On why Nigeria is more technologically advanced than Germany...

[Louis XXIV]

Here I disagree completely: Science comes from SOME people (call them "specialists" if we want to go the civ way), not from everyone.

While that's vaguely true, it's not historically true. It wasn't a scientific specialist that invented the wheel. It was every day people who took something already in existence and improved it slightly (the wheel likely came from the Potter's Wheel). Same holds true with various pottery techniques, that were invented by people trying to make pottery easier. Plenty of people invented advances in navigation because they were sailors and looking to make their lives easier.

Even today, plenty of merchants, businessmen, etc, make innovations independent of the scientific world or they discover how to take scientific advancements and apply it in different ways.

I understand the argument about composition of tech buildings in civ5, but I'm still not sure about it's true effectiveness. The games I have played, I felt that the reward of simply having more cities (no matter the quality), ergo more pops, was far bigger than developing the cities to higher levels of tech buildings. That was my experience, and I started to think if that may be related to the current ICS dominated scenarios (apart from the already known, and to-be-nerfed exploits regarding happiness.

Actually, ICS is better for science not because of more population, but because of more libraries and scientist specialists. They didn't quite stack things properly, so it ends up being better to have lots of the little things than some of the big things.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The best model for scientific advancement would probably be
1. Science comes from pop
2. Your empire's technological advancement is based on the science produced by you AND all your neighbors.
3. You then have to invest in some way to actually use the techs you have.

 

[lolno]

attackfighter

I thought business spending was higher than government in modern times.

It depends on the country- in Japan it's mostly private spending, in the US a much higher proportion is government funded R&D

Helmling

But the sliders created a false dichotomy and were geared in such a way that you would funnel almost ALL of your potential gold into research...there's hardly any precedent in human history for that. Even the Apollo project only consumed about 4% of the US's GNP during the 60's.

True but GNP is one thing and net financial position is another. GNP includes agriculture, energy production, construction and investment. What gold represents in Civ is the excess after all the food has been eaten, the energy used, and buildings built. In other words, "disposable income" would be your gold/turn and "net financial position" would be your total. Currently America has a massive GDP but a non-existent governmental net financial position; but that is supported by massive borrowing and money printing. To give you an idea America spends about 5% of GDP on food, 17% on healthcare, 5% on education, and 5% on military. Not sure about construction/investment/maintenance of infrastructure. Something like that. R&D is 2% of GDP, but a much higher proportion of what you have left over after necessary expenses.

Maybe there should be a "reserve currency" economic victory that gives you a "print money" option

Paeanblack

To model this technology spread, the game should have a percentage boost to research speed when you have contact with other nations that already have a technology you are researching.

That's a good point. I think the easiest way to implement something like that is to have either a reduction in cost for techs or some kind of diffusion mechanisms, based on communications and distance between two civs.

ricardojahns

Here I disagree completely: Science comes from SOME people (call them "specialists" if we want to go the civ way), not from everyone.

The answer is somewhere in the middle; you need excess population to support a civilization's scientific/research structure. That and pop science is just a baseline figure to multiply with buildings, policies, great people, etc. You could have 10 pop and 10 science and the fact that science comes from only a few people can still be acknowledged- a minority of that 10 pop is producing the 10 science. If that doesn't suit you you can always tweak the ratio, but it isn't fundamentally broken.

If pop didn't provide science you'd need to have buildings to establish a base number, or tiles- but tiles definitely do not produce science in real life either.

In real life the general "formula" for net scientific output is something like this:

Human Capital + R&D * Relevant Infrastructure -> Research Value * (100 - Diffusion)/100
Human Capital = Education, Intelligence, Happiness, Health, Population (incl Immigrants)
R&D = Simple cash dumps
Research Value = x output needed to complete research
Diffusion = Sharing

 

[Schalke 04]

Nigeria's population is doubling every 30 years. In the same time, Germany's population is only rising by 15% (and is currently in decline). So according to the Civ5 model, Nigeria is currently advancing faster than Germany (high pop) and their rate of advancement is speeding up faster than Germany's (higher growth of pop). But they're probably starting from a lower base (number of techs), so they may yet have quite a way to go and who knows when they'll eclipse Germany.

