Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Ok, let's talk further about the Education property as it is so far implemented.
First of all, I really hope those of us working on this realize it's a mess right now and if it's going to continue to be included at all it needs to be worked on extensively before the next release. AKA, it must be top priority now or be removed.
Issues:
1) I do not know how it's resetting its values on recalculation. This is a major problem for the game as it means you're screwing yourself over if you do a recalc! I can try to look into this but it greatly confuses me as I don't see how it would be handled any differently than any other property during recalculation... very strange indeed.
2) The current emergent buildings that are generated automatically in cities based on the Education property levels are obviously just placeholders right now. Their effects are next to nothing at the moment. With this in mind, it does very little to have or not have education when you take away the intended setup of applying to many research and health buildings a prerequisite to build them and at the moment, we have not yet determined how to properly set that up yet.
3) There's some logic issues involved in the property setup. It makes some sense that the population would 'diffuse' or diminish the property output, soaking up some of the production of the property in a community as it takes more overall effort to educate the community. HOWEVER, not only is this currently now shut off for some reason, it's also not really a rational approach when the property volume is utilized as a prerequisite for advanced buildings. Even in a very large population, you'll still have some elite educated individuals driving the construction and operation of such buildings, even if most of the population is undereducated.
So what does the property volume really mean? Is it the highest level of education that exists among the most educated or is it the average education level? If it stands for the highest level, then the building prereqs are rational but population diffusion is irrational. If it is the average level, then building prereqs are irrational but population diffusion is rational. If it is the highest level, then what force acts against the buildings that are adding education? If it is the average level, then what should the property be acting to accomplish if not establishing building prereqs?
4)MrAzure suggested, in the bugs thread, a way to graphically fix the property panel in cities so that the scrollbar doesn't sit over the top of the numeric displays in relation to their properties but apparently though suggested and tested, it has not yet been implemented? Why not? It really needs to be immediately done!
5) Right now we've replaced research on libraries and universities but I'd urge against a full replacement there. Most cutting edge research takes place in these locations so while I can understand removing flat +/- research modifiers, they'd certainly have a +% effect still so that when research is spent on by governmental funding, you'd have it taking place in those locations and more readily enabled therein as well.
So aside from some technical difficulties I think we should also rethink exactly what the property volume and rates mean and from there formulate a plan as to what it actually does.
My proposition is to approach the property as if it is representative of the AVERAGE education level.
This means:
1) Establishing the property values as prerequisites on any buildings becomes irrational as you'd always have more educated folks among the elite bureaucratic classes.
2) All benefits and penalties associated with Education must be considered along the basis of asking the question: "How would a more or less commonly educated populace be a good or bad thing?
3) Some answers:
a)Positive can be somewhat bad. More educated populations have a far greater chance of revolt thus as education levels rise, revolt sentiments rise as well. (+ revolution sentiments)
b)Overall research RATES would increase. There are more minds thinking to solve cutting edge problems, more empowerment among the people to express insights to the leaders in those fields of research, and more opportunity for the less 'elite' classes to offer contributions to society that may lead to major technological progress. (+ flat tech commerce volume)
c)The emergence of Great People would be accelerated. How many people in an undereducated society simply missed out on the opportunity to become something truly great? A society that strongly values giving even the common person an opportunity to learn will give rise to a lot more movers and shakers. (+GG emergence %)
d)Yes, other negative properties such as crime, pollution and disease would be diminished due to people being taught more about how their actions impact for good or bad the world around them. It removes the 'ignorance' factor that causes a great many mistakes among the mass population. (- cumulatively increasing volumes of negative properties)
e)Society would be more effective in all roles. Thus all yields would be influenced as there would be more efficiency, less waste, more accomplishment as the people are given a standard base of knowledge and know-how to achieve all of their jobs in the most effective ways. (Thus, with each emergent building level in education, we simply add +5% to each yield and perhaps even an additional +5% to each commerce.)
f)Another drawback: Society would not populate as quickly as they would be taking more time to learn rather than jumping into procreation as early as they might otherwise. They would also be more responsible and have a better concept of why they may not wish to yet burden themselves with children before going on to assert achievements of their own professionally. (Cities would take +x more to grow.)
g)Some buildings would become more or less effective. As a LONG TERM part of the project, buildings should be independently adjusted in effectiveness based on varying degrees of education level. These can be done a little at a time, slowly introducing modifiers on these to aid in game balance and immersion here and there.
