Technology System Version 5.3

[F_Smith]

We've developed this. Together. All of us.

This is Richard's tech system, broken down into objects. Any tech system I designed would be somewhat different. There probably wouldn't be any abstract 'research points', etc.

So this *is* Richard's system. Just with some programmer input into storage strategies.

* * *

This could be one way the player affects/runs his civ thru govt decisions.

If 'infrastructure' objects hold 'theory' objects, then the player can help his people's production levels along thru building and maintaining several 'infrastructure' objects. Building a church somewhere to teach the locals things -- like the Spanish missions in the Americas were suppose to teach reading, writing, Spanish, etc, to the native Americans.

And it's scalable. The player could fund different types of schools. Basic schools can teach literacy, art, science. If the player gains access to a 'sextant' theory (a book, say, on how to build a sextant), he can build a 'navigation' school to store and teach that to the people, increasing their navigation 'knowledge' objects.

Building factories could work in the same way.

I was actually hoping Richard and Axi would buy into this, and begin designing these different objects . . .

* * *

I would actually say that the preachers of a church are part of that 'church' infrastructure object. And the teachers are part of that 'school' object. We're not modelling those in particular, anywhere else, so there's no overlap.

Altho we could track them as 'characters' -- but that's getting a little too detailed, I should think.

P.S. -- do you mean to imply that the loss of the knowledge of Alexandria wasn't a significant tech loss at the time? I thought that there are books that were lost that we still don't have copies of . . . but I'm not much of an expert on the subject, so I'm not sure.

[Richard Bruns]

All:

Don't call this "Richard's" system. It was a team effort. Most of the basic ideas were around before I signed on or were contributed by other project members. I just put them into a unified system, fixed up the math, and wrote all of the long posts describing the thing.

Infrastructure should not store tech. Technology as we defined it is not a physical thing tied to the ground. It is an innate characteristic of the people in your civ. That may seem silly, but I think it works as an abstraction.

So the burning of a library would have no effect on the tech level. If the stuff in the library was common knowledge, nothing is lost. If the stuff in the library is not known or used by anyone in the civ, then it was not part of the tech level to begin with and nothing is lost.

Knowledge is volatile, however. If it is not used to do anything and is not taught to the next generation, it will be lost. If nobody is using that knowledge to do anything, no RP's will be generated and the tech level will fall. This simulates the loss of knowledge as people see no reason to keep it.

People produce things using infrastructure and tech(theory, knowledge, and skill). Tech will define the efficiency of the production process and the quality of the final product. It also defines what infrastructure you are allowed to build.

Important Note: When the tech tree was designed, Clash had not fully adopted the no-buildings approach. So applications (Tier 4) were to include things like libraries, factories, and churches. These applications would play a big part in determining what was in the infrastructure.

But we no longer have these buildings. Their place was to be taken by the actual tech level A. Basically, A was the abstraction of the technology that manifested itself as physical objects. It increased only if there was investment into the province infrastructure. It amalgamated and abstracted those Tier 4 buildings.

F_Smith:

It seemed at the time and it still seems now that your changes are only a semantic difference. Actually it's not a difference. Tier 1 techs (Biology) were always considered theory, Tier 2 techs (Breeding) were always considered knowledge, Tier 3 techs (Horse Raising) were always considered skills, and Tier 4 (light cavalry) has always been considered applications. These tech levels were always meant to interact with the rest of the game in different ways, even though the internal equations are the same (except for applications).

I still don't understand what you are proposing and how it is different. It seems like you are only putting different names on what we already have. That is what I thought when you first posted that, and that is what I think now. In terms of functionality, they are just tweaks that are easy to implement. But they have nothing to do with the current problems. They don't really change anything as far as I can tell.

I remember that you once criticized us for splitting the tech tree into three layers. Now it seems that you are criticisizing us for not splitting it into layers. This, like all of your helpful arcane advice, confuses me.

I did an OO analysis of the tech syatem several weeks ago. I'll repost it here:

---
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)
---

F_Smith, you never gave me any feedback on this. How does it look?

