10-02-2002 05:30									#31
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quote: Originally posted by F_Smith That handles the entire economy turn. I'm sure that's how you're doing it, isn't it?

Yes, that is how its done with econ at the square level. If if were at the province level the issue is you need to figure what squares the infrastructure goes in. If I have a 10-sq province where one square is mountains, we don't want to assume that if an enemy takes that worthless mountain that they get 10% of my factory capacity. So you need Apportionment algorithms for a prov-level economy that you don't need for a square-level economy. And I think there may be other things than infrastructure this needs to be done for. So I believe it is not as trivial as you think.

But that's going to have to be it for me on this discussion. One thing I've learned since you were around is to practice triage in my design discussions. As I said above, the current square-based system should work for the next several months just fine, so this isn't something I feel I should discuss in depth at this point.

	11-02-2002 08:55									#32
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Since both ethnic groups and social classes can only be created with an associated population, and since population can only exist at the square level (or, to be exact, in a square), the present system is entirely square oriented. In my view this gives far too much flexibility, and gives a nightmare to scenario designers, as well as probably overloading any machine for storage space and execution time.

The system I would prefer, and advocate, is something like this:

There are a fixed number of social classes, whose contribution to the five social roles is likewise fixed. By fixed, I mean unchanging in the course of a game. They can be read from a system data file at the start, but only so they can be fine-tuned for playability or accuracy, without changing the code. The only factors that each of these social classes specifies are name and the five social role factors. They do not specify population or attitudes or policies.

Each ethnic culture is defined globally, with a unique name. Each has a specific religion and culture, and a specific proportion of each of the social classes. These values do not change in the course of a game. There may be a base set of attitudes archetypical of the ethnic culture.

Each ethnic group is specific to a province, and points to an ethnic culture, and also has a set of attitudes for each social class, so these values are constant over the province.

Each square has an ethnic population for each ethnic proup represented in the square. This will consist only of a reference to an ethnic group, and a population value.

That seems to cover the data structure. It will also give a certain amount of coherency to ethnic behaviour.

Cheers

	11-02-2002 09:14									#33
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If if were at the province level the issue is you need to figure what squares the infrastructure goes in.

Well actually, this fixes any problems of that kind.

As I mentioned, the 'update' method in each mapsquare is called. That method runs the mapsquare's turn. Something like,

public void update()
{
doProduction();
doConsumption();
}

So when that 'doProduction' method is called, in there it feeds it's taxes, etc, up to whatever 'Province' it belongs to. So you never have to worry about which province it 'belongs' to, it knows and handles that itself.

This allows the entire thing to be done very easily. Without this approach, you'd have to do backflips.

	11-02-2002 09:37									#34
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Since both ethnic groups and social classes can only be created with an associated population, and since population can only exist at the square level (or, to be exact, in a square), the present system is entirely square oriented.

If you mean that there's no reason for each square to have a unique EG or SC, I'd agree completely. There absolutely should be a fixed number of SCs.

EGs, I think, I prefer being more fluid. Since we are talking ethnicity.

But that's just my opinion.

	11-02-2002 22:44									#35
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Hi Gary:

I agree with much of what you have to say. Exceptions and clarifications below.

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas There are a fixed number of social classes, whose contribution to the five social roles is likewise fixed. By fixed, I mean unchanging in the course of a game. They can be read from a system data file at the start, but only so they can be fine-tuned for playability or accuracy, without changing the code.

So far this is exactly as things are currently envisioned. That may not have been clear from the code structure.

quote: Each ethnic culture is defined globally, with a unique name. Each has a specific religion and culture, and a specific proportion of each of the social classes. These values do not change in the course of a game. There may be a base set of attitudes archetypical of the ethnic culture.

I only agree with the first sentence here. I may need clarification on some other things. Are you saying an EG or part of it can never switch to a different religion? A German EG should be able to have adherents of Protestant and Catholic persuasions. As currently constructed it is allowed that Some German-named EG can be Protestant and another Catholic. In the code they are different EGs but one can aggregate by the name "German". How would this work in your proposal? If you allow only a unique flag then things will balkanize very quickly. If you are saying the proportion of social classes don't change through the game, again I disagree, but you may not have meant to say that...

quote: Each ethnic group is specific to a province, and points to an ethnic culture, and also has a set of attitudes for each social class, so these values are constant over the province.

OK, although we may want to use districts rather than province to allow for a dichotomy between city and rural within the province. The difference between urban and rural culture is an important historical item I'd like to capture if its not too expensive. But for now I think this is ok.


F_Smith:

quote: So when that 'doProduction' method is called, in there it feeds it's taxes, etc, up to whatever 'Province' it belongs to. So you never have to worry about which province it 'belongs' to, it knows and handles that itself.

This works fine for a cheezy civ-type economy. This approach simply does not work for the current Clash economy. We have had this same discussion before, about a year ago in the econ thread of that time. I won't be drawn in further on this discussion, too much "been there, done that".

	11-02-2002 23:06									#36
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quote: As currently constructed it is allowed that Some German-named EG can be Protestant and another Catholic. In the code they are different EGs but one can aggregate by the name "German". How would this work in your proposal?

Are they not different ethnic groups under the present system? How are they distinguished now?

quote: If you are saying the proportion of social classes don't change through the game, again I disagree, but you may not have meant to say that...

