TECHNOLOGY (ver1.1): Hosted by Octopus

[the Octopus]

This thread is dedicated to generating a list of ideas for Brian Reynolds to incorporate into Civ III regarding technology. I serve as "Thread Master" for this thread, which makes me a facilitator of discussions and summarizer of things past. I have no desire to squash ideas, misrepresent people's ideas, etc. The list will be delievered as a concise list of ideas, each with a brief explanation. At the end of the list, the names of all of the posters who have contributed to the list will be included. If, in any of my summaries, you believe that I have missed something, changed something inappropriately, or could explain something better, please point it out. My goal with the summaries is to convey ideas as clearly and quickly as possible. Any and all discussion of any idea is allowed and encouraged, just becasue something appears in a summary does not make it "official" or "final". This is your list, I'm just trying to help you compile it.

This summary includes items that were posted on <a href=http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000300.html>the SMAC forums technology thread</a> and also <a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000511.html>CIV3: THE MASTER LIST (v1.0)-TECHNOLOGY</a> from the "Civ3 General" Forum.

1) REDUNDANT TECHS -- have multiple different ways to achieve the same in-game effect (say, a 2-1-1 unit or a "makes one unhappy person content" building) with different technological paths (for example, either "Religious Fanatacism" or "Professional Standing Army" techs might allow the 2-1-1 unit over the 1-1-1 unit). This allows different civilizations to take a less "cookie-cutter" approach to technological development, since there are no longer an "vital" technologies.

2) MULTIPLE PATHS TO A PARTICULAR ADVANCE -- Instead of having rigid prerequisites, allow several different ways to achieve a particular advance (for example, the prerequisite for "Labor Union" might be "Capitalism" and "Assembly Line", because the workers band together naturally to fight for rights, OR "Communism" and "Mass Media", because the communist activists are able to convince large numbers of workers to bargain collectively. However, "Capitalism" and "Mass Media" wouldn't do anything to advance "Labor Unions" without the other techs.).

3) RANDOM!!!! -- As long as there are multiple paths to each tech, there can be a probability that each path may or may not exist in a particular game. This adds to the excitement, and also the realism, since you can never quite be sure what your scientists will come up with until they come up with it.

4) CONCEPTS vs. APPLICATIONS -- Instead of an "all techs are equivalent" way of looking at the world, break techs into "concepts" and "applications". A "concept" might be "Gunpowder", while an "application" might be "Musketeer" or "Tunnel Construction".

5) TECH SYNERGY -- you can research multiple techs simultaneously, and researching related techs provides synnergistic effects, i.e. researching "Physics" and "Calculus" together would get you done faster than researching "Physics" and "Communism".

6) PREREQUISITE EQUIVALENCE -- instead of having a hard and fast prerequisite, allow some of them to be 'equivalence classed'. For example, if you wanted to develop "Technocracy", you need the advance on "Microchip", as well as knowledge of three government types, such as "Democracy", "Fascism", and "Monarchy".

7) PREREQUISITE POINTS -- Number 6 is actually a special case of this. In this suggestion, different technologies each contribute a certain point value to satisfying the prerequisite of a follow-on technology. For example, If you were interested in researching "Trench Warfare", you might need to gather 10 prereq points, where "Machine Guns" would give you 4, "Artillery" would give you 7, "Chemical Warfare" would give you 3, and "Conscription" would give you 3. Bell - can you help me summarize this better? I think I may have mangled it a bit.

8) NEW TECH: MUSIC -- A dead end tech that adds +50% to the effectiveness of entertainers. So an entertainer gains an early boost of +100% with the discover of music and construction of a market place.

9) FACTION/CIVILIZATION SPECIFIC TECH TREES -- different cultures look at the world in different ways, so it wouldn't be surprising to see that they would follow different paths or discover different technologies in different orders.

10) MAKE TECH TREE REFLECT GAME SITUATION -- the current game situation should affect the tech tree. A land-locked civ is unlikely to develop "Navigation", and a civ with poor mineral resources is unlikely to develop "Advanced Mining".

