarkCloud]

I think that the first thing we can agree on is that there should be a difference between techs like Democracy and techs like Steel. They should be treated slightly differently. You can't "steal" the concept of Communism with a spy. It's just silly.

I agree with Jaguar Warrior.

Cultural Advancements should gradually 'leak out' to neighboring nations with which you have an embassy... This would make the discovery of such advancements less of a benefit and cause the player to have to make more overall strategic decisions.

[SAMUEL2904]

Well I don't like the modern age, on this era you are only researchinf for the space ship.
I don't like that kind of victory, so that age dont' have anything new to me.
No new weapons, no new buildings, and that's stupid, come on, this is the modern age, and the science aren't only researchin a space ship.

And I want a future age whit new techs, maybe crazy, but with something specific to research.

At the end of that age, then we can star researching "Futures techs"

[Kuciwalker]

You don't call Modern Armor, Mech. Infantry, Stealth planes, and nukes new units? IIRC there was a HUGE consensus not to have a "future era" (besides stuff around 2050).

[Adagio]

I created a poll shortly before PTW was released... many people voted for a near future era (It was the poll option which got most votes)

[Kuciwalker]

Which I don't think he's referring to - I think he meant CtP(2)-esque.

[SAMUEL2904]

Originally posted by skywalker
You don't call Modern Armor, Mech. Infantry, Stealth planes, and nukes new units? IIRC there was a HUGE consensus not to have a "future era" (besides stuff around 2050).

Ok, but if I don't choose the space race victory, there are only 3 or 4 techs that I'll need.

I'm not agree that the modern age techs only research space ship's parts.

And I think that could be cool futuristic units or buildings, like in CTP2.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, you have to research TWELVE techs to get all of the useful Modern Era units, and if you want Precision Bombing and Missile Defense, you have to research 15 - all but two of them.

[joncha]

As long as what each tech gives you makes sense (ie, no civ2 style war elephants from polytheism or mech infantry from labour unions) I'm pretty much satisfied.

I would, however, prefer a less linear research path (divergent techs), but only if they converged again by industrial or modern times... or if you had the chance to converge when you came in contact with civs on other paths.

jon.

[Q Classic]

i'm dead set against any futuristic units or buildings. honestly, that's a lot of what made ctp not very fun for me.

civ is civ--i want to get a feeling of history playing it, but having futuristic buildings and units makes it feel less civ-like and more sci-fi. if i want have that sci-fi feeling, i'll play SMAC or MOO2, thank you very much.

also, as much as i like the idea of having separate categories and even a differentiation between theory and practice, i keep having nightmares of how that would be implemented poorly--like how it is in moo3. if we're having categories, i'd like to see it more in the nature of smac: theories would be "discover" and wouldn't have any real applications, but they lead to applied results. kinda like filler research, but they'd be able to lead to multiple paths.

[SAMUEL2904]

Originally posted by skywalker
Actually, you have to research TWELVE techs to get all of the useful Modern Era units, and if you want Precision Bombing and Missile Defense, you have to research 15 - all but two of them.

That's what I'm saying, Why do I've to research all those techs to get 1 or 2 units?, Come on, It's ridiculous.

I want that modern age techs have more units or buildings.

Originally posted by Q Cubed
civ is civ--i want to get a feeling of history playing it, but having futuristic buildings and units makes it feel less civ-like and more sci-fi.

All about the space ship is sci-fi, so you're agree that Civ has to change modern age techs.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by SAMUEL2904
That's what I'm saying, Why do I've to research all those techs to get 1 or 2 units?, Come on, It's ridiculous.

You mean about nine or ten units?

Let's see... Jet Fighter, Stealth Fighter, Stealth Bomber, Modern Paratrooper, Modern Armor, Mechanized Infantry, AEGIS Cruiser, Mobile SAM, Cruise Missile, Tactical Nuke, ICBM, Nuclear Submarine, and Radar Artillery. I think that's all - I did that off the top of my head. That's 13 units - probably more than any other era in the game. Maybe Industrial has more.

[Dauphin]

All I definitely want to say on this issue is get rid of eras. I prefer a free flowing system across the tech tree. The breaking up into arbitrary blocks seems silly.

