Tech Research Chart 2

[Lord God Jinnai]

Iwas referring to the tech tree model itself...the way the techs advance and are grouped such as agriucluture 0-12...

Also Mark the combining of many of the sciences into "hard sciences" that u listed i think is going too far in the way of simplicity...I believe you loose too much reality that way to make up for the simplicity of just one group.

Anyway I'm thinking of a better way to impliment the increasing cost of basic techs than by era...i was planning on using a diminishing returns formula, though i can't think of the basic formula for it right now...I know it cuz it was used in my economics class, but that was over a year ago...

Anyway that would settle the problem of increased cost better because it would allow a civ that's behind to catch up faster while still allowing another civ to develope a basic tech more early on but still costing a lot to do a lot of research in it.

Finnaly a thought on the new sys you proposed...How'd we do the few techs that have more than one way of gaining them such as metallurgy and off-shore agriculture?
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 09, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

>
Iwas referring to the tech tree model itself...the way the techs advance and are grouped such as agriucluture 0-12...
>
Oh yeah... No, I didn't think you could use that, except possibly using that general structure for the basic techs. As in a basic tech Could be a string of specific techs or at least specific levels.

>
Also Mark the combining of many of the sciences into "hard sciences" that u listed i think is going too far in the way of simplicity...I believe you loose too much reality that way to make up for the simplicity of just one group.
>
I hear you. But there's also a danger in having Too Many things for people to keep track of... If you're going to distinguish at the level of chemistry & physics then at a guess you are going to need at least 30 basic techs or social advaces to cover realms of knowledge. Maybe you can make it understandable with 30 and about 1-200 other ones, but I'm sceptical.

>
Finnaly a thought on the new sys you proposed...How'd we do the few techs that have more than one way of gaining them such as metallurgy and off-shore agriculture?
>
I dunno, we could make and/or/not relations between the pre-reqs possible. That would solve the problem at the cost of a little added complexity.

[Lord God Jinnai]

>>
Also Mark the combining of many of the sciences into "hard sciences" that u listed i think is going too far in the way of simplicity...I believe you loose too much reality that way to make up for the simplicity of just one group.
>>
>
I hear you. But there's also a danger in having Too Many things for people to keep track of... If you're going to distinguish at the level of chemistry & physics then at a guess you are going to need at least 30 basic techs or social advaces to cover realms of knowledge. Maybe you can make it understandable with 30 and about 1-200 other ones, but I'm sceptical.
>
I hear you too, and maybe for the alpha ver its okay, but I really think we'd be giving up too much for the sake of simplicity...I'm only using the 8 basic tech groups, and not even that since I'm not including meteorology, geology (cept as tech) and a few others.

On another note, I moved the Copper Working up to initial techs with the only prereq as access to copper. This should satisfy my concern (the japan prob) and yours (the fact that it is widely used).

[Mark_Everson]

I guess my point is that your 8 basic techs are Waaaay too few if you want to cover things at the level of detail of physics vs chemistry. If so IMO then you need Many more things than you have. Among which would be (some you already have, but just to be complete):

Agriculture
Resource Extraction
Land Transportation
Sea Transportation
Economics
Medicine
Biology
Mathematics
Civil Engineering
General Eng.
Communication
At Least a general Social Science category for the things missing from this list (tho it might be broken down much finer)
Law
Government
Philosophy
Chemistry
Physics
Not to mention any miltary or artistic categories... and i'm sure I'm missing some others.

I understand that in the modern world hard science tech is about as important a thing to get right as there is. But there are a Lot of other important things too.

I guess you'll do a detailed version, and we can always trim it back later if necessary. And to the extent that a basic tech can replace 5 or more regular techs its probably worth doing. I just want to make sure we think about the Scope of the system before too much detail work goes into it. And I think that tech is one of the models that most players will want to handle themselves, so it Needs to be fairly understandable.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well we don't need quite that many...a few can be combined...

Law and government go hand in hand since government enforces and sets up laws and laws develope as gov changes so the evolving of one evolves the other so I think a basic tech called "Governing" is enough.

If you want to devide transportation up you also need air transportation.

Resorce extraction i was going to leave with geology since that's the major need for extracting anything is to geologically where it is.

Finnally Social Sciences could be changes to Psychology and with Philosophy that should be enough for all the techs we have.

The 5 military techs i have should be enough unless u or someone else has reason for more.

The artistic ones are a good idea, however I will do there later since I need to be done mostly with very few prereqs each, some might have high ones, some might not but i don't want this to be based on the chronology of art as its progressed since most tend to view this with a western style slant.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 10, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

>
Law and government go hand in hand since government enforces and sets up laws and laws develope as gov changes so the evolving of one evolves the other so I think a basic tech called "Governing" is enough.
>
Physics and Chemistry have At Least as much in common as Law and Government I just think you are inflating the importance of things you know well, at the expense of things you know less well. I don't know Law and Governmental issues well either... but that doesn't mean they're not important.

