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F_Smith
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Austin, Tx 78728
May 1999
time: 05:13
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Boer:
I'm sorry, I didn't realize you understood the terminology. I try to keep this discussion as non-jargon oriented as possible. No one else here has any exposure to OOA/OOD at all, and most of these models have been designed in a very non-OOD way.
So yes, if you know what a pointer is, the Ethnic Group actually encapsulates a pointer to a 'culture' and 'religion' object. Those objects are stored at the game level.
FYI, it also encapsulates a 'tendencies' object and an 'attributes' object, a 'demographics' object, at this point. There will likely be more, later.
The 'culture' (and religion, for that matter) will split/evolve from time to time, I don't think we should try to get around that. It's easy to do, and absolutely necessary for realism.
If you're interested in the architecture of the data model, please do glance at the threads on the OOA/OOD of the game's models. It would be great if you could look over and critique what's been architected so far.
I'm far from perfect. It would be amazing if this was the first time in my life I coded something perfectly!!!
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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Beör: There's nothing solved for migrations yet. Any idea is novel. I don't want to get into that yet. If you can't wait any longer, please start a new thread on the subject. However, maybe we should wait some more given the questions raised in this thread.
EG-Techs: Please re-direct discussion to the tech thread. I made a comment about it already.
Know that I see F_Smith's words, I understand what's currently implemented in terms of EG and their culture would help a lot in modeling an approach like the one you're suggesting, Beör (nations). Since EGs and cultures are handled differently, a lybian EG could still be connected to all lybian EGs through this common culture. But I strongly disagree with this!!
Each EG should evolve in its own way given its particular environment. A reference to a pana-culture or protho-culture is a very magical concept. For EGs living appart, the only way to preserve a common culture would be with intensive relationships between them, which in time contradicts the fact that they're appart and living different realities. Cultural attributes of a particular EG should be independent of all other EGs in order to model smooth and realistic divergences in customs and ways of living. Handling culture and EG separately doesn't serve to this goal, so I believe, F_Smith, that you have to integrate them. Otherwise we're saying culture evolves independently of the EG itself as a "thing" of its own. EG' cultural attributes are unique to it in the sense that can change individually with no restriction to what happens to other EGs. The division between EG and culture is artifical and useless, IMO.
Beör: You ask if EGs in different locations will "act in common". It's a vague question. If act in common means behave alike, then the answer is yes, at least for a while. After some time, cultures can diverge enough to find different behaviors. If, in the other side, "acting in common" means acting coordinated, then the question is in what aspect coordination interests you. One possible coordination is a rebellion, like a germanic rebellion in a roman controlled land. In this case, yes, the riots model doesn't look at mapsquares to determine chances of rebellion, but at the province level. According to the riots model, chances of rebelion increase if germans see they have enough population in a province. This can be interpreted as a coordination of germanic settlements in a greater territory than mapsquares. Beyond provinces there's no coordination in the riots model. In your lybian-egyptian-roman example there is in fact a problem. Lybians under roman rule are in a different province than lybians under egyptian rule. There'd be no coordination between them even if they aren't really too far away. But to solve this your "national" approach doesn't work IMO, because although it's related to a nationality, the main variable here is distance. If through force migration lybians under roman rule are sent to the balkans, then coordination with egypt-lybians is impossible, while the "nation" is preserved.
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Beör
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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Rodrigo
I don't think the question was vague. It could be answered with a clear 'Yes' or 'No'. And your answer was - of course - 'Yes'. Had to be, otherwise the original EG-concept would go down the drain.
My next question would be:
How do you decide, which EGs should be grouped? In other words, what makes the German EGs in the province you mentioned German. What identifies a german settlement? F_Smith's answer was 'a common culture object'.
What is your idea on this?
I agree that migration would benefit from its own thread. I think however that we should wait until the framework of the social model is decided upon.
[This message has been edited by Beör (edited September 15, 2000).]
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Beör
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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[enter Shakespearean mood]
Rodrigo, Rodrigo, Where arst thou Rodrigo...?
[exit Shakespearean mood]
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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I'm sorry, Beör, for being away these days. On september 18th we celebrate in Chile our independence day and since friday there've been a lot of activities around the subject and a lot of drinking! 
