technology is linear, because every tech is based on science. technology goes one way and one way only, to better our military, then in turn better our lifestyle. our chosen lifestyle is the only reason that technology exists...thus it is linear because technology of all things is a scientific movement which modifies the lifestyle of the human race for in what many say is for the best. technology makes way for new technology. and as in evolution, only the strongest survive.

technology can move only one way. there is no other way technology can move but to the right. if it isnt moving to the right, then it has been stopped.

there is nothing else technology is for but for the betterment of our lifestyles.

man might be curious about the animal world, when man creates technology to discover it, it is not for the animals, but its to cure our curiousity of them, in turn having a more profound sence of life.

all tech is for humans and humans only, it is of our own 5 sences in which all technolgy is designed for. thus it is a linear path of which serves mans lifestyle, and goals. there is nothing more to it, no other reason technology exists...if i am wrong please tell me what other things technology have created that wasnt directly associated to mans tendency to create a paradise for himself and how it ventures off this linear road into something else.

There is plenty of research out there for the pure purpose of discovery. Now you could say the purpose of discovery is eventually the embetterment of life, but really it is an intellectual rather than practical curiosity. It is quite possible we will never learn anything useful from the Superconducting-Supercollider but sub-particle physics. That science which is advanced for the purpose of improving life could be considered developemental. All other research could be considered pure science.

It is quite possible we will never learn anything useful from the Superconducting-Supercollider but sub-particle physics.

we learn very easily from things, which push us deeper then some can comprehend. for example sub particles show us the string of creation which seems to carryon forever, which in turns opens us up to enlightenment, frees the mind for the old, introduces the new, and BAM! the road of revelation for new techs to arise have been established, once again carrying on the tradition of embettering ourselves...(utopianizing)

our only goal as species is to create a paradise for ourselves, as is foretold by the bible and other theological means. the only thing is that they believe it is in death. eventually one day, mortals will become almost immortal because of technology and advances, that our earth could be the seed of eternal heaven. well sadly this will not be the case for us, but maybe for our children who view us as ancestors this dream may be a reality, thanks to our dying efforts.

In my opinion thats where technology will ultimatley take us.

What about accidental discoveries, like silly puddy (a failed GE attempt to make rubber). Are they linear?

tell me why rubber was made and i think u will see the answer unfold.

tell me why rubber was made and i think u will see the answer unfold.

Yes, yes. Are you simply supporting a linear tech tree because we live in a physical plane? Is it a matter of definition for you?

it would be nice if u could back your statement up with some examples...and yes mostly everything that has been created is for the good of our physical nature. however, there are some things created for our mental nature, but this too is directly related with our physical presence.

Technology moving in one direction is only what heinsight tells us.

Overall, yes, technology builds on the past, and thus moves forward, higher and higher. But saying that is to make technology one dimensional.

Moving forward means you can't move backward. But you can still move up, down, left, right. And if you're moving left, then you can't move right. If you're moving up, you can't move down. So there ARE choices in a the progress of civilization, especially when you look at social progress. And there are a lot of choices on social function of a technology.

it would be nice if u could back your statement up with some examples...and yes mostly everything that has been created is for the good of our physical nature. however, there are some things created for our mental nature, but this too is directly related with our physical presence.

If your pretense is "because we live in a physical plane, hence linear technologies" then there is little to be argued. I would have to agree. But, I think the chaos theory is equally plausible.

I'm not sure I get the point of this thread.

Yes, technology solves problems. It solves problems of curiousity,or making our lives better.

But technology is for humans ... as opposed to what, animals? rocks? Gods?
But technology is linear as opposed to what -- circular? Perhaps a crystal?

I think your comment of comparing science to evolution is very telling -- although it's probably not the conclusion you'd want.

From Steven J. Gould:

Evolution usually proceeds by speciation -- the splitting of one lineage from a parental stock -- not by the slow and steady transformation of these large parental stocks. Repeated episodes of speciation produce a bush. Evolutionary "sequences" are not rungs on a ladder, but our retrospective reconstruction of a circuitous path running like a labyrinth, branch to branch, from the base of the bush to a lineage now surviving at its top.

Sure, on the whole, evolution moves forward, towards greater and greater complexity and less and less entropy. But Gould makes an interesting point that humans only appear to be the "one way" things could have turned out in hindsight. There were in fact three species of hominids living at one time, even though humans are now the sole surviving descendant.

Of course science is about progress, moving forward. But technology isn't without it's dead-ends and idiosyncracies, like evolution. I'm just not sure what you're trying to say by "linear".

How about the Dark Ages? I'm not sure that "to the right" is exactly correct as many parts of Europe drifted to the left.

A good deal of science is not applied. Applications appear after the right people look at it. Probably the greatest reason for the advancement of science is curiosity. Scientists investigated nuclear fission in the early days not because of the weapons or power applications but b/c they wanted to know if they could.

i have heard many people suggesting that the existing tech concept is linear and needs to be changed. in my opinion this is garbage, and nothing needs to be changed, only added.
i speak of linear as being spearheaded path (like to the right)
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. one idea leads to the next, like a path towards a mountains peak. the journey aims to the top, yet the path can still veer up and down left and right but still, its main destination is that of the top. thus there is a predetermined path, by which technology has and will take us. it is impossible to climb down half way to another mountain and pretend ur climbing a different mountain. technology itself is only one mountain, because technology has but one purpose. if u cut technology apart, u will see mini mountains to form one big mountain. although these mini mountains are not seperate, they collectivly and naturally form the whole.

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that is what the dark ages looks like. It does not change direction, but has stopped.


the top of the mountain in which technology cannot carry on any farther, not because it cant, but because there is no need for it, is the utopian age, mans perfected paradise.

but there is no top of the mountain unless you ignore the ethic that drives all research. there is always another question to be answered. Utopia can only exist for those who are willing to be content with what they have. But that, my friend, is not how a scientist thinks.

When people complain about linear research its the idea that all civs needed to discover the wheel, construction, etc. Also its the assumptions that these techs must exist for certain other techs to exist. Also its the assumption that if civilization was resimulated it would develop the way it did in terms of science.