11) GREATER EMPHASIS ON THE ARTS -- The tech tree in general focuses on military hardware and hard science, leaving the Arts somewhat unaddressed (this suggestion probably needs to be fleshed out more).

12) MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY -- Developing one technology might not make sense when another one already existed. "Green Industries" and "Advanced Toxic Waste Disposal" might be examples of this.

13) REVERSE ENGINEERING -- Fighting and destroying or capturing enemy units with superior technology should aid in the discovery of that technology.

14) LESS DETERMINISTIC RESEARCH PROGRESS -- Instead of just "100 Research Points gets you an advance" it should be "100 Research Points gives you a 5% chance of discovering tech, 110 RP gives you 10%, etc". This should follow some sort of curve (A bell curve was suggested, but I think other curves might be interesting -- discussion?)

15) BASIC THEORETICAL RESEARCH -- Have some reserch points devoted to "basic research" that isn't likely to produce any specific advances (i.e. won't give you a specific building or unit or something), but which enhance research in other areas (e.g. research in "Basic Physics" might enhance the speed at which you research "Lasers", "Nuclear Fission", and "Nuclear Fusion", but you could achieve those advances without doing the basic research, just at a higher cost. This would be a tradeoff -- Do I want Fission now, or do I want to invest a little more up front, and be sure of getting all three sooner in the long run, even though I wouldn't get any specific advance until later).

16) RESEARCH SYNERGY THROUGH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS -- We should get bonuses to our technology development rate if we are on friendly diplomatic terms with other civs researching similar technology because of international science conferences, wider circulation technical journals, access to each other's research, etc.

17) HAVE GOVERNMENT/DIPLOMATIC CHOICES AFFECT TECH DEVELOPMENT -- Would a Democratic government ever research "Doctrine: Loyalty"?

18) AI TECH TRADING INTELLIGENCE -- Make sure that the AIs only make tech trades that make sense. Why trade for "Mass Transit" if you don't have "Automobile"?

19) FORBID 'OUT-OF-ORDER' TECH -- If you don't have the prereqs for a tech, you shouldn't be able to use it, even if you trade for it, etc. If (through some quirk of fate) Columbus has plans for an A-Bomb, and traded them to the Native Americans he met, it is unlikely that they would have been able to nuke Europe, since they didn't have the infrastructure to make use of the idea.

20) DEVELOPMENT INERTIA -- It doesn't make sense that the same researchers who just gave you "Nuclear Fission" would be able to turn around and give you "Television, because they are only peripherally related. Scientists are specialized, and can't easily be pushed around to different fields. You should have multiple "teams", each of which is working on a different project. When they are done with one, they will research a second project in the same field at a faster rate than an unrelated field (or pay a higher cost to research an "outside our expertise" field -- the effect is the same). This idea can work closely with 21...

21) HISTORICAL ERA SHOULD PLAY A ROLE -- Since in ancient times scholars studied a wide variety of fields (they were real Renaissance men ) it makes sense to have tech specialization only play a role in more modern types of research (e.g. an ancient Greek philosopher might have contemplated both the role and practice of government as well as the laws of motion).

22) LOCATION DEPENDENT RESEARCH -- Research is done in labs and universities, and labs and universities have to actually exist somewhere. If you are counting on your scientists who are developing "Nuclear Fission" to win the war for you, but the city they are conducting the research in gets captured, you should be up a creek...

23) MULTIPLE TECHS RESEARCHED SIMULTANEOUSLY -- Some of the previous ideas require this. Only really makes sense if there is some benefit to doing things in parallel rather than in series (e.g. the "research point interest" in MoO does this, as do some other schemes put forward in the suggestion threads)

24) DIFFERENTIATED 'SCIENCE BUILDINGS' -- Have buildings which enhance the scientific output of a city differentiated: You have your choice of a Physics Lab, a Biological Research Hospital, etc., which only add their bonus when the city is contributing to the appropriate kind of research.

