However social techs, incluing religion for a few stuff requires input from tech model. FE animation can't be learned at the beginning of the game, nor can be be learned ever if you never know how to producing the illusion of motion pictures. But animation isn't 'better' than its predisesor 'drawing' or 'painting' just like 'monotheism' isn't better than 'polytheism.' Its just a differnt form of expression and medium.

Some things are also linked equally with both models, equally being a relative term. Laws and Administration are good examples. These beome more complex and more effiecent as the levels progress. But, laws and the way things are administered vary from place to place. In some places it may be acceptable for an aristicrat to kill a peasant for stealing, but the peasant has little recourse for the same situation reversed. In other areas the punishment might not be so hard and the peasant might have more recourse. Also cetain idea, or ideologies as they are refered to, require certain levels of understanding to even be considered. After that their definition is usually crude and changes over time and becomes more complex.

Arts and Literature
Philosophy
Environmentalism
Ideologies
Government types
Clivalry/Way of the Blade
Crusade/Jihad
Literacy

Despotism
Federalism
Confederatism(?)
Divie Rule
Monarchy
Constitutional Government
Oligarchy
Republic
Capitalistism
Democracy
Communism
Socialism
Fundamentalism
Anarchism
Fascism
Feudalism
Marxism
Nationalism
Utilitarianism

Some ones I don't have names for:
Rule by Crime Lords (Think Bosina w/o UN peackeers)
Rule by Bussiness (think Final Fantasy 7 FE)
Rule by Machines (You've probably seen or read what I'm talking about)
Military Rule
Rule by LC

I think that there could be a few problems with LGJ's list:

Capitalism is tracked as a seperate ruling method. I din't understand this.

Constitutional Government shouldn't be seperate. Almost any form of government can have a constitution.

The main problem I see is that the identity of the ruler should not be an ideology type. The military, for example, could rule by any method it chose, including democracy (In the book Starship Troopers there is an example of this).

So to reduce complexity, we should split up the parts by defining the ruler seperately from the method of government. The ruler can be any social class, and there are a few other choices like Democracy.

The ruling method is the actual ideology that is being used. Ruling methods are things like Socialism, Fascism, etc.

And finally, the economic choice should be tracked seperately. Basically, this is a scale that goes from pure capitalism (0% planned) to a 100% planned economy.

You're discussing things that are already solved in the govt model. There's a good reason for having economic as well as political systems together, FE. Refer to the govt model. If you don't like the implementation we (I and Axi) took, please comment it in the govt model thread.

The list of ideologies is unimportant. We just have to figure out how they'll be discovered in general sense without concentrating in a particular list.

Some comments on Richard's list of social techs:

Arts: We can have a unique social tech called "art" or several techs like "sculpture", "literature", etc. I vote for just one. To avoid biases, I propose, as I did in the social model thread, to have the art tech interpreted as the AMOUNT of art produced by the civ. No references to styles, like "greco-recoman style" or such.

Philosophy: Again, I think we should interpret this tech as the amount of philosophy produced. This tech should help ideologies development.

Enviromentalism: As proposed by you in the social thread, ethnic groups and religion will have in a future version of the model a "Natural Affinity" attribute. The value for this attribute should depend, among other things, on polution generated in the civ. In time, the attribute should encourage the development of eclogical-friendly techs. I think is a good idea to have the "enviromentalism" tech depending on Natural Affinity and this tech in time should help developing techs like solar energy plants. sounds good?

Govt types: Ideologies ARE the govt types, so we only have to care about ideologies.

Chivalry/WOB: I presume here you're refering to things like Samurais. I believe we can have this tech (application, really) using on one side the "normal" tech "horseback riding" (or the equivalent you're using now) plus the Importance of Religion attribute from the social model. Sounds good?

Crusades/Holy wars: I've shown in the social model how people can be inclined or not to this type of activities. I don't think we need a tech for it.

Literacy: A future version of the social model will have an education level attribute. I don't think we need this tech.

Your treatment of my list of concepts seems good. I don't agree on a few of the details, but I trust that you know what you are doing so I won't argue. I'll see what you and LGJ come up with.

