Technology and the Environment

                 Technologies in Civilization V are obtained through different researches which like all aspects of the game take turns to complete. With Ramses II and Catherine the Great the Civilization V thus far is using the same technology tree. Technologies, like in history, are ways that empires can advance themselves and rise above others. The quicker a branch of the technology tree is completed the better. Each technology that is unlocked provides for a civilization new buildings, units or other advancements. Like in history technology is an evolutionary process and not all things come at once in the game. As noted many times throughout the semester there are different eras in Civilization V each encompassing their own respective technology.

                   The Ancient Era provides the civilization with agriculture, animal husbandry, archery, bronze working, calendar, masonry, mining, pottery, sailing, the wheel, trapping and writing.

                  The Classical Era provides construction, horseback riding, iron working, mathematics, optics and philosophy.

   

                   The Medieval Era provides chivalry, civil service, compass, currency, education, engineering, machinery, metal casting, physics, steel, and theology.

                  The next era, The Renaissance Era was the last era that I achieved with Ramses II. The Renaissance Era provides acoustics, archaeology, astronomy, banking, chemistry, economics, fertilizer, gunpowder, metallurgy, military science, navigation, printing press, rifling and scientific theory. I was in the process of researching archaeology, which didn't really do me any good in the game but its what I plan to do as a career, when I was destroyed.

                  I did not make it to the next era in the game which is the Industrial Era. The Industrial Era provides biology, combustion, dynamite, electricity, flight, radio, railroad, refrigeration, replaceable parts, steam power and the telegraph.

                 The Modern Era provides advanced ballistics, atomic theory, computers, electronics, globalization, lasers, mass media, nuclear fusion, penicillin, plastics, radar, robotics, rocketry, satellites, and stealth.

                The Future Era provides future technology, nanotechnology, nuclear fusion and particle physics.


Civilization V like with many of the other themes we have covered in class lacks the cultural background for these technologies. It does however showcase some of the tools used for instance hoes and rakes in agriculture and catapults. Like real life Civilization V does not miraculously give away technologies the people in the  game must earn it be it through turns in the game or actual innovation. The order of said technologies given in the game might not run in concurrence with actual life but it does provide the gamer with some relation to history.