I agree with you that technology is like a mountain and you largely climb towards the top. But that does not mean that you don't shift left, right, even inside the mountain or outside on its surface. Also, it does not mean that there are no dead ends, no slippery slopes downwards.

In other words, I disagree that the tech tree is a predetermined path that we are merely following.

The current Civ Tech Tree doesn't include just pure technology, but social movements as well. Capitalism and Monotheism aren't parts of "science" in the purest sense. And these kinds of social movements are often considered "obsolete". Some people might say "Democracy is an old idea we're gladly rid of." Or "Monotheism is an old idea that we're gladly rid of." (This is different from Construction or Gunpowder.) And, much like evolution, once the environment changes enough, these ideas can shift back.

Back to pure technology (as opposed to social movements), there were plenty of secrets and technologies lost in the Dark Ages. I mean, I guess in the most holistic sense, the knowledge was stored in books that were later retrieved from the Arabs during the rennaisance. But plenty of knowledge was lost, and the "progress" of many people retreated backwards.

There's also the fact that Alchemy -- the pursuit of turning stone into gold -- was an unachieved dead end. Or that Astrology started out as a science and has largely been disproved. There's plenty of instances of pseudo-science and false steps.

And there's finally the question of what the top of the mountain IS. It's better than what we have now, but how much better? Can man create his perfect utopia? Is every disease curable? Can the impact of distance and time be eradicated? Can man harness infinite resources and energy? Can man create a being superior to himself? You might answer yes to all of these things, but that is an opinion and not a fact.

The Tech Tree is based on retrospect, and based on the Euro-Western order of operations. You can already see in some scenarios like the Dark Ages scenario that there's more than one way to make progress. There are four seperate paths: one for Christian Europe, one for the Vikings, one for the Arabs, and one for the Byzantines -- of what I can remember.

Straight from the official Civ 3 Website:

http://www.civ3.com/devupdates/middle2.jpg

there are four monkeys on the jungle floor. as they gaze up into the canopy, they notice a colorful fruit. as they contemplate on how to bring it down, one of the monkeys climbs the tree, although the monkey gets a piece of the fruit, the thorny spikes on the tree cut the monkey severely enough scarring the other moneys from climbing. another monkey decides to throw a rock and knock the fruit off its branch, he successfully gets 2 down. another uses a vine and tosses it around the body of the fruit, and gives it a simple tug to bring it down. finally the last monkey, the only one without a fruit, decides that he dosent want the fruit and it would be to much work to devise his own way to get it, so he simple walks away content with the jungle grubs and worms, a few days later the monkey dies.

the message in this story is that although the process is different, the end result remains the same.
maybe there is four different ways to build a boat, but i guarentee u that one will be most efficient and best. as like the monkey with the stone. and yes there is an ultimate fruit of which science tends to seek, but if u dont know this, i will not argue with u in what u think it could be. when this last discovery is discovered, everything will fall into place.

But evolution is not linear, if you're using evolution as the guide. Evolution is motivated by environment, by context. For example, if there were a drastic climate shift, many species would go extinct, including us. And a species that we considered vastly inferior could become the new seed for further evolution onward and upward.

A more concrete example is the peppered moth of london. Light Grey moths were enormously populous. Then London industrialized, and much of the pollution caused the trees to become darker. As such, the light grey moths were easier to catch by predators. The dark grey moths became more numerous, since they now had an advantage. To say "dark grey moths are superior to light grey moths" is trivial and devoid of any meaningful lesson. You need to appreciate what context gives dark grey moths superiority.

http://animals.about.com/cs/evolution/a/aa090901a.htm

My points are still the same:

- Social movements (monotheism, democracy) can be conceived of at nearly any time, can go obsolete at any time after that, and can be ressurected and built on at any time after that. They zigzag the most.

- Technology can be lost and entire populations can slide backwards, as in the dark ages.

- Some things considered science are not science at all, and resources can be invested into pseudoscience like Alchemy and Astrology. Technology has dead ends, and you have to go back and find a new path.

- Nobody can prove once and for all that science will solve every problem we can conceive of. Then again, nobody's really proven that it can't -- even speed limits like the speed of light are debated. But the point is you can't treat speculation as fact. You can't predict the distant future. Sometimes not even the near future.

I agree that like a mountain you ultimately move upwards, but we do not know how high the mountain is. Also, all movement on the mountain is not vertical, some is along the horizontal plane. Also, some positions on the horizontal plane are more poised to climb higher on the mountain and discover certain parts of the mountain sooner. Also, it is possible to slide down the mountain.

My $.02. Technology must be linear in that knowledge is alway amassed. New knowledge is based upon facts that are already known. The question is so?

Oh BTW Technological research did not halt during the middle ages. It continued in parts of the world other than Europe. Even in Europe many things were developed, 3 field farming, fortification techniques, weapons and armor, not to mention philisophical thought.

The term 'dark age' was originally referring to the lack of 'light' from Rome. Mostly the European world was decentralized and lost the light of classical learning.

Simple example of lost technology, Greek Fire. It seems we have forgotten how to make this. We can do similar things now, but the exact recipe used was forgotten for centuries after it being in somewhat common use in the Med. I feel that unless carefully preserved and nurtured science, technology, and learning (3 separate things) can be swept aside easily.

I disagree with the idea that technology was linear. Technology is cyclic and has been since the beginning. Every advanced civilization has had a collapse as a result of war, government collapse, etc that caused people to be so concerned about what they would eat that they didn't care about scientific discovery.

so, the scientific knowledge would be more like:
/
/
/\ /
/ \ _______ /
/ \/ \/
/

With both technology being gained AND lost. How could this happen? Well, imagine that there is a massive computer crash after we develop a dependence on them. People won't know how to live without computers and the information is lost. It will be more important to know how to eat, not advanced physics. The dark ages was also a time of great darkness in technology where a lot of technology the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans developed.

even ur crude representation of the technology graph is linear in the respect that it goes down and to the right. it still represents that although there are 6 different ages, that they all started from the same point. also as it seems, it also suggests that it was 6 failed linear attempts of achieving a scientific utopia.

