Demo 5 Tech Tree

[Krenske]

Anyway can I just make a written summary for my minds sake.

We have Basic technologies representing theoretical knowledge and experience.

At certain points new basic technologies will come into being. (EG. Airship comes out of Balloon(is that two specific), Animal drawn vehicle comes out of domestication, etc)

These techs will be listed as a percentage, with 100 being total understanding.

Applications are the "manifestation" of the theory. At certain basic tech levels (vital techs) a new application can come into being. (Not immeadiately guaranteed, I like the inventor window idea)

These application techs are ~2X better than the previous application. (arquebus -> matchlock -> flintlock -> Basic rifle -> Mini Ball wadded rifle -> Breech loader -> Magazine rifle -> auto rifle ) Each of these will be able to be refined over time but the best any one can get to is the basic level of the next application.

These applications levels can be helped by basic helper techs.

If basic tech is not maintained applications can be lost.

Am I on the right track here? If I am, then I think we have both the theoretical and practical sides of technology fairly well covered.

I would now like to throw a spanner into the works. If we are going to use a basic machine/unit construction mechanism for military units, I would like to see the potential to allow several different devices at the same application level. (EG, artillery is not simply artillery, on the invention of modern artillery, I would like to see several different artillery items become available. (field, medium, heavy.)) I cannot see how this is incompatable with the system at present it just means our list of weapons etc will have multiple weapons per application.
Of course if we do not use a workshop approach then I do not need this.
[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited February 01, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

Tech Diffusion:

As I imagined it, RP's come from your society and economy, as well as trade and contact with other civilizations. So if there are advanced civs nearby, you get a lot more RP's than a similar society with no contact with other people. This is one of the reasons that RP growth is exponential. As every civ grows and advances, there is more contact and thus more knowledge.

Diffusion of specific applications should not be a problem if most civ's are about the same level. But I don't think that basic tech levels should diffuse. Basic tech levels represent a huge sum of knowledge that your civ has built up. This kind of knowledge cannot transfer easily. To get a higher level of basic tech, you have to spend RP's yourself. The extra RP's you get as a result of contact with other civs should be enough to raise your basic tech as a result of contact with others.

Prerequisites:

After reading the posts and thinking things over, I have come to the conclusion that we all have the same thing in mind regarding the prerequisites for applications:

Before Basic Tech Level A: The civ does not have the technical knowledge to make the application or use it to its full potential.

Between Basic Tech Level A and Basic Tech Level B: The civ can make and use the application properly if it has it. There is a chance based on societal conditions that the application will be invented by someone in the society.

After basic Tech Level B: The civ is infallably given the knowledge of the application, and there is the option to use it.

The disagreement resulted from the fact that I used "prerequisite" to describe Level B, and LGJ used "prerequisite" to describe level A.

So I suggest that we not use the word "prerequisite." That work is an artifact of Civ 2 and makes very little sense in our model. Therefore, I shall henceforth use the following terms:

Level A above will be referred to as the Minimum Competence Level.

Level B above will be referred to as the Guaranteed Knowledge Level.

The techs formerly known as soft prerequisites will be referred to as Helper Technologies.

The techs formerly known as hard prerequisites will be referred to as Vital Technologies.

I think that we have agreed on most things regarding the basic model structure. I will wait a couple more days to see if anything else comes up and then repost the model description with changes and clarification. Then we get to worry about the actual technologies.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM Manual Idea is okay for listing them in the middle, with a note that it isn't the middle. --- List them in the middle? That would allow someone to get a tech after the listed number, which, as I have explained, would be bad. --- I suggest that the Guaranteed Knowledge Level is listed in the manual and that the Minimum Competence level, and thus the inventor window, start 5% lower. There should be a small chance of invention until you get to within about 2% of the GKL.

Why not just put both. I'd be satisfied with that so that there's no quarrel as to when u could get it.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM One thing u'll have to figure out is not only how helper techs will affect this but also how social conditions will also. --- I think that my original inventor idea could be revived for this. I included social conditions as a big part of that. If your people don't want sonething, they don't invent it and you don't get it until the Guaranteed Knowledge Level. By the way, inventors will make a big difference even if they only invent things with the tech 3% lower. If an application has three prerequisites, that is nine percentage points you don't have to spend to get the thing. I would estimate that it would take at least 30 game turns to get those nine percentage points in the basic tech. That's a lot, especially in a competitive situation.

The % should change over time. I'm not sure whether it should get smaller or larger but 3% away from 10% is vastly differnt than 70%.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM Also how will the decay of techs work below minimum competence level and for how long will it be useful? --- The tech decay system is basically the same as we agreed on. The only change is that the civ gets a "grace period" of 5% below GKL before the tech starts to decay.

See that's where my real problem is. I think it might have been solved above, but other than Mark I haven't heard anyone else say anything about it and that is that if ur below the GKL then ur applications or whatever won't be as good. If that's how we plan to do this that's fine, but then there shouldn't be a grace period but that the area between MCL and GKL should be the same for invention/loss, including the chance of it getting "lost" before it reaches the MCL otherwise we have an unbalanced system.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM RichWhen u decide to repost the updated model, also post what u have on social aspects as well as fine arts. --- I don't have much regarding this; I will put it all in there. I never really intended to work on social stuff.