Social technologies are concepts that have two important features:

The knowledge of and experience with the thing grows over time, and its implementation becomes more effective given a steady support base.

The effects of the thing depend on its popularity and acceptance, and other social factors.

For example, consider the concept of the holy war. Over time, leaders get better and better at turning the faithful into zealous warriors. In early times, they were not even able to do implement holy wars. In the middle ages, they were only able to channel the existing agression from one enemy to another. But in this century, the Nazis were able to turn the SS into a cult that fanatically attempted to eliminate all of the Reich's enemies.

But the effectiveness of this also depends on public support. Calling a crusade will work best if almost everyone supports the religion; if the religion is unpopular it will do very little.

The art level will be very important for the wonders and achievements model also because having low art minded people tends to lower the chance of something becoming a wonder. I mean FE the Taj Mahal is a tomb, but so it every gravesite in the world you could say.

4 types of art:
Theatre: Plays and later motion picture
Music: Songs and dances.
Literature: Stories written and spoken, poems, etc.
Drawing/Painiting: Obvious
Animation: Obvious, needs app. tech and drawing/painting level. This is really needed to be seperate because you can do stuff with animation that can't be done with drawings (well not without making comic books 500 or so pages).

Well we might go ahead and put visual arts and performing arts and then put those as 3rd level categories.

I think it's reasonable to have Art as you proposed a few posts ago, that is, like the tech system: An "Art" tech with branches.

I'm concerned about the interpretation for the "tech level". I know you don't like much my idea of seeing it as an amount of art produced. But if not this, what then? You said in one of the posts that it could be interpreted as "how much it is apart of the people and civ". If so, I think it'd be really complicated to evaluate.

Ethnic Tolerance
Religious Tolerance
Aggressiveness
Traditionalism
Nationalism
Land Connection
Asceticism
Importance of Religion
Individualism

TO BE ADDED IN A COMING VERSION
Natural Affinity
Educational Level
Tendency to Corruption

* These can affect it if an opposing group that the other hates and wants not to be like or whatnot.

I'm Beör, popping in from the Apolyton SMAC(X) section. I am fascinated by your idea of creating a game of this scale, and wish I had known of your efforts earlier. I do not pretend to be an expert or anything, but I have some general knowledge of European history in particular, which might lead to valuable input. I realise that a lot of the structure of the game is already molded in iron, but allow me to post a few suggestions. One problem facing me is the enourmous amount of information present in these forums and on your website, so forgive me if I provide redundant information or thread on already covered ground. It is also very difficult to find the right thread, since many of the models are intermingled.

Regarding social techs I tend to agree with roquijad that you should be very careful about including them. What matters is if they will affect game play in a way not covered by the Social, Government, Riots or Economic models (maybe more). Thus I find techs like philosophy, art etc are questionable, 'cause how would it affect the way the game is played?

On the other hand I find techs on the organistion of society could be important (forgive me if this has been covered in the tech model, which I have only glanced). As will be evident I have given more thoughts to some of these than to others.

Monasticism:
The monastic system was actually invented (was it Benedict of Murcia or Frans of Assisi?). In the middleages monasteries were important parts of Western European society. They were centers of learning and large landowners with considerable power in society. In many ways they were in opposition to the more or less nationalist churches of the early germanic states. Further development of the monastic system led to orders striving for poverty (now there's a novelty!) and simplicity of lifestyle (grey friars), militaristic orders (Teutonic Knights etc), orders providing health care (Hospital Knights) and missionary ordres fighting herecy and converting lost souls (Jesuits). In time the importance of monasticism have waned: In protestant countries much of the land was taken over by the kings, giving them the upper hand in the struggle for power he had with both the church and the aristocracy. In Catholic countries the importance was upheld longer, but with increasing secularisation (decreasing IR) monasteries are bound to be more and more marginalised. There are monasteries in the greek-orthodox church, but i don't know much about them. In the early eastern christianity of the Middleeast and North Africa, monasticism was not 'invented'. Here holy men tended to isolate themselves totally while contemplating rather than joining an organised society of munks. there are buddhist monasteries of which I don't know much, but as far as I know no similar concepts in Islam or Hinduism. I beleive there were Zoroasthric monks, but how they were organised i don't know. So monasticism could have potentially vast, but passing influence on society, while not being an inevitable part of the organisation of religion. It would seem that monasticism is a sort of dead end in the evolution of societal organisation, but I wonder if not some of the aspects of pure lifestyle, physical labour, tightly knit brotherhood could be found in FE socialism, the Parisian commune, and certainly in some religious sects (which under no circumstances shoul play any role in game play).
In game terms monasticism could help preserve knowledge, particularly prior to printing, take part in crucades, act as missionaries, and certainly play a role as a possessor of wealth and thus potential power.

