quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 09-19-2000 07:58 PM The amount of tech transferred in the migration depends on the number of people...

This is great. I really like this.

quote: Modeling at the EG level would give exactly the same tech diffusion result as modeling at the civ level.

Disagree. If tech level is modelled at the EG level, it would of course not be the same as the civ tech level.
In 2.2.1 (civ tech level in any area is equal to the maximum of the tech level in this area for all constituent EGs) it would almost invariably be considerably lower and never higher than the civ tech level.
In 2.2.2 (civ tech level in any area is equal to some other function of the tech level in this area for all consituent civs (probably geographical distance, 'cultural distance' and social status (discrimination) would enter into these equations)) tech level of one EG might be higher than the civ level, but would then probably be lower for most other tech areas.
So the maximum tech level that the receiving civ should be able to receive when based on the EG tech level will be lower than when based on the civ level.

quote: The ideal tech level of the conqueror is compared to the actual tech level of the conquered square.

So you are in a way modeling tech level based on squares. Why not go all the way and model it at EG-level - it will be much smoother I promise .

Seriously: I don't quite understand this ideal tech/actual tech part. Please elaborate, and be very specific about at what level they are modelled, and how they are derived - and while you are at it think about how migration and conquest fits in!

quote: By the way, thanks ...

You're welcome. I think it is rather fun. Just hope nobody will be pissed off, because I'm such a nitwit .

(In reply to you post in the last thread)

If your version of 'tech level' is the best thing your civ can do/build, then it's a collection of knowlege, by definition, correct?

And if 'tech level' is a collection of knowledge, then it must be collected/stored somewhere, correct?

So then what type of object collects and stores a civ's knowledge information? An 'infrastructure' object, like a University, business, etc, correct?

For example -- the best bridge a civ can build is determined by the engineer businesses and govt engineering agencies in that civ. Businesses and govt agencies.

Infrastructure objects.

First, I learned that axi's new infrastructure model will not use a formula that I had been relying on. Without the actual tech level A, the tech model is incapable of applying itself to the econ model in any good way. This means that the model is severely crippled.

Without A, all of my explanations about ideal and actual tech level are shot to pieces. So to answer Beör's question, I don't know anymore. The change in the econ model has destroyed my vision of the interaction between tech and everything else.

Then, several core assumptions used in the tech model are being systematically demolished. The model is built on the idea that "knowledge" is something that is an integral part of the civilization as a whole. It is an abstract thing. It was not meant to be stored in a building in some province, and it was not meant to belong exclusively to certain people. It was meant to be a quality that belonged to the entire civilization, not some specific part of it.

Basically, F_Smith and Beör are trying to stretch the model to cover things it was never meant to cover. They are trying to turn knowledge into a physical, concrete thing when it was originally an abstraction. By insisting on extreme realism and erasing the foundations of the model, they have come very close to destroying the model. It was not designed to be flexible, so it is breaking as people attempt to stretch it.

And then F_Smith seems to claim that the model structure is a horrible monster that will wreck the game and drag innocent programmers to their doom, spreading chaos and devastation in its wake as the army watches helplessly. . . His solution is to somehow create "components" out of the big system. I fear that this will be impossible, given the fact that I designed the model as a single unified procedural system.

quote: Richard: No, feed-in from the tech model to the infra-model does not involve A. A will be useful for applying the effects of infrastructure and it will probably use the #of_units_input/#of_old_units to do that, but you won't find that in my spreadsheet. What you'll see is a "tech mod" vector, a "decay" vector and two commodity cost tables that need to be figured out somehow from the tech model. That what was my second paragraph referring to. I can't make it more simple than that.

When I am talking about feed-in from the tech model to the infra model, I am not referring to A, because a will be used in the "Infrastructure Effects" area, which is not modelled in my proposal. So A doesn't fit anywhere in the infra spreadsheet, but it fits very well to the game we want to make! # of units and A will be used to calculate the effects of infrastructure, like it happens with the production function, where A is the tech level of K (Kapital units).

Of course this approach means that each infra unit gets better as tech advances. This is what partially causes the need for a tech mod. If we want, we can take A out of the effects calculation and put it, in exactly the same manner, in the commodities cost calculation. This way, the value of each infra unit does not change, but it's cost is constantly reduced. In other words, it is a matter of definition of what a "unit" actually is.

As for the claim that the tech mod is actually a social thing, it is irrelevant; it has to engulf only technological determinators. Are there any; I think there are. Today, although are communications are far more efficient than ever, we spend a much greater amount of our resources for them; they have become indispensable to us and technology is the sole factor behind this effect.

I am rather sleepy now; I will continue clarifications tomorrow.

I hope that Axi's post has cleared some misunderstandings regarding A (whatever that is).

I must say that I am certainly not trying to make the tech model do anything it was not supposed to. I tried to analyse what happens if we model tech level at different levels of the game hierarchy. And two things in particular will cause problems: migration and conquest. These need to be adressed - and this was my way of provoking a discussion on the subject. I am sorry if I stirred things up and made your life generally miserable, Richard .

I must go to bed now.

Beör: Don't blame yourself for saying that the emperor has no clothes. Sometimes it takes a "nitwit" to see things like that. Your analysis was accurate. When held to certain standards of realism, the tech model fails. We either have to accept those failures of get a new system.

If you go back and re-read the threads "Technology System Ver 5.x", it's all there. The real meat begins in the second 'life' of that thread, Technology System Version 5.1. About the middle of the page I offer my version of 'technology' system analysis.

quote: Axi's tree is very close to the system I'm more interested in, with a few caveats -- I still feel that the level one 'techs' are actually 'theories', and should be handled at the 'civ' level as a 'theory object', not as a 'technology object' (an entirely different concept, since a 'theory' is an imperfect understanding of a 'tech' which should approach true understanding of that 'tech' as the theory improves), and not at the tech object level (a tech object will likely have methods for turning this into that -- iron and tin into steel, that sort of thing.) I think this design choice will affect us much, later. For one thing, a 'theory' object should be allowed to improve 'skill' objects in more than one of your 'fields of knowledge'. A better military 'theory' can and often does, in fact, lead to changes in society. Changes in societal theories can lead to improvements in Tech 'skill'. That sort of thing. The level 2 'techs' are, to me, not really 'groups' in any real way, unless handled as civ 'skills' -- another completely different object with an entirely different implementation. Art (fine jewelers, say) doesn't directly improve law; Math doesn't directly improve Biology, brilliant tacticians don't directly improve weapons, and on, and on. If this is a civ's 'skill', that would be one thing, but then it must be handled and coded differently than as if it's a tech. Just to reiterate, I'm willing to go as is. I'm not the strongest analyst you'll find (I sometimes go back to code weeks or months later and look at what I've written and wonder what I was on that day . . .) But -- I think ya'll need to refine the analysis and design of this model, or face many of these same issues later, during coding. Designing this as a single tree lumps theory, skill and 'application' objects(the actual 'technology' part) into one object, mislabeling things that aren't 'techs' as 'techs', unless I'm missing something entirely. In the RTS I'm also working on, this is the model I'm using. I think it's the only way to go. Just my pinched pair o' pennies.

