I agree with quite a lot of this, in particular that there shouldn't just be a single route to the technology. I really like OR conditions, where it can be discovered through multiple ways, CIV 6 way of inspirations is good, but very linear. If you don't have a water tile, you can't get sailing, sure enough, but if you have a hill and a windmill, maybe you get the just of wind power?

I didn't even know Civ 6 did this. I refused to buy it after how bad 5 was and hearing that 6 was even worse. I guess it isn't a difficult idea to come up with.

I really agree with OP

I strongly love this idea.The Eureka mechanism in civ6 happens when you achieve one certain goal and give you a 40% research discount.But this mechanism,I think.is too simple.If Humankind can introduce 'inspiration' and perform well I think it would be a great advantage. As we know ,the cultures with much neighbors usually develop much faster than those who are isolated,I really hope Humankind can reflect this.

Although technological exchanges are well documented, and the eureka system is a step up from previous implementations of science, it is still not historic and could be done better.

There is a significant difference between creating a technique or invention and creating a system that takes full advantage of the creation.

For instance, irrigation in the Fertile Cresent started in marginally productive areas, and only spread to the better floodplains later in history.

Ancient China had several inventions such as the horse collar harness, steel, and gunpowder, but they did not make effective use of these.

Europe was more dependent on horses as the prime mover for trade and farming, and made good use of the collar.

Europe was able to combine the invention of gunpowder and steel with the power of coal to mass produce these goods, making revolutionary changes in warfare and consumer goods.

In short, technological inspirations are more likely to come from marginal areas or events, not re-inforcement of existing habits. Historical examples are easy to supply, but gameplay implementation could prove challenging.

I like the intent of the original post.  There should be some ways that people hear stories, read books, or see improvements that they can bring back to thier own culture.

I am ok with this being random, or the last person to research this gets it for 1/4 cost or free, etc...

I do like the idea as well. Civ 6 indeed did a similar thing. It had the advantage of making each turn more meaningful by adding an extra option to get a bonus. Still didn't convince me to play the game more, though.

Anyway, the realistic way to implement this means that any player that does not have many neighbours will always be behind, technologically. On the other hand, since Fame is the primairy is the goal here, rather than teching up quickly, there might be some options for that. People outside South Asia remember the Aztecs and Mayans better than the Bengal Empire, despite the latter having a larger capital and a thriving economy. Part of the reason the Mayans and Aztec have more Fame is exactly because of what they achieved in a relative vacuum. 

So I think in that regard it would make sense to make a distinction between inventing a technology and adopting a technology. If you're the first player in your vicinity to develop a technology you should get a lot of Fame. As more of your neighbours have this tech the cost goes down significantly, but so does the fame. The Chinese are renowned for their gunpowder and printing press, despite the Europeans using both to more in the 1800s. The cost going down could instead be part of the research being done passively. People who focus on technology will not be worlds ahead (unless they are physically far away / don't interact much) but instead just get the large Fame bonus.

This passive learning could also be incorporated with other things. For example: fighting more slowly increases your research on iron working - but only the ones who actively research AND fight it will be the first ones and therefore gain the Fame bonus. They use their environment (the constant fighting) and their wits (their tech) to come up with something new. It would also allow a more natural progress through the eras. Suppose you've researched 50% of an era but already advance... What happens to the other half? You get it immediately? That doesn't sound fair nor logical. Instead it would make more sense that your passive research increases for the previous era's techs. (unless techs do not belong to an era).

Honestly, when Civ VI announced this feature, I was really excited. It seemed like such a cool concept on paper that could totally revamp gameplay but IMO it failed in practice.

Like many other design choices in that game, most of which looked good on paper, it ended up being a major contributing factor to a massive overall dependence on luck that completely ruined multiplayer (the entire NQ community went straight back to Civ V about 1-2 months after release) and even made single-player feel unrewarding. To give you an example, the early culture tree progression was heavily built around reaching the Political Philosophy civic. Doing so would unlock the ability to use more "policy cards" and was essentially a hugely important early boost to your empire. You were able to dramatically speed up this process with these inspirations and at least a couple of them were totally dependent on luck (the Foreign Trade inspiration required you to discover another continent; the player has almost no real agency in this matter whatsoever. Either your scout will happen to find an arbitrary continent boundary or it won't). There were so many of these frustrating moments in the game's tech/culture trees and it really hurt the game - I'm not sure whether a better implementation of the system would work well, but I honestly doubt it.

Also, I should add, I really don't think science points are anywhere near as unrealistic/ahistorical a mechanic as people make out (at least, compared with the other general mechanics of how 4X games usually work). They represent the general educated-ness of a civilization, and bigger, better educated societies really do just tend to have more good ideas, and faster. 

I think that the "inspiration" component comes from the player's choice of tech in the moment. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. You, the player, need to build a ship. How do you do that exactly? In real life, the necessity of shipbuilding would cause a society's ideas to focus on that area; over time, shipbuilding would develop due to this necessity. In a 4X game, the necessity of shipbuilding, as in reality, is what's driving the player's choice of tech towards that and therefore resulting in the technology. In either case it's the same - the difference is that maintaining this fairly simple, straightforward system is granting the player more agency, not less.

