DESIGN: Dale on education

[Dale]

Education sucks. It's all wrong. It's opposite to reality in almost every way.

1. Who chooses their major at the end?
2. Who waits till next year to graduate just because someone else already did this year?
3. Who learns Law & Politics at a school to become a statesmen?
4. Why does it take my kid twice as long to finish school as it did me?

These and many more questions remain unanswered. However, I believe there is a better way.

1. Education levels are determined by building. Resource professions taught at school. Manufacturer professions taught at college. Artisan professions taught at uni.
2. Major and cost must be chosen/paid at the start of entering education.
3. School profession are free, college minor cost, artisan expensive.
4. After building a school one of two lines of education building must be chosen: civil or military.
5. New education line: military. Military College trains veteran soldiers & seasoned scouts, Military Uni trains GG's (but VERY expensive).
6. IS can enter school and become free colonists after education. So IS becomes free via education.
7. PC cannot enter education buildings. (PC become free colonists over time. IE: serve their sentence).
8. No education cost increase. IE: 0% threshold increase.
9. Free colonist can become specialist if in same job for long time.

Comments?

EDIT:
Forgot point 9.

 

[Red Adept]

Dale, would you be able to teach someone a resource profession only if you have one currently in your settlement?

Would it be too strong if you could if you have the resource in your settlement's fat square?

 

[Dale]

No, the specialist must exist in the square. But as point 9 shows (which I forgot when I initially posted) a free colonist can learn the specialty they do (like in Col1).

But that won't happen till they've done the job for a long time.

 

[Wheldrake]

While I agree that the current system that artificially inflates the education required for each subsequent trainee until it becomes virtually impossible to educate anyone is excessive, I would warn against making education too easy. Some aspects of the game need to remain challenging, or else it will be even more of a cakewalk than it currently is.

Point 5) Why make getting veteran units even more easy? With the right founding fathers, your new military units already start with several improvements, and since the REF forces are relatively unchallenging, this sort of change will make the game even easier to win. And the cool thing about great generals is that they are very rare. If they were common, that would take a lot of the mystery out of them.

Point 9: I like this option, as on occasion there are no native villages to train certain specialties. It should be a very small percentage per turn after an initial training period - I had the impression in the original Col that the chance was higher if you had no specialists of the given type at all, which would be good. In theory, if you have even just a single specialist of that type, you can train more, but it would be good to have an alternate method for getting that vital first specialist.

Again, don't make it too easy.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[Jabie]

IIRC, any citizen can become a pioneer by supplying them with tools, but a Hardy Pioneer develops land at twice the speed, right? If so, the Miltary School could train hardy pioneers, as you've covered the College and Uni line.

Also, what about some kind of Training Ground building (requires Stockade + 10 Guns) which gives your military units an XP bonus to military units that muster out, based on the level of defence you have. E.g. Stockade = +1XP, Fort = +2XP.

What are your plans for training from the natives?

 

[woodelf]

It all sounds much better to me. How hard will implementation be?

 

[Jabie]

It occurs to me that it may be possible to use the XP system to model education. Promotions can be used to define skills - e.g. Expert Fisherman. This means that the more skills a unit has, the longer it takes to train them in a new one, but has the adavantage of retaining old skills - Why should I forget how to be a master brewer because I learnt how to farm from the natives?

Units can also be prevented from a particular class of skills. Non military units can be prevented from the upper echelons of the military tree. Petty criminals can't become statesmen.

If decimal experience were used, a unit at a school / college / university can give a particular amount of XP per turn based on the educational establishment. This would also give you a means of regulating suggestion 9.

 

[woodelf]

Could you also take the xp system from FfH2 that allows non-military units to occassionally gain xp just from being alive?

 

[kaibayashi]

After someone's (i thought it was yours Dale) post in another thread I don't think that you should be able to train Veterans/Generals in a School/College. I agree that "veterancy" should only be gained by practice/experience, ie getting out and fighting. I like 1-3, 8 and 9. Not sure about the IS/PC points, think they should be handled differently, tho i agree that PC shouldn't be able to enter schools, and also churches/townhalls.

