DD 8: Technology

[Descartes]

DD 8: TECHNOLOGY
I have always found the research model in EUR a bit strange. Citizens contribute research points to a national research pool, where the points are divided by the number of provinces owned by the country and then automatically invested in five separate research fields. The efficiency of each research field depends on the character that the government has appointed the tech "leader". (The strangeness of the research model has been discussed recently in domze's thread, read it for more info.)

In my opinion, this model has little or nothing to do with reality. I have never read about ancient governments appointing people to conduct "religious research" or "discovering the basics of reliable omens", it just doesn't make any sense. My conclusion is that there are three major flaws in the current tech system:

1. The civic and religious ”technologies” are pathetic.
   I think of technological advances as the invention of something new, or at least a new application of old technology. "Discovering" civic or religious phenomena such as double dealing, underhand diplomacy or powerful omens doesn't sound like technological advances to me. It's not as though it hadn't occured to people that it might be a good idea to be a little deceptive when talking to the enemy before 515 AUC (as suggested by the invention of underhand diplomacy). Maybe Paradox thought that it was somewhere around 515 that diplomats started being a little extra deceptive, but it's definitely not a matter of something new.
   
   
2. Research depends on characters appointed by the government.
   One single individual shouldn't play such an important part in developing new technology. There were a couple of great inventors during Antiquity, but they were a) usually not employed by a specific country and b) usually not the ones who put their inventions into practice. The famous corvus, for example, is sometimes attributed to Archimedes, but it was developed as a tactical weapon by the Romans. It's hard to believe that the Roman generals didn't try it out before they started using it in large scale. In this situation, who should be the one sitting in the tech office? The first crew who used the corvus in battle, the officer who decided it was a good idea or perhaps Archimedes himself?
   
   
3. Technology cannot be exchanged between different countries.
   It is quite frustrating to see your armies conquer the whole world, and then realise that a small, uncivilised minor is far ahead of you when it comes to technology. As far as I know, exchange of technology was quite common during Antiquity, especially between civilised countries at war. When the Romans realised that the Carthaginians had better ships (during the First Punic War), they captured a couple of them and started to mass produce their own copies.

I've decided to change the research system completely for Imperium 2.0. It will be entirely militarily based, with the following research fields:

Infantry
Cavalry
Machines
Ships
Forts​

Each field involves development of one aspect of the army, with inventions ranging from new equipment to new unit tactics. This might sound like a pretty one-sided take on research, but I have several reasons for doing it.

To begin with, most of the modifiers available in EUR are linked to the military part of the game. Each unit has its own set of modifiers (cost, attack, defense, morale and discipline), but their efficiency also depends on several other modifiers, such as land organisation and retreat delay. This means that it's much easier to find unique effects for military inventions than civic inventions.

Also, I find military research a lot more tangible than civic research. It's quite evident that the invention of a better ballista can help during sieges, which makes it logical to put reduced siege time as one of the effects. A philosophical breakthrough, however, is far more complicated to give a logical effect. (It could lead to new government forms, as Meothar pointed out in domze's thread, but that's not a direct effect.)

Another reason for replacing the current research fields with five military research fields is that it permits an interesting differentiation between countries. One country could have developed a very efficient army, but lack the technology needed to build siege machines and advanced fortifications, while another country could have focused on building a large navy and fortifying allied cities. The differences between these countries will obviously have a massive impact on the way a war between them plays out. Historically, countries often focused on different aspects of the army (for example, it was the navy for the Carthaginians, the infantry for the Romans and the cavalry for the Parthians).

Finally, military technology is one of the few research fields that actually fits with the linear representation of research used in EUR. The purpose of military research is to gain an advantage over the enemy. Consequently, new military technology is always better than old military technology, otherwise it wouldn't be used. The development of society (as represented in civic and religious technology), on the other hand, does not necessarily lead to a ”better” society. Personally, I wouldn't say the Roman empire was more stable than the republic, even though it was the consequence of gradual development.



I have decided to make another major change to the research system: removing the tech offices. The player won't be able to assign characters to any of these positions, since they'll be removed from the user interface. Obviously, the objectives associated with the tech offices will also be removed. To compensate for the lack of tech ”leaders”, citizens will generate 50% more research points.