25) BLIND TECH -- People seem to either love or hate the blind research from SMAC.

Let the suggestions and discussion continue!


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Another aspect I'd like to see provided for seredipitous advance. Just as a random event, you get a tech just for kicks. The odds of it happening should depend on how 'tech-friendly' your government is. The better your governmental research bonuses, the better your chances of getting a free tech.

[the Octopus]

Bell: "The better your governmental research bonuses, the better your chances of getting a free tech."

So once you are an underdog, you stay an underdog? I think that might be a play-balance problem.

(People should let me know if what I post meant as "constructive criticism" or to draw out better explanations sounds as if I'm trying to stop debate or kill an idea.)


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Bell: "The better your governmental research bonuses, the better your chances of getting a free tech."
So once you are an underdog, you stay an underdog? I think that might be a play-balance problem.

Hmm . . . maybe. But I believe that's how it was set up in MoO2, and that worked . . . don't remember for sure, though.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Bell - can you help me summarize this better? I think I may have mangled it a bit.

I'm not sure if I can summarize it beyond what I did in the Massive Post from the other thread . . . particularly since that post integrated a bunch of the concepts you enumerated.

I think that there needs to be two types of submissions on these lists . . . one that's discrete ideas, and one that's complete systems. The way I was seeing my ideas from the other thread was as a whole, where one part depended on all the others (which is why I did the massive post like that instead of a few smaller ones dealing with different points.) Might just be easiest to copy that post over to this thread as an idea for the list . . .

Dunno. Depends on how you want to run things.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

(Also copied from the other thread, because I want to get the word out about needing a lot of techs):

Looking over this thread, a couple of things are obvious.

Firstus, that we're going to need a whole bunch of techs to fill out a tech cloud. I think that what we need to do is start putting up a bunch of possible techs, and once we have a good number then worry about prereqs and such.

Secondus, that we're going to need a top-notch tech finder, like the one in CivII only more complex. Along those lines, I think something along the lines of Magnifind (if you've never seen it, check out www.inxight.com/MagniFind.htm . . . it's a cool little 3d-explorer replacement.) I've written stuff like it before, it shouldn't be too hard to do for pros like Firaxis hires . . .

Also, are we going to be consolidating the Advances thread into this, or is that separate?

[Zorloc]

Octopus,

For the tech underdog there should be one advantage, tech bleed. It should be harder to discover a tech the first time than the last. When the US build a atomic weapon, they solved many problems and set a pattern so that when other nations went on to follow it its footsteps it was significantly easier. A game example could be the tech "The Wheel," I find it hard to believe that if the Romans encounter the Egyptains who have discovered "The Wheel", the Romans are going to have just as hard a time developing "The Wheel" as they would have if they had never met someone with the technology.

In gameplay terms this could mean a 5% reduction in the cost to develop a tech per Civilization that has discovered the tech and you have contact with. The cost could also be reduced by say 1% for every X number of turns.

There could also be a bonus if a certain level of commerce exists between the two nations, since this is more contact that will provide your society with more info to develop the tech. This bonus could be 1% for every 20 gold earned. Gameplay will decide these levels.

This scheme will reflect the real world, in that it is much harder to pull ahead and maintain, or grow, your technological lead, than it is to coast in the draft of another.

[the Octopus]

Bell: "I can try to condense the entire post, but breaking it into components doesn't work."

That's what I'm asking, help me to condense your thought. If you trust me to do it, fine, I'll try. You may be of the opinion that your system only makes sense as a whole, but others may feel that one element makes sense, but others don't. I think that items 1, 2, and 3 work well together to give an excellent system, but I can also see that others can use the ideas separately.

"And I don't see the problem with sending a detailed list to BR"

The point of this list is to make it easy on Brian, not hard. If he wants details, he can read the threads. Why not just say "Brian should read every post in every discussion, and get it from there". Remember, for every "detailed system" that you think is important, everyone else has one or two of their own. We can't post all of them.

