Elgalad
Bully!
Background
Been mulling this over the last few days in my head. It's about changing the whole notion of research as we're used to it, the old paradigm that works like this.. Cities produce civilization units by resource collection of their population. Civilization units include food, shields, and gold. Food is only used to promote population growth and subsistence. Shields are used only for building construction and training of military units. Gold is used for a lot though; a portion goes towards maintenance of city buildings, some more goes towards entertainment/civil order, some goes into scientific research, and the rest (if any) goes into the national treasury. It is an elegant system and fairly well balanced. You have to make decisions about how much to spend on science as opposed to investing in the national treasury (used for hastening build projects, upgrading military units, and trade). But it has always struck me as very unrealistic. It reduces science to something like an investment in a low guaranteed return savings bond. The more you spend, the quicker you learn, on a linear scale. How boring is that??
Throughout history, science has been influenced by many factors. To be sure, a great deal of it has been funded by governments as a direct result of their desire to gain a technological edge (primarily military) over their neighbors/rivals. But the system described above does not take into account whatsoever the other motivations and sources of scientific progress. A great number of which have resulted in profound technological leaps that would never have occurred if the system were simply a government funded program.
I'm referring to things like the steam engine, or the cotton gin, or the airplane. There have been such leaps in theoretical science as well as practical applications.. concepts like basic Geometry, or the Theory of Gravity, or Relativity, or Game Theory. The list is endless!
But my point in this is that most of these, the vast majority were Not a direct result of government funding, but were discovered independently. I would like to create a system that reflects this and perhaps adds some more flavor to the whole process of scientific evolution inside the civilization game.
The next few posts detail some lightbulbs that lit up over my own head
-Elgalad
Been mulling this over the last few days in my head. It's about changing the whole notion of research as we're used to it, the old paradigm that works like this.. Cities produce civilization units by resource collection of their population. Civilization units include food, shields, and gold. Food is only used to promote population growth and subsistence. Shields are used only for building construction and training of military units. Gold is used for a lot though; a portion goes towards maintenance of city buildings, some more goes towards entertainment/civil order, some goes into scientific research, and the rest (if any) goes into the national treasury. It is an elegant system and fairly well balanced. You have to make decisions about how much to spend on science as opposed to investing in the national treasury (used for hastening build projects, upgrading military units, and trade). But it has always struck me as very unrealistic. It reduces science to something like an investment in a low guaranteed return savings bond. The more you spend, the quicker you learn, on a linear scale. How boring is that??
Throughout history, science has been influenced by many factors. To be sure, a great deal of it has been funded by governments as a direct result of their desire to gain a technological edge (primarily military) over their neighbors/rivals. But the system described above does not take into account whatsoever the other motivations and sources of scientific progress. A great number of which have resulted in profound technological leaps that would never have occurred if the system were simply a government funded program.
I'm referring to things like the steam engine, or the cotton gin, or the airplane. There have been such leaps in theoretical science as well as practical applications.. concepts like basic Geometry, or the Theory of Gravity, or Relativity, or Game Theory. The list is endless!
But my point in this is that most of these, the vast majority were Not a direct result of government funding, but were discovered independently. I would like to create a system that reflects this and perhaps adds some more flavor to the whole process of scientific evolution inside the civilization game.
The next few posts detail some lightbulbs that lit up over my own head
-Elgalad