An intellectual's review

[Unimatrix11]

Hmmm... those are good points, too... excellent...

But what if in civ egypt and such were in the fat cross of rome ? Well, certainly for modern ages that wouldnt help, since we get rice from china (not so much to stay healthy but to feed ourselves - more corn would be fine, too...)

I think you did a good job, showing some flaws in the civ model, but i ask you: Apart from its factual defencies would you consider it complex enough to call it a sim ?

I would also like to ask you, what you would change in the model. You already said, that trade should atract population rather than vice versa - seems to make sense, but what generates the trade then ? Geography ? I think that in fact we have a feedback-loop here - trade and population have a positive impact on each other, for, even if it is trade, that atracts people rather than vice versa, there still would certainly be no trade without people and the more people there are, the more trade there will be, atracting more people again. Then before a transpost revolution kicks in, the city food production would only be a limiting factor to total population rather than determining its growth rate. Yeah -why not ? You could drop the whole maintaince stuff, for you would need the commerce to grow your cities to begin with.

[Kuciwalker]

But what if in civ egypt and such were in the fat cross of rome ?

That would make the whole world what, a 16x16 map?

I think you did a good job, showing some flaws in the civ model, but i ask you: Apart from its factual defencies would you consider it complex enough to call it a sim ?

I don't think complexity is necessary for a simulation, though it can be helpful.

I would also like to ask you, what you would change in the model.

I would change very little, actually, since the mechanics work out great for a game (and that's all I care about). But if I were going to make it into a good sim... gah, that's hard. You'd have to overhaul the entire economic system, eliminate food/hammers/commerce and replace it with a labor-centered system, with resources just being inputs to the labor process.

You already said, that trade should atract population rather than vice versa - seems to make sense, but what generates the trade then ? Geography ? I think that in fact we have a feedback-loop here - trade and population have a positive impact on each other, for, even if it is trade, that atracts people rather than vice versa, there still would certainly be no trade without people and the more people there are, the more trade there will be, atracting more people again.

Yes. I don't think anyone actually has a complete explanation of the phenomenon.

[Adam Weishaupt]

You gotta love the slice 'n dice. Doesn't that tell us as much as we need to know about where Kuciwalker is coming from in all of this? Still, he raises one point that is not complete flimflam. The argument about grain imports was especially shocking to me, as I had never formed that impression, and Roman history is something I have studied in fair detail. In the interest of preventing others from putting too much stock in that speculation presented as certainty I suggest reviewing . . .

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521838788&ss=exc

The reader may be expecting to find an analysis of the price formation of various grains, a survey of the short-term trends and long-term developments of prices and real wages, a study of the processes of the cereal market, and a quantitative outline of imports and exports of grain between agricultural regions and structural markets. However, the reader should be warned that the present study of the grain market in the Roman world contains little of the above. This is not by choice, but by necessity: the ancient sources simply contain insufficient data to undertake an analysis of those aspects of pre-industrial societies that most economic historians of later times regard as essential.

The reason is that most ancient sources are literary texts, which include not only works of philosophy, history, novels and letters, but also legal writings and texts inscribed on stone. Even Egypt, while offering by far the most quantitative evidence on the ancient world, does not yield sufficient documentary sources to undertake a serious attempt at statistical analysis (except maybe on demography). The evidence on much of the Mediterranean region is limited to literary writings, which usually offer a picture of how things were perceived to be or of how they should have been, not of how they were.

(Italics above added by me just now.)

It is true that trade with Egypt was perceived as vital. Public figures did write with great hyperbole about the subject. I believe taking all of that stuff seriously is no more sensible than trying to understand 21st century history by placing stock in the writings of people who use "Islamofascism" as if it were not misleading political doublespeak. Bold statements made in the volatile arena of imperial politics do not constitute a reliable depiction of what was actually happening with the Roman economy. Just as falsehoods are a powerful weapon wielded by politicians intent on exploiting concern about American security today, they were a powerful weapon wielded by politicians intent on exploiting concern about Roman granaries and bakeries back then.

It is true that Egyptian trade was important and that grain was a substantial component of that trade. However, Kuciwalker seems intent on painting a picture that grain imports were the only, or at least the principle, reason why Egyptian trade became such a political hot button in ancient Rome. The fact that controlling Egyptian trade gave a man great clout during the Imperial period is a fair point. Yet by no means does this justify coming to the conclusion that controlling the foreign grain supply would be the same as having the power to starve the metropolis.

Some authors do contend that it was all about the grain imports. Yet Rome had already lost access to most of its grain import sources by the end of the 4th century. The population of the Eternal City did not really begin to plummet until aggressors took to sacking the city proper. Kuciwalker raises an intriguing historical point that may not be ludicrous, but he expresses the uncertain as if it were absolutely true, then follows up with an unlikely inference of his own. When we look at the lag time between Rome's loss of access to grain from beyond Italy and Rome's dramatic loss of population, either we must conclude that grain has a shelf life of many decades or that some other factor was the real cause of that change. When we look at the relationship between foreign attacks and population decline, much less reaching is needed to draw conclusions. Though this has caused me to reflect on the matter, it still seems as if Civ's model depicts what happened to Rome better than Kuciwalker's explanation.

Anyway, I don't feel obliged to keep pressing the debate, but I did feel that point was fascinating enough to study a little. If anyone else does find a particular claim of his persuasive or has objections of their own, by all means give those thoughts voice. I disagree pretty much across the board, but I don't really see the point in continuing to address an audience of one brick wall.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Unimatrix11]

That foods comes from the fat cross might be an acceptable simplifcation to me as far as pre-modern times are concerned. But with refridgeration at the latest, that should certainly change.

