No cities?!? Do you think you could actually read the economics page on the Clash web site before launching into such speculations? I think if you are going to try and make object models for the entire game that you need to at least understand the state of play of what is going on here... You have been with us about a month now, and it would probably be best for you to read some of the original sources rather than relying on secondhand things that were mentioned by somebody in a thread that doesn't specifically relate to the economy. Otherwise, you are just going to end up spreading misconceptions about how things work... I have seen a lot of great ideas come out of you, although I haven't had time to respond to many of them. Please keep up the good work. But also try to read some of the background material, it will help to put your ideas in context. The Econ web page is a little bit out of date, but most of the things are still fairly accurate. The only major difference is we have gone to a production function approach to figure out how much stuff is produced.

F. Smith:

Could you read the Econ model on the web page also? Sure it would take about 20 or 30 minutes, but these things keep coming up over and over again, and it is stated quite clearly how things are supposed to work on the web page.

Infra holding theory, etc...

If you end up programming technology you can IMO store the information anyplace you want so long as it doesn't change the model function (a la business model) without substantial group buy-in. Just like was done in the government area. I was simply trying to use your own methods, which despite trying I obviously still don't get. I still think using infrastructure to hold theory objects doesn't make much sense. That implies to me that Albert Einstein couldn't utilize or push forward the theory of relativity unless he was associated with a university, library, or some other type of infrastructure. Now of course its a game model, and so we don't need to be completely realistic. But I don't see what either the object model, or the player, gets out of this. Schools/Libraries (actually educational/research infra in the current infrastructure model) can affect knowledge production quite adequately without holding a theory obect, just as schools can educate people without explicitly holding people in the object model. Such a concept is clearly possible in a different civ-type or RTS game. I just don't see what it has to do with clash.

A quandary about object models...

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that it is useless to discuss object models. We just spend vast time discussing them, but the discussions have no positive results. Why not just use whatever object model you like from now on in whatever you code? Our discussions never change your mind about the object model, and never seem to really educate us about how to do this black art. And on the modelers side, we are rarely convinced of the blinding logic behind the object model and usually just want to stick to doing the model the same old way in gameplay terms. One thing I have gotten from these discussions is that you want the object model to be able to simulate almost any possible rules framework for a civ-type game. Given that that's the case, one application surely is the specific case of the clash models as they exist and will evolve.

I'll try and get a book, whatever you recommend, about how to do what you're doing. But until I read it, I can't say I'm getting much out of these discussions, other than finding out the kind of game you really want to program.

I'm not trying to be provocative about this, it just seems to me this exercise isn't getting us anywhere based on many months of experience. Last night I was patting myself on the back that we had finally reached agreement on a tech object model. In fact, I just realized that if you end up coding technology, it will be coded using exactly the same object model you proposed above (before many pages of discussion). And that the rest of us would be happy provided that your object model could put tech at the civ level. An analogous thing happened in the government model. Again, after extremely long arguments and misunderstandings. So why exactly are we having all these discussions?

The previous bit and the coming statements aren't meant to hurt your feelings, or attack you in any way. It's just as the project lead I have to try and assess what we're doing that's being productive, and what isn't... please don't take this personally. I hold you in very high regard, and also value your skills, and the "sweat equity" you have put into the project.

I am really starting to come to the conclusion that you just want a rather different game from the way the rest of the project has evolved. You look at our models, which you don't like, and ascribe the difference to the lack of a good OO model. I agree with you that your style of modeling is most likely better for coding purposes. But I'm beginning to suspect that there are differences beyond coding purposes driving this. Even though our aims are somewhat different, working together can still get us all where we want to go. I just don't want the path to be rougher than it has to be . Any thoughts?

What do you do at work when the business team says "We want this exact functionality, code it any way you want."? If you add "And we're happy to try out any alternative approaches to the functionality that you want to try." that seems to be what we are effectively doing.

-Mark

P.S. I sent you an e-mail earlier today. I thought I would mention it here since previously I had the wrong e-mail address and I want to make sure it went to the right place.

