Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[tmv]

Anything that can be owned can in principle also be socialized, regardless of market, production and consumption.

That doesn't make it socialist. Thunderbrd already gave a definition (although he has tried to broaden the "production" term to a degree that I cannot agree with). In short: Owning goods for consumption is always possible, owning means of production isn't.

In all cases in nature when you can find diametric forces, you'll find that the key is to balance those forces, sometimes at very specific degrees.

That depends on your definition. With perhaps the simplest form of such forces, order vs. chaos, you could easily argue for maximum order, as long as you don't include things like opression. With reason vs. stupidity, I think it should not be considered an extreme point of view to go for maximum reason.

And I would go even further: It doesn't do you any good not to have a terminal value (of course, having more than one could figuratively paralyze you). When you don't have a standard, you cannot give a value to anything else. Sometimes it's hard to put such a standard into words, but that's another thing. There is usually one value where a person cannot compromize, because his/her entire universe is fixed to it.

The trick in this duality of Socialism vs Capitalism (public vs private industry, industry defined as any categorical set of human pursuits)

While you have broadened the definition of socialism considerably (by broadening the definition of industry), the term "capitalism" has shared that fate for a long time. People understand both libertarianism (up to anarcho-capitalism) and "high-society-interventionism" (like bailouts) as capitalism, although these two terms stand, at least sometimes, for completely different behavior. The problem with this is that it is much harder to have any kind of conversation about these things if everyone thinks of something different (no matter if these people agree with each other or not - it might even be harder to note the real differences if they seem to agree). I am a libertarian (although not any kind of anarchist), but I am most certainly not in favor of "high-society-interventionism". Does that make me a capitalist or not? You are (please correct me if I'm wrong) highly in favor of a public health system, of a welfare system, of public education, etc. - but certainly not in favor of the "dictatorship of the proletariate". Does that make you a socialist or not?

My take on it is as follows: Don't initiate violence, violence being inflicting force or fraud against someone else's life, liberty or property. That can be considered the base rule of libertarianism, as long as everyone understands that the "Don't initiate..." rule is something the government would have to obey as well. What the government can do is helping people defend against such an attack, which usually requires a forceful intervention because at this point "diplomacy" has already broken down. That's an important reason why the minimum state has such a strong focus on the application of force. In all normal times, this should rather be considered a force in being, rather than one people are "dying" to use. The often-heard accusation that a libertarian system would promote cheating of customers doesn't hold water, because such an action would be inflicting fraud (you don't tell the customer about the downsides of his purchase) against someone's property (they give you "good money" for your trash), and so be considered violence. And there is no hard rule that limits the retaliation in a general sense, only (if even that) on a case-by-case basis.

And some industries are just too parasitic or dangerous in private hands (such as an ultralethal modern military) to be trusted in the private realm at all.

Just how far do you trust politicians (like, the current ones)?

Ok so you're saying that the current state of the US (I am not comparing this to the globe) of 98% of the wealth existing in the hands of 2% of the people (or worse), is NOT the most imbalanced wealth distribution previously seen on the planet?

I'll take these numbers literally for the moment, if that's alright with you? The USA has roughly 327 million people (cf. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/), so 2 % would be 6.54 million people.

The Chinese emperor I spoke about had 30 % of the global GDP as his personal wealth. Two more people like that could exist at the same time, leaving the rest of the global population with 10 % - but not a fourth. That's a bit less than 6.54 million people, and it is a bit less than 2 % of the population even of China only.

As you can see, there are several orders of magnitude between now and back then.

 

[Toffer90]

That doesn't make it socialist. Thunderbrd already gave a definition (although he has tried to broaden the "production" term to a degree that I cannot agree with). In short: Owning goods for consumption is always possible, owning means of production isn't.

In the many years since socialism entered English around 1830, it has acquired several different meanings. It refers to a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control, but the conception of that control has varied, and the term has been interpreted in widely diverging ways, ranging from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal. In the modern era, "pure" socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as democratic socialism, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.