"yes, an effort should be made at keeping it short, but if you're only going to send half-thoughts and shadows of ideas, what's the point of sending it at all?"

If we send him a bunch of 80-line posts it's as good as giving him nothing. The man is only human. That is why we are acting as filters for him -- condense the ideas, give him the good stuff and cut out anything superfluous.

As a compromise, maybe we should present the technology list as two sections, "ideas" and "commentary", where we break out each individual idea in a big list, and then have a separate section that says "items 4, 7, and 9 work really well together, because they give you advantages x, y, and z, but it has drawbacks a, b, and c." I'm not sure I like that, but it seems that you are resistant to having what you see as a coherent system broken up.

The format of this thread is still evolving. We should not bog down in things like this now. If you want to try to summarize your post in 10 to 12 lines, go for it. If you trust me to do it, I'll try. I'll tell you that I think your system is overly complex with questionable benefit, so that is why I wanted to make sure I got your idea without any inadvertent editorializing on my part.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[wheathin]

Important improvement: Multiple preqs - more than just two should be possible.

wheathin

[the Octopus]

Octopus: "I think that items 1, 2, and 3 work well together to give an excellent system"

I'm referring to my numbered summary, if that wasn't clear. I'll be working on a better order/format for that, too. Chronological order seems like the worst order, but that's what I've presented .


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Ralph]

REPLICATING CIV-2 TECHS: Replicating many good techs from Civ-2 i OK. What ever you guys do, DONT make the same mistake that the CTP-team did when changing almost every tech AT ALL COST – even trough the replacements sometimes was rather farfetched and out of place.
Tweaking old techs and adding new fresh ones, then rearrange prerequisites on the other hand, is of course another story.

A MORE DENSELY PACKED TECH-TREE: I want a more densely packed tech-tree with at least 150 techs between 4000 BC – 2040 AC. If you guys decides to go beyond 2040 AC – please ADD ON, to the existing 150 techs. I dont think anyone here wants another stretched out tech-tree like the one in CTP.

[anachron]

[this section is cross-posted from the Wonders section - is there or can there be a function to do this automatically? It would be very helpful for debate as often improvements in one area of the game adversely affect other areas]

I don't think the Internet should be a wonder, because it is international in nature. Rather, it should be part of the technology tree. It would certainly be interesting to give it the "Great Library" effect, however - and historically accurate, imo. Research-sharing between nations, with the exception of military research (this
exception could also be incorporated), has become an accepted fact of international education. Using the Internet as a late-stage technology leveller would be, imo, better than having it as a wonder exclusive to a
particular civilization.

A

[anachron]

1) Re: Music - There's no way music should be a technology - every culture has music.

2) Re: Arts and Culture advances - The problem here is that most Arts and Culture advances are peripheral to the technology that spawned them. Artists and artisans traditionally take technology developed for other purposes and apply them to their interests. For instance, electricity allows for the electric guitar, which allows for rock music (which, while a cultural advance (depending on your perspective), is hardly a tech advance). Oil allows for oil painting, computers for computer-generated music, etc.... One possibility is that citizen happiness should increase with technological advancement -this would be an invisible effect. Further ideas?

3) I'd like to add my vote to the concept of tech synergy, though it may be too complicated to develop properly, AI-wise.

A

[Zorloc]

For the Advancing the Arts thread.

With certain advances in tech, "entertainers" should become slightly more effective. This will allow for better tech to produce the arts.

Of course for every additional person made happy it also seems to freak out some over conservative prig....

Maybe this should fit into the reward category (castle, throne room, forbidden city)...

[SnowFire]

Whew! I musta been asleep. I checked the Game forum over at the SMAC forums today and find out that CivIII is coming out. Drat, I was hoping for MOM II. But no matter.

On the Arts: Once again, these are mostly peripheral and represented by your entertainers, not in science. The most science can really give you in happiness will be things like theology and televisions, just like CivII. And who says people were happier with electric guitars than without them? I wouldn't say that there was that huge a difference.