I to would also like to see some assisted development techs. A standard tech gives you your units and buildings, and then dev techs provide minor upgrades and improvements to them. The dev techs are not required to progress along the tech tree (in fact they aren't really on the tech tree at all). To avoid dead end research into dev techs they could be given to you once you have built a certain number of standard tech relevant buildings/units. Additionally, once you have a dev tech it reduces the cost of any tech that has the standard tech as a prerequisite. In a way it invites you to build city improvements and units from your desired tech path, in order to reduce research costs. If you think about it, a civ that uses a technology day-in day-out is far more likely to develop a new and better technology from it than those that leave it as a scientific 'pat on the back'.

[Kuciwalker]

How about something like this - we have something like the seperation you are proposing. There are two types of "technologies" in the game, "major" and "minor" (for lack of better names).

You don't research major techs. They are researched by the population, and spread between civs on their own (and very quickly). Each major tech enables a certain number of minor techs, which actually allow you to build stuff. So, for example, "Motorized Transportion" would be a major tech, researched by the "population" (or in this case, developed by corporations), which allows the minor tech "Tanks", which let you build, guess what, Tanks.

[Q Classic]

All about the space ship is sci-fi, so you're agree that Civ has to change modern age techs.

the spaceship has been part of civ since civ1, samuel. i don't favor changing it.
adding things like ctp's "ecoterrorists" or "phantoms" or "warwalkers"? that's NOT civ. that's sci-fi. the modern age is fine as it stands. it terminates roughly about now, with maybe a few close, near-term extrapolations.

what i detested about ctp/ctp2 was the fact that they continued past that. i don't like those additions. if they want to make it a mod addition, that's fine, but it should not be part of the original distribution--because that's not civ, that's sci-fi. that's encroaching on SMAC, MOO2, and GalCiv territory, and that's not the civ game i like playing.

[Kuciwalker]

The spaceship is barely, if at all, scifi. It isn't the hulking machine shooting lasers out of its arms.

[okblacke]

USE DRIVEN TECH

While wholly unrealistic, choosing your direction on the tech tree is Civ. In real life, of course, necessity drives technology, which perhaps can be incorporated into the game. Shadows of this can already be seen. For example, you can't build the Wall Street without having Stock Exchanges and I think you need banks to build stock exchanges.

This could show up in tech, too.

For example, you can't really have (Marxist) communism without capitalism (let's say represented by "Economics" in Civ 3) and industrialization.

As someone else pointed out, Democracy doesn't actually boost commerce, it's the distribution of wealth that drives the demand for Democracy.

What I'm getting at is tech could not only have tech requirements, but actual use requirements. Civ has Philosophy very early on, really--before currency. But philosophy is an activity of leisure, and representative governments emerge only when there are people to demand representation.

On a different branch: Has there ever been a peaceful society with a great army and military technology? Some of the benefits of military tradition reflect this, but really, how far is any military research going to go among pacifists? (Military is co-dependent with infrastructure so they can drive each other to an extent.)

Can landlocked countries invent navigation? Is an island country going to invent railroads?

Literacy is optional--you can invent education without it? Or without ever building a library. You can invent the corporation without so much as a single marketplace?

The infrastructure requirements are pretty good--I don't think any are optional. Even so, a certain number of city or road builds could be a requirement for construction.

This can tie in with the concept of scientific, trade or culture boosts for exploration, for contact with other tribes, etc. What the player actually does can shape his culture, including perhaps clashing with it.

A somewhat dicier is the proposition of what you can research. Philosophies infect: democracy, free trade, communism, music, free artistry, hygeine, corporation, copyright--these are all ideas that pass instantly between borders, with positive and negative effects.

A nation of wealthy, educated people is going to gravitate toward representative governments while those who feel oppressed by corporations and industry are going to find communism more appealing. Simulating this would require unrest in circumstances where the government didn't match the people, which may be too bold a change.

One last point to illustrate what could be improved from the current model: In a recent game I played the Mongols. I was almost constantly at war from middle-ancient times to mid-industrial.. Then, in mid-industrial, I switched to Democracy and peace. As if my entire history amounted to nothing.

[ok]

[okblacke]

One quick one: The most amazing advance in human history (hyperbole) is the Bill of Rights. They're not really "wonders" but then, neither is "Suffrage". Briefly, from a message I wrote in Usenet last year:

Freedom of Speech: Reduces corruption. (Decreases happiness?)