I have a couple of reasons for removing the tech offices. To begin with, as mentioned above, I don't think one character should have such a massive impact on research speed. Monarchies will also work much better with no tech guys having a say about their preferred heir. We also get rid of Finally, I won't have to make up silly titles for the tech guys (such as machinator maximus).

With no tech guys affecting the research fields separately, it seems like they'll all be at the same level and develop simultaneously. This won't be the case, however, since I'll squeeze in research modifiers in a number of nice places. Skilled generals will give substantial research bonuses, depending on their personal interests (as represented by traits). Also, conquering cities will have a chance of triggering events that give an extra boost to machine development, while winning battles might result in a boost to infantry or cavalry development. Country-specific decisions will allow the player to focus on one aspect of the military research.

That was all for today, I hope you enjoyed the reading.

Cheers,
Descartes

 

[Meothar]

I have stated my critizism towards this in the other thread.

Do you introduce new offices in other aspects to compensate for those 5 not available any more?

 

[Descartes]

I thought you would elaborate your arguments here, when I mentioned you in the post. Bring it!
Over to your question. No, I can't add more offices for monarchies. The four ministers will have to do.

 

[unmerged(128970)]

Yeah, finally that's the implementation I always wished for. Stealing technology should affect the game! Winning battles and wars should bring atvantages in technology. Development always occurs if there is competition, obvious.

Very good!

What about the amount of research points a nation generates? Is it still influenced by the relative amount of citizens or rather by the absolute amount? I don't think that a lot of military development ocurred in the nations that lived peacefully (to say it with the game mechanics: Nations who hardly fight any wars).

 

[Descartes]

What about the amount of research points a nation generates? Is it still influenced by the relative amount of citizens or rather by the absolute amount?

It's still affected by the relative amount of citizens, there's no changing that (hardcoded stuff). I could give a slight research bonus to countries per province, though. That would definitely spice things up a bit.

I don't think that a lot of military development ocurred in the nations that lived peacefully (to say it with the game mechanics: Nations who hardly fight any wars).

I agree, military development should be slow in peaceful nations. Being at war shouldn't increase research speed right away, though; It should be linked to war exhaustion.

 

[Woody Man]

This sounds excellent, certainly something I want to see!

 

[Meothar]

I like the model in general, but with a certain addition:

Research fields:

1. Infantry
2. Cavalry
3. Naval
4. Siege (both, defending and attacking)
5. Theoretical thoughts

The first 4 of them work as you proposed.

'Theoretical thoughts' or 'Science' is a research field with progress dependent on your available luxury ressources (the ones of your trade-thread) and of course number of citizens. It triggers inventions that maybe bring prestige (Pythagorean theorem discovered etc), improve your society (Medical advance) or otherwise reflect the effects of an academic society.

However, the main effect of threoretical advance is, that it enables certain military inventions.
Some military inventions (barbaric/tribal ones) don't require any theory (e.g. parthian shot) and are just a result of military action.
Some inventions (semicivilized) need some thoughts, e.g. sambuca for ships (not the drink) or improved logistics.
The last group of inventions requires a lot of theory, e.g. effective ballistae, metallurgy, etc.

 

[Duke of Bavaria]

Whi´le i think all your additions to the game are great surely will miss the other research fiels apart from military. I like to play every Paradox game by getting the upper hand in cutlture and technology, i am no warmonger, thats why i never really got into HOI, so i hope this wont spoil the game for me.

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

probably the best solution given that research as we understand it today was done only seldomly, or even not at all (no scientific method, no combining of the theoretical and practical fields of science in general due to the practical field being manual labour/artisanship and the theoretical field being something done by usually rich people who wouldn't touch practical work with a 10-foot pole).

 

[Descartes]

I like the model in general, but with a certain addition:

Research fields:

1. Infantry
2. Cavalry
3. Naval
4. Siege (both, defending and attacking)
5. Theoretical thoughts

The first 4 of them work as you proposed.

'Theoretical thoughts' or 'Science' is a research field with progress dependent on your available luxury ressources (the ones of your trade-thread) and of course number of citizens. It triggers inventions that maybe bring prestige (Pythagorean theorem discovered etc), improve your society (Medical advance) or otherwise reflect the effects of an academic society.

