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[darkedone02]

There is this difficulty that I wish that was in this game, and that is to discovering technology, and the ability to unlock certain things to be able to use certain good's. It's kinda funny that I start around the year of 100's, and everyone know how to use iron, stones, and whatnot... it's like the know what it is without the need to fully know what is this ore? What can we make out of it? Can we make weapons out of it?

So I am thinking that we need a tech tree, and as the year goes by, the Dwarfs know more about the earth that they are on, and be able to know how to use copper, iron, and know how to use adamantine and smith it into weapons or such. From the beginning of the age, technology is primitive, and you only know how to use wood for basic things, and know how to mine some stones and know how to use ore in it's most basic form. Your settlement need to some short of scientist in the group that be able to identify certain ores and item to know the proper properties so that know what it does, then experiment to see if these items can be used for anything.

I would also like it to see if you be able to experiment on making certain thing's as well, for example... you don't know how to make flood gates yet, but after your dwarf studies the river flow, and combine several pieces of wood... he end up inventing the flood gates, and know learning how to make levers for it to operate... We need something like this in the game to add in difficulty, and more fun into the game, then know everything from the beginning. This make doing mega projects a bit longer, it make the dwarf's actually go out and experiment to invent certain things and gain fame, that might attract more immigrants to a certain city that inventor was born.

What do you guy's think about this idea? should we have some short of a tech-tree which locks most of the advance form of building and usage of certain ore and stone till it's fully analyzed and experimented?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

If this is implemented, there needs to be an init option to disable it.

[JoRo]

I mostly see downsides to not having all of your civilizations tools available from the start.  This isn't Civilization where centuries of time will pass; my forts tend to hit year 8 before I move on to the next one.  I don't want to have to invent a floodgate or a pump before I can irrigate a farm; that's crap I need done in the first summer.  I need steel for everyone before my population hits 80.

[breadbocks]

Oh god no. DF is complicated enough as is.

[G-Flex]

This has been discussed before, and I know Toady has responded to the idea, although I'm not sure where.

One problem of a "tech tree" is you need to decide where it begins and ends (do you just have it arbitrarily stop at late-medieval technology?). There's also the fact that if you have a technology tree, you need some sort of sociology tree as well; you aren't going to have the same dwarven societies (or human, or elven) existing with the same ethics and social constructs regardless of technological era.

[Johnfalcon99977]

what would happen at the year 1,000,000? I don't think toady would like making this a future game. Also, wheres the fun in not being to be able to mine magma for years?

[Sir Finkus]

I can kind of see something with skilled craftsdwarves improving items and maybe passing their secrets down to apprentices.

For instance, urist mcboyer gets a strange mood and comes up with a crossbow design that does +10% damage.  Now ever crossbow he makes will be an urist crossbow and have the same bonus.  He could take on apprentices who, after a time, could learn how to make this improved crossbow.  I feel that kind of thing could add a lot of depth to the game and make older fortresses more interesting.  It would also allow cool things like having apprentices from previous or other forts show up as immigrants and pass the knowledge along.  It would probably have to be pretty rare so the world doesn't get flooded with URIST brand crossbows and ZOLTIG brand swords.  Normal equipment should be the norm. 

As far as traditional tech trees go, I'd prefer those be left out.  It just seems too gamey to me.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I can kind of see something with skilled craftsdwarves improving items and maybe passing their secrets down to apprentices.

For instance, urist mcboyer gets a strange mood and comes up with a crossbow design that does +10% damage.  Now ever crossbow he makes will be an urist crossbow and have the same bonus.  He could take on apprentices who, after a time, could learn how to make this improved crossbow.  I feel that kind of thing could add a lot of depth to the game and make older fortresses more interesting.  It would also allow cool things like having apprentices from previous or other forts show up as immigrants and pass the knowledge along.  It would probably have to be pretty rare so the world doesn't get flooded with URIST brand crossbows and ZOLTIG brand swords.  Normal equipment should be the norm. 

As far as technology goes, I can see this happening.

[Untelligent]

^ Yeah, that sounds great.

As stated before, the problem with the sort of tech tree described in the first post is that that sort of thing makes more sense for something that takes place over hundreds or thousands of years (like Civilization) than a single decade, even two.

Another serious problem that hasn't been addressed in this thread yet: Why would your dwarves suddenly forget all the aspects of their civilization just because they move out and start building their own fortress? If they don't know how to make floodgates or create steel, that implies their parent civ doesn't either, which is a bit silly.

[Argonnek]

All of that "inventing" stuff happens before year 1, I think. I imagine it as 1 being the year civilization gets organized enough to create large empires, which would require things like steel working and floodgates and pumps.

[Earthquake Damage]

For instance, urist mcboyer gets a strange mood and comes up with a crossbow design that does +10% damage.  Now ever crossbow he makes will be an urist crossbow and have the same bonus.  He could take on apprentices who, after a time, could learn how to make this improved crossbow.  I feel that kind of thing could add a lot of depth to the game and make older fortresses more interesting.  It would also allow cool things like having apprentices from previous or other forts show up as immigrants and pass the knowledge along.  It would probably have to be pretty rare so the world doesn't get flooded with URIST brand crossbows and ZOLTIG brand swords.  Normal equipment should be the norm.

We already have a "craftsman develops superior product" mechanic in the game.

[NinjaE8825]

As stated before, the problem with the sort of tech tree described in the first post is that that sort of thing makes more sense for something that takes place over hundreds or thousands of years (like Civilization) than a single decade, even two.