About your next question (germans), the essence of the problem is IMO that you keep seeing a culture as a thing existing on its own. You're asking me really what the "german culture" is like. You want to picture and see the german culture as an independent entity. Otherwise you wouldn't ask me what groups belong to the "german culture". What indeed exist is several groups of people who call themselves germans. The german culture would be, therefore, the aggregation of their cultural attributes. The aggregation is, however, an abstract thing that only helps you see the world in a simplified manner. In this aggregation, of course, you lose info. In a big country like the US, for example, talking about the "american culture" wouldn't let you notice differences from people in the east vs the west, black vs white, etc. The american culture doesn't exist. What exist is several social units in North America with some differences between them in their customs that call themselves "americans". "American culture" is just a simplification the observer does. That's why I don't want to model "cultures", but social units (ethnic groups).
As for the amount of people in an EG, yes, it doesn't make sense to have an EG with just one guy in it. Some control of a minimum amount of people should be made.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:13
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I have some questions about the social model as it relates to giving different EG's different levels of technology:
How would the social model handle this potential "knowledge gap"? Is there a way to easily add this stuff in with realistic effects? For example, would a certain EG achieve dominance if it had a higher knowledge level? And if so, is there a way to model the reaction of the other EG's? Also, are there characteristics of individual EG's that would make them more or less likely to research or innovate?
Basically, I am asking if it is feasable to connect the technology and social models like this. If the social model people say that it would work well, then I suppose there would be no problem with adding this feature. But if the social model isn't able to deal with this change of plans, then the benefits of the idea will go away.
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Beör
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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Rodrigo
No, no, no. You interpret me all wrong.
From your last post I gathered that at some points in the game it is necessary to have EGs in different squares group so they can act together. Your own example was:
quote:
...a rebellion, like a germanic rebellion in a roman controlled land. In this case, yes, the riots model doesn't look at mapsquares to determine chances of rebellion, but at the province level. According to the riots model, chances of rebelion increase if germans see they have enough population in a province. This can be interpreted as a coordination of germanic settlements in a greater territory than mapsquares.
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This means that the game-engine would have to recognize which EGs are 'Germanic'. If there are 35 EGs in the province, the game must be able to decide which ones are Germanic, and thus increase the Germanic population of the province.
What I would like to know is: How - based on the parameters you have in your model - is this done?
There is no meta-culture or anything implied here. Just a question of game mechanics in your model.
On the other hand - and this may be a little OT:
Being from Chile (Joyfully chanting Bolivar - Rah Rah Rah), in which country would you think the average Chilean would feel most at home if he/she were to migrate to Europe? And if you don't say Spain I won't believe you  ! Despite a century and a half of independence and a physical distance of thousands of miles the mere fact that you speak the same language makes all the difference.
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:13
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I asked in the Tech model something that really needs to be addressed in a much more concrete manner here:
What causes EGs to diverge and converge and at what point?
I know one thing is a difference in the ruling civ, espicially if the civ is of completely differnt governing aspects than the EG would normally be for. Relocation after this has also been discussed. However, what i want to know is what would cause internal splits and convergences in EGs. If you haven't read the tech model or forgot here is an excert of one of my posts pertaining to this matter:
quote:
Each EG in each square might exist in squares where a tech is useless to them. FE an EG that is spead over a large penesula where there is a lot of coast and a lot of mountainous regions. Now then because the people at the coast would know how to fish and shipbuild so would the people in the mountains? This isn't right...because the people down below devote more to farming they people in the mountains get better at it? Again i don't think so, espically if they have little contact. Also you are forgetting the fact that when two places have an advanced culture come in, the advanced culture is quickly adapted as far as technology by the old and thus after a few turns you have loads of redundant information that must be caclulated....
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The thing is I saw no information to say that the group in the mountains would ever become another EG unless it was conquered by another civ or formed its own which IMO isn't right. What i want to know if you agree with me is what method would be used, FE after X turns, after certain economical, technological, ecological and/or soceital (usually religious based) differences are reached or if it is a combination of the 2 and how if either of the former 2 would these be tracked and if also what criteria would haveto be met for convergance other than falling below the minimum sustainable population level for an EG.
On other thing is that you seem to force EGs to diverge when civs conquer them after a period of years if they conquer only part of them. If this is so, how do you deal with the fact that there are also IRL ethnic groups conquered by multiple civs even today, that seem to keep a resemblance with their past and with their brethren in the other countries. The pre-modern day isreali population is a good example as are the Kurdish population in the ME. I'm not saying there shouldn't be divergances, espically if the civ is completely differnt in its outlook and other factors, but right now there is no way i see of keeping these similarities of a group that would combine the people in nationalism to break away and form their own country where the people are divided by other countries. Right now all these people are given no matter what it seems is X amount of turns, reguardless of favorable or disfavorable conditions that could lengthen or shorten that time period.
