Tech Research Chart 2

[Lord God Jinnai]

Yea I here u on architecture... Thanks for the welcoming mark!

Also I think my last post, the one that was posted in the wrong area....*whistles innocently*...should answer my question.

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ: Can you just grab your post from the other forum and stick it in the space above where you have the link? You do it by editing the other post (paper and pencil icon) then copy all the text, then edit the post above and paste it all in... Then I can just kill the posts in the other thread and everything will be neat. I'll even get rid of this no-longer-relevant message

On the effects of basic techs on production in related techs. IMO your 1% basic tech gives 10% improvement is Way too steep. I had been thinking more like MOO where things increase very gradually. Maybe 1/3 your rate or so. And having them decrease at the rate you have means your tech is completely worthless if the basic tech is 5 points below 'needed'. I thought you wanted a flexible approach to tech? I agree the bite on the downside should be big, but IMO your proposed amt is way too much.

Of course you may be right..., and we can always change the number in playtesting. I think the basic design on it is reasonable. The effect of the basic tech on another might also vary from tech to tech, being steeper for some than for others.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Um as far as the increase/decrease goes i was thinking of having it up to 10% each way...5% upwards and 10% downwards...

The reason i want this number to be rather confined is because many techs require a base of only 5-10% in which case someone who knows nothing beyond the mere basics of that tech could learn it...this is alos especially true for techs which I may have that only require basic techs, although at high levels. Also if it decreases too slowly it won't have much impactearly on when civs produce very little RP.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited October 13, 1999).]

[Blade Runner]

LGJ,

My idea:

The game engine count an average level. This level will contain three parts.
1. The average tech level of the actual civ. (A) A = (level1 + level2 + ... + leveln) / n
2. The average tech level of the other civs on the area (like agriculture, weapons, etc.). (B) B = (level1 + level2 + ... + leveln) / n
3. All the techs in all the civs. (C) C = (level + level2 + level3 + ... + leveln) / n

AvTechLevel = A 50% + B 30% + C 20%
AvTechLevel = (A / 2) + (B * 3 / 10) + (C / 5)

If this AvTechLevel higher than our tech level, the price for the tech will be cheaper, if lower the price will be higher.
The player average tech level is very important. (A) The second importan thing is the average level in that particulary are on the world. (B) (i.e.: information exchange, scientis hire, etc.) The average technology level of the world. (C)
This will be easy to implement and IMHO quite close to the reality.

Blade

[Lord God Jinnai]

That would be a good idea except i got rid of tech levels. I see no point to them since a society can have something of a more advanced nature in the same field and less in another (to some extent that is).

[chance]

You asked me to respond over here, so here I am.

I'm not sure exactly what you want, but it seems you might be looking for some tech advance that would give a player the grouping of traditionally Eastern religions. The problem (as you anticipated) is that the religions are different enough that they can't be grouped together easily. But grossly oversimplifying, you might go with this (drawing from my model elsewhere):

[*]Confucianism is largely concerned with the proper relations of one personal to another, that is, with social ethics. That groups with other "religions of the Book" like Judaism. A "Scripture" or "Sacred Canon" advance would cover this.[*]Taoism is a religion that's divided between its elite and its common folk. For the elite it's the philosphical form of animism or nature/cyclical religion. For its common folk it's magical (in the deep, non-superstitious sense). I don't know about this one.[*]Shinto is based on the idea that "kami" or spirits (more or less) inhabit certain natural phenomenon, like water or wind or earth generally--or a particular scenic view off the highway too. This makes it an advanced form of animism.[*]Hinduism is a polygot of many radically different religious sensibilities. It contains all the diversity of the West (all three major Western religions, the mystics, the cults, the philosophies, etc), except that they agree to disagree. The only thing that makes something Hindu, really, is that it's from India. So Hinduism would fall under a pluralism advance or social choice but wouldn't really need a separate development.[*]Buddhism is the school of Hinduism that didn't agree to disagree. Buddhism itself is pretty diverse, just like Christianity.[/list]

If you're looking for certain techs to trigger certain religious categories, I've got a few ideas.