The national church vs the international church
Much of European history from 700 to the reformation was a struggle between the pope and the emperor and local kings for the power to control the local church. Part of this is the fight over Investiture: Who should apoint new bishops. I would like to see this in a game. The Pope with a lot of cash and local 'infiltration' trying to control the church. This might take creating the church as a separate AI entity (an intruiging thought don't you think?), but since this could debalance the whole system, maybe it would be a better idea to have the Papacy be a kind of Wonder , maybe with a prerequisite of 'International Religious Organisation'.

The guild system
This system is probably as old as civilization itself. The implications of this system is an organisation of civil society based on profession rather than birth - although a certain inheritance of profession is likely. The cost is rigidity making inovation harder, and to some extent limit social mobility. Actually what I am saying is that Social Mobility could be a social tech leading to graduate lifting of the guild system, thereby increasing inovation and making people more happy and maybe more productive.

The patron-client system
I am not quite sure why I put this here, But the system has always intruiged me. Marius arming his clients and in fact having 60000 troops dug up in no time is fascinating. How this could impact game play I am not sure.

The political party system
In a way the modern equivalent of the patron-client system (maybe that is why I put that in) - they could represent varying levels of a tech called Hmmmm - I don't know. Probably beginning in England, and being further developed in France, at times taking guise as Estates, it forms the early basis for the development of Representative Systems like an Assembly of the Etates of the Realm or Parliament.

Multinational corporations
From the Hanseatic League and Fugger to Microsoft and modern international currency broking, how can we live without them

Labour unions
Unavoidable, but I am not sure how they could be incorporated in game play

Trust funds
Massive potential power, not yet unleashed.

The enclosure movement
The abandonment of the village as the main agricultural producing unit lead to vast production increases.

Co-operative societies
I am not sure if this is the correct term. What I mean is FE a group of farmers joining together in order to buy machines, fodder, everyday necessities, insurance etc, but also to produce refined products like dairy products instead of milk, meat products instead of livestock, beer instead of barley etc. This is in a way a necessary consequence of the enclosure movement and the movement from producing agricultural products primarily for consumption to producing them for sale on the market: As agricultural technology becomes more complex, it is no longer possible for a single production unit (farm) to produce goods for the market.

Emancipation
This is sort of a rural equivalent to the abolition of the guild system. It is therefore akin to Social Mobility, and could probably be handled there.

Thanks for stopping by and posting. We can always use new ideas, especially when they are as good as yours. I'll respond to your comments in order and try to point you to the relevant information so you know more about what we are doing.

quote: Regarding social techs I tend to agree with roquijad that you should be very careful about including them. What matters is if they will affect game play in a way not covered by the Social, Government, Riots or Economic models (maybe more). Thus I find techs like philosophy, art etc are questionable, 'cause how would it affect the way the game is played?

As I see them, social techs are a way to combine the existing models. So if something is part of the Social, Economic, Military, and Technology models, we should treat it as a social tech. Even if one part of the tech could be entirely in the Social model and another is only Military, it would be a "social tech" so the models do not become disjointed.

Philosophy and Art do have an impact on the game. If your civ has a high Philosophy level, the other technologies will grow faster. Art can help determine how attractive a culture or religion is, so it could impacts the spread of ideas and the changes in society.

These kinds of things can be hard to understand at first because we have a tech system that is a radical departure from the standard way of doing things. To get an understanding of the technology system, you can go to the Research section of the web page. The stuff is a bit old, but it is a concise and easily accessable description and it is accurate enough to give a good background on our system.

