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Civilization 5

Technology and Tech Tree (H to Z)

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

Horseback Riding

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 100
• Emphasis: Mobile (7), Happiness (3)
• Prerequisite Tech: The Wheel
• Leads to: Chivalry
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Horseman, a fast and powerful mounted unit.
• Quote: "My kingdom for a horse!" - Shakespeare (Richard III)
• Description: Horseback riding was developed in the second millennium BC (possibly earlier), probably by the nomadic people of Central Asia. The horse had been domesticated for some time by then, but the original animal was too small. It wasn't until a large enough animal had been bred that horseback riding became practical. One early group of nomads, the Scythians, were particularly accomplished riders; they might have invented the first saddle and stirrup (although they may have used the stirrup only for mounting and dismounting the horse). According to the Greek historians the Scythians were the first to "geld" (castrate) unruly male horses, making them much more docile and controllable.
  
  By about 1500 BC many people of the Fertile Crescent - the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Babylonians - were fighting from horseback, and at the same time horses were introduced into Egypt. By the time of Alexander the Great cavalry tactics were quite advanced, and Alexander's "Companion Cavalry" were perhaps the most effective and powerful military unit in the Mediterranean world.

Iron Working

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 150
• Emphasis: Offense (12), Defense (6), Military Training (3)
• Prerequisite Tech: Bronze Working
• Leads to: Metal Casting
• Benefits: Reveals     Iron and allows you to build the Swordsman, an extremely powerful melee unit which requires it.
• Quote: "Do not wait to strike 'til the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking." - William Butler Yeats
• Description: Iron working is older than history itself. The first iron worked probably came from meteorites; when this useful material was not to be found, the ancient people probably looked elsewhere for similar materials. Iron "smelting" - the extraction of the metal from iron ore - appears to have been discovered in the 12th century BC, in the Caucuses Mountains, Asia Minor, or possibly India. The production of wrought iron dates from approximately 1,000 BC.
  
  The oldest examples of objects made from meteor iron are found in Ancient Egypt and Sumer and date back to 4,000 BC. Iron was extremely rare at that time, and historians speculate that it may have been more valued than gold.
  
  By the 12th century BC, iron largely replaced bronze as the metal preferred for tools and weapons in the Eastern Mediterranean. The iron of the time was not a better metal than the bronze it replaced, but it was far more abundant and could be found in many places where copper and tin weren't available, making it a whole lot cheaper.
  
  The "modern" metal steel was first produced in prehistoric times, but the technology for large-scale production lagged far behind until the 17th century AD. Once steel became cheap and plentiful, it supplanted iron for most uses.

Lasers

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3000
• Emphasis: Offense (3), Mobile (3), Air (4)
• Prerequisite Techs: Radar, Combustion
• Leads to: Stealth, Advanced Ballistics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Modern Armor, an incredibly fast and powerful Armored Unit. Also allows you to build the Jet Fighter, the most powerful fighter unit in the game.
• Quote: "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." - The Holy Bible: Romans, 13:12
• Description: The term "laser" was originally spelled "LASER", as it is the acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", basically its own definition. The first scientific foundations for lasers were laid down by Albert Einstein in 1917 when he re-derived Planck's law of radiation, about the same time science fiction writers coincidentally began to describe a similar possible technology. The first functional laser wasn't demonstrated until 1960 when the Hughes Research Laboratories introduced laser technology capable of storing data via optical storage devices (like a DVD burner).
  
  Since this early laser research many different kinds of specialized lasers have been developed, ones which have been optimized for different functions like maximum firing range, output power, or utilizing different wavelength bands. While originally dubbed "a solution looking for a problem", lasers have found their way into thousands of different uses, from consumer electronics and entertainment to law enforcement and military use. Just try not to look directly into the light.

Machinery

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 440
• Emphasis: Ranged (8), Infrastructure (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Engineering
• Leads to: Printing Press
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Crossbowman, a strong medieval ranged unit. Also increases the movement rate of units traveling along Roads.
• Quote: "The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being." - Thomas Jefferson
• Description: A machine is a device with moving parts (this is true during the pre-Electronics Age, anyway) that uses energy to perform tasks. A printing press is a machine, as is a loom, a clock and a watermill. Mastery of machinery requires design and engineering skill, of course, but also the ability to manufacture machine parts to precise measurements. A steam engine will leak if it's constructed poorly - that is, if it doesn't explode. The early Machine Age was a hugely dangerous time to work around the devices - if the fumes didn't kill you then you stood a fair chance of getting scalded, sucked into the works or blown to pieces.
  
  On the other hand, once a civilization began to master complex machinery, it gave them unrivaled wealth and power. England went early into the Industrial Revolution, and by so doing the small island nation dominated world trade for nearly three centuries.

Masonry

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: City Defense (4), Happiness (2), Tile Improvement (2), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Mining
• Leads to: Construction
• Benefits: Allows you to build Walls, which greatly improve the defense of cities from attack. Also allows Workers to construct Quarries on     Marble and Clear Marshes, allowing other improvements to be constructed.
• Quote: "How happy are those whose walls already rise!" - Virgil
• Description: Masonry is the construction of structures from individual blocks bound together by some kind of mortar. The blocks may be made of stone, concrete, cinder, or they may be clay bricks. The mortar is some kind of workable paste that dries into an extremely durable material. It is usually composed of a mixture of sand, cement or lime, and water.
  
  The ancient Egyptians mastered the art of masonry as early as the fourth millennium BC, constructing their temples, palaces and pyramids from the large veins of limestone, sandstone, granite and basalt found in the hills of the Nile River. The ancient Assyrians of the Fertile Crescent lacked such easy access to stone but possessed rich deposits of clay, which they sun-dried into bricks. Since sun-dried bricks can be vulnerable to moisture, they often covered their structures with more water-resistant kiln-baked or glazed tiles.
  
  The ancient Romans invented concrete, which was a far superior mortar to that used by earlier civilizations (usually clay-based), and which could be used as a construction material in itself. This so-called "concrete revolution" allowed the Romans to construct buildings that were impossible using more primitive materials. In the 19th century a Parisian gardener thought to imbed iron mesh into his concrete tubs and pots; his invention of reinforced concrete greatly increased the "tensile strength" of the material, making it more suitable for tall structures that might be subject to stress from wind, vibration, or even earthquakes. More recent innovations have greatly increased the strength and flexibility of this most useful of all construction materials. And though many modern buildings are constructed of glass and steel, they all rest upon foundations built using the ancient construction techniques of masonry.

Mass Media

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Happiness (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Radio
• Leads to: Computers
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Stadium, which improves     Happiness in the empire, which in turn helps your city growth and makes     Golden Ages more likely.
• Quote: "The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue." - Edward R. Murrow
• Description: The term "mass media" was coined in the 1920's with the advent of the radio, but the idea of media for large audience consumption has been around since the dramas and plays of the Ancient World. Mass media has been directly driven by technology, with greater advances in publishing techniques and communications leading to even larger possible audiences being reached.
  
  Originally just applied to communication devices like radio, newspapers, and magazines, mass media now encompasses television, movies, music, paperback books, video games, and the Internet. With the advent of these globe-spanning media types has also arisen the ability to reach the masses like never before, and not always in a good way. The attempt to bias or control large amounts of information, either through nefariously minded propaganda or more innocent personal opinions being injected into facts is becoming a large problem for some governments and organizations to deal with. Invasive advertising techniques are also a byproduct of mass media, much to the annoyance of consumers everywhere. While the message may be worthwhile and it's increasingly easier for the common person to publish their ideas and artworks, getting heard in the torrential output of information now available can really be like searching for that proverbial needle in the haystack.