[F_Smith]

Richard:

I don't quite know any other way to explain why an object-oriented design is far more than 'semantics'. I suppose I can keep trying, but I'm starting to run out of examples.

The 'definition' you offer for 'technology' doesn't sound silly, it just doesn't sound at all like 'technology'. Tech is not an innate characteristic. A system based upon that assumption is not going to be realistic, in my experience. And the system will break down when you begin to try and make it act realistic. That's far more than just a 'semantic' difference -- it completely changes the way you define and code the objects.

The 'analysis' you offered is procedural. It makes use of a few objects, but is not designed around the objects -- it's designed around the procedure you pre-generated. That creates problems when trying to code it.

The resulting difference is tremendous, far more than semantics, I wish I could explain this better.

Perhaps you should try coding your idea up, to see what difficulties arise? You can see how to code up the OO design I proposed, it could be coded in a few hours. After you do yours, compare. That way, you can show me where I'm mistaken?

* * *

I am also curious what effect on gameplay this 'no buildings' approach will have. I do *not* like that the infrastructure is not tied to a location. That will hamper the 'wargame' part of this game tremendously, won't it? What happens during the square-by-square conquest of a civ? Do they keep all infrastructure until the end?

I'm really turned off by the highly abstract approach to this game, making it more like 'Risk', less 'real'. I was under the impression that the game was going to excel as a game with more detail than any other, as long as the detail aided gameplay. With AI to allow the player to play an 'abstract' version, where they didn't deal with the details they weren't interested in.

But the details have to be *there*, underneath, for those that like playing with them (or just enjoy the game more knowing there's a realistic model underneath).

[Mark_Everson]

F_Smith:

Right now Laurent and I are trying first the mapsquare-based econ model. (simpler to code, will put in a switch to aggregate at prov level later) That has infra on a mapsquare level. Even for the province-based system we were going to (and have always planned) crudely keep track of infra on a square level. Where are you getting your info from?

And while I'm here, the 'infrastructure' objects hold 'theory' objects seems arbitrary and has nothing to do with the real world objects you are always so ardently championing. I am with Beör and Richard in this argument.

At least I can understand your previous assertion of associating all techs with people... Infra does help tech thru education and research institutions, but those, in the current system, Contribute to the people's (or civ's) tech level, they don't 'contain' the tech. If all the people were dead all the infra in the world doesn't help you with tech.
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited September 22, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith:

Where is this "proposal"? All I see are a few sketchy bullet points describing your views on a couple topics. Could you put all of your plans in one post and describe them in detail? I have no idea of what you want to do or how you plan to do it. Please post a comprehensive, detailed plan so I can see the system that you envision.

Also, what do you define as "technology"? It seems to me that you view technology as "The Empire State building" while the rest of us define technology as "the ability to make a skyscraper." Technology is not something that the people have already made, it is the ability to do things.

quote: Tech is not an innate characteristic.

Then what is it?

quote: A system based upon that assumption is not going to be realistic, in my experience. And the system will break down when you begin to try and make it act realistic.

I've said this before. The important thing is not that it is realistic; the important thing is that it gives realistic results. It is supposed to be a convenient abstraction that makes the game feel right.

I don't know nearly enough to even code the population model cohorts. Right now the limit of my abilities is to make a program that prints all of the prime numbers between any two numbers.

[F_Smith]

Mark:

I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood the use of the term 'no buildings'. My mistake.

Arbitrary? Nothing to do with real world objects?

Again I don't get this communication problem. The analysis seems so clear to me. Like the Ethnic Group stuff. I should think the example of a Library like the one at Alexandria would illustrate the point perfectly. Universities, too. The monastaries in the 'dark' ages 'stored' civilized knowledge. Spanish Missions in the new world. How many times in 'Star Trek' do they come across a store of alien knowledge in some computer, in some long-lost city on Beta Centauri (or wherever)?

'Technology' is 'knowledge'. 'Knowledge' can be 'stored' in a variety of ways -- books, operating procedures, experienced staff. 'Knowledge' can also be used by people. This OO analysis delivers exactly that.

Are you of the opinion that books don't store knowledge/technology?

Man, we just are *not* on the same page here. How can I explain myself better? What am I doing wrong?

