Social Model v.2

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

It wasn't a statement about the model...
Although I can see how when you read what is there now it looks like it might have been.

[roquijad]

OK, "posts-deleters"

Just one thing, TK, in all your deleting process you appeared to have deleted something about the Inquisition. Should I forget about that or will you say something about it?

[alms66]

Rodrigo,

it was in my insane rantings I mentioned the Spanish Inquisition as an instance of the Catholic Church's attempt to suppress innovation and therefore scientific growth. It was an example of something that I feel needs to be in the game... some religions suppressing new ideas. I don't know if you had planned on this or not, but the simplest solution would be to reduce RP's... but I'm not sure if that's the best route to take.

It's all in my attempt to make the real world religions act as they did historically, because I can't wait to play the version of Clash that includes such things.

[roquijad]

TK: I'd love to include that. I didn't explicitly included because the first time I brought that subject up (a very long time ago) there wasn't much consensus. If people agrees about having that effect, I believe we can introduce it in two ways:
1) Officially: If there's an official religion and it is inclined toward stopping science, then total RP production in the civ is penalized. Not for all techs, just for some of them (I don't want yet to go on specifics).

2) Self-constrained: People refrain themselves. They are less interested in science because of their intense beliefs. This can only be achieved if RP production is computed at the ethnic group level.

I think we can at least implement 1) if people agree.

[Lord God Jinnai]

1. Totally agree

2. Sorry, won't probably happen. What will happen is that rp values for maintance and advancing to the next rp level increase each turn for unfavorable social/ethnic conditions while favorable one decrease it.

[Richard Bruns]

The tech model has already includes these effects. There are two variables the social model provides:

I: This variable multiplies the effectiveness of research. High I means more tech growth. The default value is one, and the normal range is between .3 and 3

E: This variable multiplies the difficulty of maintaining a technology. High E means more tech loss and more difficult tech maintenence. The default value for this is also one, and the range should also stay between .3 and 3

These variables combine all social impacts on research. You can include whatever you want in the calculation of these variables, as long as the numbers stay close to the ranges provided.

Note that these variables currently only impact scientific and engineering type technologies. The philosophical stuff, which the religious leaders will be concerned with, will be handled in the social tech model that is currently being developed.

[roquijad]

Thanks for the info, Richard. As you say, some of the effects of an anti-sci clergy can be introduced in the social techs system and I'll keep it in mind while developing it. Religion could affect I and E too in the normal tech system, but as you said it in the other thread, it'd strange for religion to be in opposition of techs like agrarian tools. My point of view is religion can be opposed to science when it comes to "fundamentals". In the tech system you have separated techs in layers. I find that very useful for what I'd like to do regarding religious intervention. Religion don't stop people from developing "applications" or low level techs. But high level techs, as I undertsand your model, are more fundamental. They explain the world in a wider sense. That's where religions can be pissed off, because that's their "job" too. I think that if religion can affect variables I and E only for that layer of techs, we'd be adding the anti-sci clergy effect very nicely.

[Richard Bruns]

roquijad:

I can easily make I and E differ by tech Tier. That makes more sense with all aspects of society, not just the religious part. People can be very clever with one Tier and incompetent with another.

I was thinking about having I and E differ by tech tag. It would be easy to implement in the tech model, but the social model would have to provide all of the values. Do you think that would be worth it?

Actually, I will go ahead and build that functionality in anyway. Even though you might not need it, some scenario designer might want to take advantage of it.

[Beör]

Hi there

I'm Beör, popping in from the Apolyton SMAC(X) section. I posted some rambling regarding social techs in the Social Techs thread.

Here I would like to draw your attention to a point that has not been covered in the current Social thread as far as I can tell: Migration. This could prove to be uncomfortable, so brace yourselves.

Migration has played a major part in the rise and fall of civilisation. Hardly any spot on earth has not been completely altered by it. If you cannot model this very well, you will not get the feeling of recreating history (if that is the aim here). An effort was made in the old thread: New Social (well, now it is old, but never mind), but seems to have been neglected since.

