Hey guys. We are working hard on 0.2 but 0.3 is getting closer and closer so I think it may be time to consider in more depth what exact technologies we should include in that update.
We'd like to hear your ideas and suggestions regarding technologies.  What kind of techs would you like to see?  ("writing" may be 'obvious' but what about 'Yam processing'?) What should be their dependencies (if any)?  What special requirements should they have? (you can't research metalworking with no metal to work) Would you prefer an extremely in-depth tree with hundreds (thousands?) of "techs" describing different (possibly specialized) areas of knowledge or a more general framework with fewer technologies?
Keep in mind that SotE wont use a simple civ-like tech tree and that there could be multiple ways of reaching new knowledge and that a great deal of scientific progress will happen without your direct contributions so having a lot of techs wont necessarily mean a lot of needless micro.

I'll stick this post in this channel category for ease of access and future reference.

whacky stick > club
whacky stick > pointy stick > hardened pointy stick > pointy stick with flint
rock > rock breaking > flint knapping > pointy stick with flint
food gathering > plant string > pointy stick with flint
whacky stick > pointy stick > rubbing two point sticks together for fire > hardened point stick

I like the idea of thousands of techs. That combined with the unique way of acquiring techs would make for unique playthroughs each time and a milestones for tech systems in video games, I believe.

I had a thought.  writing seems like one of the middle tiertechs a society should get as there are many techs before it that'd be needed.  Stuff like dye making, oral history, story telling, counting, etc.

also, I'd like to see the techs needing the material in question to experiment with in the early stages but as you get more and more into a more advanced society to start to allow predictions and theoretical tech to be attempted.  This of course would tie into having thousands of techs.  And the theoretical tech could fail if they don't have the necessary knowledge of other techs and maybe even consider it a dead-end and not bother researching it again until someone with the necessary tech makes the connections.  Further more there could be techs that just appear to be useless curiosities that much later prove to be extremely important base techs for other technologies.

I would definitely like to see a very in-depth technology tree. I presume that some technologies may give a faction a combat advantage over an another faction, some may increase the life expectancy of the faction members or make their survival a little bit easier (such as Herbalism, Cooked Food, Leather Clothes, etc., as mentioned below), some may influence the way they expand, and who knows what else.

Here are some "ancient/classical era" technologies I thought of:

Plant Gathering -> Herbalism
Stone Tools -> Improved Stone Tools
   -> Stoneworking -> Masonry -> Stone Houses -> Castles
Simple Woodworking -> Wooden Clubs -> Hunting Spears -> Bows
   -> Hunting -> Trapping -> Leather Clothes -> Leather (Houses) Tents
   -> Woodworking -> Wooden Houses
Fire -> Cooked Food
Early Mythology -> Burials -> Paleolithic Art -> Stone Sculptures & Figurines
   -> Cave Painting -> Proto-writing
   -> Philosophy
   -> Religion -> Primitive Religious Architecture
The Wheel -> Cart-making
Pottery -> Primitive Food Preservation
Agriculture -> Irrigation
Dog Domestication -> Domestication of Farm Animals -> Horse Domestication -> Horseback Riding
Mining -> Early Metalworking -> Currency -> Copper Tools & Weapons -> Bronze Tools & Weapons -> Bronze Armor -> Iron Tools & Weapons -> Iron Armor
Fabric -> Boat Making -> Sailing

#NOTE: Techs such as "Copper Tools" could be broken down into "Copper Axe", "Copper Sickle", you name it.

When it comes to techs which are tied to a specific material (e.g., Metalworking, Copper Tools, etc.), a faction should, in my opinion, be able to research them ONLY if it has access to the resource. For example, a mountainous, landlocked tribe would hardly ever think of Sailing.

Some techs, such as Religion or Philosophy, could later be expanded into many smaller techs - theories or ideas/ideologies, which could influence the society of a certain faction. These theories could cause unrest, start a revolution, a civil war or the creation of fanatics. The possibilities are virtually limitless (as long as you are able to code it in, of course :P).

There could be many ways of acquiring new technologies, for example:

-at random - "heureka" moments (RNG-based?)
-through trade (chance to acquire technologies through trade routes)
-through diplomacy (an agreement about sharing technologies - agreements may be possible only after a certain technology, for example)
-through war (acquisition of the faction's supplies and territory)

I think a potential source on tech trees could also be the Civilization IV mod Caveman 2 Cosmos, which has a very wide selection of different techs, especially in the ''prehistoric'' and ''ancient'' categories. Here's a link to the tech trees in question in case anyone is interested: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tech-tree-statistics-and-ingame-tech-tree.625036/

Another thought that someone else mentioned first: dead-end techs, like the medical theory of humours, or anything taxonomic from Pliny.  Stuff that seems to make sense only if you have little to no evidence of how things actually work.