Monasticism: Excellent. I agree entirely. Your description reminds me about my forgetfulness. Months ago, I had a few of the same ideas, but I forgot to include them and they never got put in the model. This kind of thing is exactly what the social tech model should be dealing with.

Actually, all of your ideas are things I would classify as social teachs, so this is the perfect thread to discuss them in. I'll say now that I think most of them can be used as applications on the tech tree.

International church: We already have a little of that, but it can be improved. The local Religious Class is covered in the social model, and I think we had planned on the international AI church. We also have the long term plan of leting the player control the international church. Look at the Who is the Player? thread for the most recent discussion about this, and check the social and government models on the webpage for info about how the Religious Class (RC) interacts with the government and society.

guilds: I'm not a social model expert, so I don't know what is being done with this. I do know that guilds and businesses will be modeled as independent entities, like the churches. The Business Class will have an impact on politics and society.

patron-client: I think some of the effects of this would be handled under the Foul Play in the governemnt. Its existence would probably be a social tech.

Political parties: This is a bit hard to deal with. Parties form when a group of people unite to pursue a common agenda, so this would mostly be a social model thing. But as you mentioned, they can only form after certain things have happened. This is another excallent social tech.

Multinational corportations: Yes, we will have them. They will be AI entities. I also proposed in the Who is the Player? thread that there be an option for players to control them. I think it would create excellent multiplayer games if we had businesses and country leaders as human players in the same game.

Labor Unions: These are an obvious counterpart to the businesses, but I'm not sure we have them. There are a lot of different possibilities and challenges here. They could not exist until the right technological and societal conditions were met, and their actions would be a part of the government model. This is another good social technology we should be thinking about. It would also be a good candidate for possible player control.

Trust Funds: I don't understand this. What should they be doing?

Enclosure: This, like the factory system, is a pure technological advance that has big societal consequences. It would be an Application on the main tech tree. Thanks for reminding me about this; it is another thing I knew academically that I hadn't thought to put in the game.

Co-ops: These would have many of the game characteristics of labor unions. Another excellent ides that I think we can include without much trouble.

Emancipation: We have been discussing this one for quite a while. We decided that it would be entirely covered by the government and social models. Technology only affects this indirectly. Techs impact social attitudes, which will affect poilicies like this one. This is another use for the Philosophy tech.

And thanks for taking some time to try and figure out the state of play in the models and figure out the right place to post.

As Richard said, several of your ideas are already planned. I had never even thought of monasticism as an important force in civilization in the context of Clash, but you're right.

If you are really interested in the project, please take the time to read about and criticize / comment on as many models as you care to. (Though of course not all at once ) While new things to add on to the models are valuable, spotting potential flaws in the foundations of the models we are going with is even more important IMO. The project has been 'inbred' with just six or seven real contributors to the discussion for quite a few months, so 'fresh eyes' looks at what we are doing are really good to have.

Have Fun!

You seem very interested in the social part of the game, which is also my favorite! If you want to help us in these matters, you showed up in a very good time. I hope you stay with us. Your post above and the one in the social model thread show you can be very valuable to the project.

I'm glad you read at least at a glance some of the models. That helps a lot.

So, what's the status?
Integration between models is increasing. I released a couple of months ago the very integrated Social, Government and Riots models that cover most of social-related stuff. The latter should be seen as a "Happiness model". After that, we started threads to link the govt model with the economic model and to link the social model with the tech model (this thread). This thread in particular was born because of a discussion we had in the social model about religions. Although the religion part is already decided to be completely under social model's control, we found there were some things we couldn't place "correclty" in the social or tech model alone and still model them well. We called them "social techs" and we decided they needed a system of their own. This new system doesn't exist at all. That's why I said your timing was perfect! We're just starting to think about it.

Most of your ideas belong here and they're really nice. I'll comment briefly each one of them:

International Church: You're right, but I personally feel the cost of adding a "Vatican" compared to the benefits in gameplay say we shouldn't do it. Adding a religious internat'l center means adding a political entity and its respective AI managing how civs' govts interact with it, while the benefit is recreating a very particular episode of a particular religion with a low impact on the course of history.