I neither agree nor disagree with your and TB's definition of socialism.
There are as many definition of such a word as there are minds that can philosophize about such things.
The definitions of socialism that are typical within Scandinavia are:
"Anything that is by the people, for the people." or "Collective projects are intrinsically socialism" or "Socialism is redistribution of wealth downwards" (I like all three definitions given here more than those you and TB gave)
Means of production is mostly irrelevant to the term in the eyes of most Scandinavians. To Scandinavians the term Communism is more relevant when talking about ownership of the means of production and the distribution of goods.

You may find the cultural difference interesting or you can choose to ignore that it is there.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything I'm just contributing a different perspective to the discussion to perhaps widen it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

That depends on your definition. With perhaps the simplest form of such forces, order vs. chaos, you could easily argue for maximum order, as long as you don't include things like opression. With reason vs. stupidity, I think it should not be considered an extreme point of view to go for maximum reason.

Surprisingly, I still disagree with any extremes. Mostly because with dualities, an extreme just means you enter into it's opposite. Complete chaos will produce complete order and vice versa. Complete truth makes everything a lie and the truth is, all is a lie, though there IS a reality to truth that is not a lie, but only in context. Yeah, this is Duality 202 here and it takes some long LONG meditation to truly grasp this stuff. Since no mind is actually intelligent, just a processor reacting to stimulus, there's really no such things as reason and stupidity and often stupidity allows a person to fall into the right places at the right times where overthinking things would've gotten them destroyed.

ou are (please correct me if I'm wrong) highly in favor of a public health system, of a welfare system, of public education, etc. - but certainly not in favor of the "dictatorship of the proletariate". Does that make you a socialist or not?

The truth is I am both a capitalist and a socialist but it depends on the nature of the imbalance requiring addressing in the discussion. I do not believe in the stripping of the rights of ownership and do not associate that with socialism, though I do understand that's the definition some attach to the term. That's where I use the term communism. I do not favor the dictatorship of the proletariate (so far as I understand THAT vague term). Primarily because I do not favor intrusive governmental influence. It's true that socialized health care can easily be corrupted to become an agent of great privacy intrusion and can make idiotic demands so it must be something available at no cost, but not compulsory to engage in; its services must be optional.

Generally, this outlook is defined in the states as 'Democratic Socialist'.

Just how far do you trust politicians (like, the current ones)?

I feel that the biggest problem with the current politicians is the wealth imbalance has made them bought and sold puppets to wealthy influences that the law has not been able to hold back because those policies have been hacked by that same wealth corruption. I still trust politicians over business owners. At least our eyes are watching what the politicians do... the business owners are often able to puppetmaster things entirely without public awareness in the least. Both sides are the problem but a core legal structure that protected against this kind of corruption would make it a lot more possible for the majority will of the people to truly be in charge.

I'll take these numbers literally for the moment, if that's alright with you? The USA has roughly 327 million people (cf. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/), so 2 % would be 6.54 million people.

The Chinese emperor I spoke about had 30 % of the global GDP as his personal wealth. Two more people like that could exist at the same time, leaving the rest of the global population with 10 % - but not a fourth. That's a bit less than 6.54 million people, and it is a bit less than 2 % of the population even of China only.

As you can see, there are several orders of magnitude between now and back then.

Perhaps so, but since he was already the rule and the law, he had nobody but himself to corrupt with his wealth. And the people had a target if they wanted to rise up to break the system.

 

[DC0]

I see changes are being made to Tech text (quotes of famous people). Nice job.

Certainly not a game breaker, but there is a particular text that is at least questionable. It's a text for Simple Wood Working tech, quote of architect Helmut Jahn. Which says "wood is much harder to produce than metal". Or really? He might mean that it takes time to grow a tree. But this problem is mitigated if one conducts responsible forestry police, when one plans ahead and replants trees after grown ones were cut down.
Also, wood IS recyclable. Wood chips are widely used. If he meant that you can't retain shape of wood when recycling it, well, same goes for metal: you must melt it down to recycle.

I'd suggest to replace it with following: "Measure twice, cut once, then force it to fit" (Proverb). IMHO much better for simple wood working.

 

[KaTiON_PT]

10205
2 pairs in Prehistoric era and 1 pair in Medieval era were left alone - solving those would mean total revolution.

What do you mean by this?