It doesn't matter. The whole world will collapse in 2050...

 

[attackfighter]

I dont understand what is your point, I was comparing Switzerland with Bangladesh, how is the US related to this comparison?

anyway in a similar comparison the US is way more advanced that Switzerland because US is much more wealthy the Switzerland not because US pop > Switz pop

the US is a counterexample that defeats your point, hence why I bring it up

the US is many times more wealthy than Switzerland, yet they're almost on parity when it comes to scientific knowledge.

You see, you can come to almost any conclusion when you cherry pick "examples"

 

[Louis XXIV]

The best model for scientific advancement would probably be
1. Science comes from pop
2. Your empire's technological advancement is based on the science produced by you AND all your neighbors.
3. You then have to invest in some way to actually use the techs you have.

SMAC had an interesting idea. The first time you tried to build a unit, it was a prototype, which was more expensive to build.

Great for realism, although it was kinda annoying from a gameplay perspective (and absolutely a genuine pain with Civ5 production.

 

[Bezurn]

attackfighter


....
If pop didn't provide science you'd need to have buildings to establish a base number, or tiles- but tiles definitely do not produce science in real life either.

In real life the general "formula" for net scientific output is something like this:

Human Capital + R&D * Relevant Infrastructure -> Research Value * (100 - Diffusion)/100
Human Capital = Education, Intelligence, Happiness, Health, Population (incl Immigrants)
R&D = Simple cash dumps
Research Value = x output needed to complete research
Diffusion = Sharing

I don't like how population is so dominate in determining science output throughout the game. I think a mix between tiles and gold should be the primary driving force that should feed scientific output.

In the early stages of the game when you are researching the most basic techs such as the wheel, archery, math, and so on could use tiles (bonus food, strategic and luxury resources). Should contribute about 2-4 science / turn. Then as the map starts to fill up and cities start getting libraries and such the yield on these tiles would diminish. Starting in the medieval era each of these tiles would give - 1 science for each subsequent era until it gave the bare minimum of 1. Also starting in the renaissance era a new tile improvement that primarily boosts science would be created (secondary is production, so say -1 food, +4 science, +1 hammer).

At this stage of the game buildings and specialists would provide the bulk of the research. I do think the slider should see a return, but make it so that over driving and sudden and major changes cause waste and or unhappiness in your empire. Bring back beaker overflow and I think that would be a good place to begin tweaking the research costs, science from buildings, and specialists yields.

Also I think that puppet cities should have their gold, science and culture contribution reduced by 50%. To compensate slightly make one of the patronage social policies allow puppets to be a bit more productive by reducing this penalty by 50% (add this bonus to the social policy that gives +20 influence to all city states, as that one is pretty weak). With this social policy in play they would produce 75% of their normal yield, giving more incentive to annex cities. As an empire with a lot of puppets without the social policy would pretty quickly start to drain the treasury.

 

[lolno]

base population is just half of at most it if you factor in all the buildings, social policies, specialists, great people, research agreements etc. They could always make it more building dependent and less population dependent, but as far as the realism side of things goes having tiles produce a ton of science on their own would make even less sense.

The one thing they're missing is probably a diffusion mechanic and more "direct" gold -> research conversion

 

[Deep_Blue]

To continually argue this as though population is the ONLY factor in science in Civ5 is ridiculous. Play a game where you build no libraries and see how far you actually get. In the game, science may START with population, but it is strongly compounded by your buildings and social policies... and then topped off with some help from research agreements. You can argue that maybe some factors should be tweaked to be more or less important, but don't make the argument PURELY about population because that's not even how it works in game! It's FAR more than just population that determines your total beaker count.

BTW, since when do we just get to cherry-pick very SPECIFIC examples and act as though that proves/disproves everything? "Science From Pop" is only a heuristic -- it's an idea and a model that communicates a certain concept. It is not something that is "disproven" by one example as if it was supposed to be some fool-proof law of nature. Just because you can find an odd coupling of countries that support your argument (out of the 40,000+ combinations of countries you could have given as examples) doesn't mean the original model was trash. Thanks to Einstein, Newtonian Mechanics are actually not held to be true anymore and there is resounding empirical evidence that show the equations to be incomplete and insufficient, but are you going to tell me that they're not darn useful as a starting point? .