* * *

Richard:

It's there. Beor understood it. Mark seems to understands the analysis, altho he doesn't agree with it.

You're just going to have to learn to recognize an OO analysis and design. I'll repeat it again, as stripped down as I can, if that will help --

[*]'Technology' is 'knowledge'.[*]There are 2 kinds of 'knowledge' -- 'theoretical' and 'applied'.[*]'Theory' can be stored in a variety of ways -- writing, electronic data, maintaining a trained staff, etc.[/list]

That is what an 'object design' looks like.

This is a clean, simple, powerful object design for storing the data in any tech system. It can store the data in ya'lls default system, and it can also be scaled up or down with ease. And this will make it possible to add an 'optional' tech system to please players like me.

It would take a programmer about a day to code this up, not counting GUI components. The code almost writes itself. We could be working with a tech builder within a few days. Please believe me that the other approach would take much longer -- in fact, it still isn't coded, after almost a year. Hech, no one is quite sure where to even start coding the proposed model. At least, I'm not sure where I'd start. Maybe I'm just missing something, tho.

And finally, I think that the default system as proposed will *not* produce realistic results under all circumstances, once it's coded. I see flaws. I am trying to explain those flaws, but I seem to be speaking a different language. I'll keep trying, if ya'll don't mind my ramblings.

[Richard Bruns]

Mark: That sounds like it could work from the tech model's perspective, but you will have to talk to the social model people as well. It doesn't sound like the social model in its current form can handle the modeling of tech at EG level.

[F_Smith]

Thank you, Mark:

Exactly so. You've summed it up perfectly.

* * *

Richard:

I understand you have not defined things this way. But step back for a moment, and consider -- can you see why I would say that a library 'stores' technical knowledge?

That is a 'true' statement, agreed?

Whether or not it fits your system, isn't that an accurate analysis? And you should worry that your system is causing you to make statements that are inaccurate, outside of your system. For example --

quote: The tech level of a society has absolutely nothing to do with some forgotten and unused tome molding away in the back of a building somewhere. People, not buildings, are the things that store technology. Technology is the theory, knowledge, and skills that allow the people to do things. They are a part of the society and civilization. Monastaries, libraries, and universities do not store knowledge. People store knowledge.

Or do you really feel that in real life libraries do not store knowledge? This sounds amazingly off-base.

That analysis you posted is an OO analysis. That's how we should be discussing this -- comparing and critiquing the analysis each other have made.

So I would simply refine the OO analysis you posted --

[*]You break 'technology' down into 'theory' and 'knowledge' in your definition (skill, I would argue, is a variable associated with a 'knowledge').

So those need to be two seperate objects, for coding purposes. Agreed?
[*]I would agree that tech is a characteristic of people. Since the game has to store people at the mapsquare level, that means the tech has to be stored at that level (per EG, per square). As you point out.
[*]A civ is more than just that, but it is also a collection of people. I agree.
[*]But since people must be in a mapsquare, and a civ is a collection of people, then tech must be stored in an eg (in a mapsquare). That is what your own analysis just proved.

It looks like you didn't arrive at this from your analysis of your above points -- you started and ended with this assumption without thinking thru your analysis. Tech can not be stored at the civ level. It can be aggregated at the civ level, for you model's purposes, so your game model can play that way (altho I think there are better options available). But it can not be stored there.[/list]

P.S. -- when you get a little more familiar with OO, you'll realize that the object design I've posted actually does define where the methods to do the actual interactions goes, and it does so more fully and more clearly than the 'default' analysis did.

As I said, the code for that OO design will write itself.

You should try it, it won't be hard. It might be a good idea for you to get some experience with objects, so maybe you can understand what we're saying and how this affects the game program.

[Richard Bruns]

Libraries are an intermediate step in the transfer of knowledge from person to person. They store information, not knowledge. That is an important distinction. Knowledge is what a person uses to do something. Information is a collection of facts.

I'm sorry that I wasn't very clear. There are several definitions of "knowledge." I should have said at first which one I was using. Here it is:
---
2 a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique
---
Based on that definition, knowledge simply cannot exist outside of a human head.

