Social Model v3.0

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by yellowdaddy
what makes you think i'm talking about more depth?

Because you are? You are proposing something beyond the culture model as it exists. Therefore it is more depth. I assume we need what is there of course, said assumption you are free to disagree with. . .

Having read the Social model pages, I don't think Culture is at all modelled satisfactorially. There's stuff there that's missing or just not quite right.
Essentially, the concept of Culture seems to be a vague and undefined one in this game, and yet it's mentioned regularly.
It seems to exist only in name, and to not actually constitute anything beyond a list of other concepts some defined, some undefined, and clumsily cobbled together.
What I've tried to do is define it in a simple and clear way.

I hear you. One must cut off at some point the things in the world that are modeled. We model the characteristics of societies at a Very detailed level compared to most games. For me that is sufficient. I think you might be able to do some of your more-detailed culture stuff using the tech model. But I'm not sure. Look into it if you're interested.

At least I've worked out where this post should be - in the "Culture Familes" thread!

Yeah, Excellent Dude b:

I don't think the rest of us are interested in discussing at length advanced things when there is so much to be done that has already been spec'ed out. That is certainly the case for me. I know this is frustrating for you, but please look at it from our position. We have spent Years discussing, and have an extraordinarily agressive world model in the game already.

At this point discussion takes away limited time from coding, debugging and scenario design. Since many things in Clash are flexible due to the excellent xml scenario-creation abilities coded by Gary and Laurent I think you will be able to achieve many of the detailed culture modeling things you want to do without the need for additional code. Why don't you look into it. The dataformat file in the testbed describes what you can do so far, and more is coming!

[yellowdaddy]

did i sound like i was nagging?! i'm not looking for instant responses, just tossing another bundle of thoughts on the fire.

i'm not suggesting you drop your shovels and start lace-making!

i don't think this is advanced, i think it's fundamental to the way part of the social model works.
i don't think i'm talking about adding more toppings to the social model pizza, more talking about whether it should be deep pan or thin and crispy and whether it shuold have a stuffed crust.
at the moment I think it's a bit lumpy and burnt with some of the topping off into a corner of the box, and i don't think i'd be giving the delivery boy a tip!
you've already got "culture" in the game, but it isn't quite right - the categories. I'm aware that none of you are likely to change it in a hurry, if at all, until/unless any flaws become more apparent, so ok, leave it 'til after D8 sometime.

culture as a plague... hmmm...

[Gary Thomas]

culture as a plague... hmmm...

It is.

Body piercing

MacDonalds

Celtic snatching a draw with Hearts

The Internet

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

Celtic snatching a draw with Hearts?

[Gary Thomas]

A particularly evil plague, when I am forced watch it in my local pub, 12,000 miles away.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

...now if you'd said Hearts snatching a draw with Rangers at Ibrox, it'd've bin music t' ma bleary eyes

[roquijad]

Yellowdaddy,

If what you're proposing is new ways to add humor to the game, I'm all for it, but I'm sure it can be coded later.

But, if you're proposing something that will have some clear effect on the game, as I presume you do, then I think this conversation has to split in two. On one side, adding dances, fashion, etc and allowing them to have an important impact on the game is, at least to my taste, to much. I wouldn't go that way.

On the other side, there's the thing about "culture families"; namely, having EGs that are somehow related to each other, given whatever definition of "cultural similarity". Or, in other words, having something like a "base culture" from which a lot different peoples derive.
IMO, there's no need to go that way either. I don't really see what's the importance in game terms that this group of people here have some ancient relation to that other people in the neighboring region. Here in latinamerica, from Mexico to Chile, we're all someway culturally related. But that hasn't stopped us from warring each other or make business with each other. The same can be said about different regions of Africa and, hey, it certainly can be said about Europe. Cultural affinity explians so little about what happened or didn't happen in world history, that I really prefer to let that aside.

Culture and culture evolution is a very interested topic and I guess that's why this forum keeps seeing people coming with endless new elements to add in the social model; languages, races, weird religions, arquitecture, dances, etc. Don't get me wrong. I think that's all valuable, but I really think we need just the basics for a game. So far, strategy games barely consider culture. What our model should do, if it works as planned, is giving a whole new world and experiences that's already light years ahead from any other game. It will provide religions, appearing and disappearing of ethnicities, cultural characteristics that actually change over time (with an impact on how your game behaves) and through those things, slavery, nationalistic rebellions, religious discrimination, etc.

I do believe we've gone a lot further than an average player would expect. And since the people we are aiming to are strategy players, I think most of them would be more than satisfied with this. In fact, I'm sure some of them will actually turn off some of the features the current model provides, just to play a simpler, quicker and easier-to-win game.

If you ask me, I say let's code what we have now and later we'll see if we want to carry this another step forward with languages, fashion, etc.