Like, say, history mode/worldgen? :p
Having separate advancing (I'm thinking expressed as a number as an exponential progression with some slight randomization each year) tech levels for each civilization, rather than for all dwarven nations, would be fairly interesting - having one place be far more advanced than the rest of the world is an old fantasy classic, and it would let you play worlds ranging from stone age to early renaissance fantasy in just one game (play as an elven adventurer, watch technology progress in the lands of humans at an astounding rate as your own society stagnates! Play Conan and move in from the savage frontier to make your fortune in the civilized lands!)).

You could have various different fields of tech at different levels for each nation, too - dwarven ones could get an easier progression on dorfy sciences (metallurgy, geology, rune magic), but their demonology would lag far behind their goblin neighbors-enemies. Of course, since they established trade relations with the seafaring human kingdom 50 years ago, their surface navigation and shipbuilding techs have been progressing at an astonishing rate (the humans, in turn, have learnt the secret of iron and are steamrolling their neighboring bronze-armoured kingdoms). Meanwhile, the next mountainhome over has been lollygagging around with them crazy elves, and have less advanced shipbuilding, but far better medicine and agriculture - even some dabbling forest magic (the parents of these mages are, of course, mortified)! Modelling technology exchange would be hell, but it could be interesting.

On embark, each civ could show their level in the various techs, so you know what you're getting into.

[RedClaw]

A tech tree isn't really necessary but I've always liked how you need to make a 3 tile wide road to get caravans. More features like that should be included in the game. (There are some but most are currently bugged, for example the dungeon keeper)

[darkedone02]

When I am thinking of a tech tree, I'm not thinking of civilization series tech tree... if you play casual games, i'm thinking either Star Ruler or Virtual Villager's style of unlocking. To unlock things, your scientist dwarf will experiment on certain things if you have the resources... to further analyze the ore, stone, wood, and whatnot that you just harvested and your scientist will randomly put together things to invent something... Your scientist will discovered more and analyze thing's faster when he level up his analyzing and experimenting skills. In the Tech Tree, you can see what you have discovered, and what are hidden that you yet to discover...

I can kind of see something with skilled craftsdwarves improving items and maybe passing their secrets down to apprentices.

For instance, urist mcboyer gets a strange mood and comes up with a crossbow design that does +10% damage.  Now ever crossbow he makes will be an urist crossbow and have the same bonus.  He could take on apprentices who, after a time, could learn how to make this improved crossbow.  I feel that kind of thing could add a lot of depth to the game and make older fortresses more interesting.  It would also allow cool things like having apprentices from previous or other forts show up as immigrants and pass the knowledge along.  It would probably have to be pretty rare so the world doesn't get flooded with URIST brand crossbows and ZOLTIG brand swords.  Normal equipment should be the norm. 

As far as traditional tech trees go, I'd prefer those be left out.  It just seems too gamey to me.

I like that idea too, I wish both a tech tree and improvements on existing design's to be in the game, it make the game more fun, rewarding and challenging all at the same time, when you busy designing your base while your scientist is working. when you reach towards certain points in the game when you get enough people, Your scientist might want their own personal lab, so that they can experiment faster and be able to unlock other method's as well on discovering and analyzing (better tools, better change of discovery, etc etc). If this game had a tech tree, for some reason it reminds me of Evil Genius in a way.

[darkedone02]

As stated before, the problem with the sort of tech tree described in the first post is that that sort of thing makes more sense for something that takes place over hundreds or thousands of years (like Civilization) than a single decade, even two.

Like, say, history mode/worldgen? :p
Having separate advancing (I'm thinking expressed as a number as an exponential progression with some slight randomization each year) tech levels for each civilization, rather than for all dwarven nations, would be fairly interesting - having one place be far more advanced than the rest of the world is an old fantasy classic, and it would let you play worlds ranging from stone age to early renaissance fantasy in just one game (play as an elven adventurer, watch technology progress in the lands of humans at an astounding rate as your own society stagnates! Play Conan and move in from the savage frontier to make your fortune in the civilized lands!)).

You could have various different fields of tech at different levels for each nation, too - dwarven ones could get an easier progression on dorfy sciences (metallurgy, geology, rune magic), but their demonology would lag far behind their goblin neighbors-enemies. Of course, since they established trade relations with the seafaring human kingdom 50 years ago, their surface navigation and shipbuilding techs have been progressing at an astonishing rate (the humans, in turn, have learnt the secret of iron and are steamrolling their neighboring bronze-armoured kingdoms). Meanwhile, the next mountainhome over has been lollygagging around with them crazy elves, and have less advanced shipbuilding, but far better medicine and agriculture - even some dabbling forest magic (the parents of these mages are, of course, mortified)! Modelling technology exchange would be hell, but it could be interesting.

On embark, each civ could show their level in the various techs, so you know what you're getting into.

I would love to have a evolving civilization's in the game, especially in adventure mode where one day, you noticed human capitals cities got the tech to build boats and be able to travel faster to one place or another... good that way when your in a delivery mission where you got to go though the mountains... but you can take the shortcut and use the boat (unless there is a blockade or too many pirates in the sea) to reach your mission objective. I wanted this to happen so that adventure mode won't look so... Stalemate, and I don't always go kill everything on sight... Adventuring mode really need lot's of improvements to make it feel more like adventuring then conquering villages.