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Civilization 5

Civ 5 Technologies and Tech Tree (A to G)

^{Page last updated on 2011 / 02 / 08}

Acoustics

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 650
• Emphasis: Culture (6), Wonder (4)
• Prerequisite Tech: Education
• Leads to: Scientific Theory
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Opera House, which provides a large boost to     Culture.
• Quote: "Their rising all at once was as the sound of thunder heard remote." - Milton
• Description: Acoustics is the study of sound. Sounds are waves of energy transmitted through gases, liquids and solids. The most important aspect of acoustics of course is that humans can "hear" sounds, and much of the current research involves improving human reception of sounds, especially for the deaf. Acoustics is used in other applications as well, including sonar. Sonar allows equipment to "hear" undersea vessels, animals and geological formations.
  
  Since acoustics require a medium in which the waves of energy can be transmitted, sound does not travel in the vacuum outside of Earth's atmosphere. It is a creepy but true statement that, "in space, no one can hear you scream."

Advanced Ballistics

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Ranged (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Lasers, Nuclear Fission
• Leads to: Nuclear Fusion
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Nuclear Missile, a frightening weapon that requires     Uranium, and is capable of destroying units and cities.
• Quote: "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?" - Tom Hehrer
• Description: Ballistics is the science of shooting or throwing stuff great distances with great precision. Advanced ballistics is more of the same, with the distances increased to continent-spanning scale. Modern artillerists can shoot explosive rounds dozens of miles with great accuracy, and missiles can be fired at precise targets half-way around the planet. When embellishments like GPS and laser guidance are included, there is virtually no target anywhere in the world that can't be hit by some weapon somewhere. Whether this is a good thing is open to debate; it largely depends upon whose finger is on the firing button.

Agriculture

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 20
• Emphasis: Growth (5)
• Prerequisite Tech:
• Leads to: Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Mining
• Benefits: Allows Workers to construct Farms, vital for increasing the     Food output of map tiles.
• Quote: "Where tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization." - Daniel Webster
• Description: Agriculture is the production of plants and animals, most notably for food, but also for clothing, shelter, medicine, recreation, and other diverse uses. Crop cultivation probably developed independently in numerous places. The earliest evidence of agriculture thus far discovered dates back to the end of the last ice age, approximately 11,000 years ago. Interestingly, it appears that agriculture was not invented by starving hunter-gatherers desperately seeking new sources of sustenance; instead, evidence suggests that the earliest agriculturalists were successful and wealthy hunter-gatherers who probably had plenty of food already on hand. This makes some sense: people with a surplus of food can afford to experiment on new technologies, while those who are hungry are going to expend all of their energy on tried and true methods of gaining sustenance.
  
  In its infancy, agriculture was a slow, cyclical process. Seeds were sown in the spring, the fields were tended and watered until the crops were ready to be harvested, often many months later. Since very few places have climates suitable for year-round agricultural production, farmers had to be able to store food for the lean winter months or they had to trade with those who could gather food year-round from hunting, fishing, and so forth. Farmers have always been at the mercy of nature and the weather: if it didn't rain one year or pests ate the crop, a family might simply starve.
  
  Modern agriculture (or "agribusiness") is a complicated and exacting science of genetic manipulation, advanced fertilizer and insecticides, and computerized irrigation systems and robotic harvesters. Advances in the technology have greatly increased the output of food from a given acre of soil, so much so that some countries - including the United States - occasionally suffer not from famine, but from a glut of food, resulting in chronic obesity in their citizenry and prices so cheap as to threaten the livelihood of the very farmers who are growing all the food.

Animal Husbandry

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 35
• Emphasis: Mobile (4), Tile Improvement (1)
• Prerequisite Tech: Agriculture
• Leads to: Trapping, The Wheel
• Benefits: Allows Workers to construct Pastures on     Cows and     Sheep. Also reveals     Horses, which are used to build powerful mounted units.
• Quote: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." - The Bible, Deuteronomy, 25:4
• Description: Animal husbandry appears to have occurred at about the same time as the invention of agriculture. The dog appears to be the earliest domesticated animal, probably bred to assist in hunting and killing game. Evidence suggests that they were first tamed and bred in China - in fact, geneticists believe that about 95% of the dogs living today are descended from just a few common Chinese animals. Goats and sheep were domesticated in the Middle East perhaps by about 10,000 BC.
  
  To be successfully domesticated, an animal must fit certain criteria: it should be able to consume food that is less attractive to humans, say, grass or vermin or leftover table scraps. It should mature rapidly, so that it becomes useful quickly and so that it can be genetically altered through repeated generations of breeding. It should have a pleasant disposition. It shouldn't panic easily, or if it does, it should stay together with others of its kind, making it possible for humans or dogs to herd them in a group. Finally, it's extremely useful if the animal can be trained to think of a human as its pack leader.
  
  Scientists believe that the horse was first domesticated in the Ukraine region in approximately 4000-3500 BC. It is possible that the first horses were kept for their meat rather than as working animals. Within about half a century, the horse was being employed as a draft animal across much of Europe and Asia. Over the several thousands of years, intensive breeding programs resulted in a domesticated animal which was much larger and stronger than the original wild horse. And with the invention of the horse collar and later the saddle and stirrups, the horse became the most important domesticated animal in human history. (At least in Eurasia and Northern Africa, that is: the aboriginal North, Central and South Americans ate all of their horses before they domesticated them.)