Well excuse me…

I knew you probably wouldn't like it

But I think you ought'a read what I posted rather than hold both hands up in defence. I never claimed that there were to be no cities, that was F_Smiths interpretation. I claimed that the modelling was rather vague. And contrary to what you think I studied the Economic model - and most of the other models - in some detail. In the following I have quoted everything that pertains to cities in your Economic model on the webpage:

quote: The main economic action takes place in provinces, which consist of groups of map squares. A capital (usually city) square is the economic and administrative center of the province Provinces in Clash will consist of a group of map squares and one or more cities. Cities are the administrative and trade centers of provinces. Because of these important functions, the population density in cities will tend to be much larger than that in the surrounding countryside. Cities present both opportunities and problems of their own, due primarily to their increased population density. Squares designated by the player (or the people themselves, TBD) as cities grow faster (~50%) in population and development than the countryside, and the administrative center of the province (capital) grows 2x as fast. This factor represents some migration within the province. However city growth will slow, or even stop when the city/urban squares have insufficient water / health infrastructure to support their population. For now, I will focus on how of the province as a whole functions, omitting those features which are specific to cities. Also, the handle city is used loosely here. It means a place that is an administrative center, or has significantly larger population density than average, or a key trading location. In the modern era there will really be cities all over the place, but only those that are especially large will be treated as cities for game purposes. One element I want to add at the square level that relates to cities, is a bonus for the amount of production that takes place in a square. In the transition during and after the industrial revolution, when supply chains in production became possible, concentrating production into a small area like a city could provide big benefits. This type of effect was generally only very small before the industrial revolution. To capture the importance of cities as production centers during this period, concentrations of productive capacity will get a bonus. For a really big city around 1900 my guess is the production bonus should be of order 25%. Anyone with a better guess is encouraged to state it ;-). I don't have the details yet, but this effect will push city growth in the way that happened in the real world. As the economy beomes even more developed, the bonus will gradually shift to being derived from the production in the whole province. Suggestions are welcome as to how to fit cities into the rest of the world model structure in Clash in this or other ways. The main criterion for whether a square can be part of province or not, is the ease of transportation from that square to the central city of the province. Right now I'm working with the notion that any square that is less than one movement point from the capital city (or could be with road construction) qualifies for membership in the province. Squares with better transportation connections (roads, canals, etc) to the administrative city of the province will get small bonuses to their economic productivity in all the sectors The bonuses I have in mind is to average the road quality to the adminstrative city … So a city with 100k people will require a much larger amount of infrastructure than the same number of people spread out among 20 squares

In my opinion this is rather vague. There will be cities, but they are really just either an administrative center (which BTW doesn't have to be a city), a square with many people in it, a key trading location (whatever that is) or a square designated by the player or AI as a city. A province have to have a capital, but it doesn't have to be a city. On the other hand a province have to have a city ('one or more cities'). Cities will grow faster 'in population and development', to a limit primarily caused by a combination high population density and lack or presence of certain infrastructure. Cities will have a bonus to production. (Or is it any concentrations of productive capacity that will get the bonus?). Cities play a role in determining how big a province can get, (BTW is 'the central city' the same as the capital (which doesn't have to be city)). Squares that have easy access to a nearby city square will have increased production.
If terms like '…omitting those features which are specific to cities', 'the handle city is used loosely here', 'I don't have the details yet', 'Suggestions are welcome as to how to fit cities into the rest..' does not imply a rather vague modelling so far, I don't know what it suggests.

What are cities? Squares with large population, squares designated by the player/AI to be cities or what? Are they infrastructure or special mapsquares? The production benefits seems to indicate that they are really some kind of infrastructure. There will usually be many people, but are they in the mapsquare or in the city-thing? If the player can designate a city, are there any prerequisites to doing so? Can he designate a city if only three people are present? Cities obviously have effects outside their mapsquare, which makes them rather unique - at least I don't think any other infrastructure object has this capability - but I might be wrong? This has serious implications during gameplay, particularly when dealing with conquest. What happens if a city acting as a capital is captured? What happens if another city is captured? Will the production benefits disappear, since the city is deprived of its surrounding land areas, or will there be sufficient production in the 100x100 km square to sustain the city?

You said "I had been worried by the lack of cities". Your English is so good, I had figured that was exactly what you meant! Of course now I notice you mention explicitly later in the same post that you read the econ model. If you want to discuss this, please copy your city post to the Econ thread, and I can delete the above and this current post... and respond there. You can find a link to the main econ discussion on the web page.