* * *

I would refine and change a few of those objects now, in hindsight, but that was the basic OO 'analysis' process for a 'technology' system.

Two objects -- a 'theory' object and a 'knowledge' object.

• Tech Theory is potential knowledge. Theories would be stored at the 'civ' level in 'infrastructure' objects.

• Tech Knowledge is stored in ethnic groups, and is used to perform tasks. Knowledge objects typically take inputs of 'raw materials' and 'tools', and produce some sort of output ('steel', '+1 to happiness', etc).

• Each knowledge object would also store it's own 'skill' level, so that when a group of people 'use' a knowledge, their (and only their) 'skill' using that (and only that) knowledge grows.
  

Both can be passed to other civs/ethnic groups, according to their own 'turnhandler' methods.

While a theoretical analysis of the real world may reveal the 'true' objects we should concern ourselves with, I think (and I know Mark has made this point earlier) that it is important that we also think OOA/D from the game perspective. There is no need to reveal complex object structures, if the effect on gameplay is negligible.

Here are some question I asked myself:

Who am I?
I am 'controlling' an empire. This is maybe the greatest abstraction of all. I am a Being in charge of the destiny of an empire. I have everlasting life (or at least live for the longest possible duration of the scenario), and in some areas considerably more control over what is going on than my mortal reallife counterparts had historically - although I have no 'magical' properties. This longevity and limited omnipotence permits longtime planning and is actually the prime instrument in achieving better results than historical counterparts, whose aims rarely exceeded their lifetime. This is not very lifelike, but it's what makes the game fun.

What do I have to work with?
I have two basic kinds of ressources, that translate into all that is happening in the game: Land (handled as mapsquares), which is immobile and in practice unlimited, and people (handled as EGs), who are mobile and unlimited. Actually there's a third ressource: Time (handled as game turns), which is limited. It is a basic assumption that people given the time have an inherent capability to work the land and produce a rudimentary output. The output takes the form of units (food, production, service, specials).

What is the empire?
Another huge abstraction: In a way I am the empire. You might also say that the game-interface is the empire. I control the interface, thus I control the empire. The empire/interface is linked to one of the basic ressources of the game: land, (since it's immobile). By controlling land, the empire controls the people living on the land. So if people leave the territory under my control, I loose them. This translates into: If the game-interface does not have control over some land inhabited by some people, then the game is over. Only under very special cirumstances (nomadic civs) can an empire exist without land, and this obviously requires special handling.

What do I aim to do in the game?
Basically I want the empire to survive - the game to continue until scenario end (this is more than most historical civs have achieved). On the other hand surviving as two hunters and a gatherer in New Guinea might be easily achived, but not a very rewarding game experience. So there has to be more: Something like having a large empire with a large population. There might be other qualifiers like having a happy population, clean environment, total world dominion, immense wealth etc, but for now let's concentrate on the simple aim: I want a huge empire with lots of people.

How do I improve my conditions from the starting ones?
This is were all the fun is.
The trick is converting the output from the people working the land into more people, more land, or increased productivity. This is basically done by creating infrastructure. Units are transformed into infrastructure, which in turn either makes it possible to get more people in the already controlled territory (increasing reproduction, decreasing mortality, increasing immigration, decreasing emmigration), extends the controlled territory (military units), or makes the people more productive (anything from a plough to a nuclear power plant and beyond). Infrastructure extends the capabilities of your empire beyond the basic rudimentary level.

Is that it?
Basically this could be it. Notice that not once have I mentioned tech/knowledge/research/lore or whatever terms are used. Tech is not a goal in itself, only a means to an end. And notice - contrary to what F_Smith stated - that it is infrastructure that perform tasks. Infrastructure increases land, people or productivity by converting units into some sort of bonus - knowledge doesn't.

Where does tech fit in then?
Tech makes it possible to differentiate infrastructure in time and space. It is a qualifier for infrastructure. It makes some infrastructure more effective than other. The people working the land has an inherent capability of transforming some of the produced output into RPs which are then converted into tech. The tech in itself does nothing, but it permits the construction of more sofisticated infrastructure, which in turn increases land, population, or productivity. You may have the knowledge, but if you don't have the necessary infrastructure it won't do you any good.

So infrastructure produces, knowledge does not. Are there other distinctions between the two?

Infrastructure is immobile - it is a physical thing existing in a mapsquare - it belongs to the land (mapsquare). If people leave the land, the infrastructure will still be there. They cannot take it with them. I have a small problem here with simple applications as the plough, which could probably be carried. The infrastructure model talks of mobile parts and immobile parts, but what is really done here is the disassembly of infrastructure into its origin Units, which can then be converted into infrastructure at a new location.

Tech/knowledge is mobile - it is not a physical thing - it belongs to the people (EG). If people leave the land, they take their knowledge with them. Knowledge is not left on the empty land floating in thin air. Knowledge cannot be separated from the people. You can sell a copy of your knowledge, but you cannot sell the knowledge itself.

Infrastructure is volatile. Infrastructure requires upkeep to counter wear and tear over the years. You have to pay a certain amount of maintenance cost.

Knowledge is persistent. You do not have to maintain it. When it is - it is. I know that here I am at odds with the present tech model. When - in real life - it seems that knowledge deteriorates, IMO it is because there is no need for the associated infrastructure. As long as infrastructure associated with the tech exists, the knowledge will persist. If the last piece of related infrastructure disappears, the tech is obsolete and therefore it seems as if it has deteriorated. But I claim that if need be the tech will still be there. You might have to dig a little for it but it would be there. I do not think that it is necessary to discover the same thing twice.

Infrastructure can only be produced at a cost. You have to spend Units to get infrastructure - it does not grow by itself. It does not dissipate or reproduce.

Knowledge can and will frequently be achieved for free. FE by doing things, having contact with other EGs or using applications knowledge increases automatically. Knowledge can reproduce itself indefinitely, dissipating to other EGs. It is possible to spend Units on increasing knowledge, by investing in knowledge producing infrastructure, but you cannot 'purchase' new knowledge from nature. You can, however, purchase already discovered knowledge from another civ.

So I guess that what I am proposing is that a mapsquare object holds one or more EG objects and one or more infrastructure objects. An EG object holds one or more knowledge objects of varying type and level.

Infrastructure objects function like F_Smith suggested in 2: They take some input and produce some output. If the infrastructure is destroyed, but the EG remains in the square, it will always be possible to build the infrastructure again.

Knowledge objects permits the creation of infrastructure objects: The presence of certain levels of knowledge objects of a certain type in any EG in the square will permit the creation and maintenance of certain infrastructure objects. If the EG having the permitting tech leaves the square, the infrastructure will gradually be destroyed, due to lack of maintenance.

This is the clean, mapsquare view of knowledge. There is another possibility. Square-based knowledge objects could be aggregated into knowledge objects at a higher map-level, FE province or civ. How they should be aggregated is at the moment beyond me.

Similarly, infrastructure objects could be aggregated at higher levels providing province- or civ-wide improvements. Again the details elude me.

EGs will of course also be aggregated, I refer to my post in the Model Organisation thread .

I almost totally agree.