What libraries do is to store information and use that information to pass knowledge from one person to another. Information is not modeled explicitly because it does not do anything; things only happen when humans with tech (theory, knowledge, and skills) take action of some kind.

• Technology is the ability to do things.
• Information stored in libraries does not do anything.
• People do things.
• Libraries are a tool used to pass knowledge from one person to another.
• Thus, the role of libraries is to affect tech decay and communication.
• Tech should be stored in people, not libraries.

F_Smith's Bullet Point 1: All of the three tech tiers (1=theory; 2=knowledge; 3=skill) are seperate objects derived from the Technology base class. Agreed.

F_Smith's Bullet Points 2 and 4: I do not agree. That is simply not an accurate conclusion. That is like me saying:

Government is a property of the people. Therefore, government must be stored at the mapsquare level. Thus, your object builder is flawed because each square does not have a seperate government.

Technology is like government. Each civ only needs one, as that one thing determines the actions of the civ.

quote: P.S. -- when you get a little more familiar with OO, you'll realize that the object design I've posted actually does define where the methods to do the actual interactions goes.

I am sure that is true, but right now I am entirely incapable of doing that. If you don't define those methods explicitly, I will not understand what is going on. Please post the methods and the conclusions of the OO design that you see as so obvious.

Currently Mark is the only person on the team who has any idea of what you are saying. You will never be able to communicate with the general population if you keep saying things that only OO programmers can understand. I'm fairly sure that past miscommunications have been caused by this kind of thing. When non-programmers see your analyses, they see vague generalized statements wrapped up in esoteric jargon. I'm sure that those analyses are wonderful ways to communicate with the 0.5% of the population that knows OO well, but they mean nothing to the other 99.5%.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited September 22, 2000).]

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: What do I aim to do in the game? Basically I want the empire to survive - the game to continue until scenario end (this is more than most historical civs have achieved). On the other hand surviving as two hunters and a gatherer in New Guinea might be easily achived, but not a very rewarding game experience. So there has to be more: Something like having a large empire with a large population. There might be other qualifiers like having a happy population, clean environment, total world dominion, immense wealth etc, but for now let's concentrate on the simple aim: I want a huge empire with lots of people.

Clash isn't a world domination game. Although it is conveivably possible to conquer the world, the ability to maintain that level of control hasn't been seen to be able to be done yet, therefore atleast for this game i don't think that should happen.

quote: Knowledge is persistent. You do not have to maintain it. When it is - it is. I know that here I am at odds with the present tech model. When - in real life - it seems that knowledge deteriorates, IMO it is because there is no need for the associated infrastructure. As long as infrastructure associated with the tech exists, the knowledge will persist. If the last piece of related infrastructure disappears, the tech is obsolete and therefore it seems as if it has deteriorated. But I claim that if need be the tech will still be there. You might have to dig a little for it but it would be there. I do not think that it is necessary to discover the same thing twice.

quote: If the square is conquered the knowledge passes to the conqueror and is lost to the original owner. While it is true that knowledge might be conquered, I will argue that the conqueror only takes hold of a copy of the knowledge (the copy might even be imperfect, incomplete or misleading). The original knowledge will remain with the original owner. Knowledge persists. If the infrastructure object is destroyed the knowledge would vanish into thin air. There is a historical corollary in the burning of the library of Alexandria. While many priceless scrolls disappeared, I doubt if this had anything but a transient effect on society due to loss of knowledge. It was a disaster, but because of the artistic value, not the knowledge content of the burnt scrolls. Art is infrastructure and can thus perish in a fire, knowledge persists because it is with the people.

I say here i have to lean more with F_Smith in that knowledge can be stored within libraries and not used.

Also I haveto say that although technology/knowledge isn't owned by people and people take it with them wherever they go, [b]not everyone knows the same thing in a given group as everyone else.[b] FE do you know how to operate a nuclear power Plant? fly a space shuttle? build a car? genetically engineer a plant?

Even if you say might be one of the people that does genetic engineering, do you know everything about it ness. as everyone else in your lab?