Archaeology

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 1300
• Emphasis: Culture (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Navigation
• Leads to: Biology
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Museum, which provides a large boost to     when built in a city. Also provides other bonuses relating to     Culture.
• Quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
• Description: Archaeology is the study of the remnants of ancient people to learn about their culture, art, architecture, and history. Archaeologists study building ruins, burial mounds, trash heaps, ancient carvings hidden in caves, and long drowned ships on the bottom of the ocean.
  
  Although people have no doubt been interested in the lives of those who came before them for as long as there have been people, archaeology as a science began in 15th century Renaissance Europe, when people began to study and emulate the art and architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome and the wealthy nobility of Italy - popes, merchants and heads of state - began to collect antiquities. As these became more scarce, they sponsored excavations to find more loot.
  
  Archaeology was put on a more scientific basis in the 19th century through the efforts of German scholars like Heinrich Schliemann, who examined early Greek civilization in Troy and Mycenae.
  
  Today archaeologists are studying every aspect of ancient humanity, from our earliest ancestor almost up to our great-great grandparents. Their tools are incredibly sophisticated, allowing ever more insight into the lives of our forebears.

Archery

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 35
• Emphasis: Ranged (4), Offense (1)
• Prerequisite Tech: Agriculture
• Leads to: Mathematics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Archer, the first ranged unit in the game.
• Quote: "The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction." - Aesop
• Description: Archery is the technology by which a person uses the spring power stored in a bent stick (or "bow") to shoot a slender pointed projectile (an "arrow") a great distance at rapid speed. Throughout history bows and arrows have been employed in the hunt and in war. Their earliest use is lost in the mists of time, but probably dates from the Paleolithic era (which ended some 14,000 years ago) or even earlier (archaeologists have found stone points in Africa dating 60,000 years ago that may have been arrowheads). Virtually every early culture employed bows and arrows, excepting for the Aboriginal Australians, who appear never to have invented them.
  
  Archers have been used in war about as long as there has been war. The early Greeks and Egyptians deployed ranks of archers, as did the earliest known armies from India, Asia, Japan, and the Americas. By the Middle Ages the crossbow and firearms began to replace the bow and arrow in warfare and hunting, and by the 16th century it had all but disappeared from most modern armies. Today target archery survives as a sport in many cultures around the world. Some enthusiasts still hunt with the bow and arrow which, despite its great antiquity, can take down a deer as effectively as it did ten thousand years ago.

Astronomy

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 650
• Emphasis: Naval Recon (6), Naval (2), Science (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Compass, Education
• Leads to: Navigation
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Caravel, the first Naval Unit capable of exploring the world's oceans. Also allows embarked land units to cross ocean tiles.
• Quote: "Joyfully to the breeze royal Odysseus spread his sail, and with his rudder skillfully he steered." - Homer
• Description: Astronomy is the study of objects in space - from space dust to asteroids to moons, planets, stars, and galaxies - as well as other more esoteric objects like black holes and wormholes. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, with its roots in the religious and astrological practices of pre-history.
  
  Much of early astronomy is related to religion. Stars and other celestial objects were associated with gods, and it was believed that they had direct control over man and his physical universe. A certain star or cluster of stars might appear each year around harvest time, and eventually ancient man might decide that the star is the home of the god governing the harvest. Perhaps if one sacrifices a goat on the day that the star first appears, that god would bless the upcoming harvest. This kind of thinking lies at the root of ancient astronomical studies as well as ancient calendar-making, with which astronomy has been historically allayed.
  
  During the Renaissance astronomy shed much of its religious, astronomical trappings, becoming a pure science in its own right. In 1543 Nicolai Copernicus published "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium," which postulated that the sun was at the center of the universe, not the earth, and that the planets orbited the sun, and the moon orbited the earth. In addition to the triumph of scientific research over dogma, Copernicus' book also argued that the use of mathematics would greatly help mankind to understand the world around him. Although this work was deeply controversial in his day, today Copernicus is acknowledged as one of the great scientists of history, and one of the fathers of the Scientific Revolution.

Atomic Theory

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Ranged (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Combustion
• Leads to: Nuclear Fission
• Benefits: Reveals     Uranium and allows you to start working on the Manhattan Project, setting the stage for the production of nuclear weapons.
• Quote: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes." - Albert Einsten
• Description: Atomic theory of matter was first proposed in ancient Greece. The philosophers Leucippus and Democritus proposed that the physical world was composed of an infinite number of extremely small particles, or "atoms," which existed in a void, or vacuum. Atoms combine in different quantities and formations to create everything in existence, from air to gold to human flesh to the world beneath our feet. The men had of course no way to prove their theory, and it was rejected by later Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who had what might be called a more spiritual view of existence. That view as adopted by the Church and most of Medieval Europe, and the atomic theory languished for millennia.
  
  In the 17th century atomic theory began to make a comeback, as the brilliant Italian scientist Galileo expressed his belief in vacuums and scientists and philosophers tried to separate the religious/spiritual argument from the scientific. In 1658 the Irish chemist Robert Boyle performed a series of experiments on air, after which he concluded that all matter was composed of solid particles arranged into molecules, which combinations gave the matter its different properties. At the turn of the 18th century Isaac Newton further refined the atomic theory, and over the course of the next 100 years chemists made great advances in their knowledge of the composition and properties of matter.
  