• One thing I disagree on is the infrastructure doing the producing. I'd argue that it always (at least, until AI is developed) requires people to produce something. And they 'use' the 'infrastructure' to produce, as a 'tool'.

  'Factory Workers' would use a 'factory' (along with raw materials) to produce output. The factory doesn't do that itself.

• The other thing I disagree on is your not seperating 'theory' from 'application'. That's why I'd have 'theory' objects that are stored in certain 'infrastructure' objects (churches, universities, govt agencies, guilds, etc). The 'theory' objects would determine in part what 'application' knowledge an ethnic group could learn. If they have access to a church that 'teaches' literacy, they could learn to read and write.

  There's also a matter of 'skill level' at using any of these techs. I think it's one of the most fun parts of this game to have an ethnic group who are the most skilled boat builders in the known world, and that kind of thing.
  

quote: F_Smith and Henrique: What exactly do you want? . . . If you could provide specific examples and explain exatly what you are interested in, we will comminicate better. Now, I have no idea what you want to do.

quote: Ya'lls system should play very much like the one in 'Masters of Orion II', which is fine. It'll work. I don't think it's the best, but it will be fine. --- I just so much more enjoy the StarCraft/Age of Empires/Civilization/Alpha Centauri approach behind the scenes, personally. And the industry seems to have migrated to that, away from pure numbers. They are much more fun, in my experience

F_Smith, we were not rejecting OO design. We were rejecting your insistence on the old way of doing the tech tree. Anyone who has made a civ2 mod knows that prerequisite based systems are a huge mess. They are coomplicated, micromanagement intensive, and extremely hard to customize. And it seemed like you were simply being a die-hard supporter of that type of system.

That way of modeling could never even hope to tackle the issues that are starting to injure the current tech system. The civ2 tech system cannot deal with migration, conquest, or EG's in any reasonable way.

The current tech problems were not foreseen by anyone. The thing that the current system has trouble with is migration, conquest, and society. F_Smith, you never said anything about those issues. In fact, you continuously said that the tech system would work fine. You simply claimed that the civ2 system would be more efficient and easier to produce, and you were right. Rehashing an old, tired system is always easier than venturing out into the unknown.

It seemed like your primary focus was to defend that old system. Nobody else saw a person who was trying to help analyze and code the current system or work on developing a new system. We saw someone who was rejecting innovation and telling us that we should use the old civ2 modeling.

You are so right on your first point:

People produce

Infrastructure catalyzes and amplifies production and diversifies the output. Instead of just producing food, production, service, specials and RPs, infrastructure makes it possible to produce a wide range of possible outcomes: From military might to happiness, from health service to oppression etc.

Knowledge qualifies infrastructure making some infrastructure more effective than other.

I am not sure I understand the distinction between theory, application and skill. I see them all as knowledge objects - or at least derived from a common knowledge object. I am actually really fond of the level 1, 2 and 3 techs in the present system. What are the differences between your system and the existing system.

One thing I know I don't like: A knowledge object belonging to an infrastructure object. IMO infrastructure cannot possess knowledge in any form. Knowledge is possessed by people. If knowledge belongs to infrastructure it would be tied to the land with several consequences I don't like:

If the square is conquered the knowledge passes to the conqueror and is lost to the original owner. While it is true that knowledge might be conquered, I will argue that the conqueror only takes hold of a copy of the knowledge (the copy might even be imperfect, incomplete or misleading). The original knowledge will remain with the original owner. Knowledge persists.

If the infrastructure object is destroyed the knowledge would vanish into thin air. There is a historical corollary in the burning of the library of Alexandria. While many priceless scrolls disappeared, I doubt if this had anything but a transient effect on society due to loss of knowledge. It was a disaster, but because of the artistic value, not the knowledge content of the burnt scrolls. Art is infrastructure and can thus perish in a fire, knowledge persists because it is with the people.

If the people choose to migrate they would not be able to take the knowledge with them. Need I repeat myself ?

Your example of a church teaching literacy is IMHO nonsense . Just as a factory cannot produce anything, a church cannot teach anything. People produce - in this case the clergy produce knowledge - catalyzed by the church. The clergy possess 'literacy' and the clergy are part of the people.

I know/guess that what you want is a kind of civ level maximal tech level that limits the levels of more practically oriented derived techs. In a way this is similar to the 'Ideal' and 'Actual' tech levels mentioned by Richard I guess (I have trued to find info on this without success). But making a separate object is not the way to go. As with our other base objects this should be achieved by aggregating the tech objects of the EGs in the civ. Don't ask me how yet - I haven't figured it out.

I also mentioned I preferred 'tech trees' to this abstract approach.

But then, as in the post Boer and I are discussing, that I quoted above, I offered an OO analysis that was very close to what you had, just broke the different levels of tech down into different objects -- 'technology' subclasses, if you will.

I think at the time my use of OO terminology made me impossible to understand.

So now that you understand OO terms, what do you think of my OO analysis of your tech approach? Can that work with your system? Can you design game rules to work with that OO storage hierarchy that you would like?

* * *

Boer:

I would agree, both might extend an abstract 'technology' object. But that is actually a plus.

I basically took their system and did an OO analysis on it, which is why it looks so similar. By breaking the monolithic tree into the two 'theory' and 'application' objects, and combining them with 'infrastructure' objects, I am able to reproduce the tech system they want, and more.

As far as 'infrastructure' objects 'owning/storing' tech 'theory', here I'm talking about written or stored knowledge. Books in a church library, for instance. Knowledge in a teacher's/priest's head. Knowledge in a plant manager's head, operating procedures for a factory, Etc.

As in the Library at Alexandria, yes? Certainly you'd agree that the library should 'store' or 'hold' book knowlege (theory objects), yes?

With the wink of an eye we've (well you've ) OOed the tech model and maybe even the infrastructure?

Although I still strongly disagree with having infrastructure objects possess knowledge objects.

Yes, libraries contain many books, but they are only digested, organised reference to something that is inside a persons head. The books are infrastructure, not knowledge. If the books disappear, the knowledge remains either as other copies of the same books or inside the head of people, on microfilm, on CD or in songs and tales.

The knowledge inside a preachers head - well there's knowledge, but a preacher is not infrastructure, he's a person. He's part of the religious class, remember. The preacher is not part of the church object, neither is a teacher part of a university object. If the church/university is destroyed, the preacher/teacher will still exist. Same goes for the planter. Just as knowledge objects cannot belong to an infrastructure object, neither can people: They are separate entities with independent existence.

Operating procedures in a factory is part of the infrastructure. They do not become knowledge unless they are in such general terms, that they apply to other similar facilities, in which case they would not belong to a single piece of infrastructure, but be a part of general human knowledge.

The fact that knowledge could be destroyed or conquered along with the infrastructure or the square is very counterintuitive to me.

The loss of the library of Alexandria was a catastrophy - because of the loss of art (infrastructure), not because of the loss of knowledge.

This is Richard's tech system, broken down into objects. Any tech system I designed would be somewhat different. There probably wouldn't be any abstract 'research points', etc.

So this *is* Richard's system. Just with some programmer input into storage strategies.

* * *

This could be one way the player affects/runs his civ thru govt decisions.

