Precise investment

[rhialto]

Youre right in that creationisst dont object to darwinism until it is taught in schools. But to me, that being taught in schools (the implementation) is essentially synonymous with discovery.

And youre right that people employed in a factory may be unhappy if overworked. But so are the people who arent, due to loss of jobs. When slavery was 'disocvered', of course the slaves were unhappy. And when emancipation was discovered, of course those slaves remained unhappy (civil rights would come later), but suddenly a lot of people, incensed by the position of the slaves, became unhappy. When commercial aircraft were discovered, suddenly the shipbuilding industry faced near-fatal competition, acausing much unhappiness (unemployment too). A lot of secretaries became unhappy when computers entered teh office, as suddenly their typewriter skills were obsolete unless they also had WP skills. Ditto the copyists when typewriters were invented. Future shock happens with every new technology, and if we don't see an 'implementation' in the form of a new unit or building, that only means there are already so many things to build anyway. A lot of the implementations in a new tech are assumed to exist but not buildable. Thats why we arent required (or allowed) to build looms in our cities when we discover invention - its an assumed improvement with no direct game effect. And the happiness penalty represents the social changes from all these assumed improvements.

Edit: the beauty of this system is it is self-balancing. The faster your research tech, the bigger the overall penalty (lets assume the penalty is 1 unhappy pop head for five turns in each city for each tech discovered). So if you are running at an average of 1 tech every 5 turns, thats effectively having a persistent -1 unhappiness. But if you are hitting a tech every turn, thats effectively -5 unhappiness. Fine if your society can handle it, but bigger penalties will require a larger part of teh economy to be diverted into luxuries instead of science, indirectly reducing the happiness penalty. Negative feedback at its best.

 

[dh_epic]

It's true that a lot of people are directly affected by new technology and change. But a lot aren't. Sometimes the fears are irrational and distant -- people don't need to be directly affected by it to find it dangerous.

The original luddites weren't irrationally afraid of technology, but genuinely saw the harm that technology was doing without regulation. While the machine-breaking movement failed, a new generation of socially minded citizens attacked the system rather than the technology. And as such, we saw the advent of labor unions and so forth. But even so, there were some people who were much more irrational.

Take genetic engineering now. Some people just hate the idea of "playing God". Others don't appeal to supernatural explanations, but worry about genetically modified everything leading to whole new levels of exploitation. For example, genetically engineering seeds to terminate themselves after one year, so farmers will have to buy new seeds every year. So they attack the technology, rather than the system that guides how that technology should be used.

At any rate, I'm with Rhialto. The point is that nearly EVERY technology is accompanied by some unhappiness. Not the whole populous, but there's evidence that there are at least THREE reasons. One is the inconvenience that comes from old ways becoming obsolete and people having to adapt. Two is the rational fear that the technology can be used to reinforce greed, power, selfishness, and evil. Three is the irrational fear of new things, no matter how good they can be.

It's no doubt in my mind that SOME happiness penalty for new technology makes sense.

 

[sir_schwick]

I think the penalty for traded techs should be more than ones you develop b/c of 1) xenophobia of some kind, 2) technology was designed with their needs in mind, cultural mis-match, 3) gameplay, makes which trades you do more important.

 

[mitsho]

This looks really like a factor against the snowball effect. I just want to include that if you are not the first civ to discover a technology, you get a lesser penalty (to be balanced according to civ4-system and to the map size, difficulty, etc.). The point behind is to let the smaller behind civs better catch up, because this way you can research like crazy the 3 technologies that 6 other civs already have researched and don't have to bother with happiness. But when you are up to date again, you have to stop researching that fast (there could even be a malus then.. )

And about the original topic of the thread. It depends on the graphic/interface. If they can produce a interface which allows you to look clearly at 1%, then so be it. But otherwise, better have the civ3-solution.

mfG mitsho