Reply With Quotei just had a look... the furtherst you get without writing is optics.Originally posted by Diadem
Well writing *is* a prereq for almost every tech, isn't it? How many techs can you reach without writing? Not at all that many.
Well writing *is* a prereq for almost every tech, isn't it? How many techs can you reach without writing? Not at all that many.
i just had a look... the furtherst you get without writing is optics.Originally posted by Diadem
Well writing *is* a prereq for almost every tech, isn't it? How many techs can you reach without writing? Not at all that many.
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity
- Atheism is a nonprophet organization.
I meant IRL, how much you can do without at least knowing basic arithmetical operations?
Directly or indirectly maths should be a prereq to a LOT of things, bureaucracy being only one of them.
E.g. one can IIRC get Printing Press without maths, but it shouldn't be possible as making compliced devices requires knowledge of geometry.
Similarly Pyramids are impossible without maths and many other projects too.
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
actually a printing press does not really require geometrical theory. in the end it's just a sophisticated wheel. i think we have to distiguish mathematics as the general concept (like you were implying) and mathematics as a science (as i assume the game is meant to be).
that being said, the borders in civ4 are not clear. for instance musical theory is based on maths, but music can be composed and performed by anybody with a certain amount of brains.
on the other hand i don't think that a compass is worth much without maths. in fact, compass should have calendar as prereq and calendar should not require maths but merely writing...
but hey... those are just "IRL shoulds". the current civ4-system works perfectly and the fact that virtually nothing changed for the warlords expansion shows that it was and is well balanced.
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity
- Atheism is a nonprophet organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H...e_von_1811.jpgin the end it's just a sophisticated wheel
I would like to see the genius who can make a working printing press without a single calculation beyound basic arithmetics. Even the simplest 'sophisticated wheel' requires knowledge of PI to properly place the items on it.
No, in the game is meant to be a general use of mathematics more complicated than 1+1+1+...+1 in day to day life, samely as writing and alphabet as very basic concepts. If it's not, that's a bad inconsistency as most techs seem to be just what they're named for.i think we have to distiguish mathematics as the general concept (like you were implying) and mathematics as a science (as i assume the game is meant to be).
on the other hand i don't think that a compass is worth much without maths. in fact, compass should have calendar as prereq and calendar should not require maths but merely writing...
Maths is absolutely necessary to make calendar.
If all you can do is one plus one, there's no dreaming about 365.
Compass on the other hand can do totally without maths.
It doesn't take even 1+1 to walk straight north, or in any other direction as long as you remember where you are going to.
Even novadays there are only so many people who use compass fully, like calculating azimuths and using those calculations to estimate the route.
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
re PP: what i meant was that in effect it's a plate with make metal-based lettres, a rotating cylinder (the "wheel part") whith big weight on in and a slideable thing between for the paper. it's more an engineering work than mathematical.
but ofcouse, the REAL printing presses were much more sophisticated. your picture is from 1811, 370 years after gutenberg's. this one from the 16th century does not even have a cylinder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PressHist.JPG
calendar: as you said, mathematics is not just 1+1+1... so 365 is still possible. for a calendar you don't need to be able to calculate the days of the year. a sun dial to show the angle and length of the shadows already says quite a big deal about the time of year. and lunar cycles are also pretty simple to understand.
but again, it depends on the definition of calendar...
as for compass: sure, you can walk north for 3 days, then northeast for 2 more. but in the end you are using maps, be it painted (with writing to mark the various places and points of reference) or from your head.
i was referring to the most common use of compass: out on open sea, where you don't have any points of references like mountains, cities, lakes, etc... except the stars. and before astronomy started to be a viable way of navigating (which historically actually started earlier than compass, afaik), you had to use spherical geometry to distiguish where you were with a compass
anyhow, sorry for thread-jacking!
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity
- Atheism is a nonprophet organization.
You need mathematics for both compass and calendar. You can walk north, or notice there are 4 seasons, without mathematics, but to do anything more sophisticated you need mathematics.
The game is wrong in its placement of mathematics. You don't need writing to do mathematics, and mathematics should be earlier. It is dead wrong in its placement of astronomy, which should be way, way earlier. Astronomy and mathematics (I don't think there was a difference between the two at the start) are very, very old. We all know what the oldest profession in the world is, and the 2nd oldest was probably that of soldier, but astronomer would make a good 3rd. People have been studying the stars for a very long time.
And fact you probably need a basic understanding of astronomy (and the calendar) to even be able to do agriculture.
But there are more quirks in the civ4 tech tree. You can research future technology without agriculture. That's weird. Mining is one of the 6 first technologies, though I don't think mining is all that old. They certainly had quarries a long time ago, but real mines? Yet in the game mining is a prereq for quarries, instead of the other way around.