If 'infrastructure' objects hold 'theory' objects, then the player can help his people's production levels along thru building and maintaining several 'infrastructure' objects. Building a church somewhere to teach the locals things -- like the Spanish missions in the Americas were suppose to teach reading, writing, Spanish, etc, to the native Americans.

And it's scalable. The player could fund different types of schools. Basic schools can teach literacy, art, science. If the player gains access to a 'sextant' theory (a book, say, on how to build a sextant), he can build a 'navigation' school to store and teach that to the people, increasing their navigation 'knowledge' objects.

Building factories could work in the same way.

I was actually hoping Richard and Axi would buy into this, and begin designing these different objects . . .

* * *

I would actually say that the preachers of a church are part of that 'church' infrastructure object. And the teachers are part of that 'school' object. We're not modelling those in particular, anywhere else, so there's no overlap.

Altho we could track them as 'characters' -- but that's getting a little too detailed, I should think.

Don't call this "Richard's" system. It was a team effort. Most of the basic ideas were around before I signed on or were contributed by other project members. I just put them into a unified system, fixed up the math, and wrote all of the long posts describing the thing.

Infrastructure should not store tech. Technology as we defined it is not a physical thing tied to the ground. It is an innate characteristic of the people in your civ. That may seem silly, but I think it works as an abstraction.

So the burning of a library would have no effect on the tech level. If the stuff in the library was common knowledge, nothing is lost. If the stuff in the library is not known or used by anyone in the civ, then it was not part of the tech level to begin with and nothing is lost.

Knowledge is volatile, however. If it is not used to do anything and is not taught to the next generation, it will be lost. If nobody is using that knowledge to do anything, no RP's will be generated and the tech level will fall. This simulates the loss of knowledge as people see no reason to keep it.

People produce things using infrastructure and tech(theory, knowledge, and skill). Tech will define the efficiency of the production process and the quality of the final product. It also defines what infrastructure you are allowed to build.

Important Note: When the tech tree was designed, Clash had not fully adopted the no-buildings approach. So applications (Tier 4) were to include things like libraries, factories, and churches. These applications would play a big part in determining what was in the infrastructure.

But we no longer have these buildings. Their place was to be taken by the actual tech level A. Basically, A was the abstraction of the technology that manifested itself as physical objects. It increased only if there was investment into the province infrastructure. It amalgamated and abstracted those Tier 4 buildings.

F_Smith:

It seemed at the time and it still seems now that your changes are only a semantic difference. Actually it's not a difference. Tier 1 techs (Biology) were always considered theory, Tier 2 techs (Breeding) were always considered knowledge, Tier 3 techs (Horse Raising) were always considered skills, and Tier 4 (light cavalry) has always been considered applications. These tech levels were always meant to interact with the rest of the game in different ways, even though the internal equations are the same (except for applications).

I still don't understand what you are proposing and how it is different. It seems like you are only putting different names on what we already have. That is what I thought when you first posted that, and that is what I think now. In terms of functionality, they are just tweaks that are easy to implement. But they have nothing to do with the current problems. They don't really change anything as far as I can tell.

I remember that you once criticized us for splitting the tech tree into three layers. Now it seems that you are criticisizing us for not splitting it into layers. This, like all of your helpful arcane advice, confuses me.

I did an OO analysis of the tech syatem several weeks ago. I'll repost it here:

---
Outline for Tech System Implementation with OO modeling:

This outlines the entire tech system procedure, starting and ending with object parameters for the other game models. This is mainly a definition of the objects and their interactions; the equations will come later.

The system is run at the end of the turn. It uses data about events and attributes from that turn and the results are implemented at the beginning of the next turn.

This system can be run at the civ, province, or even the square level. The default would be the civ level, but if you wanted different provinces or squares to have different tech levels you could run these methods at that level.

1) Data about RP generating activity in the area (civ, province, or square) is collected. I would assume that this would be a matter of inputing object parameters (trade, construction, etc.) from the other game models.

2) Tagged RP's are generated from this data. Each tech tag has a Tagged RP object that calculates itself based on the data gathered in step 1.

3) Social effects and other external multiplicative effects are applied to RP generation by tag. The object parameters from the other models again cause the Tagged RP objects to recalculate themselves. (Note that this allows society to have different impacts on different fields of study. Philosophy innovation might be frowned upon while Agriculture innovation might be supported.)

4) Tagged RP's are distributed among the technologies. Each technology has an associated Tech RP object that calculates itself based on data from the Tagged RP objects and the level of the associated tech.

5) THL (Total Helper Level) values are calculated. Each tech has an associated THL object that recalculates itself based on data about the helper and vital techs.

6) Each tech level is recalculated. Each tech object recalculates itself based on data from the associated RP object, THL object, tech attributes, and its own tech level. (This is the step that is detailed in the spreadsheet.)

7) Tech diffusion is calculated. The tech objects recalculate themselves based on data from surrounding areas and the internal conditions of the area. (Note that this is in addition to the effects of trade. Trade generates RP's that must be turned into technology by the civ or province. This gives completed technology directly to the area. So, your society not provide a good evvironment for the development of something, but they would use it once it is completed.)

8) Application levels are calculated. Each application object recalculates its level based on the tech objects and its own attributes.

9) The effects of application levels are implemented. The objects in the other models recalculate themselves based on the parameters of the application objects. These effects will take place before the start of the next turn.

So the basic outline is:

Other model objects (previous turn) -> Tagged RP objects -> Tech RP objects -> Tech objects -> Application objects -> Other model objects (next turn)
---

I don't quite know any other way to explain why an object-oriented design is far more than 'semantics'. I suppose I can keep trying, but I'm starting to run out of examples.

The 'definition' you offer for 'technology' doesn't sound silly, it just doesn't sound at all like 'technology'. Tech is not an innate characteristic. A system based upon that assumption is not going to be realistic, in my experience. And the system will break down when you begin to try and make it act realistic. That's far more than just a 'semantic' difference -- it completely changes the way you define and code the objects.

The 'analysis' you offered is procedural. It makes use of a few objects, but is not designed around the objects -- it's designed around the procedure you pre-generated. That creates problems when trying to code it.

The resulting difference is tremendous, far more than semantics, I wish I could explain this better.

Perhaps you should try coding your idea up, to see what difficulties arise? You can see how to code up the OO design I proposed, it could be coded in a few hours. After you do yours, compare. That way, you can show me where I'm mistaken?

* * *

I am also curious what effect on gameplay this 'no buildings' approach will have. I do *not* like that the infrastructure is not tied to a location. That will hamper the 'wargame' part of this game tremendously, won't it? What happens during the square-by-square conquest of a civ? Do they keep all infrastructure until the end?

I'm really turned off by the highly abstract approach to this game, making it more like 'Risk', less 'real'. I was under the impression that the game was going to excel as a game with more detail than any other, as long as the detail aided gameplay. With AI to allow the player to play an 'abstract' version, where they didn't deal with the details they weren't interested in.

Right now Laurent and I are trying first the mapsquare-based econ model. (simpler to code, will put in a switch to aggregate at prov level later) That has infra on a mapsquare level. Even for the province-based system we were going to (and have always planned) crudely keep track of infra on a square level. Where are you getting your info from?

