Technology System Version 5.2

[Richard Bruns]

Nomadic civs tended to have an advantage in military technologies and anything that dealt with animals. They are also the only people capable of living in certain areas. However, the lack of a stable infrastructure hurt their potential for growth and development.

In Clash, most nomadic peoples would probably be single-province tribes. I really can't see how an entire civ could be nomadic for any length of time.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Actually I think it could be, if they were able to develope 1 or 2 trade cities. These cities would act as centers for there commerce and whatever ruling body there is. Still your right at not being too large.

Semi-nomadic cultures should be able to grow much larger though.

[The Diamond]

Okay, some of this is slightly off-thread, but I think this is probably an appropriate enough place for it...

How have things been learned throughout history? I think it varies depending on what exactly we're learning. Eg,

Agricultural developments such as the plough...these are made when a farmer undertakes a backbreaking task year after year and wonders if there's a way to make it easier. A bright spark farmer after so long would probably figure out a basic plough idea.

This fits with the RP system...obviously if we have 100 farmers, they're more likely to think of the plough sooner than 10 farmers would. Size does matter for general improvements like that. Specific improvements, such as better methods of growing crops themselves would probably be "trade secrets" and not change much with size...along the arguments voiced earlier in the thread.

However, how about an improvement such as the idea of building Highways or SuperRoads or whatever...I doubt that having Research Centres into Biology or hundreds of Universities will have too great an effect on this, but having a huge Empire and an extensive road network in need of improvement would.

However, a huge empire with no universities would probably fare worse in developing such an idea than a small empire with no transport problems, but lots of universities. Is this right? My example isn't the best one - perhaps someone could give a better one, but I hope my point is clear:

I agree that factors such as sheer size and number of research institutions and overall education will be of a help to RP generation in any field, but surely other factors will come in. A Civ with a primarily agricultural basis probably won't have the need to even consider ideas such as production lines, unless and until their civilisation becomes more industrial...should that kind of approach be taken into account?

As a general concept, is all communication purely positive? Take the internet, for example. If such a development was included into the tech tree, I would suggest it be along the lines of:

Internet: Stimulates research and spread of information. Increases RPs in all cities in direct relation to the extent of computer technology present. Increases economic activity (e-business) and gives further power to corporations (easier to market to larger group).
However, due to this promotion of free knowledge and potential for accessibility, chances of infiltration and stealing techs (hacking) greatly increased, raises potential for low-level anti-govt. activity (easier to co-ordinate events such as Reclaim The Streets riots in London, but of little use in a direct guerilla war). All Civs possessing the technology are immediately affected by its existence...there is no way to counteract it (short of banning it, I suppose...).

Comments?

[Richard Bruns]

The Diamond:

Many of your points are already included in the current model, and almost everything you wrote about has been discussed at some point.

In most cases, general comments are not too helpful. It is hard to tell what you are saying and what you want to do. Try to make specific criticisms or pose specific suggestions using the current model mechanics. If you think the current model is wrong, let us know and propose a detailed and thorough alternative.

If you are interested in working more closely with the technology model, you should review everything since the Tech Tree version 5.1 thread and look over some of the older stuff. I will bump up the thread with links to all of the tech threads.

[The Diamond]

Understood...the main reason I'm only making general comments is that I don't really know the exact state of everything in Clash yet. I'm just hurling ideas into the fray and seeing if any of them haven't been considered, or if my angle interests anyone.

Thanks for bumping the thread. As of right now, I don't see any direct problems with the tech system, but I'll properly look over it when I get the chance. Don't worry, if I propose a change, it will be thorough and detailed...probably too much so, I would imagine.

[Richard Bruns]

In my opinion, you can't be too thorough.

If you just hurl ideas in, they ususlly bounce out. You have to stake them down

[The Diamond]

I think the main problem I'm facing is that some of the things I'm suggesting aren't just simple modifications to one model...they also involve interactions with several other models.

Still, I've taken your advice about staking down ideas...I'm going to leave alone further discussion about topics that have been debated for months, etc. until I can catch up on enough to make more informed comments. For now, I'll just stick to my social outcast ideas.

[Richard Bruns]

You do seem to have a lot of good ideas about the rebels and pirates. If you can make those things work well you will make Clash a better game. That topic also seems to be uncharted territory, so your ideas will have a better chance of getting in. . .after you make them work with the military, character, and economic models. Good luck!

PS. The ecology model is new; the one thread of information and discussion is all of the background. It can still change a lot at this point, so if you want to you can look it over and let me know what you think.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited June 06, 2000).]

[The Diamond]

Thanks, and I hope so.

Ooooh, it may be a new model, but that doesn't stop it being highly complex. I'll gather my thoughts and look over it a lot more closely before I venture any opinions. I've put my foot in far too many places already.

