Social Technologies

[Richard Bruns]

My views:

Social technologies are concepts that have two important features:

The knowledge of and experience with the thing grows over time, and its implementation becomes more effective given a steady support base.

The effects of the thing depend on its popularity and acceptance, and other social factors.

For example, consider the concept of the holy war. Over time, leaders get better and better at turning the faithful into zealous warriors. In early times, they were not even able to do implement holy wars. In the middle ages, they were only able to channel the existing agression from one enemy to another. But in this century, the Nazis were able to turn the SS into a cult that fanatically attempted to eliminate all of the Reich's enemies.

But the effectiveness of this also depends on public support. Calling a crusade will work best if almost everyone supports the religion; if the religion is unpopular it will do very little.

If you come up with a model that accurately models things like this, I will be happy. It might be as simple as defining the social techs as both a normal tech and a social attribute. Each part would use the existing systems, and the two parts would be combined to get th etotal effectiveness.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Stuff2:
Art level isn't the quality of the art nor the style since you will always have people saying that one is better than another. I wouldn't say Art is the quanity like rodrigo says, well atleast not the way it comes out, but how much it is apart of the people and civ. Some cultures are quite happy and have tons of art, while others are quite happy and have almost none, perferring in more practical matters. Also art is subdivided into differnt sections, at most 5. This is because art is also varied depending upon what type.

The art level will be very important for the wonders and achievements model also because having low art minded people tends to lower the chance of something becoming a wonder. I mean FE the Taj Mahal is a tomb, but so it every gravesite in the world you could say.

4 types of art:
Theatre: Plays and later motion picture
Music: Songs and dances.
Literature: Stories written and spoken, poems, etc.
Drawing/Painiting: Obvious
Animation: Obvious, needs app. tech and drawing/painting level. This is really needed to be seperate because you can do stuff with animation that can't be done with drawings (well not without making comic books 500 or so pages).

Well we might go ahead and put visual arts and performing arts and then put those as 3rd level categories.

Anyway each society has differnt concerns at to what type of art they want to emphasize. They might want all of them to advance, but generally they choose 1 or 2 to really pursue.

[roquijad]

I don't consider art as being so important that it needs a fine and detailed modeling. That's why I think we only need to get track of the amount of art the civ produces. It's in my mind the only relevant variable for this game.
[This message has been edited by roquijad (edited August 20, 2000).]

[Lord God Jinnai]

We need to atleast have some differance for the wonder/achievment model because it will reflect as to what your civ is most likely to create, ie Mona Lisa or the Taj Mahal. FE in a Muslim society it would be the latter since they are not allowed to paint anything (or draw) that is a creation of Allah.

Having these 3 should do:
Visual Arts
Architectural Arts (I know its really part of the latter, but for here we're saying its differnt)
Performing Arts (This is also ness since many tribal cultures might have high levels of this, but not ness of the other or atleast architectural arts).
[This message has been edited by Lord God Jinnai (edited August 20, 2000).]

[roquijad]

where were we, LGJ....?

I think it's reasonable to have Art as you proposed a few posts ago, that is, like the tech system: An "Art" tech with branches.

I'm concerned about the interpretation for the "tech level". I know you don't like much my idea of seeing it as an amount of art produced. But if not this, what then? You said in one of the posts that it could be interpreted as "how much it is apart of the people and civ". If so, I think it'd be really complicated to evaluate.

I think we need arts, specially for use in the wonders model, but I also believe we need a very crude and simple modeling. Too much work in a single variable would be like to much effort, I guess.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well i like it better as how much it is a part of the people's daily lives because its more representational of the enthic groups and civ as a whole then just how much art they produce. Those who have it more a part of their lives also tend in general to produce more art, though not ness large things like monuments. It also depends on the type of art. Having it based solely on how much art is produced would be imo a lot more open to abuse by the player because he could also request and drastic increase/decrease in the art produced. Perhpas it could represent the latter as a byporduct of the former?

[roquijad]

but how would you measure "how much art is part of daily lives" for an ethnic group? I mean, what variables from the ethnic groups would push the tech level (as you define it) to increase or decrease? I know you suggested once that we could use a "importance of art" variable, but that's only moving the problem somewhere else. The art tech would use this variable, but what value it should take in the social model? What things will make IoA go up or down?

It seems to me we'll be facing some real difficulties going that way...

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well can you give me all the current list of ethnic modifiers and which ones are used also for religions? This is because i know IoR is one, but only in certain religions.