Still either send me all of what u have cuz i deleted the e-mails once they were posted or post what u have anyway and just let me handle that aspect since like u said ur not much good on that area.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM Krenske: Not really. There will be few new Basic Technologies. They are usually fields of study that have existed throughout history, like Biology and Mechanical Engineering. Everything you mentioned, except Domestication, is an application. [/quote} Now there will be a few such as Electronics, Computers, etc. But this isn't until modern times/future. About the only other one that might fall before then, but after the beggining would be electromagnetics. [quote]Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM These techs will be listed as a percentage, with 100 being total understanding. --- 100% of a basic tech is the highest publically known level of the technology as of January 1, 2000. So if you go past 2000 you will go above 100%.

Which reminds me, we haveto redo ur charting because although its fine for basic techs that start at the beggining, other basic techs like computers which have only been around for ~50 years.

We should either use my proposal or Marks. The one flaw with Mark's that may become a prob is for near-future/far future basic techs. Read the previous tech thread for details as i'm running out of time right now.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM I think that the double rule for applications may have to be reconsidered, especially for military applications. In this century, the power of most military hardware has doubled about every ten years. That is too many techs. I would suggest the following progression: After invention, the application is at 5%. When the tech reaches 10%, it is considered to be minimally practical. I would suggest that the player not be notified until this point.

unless he opts to.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 02-02-2000 12:09 PM When it reaches 20%, it is practical and useful. It replaces the old technology. From 20% to 100%, it increases in a linear fashion. (Actually, we could change this to be exponential, say every 20% is a doubling of ability. What does everyone think?)

Sounds ok, but like is said i don't have much time to think on it now.

[Mark_Everson]

This is just a very crude draft, but I thought I would put up at this point for people to see. All it does is talk about basic techs themselves. I also think the level of interconnection (helper techs) between the basic techs is usually too thin also in the proposed model. But I'm not addressing helper techs at all here. The basic idea if L. G. J. and Richard agree, would be to first set a revised proposed group of basic techs up and then have all the model leads look at them and see if there is sufficient coverage for what they have in mind. Once that is done then we could worry about helper techs.

Proposed changes:
These are not necessarily all well thought out. However they do put categories that the player might be able to use, and also would make sense for the interface. For example the player might say they want to emphasize Hard Sciences and Military Techs. A set of "high level" sliders could allow allocation of research between the broad categories.

Basic principles for my changes...
Any category that would produce chuckles as technology moves into the modern age has been eliminated. For example what would Woodworking 94% mean? "We can now produce high-quality oak cabinets at half the cost!"

Subareas of physics especially, and several other areas, were over-represented IMO. Since most of these are interrelated, and having, for example, 10% of the basic techs being physics would piss off a lot of people, I trimmed them back to just Physics.

A "?" Means I'm not sure about it if it already exists, and that I'm not sure about the details if we decide to go with a new suggestion of mine. A * means I have added something completely new, usually with a justification appended.

Note to F_Smith: Chemistry 10% doesn't mean modern chemistry as we know it. It means "practical chemistry" rules of thumb, and alchemy. The scientific method IMO doesn't come into all these types of technologies until about 30%. Before that affects "practical" to each of these.

1. Production Technologies

Agriculture
Resource Extraction (same as Resource Gathering)
Materials Technology (replaces/includes Ceramics, Synthetics, Textiles, and Woodworking)
Metallurgy (should this be put together with Materials Technology?)
Civil Engineering (Replaces/Includes Masonry & Concrete)
Mechanical Engineering (takes up part of the slack for Physics-Mechanisms)
Industrial Engineering

2. Transportation, Communications, and Commerce

Land, Water, and Air & Space Transportation (Three Separate Basic Techs, Combining Air and Space)
Communications
Economics & Commerce
Mapping & Navigation?

3. Arts and Popular Arts (maybe collapse all these all into one?)

Architecture
Arts (Includes Music,
Gaming?

4. Hard Sciences

Physics (Replaces/Includes Atomic Applications, Electromagnetics, Optics, Physics-Mechanics)
Chemistry
Computers
Earth Sciences (Replaces/Includes Geology and Meteorology)
Mathematics

5. Soft/Social Sciences

Medicine
Biology & Ecology (Replaces/Includes Domestication, Ecology)
*Education (This is the Theory of Education, and how to effectively educate people, Not how to build schools...)
Philosophy & Religion

6. Government, Law, and Management

Diplomacy
Government
*Law
*Management? (I think this is pretty big..., should also include management of research technologies like Invention, and Research and Development)

7. Military Technologies Mostly TBD

*Short-range Weapons (progression of infantry weapons of all ages)
*Medium-range Weapons (bows to mortars)
*Long-range Weapons (Catapult to Artillery, Possibly ICBMs)

Propose We Kill These: Cybernetics, Robotics
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited February 02, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

Mark:

(I'm not doing much work today, am I? Far more fun to spend time here!)

As I understand it, the 'scientific' method as we now understand it didn't even really exist in practicality until about 200 years ago. Which is why I say these 'techs' are, in reality, just theories. Richard, above, said "Basic techs are more than theories. They also include plans, testing, blueprints, and the R&D for many different possible applications.".

But there was not any real use of plans, testing, blueprints or R&D in any organized fashion before about the middle of the 1800's. This system is for modern, lab-driven tech advance, Edison-style, in which highly educated men have access to vast sums of collective knowledge thru cheap books, computers, etc, funded largely by either governments or large corporations.

This just didn't happen thru most of history.

Or, to put it in concrete terms, if the scientific method comes in at about 30%, then all but the last 150 years all techs will have to be below 30%.