I'd suggest to replace it with following: "Measure twice, cut once, then force it to fit" (Proverb). IMHO much better for simple wood working.

I like it, will include it in the revision.

 

[raxo2222]

What do you mean by this?

If I wanted to have those pairs of techs to be in different columns, then eras would be 1 column longer and a lot of techs would be rearranged.
Now there are only 3 pairs of techs, where one leads to other and are in same column, for example Trapping and Tracking.

This doesn't break anything but it looks better when techs aren't placed like this.

 

[tmv]

I neither agree nor disagree with your and TB's definition of socialism.
There are as many definition of such a word as there are minds that can philosophize about such things.
The definitions of socialism that are typical within Scandinavia are:
"Anything that is by the people, for the people." or "Collective projects are intrinsically socialism" or "Socialism is redistribution of wealth downwards" (I like all three definitions given here more than those you and TB gave)
Means of production is mostly irrelevant to the term in the eyes of most Scandinavians. To Scandinavians the term Communism is more relevant when talking about ownership of the means of production and the distribution of goods.

You may find the cultural difference interesting or you can choose to ignore that it is there.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything I'm just contributing a different perspective to the discussion to perhaps widen it.

In general I have no problem with different (or perhaps even unusual - and I'm not addressing your definition with that term) definitions, but it is certainly better when everyone is aware of it - otherwise, people really talk about completely different things. Now, I should add a few things myself. Voluntary contracts that people can exit from if they want is never a problem, I think. A community that voluntarily enters a state of socialism (or communism) should be allowed to do so IMO, as long as they do nothing to prevent people from leaving. In that sense I consider them a bit like cults, that should also be allowed to operate under the same conditions. Of course, children born under that system might be a different matter - I think in both cases these groups should be, ah, strongly encouraged to train those children in a way that doesn't make such a personal choice for them nonexistant. That might even be considered a second prerequisite for such groups to operate. Influencing said children is alright, as long as it doesn't remove their reasoning ability.

I must say that I prefer the definitions the Eastern Bloc used - that "socialism" is the transitory state ("dictatorship of the proletariate") before the desired end state of "communism" (classless society) comes into being. That's why most of those ruling parties called themselves socialists, not communists. With those definitions "socialism" is actually harsher, but "communism" might be more fantasy-like (as in "unreachable in the real world"). I think only the Soviets still called themselves communists, and they at least professed that they still desired the final transition (I think in 1960 they "decided" to reach that end state by 1980 - we all know how that turned out).

For the "lesser" forms where democracy still exists (and is sometimes even an important part of it) the term "social democrats" is more often used in Central Europe, although that has changed a bit in recent years, when the party with that name made a few rather corporate-friendly decisions, although they certainly strengthened the German economy that way (I'm talking about Schröder, the predecessor of Merkel).

Mostly because with dualities, an extreme just means you enter into it's opposite. Complete chaos will produce complete order and vice versa. Complete truth makes everything a lie and the truth is, all is a lie, though there IS a reality to truth that is not a lie, but only in context. Yeah, this is Duality 202 here and it takes some long LONG meditation to truly grasp this stuff.

What would be the opposite of Duality?

It's true that socialized health care can easily be corrupted to become an agent of great privacy intrusion and can make idiotic demands so it must be something available at no cost, but not compulsory to engage in; its services must be optional.

Generally, this outlook is defined in the states as 'Democratic Socialist'.

Perhaps that would be possible, but it still requires a way to provide for fair competition between the systems, even with one of them being sponsored by the government. That could be hard to achieve. And you need clear accountability for certain decisions, which is often less clear in the public sector. I have heard of enough examples where a "pawn" is sacrificed when a decision is revealed to be a mistake, but when it succeeds it's suddenly all the "fault" of the chairperson. So any decision should have a real "culprit" and that needs to be hammered down before it's clear if it's right or not.

I still trust politicians over business owners. At least our eyes are watching what the politicians do... the business owners are often able to puppetmaster things entirely without public awareness in the least. Both sides are the problem but a core legal structure that protected against this kind of corruption would make it a lot more possible for the majority will of the people to truly be in charge.