[roquijad]

Ethnic modifiers? I suppose you mean ethnic attributes. If so, here they're:

Ethnic Tolerance
Religious Tolerance
Aggressiveness
Traditionalism
Nationalism
Land Connection
Asceticism
Importance of Religion
Individualism


TO BE ADDED IN A COMING VERSION
Natural Affinity
Educational Level
Tendency to Corruption

[Lord God Jinnai]

Ok, here's how i'd see it:
Ethnic Tolerance Doesn't affect. *
Religious Tolerance Doesn't affect. *
Aggressiveness Doesn't affect.
Traditionalism Tends to keep the number from changing, the higher traditionalism is, the less likely to change and less change in value will occur.
Nationalism This will tend to bring the Art levels in all the squares/provinces to about the same lavel in each category depneding on how high it is. I have no idea whether is will go to the highest, lowest or meet sowhere in the middle (even with 100 there will still be variances).
Land Connection Doesn't affect.
Asceticism High ascetiscm affects certain Art levels, those that have a lot to do with the material world such as sculptures and buildings. Low ascetiscim is the opposite. It affects things like music and theatre more.
Importance of Religion This affects it in 2 ways. If the religion is very art oriented, art levels increase in appropriate areas, if not the decline. This also affects the type of art produced, ie its more of a religious nature. I think its ness to deam this because often art or religious nature, like other things that are, are targeted for distrcution by opposition religions and those who just don't like them, whereas they might not do so for others.
Individualism Doesn't affect. **
Natural Affinity This increases certain types that have to do with nature (or not) depending on the levels. High levels, more on achitectural section. Low levels affect things that have more to do with nature like umm...can't think of anything right now, but i'm sure there's something. **
Educational Level Doesn't affect.
Tendency to Corruption

* These can affect it if an opposing group that the other hates and wants not to be like or whatnot.

** Specific applications, um, social techs and things dealing in the wonders and achievement models might be affected by these.

[Beör]

Hi there

I'm Beör, popping in from the Apolyton SMAC(X) section. I am fascinated by your idea of creating a game of this scale, and wish I had known of your efforts earlier. I do not pretend to be an expert or anything, but I have some general knowledge of European history in particular, which might lead to valuable input. I realise that a lot of the structure of the game is already molded in iron, but allow me to post a few suggestions. One problem facing me is the enourmous amount of information present in these forums and on your website, so forgive me if I provide redundant information or thread on already covered ground. It is also very difficult to find the right thread, since many of the models are intermingled.

Regarding social techs I tend to agree with roquijad that you should be very careful about including them. What matters is if they will affect game play in a way not covered by the Social, Government, Riots or Economic models (maybe more). Thus I find techs like philosophy, art etc are questionable, 'cause how would it affect the way the game is played?

On the other hand I find techs on the organistion of society could be important (forgive me if this has been covered in the tech model, which I have only glanced). As will be evident I have given more thoughts to some of these than to others.

Monasticism:
The monastic system was actually invented (was it Benedict of Murcia or Frans of Assisi?). In the middleages monasteries were important parts of Western European society. They were centers of learning and large landowners with considerable power in society. In many ways they were in opposition to the more or less nationalist churches of the early germanic states. Further development of the monastic system led to orders striving for poverty (now there's a novelty!) and simplicity of lifestyle (grey friars), militaristic orders (Teutonic Knights etc), orders providing health care (Hospital Knights) and missionary ordres fighting herecy and converting lost souls (Jesuits). In time the importance of monasticism have waned: In protestant countries much of the land was taken over by the kings, giving them the upper hand in the struggle for power he had with both the church and the aristocracy. In Catholic countries the importance was upheld longer, but with increasing secularisation (decreasing IR) monasteries are bound to be more and more marginalised. There are monasteries in the greek-orthodox church, but i don't know much about them. In the early eastern christianity of the Middleeast and North Africa, monasticism was not 'invented'. Here holy men tended to isolate themselves totally while contemplating rather than joining an organised society of munks. there are buddhist monasteries of which I don't know much, but as far as I know no similar concepts in Islam or Hinduism. I beleive there were Zoroasthric monks, but how they were organised i don't know. So monasticism could have potentially vast, but passing influence on society, while not being an inevitable part of the organisation of religion. It would seem that monasticism is a sort of dead end in the evolution of societal organisation, but I wonder if not some of the aspects of pure lifestyle, physical labour, tightly knit brotherhood could be found in FE socialism, the Parisian commune, and certainly in some religious sects (which under no circumstances shoul play any role in game play).
In game terms monasticism could help preserve knowledge, particularly prior to printing, take part in crucades, act as missionaries, and certainly play a role as a possessor of wealth and thus potential power.

The national church vs the international church
Much of European history from 700 to the reformation was a struggle between the pope and the emperor and local kings for the power to control the local church. Part of this is the fight over Investiture: Who should apoint new bishops. I would like to see this in a game. The Pope with a lot of cash and local 'infiltration' trying to control the church. This might take creating the church as a separate AI entity (an intruiging thought don't you think?), but since this could debalance the whole system, maybe it would be a better idea to have the Papacy be a kind of Wonder , maybe with a prerequisite of 'International Religious Organisation'.