I dont understand what is wrong with my examples, give me examples that contradict with my examples and dont just say "cherry-pick very SPECIFIC examples" WHICH is the worst argument EVER!! give me a one example of a poor country that is more technological advanced that a wealthy country because of larger population.

Now to your point you say that there are other important factors like libraries , universities and specialists... did I deny that? in Civ4 also the important boost for science are libraries, universities and specialists..

In both Civ4 and Civ5 libraries, universities..etc are modifiers for base science yield, the only difference is in civ4 base science comes from base gold, and in civ5 base science comes from population... my argument is that civ4 model is more accurate because it is not necessary that for each 1 pop you have to get a base science, in some countries the percentage of illiteracy reaches 70% in such countries pop do not contribute very well to base science output.

But even if we go to sliders population still play important rule in base science output, but the difference is that in sliders the conversion is pop->gold->science which is more accurate that pop->science, because in the first one you can improve base gold in several ways (example: on land improvements like cottages) while on the second one it doesn't matter whatever you do other than building farms.

And as others said there are more accurate formulas for base science than pop->science, for example we can put a formula like:

Base science = pop*%literacy + Gold Spent On Research + Specialists

(Where Gold Spent On Research is decided from the slider)

%literacy replaces science buildings modifiers (library, university,..) for example:
- Library: +25% literacy
- University: +25% literacy
etc

but %literacy shouldn't be over 100% unlike science modifiers in civ4 and civ5.

 

[attackfighter]

give me a one example of a poor country that is more technological advanced that a wealthy country because of larger population

Soviet Union vs Japan 1980
Latvia vs Luxembourg current
China vs Japan current or 10 years ago if China is now richer
Iraq vs United Arabian Emirates 1990
Germany vs Britain pre-WW2

 

[Deep_Blue]

China vs Japan current or 10 years ago if China is now richer

lol this example proves my point, 10 years ago both countries were somewhat equal in wealth but Japan was more advanced although Japan was only 100 Million in population.. while China was over 1.2 Billion in population, the huge advantage in population didnt give China technological advance over Japan.

Even today China is weather than Japan but they are still close in technology advances, and Japan are more advanced in some fields like Robotics. Why? refer to my formula in above post.

 

[usi]

Soviet Union vs Japan 1980
Latvia vs Luxembourg current
China vs Japan current or 10 years ago if China is now richer
Iraq vs United Arabian Emirates 1990
Germany vs Britain pre-WW2

Technologically advanced != crazy about military
What you are implying is like saying North Korea is more advanced than South Korea.

A gangster might be able to beat up a university professor, but the latter person is usually more "advanced" than the former person in most aspects...

 

[Louis XXIV]

lol this example proves my point, 10 years ago both countries were somewhat equal in wealth but Japan was more advanced although Japan was only 100 Million in population.. while China was over 1.2 Billion in population, the huge advantage in population didnt give China technological advance over Japan.

Even today China is weather than Japan but they are still close in technology advances, and Japan are more advanced in some fields like Robotics. Why? refer to my formula in above post.

Japan has an infrastructure to support science, China did not. China had no money (in Civ5 terms, negative money hurts science). They were occupied for a period of time (can't research if you aren't in the game). Japan cooperated with other nations in research (in Civ5 terms, research agreements). There are plenty of reasons, even under Civ5 terms, that Japan would be more advanced than China.

An interesting example is India. They had an educational infrastructure (either Civ4 terms they spent money on education or Civ5 terms, they had lots of Universities), but they had basically a brain drain where all their highly educated citizens went over seas. Then they opened up their economy and, suddenly, they're a high tech center (one that, imo, is far better equipped than China to be the next technology leader). Their population is a big factor here. Their educational system truly rewards the brightest and their massive population helps ensure that the brightest are truly bright.

But, once again, we're talking post 1950s here. Civilization has to represent all of history.

 

[attackfighter]

Technologically advanced != crazy about military
What you are implying is like saying North Korea is more advanced than South Korea.