I just disagree that history has been a slow accumulation of a body of knowledge and theory. Almost all scientific discovery has been thru 'trial and error'. Even today -- the greatest thing about the scientific method is the way it uses trial and error. Edison had to go thru a zillion different materials until he found a workable lightbulb fillament.

** Stupid thought #242340 -- how about 2 kinds of prerequisites for techs, "tools" and "data"? And then the data part can become more important as time goes on?

[Mark_Everson]

Richard:

Proposed general intervals for applications (there will of course be exceptions)

pre-modern 30-50% better than predecessor
early modern 2x better
late modern 5x better

F_Smith:

(Get back to work, and quit giving us crap )

On having to optimize a tech approach and general difficulty level of what we have...
If you want better infantry weapons you Pick Infantry Weapons basic tech to concentrate on. This is Infinitely simpler than in civ2 where you need to figure out that you need democracy to get rifles! (IIRC) I think we can come up with a generic research investment approach such that when you pick Infantry Weapons it will take what you put into it and also automatically put a fraction of that into helper technologies. Otherwise the player would indeed need to optimize.

So all you need to know is what you want.
What Could Be Simpler!

LGJ:
On invention/loss symmetry. I agree with you. But remember there will almost always be unevenness since actual use of the application will help to support its effectiveness even if basic tech levels decline.

[Richard Bruns]

---
F_Smith:
I've never had any difficulty in using any tech trees -- civ 2, smac, moo2, warcraft/wc2, aoe/ror/aok, starcraft, etc. They always seem very playable
---
These tech trees were miniscule compared to what Chash will model. We will have more technologies than all of those games combined. Now, think of all the ridiculus aspects of the Civ 2 tech tree. You need to research Horseback Riding before you can develop Monotheism. This silliness is the natural result of linking discrete techs together. And the problem will grow exponentially as you add more techs.
---
F_Smith:
Because if ya'll do your jobs right (and I know you will), the tech 'tree' is basically intuitive, since it will be based upon reality
---

LJG's original tech tree, which was the kind of tree you like, was obviously a well thought out construction. He did a very good and realistic job on almost all of the tech progressions. Yet it was a true mess. There were 17 pages of techs, and it was almost impossible to sort them all out.

---
F_Smith:
Almost all scientific discovery has been thru 'trial and error'.
---

---
Richard Bruns:
Note that a basic tech like Mechanical Engineering is not just a set of theories and equations. The techs are also meant to represent experimentation, trials, prototypes, and the study of potential applications.
---
I don't see why there is any disagreement about this. Basic Techs have always included trial and error.

---
F_Smith:
how about 2 kinds of prerequisites for techs, "tools" and "data"?
---
We already have something similar to this. The "data" are the scientific basic techs like Physics and the tools are the production technologies like Metallurgy.

Mark Everson:

I like the tree a lot. You did a good job simplifying he tech structure.

The only big problem is the military technologies. Why would you add a basic tech for what is really just a string of applications? A crossbow requires different technologies than a musket, yet you put them in one tech. I don't think we should lump them into one tech when a set of applications will be more flexible and easier to deal with.

I have to go now. I'll elaborate these later.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 02-02-2000 12:37 PM 1) Gunpowder was invented long before anyone had any concept of such a thing as 'chemical theory'. Your 'basic techs' actually seem to be 'theories'. And most discoveries thru history were made thru blind trial and error, not on the basis of a good theory that was then well tested. Only when your theories begin to approach reality (as we have begun to do in the last few centuries) are those theories any use. And even then, those theories can actually hold you back because of the inevitable inaccuracies. Who would have theorized that moldy cheese could produce a powerful medicine? It is actually the accidental discoveries that drive the theories -- not the other way around. Also it is just as hard to learn a tech tree as it is to learn something like what we have. I am talking about the big picture. I understand u saying its harder for u, but for me learning which tech leads to which tech is harder. Also just like in civ2 and smac I plan to have a list of the techs and stuff what they are, etc.

This system does incorperate trial and error as well. FE alchemy isn't chemisty, but is basically the use of trial and error till u come up with a working formula, yet because it involves the use of chemicals in similar, but unscietific ways of determining formulas, it is still listed under chemistry.

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 02-02-2000 12:37 PM2) Skilled ironsmiths could be less likely to develop steel technology than green ironsmiths. Skilled ironsmiths would be focused on the purity of their iron, and be very skilled at doing things the same way every time. Newbies with creative skill might would be more likely to 'experiment' with new ways of making iron -- or 'accidentally' mix 'impure' iron that turns out to be stronger. An inexperienced but creative civ might advance in techs faster than an uncreative but experienced civ. So I would not tie 'skill' at a single tech with advancement to new techs. I believe that makes an unrealistic model. It is often the person that throws out all basic assumptions (ya'lls 'tech') that makes the great breakthru. And many people spend their lives trying to prove pieces of theories that turn out to be totally bogus. In the middle ages, their chemistry 'tech' predicted that lead could be transmuted into gold . . .

That is true, but so is the fact that an inexperienced ironsmith FE will accidently create an impure iron item and it would be worse and thus he decides to listen to his master more. Another thing, there has been theorising for thousands of years, although it was usually biased toward religious goals for most of history. The Greeks developed theories FE. The only thing they didn't do in the scientific process was go out and try to prove there theories right by trying to prove them wrong. Sounds kinda paradoxical, but that's how its suppose to work.

A master ironsmith is just as likely to create steel also because a lot of it is based on personality, not skill.

