Technology Model 7

[Richard Bruns]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I already fixed that. You'll see "upkeep+1=..." in the file.

It does not appear to be fixed on my computer. The Upkeep displayed in the log file is always the same, no matter what the tech level is. Upkeep for Biology should be 1 at knowledge of zero and 21 at level 4, but it always displays as 5 no matter what the knowledge.

About proportion adding up to 1, you (or someone else) asked elsewhere that the figures should be proportions, so that inactive techs wouldn't benefit from it until they are discovered. I implemented that too, but that is incompatible with the fixed figure. Maybe adding a "Wasted" recipient would do the job too. What do you think?

I don´t understand what you are saying. Sometimes the whole point is to waste RP´s, as in the Food example above.

[LDiCesare]

Sorry for the confusion. I did it doesn't mean you have it, but you should get it with the next code released.

For wasting RPs, the way I understood the first proposal was thus:
If I have 100 RPs sent to Activity A1, and 3 recipient techs T1,T2,T3 with proportions of 0.5, 0.25, 0.25 but T3 is not active, then until T3 is active, should T1 recieve 50 points and T2 25, thus wasting 25 points, or should they receive respectively 66 and 33? If you want the former, waste is there , if you want the latter and allow for waste, then I need one more information, like wasteratio in the activity description.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Sorry for the confusion. I did it doesn't mean you have it, but you should get it with the next code released.

He has the very latest code I have gotten from you. That is what is in Testbed 7. (aside from the recent getObsolete fix). If you didn't send the code with the upkeep fix to me yet then everything makes sense.

[Richard Bruns]

Something appears to be seriously odd with the behavior of Activities. I made the following two Activities and added them to the 7-6-1 activity.xml file:

<activity>
  <name>Test 1</name>
  <description>test</description>
  <recipient>
    <name>Architecture</name>
    <proportion>0.2</proportion>
  </recipient>
</activity>

<activity>
  <name>Test 2</name>
  <description>test</description>
  <recipient>
    <name>Siege Weapons</name>
    <proportion>2</proportion>
  </recipient>
</activity>

The behavior I would like to see is for Siege Weapons to rise ten times as fast as Architecture if the same amount is spent in each ACtivity. It should be a simple matter of giving each tech an amount of RP´s equal to its proportion times the RP´s put into the activity.

To test what really happens, I changed the military file so Mobs have a movement of zero, played Onslaught as Jericho, disbanded my Warrior, set each Activity to recieve 50% of taxes, and ran a lot of turns. Here is what happened:

-----------------------------------------
Running 1
Economy provides 0.22060385 Research points to Test 1
Architecture, inactive,
Economy provides 0.07348089 Research points to Test 2
Siege Weapons, inactive,

-----------------------------------------
Running 2
Economy provides 1.1119758 Research points to Test 1
Architecture Level = 1.0, New level = 1.0395036,
Economy provides 0.03832128 Research points to Test 2
Siege Weapons Level = 1.0, New level = 1.0137825,

-----------------------------------------
Running 3
Economy provides 1.1258668 Research points to Test 1
Architecture Level = 1.0395036, New level = 1.0781535,
Economy provides 0.04818496 Research points to Test 2
Siege Weapons Level = 1.0137825, New level = 1.0308329,

-----------------------------------------
Running 4
Economy provides 1.1433206 Research points to Test 1
Architecture Level = 1.0781535, New level = 1.1161664,
Economy provides 0.049066976 Research points to Test 2
Siege Weapons Level = 1.0308329, New level = 1.0479484,

-----------------------------------------
Running 5
Economy provides 1.165767 Research points to Test 1
Architecture Level = 1.1161664, New level = 1.1537602,
Economy provides 0.05040137 Research points to Test 2
Siege Weapons Level = 1.0479484, New level = 1.0652784,

The different proportion somehow causes the RP´s provided by the economy to change. This bizarre behavior seriously disrupts the behavior of the system, and makes it almost impossible to use the log file to figure out what is really happening with the flow of RP´s. I would like to know the relation between the amount of cash I put into the Activity and the number of RP´s produced, but I can´t know this from the log file.