I realise that there are major problems: At the proposed CLASH starting point 4000 BC all of the civilisations that we could envision being played by a player were historically in a more or less nomadic state geographically distant from their later core areas (with the exception of sumerians, and possibly egyptians). The indoeuropean cultures were only beginning to differentiate on their 2000 year long push from Western Asia (Armenia or Northern Iran?) SE to the Indian subcontinent, and N/NW to Europe, whence they have further spread during the succeeding millenia (from India to SE Asia, from Europe to the Americas, Australia and parts of Africa). This is a major problem since indoeuropeans gave rise to many if not most of the civilisations that could be included in a game ranging from Hittites, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Germans and Slavs to Americans. In fact I could probably mention at least 40 different indo-european civ-prospects. In fact many of these civilisations were not differentiated until recently (Australian civilisation - now there's a contradiction in terms ) and most likely some interesting ones are not even created yet (Europeans?!).

So if a player is appointed leader of the righteous Franks, in historical terms he has no nation until 200-300 AC, and no civ for a further couple of hundred years. You could of course make him leader of the righteous German nation instead - at least he could have a nation maybe around 1500 BC, but then the Germans would later have to be divided into their various constituents, and how could this be handled game-mechanics wise. Another possibility is to grant the player a miniscule nation with a prohibitive tech-achievement possibility. and place him in the Steppes of Central Asia with three tents, a herd of goats and a possibility to catch a horse around 3000 BC! The chances of surviving are low indeed.

Another concern is that if the game is started this early, with people wandering around the steppes for a couple of thousand years, the human controlled Franks might end up in France, if played by a player wanting historical accuracy, but his neighbours might be the semitic Assyrians controlled by the AI, and his historical neighbours the Burgundians might be slaughtering the Romans in Uzbekistan. Thus nomadic nations will most likely give a very unrealistic feeling to the game, which I find most disturbing. Alternatively you could prematurely place the Franks where they belong - in France, that is - at 4000 BC. But where would you place the Gauls then? Should they not have a place in life. So if you start the game early the geographical framework, that could give the game a real feeling, is not in place.

This leaves an obvious solution: Start the game later, maybe around 1500 BC: You could have major civ-would-bes in place at this point with some minor historical twists: Basks, Iberians and celtiberians in Spain; Etrurians and Italic people in Italy; Greeks in Greece and Asia Minor; Minoic people in Crete; Early Balkan people in the Balcans (i.e. Thracians, Illyrians, Macedonians, Dacians, Albanians etc); Celts in a zone from Ireland to the Black Sea; Scythians in Crimea and on the Ucrainian Steppes; Germanic people north of Celts and Scythians, to the east of them Slavs and Baltic people, then Huns, Avars, Hungarians, Turks and Bulgarians. Chinese in China, Japanese in Japan, Koreans in Korea, Manchurians in Manchuria (get my point?), Mongols in Southern Siberia, Semitic people (Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Arabs, Jews) in the Near Orient (mixed with indoeuropeans: Mittani, Hittites, Armenians) and Arabia, Persians and Parthians in Iran, Egyptians in Egypt, Ku****es in Ethiopia, Hyksos in the Aegean/Cilicia/Cyprus, North African people in North Africa etc. You would loose 2000 years of history in Mesopotamia and Egypt, somewhat less in the Indus valley and in China, but you gain a lot more historical feeling. Some early tech advances would already have taken place in some civs, but as far as I understand the Tech Model this would only mean FE that the civ would have something like 25% Writing, probably still using pictograms or cuneiforms, but not having developed an alphabet yet. It would let the player choose between controlling an already ancient civ, but probably with some inherent social/ecological/demographic etc problems, that would be hard to overcome, or choose a rookie civ with a small chance of succeeding, but a potential to get it all!. Imagine the potential tension in the game, when Ku****es and Assyrians race to conquer Egypt from their decadent childless ruler, when Ramases suddenly siezes power in Egypt and levies enough forces to o****erattack etc. There would still be problems though. What is to stop the Mayans from entering the bronze age at some point, build some seafaring vesels and discover Europe 800 BC? How are you going to keep the Americas isolated and indeed relatively undeveloped for 2000-3000 years? Indeed it has always been a mystery to me, that Mesoamerican and Peruvian civilisations crumbled before the conquistadores. BTW I find the inclusion of a Sioux civilisation in CivII misjudged. I have great admiration for the Sioux nation, but I beleive that cities is what makes differentiates a nomadic tribe from a civilisation (this might actually spawn a comment on the economy thread).