  In 1808 English chemist and physicist John Dalton published "A New System of Chemical Philosophy," which put the atomic theory on a truly scientific basis. It laid out a coherent picture of how elements combine to form compounds and attempted to provide physical proof of the existence of atoms. By 1869 Russian Dmitry Mendeleyev created a system to arrange the known elements according to their atomic weight in a "periodic table," and over the next decades human knowledge of the properties of matter grew exponentially.
  
  In 1895 the German Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-rays, and in 1896 Frenchman Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in uranium. Their work was further advanced by French pioneers Marie and Pierre Curie later in the decade. These would lead to radical alterations/refinements in the basic atomic theory.
  
  This research would continue into the 20th century with great success, eventually resulting in various world-shaking practical applications like the x-ray machine and the atom bomb, to name two. Leucippus and Democritus probably would be astonished at where their theory has led their scientific heirs.

Banking

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 650
• Emphasis: Gold (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Education, Chivalry
• Leads to: Economics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Bank, a building which increases the     Gold produced by a city.
• Quote: "Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion." - Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Description: The first banks in history were probably religious temples, established around 3,000 BC. Actually, banks may predate money: the first deposits may very well have been in the form of grain. In 18th century BC Babylon, the great leader Hammurabi wrote laws regulating banks in his famous Code. The Greeks further advanced banking, and there are records of temples and other financial institutions making loans, accepting deposits, exchanging currency, and validating coins (to ensure that they're not forgeries). The Romans continued banking in the Greek model with some further improvements, but when the Roman Empire fell, so too did most of the banking institutions in Europe. Banks did not reappear in much of Europe until the Middle Ages, rediscovered by people looking for ways to fund the Crusades.
  
  Today, banks generally perform many of the same functions that they did in ancient Greece. They take in deposits of money, which they give back with interest when the depositor wants it. They loan out some of the money to borrowers, who pay them back (again with interest). They also exchange currency, issue checks, and so on.
  
  The value of banking in society is that it allows many people to pool their money to invest in big projects. Say I wanted to build a printing shop and the cost was 1000 pieces of gold, far more than I had available to me. Before banking the only people who might have been able to afford to back me were royalty and perhaps important members of the Church, and if they weren't interested, my project was going nowhere. Once banks were invented, however, I could go to a bank for a loan. If they decided that my project was reasonable and that I was of good character, I was golden.
  
  Without banks, it is extremely difficult for a single citizen of society to get much of anything done.

Biology

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1680
• Emphasis: Growth (7), Tile Improvement (3)
• Prerequisite Techs: Archaeology, Scientific Theory
• Leads to: Electricity
• Benefits: Reveals     Oil, a vital late-game resource. Also allows you to build the Hospital, a building which increases the     growth rate of Cities.
• Quote: "If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't." - Lyall Watson
• Description: Biology is the study of living organisms. It's a wide field, ranging from the study of the largest whale to the smallest bacterium. Much of pre-nineteenth century biology was concerned with discovering and categorizing all of the plants, insects and animals in existence on the Earth. As the science advanced and the equipment improved, scientists began to dig into the building blocks of biology - cells, and later, genes and DNA. Today, much is known about the biology of all living organisms on the planet.
  
  Biologists have become so successful at manipulating life that the science has moved into areas that only a few years ago would have been considered science fiction. Sheep have been cloned, and sooner or later perhaps so will be people. Nanobiology is a real field of study. Specific genes can be activated for selective breeding. If progress continues it's possible to foresee a time in the not too distant future when most diseases have been conquered, bionic body parts are common and human lifespan has increased by decades.

Bronze Working

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: Defense (4), Military Training (4), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Mining
• Leads to: Iron Working
• Benefits: Allows your Workers to Chop Jungle, clearing the map tile so other improvements can be constructed. Also allows you to build the Spearman, a military unit strong against mounted enemies.
• Quote: "Here Hector entered, with a spear eleven cubits long in his hand; the bronze point gleamed in front of him, and was fastened to the shaft of the spear by a ring of gold." - Homer
• Description: Bronze is a metal "alloy" (mixture) of copper and tin. The resulting material is harder and tougher than either of the original metals and it is easier to melt and cast (e.g., pour into molds to make spear tips and other useful items). Copper was probably first used in Egypt before 5,000 BC. The first evidence of bronze appears some 1,300 years later in the form of a bronze rod found in a pyramid dating from 3700 BC. Bronze appeared in Asia much later, around 1,500 BC, and in the Americas later still, between 100-200 AD.

Calendar

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 70
• Emphasis: Happiness (10), Tile Improvement (2), Wonder (4)
• Prerequisite Tech: Pottery
• Leads to: Theology
• Benefits: Allows Workers to construct Plantations on many Luxury Resources, which are extremely important for     growth and     Happiness. (Note: Many resources require you to have chopped a forest or jungle first, which requires other Technologies.)
• Quote: "So teach us to number our days, so that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." - The Bible, Psalms, 90:12
• Description: A calendar is a method of keeping track of the days. In many ancient cultures calendars served both religious and practical purposes: certain days of the year were dedicated to the worship of certain deities, and it was very bad to offend the gods by failing to give them their due. More prosaically, of course, calendars allowed people to track the weather in an area, telling them when to plant crops, when to harvest, and so forth.
  
