Final (5.3) Tech Dynamics

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Gary:

Yeah the change password seems to be accessable to me. I hit profile, then entered username & pw and hit submit ID. Then you get a screen that has a lot of editable fields, one of which is the pw. I didn't try actually changing mine, but it looks like it should do the trick.

Good progress! I'm getting the merchants going for the econ model...

[Lord God Jinnai]

Hey Gary! Glad to see some help here! Me and Rich will insert the actual techs we plan to use once you got a descent user model working so I can't wait!

Hope you didn't fall asleep reading all those posts either

[Gary Thomas 2]

Thanks - I must have been blind - I didn't see the password box. I have now changed it to something I can remember. Coming from an unusual country I have an advantage with passwords - I just use a Maori word.

In writing the data editor I have taken

1. Set default values for m, c, W, and DR.

2. For every technology, input:
a. Technology name and text description.
b. The level of the technology.
c. Technology requirements and Ts.
d. Values for m, c, and DR. It would be a big help if these were defined in terms of the defaults (default c times some value). This way, we can change the default values and not have to redo individual values; they would keep the same ratio.
e. Helper technologies with O and h for each helper tech, as well as a W value defined in terms of the default value.

It would be nice if parts a through e were in different sections. Also, space should be left for the the Alter Variable section and sections dealing with E and I.

3. For every application, input:
a. Application name and text description.
b. The L value of the application.
c. Technology requirements with an h value for each requirement.

as the substantive definition of requirements.

This raises a coding point. One of the most well-accepted, ingrained even, principles of coding is that all identifiers must be descriptive. Under no circumstances should you ever use single letter variable names (sometimes people get away with i for an index and e for an exception, but that is it).

So I would like the model designers to provide me with descriptive values for: m, c, W, DR, Ts, O, h, E, I and L.

I am unclear what "Technology requirements" means.

The file will be in a simple XML format (so I can use a simple parser), here is a sample:


&ltParameter&gt
&ltmValue&gt0.1&lt/mValue&gt
&lt/Parameter&gt

&ltTechnology&gt
&ltName&gtFarmMachinery&lt/Name&gt
&ltDescription&gtFarm machinery and equipment&lt/Description&gt
&ltLevel&gt3&lt/Level&gt
&ltmRatio&gt1.4&lt/mRatio&gt
&ltcRatio&gt1.2&lt/cRatio&gt
&ltRequirement&gt
&ltName&gtAgriculture&lt/Name&gt
&ltValue&gt10&lt/Value&gt
&lt/Requirement&gt
&ltHelper&gt
&ltName&gtAutomation&lt/Name&gt
&ltValue&gt0.7&lt/Value&gt
&ltOffset&gt20&lt/Offset&gt
&lt/Helper&gt
&lt/Technology&gt


However, the users of the utility will never need to look at this.

Since getting the utility out seemed the biggest priority I have not gone over the equations very closely. However I did notice that h and W seem to share the same dimension space - that is, if you double all the h values and double the W value, the result is unchanged.

Enough for now. I am hoping that all my & g t and such come out right!

Cheers

[Gary Thomas 2]

Damn - all my careful indentations of the XML got lost. It will really look like:


&ltParameter&gt
&nbsp&nbsp&ltmValue&gt0.1&lt/mValue&gt
&lt/Parameter&gt


I hope that works. If there is no indentation it didn't work.

I have two questions.

Somewhere in my voluminous reading I remember seeing a comment that "Level" was used for two quite different things (tech level 1-3, and level of a particular technology on a 1-100 scale), and an alternative was proposed for one of them. Could somebody let me know what that alternative was and for which one. Thanks.

My other question relates to "Requirement" which crept into the XML example, but does not appear to be part of the model. What is the situation there?

Cheers

[Richard Bruns]

Welcome, Gary, and thanks for helping!

Technology requirements are the tech levels that are required for an application or another technology to become available. FE the tech requirements for the first cannon might be explosives level 10 and metallurgy level 30. The tech requirement for Explosives might be Chemistry level 20. Requirements will typically be helper techs.

The user can choose to define tech layers or "Tiers." These used to be called "levels." The Tier defines how the interface treats the tech, and it also sets the framework for vital techs.

The difference between h and W is in terms of what they apply to. W is an overall variable that affects every helper and vital tech equation. h, however, is different for every helper or vital tech. h is used to set up the relative effect of all the techs that help a single technology. For example, we may want to set up the following:

Aircraft Helpers:

Propulsion Systems h = .3
Physics (Mechanics) h = .5
Electronics h = .1

In this way, we can set up the relative effects of all the techs that help the development of airplanes. But what do we do if playtesting shows that, overall, helper techs have too much or too little effect overall? It would be horribly tedious to change every h value, so I put in the W value so we could easily change the whole system at once.

Descriptive requirements:

I had much more of more of a math background than a programming one when I wrote the model, and now that I have learned more about programminr I see that the names are pretty arcane. So I'll take a shot at decent names:

default m = BaseGrowthRate
default c = BaseUpkeep
default W = BaseGlobalHelperEffect
default DR = BaseRPDiminishingReturns

For individual Technologies:

m = GrowthRateMultiplier
c = UpkeepMultiplier
default DR = RPDiminishingReturnsMultiplier
Ts = StartLevel
O = HelperLevelOffset
h = HelperTechEffect
I = ExternalGrowthRateMultiplier
E = ExternalUpkeepMultiplier
L = ApplicationLongevity
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Mark_Everson]

Great to see tech chargin' forward!

Just a quick note for Gary. If you read the faq under 'UBB Code' you will learn a bunch of useful formatting commands. One of them is the Code tag that preserves indentation. its ['code] ... ['/code] (remove ' when using).

[Gary Thomas]

Many thanks for the prompt response. And particularly thanks for the English language names for the variables.

