Technology Test Scenario: Development & Discussion Thread

[alms66]

Updated Tier 2 Techs:

Communications
Language
Mass Media
Machine Communications

Transportation
Ground Transportation
Water Transportation
Air Transportation
Space Transportation
Hybrid Transportation (2)

Military
Strategies & Tactics (2)
Water Warfare
Ground Warfare
Siege Warfare
Air Warfare

Science(3)
Geology
Biology
Physics
Chemistry
Mathematics

Social(3)
Philosophy
Religion
Government & Law
Economics
Education

Infrastructure(4)
Fortifications
Energy
Production
Resources
Construction

The Bold Items are the Tier One techs. I'd really like to keep the number of techs down to 6 on Tiers 1 and 2, and 6 or less per required tech thereafter. This will produce a continuously more detailed set of techs at each level until that particular branch 'ends'.

Tier One has already been finalized for this version, I'm trying to finalize tier two at the moment, but I've gotten stuck. Any comments for changes or additions are very welcome at this point.

Notes:
1. I would like to drop this one, but don't have anything better.
2. This one just takes up space to fill the sixth slot. It also conveniently covers stuff which doesn't fall into the other groups. If you have a better way, speak up.
3. These are all tentative at best.
4. I'm considering dropping this one, but don't want to lose the common structure of sixes. This is so vaguely broad, yet the player needs a one stop shop for infrastructure as well, so any help at all would be appreciated moreso here than anywhere else.

[LDiCesare]

I don't get the Hybrid trnasportation. To me this means nothing. I suggest fluvial(?). Naval = Sea, Fluvial = River. Call it river if fluvial's not English.

Where do pigeons fall in the communications techs? Airbased? I am not sure that there is such a thing as sea-based communication. If that's just putting a message on a boat, that's not communication, that's transportation. Writing is definitely needed, I can't see why you would wnat it out. It ranges from drawing ot pictograohs to ideograms, syllabaries, alphabets and allows for numeric systems (is thus a helper of maths).
Communications I can see: Speech, Writing, Messengers (runners to mail boats and planes), Animal messengers (carrier pigeons), Mechanical automated messengers (semaphores and telegraphs), Mass Media (written - print), Mass media (spoken/visual). Most of these need writing, but carrier pigeons could just be painted black in order to say a battle was lost, so this is not really necessary. Anyway the geographic division doesn't make sense for me.

[alms66]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I don't get the Hybrid trnasportation. To me this means nothing. I suggest fluvial(?). Naval = Sea, Fluvial = River. Call it river if fluvial's not English.

Hybrid transportation is any form of transportation which is both A and B, where A and B are each one of the other types of transportation. As I said, I could drop it, but it's keeping the slot full for now.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Where do pigeons fall in the communications techs? Airbased? I am not sure that there is such a thing as sea-based communication.

Pigeons could be air-based or under writing.
As for Sea-based comm., that's a mistake. I'll edit that.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Writing is definitely needed, I can't see why you would wnat it out. It ranges from drawing ot pictograohs to ideograms, syllabaries, alphabets and allows for numeric systems (is thus a helper of maths).

It's needed, for sure, I'm just not sure if it's a Tier 2 tech, though I guess it has to be if we can't find another.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Communications I can see: Speech, Writing, Messengers (runners to mail boats and planes), Animal messengers (carrier pigeons), Mechanical automated messengers (semaphores and telegraphs), Mass Media (written - print), Mass media (spoken/visual). Most of these need writing, but carrier pigeons could just be painted black in order to say a battle was lost, so this is not really necessary. Anyway the geographic division doesn't make sense for me.

And here's where you kind of loose me.
By "Communications I" you mean Tier 1, correct? If so, then only six techs are going under that, those are listed above (minus sea-based).
I'm unclear on the "geographic division" sentance.

Note that I've edited the Tier 2 list above.

[Mark_Everson]

I just have a few minutes, but want to squeeze in a couple of comments. I think the slavish adherence to exactly 6 tier 2s per tier 1 is needlessly complicating this discussion. Just have however many are needed for each while keeping them all of importance to the scenario. If one has seven, and another three, it should be fine. Importance of the techs and what the player gets out of them is the critical thing here.

I'm not sure it's a bad thing, but we've gone from the base of the tech tree (former tier 1s) being theory areas (Tech 7 thread design) to now being broad areas of practical application. FE Communication. It may be better, but I just wanted to raise the point explicitly.