Mathematics

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 100
• Emphasis: Ranged (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: The Wheel, Archery
• Leads to: Currency, Engineering
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Catapult, a powerful siege weapon. Also allows you to build the Courthouse, a building which reduces the     Unhappiness from       Occupied Cities.
• Quote: "Mathematics is the gate and key to the sciences." - Roger Bacon
• Description: Mathematics may be defined as the science of order, structure and relation that has evolved from counting, measuring and describing objects and their shapes. Mathematics is the most basic building block upon which all physical science is based. The Sumerians had a remarkably robust and complex mathematical system which was "base-ten" (like the modern system) and "base-60" as well. Remnants of the "base-60" system survive today primarily in modern time-keeping - 60 seconds to the minute, 60 minutes to the hour.
  
  The Egyptians had a somewhat simpler system, developed by the scribes/tax collectors, which was capable of performing the calculations needed to support huge engineering works like the pyramids (plus, one assumes, to keep track of uncollected taxes). The Greeks divided mathematics into two spheres, "arithmetic," the study of quantity, and "geometry," the study of magnitude, or area. Their primary contribution, however, lay in the application of theory and proof to mathematics. Previous mathematical systems were based upon measurement and observation of the real world, while the Greeks looked for the mathematical rules behind the reality.
  
  The Islamic world added much to mathematics in the 8th to 15th centuries AD. Perhaps most important was the invention of the decimal system for whole numbers, and the invention of the "0" (the number zero) some time around 600 AD in India. This replaced the extremely clunky and awkward "Roman" numerical system, which now survives only in horror movie sequel enumeration.
  
  Mathematics has grown geometrically since its earliest beginnings, and through it man has split the atom, built the Internet, and constructed elaborate fantasy football leagues. Who knows what secrets it will unlock in the future?

Metallurgy

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 900
• Emphasis: Offense (4), Mobile (4), Production (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Gunpowder
• Leads to: Rifling
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Lancer, a fast mounted unit designed to hunt down other mounted units.
• Quote: "There never was a good knife made of bad steel." - Benjamin Franklin
• Description: Metallurgy is the science of metals and metallic alloys. In Civilization V the "metallurgy" technology covers the advancements in this field since the 19th century AD. In the 19th and 20th centuries, great strides have been made in all facets of metallurgy, from extraction, to the creation of new alloys, to the production of cheap, high-quality metals.
  
  Metal remains at the heart of modern civilization. Much of the world is built of steel, and what isn't is made of aluminum or titanium. Our communications networks are made of metal, and so are our vehicles, weapons, satellites and spacecraft. Without modern metallurgy 90% of the Earth's population would starve within a year.

Metal Casting

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 250
• Emphasis: Production (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Iron Working
• Leads to: Physics, Steel
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Workshop, which speeds up the production of buildings, and the Forge, which speeds the production of units.
• Quote: "When pieces of bronze or gold or iron break, the metal-smith welds them together again in the fire, and the bond is established." - Sri Guru Granth Sahib
• Description: Metal casting is the process by which a craftsman can make one or more metal objects by pouring molten metal into a mold. One of the oldest methods of making a mold is the "lost wax" procedure, which dates back at least to the third millennium BC. In this process, the craftsman creates a wax duplicate of the object around which is built the mold; the wax is then melted and flows out of the mold and is replaced by molten metal. Once the metal cools the mold is opened and the object is removed.
  
  Historically, sand and clay have been popular materials from which to construct molds. In later times molds have been constructed out of plastics and latex-like substances.

Military Science

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 1300
• Emphasis: Offense (3), Mobile (3), Military Training (3), Wonder (1)
• Prerequisite Techs: Economics, Chemistry
• Leads to: Steam Power
• Benefits: Allows you to build Cavalry, a mounted unit which can hold its own against strong infantry units.
• Quote: "Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory." - George S. Patton
• Description: Military Science is the science of using military power to achieve one's political goals. It has many branches and areas of expertise, and is generally taught in a military academy. For instance, how far can an army march in a day and how many calories does each soldier need to remain in top fighting condition? Or, how does one fight against an insurgency in our own country? Suppose we're an occupying army in another country; how does that change the approach to an insurgency? Or what's the expected survival rate from a nuclear war if we launch first?
  
  Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" is a classic book of military science. Although first published in the 6th century BC, it is still widely studied today (and remains a hugely entertaining and informative read for any amateur historian). Machiavelli's "The Prince," published posthumously in 1532, examines in detail the interaction between war and politics. In 1832, Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz published "On War," which also studies the effects of politics and economics on war.
  
  Published in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan's brilliant work, "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783," greatly influenced many American military officers and politicians and was largely responsible for the expansion of the US Navy in the early 20th century. Without this book, the United States might very well have found itself even more woefully unprepared for the World Wars, with possibly disastrous results for that country and its overseas allies.

Mining

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 35
• Emphasis: Production (3), Tile Improvement (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Agriculture
• Leads to: Masonry, Bronze Working
• Benefits: Allows Workers to construct Mines to increase the     Production of map tiles, and Chop Forests, allowing the construction of other improvements.
• Quote: "The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights." - J. Paul Getty
• Description: Mining is the process of extracting various useful substances from beneath the earth's surface. The earliest mined elements include copper, iron, diamonds, gold, silver, salt and coal. Since one can't eat any of that stuff (except for salt, of course, but you see where we're heading here), miners must be part of a community that grows enough excess food to support them and their families.
  
  The oldest mine yet discovered was found in Swaziland, Africa. It was dug some 40,000 years ago to mine ochre, a mineral used in burial ceremonies and for body art. Flint, a brittle and easily-sharpened mineral used by early man for scrapers, knives and arrowheads may have been the first item mined on a large scale in Europe. Flint mine shafts some 100 feet deep and dating back to the Neolithic Period (8000 - 2000 BC) have been discovered in France and England.
  
  Modern miners employ a variety of methods to harvest a plethora of materials from under the ground. Coal miners sometimes pulverize the tops of entire mountains to extract the precious black mineral. In Africa, a few great mining companies have dug literally miles into the ground in search of diamonds. And companies are sinking mines everywhere - from the ocean's floor to the permafrost of the frozen north - in search of the most sought after liquid of all, petroleum.

Nanotechnology

• Era: Future
• Cost: 3300
• Emphasis: Spaceship (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Particle Physics
• Leads to: Future Tech
• Benefits: Allows you to build the SS Stasis Chamber, one of the Spaceship parts necessary to win a Science Victory.
• Quote: "The impact of nanotechnology is expected to exceed the impact that the electronics revolution has had on our lives." - Richard Schwartz
• Description: Nanotechnology is an all encompassing study involving the control of any matter at the atomic or molecular scale. While often romanticized to the notion of billions of tiny robots directing the flow of individual atoms, nanotech covers any science revolving around the study or use of particles a few nanometers in size, from the creation of tiny carbon nanotubes and nanoparticle solar cells to DNA research. A nanometer (the relative size most nanotechnology is created in) is one billionth of a meter in size, about the same scale as the diameter of a marble is to that of the Earth, and it's only been in recent years that the technology capable of research on such a tiny scale has really been available. Despite its recent emergence, an estimated three to four new nanotech products per week are made publicly available, with applications ranging from clothing and cosmetics to food products and packaging.
  