Every religion wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized
Every nation wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.
Every culture wants to spread all over the world and to destroy all other cultures, not to bring a harmony between them.

Brinko, if that's your evidence of "linearity" then I don't think anyone will disagree with you. The idea of overall progress or striving for overall betterment is obviously true.

The problem with is you go one step too far. You believe that for the path that DID happen, there was no other possible path. This is false, or indiscriminate at best.

Not only do we know that multiple civilizations took different paths and achieved some feats sooner, or later, or not at all. We also have no evidence to suggest that if we ran the simulation all over again that science, society, and knowledge would turn out exactly the same.

Now this doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a lot of similarity. If anything, I do believe that Nuclear weapons would be discovered eventually, and probably around the same time too. But it may be discovered by someone who doesn't even understand / appreciate the theory of evolution.

The other problem with your claim is that your believe in technology linearity precludes any kind of sideways or backwards movement. There WAS backwards movement. Not for all of humanity, but individual civilizations have slipped backwards, lost important ideas, or proved some concepts obsolete. And obsolete concepts have been revived.

Does this mean we want a tech tree where your civ can fall into a dark age or lose technologies? I dunno.

Does this mean we want a tech tree where you can do things in any order you want? We already have that in many ways. I'd like more of it by eliminating eras.

Does this mean we want more variety in the tech tree? Well, I can't speak for everyone, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. Rewriting history, not replaying it. A tech tree where there's a huge number of techs and paths through those techs. Civs specialize in a certain kind of knowledge (Military), other Civs in another (Civics), and other civs try to cover all their bases (Jack of all trades).

like a tree, the sideway techs are only fruit. the fruit does not prevent the tree in anyway from growing straight towards the sun. they are merely the fruit of the tree. the seeds of the fruit contain the tree of which it came from...

a different path is no different then looking at a different tree which bears different fruit... the general goal is the same, (reaching for the sun) yet the method could be different, (vines, pines, to leafs). like i said technology general has one goal and one interest only, which is to suit mans needs and comfort his survival. as in the trees their needs are obviously the sun...

i think we are getting closer and closer dh to understanding one another...

You arguments are not clashing, that is the problem. Neither of you are arguing on the same plane, so no clash can occur. In order for something constructive to come of this, we need to define a resolution to debate.

thats because we agree to argue, not because we argue to agree.

Brinko, the problem is I don't disagree with your analogies of trees and mountains and evolution. The tree does generally grow up. Everything you said was true.

But can a tree be struck down? Absolutely. And will it try and continue to grow, and eventually get as close to the sun as it was before? 100% true -- I think you'll agree.

If a tree grows up, does that mean that the tree couldn't look any different? Of course not. If you plant three trees, they will all grow up, but they will tilt and branch differently. An extreme case is a tree planted in a cave, that will seemingly reach for the mouth of the cave to grow closer to the light. The tree grows generally up, but is affected by the context of its environment and history.

That's what I'm talking about. Going through a tech tree where everyone follows the same techs would be the equivelent of saying "if you plant a tree in two places they will look exactly the same". Maybe in cartoons, but in real life, all trees are unique. That doesn't mean you'll see trees growing upside down, but they'll generally move up, and everything that happens in between is up to them.

In other words, the problem I have with your claim is that you seem to be suggesting that there's only one possible way to grow, only one path, with no choices, no lateral or backwards moves allowed.

I think that you'll either say that you've changed your mind and there are choices, or that you will say that you always believed there were choices and this was one big misunderstanding.

so the question is : is technology is made only for our pure comfort? well, i would say no. technology can be for everything but our direct comfort. but it is a comfort to use technology, heh, fore sure. or we would not use it. Technology is a mean by which we pass through to reach a goal...

other then the adding more fruit to the tree, and fixing in a dark age concept, i have no problems with the old technology in civ 3. but perhaps ive forgot something...

Yeah, I think that's all I'm saying too. I have no idea what kind of tech tree you thought I was talking about, but certainly nuclear weapons and democracy come down eventually.

The key is the paths in between. I think you should be able to choose different paths.

For example, China didn't really have a middle ages with monotheism and chivalry. But China was still progressing, advancing knowledge. The tree was growing, but it bore different fruit.

Does that mean that China should have their own tech tree? No. Does it mean that the European tech tree should take out monotheism in favor of something more generic? No. It means that if I'm France, or Egypt, or Japan, I should be able to choose between multiple paths that still get me to the same ultimate destination, but I hit different sites along the way.

There are many examples of this in history. And it would make the game more fun, in many ways.

here here!!!

a bit amused at this...script is generalization , "linear" is an idea (Goya - there
are no lines in nature) some that study light and its phenom - have an experiment that leads many to speculate about alternate realities (ol sci fi stuff) however, in these realities , physics may or may not be pertinent-
linear technologies? how about minature thinking.....
in otherwords just because mankind's sensory perception and ability to quantify does not that this perception is "truth"....
maybe it has all happened eighty nine trillion times -ergo circular
or maybe we are hard wired to perceive things in a linear fashion hence we see reality /technology as linear.....does not mean it is so
Maybe God wants us to see things linear so we don't get confused or as a private joke...Seasons are linear? Ice ages? orbit changes ?
wind?
Leonardo coined the phrase -man is the measure of all things-but measurement itself is man made...as is time ect. Man made things are a part of what we deem to be reality- an extension of ourselves- which is what is really being stated

A lot of the time it's just phrasing these things in the right way.

I definitely think a more flexible and versatile tech tree would make the game much more interesting. Right now, there's more of a "technology race". I'd like to see two nations be arguably as advanced as one another, but with very different specialties. (This would make the most sense after the ancient era, when societies started to diverge.)