 

[kaibayashi]

After reading someone's (thought it was Dale's) post in another thread I think that you shouldn't be able to train Veterans/Generals in Colleges. I think that "veterancy" should only be earned by practice/experience, ie going out and fighting. I like points 1-3, 8 and 9. I don't really like the IS/PC points, tho i agree PC shouldn't be able to enter schools, and also townhalls and churches.

Edit: I wonder if 9 should work only when in conjuction with/alongside a relevant expert. Altho don't know what you'd do for resource/hunter-gatherer professions then?

 

[nargulok]

1.Who chooses their major at the end?

I agree. I’m not aware of any exploits that makes this necessary. Since you can only learn abilities of colonists currently in the settlement choosing the major last means you have more time to add new specialties to the settlement. I think choosing first might add an interesting strategy to consider.

3. Who learns Law & Politics at a school to become a statesmen?

A lot of statesmen of the day were lawyers, businessmen or scientists (John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin). I assumed going to school for the statesmen specialty meant becoming a lawyer or something like that.

This brings up the thought; in addition to FF it might be neat to have actual units of the individuals too. I’m not sure if this is practical though.

4. Why does it take my kid twice as long to finish school as it did me?

I can see two answers for this. Each generation apparently gets dumber and/or the schools are adding more courses to get more money out of the students. Neither of which is a good answer.

1. Education levels are determined by building. Resource professions taught at school. Manufacturer professions taught at college. Artisan professions taught at uni.

3. School profession are free, college minor cost, artisan expensive.

Good idea and more realistic. After all we spend 2 years to get an associates degree, 4 years for a bach, up to 6 years for a masters and up to 8 or more for the doctorate.

Perhaps some professions you should have to get an education and perform a number of turns at that position to become a master.

4. After building a school one of two lines of education building must be chosen: civil or military.
5. New education line: military. Military College trains veteran soldiers & seasoned scouts, Military Uni trains GG's (but VERY expensive).

Historically speaking was there even a military type college or means to learn warfare that wasn’t provided directly by the homeland country. I thought that was one of the many reasons the American Revolution started and perhaps related to “The right to bear arms"

I would think a more interesting system might be to allow militia to be trained as veterans after having attained a certain amount of experience or a certain promotion. This could encourage fighting Native Americans and/or other colonies.

6. IS can enter school and become free colonists after education. So IS becomes free via education.
7. PC cannot enter education buildings. (PC become free colonists over time. IE: serve their sentence).

I thought IS had to work for a number of years to pay off the cost of travel to the New World. I’m not sure why going to school would absolve you of debt. Wouldn’t that be sweet if our credit card bills went away after we finish school? I would think that both the IS and PC would become FC over time and the PC should take longer.

8. No education cost increase. IE: 0% threshold increase.

I still think there should be an increase but it should be related to time period, like over the years inflation has caused the increase in cost of education.

Another idea is to add some sort of supply/demand mechanic. Like if you have a large ratio of Blacksmiths then the price of education should be less then if there is a small ratio.

2. Major and cost must be chosen/paid at the start of entering education.
9. Free colonist can become specialist if in same job for long time.

Sounds like great ideas to me.

 

[CuervoGold]

Education sucks. It's all wrong. It's opposite to reality in almost every way.

1. Who chooses their major at the end?
2. Who waits till next year to graduate just because someone else already did this year?
3. Who learns Law & Politics at a school to become a statesmen?
4. Why does it take my kid twice as long to finish school as it did me?

These and many more questions remain unanswered. However, I believe there is a better way.