  While many scientists are excited about the possible applications for the development of technology on such a miniscule scale, others are concerned about the health, environmental and ethical implications that this kind of research could produce. Calls for safety and health regulations have been made in some countries, with concerns that the nanoparticles could be accidentally released into the environment or human body and cause inadvertent toxic damage.

Navigation

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 900
• Emphasis: Naval (8), Production (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Astronomy
• Leads to: Archaeology, Scientific Theory
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Frigate, a powerful Renaissance-era warship. Also allows coastal cities to build the Seaport, which provides     Production from sea resources.
• Quote: "The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." - Edward Gibbon
• Description: Navigation is the science of finding one's way across the ocean. Early vessels rarely left sight of the coastline, which made navigation fairly simple but limited the places one could go, and also made the ships vulnerable to being driven ashore or onto dangerous rocks by contrary winds. There are few things more terrifying to a sailing vessel's captain (pre-steam engine) than being on a "lee shore" - that is, being blown directly towards a nearby shore by strong wind.
  
  Before the advent of satellites and radios and radar, ships at sea navigated by tracking their movement on a chart, or "dead reckoning." If one knew the speed and precise direction that one was moving, then one could have a pretty certain idea of where one was. However, after several weeks at sea even the minutest error in speed or direction could accumulate into big errors. If one were in the middle of the Pacific, getting low on water and sailing to the only speck of an island within a thousand miles purported to have water, a dead reckoning error could easily result in a very unpleasant end.
  
  A ship's captain could also look to the heavens to aid in navigation. If it were sunny out, Captains had delicate instruments which could tell the precise moment that the sun reached its zenith (highest point) above the ship. If they also possessed an accurate clock which was set with the correct time, they could use this information to determine their precise longitude (or distance, east or west, from the Prime Meridian - which runs through Greenwich, England). This of course required good weather, an accurate clock, and the ability to determine high noon while aboard a ship which may be rocking about in an alarming fashion. On clear nights the captains could often use the rise and fall of certain stars to give them similar information.
  
  Eventually, of course, the inventions of radio, radar, and satellites made the entire process much easier and far safer. But even today captains routinely drive their ships aground or crash them into bridge abutments - and these are ships with engines. Imagine the skill needed to keep a sailing vessel on the correct course.

Nuclear Fission

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3000
• Emphasis: Ranged (6), Production (4)
• Prerequisite Tech: Atomic Theory
• Leads to: Advanced Ballistics
• Benefits: Allows you to build Atomic Bombs, the first nuclear weapon in the game (note: you must first have completed the Manhattan Project and have     Uranium available). Also allows you to build the Nuclear Plant, a building which requires     Uranium and increases the     Production of a City.
• Quote: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." - J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Description: Nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nuclei of radioactive atoms break down (undergo fission), releasing neutrons which then crash into other atoms, causing them to break down and release even more neutrons. If there is enough radioactive material the fission may become self-sustaining, releasing a lot of energy at a controlled rate - say, in a nuclear reactor - or in a wildly uncontrolled rate - say, in a nuclear weapon.
  
  Nuclear fission produces a lot of energy - many millions of times more than say an equal weight of gasoline - but in the process it produces a good deal of very hard to manage waste. Also, it can kill people: fairly slowly, if they're exposed to the radioactive material, or extremely rapidly if the chain reaction gets out of hand and the material explodes.
  
  Nuclear fission occurs rarely in nature, with the last known episode on Earth occurring some 2 billion years ago. Since then the fissile material has decayed, making natural fission all but impossible on this planet.
  
  In 1917 New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was the first man to split the atom. In 1934 Italian Enrico Fermi experimented with bombarding uranium with neutrons. In the same year Ida Noddack postulated the idea of nuclear fission - ie, a sustained nuclear reaction. In 1938 German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann successfully created the first actual nuclear chain reaction.
  
  With the onset of World War II, the race to create a nuclear bomb went into high gear. After receiving a letter describing the potential deadliness of a nuclear weapon from refugees Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, American President Franklin Roosevelt formed a scientific and military task force to create such a weapon ahead of the Germans, who were also known to be looking at the problem. Scientists from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom worked cooperatively on the weapon, in a project codenamed "The Manhattan Project."
  
  After five long hard years of feverish work, the Manhattan Project scientists successfully created and tested a nuclear weapon. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States of America dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The initial blasts killed approximately 120,000 Japanese within the first day, with another equal amount dying in the following three months of burns, radiation poisoning, and other traumatic injuries. Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 15, 1945.
  
  In the years since the Second World War, no other atomic bombs have been deployed in battle (though many have been tested). The United States, Russia, England, and France still have large nuclear stockpiles (with the US and Russians holding the vast majority), while countries like China, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea have also joined the "nuclear club." Currently the US is strenuously attempting to keep Iran from developing these weapons but the ultimate success or failure of this effort is yet unknown.

Nuclear Fusion

• Era: Future
• Cost: 3600
• Emphasis: Offense (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Satellites, Stealth, Advanced Ballistics
• Leads to: Future Tech
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Giant Death Robot, the strongest unit in the game.
• Quote: "The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." - Albert Einstein
• Description: Occurring naturally in stars, nuclear fusion is the act of multiple like-charged atoms joining together to form a heavier, larger one, like two hydrogen atoms fusing to become a helium atom. A byproduct of this joining is a large release or absorption of energy, considerably more than the amount of energy required to fuse the two nuclei in the first place. Harnessing the power of fusion in a controlled manner has been the focus of energy research since the 1950's, after witnessing the power of an uncontrolled chain of reactions in the first hydrogen bomb.
  
  Fusion can be broken down into two grossly oversimplified categories: reactions that produce energy and reactions that consume energy. Fusion between the lighter elements and any of their isotopes (anything smaller than Iron or atomic weight 26) will generally release energy while fusing nuclei from any of the heavier elements tends to consume energy. The reverse is actually true for fission.
  
  It takes a good amount of energy to have two nuclei overcome their positive charges and fuse together, even when dealing with the lightest element - hydrogen. However, some scientists believe that by 2020 it may be possible to build a reactor which is not only capable of controlling and mediating such a reaction, but also producing ten times the amount of energy used to create it. This kind of available energy could revolutionize the entire world's infrastructure and change the way even the smallest technological feats are achieved.

Optics

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 80
• Emphasis: Naval (5), Naval Growth (5)
• Prerequisite Tech: Sailing
• Leads to: Compass
• Benefits: Allows land units to Embark onto water tiles and travel the ocean. Also allows you to build the Lighthouse in coastal cities, improving     Food output from water tiles, speeding their growth.
• Quote: "He made an instrument to know If the moon shine at full or no." - Samuel Butler
• Description: Optics is the study of light and vision. The earliest and most important optical challenges were centered upon aiding the perception of the human eye - letting it see greater distances, or allowing it to look at very small objects, or in darkness. The first lenses were developed by the ancient Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. The oldest lenses, made from polished crystal, date back to 700 BC. The Greeks and Romans created crude lenses by filling glass spheres with water. In "Optics," Euclid described the mathematical rules of perception and examined refraction. In the eighth century AD Islamic scholars studied optics in depth, writing learned treatises on refraction and the construction of lenses and mirrors.
  
  The first wearable eyeglasses were invented in Italy in the 12th century, and the first primitive telescopes in the 15th, as was the first microscope. Though not very good by today's standards, these instruments greatly expanded man's ability to perceive the world around him and to navigate the world's uncharted oceans.