Examples of this (ol DH's contention) were seen in alot of wars- we have jets! oh yeah? we have radar! and lest we forget - the band Devo had the idea that mankind was DeEvolving - during the "dark ages" peasants toiled in the field for ...about three months - and now with technology to set us free-
we work year round 40 hours a week- the idea that all technology is linear and a direct attempt to better our condition - begs the question - but if it doesn't better our condition than what? Old story about a fisherman who was
told that he could buy a boat, make some profit, acquire a fleet- and retire so the can spend his time doing what he loves best- "whatever he wanted to do " and to this querry his answer was - "to fish".
:king:

are u suggesting that 40 hours a week is to much? or that our technology cant set us free?

just an example of how technology has not "bettered our lot" at least when it comes to labor- but more importantly , idle non linear thought benefitting nothing, bettering nothing and not even amusing me that much- yet still in exsistance

in the end it will be our own technology that kills us. the problem is that the deciding factor of technology is in the capitalists hands, and they only seek profit, not harmony.
they dont give 2 bucks about what u think or what the world of tomorow will be like. the ones that do, are quickly assasinated by the ones that dont.

To me it's not that important if you think technology makes things better or worse. Sometimes there are plusses and minuses. You embrace the idea of "rationalization of labor" with a working clock and increase productivity, but also lose happiness and faith. It doesn't mean that in the long term you can't have both, but for decades or centuries, some concepts both help and hurt you. Religion both helps to unify your people and make them more humane, and it also gives them a justification for violence against others. One day you discover something better than that religion so you can have your cake and eat it too. Few advancements are purely good, or complete in of themselves.

The real point is that in Civ, you should be able to make these kinds of choices. To sacrifice one thing for another, and so on.

Wow isn't this turning into the Science Philosophy 101 discussion. But seriously I must jump in now.

__________________________________________________ _

Western culture tends to have a 'linear' perception of the world. On the other hand Arab and South-West Asian cultures often have 'circular' thinking. Often times American businessmen are frustrated because Arab businessman won't cut straight to the deal. They want to hear, 'we want this price for our goods'. ON the other side, the Arab businessman is frustrated because he feels something out of such an interaction is missing. The work that was supposed to be done in incomplete.

__________________________________________________ ________

during the "dark ages" peasants toiled in the field for ...about three months - and now with technology to set us free-

That is a good point and one that I heard in an argument recently. A friend and I were arguing over whether religion was created by the state or manipulated by it. This evolved into the idea that churches were not as committed to actually fixing problems as trying to gain converts. The example being used was soup kitchens. Not that this connection makes sense in this context, but I replied that to have success you need the base for it. One of Africa's problems is a lack of developemental infrastructure. He replied that 'you and your cultural values may think of the AFricans in their huts as deprived'.

I realized he was right, although my point was not to dig on that lifestyle. Before European nations tried to modernize Africa they were doing fine with their lifestyle. However I did realize a rebuttal to his argument. Although it was a sin to force that lifestyle they chose away from them, it can no longer exist. Africa has the ills of an industrial society and needs to be able to deal with those ills. Polluted water, starvation, and disease are all things that cannot be 'turned off' by going back into the bush.

When new technology appears, it cannot be ignored and society must take the good with the bad. THere is a lot that is appealing about simpler times, but those times cannot exist knowing what we know. If you can live as a fisherman and enjoy what you do and survive, do it. THere are men who are wise enough to avoid the desire to know why. THen there are men who are never satisfied till they know everything. That is what our modern science is about, humanities birthright to the secrets of the universe.

__________________________________________________ _

Technology is driven by the needs and wants of the day now as much as in ancient times. One cannot blame the vendor for selling what his customers demand.

i blame the vendor for convincing that the customer needs his product. unfortionatley u cannot go anywhere now adays and not see an add or commericial. some suckers give into advertising, while the calm and collective like me can see through its veil. I understand that all this waste in energy and print create jobs, but theres nothing honorable and more disapointing then someone with a product giving it some old wise saying or a slogan that was once meaningfull but now in the hands of coporate ownership...http://www.tvacres.com/adslogans_d.htm (http://). the worst is when celine dion writes a song for air canada, and then passes it off as a hit.

Advertising can still have an impact if it doesn't make you buy something. It can make you just associate an idea with a company. Like seeing a commercial for Disney makes you think of Disney as a nice old man who loves children. In actuality, Disney and ABC are under the same umbrella as of 1995, and ABC stopped reporting any news to do with Disney. A 20/20 story critical of Disney was never aired.

At any rate, ingenuiity can take many forms. Ingenuity isn't always built on the back of the latest innovation -- missiles lead to nuclear weapons and so on. In Iraq, they have missiles and projectiles, but they came up with the devious idea to use animal suicide bombers. Yesterday they took it a step further:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/wireless/story/0,8262,4-12111475,00.html

Not to say that Civilization 4 will be much better if you can invent and use various kinds of suicide bombers. That's a very narrow way of looking at it. I'm saying that there are often unique technological paths that some civilizations take, based on their circumstances and values and so forth. Which is why I'd rather see the tech tree look more like a maze and less like a street race.

i knew they were using mentally retarded people long time ago. I couldnt seen any sane person, no matter what his beliefs are, to blow himself up in vane. Life goes on anyways and the americans arnt going anywhere yet, so i dunno what they think they are trying to prove by sacrificing themselves...it just seems to be a waste of skin and fertilzer. blowing themselves up is useless, nothing is being achieved by it but the loss of their own life and others. u have to be pretty much retarted into doing something like it. kidnapping on the other hand seems to be more effective....

I dunno, sounds to me like you don't understand the very tenants of war altogether, let alone an urban guerilla resistance. The goal IS, often, to kill as many opponents as possible. If you send a soldier into battle, and the average number of kills for a soldier before dying is about 2... then a suicide bomber with an average number of kills of about 6 before dying is arguably very effective. Especially if your opponents have a technologically and economically superior force. Again, that's to discuss it platonically.

Is it technological progress? Well, it's an innovation. It's a step backwards in some ways, but it wouldn't happen if it weren't also a step forward in other ways.

first off dh

i know war. this mickey mouse terrorist operation of "blow our selves up and take our neighbours with us" is not war. its suicide/murder by the manipulations of NOT AN ARMY, but one sick individual, wear a turbin and chanting the koran who convinces a retarted kid to wear some kind of magical suit that will send him off to paradise. this is the style that charles manson would use, and according to your standards and definition of war, charles mason must of been a general.
an army is pretty useless if its dead, and its pretty pointless waging what u call a war of gorillas, if one by one your soldiers are dying as well as killing possible recruitments as they go. why would u cut off the hand that feeds u? especially in a so called war? this is no war. this is no more then but a bunch of suicidal lunatics, of would be bums, opting out of this world and causing chaos as they do. they are nothing but a bunch of sad lonely group of individuals carring outs acts of suicide/murder in the name of allah to make their already concieved of pathetic lives seem like martyrdom.
it is you who are confused with the difference between war and cold blooded murder is.

a white horse with black stripes may look like a zebra, but it is still a horse.