However, the main effect of threoretical advance is, that it enables certain military inventions.
Some military inventions (barbaric/tribal ones) don't require any theory (e.g. parthian shot) and are just a result of military action.
Some inventions (semicivilized) need some thoughts, e.g. sambuca for ships (not the drink) or improved logistics.
The last group of inventions requires a lot of theory, e.g. effective ballistae, metallurgy, etc.

That is an interesting idea, I'll have to think about it. You still haven't convinced me there's any good modifiers for theoretical inventions, though. Non-religious prestige doesn't exist in EUR, and the only thing a medical advance could do is to increase population growth.

Whi´le i think all your additions to the game are great surely will miss the other research fiels apart from military. I like to play every Paradox game by getting the upper hand in cutlture and technology, i am no warmonger, thats why i never really got into HOI, so i hope this wont spoil the game for me.

I don't think it will. The wealth parameter is pretty important in Imperium, especially in your capital. Decisions, events and missions increase wealth over time, and obviously, peaceful countries have an advantage. I think the struggle for greater wealth is a nice substitute for the peaceful tech race.

 

[Meothar]

Non-military inventions with effects that come to my mind/Wiki:
Standardized money (improves trade, tax)
Pulley (faster/cheaper building)
Archimedes' screw (irrigation)
Levers (applying the physical laws, better construction)
Mathematics-based Cartography (faster movement, better trade)
Gears (enables advanced siege engines and better production)
Urban planning (improves wealth, trade, because streets don't just appear but people think about structures)
Central heating (minor wealth effect, it's for the upper classes)
Lighthouses (improves trade, maybe reduce naval attrition)
Odometer (faster movement because of better street planning, comparable to cartography)
Chain drive (enables advanced siege engines, maybe improve production)
Pumps (improve mining)
Surveying tools (enable advanced buildings)
Improved Mills (improve production)

All of these can't exist without theoretical thoughts about the laws of physics.

 

[Descartes]

I agree, it's possible to represent the inventions you've listed with ingame modifiers. Still, don't you think they could be spread via events and decisions? Having a bunch of non-military inventions among all the hardcore weapons kind of breaks the concept.
Btw, I wouldn't say standardised money or urban planning require an understanding of physics. Sounds like political decisions to me.

 

[LAF1994]

I agree, it's possible to represent the inventions you've listed with ingame modifiers. Still, don't you think they could be spread via events and decisions? Having a bunch of non-military inventions among all the hardcore weapons kind of breaks the concept.
Btw, I wouldn't say standardised money or urban planning require an understanding of physics. Sounds like political decisions to me.

In the "National Ideas" DD, you said that the old NIs were going to be made into advances, but there are no longer any non-military advances...

 

[Descartes]

Oh well, that's why I separated the DDs in the archive. Some of things I said then are no longer operative.
Seriously, non-military advances will be included somehow. Don't worry.

 

[unmerged(92421)]

Non-military inventions with effects that come to my mind/Wiki:
Standardized money (improves trade, tax)
Pulley (faster/cheaper building)
Archimedes' screw (irrigation)
Levers (applying the physical laws, better construction)
Mathematics-based Cartography (faster movement, better trade)
Gears (enables advanced siege engines and better production)
Urban planning (improves wealth, trade, because streets don't just appear but people think about structures)
Central heating (minor wealth effect, it's for the upper classes)
Lighthouses (improves trade, maybe reduce naval attrition)
Odometer (faster movement because of better street planning, comparable to cartography)
Chain drive (enables advanced siege engines, maybe improve production)
Pumps (improve mining)
Surveying tools (enable advanced buildings)
Improved Mills (improve production)

All of these can't exist without theoretical thoughts about the laws of physics.

Indeed.

I absolutely agree with the focus of research being on the military sciences! Would definitely fit the roman era. As is the whole wealth mechanic, the game feeling like the flowing of several socio economic factors as well as military stuff would be exactly what I'd like to see.

Wouldn't things like urban planning be based on things like population, wealth and civilisation (like most of the theoretical civic type advances I'm assuming will be based on... like government types etc)? I agree that there should be one category for physics/maths based inventions (or at least your prowess in that field, which might be what is half required to get some civic inventions).