  The Egyptians appear to have developed the first practical calendar, and this was appropriated and further refined by the Romans into the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar that is almost universally used today was based on the Julian calendar. Proclaimed in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, the Gregorian calendar more accurately defines a solar year, correcting a slight inaccuracy in the Julian. In the Julian calendar a solar year was 365 days and 6 hours in length, while in the Gregorian calendar the year was 12 minutes shorter, or 365 days, 5 hours and 48 minutes. This error accumulated over the centuries, and by Gregory's day the Julian calendar was 14 days out of sync with the seasons.

Chemistry

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 900
• Emphasis: Ranged (7), Production (3)
• Prerequisite Tech: Gunpowder
• Leads to: Military Science, Fertilizer
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Cannon, a Renaissance-era siege unit.
• Quote: "Wherever we look, the work of the chemist has raised the level of our civilization and has increased the productive capacity of the nation." - Calvin Coolidge
• Description: The offspring of alchemy and mathematics, Chemistry is the science of matter, its structure, behavior, composition, and how it behaves during chemical reactions. Physicists drop balls off of towers and time how long it takes them to fall; chemists study the balls themselves and try to figure out why some shatter and some bounce.
  
  While scientists, doctors and philosophers have been interested in chemistry throughout history, it achieved the dignified status of science in 1789, when Antoine Lavoisier published a paper describing the law of conservation of mass. In "Elements of Chemistry," Lavoisier discovered the composition of air and water, coining the term "oxygen." He also debunked the phlogiston theory, which had been hanging around confusing scientists for over 100 years.
  
  Lavoisier is considered the father of modern chemistry. His example led other chemists to employ scientific methods to the study of chemicals. By so doing, they were able to disprove theories that had been taken as gospel since they were put forth by the Greeks thousands of years ago.

Chivalry

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 440
• Emphasis: Offense (3), Mobile (3), City Defense (2), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Civil Service, Horseback Riding, Currency
• Leads to: Banking
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Knight, a fast and powerful mounted unit. Also allows you to build the Castle to improve the     Defense of your cities.
• Quote: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England." - Malory
• Description: Chivalry describes the honorable behavior expected of "knights" - the armed nobility of a culture. It is very roughly akin to "bushido" (way of the warrior) code of conduct of Japanese samurai. The chivalric code was at its height in the 12th century, fueled by the Crusades, in which the knights believed that they were doing God's work by smiting the unbelievers in the Middle East. To earn God's favor one must act in a godly manner; unchivalrous behavior might very well result in failure, death, and damnation. The Muslim knights opposing the Christians had similar and in some ways even more "civilized" codes.
  
  Some form of chivalric code is crucial in a civilization where one privileged class has access to weapons that lower classes are denied. Otherwise the people with the weapons may lean too hard on the lower classes, resulting in oppression, escalating civil unrest and potentially devastating revolution.

Civil Service

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 400
• Emphasis: Defense (6), Growth (10), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Philosophy, Trapping
• Leads to: Chivalry
• Benefits: Farms next to rivers and lakes produce +1     Food, an extremely useful bonus. Also allows you to build the Pikeman, a unit deadly against mounted enemies like the Horseman and Knight.
• Quote: "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency." - Eugene McCarthy
• Description: The term "civil service" is generally used to describe the parts of a government in which individuals are employed on the basis of merit rather than because of political patronage or being born into a certain class or because the person is related to the current ruler. In the United States federal government, for instance, the highest posts in the bureaucracy are appointed by the president. They are "political appointments" and will likely change with each new administration. Ranks below the highest points are filled with permanent "civil servants," who generally hold their positions from administration to administration, no matter which party wins.
  
  One of the earliest examples of a civil service can be found in the Qin Dynasty of China (ca. 210 BC), under which employment in the bureaucracy was merit-based. Over time this system gradually was corrupted and employment in the bureaucracy once again became based upon class rather than merit. Three hundred years later the merit system was reapplied (under the Sui and Tang Dynasties), and it remained in effect for some centuries.
  
  Historically, many civilizations have followed a similar pattern to the Chinese: over time the bureaucracy becomes increasingly corrupt and inefficient until eventually stringent reforms are enacted to improve the government's efficiency. These make things better for a while until standards begin to be relaxed in favor of family or connections, and the cycle begins all over again.

Combustion

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 2200
• Emphasis: Offense (5), Mobile (5)
• Prerequisite Techs: Replaceable Parts, Railroad, Dynamite
• Leads to: Atomic Theory, Lasers
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Tank, an incredibly fast and powerful armored unit.
• Quote: "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." - Albert Einstein
• Description: "Combustion" means burning. It's a chemical reaction between substances, one of which is usually oxygen, which often results in the generation of light and heat energy. Here we're speaking specifically about the use of combustion inside of an engine (hence, "internal combustion") to create energy to turn a crank or move a piston.
  
  There are two different types of internal combustion engines: intermittent-combustion engines and steady flow engines. In an intermittent-combustion engine, a certain amount of fuel and oxygen is injected into the combustion chamber where it ignites and moves a piston or some other mechanical device, after which another discrete amount of fuel and oxygen is once again inserted, and the entire process repeats. Automobile engines are examples of intermittent-combustion engines. In an steady-flow engine, a steady stream of fuel and oxygen is injected into engine, burning continuously. Jet engines are steady-flow.
  