Guild System: I like this one.

Patron-Client: I don't know what you mean. Can you re-phrase?

Political Party: I think it's not necessary. The political games are not in essence affected if the actors are grouped in parties or whatever. A party is just the expression of politics in a democracy, so IMO it's only a matter of names here.

Multinational Companies: How "social" is this really? What should be the difference in gameplay if you have a lot of companies or just a few big ones?

Labor Unions: A big yes for this one. It has already a role in the govt model, but we should still talk about what implications it should have.

Trust Funds: Again, how "social" is this? Isn't it just an application of the Economy tech (therefore a normal tech)?

Enclosure: I don't know what is this.

Cooperative Societies: Like kibbuts? Are these relevant enough in history to be included?

Emancipation (of slaves?): So far, as Richard said, all that has to do with slavery is managed in the govt and social models. The argument is abolishing slavery was only a change of attitude in people and it didn't involved the development of anything (tech-like), so it should be modeled only through changes in the cultural profile.

Monasticism: This is the hardest. I very much like it, but its main problem is it implies the existence of social classes related to it. The govt model has shown to be not very flexible to accept more social classes, so we have to be careful with this. I'm currenlty working off-forums in a way to have a family of religous social classes instead of the unique Religious Class, so I think at the end we'll have this social tech. All I'm saying here is this tech in particular involves more complexity than the others and then we should move with care with it.

In general, these social techs you mention and other you can come up with are all attractive ideas, but it remains to be seen if we'll be able to create a system general enough that could handle all these things as different as they are. It's possible some social techs will have to be left aside even if we like them only because modeling them would imply "exception" equations.

If you have more ideas, name them!

Mark
Should I interpret your post as an invitation to become 'The Devils Advocate' ?

On monastisism, not that i disagree with what your saying at all, but because it deals almost entirely with religion which isn't covered here, i think its best posted in the social thread.

Also Hinduism does have the type of monks your refering to, to an extent. Only the Braahman class can become them and those that do are usually much more self taught (there may be institutons for beginning levels, if level is the word....um initiates who decide on that part is prob better. Anyway after that though, you'd probably classify them more as 'wondering monks'.

Monasticism

I agree that if monks are going to be a separate social class they should be covered in the Social Model. If I understand Rodrigo correctly he is working on a family of social classes, one of which could be monks. (In OOA terms I guess he is designing a class which can have several different instances FE clergy, monks, augurs, druids or whatever depending on the scenario).
However, IRL Christian monasticism was very akin to an invention: Although some monasteries existed in both the western and the eastern church (I stand corrected re my previous post) the western monastic movement accelerated greatly after the writing of the Rule of Sct Benedict in the mid 6th century in Italy. This enabled orders of monks living by the same rules in a tightly knit hierarchical organisation, where each monastery founded other monasteries. Large wealth was accumulated over the years, and monasteries were close to having a monopoly on producing and copying all sorts of litterature, biographies, political manifests etc. This is exactly what makes monasticism worth modeling: Great power yielded by a well-organized social institution. But it probably would not have happened this way if not Benedict had procured his Rule.
In other words what in the game I could imagine a social tech 'Monasticism' being a requisite for a specialised social class 'Monks' being modelled as an instance of a Social Class Class (appropriate OOA term?) of the subtype Religious Class.

Enclosure movement:

This is a term describing a fundamental process in European farming. I believe it took place during the 18th and 19th century. Prior to this farmers had been living in villages and all inhabitants farmed the land collectively. Each farmer had his own fields but they were often very small and spread out everywhere around the village. Crops were divided among the inhabitants of the village in a very complex manner according to their holdings. Around the land worked by the village livestock were grassing.
This production method was not very efficient. The enclosure process was actually a local land reform where land was redistributed. The holdings of a single farm were now placed adjacent, and the farm was typically placed in the middle of the holdings. This proved to be very much more efficient.

In short it is a tech increasing agricultural production (this is why Richard mentions Factories which are the manufacturing parallel).

It had immense social impact: the Increased productivity in the long run led to a significant population surplus in rural areas, thus enabling a transfer of work force from the country to the growing cities of early industrialisation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the social, economic and population model (if there is one ) to tell if these affects could be covered there.