 

[Descartes]

Oh, cartesian anxiety! I've changed my mind - again! This time, I've adopted a much more peaceful attitude towards technology. In fact, many of the original tech trees are back, only in a different form. These five aspects of progress will appear in the next version:

Administration
Culture
Production
Army
Navy

Note that I use the word "progress" instead of "technology". As I've already stated in the first post, I find compositions like "religious technology" rather silly. "Progress", on the other hand, implies the kind of long-term achievements I associate with this feature.

It's time I explain the five aspects. Administration, to begin with, reminds of "government tech" in EU III: Higher levels give access to more advanced government forms and national ideas. It also makes way for more titles, such as a fourth praetor for Rome. Culture is the aspect of progress we've all been missing out in vanilla. Philosophers, poets, historians - here we come! Many of the "inventions" associated with this aspect have little or no effect on your country. However, if your country lags behind in the cultural development, you can rest assured your nobility will notice. Character loyalty, ruler popularity and even country reputation will suffer. The third aspect, production, is borrowed from EU III. Since we have no "production efficiency" to play around with, many of the inventions associated with this aspect affect tax income directly. Some buildings require a high production level. Typically, Cato's De Agricultura is the result of a developed production. Finally, two of the original tech trees have been kept as they are: Land and Navy. I will try to broaden the scope, however, to include more of the tactics, strategies and training methods used during Antiquity.

Now for something interesting. I've decided to use static modifiers as a way of differentiating the aspects. War exhaustion now increases army and navy progress, while it decreases progress in the aspects of administration, culture and production. Culture suffers in particular. Being at war or peace, regardless of war exhaustion, also affects progress - in the same manner as war exhaustion. To give an example, our friendly Roman empire is at peace with zero war exhaustion. Due to the peace status, culture development is affected by a boost of +20%. Suddenly, the Carthaginians declare war, resulting in a penalty of -20% to culture development. The war drags on, and each point of war exhaustion give the Romans an additional penalty of -2%. At the end, when the Romans have finally burned Carthage to the ground, their war exhaustion has reached 10. With 40% less progress points invested in culture, they will soon find themselves culturally backwards. (Production and administration is only affected half as much, while army and navy are boosted by the war.)

 

[Von Consul]

This penalty/reward towards research when you are at war will have a bit of a death spiral effect I think.

Taking your example, Rome is now behind say, Macedon, when it comes to the peaceful techs. Since there's no way to 'catch up' save if the Greeks have a war of their own, Rome will always be 'less civilized' than the peaceful nations. This will encourage people who start to fight to keep fighting, so as to keep their edge in military tech, which in turn will make doing more fighting easier. Also means that a peaceful nation will never be as good at fighting as a warlike nation, which will encourage them to avoid conflict even more. (Especially a problem since diplomacy has a lack or two next to the options of EU3)

Some of this could be offset by the ability to trade 'tech' but that would be tricky to model at all effectively since the military types will just threaten to invade if you don't share.

Sadly I can't think of an easy solution, tech is hard to handle in EUR. Different cultures developed different things, which were all shared as they went. The Roman maniple was the divided Greek Phalanx, the pilium throwing was a western celtic thing, gladius iberian, Roman concrete and roads mixed with Greek architecture and philosophy. Egyptian mathematics, astronomy and agriculture assisted the eastern half. I'm sure there are thousands of other examples of how the tech spread and built off each other, trade was a major part of antiquity.

-----------

Hmm a random thought now, but perhaps the mechanism for stability might be the answer. Tech right now tries to compare everyone to an absolute standard, that the last date in the game is more advanced than the first, with every year between being progressively improving. However it's hard to quantify the say, governing efficiency of the late empire with say a tribe in gaul in year one. One is clearly more advanced in terms of layers and complexity not to mention time scale, but if both complete their intended function, ie: to have a culture of people who live happy safe lives, who cares about the details?
Perhaps if you set up an internal standard of sorts to go with the research. For example as your nation gets larger, and more populous it becomes harder to manage so you require higher levels of 'administration research' to keep things running smoothly. If you don't have these things your 'administration efficiency' starts to drop, if it gets too low you start to have break away provinces, taxes reduced, and all the trouble of an empire that isn't working together. Thus the Roman empire across europe needs a very robust administration to keep running, while a sythian tribe raiding the boarder can ignore most of that and instead focus on say their weapons and fighting. Both have 'administration efficiency' at max, but require different levels of 'administration research' to get there. As the tribe gets bigger they need to work on their organization, messengers, a hierarchy of raiding bands, etc. so must improve their 'administration research'