[Lord God Jinnai]

IMO, there's no need to go that way either. I don't really see what's the importance in game terms that this group of people here have some ancient relation to that other people in the neighboring region. Here in latinamerica, from Mexico to Chile, we're all someway culturally related. But that hasn't stopped us from warring each other or make business with each other. The same can be said about different regions of Africa and, hey, it certainly can be said about Europe. Cultural affinity explians so little about what happened or didn't happen in world history, that I really prefer to let that aside.

You're right but cultural affinity can help bond people together. FE: Greek city-states would all have their own culture that had an affinity to each other, but the EG aren't the same and perhaps the religion isn't. But they'd bond together more effectively in times of crisis, such as an invasion, or in drawing on allies for wars within themselves "well i feel more in common with my spartan bretheren than my atherian bretheren" kinda deal (though policitcs could also play a role), it also could make spreading of religions easer and technology dillution.

[yellowdaddy]

Hi Roquijiad.

[big Rip Van Winkle yawn..!]

incidentally, the idea of "Cultural Families" was probably Laurant's, it wasn't mine... I don't know if I even fully understand it yet.

i've seen "alms66" posting about researching cultural things.

you definitely need a bit of humour and randomness to spoil the dryness of acheiving purely military and political ends... i find it rather dull to conquer the world, it's not the thrill of the kill, it's the pace of the chase.

let me (skip over Marks stubbing out attempt and) reach back and find out what I was prattling on about:

I thought I was addressing the ambiguities of the term "culture", and in part responding to Laurant's recent posts about the Spartan's revolting, and "Culture Families".

We all seem to be happy with the idea of "Culture Families", I'm trying to help define them and how they might work in simple and coding-friendly terms. Right now the term seems to me to be a bit floaty and unspecific

right, there's a start... I didn't get the whole idea of "Cultural Families" - I mean, what does that mean?!

Mark seems to have seen what I thought of as pinning the tail on the donkey as those nasty words "deep" and "complicated"... and directs me to the Tech model... has he missed something or have I?


and then there was..

The thing about quote:quote:
Dance/Art/Cuisine/Clothing style
is not to go into any depth or detail, they just become wonders, as does "building" your own "alphabet".
Just as you might "research" writing in Civ to be able to build or do other things.
A big difference being that you don't have to build them, you can import/buy them.

funny - they seem to be talking about these in the tech model now.

this bit I liked:

You can then take each EG, and give a "0" or "1" as to whether they "have" each "aspect" of Greek "culture". and then give them a score 0/12 - 12/12.

I also remember not being too keen on the "wonders model", though I can't remember why.

[LDiCesare]

I added the following panel to the code.
It's available for square, province and civilisation. The lower end of the panle is reserved for text output. It shows the details of social events for the sqare/province/civ. It may be too big for the civ and will need testing. Does it look like the correct/enough information in order to understand what's happening?

[yellowdaddy]

looks nice

[LDiCesare]

My main question is how to show the social classes breakdown:
When I show aristocracy/workers/warriors, I show the social classes, but each of them has a weight in terms of political power which is a part of the various blocks (e.g. military can get voices from both warriors and aristocracy social classes).
Should I add a political power blocks breakdown per social class or a global one? I don't want the interface to be too cluttered. (Three pies is already a big number imo.)

[yellowdaddy]

I wonder if a variation on the pie chart for each might help?

Each segment can have the same angle to show percentage share
as now, but the segments could have different area, to
illustrate their power - like cutting a slice from cakes of
varying diameters and putting them all together to make a
kind of crenellated pie chart?

I think it's called a circumplex pie chart similar to one here:

http://www.infosoftglobal.com/FusionCharts/Custom.asp

and here:

http://www.bradford.ac.uk/admin/staffdev/papers/Image2.gif

[LDiCesare]

I'm not wondering how to show the info in terms of graphics but in terms of user interaction. Circumpex charts tend to have constant angles, and I can't see what I'd measure in terms of radius. I wonder whether to show:
1)Social classes as in my snapshot
or
2)Political power blocks instead.
I don't like the latter much because it lacks flavor, so I think I'd better show a breakdown per political power block of the various social classes that compose it. I could put that in the ruler panel where each power block is already shown, on one side of its preferences?

[yellowdaddy]

from what I remember of the potential deliniations of political factions i wonder whether it could be shown entirely satisfactorially in a pie chart.
the other thing is it's more to do with the government and dynasties isn't it?
I mean, I'm sure the classes, religions and ethnicities have bearing on the political factions, but it seems to me that there would be overlap, and so i think a box which displayed the political data - the ruling dynasty and factions to have a link to the social page you've shown, rather than be a part of it.

so yeah, something to do with the ruler page sounds sensible.

(btw - i'm surprised to see a Frenchie spelling "flavour" without a "u"!)