Octopus: Why would your ancient atheists care about those pointless specks of light upstairs? Now, if those specks controlled their destinies by their movements, I could see the significance, but these atheists don't. Enjoy your beautiful starting island, because you aren't going anywhere. ;-)

Now, I'd like to propose a system similar to the one Octopus mentioned about MOO I. You have several areas, and you decide what portion of your research efforts to direct at each. Similar to the SMAC system, your empire would have an "efficiency" rating. Each value of each field would have a certain "optimum value" that the game defaults at. Early in the game, you could make fairly drastic swings quickly on what you want researched without any loss. Furthermore, the society would grow to be more tolerable to that setting, so if you want a hard-minded bunch of Zakharov's with contempt for all "soft" sciences like psychology, theology, and biology, you can get one. And by the end of the game, you will have social engineered your society to be like the University (big bonus in hard science techs, high efficiency, and really unhappy plebs as well as stagnant agriculture.) This would actually be done by a system similar to this: "Instant switching to 30% focus on physics techs will result in 5% efficiency that will slowly decline to nothing in 40 years. Alternatively, game will slowly rack up science rate in physics to the maximum point in can w/o losing efficiency to reach the 30% level 50 years from now." A society that less values intellectual integrity would have much worse efficiency penalties.

On "basic research:" that's already sort of in there. Research writing, and you can build librarires which allow you to research faster. That's a cool idea for extra effects of a few advances though (Theory of Gravity: Increases Research Speed 5% in all related fields.)

I also like the multiple paths to the same unit as well. However, if I discover "Religious fanaticism" AND "Standing armies," would I get a 3-1-1 unit? A system would have to be made to accommodate that. And also, while similar, things should still have different effects. Building a hard-working culture with stone tools is not going to hold a candle in productivity to a lazy civ in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. But by researching "Hard Working Civ" over "better tools," maybe HWC would take less time and not have to worry as much about material supply, so they could do more with less, making it more suited to a mineral-poor civ. "Better tools" might have higher output, but require more minerals and cause pollution problems later. Also, a "hard working civ" could research better tools with some difficulty, if it's really falling behind (like Japan did in the Meiji era, and China failed to do from tradition) while it would be almost impossible for a civ that has discovered the Industrial Revolution to learn hard work again (not that the laborers in it throughout most of the early and late periods didn't work 12 hour days).

I have mroe ideas, but I'm sort of rambling now. Ah well.

[Utrecht]

Music as a technology is rather interesting. Especially in regards to improving entrertainers.

A couple of thoughts

Ancient> Rythm +1 per Entertainer
Renisannce> Polyponic +1 per Entertainer

As stated above music would be a "dead-end" technology, but has a LOT of use for making citizens happy.

i.e. Civ improvement (a low power wonder available to all civs) : National Anthem. Requires Polyphonic music + Nationalism. Reduces War unhappiness by 1.

anacron,

Art has had a significant impact on history. Drafting, CAD, 3d modeling all are derived from the concept of "Art"

[This message has been edited by Utrecht (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Transcend]

Music and art were known to prehistoric cavemen. They had already been discovered at beginning of the Civilization and should be technological advances in this games. I think the mass entertainment, including pop music, is a more acceptable civilizational advance.

[the Octopus]

Zorloc: "For the tech underdog there should be one advantage, tech bleed."

Is this along the lines of what you mean?: Since technologies become pervasive in a society, they become more widely known. For example, modern countries can still make it difficult to steal technologies that are recently developed, like nuclear weapon designs, but how could we ever prevent a Zulu spy from sneaking in and stealing our prized "wheel" technology? Maybe it could be something like (diplomatic friendliness rating with other civ)*(length of time technology is known by other civ) = probability that tech bleeds off onto my civ. That way you quickly acquire things that your friends (who you routinely interact with) have known for a long time, but recent discoveries (especially discoveries by your enemies) would be impossible to acquire this way (you need real spies for that).