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Beör
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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I think the introduction of square level EGs have caused some confusion in this dicussion. When I say EG I mean an object in one square that holds n people of the same ethnicity. This should not be confused with the original EG-concept that encompassed all people of a certain ethnicity in a province
I leave it up to rodrigo (lead) and F_Smith (programmer) to think of better unambiguous names if they find it appropriate.
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F_Smith
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Austin, Tx 78728
May 1999
time: 05:13
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Boer:
Actually, the name 'ethnic group' is perfectly appropriate for the object, at all levels of aggregation. You can have an 'ethnic group' object stored at any level -- civ, mapsquare, province, etc. It'll just be an aggregate at higher levels.
All we're really discussing here is the storage strategy for EG info.
They are attempting to make a single, big data aggregate and break that down when needed. Monolithic design, it's sometimes called. I'm afraid my experience shows me that it's always more efficient to build a complex system out of small parts. 'Component' architecture, as it's called.
They want one big 'EG', broken down as needed. I coded a bunch of small 'EGs', and aggregate them as need be.
I am attempting to explain my use of this 'component' architecture, and why the game program will be better if we use it.
So far I'm not succeeding, I'm afraid. But I enjoy this discussion, it's valuable experience for me that is applicable to my work.
I'm not sure how much programming you've done, but this is actually a common design error from procedural programmers. I'm kind of afraid to mention that, because of the reaction I might get, but there's no other way to put it. I've sen this before, updating legacy Cobol systems. One of our Cobol products, an insurance tool called 'Vantage', is a design nightmare . . . and now they're trying to add EJB-based middle-ware and a servlet-based front-end.
We're having all these same discussions with the Cobol architects every day. Having them here helps me to 'focus' my points.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:13
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I'll reply in the "Model Organization" thread.
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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OT:
Axi: Yes, september as a whole is an important time for us. It's usually called the "Nation's Month". We don't celebrate it all days of the month like a carnaval or anything, but usually it's a period to strenghten our culture and customs through various activities. Yes, the ****ing military coup happened in september 11th, 1973.
What did I drink? The usual plus two national drinks: "Pisco" (also present in Peru) and "Chicha".
Beör: I believe the average chilean would choose Spain. Italy would get a very notable 2nd place, I think. BTW, I've been in Europe, so my guesses are based on my experience there...
Of course, the aggregation (average chilean) loses information! The south of Chile, FE, has an important amount of population who immigrated from Germany and has kept german traditions in many ways. I'm sure most of them would prefer Germany instead of Spain. Like any other country in the american continent, Chile is a land of immigrants "mixed" with native americans (the mix level varies a lot from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, though), so taking the average chilean is just a simplistic way to see it. Why do you ask me this?
BTW, we have a lot more in common than you think, my friend, and distance and years of separation can't break the european/western culture initial immigrants
brought. We just twisted it a little!
Both of you: Bolivar is a major figure in SouthAmerica, but in Chile didn't play such a great role in independence. Our "G. Washington" was Bernardo O'Higgins. See the last name? He came from an irish family... a land of immigrants, remember?
Thanks for the cheering, anyway
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To the social model:
Beör: The game engine will look at the EG's with "german" nationality to compute riot model's equations for that particular thing which is a nationalistic rebellion.
Richard and LGJ: The EG-Tech thing is IMO a key issue that we should solve as a team soon. Please look at the thread I initiated called "Too much shaking goin' on!" because that's IMO just part of a bigger problem.
Anyway, I'll answer very briefly to your questions:
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. If we want it that way, though, I see two possibilities. The first is to run the tech model at the EG level. The second is to run it at the civ level as planned and add to each EG modifiers that could reduce or increase civ tech levels in whatever circumstance we want to know what tech knowledge an EG has. The second approach doesn't seem like an easy solution at first sight at least.
On your other question, yes, the idea was to give EG's some characteristics that could make a difference in tech innovation. My idea was to use attributes Asceticism, Traditionalism and Literacy. Tech development, at whatever level we decide to run it, should IMO be influenced by EG's attributes.
