{The List} - Technology

[grap1705]

Jaguar: your previous look was more appealling...

Snoopy 369:
- thanks for the IMO explanation.
- research as you describe it only corresponds to the American model, which I did mention. But by no means is research conducted everywhere in the world in the same way. The European way is different, and within Europe, English and French or German ways are rather different also. Russia also has its own state centered organization, not to speak of the way it is done in China or Zimbabwe...
- democracy that appeared in Greek Cities in the Antiquity was only city centered and not expandable to a country, because when they where doing it, democracy, with the agora meetings to discuss public issues, was alive only in the head city, other ones being mostly conquered and servant cities. This greek model and the roman development later gave the Republic, which is quite different from a democracy. Still today, we have mostly republics, not real democracies. Republic is "power in name of the people", while Democracy is "power to the people". Which is indeed quite different, and electing representatives makes for a republic. Real democracy is hardly applicable to anything bigger than a village because you can hardly involve people to meet and debate and decide collectively when you go over a given size.
Politicians don't like to bother with such details and like the word Democracy better, because they find it more appealing to the masses, so they biassed it a little over time and history, which gave way to calling democracies anything with elected representatives. Which was, from what I know mostly the case first in UK with the Cromwell take over.
Hence it might be a good thing, just as you suggested to have ancient and modern medicine (and eventhough I don't abide by your allegations of the modern one pretending to cure causes, given the fact that I believe it still doesn't understand life and is still focussed on a mere chemical process, but that is a dogmatic debate), to have ancient and modern democracy. Ancient democracy would be in fact the city state, and would give at a one city level big advantages compared to despotism. This would enable you to develop a single city strategy in the beginning of the game without falling behind...

[okblacke]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Only thing about your comment about governments versus private industry is that the government does both 'fundamental' and 'practical' research, while private industry does *less* but not no theoretical research.

IBM has spent billions over the years. Yes, they're chasing better widgets, but from what I've heard, it's often been with a very loose leash.

I'd say the difference is twofold: ancient medicine was primarily "trial and error" rather than understanding the physical effects of the medicine,

And today we have a blood pressure medicine used for growing hair and a heart medicine (?) used for getting erections.

and it was primarily symptomatic (sort of a corrolary to the first really). Modern medicine attempts to cure *both* symptoms and root causes,

I wanna live in your world. In my world, doctors treat only symptoms--they give sets of symptoms names ending with "syndrome". They work on the basis that the human body is faulty, that it produces too much of this or too little of that, and use drugs and other chemicals to mask the symptoms. The only problem is, after they've (eg) pumped the nation's women full of estrogen, they find out it causes cancer.

In my world, the research money goes into drugs; all other solutions are fined, punished, ridiculed--anything to quash them--and the same doctor would warn against the use of melatonin would have happly prescribed thalidomide; and a doctor who goes to school for years presumably to learn important things can be trumped by a 30 second TV commercial showing people enjoying life due to some wonder pill that doesn't even bother to explain what the pill is supposed to treat.

Of course, none of this is relevant to Civ. Civ doesn't exist without progress. But, as Will Durant said, progress is a theory.

[snoopy369]

Modern medicine as I stated treats both symptoms and root causes. Certianly, if I have a headache, I would like the doctor to make my headache go away, as well as make the cause of the headache go away. Much of our current medical research is oriented towards curing root causes of major diseases, such as AIDS and Cancer. Immunology -- one of the hotter subjects in research these days -- is precisely the study of how our body defends itself from diseases, ie the root causes, and earns the far majority of governmental funds (admittedly in the US). Symptomatic cures are generally a private institution's work, although like I said they're just as important as 'root cause' cures, since often symptoms are as bad or worse than the ultimate disease.
The argument you make about medicines causing cancer or whatnot, at least in the US, is totally faulty -- the problem if anything is that the FDA is *too* cautious about allowing medicines to come out, especially after the thallidomide crisis that you mentioned. In the case of Estrogen therapy for post menopausal women, not only is estrogen deficiency the *root cause* in this case, but the link between estrogen and cancer is highly tenuous and highly debated, and a lot of doctors won't prescribe it for that very reason.
Money in the US goes into theoretical and practical research. Company money tends to go into drugs or other therapies that have immediate practical gain, while university or government sponsored research (NIH and whatnot) often goes into studies of how systems work. Admittedly doctors will sometimes be hesitant to prescribe new treatments; in that case you find another doctor, who will happily do so (as my girlfriend's father did).
FYI, the reason commercials don't say what their medicines treat is so they don't have to list the side effects and whatnot in them, as FDA rules require them to if they say what the medicine does.

[okblacke]

You and I aren't going to agree on this, and it's off-topic, anyway. Suffice to say the illusion of medical progress is just one of many we can embrace to play Civ III.

But you are wrong about ancient medicine not caring about causes. They didn't have the technology or understand about physical causes, but they were far more deeply concerned about why than we are. We want quick fixes.

[KenderBane]

Pull a page out of the Master of Orion 2 playbook.

Have an option at the beginning of the game that allows players to select a beginning tech level for the game. Every Civ would still start off at the same 'starting' line ... but the starting line would be ar different places on the tech chart.



Example of possible starting places are

Pre-historics (like the Mesopotamia Conquest)
Ancient Tech (like where the Standard Civ3 starts)
Middle Age
Industrial Age
Modern Age
Future tech (Where all techs are researched by every civ.

[DarkCloud]

parts of this thread are applicable: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=109759 What high-tech features should be in Civ 4? ... optimizer

[snoopy369]

Kender, you can do that in civ3, if you start a scenario, easily.

[KenderBane]

Snoopy369,

There is a difference between starting a scenario with certain properties, and playing a 'standard' game with certain properties.

[snoopy369]

Not if you start the scenario with no changes other than starting age, which is easy enough. At least for me ... Admittedly it should be built into the "New Game" menu rather than being only a feature of the scenario editor, but it's really not difficult to do this yourself in Civ3, if you're interested in it -- just make a bunch of scenarios, take you fifteen minutes, and you have your 4 or 6 or 8 games with different starting points.

[DarkCloud]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115659

more research/tech info

[DarkCloud]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=115659 Slow Down Research Rate... Tripledoc

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=116043 New Tech Ideas.... orrery

[shmily_dana]

I've always felt that if your opponant sees your better weapon, he is likely to imitate or create a counter. If I fly my planes over a enemy and he is close to the technology he should get a bonus to get to "flight" sooner. Or AA technology.

My other idea is that when I upgrade my units to better tech, the old weapons should be available to be bought my an enemy. This way someone who does not have the "gunpower" tech or saltpeter could have muskettes.

For certain governments, the sale of technology and good should be out of the governments hands. My democratic government might not want to sell "sanitation" to the backwards Zulu for their price. But some kindly missionary might open a hospital. (This would be sort of like the senate in CIVII that makes peace treatys when you don't want them...)

[MORON]

I just want blind research........

[Kuciwalker]

... as an option.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
... as an option.

Yea it won't fly for being manditory.

Aside from ending with modern tech, ie no option to even have any applicable future in any type of scenerio, one of my biggest complaints is that you can only reasearch 1 thing at a time and lose all research previously done if you switch to a new tech. Yes that research shouldn't carry over, but it shouldn't be lost so easily either.