I did not mean to say that, only that if the proportions change they change for a whole ethnic culture, but see the urban/rural comment below.

quote: OK, although we may want to use districts rather than province to allow for a dichotomy between city and rural within the province.

This is a can of worms that I intended to attack later. However, my proposal is that cites should be squares within squares, with their own population, and so forth. I don't have any problem with city populations having a different social class structure to rural populations for the same ethnic group.

However, do I feel that the social class stucture should be constant over an ethnic group (with the variation mentioned above). The idea of this characteristic varying by square will add a huge amount of complication to the game, both in the code, and in the player's comprehension of what is going on, without, I feel, adding anything but an unnecessary level of realism.

F_Smith:

quote: So when that 'doProduction' method is called, in there it feeds it's taxes, etc, up to whatever 'Province' it belongs to. So you never have to worry about which province it 'belongs' to, it knows and handles that itself.

Does this mean that these "taxes, etc" are remembered by the province, for later processing when all the returns are in?

Cheers

	12-02-2002 06:37									#37
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Gary:

Everything you said sounds fine to me, with the exception of the square-within-a-square idea. That sounds a bit odd. But that is a Long ways off, so lets just ignore it for now... ok? If you do your polygons thing then cities could just be bitty polygons!

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas Are they not different ethnic groups under the present system? How are they distinguished now?

Yes, they are different, as I said in my post above. The only thing I was worried about is that we continue to make it possible to aggregate many EGs in the code by name ("Germans") or some other parameter. That aggregation isn't in the code either yet, but its one of the things I'd planned to do. So the player can see how many Germans or whatever are in his empire. Sorry I confused you...

	12-02-2002 07:45									#38
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Hi All. I'm back from vacations, so I'm ready to drop a few comments/answers:

Mark:
1) Yes, I got rid of the "Economic Planning" policy. Maybe it'll eventually come back, but for now I suspect we don't need it at all. When we get into the govt-econ interconnections we'll be sure.

2) The formula: Civil Rights=ES*((0.5*(IND-TRAD)-p)/(1-p) does not have a typo. It's just wrong! Change it to ES*((OB-0.3*TRAD)-p) where OB is EG's Obedience. While I was checking this, I found a typo in that section. IND, AGG and ASC are wrongly defined (parenthesis missing). They should be:

IND=0.5*((1-K*0.4)*Individualism + K*0.4) + 0.5*((1-E*0.3)*Individualism + E*0.3*RIndividualism)

ASC=0.5*(1-K*0.2)*Asceticism + 0.5*((1-E*0.3)*Asceticism + E*0.3*RAsceticism)

AGG=0.5*((1-W*0.3)*Aggressiveness + W*0.3) + 0.5*((1-E*0.3)*Aggressiveness + E*0.3*RAggressiveness)

The change is valid for sections IV and V of the Govt Model Technical Doc. Sorry!


3)

quote: Because the numbers inside the Exp() vary by orders of magnitude and can swing from positive to negative there is a large chance of getting a mathematical overflow because of the exp. So something needs to be done to change this expression in the long run. In game terms, I think an exponential dependence may be too sharp anyway. Relatively small differences in parameters for two Regimes can give quite different support levels because of the exp. Please at least think about it.

From my experiments I'm confident there won't be any problems. Your two concerns are both "solved" by the 0.08 factor at the beginning of the expression. My experiments showed a 0.08 value behaves well. Anyway, if something needs to be changed here is the magnitude of this factor. The bigger it is the bigger numbers the program will have to deal with and the sharpest decisions will be. I believe the use of an exponential is almost mandatory here because if a regime is sufficiently away from social class' desires then the support share must be, ideally, zero. The exponential does pretty well doing this, sending down the support share to a value very close to zero.

4) In some of your posts, when you list pol.blocks polpowers, you put a "Labor" pol.block (replacing my original designation of "people's pol.block"). I strongly recommend you to go back to my designation because othwerwise it'll create confusion. The people's polblock includes everybody regardless of social class. If you label it as "Labor" you restrict it to workers/peasants/etc, which is incorrect.

5)

quote: Rodrigo never specified exactly how we determine over which range the Player/ruler can set government policies.

I did specify it, but I understand the confusion because I didn't use the same language in the technical doc that I used in the forums. Section VIII of the technical doc explains how you create the "Future Govt Profile" and the idea of range and its width calculation is "hidden" there. This profile is the one that combines social classes decisions with ruler preferences. By making the calculations explained in that sections what you get is an automatic ruler intervention. Do remember that the player isn't meant to use the govt interface every turn to pick a value for each policy within the allowed ranges. The game automatically does that for him based on the preferences he has entered in the Ruler's Govt Profile. If his desired values are within the allowed ranges, then the game automatically set policies in those values. If for some policies the ruler's preference is outside the range, then the game automatically chooses the closest value the range allows.
Using this philosphy of "automatic ruler intervention" you give the player freedom to forget about govt for several turns. The profile created is a "futuristic" one because in general terms it will not be true that changes in govt shape happen immediately (from one turn to the next). That's made so to represent a)the actual process of negotiations, which take time; and b)the process of implementing decisions and make'em a reality. The "Future Govt Profile" represents, then, the policies and pol.power structure the govt will have eventually if nothing changes along the way. The mechanism by which the Current Govt Profiles slowly becomes the Future Govt Profile is handled by section IX of the technical doc. In there you can see that the length of the game turn is explicitly considered. The CGP will become the FGP fast or slow depending on how long a game turn lasts.
If for playtesting we prefer to see the changes in govt the very next turn, then I recommend replacing what's described in section IX by the simple rule of "make the CGP equal to the FGP".
Anyway, if you want to know what's the width of the ranges the player faces, that's determined by the value of M in section VIII. M=exp(-3+3*RULERPW). That means the ruler faces a range of [X-M, X+M] for each policy, where X is the value decided by the rest of society. For example, when the ruler has 20% power, M=0.09. When he has 70%, M=0.4. When he has 100%, M=1.


