History XXII: R&D

I have long been fascinated by the Worlds: History project. Go check it out.

One idea I'd like to steal gain inspiration from is the discovery system. People groups have chances to learn new technologies over time (or even lose them). It's quite comprehensive in design if not fully filled out.

I love this. Conceptually, it should synthesize with my existing tech tree, yielding at least the following benefits:

1. Prehistory is now possible; Year 0 doesn't necessarily start with the first city, and every polity doesn't begin with a city/settlement.
2. Tribes/polities should be able to migrate more rapidly, reaching more area of the planet's surface.
3. Technology will be different in different areas. This already exists but is fairly deterministic, based on population density. If your density is X, then you have agriculture, for example. This is captured by the tech level.

The downsides? It's a whole 'nother branch of work for me in addition to all of the research I'm already doing. So it might be useful to build it as a toggled mod. Additionally, DrTardigrade is working on timescales many factors larger than mine.