So this is a modified version:

No, Mark, I am not particularly interested in discussing cities - at least not at the moment (beware I will return ). So by all means delete the two posts above, I will refrain from copying them to the other thread. Feel free to do so if you think the points provided will contribute to the discussion. I will, however, not participate in that discussion for a while.

I would much rather hear your thougths on sites really being infrastructure. In a way the most basic infrastructure that actually provides the interface between people and the land. Am I completely of my rockers or does it actually make sense?

And what are your reactions to the fishing part, which you keep mentioning, but never really seem to have found a solution to.

In a way I understand F_Smiths reaction to military units being habitats: It is rather unconventional. And at least he considered the idea, and the implications.

Another really important point was that it would suddenly be possible to control nomadic civs without handling them as exceptions. They would act as any other civ.

And regarding OT. I admit this is not very related to tech. So far I have refrained from starting new threads, not wanting to intrude too much in your forum. But I guess I have made quite an impact anyway, so why not. I'm starting a new thread related to the basic OOA/D of the map, population, infrastructure and tech.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 09-23-2000 06:34 PM Beör: ...The Habitat proposal is brilliant.

Aaaah, finally someone who recognizes a genious. Blush, blush, blush .

Please take a look at the team page on the web site to see what info we usually post for members, and then put it in the "Web request" thread so Chris can post it.

Sorry, I did misunderstand Beor. I thought he saw something new I hadn't. I've read the econ info (I've read everything -- there's just so much of it and it's all over the map it's impossible to keep it all in mind).

I will respond to some of these threads late tonight, but most of my time after the kids go to bed will be spent on beginning to lay out the basic architecture for an 'alpha prototype' we'll call Demo 5.

F_Smith insists on keeping Theory objects in infrastructure objects. But somewhere in all this there is an opening that I don't think anybody else spotted:

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith september 23rd in tech thread Just to reiterate, for your amusement: The 'tech system' will not belong to the 'civ' object. The 'civ' will hold 'provinces'. The 'provinces' will hold mapsquares. The mapsquares will hold EGs. The EGs will hold knowledge. Either the civ will hold a collection of 'theory' objects or the infrastructure objects in that civ will hold 'theory' objects. You will be able to define two different levels of 'theory' -- 'General Theory' (your level 1 tech) and 'Theories in a Specific Field of Knowledge' (your level 2 techs). You will be able to define any number of levels of 'knowledge' (your level 3 techs) objects -- and don't worry, we'll start with just one.

Did you notice it:

Either the civ will hold a collection of 'theory' objects or the infrastructure objects in that civ will hold 'theory' objects

But F_Smith why didn't you say so before. Theory objects don't need to be stored in infrastructure, they can be stored at the civ level, which is an entirely different concept.

This is much more like the original idea of the tech system where there is a civ level amalgamation of knowledge. The next step would then be to consider how this civ level tech level is derived.

In my opinion it should be a function of the tech level of each and every EG in the civ. But I imagine that some would claim that the civ level tech should be something more than just the sum of all available knowledge. They would like to see Universities and Cathedrals producing knowledge that is far beyond the grasp of the ordinary population. This is realistic, and in my opinion can be achieved seemlessly using the tagged RP approach. We should just equip a university with the ability to transform output into RPs tagged for theory development, and we would have our specialised infrastructure objects. The people living in these squares would have far superior theoretical knowledge, and would pass it on to the civ level tech level. Likewise, people at the cost could produce RPs tagged for shipbuilding and would become extraordinarily skilled shipbuilders. A skill that would also be passed to the civ level.
What we should use the civ level tech level for is then open for discussion.

These would not give the tech level directly, but would transfer a certain number of RP's of the proper type. These RP's would be added to your RP pool in the first step of the tech change system. This is somewhat silly, as you could get the tech even though your civ is doing nothing to research it on your own. But I think it is the only good option.

I thought for a while that these plans from others could multiply RP production rather than adding to it. It would make sense to do this, as you would have to be doing research on your own to gain the benefit. But then I realized that could be abused. Players could make their RP production surge on the turn that they got the other tech, thus sending their tech higher than the other civ's. So we should probably stick with the addition even though it makes less sense.

Sounds reasonable to me.

