The only way to develop an underwater civilization

Pretty sure organic tech was discussed as well. It'd be pretty cool, I hope they add it in the game.

Too slow. Two of the major drivers of innovation are the ability to discover things and to iterate improvement quickly.

The more you can discover and the faster you can iterate, the more you can come up with. With a system where iteration rate is capped by evolutionary rate, you can't develop such things as televisions etc.

Plenty of technology would never happen, because instead of developing the tech to solve a problem, the species would be evolutionarily molded to handle it. If you change as fast as your tools, who's to say you won't just lose the need for the tool?

But what would that air-tight thing be made of? And how would it function?

Shells are relatively water proof. The problems are:

1. Holes, shells, especially snail shells have holes in them which can leak.
2. Shallowness, clam shells are incredibly shallow and the bubbles will seek freedom using the channels of the shell.

Source: I'm studying Marine Biology, and I've basically lived on the beach... more like mangrove swamps but I have readily accessibility to the beach.

We had this conversation since the beginning of development. No, there will not be underwater civs. The ideas you mention have already been discussed a million times. It's not going to happen, it's just too unrealistic and unfeasible.

No = No.

No underwater civs.

But then there's that major transition between stone and metal, from water to land. Evolution wouldn't do that. And would just cause the devs to add new physics for interaction with the underwater environment as a "civilized" creature. As well as that, adding more stuff to the third dimension that on land is not used as much.

mitobox it was probably discussed at the thread below, but there's too much of the same on it for me to be enthusiastic about finding it exactly. It's the same one you linked in the meta board.

thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t543-implementing-underwater-civilizations

Well, in risk of having my reputation throw through the window, and being kicked out of the forum....

Artificial selection is faster than natural selection. All the different races of dogs were developed in just ten thousand years, instead of the millions of years that natural selection usually takes. In russia, they made an experiment were they took wild foxes and started to breeding them, and in just three generations, the foxes behaviour mirrored that of dogs, and even had non-pointy ears, like those in some kinds of dogs. I know that is radically different to having bio-tv, but, you know... maybe, with enough time? Of course, better not to waste programming resources to this, but I'm curious to see if maybe some patient ingenious players would be able to obtain this with the same system that is used to domesticate and breed animals and plants for cattle raising and agriculture.

Speaking of which, perhaps some players could achieve more advancements without metal that we think. For example writing is also obtainable without metal, and, I think, so is the printing press. With the printing press, the scientific method could arise and flourish. Mills don't require metal neither, so perhaps there could be floating windmills, or special mills which take advantage of subaquatic currents. That could be a source of energy that could power, lets say, a textile factory. Perhaps even start an industrial revolution? Electricity is more difficult to handle underwater, as is almost always handled with metal, and you are always surrounded by a conductive liquid. But you could reach industrial stage with an awesomely weird civilization resembling the aztecs, but with mill powered factories and flourishing with scientists discovering the laws of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Not bad.,,

... all that without extensive selective breeding or visiting the surface.

A lot of stuff can be done under water, you simply have to deal with constant, heavy drag and a lack of fire. Thanks to the drag, I don't think it would be all that easy to harness wind power, though it would be possible sometimes. Technology would generally have to be restricted to applications where nothing has to move quickly, and levers are also probably out of the picture, since they have to move sideways through water. Pulleys could see a lot of use though, rope in general really.

Another thing against the development of underwater civilization from underwater tribalism is that it would probably be very hard to store food long-term. And without that driver towards centralization, would you get the kind of state formation which is essentially the prerequisite for larger-scale job specialization, and all the things, like further technological development, that stem from that? The only way I can think of involves transporting food out to dry caches, which means you need to be an amphibian.

The biggest thing I see against underwater civilization, though, is the comparative dearth of oxygen underwater, oxygen which you sorely need if you want to have a big brain and yet be capable of a certain amount of labor each day beyond simply feeding yourself. Again, I think it would be doable if you're an amphibian -- with the ability to breathe air, and bring a lungful of air on a dive, you can act more energetically than you would be able to simply relying on dissolved oxygen.

And of course, if you're an amphibian, you can use fire, so we've gone full circle.

Oh yeah, and there's an english version of that page, you know www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Ramjet/05_en.htm