Poll

[amjayee]

Generally (and globally, usually) the technology goes forwards all the time, but throughout all history some parts of the world have gone backwards, too. Europe went backwards after the downfall of Rome in many areas, for example. Also the backwards steps do not necessarily concern all science, just some fields; Japan had technology for firearms, but government denied making them, so that technology was forgotten. Of course backwards steps would not be very radicaly usually, but there has to be a mechanism for them to happen in correct conditions. Science is difficult to forget of course, but technology is different; if you don't build firearms for long time, it's difficult to start over again.

[TempLeland]

Granted, technology can deteriorate and science can be forgotten under some circumstances. I also think these circumstances should be modelled into the game somehow; dark ages should indeed be possible. But since technology and knowledge goes generally forward more than backward, this mecahnism doesn't help keep up games that last forever. At least not without some extra parameters like very severe natural environment, recurring catastrophies or disallowing some technologies (mainly communication is what I have in mind) altogether.

Leland

[ElmoTheElk]

You are right there. A game at one point doesn't have any new technology. Even with the backward thing (which i agree with on itself) there IS an end of the game. Think about it, if the whole world is inhabited by very advanced and peacefull civs, what else is there to do?
And I do think that the extinction of humans is an option. Everybody loses, because of nuclear power or enviromental catostrophies. (Not spelled correctly.... )

Elmo

[Guildmaster]

Hmm as far as "Losing technology" goes, I had this idea a long time ago and I'm unsure if anyone listened then either.

Information has to be archived somehow. In America, we have things like libraries, encyclopedias, etc etc etc. Adding up all the collective knowledge of a civ gives you the total technology level. But assuming a knowledge is new, the information regarding that knowledge is kept within the confines of a few scientists working at some university somewhere. Theorteically.
Suppose an opposing civ were to wipe out all knowledge in your empire's archive in a manner similar to the Library of Alexandria being burned down with all the books in it, great knowledge would be lost and some techlology would be lost as well.

That why I think that each technology level has to have an "common knowledge index" or, some means of tracking how easy it is to eradicate that technology. Say if it were a 1, all you have to do is bomb the research building where the data is kept and all woul dbe lost. If it were a 10, 10 generations would have to pass without access to the archives before that technology is forgotten.

Where is this useful? Why?
This provides with the perfect model for a major catastrophe such as a Nuclear war or in ancient times a fire that destroys a major city, or an earthquake or something. It is unrealistic to take a fully automated technological society run by cyber-politicians and kill off 99% of the population leaving the remaining 1% starving to death or eating radioactive contaminated crops desparately trying to survive can't even find adequate water, and say they still have the know-how to build massive fiberoptic communications networks. These people are relearning how to use a plow, when do they have time to teach their children to access something they will never see or use?

Also, in Europe, the Black Plague killed indiscriminately paupers and scholars alike, and included countless alchemists and wizards and all sorts of people that kept their knowledge to themselves. That knowledge is lost as well. Maybe some of them kept books written in a shorthand only they or their passed relatives could read. Lost.

So it is important to have points in your empire that serve as archives. When one of these points gets accessed by an enemy, all knowldege contained therein is gained by that enemy. Perfectly fair assumption I think, imagine during the cold war what might happen if a soviet spy were to gain a library card for a US library. Not like it couldn't happen and not likely it didn't happen either. So that's why public knowledge is public knowledge. During the conquest of Mesoamerica, spanish monks destroyed countless Mayan texts for religious reasons even though most of the codices burned weren't of religious nature. I don't even question wether these codices documented the fall of their civilization and why they left the cities, among other things countless herbal remedies for tropical diseases, star mapping diagrams, language translations, probably even an alphabet book (we still don't understand all the heiroglyphs).

but anyway, yes technology can be lost a lot easier than you might think.

------------------
He's spreading funk throughout the nations
And for you he will play
Electronic Super-Soul vibrations
He's come to save the day
- Lenny Kravitz

[amjayee]

Yes, this is all true. That's why I'd like us to have possibilities to lose information. About archives, perhaps there would not be any sense to have them on the map, though I don't know... though we have to think through how complicated and realistic we want this to be.

BTW, welcome back, Guildmaster!

[The Joker]

Great ideas, guys.

But as with most things S. Kroeze has found a good solution to the "problem" a long long time ago - a certain percentage of a civs GNP should be used for education, or else technology would slowly be lost. The amount of money required per person would depend on the tech level. So where an ancient civ would survive with nearly no educational expences a modern one would have to spend loads and loads of money on it. This makes pretty much all the things we want possible, without too much complexity - everything is just handled on a regional level, like the other things.

------------------
I distrust those who pray; for they are putting their lives in the hands of strangers.

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

your signatures are getting weirder

GNP thing I had in mind also. There is going to be a lot of sliders in this game, lots of charts and graphs. Accountants delight
It will be ok as long as conection between action and result is obvious/well explained. Meaning: 10% GNP to education = stagnation. More = advancement, less = deterioration.
Too many interconnection, like education being affected by GNP, tech rate, population number, neigbours ... may make it difficult to comprehend the mechanism of the game, which should be transparent.

About game end ... well, as said before, it is either simplifying the game for multiplayer experiences, super-long games or keeping it complex and more to the SP expirience. I think it would be good to strike the middle ... I dont want some watered web based entertainment, but I like to kick human ass

[TempLeland]

I like the idea of having a variable which describes the deterioration rate for technology. It could probably be stored on regional level, so that some regions may have more robust scientific knowledge and others are more prone to losing it. The public library improvement, education or such could increase the value of robustness, and the lack thereof should decrease it. Furthermore, the more advanced and abstract a technology, the more the 'maintenance cost' would be. So, when a region is put under a stress (natural disasters, enemy attacks, riots, sabotage), there would be a chance of losing some of the most sophisticated techs.

Like VetLegion said, the interrelations between education, tech leve, GNP and other factors should be kept simple so that the player knows what's going on. I have a feeling that technologies shouldn't be something that the player has to constantly protect so that they don't get eradicated... I would find it frustrating to continuously struggle maintaining status quo, there has to be some progress to make things interesting.

[VetLegion]

I think I ll bump this ANCIENT thing.