  The first internal combustion engine patent was given to Englishmen Samuel Brown in 1823 for his "gas vacuum engine," which ran on hydrogen and oxygen. The first patent for using a jet engine to power an aircraft was filed in 1921 by Frenchman Maxime Guillaume. Neither of these first attempts was very successful, but they paved the way for technologies which would power the world right up until today, and for the foreseeable future.

Compass

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 340
• Emphasis: Gold (6), Naval (4)
• Prerequisite Tech: Optics
• Leads to: Astronomy
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Harbor, which creates trade routes from cities to the capital over the water, producing     Gold.
• Quote: "I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving..." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Description: A basic compass is a device which uses a lodestone or magnetized needle to point out the direction of "magnetic" north. Although magnetic north is not identical with "true" north, the two are close enough to make magnets extremely useful tools when navigating the world. The first compasses were invented in China and Europe (apparently independently) in the 12th century. Compasses allowed sailors to closely monitor and track their ship's "bearing" (direction) when at sea, something that in the years before compasses was all but impossible in overcast or stormy days and nights. They were equally useful to landsmen traveling in trackless deserts or during snowstorms or deep beneath the canopies of ancient jungles.
  
  Modern travelers still carry compasses, but these devices are now seen as somewhat quaint and old-fashioned, especially when compared to global positioning satellites, which can tell not only where you are, but can also provide you with directions to the nearest coffee shop, something that even the best and most accurate compass cannot do.

Computers

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3000
• Emphasis: Air (5), Naval (5)
• Prerequisite Techs: Electronics, Mass Media
• Leads to: Robotics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Nuclear Submarine, a ship invisible to all Units except for Destroyers and other Subs that may also carry missiles. Also allows you to build the Mobile SAM, a fast unit specialized in thwarting enemy aircraft.
• Quote: "Computers are like Old Testament gods: lots of rules and no mercy." - Joseph Campbell
• Description: At its most basic, a computer is a machine which manipulates data or controls according to a set of given instructions. While the first "modern" computer wasn't conceived of until the early 20th century, the earliest computers can be traced back to Al-Jazari's mechanical astronomical clocks in 1206 A.D. and Jacquard's programmable textile loom in 1801. While both of these machines were programmable, they didn't perform the other function of modern computers - storing data. The earliest computers used mechanical and analog parts to function and store their data, eventually switching to digital electronics in the 1940's. There's no exact point at which the modern day computer was decidedly invented; it was rather arrived at by a series of steps and advances, along which came such notable ones as Konrad Zuse's Z Machine and the U.S. Army's ENIAC.
  
  Since the switch to electronics, computers have gotten smaller, faster, cheaper, less power hungry, and much more reliable and versatile. Once taking up entire rooms and even whole city blocks, modern computers are as ubiquitous as the home telephone and can be found not only as personal standalone machines but also imbedded into cars, washing machines, and even woven into cutting edge clothing. Computers have made it possible for scientists to expedite calculations that would take a normal human a lifetime to make, predict weather with great accuracy, send humans to the moon and other spacecraft beyond the reaches of the solar system, and allow a child in Shanghai to play a game with one in England, without ever leaving home.
  
  While first seen as a fad or only as a silly plaything for the wealthy, the computer has made an undeniable mark upon history and is here to stay.

Construction

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 100
• Emphasis: Happiness (17), Infrastructure (2), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Masonry
• Leads to: Engineering
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Colosseum, which improves     Happiness in the empire, which in turn helps your city growth and makes     Golden Ages more likely. Additionally, bridges are automatically added to roads which cross rivers, allowing units to pass over them without slowing down.
• Quote: "Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Description: Construction represents the advancement of the study of masonry, primarily by adding iron and other metals to the builder's toolbox. Although remarkably durable, stone and brick are also quite heavy and inflexible. It's impossible to construct very tall structures out of these materials - unless the structure in question is solid stone or brick and is pyramid-shaped - otherwise they will collapse under their own weight or in the face of a strong wind.
  
  Metal structures, on the other hand, or masonry reinforced with metal - can be quite tall and beautiful, and structurally sound. Using metal one can create soaring bridges, deep tunnels, great skyscrapers and elevated roadways. Without construction none of the world's great cities could exist, nor could its most beautiful architecture.

Currency

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 250
• Emphasis: Gold (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Mathematics
• Leads to: Chivalry
• Benefits: Allows you to build various     Gold-boosting buildings like the Market, and also allows your cities to convert     Production into     Gold instead of working on units or buildings.
• Quote: "Better is bread with a happy heart Than wealth with vexation." - Amenemope
• Description: Currency is a remarkable innovation by which pieces of paper or small discs represent a certain amount of wealth and can be traded to others in return for goods and services. The earliest currencies were metal coins; these were worth whatever was the current value of the metal out of which they were carved. Later on, the currency itself might have little or no intrinsic value - on a desert island, a dollar bill is nothing more than a small rectangular piece of paper - but the currency's issuer (usually a government) assigned it a value, and as long as the issuer remained solvent, the currency was as good as gold, so to speak.
  
  In the 4th millennium BC, Ancient Egypt used gold bars of a set weight as currency; elsewhere in the Middle East copper ingots were similarly used. In many places in the world metal rings, bracelets and bangles (of gold, silver and jewels) served as both ornamentation and currency.
  