I'd like to see a whole mathematics tech tree. Also I'd like to see each culture that invents a numerical system getting a random (or less random) value assigned to the efficiency of their system. The Arabic numerical system was so much better than the roman counting system that it allowed them to progress in mathematics much faster, to the point that pretty much the entire world ended up adopting their system. Also the concept of Zero should not be taken for granted, it was actually a rather important discovery.

It's maybe an old thread but I wanted to give my contribution and some food for thought. I wanted to know how you wanted to do your tech progress, so I went on reddit and this is I think (correct me If I am wrong) how you want it in general terms :

-Pop Based discoveries and spread

-Multiples ways to achieve it

-A little like Victoria 2 (probabilities each month to discover a technology)

So I went to try to conceive a simple system to test some thing. It is mainly based on the pops stats which can be influenced in multiple ways, but here is the base :

Numbers : Numbers of pops

Culture : Determine cultural bonus and penalties

Species: Some species have it easier than others

(Un)Hapiness:  Self-explanatory

Job/Function: A farmer and a merchant will not have the same free time nor interest in developing the same tech.

Others factors like the Tile environment, Infrastructure, Species Interaction, Desperation or already discovered tech can be accounted, But I didn't to make it too complicate to begin with. I think this is the bare minimum in order to have a good spreading and tech progress, so after some testing to make it somewhat realistic, the equation is like this :

X = (N/1000000+C+S+H+J)/100

With X being the base chance of breakthrough/spread of a Tech. (N = Numbers, C= Culture, S= Species, H= Happiness, J=Job/Function)

N is divided by a million because otherwise it will be too fast to research tech and all of this equation is divided by 100 for the same reason. (Of course you could tweak to make it simpler I guess, but I'm no mathematician so I worked with that).

So let's say your pops want to have a basic wood spear, it could go like this.

You need one simple discoveries to achieve it :

-Find a solid branch and carve it in a deadly spear : base chance of 1

See it like a reverse Victoria 2 tech, your pops need to research the discoveries before they got the tech. Since it's a simple object, the base chance is high enough to achieve it rather quickly and there is only one discovery. So lets say that X = 0.01 and that we have monthly research tick like in Vicky 2.

0.01 or 1% is the probability, you got it, it's quite low, but as soon as the months passes, the chance of you researching it increase tremendously.

In one year there is 11% of chance you research it.

in ten year there is 66% of chance you research it.

In fourty year there is 99 % of  chance you research it.

So after this pops discover it, this technology will slowly begin to spread to your adjacents pops, they will have a good bonus, since this knowledge is knowed not far from them. Adding in the equation an infrastructure/adjacency variable would simulate it in practice.

The thing is I really don't know how you are gonna make it, it's just an idea I tried to have some kind of "base" to talk about since you didn't get too much into the details. The last thing I would add is since I've got no experience in development, I really don't know If this concept of mine will work out in terms of performance or objectives you fixed. I hope it helped you nevertheless.

My suggestion would be to stratify religious advances into the following categories: 

Uroboric religion -) Primitive Matriarchal Religion (animalistic, environmentalist) -) Sophisticated Matriarchal Religion -) Devolved Patriarchal Religion (pantheons with a male head) -) Monotheistic Patriarchal Religion 

Uroboric religions are the worshippers of the uroboric principle: the dragon/snake surrounding the world and eating its tail; it worships circles and cycles. Uroboric religions mean that there is almost no use of technology or very little.

Primitive Matriarchal Religions (animalistic, environmentalist) are common for hunter/gatherers. It is the worship of f.e. rocks, trees and the environment. It is tied to the Great Mother archetype, although less pronunciated than we will see later - some uroboric elements are still in play. There is some overlap with the Sophisticated Matrarchal Religion in the idea of the fertile mother figure.

Sophisticated Matriarchal Religions promulgate the matriarchal figure as the bringer of fertility, whether in a human or animal/object form. This is typical of settled societies that had to focus only or mainly on agriculture. 

Devolved Patriarchal Religion implies a stratification of society and division of labour. On the top of the society is a male head. There are many lesser gods included. These are the first societies to conquer. Conquest often serves as a way to place the head of one pantheon as a head of the pantheon of another society. Sometimes lesser gods can be implemented into the pantheon even by the victorious society.

Monotheistic Patriarchal Religion translates into complex societal relationships. Technology levels are at their highest. Yet because fundementally the same factors as before are in play and can be still found in the world, there will be different interpretations of the same religious system. Schisms and heretics are common.

