Several of the government types in the mod i am developing called Civilizationbox.

What do you all think?

This is the technological aspect of a mod im working on called CivilizationBox, which will add a vast array of scientific and technological progression

8 Technology Paths

• Agriculture: Focuses on crop variety, yield, growth speed, drought resistance, etc.
• Metallurgy: Determines ore smelting capabilities (e.g., copper, bronze, iron), armor and weapon crafting speed, durability, and quality.
• Engineering: Determines building levels, durability, building types (watchtowers, libraries, engineering marvels), and plague resistance.
• Medicine: Includes "cures" for many, many, many diseases like malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, smallpox, etc. There will be medicine for plague resistance, as well as remedies that extend lifespans and lead to stronger, more intelligent populations.
• Maritime: Features technology for fishing boats, transport boats, trade boats, and warships. This field will have close to a dozen ship types (most being for war) and will determine how far a ship can sail. This is just a few of the features.
• Politics: This will determine things like tax efficiency, economic productivity, and stability. Among the eight, this one still needs the most work.
• Warfare: This one is possibly my favorite. While the other seven will be developed by scholars, this one will be forged by skilled generals. If a general has a high enough warfare stat, they can create new tactics like Charge I, Charge II, and Charge III. They can also create new military doctrines like Phalanx and Pike & Shot.
• Education: This field serves as both a multiplier for the other fields and its own unique mechanic. Innovations like the creation of paper and the invention of the printing press will increase the odds of technological breakthroughs in other fields. Education will also lead to schools, starting with royal/elite education (where only elites are educated) before advancing to more inclusive educational institutions. This field will be one of the most interesting to implement.

How Technology Works

Breakthroughs in one of the eight fields can be made by units with the Scholar trait. This trait is more likely to appear depending on several factors: the population density of a city, its wealth, and its stability.

The reason technology is now city-based is because that is the direction the developers plan to take the game in the next update. For this mod, I plan for technological breakthroughs to be concentrated in "mega-cities," similar to Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age. Therefore, a nation's technological progress will be concentrated in one or several major cities.

Technological breakthroughs happen in mega-cities and are achieved by units, but they will be stored in books. This means technology can now also be lost! That is where units with the Scholar trait come in.

There are two types of scholars:

• Normal Scholars: They copy existing works, ensuring they are not easily forgotten.
• Great Scholars: They don't just copy works; they are capable of creating technological and intellectual breakthroughs.

This makes it possible for a nation to exist in one of three states regarding progress:

1. Golden Age: The nation makes rapid progress thanks to its Great Scholars. This occurs in bursts.
2. Slow and Steady: Technological progress occurs, but it happens slowly. This will be the state of things the majority of the time.
3. Dark Age: Due to serious and tragic events, there are too few scholar units, leading technology to stagnate or even regression.

Application & Transmission

Just because a more efficient method for smelting bronze was discovered doesn't mean it will immediately be adopted.

The time from discovery to adoption will take several decades, but this can vary depending on cultural traits and the traits of kings and leaders. Kings with the Wise or Open-Minded traits can speed up the kingdom's adoption process, while kings with the Traditionalist or Luddite traits will make it take much longer.

There is also the transmission of technology outside of a kingdom, which will depend on location, city traits, and the traits of village leaders.

There are four other ways technology can spread:

• Between Kingdoms: This depends on proximity, culture, and king traits.
• Sub-Cultures: Places with the same sub-culture have technology spread more easily between them.
• Supra-Cultures: Places within the same supra-culture will experience slightly slower tech spread.
• Different Supra-Cultures: Places with entirely different supra-cultures will have the slowest technology spread.

Secret Technology

One of the core design principles for this mod is replayability, every world should feel different.

Because of this, there will be secret technologies that won't be discovered in every world. For example

• In Metallurgy, you could discover a smelting method that makes armor and weapons craft 150% faster than normal.
• In Medicine, you could discover an elixir that grants a 50% boost to a unit's lifespan.

The current culture meta, while better with the recent updates, lacks long-term variety. After a few centuries years of gameplay, the world often homogenizes into a single dominant culture. This makes it impossible to modify an individual kingdom’s identity without inadvertently changing the entire world. In short, the culture system needs improvements to remain dynamic in the late game.

Instead of a monolithic culture, the game should utilize a dual-layer system:

1. Supra-culture: The broad "umbrella" civilization (e.g., Western, Sinosphere, or Islamic world).
2. Subculture: The specific national identity (e.g., French vs. German; Korean vs. Chinese).

How it works:

• Origin: When the first units spawn, they establish a Supra-culture.
• Evolution: As a polity expands and eventually fragments, successor states will develop their own Subcultures over several centuries.
• Fine-tuning: This allows individual kingdoms cultures to be tweaked while they remain part of a larger cultural tradition.

Diplomatic Relations:

Shared Subculture: Significant relations boost.

Shared Supra-culture: Minor relations boost.

Different Supra-culture: Minor relations penalty.

Technology & Idea Spread: Ideas and tech spread significantly faster between nations within the same Supra-culture than to those outside of it.

Cultural Shifts: When a new nation is formed, it has the potential to branch off into a new Subculture depending on the strength and influence of its parent culture.

New Dynamics: Cultural Rivalries

This system introduces two distinct types of conflict:

• Intra-cultural Rivalries: Kingdoms within the same Supra-culture may fight for dominance or "leadership" of that cultural sphere.
  • Real-world examples: The Abbasids vs. the Fatimids, or Athens and Sparta.
• Supra-cultural Rivalries: Large-scale conflicts between two different civilization umbrellas.
  • Real-world example: Ancient Greece (Western) vs. Ancient Persia (Iranic).

Cultural Heroes

To make these tiers feel impactful, Cultural Heroes (great leaders, generals, scholars, etc) should be split between the levels. For example, if a culture has 7 total slots for heroes:

• 3 Supra-cultural Heroes: Celebrated by every nation under the umbrella.
• 4 Subculture Heroes: Unique to specific kingdoms, providing distinct bonuses and flavor.