  Throughout history, forgers have always sought to create bogus replicas of the currency at hand. Forgers might create duplicate coins of inferior and cheaper metal than the legal tender, or they might "shave" a bit of metal off of a coin made of precious material. When paper money became the norm for currency the forgers quickly learned how to duplicate the size, color and feel of the paper and copy the pictures and writing on the bills. Forgers are so proficient that most modern currency now comes complete with many advanced security measures, and the time is not far away when each bill will have its own computer chip embedded in the paper.

Dynamite

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1900
• Emphasis: Ranged (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Fertilizer, Rifling
• Leads to: Combustion
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Artillery, a deadly siege unit capable of shooting further than any previous ranged unit.
• Quote: "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy." - Christopher Dawson
• Description: Dynamite is an explosive material invented by Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in 1867. Dynamite is created by soaking an absorbent material like diatomaceous earth (interestingly, the same material used in many pool filters) in nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is an extremely powerful but terrifyingly unstable explosive; dynamite is less powerful but a lot more stable.
  
  Dynamite is primarily used in mining and construction. Historically, it has been used in military applications, but the explosive component nitroglycerin remains too unstable for the rather volatile conditions found in a battlefield, so generally militaries prefer a modified product called "military dynamite" which contains no nitroglycerin but instead uses other chemicals including TNT to create a product which is 60% less powerful but much less apt to explode when it's not supposed to.

Ecology

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3000
• Emphasis: Production (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Plastic, Penicilin
• Leads to: Globalization
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Solar Plant, a building which may only be built in Cities on or next to Desert, and increases     Production.
• Quote: "Only within the moment of time represented by the present century as one species, man, acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world." - Rachel Carson
• Description: Not a single technology in itself, Ecology is an interdisciplinary study of all the various forms of interactions and causations between organisms and their environment, or rather, the study of ecosystems. The basic tenant of the field is that everything in a given ecosystem - the rocks, soil, birds, bugs, trees, etc. - have an effect on and connection to all the other things in the ecosystem, either directly or through a series of chain relations. While all these things are connected, ecologists also believe in the concept of holism - that even with all these tiny interactions explained, they cannot account for every possible reaction and the entire system as a whole needs to be evaluated. Ecology studies how all these things are connected, and how changing one can effect, benefit or destroy another.
  
  The modern science of ecology is still a young one, but it did gain a large amount of popularity and momentum during the 1960's environmental movement. Ecology has grown recently to become concerned with the preservation of biodiversity, and the adverse affects that human development has had on the environments and organisms around them. Long term studies are in effect to record these effects, the current longest running one having started in 1856.
  
  Practical applications have developed from these research findings, such as the more efficient and beneficial management of natural resources like wetlands and forests, better community health planning, and even improved city planning practices. The field of ecology has also laid down the basic framework for a deeper understanding of how people interact socially.

Economics

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 900
• Emphasis: Gold (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Banking, Printing Press
• Leads to: Military Science
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Windmill in cities built on flat land, increasing     Production.
• Quote: "Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe." - Albert Einstein
• Description: Economics is the study of money, or more precisely, the study of "the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services." While in older times goods might have been distributed via barter, for most of the last several thousand years money has been the medium of exchange.
  
  Modern economics dates back to 1776, when Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published his seminal work, "The Wealth of Nations." In "Wealth," Smith argues that the free market is the most efficient of all means of assigning values to and distributing goods and services. A totally free market, Smith contends, will automatically produce the right amount of goods at the right price, that any government interference or regulation distorts the market, making it less efficient and more wasteful. Further, Smith was a big believer in self-interest, because when a person pursues his own self-interest, he automatically is promoting the good of society in general. In other words, Smith believes that pure capitalism is the best economic form available to a civilization.
  
  Smith's works were not without their detractors, and many later economists have sought to modify his thesis, and some have repudiated them in their entirety. In the 19th century Carl Marx wrote "Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Okonomie" (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy), in which he stated that the driving force of capitalism is the exploitation of labor by employers.
  
  Smith is considered the father of modern capitalism, and Marx the father of communism. Their economic heirs have been fighting it out ever since.

Education

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 440
• Emphasis: Science (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Theology
• Leads to: Astronomy, Acoustics, Banking
• Benefits: Allows you to build the University, which boosts     Science. Also provides a variety of other benefits to     Science.
• Quote: "Education is the best provision for old age." - Aristotle
• Description: Education is the process by which people learn things. Obviously it has been around as long as man has. Throughout much of history, education has been an informal affair, parents teaching their children what they need to know to survive in between household chores and hunting expeditions and dodging tigers and so forth. As a tribe expanded and grew more prosperous, village elders and cripples might educate the children while the more healthy adults gathered food, built stuff or made war. Eventually a very wealthy tribe or village might have formal classes for the more important children, and once a civilization matured enough it might see the great value in education for everybody.
  
  In ancient Egypt, the priestly class served as teachers for the children of nobility. In these Egyptian schools the children were taught reading, writing, religion, history, science, medicine, mathematics and other advanced topics. In competition with Egypt, Mesopotamia had a similar educational setup for its priests and scribes - who might be copyists, librarians, or teachers. The Mesopotamian students learned reading, writing, religion, law, medicine and astrology. Education first appeared in China some three thousand years ago. Reading, writing, civic responsibility, rituals, and music formed the core curriculum.
  
  In Mayan culture, education was in the hands of the priests. The priestly class was the educated class, and they served as important advisors to the chiefs and other citizens. To become a priest a student received a rigorous education in history, writing, divination, medicine, and the calendar system.