-------
All:
Mark said:

quote: One thing I Am worried about is that it seems the player can consolidate power, and get it to 100% fairly rapidly with the current system. Maybe I don't understand something Rodrigo has in to prevent this... FE the player power is, in the example 35%, but the player can negotiate it as high as 61% in one cycle (Under "Highest Values Player can select" see Ruler: 0.61). After a few round of this (that might take 30 turns) you can go peacefully from a republic to a dictatorship. Of course the riots model could take care of that all by itself as jealous nobles threaten insurrection, etc. Rodrigo, am I missing something? If not I'm sure we can come up with a fix.

LDiCesare said:

quote: Mark, I think that all parties always want 100% power.

Mark added:

quote: But in the interim, there's an idea I had a long time ago for how to limit power changes. It is from my old early govt model. It gives each political block a feeling for what thier power should be based on contributions to society.

Kind of an old thread... I got into the govt model the first time because IMO the original model by Hrnakfell (I don't remember the correct spelling) had serious problems due to its emphasis in contribution and its strategy of "I want all the power I can get". Both strategies are IMO unrealistic. Bringing back to life an argument I gave years ago, considering today's massive US military force, it would lead in the game, in terms of the contribution-based strategy, to an amazingly unstable democracy, with the military demanding a huge piece of power. The US would go from one military govt to another. But we don't see that in RL. The same is true for economy. With the huge econ power companies have in the States and their gigantic contribution in terms of taxes, employment, etc, what you'd get via the contributions modeling is the US should be some sort of oligarchic rule. Although we know these companies have more influence in govt that the average man through lobbies, campaign endorsement and stuff like that, the US is not an oligarchy.
The "I want all the power I can get" strategy doesn't IMO seem realistic either. Churches and the military, just to name a couple of social classes, would be extremely pissed off today in the US if they compare the polpower they have and the 100% they supposedly want. But I don't see that.
That's why I introduced back then the concept of ideology (now called regime). My strategy was that people (social classes) have a complete image of what the govt structure should be. You don't restrict your view to how much you get, but how much each is getting. If you're very religious then you want the Church to have a big piece of power, even if you're not part of the Church yourself. In the past common people actually believed the clergy should be part of the "ruling class". A military can be a democrat and believe the military leaders shouldn't interfere in politics.
That said, I think my approach is better. I think, Mark, that you got confused when you said "It gives each political block a feeling for what thier power should be". In the current model social classes know how much power their own polblock should have and, furthermore, they know how much the rest polblock should have and how much the ruler should have. What you (almost) proposed to solve via contributions is already solved via regimes and the support each social class shows for them. What you don't like is social classes letting the ruler get away with it.

In the current system it is in fact, as Mark says, possible for a republic to become a dictatorship peacefully, but inprobable. But the fact that it's possible is not, IMO, a flaw. There's a "hidden" assumption if you consider it a flaw: you think people don't want the dictatorship. Although we agree that's probably the most common case, we shouldn't force social classes to dislike despotism per se. If you have enough supporters, the transition to a dictatorship should be possible, as partly was Hitler's case and has been also the case in some latinamerican countries. Historically, in several ocassions societies have given up power to empower a ruler under situations like war. The old roman republic is a good example.
Now, if we take the case of a ruler trying to go despotic while most of people not wanting it, then in that case maybe you're underestimating the power of the riots model and ignoring the speed of changes.
First, it's important to remember that in the riots model people get upset by an undesired govt structure and by a ruler with "bad" preferences. That means the people react to what the player enters in the Ruler's Govt Profile. If he wants to get more power via negotations, then he has to enter it in his interface (representing the expression of that desire to the social classes for negotiation purposes). The social classes can then react to his desires via the riots model, before the ruler gets despotic. If he's able to survive, as time passes and gets more power, people will get even more angry because now despotism becomes a reality (riots models looking at the new Current Govt Profile values). This is a whole process over the years, so the player'd have to be lucky to become a despotic ruler peacefully and live to tell it.

Players usually won't like to wait years to get a despotism. The process is also unattractive if you know you're risking the civ's stability and your neck. It's better to play dirty with a sudden shift.

However, I agree social classes should be able to stop this guy "legally" w/o the need for riots and coups. Specially if the ruler still has low power and is openly expressing he wants more. That's why I initially, in the first version of the riots model, considered an event called "Legally Replacing the Ruler" which was activated when ruler's preferences mismatched deeply people's desires and when social classes had enough power of their own. As a result, the player's interface is adjusted to match people's desires (as an aggregate) and the ruler becomes unallowed to change it for a few turns, representing the change of ruler to a more "tamable" one. Somewhere along the versions I eliminated that event (I don't remember now why) but we could reintroduce it. If that still doesn't satisfy you, we could analyze other options.

----------
Gary said:

quote: The first is that every map square currently has a "MapSquareEconomy". Should it also have an Administration? The more I think about it, the more I think it should.