The guild system
This system is probably as old as civilization itself. The implications of this system is an organisation of civil society based on profession rather than birth - although a certain inheritance of profession is likely. The cost is rigidity making inovation harder, and to some extent limit social mobility. Actually what I am saying is that Social Mobility could be a social tech leading to graduate lifting of the guild system, thereby increasing inovation and making people more happy and maybe more productive.

The patron-client system
I am not quite sure why I put this here, But the system has always intruiged me. Marius arming his clients and in fact having 60000 troops dug up in no time is fascinating. How this could impact game play I am not sure.

The political party system
In a way the modern equivalent of the patron-client system (maybe that is why I put that in) - they could represent varying levels of a tech called Hmmmm - I don't know. Probably beginning in England, and being further developed in France, at times taking guise as Estates, it forms the early basis for the development of Representative Systems like an Assembly of the Etates of the Realm or Parliament.

Multinational corporations
From the Hanseatic League and Fugger to Microsoft and modern international currency broking, how can we live without them

Labour unions
Unavoidable, but I am not sure how they could be incorporated in game play

Trust funds
Massive potential power, not yet unleashed.

The enclosure movement
The abandonment of the village as the main agricultural producing unit lead to vast production increases.

Co-operative societies
I am not sure if this is the correct term. What I mean is FE a group of farmers joining together in order to buy machines, fodder, everyday necessities, insurance etc, but also to produce refined products like dairy products instead of milk, meat products instead of livestock, beer instead of barley etc. This is in a way a necessary consequence of the enclosure movement and the movement from producing agricultural products primarily for consumption to producing them for sale on the market: As agricultural technology becomes more complex, it is no longer possible for a single production unit (farm) to produce goods for the market.

Emancipation
This is sort of a rural equivalent to the abolition of the guild system. It is therefore akin to Social Mobility, and could probably be handled there.

There are probably other possibilities, and I will try to elaborate on some of the above in due course, if you are interested.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Beör, welcome to Clash!

And thanks for taking some time to try and figure out the state of play in the models and figure out the right place to post.

As Richard said, several of your ideas are already planned. I had never even thought of monasticism as an important force in civilization in the context of Clash, but you're right.

If you are really interested in the project, please take the time to read about and criticize / comment on as many models as you care to. (Though of course not all at once ) While new things to add on to the models are valuable, spotting potential flaws in the foundations of the models we are going with is even more important IMO. The project has been 'inbred' with just six or seven real contributors to the discussion for quite a few months, so 'fresh eyes' looks at what we are doing are really good to have.

Have Fun!

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited September 06, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

Beör:

Thanks for stopping by and posting. We can always use new ideas, especially when they are as good as yours. I'll respond to your comments in order and try to point you to the relevant information so you know more about what we are doing.

quote: Regarding social techs I tend to agree with roquijad that you should be very careful about including them. What matters is if they will affect game play in a way not covered by the Social, Government, Riots or Economic models (maybe more). Thus I find techs like philosophy, art etc are questionable, 'cause how would it affect the way the game is played?

As I see them, social techs are a way to combine the existing models. So if something is part of the Social, Economic, Military, and Technology models, we should treat it as a social tech. Even if one part of the tech could be entirely in the Social model and another is only Military, it would be a "social tech" so the models do not become disjointed.

Philosophy and Art do have an impact on the game. If your civ has a high Philosophy level, the other technologies will grow faster. Art can help determine how attractive a culture or religion is, so it could impacts the spread of ideas and the changes in society.

These kinds of things can be hard to understand at first because we have a tech system that is a radical departure from the standard way of doing things. To get an understanding of the technology system, you can go to the Research section of the web page. The stuff is a bit old, but it is a concise and easily accessable description and it is accurate enough to give a good background on our system.

Monasticism: Excellent. I agree entirely. Your description reminds me about my forgetfulness. Months ago, I had a few of the same ideas, but I forgot to include them and they never got put in the model. This kind of thing is exactly what the social tech model should be dealing with.

Actually, all of your ideas are things I would classify as social teachs, so this is the perfect thread to discuss them in. I'll say now that I think most of them can be used as applications on the tech tree.

International church: We already have a little of that, but it can be improved. The local Religious Class is covered in the social model, and I think we had planned on the international AI church. We also have the long term plan of leting the player control the international church. Look at the Who is the Player? thread for the most recent discussion about this, and check the social and government models on the webpage for info about how the Religious Class (RC) interacts with the government and society.

guilds: I'm not a social model expert, so I don't know what is being done with this. I do know that guilds and businesses will be modeled as independent entities, like the churches. The Business Class will have an impact on politics and society.

patron-client: I think some of the effects of this would be handled under the Foul Play in the governemnt. Its existence would probably be a social tech.