[Kuciwalker]

Your attempt to convince people that "uncertain implies wrong" is interesting, but at best you've established that my cite is plausibly false. Ooo-kay. You still haven't addressed how the fat cross really doesn't work at all in anything for the past 150 years.

Anyway, I don't feel obliged to keep pressing the debate, but I did feel that point was fascinating enough to study a little. If anyone else does find a particular claim of his persuasive or has objections of their own, by all means give those thoughts voice. I disagree pretty much across the board, but I don't really see the point in continuing to address an audience of one brick wall.

So basically, you refuse to try to refute my arguments. I guess I win, guys.

[Unimatrix11]

hehheh - i just remembered food corps... well there we go...

[Kuciwalker]

Food corps don't redistribute food, they just magically create more of it.

[Adam Weishaupt]

I made no effort to convince people that uncertain and wrong are the same thing. I offered an explanation as to why the grain import view of Rome's decline is a stretch while the repeated sacking of the city itself may reasonably be inferred as the cause of the decline.

I'm not really deep into the culture here so I'm not even sure what "the fat cross" refers too. If it is about how agriculture continues to influence population growth (though much less so considering the role of technologies and improvements play in the late game) then perhaps that is a deviation from how population behaves in modern reality.

Yet so far you only win in your own mind. I've said before and I'll say again, imperfections in the model do not render it useless as an illustration of crucial economic ideas. All of this nitpicking about history is departure rather than a discussion of the original topic.

A macroeconomic simulator could work with fictional beings and fictional commodities in a universe where even physics and chemistry, never mind history and literature, were wildly alien. Civ does make good use of many economic concepts, and it does so in the context of international competition in which individual nations strive to achieve a range of constantly shifting intermediary goals along the road toward one of the victory conditions. I'm still fine with what I said, and if you and Wiglaf remain unconvinced then I suppose I'll have to be fine with that too.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Kuciwalker]

I'm not really deep into the culture here so I'm not even sure what "the fat cross" refers too.

The fat cross is the 21-tile area in the city screen.

Yet so far you only win in your own mind. I've said before and I'll say again, imperfections in the model do not render it useless as an illustration of crucial economic ideas.

And as I've said before and will (sadly) have to say again, enough imperfections in the model do render it useless, particularly when those imperfections relate the fundamentals of the model rather than its superficial aspects.

A macroeconomic simulator could work with fictional beings and fictional commodities in a universe where even physics and chemistry, never mind history and literature, were wildly alien.

It wouldn't be a macroeconomic simulator of this world, then. By that reason, almost anything is a macroeconomic simulator because you can call relate it to some imaginary universe.

[wodan11]

You know, I think ultimately this whole debate comes down to a disagreement over semantics.

Is CIV a "model" or a "simulation"? Well, as we've found, any one person's answer to that question depends on their definition of those terms.

If we simply used another term, say, "artificial environment" (AE for short), we could then go on to talk rationally about the more fundamental question which is, does CIV teach lessons that can be applied to real life?

Wodan

[Adam Weishaupt]

The idea that a simulation must occur with a smooth flow of time rather than broken up into intervals is misleading on two levels. For one, it derives from a convention of classifying games. Back when there were only a few products like Populous or Sim City, merchandisers and reviewers weren't quite sure what to do with them. Rather than create a new category or associate them with strategy games, they lumped that sort in with the driving and flying games, since in a manner of speaking they were also "simulations."

Yet the way in which it is truly misleading is that even the most "real time" of real time games actually is broken down into intervals. It just happens that these spans of time, sometimes referred to as "ticks" or "frames" happen very quickly. Just as a motion picture is actually a series of photographs displayed in rapid succession, "sim" games are only not turn-based in the sense that discrete intervals of time occur very quickly and it would be impractical to pause for each one even if the game engine allowed it.

A simulation need not be computerized, though nowadays the power of information technology makes applying any significantly complex rule set to physical objects or handwritten tabulations profoundly undesirable. Chess may be a warfare simulation only in such a loose sense of the term as to dilute its meaning, but the Navy used to rely on a tabletop activity (not unlike the miniatures game Harpoon) to simulate conflicts at sea. Computers did not define simulations so much as they consolidated all the props and calculations while injecting so much horsepower that the field has become something it never could be without microprocessors, video graphics, etc.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Unimatrix11]

You just described one difference between a continious vs. a descrete simulation. And computers kinda turned descrete into continous by making the steps almost infinetely short, if thats what you wanted to say...
I didnt see anyone say that a simulation needs to be continious tho, or how it is otherwise linked to the topic.

BTW for me Populous was clearly a strategy game, never even thought of it as a sim. Sim City is a bit different, because you obtain a realistic position in this game, being that of a mayor (that cant get thrown out of office unfortunetaly).

[Kuciwalker]

The idea that a simulation must occur with a smooth flow of time rather than broken up into intervals is misleading on two levels.

Good thing no one asserted that, then!

[Kuciwalker]

Yet the way in which it is truly misleading is that even the most "real time" of real time games actually is broken down into intervals. It just happens that these spans of time, sometimes referred to as "ticks" or "frames" happen very quickly. Just as a motion picture is actually a series of photographs displayed in rapid succession, "sim" games are only not turn-based in the sense that discrete intervals of time occur very quickly and it would be impractical to pause for each one even if the game engine allowed it.

Thank you for telling us all things we already knew - some of us probably in much better detail than you.

[Commander Bello]

After having read this whole thread, it seems to be quite obvious that posters like Bhruic, Wiglaf and Kuciwalker really put a lot of effort in pointing out the weaknesses in Mr. Weishaupt's argumentation.

Any attempt to prove his arguments bitterly failed and was confuted.
Following his line of thoughts, even Monopoly would be a vital economic simulation.

Just my two cents and now back to the popcorn...