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 02-02-2000 12:37 PM3) Because key techs will be a major game goal, this system seems much more complicated than a 'tech tree', in practice. I've never had any difficulty in using any tech trees -- civ 2, smac, moo2, warcraft/wc2, aoe/ror/aok, starcraft, etc. They always seem very playable (even smac, where the techs are futuristic), and indeed were the only strength of some of these games (moo2!!!). This system here, however, seems highly complicated during gameplay, at least to me. I suggest someone puts together a simplistic demo and tries it. Because the way it will play, players will *need* to memorize the tech 'trees' for each 'discipline' and all the required advancement %s. Because in gameplay, quickly reaching certain techs will be absolutely necessary for success. So you will have to learn how to achieve those. Simply blindly researching in 'catagories' of techs will not lead you to firearms as fast as someone that has memorized and maximized. And memorizing that I need gunpowder, clockworking technology and skilled ironsmiths for for a wheel-lock musket is far easier than memorizing "metalworking 70%, Toolmaking 65%, Chemistry 50%". At least to me. Because if ya'll do your jobs right (and I know you will), the tech 'tree' is basically intuitive, since it will be based upon reality -- and indeed can teach you a bit about the tech that you can take with you, away from the game. Memorizing actual technical components of a discovery is far less difficult -- and more entertaining/rewarding -- than memorizing some game-specific percentages.

First off in general terms the way we had it before was much more complicated. A few specific techs might be easier to figure out, but not the big picture.
First off in many of those games you listed, several of the tech advancements have little/nothing in common with some or all of there prerequistes. Another thing is that they don't have any non-esential, but helpful to have techs that will speed it up. This is a major simplification that detracts from 1> Reality 2> challenge 3> Fun (IMO). It also lacks social/cultural modifiers to determine how easily it is to achieve which is an even bigger oversimplification than the former (though the former is big also). The Chinese would mever have thought to use gunpowder as weapons (BTW gunpowder was based on advanced chemisty knowledge from the Roman Empire, not simply "trail and error"). The Chinese during the time when gunpowder was discovered was an isolationist country, but also one that was very much into art (among other things). That's why they used them for fireworks. They had no/little reason to think of using it as a weapon. In Europe, however, things weren't as peaceful ans so the Europeans were continually tring to outmanuver there enimes any way possible ans so it no coincidence that Europe changed the use of gunpowder from a simple delight to a weapon.

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 02-02-2000 12:37 PM4) Finally, atmosphere. Numbers are not interesting. Real things are. Seven Kingdoms had a system reminiscent of this one, in a small way. Each unit gained a seperate ranged/special attack when they reached some % of experience. Warriors could become crossbowmen, when they hit 80% training. That sort of thing. I see this as similar. And it was just not anywhere near as fun as assigning a troop crossbows specifically. Just a personal preference, but I far prefer techs with names and non-numbers based effects.

Hmm I don't seem to understand ur point about the crossbowmen. Are u saying that any warrior at any level could use crossbows once invented or are u saying the unit(s) should have a certain level of training? I'm personally for the former because anyone can be handed an item and if simple to use can easily learn it, mastering is another story.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM Subareas of physics especially, and several other areas, wereover-represented IMO. Since most of these are interrelated, and having, for example, 10% of the basic techs being physics would piss off a lot of people, I trimmed them back to just Physics.

Mark: Check out the e-mails rich uploaded and u'll see why we came to that conclusion. Beleive me there was much debate on it.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 1. Production Technologies Agriculture Resource Extraction (same as Resource Gathering) Materials Technology (replaces/includes Ceramics, Synthetics, Textiles, and Woodworking) Metallurgy (should this be put together with Materials Technology?) Civil Engineering (Replaces/Includes Masonry & Concrete) Mechanical Engineering (takes up part of the slack for Physics-Mechanisms) Industrial Engineering

First off, are there just for them demo or not? If not I have many complaints about them and I'll go into specifics just in case.

Material Tech. Is going overbroad. Since many of those have little in common and would could cause game balance problems. Like for shipbuilding, clothing, infantry armor, ect. On the same subject then, Metallurgy shouldn't be included. By grouping all them together u loose the distinction of having someplace like an island civ being excellent shipbuilders (which is gen. True), but poorer at other stuff, perhaps textiles.

On Civil Engineering, we had them seperated because advancement in those isn't directly linked to civil engineering. It could also affect architecture, art, and several other things. This isn't that important as the former paragraph though.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 2. Transportation, Communications, and Commerce Land, Water, and Air & Space Transportation (Three Separate Basic Techs, Combining Air and Space) Communications Economics & Commerce Mapping & Navigation?

Air and space are totally differnt. Anyone as knowledgable of physics as u should know this. True, u do have to go through the air to get into space, but ur air tech could be more advanced than space (and has been so far), opr vise versa. These two are just so drastically differnt that if its combined we can't progress very far beyond the future if someonce choses to continue playing till the year 4000 ACE.

Having navigation might be okay or cartography, but generally mapmaking hasn't changed much except that we are more mathmatically accurate.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 3. Arts and Popular Arts (maybe collapse all these all into one?) Architecture Arts (Includes Music, Gaming?