Mark: I was sure I did use the code tag for my XML sample. Oh well, I will be more careful next time.

I have a contradiction of requirements (using the word advisedly). Richard says that requirements are required, Mark says they are not...

Seconds out.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Gary:

You used 'code' with angle brackets. UBB seems not to parse that right. Use plain brackets and it'll work fine.

Resoving my statements with Richard's...
He was talking about Applications (Tier IV) techs Only AFAIK. I was saying they aren't needed for Tier I - III (Theory - Skills). I believe Richard and I agreed on this in the posts after that 3/8 one I talked about. So in your parlance... Requirements are required for Applications, but requirements aren't required for other techs, where you are helped by helpers instead.

[Richard Bruns]

But there is an attribute of the helper tech called the requirement. That is the level of the helper tech that is required for the tech to exist. Flight does not exist until you get to a certain level of the helper techs; those levels are the 'requirements' for Flight.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks for clarifying! All I can say is OOps

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Gary Thomas]

It appears to be something of a terminology mixup:

To Mark "requirements" meant extra strong helpers.

To Richard "requirements" meant prerequisites.

To Gary "requirements" are the rules for writing the whole thing.

Just joking.

The code for the utility progresses.

Looking beyond the code, it is perhaps time to give thought to program (as opposed to model) design.

I have to concoct some way of a technology for a civilization (as opposed to the overall technology data) being able to find the helper levels for that civilization. This is a bit tricky so far.

The technology objects, which know about helpers, know nothing about the relative levels for a particular civilization.

A specific technology for a specific civilization can look up the helpers from the overall technology data. But then how does it find out what the levels are for its own civilization?

This sort of thing accounts for most of the labour of coding. The algebraic part can be done in a few minutes. The interconnection between the various part can take days or weeks.

I will be thinking on the matter as I finish the utility.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

[Edit]
This is a public service announcement to future readers of this thread... In this post I confused 'requirements' which still exist, for 'vital techs' which have been eliminated in the design. So you can mostly ignore this post as confusing and irrelevant . The only reason I'm leaving it here is so that subsequent comments about the post make sense. -Mark
[End Edit]

Gary, just something you missed when reading the tome. For a regular tech (as opposed to an application) there are no longer vital techs (called requirements in the original spec). All techs that adjust difficulty are called helpers, and a formerly vital one is just one with a large value of h.

The discussion of this change started at the bottom of my post of Mar 8 in this thread (p1).

-Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited March 20, 2001).]

[Gary Thomas]

The utility is progressing well. About 2000 lines written and working.

I had to digress into the actual model - not really required for the utility, but needful if the final result is to be coherent.

There are two matters that I would like some clarification on.

Tags:
I did read some information about tags in my marathon reading effort.
Unfortunately I left my hard copy at home (100 miles away) and really don't have the time to pursue elucidation on the web.

So I would appreciate some clarification of the current situation.

I am unclear whether tags are used merely to inform the player of the status of research, or to indicate which technologies will receive the benefit of current research. If the latter, some further clarification and perhaps model development is required.

Tiers:
I can't see why tier information is read into the program. It is never used and has no effect on game play.

Cheers

Gary

[Richard Bruns]

Tech tags determine a lot of things. First, they are an important way for the players and the AI to interact with the tech tree. For example, If disease is a problem, then the player will know to funnel research into the "Health" tag. This should also be easy to program into the AI, so it doesn't have to 'know' a whole lot about the tech tree when making decisions.

Tech tags are also the way that most RP's are assigned. Most RP's will come from basic economic activity. These activities, like building castles or running a government, will increase related techs, as your people get more experienced in doing something. The tag of the technologies determines which tech these activities will add RP's to.

For more complete info, look here.

Tiers do have an effect. As currently designed, Tier 1 techs are theoretical techs like "Chemistry" that historical rulers did not know about or relate to. As such, the players will not see ststus reports of tehse techs and cannot order research to be directly put into them. They will only order direct involvement into the Tier 3 techs like Shipbuilding. No ancient king said, "Learn about Chemistry." They said, "Build better Siege Engines." As the game progresses, players will gain the ability to interact with the more theoretical technologies.

We have made some attempts at OO modeling. Maybe these got lost in the shuffle:

quote: 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 might not provide a good environment 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)

quote: I could finalize my plan for the methods if the following object list is agreed upon: Tech Tag objects, with the Tagged RP's as parameters and the methods for calculating the tagged RP's. One Tech RP object for every technology, with the methods for calculating itself based on parameters in the Tech Tag object. The Technology object, with the level as a parameter and methods for calculating the level. (Would it be better to have the RP as a parameter in the tech object? I'm not sure about this one.) The Application Objects, with methods for calculating the level based on parameters in the tech object.

[Gary Thomas]

I am still rather vague on how "Tags" work. Are they research areas? If so, it would be nice to call then ResearchAreas or some such. "tag" as a word, is rather overworked - to me it means something like &ltTechnology&gt in an XML (or HTML) file. It is also something that goes in a sheep's ear.

Are the tag areas to be built in to the code? Or configurable?

There doesn't seem to be any provision to read the tag levels for each technology from the XML file. Are they supposed to be part of the data input utility?

It would seem to be a reasonable idea to read in the tags from the same file as technologies.

It has just occurred to me that the tags might be part of one of the other models and described there. Is this so?

Alternatively are they a completely separate model of their own?

Sorry to be so confused. I have no difficulties with the idea of coding for tags (provided they get a more explanatory name) in an OO modelling way. The idea of using such a structure for intercommunication is appealing.

More or less by accident, the technology model is becoming data driven, with the possibility of swapping from one tech file to another for specific scenarios. This is the type of code structure that I particularly like, for it generality, extensibility, and configurability.

Cheers