Yet another possibility which I would definitely not prefer is to allow the game to be grossly ahistorical - maybe even taking place in a generated world with arbitrary civ placement. This could of course be an option, but I think there has been several attempts at this - all OK, but I have a feeling this is not what we really want here. Please correct me if I am wrong

So you see migration is really an issue. What I would like to experience in a game could be:

I am trying to guide my Illyrian nation through history. I begin the game at the N end of the Adriatic and manage to carve a small empire out for myself (and my people) protected from the ferocious celts by the Alps, and having rather friendly relations with other Italic nations in the neighbourhood. I have fended of the Etrurians and am now ready to take on this crummy little nation in Latium. During recent years small bands of Dacians have raided my easternmost belongings, and quite a lot of Dacians have actually settled within my borders making a decent contribution to my populace. Suddenly around 800 BC the Dacian immigration steps up. Thousands and thousands of Dacians are pressing against my borders. Some Thracians are trying to enter from the south. I decide to allow the Dacians to enter my territory, rather than fight them. A good deal of them settle down reinforcing my holdings while some of them drift on into Italy where they are lost from recall. Later it becomes clear that a large population boost in Scythia has expanded the Scythian civilization all the way to the Bosporus, driving the Dacians and Thracians out. Most of the Thracians were driven south where they were amalgamated into the rising Macedonian Civ. For a couple of hundred years I strive to assimilate the Dacians and fight of the Scythians. suddenly the pressure from the east lightens and I can concentrate on my southern expansion plan where in the meantime greek citystates have joined and defeated the Romans. Etc etc.

or

Being Visigoths I start the game somewhere around the Prpiet Marshes in northern Ukraine. My people farm the land by burning the forrest and harvesting for a couple of years, living conditions are decent and the people thrive and multiply. We have horses and cherish them. However, space is getting sparce, and slowly my people are moving W/NW, where there is rich soil and some decent pillaging to perform among my western germanic relatives, who for some time now have been in contact with a large, extremely wealthy celtic empire in northern Italy, southern France and northern Spain. To the east suddenly appears a fierce horse-people: the Huns, forcing us away from our land of birth. For a couple of hundred years we are forced to wander west, west, ever west, never settling down, but still numerous. In the end we reach the ocean, now being pushed forward by a large Slavic empire coming from the northeast. Instead of fighting we move across the sea to the Legendary British isles where a large part of our population converts to the new strange religion of Christ, introduced here by the legendary minoic merchants trading tin.

or…


Hope you get the idea!

[F_Smith]

Populations will migrate.

Yeah, oddly enough the 'population' model, the very first, most important model that the entire rest of the game will be built on, was not done.

In coding the beast, I had to build a population and a map model.

People will, on a mapsquare by mapsquare basis, act very much like people in our world.

And Richard is correct, scenarios will cover any 'historical' games. One 'scenario' will allow you to start in 4000 b.c.e. We will call this the 'default' scenario, for now.

[Richard Bruns]

Beör:

We are not trying to recreate history exactly. That would be impossible in a dynamic environment. Even if we started the game in 1800 AD, the Clash world in 2000 AD would be nothing like the one we live in today. In fact, after a bit of time goes by, nearly identical starting conditions will always produce wildly different results, even if the player does the same thing. (Chaos Theory again!)

There are just too many things that could happen. Different random events will happen, the AI will make different choices, and the world will end up being entirely different.

What we are doing is creating a random class M planet, filling it with cultures loosely based on Earth people, and having them interact via models that are based on reality and altered to provide fun gameplay.

If you want to recreate history, you have to create a lot of linked scenarios with specific goals like they have in AoE. That way, you can make sure history stays on track. While you will be able to do that with the the scenario editors, it will not happen in the default game. The game is intended to be an open ended simulation of what could happen, not a replay of what did happen.

I do agree that we need to model migrations. I thought that was being covered in a seperate model still under development.

[Beör]

OK - Point taken. If I want to simulate a historical situation, I have to play a scenario, probably with a later starting point and of shorter duration. Fair enough, I can get what I want. However, this implies the importance that the models be built so that they will function in shorter scenarios, maybe with a different turn length.