No we really can't do this and still have historic acuracy and there aren't that many to begin with. I don't mind dropping a few i had like dancing, but collapsing them all, agh I abosulty hate that idea. BTW Gaming is any type of game from poker, to wrestling, swimming, etc.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 4. Hard Sciences Physics (Replaces/Includes Atomic Applications, Electromagnetics, Optics, Physics-Mechanics) Chemistry Computers Earth Sciences (Replaces/Includes Geology and Meteorology) Mathematics

On physics like i said earlier, we had a huge discussion and that's why we don't have them grouped together because mechanics, atomics and electromagnetics aren't the same thing, or close enough to be all grouped under physics.
Also meteoroloogy and geology are seperated for a similar reason I had ecology and geology seperated. Geology deel with the structure of the earth with reguards to rocks and minerals (in solid of liquid form). Ecology deals with how orgaisms adapt and coexist in areas. Meteorology deals with weather, mainly air and water. Both ecology and meteorology are affected by geology, but not the other way around as much (sure geology is affected by weather, but for clash model it won't be too much of any imprtance, same thing for ecology, the effects won't bee seen for millions of years. Clash doesn't even span 10,000 years. Also meteorology affects ecology, but not vise versa (unless u use the Chaos theory, in which case everything does).

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 5. Soft/Social Sciences Medicine Biology & Ecology (Replaces/Includes Domestication, Ecology) *Education (This is the Theory of Education, and how to effectively educate people, Not how to build schools...) Philosophy & Religion

Ecology should be seperate from biology. I have several reasons for this mostly due to some ideas on how several techs will be implimented. Not enough to give u any hard core reason right now though. Also combining domestiation with biology would be fine though.
I know u talked way back about an education tech, but IMO (and i believe rich's too) its no longer ness. U see the degredation is based on how hard it is to teach the next gen about the technology. We could much easier incorperate in another way so the player doesn't have another tech to develope.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 6. Government, Law, and Management Diplomacy Government *Law *Management? (I think this is pretty big..., should also include management of research technologies like Invention, and Research and Development)

What is the diff between law and gov? And how can a higher gov level not do what is required with law?
Similar question with Managment. Government represents the ability to govern people which inherantly includes managment that gets better the higher up u go.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM 7. Military Technologies Mostly TBD *Short-range Weapons (progression of infantry weapons of all ages) *Medium-range Weapons (bows to mortars) *Long-range Weapons (Catapult to Artillery, Possibly ICBMs)

I don't have much to say on this because I'm not the one to ask on this, but I would like to say that range is matter of relativity to size, peronality and tech level.

quote: Originally posted by Mark everson on 02-02-2000 1:16 PM Propose We Kill These: Cybernetics, Robotics

Agh! No!Atleast give a reason why! I want to have future techs in the final version, including far future techs because I am the person who always has everything developed techwise long before the game ends in civ2 and have ~100 turns of "future tech," at 1 per turn. We have to have these in or atleast robotics (cybetnetics can be linked to robotics & biology if u wish), but to not have anything that could be used for future use for people like me shouldn't be done. I also have some other futuristic basic techs i want to add, but not right now until we get a semi-descent model working.

------
BTW Mark we still have to then fine a way to balance loss of tech with the "inventor winodw" idea.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited February 02, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

LGJ:
I have no real problem with posting both the Minimum Competence Level and Guaranteed Knowledge Level. However, Mark said it would be overkill. It would clutter things up somewhat.

---
The % should change over time. I'm not sure whether it should get smaller or larger but 3% away from 10% is vastly differnt than 70%.
---

Actually, it is not much of a difference. The tech tree uses something like a logarithmic scale, so 70%/67% is about the same as 10%/7%. The ratios of guaranteed knowledge to minimum knowledge are about the same, and that is what is important for developing things early.

Problems

You are right about the potential problems that would accompany the earlier inventions. As I consider the problems, they grow ever larger. I will elaborate:

Application Percentages

One problem is that our current definition of application percentages has caused us to lose sight of their original purpose. They were first made to track application loss due to loss in tech. Now they are used to determine ability and practicality, or the highest level of knowledge you have obtained about the application. These two definitions will not work together. We need to do one of these things:

1) Eliminate tech loss. If you get something to a certain level, that level does not drop.

This would be unrealistic and open to abuse.

2) Eliminate application improvement. Percentages only represent tech loss.

This also makes no sense.

3) Make application loss be the same as "unresearching" something (Going back in time). Dropping to 10% from 20% would mean that the thing is no longer really practical, but you can still make the impractical 10% version just fine.

This makes little sense; I don't recommend it.

4) Make the tech practical and usable when it is first invented (20% on my earlier scale). Then, any drop below that represents tech loss. You still have the thing at the basic ability, but people are slowly forgetting how to operate and repair it and can't make new ones. Higher application percentages mean the thing improves. If it improves and then drops, the effect is similar to #1, but the thing is always practical until you forget it completely.

This seems better. It is basically what we first proposed. It still has flaws.

5) Use seperate percentages to track ability and tech loss. For example, say you got to 40% application but then started losing tech and are now at 30%. You can use the 40% version but are suffering tech loss for that version. You can also make the 30% inferior thing just fine. In this example, one percentage is at 40% and another is at something else, some percentage.

This would be ridiculously complex for us and the player. I don't like it.

Inventors

This quandary is bad enough. But there is also the problem of some civ's inventing things earlier than others. This problem has the potential to hopelessly complicate things.

There are several possible methods of dealing with the problem, each with faults. I will present all that I can think of. This follows the percentage plan outlined in my post from 12:09 today.

1) Increase the basic techs to the GKL when the tech is discovered. I don't like this at all, because it could let you raise basic techs way too fast.

2) Set the application to be 5% at MCL and 10% at GKL. I don't like this either because it gives no real advantage to invention, except getting the thing early. And what you get is not useful anyway.