I'm cool with applications being embedded in the tech file. The weight system does seem a lot better. (I'd propose using a nominal 1-10 scale.) The only point that I'd make is that we should either maintain the Activities.xml file to define the activity names and text definitions, or lead with it in the tech file. Otherwise typos would be difficult to identify.

[LDiCesare]

By geographic, I ment that I'm not sure ground/air/space communications are really fields of themselves. What do you put under air communication? How is a runner pigeon different from a runner hound which would know how to come home? So I generally disagree with the use of ground-based communication , air-based and space-based. I'd ratherremove these categories and replace tehm by something else. Is phone ground based or space based or air based for instance? It uses wires on the ground, relays in the air and satellites when you're phoning from the antarctic. I prefer categories like these:
Message carrying, Machines that carry messages, Mass media (Writing is still there, Linguistics can also be a tier 1 communications tech).
Message carrying would include tier 2+ techs like runners, carrier pigeons, air post. Machines includes semaphores, telegraphs, telephones, mass media includes broadcasting and printing. Broadcasting includes radio and tv.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I just have a few minutes, but want to squeeze in a couple of comments. I think the slavish adherence to exactly 6 tier 2s per tier 1 is needlessly complicating this discussion. Just have however many are needed for each while keeping them all of importance to the scenario. If one has seven, and another three, it should be fine. Importance of the techs and what the player gets out of them is the critical thing here.

Yea, I know it doesn't really matter, but an even distribution in the first two tiers is more appealing to me. I'll continue to strive for it, but it's not something I'll force if it doesn't logically fit.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I'm not sure it's a bad thing, but we've gone from the base of the tech tree (former tier 1s) being theory areas (Tech 7 thread design) to now being broad areas of practical application. FE Communication. It may be better, but I just wanted to raise the point explicitly.

I think it's a good thing. If we included big theory areas, we'd have many more than 6 categories, which could lead to some overstimulation of some players. Having big broad categories also destroys the need for only three tiers, or actuallly forces the need for more. This isn't really good or bad IMO, it just is.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
By geographic, I ment snip...

Ah, I see now. I was thinking the same thing last night actually.
As for categories, how about this:
Mass Media
Machine Communications
Language (writing, alphabet)
Signaling

As for animal messengers, I don't really like the idea of putting such a shallow portion of tech here (there are only so many animals used for the purpose, and the purpose is the same), so I think I'll stick that under Domestication, and have some level of communication required for it.

Note that I've updated the tree above.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I'm cool with applications being embedded in the tech file. The weight system does seem a lot better. (I'd propose using a nominal 1-10 scale.) The only point that I'd make is that we should either maintain the Activities.xml file to define the activity names and text definitions, or lead with it in the tech file. Otherwise typos would be difficult to identify.

Ok, so we're going to make the change. When? I need to know whether I should wait for it to start finalizing data or if it's ok to do it now. If I need to wait, I'll switch to working on the tutorials.

because...

If there are no objections to the current tier two, I'll just call it final at this point. I'll ignore what's not appropriate for ancient times (but keep it for later), and start figuring out what data to put where.

I've decided on "global"* growth and upkeep rates as follows, provided there are no objections, this will be permanent, unless more tiers are added in the future or it is found to not work properly:
Tier 1 (Growthrate = 0.20/Upkeep = 1.00)
Tier 2 (Growthrate = 0.40/Upkeep = 0.80)
Tier 3 (Growthrate = 0.60/Upkeep = 0.60)
Tier 4 (Growthrate = 0.80/Upkeep = 0.40)
Tier 5 (Growthrate = 1.00/Upkeep = 0.20)

Thus the upper tiers grow slower and are harder to maintain than lower tiers.

*Note that the actual technology global variables (growthrate, upkeep and diminishingreturns) are currently set on 1.0, though that may change.

[LDiCesare]

As for categories, how about this:
Mass Media
Machine Communications
Language (writing, alphabet)
Signaling

This looks good. I am not sure about signaling, though. What will there be on top of this?
Why call language if it's writing? (Alphabet is a particular kind of writing). I'd rather have Writing as a full-fledged area. Linguistics could fit in, but there aren't that many applications of linguistics so it's probably useless to put it here, or it could be part of Language and thus not calling Language Writing would be fine..

