Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Sid Meier's Civilization VI

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EpsTweak for Tech Trees
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Nov 26, 2022 @ 9:25am
Dec 17, 2022 @ 3:23am
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EpsTweak for Tech Trees

Description
EpsTweak is a series of small mods that tweak the balance of Civ 6. Rather than put all of them into one hefty package, I've split them into small fragments to allow you to make your own custom rulesets.


There are aspects about Civ 6's tech and civics trees that never made sense to me, either from a logical, gameplay, or historical perspective. Hence why, for a long while, I wanted to make changes to them, and this mod does exactly that. The explanations are below, after all of the changes are listed:

Astrology: No longer unlocks Holy Sites and Shrines. Half as cheap, and has no boost trigger. Provides +1 Food in each city with a Palace or Governor.
Construction: Now also requires Iron Working.
Apprenticeship: Now also requires Construction. No longer requires Currency.

Worship: New Civic unlocked at Code of Law. Unlocks Holy Sites, Shrines, and the Revelation policy. (Moved from Mysticism)
Early Empire: Now also requires Worship.
Mysticism: Now also requires Worship. No longer requires Foreign Trade.
Colonialism: Moved to the Renneisance Era. Requires Exploration. No longer requires Mercantilism.
Enlightenment: Now also requires Reformed Church.
Natural History: Now also requires Mercantilism. Boost condition changed to finding a natural wonder. No longer unlocks Water Park and Ferris Wheel (but still unlocks the Aquarium). Unlocks Archeological museum. (Moved from Humanism)
Urbanization: Now also unlocks the Water Park and Ferris Wheel.
Opera and Ballet: English name changed to "Orchestral Theater".
Capitalism: Moved to Industrial Era. Unlocks at Civil Engineering instead of Mass Media.
Suffrage: Moved to Industrial Era. Unlocks at Nationalism instead of Ideology.
Class Struggle: Unlocks at Urbanization instead of Ideology.
Totalitarianism: Unlocks at Mobilization instead of Ideology.
Nuclear Program: Moved to the Atomic Era.


Explanations:

Worship
It never made sense to me why Holy Sites, a concept very tightly linked to culture and statecraft, would be unlocked by a technology and not a civic? Especially considering that all remaining aspects of religion are already in the civics tree to begin with. So I rectified this by creating the Worship civic to house them. Mysticism and Early Empire made the most sense to follow directly from it.
This, of course, left Astrology feeling a bit barren, so I added a minor effect that's useful in the early game. In practical terms, astrology led to the first calendars, and calendars let rulers govern crop harvests better. Hence the food effect.

Apprenticeship and Construction
When you think of medieval apprenticeship, you think of blacksmiths, carpenters, and stonemasons. Yet for some reason none of the early techs relating to those trades have any connection to Apprenticeship in the tech tree? From a gameplay standpoint, this also means that you can rush to Men-at-Arms without ever researching Swordsmen, which feels super awkward.
For these two reasons, I created a direct path from Iron Working to Apprenticeship, via Construction. Since that makes reaching it harder, I removed the Currency requirement to compensate.

Colonialism
Yes, the industrial era is where colonial rivalry reached its peak, but its beginnings are very much historically tied to the Age of Sail of the Renneisance. In other words, Exploration.

Enlightenment
Protestantism set the precedent of using printed writing to challenge the church's role in statecraft. The Enlightenment built upon this foundation by adding criticism of the church's role in education and philosophy.

Natural History
Anyone else found it weird that you could unlock Archeological Museums before you had access to Archeologists? Or why Water Parks and Ferris Wheels would be the result of archeological study? Yeah, that never made sense.
The Mercantilism requirement is there because I didn't like how much of an isolated straight line this path became with the changes to Colonialism. And the boost requirement had to be changed because, previously, it was to build an Archeological Museum, which is no longer possible.

Opera and Ballet
All fine and well, but the name excludes the third musical work type that was popular at this time: Symphonic Suites. Pretending like those didn't matter as much culturally is a bit disingenuine, so I changed the name to be more broad.

Capitalism
Capitalism as we know it is very much a product of the industrial era in the 19th century. I have no idea why they decided to put it at the mass media of the 20th century?

Suffrage, Class Struggle, and Totalitarianism
It is very romantic to think of these as the big ideologies that clashed during World War II, but historically, that's not at all how they developed. The written works behind modern democracy came to be a full century before the other two, in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The concept of "class struggle" began life as a reaction to how farm folk were treated when they moved to the big cities in the early 19th century. And the thoughtpieces that would later result in faschism (Chauvinism, Nietzscheanism, etc.) popped up in the late 19th century, in the broil of colonial tensions that eventually lead to World War I. As such, I moved these Civics to better reflect that.

Nuclear Program
The reason it's called the "Atomic" era in the first place is because that is the time it became a big deal for countries to develop a nuclear program of their own? Also, I didn't like how unnecessarily elongated the Modern Era was.
8 Comments
Nightmare576 May 21 @ 10:03am 
Is there a mod that just makes Swordsmen available at bronze working? Surely people made swords out of bronze anyway
ShUhFP Apr 1 @ 12:25pm 
I was originally looking for a mod that either removes the polar coastal tiles or changes how the ocean exploration techs work to make circumnavigation more of a Renaissance Tech than Classic Era. Found this instead, and wow! While my search continues, this changed Tech Tree makes so much more sense than the default! Amazing work!
Eps  [author] Jan 23, 2023 @ 2:32am 
It should be. I didn't remove anything from them. Only re-arranged their order and added one civic.
Renouf Jan 22, 2023 @ 10:55pm 
This is a stupid question, but is this compatible with mods that add things to the tech tree? For example, JNR's Urban Complexity where it adds new buildings to certain techs but doesn't alter the tree's layout
Eps  [author] Dec 17, 2022 @ 3:32am 
Did a bit of research, and decided to go ahead and add Reformed Church as a requirement for The Enlightenment.
Eps  [author] Nov 27, 2022 @ 1:58pm 
I'll consider it for when the next pack in the Leader Pass drops.
Denver Nov 27, 2022 @ 3:33am 
Perfect! Excellent changes. One tiny suggestion: Make Reformed Church a requirement for Enlightenment. There are many discussions that suggest Martin Luther's triggers for the Protestant Reformations were themselves the key trigger for the age of enlightenment as a whole. But more importantly, it prevents AI Civs from beelining past all the Tier 2 Governments and actually gives them a chance to pick Monarchy before they reach Tier 3 lol
Lucius, the Heavenly Dragon Nov 26, 2022 @ 11:03am 
I like it, it’s an elegant alternative to Grand Eras when I don’t want everything changed.