For social/riot/govt modeling, I'm satisfied handling it at the province level. What do you think would be the gain in having it a lower level? I see almost no use at least for the "society model".

-----------
EGs at squares vs provinces: Because of how the social model works, two EGs with same religion and nationality living in the same province but in different squares would evolve exactly the same, so I think the only reason to store things at the square level is military conquest.

------------
Mark said:

quote: The most recent stuff is near the bottom of the screen dump.

where is this? do I have to download something?


Cya!

	12-02-2002 08:07									#39
	Welcome back Rodrigo! Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Hi, I hope your vacation was a lot of fun. I have read fairly quickly through your post, but am too sleepy to respond in detail...

So just a few points for now.

The "screen dump" means the stuff on the first page that comes from the program diagnostics. Like the post 02-02-2002 20:09 .

Soon I will set you up so you can run the early D7 code with the govt model in it, and test how some things evolve yourself. You can see from the "screen dumps" roughly where I got before I turned it over to Gary to do the xml file stuff.

The exponential expression in (3) that I said could lead to overflows actually Does lead to overflows. The floating point values IIRC overflow somewhere around 10^10. We can figure this out later...

Cya,

Mark

	12-02-2002 08:10									#40
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ouch! I wrote my post off-line in the afternoon and now the conversation is going elsewhere...

Gary's post left kind of shaky...
I'd like to see along the game varying numbers of EGs...
varying numbers of religions....
changes in their characteristics and preferences...
changes in the demog. structure of social classes...

In short, I'd like to see what's already design. That's my opinion. Is it a nightmare? why you didn't tell me before!

My question to Gary: would you still consider it a nightmare if EGs (as designed so far, with all its current possibilities of change) exist at the province level (i.e. assumed to be equal in all the squares they're supposed to be living within the province)?

	12-02-2002 08:41									#41
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quote: My question to Gary: would you still consider it a nightmare if EGs (as designed so far, with all its current possibilities of change) exist at the province level (i.e. assumed to be equal in all the squares they're supposed to be living within the province)?

My big problem was with social classes, rather than EGs. If the number of social classes, over all EGs, is reasonably small and unchanging, I really don't have much of a problem. What I do not like is the idea of 100,000 independent social classes, which is about what is likely to happen with the present coding. Adding them all up, possibly several times, for every decision, when there is no consolidated list, was the nightmare I referred to.

By mentioning a small number of social classes, I mean that less than a dozen should cover it. If you start adding more, game comprehension starts to slip, with a player wondering what on earth a social class called an "Uzbekistani high plateau with forest wandering gypsy style itinerant worker who nevertheless has a stake in some tribal land and is a Muslim with heretical views" means.

Cheers

Gary

	12-02-2002 09:00									#42
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Don't get too concerned Rodrigo. The things I've seen in Gary's comments that I though were against the current model approach... I've already talked about with Gary, and he didn't mean them that way. And besides, we won't make any big decisions without you

The issue started because I began with F_Smith's old Beast code (See, we did use it finally 'F') that had every EG object at the square level. If his didn't, and I honestly can't remember for sure, when I was integrating it into the current code structure it Became so. I added Social Classes for every EG in the same way, just to get things going with PoliticalBlocks. It was never intended to be permanent.

Gary noted the problem that, left this way, things wouldn't work long-term, which we knew anyway from long ago. We are just returning to the original concept. I honestly don't think we're losing anything from your model had at this point. And if we did, it is usually a trivial change to put it back.

But its a good idea to keep an eye on us, just because we're not as familiar with the model as you are .

	12-02-2002 21:55									#43
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I am not familiar with the model at all, I just got frightened by the code. I am still not at all sure how decisions are aggregated. At first sight it appears to go over every social class of every ethinic group in every square and make a calculation which leads to a weighting for each power block. Presumably for every decision that is to be made. If that is the way it works, then I feel that it is unlikely that the players will be willing to wait around for the computer to chug through the calculations.

Again, I have not delved into the system deeply enough to be sure of what is going on. However, it does seem that no "opinion value" is stored for these social fragements. If it is possible within the model framework, it would be a lot more efficient if only changes were recorded or calculated. In the normal course of events, in a single turn, only a relatively small proportion could be expected to change. If the ones that change notified the system of the change, and the aggreated total was then modified we would enormously reduce the computation load. However, as I said, I am not sure exactly what happens.

Cheers

	13-02-2002 02:10									#44
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Gary:

First of all these are all optimization issues, and ones that if unaddressed will not cause any problem whatsoever for several demos into the future. I feel it is Much more important to get the social/govt framework to the point where players can experience it and see if its Fun. That is where I have been putting my efforts. We should perform any tradeoffs for clocks and memory footprint much later.

Some of your issues are due to lack of simple things that can reduce calculations easily by an order of magnitude or more. For instance all the updateXXX methods that set prefered GovernmentPolicies are now run every turn simply for my convenience. It is very straightforward to change these so they are called Just when a negotiation is about to take place. But for now I'm trying just to get things working in the most straighforward manner I can... no bells, no whistles.

quote: However, it does seem that no "opinion value" is stored for these social fragements. If it is possible within the model framework, it would be a lot more efficient if only changes were recorded or calculated.

The opinion values are stored now in a GovernmentPolicies object for each relevant political entity.

Cya,

Mark

	14-02-2002 22:07									#45
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I figured I'd give moo3 a look and see how it was progressing, and look at this: http://moo3.quicksilver.com/official/religion01.html

Simply put, their dealing with about the same thing.