All:

Here is my first stab at responding to some of Beör's stuff regarding tech. I have responded to the other stuff in his monster thread . This is just a cut-out of that discussion put here since its the primary area of this discussion. When I quote something it should be understood that it is a comment of Beör's unless it has someone else's name in front of it. I am going to try and be brief, because otherwise my comments could run on forever

Quote] Knowledge is persistent. You do not have to maintain it. [/Quote]

Well in fact, knowledge levels have declined many times in the history of the world. I believe that even though an aqueduct exists, the people may have lost the ability to make a new one, and so I would consider the tech level responsible for creating an aqueduct to have been lost before the last aqueduct disappears. I think the Tech model does a reasonable job on handling this. Although the details aren't quite there yet.

quote: If the square is conquered the knowledge passes to the conqueror and is lost to the original owner.

I disagree with this statement. If the conquerors are not receptive to the knowledge that people have, or simply slaughter them, that tech should never be transferred to the conqueror. I think it is better to handle this similar to Tech transfer, as an acquisition of RPs that is weighted bicultural and other factors just as intact diffusion.

quote: Theory objects don't need to be stored in infrastructure, they can be stored at the civ level, which is an entirely different concept. This is much more like the original idea of the tech system where there is a civ level amalgamation of knowledge. The next step would then be to consider how this civ level tech level is derived.

This is the result I am more comfortable with also.

Technology Model: The mechanism that changes the potential abilities of the civilization.

Technology: Any specific discipline responsible for changing the abilities of the civ. There are three Tiers of technology. They interact with the game in slightly different ways, but all of them have the same equations and should be treated the same way.

Tier 1, or Theory, includes abstract studies like Physics.
Tier 2, or Field, includes more practical disciplines like Optics
Tier 3, or Skill, includes specific processes like Lensmaking.

Technology Level: A logarithmic scale for measuring technology. All technologies grow in a continuous fashion, and the civ's mastery of the technology is defined by the technology level for that civ.

Applications are physical objects like military units. The civ's technology determines what applications it can make and how good they are. Application is sometimes called Tier 4 of tech system.

Knowledge: The ability of a person to do things. Also, the combined ability of the society to do things. This can only be a characteristic of a person or group of people. In the spreadsheet equations, knowledge is the linear scale of Technology.

Information: Any data that is stored outside the mind of a person. It can include books, blueprints, and working devices. It is used to transfer knowledge from one person or group to another.

quote: People will hold their own tech info -- 'knowledge' --(thru pointers, as you mentioned). But it is my analysis that there will also be the need to store tech info (theories) in 'infrastructure' objects. I think I've tried to explain why exhaustively.

I propose that the majority of technology is stored in people, but I belive certain buildings such as librarys, in addition to creating RPs, should store some technology. While technology lives without buildings, buildings do help keep it alive and allow more widely spread knowledge of some subjects. I have come up with a few ideas that would work:
A) When you lose a building, you can lose a certain (somewhat random) percentage of some technologies, but the people still retain the majority.
B) Relating back to A, maybe the 'store' technologies more so if they haven't been used much. For example, if a technology is simply staying at the same percentage, not raising or lowering much, you can lose a small % of it when you lose some librarys. If the technology is going up and is very widely useded by the people, a loss of a library won't have much effect on that technology. And of course a technology thats already in decline would nearly vanish if nearly the only record of it (a library, continuing the example) were destroyed.
C) Another possible use/effect of library-like buildings could be to significantly reduce the lost % of a dormant, unused technology. It may not be public knowledge, but the knowledge still exsists and is accessible, therefore it won't vanish as fast.

I think any of these ideas (or combonations/variations of them) would work in the game fairly well and be a fairly nice compromise for both sides.

Now on to another related topic, not as important:

quote: I must disagree with the analysis of the results of killing the Inca rulers. IMO their leadership role was more important than the science role. They were basically the government, so when they were killed the result was chaos. Most of their civ's practical and productive techs, like farming and making weapons, were unaffested by their deaths.

