Some forgotten-but-important technologies

[Zongo]

I think cooking is somewhat important.

That would come with "fire", I think. But we had it for such a long time and Neanderthals used it too (if I am not mistaken), so unless you want to begin in 50.000 AC with a new civ of sturdy, hairy brutes as your neighbours...

Also elevators to allow tall buildings.

Uhm, this is tricky. Possibly steel? No steel cables, no big-span elevators. Electricity is the alternative, but you COULD power an elevator with coal, if you love steampunk sci-fi.

Anyway, there are so many inventions in the latter ages that if we do not package them in larger "technologies" then the game would become unmanageable. Splitting the packages would be ok for inventions with far-reaching, universal changes. Elevators made sense only in small, extra-dense American cities at the beginning, and only because of chaotic growth or emulations afterwards. You COULD have modern, functional cities without tall buildings, and many cities in Europe strive to do precisely that.

And concrete.

Forms of reinforced plaster have been used for ages since the babylonians, I figure it would be difficult to choose a discontinuity point and package it there as a technology. If you refer to "armed" concrete (reinforced with metal bars) than the tech would be again steel - which is also what allows skyscrapers.

And metal plating.

I am not sure if I understand exactly what you mean, but in case it is Galvanization then it would be electricity, wouldn't it?

 

[gunter]

the discovery of alcohol had a pretty profound impact, although it too has an in-game equivalent- ctd.

Yepp, above all to grant into cities

 

[occam]

It is only when you go down to "one sound = one symbol" that dramatic simplification takes place, allowing for speed of writing, ease of education, and flexibility.

I think that this particular characteristic of alphabets is not essential for the technologies that immediately follow alphabet in the tech tree, like Literature. Printing Press is about where the simplification you describe starts to matter.

So no need to dismiss all the other (proto)alphabets so hastily.

Also, Mr. Sequoyah presents an interesting case, as he certainly invented an alphabet although he did not invent new symbols wholesale to do so. Are you saying the ancients get credit? That doesn't seem right. You know, the ancients stole many symbols themselves. I mean, some letters are just circles or lines and dots.

 

[occam]

Zero is precisely the invariant element in the additive (semi)group N that defines the natural numbers. Allow for the inverse operation and you have negative numbers and the (full) group of integer numbers Z (from the German Zahlen: numbers). The positional representation is nothing else but a compact operative representation of an infinite group (the integer numbers) in a infinite sequence of finite subgroups, where global operations are modular and easily manageable.

I disagree.

Zero is the only number.

Every other symbol in the natural numbers that you think is an individual number is actually merely a successor of (a successor of) zero. This is why mathematical induction works, underneath the symbols the numbers are really related. Review your Peano.

It also makes it possible to prove that 2+2=4, which seems to be a semantic mystery of zen-like proportions to some people.

 

[occam]

the discovery of alcohol had a pretty profound impact, although it too has an in-game equivalent- ctd.

Alcohol allowed settling land with marginal water supplies, and later more urbanization. For many, a weak beer was far safer to drink than local water sources.

Fermentation could allow you to construct a brewery in a city which is treated as access to fresh water, and possibly reduce the effects of nearby negative health tiles (jungle? flood plains?). Perhaps a little commerce bonus? Increase corruption? Would it hurt production? Karl Marx might think it would keep the masses compliant.

 

[occam]

Contraception is a very interesting suggestion. The possible gameplay effect could be that city growth stops (with the granary full) the moment you reach the happiness limit of your cities. Or grant an extra health, or happiness, or both.

At the first order, contraception would slow growth of population while slightly increasing output, right?

Contraception has done more to kill religion than Darwin, Nietzsche, Martin Luther, or Gutenberg. Perhaps that could be modeled?

 

[Supr49er]

...Again, the concept of zero was invented in India, passed to Persia and to the Arab world, and then to Europe...

Interesting. I always learn historical facts on these forums. I was under the impression that the Meso Americans (Mayans, Aztecs) developed the concept of zero. Maybe it was that Stand and Deliver movie with Edward Olmos.

 

[Gooblah]

Couple things:
-I haven't seen this on the thread, but I might have missed it : Radar
Radar allowed Advanced Flight and Stealth to come into play. Similarly, Sonar, though both of these techs could be combined into Long Range Detection or something similar. So, I propose Radar/Sonar/Long Range Detection with Radio AND Flight as prequisites, leading to Stealth and Advanced Flight and enabling Subs, etc.

-Telegraph
The telegraph revolutionized communication. Long range communication, telephone, cellphones, even some military technology (enabled and spread by said communication) depended on the telegraph. Look at the painting "Manifest Destiny". In the center, we see a train, tracks, and what is next to it? Telegraph wires!

 

[Scaramanga]

The invention of alcohol (and therefore beer goggles) should increase population growth until the advent of the contraceptive.

 

[Tlalynet]

Alcahol as a replacement for water? Basic biology anyone? Even the anceints knew that you dont drink wine if youre thirsty...

 

[occam]

Alcahol as a replacement for water? Basic biology anyone? Even the anceints knew that you dont drink wine if youre thirsty...

Tlalynet,

Thank you for your reply!

I stand by my remarks, in the face of your 'basic biology.' Here is a rudimentary reference to start off my side of the debate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer

Scroll down to medieval Europe section. Do you disagree with this wiki entry? I understand that wiki isn't perfect, perhaps you could provide superior references to help me understand?

 

[dragodon64]

Didn't read the above link, but I the saw a History Channel show on Beer (apparently it's a Modern Marvel). It said that in medieval Europe, especially the North, that beer's distillation process often made it more sanitary than the river water most people drank and contributed tremendously to the sustained health (and therefore, continuity) of burgs.