First of all, I really hope those of us working on this realize it's a mess right now and if it's going to continue to be included at all it needs to be worked on extensively before the next release. AKA, it must be top priority now or be removed.
Issues:
1) I do not know how it's resetting its values on recalculation. This is a major problem for the game as it means you're screwing yourself over if you do a recalc! I can try to look into this but it greatly confuses me as I don't see how it would be handled any differently than any other property during recalculation... very strange indeed.
2) The current emergent buildings that are generated automatically in cities based on the Education property levels are obviously just placeholders right now. Their effects are next to nothing at the moment. With this in mind, it does very little to have or not have education when you take away the intended setup of applying to many research and health buildings a prerequisite to build them and at the moment, we have not yet determined how to properly set that up yet.
3) There's some logic issues involved in the property setup. It makes some sense that the population would 'diffuse' or diminish the property output, soaking up some of the production of the property in a community as it takes more overall effort to educate the community. HOWEVER, not only is this currently now shut off for some reason, it's also not really a rational approach when the property volume is utilized as a prerequisite for advanced buildings. Even in a very large population, you'll still have some elite educated individuals driving the construction and operation of such buildings, even if most of the population is undereducated.
So what does the property volume really mean? Is it the highest level of education that exists among the most educated or is it the average education level? If it stands for the highest level, then the building prereqs are rational but population diffusion is irrational. If it is the average level, then building prereqs are irrational but population diffusion is rational. If it is the highest level, then what force acts against the buildings that are adding education? If it is the average level, then what should the property be acting to accomplish if not establishing building prereqs?
4)MrAzure suggested, in the bugs thread, a way to graphically fix the property panel in cities so that the scrollbar doesn't sit over the top of the numeric displays in relation to their properties but apparently though suggested and tested, it has not yet been implemented? Why not? It really needs to be immediately done!
5) Right now we've replaced research on libraries and universities but I'd urge against a full replacement there. Most cutting edge research takes place in these locations so while I can understand removing flat +/- research modifiers, they'd certainly have a +% effect still so that when research is spent on by governmental funding, you'd have it taking place in those locations and more readily enabled therein as well.
So aside from some technical difficulties I think we should also rethink exactly what the property volume and rates mean and from there formulate a plan as to what it actually does.
My proposition is to approach the property as if it is representative of the AVERAGE education level.
This means:
1) Establishing the property values as prerequisites on any buildings becomes irrational as you'd always have more educated folks among the elite bureaucratic classes.
2) All benefits and penalties associated with Education must be considered along the basis of asking the question: "How would a more or less commonly educated populace be a good or bad thing?
3) Some answers:
a)Positive can be somewhat bad. More educated populations have a far greater chance of revolt thus as education levels rise, revolt sentiments rise as well. (+ revolution sentiments)
b)Overall research RATES would increase. There are more minds thinking to solve cutting edge problems, more empowerment among the people to express insights to the leaders in those fields of research, and more opportunity for the less 'elite' classes to offer contributions to society that may lead to major technological progress. (+ flat tech commerce volume)
c)The emergence of Great People would be accelerated. How many people in an undereducated society simply missed out on the opportunity to become something truly great? A society that strongly values giving even the common person an opportunity to learn will give rise to a lot more movers and shakers. (+GG emergence %)
d)Yes, other negative properties such as crime, pollution and disease would be diminished due to people being taught more about how their actions impact for good or bad the world around them. It removes the 'ignorance' factor that causes a great many mistakes among the mass population. (- cumulatively increasing volumes of negative properties)
e)Society would be more effective in all roles. Thus all yields would be influenced as there would be more efficiency, less waste, more accomplishment as the people are given a standard base of knowledge and know-how to achieve all of their jobs in the most effective ways. (Thus, with each emergent building level in education, we simply add +5% to each yield and perhaps even an additional +5% to each commerce.)
f)Another drawback: Society would not populate as quickly as they would be taking more time to learn rather than jumping into procreation as early as they might otherwise. They would also be more responsible and have a better concept of why they may not wish to yet burden themselves with children before going on to assert achievements of their own professionally. (Cities would take +x more to grow.)
g)Some buildings would become more or less effective. As a LONG TERM part of the project, buildings should be independently adjusted in effectiveness based on varying degrees of education level. These can be done a little at a time, slowly introducing modifiers on these to aid in game balance and immersion here and there.