Kyle: While some of the things that the game allows should require some tech advances in the "real world", I think that might add unneeded complexity to the interface and detract from some of the fun. My feeling is that your suggestion falls into that class. Borders are probably a good idea for Civ III, but I think that trying to tie too much of the interface into the tech tree would be too frustrating, making those "key" techs to develop. Does anyone agree or disagree with that?

Ralph: I don't think we need to worry about Brian being willing to retain good stuff from previous Civs when going to Civ III. Remember, Brian is the one who took us from Civ I to Civ II. A lot of people criticized Civ II precisely because so much was the same.

I'll renew my call here for any on-line references to the tech-trees for the various civs. I haven't played CtP, and it's been a while since Civ II, so I don't know what to think about the "density" of the trees. Lacking some "concrete" info, does anyone have any subjective personal opinions either in agreement or disagreement with Ralph?

anachron: "this section is cross-posted from the Wonders section - is there or can there be a function to do this automatically?"

It's unlikely that there's an automatic way... I'll try to see if I can think of any tricky HTML ways... I agree that there are likely to be ideas that touch multiple List topics.

"For the Advancing the Arts thread"

The consensus so far seems to be that this suggestion should be scrapped, since arts and entertainment like music are generally just expressions of current technology (e.g. we have Movies and Television instead of dramas in the amphitheatre, but they all serve the same general purpose to us individually). Anyone with a different opinion?

SnowFire: "Now, if those specks controlled their destinies by their movements, I could see the significance, but these atheists don't."

I can't tell if you are kidding here, but this is almost an excellent example of why multiple paths are a good idea.

Scenario 1: Culture develops Mysticism, Mysticism leads to study of the stars, study of the stars leads to Navigation. Perfectly understandable and believable. Scenario 2: Culture doesn't develop Mysticism. Nobody in the entire society ever notices that there are sparkly lights in the sky, and that they move in predictable patters. Huh? Yes, Mysticism might lead you to discover Astronomy (maybe even a very strong possibility), but do we want to say it is the only way?

I think that SnowFire's system of "the research allocation that our society is familiar with is the optimal one" is pretty good. It does a good job of dealing with "intellectual inertia". It also seems like it would be simple enough to not get in the way of having fun with the game. Some overly-complex systems get in the way of the game. Does anyone else have any comments, or enhancements or anything, to this idea?

"However, if I discover "Religious fanaticism" AND "Standing armies," would I get a 3-1-1 unit?"

I was using a Civ-like military as the basis for this example, so there is a "spear-wielding fanatic" unit which is 2-1-1, and a "tight formation spear team" (fanatical devotion doesn't necessarily make you better at keeping in formation, maybe even the opposite...) unit which is a 2-1-1. It's just an example. I'd actually like a better one if somebody can suggest one. A possible implementation of this particular example would be that this is a "special ability", like in SMAC, where you can only have one per unit in the early parts of the game.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Trachmyr]

How about Art and Music giving a scoring bounus at game end, similar to FUTURE TECH. And in the same manner you can research this tech over and over. ??? maybe each time an advance is discovered, you gain a one-time bonus to happiness, that wains over time, until another advance is made in the arts.

[Shining1]

Optopus: Some very good ideas. I have similar stuff in mind - here are two points from the city interface stuff:

Priest/Entertainer citizens:
Priests get improved by temples, making two unhappy citizens happy (normally one). Entertainers are improved by the CivII combination of Banks, Marketplace, etc. Each makes one citizen happy.

The entertainers are also given a +50% boost (+1 luxury) for the dead end tech 'music' - making them more effective at the end of the game, but only half as effective as a well supported priest to begin with.


The ideal balance is a mix of both, because priests don't affect 'normal' citizens, only unhappy ones. In CivIII, I'm suggesting that their be resource penalties for drone workers - they don't work as hard as normal or happy citizens - so making the entire population happy is your first priority.


The rest of your tech ideas seem very ambitious, but I like the random idea a lot.
However, it would take a LOT of work on the 'master' tree to fit everything together properly. Good luck.