Particle Physics

• Era: Future
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Science (5), Spaceship (5)
• Prerequisite Techs: Globalization, Robotics, Satellites
• Leads to: Nanotechnology
• Benefits: Allows you to build the SS Engine, one of the Spaceship parts necessary to win a Science Victory.
• Quote: "Every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances." - Isaac Newton
• Description: Particle physics takes us one step deeper into the understanding of the nature of matter and energy than its ancestor, "atomic theory." While the term "atom" wasn't coined until 1803 by chemist John Dalton, the idea that all matter can be broken down into smaller and smaller fundamental building blocks can be traced back as far as the 6th century B.C. Modern particle physics, or more properly the study of quantum mechanics, didn't fully begin until 1838 with the discovery of cathode rays by Michael Faraday, which helped prove that atoms - until then the smallest known objects in science - were in fact composed of even smaller particles.
  
  In general, the basic foundation of quantum theory can be summed up by the Standard Model, a categorization of the seventeen species of elementary particles: 12 fermions, 4 vector bosons, and 1 scalar boson (not protons and neutrons as commonly taught in lower levels of schooling - these are actually made up of quarks, different flavors of fermions). Particles associated with matter are categorized as fermions (having a half-integer spin) and particles associated with forces, the bosons, have an integer spin. From these 17 basic particles, hundreds of other species of composite and fundamental particles can be created.
  
  While many particle physicists believe that there still exists some greater understanding to be uncovered, studies in particle physics have shown that it is possible to transmute lead into gold (although not economically so) and that such fantasies of the science fiction world as Dark Matter and the Great Theory of Everything may in fact exist.

Penicilin

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Growth (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Refrigeration
• Leads to: Ecology
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Medical Lab, a building which speeds the     growth of your Cities.
• Quote: "In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men." - Cicero
• Description: Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from a certain fungus. Antibiotics fight and kill bacteria, tiny life-forms, some of which - plague, syphilis, and leprosy, to name but three - are quite detrimental to human health and well-being. It is believed that the use of a primitive form of penicillin dates back to medieval times, when moldy bread was employed to treat suppurating wounds. The scientific discovery of the antibiotic is attributed to Alexander Fleming in 1928, with the first official medical use some two years later by pathologist Cecil George Paine. As its use has grown, some bacteria have developed a tolerance for penicillin and a wide range of other antibiotics have been invented to deal with the new drug-resistant strains. Still, penicillin and its heirs remain important weapons in the physician's unending battle with the deadly menace of bacteria.

Philosophy

• Era: Classical
• Cost: 100
• Emphasis: Science (3), Culture (3), Great People (2), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Writing
• Leads to: Theology, Civil Service
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Temple, which increases the     Culture output of a city. Also provides new     Science-related abilities, like the Research Agreement, which is a special deal that may be made with other players in the game.
• Quote: "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." - Socrates
• Description: Philosophy is the study of reality and man's place in it. The word comes from the Greek/Latin "philosophia," or love of wisdom. It is somewhat separate from religion, which seeks to define and understand some supernatural system - philosophy takes a step back and asks if that supernatural system even exists. Philosophy deals with logic, morality, observation, realism, happiness, life, death, and all of the other big questions.
  
  The Greeks are generally credited with the invention of philosophy in western civilization. In the 6th century BC Thales of Miletus was the first man known to give a purely natural (non-religious) explanation for the origin of the world. He believed that everything came out of water; this theory was based upon his viewing of fossilized sea animals far inland. This explanation required no creative action by a supernatural being; it was a result of natural properties. Later philosophers would expand upon this most basic theory - except of course for those philosophers who chose to deny that anything exists at all, and those who decided that the world was but a reflection of some other place anyway, and so forth. The problem with examining reality is that the deeper one looks, the more confusing everything gets.
  
  At its best, philosophy provides tools which one can use to observe and make judgments about the world around them, to think about things that haven't been considered before. Like any other tool it can be used for good or for evil, but philosophy at least seeks to provide the intellectual structure to help one decide which is which.

Physics

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 440
• Emphasis: Ranged (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Engineering, Metal Casting
• Leads to: Printing Press, Gunpowder
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Trebuchet, a very useful siege unit specialized in weakening enemy cities.
• Quote: "Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so." - Galileo
• Description: Physics is the study of matter and it is the basic physical science. Originally termed "natural science," it is concerned with everything in the observable universe, from the smallest particle to the largest galaxy. Physics is concerned with gravity, light, heat, and magnetism. Over time, as human knowledge has expanded exponentially, physics has split into numerous sub-disciplines such as astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology and engineering, but all are basically concerned with measuring and explaining natural phenomena.
  
  In 1687, Isaac Newton published his masterwork "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica," which revolutionized physics. In simple terms, Newton's first law, known as the law of inertia, states that an object at rest will remain at rest while an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force. His second law describes the changes that force can produce on the motions of a body as a formula, force equals mass times acceleration. His third law, known as the law of action and reaction, states that when two objects interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, or more popularly, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
  
  Newton's laws ruled physics until the 20th century, when they were replaced by the laws of relativity and quantum mechanics, breakthroughs which have changed the world as much as Newton's discoveries did back in the 17th century.

Plastic

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Production (3), Science (5), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Refrigeration
• Leads to: Ecology
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Research Lab, a building which improves     Science in a City. Also allows you to build the Hydro Plant, which increases     Production from tiles next to a River.
• Quote: "Ben, I want to say one word to you, just one word: plastics." - Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, The Graduate
• Description: Plastic is a lightweight, transparent and tough material that does not conduct electricity well. Plastic comes in many different forms, some tougher, some more flexible, some with a greater or lesser tolerance to heat. Plastic can be molded, pressed or extruded into virtually any shape desired. It's found in every facet of modern life, used in everything from automobile bumpers to prosthetic limbs, from baby food jars to infantry weapons. It's one of the most crucial building-blocks of the 21st century.
  
  The first human-made plastic was invented by Englishman Alexander Parkes in 1855. The product, Parkensine, was made from cellulose (plant cell material), and was used as a replacement for ivory, which was becoming ever more difficult to find as the whale population was diminishing world-wide.
  
  The first entirely synthetic plastic was Bakelite, invented in 1909 by Belgian-American inventor Leo Hendrik Baekeland. Bakelite was cheap, strong, and durable. It was used to construct radios, telephones, utensil handles, piano keys, and billiard balls. Although quite tough, Bakelite is also quite brittle. It has been largely replaced by cheaper and more flexible plastics like polystyrene, PVC, nylon, and even more exotic variants created in the 20th century.
  
  Although relatively cheap at the moment, most plastic requires a lot of petrochemicals to manufacture. As that fuel becomes more expensive, so too will plastic. It is possible that some new miracle material will eventually supplant the ubiquitous plastic sometime in the future, but for now plastic is irreplaceable.

Pottery

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 35
• Emphasis: Growth (5)
• Prerequisite Tech: Agriculture
• Leads to: Sailing, Calendar, Writing
• Benefits: Allows your cities to build the Granary, which provides     Food, helping your cities grow larger.
• Quote: "Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?" - The Bible, Isaiah, 45:9
• Description: Pottery is one of the oldest and most useful of all of the arts. In pottery, objects are built out of clay and then placed in an oven and subject to extremely high temperatures. The resulting product is extremely brittle but is also airtight and virtually impervious to corrosion, oxidation, infestation, and the other destructive forces that would attack items made of metal, wood or cloth. The earliest pottery objects include jugs and containers to hold liquids or grains, as well as cooking pots, serving bowls, plates, and cups.
  