Cooperative movement

No it is more than just Kibbutzes which in a way are more akin to monasteries, when you think about it. I will briefly (if I can )outline what happened in my country during the second half of the 19th century.
As production techniques improved and farmers became independent production units (enclosure - remember) it was possible for the farmers to produce more than was needed in the local community. In other words they started producing for the market rather than for local consumption. At the same time agricultural techniques became more sofisticated, fertilizer instead of manure, machines instead of people or animals. It was no longer possible to run the farm as a single unit (in fact closing the circle begun by the enclosure movement), so farmers had to unite their efforts in co-operative societies buying machines, fertilizer etc and selling their products. Previously farmers had to a great extent sold the product of their land directly, but now they refined the products by establishing dairies, mills, breweries, plants for butchering and canning animals. These cooperations where owned jointly by the farmers of a local area. In this way the increased profit from selling refined products were kept in the agricultural productive aparatus, enabling further investment, sofistication and refinement of products. In a spiraling way this led this country from a primarily agricultural society with a 90-95% rural population to a highly urbanised, industrialised country where approximately 1% of the population produce enough food to feed between 10 and 20 times the entire population. This was done in less than 100 years, and the coops are still very much functioning (FE Arla Foods is the largest producer of dairy products in Northern Europe).
As with the enclosure movement this seems primarily to be a tech increasing agricultural production, but the social ramifications of the vast rise in productivity might make it qualify as a social tech as well.

For the moment I will not go into a discussion on Emancipation, I have to read your prior thoughts first, But:

Social mobility

How do you like this term - it is growing in my mind? LGJ made it grow even faster when he mentioned the Brahman class. How could the Cast System of India have been overlooked. One billion people are locked in a society with little if any social mobility. Similar social constructs are abundant: the metoik system of the Athenian city-state, the way citizenship was granted to Roman allies, the guild system, slaves, serfs, thralls, feudalism. Could this be a social tech or is it covered in the social class modeling of the social model?

I will return

Don't forget that the enclosure movement had a lot of short term negative consequences, just like factories. Sometimes the peasants were forced off their land, especially when the efficiency meant they were no longer needed. In fact, the peasants ususally opposed enclosure, and it was forced on them by the landowners and nobles.

quote: Monasticism I agree that if monks are going to be a separate social class they should be covered in the Social Model. If I understand Rodrigo correctly he is working on a family of social classes, one of which could be monks. (In OOA terms I guess he is designing a class which can have several different instances FE clergy, monks, augurs, druids or whatever depending on the scenario). However, IRL Christian monasticism was very akin to an invention: Although some monasteries existed in both the western and the eastern church (I stand corrected re my previous post) the western monastic movement accelerated greatly after the writing of the Rule of Sct Benedict in the mid 6th century in Italy. This enabled orders of monks living by the same rules in a tightly knit hierarchical organisation, where each monastery founded other monasteries. Large wealth was accumulated over the years, and monasteries were close to having a monopoly on producing and copying all sorts of litterature, biographies, political manifests etc. This is exactly what makes monasticism worth modeling: Great power yielded by a well-organized social institution. But it probably would not have happened this way if not Benedict had procured his Rule.

Now wielding power, they don't do openly and not really even forcefully, but their power is much more deeply rooted in the culture of the people.

quote: Enclosure movement: This is a term describing a fundamental process in European farming. I believe it took place during the 18th and 19th century. Prior to this farmers had been living in villages and all inhabitants farmed the land collectively. Each farmer had his own fields but they were often very small and spread out everywhere around the village. Crops were divided among the inhabitants of the village in a very complex manner according to their holdings. Around the land worked by the village livestock were grassing. This production method was not very efficient. The enclosure process was actually a local land reform where land was redistributed. The holdings of a single farm were now placed adjacent, and the farm was typically placed in the middle of the holdings. This proved to be very much more efficient. In short it is a tech increasing agricultural production (this is why Richard mentions Factories which are the manufacturing parallel). It had immense social impact: the Increased productivity in the long run led to a significant population surplus in rural areas, thus enabling a transfer of work force from the country to the growing cities of early industrialisation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the social, economic and population model (if there is one ) to tell if these affects could be covered there.