 

[Bandobras Took]

That would mimic a bit the demographic problem of all post-industrial societies, without being so bad that players avoid the tech as hell. More of a "fun-factor" than an advantage, that's why I proposed some collateral bonuses, too. In particular, I liked the trade-off between happiness, which is usually not a problem in the late game, and healthiness, which is. So I would go for: +1 health, growth stops at max happiness (with the granary FULL).



Yep, I agree.

Have to disagree. Contraception is not the same thing as safe sex. People on the pill can spread STDs like nobody's business. There should be a health penalty, if anything.

 

[Tlalynet]

Not even your wiki refrence article says that beer can replace water, its a main drink sure but it cant be had by itself indefinetly without a source of actual drinkable water. You cant even make beer without drinkable water. Even your article says that it was easier access becasue it was ALREADY BOILED.
Lite beers might be survivable but any heaver alcahols dehydrate becasue of the amount of proccessing your body has to do to them, alcahol is great and has health benifits but it does not in any sense replace water.

 

[Zongo]

I think that this particular characteristic of alphabets is not essential for the technologies that immediately follow alphabet in the tech tree, like Literature. Printing Press is about where the simplification you describe starts to matter.
So no need to dismiss all the other (proto)alphabets so hastily.

Remember that alphabet makes it also easier to teach to read and write, decoupling this empowering knowledge from the official bureaucracy, or religion. This allows for independent study of (forbidden?) books, private book-keeping, non-sanctioned literature, etc. It promotes independence and it fosters diversity.

Have you ever wondered why the chinese civilization, so ancient and elaborate, is nevertheless so strikingly homogeneous and centralized in comparison to India, or the Arab world, or Europe? Or why it does not have a love literature of comparable size?
Chinese are passionate and inventive people, too. But their language has always been one with the official power structure...

The printing press decouples the book production aspect, which is an important but different thing.

You know, the ancients stole many symbols themselves.

Of course. We are a race of balding chimps in the end, we mimick dumbly everything we see for most of our lives. Nevertheless, sometimes a bugger comes out with something just a little bit brighter and almost original.

All alphabets in existence today are the descendants of only one, the ancient phoenician. A, Alpha, Aleph,... does it strike a chord?

Ah, and on math: what I say and what you say is the same, really. I prefer to call 0 the invariant element in the additive group, instead of the "only number" in the induction construction. I just prefer the algebrists' cabal, to the number theorists' one. I find the latter often dogmatic and boring...

 

[Zongo]

Interesting. I always learn historical facts on these forums. I was under the impression that the Meso Americans (Mayans, Aztecs) developed the concept of zero. Maybe it was that Stand and Deliver movie with Edward Olmos.

Possibly some of the playwriters mistook Indians and (american) Indians.

 

[Zongo]

Couple things:
-I haven't seen this on the thread, but I might have missed it : Radar [...]
-Telegraph

I think Radar is an interesting idea. It could further expand the visibility range of cities and units, making stealth necessary for surprise attacks (now you can navigate from the Fog of War and strike in the same turn).

Telegraph has already been proposed, having to build the comm-infrastructure would be cool for now-idle settlers. Of course, later techs would make it more powerful (telephone, the internet).

 

[redmosquito]

independent european cinema
required techs: none
effects: none

 

[occam]

Remember that alphabet makes it also easier to teach to read and write, decoupling this empowering knowledge from the official bureaucracy, or religion. This allows for independent study of (forbidden?) books, private book-keeping, non-sanctioned literature, etc. It promotes independence and it fosters diversity.

You seek to answer my timing related objection with an asserted literacy campaign. Could you please clarify when you think a noteworthy portion of any given culture was (subversively) literate by the standards you are outlining? Are you sure my timing criticism doesn't still apply? Was there some pre-Printing Press underground railroad for hand-produced books?

I found the comments on the larger fabric of society to be speculative and conclusionary to attribute so strongly to the alphabet structure. It seems far more likely that the rigidity you attribute to the alphabet could have a deeper source that produced both the rigid alphabet and the effects you are attributing to it, assuming those effects are true.

 

[Zongo]

You seek to answer my timing related objection with an asserted literacy campaign.

No, I don't. I just wrote that alphabet weakens the coupling between power and literacy. I never spoke of masses. Slightly freer sub-elites are more than enough to catalize change or produce novelty.

I think about the Carmina Burana, or the work of the Troubadors, or the spread of so-called christian heresies in Middle Age Europe, or the development of cities' "common codes", or even the Humanism of the early XV century, after the rediscovery of the Roman and Greek classics.
Would the "Magna Charta" have been possible without a kind of subversive literacy of England's barons?
Would Christianity or Islam have had such a tremendous success without easy access to the (relative) Holy Book?
Roman Law (and its descendents) is not meant for the bureaucracy alone, but for all (noblemen) to know. It is the base of the rule of law and representation. Would that have been possible without the alphabet?
Would ancient greek culture and philosophy have spread to all neighbours without an easy-to-learn language?

Are you sure my timing criticism doesn't still apply?

I have the impression that you did not get the argument as I meant it. I might have not been clear enough.

It seems far more likely that the rigidity you attribute to the alphabet could have a deeper source that produced both the rigid alphabet and the effects you are attributing to it, assuming those effects are true.

Like? Non-argumentative but pompous criticism like this is almost spam. Please try to present some new ideas or counterexamples, or just simply write "I don't really believe that".