  The first kind of pottery discovered was earthenware, dating back some 9,000 years. This pottery is somewhat porous and is usually covered with a more watertight material (called "slip"), or it can be glazed. Earthenware pottery is extremely durable and remains in wide use today. Stoneware is pottery that has been baked ("fired") at extremely high temperatures until the clay is "vitrified" - glasslike and nonporous. This process was discovered in China around 1400 BC. Porcelain was invented in China around the sixth century AD. It is similar to stoneware (in fact, a line of demarcation between the two is open to debate), but porcelain products are generally more translucent and delicate.

Printing Press

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 650
• Emphasis: Happiness (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Machinery, Physics
• Leads to: Economics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Theatre, a building which increases     Happiness in the empire and makes     Golden Ages more likely.
• Quote: "It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell." - The Chicago Times
• Description: While movable type was invented in China, as far as can be determined, the first mechanized printing press was invented in the mid-fifteenth century by German printer Johannes Gutenberg. The earliest printing presses were wooden machines, very similar in design to the wine and olive oil presses which had been used around the Mediterranean for centuries.
  
  In the original presses, the type was laid out in reverse on a wooden "platen" which held it tightly in position. Ink was applied to the type on the platen, then the paper was placed atop the platen in the press. The craftsmen turned the screw to put pressure on the paper and bring it into contact with the inked type. The printer then removed the paper and reinked the type, and the process began once again. Gutenberg's press could turn out some 250 sheets per hour (printed on one side). His design remained unchanged for some three hundred years, until it was supplanted by metal machines. By the nineteenth century, presses were powered by steam, and capable of producing some 7500 sheets per hour.
  
  The value of the printing press to human knowledge cannot be overstated. Before the press, few books were in print, and those that were might cost more than the average worker made in a year. Cambridge University Library had just over 100 books when the press was invented; within an astonishingly short time common folks could afford to have bibles and other books in their homes. Within 60 years the first printed "news book" (forerunner to the newspaper) appeared in England.

Radar

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 2600
• Emphasis: Air (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Techs: Radio, Flight
• Leads to: Rocketry, Lasers
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Bomber, a deadly air unit capable of delivering death from afar. Also allows you to build the Paratrooper, a late-game infantry unit capable of paradropping behind enemy lines.
• Quote: "Vision is the art of seeing things invisible." - Jonathan Swift
• Description: Radar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify faraway objects like ships or airplanes. Coined in 1941, the term "RADAR" is an acronym for "Radio Detection And Ranging."
  
  In 1904 Christian Hulsmeyer was able to detect the presence of a ship in dense fog. Later that year he made improvements which allowed the set to determine the object's distance.
  
  In August of 1917 inventor Nikola Tesla designed the first primitive radar units, allowing the user to "determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the same, or its speed."
  
  As the Second World War approached, all of the industrialized world powers were working feverishly on radar. The British were the furthest along at the outbreak of the war, with a system capable of spotting incoming aircraft while still a great distance from vulnerable British cities. (Their research was spurred on by the rumor that the Germans were working on a death ray.) Their system was highly secret, and during the war the British claimed that their human airplane spotters were responsible for their success at intercepting German attacks.
  
  By war's end all advanced countries had made major strides in radar technology, and by mid-century the technology was spreading across the world for civilian uses, primarily in air traffic control. With the possible exception of certain advanced stealth aircraft, it is now almost impossible for an airplane to enter the airspace of any industrialized nation without being spotted by some radar somewhere.

Radio

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 2200
• Emphasis: Air (2), Culture (6), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Electricity
• Leads to: Mass Media, Radar
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Broadcast Tower, a building which doubles the     Cultural output of a city. Also allows you to train Anti-Aircraft Guns, useful for thwarting enemy aircraft.
• Quote: "The whole country was tied together by radio. We all experienced the same heroes and comedians and singers. They were giants." - Woody Allen
• Description: Radio is the technology of transmitting information to a remote receiver by modifying a "carrier wave's" amplitude, frequency, or duration. In less technical terms, somewhere a transmitter translates sounds into waves which it broadcasts into the atmosphere. Distant radio receivers can pick up these waves and translate them back into sound.
  
  A radio is a complicated and intricate machine. It required hundreds of years of research and development by scientists and physicists like Michael Faraday, James Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz, and Guglielmo Marconi.
  
  Marconi was an Italian physicist working on creating a wireless telegraph. In 1894 Marconi managed to send a signal some 30 yards. He continued to refine the technology and by 1901 he successfully transmitted a signal across the Atlantic Ocean. He continued to work in the field, and by the '20s began development of shortwave wireless, which would become the basis for most modern long-distance radio communication.
  
  The first radio program was broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1906. The first newscast was made on August 31, 1920, in Detroit, Michigan. By the end of the '20s radios were becoming ubiquitous in the United States and Europe.
  
  Radios played an important role in the Second World War. In addition to allowing communication between airplanes and ships, they also allowed the combatant governments to broadcast news and propaganda to their own citizens and to enemies alike. Hitler, Churchill, and Roosevelt were all masters of the medium. Radio remained wildly popular in the postwar years, particularly in the United States, which saw a huge growth of networks and transmitting stations. It remained the dominant form of entertainment until the advent of television in the 1950s.
  
  Although diminished by the upstart technologies of TV and the Internet, radio remains a viable and important source of news and entertainment for people around the world. Like rock and roll, it's here to stay.

Railroad

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1900
• Emphasis: Infrastructure (8), Production (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Steam Power
• Leads to: Combustion
• Benefits: Allows Workers to build Railroads on map tiles. Connecting Cities with them will increase     Production, and Units traveling along them will move more quickly.
• Quote: "The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man." - Thomas Jefferson
• Description: The earliest railroads were constructed in European mines in the 16th century. These consisted of wheeled carts that rode upon tracks. They were pulled by men or animals (usually horses or donkeys). The first aboveground steam-powered railroad was constructed in England in 1825, and once the technology proved successful, construction took off around the world. Construction of the first American road, the Baltimore and Ohio, began in 1828. Within a century every continent in the world had a significant rail network.
  
  The importance of railroads to world development cannot be overstated. Before the transcontinental railroad crossed the United States a journey from New York to San Francisco took months. The same journey took seven days by rail and cost just $65 dollars. Once the rail was completed, the European population of the American West and Midwest exploded. Towns located on rail lines grew rich, while those without railroad terminals withered and died.
  
  With the invention and mass production of automobiles and trucks in the 20th century, railroads have somewhat diminished in importance, particularly in the automobile-crazy United States. However, they remain an extremely economical and (relatively) environmentally-friendly way to move goods and people, and all indications suggest that they will be making a strong comeback in the near future.

Refrigeration

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 2200
• Emphasis: Naval (8), Production (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Electricity
• Leads to: Plastic, Penicilin
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Submarine, a ship invisible to all units except Destroyers and other Submarines.
• Quote: "And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food." - William Wordsworth
• Description: Refrigeration is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or from a substance. The primary purpose for refrigeration has always been to preserve food, with air conditioning a strong second in developed nations in the latter decades of the 20th century.
  
  Before mechanical methods were invented, many wealthier cultures refrigerated their foodstuffs in cellars insulated with straw, using ice brought down from mountains. Ancient India and Egypt used evaporative cooling, in which large shallow trays were filled with water. As the water evaporated, the remaining water in the tray cooled rapidly. In fact, a well-designed evaporative system could be used to create ice, even in the warmest climates.
  