Political parties: This is a bit hard to deal with. Parties form when a group of people unite to pursue a common agenda, so this would mostly be a social model thing. But as you mentioned, they can only form after certain things have happened. This is another excallent social tech.

Multinational corportations: Yes, we will have them. They will be AI entities. I also proposed in the Who is the Player? thread that there be an option for players to control them. I think it would create excellent multiplayer games if we had businesses and country leaders as human players in the same game.

Labor Unions: These are an obvious counterpart to the businesses, but I'm not sure we have them. There are a lot of different possibilities and challenges here. They could not exist until the right technological and societal conditions were met, and their actions would be a part of the government model. This is another good social technology we should be thinking about. It would also be a good candidate for possible player control.

Trust Funds: I don't understand this. What should they be doing?

Enclosure: This, like the factory system, is a pure technological advance that has big societal consequences. It would be an Application on the main tech tree. Thanks for reminding me about this; it is another thing I knew academically that I hadn't thought to put in the game.

Co-ops: These would have many of the game characteristics of labor unions. Another excellent ides that I think we can include without much trouble.

Emancipation: We have been discussing this one for quite a while. We decided that it would be entirely covered by the government and social models. Technology only affects this indirectly. Techs impact social attitudes, which will affect poilicies like this one. This is another use for the Philosophy tech.

Once again, thanks for posting, Beör. If you stay with the project, your ideas and analysis will be a good contribution. The Social tech system is still being built, so this is an model that you can have a big influence on. Once you know more about the technology system and other game models, you can contact LGJ and Rodrigo (roquijad) and work on creating concrete plans for implementation of these things. I'm looking forward to them.

[roquijad]

Hi Beör and welcome!

You seem very interested in the social part of the game, which is also my favorite! If you want to help us in these matters, you showed up in a very good time. I hope you stay with us. Your post above and the one in the social model thread show you can be very valuable to the project.

I'm glad you read at least at a glance some of the models. That helps a lot.

So, what's the status?
Integration between models is increasing. I released a couple of months ago the very integrated Social, Government and Riots models that cover most of social-related stuff. The latter should be seen as a "Happiness model". After that, we started threads to link the govt model with the economic model and to link the social model with the tech model (this thread). This thread in particular was born because of a discussion we had in the social model about religions. Although the religion part is already decided to be completely under social model's control, we found there were some things we couldn't place "correclty" in the social or tech model alone and still model them well. We called them "social techs" and we decided they needed a system of their own. This new system doesn't exist at all. That's why I said your timing was perfect! We're just starting to think about it.

Most of your ideas belong here and they're really nice. I'll comment briefly each one of them:

International Church: You're right, but I personally feel the cost of adding a "Vatican" compared to the benefits in gameplay say we shouldn't do it. Adding a religious internat'l center means adding a political entity and its respective AI managing how civs' govts interact with it, while the benefit is recreating a very particular episode of a particular religion with a low impact on the course of history.

Guild System: I like this one.

Patron-Client: I don't know what you mean. Can you re-phrase?

Political Party: I think it's not necessary. The political games are not in essence affected if the actors are grouped in parties or whatever. A party is just the expression of politics in a democracy, so IMO it's only a matter of names here.

Multinational Companies: How "social" is this really? What should be the difference in gameplay if you have a lot of companies or just a few big ones?

Labor Unions: A big yes for this one. It has already a role in the govt model, but we should still talk about what implications it should have.

Trust Funds: Again, how "social" is this? Isn't it just an application of the Economy tech (therefore a normal tech)?

Enclosure: I don't know what is this.

Cooperative Societies: Like kibbuts? Are these relevant enough in history to be included?

Emancipation (of slaves?): So far, as Richard said, all that has to do with slavery is managed in the govt and social models. The argument is abolishing slavery was only a change of attitude in people and it didn't involved the development of anything (tech-like), so it should be modeled only through changes in the cultural profile.

Monasticism: This is the hardest. I very much like it, but its main problem is it implies the existence of social classes related to it. The govt model has shown to be not very flexible to accept more social classes, so we have to be careful with this. I'm currenlty working off-forums in a way to have a family of religous social classes instead of the unique Religious Class, so I think at the end we'll have this social tech. All I'm saying here is this tech in particular involves more complexity than the others and then we should move with care with it.


In general, these social techs you mention and other you can come up with are all attractive ideas, but it remains to be seen if we'll be able to create a system general enough that could handle all these things as different as they are. It's possible some social techs will have to be left aside even if we like them only because modeling them would imply "exception" equations.

If you have more ideas, name them!

Rodrigo

[Beör]

Thank you all for a most kind reception of my input (bows deeply)

Mark
Should I interpret your post as an invitation to become 'The Devils Advocate' ?

Richard and Rodrigo
I will have to return to y'all later with further info. For now I have posted a rather lengthy piece on migration in the Social thread.