3) The GKL is set to be the default 5% application level. If the application is invented early, log the tech percentages and call that the 5% application level. All future tech loss or gain is based on those tech levels. This one seems better for gameplay, but would probably get complicated.

4) #3, but replabe 5% with 10%

5) #3, but replace 5% with 20%

I think the best way to work with inventors and application percentages would be some combination of #5 above and #4 from the previous section. You start with a usable invention. Any previous development of the application is considered to be a part of some basic technology.

The percentage at which you start is logged, and the MCL where tech loss begins is set to be 5% lower than that percentage. So you can drop 5% on thhe technologies without losing application technology. Then you start to drop.

If you raise the application percentage, the effectiveness increases. If the application percentage lowers again, this process is simply reversed until you get to the application level the thing was invented at. Then the true tech loss begins.

In comparison to other civs, you don't really know how good their stuff is because you don't know when they got it. If they invented something 5% early, they might ghave better stuff then you even if your basic tech levels are higher.

And this doesn't even try to account for social considerations or the effect of repeated use on the application level.

Do you understand how all that would work in practice? I don't either. My prediction is that it would be an awful mess. So I suggest the following for Demo 5, and perhaps permanently:

1) All civ's get application techs at the same time. There is no randomness and no inventors, just one GKL.

2) There are no application percentages. Application effectiveness is simply multiplied by some factor of the basic tech level to simulate knowledge gain.

3) Tech loss either does not exist or instantly occurs when basic techs fall below the GKL. If it was not lost, it would simply be modified as per paragraph 2 above.

4) Social Considerations and manufacturing have no effect on specific applications. They simply give you more or less RP's.

I know that I am being harsh and that the following proposal is not as realistic as we would like. But we have seen that the real world is often way too complex for a game. If someone else can figure out a way to realistically work in inventors and application percentages without causing ridiculous complexity, I will be impressed. I know I can't do it.

The basic system is complex enough and I think we could simplify here without hurting things.

[Richard Bruns]

False post. Sorry, hit the wrong button.


[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited February 02, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

Richard:

On my proposed military techs... (not meant to replace the ones you had btw, just in addition)
A lot of the plans, investigation, trial-and-error that happens in basic techs happens within the area of weapons themselves. Now whether we should have ancient infantry weapons separate from modern infantry weapons is a reasonable question. My point is, if they do the same thing for the player why not simplify. I think you could just have a change in helper techs at the 30% boundary or whatever that separates helper techs for swords from helper techs for guns. Actually bows would start as Medium-range then be replaced by arquebuses etc, until guns became the common infantry weapon, and mortars or something else were the real Mid-range weapon.

It is not a fully developed concept, but I thought I would throw it out again and see what everyone thinks. I thing the most attractive thing is that if there is a category for Infantry Weapons a militaristic player could leave it selected for favorable treatment for the entire game and just ride the transition automatically. Need to hear from the Mil folks on whether this can be made to work also.

LGJ:

Hey, I left Computers alone, give me a break!

Physics Simplification...
If you were to handle everything at the level of distinction you place between Electromagnetics and Atomic Applications there would be about 500 Basic Techs! Communications alone would be broken up into at Least 15 different large innovation areas. The Law itself or Philosophy or Biology would each deserve 3-5 areas. Its a GAME, there have to be compromises made. I know those things are different, but they will tend to proceed in rough syncronization anyway once you get to the modern world since the instrumentation that all those subdivisions rely on is largely common (except for colliders).
We can put it up for a vote if you like... I the physicist vote strongly for a single basic tech called Physics.

No, my proposal isn't for the demo only.

The thing that should help in your objection to putting all the Materials Techs together [inaccuracy] is partly corrected by the system itself in two ways.
1. People on an island will tend to be excellent shipbuilders because Water Transportation is very important to them. When the application cog, or some similar ship, comes along you don't need to know separate woodworking and textiles numbers for them because these things go Together with shipbuilding. So what if occasionally the islanders can make a slightly better ceramic bowl than is realistic. Materials tech in combination with other basic techs gets the Important things right IMO
2. If the island people never made any bowls their application tech would not get the 'tech use' bonus and will of necessity lag behind skill of those who actually did so.
Again, I know all this is not Rigorously correct but so long as it gets most of the Big things right IMO we have to go for the simplificaton. If these simplifications end up giving Really Bizarre results I'll gladly agree with you that they should be put back in. But I can assure you that a majority of our fan email will not express regret for the lack of explicit handling of woodworking.

Arts...
Yep you're probably right.
But the effects of the various art forms had better be clear to the player or its going to get ignored anyway.

Education...
The concepts of a University, Graduate Education, Universal Public Education, Greek Academies...

Government...
Separation of Powers, Limits to governmental power (rights), Separation of Church and State, Instilling nationalistic zeal, etc.
Law...
Commercial Law (Very Important for making Companies and corporations work), International Law

Ran out of time, will continue later...

[Richard Bruns]

LGJ posted while I was composing, and then a computer glitch erased my web connection and I came back to find Mark's reply post. I only have time to address some stuff now:

Overall I like Mark's tree. It is simple yet does as good a job as the more complex one. However, I think it simplifies too much in a couple things:

Physics: Classical physics and quantum/electromagnetic physics are IMO two very different things. One deals with forces in the macroscopic world while the other deals with particles and fields at absolutely tiny scales. I agree that Atomics isn't really needed, but that division in physics leads to entirely different applications. Electromagnetic applications like Radio have almost no relation to things like ballistics.

I agree that Electronics is redundant with Eectromagnetics, but they should be seperated from classical physics.