  Mechanical refrigeration relies on the cooling effect of the rapid expansion of gas, typically Freon or some other inert substance. The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated in 1748 in Scotland by William Cullen, but it would be over a century before an American, Alexander C. Twinning, would create the first practical commercial application of refrigeration in 1856. Several years later refrigerators were introduced in the meatpacking and brewing industries, and by 1914 their use was widespread. By the middle of the 20th century mechanical refrigeration trucks replaced the old ice-carrying vehicles. Home-use refrigerators were introduced in the 1920s, and by 1950 "ice boxes" were all but extinct.
  
  The modern air conditioner was invented in 1902 by Willis Carrier in Buffalo, New York. Originally used to keep the air at a specific temperature in factories where delicate manufacturing processes took place, by the 1920s the size and expense of the units had declined significantly, to the point where they began to be installed in movie theatres in large numbers. Window units began to appear in American houses following World War II, and by the '50s over a million units were installed across the country.
  
  Often taken for granted, refrigeration is one of the most important technological innovations in human history, and much of modern life would be impossible - or at least a lot sweatier - without it.

Replaceable Parts

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1900
• Emphasis: Defense (8), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Steam Power
• Leads to: Flight, Combustion
• Benefits: Allows you to build Infantry, a basic Industrial Era land unit, and the Anti-Tank Gun, a weapon specialized in defeating enemy Tanks.
• Quote: "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." - Henry Ford
• Description: Replaceable parts is a kind of manufacturing process by which many duplicate copies of an item are fabricated, each of them identical component parts. This process allows for a tremendous increase in the speed and profitability of manufacturing, which in turn helped fuel the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century.
  
  One of the major impetuses for replaceable parts was the desire to issue firearms to soldiers. Originally, muskets were created by craftsmen, and each might differ slightly from the next - one craftsman might make his rifle slightly longer, while another might give his a larger or smaller trigger. For the individual this was not necessarily a problem - if his musket broke he could return it to the craftsman who first made it for repairs. Of course this was not feasible for an army with a thousand muskets.
  
  However, if all were identical then a part from a broken musket could be used to repair another. Further, a soldier who had trained with one musket could pick up another and expect it to perform in much the same fashion, without having to get used to a new weapon's particular design features.
  
  Now, almost every manufactured good on the planet is constructed of replaceable parts. Craftsmen have become artists, their wares too expensive for most average consumers.

Rifling

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 1425
• Emphasis: Defense (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Metallurgy
• Leads to: Dynamite
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Rifleman, a front-line infantry unit of the Renaissance Era.
• Quote: "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
• Description: Rifling is the process of making spiral grooves in the barrel of a cannon or firearm which imparts a spin on the projectile. The spin stabilizes the projectile, greatly increasing its accuracy. Rifling was invented in Vienna in the 15th century. However, the early process was extremely expensive and time-consuming, and it did not see popular use for some three centuries. By the early eighteenth century rifles were used by sharpshooters in armies across Europe and the world.
  
  By mid-century the Minie rifle and ball were making rifled muskets more accurate and deadly. These guns and others like them saw extensive use during the American Civil War, and probably inflicted more casualties than all other rifle or musket types combined.
  
  By the end of the American Civil War the Minies were being replaced by breech-loading cartridge-firing rifles, which were far faster to load and fire than the muskets. These rifles, like the Springfield Model 1865 and its heirs, would remain the American infantryman's rifle right up to World War I, when the first automatic rifles were invented. During the modern era most infantrymen carry some version of an assault rifle like the American M16 or the Russian AK-47. These deadly weapons give today's soldiers firepower equal to dozens of Civil War veterans.

Robotics

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Naval (4), Spaceship (6)
• Prerequisite Tech: Computers
• Leads to: Particle Physics
• Benefits: An important technology for the Space Race, Robotics allows you to build the Spaceship Factory, a building which speeds the construction of Spaceship parts. It also allows you to build the SS Booster, one of the Spaceship parts required to win a Science Victory.
• Quote: "1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except when such orders would conflict with the First Law.3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." - Isaac Asimov
• Description: While various forms of automatons and machines have been in evidence from as early as the first century A.D., the first fully autonomous machine didn't appear until the mid 20th century. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov unknowingly coined the term "robotics" in his 1941 short story "Liar!," figuring that the word must already be in use since other ones like "electronics" were. The study of robotics covers all aspects of their electronic, mechanical, and software design, and the different ways in which they sense and interact with the world around them.
  
  Simple industrial robots have been in use since the early 1960's, but more powerful and sophisticated ones are always in development. While definitely helpful in factories performing repetitive precision-driven tasks, robotics are being pushed to create life-like prosthetic limbs, humanoid-style robots walking upright, and robots capable of recognizing and producing humanesque gestures, emotions, and expressions.
  
  While the entertainment industry has made billions playing off the fear that robots will suddenly rise up and enslave their former masters, robotics is still grossly limited by the development of A.I., or artificial intelligence. They may be great at performing a set series of given tasks or instructions, but robots are still not fully capable of autonomous thought or reasoning, limiting their use somewhat in the foreseeable future (so it may be some time before we are conquered by self-aware vacuum cleaners).

Rocketry

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3000
• Emphasis: Ranged (3), Air (3), Spaceship (4)
• Prerequisite Tech: Radar
• Leads to: Satellites
• Benefits: An important technology, Rocketry allows you to build the Apollo Program, a project necessary to win a Science Victory. Also allows you to build the Rocket Artillery and Helicopter Gunship military units.
• Quote: "A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode." - Astronautics Magazine, 1937
• Description: The earliest known rocket flight is a bit contested, although it is generally believed that it occurred sometime around 1230 A.D. in China, during a military operation. The first actual recorded flight did occur in China in 1264 as part of an internal-combustion firework. These early rockets used solid fuel, usually gunpowder, and did not fly very far, perhaps only 2000 feet.
  
  The invention of modern rocketry can be attributed directly to Professor Robert Goddard when he postulated that fuel should be burned in a small, separate combustion chamber, the rocket should be built in separable stages, and that the exhaust speed could be increased by using a special hour-glass shaped nozzle called a De Laval nozzle. Up to this point rockets burned all their fuel in one large solid chamber and weren't capable of going exceptionally fast or travelling intercontinental distances.
  
  Rockets now commonly use a combination of liquid fuels which are able to accelerate the rocket to hypersonic speeds with great efficiency for a relatively low price. Besides their obvious military use to propel warheads across great distances, rockets are also used for fireworks, ejection seats, scientific atmospheric research, and of course, spaceflight.

Sailing

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: Naval (3), Naval Tile Improvement (3), Wonder (2), Naval Recon (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Pottery
• Leads to: Optics
• Benefits: Allows you to build military and economic ships, useful for exploration and harvesting resources in the water like     Fish and     Pearls.
• Quote: "He who commands the sea has command of everything." - Themistocles
• Description: Sailing is the art of harnessing the power of the wind to move a boat over the water. To be successful, sailing required the mastery of a number of diverse skills. First, the culture must be able to construct a seaworthy craft. Second, they must be able to construct some sort of sturdy sheets (sails) which can catch the wind and transmit its energy to the hull. Third they must be able to build the various ropes and cleats and pulleys used to control the ship's sails, and finally they must be able to successfully navigate the vessel from point to point without getting lost or capsizing or suffering some other misfortune.
  
