Technologies

I dislike some of the dependencies of the Civilisation tech tree, for example, why does Medicine require Philosophy? I also dislike the implication that Monotheism is more advanced than Polytheism (when all religions are equally bad). I also dislike the mix of specific inventions (e.g. gunpowder) with broad areas of study (e.g. engineering).

Topic areas

Agriculture

Construction

Metal working

Inventions

Plough 100AD

Printing press 1454AD

Abacus 190AD

Archimedes screw 700BC

Bar code 1973

Battery 1800

Aspirin 1899

Penecillin 1928AD

Bicycle 1861AD

Bow and arrow 30,000BC

Camera 1826AD

Compass 1190AD

Computer 1837AD

Cotton Gin 100AD

Fibre Optic Cable 1966AD

Fire 590,000BC

Fish hook, 30,000BC

GPS 1978AD

Internal combustion engine 1859AD

Internet 1958AD

Laser 1960AD

Light bulb, 1848AD

Locks 2000BC

Mechanical Clock 1092AD

Microscope 1590AD

Nuclear Bomb 1945AD

Paper 105AD

Radio 1895AD

Telephone 1876AD

Telescope 1608AD

Television 1925AD

The Pill 1951AD

Wheel 3500BC

Jet Engine

Barbed wire 1873AD

Vulcanized Rubber

Transistor

Theft, trade and capture

I generally like the ability to steal, trade and capture technologies in Civilisation II. However, it would be good to completely prevent all forms of exchange (per side, or per technology) to keep civilisations on different tech trees.

Focus solely on game impact, or include historical relevance

A key question to answer is whether the game should include only those technologies that will impact upon the game (i.e. having the technology will increase a state's economic or military strength) or whether to include other steps that were important historically, but would have no in-game impact.

Incremental steps and nomenclature

Another key question is how to model incremental steps in the development of technology as opposed to a step change. For example, ships-of-the-line were constructed from the 17th century through to the mid-19th century, incrementally improved during the period. However, a step change came in the introduction of the ironclad.

The issue is not increasing the combat effectiveness, as having more detail in attack values is easily modelled. The difficulty is in naming the technologies and units.

Naming options include:

    • Ship-of-the-line v1 through Ship-of-the-line v10

    • Ship-of-the-line Mk1 through Ship-of-the-line Mk10

    • Ship-of-the-line (17th Century equivalent) through Ship-of-the-line (19th Century equivalent)

    • Ship-of-the-line (Mary Rose equivalent) through Ship-of-the-line (HMS Victory equivalent)

The same is true of infrastructure as units.

Technology diffusion

One reason game designers have had to keep technology research times relatively short (other than keeping overall game length short) is that technological advantage for a prolonged period could unbalance the game. One mechanism to remedy this would be technological diffusion, whereby a nation's research for a specific technology would be promoted by contact with other civilisations with that technology, proportionate to the degree of contact.

Sigmoid curve abstract tech tree

One possible approach to technology would be an abstract numeric relationship between time and advancement for each technology area, which would have a roughly sigmoidal shape (i.e. starting low and growing slowly, having an exponential growth phase, and then levelling out).

The starting point in of the curve would depend on other technologies, as would the exact shape of the curve.

There would be an optimum level of research to achieve maximum. Investing more resource would allow technology to be researched faster, but with a greater resource cost per unit of advancement.

The kind of abstract technologies can could be modelled this way:

  • Land unit strength

  • Agricultural productivity