Modeling Scientific and Cultural Progress

[polypheus]

In Civ4, scientific progress was controlled by mostly gold and secondarily buildings and great people and civics.

In Civ5, scientific progress was pretty much total population and a slight modifier due to buildings.

Of the two, Civ4 is obviously better and more historical although still imperfect. Civ5 model however is extremely flawed and nonsensical.

We know that IRL, scientific progress isn't due to total population. Rather it is due to many things, the amount of education of a society, government and social policies, trade and commerce, and as far as wealth goes, probably more or a per capita wealth thing than total wealth. Also most of scientific progress is really more of "great people" type achieving it than ordinary citizens achieving it. Civ4 (sort of) tries to model all this.

OTOH, some of the most backwards nations in world history were very highly populated while some of the nations that were leaders in science were not. Civ5 simplistic says though that the more people you have the more you progress in science which is completely ahistorical and nonsensical.

I have no idea how Civ6 will model scientific and social progress. But if it continues the Civ5 way of population=science, then it will continue a very flawed model and mechanic.

There should be a way for a small empire to be a scientific powerhouse due to making it highly educated, highly interconnected to others via trade, using more tolerant civics, etc. It should also be possible for a very large and very populated empire to be technologically backwards like IRL "third world nations".

Only if the above two things are possible will Civ6 be a good game to me. So how is Civ6 modeling scientific and cultural progress? Anybody know?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Civ6 separates science and culture. There will be 2 separate trees, one tech tree (unlocked with science) and one civics tree (unlocked with culture).

 

[Socrates99]

Its mainly a quality of life thing IRL. If your citizens have to spend most of their waking lives eeking out a living they'll spend less time experimenting with new ideas. If they live comfortable lives with good education, disposable income and free time they're more likely to experiment.

I'm crossing my fingers hoping that the name change from "health and happiness" to "housing and amenities" might have an impact on how science is calculated.

 

[King Jason]

Science and culture (no one seems to be talking the latter, though) appear to be tied to population, but at a lesser rate than civ5. Well, not in the case of culture, since pop didn't give culture in civ5.

Anyway, in civ5 it was a 1:1 ratio. Thus far, in civ6 population seems to grant somewhere in the realm of .65 or .7 (rounded, being my most consistent observation). Compare that to the fact that a campus bonus provides 1 science per mountain, which is a 43% increase of science over a population point, the land is far more valuable than pop on individual terms. However, population can continue to grow, and you only have so many mountains jungles you can end up with around a campus.

Now, what we don't know is the nature of the benefits each building provides within the district. Personally, I agree with you in that I think population = science is a weak design metric. However, the Library of civ6 could still grant an extra science for extra X population.

Or, it could simply enhance the ouput of the district itself. I think this would be preferable because science would then be directly tied to your centers of learning moreso than the population itself. I don't necessarily mind population having an influence - but having it being the sole driving force puts too much emphasis on growth which is already very powerful without adding the science boost.

 

[Zaarin]

You seem to undervalue the contributions of citizen-scientists, who have made important contributions to a number of fields, especially astronomy. At the same time, not every citizen is a scientist, so I think what King Jason described is reasonable: your population contributes to science, but not at a 1:1 ratio.

 

[Magil]

When removing commerce as a mechanic for V, they needed a new way to give players science. They went with population, which has its own problems. I fear they will repeat this decision in VI. I'm not sure what else you can do without the commerce slider or something quite similar, though. Raw beakers from buildings and terrain just aren't going to produce enough, at least not with the current design philosophy. And people (perhaps including the developers?) seem adamantly against the commerce slider.

 

[cakes]

i don't think science being tied to population is all that nonsensical. greater population density results in social stratification and specialisation, more complex societal structures, accumulation of wealth, sophistication of ideas, etc.

tribe and band societies aren't known for their scientific advancements because the economy is not configured in such a way as to support it, and there's no immediate cultural imperative

 

[qwerty25]

I can't find the article but I thought Tall empires would have the advantage in science while wide empires would have an advantage in culture.


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[JtW]

i don't think science being tied to population is all that nonsensical. greater population density results in social stratification and specialisation, more complex societal structures, accumulation of wealth, sophistication of ideas, etc.

tribe and band societies aren't known for their scientific advancements because the economy is not configured in such a way as to support it, and there's no immediate cultural imperative

Exactly. In small societies, even already acquired inventions can be lost again (like bow and arrow in Aboriginal Australia).

It is people who invent things, so the more people live a specific lifestyle, the more likely it is that someone will find an improvement, someone else will adopt it, and yet someone else will improve upon it again.

The argument from education/economy is mostly relevant to modern times where science has progressed beyond the understanding of the average person.

 

[Janskey]

Also most of scientific progress is really more of "great people" type achieving it than ordinary citizens achieving it. Civ4 (sort of) tries to model all this.

