The Social Model

[Gary Thomas]

Since there do not appear to be any recent threads on this topic, and I am about to start coding it (taking up where F_Smith left off), I felt that there is a need for some discussion.

I would like to add a new category called Culture. This is effectively the same as Ethnic Group, but spans civilizations. The part of a Culture that lies within a particular civilization becomes an Ethnic Group. Alternatively (see below) the part of a culture with a particular religion can become an Ethnic Group.

The case I have in mind is that of the Jews in mediaeval Europe, assuming that there were a number of civlizations present at that time. The Jews as a whole represented a particular culture, with characteristics (in addition to the obvious one of religion) in common. Within each civilization, they formed a minority Ethnic Group.

Obviously this could be dealt with by merely making the corresponding Etrhnic Groups similar, but I feel that there are advantages in having the Culture as an entity. For one thing, it saves having to redefine the same Ethnic Group parameters many times.

One could also say that the dominant Ethnic Groups of Europe at that time also belonged to a single culture.

Although, in the case cited above, religion could be used as the over-riding factor there are two reasons for not doing that.

One is that as far as the christians at that time were concerned, there were plenty of christian groups who did not belong to the dominant European culture.

The other is that in some cases Ethnic Groups belonging to the same culture could be distinguished by differing religions. Modern Bosnia springs to mind.

On a slightly different topic, there exist major religions that have never had a significant evangelical expression outside of a particular culture. Judaism is the most evident example. Does this qualify it as a GRW? Judaism never converted any civilization, or non-Jewish Ethnic Group within a civilization. It went (and goes) with the Jewish people only.

Cheers

[This message has been edited by Gary Thomas (edited April 20, 2001).]

[Mark_Everson]

That's an interesting idea, and I have some refinements of it... but they'll have to wait for now.

But before I forget, I'm going to include a link to the previous (Social Model v2.) thread so that everyone can see the discussion that's gone before. Its at: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000279.html


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

[LDiCesare]

Actually, I always supposed from reading the models that EGs were spanning civs... I must have read it wrong since that wasn't my main focus. I don't know if we need Cultures to be different from EGs but I'd clearly like that, when the Greeks lose a city and 10 years later reconquer it, the formerly greek EG has remained pretty much the same all these years and is anew the same "core" greek EG as that of the reconquering civ.
I don't know if EGs have to be separated by civ at all, except maybe if there are hard-to-cross barriers, but I don't know what they are used for in terms of computation.

[Gary Thomas]

quote: Actually, I always supposed from reading the models that EGs were spanning civs... I must have read it wrong since that wasn't my main focus. I don't know if we need Cultures to be different from EGs but I'd clearly like that, when the Greeks lose a city and 10 years later reconquer it, the formerly greek EG has remained pretty much the same all these years and is anew the same "core" greek EG as that of the reconquering civ. I don't know if EGs have to be separated by civ at all, except maybe if there are hard-to-cross barriers, but I don't know what they are used for in terms of computation.

If EGs span civilizations, we need a concept and description for the part of an EG which is within a particular civilization.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

First I'll say what I recall are the facts of the matter so that I can put the Culture idea in perspective. I have to issue the caveat that I couldn't find the relevant information in a search, so we may have to wait for Rodrigo to come in and either confirm or deny my statements. And of course we need to hear what he has to say about the idea also!

As I recall, ethnic groups (EGs) do not span civilizations in the current design. If the Romans conquer a Greek EG square this system generates a new EG that might be called Grecian Romans. The Grecian Romans EG starts out with the same characteristics as the Greek EG, but now evolves under different influences. (If there were already a Grecian Romans EG, then the newly conquered Greeks would be part of that pre-existing EG, and the parameters of the "combined" Grecian Roman EG would be a weighted average of the previous values and those the newly conquered square's people had. This idea of weighted average with something we had quite a while ago. With F. Smith's desire for everything in the architecture to be handled at the lowest possible level, we got into some discussions about whether we needed a new unique type of Grecian Roman EG for every single previously Greek square that was conquered by the Romans. I believe that is the architectural approach used in F. Smith's government code. So at some point we need to have a further discussion on how the architecture produces the desired model result for these cases.

In this system, if the Greeks shortly thereafter conquer that square back, the Grecian Roman EG will still be very similar to the Greek EG, and would be re-absorbed into it (perhaps changing the existing parameters of the Greek EG just a little bit if we do the averaging thing I talked about above).