Politicians only have to answer to the public when there are elections, whereas business owners can get very quick "answers" by the public when they decide to buy elsewhere. And there is less incentive for politicians to cater to more than a (slight) majority - business owners often try for a greater coverage. And in the - admittedly unlikely - case of said business still being a private organization, instead of e.g. a corporation, the business owner doesn't have "derived" powers, but is the source of the power (s)he wields. At least one form of corruption (acting against the source of your power) cannot happen here.

Perhaps so, but since he was already the rule and the law, he had nobody but himself to corrupt with his wealth. And the people had a target if they wanted to rise up to break the system.

His personal assets were greater than the entire assets of China should have been - the poverty outside of his palace must have been on an unimaginable scale. And sadly there are proven ways to keep even such a system stable - just offer the soldiers better living conditions (give them slightly better living conditions than the rest of the people "enjoys", and perhaps allow them to mistreat the people in their own name as well - in a country as large as China, make sure that they always operate a 1000 miles away from home, so that they don't know the people they mistreat). And most revolutions don't come into being when the people are lying on the ground, but when they start getting better and want more than that (regardless of such a desire being justified or not). So such an emperor's policy would be clear: Keep them lying on the ground. It's terrible how well that seems to work to prevent revolutions.

 

[strategyonly]

just wondering, once a person gets into the modern era , ,there is ALOT of and -, do WE have a counter to these in the modern or before era, tight now ??, because i am a builder and build stuff rather than fighting so much?? look at pic, its kinds out of contgrol because everything u build is a .

Oh and btw i believe we need to look at towns/cities that are further away from the capital, because building, building in those cities takes like 3-4 times longer, and its a pain IF u r a builder, just again wondering??

also, why is it that i cant build a fort/ something in enemy territory ?? pic 2

 

[KaTiON_PT]

just wondering, once a person gets into the modern era , ,there is ALOT of and -, do WE have a counter to these in the modern or before era, tight now ??, because i am a builder and build stuff rather than fighting so much?? look at pic, its kinds out of contgrol because everything u build is a .

I've had this happen before if I built all those smelters/factories that give . Maybe that's the reason?

Look at your pollution too.

Oh and btw i believe we need to look at towns/cities that are further away from the capital, because building, building in those cities takes like 3-4 times longer, and its a pain IF u r a builder, just again wondering??

Odd, could you share your production tooltip of a central city and one far away to see if there is some output issue?

also, why is it that i cant build a fort/ something in enemy territory ?? pic 2

At first I thought it was one of the fort improvements had the tag <bOutsideBorders> or <TerrainMakesValids> missing but it doesn't look like that's the case. Maybe it's because it is next to the captured city?

----

I feel the improvement Core Mining should be unlocked four columns later with Subterranean Exploration instead of Nanomining because, as the name implies, it's mining down to the core level, which Subterranean Exploration focuses on.

 

[strategyonly]

here is the capital and a city that isnt that far away, but a few in distance anyways . . .

 

[raxo2222]

just wondering, once a person gets into the modern era , ,there is ALOT of and -, do WE have a counter to these in the modern or before era, tight now ??, because i am a builder and build stuff rather than fighting so much?? look at pic, its kinds out of contgrol because everything u build is a .

Oh and btw i believe we need to look at towns/cities that are further away from the capital, because building, building in those cities takes like 3-4 times longer, and its a pain IF u r a builder, just again wondering??

also, why is it that i cant build a fort/ something in enemy territory ?? pic 2

Factories and motorized transportation infrastructure unhealthiness represent accidents and pollution.
Also some food related buildings give represent unhealthy foods.
- is consequence of >.
As for imbalance no one really tried to balance those buildings in Industrial and later eras.
@pepper2000 can look at this as he is taking care of technological (Industrial era and later) civilization.

In late Modern era and later there are giving buildings and megafactories, that replace factories.
Essentially Industrial/Modern - big cities are like Chinese megacities: full of pollution and unhealthiness.

As for low production of less developed cities... @Thunderbrd can be this solved for now by setting construction costs to 100 in all eras?
This would mean buildings would be relatively easier to build in later eras.
Or education knowledge base could add flat productivity (it is more effective on faster speeds) and/or percentage booster.
It could be reenabled for later eras, but per pop education cost increment would be commented out (now knowledge base is disabled in later eras).