Each of these Activities should have recieved the same amount from the economy.

The good news is that the proportions seem to work properly. Although the RP´s recieved by the tech still display zeroes in the file, I can infer how many they recieved based on tech growth. ON turn one, the techs, bring inactive, got nothing. This is good. On turn 2, Test 1 got about 29 times as many RP´s as Test 2, and the associated tech got about 2.9 times as much growth. So the proportions are acting as they should.

However, the end result is that while Architecture should have grown one tenth as fast as Siege Weapons, it is instead growing three times as fast.

If you figure out what bug causes the change in RP´s recieved, and remove it, then I think that the behavior of Activities will be proper. I have noticed that tech and activities generally run a lot better in 7.6 than in 7.5, especially in relation to the first turn inactive techs. In the new version, the one active tech in an Activity recieves its proper proportion instead of getting every single RP that went into the activity.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
If I have 100 RPs sent to Activity A1, and 3 recipient techs T1,T2,T3 with proportions of 0.5, 0.25, 0.25 but T3 is not active, then until T3 is active, should T1 recieve 50 points and T2 25, thus wasting 25 points

Yes, that is what should happen. And if the Activity has a fourth tech T4 with proportion 0.25 which comes after T3, then when it activates the Activity should be distributing 125 points. I don´t see why there should be any need for new information about waste; each tech should simply get the Rp inout times its proportion.

I know that I asked for weighted averages and such things in the past. I know that programmers hate changes to the spec, and I´m sorry. But the simple fact is that my first requests were uninformed and wrong. Trying to balance tech growth in tech 7.5 quickly taught me that some Activities should output more or less RP´s than they input.

[primemover]

New contributer!?

I am interested in helping out with the Tech model, particularly the "tree." I am currently working on the Map generator and am particularly interested in the connection between technology and the map.

I am really interested in this new model. It really looks nice. My compliments to those who came up with it. I have skimmed over parts of it and have a very basic understanding of how it will work. I will have to read this entire post () when I have the time to read through it so that I can contribute more effectively. I have a few quick questions though.

1. I have read in past tech posts discussion over a random element. Is that being included? I really think it should be (at least if nothing else, that a random element "discovery" can speed up research where otherwise it would take a long time to reason out a tech). I am not saying necessarily it should be big or small, just that it should be there. It would make tech much more interesting.

2. Are we still using the 4 tier model (general field (such as chemistry), specific field (such as explosives)), application (such as gunpowder), currently unknown by me (but I would suggest *lousy fire pot*, the "cannon powder", and "advanced gun powder" types would fit in this category) ? If not... then the rest of this is voided (for the most part).

3. I read in this current thread a bit of debate over whether a specific technology should spread from civilization to civilization or if it should be discovered by each civ independently and I have a suggestion (but remember I have not read it all yet...). I think in many ways, this depends on the values and government of the discovering civilization and of their scientists. All these "models" we talk about (diplomacy, tech, etc...) are interrelated. That is the problem Clash is trying to solve. Past civ games have separated concepts that really should be brought together. So if I have a government type that is of a secretive and/or dictatorial (even totalitarian) type, my technology may not get out as quickly. That is unless my countries scientists have a different philosophy. Some scientists see that knowledge should be shared among all people to quicken the rate of discovery, others see knowledge as something to guard as a trade secret to give a corporation a financial advantage (for really capitalistic oriented nations).

This is where the fourth "specific application" layer can come into play. I have yet to read about what the fourth tier is. But there is a difference between the first breakthrough application and later evolutions of a technolology. An example of how this could be used, depending on our model is this.

A. Model: Some technology spreads from civ to civ.
Implementation: RP may go to advance or even give a level 3 tech, level 4 could be protected.