According to your definition, nearly every army in history has been useless because nearly every army in history has suffered casualties.

It sounds like you have a moral opposition to suicide bombing. I think that's very justified, and I'd agree with you. But to knock the effectiveness of an army because they willingly accept casualties, embrace it even, is to ignore the point of war altogether. And you're off topic.

Let's stop using the term "war".

To relate this back to innovation... military innovation can be seen as a kind of "bang for your buck". In a battle between swords, to expect one man to make one kill before he dies is quite acceptable. Thus a force of 4000 versus a force of 3000 will win with 1000 survivors, all other things being equal. Even if you ensure that both sides have guns, and those guns give them a kill rate of 2 before they die, you'll probably end up with the same result, only faster. It's only when it's gun versus sword that a force of 2000 guns can beat a force of 3000 swords with 1000 guns left.

Extrapolate to the age of projectile bombs and so forth. You might expect a man with grenades and rockets to be able to kill 5 people, on average, before he dies. Fighting a poorly funded resistance with rifles, American soldiers are at a serious advantage. But if there's a suicide bomber who is able to kill 5 people, on average, before he dies, then that advantage is nullified.

Suicide bombing is a technological military innovation.

(And please use scientific terminology, not words like "cold blooded" or "pathetic" or "lunatics". We're not here to judge their sanity or their moral values. We only use the terminology of quantity in science.)

First, it is spelled Q'uran and the 'turban wearing bastards' only chant during prayer.

Secondly, a vast vast majority of any of the Muslim suicide bombers in Iraq or Israel have been competent, educated, and informed men and women. Sanity has nothing to do with whether a person can be a suicide bomber. One motivation is the idea that they will be forgiven of sins, as preached by Jihadists(note: not most Muslim clerics). Not so crazy in the context that every major religion has radical elements that preached similair things at one time or another(maybe not suicide bombing, but equally gross). Although we now live in a relatively secular society, just look back to the religious passions of the Protestant Reformation to see how beliefs could make someone do what seems like illogical things. Second, in Palestine your family recieves a stipend from Hamas if you become a suicide bomber.

Thirdly, suicide bombing polling places, discos, and cafes is terrorism, plain and simple. There is no justification and no significant target other than civilians. However most of the terrorism in Iraq is being perpetuated by non-Iraqis, particularily Al Qaeda.

Many Iraq groups, including Al Sadr's militias, are fighting a geurilla war. They attack US Convoys, Iraqi Police, and Iraqi National Gaurd troops and facilities. Driving a truck full of explosives into a deuce and a half is quite effective for these reasons. Casualties are not the purpose of geurilla warfare, disruption is. Because any convoy can be ambushed at any time, the US military must spend resources on gaurding logistics rather than being able to put more effort into aggressive action. Also it increases the cost of being in Iraq tremendously, creating possible domestic trouble for US occupying forces.

Fourthly, companies do not create the desires of marketplaces, they draw them out. Capitalism would not exist if people were not greedy. Commercialism is the cause, not the result of advertising. Same with violent media, drug abuse, and anything else society should take accountability for.

they are nothing but cowards and will never get my gratification of being refered to soldiers or guerillas.

their only objective is to die. they do not wish to see victory so how are they attaining it, this is the trait of a pyscopath...nothing more....the militia men are killing their own people, obviously they are retarted enough not to know that the ones they kill, will eventually be replaced by their own people...

i also think anyone who would challenge the united states military is retarted, and would be insane to fight. and thats exactly what u get, a bunch a puss's who are scared to do battle the real way...nobody ever seen the nazis dress up in civilian clothing to do battle, nor stalin make his tanks look like wagons...
god they nazis bore the swastika so high everyone knew where they were, so did the red army...

crap that was only 60 some years ago... if u think that suicide bombers are the new breed of warriors, i beg to differ, its just the newest low to cowardism....there only a bunch of welfare warriors who can't even die right..

but anyways no need to get emotional about this...lets get back on topic

Yes, back on topic. No more fuzzy unscientific terms like "retarded" and "insane" and "cowards".

Suicide bombers are a logical and scientific response to an enemy that is trying to occupy you. When you're fighting against soldiers where an important principle is to maximize your kill:death ratio, having effective warfare is an important advantage. If you blow yourself up and take out 10 guys, you'd need but 15,000 insurgents to defeat the coalition forces of 150,000, assuming they didn't add more troops. This is more effective than trying to match the coalition forces with more conventional kinds of warfare.

You can make the comparison to a guerilla war, even though it's not the same thing. The vietnam communist force, their goal wasn't to win the war, but ensure that the Americans couldn't win. They could do so by being absolutely brutal and making it absolutely impossible to hold any position. The idea is to retreat as soon as possible, let them take the city, and then strike in scattered and unpredictable ways. You'll have a hard time retaking the city, but the hope of the guerillas is that they'll drain their morale and make them want to leave. It sometimes works.

Suicide bombing is a perfect example of something that would never be embraced by Americans. But in a nation that is less democratic, more religious, and extremely poor, it becomes an effective alternative to conventional warfare.

Moral? Courageous? Sane? That's not the point of this thread.

Effective. Empirically verifiable. Quantifyable. That's science.

There is a line between insurgency and terrorism. Terrorism is the point when your objective is to kill civilians. Insurgency is an effort to maintain or shift power to whatever movement you are fighting for.

I agree that there are many terrorists in Iraq. Sadder yet is the fact that most of these terrorists are not Iraqi. They are foreigners pushing forwards a very bizarre political ideology with bombs in cafes and polling areas. Pure terrorism has never accomplished its goals.