1. Education levels are determined by building. Resource professions taught at school. Manufacturer professions taught at college. Artisan professions taught at uni.
2. Major and cost must be chosen/paid at the start of entering education.
3. School profession are free, college minor cost, artisan expensive.
4. After building a school one of two lines of education building must be chosen: civil or military.
5. New education line: military. Military College trains veteran soldiers & seasoned scouts, Military Uni trains GG's (but VERY expensive).
6. IS can enter school and become free colonists after education. So IS becomes free via education.
7. PC cannot enter education buildings. (PC become free colonists over time. IE: serve their sentence).
8. No education cost increase. IE: 0% threshold increase.
9. Free colonist can become specialist if in same job for long time.

Comments?

EDIT:
Forgot point 9.

hehe sometimes reality does not make for a fun game

I can tell by the quality of your work that you're already well aware of that though.

If you split out the professions so that college and university are required, then keep in mind that those professions will be quite difficult to get without recruiting from Eruope until quite a few turns into the game. Typically I don't have a university running until mid-late game. You could in theory specialize a colony as a center of learning, but then you have to make sure that the specialists you want to replicate are in that colony.

All in all it sounds pretty good.

I disagree with the PC having to do his time though, since traditionally being shipped off to the new world was their punishment. Wasn't Australia founded as an English penal colony?

I do like the sound of making it slightly easier to get a scout going if you are unlucky enough not to get one from Europe. Not getting your scout for free is a huge disadvantage in a regular game, to the point that I considered asking you to either make everyone start with one, or make sure that everyone has one in their first 3 random emigrants.

 

[Dale]

Yes Australia was initially a penal colony, but the PC's were made free men after serving their sentence. They could remain in Australia (and got a free plot of land for doing so from the Governor's office) or could leave to wherever. A lot of our biggest squatter families were from shipped criminals (including mine).

 

[The Great Apple]

Would higher level schools replace earlier schools like before? I take it so. How would you do education rate and quanity? Will a university be able to do 3 fast clever dudes while a school can only do 2 slow stupid dudes or will it be the same on each one - upgrading just gives a better education rather than changing time & quantity as well.

 

[Zuul]

No, the specialist must exist in the square. But as point 9 shows (which I forgot when I initially posted) a free colonist can learn the specialty they do (like in Col1).

But that won't happen till they've done the job for a long time.

How to keep track on how long it have worked on one thing. Will it be reset if you move the colonist?

 

[Dale]

CvUnit class will get an extra int to monitor m_iProfessionTurns and it will be reset to zero on any changeProfession() call.

 

[CuervoGold]

Yes Australia was initially a penal colony, but the PC's were made free men after serving their sentence. They could remain in Australia (and got a free plot of land for doing so from the Governor's office) or could leave to wherever. A lot of our biggest squatter families were from shipped criminals (including mine).

So did the PC's have to serve time in an actual prison before they became regular citizens? I thought their punishment was that they were essentially deported and not allowed to return until their sentence was up. (honestly don't know)

 

[UWHabs]

I would simply create a new building, and call it a "barracks" to teach units to be veteran soldiers. I don't see a problem, since basically the only things a veteran soldier has over others is the "Leadership" promotion, so that's basically making a leader for your army. However, require that to learn in there, you need to have a veteran soldier (as a soldier) in your garrison.

I don't have a problem with no upgrade in learning times, as long as you also don't learn "faster" in a university than in a school. Make it always take 6 turns to learn to be a master farmer, regardless of what building you put them in. Then maybe a master distiller should require a college, and will take 10 turns.

 

[Dale]

So did the PC's have to serve time in an actual prison before they became regular citizens? I thought their punishment was that they were essentially deported and not allowed to return until their sentence was up. (honestly don't know)

They were deported, but to expand the Empire. After working their time off they could go wherever, including back to England.

 

[UWHabs]

They were deported, but to expand the Empire. After working their time off they could go wherever, including back to England.

Be cool if each petty criminal started with a "penalty time". So you'd have like Petty Criminal (10), which means he needs to spend 10 turns working the fields to "serve his sentence".