Season 3 Technology

Abstract: Techs have been largely reworked to no longer be restricted by real life year parallels. Now, they’ll require players to justify them with their previous RP (while some techs will obviously require a precursor technology). Players will have three types of slots a week with which to research technology: A, B, and C slots. There are also 3 levels of technology: Key, Main (or Major), and Minor techs. Each week, each culture will have 1 A slot, 3 B slots, and 5 C slots to research techs with. To start with, Key and Major techs will cost an A slot, and Minor techs will cost a B slot; however, as time goes by, some Main and Minor techs will become commonplace in the world and require lesser slots. If you diffuse techs from someone, we expect you to absorb some of their culture into your own as well.

Tech Slots

An important distinction to make is between Tech Levels, and Tech Slots. Tech levels represent how important, influential, or the the amount of effort required for a technology. The three tech levels are Key, Main, and Minor. The three tech slots are A, B, and C. Tech levels are a representation of the importance of the technology in general. Tech slots relate to what it takes your culture specifically to research or acquire them. Calling something a “B tech”, or saying that "Main techs drop down to be Minor techs" is wrong, and all of you need to stop doing it. -_-

Tech Levels

This represents a techs impact at the time of research. For example, Writing is a Key tech, which means it will always require an A slot to research. Only a few technologies will be considered Key, and they represent technologies that have a grand impact on the culture. Main (or Major) technologies will be technologies who impact a people, but are not as hard hitting as key. Sails are an example of this; game changing technology at first but can be easily spread by its very nature. Minor technologies will include small technologies. Minor technologies will encompass many - if not most - technologies researched.

Tech Slots

Tech slots are quite straightforward. A slots reflect important technological development, and thus only one A slot is allowed per week. On that same note, players receive a few more B slots, and even more C slots. These numbers may be increased as some Key technologies are researched, but we will leave these to be figured out by the players. Mods also reserve the right to tweak the number of slots, if we feel that techs are spreading too fast or slowly.

At a base level, Main techs are A slot, and Minor Techs are B slot. For a tech to go down a level for you, you need to be trading with or raiding people with a cumulative three weeks of that tech known. This is measured from the time that the culture researched the tech, not the time you met the culture.

That means that for the first week, if you are trading (or are raiding) with three separate cultures, all with the same technology, that tech will be a level more common (Main becomes B, Minor becomes C). For the second week, you only need two separate cultures to have the tech, provided at least one of them had it as a starter tech.

RP Justification

Following many other trends in S3, we are also reducing the amount of rp needed for technologies. Key Techs will require their own post specifically about them for an original invention (not a tech post), and diffusing them will require a diplomacy post with the person you are learning them from. Other A Slot techs will still require a similar amount as before (A solid paragraph or two), detailing how you discovered or learned about them. For B Slot and C Slot, we just need to know the tech,your general description of what it does/what you are using it for, and who from / how you learned it.

Inspiration and Culture

In previous Seasons, there was an arbitrary limit on the number of people that could research certain technologies (3 sources of writing, 1 source of spoked wheels, etc.). That is not the case for the most part (see next section for the exceptions). However, if someone in your area already has a tech, we do expect you to RP some inspiration or story originating from them, even if you are still paying full price for that tech, or treating it as an original invention.

This second part applies more to when you are diffusing techs at a reduced slot cost. The more technologies to acquire from a culture, the more of that culture we expect to see reflected in your own. If you steal a bunch of medical technologies from a culture that ritually tattoos themselves, A doctor in your culture might be marked by tattoos. If you learned boat construction and fishing techniques from a neighbor, their God of the Sea would likely become a part of your pantheon. Or maybe you have an oppressive state forcing restrictions and taxes of foreign merchants to try and prevent this cultural shift from occurring, and then roll with the increased tensions that causes with neighbors.

While we are not giving any rules on how much or how little you need to do this, Mods will be keeping an eye open. Players who completely ignore this effect on their culture may have tech steals denied or suffer other consequences.

Unique Techs and Secrets

As we are allowing far more player creativity this season (examples being different species and breeds of plants and animals), we will also allow players to research some unique technologies and keep them secret from others; e.g.: Silk production, Damascus Steel, Greek Fire, etc. These technologies will be first come first serve, and the player who researches them is welcome to spread the knowledge or keep it secret. Players are also welcome to keep any Key/Major tech secret, and this will slow down their spread. This will require a significant amount of roleplay, however, and we expect to see the impacts of this on your culture, and general interaction with other people. It’s hard to selectively prevent the spread of knowledge. It is also hard to utilize a technology while simultaneously keeping it secret, and so we will not allow players to simply make every technology secret. Other players can also raid or create conflict in order to steal these (although this has no guarantee of being successful).

Where to Post

This Season, every week there will be a tech post. This will have a link to the tech list, and may have other important or useful weekly information. Your tech should be written as a comment on this post. If you want to make one of your tech reps into a full rp post on its own, you are welcome to do that, and then link the rp to your tech comment.