And while I'm here, the 'infrastructure' objects hold 'theory' objects seems arbitrary and has nothing to do with the real world objects you are always so ardently championing. I am with Beör and Richard in this argument.

Where is this "proposal"? All I see are a few sketchy bullet points describing your views on a couple topics. Could you put all of your plans in one post and describe them in detail? I have no idea of what you want to do or how you plan to do it. Please post a comprehensive, detailed plan so I can see the system that you envision.

Also, what do you define as "technology"? It seems to me that you view technology as "The Empire State building" while the rest of us define technology as "the ability to make a skyscraper." Technology is not something that the people have already made, it is the ability to do things.

quote: Tech is not an innate characteristic.

quote: A system based upon that assumption is not going to be realistic, in my experience. And the system will break down when you begin to try and make it act realistic.

I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood the use of the term 'no buildings'. My mistake.

Arbitrary? Nothing to do with real world objects?

Again I don't get this communication problem. The analysis seems so clear to me. Like the Ethnic Group stuff. I should think the example of a Library like the one at Alexandria would illustrate the point perfectly. Universities, too. The monastaries in the 'dark' ages 'stored' civilized knowledge. Spanish Missions in the new world. How many times in 'Star Trek' do they come across a store of alien knowledge in some computer, in some long-lost city on Beta Centauri (or wherever)?

'Technology' is 'knowledge'. 'Knowledge' can be 'stored' in a variety of ways -- books, operating procedures, experienced staff. 'Knowledge' can also be used by people. This OO analysis delivers exactly that.

Are you of the opinion that books don't store knowledge/technology?

Man, we just are *not* on the same page here. How can I explain myself better? What am I doing wrong?

* * *

Richard:

It's there. Beor understood it. Mark seems to understands the analysis, altho he doesn't agree with it.

You're just going to have to learn to recognize an OO analysis and design. I'll repeat it again, as stripped down as I can, if that will help --

• 'Technology' is 'knowledge'.
  
• There are 2 kinds of 'knowledge' -- 'theoretical' and 'applied'.
  
• 'Theory' can be stored in a variety of ways -- writing, electronic data, maintaining a trained staff, etc.
  

That is what an 'object design' looks like.

This is a clean, simple, powerful object design for storing the data in any tech system. It can store the data in ya'lls default system, and it can also be scaled up or down with ease. And this will make it possible to add an 'optional' tech system to please players like me.

It would take a programmer about a day to code this up, not counting GUI components. The code almost writes itself. We could be working with a tech builder within a few days. Please believe me that the other approach would take much longer -- in fact, it still isn't coded, after almost a year. Hech, no one is quite sure where to even start coding the proposed model. At least, I'm not sure where I'd start. Maybe I'm just missing something, tho.

quote: I'll repeat it again, as stripped down as I can, if that will help --

quote: I should think the example of a Library like the one at Alexandria would illustrate the point perfectly.

quote: So the burning of a library would have no effect on the tech level. If the stuff in the library was common knowledge, nothing is lost. If the stuff in the library is not known or used by anyone in the civ, then it was not part of the tech level to begin with and nothing is lost.

Monastaries, libraries, and universities do not store knowledge. People store knowledge.

This was posted by Rodrigo in the social model thread:

quote: Richard: With the current model, no, you can't have each EG having its own tech level. EG's weren't developed to do that.

The "tech" objects should be stored in the "civilization" objects. One set of tech is used for everything the civilization does. The tech, like the government, is something that is part of the civilization as a whole.

So here's my analysis:

• Technology is the theory, knowledge, and skills used by the people to do things.
  
• Technology is a characteristic of the people; it is the sum of the peoples' abilities.
  
• A civilization is a collection of people.
  
• Technology objects are stored in the civilization objects.
  

Richard:

F_Smith as I see it is working at the basics underlying the system. Both for coding purposes, and because he thinks a 'good' object model is a powerful contributor to the design. He is mostly proposing (again as I read it) a foundation for the current (your) system in terms of objects. The details you are looking for, he means to substantially be the same as in the standard system. Obviously there would be some secondary changes resulting from his proposed approach.

As I see it, the major thing we've been discussing is the object that holds tech. (Putting aside this infra idea for the moment) F_Smith wants tech to be at the EG level, Richard (and me too) at the civ level, or at most province level. By putting an overall tech object pointer at the EG level we can have Both solutions. For the EG level model this means each EG has its own unique Tech object which does all the complex things F_Smith wants (and Enormous computational and other baggage IMO, but that is another discussion). Simply by having a checkbox that says 'Tech at civ level' you can instead have Every EG in the civ have its tech object pointer point to The Same 'civ' tech object. Then you would sum over what RPs are being produced in the civ could be applied once to the overall 'civ' tech. When that tech object changes all the EGs tech pointers point to the new modified object and things are basically the same as if there only Were one tech object, associated with the civ.

So to recap, there isn't much in F_Smith's posts since he is intending IMO to just use your system, but at a different level, or associating storage with different objects than you intended. I see no problem with a limited amount of this provided the 'standard' system gets coded along with any other options.

Exactly so. You've summed it up perfectly.

* * *

Richard:

I understand you have not defined things this way. But step back for a moment, and consider -- can you see why I would say that a library 'stores' technical knowledge?

That is a 'true' statement, agreed?

Whether or not it fits your system, isn't that an accurate analysis? And you should worry that your system is causing you to make statements that are inaccurate, outside of your system. For example --

quote: The tech level of a society has absolutely nothing to do with some forgotten and unused tome molding away in the back of a building somewhere. People, not buildings, are the things that store technology. Technology is the theory, knowledge, and skills that allow the people to do things. They are a part of the society and civilization. Monastaries, libraries, and universities do not store knowledge. People store knowledge.

Or do you really feel that in real life libraries do not store knowledge? This sounds amazingly off-base.

That analysis you posted is an OO analysis. That's how we should be discussing this -- comparing and critiquing the analysis each other have made.

So I would simply refine the OO analysis you posted --

• You break 'technology' down into 'theory' and 'knowledge' in your definition (skill, I would argue, is a variable associated with a 'knowledge').

  So those need to be two seperate objects, for coding purposes. Agreed?

• I would agree that tech is a characteristic of people. Since the game has to store people at the mapsquare level, that means the tech has to be stored at that level (per EG, per square). As you point out.

• A civ is more than just that, but it is also a collection of people. I agree.

• But since people must be in a mapsquare, and a civ is a collection of people, then tech must be stored in an eg (in a mapsquare). That is what your own analysis just proved.

  It looks like you didn't arrive at this from your analysis of your above points -- you started and ended with this assumption without thinking thru your analysis. Tech can not be stored at the civ level. It can be aggregated at the civ level, for you model's purposes, so your game model can play that way (altho I think there are better options available). But it can not be stored there.
  

P.S. -- when you get a little more familiar with OO, you'll realize that the object design I've posted actually does define where the methods to do the actual interactions goes, and it does so more fully and more clearly than the 'default' analysis did.

As I said, the code for that OO design will write itself.