The same could be done with military too, the purpose of military tech is to keep you safe and kill the other guy. So someone develops a better sword, you need better armour, etc. ad infinitum. So you have a 'military tech', since everyone is about the same your 'military efficiency' is good (at +3 we'll say to work with stability idea) But now someone has developed a new type of bow with better range, they advanced in military tech by 1 level (or however many you want to make the spread) well now you're not as effective in a fight so you're at +2 giving you some penalties to defense or something. If you focus some effort on countering this, perhaps with armour or tactics, you can match them and get back to level footing. One scale for navy one for land, or not, depends how you want to consider it.

A lot of aspects in cultures have a similar theme I guess. Roman's didn't build aqueducts for fun it was to get water to cities. If the city were smaller a well would work, or the river. Laws were written to keep people on the same page when it came to social interactions, when it's just a small tribe everyone already knows how to behave, and the people are self policing a bit more, but huge empires you need a set of rules for people and people to enforce those rules. Religion was about integrating people and explaining how the world worked. If you don't have enough 'religion research' perhaps a penalty to culture growth or unrest.

Under this approach you could still have a research office of sorts, but now it's more the guy who is appointed to try and organize or oversee all this effort at improving, the one who makes sure the guy in Alexandria with a new type of wood composite meets the guy in Syria with a new kind of string getting you a better bow. Or the clerk who makes sure to start a new class of scribes and station them across the empire.

No idea how well this might work, or if it's even possible, but it was a thought.

 

[Descartes]

First, thanks for showing interest. I appreciate your feedback.

This penalty/reward towards research when you are at war will have a bit of a death spiral effect I think.

Taking your example, Rome is now behind say, Macedon, when it comes to the peaceful techs. Since there's no way to 'catch up' save if the Greeks have a war of their own, Rome will always be 'less civilized' than the peaceful nations. This will encourage people who start to fight to keep fighting, so as to keep their edge in military tech, which in turn will make doing more fighting easier. Also means that a peaceful nation will never be as good at fighting as a warlike nation, which will encourage them to avoid conflict even more. (Especially a problem since diplomacy has a lack or two next to the options of EU3)

I agree, this system would undeniably result in a cultural death spiral for aggressive nations if it worked exactly like in vanilla. Luckily it doesn't. In Imperium, there will be ways of boosting your country's cultural progress, such as taking national decisions and buying province improvements. Temples, for example, contribute to cultural progress. This means that your poor Romans will be able to do something about their cultural backwardness as long as they're ready to pay for it.

Some of this could be offset by the ability to trade 'tech' but that would be tricky to model at all effectively since the military types will just threaten to invade if you don't share.

In multiplayer, you mean? I can't see how the AI would care if you helped them out or not.

Hmm a random thought now, but perhaps the mechanism for stability might be the answer. Tech right now tries to compare everyone to an absolute standard, that the last date in the game is more advanced than the first, with every year between being progressively improving. However it's hard to quantify the say, governing efficiency of the late empire with say a tribe in gaul in year one. One is clearly more advanced in terms of layers and complexity not to mention time scale, but if both complete their intended function, ie: to have a culture of people who live happy safe lives, who cares about the details?

Perhaps if you set up an internal standard of sorts to go with the research. For example as your nation gets larger, and more populous it becomes harder to manage so you require higher levels of 'administration research' to keep things running smoothly. If you don't have these things your 'administration efficiency' starts to drop, if it gets too low you start to have break away provinces, taxes reduced, and all the trouble of an empire that isn't working together. Thus the Roman empire across europe needs a very robust administration to keep running, while a sythian tribe raiding the boarder can ignore most of that and instead focus on say their weapons and fighting. Both have 'administration efficiency' at max, but require different levels of 'administration research' to get there. As the tribe gets bigger they need to work on their organization, messengers, a hierarchy of raiding bands, etc. so must improve their 'administration research'

Good thinking. I'll have to think about that.