quote: Cooperative movement No it is more than just Kibbutzes which in a way are more akin to monasteries, when you think about it. I will briefly (if I can )outline what happened in my country during the second half of the 19th century. As production techniques improved and farmers became independent production units (enclosure - remember) it was possible for the farmers to produce more than was needed in the local community. In other words they started producing for the market rather than for local consumption. At the same time agricultural techniques became more sofisticated, fertilizer instead of manure, machines instead of people or animals. It was no longer possible to run the farm as a single unit (in fact closing the circle begun by the enclosure movement), so farmers had to unite their efforts in co-operative societies buying machines, fertilizer etc and selling their products. Previously farmers had to a great extent sold the product of their land directly, but now they refined the products by establishing dairies, mills, breweries, plants for butchering and canning animals. These cooperations where owned jointly by the farmers of a local area. In this way the increased profit from selling refined products were kept in the agricultural productive aparatus, enabling further investment, sofistication and refinement of products. In a spiraling way this led this country from a primarily agricultural society with a 90-95% rural population to a highly urbanised, industrialised country where approximately 1% of the population produce enough food to feed between 10 and 20 times the entire population. This was done in less than 100 years, and the coops are still very much functioning (FE Arla Foods is the largest producer of dairy products in Northern Europe). As with the enclosure movement this seems primarily to be a tech increasing agricultural production, but the social ramifications of the vast rise in productivity might make it qualify as a social tech as well.

quote: Social mobility How do you like this term - it is growing in my mind? LGJ made it grow even faster when he mentioned the Brahman class. How could the Cast System of India have been overlooked. One billion people are locked in a society with little if any social mobility. Similar social constructs are abundant: the metoik system of the Athenian city-state, the way citizenship was granted to Roman allies, the guild system, slaves, serfs, thralls, feudalism. Could this be a social tech or is it covered in the social class modeling of the social model?

Caste systems have not been overlooked. They are modeled simply using the Traditionalism attribute in the social model.

quote: Traditionalism: This represents the people's ties to the past. Its role is force culture to stay as it currently is.

Monasticism: I disagree with seeing it so intimately related to Benedict. The clergy has tended to create these groups where study, philosophy and/or economic activities are under a "monastery" from almost the beggining of time ans in several different cultures. In anciet Egypt these forms of monasteries existed in the sense that they did pretty much the same europeans did. The feudal-like living ways created around monasteries found in middle ages existed also in Egypt in some periods, thousands of years before Christ. Science, religion, economy and govt-making tend to become one when religion has a very high value in a culture, so the very essence of a monastery is something we can find almost anywhere given the right conditions. Monasticism is a "natural" outcome of these conditions. Of course, as LGJ says, some characteristics in the religion itself must also be considered, so christians can be much more inclined to control lands and economic resources than buddhists.

Cooperative Economy: I see your point, but I can't find more examples in the world of this than the one you mention in your country, at least I can't find any example with such strong implications. Why it happened in Denmark, but not in other places? Wasn't it maybe something that couldn't happen anywhere but in Denmark?

Social Mobility: I'm with Mark when he says modeling in more detail something like the Castes System would be too much trouble with little in return. In India, as in every place in the world, what we've seen is some sort of discrimination based on different things. So far, in Clash we have the possibility for religious, ethnic and economic discrminations. These discriminations vary as the game evolves, so people in ethnic minorities, FE, can become "normal" citizens or slaves can be freed, FE. So, there is social mobility in the game, but managed in a more flexible way than simply using a SocialMobility tech. In the economic field, discrimination takes the form of more political power to social classes controlling capital as opposed to those who only provide labor.

I don't think we need something as general as a SocialMobility tech because of the different forms discriminations can take. We can have a tech like that, but for more specific things if deemed necessary.

Well all pretty much get better the higher they are, though maybe some negatives for higher governemnt tech if extremely high such as in modern terms ineffiencet beauracracies.

Anyway i think plilosophy and government are missing something. Right now i don't have any social application techs to insert and i need to get to my job here soon.