Research Tree

Civ13's research system is a tech tree, not a point pool. Instead of feeding items into a desk to raise three abstract Industrial/Military/Health numbers, your faction builds research benches, assigns each one a specific invention to study, and watches it complete — either by passive study over time, by building a working prototype, or by learning it from another faction's research book.

Completing a node unlocks every recipe gated behind it, faction-wide, permanently.

Contents

• The tree: layers and lines
• Eras and baseline research
• Research benches
• Faction roles: who can direct research
• How a node gets completed
• Research trade goods: notes and books
• Bench tiers
• The resource forge: raising your bench cap
• Full node reference

The tree: layers and lines

The tree has three intersecting layers — Industrial, Military, and Health — each broken into several functional lines. Nodes ladder up within a line, but many also cross-reference nodes in other layers (e.g. Steel Blades needs Iron Smithing from the Metallurgy line, not just its own Melee line). That's deliberate: it's what makes this a tree instead of three independent ladders.

There are 80 nodes in total. See the full reference table at the bottom of this page for every node, its era, its tick cost, and its prerequisites.

Eras and baseline research

Every node has an era tier (0–8, matching the map's ages). This is the key rule that makes the tree playable instead of a grind wall:

Any node whose era tier is at or below the map's current age is automatically granted to everyone — every faction, and factionless players too.

You never re-research the Stone Age once the world has moved into the Bronze Age. Your bench time only ever goes toward the frontier: nodes ahead of the current era. As the world advances, yesterday's frontier becomes today's freebie.

This also means a brand-new faction (or someone who just abandoned one) isn't starting from zero — they get every baseline node the rest of the world already has for free.

Research benches

A research bench is a craftable structure. Assign it one invention from the tree, and it will make progress on that invention — nothing else — until it's done, at which point you reassign it to the next thing.

• Building one: costs 8 soft wood, same recipe tier as a legacy research desk. You must belong to a faction to build one.
• Ownership: a bench belongs to whichever faction built it. It is not shared infrastructure between factions.
• Viewing vs. acting: anyone can open a bench's interface to see the state of their faction's tree and what's currently being researched. Only the Leader, Research Director, or an appointed Researcher can change what a bench is working on, or produce trade goods from it.
• Reclaiming an abandoned bench: if a faction dies out completely (no living members left), any other faction under its own bench cap can claim one of its benches. The claimed bench's old research assignment is cleared.

How many benches can a faction have?

bench cap = (1 + current era) + forge bonus slots

The cap rises by +1 automatically every time the map advances an era, starting at 1 bench in the Stone Age. Beyond that, a faction can buy more slots at a resource forge.

Trying to build (or claim) a bench while at your faction's cap will fail with a warning — build a forge and melt down some coin first.

Faction roles: who can direct research

Three roles can change what a bench researches and produce research trade goods:

All of these appointments happen through a bench's interface — approach any bench your faction owns and use it to appoint, dismiss, or rename these roles. Ordinary faction members can still view the tree and bench progress; they just can't redirect research or write trade goods.

How a node gets completed

Every node completes one of three ways, depending on its mode:

1. Passive study (Analysis mode — most nodes)

The assigned bench ticks forward automatically, once every 10 seconds, contributing 1 tick per bench per tick. Multiple benches assigned to the same node stack additively — two benches on Steelmaking means 2 ticks every 10 seconds toward it, not 1.

A bench must be tier-upgraded to at least the node's minimum bench tier before it can work on it at all — see Bench tiers.

2. Build a prototype (Prototype mode — 8 key nodes)

Some inventions (Bronze Working, Iron Smithing, Gunpowder, Steam Power, Electricity, Nuclear Power, Mechanized Warfare, Digital Computing) need more than theory — they need a working prototype. These require both the full passive study and the matching prototype item fed to the bench (see the reference table) — it's an extra requirement, not a shortcut. Whichever you finish second is what completes the node: submit the prototype after study is done and it finishes at once; submit it early and the node completes the moment the ticks catch up.

Research notes still help on these techs, since they grant ticks toward the study half.

These are the era-changing capstones. The first time any faction completes one, the whole world advances into that era — announced server-wide ("The discovery of [node] by [faction] sends the world into the [era]") — and every faction gets that era's baseline techs for free. Because that's a momentous, everyone-affecting event, their passive tick cost is 5× a normal node's (the tick numbers in the reference table below are the pre-multiplier base values).

Studying samples (any Analysis/Prototype node)

While a bench is researching a node, you can feed it a sample: an existing example of something that node will unlock (reverse-engineering). Since you can't craft the locked item yet, samples have to be looted, traded, or found. Each distinct item type teaches something only once per assignment, and each grants a chunk of ticks. Only works on the bench's currently-selected subject.