LGJ (and Beör): There's no internal splitting within an EG because of the definition of it. An EG is a group of people with the same characteristics. A split never occurs within the EG. Part of the EG could migrate or be conquered by other civ, and in that case the EG is divided in pieces and each one evolves on its own.
I didn't have it like this in the original model just for simplification, but your mountains vs coast example will be 2 different EG's in F_Smith's implementation of the model. As I have said many times, with EG's imlemented in mapsquares a lot more realism is gained at the cost of more resources in the computational side. So in your example you'll find realism. EG's in the mountains can be potentially different than those in the coast.
As for convergence, cultural characteristics aren't IMO the key for convergence. Even if two EG's are very similar in their customs, the issue of nationality still persists, so it becomes the barrier to converge into one single EG. There're a lot of examples of this. Think, FE, in Sweden and Finland. Almost same culture, yet they identify themselves as different peoples (different EG's). So, what the model does is to allow EG's with a low Nationalism level to be absorved by the "dominant" EG. That's the only criteria for convergence. In essence this say that an EG with low sense of identity and where its members hardly see they're a social unit of its own, are willing to join other "tribe" and take their ways as own.
About your kurdish/israeli example, the first thing to note is EG's in different civs are not "forced" to evolve differently. If they live a life in different civs but these civs are alike in the parameters concerning social change, then they won't diverge much. The change in culture is given by the reality the EG lives in, so divergences should be measured in that perspective.
Second, Traditionalism. A case like the hebrews could be modeled with a rather high Traditionalism. Even living in very different places, tradition plays the role of avoiding culture change. It can even be set to 100%, where no change at all is allowed.
Beör: I just took a brief look at what you wrote in the other thread. I'll give you my thoughts later on that. For now I can only tell you that once the EG is implemented at the mapsquare level, there's no increasing number of EG's when land changes hands.
About your nomenclature, I like it and I'll try to use it. Anyway, in all my posts for a long time so far, when I say "EG" a refer to the msq-EG. I just adapted to F_Smith's implementation, so I try to think in that perspective now.
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Richard Bruns
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NC, USA
Nov 1999
time: 06:13
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These posts were originally in the Model Organization thread. I copied them here to try to keep things organized.
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manurein
Clash of Civilizations
Social Model
Paris, France
May 99 posted September 20, 2000 16:15
Hi all
I designed a social model for this game some times ago.
I think that this model answers a few questions Böer is raising.
You can see it here : http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000151.html
See the mixing and the migration sub-models.
This model was based on the assumption that cultures tend to converge when they are in neighbouring places for some time.
A few remarks : first, I have left the Clash team for lack of time, but i still try to follow it, and i really want to play it : keep the pressure guys!
Concerning the procedural vs OO design, it's obvious that OO is far superior in such a project. This said, i think that you make a mistake when you try to design directly OO models; IMHO you are missing a step : OO design concerns the implementation of the model; what you are doing now is deciding what you models will do ; this is the specification phase, and OO has nothing to do with specification. First decide what your models must do, give the equations they will implement, etc. When your model is ready, then implement it, which means first designing it then coding and testing it. Clash is a very complex project, far more complex than most commercial games. If you mix the specification and the design phase, you overcomplicate the job needlessly.
Also, you should try to design each model as a "black box" : the other models dont need to know "how" they do, they need to know "what" they do.
What I mean is, all a model needs to know about the other models is the datas that the other models can give him for integrating in their computations. They dont need to know how these datas are produced.
If a model does what it is intended to do, then it can compute ant value concerning what it does, even if it does not use it internally.
Then, each model designer should design his model knowing what the other models are intended to do. Then ask the other model designers to supply him with the datas he needs for his computations. And supply the others with the datas they ask.
Thats all guys, good luck!
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Beör
Chieftain
Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000 posted September 21, 2000 08:39
F_Smith
I sort of agree
If the lower limit of EG size is 1000 people, the havock caused by migration will not be as large as I fortold. You could probably keep it in the 20.000-30.000 range, which I find high but acceptable. I read the other day that there is between 5000 and 6000 languages being spoken in the world, and people speaking these languages will be subdivided into many groups. But mind you many of these languages (I believe it was a little more than half) are on the edge of extinction, being spoken by less than 10000 people. We will have to test this. I say that if more than these 30.000 cultures are created we have to consider an alternative.