See, so killing people, even a few can have devistating effects of technology. I'll take one IRL case. The Inca civilization was brought to its knees basically when all the religious class which were the only literate ones in the civilization were killed. Thus although much technology is still there, much is also lost.

Your situation doesn't take into consideration that people might loose important information. FE after a war is fought the survivors are left with a power plant. There are some people who know how to run one cuz that's what they did. The problem is, they don't know how to build more and they might not know everything about maintaining it (yea they would know alot, but not ness. everything). Therefore you still would have infrastruture of that item and still in use, but the technology to develope it is lost.
----
As far as technology with things like libraries are concerned we can have them maintain the highest levels of theory/knowledge known in a given set of parameters, but, this will have no effect on the technology scale because 1> If it falls below that it is assumed no one is reading the material 2> if another civ finds it it prob wouldn't do much because they'd either know it already or it'd be beyond their grasp and thus useless jumbo...discovering it might spur innovation however.

[Richard Bruns]

LGJ:

In many ways, you are right about the possibility of losing tech as a result of killing certain people. But I don't think it will happen very often. Since most tech is common knowledge, there are thousands of people spread all over the civ who have that ability. So it would be very hard to kill enough people to seriously impact the tech level. But there is that possibility for certain subjects, so we should consider it.

I must disagree with the analysis of the results of killing the Inca rulers. IMO their leadership role was more important than the science role. They were basically the government, so when they were killed the result was chaos. Most of their civ's practical and productive techs, like farming and making weapons, were unaffested by their deaths.

I'm not sure what you are saying about libraries. It seems like you are saying that they are insurance against losing tech due to the death of people. Is this correct? If so that sounds good.

We could define a techLossDeath() method in the Technology classes that takes input from casualties, infrastructure, and economic activity. It would determine how widespread the knowledge is based on activity devoted to that field; if less people know the thing it would be easier to lose. High casualties increase loss, and some infrastructure helps prevent it. How does that sound?

[F_Smith]

Richard:

You just agreed that 'theory' and 'knowledge' must be two different objects (subclasses of 'technology'). We can talk about 'skill level' later, but that certainly should be a property of a tech, not an object in and of itself.

You provide an excellent description of 'knowledge'. It can not exist outside the human head. Which is why it pretty clearly has to belong to an Ethnic Group. You seem to prove my point, and validate my analysis of 'knowledge' objects. Did I misunderstand?

Now look up 'theory' -- that's the other piece of 'technology', the one I feel you're leaving out. That is the 'information' that the libraries, factory (procedures, etc), University, etc, would 'store'.

So you see -- I agree, tech should be stored in people. *And in infrastructure*. You can store technology in *both*. Yet ya'll are not including one.

* * *

That is actually the way you're suppose to try and disagree with my object design. So now I point out that you made some errors in your discussion of my bullets--

[*]'Government' is not a property of 'people'. 'People' don't contain a 'govt'. 'Govt' is a property of a 'political entity' we've called a 'civilization'. Which is why it's stored in 'civ' objects. People can and do live without governments.[*]Each 'civ' does *not* only need one 'technology'. That is a massive error.[*]And the 'tech' doesn't determine anything about the direction of the civ (not directly, anyway).[/list]

* * *

Do forgive me for being so 'jargonistic'. But modelling real-world systems is a complex business that requires specialized knowledge and terms. Ya'll are also using the same type of 'jargon', only an old version (equations). OO is just a more advanced version of 'equations'.

But I will continue to try to use more 'common English'. I'm sorry, again, for being obtuse.

[Richard Bruns]

We seem to be using different definitions for certain words. I'll go through them:

Theory:
---
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
---
This fits the current definition of Tier 1 techs like Biology, Physics, or Math.

These techs do not have a concrete impact on the activities of the civ. Rather, they aid the development of other technologies. Like other technologies, they only work when they are stored in someone's head. If you have a physics book unread in a library, it won't help you. But if that Theory is in your head, it can help you develop better things.

Knowledge, unfortunately, has two definitions in the current system. This has caused problems. I'll list both uses of the word:

In one sense, it is the title for Tier 2 techs. These include things like Mechanics, Electromagnetics, and Optics under the Physics tech and Anatomy, Botany, and Ecology under the Biology tech. The level of these technologies determine the efficiency at which your civ can do certain things, as well as determining the rate of advancement of Level 3 technologies.

