Advances in Civilization: Call to Power (known as technologies in some similar games) are scientific or technological developments that need to be researched (with the expenditure of science) so as to unlock new and improved units, buildings, wonders, abilities, or advances.
There are 102 of them, listed in the game using the ADVANCES tab on the LIBRARY screen (F8). To see prerequisites and to see what further advances any advance helps to unlock, click the advance in the list then click "BRANCH" below the list. The advance will appear in the middle with prerequisite(s) on the left and advances it helps to unlock on the right. Click one on the left or the right to have it replace the middle one. Those you have researched have green borders. A popup above each one shows what units, buildings, or wonders it enables.
At the start of the game and whenever you finish research on one advance, you are presented with a popup screen that offers up to five (which may not be all) of the advances for which you have all the prerequisites. Clicking each one shows clickable links for its prerequisite(s) and any units, buildings, or wonders it enables, plus some descriptive text, under two tabs, one for gameplay and one historical. Select the preferred advance and click OK.
Clicking the SCIENCE menu shows a popup screen tabulating the advances already known by you and by all nations with which you have an embassy and it shows the "branch" diagram of what you are researching, with an indication of progress. A CHANGE button lets you switch to another available advance.
List of advances[]
Great Library entry[]
The history of mankind is so vast and subjective as to form the basis for an entire field of study called intellectual history: a discipline devoted to the analysis of man's progress through the world of ideas. The connection and source of certain discoveries and the reasons why people are able to make scientific breakthroughs is the subject of much debate. A fascinating account has been posed by Thomas Kun in "The Structure of Scientific Revolution."