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 "The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communication all the world will become as one family."
– Townsend Harris

Game info[]

The invention of Steam Power is paramount for modern transportation, creating the means of propelling devices without them depending on external forces, such as wind or water.

The immediate result of this is the Ironclad, the ancestor of modern battleships. Steam engines are also applied to all water transports, increasing embarkation speed.

Civilopedia entry[]

When heated, water produces steam. Steam expands under pressure, and in a steam engine part of the heat energy is captured and used to raise and lower a piston or turn a rotor. The principles behind steam power were known by the ancient Greeks, but no one had figured out how to put it to practical use until the late 17th century, when Englishman Thomas Savery created a steam-powered pump designed to raise water from mines. In 1765 James Watt greatly improved the steam engine to the point that it could be used in a wide variety of applications. By 1802 steam engines were being installed in boats, and by 1825, steam railroads were in operation.

Steam power revolutionized industry and transportation across the world. Within a century the globe was crisscrossed by rail lines and steamship routes. Massive steam-powered factories were turning out tens of millions of tons of commercial goods (as well as military hardware). The industrialized countries enjoyed a huge increase in productivity and wealth (and pollution). Coal, the primary energy source used in steam engines, was being feverishly mined around the planet. A large portion of Great Britain's global military strategy centered upon protecting naval coaling stations at strategic locations across the world's oceans.

Eventually steam engines would be replaced by internal combustion engines, which were far more efficient and emitted less pollution. But before petroleum, steam was king, and the modern world would never have existed without it.

Trivia[]

The image seems to be a symmetrical version of the "Mechanic at Steam Pump in Electric Power House, circa 1921"

Civilization V Technologies [edit]
Ancient Agriculture Animal Husbandry Archery Bronze Working Calendar Masonry Mining Pottery Sailing The Wheel Trapping Writing
Classical Construction Currency Drama and Poetry GodsKings5 clear Engineering Horseback Riding Iron Working Mathematics Optics Philosophy
Medieval Chivalry Civil Service Compass Education Guilds GodsKings5 clear Machinery Metal Casting Physics Steel Theology
Renaissance Acoustics Architecture GodsKings5 clear Astronomy Banking Chemistry Economics Gunpowder Metallurgy Navigation Printing Press
Industrial Archaeology Biology Dynamite Electricity Fertilizer Industrialization GodsKings5 clear Military Science Rifling Scientific Theory Steam Power Telegraph1
Modern Ballistics GodsKings5 clear Combustion Electronics Flight Mass Media1 Plastics Radio Railroad Refrigeration Replaceable Parts
Atomic2 Atomic Theory Combined Arms GodsKings5 clear Computers Ecology Nuclear Fission Penicillin Radar Rocketry
Information2 Advanced Ballistics Future Tech Globalization Lasers Mobile Tactics GodsKings5 clear Nanotechnology Nuclear Fusion Particle Physics Robotics Satellites Stealth Telecommunications GodsKings5 clear The Internet BNW-only
Сut Calculus3 Patronage3 Publishing3
1 Vanilla only 2 Atomic and Information eras are Future Era in Vanilla 3 Сut from the game
GodsKings5 clear Added in the Gods & Kings expansion pack.
BNW-only Added in the Brave New World expansion pack.
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