>
If you want to devide transportation up you also need air transportation.
>
Air transport shows up so recently I think just a few techs should cover it.

>
Resorce extraction i was going to leave with geology since that's the major need for extracting anything is to geologically where it is.
>
There's logging, and growing flax, and raising sheep for wool... Everything ain't just minerals. Esp in the ancient world. So I think geology only gets at one important aspect of it. But I'd have to see your final chart on this issue, you may be right.

>
The 5 military techs i have should be enough unless u or someone else has reason for more.
>
Five! For All of History? Or do you mean five basic techs, which might be getting at least somewhat closer. Until about 1500 military advances were of Ultimate Importance. IMO at a Minimum 10% of the techs should relate to weapons, military organization, etc. For a lot of players, the military will be the one aspect in the game they really care about.

It may just be that you should do your bit, and then hand it over to someone else to add the mil stuff since, as you'd mentioned before, you're really not into that part.

So what's your current list of basic techs? If you can easily post it here maybe people would get a better idea of where you're going.

Cya,

Mark

[Paul Crocker]

I agree wholeheartedly about the your comments on military techs, Mark. IMHO five BASIC techs is still greatly underestimating and/or simplifying the military end of things in a general model. I could list at least a dozen basic techs that are the foundation of any military throughout history. The ways in which they are implemented over time (tactics - which certainly is different from technology) changes, but their basic necessity remains constant. Examples include logistics and leadership. The level at which we distinguish between these techs can range from very general to very specific, depending on how much micromanagement vs. realism that we are shooting for. That still needs to be determined, but in any case, I think we will need more than five! Your idea of having someone more knowledgeable in military history/tactics taking care of this aspect is a good idea, Mark, since anyone not really informed about the topic cannot really do it justice (the reason I keep my mouth shut on things economic!). LGJ is doing a great job on the other side of the tech stuff, however.

I'm not volunteering for the job at this point (I'm moving in 2-3 weeks) but I might be able to tackle it in about a month or 2 if noone else steps forward...I'll go back to lurking now The classic Chinese book "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is excellent reading for anyone interested in basic military theory - it was required reading at West Point (and may still be!)
[This message has been edited by Paul Crocker (edited October 10, 1999).]

[Paul Crocker]

Here's a link to a summary of 36 of Sun Tzu's most famous "quotes": http://www.ccnet.com/~suntzu75/36strat.htm

While they were written 2500 years ago, most (if not all) are directly applicable to modern warfare and have been echoed by other generals (eastern and western) throughout the ages - many times with the discoverer not even realizing that they were merely REdiscovering them!

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well Here's the current list:

Agriculture
Architecture
Astronomy *
Biology
Chemistry *
Civil Engineering *
Economics
Electronics
Engineering
Geology
Governing
Mathematics
Mechanics
Medical *
Metallurgy
Philosophy
Physics
Social Sciences
Transportation

The ones with stars next to them are ones i may decide to get rid of since there are somewhat related basic techs already up there.

Yea, i was refering to basic techs for military and yes that aspect as i mentioned b4 and in my tech model i'm not the best expert on, although preindustial eastern miliatary i'm somewhat more familar with than most people. As far as governments go, I'm much better at, although i'm no politcal scientist. This is one of the major aspects of a culture and as i'm very interested in the evolution of culutres I've taken many courses on politics and government.

Physics and chemistry both similar...I was thinking this at first, but then i remembered there meanings...Physics dealing more with Physical nature, although this has much to do with chemistry, while chemistty deals with chemicals.

--------------

Finally on that new tech model you posted...I've noticed a major flaw that needs to be addressed. I'm not saying I don't like it, but the other model did have a way of addressing this:
say for example you wanted to develope the animaldrawn cart and the animaldrawn plow. Both need domestication and one needs the wheel while one needs the plow, however if you know one, developing the other is easier. This is also a similar case with Knighthood and Way of the Samari which are helped by code of honor.

With this current system there's no way to have optional modifiers to lower or raise the base cost RP technologywise.

[Mark_Everson]

Thats a good solid list...

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Chemistry and Physics being separate. They're Both very important. It was just that when the list had 8 things I thought it was overkill. I think the longer list, simliar to what you have now and adding military ones is the way to go. The idea being, as has been said before that each will take the place of at least 5 individual techs. I am assuming they all start Very early, excepting a few like electronics.

Now my thoughts on the details... Assume I like everything I don't mention.

I'd ditch Astronomy and subsume it into Physics, or call it Physics and Astronomy. the match is good IMO since there is a Lot of important astronomical stuff early, and not that much in Physics.

IMO Biology and Medicine could go together. The early medical stuff like hygiene gives it something to do early.

I like Civil Eng and would keep it.

I'd rather have Resource extraction than Geology, but can live with it...

Mechanics??? Do you mean the sub-field of Physics? (in which case I'd ditch it) or Do you mean Mechanisms? (In which case I'd put it in Engineering) Or what?