Shining1

[the Octopus]

About Bell's "Point System" post from the other thread:

It seems to me that this system is needlessly complicated. It has introduced a new game principle (prereq points) but it isn't clear that this has value above and beyond the traditional tech tree or the "multiple paths" proposal. It might begin to make sense if there were a lot of techs, but I think that if there are too many technologies, they run the risk of losing the intuitive grasp that most of us have for the concepts in Civ because they may lose their distintiveness. The number of techs in a Civ game is an important play balance question -- too few and you lose interest, too many and you can't keep track of them all.

As I see it, Bell's system incorporates a) multiple paths, with boolean prereqs. b) research synergy (which requires multi-topic research). c) reverse engineering. and d) "basic research" (i.e. long term investment or short term gain).

It rolls them all into the "prereq points" framework, but I am not sure that is necessary or helpful. I don't really see why the different ideas are as interdependent as Bell claims.

At its core, "prereq points" seem to be a generalization of boolean prereqs. I'm not sure that this is an idea that needs to be generalized.

Does anyone else have any other comments about Bell's system, or comments about my comments?


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Trachmyr]

I must agree that I don't see the need for a lose "prereq point" system. Just use Boolean logic with about 4 fields for techs to be entered

[the Octopus]

What are people's feelings on the resource gathering limits linked to techs that were implemented in SMAC? I hated them. They felt artificially restrictive and were exceedingly frustrating. What were other people's thoughts? Is this something that should be continued?

Were they:
a) A bad idea
b) A good idea, but a bad implementation
or
c) A good idea, and a good implementation.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[the Octopus]

What are people's feelings on the resource gathering limits linked to techs that were implemented in SMAC? I hated them. They felt artificially restrictive and were exceedingly frustrating. What were other people's thoughts? Is this something that should be continued?

Were they:
a) A bad idea
b) A good idea, but a bad implementation
or
c) A good idea, and a good implementation.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[Kyle]

In regards to borders and how they can relate to technology. First, Cartography should be discovered in order to allow game area to be displayed. By this I mean, before being discovered, areas of the map are shown when units move in. When they move away, the "fog of war" comes over. When cartography is discovered, this allows the "FOW" to go away, allowing the player to see the territory. Of course, in order to be updated, you will need to send units to the area to have up to date maps.

And Surveying. With this, civilizations will now be able to draw true borders between empires, instead of the simple zones of control of the more primitive civs (ie Civ, Civ2 and CTP). This will reflect a more realistic approach to national boundries.

[the Octopus]

Bell: I don't think you should repost. I think that is is possible to summarize what you are trying to say. I have some criticisms of your system (possible constructive ) but I don't have time now. I feel that we must limit the list to only "bullet point" suggestions, otherwise I will need to pick and choose among everybody's "pet system" for final inclusion. We can't expect Brian to have to wade through thirty or forty posts of the length and complexity of yours, or my original post on the SMAC forums. If you can't explain something concisely, it means you aren't trying hard enough .


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[yin26]

Octopus,

You're up and running again! (I hope...)

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**"un"Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I feel that we must limit the list to only "bullet point" suggestions, otherwise I will need to pick and choose among everybody's "pet system" for final inclusion.

I don't really agree with this. Why should it be necessary to do that? Just submit it as a really big bullet point . . . but really, the whole point of making a post like that is to show how related systems would interact. The whole is more than the sum of the parts, and really, the parts don't make much sense by themselves. I can try to condense the entire post, but breaking it into components doesn't work. And I don't see the problem with sending a detailed list to BR . . . yes, an effort should be made at keeping it short, but if you're only going to send half-thoughts and shadows of ideas, what's the point of sending it at all?

[Kerris]

Let the Science city improvements play a bigger role in achieving technology advances rather than a gold rush! In CTP an academy and university are just about worthless but a marketplace and bank will give your science a healthy boost.

[the Octopus]

Thanks, yin!


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"