  The earliest recorded evidence of watercraft can be found in illustrations in Egypt which date from around 4,000 BC. As a riparian (river-based) civilization, the Egyptians were excellent sailors. Many of their vessels contained both oars and sails, the former being used when the winds weren't strong enough or weren't coming from a favorable direction.
  
  By 3000 BC the Egyptians were venturing out into the Mediterranean Sea in their vessels, steering the lengthy journey across the open water to Crete and later Phoenicia. The Egyptians also sailed down the coast of Africa, looking for knowledge, trade and treasure.
  
  The earliest warships - biremes and triremes and the like - were powered by oar and sail and possessed rams or beaks on their prows. During battle the helmsman would attempt to ram the enemy vessel at high speed, while avoiding the enemy's earnest attempts to do the same thing. Some vessels were equipped with archers to fire at enemy craft from longer distance, while others had soldiers aboard; these vessels sought to come alongside the enemy craft so that their soldiers could board the other ship and take it by storm.
  
  The Greeks - especially the Athenians and the island colonies - were masters at naval warfare. One of the reasons that they were able to defeat their much larger and more powerful neighbor, Persia, was that the Athenian navy dominated the Aegean Sea and thus constantly threatened the Persians' increasingly lengthy supply chain.

Satellites

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Ranged (4), Spaceship (6)
• Prerequisite Tech: Rocketry
• Leads to: Particle Physics, Nuclear Fusion
• Benefits: Allows you to build the SS Cockpit, one of the Spaceship parts necessary to win a Science Victory.
• Quote: "Now, somehow, in some new way, the sky seemed almost alien." - Lyndon B. Johnson
• Description: In the context of a technology, Satellites covers the study and development of artificial, orbital bodies - not naturally occurring ones like the Moon. Man-made satellites had been a major source of inspiration for science fiction writers through the early 1900's, with visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke laying out plans for a network of mass communications satellites long before such things were technologically feasible.
  
  Satellites remained the stuff of fiction, however, until 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched its first satellite, Sputnik 1. Not only proving that it was in fact possible to put a manmade object into a sustained orbital path around the Earth, the launch also triggered the start of the Space Race between the Soviets and the United States. Later in 1957 Sputnik 2 was launched carrying the first living passenger into space, a dog named Laika. A year later the U.S. launched its first, Explorer 1.
  
  From this race between two rivals, thousands of super specialized satellites have been launched into orbit from over fifty different originating countries. With the obvious militaristic and spy applications aside, satellites are used for mass communication (Clarke was right in the end), GPS and navigation, weather research and observation and entertainment broadcasting to name a few. The largest satellite currently in orbit is the International Space Station.

Scientific Theory

• Era: Renaissance
• Cost: 1300
• Emphasis: Science (10)
• Prerequisite Techs: Navigation, Acoustics
• Leads to: Biology, Steam Power
• Benefits: Reveals     Coal, an important industrial resource. Also allows you to build the Public School, which increases     Science in Cities.
• Quote: "Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination." - John Dewey
• Description: Scientific theory is a way to view the world, in which the viewer uses the "scientific method" to learn about the universe. Through careful observation and experiments a scientist creates a theory to explain some phenomenon. If other scientists can through experimentation confirm the scientist's theory, it is then accepted as "empirical" (experimental) law (at least until some new observation or experimentation successfully challenges it). If a scientist's experiments cannot be duplicated by others, then his or her theories must be regarded with deep skepticism.
  
  Although prevalent in most advanced countries in the world today, scientific theory is not the only way that people look at the world. Some people look to divine revelation - as written down in a holy book, say - to explain the universe. If observation or experimentation conflicts with the revelation, then the observation or experimentation must have been flawed or corrupted. These two different methods of seeing the world have been in tension for centuries, and will probably continue to be so for years to come.

Stealth

• Era: Modern
• Cost: 3350
• Emphasis: Air (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Lasers
• Leads to: Nuclear Fusion
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Stealth Bomber, the most powerful Ranged Unit in the game.
• Quote: "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." - Sun Tzu
• Description: The concept or practice of stealth is not a new one in the progress of human development, but modern stealth technology takes the idea of "not being seen" to a whole new level. Stealth technology is really a combination of multiple military disciplines and tactics expanding beyond what the human eye can see, trying to both hide and detect objects by radar, acoustics, thermal readings, or other less readily visible methods.
  
  Camouflage uniforms are one of the earliest and more simplistic methods by attempting to make an object blend into the background behind it, but many advances in technology have created the need for more dynamic and sophisticated methods of hiding and detecting hidden objects. Now thermal chemicals are injected into cloth, ships are fabricated from special radar-absorbing materials, and planes' infrared signatures are hidden with ingenious new exhaust systems. While it may not always be possible to completely make a given object invisible from all modes of detection, modern stealth vehicles and "spy" planes have changed the way militaristic operations are executed, giving countries with the know-how or ability to create these vehicles a huge advantage.

Steam Power

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 1680
• Emphasis: Naval (6), Production (4)
• Prerequisite Techs: Scientific Theory, Military Science
• Leads to: Electricity, Replaceable Parts, Railroad
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Factory, a building which requires     Coal and greatly increases the     Production of Cities. Also allows you to build the Ironclad, a powerful warship only capable of traveling in coastal waters.
• Quote: "The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communication all the world will become as one family." - Townsend Harris
• Description: When heated, water produces steam. Steam expands under pressure, and in a steam engine part of the heat energy is captured and used to raise and lower a piston or turn a rotor. The principles behind steam power were known by the ancient Greeks, but no one had figured out how to put it to practical use until the late 17th century, when Englishman Thomas Savery created a steam-powered pump designed to raise water from mines. In 1765 James Watt greatly improved the steam engine to the point that it could be used in a wide variety of applications. By 1802 steam engines were being installed in boats, and by 1825, steam railroads were in operation.
  
  Steam power revolutionized industry and transportation across the world. Within a century the globe was crisscrossed by rail lines and steamship routes. Massive steam-powered factories were turning out tens of millions of tons of commercial goods (as well as military hardware). The industrialized countries enjoyed a huge increase in productivity and wealth (and pollution). Coal, the primary energy source used in steam engines, was being feverishly mined around the planet. A large portion of Great Britain's global military strategy centered upon protecting naval coaling stations at strategic locations across the world's oceans.
  
  Eventually steam engines would be replaced by internal combustion engines, which were far more efficient and emitted less pollution. But before petroleum, steam was king, and the modern world would never have existed without it.

Steel

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 440
• Emphasis: Offense (10)
• Prerequisite Tech: Metal Casting
• Leads to: Gunpowder
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Longswordsman, a deadly medieval melee unit.
• Quote: John Henry said to his Captain,"'A man ain't nothin' but a man, And before I'll let your steam drill beat me down, I'll die with the hammer in my hand.'" - Anonymous: The Ballad of John Henry, the Steel-Drivin' Man
• Description: Steel is an alloy (mixture) of iron and carbon. Depending upon the ratio of iron to carbon, the resulting metal may be far stronger, more flexible, and possess a greater ability to resist corrosion. Iron was first worked as early as 2000 BC, and from the very beginning small quantities of steel were also produced. Generally iron was produced in two forms: wrought iron and cast iron, the former being more flexible, the latter harder and more brittle, but far cheaper to make.
  