Electricity

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1900
• Emphasis: Gold (5), Naval (5)
• Prerequisite Techs: Biology, Steam Power
• Leads to: Refrigeration, Telegraph, Radio
• Benefits: Reveals     Aluminum, a resource used for many late-game units. Also allows Cities to build the Stock Exchange, a building which boosts     Gold. Finally, it allows the training of the Destroyer, a fast ship capable of hunting down Submarines.
• Quote: "Is it a fact - or have I dreamt it - that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?" - Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Description: The first experience mankind had with electricity was in the form of shocks from electric fish, recorded by Egyptian authors as far back as 2750 BC. In the 15th century AD, the Arabs discovered that lightning was another form of electricity, and this was later confirmed by a British-American scientist named Ben Franklin in 1752. The first semi-reliable battery was made in 1800 by Alessandro Volta, and in 1821 Michael Faraday invented the electric motor.
  
  Advances in electricity in the second half of the 19th century by geniuses like Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Alexander Graham Bell and Lord Kelvin revolutionized life around the world. The telegraph, followed shortly by the telephone and then the radio, radically increased the speed and accuracy with which information could be transmitted. Once a transatlantic cable was laid, a message from New York could reach London in seconds. Before electricity, a message carried on the fastest boat would take weeks. The electric light revolutionized home and workplace, and the phonograph, radio and movie camera did the same for entertainment. The creation of power plants that pushed energy in the form of electricity into people's homes has changed human living conditions almost beyond comprehension. Driven by electricity, the "Second Industrial Revolution" saw the greatest improvement in human life since the printing press.

Electronics

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Defense (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Telegraph
• Leads to: Computers
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Mechanized Infantry, a basic speedy unit that requires no resources.
• Quote: "There's a basic principle about consumer electronics: it gets more powerful all the time and it gets cheaper all the time." - Trip Hawkins
• Description: Electronics covers the branch of technology which studies the controlled motion of electrons through various forms of media, including vacuums. This is not the same as Electrical Technology, which is concerned with the generation and distribution of power. Electronics wasn't recognized as its own field of study until 1950, when it was split off from radio technology.
  
  Electronic circuits can be classified into two distinct groups, analog or digital. Analog circuits are generally simple combinations of basic circuits, utilizing a continuous range of voltage; most modern circuits are rarely ever entirely analog in nature anymore. Digital circuits form the basis of modern computers and programmable logic controllers, as they are the most common physical representation of Boolean algebra (0's and 1's anyone?).
  
  The study and development of electronics is deeply tied to that of mathematics, and proficiency in the latter is necessary for the former. Creating and analyzing complex circuits involves solving linear systems of multiple unknown variables (like voltage and current at given locations), which is why much of today's circuit design is augmented by design automation software packages, a rather "meta" practice if you get right down to it.

Engineering

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 250
• Emphasis: Defense (2), Production (5), Tile Improvement (5)
• Prerequisite Techs: Mathematics, Construction
• Leads to: Machinery, Physics
• Benefits: Allows Workers to construct Lumbermills on forested map tiles, increasing their     Production. Also allows Workers to construct Forts on map tiles, increasing the defense of units stationed there.
• Quote: "Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and, above all others, the most useful." - Leonardo da Vinci
• Description: Engineering is the science (or art perhaps) of designing complex materials, structures, devices, and systems. In modern parlance it has a fairly wide reach - bioengineers design cells, software engineers create computer programs, and so forth - but historically the term was applied to the construction of physical stuff, like machines, bridges, railroads, factories, and so forth. (Originally the term "engineer" referred specifically to those who created military engines.)
  
  Engineering came into its own in the 19th century, as countries around the world embarked on huge construction projects. Completed by the French in 1869, the Suez Canal connected the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, making it possible to sail from Europe to India without the long and arduous journey around Africa. The United States completed the transcontinental railroad in the same year, and the Brooklyn Bridge was constructed in 1883.

Fertilizer

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 1300
• Emphasis: Growth (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Chemistry
• Leads to: Dynamite
• Benefits: Increases the     Food from Farmed tiles without Fresh Water, providing a massive boost to growth.
• Quote: "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Description: Fertilizer is a substance that feeds and speeds the growth of plants. Fertilizer has been around for as long as human civilization, dating back to the time when the first farmer realized that grass grew taller where the oxen had pooped. From that point on farmers have been collecting animal by-products and applying them to the soil, increasing the crop yield, especially from fields that have been farmed continuously for generations and thus have been stripped of most nutrients.
  
  Fertilizers generally contain nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium as their active ingredients. While historically most of the fertilizers have been organic and animal-based, many modern fertilizers are actually mined from beneath the earth's surface or chemically manufactured in vast factories.
  
  As the world's population has increased, so has the need for ever more potent fertilizers, and today's farms are far more productive than at any other time in history. However, this productivity has come at a price: rainwater from farms carries the fertilizer into streams and rivers, causing explosive growth in certain microorganisms which grow so fast they almost literally choke the life out of the waterway. Also, many modern fertilizers are created at least in part from petrochemicals, and their price can fluctuate dramatically along with the price of oil. In short, fertilizers are extremely useful and can greatly increase the world's food supply, but care must be taken to ensure that they don't do more harm to the environment than good.

