Civilization Technologies Wheel

The Challenge of History

In Sid Meier's Civilization, advances in knowledge are represented by the technology tree, the diagram that shows what you can build and when. It spans the whole of human history from agriculture to space flight. Representing so much of it at once has made for some very complex, albeit attractive, diagrams. Many a Civilization player has had the experience of bouncing back and forth across the technology tree because of relationships left unclear and spread out.

This project makes the encoding of that information consistent, explicit, and as much as possible, condensed on to one screen: every advance in a game, and every relationship between them, in one place. All seven Civilization games are here with their expansions. For Civilization VI and VII the civics tree sits alongside the technologies.

Advances run clockwise from the marked start at the top of the wheel, ordered by era and then by how far back their prerequisites reach, so reading around the rim roughly follows the order in which you would research them. Where a game divides its advances into eras, each era appears as a tinted band with its name inside.

How to Read the Wheel

The wheel is divided into two types of relationship components, spokes and arcs:

Spokes

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  There is one spoke for every advance in Civilization

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  Icons show what advance the spoke represents

Arcs

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  Arcs show relationships between advances

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  Perpendicular lines point to the spoke with the arc's origin advance

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  Squares on a spoke indicate that the arc's origin is required for this advance

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  Circles on a spoke indicate that the arc's origin is optional for this advance

Exploring

Hover an advance (its icon, its label, or any of its arcs) to focus on what it requires, what it leads to, and everything it unlocks, while the rest of the wheel dims. Click to pin that view in place while you read it, then click the same advance again, or the background, to release it.