I'm sorry that I wasn't very clear. There are several definitions of "knowledge." I should have said at first which one I was using. Here it is:
---
2 a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique
---
Based on that definition, knowledge simply cannot exist outside of a human head.

What libraries do is to store information and use that information to pass knowledge from one person to another. Information is not modeled explicitly because it does not do anything; things only happen when humans with tech (theory, knowledge, and skills) take action of some kind.

• Technology is the ability to do things.
  
• Information stored in libraries does not do anything.
  
• People do things.
  
• Libraries are a tool used to pass knowledge from one person to another.
  
• Thus, the role of libraries is to affect tech decay and communication.
  
• Tech should be stored in people, not libraries.
  

F_Smith's Bullet Point 1: All of the three tech tiers (1=theory; 2=knowledge; 3=skill) are seperate objects derived from the Technology base class. Agreed.

F_Smith's Bullet Points 2 and 4: I do not agree. That is simply not an accurate conclusion. That is like me saying:

Government is a property of the people. Therefore, government must be stored at the mapsquare level. Thus, your object builder is flawed because each square does not have a seperate government.

Technology is like government. Each civ only needs one, as that one thing determines the actions of the civ.

quote: P.S. -- when you get a little more familiar with OO, you'll realize that the object design I've posted actually does define where the methods to do the actual interactions goes.

quote: What do I aim to do in the game? Basically I want the empire to survive - the game to continue until scenario end (this is more than most historical civs have achieved). On the other hand surviving as two hunters and a gatherer in New Guinea might be easily achived, but not a very rewarding game experience. So there has to be more: Something like having a large empire with a large population. There might be other qualifiers like having a happy population, clean environment, total world dominion, immense wealth etc, but for now let's concentrate on the simple aim: I want a huge empire with lots of people.

quote: Knowledge is persistent. You do not have to maintain it. When it is - it is. I know that here I am at odds with the present tech model. When - in real life - it seems that knowledge deteriorates, IMO it is because there is no need for the associated infrastructure. As long as infrastructure associated with the tech exists, the knowledge will persist. If the last piece of related infrastructure disappears, the tech is obsolete and therefore it seems as if it has deteriorated. But I claim that if need be the tech will still be there. You might have to dig a little for it but it would be there. I do not think that it is necessary to discover the same thing twice.

quote: If the square is conquered the knowledge passes to the conqueror and is lost to the original owner. While it is true that knowledge might be conquered, I will argue that the conqueror only takes hold of a copy of the knowledge (the copy might even be imperfect, incomplete or misleading). The original knowledge will remain with the original owner. Knowledge persists. If the infrastructure object is destroyed the knowledge would vanish into thin air. There is a historical corollary in the burning of the library of Alexandria. While many priceless scrolls disappeared, I doubt if this had anything but a transient effect on society due to loss of knowledge. It was a disaster, but because of the artistic value, not the knowledge content of the burnt scrolls. Art is infrastructure and can thus perish in a fire, knowledge persists because it is with the people.

I say here i have to lean more with F_Smith in that knowledge can be stored within libraries and not used.

Also I haveto say that although technology/knowledge isn't owned by people and people take it with them wherever they go, [b]not everyone knows the same thing in a given group as everyone else.[b] FE do you know how to operate a nuclear power Plant? fly a space shuttle? build a car? genetically engineer a plant?

Even if you say might be one of the people that does genetic engineering, do you know everything about it ness. as everyone else in your lab?

See, so killing people, even a few can have devistating effects of technology. I'll take one IRL case. The Inca civilization was brought to its knees basically when all the religious class which were the only literate ones in the civilization were killed. Thus although much technology is still there, much is also lost.

In many ways, you are right about the possibility of losing tech as a result of killing certain people. But I don't think it will happen very often. Since most tech is common knowledge, there are thousands of people spread all over the civ who have that ability. So it would be very hard to kill enough people to seriously impact the tech level. But there is that possibility for certain subjects, so we should consider it.

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'm not sure what you are saying about libraries. It seems like you are saying that they are insurance against losing tech due to the death of people. Is this correct? If so that sounds good.

You just agreed that 'theory' and 'knowledge' must be two different objects (subclasses of 'technology'). We can talk about 'skill level' later, but that certainly should be a property of a tech, not an object in and of itself.

You provide an excellent description of 'knowledge'. It can not exist outside the human head. Which is why it pretty clearly has to belong to an Ethnic Group. You seem to prove my point, and validate my analysis of 'knowledge' objects. Did I misunderstand?

Now look up 'theory' -- that's the other piece of 'technology', the one I feel you're leaving out. That is the 'information' that the libraries, factory (procedures, etc), University, etc, would 'store'.

So you see -- I agree, tech should be stored in people. *And in infrastructure*. You can store technology in *both*. Yet ya'll are not including one.

* * *

That is actually the way you're suppose to try and disagree with my object design. So now I point out that you made some errors in your discussion of my bullets--

• 'Government' is not a property of 'people'. 'People' don't contain a 'govt'. 'Govt' is a property of a 'political entity' we've called a 'civilization'. Which is why it's stored in 'civ' objects. People can and do live without governments.
  
• Each 'civ' does *not* only need one 'technology'. That is a massive error.
  
• And the 'tech' doesn't determine anything about the direction of the civ (not directly, anyway).
  

* * *

Do forgive me for being so 'jargonistic'. But modelling real-world systems is a complex business that requires specialized knowledge and terms. Ya'll are also using the same type of 'jargon', only an old version (equations). OO is just a more advanced version of 'equations'.

Theory:
---
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
---
This fits the current definition of Tier 1 techs like Biology, Physics, or Math.

These techs do not have a concrete impact on the activities of the civ. Rather, they aid the development of other technologies. Like other technologies, they only work when they are stored in someone's head. If you have a physics book unread in a library, it won't help you. But if that Theory is in your head, it can help you develop better things.

Knowledge, unfortunately, has two definitions in the current system. This has caused problems. I'll list both uses of the word:

In one sense, it is the title for Tier 2 techs. These include things like Mechanics, Electromagnetics, and Optics under the Physics tech and Anatomy, Botany, and Ecology under the Biology tech. The level of these technologies determine the efficiency at which your civ can do certain things, as well as determining the rate of advancement of Level 3 technologies.

The other use for knowledge was the one used in the spreadsheet and my library discussion. It is the linear scale that the tech level is derived from, or the total amount of stuff that people know.

To avoid confusion, I will stop referring to Tier 2 as "knowledge". In the absence of a better term, I will call it Field.

Skill referrs to Tier 3 technologies, which are your civ's skill in some specific area of practical application of knowledge like Shipbuilding or Robotics.

An Application is an object in one of the other models, like a military unit. Specific applications become available when some percentage of one or more Tier 3 technologies have been reached, and those techs determine the quality of the application.

Technology is a logarithmic scale that interprets the knowledge of some particular field so that it can be better understood by the player. It is also the name for all three Tiers as well as Application objects.

A Technology System is the set of objects and methods that change knowledge and make knowledge affect the rest of the game. It might also include Information objects and their affects.

The stuff stored in libraries is what I call Information and F_Smith calls Theory. IMO Information is a more accurate description.

So about the discussion:

Knowledge is the stuff that people use to make or do things. We seem to agree on that.

