The Internet: A Wonder or a Tech Advance

[Zer0_T0lerance]

quote: Originally posted by airdrik on 11-21-2000 06:17 PM I agree that the internet is a trade advance, and obsoletes all other trade units as you would no longer need them to establish trade routes.

Actually, in the real world, the Internet is what began the Information Age. The Internet is the "Information Superhighway." And did you know that in the real world the Internet Backbone is directly connected into supercomputers located at many colleges and universities across the world (click here for more information)?!?! After all, it should be because the Internet is an educational benefit for all, especially for college students. "Information Superhighway:" Sounds like a science advance to me. Though, it may also be a luxury. Remember, it didn't happen all at once. Leave E-commerce in their for later, as an information commercial science.

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Zero
[This message has been edited by Zero_Tolerance (edited November 22, 2000).]

[Zer0_T0lerance]

Here is a great webpage briefly summarizing the history of the Internet:

Internet Society (ISOC) All About the Internet: A Brief History of the Internet

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Zero

[Dauphin]

By similar logic most things aren't created overnight. The computer, quantum theory, shipbuilding etc..

True e-commerce has only emerged in the last few years as has the modern internet/web. Similarly you shouldn't get the advance "computer" as an individual event, as those of the 60s space programs are useless compared to the one in front of you right now.

You really have to decide which things need to be split into seperate categories and which can be lumped together in the interests of gameplay.

[Zer0_T0lerance]

Smart thinking, Big Crunch! Logical is an important word, as all of my ideas posted on these forums have been just that, logical. They are based on facts and facts alone, rather than opiniated suggestions. Though, I don't mean for Firaxis to sacrifice too much fun for realism, I just want to make sure that they know and understand the facts, so that they may consider them before making any decisions.



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Zero
[This message has been edited by Zero_Tolerance (edited November 22, 2000).]

[Rollo Tomasi]

How about this for an idea: The Internet is neither a wonder nor a tech advance, just a collection of city improvements. Here's how it works.

You discover the advance "Computers", which allows you to construct the city improvement "Computer Center". By itself, it provides a paltry 1% increase in science output in that city. But if you construct a second Computer Center in another city, the effect increases, and the science output of EACH of those two cities will increase by 2% (4% total). The third will increase the science output by 3% each (9% total), and so on. The tenth computer center would increase the science output of each of those ten cities by 10%, and the total science output increase from those ten cities would be 100%!

The discovery of the advance "Global Economics" would confer a similar trade bonus to the computer centers, or maybe only if a certain wonder was created (Like the Virtual World for Network Nodes in SMAC.)

This turns out to be a very powerful improvement (Your twentieth Computer Center would provide a 400% increase to the science output of those twenty cities), but they would be limited by the following:

1) The discovery of Computers should render all Libraries obsolete. (No good technology is researched in libraries anymore.)

2) Computer Centers should be very expensive. (5 of them should cost the same as a high-priced Modern Age wonder.)

3) Advances higher than "Computers" on the tech tree should take twice as long to be researched (Advanced technology requires great computing power, even longer if you have to do it by hand!). This doesn't apply to cultural advances.

4) Tech leak: Whenever you discover an advance, there is an n% chance (n/4 for military advances) that the advance is given to one or more civs with at least one computer center, where N equals the number of computer centers you have. Military technologies are highly classified and protected, and are therefore not as easily leaked out. The discovery of the "Digital Encryption" advance would cut the chance of leak in half, and a wonder similar to CTP2's Data Haven would reduce this chance to zero. Of course, this works both ways.

[Dauphin]

I like your ideas RT but the cumulative thing is a bit skew. Rather than increasing the benefit as n^2 the effective of each subsequent Computer centre should increase to a maximum.

1st: 50% increase for that city
2nd: 75% increase for each city (150% total)
3rd: 87.5% increase for each city (262.5% total.)

In reality if you had 20 Computer centres the next one is not going to make much difference to the others although it will get the benefits of the others for itself.

Eventually in this model each CC is equivalent to an increase of 100% per city, change the numbers to whateveer is appropiate.

[Jer8m8]

Some people have suggested "pacts" (read the List), like the UN. May be the Internet would be like this. Once a civ has reaserched it (or built the wonder), the internet is "created". As civs research the tech or build the wonder (once per civ) then they will be able to "use" the internet. Among other things, it might let you research e-commerce (trade bonuses), something that increases science (Information Age?) and others. If corporations are included, they will get extra bonuses which will be returned back to you (taxes)