On Philosophy and Social Science... I'm not sure about that breakdown, but don't have a good counter-suggestion. IMO, and I could get flamed for it Philosophy is Very important in Early and Medieval, and early modern Periods, but recently it hasn't done that much for us since Utilitarianism.

Finally I think Land and Water Transportation are Just So Fundamentally Different that you can't go down the middle on it. Also both transportations will tie into the military arms for the respective media.

Communication and Education are neither there, and both Very Important IMO.

So that's my list of suggested changes. I don't think we should get too hung up on this since ones to add or drop will probably be apparent as the tech chart gets more refined anyway. Whatcha think on my suggested mods?

On the flaw in my approach...
OK you sold me. We'll sometimes need and/or/ not type modifiers in the prereqs. So long as there's not too many I don't think its a big problem.

Great Work!

Mark

[Lord God Jinnai]

About the new system...how are u going to impliment the basic techs into there for lowering the cost?

Also education i don't know about...it is important, but that should be more to judge whether or not a civ gains or looses tech...which also reminds once we got the system set up relatively sound we haveto figure out how to impliment the loss of tech do to low edu levels...
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 11, 1999).]

[Keli]

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on your new tech system, it's working really well at first glance. Just a few points that crossed my mind while I read through the posts:

- I wholeheartely agree that increasing the ceiling of a category is better than using percentage numbers.

- Have you thought about how to relate each project to the game situation? I think I read it here somewhere, but kinda lost it...
Also, have you thought about how players 'exchange' tech?

- The new groups seem ok, few comments, why put Architecture into seperate group? IMO it could fit in with Civil Engineering, or Mathematics, for that matter.
The same applies f.e. for Chemistry and Metallurgy, although both fields are broad enough to warrant a seperate category I think.
I agree with Mark that Law and Government are pretty wide fields, but I´m not sure that they have enough projects to be seperate, I think it's ok for now to keep them together.
Maybe Philosophy and Social Siences can be spliced together, I'm not sure what to call this group, neither Philosophy or So.Siences are good enough IMO, Philosophy is too 'arcane' today and Social Sciences are too easily confused with the academy study Social Science which in IMHO is a very silly science, to put it mildly. This group (if united into one that is) would deal with all society based thoughts and ideas, philosphy will dominate early on, but later other ideas such as Youth Culture (a very important phenomenon in modern society), Humanitarianism, Social Welfare, and even some political thoughts as well, such as Liberalism and Individualism.

Enough for now,

Keli.

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:
> About the new system...how are u going to
> impliment the basic techs into there for
> lowering the cost?

Do you mean like lowering the cost for items you build? Or making techs themselves cheaper?

On Education, I meant the technology of education and how to educate people. Clearly the type of stuff you were talking about will be handled by the infrastructure category education. The education on talking about would include technologies like "libraries", schools, the University, public education (as in universal) etc. Whether it's important enough to have its own category is clearly subject to debate.

Keli:

Great to have you back!

We've been mostly discussing the basic structure, and had not yet come back to the key points that you raise.

In terms of "relating to the game situation" do you mean as in tags? Those are pretty much the same as you had in your model. On trading techs, we haven't had any further thoughts that I'm aware of. I think two big things that we need in the Tech trading area, are the necessity of prerequisites being achieved, and some amount of grow-in time for "advanced" techs to become active. On prerequisites, I think you need to have the same prerequisites as whoever you get the Tech from. I think that each prerequisite you get in trade should have some kind of latency time associated with it. For instance if my technology equals that of Elizabethan England, and I am given all the technologies and prerequisites up to flight I can't start building a fighter the next turn. It should take awhile, TBD, for each level of technology to kick in. At least that's my take on these topics.

On the specifics, oops, somehow I missed Architecture. I agree it and civil engineering should be combined. On the other stuff, I'd propose tabling it until the model gets further along and we can see the detailed interactions between different things. At that point Recognizing what is too thin should be easy.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi All:

Lord God Jinnai is officially now the Duke of Tech. Congrats LGJ, and thanks for all your hard work.

Mark

[Lord God Jinnai]

On the way to school tonight I came up with a great idea, actually two, well not really.
First off i'm taking tags out until I see what the basic "categories" that civ culture is...I know these aren't actual setting but generalizations, but right now they serve ni purpose since I don't know all the categories that make up the culture...

On to my ideas. First, i've decided how to impliment the basic techs for the increasing/decreasing of cost in the various related techs...buy having a base number and for every percentage above that (max 5) the production increases by 10% On the other side for every % below (up to 5) is decreases by 20%. This is because knowing more doesn't help as much as knowing less hurts and after a certain level, knowing more doesn't do any good and knowning not enough, well its self explanitoy or should be. I chose it to modify production rather than cost because i think it will be easier to impliment.

Second is, I will be adding some items and effects that these techs do...and this (along with the basic techs) allows me to delete many techs.

[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 13, 1999).]