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by alms66
I've decided on "global"* growth and upkeep rates as follows, provided there are no objections, this will be permanent, unless more tiers are added in the future or it is found to not work properly:
Tier 1 (Growthrate = 0.20/Upkeep = 1.00)
(snip)
Tier 5 (Growthrate = 1.00/Upkeep = 0.20)

I think those are ok as values for use in the test scenario. I wouldn't lock anything in as a spec yet, since it seems that the growth rates that you observe may just be a function of the arbitrary numbers that you put in the activities. If the level 1s just had smaller contributions there, it could be that everything works out evenly. The activity numbers might need to be changed for any of several reasons, so is this change even needed yet? Maybe I'm not getting it. . .

Next time you edit the scenario, Alms, could you put in that bulletin what exactly it is that you expect us to do when testing? Do youknow why only Food Mfg. and Mil. activites show up in the econ interface, they all should afaik. Is this something that I need to look into?

[alms66]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
This looks good. I am not sure about signaling, though. What will there be on top of this?
Why call language if it's writing? (Alphabet is a particular kind of writing). I'd rather have Writing as a full-fledged area. Linguistics could fit in, but there aren't that many applications of linguistics so it's probably useless to put it here, or it could be part of Language and thus not calling Language Writing would be fine..

Signalling will allow signal towers (such as those used by the Romans), though I guess I could drop it here, since that's the only use I have for it at the moment, and put it under fortifications. I think I'll do that.
Ok, I'll drop Language and call it Writing.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I think those are ok as values for use in the test scenario. I wouldn't lock anything in as a spec yet, since it seems that the growth rates that you observe may just be a function of the arbitrary numbers that you put in the activities. If the level 1s just had smaller contributions there, it could be that everything works out evenly. The activity numbers might need to be changed for any of several reasons, so is this change even needed yet? Maybe I'm not getting it. . .

I think in the long run it will work out fine, though, like I said, things will change if they need to.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Next time you edit the scenario, Alms, could you put in that bulletin what exactly it is that you expect us to do when testing?

I'll add some text to the bulletin, no problem. For right now, there's not much to test. It's more or less a preview, though it's kind of fun too, until the Barbarians are destroyed anyhow. Once I've edited the tech data to be as it should be, then there will be a need for testing.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Do youknow why only Food Mfg. and Mil. activites show up in the econ interface, they all should afaik. Is this something that I need to look into?

What exactly are you missing? It may be my fault.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by alms66
I'll add some text to the bulletin, no problem. For right now, there's not much to test. It's more or less a preview, though it's kind of fun too, until the Barbarians are destroyed anyhow. Once I've edited the tech data to be as it should be, then there will be a need for testing.

One thing that you can do is throw in ever-larger barb armies that appear from time to time to add a little to the excitement. That would also let players use their new shiny military hardware that their tech efforts have yielded. Just make sure when you put in barbs to give them enough Army Supplies so that they don't go into low-power mode almost immediately. You can see the supplies tag in Attila if you're not familiar with it. Anyway, seems like a decent idea to me if not done too much.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
One thing that you can do is throw in ever-larger barb armies that appear from time to time to add a little to the excitement.

Already taken care of.

-Edit-
Let me know if you think it's too much not enough, etc. once you've updated your copy... but then again that's in the bulletin now...

As for that bulletin, you can ignore most of the points having to do with the techs themselves, because I'm in the middle of an update, so comments would be futile at this point. Once I actually post the spreadsheet (Does anyone have a problem working with .xls, MS Excel, files?) here, then comments on the specific techs (and their helpers, requirements, etc.) will be needed.

Check the post in the Technology Model v7 thread regarding the start tag.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson Your tier 1s almost seem like the right broad categories as they are.
...
Go ahead and propose them. just put them into Activities.xml. Just remember that for now tech activities hookups (Where the RPs come from) need to be done by hand, so limit as I suggested above.

Mark, I've updated the activity file with all the tier 1 techs. Once you get them working, we can see about putting recipients down for them, because I didn't put any for now.

[alms66]

I've reorganized everything, and just need to set the helpers, start levels, and what not. When the dust settled, there were 53 total technologies for the first run. I didn't want such an odd number, so rather than cut 3, I added 2, bringing us to 55. Then I opened it up to see how they fit on the panel and sure enough... they don't (at least not at my resolution - 1280x768). Can we change the panel to scrollable? I'm not familiar with Java's API, but if it's anything like MFC, I don't think it's too much trouble to ask. If this gets done, I'll need an update of the game folder. If not, I'll figure out something to hack off (10 techs to be precise).

[LDiCesare]

I just committed a scrollbar for the tech panel. It's still far from a cool interface, though.