So the three classes derived from the Technology base class are: Theory (Tier 1), Field (Tier 2), and Skill (Tier 3). All three of these are types of Knowledge.

Information is the thing currently in dispute. F_Smith thinks it should be modeled as an object. I do not know if I agree with his because I have no idea what he wants to do with this object. There could be a place for it, as it determines the transfer of knowledge and helps prevent tech loss due to death of people. In this limited role, I would have no problem adding it.

I have not seen anything to convince me that each EG must have a seperate Technology System. But Mark's idea should allow is to put that dispute behind us. Each EG has a pointer that can point to a civ-wide tech system or a unique one.

So, inside the Civilization object:

• Tech System
  
  
  
  • Knowledge
    
    
    
    • Tier 1 (Theory)
      
    • Tier 2 (Field)
      
    • Tier 3 (Skill)
      
    
    
  • Applications
    
  • ??Information??
    
  
  
• EG's, with pointer to tech system or a unique tech system.
  
• Other Stuff
  

Your breakdown of the 'civilization' object is not how this will be coded, I'm afraid. I'm going to stick with the OO design I posted above. But it will allow that functionality, you can set all EG's in a civ to point to the exact same knowledge objects. You will have your tiers -- have no fear.

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.
  

Your system can be churned by this design.

I'm still not sure how ya'll are going to overcome some of the game difficulties I see when it's time to code that model -- but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I still see changes required to reach the goals I know ya'll have.

Altho I could be wrong . . . this time.

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 09-23-2000 05:40 AM Either the civ will hold a collection of 'theory' objects or the infrastructure objects in that civ will hold 'theory' objects.

I Still don't get this. People should be the posessors of Tech. As you pointed out in your basic design. They, for simplicity should have All the tech objects, including theory!!! Why should theory be at the civ level? If people have skills at the EG in Square level how can you Possibly say that the theory understood in England is the same as in the American colonies in 1650? It defies logic. (I know for the way I want to handle it, all at civ level, it makes no difference. But I am anticipating possibly going to a prov level or lower in some cases.)

You seem to want to create a tech model for a cheezy RTS game here, where the buildings have mystical powers. We have bought your strong argument about people being the container of knowledge/tech. Please give some ground on this. The system you are presenting doesn't fit in with Anything we are doing as far as I can figure. Knowledge infrastructure should create RPs, and Nothing else. This seems both more compartmentalized (your goal), and more consistent with the real world. Beör thinks so, Richard thinks so, and I think so.

Please, Please settle for the compromise of storing All knowledge at the EG level, and allowing the game to act as if it is at the civ, prov, or EG level. Please can't we put this one to rest?

quote: Your breakdown of the 'civilization' object is not how this will be coded, I'm afraid. I'm going to stick with the OO design I posted above.

You keep referring to "game difficulties" without describing those difficulties. Could you please tell us what you mean?

I don't think that the sqEG's should hold knowledge. If agree that they should have a pointer to other knowledge objects, but IMO it is madness to create knowledge objects in each one. Consider:

There will be about 10,000 squares.
There will be an average of 5 EG's per square.
Each sqEG would hold 200 knowledge objects.

A quick multiplication reveals that this system would result in 10,000,000 knowledge objects. That is ten million objects that must input RP's, recalculate themselves, and apply the effects of their recalculation to other game objects. That is IMO madness. The player and AI will be thoroughly incapable of dealing with something that complex.

And this plan does not give the option to turn this detail off. F_Smith's system does not give players the ability to store knowledge objects at any level other than sqEG. If someone wanted to have one set of knowledge objects per civ, they would not have that option. Players are stuck with ten million knowledge objects.

Why can't we store the knowledge objects in the civEG's and have the sqEG's point to the proper civEG knowledge objects? This way, there would only be a few dozen sets of knowledge objects per civ. This would also give the option of storing the knowledge in the civ object and having the civEG's all point to that one set of objects, so the player would only have to deal with one set of knowledge.

Mark, what do you think of the hierarchy that I posted?

Mark's comment about RTS games reminded me of something. I remember that F_Smith said he made a tech tree for an RTS game. He made a tech system and proved that it worked, so now he wants to use the same type of system in this game. After all, why mess with success? He's said numerous times that he wants a Starcraft type system in this game.

The problem is that this game is very different than a RTS, and a system that worked wonderfully in Starcraft will not fit into the structure of this game.

First, please cut out the cynical taunting statements. They have no positive effect other than making you feel good for the few seconds you write them, and each has a chance of pissing someone off. When you tick off someone you not only reduce our teamwork, but possibly cause them to go away for awhile while the cool off. I lost an hour of productive work time this week due to just such a statement by somebody else. So please keep the discourse civil, and if you are taunting in a friendly manner use a wink or happy face to show that. We need all the goodwill among the team that we can manage!

I agree with your general statements, but there is one thing you have dead wrong:

quote: And this plan does not give the option to turn this detail off. F_Smith's system does not give players the ability to store knowledge objects at any level other than sqEG. If someone wanted to have one set of knowledge objects per civ, they would not have that option. Players are stuck with ten million knowledge objects.

I thought that F_Smith said that knowledge would be stored in sqEG's, rather than having a pointer in there. Just like all the province objects are inside the civ, I thought he wanted all of the tech objects to be inside the sqEG's.

So my misunderstanduing of the programming language has caused yet another problem. I'm trying to learn the stuff, but I still cause trouble for everyone. Maybe I should just quit messing with all of this, go back to playing civ2, and let all of the programmers do things their way. I just seem to be getting in the way of the people who know what they are doing.

Chill out man! You are a very valuable member of the project, and have done a lot of really great modeling IMO. And the model will work Great once coded, I'm convinced! Don't worry about a little oversite here or there. If I got depressed about everything I've overlooked or forgot about, I'd be disfunctional! You are learning the programming stuff to help out the project. Don't get rattled if you make mistakes, learning without mistakes is almost impossible.

And while y'all, being entangled in the discussion, might think that you've been going nowhere fast, it has been very interesting and I think you've gained some ground. I will return to this later.

I thought about my last couple of posts some more and found several inconsistensies that points to a faulty object model. This lead to some rather surprising conclusions, that I would like to share with you here. They might be totally wrong, and definitely somewhat OT, concerning the economic model, the infrastructure model, the tech model, the population model and the general OOD, but since they are related to the discussion in this thread I will keep it here for the moment.

First, I assumed that infrastructure cannot hold people and is immobile. And almost in the same sentence I mentioned a type of infrastructure that must hold people and can move: Military units. I suddenly remembered seeing somewhere that military units would absorb some people when being created, they could loose people during combat and if put on reserve or disbanded the people contained would return to civilian life. It is obvious that military units are mobile containers of population. The more population, up to a certain limit, the stronger the military unit (military strength of the unit must of course also be based on some hardware, but lets put that aside for the moment). Since the unit of population is the EG a military unit must contain EGs. Actually I had pictured military units as 'moving mapsquares with military capacity' thus being able to hold people.

Next I took this reasoning further: Since some infrastructure objects obviously can hold EGs it is reasonable to consider if not all EGs in fact should reside in infrastrucuture objects of which the military unit is just a special mobile case.