One place that the Culture idea might fit in is that right now all that indicates the origin of the Grecian Roman EG is in the name. If enough time has gone by, the actual characteristics of the people may be very different from the Greek EG that runs the Greek civ. So although in the real world the Grecian Roman EG might have maintained ties with its Greek civ homeland and welcome the eventual reconquest, in the game they might consider the Greeks yet another conquer. (That is of course a valid result if the Grecian Roman EG had been treated well by the Romans, and had really become more Roman than Greek.) Another potential problem with the current system (as I perceive it) is that two EGs may have similar parameters, even though they have no history whatsoever in common, and in the real world their language and numerous customs would be widely different. The way things work now it appears that if one where conquered by the other, they might welcome them with open arms as liberators! However, having said these things, they are really relatively minor problems in the overall scheme of things, and may not require a solution given that this is just a game. (But what a game! )

So the way that the new Culture could work in avoiding the problems above is at least in assuring that the Grecian Romans remember their Greek heritage. Using it this way, an EG might actually need to remember more than one Culture from which it derives, since the Grecian Roman EG could attain cultural affinity with both the Greek EG, and the Roman EG, over time. Also at some point, a Culture previously held by the EG might fade into insignificance and need to be dropped. BTW I believe there is already a Culture class in F. Smith's government code, so if this idea goes anywhere, there may be some reconciliation needed.

Gary: your point about Jews in medieval Europe is already mostly solved IMO by giving all EGs derived from any original Jewish EG a very high nationalism (because of a high original Jewish EG nationalism level). That will make them very reluctant to "join in" with the ruling EG of any civ they happen to be a part of. So they will tend to remain culturally distinct much much longer than the usual immigrants. However, I still think there would need to be separate EGs for "Jewish Spaniards", "Jewish Hungarians" etc. because these EGs will in fact evolve differently over time because of the "ruling" culture in which they live.

So at least if my premises above are correct, I don't think we need an over-arcing Culture in the way you (Gary) have stated it. But a more limited Culture that can be used to trace the historical thread of where the people have come from could be useful. Before I make any further comments I'll wait for Rodrigo to come by and give his thoughts on this issue.

[Gary Thomas]

Thanks, Mark. I didn't suggest that Culture was necessary, just a convenient way of providing associated Ethnic Groups with similar data.

I have gone through the social and government models carefully. In fact, Ethnic Groups are not defined there, they are sort of assumed. So we really do not have a definition of an Ethnic Group, its scope, or its characteristics.

Makes it harder to code.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

An Ethnic Group definition by example can be found on the social model page of the web site here: http://clash.apolyton.net/models/Model-Social.shtml . The main info starts about 3 pages down on the page. I agree its not a rigorous definition, but its a good chunk of the way there.

Also that could be out of date... Just a warning, F_Smith just did a lot of architecture stuff on his own that isn't in the core model. His stuff never made it to the web site. At best its documented in cursory fashion in some thread. If you find something in the code, try searching on that name using the Apolyton search feature.

I did a search and found the two OO threads relating to govt and social models they are potentially useful in figuring out what F_Smith was doing and are here: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000281.html http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000280.html

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited April 21, 2001).]

[roquijad]

Hi guys.

A short definition for EG: A group of people who share the same culture. In particular, they share the same religious preferences and the same nationality.

Here's what an EG "object" would have:
A set of cultural characteristics. Among them, Individualism, Importance of Religion, Traditionalism, Ethnic Tolerance, Religious Tolerance, Aggressiveness, Asceticism, Nationalism (I don't remeber the full list)
A Nationality
An Ethnic Religion
A Great Religion
A population share following the ethnic religion
A population
An Ethnic Discrimination Factor
A Religious Discrimination Factor
A list of Ethnic Pro-Action Feelings (EPAF's)
A list of social classes


I just partly understand the problems you mention in your posts, mainly because the concept "spans" eludes me. WARNING: I know almost nothing about object oriented programming. Be kind with me!

I think it was Beör the first one who brought the subject of a "meta-culture", as a culture that EGs make reference to when describing their own. I don't like this and I don't see so far the need for it. After an invasion, an EG will preserve its culture (the values it has for each attribute) for some time according mostly to its Traditionalism. Forcing the EG to keep imitating (in some degree) the "meta-culture" (while at the same time changing its culture according to its new environment) would be just another way to accomplish the same thing the model is doing already. Why change it?

Also in invasions, when the romans conquer Greece, the greeks may rebel because of the mismatching nationalities between the EG and the Govt. The chances for rebelions increase with their Nationalism. If the greek govt recovers its land, the mismatch of nationalities will disappear and so the rebellion chances. If too much time passed away by the time greek govt recovers the territory, greeks in that location probably won't be found, absorbed by the romans (the EG vanishes).

The greeks under greek control have at first the same cultural values the greeks under roman control have. But since both EGs can and will evolve differently, then in the future the values can be very different, so they shouldn't make reference to a single common cultural base. If you force both to have the same info, then you take away any chance for these two groups to evolve differently. And if you do that, well, that's a much simpler model.

