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Standardized Time Movement
Originally posted this in the big, big, big, big list of wonders and after a little thought realized that this doesn't belong there.
In the modern era, few if any concepts were as responsible for industrial and economic strength as was the time standardization movement. In 1860 there were 70 American time zones and it wasn't unusual for towns a few miles apart to vary in their "official" time by 20, 44 or 31 minutes. And the "official" time of the day wasn't very official -- church bells would toll at 6 p.m. and then 30-some minutes later the sawmill whistle would blow to mark the end of a workday at, you guessed it, 6 p.m. You can imagine how this hindered industrial/economic performance.
In the U.S., the standardization movement essentially (in practice, not necessarily in theory) began in Pittsburgh, when astronomer Sam Langley (who went on to fame with the Smithsonian) of Allegheny Observatory convinced Western Union to link the observatory with Pittsburgh so he could wire time (that's it -- just the time) to the Pennsylvania Railroad for $1,000 a year (this was in the 1870s, I believe). After that, railroads spread punctuality like government-issue blankets had spread smallpox among the native tribes. Without standardization, railroads are inefficient and prone to crashes (if a Buffalo station believes a train out of New York City left at 7:15 a.m. Buffalo time and instead it left the station at 7:15 NY time, there's bound to be some problems if another train is running on the same line).
Railroads were responsible for the standardization movement and in the game railroads would be required for a society to pursue standardization. Of course, nations didn't devote scientific output to "create" standard time for a nation, instead they had to spend money on ad campaigns to convince people of the merits and allay fears that this was the first step toward a one-world government (these were legitimate fears, even the New York Times wrote an article against standardized time). So, how do we factor that into the game?
Perhaps we make it more expensive/time consuming to lay railroad track. Or we give players an option to spend more cash/time and create a standardized system along with a rail system or just take a just-the-rail aporoach which would be cheaper and faster.
By opting for the more expensive system (which would include ad campaigns and the like), that player would ensure that there are no accidents on the rail line that would hurt production and in fact the cities served by standardized-time rail would have a higher production rate because of the punctuality that standardization brought to the workplace.
By opting for the cheaper system, the player would get rail in place quickly but would run the risk of losing valuable output through accidents. Also the impact on the work force would be negligable.
A society could have both type of rail -- perhaps highly concentrated sections of a nation would be ideal for the time-zone rail while remote military outposts would be best served -- initially -- by the cheaper rail. Once a nation would reach an arbitrary threshhold (say 80 percent) of its cities being connected by standardized-time rail, then the other rail lines would automatically be (or gradually as the case may be) converted because inevetiably people using those distant lines would recognize the value of standardized time. Therefore the entire nation would receive a bonus on production.
In the modern era, few if any concepts were as responsible for industrial and economic strength as was the time standardization movement. In 1860 there were 70 American time zones and it wasn't unusual for towns a few miles apart to vary in their "official" time by 20, 44 or 31 minutes. And the "official" time of the day wasn't very official -- church bells would toll at 6 p.m. and then 30-some minutes later the sawmill whistle would blow to mark the end of a workday at, you guessed it, 6 p.m. You can imagine how this hindered industrial/economic performance.
In the U.S., the standardization movement essentially (in practice, not necessarily in theory) began in Pittsburgh, when astronomer Sam Langley (who went on to fame with the Smithsonian) of Allegheny Observatory convinced Western Union to link the observatory with Pittsburgh so he could wire time (that's it -- just the time) to the Pennsylvania Railroad for $1,000 a year (this was in the 1870s, I believe). After that, railroads spread punctuality like government-issue blankets had spread smallpox among the native tribes. Without standardization, railroads are inefficient and prone to crashes (if a Buffalo station believes a train out of New York City left at 7:15 a.m. Buffalo time and instead it left the station at 7:15 NY time, there's bound to be some problems if another train is running on the same line).
Railroads were responsible for the standardization movement and in the game railroads would be required for a society to pursue standardization. Of course, nations didn't devote scientific output to "create" standard time for a nation, instead they had to spend money on ad campaigns to convince people of the merits and allay fears that this was the first step toward a one-world government (these were legitimate fears, even the New York Times wrote an article against standardized time). So, how do we factor that into the game?
Perhaps we make it more expensive/time consuming to lay railroad track. Or we give players an option to spend more cash/time and create a standardized system along with a rail system or just take a just-the-rail aporoach which would be cheaper and faster.
By opting for the more expensive system (which would include ad campaigns and the like), that player would ensure that there are no accidents on the rail line that would hurt production and in fact the cities served by standardized-time rail would have a higher production rate because of the punctuality that standardization brought to the workplace.
By opting for the cheaper system, the player would get rail in place quickly but would run the risk of losing valuable output through accidents. Also the impact on the work force would be negligable.
A society could have both type of rail -- perhaps highly concentrated sections of a nation would be ideal for the time-zone rail while remote military outposts would be best served -- initially -- by the cheaper rail. Once a nation would reach an arbitrary threshhold (say 80 percent) of its cities being connected by standardized-time rail, then the other rail lines would automatically be (or gradually as the case may be) converted because inevetiably people using those distant lines would recognize the value of standardized time. Therefore the entire nation would receive a bonus on production.
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