Actually there is another thing about several of these aggregation techniques (common object, identical attributes, similar attributes) that I don't like and that I think points to a problem with the method:
YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHAT TO CALL THE AGGREGATE.
If you use the nationality approach you will call the aggegate 'Germans' or 'Germans in XX province' or 'Germans in YY civ'.
With the other methods it will be:
'All persons that were originally Ggerman, but are now something else characterised by their cultural attributes a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i'
or
'All persons with cultural attributes a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i'
or
'All persons with cultural attributes close to a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i'
Grouping by nationality will preserve the flavor, while still allowing EGs to have differing cultural attributes. The aggregates will be larger and more heterogenous, but isn't that closer to reality?
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F_Smith
Prince
Austin, Tx 78728
May 99 posted September 21, 2000 09:48
Richard:
I think we're discussing that in the other thread, so I won't repeat here.
* * *
Boer:
Actually, the player can easily filter/aggregate by each and every EG attribute.
Since the player won't have god-like control, the only reason the player will need to know what civ-level aggregates are would be for whatever game models require. So the aggregate problem is a matter of the 'civ' level modelling, not 'square' level 'ethnic groups'. Even if we store 'ethnic group' info at the civ level, we'll have the same 'aggregate' issue.
I will have the filter available for a player to see how many people of a single ethnicity, how many people of a single culture, etc, are in their civ.
* * *
Manurein:
Hi. Welcome back.
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited September 21, 2000).]
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Beör
Chieftain
Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000 posted September 21, 2000 17:31
manurein
Read your old model - it was not manureout (OK you probably heard that one before!).
There were several things I liked (although I am glad we got rid if the race thing ). And you are right: Many of your thoughts on grouping people in 'agents' and 'meta-agents' are valuable in the present discussion.
I would like to emphasize one thing from your model that I think is worth discussing (and I am sorry: this will relate to scale theory): The use of nominal scale (cathegories) instead of ordinal scales with so many steps that they are in fact continuous has several advantages:
1. You now what to call your groups: the Green Race, the Blue Race.
2. By using nominal scales you don't imply that one category is superior to another: the Blues are not better than the Greens, they are just different.
3. You don't imply that they are placed on a continuum. That somewhere between the Blue and the Green there is a Blue-Green. And between the Blue-Green and the Blue there is a Blue-Green-Blue.
The weakness of nominal scales are just as obvious:
1. You have to find a meaningful name for all categories.
2. You cannot perform arithmetic on nominal scales. Thus there is no average or median. The mixing of people gets diffcult, because you cannot estimate the 'typical' value of the merged people, other than choosing the value of the largest number of people.
So when we want to aggregate people it is necessary to use at least an ordinal scale, where arithmetic operations are possible. But this leads to the problems of no names, lacking identity and establishing proximity (particularly when you have to do this in several dimensions).
Fortunately F_Smith has opened my eyes:
F_Smith
Of course you are right EGs can be aggregated by any of the attributes, and the player will rarely if ever have to do that. I was going of on a tangent because of the discussion I had with Rodrigo in the social thread.
I guess the filter you mention will translate values on the 0-100 scale into another scale with much broader intervals (FE 0-20, 20-40. 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 or maybe even wider) which we could then give a name and use this name to describe the people to the player: '15% of your people are very agressive' or 'On average your population is moderately nationalistic'. Beneath this we would still have the actual numbers thus allowing aggregation of EGs either on the detailed scale with the disadvantages I have outlined or on the less detailed scale.
The other kind of aggregation is the one performed by actions/events in the game, and here we can decide ourselves which method we find most appropriate in the circumstances
Ingeneous - why didn't I think of that .
Whisper mode
F_smith: That's Beör - not Boer. B E Ö R
Funny how you can identify with a silly alias acquired about a month ago.
Whisper mode off
[This message has been edited by Beör (edited September 21, 2000).]
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Beör
Chieftain
Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000 posted September 21, 2000 17:36
BTW does anybody know how to perform hierarchical cluster analysis. Is it feasible to perform it in this context of aggregating EGs - or other objects with several attributes measured on continuous scales?
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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I maybe lost the point, but what's the big deal with aggregation, Beör? In what circumstance(s) you see aggregation causing problems? Why do you want to aggregate?
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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Social Model Glossary, Brief Summary and Current Status (September 24th, 2000)
BRIEF SUMMARY
People is grouped in Ethnic Groups (EG) and characterized through a set of cultural attributes. Each EG has also some other variables defining its status like if it suffers slavery or not.