Even funnier is that you can build and launch the space ship without researching flight. That's just plain insane.
For gameplay the tech tree is pretty good, don't get me wrong. But from a historic point of view much doens't make sense.
About 2000 years back they had all the techs up to the first 7 rows (7th row is code of laws etc), plus music, philosophy (which was ancient by that time), paper, education and astronomy. With one major exception: The compass. Why that is so early I don't know. It wasn't introduced in Europe until the 12th century. They had it a bit earlier in China, about 1700 years ago, but that's still much later than all other techs around compass, and the Chinese didn't really use it for navigation until the 11th century anyway.
Another horribly misplaced tech is nationalism. What is it doing there? Nationalism didn't gain momentum until the 18th or 19th century, and even at the very earliest you can't place it before 1648. And why is it a prereq for democracy, which the Ancient Greek already had? Why does democracy unlock universal suffrage by the way? That's a 20th century invention.
Oh well, I'll stop ranting and just enjoy the game. But it would be nice if firaxis hired a better historian for civ5
A lot of the time, the techs don't really represent what they are named. Your example of Astronomy, for example. Astronomy is the study of the stars. As you said, men have done that for millenia now. What the game tech Astronomy represents really is the ability to fix longitude. Only by that could you get an accurate location on the world, and navigate effectively. They did circumnavigate the globe before that, but reliable ocean travel really came about with the development of the chronograph.
Age and treachery will defeat youth and skill every time.
Historically mining and quarrying not descended from each other.Originally posted by Diadem
Mining is one of the 6 first technologies, though I don't think mining is all that old. They certainly had quarries a long time ago, but real mines? Yet in the game mining is a prereq for quarries, instead of the other way around.
We have some excellent flint mines in England that pre-date metal-working of all kinds. They're solid mining operations, quite extensive tunneling.
Quarrying shows up all over the world, and certainly post-dates mining, but probably isn't related to it. Quarrying is mostly about the controlled cutting of large blocks of stone, and is almost always an open-air project involving large, well-organized, groups of workers.
So if mining and quarrying are related, it's a co-eval relationship not a parental one. Think siblings or cousins, not parent-child.
-abs
(Archeology is my passion and I couldn't agree more, a good historian/archeologist would have a lot of work to do revising the Civ tech-tree. That said, Civ isn't actually a very good simulation of what historically happened here on earth, it just happens to be a damn fine game that feels like it simulates history.)
Cool sigs are for others. I'm just a llama.
Well the main problem with civ techs is of course that most of the things that are represented as one single technology where in fact things that were slowly developped, and improved time and time again, over periods of hundreds and sometimes thousands of years.
There's no single concept of mathematics that was invented at a single point in time. Mathematics was developped over thousands of years. Same with many other inventions.
Still though, more realism is possible without making the game less fun to play, or overly complex.
First mining/quarry operations are as old as 100k yrs (see 'human evolution' @ wiki)Mining is one of the 6 first technologies, though I don't think mining is all that old.
Nationalism is almost as old as nations, it's only the flourishing of it in 18th-19th what makes us think it's young.Another horribly misplaced tech is nationalism
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Do you think this tech tree discussion could go in a seperate thread?
Jon Miller: MikeH speaks the truth
Jon Miller: MikeH is a shockingly revolting dolt and a masturbatory urine-reeking sideshow freak whose word is as valuable as an aging cow paddy.
We've got both kinds
Don't resurrect it, post on-topic.
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Blake,
I've recently hit a bug whereby there is a pop-up that tells me I've cicumnavigated the globe even though I haven't. I suspect this is a bug introduced by some changes I've made to the XML (although I don't understand how). But is there any possibility it comes from your AI changes?
RJM
Fill me with the old familiar juice
No, it's always been like this. You get the circumnavation bonus if you have at least 1 tile in every column uncovered.
Thanks - I've never noticed this before.Originally posted by Kuciwalker
No, it's always been like this. You get the circumnavation bonus if you have at least 1 tile in every column uncovered.
RJM
Fill me with the old familiar juice
Blake, I am playing your newest AI mod and love it. Thanks. I just have a question about the settling (blue circle) code. Almost every time I go to settle if there is a hill around it wants to settle on the hill. Are hills THAT advantageous to settle on (besides the extra hammer) or is this a little too prioritized at the moment?
The AI does seem to have a high preference for hills now but I don't mind. Overall the blue circle for Blake's AI is almost always the same spot I would choose myself. I even had a game tonight where at first glance I thought it was wrong because it picked a non coastal spot 1 square away from a good coastal spot. I built there anyway just for the hell of it and sure enough I discovered copper and horses in my fat cross once I discovered BW/AH. I would have missed both if I'd settled on the coast.Originally posted by Crossfire
Blake, I am playing your newest AI mod and love it. Thanks. I just have a question about the settling (blue circle) code. Almost every time I go to settle if there is a hill around it wants to settle on the hill. Are hills THAT advantageous to settle on (besides the extra hammer) or is this a little too prioritized at the moment?