But I believe they're handling it in a superior way, in one key respect: The groups are being handled in a more abstracted way, where attributes, tendencys, beliefs, and desires are handled all together in a kind of personality "trait".

Their Ethos is like a Clash Ethnic Group. Their Ethos is comprised of a set of Ideals. So a group could have the traits of Honor, Militarism, and Isolationism (Japan, anyone?), or perhaps Tolerance, Natural Order, Comtemplative (Taoists), and on and on and on.

With just 16 attributes I doubt there is any belief system that couldn't be simulated! And if there way, you could just add another attribute!


This whole system just Feels right. Ripping it off isn't even at all neccessary, just perhaps moving in that same vein of Trait orientation.

It would accomplish all the goals of the society model, limit the amount of complexity, reduce memory/storage/computation costs, and make modding and evolutionary modelling Way Way Way easier. It seems to have so many things going for it that it seems it almost must be adopted.


But of course ultimately, Traits are just groups of numbers assigned to names. But to go with the idea of Simple To Complex rather than Complex To Simple, you could always add complexity as you go along.

So in the begining you might only have 3 preset EGs (btw, is it decided that they must be Ethnic, or is that just a word to refer to them rather than how they'll really be decided/coded? That is, someone can be convinced to join another Ethos, for instance, but you can't exactly join another Ethnic Group if it's based upon race.), and just work towards greater complexity.

So with, perhaps, 5 "Slots" to fill, each with 2-3 possibilitys (one for each slot), you'd have an easy starting point that still has a huge amount of gameplay value, but that can be easily scaled to "unlimited" amounts of variability and complexity.


Am I making any sense?

	14-02-2002 23:30									#46
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quote: "Uzbekistani high plateau with forest wandering gypsy style itinerant worker who nevertheless has a stake in some tribal land and is a Muslim with heretical views"

good one, Gary!

Very briefly, this is what was on my mind when I was creating last models versions for social/govt/riots (to help you get a better idea of the models, how they're supposed to work and the problems with their "size"):
Usually there'll be as many nationalities as players (civs). Do not confuse nationalities with EGs! (see below)
The number of religions will be equal to the number of nationalities plus a few more (around 5 more).
The number of social classes will be around 8. (slaves, clergy, aristocracy, etc)

(Note:above numbers are a good proxy for the standard whole-history game)

An EG is, simply put, a unit of population with given characteristics living in a given location.

Suppose a player has an empire with 2 provinces. In one of them there're greek and roman populations. Greeks follow the "greek paganism" religion, while romans partialy follow "roman paganism" and the rest follow christianity. Then, you have 3 EGs: one with roman nat and christianity as religion, other with roman nat and roman paganism as religion and other with greek nat and greek paganism as religion.
In the other province there's also a roman population, also divided between christianity and roman paganism, there's no greek pop, but there's a german population, part of which is christian and the rest embracing german paganism. Here you'd have 4 EGs.
So, the player's empire has a total of 7 EGs, each having 8 social classes. Each social class has preferences for govt policies and structure (i.e. political preferences).

For govt negotiation we aggregate social classes political preferences in political blocks. The number of political blocks is fixed and equal to 5. Then polblocks and the ruler negotiate to create govt decisions.

The number of EGs can vary along the game. FE, roman pagans can be totally assimilated into christianity, thus eliminating the EGs with roman nat and roman paganism as religion.


Note: Here I assumed EGs are handled at the province level. If they're managed at the mapsquare level you'd have more of them. You'd have as many roman-christians EGs as tiles populated by roman-christians.

	15-02-2002 11:54									#47
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That was pretty much what I had expected, except I didn't know the numbers you had in mind - 8 social classes makes me very relieved.

I think that the problem (my problem, actually), is in establishing an object hierarchy. If an ethnic group is a characteristic of a province, do they operate totally independently of an otherwise identical ethnic group in another province?

Also, this system rather implies that provinces are fixed entities. On this basis, Portugal could never come to exist because it is part of Iberia. I feel the restriction of making provinces immutable is going to take quite a lot out of the game.

On the other hand, if provinces are alterable, we have to have a plan to manage the ethnic groups in them. If two provinces are amalgamated, how do we determine which ethnic groups are actually identical?

Personally (as I think I said in an earlier post in this thread) I would have an ethnic culture to which each ethnic group belongs. If provinces are amalgamated, ethnic groups belonging to the same etnic culture will be amalgamated, with a weighted average (by population) of any opinion parameters. So ethnic culture determines religion and culture, not attitudes, except insofar as they derive directly from religion or culture.

Also, although I feel that ethnic groups should be province wide, with a uniform set of opinion parameters over the whole province, I believe that the actual population, that is. the numbers on the ground, should be specified at the square level. Thus, as you move through a province like Africa, the proportion of Berbers to Romans in a square can change.

At this level population is the only parameter (apart from a pointerto the province ethnic group). The extra data, from the point of view of the code, is completely manageable, and I think the extra realism is worth the effort.

What I don't want is that the Uzbekistani, etc, in this square has a different attitude to some social factor to an otherwise identical individual in the next square.

Cheers

	15-02-2002 17:40									#48
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Hi Gary:

I am with the spec at the end of the previous post. I though it was what we'd already agreed to, but I guess the weighted-average approach wasn't explicitly stated.

