Technology System Version 5.2

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Originally posted by roquijad on 08-12-2000 03:21 PM About ideologies, I know the current interpretation for the tech level is a level of effectiveness, but I wonder if the interpretation can be different depending on the tech. After all, it's just a matter of what meaning we give to a certain number if I'm understanding correctly... If so, then I wouldn't worry about my attempt to re-interpret ideologies tech levels. Anyway, if you prefer me to keep the popular knowledge concept within the govt model (as in fact it is currently), I can do it. In that way the govt model handles popular knowledge and the tech model handles ideologies effectiveness.

I like that idea...though you need to flesh out your idealogies before we can do our part,

quote: Originally posted by roquijad on 08-12-2000 03:21 PM What I think is valuable is having different systems for RP production depending on the particular techs. I support the idea of taking inputs for RP's equations from the econ model for the majority of techs, but I think other techs would be better modeled if RP's they receive come from other calculations. Military techs might receive RP's from the number of battles in a game turn, FE. Having a special RP production system for ideologies would be nice in this line of thought.

Well as I see it there are 4 basic ways rp are produced: Economic climate, military climiate, social climate and pure scientific climate. Each of these can be subdivided like farming from Economic climate, but each has differnt ways of producing them. Economic climate has been well documented how it will handle RP production. Your ideas for military rp production, plus the actual manufacting of the items will increase RP production, etc. Social climate severes a different purpose; it changes the levels of RP required to go to the next level, the same as would helper technologies, though not always for the better. (I would also like to point out at this time there should be anti-helper technologies that stifle innovation in a few areas). Finally pure scientific climate is for discoveries that have no immediate or short term benifit to the introduction of the knowledge, but are discovered for the sake of scientific progress. These aren't influenced very much by economics or military. Social factors do affect them, though in differnt ways. There is not net gain beyond higher levels technology in the short term and somtimes medium term future of the game for discovering these technologies so that's why they must act differently to the other ones.

quote: Originally posted by roquijad on 08-12-2000 03:21 PM As for diminishing returns, you have a very good point when you talk about duplicated effort. I didn't see that. However, I feel the best way to introduce dup-eff is at the civ level instead of province level. If, FE, I have a civ with a single province and the level of dup-eff is X and then I decide to split my province into two, then I'd expect the total dup-eff level in the civ to stay being X. It's the same people and with the same communication techs as before, so if something was being developed simultneously in two towns, it will remain that way with new political division. My suggestion would be to take RP's produced in all provinces (without diminishing returns at that level) and then penalize the total to introduce the effect of dup-eff.

Your forgetting one key thing....Your assuming that these 2 new provinces will have policies exactly the same as each other.

quote: Originally posted by roquijad on 08-12-2000 03:21 PM Doing it that way it's also more complete and consistent, because using diminishing returns only at the province level assumes no duplication happens between provinces, which is not true. Any penalty at the province level should IMO depend only on tech development carried on by the local govt and so depending on govt effectiveness as in Mark's examples.

Well this also depends on how F_Smith wants to handle what is put in each square relating to tech info.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well another thing on rp production. RP production done for the most part cannot be used to enhance existing technology. That doesn't mean there is none possible, it means that no matter how many farmers you have plowing the land, in one turn they can only improve the existing technology so much. ie they couldn't go from 1.00 to 20.00, but they can go from 1.00 to say 3.00 or 5.00, if there were a lot of them and excellent communication. The addtional help that can raise this comes from R&D done either by the government or by indivuals/private organiszations. To this end with the diminishing returns this also allows us to show how no matter how many people you have working in a field, they only have so many ideas and points of view.

[Richard Bruns]

Implementing anti-helper techs is trivial. Just make a coeffecialt with a negative value. That is a good idea; it could lead to some hard choices, and that is IMO a way to make the game a lot better and give more replay value.

[roquijad]

Richard: If a social techs system is needed, then of course I'd like to participate giving some thoughts. But, is it really needed? How did you get to this conclusion?

LGJ: "flesh out ideologies"? what's the meaning of "flesh out"? do you want me to name them? (my english failed! )

[Richard Bruns]

We have been thinking about building a social tech system for months. It was one of those things that kept being put on the back burner. Basically, there is a need for the social tech levels, which mean something different. You pointed out that need when you described your plans for ideology techs, but there are many others, like Chivalry and Literacy. Social techs are based on support and popularity rather than knowledge and efficiency.

While normal science and engineering stuff is designed to keep advancing, social techs can bounce up and down. A certain social tech can be high in a bronze age society and very low in a modern society.

It is entirely possible that these should be handled by the social model. We assumed we would do them because they are part of the "tech tree" in other civ games, but other civ games don't have a good social model like we do. When we first started working, Clash didn't have the social model it does now, so our earlier assumptions may not be valid now. Some things we were calling techs might be batter handled as social characteristics.