If the problem is trying to avoid too much data with a lot of similarity, then I think here the main issue is how much detail you want to have. If you want every single mapsquare to have its own EGs so you can find slightly cultural differences from tile to tile, then you'll have a huge number of EGs, most of them very similar. I believe having EGs at the province level is more than enough.

cheers!
Rodrigo

[roquijad]

I almost forgot: During the months I've been away from the forums, I've "secretly" worked (at a very slow pace, though) in a better govt model, more flexible and more coherent to the objects philosophy, based a lot in the structure F_Smith was coding, where social classes were divisions inside an EG, that now makes a lot of sense to me. I have a very "technical" document I can send you (Gary) with all the calculations needed to run the govt model and with the objects I see are necessary for that model.
But, if you think we should start with the social model, this can wait.

You tell me.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Rodrigo! Oh no, a secret model

Seriously, unless the 'new' model is not very different from what F_Smith coded I'd vote for the following procedure:

1. Get the existing govt/social model into demo5 (provided that can be done with relatively small effort)

2. Following that work on any refinements / major changes.

Since Gary is doing the hookups and further coding, and you are the lead, I'll defer to both of your judgements about this, but I just wanted to get my vote in that we not wait for modeling perfection since we need to get this stuff playtested.

[Mark_Everson]

I guess I should have said that the plan currently is to hook up Both the social and govt models more or less simultaneously. (Gary, please correct me if I'm wrong based on what you see 'on the ground'.) The first step would be just to hook the old Beast code into the current architecture essentially as it was before. Once that is done, then real progress from what we had before would start.

[Mark_Everson]

Yes, your changes look good at least in general, especially #3 .

At least much of the equations Were in there in the Beast, which is why I was pushing for no mods. I'm not sure Everything is there, but here's an example from the GovtFormulae class:

    /********************************************
     *    Ethnic Discrimination Preferences
     ********************************************/
    public int getPeoplesEDPref(CulturalAttributes culture)
    {
        int p = (1/(1+(5-(culture.getNationalism()/10)))) 
                 + ((100-culture.getEthnicTolerance())/10);
        
        return p;
    }
    
    public int getCapitalEDPref(CulturalAttributes culture)
    {
        int c = (1/(1+(5-(culture.getNationalism()/10)))) 
                 + ((100-culture.getEthnicTolerance())/10);
        
        return c;
    }

But if its just a case of changing some equations to get to the new model then we should certainly use the new stuff! (sounds like it is, since F_Smith had already put in an object structure at least similar to your #2)

Could you try running the Beast again and verify if there is a change in equilibrium values in some parameter after a change is made by the player? That will tell us if the equations are being used there!

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited April 24, 2001).]

[Gary Thomas]

I am coding the social/government models NOW. Or rather I am working on F_Smith's code to bring it up to date.

Anything that I haven't got by the next day or two will not be in Demo 5.

It would be better if any new stuff were posted to this forum. Alternatively I will get email tomorrow (Thursday) at thomasg@acc.co.nz or on Friday at gthomas@takaro.co.nz.

"Spans" means "covers", "ranges over", "stretches over", it is used as a metaphor and comes from engineering where a bridge spans a river.

Cheers

[Lord God Jinnai]

After demo5 is out if your done with the new secret model can you post it? It should wait till demo5 is out so we can check it out without getting to sidetracked with this new model.

[roquijad]

It has really nothing to do with the "seek for perfection". The updated "secret" model has nothing radically changed. It just has these 4 important changes:

1) Flexibility on the number of social classes. I took the demands of several team members who said the possibility to expand and/or customize social classes should exist. As you may remember, I wasn't very ethusiastic about this, but I put my head into it and developed a way to define social classes and their behaviors in such way that we can now have important wider possibilities. In this new scheme, I introduced the idea of political blocks to handle the varying number of social classes, something that has been already mentioned in older threads.

2) I don't consider social classes anymore living in the "vacuum", but as social divisions of ethnic groups, as "objects" within the EG object, just as F_Smith proposed (and coded). So here I'm just catching up.

3) I eliminated the majorities and minorities concepts to introduce a simple discrimination level. Now ethnic groups can be discriminated in a continous fashion, affecting how much they can participate in govt (and in the future this can be used too to model other problems discriminated people face). This is a generalization of the old system and I know it will please you speacially, Mark

4) I updated the Negotiation Procedure to erradicate the "Machiavelean effect" that greatly hurt the system. This update was already discussed in the old thread. Although there wasn't agreement at the end, the updated version for sure works better than the old.


As far as I understand, F_Smith coded only the structure of the model, which shouldn't change much in this new version. I understand he didn't code any methods (equations), which are the most affected part of the model in the new version. So, it seems to me implementing the old version or the new one demand almost the same effort, so I'd vote to go for the new version.

Anyway, I'm gonna just follow what Gary decides for that.

As for implementing both models (social, govt) at the same time, I agree 100% on the "structure" side. I think govt and social methods can be created

[waiting-for-Gary's-word mode ON]