Separation of Church and State: Increases happiness

Right to Assemble: Reduces corruption, increases happiness, increases suscepitibility to propaganda

Right to Bear Arms: Either increases defense of garrision or--I like this one, actually causes damage to troops inside a city radius. Each pop point could cause one damage to one unit moving through its radius. (Try taking a 30 population city with two tanks.) Inclined to resist longer. Longer to remain in disorder during a revolution or riot.

Quartering Soldiers Prohibited: Troops in cities without barracks don't heal (maybe). War weariness reduced.

"Due Cause" Search and Seizure: Decreases corruption and increases happiness, scaling with nation size. More susceptible to espionage and terrorism.

Self-Incrimination/Double-Jeoprady prohibited: Decreases corruption, but increases discontent.

Abolition of Slavery: Can no longer capture or keep slaves. Decreases discontent.

Income Tax: Increases revenue and corruption, decreases production and happiness. (Your gpt gets a bonus, but your cities are less productive overall.)

Prohibition: Increases corruption, unhappiness and commerce. Now, if only you could inflict wonders on your enemies.

Just some stuff I thought might be fun. Most of the amendments don't really translate into Civ terms.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
How about something like this - we have something like the seperation you are proposing. There are two types of "technologies" in the game, "major" and "minor" (for lack of better names).

You don't research major techs. They are researched by the population, and spread between civs on their own (and very quickly). Each major tech enables a certain number of minor techs, which actually allow you to build stuff. So, for example, "Motorized Transportion" would be a major tech, researched by the "population" (or in this case, developed by corporations), which allows the minor tech "Tanks", which let you build, guess what, Tanks.

This is very similar to what I was talking about above. Keeps the "directed reserach" feel of Civ, increases realism, and is far cooler. I would just want to make one change to what you wrote:

Your "major" techs cannot be traded among other Civs. Instead, the "populations" of the other Civs are able to develop them a bit quicker. We never saw governments making "Sanitation" top secret after all, and protecting its secrets with the same vigor that they protect Nuclear weapons techs, do we?



Big Crunch: Hear hear, to no eras!

[Kuciwalker]

Thanks, I didn't make that clear. The major techs would "spread" - meaning each populations "researched" it, but could get all the research cost satisfied (very easily) by the spreading. You can't trade it.

[Fosse]

In that case, you and I are finally in agreement on a "big" issue!

[Jaguar]

Here are some thoughts. In governments with corporations, (Democracy, Republic, Fascism) after The Corporation is discovered, it should be possible for a company to help contribute beakers towards a technology. For example, the government did a lot of research towards computers, but much of it was done by private companies as well. So in a capitalist government, your civ sometimes works towards, and even discovers techs without you channelling research there.

[Jaguar]

"Flavors" a la the C3C editor should be used. For example, given the choice between Feudalism, Monotheism, and Engineering, a Militaristic civ will pick Feudalism most often, a Religious civ will pick Monotheism most often, and an Industrious civ will pick Engineering most often.

[LDiCesare]

Non tech requirements for techs.
You should not be able to develop navigation if you control 0 coast tile.
You should not be able to research iron working or horseback riding if you have none in your territory. This would require resources to be seen in 2 steps: Step 1) discover (e.g. bronze working lets you see iron), step 2) use it (if you have iron available, then you can research iron working).

[okblacke]

New tech: Archaeology (optional)

Inspired by the "city ruins" left in C3C.

Allows creation of "archaeologist" unit. This unit can set up a "dig" on the site of any razed city. (Maybe even if another city has been set up on the same site? Perhaps with size limits?)

A "dig" generates science for the archaeologist's country and commerce for the country whose borders it falls in.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by okblacke
Is an island country going to invent railroads?

An island country did invent railroads.

[Kuciwalker]

good point

New tech: Archaeology (optional)

Inspired by the "city ruins" left in C3C.

Allows creation of "archaeologist" unit. This unit can set up a "dig" on the site of any razed city. (Maybe even if another city has been set up on the same site? Perhaps with size limits?)

A "dig" generates science for the archaeologist's country and commerce for the country whose borders it falls in.

meh