By the way you have very high pollution in that city.

I feel the improvement Core Mining should be unlocked four columns later with Subterranean Exploration instead of Nanomining because, as the name implies, it's mining down to the core level, which Subterranean Exploration focuses on.

Core mine just means no depth limits

 

[KaTiON_PT]

In the non-capital you are only getting +10% from resources instead of the expected +135% , hmm.

By the way, do my eyes deceive me or are the Leather, Tannin, and Candle Factories actually reducing his productivity?

 

[raxo2222]

In the non-capital you are only getting +10% from resources instead of the expected +135% , hmm.

By the way, do my eyes deceive me or are the Leather, Tannin, and Candle Factories actually reducing his productivity?

I guess some buildings are giving +1% with resource like free candies.

Also I see that... I guess those buildings replace workshops, that had higher + than factories.

 

[Yudishtira]

just wondering, once a person gets into the modern era , ,there is ALOT of and -, do WE have a counter to these in the modern or before era, tight now ??, because i am a builder and build stuff rather than fighting so much?? look at pic, its kinds out of contgrol because everything u build is a .

Controlling pollution will solve (hopefully some/most of) your problem. (It doesn't show up in the causes listed because pollution autobuilds are counted as buildings). There are a few buildings (State Park, Coastal Preserve I think are two) which counter it, but then there are the Park Rangers and Ecologists. Try and keep both pollutions below 500 (water is much easier than air in my questionable experience).

 

[strategyonly]

Controlling pollution will solve (hopefully some/most of) your problem. (It doesn't show up in the causes listed because pollution autobuilds are counted as buildings). There are a few buildings (State Park, Coastal Preserve I think are two) which counter it, but then there are the Park Rangers and Ecologists. Try and keep both pollutions below 500 (water is much easier than air in my questionable experience).

Kinda hard to do when ALOT of the buildings have , doesnt mean much unless ur a builder and not an attacker . .

 

[Yudishtira]

Kinda hard to do when ALOT of the buildings have , doesnt mean much unless ur a builder and not an attacker . .

If you have Wildlife Conservation you can build Park Rangers. (If you have Ecology, you have to build Ecologists instead) They are an unlimited unit, so if you have no other way to combat pollution, keep building them until it is under control. If you look under "Pollution" in the Special tab of the buildings in the city screen, it tells you how many are caused by pollution, and what level of pollution caused them. Keep building Park Rangers/Ecologists until those 'buildings' are 'unbuilt'.

This is not a builder-only problem. Everyone has to deal with pollution, or get used to the in their cities... Next game, you will probably nip it in the bud and it won't be such an annoying adjustment as it is when you first discover it.

Otherwise, you do have the option of ignoring the unhealth. Maybe with the right Agriculture civic, 13 in a city is no big deal.

One other thing. Some buildings are not meant to be built everywhere, and some may only be worth building in one place - or even not at all. If a building gives or pollution and only a small benefit, don't build it. Metalsmiths and smelters are a good example. How many of a "... Wares" resource do you need? Probably less than you have cities. Smelters I'm not sure you even need two of.

 

[tmv]

Also I see that... I guess those buildings replace workshops, that had higher + than factories.

That's certainly right. Tannery is one of the most powerful production buildings, whereas the Leather Factory produces leather and does ... little else.

 

[Yudishtira]

What is the status of Submerged Towns (improvement)? Are they bugged, or have they been fixed?

Or am I wrong in thinking that my version has no way of building them?

 

[KaTiON_PT]

What is the status of Submerged Towns (improvement)? Are they bugged, or have they been fixed?

Or am I wrong in thinking that my version has no way of building them?

Can you share your CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml to see if I can give you a patch that is compatible for your version?

 

[raxo2222]

Can you share your CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml to see if I can give you a patch that is compatible for your version?

This was one of few files, that I didn't touch after V38.5 release

It is unlocked by Marine Architecture (right before Nanotech era)
Unit building them might be unlocked much later though.

Submerged Town Platform unit is unlocked at this tech too.

Shame that units doesn't show what buildings need.

There is other version of this improvement at Abyss Colonization, that isn't tied to any unit.