Research queue

A bench can hold a queue of nodes (add any not-current tech from its detail popup). As each subject completes, the bench automatically advances to the next still-valid node in the queue, so research staff don't have to re-assign after every finish. Queued nodes whose prerequisites aren't met yet are held until they become researchable. Note: benches only make passive progress while a Leader, Research Director, or Researcher of the faction is actually connected — you can't queue everything and log off to drag the server forward.

3. Learn from a book (Book mode — reserved, currently unused)

A mode exists for nodes that can only be learned by importing a research book from a faction that already has it — no passive ticking, no prototype shortcut. No current node uses this mode, but it's there for future content that should represent knowledge that can't be independently rediscovered.

Research trade goods: notes and books

Once your faction has completed a node, your Research staff can write it up at the bench that researched it, producing an item another faction can use to shortcut the same research. This is a deliberate trade good — sell it, gift it, or use it as leverage in diplomacy.

Writing: at a bench assigned to a node your faction has already completed, choose to write notes or a full book. Only Leader/Director/Researcher can do this.

Using someone else's notes/book: bring it to a bench assigned to the matching node (the subject must line up), and feed it to the bench like any other item. Prerequisites still apply — a book can't skip nodes your faction hasn't unlocked the prerequisites for.

Notes work on any tick-accumulating node — which today means every node except the (currently unused) Book-mode. A full book completes any node outright, including Prototype-mode ones, bypassing the need to ever find or build the prototype item.

Bench tiers

A bench starts at tier 0 and can be upgraded up to tier 7. Higher-tier nodes require a correspondingly upgraded bench before they can be worked at all (an untiered bench simply can't be assigned a high-tier invention).

Era cap: a bench can never be upgraded above the current global era — Stone Age (era 0) caps benches at tier 0, Bronze Age (era 1) at tier 1, and so on, up to the absolute tier-7 ceiling. As the world advances an era, every bench's upgrade cap rises with it. So you can only ever be as advanced as the age you're in.

Upgrading: feed the bench copper, silver, or gold coins — their value contributes toward the next tier. The cost escalates:

value needed for tier T -> T+1 = 80 x (T + 1)

So tier 0→1 costs 80 value, tier 1→2 costs 160, tier 6→7 costs 560, and so on. Progress accumulates across multiple items fed in — you don't need one single expensive item.

The resource forge: raising your bench cap

A resource forge is a separate structure (one serves your whole faction, not tied to any single bench) that raises your faction's bench cap beyond the automatic per-era increase.

Feed it copper, silver, or gold coins — nothing else is accepted. Coins are valued in silver-equivalents:

When you interact with the forge, you're prompted for how many coins to melt (so a full purse isn't accidentally vaporized in one click).

Cost to grant the Nth bonus bench slot:

silver needed = 300 x (N + 1)

The first bonus slot costs 300 silver-equivalent, the second costs 600, the third 900, and so on. Since a coin stack caps at 500, later slots are paid off cumulatively across multiple feedings — progress carries over between visits to the forge.

Full node reference

Legend: Era = the age at which this node becomes free baseline research for everyone. Ticks = total cost for passive study (irrelevant for Prototype nodes, which can also complete instantly). Min Tier = lowest bench tier that can work this node.

Industrial layer

Toolmaking

Metallurgy

Construction

Production

Textiles (gateway)

Weaving (basic) stays on the Main tree as the textiles gateway — it covers basic weaving and the basic tailoring tools (e.g. the loom). The advanced tailoring nodes moved to the standalone Tailoring tree (see below).

Furniture

Power

Vehicles

Infrastructure

Agriculture (gateway)

Basic Agriculture is the Bronze Age gateway for farming, and lives in the Main tree: completing it unlocks the basic farming tools (plough, iron plough, planting trowel, pitchfork, shears, berries gatherer, produce basket, seed collector) and opens the standalone Agriculture tree (see below).

The bench interface presents research as switchable tabs — the Main tree first, then any specialized trees, each its own standalone tab reachable once its Main-tree gateway is researched.

Specialized tree: Tailoring

Placeholder — carried over wholesale from the old Textiles and Armor lines and due a proper rework later. Everything past the two basic gateways (Weaving and Padded Armor, which stay on Main) lives here, split into two layers: Textiles and Armour. All the recipes formerly gated on these nodes come with them unchanged.

Textiles (gateway: Weaving)

Armour (gateway: Padded Armor)

Specialized tree: Agriculture

Its own standalone tab, reachable once Basic Agriculture (in the Main tree) is researched.

Irrigation unlocks the shovel's "dig an irrigation channel" action.

Military layer

Melee

Archery

Firearms

Gunsmithing also gates the shovel's "dig a trench" action.

Artillery

Armor (gateway)

Padded Armor (basic) stays on the Main tree as the armour gateway. The advanced armour nodes moved to the standalone Tailoring tree (see below).

Health layer

Medicine

Surgery

Sanitation

This system replaces the old flat Industrial/Military/Health point-pool research. Recipes not yet migrated into the tree still use the legacy threshold gate as a fallback — over time, more of the crafting catalogue will be tied to specific nodes above.