Disease Model v1.1

[Lord God Jinnai]

3A.) No, I'd have to say after all the research I did on diseases I'd have to say Influenza is truly the only disease that has such varying strengths between strains. But as I think more about the strains it seems impossible without them to have genetically engineered diseases. By this I mean what if I wanted to throw smallpox at an enemy, but he already has the disease (and a fairly good resistance to it). It would not be as devastating as it should be without the strains system because he would already have some resistance to the disease (even though it's more like a totally new disease).
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We can do something i proposed a long time ago as a comprimise to the strain/non-strain debate. We can use viral diseases only with strains and bacterial w/o. Since baterica don't evolve quite as fast this should IMO be a good comprimise that will mimic the volitility of viral diseases, the increasing in strength and the way to show that bacterial diseases aren't quite as adaptable as viruses, but still quite adaptable.

3B.) Your original post, "Strains develope for survival and differentiate just like most species do, only more rapidly, so they can survive. So lets say Stain X and Strain Y appear, they could both have the same power level, but the population where Strain X originated would do less than Strain Y would to the same population. Without strains u currently have no way of dealing with this."

The mortalitiy rate may be 15% this time but 30% next time. This sort of simulates what you're speaking of (although I admit it's not a great simulation). The only way (without strains) I can see to make it a better simulation would be to (over time) have the ranges of mortality rates decrease some. So for example Hantavirus might go from a range of 15% to 30%, to a range of 5% to 20%.
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See why go through the trouble of figuring out a way to mimic the effect when u already have a model that in theory should work much better for things like this. The only thing that is a downside to strains is the CPU demand and i think u can base the new strains on a variation of the mixing part of the social model.

5.) I see what you're saying but the current model doesn't show sick people just dead ones. This isn't to say that sick people aren't important, it's just that if they don't die of the disease it's just not necessary for this model.

I think its quite important to know how much of ur population is sick from certain diseases to know whether u should try and combat it before it becomes a deadly epidemic.

[alms66]

5.) Only in fairly modern times would you truly be able to combat an epidemic, before then it was more or less prevention. Once in modern times however, things like epidemiology (tech) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control, I guess this would be infrastructure...?) would allow you to combat epidemics. Good idea LGJ. I'll have to work up some specifics though.

[alms66]

Sorry, just testing a new table, it didn't work.
[This message has been edited by Toubabo_Koomi (edited February 20, 2000).]

[alms66]

I've updated most of the disease model, most notably:

1. chance of spread has been drastically lowered, so they won't spread too quickly
2. "Out of Africa" spreading way has been modified somewhat, and method 1 now takes into account population density...however, I'm really begining to dislike this method, and would prefer the more realistic method 3 ("out of Africa"), although method 2 is probably the most balanced of all
3. Many more examples for clarification
4. Disease str. increase codes are now simply disease codes, and are much more detailed and can now allow for virtually unlimited diseases (for emerging ones and genetically engineered diseases).
5. various relatively minor "missing" details filled in

What's still missing as of now is:

1. Emerging Diseases- how new diseases just spring up--If you're wondering why I want this included, not only will most diseases be under control by the modern era, but I recently read an interesting article about how Anthrax (a cow disease), now has a human version.
2. Combating Epidemics--Mostly a modern thing, though having good sanitation levels (sewers, clean water, basically Heath/Water infrastructure levels from economic model) is a way to combat them early on
3. How rising Population density affects disease
4. exact effects of medical techs (will probably have to wait for a more complete tech "tree" on this one)

This is just an update for anyone interested, I won't post the new version to the web page until I solve the first 3 things from the currently missing list. Hopefully that will be before the end of the month, if not, next month for sure.

P.S. Disease strains will probably be used once the Emerging Diseases section is finished. Though the game won't start with any extra strains, they could emerge, or be genetically engineered, with virtually no extra CPU cost to the model, and I think this is what LGJ (and others) wanted from the beginning regarding strains.

[Richard Bruns]

Toubado_Koomi:

The tech tree is meant to adapt to the needs of the other model makers. Just tell us what technologies you would like to see and what you want them to do, and we will do our best to enter them once we get a tech builder utility.

We don't know the disease model as well as you do, so if we try to assign all the disease techs ourselves we probably won't do as good of a job. Could you give us a 'wish list' of technologies with brief notes on how you want them to alter the variables in the disease model? That would help us a lot and help ensure that the tech tree affects the disease model the way you want it to.

If you are not familiar with the equations of the tech model, that is fine. We can format your requests to make the part of the tech tree that affects disease.

[alms66]

I know, and I've already given you a "wish list" of techs for the disease and disaster models, though without the "what they do" part.

The reason I want to wait is that there may be some techs that affect my models that I'm simply not thinking of right now, and someone else may enter them into the tech model. But it's a relatively minor point right now since the full tech model will be implimented long before the disease or disaster models are.

[Richard Bruns]

I remember getting a list for the disaster model, but I didn't remember getting a list for the disease stuff. I'll check my files. If you want anything else or want to change the list, let us know.

[Mark_Everson]

TKs (looks like he's now alms66) most recent Disease model, v 1.3 , has been posted by Dom. I don't think TK is going to be active anymore, but others can discuss the model as it was posted.

[edit] changed to correct link, Thanks for letting me know LGJ!

[Lord God Jinnai]

Sorry Mark, that was his disaster model.