It would be best if technologies were detailed based on the enviroment of the culture that develops it, even if it's just small flavour text. After all, no two writings, caste systems or even swords are the same; resources, contact with other cultures and the mentality of the culture itself should be present when developing that tech. It would be boring if say a culture develops masonry and there's no description of what resources they use or what shape do they give their buildings, or they develop basic logographic writing but doesn't explain how it works or what material do they use to write on.

 Later cultures could later adapt those designs and change it to their enviroment, and then when they advance that technology they adopted it takes more on the style of the new culture while not entirely losing the original design (Roman architecture over the centuries being adapted by Franks, Spainiards or Russians, Chinese religious customs and writing script spreading into Korea or the Xiongnu, Aramaic script shifting into Sanskrit or Pahlavi, etc.)

I know this would be very data-intensive for the PC you'd run with and it'd be more centered around worldbuilding/Godgame part of SotE rather than the 4X part of SotE, however I think it would be a missed opportunity if it didn't happen seeing as how fleshed out civilizations could be if they were details like that + the expansive tech tree.

I think the first step to considering technology is to figure out what it is supposed to represent. Since culture and religion are to be separate entities, I believe it would be the collective knowledge of a society or people.  When  looking at the code for the tech in the most recent release, I can see a simple structure that covers cost, requirements, and cost modifiers.  I think this is a good base but would like to have optional OR blocks to say that you need either of several (combinations of) technologies or resources as flint and obsidian are equally good for flaking.  I like the the tech is laid out into tiers, especially the idea of paleolithic -> neolithic idea.  This coupled with a system of developing a feral people into nomads and then settling down gives a place where tech can fit in nicely with the progression of the world.

After doing a little research on what are known paleolithic inventions, I found is mostly about rudimentary and then advanced tools.  Starting with fire, sticks, and stones then moving on to things like rafts and domesticated dogs.  Add to this that we tend to classify prehistoric cultures based on tool use and you have a recipe for stone age technology being about constructing advanced tools.  So say some base tech 'discovery' and use of fire would the trigger from moving from simple native population into a feral, or stone age people and start tech progression.

How does this fit into the idea of transforming a people into a actual society?  Well, the bedrock of any civilization is easy and consistent access to food in a way to facilitate enough free time for something other than just subsistence.  So stone age technology would be focused around extracting resources and building tools.  These tools would allow populations to build more advanced tools and extract more exotic resources.  Perhaps a feral society may start with the ability to hunt animals and gather plants for food.  In order to extract bones they need to research bone crafting which lets them gather bones and use them as rudimentary tools.  having rudimentary tools, like using a saber-tooth as a knife.  Researching carving, which would require access to say bone or wood, would let you craft simple tools that are better and help extract more resources.  More resources means more food; more food means more people; more people means more resources and the community grows.

Of course you do not manage the land; all you do is extract.  As technology develops, population increase, more resources are extract and eventually you get to the point when a tile or province can no longer support a population, which can lead to two things: population crash and dispersal or collective migration and the formation of a nomadic people.  Perhaps this unlocks neolithic technology as a people realize the need for sustainability through farming , animal husbandry, or other method.

Notice how becoming nomadic doesn't require any specific technology.  I believe that would require a cultural or religious factor to keep the feral people from just spreading out in all directions towards every greener pasture.  The technology factor is just about getting techniques to grow  population and facilitate culture and religions forming.  Overall, I believe technology should be about managing the natural world (province/tile interactions),  culture should be about managing a social world (agent interactions), and religion about the spiritual world (magical interactions).

I also think it is key to have lots of variable paths to take.  Nomads and tribes had varying uses of different technologies and one can craft similar tools from a variety of objects using different materials and techniques.  Some races may be herbivores and not hunt for food and requiring them to research it.  Similarly, a carnivore wouldn't necessarily care about plants and may take longer to develop wood working but bone craving would likely be developed due to the frequency of interacting with bones.  Also clothing, an important tool for survivability ,  could be weaved from grasses or made from hides.  This is my reason for wanting both AND and OR blocks for tech requirements.  Hopefully, this system would both fit nicely into the already planned systems and allow some widely divergent civilizations developing based on the environment they evolved in.

But I feel that before any of this can be fleshed out in any detail, a working plant and animal system is needed.  Then, the described system could be used to simulate the development of knowledge required to create conditions necessary for variety of cultural and political entities in a diverse, fun, and logical way by having technology represent the abilities of a people to recognize, harvest, and craft with materials from the natural world.