Back to migration
Here are my rather lengthy thoughts as to some important factors in building such a model. I am definitely not an expert in these things (actually I'm a physician) but here goes:

Nomadic cyclic movement:
From the beginning of time, tribes have been following the wanderings of their preferred prey. At some point some animals were semi-domesticated (raindeer) or domesticated (sheep, goats, cattle), but still in many areas it was necessary to change location during the year seeking better pastures. IMO it is not necessary to model most of this sort of 'migration': The number of people were small, the length of the displacement rarely exceeded the 100x100 km map square, and even if it did the cyclic pattern with a 1 year duration would mean that the people would have to be represented in all squares crossed. It could be argued that if one of the squares crossed on the tribe's yearly migration was captured, they might not be able to follow their normal pattern and thus had to be assimilated into the occupying population or eliminated (IRL some of these tribes e.g. the Bachtiari in central Asia, have actually kept up their wandering despite the coming and going of countless invaders and marauders). Effect on gameplay would IMO be negligible, and I think it would be sufficient to model these tribes as primitive inhabitants of said squares. If, however, turn length were less than a year it could be necessary to model the tribe being some place in summer and another in winter. (Note: turn lengths of less than a year could have serious implications in the ecological modeling as well).

Uncontrolled migration:
'Hey, the grass is greener over there, let's grab the kids and move'. Slow steady migration of small to moderate (occasionally large) numbers of people. This goes on all the time. If people think that living conditions would radically change for the better if they moved somewhere else then they will. This of course depends on the conditions where they live: general living conditions (income per capita, taxation, goods shortage etc), social status in their present country (discrimination because of ethnic or religious status), how 'fond' you are of the place you live (land connection?), can they leave their origin (slavery, serfs, economic dependency). It also depends on how difficult it is to reach the destination: What means of transportation can they use, how far away is it, any dangers along the road. And finally it depends on the perceived conditions at the destination: General living conditions, social status, are they allowed to settle down. Characteristically, this sort of migration will only be done by a smaller part of the population at the origin, maybe only some ethnic or religious groupings, and almost entirely from the lower to middle classes. Frequently but not necessarily, people from the same origin will go to the same destination. For a couple of generations these people may stick together in enclaves, preserving their original culture, and making it easier for followers to settle down, but eventually they will be more or less assimilated in the population of the destination, of course depending on how they are treated, how different they are from the original inhabitants, and how large a fraction of the population they are. This sort of migration is not coordinated in any way - it just 'happens', and thus cannot be instituted directly by the player. However, sometimes it could be necessary for the player to react to such a situation. If valuable or large parts of his population are moving away, it could be necessary to try to stop them, either by force or by improving their living conditions. If the region the player is controlling is the target of immigration this could be an advantage, thereby increasing the number of people under his control, which he should encourage by offering good living conditions. It could also be a mixed blessing, if the immigration causes unrest FE if resources are scarce, the immigrants are numerous or very different from the original population. In this case it should be discouraged by not granting the immigrants decent living conditions of even using force (from border patrols to Endlösung).

Controlled migration:
At points in history migratory movements have been controlled to a larger extent, and this would allow the player to get at least some control. Forced displacement of entire populations or large parts thereof is known: Jews to Babylon and back to Palestine, the Diaspora after the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans, Saxons by Charlemagne, slaves from Africa to the Americas, Germans from Eastern Europe after the 2nd world war and probably many more. Founding of new communities is another point, Sct Petersburg probably being the most obvious example, but several other cities have been founded by central authorities (Oslo (Christiania at the time) was founded by Christian IV of Denmark, Alexandria by Alexander the Great etc). The settlements of the Western part of the USA and of Siberia were also to some extent encouraged by central authorities by legislation, infrastructure-builds or economic support. Also the colonization of Australia could be seen in this light. The Roman Empire founded colonies all over the conquered provinces, frequently granting farm land to retired roman soldiers. Many European cities were founded around encampments of the Roman armies (Vienna, Cologne etc).
What I am saying here is that it should be possible for the player to found and encourage some sort of settlement either by founding a city, a military encampment, and maybe even by forcing entire populations to move from one place to another.