EG's have one or more religions. The number is still TBD.
Cultural attributes are subject to change along the game. The way they change depends on the reality the EG lives in.
Religions work as agents of cultural change also. When an EG follows a religion, it tries to take the attitudes the religion dictates or encourages. To this end, religions are defined as a set of "desirable values for cultural attributes". These values are fixed for the whole game. Just the intensity with which people follow the religion changes.
Religions spread through the world through contact between civs, which is measured in trade routes.
List of Cultural Attributes
Nationalism
Ethnic Tolerance
Religious Tolerance
Individualism
Asceticism
Traditionalism
Aggressiveness
Land Connection
List of other variables defining each EG
Religiously Discriminated (dummy: the EG can be or not discriminated because of its religion)
Ethnically Discriminated (dummy: the EG can be or not discriminated because of its nationality)
Enslaved (dummy: the EG is enslaved or not)
Nationality
GLOSSARY (MOST IMPORTANT TERMS)
Ethnic Group (EG): A group of people with the same customs and cultural profile.
Primitive or Ethnic Religion: The religion an EG is assumed to have at the beginning of the game.
Great Religion of the World (GRW): Religions like Islam that are allowed to spread globally and eventually overshadow all Primitive Religions.
Religion's moral code or doctrine: The set of cultural attributes values the religion encourages.
Minorities: All EG's that are discriminated because of religion or nationality.
Majorities: All EG's not discriminated.
CURRENT STATUS
The model is being coded by F_Smith in the "Beast". You can check it in http://home.austin.rr.com/lostmerch...lashEditor.html
The number of religions per EG is still unsolved.
The following cultural attributes should be included in a future update: Literacy, Natural Affinity and Corruption.
The handling of the attribute Nationalism should be refined.
Religious converting is missing. Spreading is the passive way by which a religion gets more followers (already covered), while converting is the active attempt by preachers to get more followers.
It has been suggested that religions should have branches, like christianity producing catholicism and protestantism. Still unsolved.
The model initially was supposed to manage migrations. It doesn't right now and this issue may end up being handled somewhere else.
It has been accepted so far that we won't model human races, their mixing and race discrimination.
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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[This is an answer for LGJ's thoughts posted in the riots model]
There won't be 5-6 GRW. I said there'll be 5-6 groups of GRW. There will be as many GRW as you want.
Hinduism: I don't understand why you don't want to model it as a GRW. If the religion itself (its ideas, its philosophy, etc) makes reference to an ethnicity, then it's an Ethnic Religion. If not, it's a GRW. I don't see the problem. If you say it doesn't spread as a GRW, then you're not understanding what a GRW is. A GRW has the ability to spread beyond ethnicities. It's not its destiny to spread vastly. It just can if the religion is attractive.
For the time being religion attributes will NOT change. We had this conversation before. I won't repeat the arguments. It's way too difficult to model true-to-life religion change, so I won't get into that unless the team decides its mandatory. Modeling culture evolution is already a pain in the ass to get into religion evolution as well. Also, it wouldn't give you any big flavor addition to the game.
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:13
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quote:
Originally posted by roquijad on 09-28-2000 02:44 AM
[This is an answer for LGJ's thoughts posted in the riots model]
There won't be 5-6 GRW. I said there'll be 5-6 groups of GRW. There will be as many GRW as you want.
Hinduism: I don't understand why you don't want to model it as a GRW. If the religion itself (its ideas, its philosophy, etc) makes reference to an ethnicity, then it's an Ethnic Religion. If not, it's a GRW. I don't see the problem. If you say it doesn't spread as a GRW, then you're not understanding what a GRW is. A GRW has the ability to spread beyond ethnicities. It's not its destiny to spread vastly. It just can if the religion is attractive.
For the time being religion attributes will NOT change. We had this conversation before. I won't repeat the arguments. It's way too difficult to model true-to-life religion change, so I won't get into that unless the team decides its mandatory. Modeling culture evolution is already a pain in the ass to get into religion evolution as well. Also, it wouldn't give you any big flavor addition to the game.
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1. Hinduism is though in essence an ER, but only because other groups in India converted to it, but it didn't spread anything like an ER. There also comes a point when a GWR could go back to being a ER such as Hinduism, Celtic Religion and Zoastrianism then. Otherwise almost every religion then could be considered an ER because almost all have the potential to spread beyond the EG atleast somewhat. That is the big problem, you seem to not want ER to spread at all beyond the EG and if they do, it becomes an GWR, atleast that's the sense I get.