Flight

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 2200
• Emphasis: Air (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Replaceable Parts
• Leads to: Radar
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Fighter, an Air Unit designed to gain control of the skies, and the Carrier, a ship capable of carrying aircraft.
• Quote: "Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle." - Igor Sikorsky
• Description: Throughout history, man has dreamed of conquering the skies. Leonardo da Vinci's visions of flight are well-known, of course, and there were many other lesser visionaries as well. The early theorists looked at the natural masters of the air, birds, and they proposed machines that emulated their wing shape and flapping motions (ornithopters). But the early designers lacked the materials, engines, and knowledge of aerodynamics to bring their visions to life.
  
  The study of aerodynamics was advanced over the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries by brilliant scientists like da Vinci, Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Bernoulli, Euler and Smeaton. In 1804 Englishman George Cayley flew a fixed-wing glider model, and in 1853 he created a full-scale model which carried his (reluctant) coachman in the first known manned glider flight.
  
  In 1902 the Wright brothers constructed their own glider with an advanced wing shape. Unable to find an experienced manufacturer to construct a light gasoline-powered engine to their specifications, they designed and built their own. On December 17, 1903 the Wright flyer flew four times, at distances up to 852 feet. The years following the Wright brothers' breakthrough saw huge and rapid improvements in the technology of flying. By 1908 American Glenn Hammond Curtiss flew over 1 kilometer (approx. six tenths of a mile), and in 1909 Frenchman Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel.
  
  World War I saw huge advances in flight technology, especially in the weaponization of the air, with the creation of fighters and bombers. By the '20s pilots were regularly flying across the continents, and in 1927 Charles Lindberg completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. World War II saw tremendous improvements in the speed, range, durability, and killing power of aircraft, and by the end of the war jet planes, continent-spanning high-altitude bombers and helicopters were in service.
  
  In the modern era, air travel has become commonplace, with a journey from the United States to China - an impossible dream only 75 years ago - being now seen as notable mostly for its tediousness. And although the airborn terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have made air travel slightly more perilous, millions of people around the world still take to the air every day. Flight is here to stay.

Future Tech

• Era: Future
• Cost: 4000
• Emphasis: Science (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Nanotechnology, Nuclear Fusion
• Leads to:
• Benefits: Who knows what the future holds?
  
  ](A repeating technology that will increase your score each time it is researched.)
• Quote: "I think we agree, the past is over." - George W. Bush
• Description: It's difficult to write a "history" for technology that hasn't actually been discovered yet. But here are some possible big breakthroughs that might dramatically alter the human condition. Sooner or later, medicine will figure out how to cure cancer and other diseases, dramatically increase human life, and directly interface the human brain with machines. Cheap, clean forms of energy will be discovered. Computers will get faster and smaller. Games will get more immersive and realistic. Nasty new weapons will be invented. And a giant killer death robot will be created to destroy all life on the planet, but we will be saved by an army of mutant kung fu cyborgs. The future will indeed be interesting!

Globalization

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Diplomacy (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Ecology
• Leads to: Particle Physics
• Benefits: A key technology, Globalization allows you to build the United Nations, a wonder necessary to win a Diplomatic Victory. Also allows you to build the Sydney Opera House, a wonder very useful when pursuing a Cultural Victory.
• Quote: "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village." - Marshall McLuhan
• Description: Not a technology or field of study, globalization describes a process by which different regional economies, cultures, languages, information, and whole societies become integrated into a larger, consolidated network. While often used just to describe economic tendencies in the world market, globalization does take into account everything from migration patterns to the spread of technology and information. While not recognized as a concept until much later, globalization has been around as early as the first trade routes that were created between distant cities.
  
  One of the earliest definitions of globalization was given by an American entrepreneur Charles Taze Russell in 1897, but it wasn't until the 1960's that the word really entered common parlance. The concept of globalization has been a driving force to both private and public sectors, with large banks opening branches across the world and separate governments joining together under one banner like the United Nations.
  
  Modern globalization has worked to break down both trade and political barriers between differing nations, in order to increase personal independence and prosperity. It promotes free trade and the elimination of tariffs, consolidation of intellectual property laws, a more open sharing of news and information, and freer movement for international travel, tourism, and immigration.

Gunpowder

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 680
• Emphasis: Defense (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Physics, Steel
• Leads to: Chemistry, Metallurgy
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Musketman, the first unit in the game which wields firearms.
• Quote: "The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops." - Alfred Nobel
• Description: Gunpowder, also known as "black powder," was invented in China, possibly as far back as the 9th century AD, by alchemists looking for an elixir of immortality (which it isn't). A mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, gunpowder burns very rapidly when exposed to flame, producing a great quantity of gasses and solids which can be employed as a propellant in firearms and in fireworks. The Chinese used gunpowder in primitive bombs and rockets against the Mongol invaders, and once they conquered China, the Mongols used them against everybody else.
  
  By the first half of the 12th century AD the Arabic world acquired knowledge of gunpowder. Some historical texts state that the Mamluks used the first cannon in history against the Mongols during the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 AD, but this is open to debate. The first "hand cannon" appears in an Arabic manuscript from the 14th century.
  
  Europe too gained knowledge of gunpowder towards the middle of the 12th century. They improved the quality of the powder by "corning" it, adding liquid to the powder to create larger grains (corns), increasing the explosive's stability.
  
  Gunpowder remained the explosive of choice in cannon and firearms until the creation of "smokeless" powder in the 19th century. The new product burned cleaner and produced far less smoke, making it superior to the old black powder.

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