B. Model: Even though the idea of a tech spreads, some counties even in our time do not adopt a tech effectively, quickly, or sometimes even at all (aboriginies, third world countries are examples.)
Implementation: the spread of discovery on any level as well as a countries ability to pick up ideas/discoveries made by other civilizations can be determined by a countries policies in other areas .

4. On another topic altogether: Technology has a lot to do with the amount of detail about the map that is available to any given country. I want to play a part in determining how this will be done. Basically I would like to be able to contribute to the "tree" (or whatever we are calling the list of available discoveries now) itself. How far along is the tree itself?

and

[Richard Bruns]

Originally posted by primemover
I am interested in helping out with the Tech model, particularly the "tree." I am currently working on the Map generator and am particularly interested in the connection between technology and the map.

Good, we can always use more help. But I am afraid that absolutely nothing has been coded that would allow tech to affect the map. Aside from a few hard coded economics effects (hopefully these will soon be controlled by an xml file) the only thing that technology can now affect is military units. Tech can also trigger events, but that only functions in an individual scenario.

1. I have read in past tech posts discussion over a random element. Is that being included?

Currently not. The tech model is quite deterministic now. But once we get the foundations running properly, I hope to add extras such as random discoveries and RP gains. But that is probably a long time in the future.

2. Are we still using the 4 tier model

The Tier of a tech currently has no effect on game mechanics, nor is it likely to in the near future. But it is a handy modeling tool, and I use it to help me keep the tree straight. Perhaps we will eventually have events that do something to all techs with a certain Tier.

3. I read in this current thread a bit of debate over whether a specific technology should spread from civilization to civilization or if it should be discovered by each civ independently

This kind of thing will be handled by RP growth equations. Right now RP comes from events, basic economic activity, combat, and government investment. Eventually it will also come from trading, spying, and a "peace divedend" that shares tech between civs with good relations.

I have yet to read about what the fourth tier is.

The fourth tier is applications, so a Legion or a Catapult can be seen as a tier 4 tech. Right now, Applications (military elements are the only ones at the moment) activate automatically when the civ gets a certain amount of technology. There are vague plans to allow such applications to be activated by other means before teh civ hits the proper tech levels, but that is also in the future.

The tech tree is growing slowly, as scenarios demand. There are currently ten technologies, and all except one (Farming) are devoted to allowing and improving military units. You can see this tech tree by downloading the testbed off my web site and opening up the activity, technology, and military xml files.

The techs currently go from knowledge zero to four, turning on military units as they do. Each current scenario is set at a mostly constant tech level. Now that I have gotten permission to use some images people created for civ2 scenarios, we can make a lot more units. I will soon start working on a scenario where technology starts at zero and advances to knowledge four and beyond.

[LDiCesare]

Just pointing out that military elements and walls are affected by tech. Of course, walls are military stuff, but since element means something in the tech model, I thought it worth saying.
If there is anything specific you'd like the tech to be able to change, do say it. We talked about showing specials only if you had the right tech at one time. If you need/want that or something else, say so and we'll see if that can be coded. I think you referred to things like the depth of see and such. Images (actually strings, but that's the name of the image) can be driven by tech, so anything that is image or string-dependant could depend on tech (for instance we could show sea, deep sea as a single name and image at low tech and 2 names and images at higher tech). I'd have to plug some image Strings to the technology dependant string, but that shouldn't cost too much to do for example.

[Felch]

I don't mean to interrupt, but this looks awesome. I hope you guys keep up the good work, it should be quite a sight one day.

[Richard Bruns]

I was somewhat confused about tech dependent strings. What exactly can they do, and what is the format to do it? Could I do something like this:

<healAfterFight>
  <default>0.1</default> 
  <technology>
    <name>Medicine</name>
    <knowledge>5.0</knowledge>
    <image>0.2</image>
  </technology>
  <technology>
    <name>Medicine</name>
    <knowledge>10.0</knowledge>
    <image>0.3</image>
  </technology>
</healAfterFight>

Or is it only really useful for images?