I don't really give hills that much priority personally. If I have a choice between a hill or grass/plains that is otherwise equal I will take the hill but otherwise I go with whatever gives a more optimal mix of resources. I tend to favor settling on those annoying little patches of desert to neutralize that tile's uselessness.
aye great work blake, just won my first monarch game, i was isolated on small continent so i couldnt trade to tech in the early game. but i had largest land.
but did it builder style, only 1 war to take out a german city that infected my 2nd island.
my civ only peaked in the mid 1900's and i caught and passed the germans who started building their space ship over 100 turns prior to me (i payed a few civs to go to war with him to slow him down.) i can only have won the game by a couple of turns as the germans had only 1 component left.
definatley a change from vanillia (i dont have warlords) where i generally beat emporer (struggled on next one up).
In a recent game, Mansa ended our defensive pact. On the same turn, I went to the trading screen and he was willing to agree another defensive pact. Is this a bug? If so has it always been there, or has it been intruduced by Blake's AI improvements. Could it have been introduced by my own changes to the XML?
RJM
Fill me with the old familiar juice
Really good work !
It's easy to found a religion now using the 2.08 patch... I was able one time to found hindouism, buddism, search for whell, bronze working, granary, animal husbanry, mining and still able to found judaism there after !!!!!!
What the hell appened ? Before it was difficult to found on religion and at least in monarch beeing able to found the 3 first religion used to be near impossible even starting with the good techs.
The main problem for the AI seem to be war now.
The AI doesn't seem to like religion as much as building an economy. Personally I like the new balance, because I have seen games where religion gets snapped up asap, but there are others where the game can go 60 turns before Hinduism gets researched.
You just wasted six ... no, seven ... seconds of your life reading this sentence.
There's not much difference in early religion preference.
In fact there should be only two changes:
1) Civs with Mining will be slightly more likely to get Bronze Working right away (since it's slightly boosted by knowing about chopping now).
2) Civs with fishing/wheel or ag/wheel will be significantly more likely to get Pottery right away.
Once an AI already has a religion they'll be less inclined to pursue more religions, but that has nothing to do with hind/budd.
It's always been fairly easy to found a religion and it's always been pretty random. I'd say you're just expecting the AI to "excel more in all things".
Hinduism not getting researched is a pretty usual scenario in a game where there's a lack of heavy-duty religious freaks like Isabel or Montezuma.
I've seen Isa going Masonry->Monotheism, right after realising hinduism's gone.
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
A post I read on the CivFanatics forum seemd to say that a lot of Blake's stuff had been pulled out of the offical Warlords patch, apparently because it was felt making the game harder might annoy more casual players. Is this true?
As far as I can tell, it's false, I heard that most (if not all) the modifications made it to the patch and that is also seen in the latest reports from players about improved AI performance.A post I read on the CivFanatics forum seemd to say that a lot of Blake's stuff had been pulled out of the offical Warlords patch, apparently because it was felt making the game harder might annoy more casual players. Is this true?
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=159018AI city placement improvement as per Blake
Improved AI use of 'emphasize' buttons as per Blake
Pop-rush and draft AI improvement as per Blake
Worker AI improvement as per Blake
Improved civics AI as per Blake
Tweaked AI building priorities as per Blake
http://www.2kgames.com/index.php?p=support_patches
Could you give us a link to that post?
EDIT:
And actually this 'more casual player annoyance' bit makes me think of some noobs who're so noob, they wont recognise they can't beat monarch, instead demanding an easier game from Firaxis
-- What history has taught us is that people do not learn from history.
-- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
I downloaded the newest Blake Ai Mod from his SourceForge page but I'm really unsure where to put the CvGameCoreDLL.dll.
The release notes say put it in the CustomAssests Folder. But I can't find that folder anywhere! Could someone please kindly tell me exactly where I'm supposed to put the AI Mod?
go to your game folder (typically c:\program files\firaxis\sid meyer's civilization 4\ ) and there's some shortcuts of which one is CustomAssets...
otherwise check in your My Documents\My Games\[YourCiv4Folder]\Assets
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity
- Atheism is a nonprophet organization.
When I put the .dll in CustomAssets, there's no indication in-game that the improved AI is being used. When I manually load the mod (and do the necessary restart of the game) there's test in the top right corner of the welcome screen telling me I'm using the BlakeAIMod. If I understand correctly, this is completely normal, but I'm still left wondering if I've done everything correctly. Is there any way for me to tell?
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