I know the story of what happened, so I'll try to paraphrase it here:
There was a ruler whom the people didn't care for very much. He was a cruel ruler, and no one liked him much. At one point, some villagers/councelors got him 'drunk' on cactus juice and other such nautral drugs, and made it to look like he had 'slept' with his sister. He was incredibly ashamed when he woke, and left the city. But he vowed he would return, and gave a date. On his way tword the coast, he cut Xes in trees so he could find his way back. Well, about this time, the Europeans were sending people over twords the 'New World.' As the day The 'bad' ruler was supposed to return approached, the new ruler has people keep watch and wait for his return. When the day came, it just so happens that Cortez landed his ships there, with their white sails with red crosses on them (Cristianity). The look-outs went back to the village and told what they saw: clouds with Red Xes on them... The current ruler got very afraid, and gathered gold and native food. He thought "If he really is 'Mr. Bad Ruler', he will recognize these as Incan gifts and accept them. Cortez also happened to roughly fit the appearance of 'Bad ruler', and when gifts of valuable gold and fresh food were brought, he instantly accepted them. Eventually they led him and some of his men back to the main 'castle'; Cortez ended up killing the current leader and his council. This is how 500 men conquered a population ov 8 million: Fear.
And there you have it, the main reason was neither government nor technology: It was their complete fear for the returning 'bad ruler'
(Sorry for the dumb name of 'bad ruler', I couldn't rember his real name.)

And one last quote to respond to:

quote: Besides,after all these plans, I don't think you'd be happy going back to Civ2. I'm certainly not!

Just because Civ2 isn't as realistic as Clash will be doesn't make it less of a game. Really the main thing I look for in any game is gameplay; and Civilization has a very good and fun 'gameplay engine', therefore I will still like it for years to come. (I still play Civ1 sometimes--Its old enough where I have to underclock my already slow computer for it to run right =)

I kinda like your points B & C reasonably well, and maybe we can use them. Lets see what Richard and the others think. Just to warn you, F_Smith was really talking more about code organization than game mechanics in that bit... although clearly he sees them as intertwined in this area.

I've been thinking about one major tweak to the technology system that IMO could increase the game play value while admittedly adding a bit of complication. I think we've talked about it before, but it was shelved. While I was looking over the Guns Germs and Steel forum, I noticed that was the way they are planning to handle technology, and it seemed worth reappraising on our end.

The idea is to add a limited set of breakthrough technologies that are one shot things that you either have or don't. So in one sense it's like adding a small contained amount of the Civ2-type system to the more continuous one. I'm thinking of something like 15 or 20 of these for the whole period of history.

The advantages would be that it would give players a set of important targets to strive for, while not overloading the system, or requiring that all technologies be one shot deals. I guess my quintessential example would be "Invention". Before the widespread notion that you can actually strive to invent something new with a purpose, technological advancement is of necessity slow. After this one idea takes hold, I could easily see the rate of progress doubling. I don't have any independent figures to back this up, but even if it's not realistic, I think it will be Fun.

Of course, this idea also has some disadvantages, and it puts in those large nonlinear things that I've been striving to keep out of the game so that writing the AI is easier. It would also possibly complicate the interfaces for technology a bit. But I'd like to hear at least what people think about the idea, especially Richard and LGJ.

But if they are mechanical or knowledge based kinds of things, it wouldn't work very well. I don't like the idea of planning for an evnet that doubles engine knowledge overnight. But don't forget that inventor characters will built in that could result in rather large advances.

My best guess is that I will be able to switch to Technology coding fairly soon. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of important things to be done in the economy area, but I think getting technology rolling is more important once the demo 5 econ stuff is done. Specifically what I am planning on doing is putting together a technology-editing framework. Richard, if I come up with something in about a month, will you still have the time to sketch out at least the classical antiquity parts of the technology web? That would include all the various level technologies and the weighting factors for all the interactions between them that you have scoped out in the thread where you describe the technology builder utility. I am still hoping to find someone to take over Technology coding at some point in the future. But I think if I can get the framework set up for technology entry soon, we will be able to include Tech in the demo is in a few months whether a new coder shows up or not.

I was hoping to put the editor out first, get a kernel of the tech model entered into the editor, and then try and hook it up to the demo 5 code. We can discuss exact timing details when we are further along and can make better judgments on what things are most essential. Okay? I think hooking up tech is going to take quite some time, which is why I don't want to promise upfront that you'll get something hooked in immediately .

True, we could probably just skip the social techs for now, but as I explained above I'm curious to see how "breakthrough" technologies affect the system. But you are probably right that its best left for another time, so I'll just sit on my impulses...

That thread eventually hit the 150 post limit, so I am bumping this thread again as an interim place to continue diacussion until I put together a good summary and get the next thread made.