But then there are the hybrids like Literacy. It depends on social conditions and educational infrastructure and it affects both technology growth and the society. It is a social condition and an important part of the tech system. We need a good way of dealing with such things. LGJ, can you work with Rodrigo on this topic. I have my hands full with the Object Oriented model development.

[Lord God Jinnai]

rodrigo:

You don't haveto quite go out and name the ideologies, but atleast give some terms descibing atleast the ones you know you want in there right now.

Also Rich is right about social advances....some should be done exclusively in the social model while others should be done in both.

[roquijad]

About ideologies, we can work with the following list for the time being:

Ancient Despotism (warlord rule)
Divine Monarchy
Monarchy
Constitutional Monarchy
Oligarchy
Ancient Republic
Capitalist Democracy
Democratic Communism
Social Democracy
Fundamentalism
Communist Dictatorship
Capitalist Dictatorship

The list of course may change as the project advances.
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About social techs, on one side I'm happy to see I did convince you with those long discussions at the social model thread! But in the other side a "social techs system" sounds like too much. I'm maybe just misunderstanding things. A "system" sounds like a big thing to me and I guess we won't need more than a couple of social techs. Anyway, I'll open a new thread for social techs for LGJ and me to work on.

[Mark_Everson]

I just heard from Garth that he is officially pulling out of the project due to lack of free time. I requested that he send me the last version of the technology editor that he was working on. With luck we can use what he had in whatever technology editor we end up doing.

[axi]

That's sad. So now there are only 3 coders active in the Team?

[Mark_Everson]

OT (but brief) Well, we have more coders that have areas they are working on, etc. more recently, but I haven't seen anything solid produced from them. Based on past experience I don't count someone as a coder until they really produce something...

So by the rigid definition we are down to three. Want to learn to code in java?

[Richard Bruns]

I have been working on learning Java. I am already familiar with the basic stuff and can understand stuff other people write, but I haven't yet learned to write code myself. Just give me some time. . .

[Mark_Everson]

Richard:

Excellent. With four or five serious coders will will be able to make much better progress! Just remember not to ditch too many classes on our behalf .

[Richard Bruns]

Outline for Tech System Implementation with OO modeling:

This outlines the entire tech system procedure, starting and ending with object parameters for the other game models. This is mainly a definition of the objects and their interactions; the equations will come later.

The system is run at the end of the turn. It uses data about events and attributes from that turn and the results are implemented at the beginning of the next turn.

This system can be run at the civ, province, or even the square level. The default would be the civ level, but if you wanted different provinces or squares to have different tech levels you could run these methods at that level.

1) Data about RP generating activity in the area (civ, province, or square) is collected. I would assume that this would be a matter of inputing object parameters (trade, construction, etc.) from the other game models.

2) Tagged RP's are generated from this data. Each tech tag has a Tagged RP object that calculates itself based on the data gathered in step 1.

3) Social effects and other external multiplicative effects are applied to RP generation by tag. The object parameters from the other models again cause the Tagged RP objects to recalculate themselves. (Note that this allows society to have different impacts on different fields of study. Philosophy innovation might be frowned upon while Agriculture innovation might be supported.)

4) Tagged RP's are distributed among the technologies. Each technology has an associated Tech RP object that calculates itself based on data from the Tagged RP objects and the level of the associated tech.

5) THL (Total Helper Level) values are calculated. Each tech has an associated THL object that recalculates itself based on data about the helper and vital techs.

6) Each tech level is recalculated. Each tech object recalculates itself based on data from the associated RP object, THL object, tech attributes, and its own tech level. (This is the step that is detailed in the spreadsheet.)

7) Tech diffusion is calculated. The tech objects recalculate themselves based on data from surrounding areas and the internal conditions of the area. (Note that this is in addition to the effects of trade. Trade generates RP's that must be turned into technology by the civ or province. This gives completed technology directly to the area. So, your society not provide a good evvironment for the development of something, but they would use it once it is completed.)

8) Application levels are calculated. Each application object recalculates its level based on the tech objects and its own attributes.

9) The effects of application levels are implemented. The objects in the other models recalculate themselves based on the parameters of the application objects. These effects will take place before the start of the next turn.

So the basic outline is:

Other model objects (previous turn) -> Tagged RP objects -> Tech RP objects -> Tech objects -> Application objects -> Other model objects (next turn)

[Mark_Everson]

Looks reasonable to me! I'm sure you'll hear from F_Smith on this soon

[F_Smith]

Hi:

I'm sorry, I've been working my brains out the last couple of nights. I haven't been able to fully digest the steps yet, but at first glance it looks right.

This is good stuff, Richard.

If you have a chance, would you write a specific list of what you see the objects necesary to be? If you do, I can code this up, if you'd like. After I finish dealing with this tricky 'ideology' turn logic, that is.