2. Well I'll wait and see how you handle the use of braching issue and tell you if its okay.
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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LGJ:
I keep suspecting that you merge the real world meanings for "ethnic religion" and GRW with the definitions we have here for the game. For whatever religion you consider (hinduism, celtic cult, etc), what you should do is to see in what category it fits better given the definition of the model for ER and GRW. If it doesn't fit correctly (or mostly correctly) in any of the two categories, then let me know. Use the following as definitions:
Ethnic Religion: A cult that is practiced only (or almost only) within a particular ethnicity. Example: ancient egyptian cult. Its capability to spread beyond the original ethnicity is so small that we consider it null. This capability is so small because cult ideas and practices tend to refer explicitly to an ethnicity in many ways "God XX protects the YY tribe", FE.
GRW: A cult that can be practiced beyond ethnicities. It's capable to spread beyond the original ethnicity. This capability exists because the religion has null or almost null references to a particular ethnicity. "Alah is good to all who follow him", FE. Actual spreading into another EG depends on affinity between culture and religion's philosophy/doctrine/ideas.
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Beör: If you excuse me, I won't make any comments on coding stuff like "this should be a pointer". As agreed, I'm gonna try to keep within the lines of my "job", which is "designer" and I won't tell coders how to do their job. All I care is we need to identify for each EG if it is or not discriminated and/or enslaved by the govt under which it lives in.
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Beör
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Copenhagen, Denmark
Aug 2000
time: 05:13
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Sure - got carried away OO-wise, sorry.
In due time we must have a SM OO thread
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Lord God Jinnai
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St. Louis
Sep 1999
time: 23:13
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Ok that does help clear up some things, but there are still 2 problems, one with Celtic religion and the other with Hinduism.
Celtic: There was a point in time where Celtic religion would be by the definition a GWR, but once Greeko-Roman and even moreso Christiranity religions moved in, it lost much of its hold and what was still left, mostly in Ireland and Scottland for the most part was of generally the same enthinicity or at most 2 very similar enthnicities. At this point it would be considered an ER because it no longer had the power to spread like it did before.
Hinduism: This in some ways is similar to Celtic religion. It started out as a local religion and quickly spread throughout India, thus could be termed as a GWR. But, it is unable to spread beyond that point because it is so much linked with the ethnic groups around it (yes i have seen them elsewhere, even a temple here in St. Louis, but the extent is so minimal and is usually for those Hindus that left India moreso than for converts). So today it too would be considered a ER because of this. A stong one unlike the Celtic Religion that can defend itself, but still it is unable to spread.
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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Celtic cult fits pretty well in the ER category. It was practiced almost only by celts. It didn't spread beyond celts significantly.
Hinduism is IMO a GRW. The fact that it hasn't spread beyond India and the nearby territories has IMO more to do with the affinity part I talked about in my previous post.
The important thing, though, IMO is having the right overall flavor. We won't make a big mistake if we put celtic religion in the ER category and Hinduism in the GRW category. As a result in game terms, celtic cult will exist only in celtic peoples and could be overshadowed by a GRW like it happened with christianity. On the other side, handling Hinduism as a GRW allows the religion to spread given the right conditions (FE if the Indian civ is able to export its culture through conquest) and wouldn't disappear with the arrival of another GRW.
This kind of analysis is the one I use and can be made to any religion we care about. Using ER and GRW with the definitions I gave, we can model all major/most-important religions seen in the world with realistic enough effects. Making a more detailed modeling for religions is IMO not necessary. The main effects are already there.
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roquijad
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Santiago
Nov 1999
time: 05:13
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LGJ: I won't refine this model any further unless the team as a whole decide more sophistication is mandatory.
For now, and at least until demo5 release, the model will remain as it is. You'll have your chance to argue all these things, but in a future time. I need for now to concentrate in solving all the little details in my 3 models to help with their implementation for demo5. To this purpose, it's better to avoid changes to the models at this time.
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Whitemage
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Tennessee,USA
Nov 2000
time: 05:13
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A note on religions:
You should, if possible, have a advocate of each GRW decide its stats.
This would help avoid being insulting, and a follower of a religion could better determine its stats.
And do we really need resurrected religions?
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15-09-2000 09:44
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