Also, I don't think classical physics is the same thing as mechanical engineering. Physics class and shop class are two very different things. Mechanical Engineering is the applied part of building things, while physics is more theoretical.

I also consider Biology and Ecology to be two very different things. Biology is the study of the structure of a single lifeform, while Ecology is the study of how all of the lif eon the planet is interrelated. Ecology actually has more in common with Geology than Biology.

A few more things:
Industrial Engineering is not just factories. It is anything that improves your production capacity. It is the same thing as Management, at least as I created it.

Resource Extraction is not the same thing as Resource Gathering. Gathering also includes hunting, and fishing. "Extraction" makes me think of mining only.

As for the military techs, I don't like the idea of giving a string of applications the status of a core technology. There is simply no reason to do this. It is the same kind of thing as Robotics and Cybernetics.

LGJ: You shouldn't be bored with the tech tree. This game will be more challenging and balanced, and there is no upper limit to the basic tech levels. There can be new applications well into the 200% tech levels. You will keep getting things until the end of the game, just set really high basic tech requirements for futuristic things.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Richard
1) All civ's get application techs at the same time. There is no randomness and no inventors, just one GKL.
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For the demo i totally agree. As for later we can table the discussion for now.

2) There are no application percentages. Application effectiveness is simply multiplied by some factor of the basic tech level to simulate knowledge gain.
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That's what I think should be the way of it all along. I think having %s for application techs is getting too complex.

3) Tech loss either does not exist or instantly occurs when basic techs fall below the GKL. If it was not lost, it would simply be modified as per paragraph 2 above.
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I know this may sound like i'm just contradicting what I said, but I'm not. We should have tech loss as it is so much a part of history taking it out would equal phalanxs can destroy tanks. With that said here's how it works.
An Application tech requires 15% of Basic Tech A and 40% of Basic Tech B. Lets say BT A drops to 14%, but BT B is at 50+%. They could still use and maintain there items that ned that application Tech, but not produce any more. A window would pop up letting the player know of the situation. If BT B was at 49% they could still use the items and do a little matainance (enough to say keep a ship from sinking on its own). We'd give the player a 2% magin of error, if any BT drops below this, they lose the tech. They can still use items, but can no longer maintain them. Their use is also very limited. FE a ship could very well sink on its own and its movement rate would be very slow.

4) Social Considerations and manufacturing have no effect on specific applications. They simply give you more or less RP's.
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For the most part this is okay. And for demo5 its okay. This runs into problems with social advances and fine arts.

Mark
After thinking it over, if Rich agrees I don't mind using just a "Physics" Basic Tech.

The thing that should help in your objection to putting all the Materials Techs together [inaccuracy] is partly corrected by the system itself in two ways.
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Okay I understand now. It looks like it could work.

Arts...
Yep you're probably right.
But the effects of the various art forms had better be clear to the player or its going to get ignored anyway.
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Don't worry they will be, esp in the Character Model. Anyway I haven't been working much on this as I have several priorities to which types of techs should be implimented first.

Richard, again....
I agree that Electronics is redundant with Eectromagnetics, but they should be seperated from classical physics.

Also, I don't think classical physics is the same thing as mechanical engineering. Physics class and shop class are two very different things. Mechanical Engineering is the applied part of building things, while physics is more theoretical.
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Well if we have mech. eng. seperate from physics (classical) Then we have to have in all fairness, electronics seperate from electromagnetics. Electronics has about as much in common as electromagnetics does. Again its the application of the electrical side of electromagnetics. There isn't much on the solely magnetic side to warrent a seperate basic tech for practical use of magnetics.

I also consider Biology and Ecology to be two very different things. Biology is the study of the structure of a single lifeform, while Ecology is the study of how all of the lif eon the planet is interrelated. Ecology actually has more in common with Geology than Biology.
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I agree with everything cept the last sentance. They both affect it equally, or very close to equally.

LGJ: You shouldn't be bored with the tech tree. This game will be more challenging
and balanced, and there is no upper limit to the basic tech levels. There can be new
applications well into the 200% tech levels. You will keep getting things until the end
of the game, just set really high basic tech requirements for futuristic things.
------
Yes, I'm sure i won't be nearly as bored. But what I'm saying is that it doesn't incorperate the new ideas that are just around the corner. We are in a period of change that historians around the globe say hasn't been equaled since some of the most earliest technologies/social advances (which ones specifically are not quite agreed upon, such as agriculture, language, wheel, etc.). Anyway what does this mean? Well if we could've developed clash say even ~50 years ago, no one would say computers would so important that they'd deserve there own tech, but they have become so.
I'm not trying to look at it as far as what we can do with the tech today (and yesterday), but where are the general trends leading towards and which technologies (old or new) will probably be most influental. I can't see the future but i can make educated guesses.

[F Smith]

Mark:

Okay, I'm done bugging you from work. Now I'll bug you from home! But don't worry, I'm about to get caught up in another work project (I've just finished setting up a server-class machine here at the house as an Oracle test bed), and have to vanish for a few weeks. Speaking of which, I'm running the JavaWebServer on this machine with a cable modem, so if ya'll are going to need to test any servlet or multiplayer code on the internet you can feel free to use this machine. I've got about 20 gig free.

First, I think we can all agree that no one game has produced a 'definitive' tech tree yet. Altho it will happen, some day . . . and maybe I'll be involved!