The other use for knowledge was the one used in the spreadsheet and my library discussion. It is the linear scale that the tech level is derived from, or the total amount of stuff that people know.

To avoid confusion, I will stop referring to Tier 2 as "knowledge". In the absence of a better term, I will call it Field.

Skill referrs to Tier 3 technologies, which are your civ's skill in some specific area of practical application of knowledge like Shipbuilding or Robotics.

An Application is an object in one of the other models, like a military unit. Specific applications become available when some percentage of one or more Tier 3 technologies have been reached, and those techs determine the quality of the application.

Technology is a logarithmic scale that interprets the knowledge of some particular field so that it can be better understood by the player. It is also the name for all three Tiers as well as Application objects.

A Technology System is the set of objects and methods that change knowledge and make knowledge affect the rest of the game. It might also include Information objects and their affects.

The stuff stored in libraries is what I call Information and F_Smith calls Theory. IMO Information is a more accurate description.

So about the discussion:

Knowledge is the stuff that people use to make or do things. We seem to agree on that.

So the three classes derived from the Technology base class are: Theory (Tier 1), Field (Tier 2), and Skill (Tier 3). All three of these are types of Knowledge.

Information is the thing currently in dispute. F_Smith thinks it should be modeled as an object. I do not know if I agree with his because I have no idea what he wants to do with this object. There could be a place for it, as it determines the transfer of knowledge and helps prevent tech loss due to death of people. In this limited role, I would have no problem adding it.

I have not seen anything to convince me that each EG must have a seperate Technology System. But Mark's idea should allow is to put that dispute behind us. Each EG has a pointer that can point to a civ-wide tech system or a unique one.

So, inside the Civilization object:

[*] Tech System

[*] Knowledge

[*] Tier 1 (Theory)[*] Tier 2 (Field)[*] Tier 3 (Skill)[/list][*] Applications[*] ??Information??[/list][*] EG's, with pointer to tech system or a unique tech system.[*] Other Stuff[/list]

By the way, I accidently hit the "Submit" button partway through composing this. Sorry if you saw it before the edit went through.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited September 22, 2000).]

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well libraries are also keys to unlocking the past also. Anyway with the abstract modeling of infra, i am thinking of a way around this in the wonders & achievements model which would broaden its purpose a little. I will post my ideas there.

[Richard Bruns]

quote: I'll repeat it again, as stripped down as I can, if that will help --

No! That is the problem. It is so stripped down that it means nothing. I specifically asked for more detail, not less. Those three bullet points are nearly meaningless. They don't say anything about how the system works or what its results will be. They don't say anything about what will happen or how the game interacts with the technology. They give us no information about what you are trying to do. They don't say how tech grows, or how it is used, or how it affects the people, or anything about how the player will be affected by and interact with the system.

quote: I should think the example of a Library like the one at Alexandria would illustrate the point perfectly.

quote: So the burning of a library would have no effect on the tech level. If the stuff in the library was common knowledge, nothing is lost. If the stuff in the library is not known or used by anyone in the civ, then it was not part of the tech level to begin with and nothing is lost.

The tech level of a society has absolutely nothing to do with some forgotten and unused tome molding away in the back of a building somewhere. People, not buildings, are the things that store technology. Technology is the theory, knowledge, and skills that allow the people to do things. They are a part of the society and civilization.

Monastaries, libraries, and universities do not store knowledge. People store knowledge.

This was posted by Rodrigo in the social model thread:

quote: Richard: With the current model, no, you can't have each EG having its own tech level. EG's weren't developed to do that.

The "tech" objects should be stored in the "civilization" objects. One set of tech is used for everything the civilization does. The tech, like the government, is something that is part of the civilization as a whole.

So here's my analysis:

• Technology is the theory, knowledge, and skills used by the people to do things.
• Technology is a characteristic of the people; it is the sum of the peoples' abilities.
• A civilization is a collection of people.
• Technology objects are stored in the civilization objects.