[*]Bouncing off Buddhism still, you might offer an "Axial Age" advance. This is what scholars use to refer to the 1000 or so years when all the major religions developed. This would enable a "legal" form of religion (or perhaps that could come with whatever enables a courthouse-type improvement) but also an "established" form. The Ramayana would be a good wonder.[*]Along this line, you might also include a "prophecy" advance, which would cover the Jewish prophets, the Roman Cynics, and others. [*]A "messianic" advance would cover big figures like Christ, Buddha, Muhammed, Joseph Smith, and Bah'ullah, but you could also include it within prophecy.[*]A "mysticism" would open things up for the philosphical forms of religions. (Putting the Oracle here would be completely inaccurate, by the way.)[*]Polytheistic, sky god-centered religions with sacrifice and everything should probably be available with either agriculture or domestication. The Oracle would be a good wonder.[*]Nature/cyclical religions should be available very early, with agriculture or domestication. Stonehenge would be a good wonder.[*]Animism is bare-bones basic, and all player should have this option even before any techs.

Hope this helps. Again, feel free to email me.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by chance on 10-15-1999 06:27 PM[*]Confucianism is largely concerned with the proper relations of one personal to another, that is, with social ethics. That groups with other "religions of the Book" like Judaism. A "Scripture" or "Sacred Canon" advance would cover this.

Yea but Confucianism is also a secular religion/philosophy.
[*]Taoism is a religion that's divided between its elite and its common folk. For the elite it's the philosphical form of animism or nature/cyclical religion. For its common folk it's magical (in the deep, non-superstitious sense). I don't know about this one.

hmmm. now that i did not know.[*]Shinto is based on the idea that "kami" or spirits (more or less) inhabit certain natural phenomenon, like water or wind or earth generally--or a particular scenic view off the highway too. This makes it an advanced form of animism.

Yes that's true but how would that be implimented as far as a tech goes?
[*]Hinduism is a polygot of many radically different religious sensibilities. It contains all the diversity of the West (all three major Western religions, the mystics, the cults, the philosophies, etc), except that they agree to disagree. The only thing that makes something Hindu, really, is that it's from India. So Hinduism would fall under a pluralism advance or social choice but wouldn't really need a separate development.

K
[*]Buddhism is the school of Hinduism that didn't agree to disagree. Buddhism itself is pretty diverse, just like Christianity.[/list]

Yes, but i'm more wondering about the lesser branch.

If you're looking for certain techs to trigger certain religious categories, I've got a few ideas.
[*]Bouncing off Buddhism still, you might offer an "Axial Age" advance. This is what scholars use to refer to the 1000 or so years when all the major religions developed. This would enable a "legal" form of religion (or perhaps that could come with whatever enables a courthouse-type improvement) but also an "established" form. The Ramayana would be a good wonder.

I think that's going to be implimented in another way
[*]Along this line, you might also include a "prophecy" advance, which would cover the Jewish prophets, the Roman Cynics, and others.

That does sound like a good idea.
[*]A "messianic" advance would cover big figures like Christ, Buddha, Muhammed, Joseph Smith, and Bah'ullah, but you could also include it within prophecy.[*]A "mysticism" would open things up for the philosphical forms of religions. (Putting the Oracle here would be completely inaccurate, by the way.)

Probably just use prophecy and if i do use that it will be an item created from prophecy.
[*]Polytheistic, sky god-centered religions with sacrifice and everything should probably be available with either agriculture or domestication. The Oracle would be a good wonder.

Got that.
[*]Nature/cyclical religions should be available very early, with agriculture or domestication. Stonehenge would be a good wonder.

Got that.
[*]Animism is bare-bones basic, and all player should have this option even before any techs.

Don't have that...i have ancestralism instead. Anything else u can think of? Not just in the types but things that come from religion such as ethics.


Hope this helps. Again, feel free to email me.

Yes. Its better than b4 atleast.

[Mark_Everson]

Suggestion for one more basic tech... Commerce. I think its big, valuable and ties into a lot of things. See the merchant thread for one application.

Mark

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:

Got your note in the merchant thread. Yeah, Commerce and Econ are intertwined, and we shouldn't have them both. I guess my feeling is Commerce sounds better for the name of the basic tech since its been around forever, and there were numerous advances in the area before Economics came on the scene.

[Kull]

And now for something completely different....

LGJ mentioned the example of the Japanese skipping the Bronze Age due to the lack of tin, and it got me to thinking. There ARE other examples of civilizations completely missing out on a major "advance". If you look at the New World, all those civs made do without the wheel and the horse. And I believe the early Polynesians had no metal whatsoever. More recently there were/are civs who actively opposed the adoption of certain technologies on religious or cultural grounds.