  In 1751, the English inventor Benjamin Huntsman established a steelworks factory in Sheffield, England. Huntsman's factory employed the "crucible process" to make steel, and this methodology quickly spread across Europe and the United States and eventually into Asia and the rest of the world. The next big advance came in the United States of America in 1855, when American inventor Henry Bessemer came up with the so-called "Bessemer process" of making steel. With some refinements this allowed for a dramatic increase in steel production worldwide. By the beginning of the 20th century world steel production had reached some 50 million tons annually.

Telegraph

• Era: Industrial
• Cost: 2200
• Emphasis: City Defense (3), Naval (5), Wonder (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Electricity
• Leads to: Electronics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Battleship, the mightiest front-line warship in the game. Also allows you to build the Military Base in your Cities, increasing their     Combat Strength and making them harder to capture.
• Quote: "I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately." - Mark Twain
• Description: The electric telegraph is the first mechanical device capable of transmitting information rapidly over distances greater than the eye can see. Before the telegraph, the fastest way to pass information between Europe and North America was by clipper ship, which could make the voyage in perhaps 10-20 days, depending upon the weather. After the transatlantic telegraph was introduced, that same information could be transmitted in minutes.
  
  The telegraph required a series of important inventions before it could be implemented. In 1800 Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic cell; in 1820 Hans Christian Orsted of Denmark discovered that a magnetic needle could be deflected by wire carrying electric current; and in 1831 Faraday of Britain and Henry of the US refined the science of electromagnetism sufficiently enough to allow the creation of electromagnetic devices.
  
  In 1837, American Samuel Morse was granted a patent on an electronic telegraph, while at the same time William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone of Great Britain obtained a British patent on a different telegraph system. By 1844 Morse had a wire strung along the railroad lines between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland. The first message sent was "What hath God Wrought!" Within a few years telegraph lines were strung along most British and American railroads, and they rapidly spread across the entire world. In the 1860s the first transatlantic cables were laid.
  
  The telegraph remained the primary means of long-distance communication for almost a century, until it was replaced by various new inventions including the telephone and radio. During its existence it brought the world together in a way that had never been seen before in the history of mankind. It is arguable that no invention since - including the Internet - has had such an important effect upon human civilization.

Theology

• Era: Medieval
• Cost: 250
• Emphasis: Culture (3), Great People (3), Wonder (4)
• Prerequisite Techs: Calendar, Philosophy
• Leads to: Education
• Benefits: Allows you to build a handful of specialized buildings and wonders which improve your     Cultural output and ability to create new     Great People.
• Quote: "Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do." - St. Thomas Aquinas
• Description: Theology is the study of religion. Theologians study religious traditions and beliefs. The practice goes at least as far back in history as the Classical Greeks, who had an extremely rich mythology and religious tradition to observe. In the first and second century AD, Jewish religious scholarship flourished. The Jerusalem Talmud, a collection of Rabbinic notes about Jewish Oral tradition, was published around 200 AD and added to and expanded upon over the next two centuries.
  
  Theology is important. It has had an incredibly powerful effect upon world history. Countless millions have died over religious disputes, and they continue to do so today. The Romans killed Christians over their radical new theology which denied the existence of the Roman gods. Christians killed Jews and Muslims and Christians over religious disputes. Theologian and Christian revolutionary Martin Luther triggered hundreds of years of brutal religious conflict in Europe with his "95 Theses" questioning, among other things, the selling of papal indulgences (divine forgiveness of sins) to pay for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. If it is ever to end, theology will be of critical importance in solving the current religious war between radical Muslims and the Western World.

The Wheel

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: Mobile (2), Growth (2), Ranged (2), Infrastructure (2), Gold (6)
• Prerequisite Tech: Animal Husbandry
• Leads to: Horseback Riding, Mathematics
• Benefits: Allows you to build the Chariot Archer, a fast and powerful ranged unit which requires     Horses. Also allows Workers to construct Roads, which allow units to move across the map faster and provide extra     Gold when connecting cities to your capital.
• Quote: "Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart." - Japanese Proverb
• Description: The wheel is a round object with a hole or an axle through its center. Taken alone it's of little use, but when part of a transportation system including roads and draft animals, it is of extraordinary value to human civilization. The earliest depiction of a vehicle with wheels is found in ancient Sumeria, from approximately 3500 BC. The first wheels were of solid wood; spoked wheels first appear around 2000 BC in Asia Minor, where they were used on horse-drawn chariots. Later improvements included iron hubs which turned on greased axels, and the addition of springs or some other sort of shock absorber.
  
  Contrary to popular myth, the wheel was known in the New World prior to the arrival of the Spanish. However North, Central and South America lacked draft animals, so pretty much everything was transported by people. Humans are not designed to pull for long distances: they are more efficient carrying weights on their shoulders - in backpacks, for example - so carts were not developed. Once horses and other draft animals arrived, the Native American people happily used wheeled vehicles just like everybody else.

Trapping

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: Gold (8), Tile Improvement (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Animal Husbandry
• Leads to: Civil Service
• Benefits: Allows your Workers to construct Camps on sources of     Deer,     Ivory and     Fur. Also allows Workers to construct the Trading Post, which increases the     Gold output of map tiles.
• Quote: "Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice." - Saint Jerome
• Description: Humans have been trapping animals for millennia. It's a form of hunting that is nearly as old as man himself. Throughout history hunters have used a huge variety of traps to ensnare their prey - employing everything from covered pits to hidden nets to spring-jawed metal contraptions. In 17th-18th century North America, French-Canadian trappers would spend years in the wilderness trapping huge quantities of fur-bearing animals before bringing them to an eastern settlement for sale, with many of the valuable pelts ending up as hats and other garments adorning wealthy Europeans. Russian hunters did much the same in Siberia and other remote Eurasian territories.

Writing

• Era: Ancient
• Cost: 55
• Emphasis: Science (6), Wonder (2), Diplomacy (2)
• Prerequisite Tech: Pottery
• Leads to: Philosophy
• Benefits: Allows you to build the first     Science building, the Library, helping your empire research new technologies more quickly.
• Quote: "He who destroys a good book kills reason itself." - John Milton
• Description: Writing is the art of recording information on material (paper, stone, clay, animal skins) so that others who look at the material can discern its meaning. Invented sometime around the fourth millennium BC, the earliest form of writing was "pictography," in which the writer draws little pictures representing the subject matter. This may work adequately for very simple subjects, but other methods become necessary when more esoteric topics are discussed. (Drawing a picture of a sheep may be easy, but how about a picture of a thousand sheep, or a picture of the sound a sheep makes when it falls off of a pyramid? Not so easy.)
  
  Logography probably came after pictography. In logography, symbols stand for individual words. There's a symbol for sheep, and another symbol for a thousand sheep, and yet another symbol for the sound a sheep makes when falling off of a pyramid. However, a full language may have tens of thousands of words in it, and learning the symbol for each word may be problematic.
  
  A phonographic system provides a unique symbol for each different-sounding word. "Sheep" would have a unique symbol, but "there," "their," and "they're" would all share the same symbol. This results in a smaller number of symbols to memorize, but also in greater chances of misunderstanding.
  
  In an alphabetic system, the language provides a set of symbols (the alphabet) which represent the various sounds which may occur in a language. These symbols can be strung together to replicate any spoken word in the language. Theoretically, anybody who can spell should be able to accurately "sound out" any written word. This is the system used in the English language, and is generally believed (especially by English-speakers) to be the most useful and flexible writing system yet devised.

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