A [overly] ambitious 4X simulation game

[peter grimes]

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10soiv/i_started_rsimulate_a_new_idea_collective/

Hello everybody, thanks for your time! I'm starting somewhat of a unique project on Reddit, /r/Simulate[1] and could use the help of some experienced researchers, historians, and professionals of all walks of life. We want to make an engine that generates plate tectonics, human language, culture, everything. We want to utilize academic models, automated agents, and tons of other cool stuff.
I've been meditating on what a global history simulation with a universal culture & language engine would look like; and how it could be implemented as a game with educational benefits. I outline my vision here:
http://www.iontom.com/2012/08/25/game-build/

I doubt this will be followed through on, but it certainly makes for interesting reading!

 

[Borachio]

Yes, I've stumbled on this idea before. I suspect I'm already in this implementation. Beta anyway.

 

[Quackers]

hes been medidating on it, seems legit

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So this is not about Spore?

 

[Borachio]

But Spore was rubbish wasn't it? The last time I looked it didn't look good, anyway.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Spore was a massive letdown. Led us on for 5+ years with tales of gold, only to find out after release that it was only hastily painted gold in the unit editor.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Ah "ambition." The useless gas that takes up the nooks and crannies of the gaming universe.

 

[Tee Kay]

If ambition is currency I'd be the richest man on Earth.

 

[peter grimes]

The webpage linked at the bottom of his quote makes for a good read, at least.

I know zero about programming and implementation, so I can't speak to the content. But I found the videos interesting. Particularly the one about the game Fuel.

Also reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up Wolfram's A New Kind Of Science for a while now.

 

[holy king]

Link to video.

 

[Borachio]

I've just been looking a bit more at the original link. It's certainly an interesting idea. The like of which I think will have occurred to a lot of people. This guy comes at it from several different directions at once. I like it a lot. But he'll need a bigger, much bigger, computer.

 

[Crezth]

But he'll need a bigger, much bigger, computer.

Not necessarily. This entire idea of his seems like an excellent application for fuzzy agents and linguistic reasoning algorithms. You could probably make something really flexible, robust, and lightweight with the right crew.

It's a very neat idea.

 

[Borachio]

But he wants to implement Guns, Germs and Steel. And plate techtonics. And...stuff!

He's going to need billions and billions of separate agents beavering away for billions of years.

But heck, I don't know nearly enough to even think about this properly. I'll have to go look up fuzzy agents and linguistic reasoning algorithms. See you in a decade or two. By which time it'll be out of date.

 

[peter grimes]

Linguistic reasoning algorithms? Where did you see that? Is it the same sort of thing as genetic algorithms?

 

[Crezth]

But he wants to implement Guns, Germs and Steel. And plate techtonics. And...stuff!

And these behaviors have rules, broadly in the physical sense and specifically in the operational sense.

He's going to need billions and billions of separate agents beavering away for billions of years.

Well, not necessarily. I'm saying you can be clever about it and cut down on some of those permutations. In fact, it's the only way you could implement something like this correctly.

Linguistic reasoning algorithms? Where did you see that? Is it the same sort of thing as genetic algorithms?

It's musing of my own, based on the sort of stuff I work on. A very small part of me wants to ring this guy up and talk business.

Genetic algorithms are brute-force and case-satisfaction algorithms, fundamentally. Linguistic reasoning is cognitive.

 

[Angst]

there was a pretty crude tectonics "simulator" in a civ4 mapscript iirc. i think it was called tectonics even, and it basically used some numbers to whip up a real-world-looking map.

i personally wouldn't mind if it wasn't even close-to-perfect, just that it appeared as such and was playable for me there on from; like how spore was originally imagined

 

[peter grimes]

He's going to need billions and billions of separate agents beavering away for billions of years.

At one point the author mentions that the way to handle this is through zoom levels and... I think... Procedural something something?

This is explained further in the video clip about the game Fuel. Essentially, the landscape of the game is so detailed and so physically large (10,000km^2 @. 5m resolution x 6bytes/grid element = 30+Gb) that it would require 30 dvds *just for the terrain*. But it's all on one disc. So the game doesn't keep every tile in memory - it calculates a tile only when the camera position and zoom factor require it.

This same procedure can be implemented to handle agents. Watch the clip on Massive. Imagine that, instead of scripted actions, a weighted percentage us assigned to beach action tree. Also, at a high enough 'zoom', individual agent actions are simply run as statistical background calcs.

At least, that's what I *think* he was getting at.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, I get the calculation idea. It's a bit like how human vision works. Only a very small field of vision is minutely "calculated" by the brain. The perception we have of being immersed in a highly detailed 3D world is largely illusory. Though, naturally, I don't think the 3D world is illusory. Just our perception of it. (I'm going to tangle myself up in knots soon.)

Nevertheless, a billion* possible variables, in a full scale world like this guy is talking about, is going to take phenomenal computing power. Which may, of course, be just around the next corner.

*or maybe it's substantially fewer, like only 100,000 or something.

 

[peter grimes]

there was a pretty crude tectonics "simulator" in a civ4 mapscript iirc. i think it was called tectonics even, and it basically used some numbers to whip up a real-world-looking map.

i personally wouldn't mind if it wasn't even close-to-perfect, just that it appeared as such and was playable for me there on from; like how spore was originally imagined

A friend and I use Perfect World 2 often. The mountains, rivers, swathes of jungle versus desert are completely realistic

 

[Angst]

i use perfectworld2 all the time. literally. no other map scripts are as beautiful i think and i want to play on beautiful maps. so outside scenarios i don't play anything else