I mention this because one of the problems with most civ-type games is that EVERY civ can follow pretty much the same development track. Consequently, once gamers discover a winning "tech path" they stick with it regardless of whether they play as Rome or China. If each Clash civ had an attribute that prohibited the discovery and/or use of certain advances, that would force the player to develop different winning strategies and would greatly enhance "replayability". Some of these could be "learnable", but others would be culturally prohibited. At least until the advent of the modern world, when all the non-cultural/religious prohibitions are eliminated.

[Mark_Everson]

Kull:

I like the general idea, but IMO it is tough to implement without really screwing the player over sometimes. I did like the tech approach in master of Orion, where the player was prohibited from researching many techs, but could trade for them. I do favor something of the sort, but we may need to wait for playtesting and just try out several potential ways to do it.

One thing that is part-way to your suggestion is to give cultures varying affinity for basic techs. So, FE, the Romans would have an affinity for Army and Law & Government issues, but be poor at Commerce etc. This allows effectiveness of the civ in whole areas to be enhanced or dampened.

[shimmin]

As I was browsing the tech tree to draw up my transport list, a few thoughts occurred to me.

It's rather good, and definitely shows a lot of positive effot, but being a one-man effort, the tech tree seems to show the primary interests of that one man. It was with some amusement that I noticed that it listed separately just about every data storage medium of the last 20 years as advances on par with iron working, the railroad, and interchangeable parts. Then, looking at the "basic tech" section at the bottom of the page, I saw mostly general fields of human knowlege, with one specific application of technical art -- electronics. LGJ, are you, or are you studying to be, an electrical engineer or computer scientist?

Douse this message liberally with smileys. Really, the tech chart is quite a good effort.

Nonetheless, it might be worthwhile to use a large number of "basic knowleges", perhaps one for each general science, and one for each general technical art, and by doing so subsume the vast majority of the tech tree into these?

The specific example that brought this thought to me was when I was compiling my list of sea trasnports. Between 1100 and 1850, the range of European sailing vessels went from a few hundred miles to several thousand, their speeds from 3 to 20 knots, and their drafts from 100 to 3000 tons. Nonetheless, in this time, there were no watershed technologies that directly improved the sailing shipbuilder's art. Rather, shipwrights improved their craft over the centuries. So instead, I used tech advances involving improved navigation and increased industrail capcacity which closely paralleled the development of the sailing ship in the West.

I feel odd tying ship capacity to general tech "communication" -- else telephones and the Internet make my navy faster, bigger, and more far-reaching. (well, they might in a sense, but...)

In the "many basic techs" model, I have a basic tech "naval architecture" that determines all this, and continues on into the age of steamships, steel ships, and so forth.

What do you think?

[Mark_Everson]

Yeah I think a model with like 40-50 basic techs (most of which we have already) and about 50 Critical single advances is an attractive way to approach tech. I think if there were none of the critical single advances it would get boring for the player. But things like railroad, invention, etc can be the pivotal milestones that drive the player while the basic ones improve incrementally. So Land Transportation (taking it as a basic tech) could improve beyond what was available in 1800, but at a much slower rate without RR. People would just keep incrementally improving turnpikes and carriages etc.

LGJ what do you think? It makes support of future tech a lot easier too for those who want it. IMO that's because the basics can just keep growing past our tech level, and all you need are a few realistic-sounding breakthrough advances to add the spice!

[Lord God Jinnai]

Actually no i'm planning on designing video games (part RP and anime (Japanese Animation) games). I do know that much of what i have i certain area in the currently posted tech model is overbalanced with others, however i'm changing that as best i can with the help of people like u.

As far as the advancement of sea transportation goes (along with others) i'm using basic technologies to increase the range, speed and other aspects of those ships u mentioned. This also includes ocean-faring vessels which i believe is just an increase in hull str, sails, navigation and various other small aspects that impove with water transportation.

I'm trying to keep both basic and other techs down to a minimum without getting it too underdetailed. I'm planning on making an art/education chart (for a total of 3 general tech charts, but this will be the smallest and the most broad-based on how one can develope their technologies.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Listen I just had a great idea...i'd like to know how the basic tech religion sounds. This would allow me to get rid of many of the earlier religions and since i was adding 3-4 more this would prob be quite helpful. The basic way this would work would be that for earlier religions they'd be more advanced in that area, such as polytheistic would be more than just animal/nature gods and have god(esse)s that have to do with other things (such as Greeko-Roman and Hundism) as well as others such as Shintoism and Taoism. This would also help in the cultural model since a more advanced religion (no ness monothestic being more advanced than all polytheistic) would adapt and incorperate the lesser religion, or perhaps not or vise versa. Any thoughts?

Note that i will still have philosophy since religion is differnt from the former.