Insurgency is a totally different matter though. These are native Iraqis who feel they will be on the losing side if they let the country form in the path it is forming. Many Sunnis feel descrimination will continue within the new government. Kurds worry about their rights as a minority group, and Bath'ists; well you can figure it out.

Also, you seem to be suggesting that guerilla warfare is immorrall in some fashion. Remember that all war is a crime and all criminals judged equally. Guerilla warfare is the practical means of achieving strategic objectives. Obviously the insurgents in Iraq would not win in a conventional conflict. They are doing what insurgents do; attacking convoys, disrupting logistics, assassinating key military and adminstrative leaders, and trying to win the hearts of Iraqis. They probably dislike the terrorists more than we do, considering that it is hard to run a country without an infrastructure.

There have been guerilla movements that were very successful against the US military. Probably the greatest success was that of the Viet Cong. They never engaged our forces in a manner that would put the US and our vast firepower advantage to use. Also, they gained support of the South Vietnamese populous. While not as well known, Korean guerilla groups also waged a campaign of disruption on US forces in Korea.

There were Russian partisans, although their efforts were not as effective as the German partisan efforts. The Nazis had an organization known as the National Socialist Guerilla Movment, or Werwolf. This organization killed many important Allied leaders, mined roads, sniped, and even poisoned soldiers food and drink.

The Allies definitely supported or engaged in great amounts of guerilla warfare during WWII. In occupied France, many black ops organizations bombed railroads, power stations, radio transmitters, shot officers, and created all kinds of havoc for German occupying forces. When OVERLORD came around, this damage helped retard the German response. In Yugoslavia guerilla forces caused Hitler and army group South tons of headaches.

Now in conclusion, I believe terrorism is foolish, disgusting, and immoral. However I do not believe insurgency is immoral. We are occupying a foreign nation, and some of those people want us to leave. We cannot condemn them for fighting, nor can they condemn us for shooting back.

Yeah Sir Schwick. You can judge which side is on the right side, and who we'd like to win. But that's not relevent to the discussion. Any tactic that eliminates or disempowers your enemy is all just part of the game.

Probably some of the biggest inventions in warfare in the past 50 years were not made in the science labs, or the engineering design rooms... but on the battlefield, by generals of small amounts of men fighting occupying forces that were much larger and technologically superior. When surrender is not an option, you find very creative ways to compete.

That's the essence of what I'd like to see in the Civ 4 tech tree. Where your circumstances might suggest that you explore a different path, an offshoot off the conventional path... even if you're ultimately still moving in the same direction.

Technology is an interesting thing to debate about: Which is more like technology? Attack plans or Airplanes? (we really do research attack plans) TECH has no definite defenition, and as a result, cannot be considiered linear or nonlinear. Technology is developed based on what people want or are interested in. To get research and build something, you need to have four things:
Need or Want: we didn't invent the toilet so we could make a new room in our homes
Supplies: We didn't learn how to forge iron without iron, we learned with iron with itself
Time: Cars and airplanes are perfect examples (we technically invented the car in the late 1870s, but it wasn't really recognized until we had cars that worked and were not feared)
Money: we didn't pull computers out of a hat, it was a slow progress that started in WWII, and we didn't have reliable computers until over 20 years later.

It would be interesting for them to add a factor each turn that either increased or decreased research (fear, demand, ect.)

Wow! interesting direction this thread took. I must say I have found the back and forth facinating.

Suicide bombing is a perfect example of something that would never be embraced by Americans. But in a nation that is less democratic, more religious, and extremely poor, it becomes an effective alternative to conventional warfare.

Maybe not blowing ourselves up, but going out in a "glorious hail of bullets" seems to be acceptable.

@sir shwick war may be immoral but it is not necessarily illegal.

According to the UN all war is illegal.
According to the good Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, "We should never forget that everythign Adolf Hitler idd in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.'"

It appears someon in Iraq has discoverd a new weapon of terror, Special Ops Cody:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/01/iraq.hostage/index.html

In regards to suicide bombing, it was an 'art' that has proliferated in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It seems as though in a place where many feel they have no good reason to live, martyrdom is very popular.

It appears someon in Iraq has discoverd a new weapon of terror, Special Ops Cody:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/01/iraq.hostage/index.html

i would hate to know that special ops cody was a really solider passed off as a ken doll.

between gaze and palestine, the palestinian suicide bombers are killing jews
that is logic
between iraq and iraq, the iraqi suicide bombers are killing iraqies
that is illogic

once in a blue moon they hit a convoy, but it is not suicide bombers doing this, its road side bomb, or mortars. (a conventional military means more likley sadars militia)

a few days ago a suicidal man derailed a train in california, hurting and killing some people. he is getting charged with murder.
if a few days ago a suicidal iraqi derailed a train in bahgdad, hurting and killing a few people. he would be dead and called a terrorist.

if the man in california wasnt a puss and didnt jump out and carried through with his suicide...would u then call him a terrorist?

whats the difference? they are both, in respects to science, suicidal maniacs, but the only difference is that in one country there are more who are willing to take the risk...the end result shows no victory. only chaos, fear, and death. wheres the victory in killing ur own people? like i said before, these suicidal bombers are mostly, in respects to science, mentally handicapped and easily manipulated. so whats to say some iraqi reject, who feels unoticed and depreciated, didnt come up with a scheme like this to convice his brother corky, to wear a backpack full of explosives, to walk down to the market and detonate by r.c, all for a little sence of accomplishment and a boast for his ego?

I know terrorist groups have filmed some suicide explosions, but most of them are not. organized terrorists are more effective in kidnapping people, at least this way they can get ransom and feed themselvs. u cant move an army on an empty stomach, no matter how pitiful and pathetic they are.

tell me once, how an iraqi blowing up other iraqis is strategical.
car bombs outside iraqi police kill iraqis of which will be replaced by more iraqis. these people are mentally disturb, i dont think they know themselves what they are trying to prove.

if iraqi insurgants or whomever are responsible for these ordained attacks, why are they killing their own people instead of converting them for their cause. if anything u think it would be easier to convert and convince an iraqi whom has placed his life on the line for an american, to join an iraqi.

obviously these organizations are WEAK, DESPERATE, and are not as ORGANIZED as we think. I think most of them wait for opportunities instead of creating them, which to me decides the difference between a skilled soldier, or a welfare warrior.

wheres bin laden? no word during the state of the union about him?
my biggest fear is that syphilis has gone to this guys head deeper then in the past...im scared that if this guy ever carries out some massive attack on the us, that the states will counter with even a greater massive attack. what i wonder is what would happen if a briefcase bomb packed with a nuclear device went off in an american city, would this spark a massive nuclear launch against the middle east?