A gangster might be able to beat up a university professor, but the latter person is usually more "advanced" than the former person in most aspects...

that depends on whether the professor is tenured, cause if he is he's little more than a barbarian in my eyes, but anyways...

most non-military technology is avialable to all nations it is more about the capacity to utilize that technology than whether they have "discovered" it. I mainly looked at military tech because that's the kind of stuff that countries will develop independently and so it is probably the most relevant thing to look at.

 

[usi]

that depends on whether the professor is tenured, cause if he is he's little more than a barbarian in my eyes

Sorry, but I don't quite get what you mean.

most non-military technology is avialable to all nations it is more about the capacity to utilize that technology than whether they have "discovered" it.

In ciV, the capability to make use of a tech is already represented as production.

Thus the following two ideas don't contradict each other:
(1) A civ should be able to discover techs not based on its population size
(2) A civ with a lot of population (thus more hammers and money) can make a better use of the same technology

I mainly looked at military tech because that's the kind of stuff that countries will develop independently and so it is probably the most relevant thing to look at.

No. Military techs are rather irrerevant, as most countries don't spend much money for it, unless they are facing enemies.
Saudi Arabia spending more money for military than Italy and Poland doesn't mean it is or will in future be more technologically advanced than Italy and Poland.

And, after all, wasting too much money and intelligence for miliraty techs and ignoring all other important techs helped USSR to dissolve.
Isn't it ironic that Russia, with great military and rocketry techs, can't even make good cars or computers?

 

[attackfighter]

Sorry, but I don't quite get what you mean.

means I don't like them

In ciV, the capability to make use of a tech is already represented as production.

Thus the following two ideas don't contradict each other:
(1) A civ should be able to discover techs not based on its population size
(2) A civ with a lot of population (thus more hammers and money) can make a better use of the same technology

No, gold also affects production. Rich countries (japan for example) can buy their buildings, countries with high production (guess it would be the equivalent of a command economy like USSR) can build them. This fits in with the real world well enough, countries with access to some sort of capital, whether it's the US with it's moneyz or china with its population, are both able to utilize the technology available to them.

No. Military techs are rather irrerevant, as most countries don't spend much money for it, unless they are facing enemies.
Saudi Arabia spending more money for military than Italy and Poland doesn't mean it is or will in future be more technologically advanced than Italy and Poland.

And, after all, wasting too much money and intelligence for miliraty techs and ignoring all other important techs helped USSR to dissolve.
Isn't it ironic that Russia, with great military and rocketry techs, can't even make good cars or computers?

In Civ the state alone researches technology and the technology doesn't spread. The closest parralell to this in the real world is military technology, so that is what my examples include. And if you want me to discuss other technologies you'll have to define what you mean by "technologically advanced", because many non-military tech is available to all countries regardless of their wealth and population. If you are talking about which countries make the greatest strides in research, then the arguement you used against me also works against you: it is more based on the wills of those countries to research rather than the amount of capital, population or wealth, they posses.

 

[usi]

No, gold also affects production. Rich countries (japan for example) can buy their buildings, countries with high production (guess it would be the equivalent of a command economy like USSR) can build them. This fits in with the real world well enough, countries with access to some sort of capital, whether it's the US with it's moneyz or china with its population, are both able to utilize the technology available to them.

I agree, but does that affect my conclusion?

My point: In ciV, the capability to make use of a tech is already represented by production
Your point: Gold can also be used to make a civ quickly utilize its newly acquired techs

Your point is already represented ciV as gold-purchasing, and therefore there is no need to make population size influence research speed.

In Civ the state alone researches technology and the technology doesn't spread. The closest parralell to this in the real world is military technology, so that is what my examples include. And if you want me to discuss other technologies you'll have to define what you mean by "technologically advanced", because many non-military tech is available to all countries regardless of their wealth and population. If you are talking about which countries make the greatest strides in research, then the arguement you used against me also works against you: it is more based on the wills of those countries to research rather than the amount of capital, population or wealth, they posses.

First of all, it is wrong that "many non-military tech is available to all countries regardless of their wealth and population."

While techs are kind of spread to countries which don't really honor patents and copyright, examples of technological advancements and their influences are everywhere.

For example, I see Acer and HP computers around me, having Windows 7 installed in them. These products make some technologically advanced countries (innovators) richer. These products also make some technologically undevelopped contries richer too if they got factories, but they could have earned way more money if they could have innovated the products by their own.