The same could be done with military too, the purpose of military tech is to keep you safe and kill the other guy. So someone develops a better sword, you need better armour, etc. ad infinitum. So you have a 'military tech', since everyone is about the same your 'military efficiency' is good (at +3 we'll say to work with stability idea) But now someone has developed a new type of bow with better range, they advanced in military tech by 1 level (or however many you want to make the spread) well now you're not as effective in a fight so you're at +2 giving you some penalties to defense or something. If you focus some effort on countering this, perhaps with armour or tactics, you can match them and get back to level footing. One scale for navy one for land, or not, depends how you want to consider it.

Some more good thinking. Still, I have to say it sounds terribly complicated to implement.

A lot of aspects in cultures have a similar theme I guess. Roman's didn't build aqueducts for fun it was to get water to cities. If the city were smaller a well would work, or the river.

Agreed. What about an event that increases revolt risk if large cities lack aqueducts?

Laws were written to keep people on the same page when it came to social interactions, when it's just a small tribe everyone already knows how to behave, and the people are self policing a bit more, but huge empires you need a set of rules for people and people to enforce those rules.

Indeed.

Religion was about integrating people and explaining how the world worked. If you don't have enough 'religion research' perhaps a penalty to culture growth or unrest.

Religion research?

Under this approach you could still have a research office of sorts, but now it's more the guy who is appointed to try and organize or oversee all this effort at improving, the one who makes sure the guy in Alexandria with a new type of wood composite meets the guy in Syria with a new kind of string getting you a better bow. Or the clerk who makes sure to start a new class of scribes and station them across the empire.

The problem with the magistrates is that they are far too influential. There's a huge difference between the research speed in countries with high-finesse magistrates and countries with low-finesse characters. This is hardcoded, so I figured it'd be better to remove them.

Again, thanks for your constructive feedback.

 

[Von Consul]

First, thanks for showing interest. I appreciate your feedback.

Glad I could provide something, hopefully it might even be useful. Of course saying an idea is always easy.

I agree, this system would undeniably result in a cultural death spiral for aggressive nations if it worked exactly like in vanilla. Luckily it doesn't. In Imperium, there will be ways of boosting your country's cultural progress, such as taking national decisions and buying province improvements. Temples, for example, contribute to cultural progress. This means that your poor Romans will be able to do something about their cultural backwardness as long as they're ready to pay for it.

And does the other direction work as well? Because if there are only events and options that can increase the 'peaceful' research it'd still hand an advantage to the warriors.

In multiplayer, you mean? I can't see how the AI would care if you helped them out or not.

No idea how you'd set up tech trading if you did, just making the general point that trade doesn't really work when one guy has all the guns. Well one could say that trade works all too well...

Good thinking. I'll have to think about that. Some more good thinking. Still, I have to say it sounds terribly complicated to implement.

Glad my two solidus could be of some use. I don't know how difficult such designs could be, or exactly how you could implement them, it was just a random thought at the time. Hijack Stability for the Administration Efficiency? The two are the same thing basically if you look at the theme, one just uses gold the other research. Turn one of the research fields into a cycling bar, like Stability in EU3 and set up events to trigger things? Have the two nations compare their tech values when it comes to fighting? Too much spread and you take a penalty? Heck perhaps you can just make the largest nation set the bar with what everyone else needs for Administration tech, and the most advanced military set the bar for fighting.

Agreed. What about an event that increases revolt risk if large cities lack aqueducts?

Might be a good idea to add in events about the troubles of large populations across the board. As it sits right now there is no down side to gaining population, 50 is always better than 10.

Religion research?

Just musing randomly about the research fields in the vanilla game.

The problem with the magistrates is that they are far too influential. There's a huge difference between the research speed in countries with high-finesse magistrates and countries with low-finesse characters. This is hardcoded, so I figured it'd be better to remove them.

This is true, though since the game is using the absolute standard the finesse difference is more painful. If the standard is internal it doesn't matter quite as much, at least for the Administration research idea.

I don't suppose one could create some extra offices from the magistrates? I recall someone asking before and the answer being no...

Again, thanks for your constructive feedback.

Any time. Thanks for your hard work, I look forward to playing the mod when it's done.

 

[unmerged(128970)]

Agreed. What about an event that increases revolt risk if large cities lack aqueducts?

What about diseases? Large cities obviously need water to wash and maintain a certain level of hygiene. So you could have a modifier that lets disease events skip smaller populations.
The revolt risk thing seems a bit too simple to me.