There's plenty of reason to kill your own people. It's called "Civil War". The reasons for Civil War are as fair as the reasons for any war, really. There are plenty of ethnic, religious, and ideological differences in Iraq to justify Civil War. Iraq is really at least three seperate nations artificially held together by British borders a long time ago.

And if you kill enough poorly trained Iraqis who are siding with the "American occupiers", you can eventually convince all Iraqis to desert out of fear. You assume that fear, chaos, and death aren't subgoals onto a greater goal. If anything, militaristic strongmen profit from fear and chaos. It is then that the masses cry out for strong leadership, for someone to show them the light. And without a drip of irony, the people will often rally around the same person responsible for the fear, death, and chaos in the first place.

But speaking directly about military technology, as opposed to what you use it on ... (killing civilians is not an Iraqi invention.) ...

Suicide bombing is an effective strategy. In the Civ sense, it's a technological innovation the same as Artillery, Guerilla Warfare, or Nationalism. In desperate circumstances when their forces are weaker than their opposition in both size and technology, the suicide bombers wait for opportunities to make life difficult for their enemy and reduce their morale. They will wait months if they have to. They will stretch the conflict out into years if they have to. They reduce the morale of the opposition, discourage any of their own people from siding with the opposition, and basically make it as demoralizing as possible for the opposition to hold that territory.

It has a number of success cases.

i actually want to see terrorism in civ 4. i think it would be great to kill and utilize terrorists. if terrorism was introduced it would add a whole new level to the modern age. someone had started a great thread on introducing terrorism, which i think the developers should seriously consider. it is something that has to be really thought about and looked at deep, so players can either control terrorists, or effieciently be able to eliminate them.

Terrorism is a tricky thing. State sponsored terror is seldom called terror. It's usually called "collatoral damage". If I kill 6 civilians and one soldier with a homemade bomb, I'm a terrorist. What do you call it when I drop firebombs from 1000 feet over Tokyo -- a wooden city -- with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths? Civilization models the civilian death. But it doesn't model the reality or the impact of civilian death.

And that's just the question of state sponsored terror. Think about the complexity involved in creating any non-state actors, in a game where everything is controlled by a few players. You'd have to be able to model the factors that lead to revolutionaries first, if you ask me. And that would be more interesting in itself.

I'm talking about suicide bombing strictly as a military technology, as opposed to the morale draining tactics of civilian death. It's sacrificing yourself for guaranteed kills. Like a game of chess, you kill a queen but sacrifice your queen to do so. Or you sacrifice your knight to do so, even better. It's a very logical tactic when you look at the superstructure of war. ... even though it's hard to see the logic of the individual who would willingly blow themselves up. But then again, I find it hard to see the logic of the individual of "going out in a glorious hail of bullets" as Kayak so eloquently pointed out.

Give a General a choice. Would they rather have someone who ran and hid all the time, afraid of gunfire, and who maybe killed one or two people before they were taken off the battlefield on a stretcher... or someone who ran in and killed 12 enemy soldiers before ultimately being taken out? Not only would they pick the latter, but they'd probably award them one of the top honors in their country. What difference is it if you do it with $10,000 worth of space-age equipment, or an old 1960s grenade you got for a couple hundred bucks?

Reminds me of a story about American versus Soviet ingenuity.

The Americans went up into space and found that it was very difficult to write memos, because the ink in the pens would not spill out. The gravity conditions made it extremely challenging. So the Americans invested tens of millions of dollars into research and development and came up with "the space pen", which could defy the gravity of space and write successfully. They also sold it as a novelty item in stores, to help people write upside down in those rare earth-life conditions.

The Soviets, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

if it took 1 terrorist to reduce a city of 6 to 2 or a city of 12 to 6, there would be strategical importance, but if it takes a 100 terrorists to not even move the city from 7 beto 6 then what worth is it?

i would like a feature if terrorism is introduced that when a city is occupied the terrorists, if given enough gold could destroy a unit...it would almost be like trying to steal techs, where u up the chance by paying more money.

terrorism does not cause any significant real damage. The only useful byproduct of terorrism is possible unhappiness. Even that would fade with time, as the Israeli's are pretty used to suicide bombers now.

The terrorist would have to be a stealth unit. If attacked it always retreats after the loss of one hit point. It cannot kill units but could damage them. It can kill citizens somehow, and destroy non-military city improvments. (just at thought)

@brinko, remember that al Zarkawi (sp?) is a suni muslem and he believes that shiites are all apostates. It really doesn't matter to him if they are killed. His aim is to make Iraq ungovernable by way of fomenting a civil war between the suni and shia populations.

oh and BTW I reffer to someone who tries to commit suicide just as a means to end his or her own life as a person who is ill and needs help. Not a murderer or terrorist.

Discovery in general (science) is NOT linear, because we never know the path until we get there, and often there are multiple pathways---it's just that we only ever found one (or two).

Some technology is linear because as you state---it's to meet an end---one we usually already have in mind (the line connects the path from start, to where we want to go). So "linear" technology is one that doesn't intentionally come up with a completely new discovery---it's just trying to improve efficiency or adaptability of an existing technology.

Some discovery is just generations and generations of "linear" technology that accidentally uncovers something new (e.g. astronomical laws and gravity). Yet that discovery is usually not intentional, ever.

Since the "Tech tree" really represent both science and technology, I have to say that is SHOULDN'T be purely linear, nor omniscient. I'd like to add 'practical' research to the research system, and pull practical, linear inventions out of the tech tree and represent them as bonuses, earned by research.

There is one exception----when you have a specific question in mind, and try build linear technological answers to that question.