Mass migration:
So far there has not been many problems from a game point of view, but this one could prove to get tricky. I named it mass migration for lack of a better term: Large numbers of people can be involved in migration (Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans and African slaves to America) without qualifying as mass migration in my terms. What I am thinking of here is mainly the large movements of entire nations from central Asia to Europe/North Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Eastern/Southern Asia. Similar migration has taken place in Africa I believe. This is characterized by entire nations (Cimbrians, Ostrogoths, Huns, Mongolians) under some sort of central control moving from one location to another. At times it may be very slow, but sometimes thousands of kilometers can be crossed in half a century (Vandals). On the way more or less temporary settlements may be established (Goths in Balkan), depending on how the lay of the land is, other tribes may be assimilated (there was a considerable Slavic component among the Visigoths (even Huns!)), new customs incorporated (Goths were christened during their wanderings) and generally the situation is very volatile. The tribes wandering are generally very aggressive (they had to be). Along the way many are left behind, but subsequently these left-behinds will disappear in the general turmoil.
What is important is that it is the people wandering that are identified with the nation, and thus are carriers of the civilization. And the wandering is very militaristic. This makes it difficult in game terms, since as far as I can see, most of the modeling is based on the assumption that a civilization has a territory under its control that can be developed. This gives the civ a focus or gathering point. When the entire nation is on the prowl, how do you keep them going in the same direction, and how do you model the inevitable military conflict? Should the entire population be modeled as military units with the capability of settling down? A migration unit? Maybe not a bad idea. Another problem is that we know very little about what actually made these people act like they did.

Migration following conquest:
This may not be a separate entity, but I had difficulties organizing the Arab conquest of the Middle East and North Africa into the above. What happened here is that driven by a religious fanaticism a smallish somewhat nomadic tribe with highly mobile troops conquers a large more or less disorganized territory. Subsequently some migration of Arabs takes place, but mainly the original population takes on an Arabic guise, becoming as Arabic as the Arabs themselves. Thus the Arabic civilization took control of an area almost as large as the Roman Empire in a matter of 50 years! And most of this territory is still to be counted as Arabic (the major exception is Spain).
A similar conquest took place when the Mongols under Genghis Khan conquered most of the Eurasic continent, and established a long-lasting empire in China. But here the outcome was somewhat different, since the conquerors after some time were assimilated into the powerful Chinese civilization.
This made me wonder: If I were playing the Chinese and the Mongols conquered my territory, only to become the very essence of Chinese civilization, will I 'win' or 'loose'? In other words: Am I controlling a dynastic empire or am I in some way being the immortal bonus-pater-familias (a sort of non-magical 'Gandalf') of a civilization?

F_Smith,

Your migration model seems to be the one that is being used at the moment. But how does it work? Could you post the details, maybe some pseudocode?

[This message has been edited by Beör (edited September 07, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

Boer:

Right now, there's no 'migration' code in the turn logic for 'ethnic groups'. There's a place for it, can add it quickly, but we've been busy coding up the govt system and haven't fleshed out code that isn't directly relevant to testing govts.

The details are entirely open to sculpting.

[Richard Bruns]

Beör:

quote: However, this implies the importance that the models be built so that they will function in shorter scenarios, maybe with a different turn length.

This has been one of our main goals for some time now. The models usually measure actual time rather than turns, so if you change the time frame the models should adjust automatically without too much trouble. Look at the Population Model thread to see an example of this.

Animal migration and hunting: I considered including this when I first made the ecology model, but it didn't seem important enough. You made a good case for including it, though. I can easily add a "hunting potential" attribute to the ecological provinces. This would be affected by human habitation, water availability, etc.

quote: (Note: turn lengths of less than a year could have serious implications in the ecological modeling as well).

You are certainly right about that. I am encountering some big problems with adding seasons to the ecology model. When I first built it, I assumed all game turns would be a year or more, so I could ignore the seasons. But then I realised that turns could be a month or less, so I had to add seasons. It definitely is creating problems. It might also force me to model seasonal migrations of animals.

We did have plans for "nomad provinces" populated by people with no permanent home. These would be intergral in any modeling of migration, and I think their presence will make it easier to model migration. So when you search for info, you should also search for the term "nomad province."

[Lord God Jinnai]

Not only that, but it is entirely possible for your civ to start out nomadic in 4000 BCE since farming was only being used on small scale in China and Mesopatamia at this time.