Provinces were always supposed to be fluid from way back. That is the kind of provinces that are envisioned in the model. But per your suggestion a few months back we changed it so that provinces can be fixed, at least over long periods of time, and the squares only change hands. What is called a Province in the govt/social model should be understood to be the total of all the squares controlled by a given civ in a static province.

So when a square changes hands from Roman Gaul to Native Gaul, there is no change in population of any Roman or Gaul EGs, but we do a population-weighted-average shift in the Province-level EG characteristics of the Native Gaul province as appropriate. No change is needed in the Roman ones since that group has just lost population, but the characteristics will remain the previous values.

Rodrigo:

Just to let you know, I didn't get a chance to make any of the changes you mentioned above in the "Clash testbed" govt/social code. I hope you can make some sense of it. If it is more frustrating than useful at this point, just put it aside until I get back from vacation.

	15-02-2002 23:14									#49
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I agree, Gary. I don't want either having social differences at the mapsquare level. That's why I support the idea of handling EGs at the province level (how their variables change, etc). And I also agree about the need of handling populations at the mapsquare level to manage rearrangements of territories (new province sizes and military conquests). Managing provinces like Mark says would leave us without any problem.

Where I don't share your opinion is when you say there should be some kind of high level culture/ethnicity EGs make reference to.

quote: I think that the problem (my problem, actually), is in establishing an object hierarchy. If an ethnic group is a characteristic of a province, do they operate totally independently of an otherwise identical ethnic group in another province?

The problem is you're assuming germans in two different provinces should be identical. I understand your point of view: we're talking about the same ethnicity (in the normal sense of the word) but only in two different locations. But, as I've said in the past, although it's true that they'll be identical in the beginning, we must treat them as if they're independent from one and other in order to simulate cultural divergence. If we force all spanish population to be socially identical regardless of their location, then it's hard to model how spaniards in the new world changed their position, fought the spanish king and created new nations. Or, in the german case, we have to allow divergence so we can get germans in one place become french while others become austrians.
Instead of forcing EGs to respond to a meta-culture, we should simply manage them individually. If they recently were divided geographically, all their attributes will be the same, thus making them behave in the same way. But the liberty of variables to diverge gives us the chance to model a "culture split".

Mark:
Hey, thanks for your welcome and good luck in your own vacations! hope you see a colored sea world with your snorkling!!

I checked the testbed and looks good. Maybe I didn't get it right, but it looks no negotiation procedure is implemented yet.... I saw govt profile change only when I changed ruler's preferences.
I hope one of the first things you do when you come back is add a button where we could see social classes political preferences.
Anyway, I think we'll have to wait for your return to continue this thread.

	15-02-2002 23:42									#50
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quote: The problem is you're assuming germans in two different provinces should be identical. I understand your point of view: we're talking about the same ethnicity (in the normal sense of the word) but only in two different locations. But, as I've said in the past, although it's true that they'll be identical in the beginning, we must treat them as if they're independent from one and other in order to simulate cultural divergence. If we force all spanish population to be socially identical regardless of their location, then it's hard to model how spaniards in the new world changed their position, fought the spanish king and created new nations. Or, in the german case, we have to allow divergence so we can get germans in one place become french while others become austrians

If they have diverged, then they should remain separate. If they haven't diverged, they should be amalgamated. One of the factors must be how long the have been separated. If it has been for two months they are unlikely to have diverged.

The problem with providing a divergence mechanism and no amalgamation mechanism, is that eventually we will be back to a square based ethnic group system. A map of the world showing only political sub-divisions (square ownership), without ever lumping things back together, so that, if at some time some area has been under different control, the areas should be shown separately, will have the world chopped up into very small areas indeed. New Zealand, with an area of 15 squares would be cut into around 38 different areas.

So, without an amalgamation system, we are back to the 20,000 different ethnic groups.

Cheers

	15-02-2002 23:48									#51
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I suppose that groups within a province could diverge also, though we probably would not have too great a problem with this unless a player designated the whole of Eurasia as a province (which they could do).

Cheers

	16-02-2002 05:24									#52
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quote: Originally posted by roquijad I checked the testbed and looks good. Maybe I didn't get it right, but it looks no negotiation procedure is implemented yet.... I saw govt profile change only when I changed ruler's preferences. I hope one of the first things you do when you come back is add a button where we could see social classes political preferences. Anyway, I think we'll have to wait for your return to continue this thread.

Hi Rodrigo. If you look carefully the Ruler options are limited when you enter them. They are limited by doing the negotiation procedure implicitly. As discussed in detail above, the Ruler highest possible value to select is that which would have him making a preference of 100%, and similarly for the lowest.

BTW there is a Lot of info in the government.text file that you can check while running the program and after. It is detailed, quantified information about important stuff. Please check it out when you get a chance. It can make more clear why the exact limits there are on the ruler-selected values are chosen. I think there's more for you to look over I will have web access during my vacation, so don't give up on it yet!

