can someone explain the tech tree to me?

[Navaros]

i really don't understand how the tech tree works. ie: what i need to build certain other things.

can someone please explain this to me? ie: sometimes i can build a Royal Palace and sometimes i can not

the main question i have is: what is the most basic things that i need to have access to build A LOT of the different structures. sometimes when i take over a new province, there is almost no options to make buildings, and other times i get to choose from 20 or so buildings. i'm wondering what it is that determines this exactly

[Bigwig]

I also wish to know the intricacies of the tech tree, for regular medieval and MedMod. It sucks when you're grooming a province to make a certain unit, and then realise that you can't build one of the vital buildings for one reason or another. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[kiwitt]

Other than Farming, Mining and Horses, you need to build up the Fort>Keep>Castle>Citadel>Fortress.

Even then, some units/buildings are only available for certain factions.

see Files for details.

[Gregoshi]

To expand upon what kiwitt said, down the left side of the tech tree insert you can see the fort -> keep -> castle -> citadel -> fortress. Off to the right of each of these are the buildings you can build for that level of castle/fort/whatever, though some of these buildings may have prerequisits before you can build them.

Example: if you look to the right of the Keep, you will see the church and chapter house. The colour coding on the church tells you that only Catholic and Orthodox can build a church. The arrowed line from the church to the chapter house tells you two things: 1) the colour indicates that a chapter house can only be built by Catholic, and 2) you need to build the church first before you can build the chapter house. The direction of the arrow shows the order in which the buildings must be constructed.

Another example: Again looking at the Keep row on the tech tree, you see the Gunpowder discovered box. Three arrowed lines lead from this box. One leads to the gunsmith indicating that only Muslims can build a gunsmith if they have a keep. The other two arrowed lines drop down to the Castle level to the Bell Foundry and gunsmith workshop. The neutral colour on these lines and building boxes indicates that Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim factions can build these two buildings, but only if the province has a castle and only after the gunpowder event.

Does that help at all?

[TonkaToys]

Just to follow up on this... on the reverse of the tech tree sheet, the troop tree sheet, am I right in thinking that some troops are only available after a certain date?

I have all the buildings required for longbows in Wales and for billmen in Mercia, but cannot train them yet.

[Bhruic]

Yup, some units are locked into certain ages. So, in Early, you can't build either Longbowmen or Billmen. They don't become available until High period (1205). Of course, some units work the reverse, you can build them in Early, but you can't build them later.

Bh

[Blodrast]

check out shogun's cafe page (http://shogun.cafe24.com/medieval/), it has a flash version of the tech tree quite easy to understand.

alternatively, you can download and check the mtw_info_pack from the org (section files, etc). I personally find it more useful than the tech tree that they give you when you buy the game...

[TonkaToys]

Cheers guys.
Forgot I asked this