If it's a great people thing, isn't pop = science somewhat realistic then? Most human attributes, like intelligence, are distributed normally. It is much more likely to find someone with an IQ of 160 in a population of 10000 than 1000.

 

[bookman_]

Scientists discovering new sciences is a vers modern thing, for most of history, technologies were naturally discovered by population and crafters.
By example having a lot of people crafting iron lead to the discovery of steel.
Civ 6 show this well with the eureka moments, wich represents almost half ot the science output.
In the end, a nation with a lot of people crafting things in a lot of different fields (=a nation with a lot of pop) had a big 'science output'.

Edit : There aslo is the science spread that was never really well represented. The possibilty to buy technologies... Yeah a new technology being possessed by the whole world in less than one turn is really stupid. In V there is that really intelligent mechanic with the trade roads giving a science bonus depending on the differences in technologies between the two civs, but there is two main flaws :
1) the science bonus is just almost useless once passed the classic era, because fixed.
2) that science bonus can be usef to do anything. You get a science bonus from your trade road witch China because they have discovered the gunpowder ? Let's use that science on discovering chivalry !
IMHO, correcting these two flaws could create an almost perfectl historical system. It could be corrected by 1) a trade road gives small eureka monents towards the techs the other civ has
Or 2) Your science output on these techs could be doubled.
Of course since technologies would be discovered way faster with the roads, the cost of them in science points shouls be raised.
With this, I think we could have a very good spread of science, with technologies spreading naturally from one Empire to his neighbours.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Hmm, seeing the title inspired me to think of an intertwined tech and civic tree. I know they are separate trees in civ VI, as . But what if it was intertwined such that for example some/most/all techs had at least a tech requirement and an additional tech or civic requirement. The same would apply for civics.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

Wouldn't it defeat the purpose of separating the two so that if your civ wants to focus on culture vs science it can go pretty far deep into the "culture tree" without worrying about the science holding it back. I think the two trees should enhance each other but not be requirements for each other. Otherwise it will be like civ5 I think.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Wouldn't it defeat the purpose of separating the two so that if your civ wants to focus on culture vs science it can go pretty far deep into the "culture tree" without worrying about the science holding it back.

No it wouldn't, you still need culture for the civics and science for the techs. You are also still "researching" both a civic and a tech at the same time, but there is more options (and maybe even dependencies) between both systems. Two completely separate trees would favor either the scientific leader or the cultural leader. But if a civ is very strong in both but still bit behind both the scientific leader and the cultural leader he would benefit from the intertwined system.

I think the two trees should enhance each other but not be requirements for each other.

And this is especially what I had in mind. It can enable optional pathes, not hard requirements. Also from realism perspective this would make sense since some of the civics like "Code of laws" and "Astrology" are actually transformed techs.

 

[JtW]

Hmm, seeing the title inspired me to think of an intertwined tech and civic tree. I know they are separate trees in civ VI, as . But what if it was intertwined such that for example some/most/all techs had at least a tech requirement and an additional tech or civic requirement. The same would apply for civics.

Problematic. Could easily lead to situations like "I researched all the civics available to me but cannot progress further because I still have these two technologies I need to go further in the civics tree." It would basically force you to maintain a similar level of output for beakers and culture.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Problematic. Could easily lead to situations like "I researched all the civics available to me but cannot progress further because I still have these two technologies I need to go further in the civics tree." It would basically force you to maintain a similar level of output for beakers and culture.

The links between the civics and techs would be optional, not a hard requirement.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

The links between the civics and techs would be optional, not a hard requirement.

I'm thinking that this already happens naturally if you simply separate the two (which is the case in Civ6) but I guess we'll wait and see. For example, the Great Library is a civic that directly influences your science and would require you to have some science going to actually take advantage of it. Similarly, if some hypothetical civic gives a % boost to your units, then that boost becomes greater as you research better units.

Maybe I'm just missing the point. Could you give us an example?

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I'm thinking that this already happens naturally if you simply separate the two (which is the case in Civ6) but I guess we'll wait and see. For example, the Great Library is a civic that directly influences your science and would require you to have some science going to actually take advantage of it. Similarly, if some hypothetical civic gives a % boost to your units, then that boost becomes greater as you research better units.

Maybe I'm just missing the point. Could you give us an example?

I will make a diagram later today of what I mean.

 

[bookman_]

Well there already is a soft requifement mixing civics and techs, we saw in one of the screens that the eureka effect for democracy is building three sewer systems, which requife the correspondi g tech.

 

[OnceAKing]

Hmm, seeing the title inspired me to think of an intertwined tech and civic tree. I know they are separate trees in civ VI, as . But what if it was intertwined such that for example some/most/all techs had at least a tech requirement and an additional tech or civic requirement. The same would apply for civics.

There's alot of societies that were advanced culturally but not necessarily scientifically. I think that'll be interesting to depict if pulled off correctly