The next thing that struck my mind as odd was the fact that I assumed that people have an inherent capacity of turning ressources into output. Such 'semi-magical' powers are suspect. Elsewhere in the model it is infrastructure that has this ability of transforming some ressource into another - in the presence of people. In fact I had given EGs some infrastructure properties.

A thought that had previously crossed my mind suddenly surfaced. I actually also mentioned it as an exception in the post mentioned: Nomadic civs or migrating civs. They are exceptions since they have no land, and yet they have to produce output or they could not sustain themselves - how should this be done? Having no land they are in fact invisible to the civ/interface construction I proposed which is based on possession of land. Again I had this feeling: If they were in fact 'moving mapsquares' they could both produce, have population and be visible to the civ/interface.

A further thing that had bothered me earlier also popped up: When I read the economic model the concept of sites seemed very abstract. I couldn't put a finger on it, it just seemed wrong: In nature there are no sites, there are ressources. The finite number of food and production sites are limitations in terms of how much of these ressources man is capable of 'harvesting': How much land is farmed, how many mines exist etc. Sites are more like infrastructure: a way of converting basic ressources into units. There should be two means of increasing production from a square: Increasing the output of individual sites (the improvement of sites as covered in the present economic model), and increasing the number of sites (farming new land, discovering and developing new mineral deposits etc).

And finally I had been worried by the lack of cities, which didn't seem to be modelled very well.

And a solution matured in my mind (I actually woke up in the night - it was almost like Descartes ). You may like it and you may not, since it will influence many models. It is primarily a programming term, and would probably never come to the attention of the player. It might even be very difficult to implement, but here goes:

Imagine splitting the mapsquare into two layers:
First the basic mapsquare: the geosquare that keeps the square in place geographically, and holds the basic ressources: terrain, farm land, forrests, specials etc. This would in fact represent the maximum possible yield of the land. You could still express this as sites, but these sites would represent the maximum possible number of sites that could be constructed in the square, given all technology.
On top of this basic mapsquare we could place a very basic infrastructure object: I have called it a Habitat in lack of a better name. The Habitat would hold the population and a number of sites representing how much of the basic ressources are actually developed - this number of sites is equivalent to the number of sites now present in the economic model. Sites might then be separate infrastructure objects held by the habitat. They could be built as every other infrastructure object upto the limit of the underlying mapsquare, provided the proper tech requisites were met, FE if an EG reaches a tech level that would allow for irrigation or use of certain minerals (FE uranium) it would be possible to build more sites, representing the plowing of new land or the opening of a uranium mine). I don't mean that we should have 'uranium sites', they would still be represented as production sites, but acheiving a certain tech level would raise the proportion of potentially utilised sites, abstractly representing the mining of uranium/titanium/whatever. The habitat might even be capable of holding other infrastructure objects, although these might be better placed in the geosquare.

This way the present mapsquare object will be represented by one geosquare object and one habitat object. The combination will be indestinguishable from the original concept. The only extra thing is the possibility to build new sites up to a maximum provided by the underlying geosquare, but this could be left out - at least for starters.
'Well, so what' I hear you say.

Here it comes: A military unit is nothing but a mobile habitat! A mobile infrastructure object, holding people and a limited number of sites, representing the ability of the military unit to live off the land (of course the influence of this on other inhabitants of the underlying square would have to be decided). A further capability of a military unit infrastructure object is to transform the people present into military power. Similar a nomadic civ is nothing but a collection of mobile habitats.

Instead of having the empire consist of a collection of mapsquares it would consist of a collection of habitats, thus allowing the interface to 'see' nomadic civs, despite the lack of controlled mapsquares.

By making sites infrastructure, we avoid having EGs have inherent production capabilities, which streamlines the object model. The only object producing is an infrastructure object: For historical scenarios people would have to be present, but for SF-scenarios, fully automised, robtic assembly plants or mining constructions would be possible. Military units, being infrastructure object are no exception, allowing for cruise misiles and the like.

Other infrastructure objects could be seen as mobile or semimobile habitats: Particularly oceanic ressource collection could benefit from this: A fishing fleet would carry with it its own food sites (how do you like that Mark?), and likewise Oil rigs would carry production sites. The habitats wouldn't even have to be placed on the map, but could be abstractly off map, like orbital production facilities or mining stations on the moon!

Now it is getting really wild: You could imagine the same square having more than one habitat (akin to locations mentioned earlier). I am particularly thinking of having one rural and one urban habitat. The urban habitat could be constructed, representing the founding of a city. We would then have a way of modelling people moving from rural areas to urban areas. The city could have its own particular mix of sites, EGs, infrastructure objects etc. The implications are astounding!

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'm not willing to drop that for two reasons.

First, this is how designing a program is *suppose* to work. The programmers get the basic objects necessary from the designers, then design an architecture. The designers then work with that architecture to develop the business/game logic.

From the beginning, here, the designers have rejected that input without understanding it, insisting on architecting the program themselves. So I'm not convinced people have understood the design yet, since no one has given any OO reason for changing the design. People can't just say "we don't like this", or "I don't understand why this is this way" and convince me to change an architecture that is necessary (in my analysis). As long as it can support all the functionality you want seamlessly, I think it'll work fine.

And second, the 'ethnic group at the mapsquare' argument leaves me somewhat confident that I should stick with my guns.

If you can show me an OO reason to change it, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I'll have to remain with this design.

* * *

Richard:

From my standpoint, the only problem has been that you haven't been listening to input from more experienced people.

You're standing fast and arguing hard over program architecture decisions that you don't understand. A programmer told you 'it has to work this way' and you rejected that, insisting it has to be architected your way, even tho you have never even seen an object design or system architecture.

You're a bright guy. You're valuable to this team. You're certainly not the only designer that has been rejecting programmer's input over the last year. So don't feel too bad.

But we -- all of the 'designers' and the programmers -- are going to have to learn to work together. Ya'll are going to have to accept programmer input, and be willing to change from time to time based upon that input.

And yes, this design will support yours, mine, and even the old 'tech tree' type system (which I do think is more 'fun' than this abstract system ya'll have designed), if we want to add that as an option. I am saving my idea of the perfect tech system for an 'optional' system, just like I did for 'politics'. I also think we absolutely should include a 'tech tree' option, too. Those are fun, too.

That's the mark of a good design, being able to 'scale' to cover many different types of systems.

The system I have in mind actually is something fairly radical for a 'tech' system. It's actually heavily suggested by analysing the design itself -- Beor might see where I'm going to head. Tech will 'grow', like a living system.

Hmmm.

I'm not sure I agree with that analysis.

I was of a mind that a 'military unit' would just be another type of 'group'. Perhaps 'ethnic group', 'military unit' and any other 'mobile' groups of people would simply extend a basic 'pop group' object, or something like that.

I wasn't aware that there will be no cities -- is this true? That's not good, I can't agree with that if that's the case. What kind of a wargame will that leave us with? Besides, I think Mark already told me that some infrastructure would be tied to mapsquares.

This is all why the basic architecture has to be done before we go any farther. The 'map' object hierarchy must be done *first*. Then the 'population' object hierarchy will have to be designed.