I think your comment can be a good illustration of what I don't prefer about this system. When you say the player could 'research Infantry Weapons', how does the player (as leader of a civ) control that? Before about 150 years ago, there was very little organized, state funded R&D on any large scale. About the best you could hope for before then was a govt-sponsored prize for a specific tech (like the ship-board clock). And for modern times, the choice (in my opinion) of R&D spending should be of which specific projects to fund, because that's how it really is . . . not which general areas of research to look into. You could, of course, set a 'manager' to chose for you in either system, but the actual underlying choices should be, in my opinion, on a project by project basis. Because I think that's how it works.

But have no fear, if ya'll have settled on this system I will drop the point. It's a fine system. I'm just rambling for the sake of speaking. I promise to make this my last long-winded opus on the subject.

Richard:

Altho I agree it needed more hashing and organization, that original document of pages and pages of techs is exactly the kind of thing I consider 'fun'. But I'm sure that's just me, I'm probably different. I think it was a mess because it was an unfinished 'masterpiece'.

I wasn't thinking that the player would have control over the detail of tech development ya'll are after, which is why a massive tech 'tree' was not unwieldy. I was after more of a 'ruler of the country' approach, where at best you can spend money to fund specific projects. I thought that the type of civ you had, where you lived, the available resources you acquired and worked, those things would influence your tech 'tree' progress, without any actual 'godlike' control on the part of the player.

Forgive me for carrying on for so long about this. I think it's just a personal preference.

Because mostly I was thinking of tech advances thru history based on the 'Connections' history of tech series, by James Burke. Individuals thruout time for economic reasons (or, in some cases, military-economic reasons) working without govt support to their own ends (often working against the current "common wisdom") who end up invariably putting together two old ideas and coming up with a new one.

But this is, indeed, a workable, playable system, one which I will do my best to master and play.

Altho my wife is convinced I'm forever stuck in the 'stone' age . . .

[Mark_Everson]

All:

Man, we just can't shut up can we I think we're making progress, but it's like progress making sausage, really messy in the middle part...

A few miscellaneous things.

I really like the generic weapons basic tech idea, because it makes things much simpler for the player. So I'm going to keep pushing it for a bit. If I get outvoted in the end, well that's life... But consider that's period if you don't have a set of weapons basic techs, then your weapons are going to be scattered all over the place among different basic techs. I'm with F. Smith on that one, that would be madness. So if you don't like my idea, that's fine, but come up with something that the player can deal with for targeting research toward particular types of military hardware easily.

On Resource Extraction, Richard I agree completely, it's a lousy name! But I think we need to come up with a better one then Resource Gathering, which sounds extremely primitive.


Richard:

It's not completely clear to me why you want to start everything at 20% effectiveness. That seems abysmally low to me. Such applications would be completely useless unless the new technology were at least 10 times as good as the one is replacing. I think in general, applications should start at more like a 50% effectiveness. However, these are just scaling effects, and I'm sure we can get them right. I think the best way to make an early-invented tech valuable is to just arbitrarily given an application bonus (the same way you get a bonus if you build a lot of the thing) so if the inventor came across it extremely early, and the effectiveness would be at 23%, we would just figure out the right application bonus to bring it up to the equivalent of 50% effective. I was on the other side of this argument a while ago, and I apologize. I now think the way above is the best way to do it. Personally I would say that we should never tell the player about a new technology unless it is cost-effective. If it's not, and we decide it has to work that way, then just don't tell them about it.

I didn't really understand all the problems you are having in your post of 17:14 today. But it seemed that it might be tied into the extremely low levels that you are considering starting applications at. I'm obviously missing something, because I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about.

I like your basic set of suggestions for Demo 5. Hey, the social stuff isn't even implemented yet, how the heck could we put it into the Demo 5 tech model? Things have gotten a little complicated here because really we are talking about generic tech model issues, and also Demo 5 somewhat in the same thread. Realistically, I would call this the general tech thread, and we have barely even gotten to Demo 5 issues. But there's no way to rename the thread, so we're stuck with it.

F. Smith:

We can certainly put in a historical accuracy slider, that says whether you want to have a realistic historical level of control over technology, or be able to do the usual for a civ-type game. That's in my game plan anyway. However, I think it in general player's Want to have such control. Taking it away from them completely would only result in a lot of them not being interested in playing Clash. Like in several other places in the design, playability, and what players in general want, will have to take precedence over realism.

LGJ:

Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, Government and Law...
I can think of anything else to say about Law, but I get the feeling I should have something to say... I use get this feeling that if we had some more civic-oriented types rather than techies, our technology scheme would look completely different. So I'm trying to plug some of the obvious holes.

On Management, good management techniques are vital to corporations and governments both. It looks like Richard kind of assumed this was part of Industrial Engineering. I think I would prefer to use the more general Management. I don't think of this is having a lot of specific applications tied into it, but as being an enabler for a lot of things. It would also be as good a place as any to put the research-specific ideas of Invention, Innovation, and Research and Development. I'm sure there are more things that have to do with organizing people effectively, but I'll have to rely on others for now.

On Cybernetics and Robotics...
How about we make a deal? (with Richard's approval of course) You can put in any "advanced" basic technologies you want, so long as they start after the present. Because neither of these has had a serious enough effect on the world yet to justify it being a basic technology. I am just trying to avoid putting in things that "blip" into the technology area right at the end of the game for those who only want to play out history up until this point. Of course, you know I'm not going to keep my end of the deal. I will hassle you about the future basic technologies at some point! But for now I'm worried about just getting us with a sensible technology system that can even work in the ancient world!

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited February 02, 2000).]