SOMETIMES, you suceed exactly as planed---in that case the progress was linear.


OFTEN, you still uncover unexpected results in the attempt (therefore non-linear, since the path wasn't planned in advance, and the discovery could have been made by other means).

The only thing you couldn't simulate (or wouldn't want to) in Civ is the idea of dead ends. They sunk lots and lots of time into discovering a way to convert stone into gold, with alchemy, and never really got there. If you made a tech like this in Civ, nobody would pursue it, because they have the wisdom of the modern education system to benefit them.

Then again, maybe even the "dead end" techs have some benefit. Like discovering astrology, you don't find a systematic way to tell the future. But you might still define a lot of great cultural ideas that make your people feel good. Or alchemy, you might not synthesize gold, but you might make some primitive advances in medicine. Even artificial intelligence, we don't know if it's possible to create Hal9000 anytime soon, but we know we can create an assembly line of simple but efficient mechanical workers.

This is why the concept of 'blind research' would be useful. All you say is, "I want to concentrate on military research because we live in dangerous times." Whether or not you hit dead ends, intermediaries, etc. is not controlled by the player. THey just determine what kind of products they want out of research, not how to get those products.

True, although it would be really frustrating if you hit a dead end for no appearant reason. Kind of the same way with natural disasters.

Not that players don't like challenges. They do. But they'd like to think that the challenge is something they can actively and intelligently overcome, instead of something that is randomly forced onto them even when playing a "perfect game".

How about a 'technology' openness level with each blind option: This number would measure the likeliness your next tech will lead to even more research. Then players know that while open research opens up possiblities, it probably does not yield products immediately.

i think we have been exposed to technology too much as players to become blind to it, some of us know by heart what comes after pottery if u blindly discovered it and what comes after magnetism as well.
I dont see nothing wrong with the previous tech tree. I would only like to see more fruit.

I see plenty of room for improvement on the previous tech tree. Although dead ends isn't necessary (even if they happen often in real life). They're probably not that fun either.

More just the ability to diverge paths for a few techs at a time. China took a different path than Christian Europe which took a different path from Mesoamerica -- and those cannot simply be represented by "who's ahead/behind".

The same technology tree makes it so that in the early industrial era, there are not half-naked warriors fighting riflemen. Think: all civs have to be equal or people will only play some civs.

very true, if there are different paths to the modern era then people are going to choose the european one because they were the most successfull in the military/economic sense.
they could implement changes where different civs have unique tech advances or are allowed to discover certain techs earlier than others to give more variety (for example china could get gunpowder much earlier than everyone else) but completely different paths would not work and they would be a dead ends for all but the europeans.
this is the problem with trying to make civ mirror history (for accuarcy) whilst at the same time keep it balanced and fair (which history is certainly not).

thescaryworker, you made two mistakes in interpretation

One:

not simply be represented by "who's ahead/behind".

I don't want a tech tree where you intentionally choose a path where you're with spearmen when the other guys have riflemen. That would be stupid. I know I compared mesoamerica to europe, but I didn't want it so one civilization would be drastically behind another. I want it where a Civ makes a choice after discovering mysticism -- where you research "Ritual Sacrifice" and "Sun Worship" on one path, or you research "Mythology" and "Idoltry" on the other path, and then re-converge at Polytheism.

Taking a mesoamerican path or a european path would get you to the same destination at the same time, but would take slightly different routes.

Two:

I use mesoamerican and european as terms of convenience. They wouldn't be labelled as such. And, in fact, Greece could take the ritual sacrifice route if it suited their needs, and Maya could take the mythology route if it suited their needs. It's not a question of who's who, but what style you want to play, and what offers you the benefits that you need in the near future.

To summarize, we're talking about multiple balanced paths that anyone can take. No hardwired paths -- any civ can take any path. And certainly no paths that ultimately lead to you being centuries behind someone else.

I get what you're saying, now. So, for example,:
Player x decides to do more researching on peace techs, yet he still gets some military stuff on the way. However, he can make up for the behind military with the number in his military. He is able to create more due to his booming economy.

Maybe while researching certain techs(Cure for Cancer; Mythology), your populace could become happier because you are researching them.

You're on the right track. More than anything, the tech tree becomes a way for the Civ can customize itself. For example, in the late middle ages.

There's a militaristic path, and there's a democratic path (to describe them simply). The militaristic path is what happened in some European civilizations, where Kings discovered more powerful artillery and fortification, and consolidated their power, and quelled those who opposed them. On the democratic path, the king does not consolidate his power, and the people are able to make more demands, thus empowering the masses in a way never thought before.

To put them in more concrete terms, at a certain point you can choose to either take the militaristic path -- where you discover Castle Fortifications (with a new artillery unit), followed by Absolute Monarchy (a new government or bonus to an old government, like discovering Fascism early). Or you can take the democratic path, where you discover Constitutional Monarchy (a new government or bonus to an old government -- like discovering Democracy early), followed by Humanism (with a new Great Wonder).

Afterwards, the two paths converge again at another tech.

So as far as the player is concerned, they're choosing between two short term strategies. Do I need more military might? Or do I need to invest in my people?

But there's an important biproduct... they're not just choosing between two strategies, but two paths in history. You could start to feel like you were really rewriting history and customizing your Civilization, instead of racing through a pre-determined path. That's not only strategic, but lots of fun. (In my opinion.)

Trading techs could be handled differently.

In civ III, As soon as you buy, trade or get a tech as a war concession, you can immediately go into full production with any of the tech's applications.

How about dividing the tech research into two parts, experimentation (done by Scientists) and application (done by Engineers)?

Experimentation is about understanding. Developing theories, exploring limitations, etc.
Application is about practical use and production conciderations.

A civ that does the research itself get's both experimentation and application done.

One who trades for it learns about the experimentation and understands it enough to continue down the tech tree or to research application (takes fewer turns than full research).

Until Applications are known, units, improvements and Wonders for the tech can not be built.

While I would prefer a more holistic approach, for the next couple Civs this is probably the best solution. It is not a far departure from traditional thoughts on technology trade. Also, this is very similair to how CEvo handled tech trades. I give it a thumbs up.