I know that the tech tree from the original Civilization video game came from the board game Civilization designed by Francis Tresham. Does the idea of tech trees show up anywhere prior to the board game? Was the idea of technologies strictly and necessarily following each other present elsewhere prior to this, or did the idea rise out of tech trees?
Hi, this answer from /u/restricteddata is a few years old, but it gets to the idea of technology being a "process" or "progression" -- this has its roots in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution, when we see improvements to specific types of machines or machinery happening very rapidly.