	17-02-2002 19:39									#53
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Hi Rodrigo:

I have been looking at section VIII. Creating the Future Govt Profile for your approach to negotiation. It looks like there is a problem in the approach, in that under certain circumstances you'll get a divide-by-zero. Specifically for Political Powers of Political Blocks:

quote: The political power of political block X in the Future Govt Profile is determined as: S+PS+NS where: PS=(MX/Abs(V1))*Min(Abs(R-S),M)*Sign(1+Sign(R-S)) NS=(MX/Abs(V2))*Min(Abs(R-S),M)*Sign(-1+Sign(R-S)) MX=Max(Abs(V1),Abs(V2)) V1 is the sum of the expressions Min(Abs(R-S),M)*Sign(1+Sign(R-S)) over all Political Blocks. V2 is the sum of the expressions Min(Abs(R-S),M)*Sign(-1+Sign(R-S)) over all Political Blocks. S is the political power of political block X in the Preliminary Govt Profile. R is the political power of political block X in the Ruler's Govt Profile. M is as defined above. where: M=exp(-3+3*RULERPW) RULERPW is the ruler's political power in the Real Political Structure S is the variable's value in the Preliminary Govt Profile. R is the variable's value in the Ruler's Govt Profile.

The problem is that if R-S is positive for all PBs in expression V2 then V2 = 0 making NS undefined. This problem condition will occur frequently when the ruler takes an extreme position that is "high".

One further point I would raise is that this is all very complicated compared to the method I used when I didn't know this existed. I talk about it above, but essentially the Ruler can set any value between Low and High for a negotiated policy or PB power level. Low is determined as if the Ruler negotiated just as a PB with a preference of 0. High is the same but with 100%. That approach is simple, clear, and follows the logic of the rest of the system. Other than the results being slightly different, it seems to give the same general answers as yours. Is there some special reason that the approach in section VIII is better than the simple straighforward one that is alread coded? I admit that given that I have other things to do than spend an hour implementing the above, the already coded part has its advantages .

BTW you made the point in your "return" post that you though my approach required frequent player intervention whereas yours didn't. The approach I used doesn't require frequent player intervention any more than yours does. The limitation on player choice is just the way the interface works now, because that is what I had thought we'd agreed to. If we changed the interface to allow arbitrary choices, then if the ruler wants they can set a value at 100% even though the near-future value could be at most 65% or whatever. So long as we automatically redo the negotiations every 10 turns or so without the player needing to intervene, that 100% could possibly be reached without player intervention. So although the approach I used might have other failings, I think increased player interface use isn't one of them.

And in other areas... the discussion that I started with

quote: One thing I Am worried about is that it seems the player can consolidate power, and get it to 100% fairly rapidly with the current system.

Good Job Rodrigo, your response more or less convinced me things are fine as your model currently has them. At least assuming there aren't big problems in playtesting.

Cya,

Mark

	19-02-2002 23:45									#54
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Mark, you're right on the "future govt problem". It is possible and with high probability that those equations go undefined. Although the system you propose instead may work for policies, it has problems with power distribution. The problem is polpowers may not sum 100% after ruler intervention in negotiations. The more complex mechanism I invented and you cited was created to guarantee a 100% sum.

An example: suppose there're only two polblocks (and the ruler) as political entities. The current distribution is:
block1 30%
block2 30%
ruler 40%

suppose low and high values allowed for the ruler are:
block1 10% 50%
block2 10% 50%
ruler 20% 60%

suppose ruler wants:
block1 0%
block2 40%
ruler 60%

the values the ruler wants for block2 and himself are within the ranges, but that's not true for block1. The final values would be:
block1 10%
block2 40%
ruler 60%
-----------
sum 110%

So, we need a mechanism to guarantee 100% w/o chances of going undefined. I'll think about it.


********************

quote: BTW you made the point in your "return" post that you though my approach required frequent player intervention whereas yours didn't.

No, my main concern was the speed of changes. Under the current code, changes happen from one turn to the next (given all values ruler entered are within allowed ranges) and changes are also independant from game turn length. The creation of a future govt profile gives us control over the speed of changes and that's IMO a must. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in that other post.

*********************
Mark: I'm Very lost in the testbed. I'm not understanding things well, it seems. The mails you sent me didn't help me much either....

For example:
- in the govt main screen the ruler has preferences, but the numbers are different to those shown when editing ruler's prefs.
- when editing ruler's pref, there's only a limited range of options for each policy. That shouldn't be so.
- there's no file in the /people and /social subdirectories I can open. Or at least I don't know with what program I should open them.
- the txt file you sent me shows more polblocks than the number of them we should have. There is a Labor block and a People's block...

It seems you'll have to explain things to me like I'm a 6-years-old...

	20-02-2002 01:23									#55
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Hi Rodrigo, sounds like I needed to add a few clarifications to the previous info...

quote: Originally posted by roquijad Mark, you're right on the "future govt problem". It is possible and with high probability that those equations go undefined. Although the system you propose instead may work for policies, it has problems with power distribution. The problem is polpowers may not sum 100% after ruler intervention in negotiations. The more complex mechanism I invented and you cited was created to guarantee a 100% sum.

The approach I've been using assumes the Ruler makes a Valid choice for political power. That is all powers must sum to 100%. This can be Ensured in the software but isn't for now (though it is stated clearly where the ruler enters the powers that they must add to 100%). Provided the Ruler makes a Valid power selection my method is guaranteed to result in power in the correct range.

quote: No, my main concern was the speed of changes.

Ah, that one is simple. The future govt profile simply takes immediate effect now because I have ignored the gradual change part. That is simply because I haven't done it yet! I agree with you it must be put right, but seemed less important than the other things I needed to do.

quote: Mark: I'm Very lost in the testbed. I'm not understanding things well, it seems. The mails you sent me didn't help me much either.... For example: - in the govt main screen the ruler has preferences, but the numbers are different to those shown when editing ruler's prefs.

