Warning: This post is slightly OT and contains some random comments and is may not be suitable for anyone to draw an immediate conclusion. Also note that it is not a criticism of Europa Universalis in any way, as I have never played this game. 
EU and nearly all other strategy games attempt to model advances in technology the same way. Scientific endeavors are mandated soley by the spending of the central government. It's been this way since the original Civ, as the player was forced into spending income on (1) building cash (2) entertaining the citizens or (3) scientific research. Now Civ was a great game 10 years ago (or whenever it first came out), but I think the model for technological advancement needs to be updated.
Why do I believe this? Fundamentally, innovation is the result of seemingly insignificant discoveries by an independent person. We'll never know who first invented the wheel, but you can bet that it wasn't a group of nomads that decided to form a committee and find a solution to the problem of the slow rate of travel. More recent scientific accomplishments have been documented; and all of the seminal ones that I can think of can attributed to a single person (calculus, genetics, steam engine, telephone). The national governments where these advances occured had no direct involvment in their research and were probably unaware of the accomplishment for some significant period of time.
However, we tend to think of huge government, corporate or university laboratories where all scientific advancement takes place these days. This is due to the fact that humanity has figured out the basic operations of a wide range of things. Yet this is an exception to what has taken place throught the beginning of the 20th century. In terms of being applied to a strategy game, it probably works only for the sci-fi sub-genre. Even so, the result is the same, the game is only allowed to permit linear technological development, and typically, the only one advance can be discovered at a time.
The problem lies with the difference between pure scientific discovery and the application of the discovery for a useful purpose. In this case, I think of the discovery of penicillin: It was discovered by accident as the mold was allowed to contaminate a petri dish full of bacteria. At first it appeared that the experiment was a failure because of the contamination, but only later was the significance realized. However, growing the required amount of mold using a laboritory environment proved extremely costly and inefficient: the scientists couldn't even produce a large enough batch of the mold to save the trial patient. Eventually, the scientists teamed up with a pharmaceutical company to develop an manufacturing process so the drug could be produced for the mass market.
I've only played one game that offered a fairly realistic approach to technology and this was Imperalism. Now, I know that there were several issues with Imp, but I'm only concerned with this single aspect of the game. Essentially, scientific advances occured as random events, they occured at certain points in time and were available for all nations to purchase. After the technology was purchased, troops & ships could be upgraded, new types of dipolmacy could be undertaken, etc. Furthermore, a Nation had to purchase certain basic technologies before buying more advanced and powerful ones. This meant that a Nation couldn't leapfrog its opponents by passing up on the introductory technologies.
I'd like to see this approach refined a little bit more for use in other games (i.e. EU ][). The player is given the option to purchase a range of technologies, some of which are worthless, some of which are mediocre and some of which are revolutionary. Clearly, if a Nation is prosperous and at peace, more it would attract more scientists than one that is constantly at war. Also, I'd think that a country that allows more personal liberties would also attract more scientists, although perhaps it has drawbacks in terms of intolerance of high taxes, wars, and other nasty issues.
The other advantage of this approach would be that the discoveries would get cheaper over time. The concept here would be that as more Nations move to exploit the technology, it becomes more common and the secrets of its application become harder to contain. An example here is Eli Whitney's cotton gin, which was cutting edge in 1793, but it took over 15 years to gain broad acceptance outside the US. The cheaper technologies can be more easily adapted by other less powerful nations at a price which fits their weaker economies. However, the 'early adopter' gets a couple of years to use the new technology.
Thoughts, anyone?
EU and nearly all other strategy games attempt to model advances in technology the same way. Scientific endeavors are mandated soley by the spending of the central government. It's been this way since the original Civ, as the player was forced into spending income on (1) building cash (2) entertaining the citizens or (3) scientific research. Now Civ was a great game 10 years ago (or whenever it first came out), but I think the model for technological advancement needs to be updated.
Why do I believe this? Fundamentally, innovation is the result of seemingly insignificant discoveries by an independent person. We'll never know who first invented the wheel, but you can bet that it wasn't a group of nomads that decided to form a committee and find a solution to the problem of the slow rate of travel. More recent scientific accomplishments have been documented; and all of the seminal ones that I can think of can attributed to a single person (calculus, genetics, steam engine, telephone). The national governments where these advances occured had no direct involvment in their research and were probably unaware of the accomplishment for some significant period of time.
However, we tend to think of huge government, corporate or university laboratories where all scientific advancement takes place these days. This is due to the fact that humanity has figured out the basic operations of a wide range of things. Yet this is an exception to what has taken place throught the beginning of the 20th century. In terms of being applied to a strategy game, it probably works only for the sci-fi sub-genre. Even so, the result is the same, the game is only allowed to permit linear technological development, and typically, the only one advance can be discovered at a time.
The problem lies with the difference between pure scientific discovery and the application of the discovery for a useful purpose. In this case, I think of the discovery of penicillin: It was discovered by accident as the mold was allowed to contaminate a petri dish full of bacteria. At first it appeared that the experiment was a failure because of the contamination, but only later was the significance realized. However, growing the required amount of mold using a laboritory environment proved extremely costly and inefficient: the scientists couldn't even produce a large enough batch of the mold to save the trial patient. Eventually, the scientists teamed up with a pharmaceutical company to develop an manufacturing process so the drug could be produced for the mass market.
I've only played one game that offered a fairly realistic approach to technology and this was Imperalism. Now, I know that there were several issues with Imp, but I'm only concerned with this single aspect of the game. Essentially, scientific advances occured as random events, they occured at certain points in time and were available for all nations to purchase. After the technology was purchased, troops & ships could be upgraded, new types of dipolmacy could be undertaken, etc. Furthermore, a Nation had to purchase certain basic technologies before buying more advanced and powerful ones. This meant that a Nation couldn't leapfrog its opponents by passing up on the introductory technologies.
I'd like to see this approach refined a little bit more for use in other games (i.e. EU ][). The player is given the option to purchase a range of technologies, some of which are worthless, some of which are mediocre and some of which are revolutionary. Clearly, if a Nation is prosperous and at peace, more it would attract more scientists than one that is constantly at war. Also, I'd think that a country that allows more personal liberties would also attract more scientists, although perhaps it has drawbacks in terms of intolerance of high taxes, wars, and other nasty issues.
The other advantage of this approach would be that the discoveries would get cheaper over time. The concept here would be that as more Nations move to exploit the technology, it becomes more common and the secrets of its application become harder to contain. An example here is Eli Whitney's cotton gin, which was cutting edge in 1793, but it took over 15 years to gain broad acceptance outside the US. The cheaper technologies can be more easily adapted by other less powerful nations at a price which fits their weaker economies. However, the 'early adopter' gets a couple of years to use the new technology.
Thoughts, anyone?