And Thanks, Felch X.

[LDiCesare]

TechnologyDependantString works only for strings, and right now they are used only for images.
We could do what your example needs, but I think that Mark would object that this provides non linearities which will be hard for the AI to handle.
For an example about the format, look at the bowmen unit (and maybe also Siege Weapons) in the original military.xml file.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
We could do what your example needs, but I think that Mark would object that this provides non linearities which will be hard for the AI to handle.

Hi Laurent, glad you got your net glitches under control .

I do admit that I prefer as much as possible to have such things change smootly with the tech level, as you say. There can be some big nonlinearities in how things work, but we need to IMO keep them to a minimum and consider them carefully on a case-by-case basis. Seems to me in this case that units should just have a recovery stat or some such.


Thanks for the words of encouragement Felch X!

[Richard Bruns]

I don´t really need that particular functionality; it was just an example. A much better way of doing that would be to make healafterfight an element attribute, so technology affects it the way it affects all other attributes.

I saw the multi-image examples before, but I had no reason to use them. Images were in such short supply that I couldn´t afford to use two images for one unit.

[LDiCesare]

Hi Laurent, glad you got your net glitches under control

Not really I still have lots of problems...
I consider making healafterfight a function of techs in two ways: both attacker and defender-related. That way you would have steel weapons deadlier than clubs at Cajamarca (ok I am reading Guns Germs and Steel right now), and an increase in healing rates as the defender gets better medicine.

[Richard Bruns]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I consider making healafterfight a function of techs in two ways: both attacker and defender-related. That way you would have steel weapons deadlier than clubs at Cajamarca (ok I am reading Guns Germs and Steel right now), and an increase in healing rates as the defender gets better medicine.

Interesting proposal. The best way to do that IMO would be to assign a "wound" value to each element. This value would negate healafterfight in the same way that armorpen negates armor, and can of course increase with tech as all element attributes do.

There is the question of what to do if the wound value is bigger than the healing value. Should units suffer additional casualties after the battle is over, or should we keep a floor of zero for the adjusted healing value? I guess this is a tpoic for the military thread, though.

[LDiCesare]

(Bump).
In Demo 8 comments thread, alms66 said, among other things, some tech related stuff:

2. Add a "required technology" tag to Specials, Regimes and Social Classes. This would allow the emergence of regimes over time, the emergence of the middle class, and specials to "popup" once certain tech levels were reached.

4. Divide the Combat activity into Naval, Ground, Air, and Siege Combat.

5. Change techs to NOT be open-ended. They should stop sucking in RPs when they hit 100 (or preferably, a globally set number).

6. Add Requirement tag to technologies (accepts specials or other technologies with levels). This tag keeps the technology from sucking up RPs.

#2 Yes, long term imo.
#4 Can be done. Siege is a bit problematic as it's a part of ground combat so when there's a wall, would you increase both siege and ground or siege only?
#5 I disagree. MoO had a very nice system where techs continues to give bonuses (reduction of size of ship hull/weapon/etc.) as tech went beyond the "max" level. That was good. There is an upkeep cost that prevents too much of a grwoth, I'd rather have this increase beyond a certain level, or increase exponentially at some point (currently we divide RPs by upkeep * knowledge, it could be upkeep * knowledge + smallNumber * square(knowledge) ). This I would agree with as the limit would nto be hard but there would effectively be a hard limit.
#6 Yes. Actually the equations allow this to happen, but it's really unclear: Helper effect is 1 + sum of helepereffect * (knowledge - requirement) for all helpers but a tech is only active if all its helpers are. A tech is active if its helpers are past a "startlevel" (Ts in the model at some time from what I read in the code). The problem is that this startlevel is systematically 0 so all techs are active, and that this startlevel doesn't depend on the helped tech but only the helper...
SO: I will add a tag in the helper tag so that the tech is inactive unless the helper reached that level. Since the word requirement is already used, I'll use start instead. If no start tag is specified, the value will be 0.