Sorry, I should have told you... the Ruler Prefs one is what the player uses. The other one is what a scenario creator would use. It allows immediate and arbitrary change in the power distribution of the govt. It was something F_Smith put in that I didn't take out. Maybe I should have.

quote: - when editing ruler's pref, there's only a limited range of options for each policy. That shouldn't be so.

I agree. Recall I was using my approach above, because I Missed your whole section VIII. The sliders show what the player's choices are that can be implemented in the current cycle of govt. action. That is, the low is the value if the player were to choose 0 for the policy or power, and the high is that if the player chose 1. The player is choosing the Final policy values, to avoid the "machiavellian ruler effect". But of course the player should be able to select numbers outside that range as Eventual targets. That didn't occur to me when I was doing the coding! The way I did it does have the advantage that the player knows what can be achieved in This cycle.

The reason I am pushing just a little bit to leave it that way is (first, I'm lazy, and second...) that with your approach the player won't know if the chosen policy will take effect or not. In either case, what is in there now, or your methods using section VIII, we need a way for the player to enter any valid value, and also a way to let the player know what that value will result in for the govt profile. Both your approach and mine can be fixed to do that relatively easily, I think.

In summary I just want to try a bit to convince you that my approach works ok. If we go back and forth a bit, and you're still not convinced I will (almost) happily do it the "section VIII" way, once you fix the equations so they are guaranteed to work.

quote: - there's no file in the /people and /social subdirectories I can open. Or at least I don't know with what program I should open them.

if you look in ClashTestbed/game/people FE there should be a bunch of .java files. They can be read by any text editor, FE notepad, or "dropped on" Word. Same for /social.

quote: - the txt file you sent me shows more polblocks than the number of them we should have. There is a Labor block and a People's block...

Like I thought I said, just IGNORE the Labor one. Pretend it doesn't exist. It is a mistake that I couldn't get rid of in 5 minutes. I wanted to get the testbed out before I left on the vaction that it turned out didn't happen. Labor is not in the GUI, just those text outputs. I will fix it when I can.

Sorry my previous explanations weren't clear. These may not be either since I"m home sick and my brain is barely functional! I hope these responses help at least resolve some of the issues.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but if you play the game long enough with either your side or the other taking territory (in the first, top, scenario) you will see discrimination-based riots. I freely admit the code isn't all there, and perfect, but it does do several things already.

	26-02-2002 11:19									#56
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I have been going over the social model code as reworked by Mark, and am quite impressed by his efforts in producing an object oriented version. I think that his appreciation of OO methods is quite a bit more advanced that he admits. As far as I can ascertain, his most significant failing in this area is a tendency to argue with me from time to time.

Nevertheless I have a couple of questions about the model.

The first relates to the equations.

RULERPW (ruler power) is a complicated function of NRULERPW (current government ruler power), in Section I of the equations.

On the other hand, in section IX of the equations, NRULERPW is a complicated function of RULERPW.

Are these supposed to be solved as simultaneous equations, or what?

My other problem, is that the whole model depends rather strongly on the population distribution among social classes.

Section X, "Determining the demographic share for a social class" has the text: NOT SOLVED YET.

It rather seems to me that if we have no means of determining the distribution of social classes, then we really cannot use them. However, it is possible that an intial distribution can be set by the scenario, unchanging for the whole game.

Which leads to the other thing that is lacking in the model - initial values in general. Are these all supposed to be set by the scenario?

Cheers

Last edited by Gary Thomas on 26-02-2002 at 22:55

	26-02-2002 22:38									#57
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I order to simplify the input of scenario data, I have devised a couple of constructs. These do not affect the model, but make it easier to specify and hold certain pieces of data.

The constructs are: Milieu, which contains social data common to all civilizations in a scenario. In particular, in many cases, it will contain the list of known regimes. It seems, for example, unlikely that Carthage will know about a regime that Rome does not, and conversely.

Also, to reduce micromanagement of the scenario design process, I have introduced a class called SocialProfile which contains a list of social classes (with their social role specifications) and a population proportion of each. Since there is, at least for the present, no mechanism for these proportions to change, these values will remain stable for the whole game. These SocialProfiles can be global (as, for example, Regimes and Religions are) or local to a scenario. Probably a mixture of both.

Cheers

Gary

	27-02-2002 06:29									#58
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quote: Section X, "Determining the demographic share for a social class" has the text: NOT SOLVED YET.

I had tried to do that, plus figure out how government interacts with economy in the Goverment-Economic models interconnections thread, which was based on a spreadsheet I had made. My model was rather detailed but since a couple of things have changed, it is quite out of date. Since it has never been official, this is not available in the website, but I can send it to you by email if you are really interested.

The problem is that perhaps we will have to revise some of that stuff pretty soon. I will have a look at this again and perhaps, if I have time, I will present you with a proposal that will be befitting of our current progress and our future prospects.

	27-02-2002 09:36									#59
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Thanks.

I would assume that, as a first approximation, we can assume that each of the social classes breeds true and the proportions remain constant. Then, when we get a little more sophisticated about the forces that undermine the upper classes, or promote the middle classes (or even the workers, though I don't think that that has ever actually happened), we can introduce modification factors.

Cheers

	27-02-2002 17:50									#60
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Yes, in fact, until we really need anything more complex than what you propose, alot of time will pass. For now, do what you propose.