That means, there are technological gaps, and these gaps are making differences among countries.

Here you might wanna say, "it is more based on the wills of those countries to research rather than the amount of capital, population or wealth, they posses," attributing the logic to my arguments.

Not so. A civilization as a whole, not just the government, makes technological advancements. The US got Google, not because its government said, "Hey, let's make a great search engine!" What I mean by tech advancement is all the commercial (e.g., a top-selling product), cultural (e.g., a great movie), new research findings (hey, medical patents make a huge amount of money!) and so forth. They made US totally outperform USSR - and now there's a lot of McDonalds in Russia, implying who was victorious and why.

 

[attackfighter]

I agree, but does that affect my conclusion?

My point: In ciV, the capability to make use of a tech is already represented by production
Your point: Gold can also be used to make a civ quickly utilize its newly acquired techs

Your point is already represented ciV as gold-purchasing, and therefore there is no need to make population size influence research speed.

Your point is also already represented through research agreements. And you are ignoring the arguement that larger population = greater chance for everyday innovations such as the wheel, as well as a larger pool of intellectual talent. This is not represented by the slider economy model.

So basically they both have their flaws and you're ignoring those of the slider models in order to justify your opinion, and that is not sound reasoning.

First of all, it is wrong that "many non-military tech is available to all countries regardless of their wealth and population."

While techs are kind of spread to countries which don't really honor patents and copyright, examples of technological advancements and their influences are everywhere.

For example, I see Acer and HP computers around me, having Windows 7 installed in them. These products make some technologically advanced countries (innovators) richer. These products also make some technologically undevelopped contries richer too if they got factories, but they could have earned way more money if they could have innovated the products by their own.

But poor countries still have access to HP computers and other consumer electronics, so therefore they have the tech.

That means, there are technological gaps, and these gaps are making differences among countries.

Here you might wanna say, "it is more based on the wills of those countries to research rather than the amount of capital, population or wealth, they posses," attributing the logic to my arguments.

Not so. A civilization as a whole, not just the government, makes technological advancements. The US got Google, not because its government said, "Hey, let's make a great search engine!" What I mean by tech advancement is all the commercial (e.g., a top-selling product), cultural (e.g., a great movie), new research findings (hey, medical patents make a huge amount of money!) and so forth. They made US totally outperform USSR - and now there's a lot of McDonalds in Russia, implying who was victorious and why.

Search engines, movies, drugs and fast food aren't new technologies, they're just different ways of utilizing existing technology. And again rich countries already have access to higher tech in civ 5 through the usage of research agreements.

 

[Deep_Blue]

On china: the use of population in China is in Monstrous production , in china most of the labor force are not educated beyond high school and are invested as workers in factories, that's why China is an industrious country. The only use for more population with less literacy is in production (producing Hammers) which doesn't require very high education, and on the other side doesn't help directly in research and technological advances.

Again:
Base science = pop*%literacy + Gold Spent On Research + Specialists

More pop Does Not Equal More Science (period)

 

[Aristos]

On china: the use of population in China is in Monstrous production , in china most of the labor force are not educated beyond high school and are invested as workers in factories, that's why China is an industrious country. The only use for more population with less literacy is in production (producing Hammers) which doesn't require very high education, and on the other side doesn't help directly in research and technological advances.

Again:
Base science = pop*%literacy + Gold Spent On Research + Specialists

More pop Does Not Equal More Science (period)

Which is my main point exactly.

Something to think about: they somehow have a "winning formula" in-house... the Colonization model, where you TRAIN specialists. Why couldn't they adapt that model to the tech model in civ? Now THAT would mean strategy in the long term. The tech buildings train higher and higher levels of specialists, that contribute more and more research (added to that some form of gold investments), so you have to decide in what to train your population, because training and detraining is a huge waste of resources.

But from my point of view, "untrained" population should never, ever give basic research. I understand the argument of "The Wheel", and it may apply well in the ancient times, but even then, it was somebody that was thinking ahead of the mass that probably invented it, not a random Joe from the basic population. Of course, I cannot prove that, but that is my take on it.

But why not a model like Colonization?