Technology Tree (Curiosities)

This week’s post is coming in a little late, mainly due to the travel I had to take for work. But it begins another type of post, “Curiosities”! I have tons of side projects, whether they be with programming, or magic system ideas, or whole series, that I think are fascinating for one reason or another. These posts will go into each idea and both give me space to talk about them and a chance for them to see the light of day! (Since, most likely, many will wilt away in Obsidian.)

Today’s topic is a technology tree! No, not from Factorio (though that game is a gem of automation). This sort of tech tree:

It might look confusing at first, and you might be wondering why I would do something like this. Those are both good points. This isn’t even the half of the tree.

I’ve been working on an idea for a stone-age fantasy story for a while, where the advancement of technology is suppressed by both warmongers and wizards. I won’t get into specifics here, but I needed a path that went from natural resources (seen above) all the way up to the creation of a book.

And so the tech tree was born! I know I missed some things, but I also feel like I got a wide breadth of available resources. Specifically, I missed a lot of exotic resources, which I plan to remedy in the future. But let’s start with the natural resources.

From trees, streams, animals, stones, and soil, you can get lots of things. The lines indicate what resources are required to make something, and while it starts out like Minecraft, the tree quickly evolves into specific technologies such as a mill or wheel, and early alternatives like a bone fishing hook or paper made from strips of wood.

You can also see the minerals tree peeking in:

This is by far one of the most lacking. I wanted to capture the region-locking of some minerals and how that might hinder cultures, but metal-refining is already so complicated that I didn’t think it would advance much before they made a book. I’ll get back to this one.

Speaking of ones I’ll get back to, we also have the honorable mention and most recent addition, region-locked animal products!

 

It’s not great, I know. But it’s a start!

The area I’m the most proud of is certainly the region-locked resources, which should really be region-locked crops.

I add what I did here (separating crops into climates) for minerals and animals, but that will add more work to an already huge tree. I’m coming back for them though! One of the huge things I learned through this is that olives and flax/linseed are incredibly valuable. I have yet to add the breadth of all the applications each one can be used for, but the list is massive.

And that, by in large is the tree. It was an enlightening experience, and after much research it really makes you wonder how long it would take a group of people to discover this much. But now that I have it, I can cap certain cultures into different technologies, until they’re finally combined to make that coveted book.

Here’s the full tree, for reference:

 

If you see anything drastically wrong, let me know! I want to make this as realistic as possible, any my knowledge of how things came to be isn’t the sharpest. And as far as the app I used to make this (Obsidian), it will receive its own Cool Tools post in the future, because I use it for everything.

Cheers!