Taken from my science math thread.

The shortest tech path that give rocket science which is needed to get build the Mars Colony is just 14 techs

Mars colony also require uranium in addition to oil and aluminium (who are unlocked by this tech path), unlocking uranium only need two more techs are research institute have no prerequisite at all except being in contemporary era. This mean in 16 techs you can reach Mars, in 14 if you can purchase Uranium.

And while this may not be possible in a real game or not optimal, it is quite telling that you only need 14 or 16 of the 92 techs in the game, or 15% to 17% of the tech tree completed to do something we have not managed to do yet in real life. You only need 3 or 5 out of 30 contemporary technologies to reach Mars. Like think about what you don't need to reach Mars in this game:

• No communication technology beyond priting press
• No metal technology at all
• No electricty

The tech cost is for these 14 technologies are less than 100k with the increase taken account for. It is more like 120k-130k with uranium techs.

The industry cost of the space program is not that much, 67500 I think on standard speed for all 3 projects.

Seems to me a bit easy to reach Mars right now, neither that much tech nor industry demand to be honest.

The prerequisites for technologies are weird in this game. You can't build Steam Engines without Steel IRL, yet it is NOT a prerequisite for it in the game.

The tech tree would be helped a lot by

1. a Steeper increase in cost through the Eras

2. "Free Techs" for the laggars (or the people who bypassed things)

What I would suggest

Classical 50% more expensive

Medieval 2x

Early Modern 3x

Industrial 5x

Contemporary (not the Final) 7x

Final techs 12x

Then, whenever a civ has any influence pressure in your territories [not full sphere of influence, just some pressure], every turn you get +1 "Osmosis Point" on each tech they have but you don't. (increased to +2 if you are allies and +5 if you have the Scientific Agreement)

Whenever 2 or more Techs have the 100+ "Osmosis Points" you get to choose which one you get for free (it does not count for your science Era Stars because you didn't research it).  The Other Techs at 100+ points lose 1/2 their Osmosis Points.

This way. Researching Tech is expensive, but you only have to research the techs you want right now, you'll get the rest later from your neighbors.. beelining is good but going to far ahead will take way too long (you will need the food/stability/production boosts to build up the researchers+ research Quarters in the meantime).

[You could also get 1 free Osmosis point per turn on every tech that is two eras behind your current highest tech... so if you have a Medieval tech like Theology, you will slowly start to gain all the Ancient Techs you don't already have]

It is funny that things such as rethoric or theology is needed to reach Mars but not things such as steel or computers.

Goodluck wrote:

And while this may not be possible in a real game or not optimal, it is quite telling that you only need 14 or 16 of the 92 techs in the game, or 15% to 17% of the tech tree completed to do something we have not managed to do yet in real life. You only need 3 or 5 out of 30 contemporary technologies to reach Mars. Like think about what you don't need to reach Mars in this game:

• No communication technology beyond priting press
• No metal technology at all
• No electricty

And this  is just some examples.

I am interested in the concept eluded here of certain high end Technology requiring prerequisites of your empire knowing how to use Electricity, metallurgy, and high speed communication. Although, I can't yet imagine how that could be implemented in the user interface in a simple manner.

Changlini wrote:

My problem with this, is figuring out how to not make it look messy on the technology screen, as those requirements already are going to make the lines go all over the place. Maybe have those technologies and Eras have a few circles that represent how many technologies are needed to fill the prerequisite--while also having the priority technologies has a special text or symbol?

Perhaps something like this? (Disclaimer I'm no designer nor artist and I'm sure something better could be done).

Hovering over the tech circle would show the tech requirement, first greyed out before researching and lighting up like they do when researched.