Hi,

We thought of a similar idea at the beginning of the production. We wanted to bind both progress and change of culture around contextual events. But in the end, it did not allow us to offer an interesting strategic experience: it was too har to plan and to focus on a build you will like.

In the end, we decided to offer a “technology tree” divided into Era and dependencies between technologies. However these dependencies work as “OR” instead of “AND”. This allow us to offer enough diversity on how to explore the tree from one playthrough to another. You adjust your priority depending on your context and culture even if the technology tree is premade.

A premade technology tree allow us to reinforce the historical immersion and a sense of uchronia. 

Procedural technology tree can offer an interesting experience, but it is not the one we’re aiming for with Humankind. 

Cheers,

I like this idea. Instead of being the main avenue of gainning the research/tech points required what if it was a "bonus" to each area.

I can see where this could augment a research tree.

You can get a special unlock or knowlege point for having your people in certain areas. An example would be in an arid climent you can find clay hidden in a silt pile or bronze that allows you to study and unlock it faster than usual. 

This could be supplied in an alternative mode allowing for more diverse replays, or to give a "what if" senario when starting a game. Like what if I found iron first due to some natural occurance.

Another example could be that because you move to another zone/area you can learn new tech that normally wouldnt show up to your race/people.

Thanks for the feed back!

With regards to the technology tree, having played Civilization since the first iteration I have become increasingly frustrated that technology was independent of surroundings.

You could learn fishing even if you were not close to a river or coast, receiving a bonus to that research if you were on the coast.

Why would a plains based nomadic culture learn to mine bronze or iron?

A civilization might learn to work with stone if there is a plentiful supply of it close by and having access to stone the may figure out that throwing stones can hurt people and that being able to throw them further would be good as there is less chance of being hit by someone else throwing stones....thus the sling.

A tribe living near a forest may figure out that they can use sticks to hurt each other and hunt animals with so they develop clubs or spears, or both but never even think about battering away at some rocks to get some nice pointy stones to make their weapons better.

In short I believe a civilization develops its knowledge based on it's surroundings and only looks at other things as and when they are exposed to them or explorers return with tales of things they have seen which then leads to inspirations within the populace. Thus scouts need to return home after finding something new and different to tell everyone. It shouldn't be transmitted from where they are, possibly hundreds of miles away, instantly to their home settlement. Maybe if they can ride horses and travel quickly this could be done. Alas horseriding cannot be learned if all you have is domesticated goats.

Just some ideas I wanted to throw out, see if anyone wants to comment on them.

I'll repost this one here:

It seems that X4 genre gets Research completely wrong. A Tech-tree is not how technological progress works, especially not in ancient times. There are two things about research: discovery and improvement. Yes, we discovered bow and arrow way back in the stone age but it kept improving up until the end of the middle ages. The principle remains the same, but the materials change and craftsmanship evolves, so the bow and arrow become ever more advanced which is mirrored in their performance (range, piercing force, production cost…). The Civ threats every technology as a discovery. Oh, wow, I discovered physics! And now I discovered chemistry! No no no, my dear, that’s too bloody gamey. 
Make the research become more organic, elusive and a bit serendipitous, by harnessing both of its principles. Discoveries appropriate to the era initiated by an event or action (no seafaring tech avaliable before a nation settles near a coast), improvement motivated by necessity (an early barbarian raid initiates building of defensive walls which can get upgraded in later eras, when the player realizes/exprinces that his enemies are dvloping ever more effective siege units), fueled by industry (advanced arrows should be perfected by a fletcher, not by clicking on some card and waiting for beakers to add up), propagated by diffusion of knowledge through contacts (when a preagricultural civilization spots a rivals farm, it automatically gets a percentage of the research needed to unlock farming proportional to the number of civs already having unlocked it), slow passive diffusion through trade routes, tehnological improvement in many fields runnng simultaneously with diffrent pace (who says you can't research several thing at the same time).

I´m totally agree with this things and I made a post recently about this , after the first scenario experience. I like every approach shared here but I think is really hard to apply. 

What I proposed is something "simple" but with the same idea, that "natural" developing about research and technology wich is more like "discovering" in te earliest Eras. And what I proposed in my post was something like that, for example, if you are exploting forests, gives to you 1 science point per turn to Carpentry, if you are exploting 2 forests, 2 science points PT, ...

This would make more natural the developing of your civilisation between his enviroment and the way you choose for them, making your people and you as player to "adapt" to your situation...or not, because I proppose this as a complement of "technological tree" system and this is for give to your people an identity in the earlist years where research is more like "discovering" or "rudimentary technology" (technology that can be researched anyways).

This thing is for the earliest Eras to give to the civilisations and identity between where they are and their enviroment, and for the more advanced technologies this would not be so worth because you need more science points for a research and you will need focus in researchers and investigators for develop more complex technologies, and that would not be natural, you need to research it.