[This message has been edited by The Diamond (edited June 07, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

There is an interesting article on the usual way technology is handled in God games, and what the author, an archeologist in training, thinks would be a better direction. A lot of the notions he puts forward on how things should be are already very similar to the way we are talking about doing things in Clash. It is an interesting read, and you can find it Here.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Rich:
Sorry to hear about your computer problems with Java. Anyway my computer can handle it so if you want, just have Garth (I think that's our coders name...sorry i'm not good at remembering names). send me the copy and I'll do all the inputing.
Also send me your e-mail addy so i can let him know and don't haveto go through u.

Mark: can you reput his e-mail on cuz i can't find it.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited June 16, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

I am not the kind of programmer that can write code in my head, and I don't know Java anyway. I need to experiment with the code and compiler to learn the language, and when I write programs I write them in little chunks, debug and revise that part, and then do another little chunk. I won't be able to e-mail code to anyone else for a long time.

The tech utility is not finished. If it was I would have entered the techs by now. I may be able to make a tech spreadsheet similar to the econ spreadsheet, so we can test the equations.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Disreadguard.
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited June 17, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

I have completed two spreadsheets for modeling the technology system. They have everything except the effects of helper technologies. If you want to experiment with the tech system, let me know and I'll e-mail you a copy of the spreadsheets.

[Richard Bruns]

There is a problem with our system of calculating the effects of helper technologies. There are a couple solutions to this problem, but I'm not committed to any particular one. I'll describe the problem and the solutions I can think of, and see what everyone thinks.

The assumption in the current system is that a low level of a helper technology will hurt the tech growth of a tech. I recently realized that this is not a good assumption. Consider computers. Even when compuer technology was very primitive, say tech level 30, it was able to help research in much more established disciplines with a tech level of around 70. The presence of computers, even simple ones, is a lot better than the absence of computers. Yet the current RHL and H formulas would severely penalize tech growth as soon as early computers were added to the RHL formula.

In fact, the current RHL and H formulae do not work whenever the helper technology and the technology being helped are not the same level. If the scaling rules are obeyed, technologies will rarely be at the same levels. I don't know why I dodn't catch this earlier.

I can think of two ways of dealing with this. One way would be to browbeat the tech tree so all techs had about the same level at all times. As I've stated before, I don't like this. In addition to requiring a lot of extra work and making the system a lot more unwieldy, it would be very hard to research and implement well. How do we know what the "right" tech is for a time period? Which civilization do we use as a model and how do we correct for events that affected their tech levels? How do we avoid discriminating against other civs that developed differently? I think that this way of doing things would be a nightmare, but is one possible solution.

The other possible solution is to revert to my original method of doing helper techs. I'll copy the relevant part of the old post:

---

In earlier discussion, we agreed that the difference between helper and vital techs would simply be the magnitude of the h constant for that tech. But we have seen that that is not possible. For any h value, a system of techs that help each other has the possibility to rise without bound. So I propose that the formulas for helper and vital techs be differentiated. Vital techs would retain the formulas described above so that their benefits outweigh their upkeep, and helper techs will use a formula that eliminates the possibility of an infinite tech rise. Taking the square root of knowledge will work well, and it would be reasonable. We can assume that helper techs can only help so much, and at a higher knowledge level they cannot provide as much benefit. So:

H=1+(h1k1*h2(k2)^.5*. . .)

Where k1 is the knowledge level of a vital tech and k2 is the knowledge level of a vital tech.

H in terms of tech level is:

H=1+(h1(2^((T-Ts)/10))*h2(2^((T-Ts)/10))^.5*. . .)

Which simplifies nicely to:

H=1+(h1(2^((T1-Ts1)/10))*h2(2^((T2-Ts2)/20))*. . .)

Where T1 is the level of a vital tech and T2 is the level if a helper tech.

---

This formula is a bit old, so it has to be adjusted to fit the new system. The 10 has been replaced with GV and the 2 replaced with MV.
For testing purposes, we have added a W term that changes the total effect of helper techs. W was defined as some number times the GV. Also, Mark introduced an Offset variable O for each helper tech, which allows for finer control over the equation.

Rather than Relative Helper Levels, we can use Total Helper Levels. To make things easier, I'll seperate the helper and vital technologues.

THL = h1(T1-Ts1+O1) + . . . hn(Tn-Tsn+On)
where T1 through Tn are helper technologies
H = MV^(THL/2W)

TVL = h1(T1-Ts1+O1) + . . . hn(Tn-Tsn+On)
where T1 through Tn are vital technologies
V = MV^(TVL/W)

H and V will multiply the excess RP's like H did before. Because these values will result in a larger V2 than before, I will have to change the numbers. c will have to be larger and m a bit smaller. The h1 through hn values will be smaller. W will have to be about 1.5 times the MV.

I could code this into the spreadsheet to test it. Are there any suggestions?