New technology group mechanics

[TheDarkMaster]

EDIT: Please use this topic to discuss the idea of having multiple levels of technological development within tech groups, and Europe naturally moving up this ladder over time based on what historically brought it about. Please do not argue about someone's ideas about Europe's technology relative to the New World.

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Old Post:

Posted to continue the discussion in the New World Petition thread.

I'll try to collect the discussion in the next while and post it here.

Posts taken from myself, ywhtptgtfo, Dafool, Sun_Wu

Has anyone ever tried creating another tech group for the Europeans to start out in that has the same tech efficiency as other parts of the world, that is slowly replaced by the full tech growth one around 1500? Having a new level of tech ~10 years or so seems odd considering that they're just getting into the swing of the renaissance at this period in time.

If you want a symbolic date to say when European military technology had decisively outstripped the rest of the world, try 1628: when the Ming Emperor asked the Portuguese to supply ten modern European cannons, plus experienced European gunners, to teach the Chinese how to manufacture and use artillery.

I'd agree to an extent. The developments of the early 17th century, perhaps best exemplified by the climax that was the 30 Years' War, show a definite transition in Europe. Following that change in military technology we also have the Enlightenment, which pushed other technologies and sciences forward. I'm somewhat fond of EU3's 1650 date for this purpose of transition. Part of the problem is that the events that lead to these developments happen during the game's time frame. This means we have about 2 centuries in which Europe should be developing, but not undeniably superior. This is where EU3 failed. Europe was notably ahead only a few decades into the game and by century or so they were nearly unbeatable.

The question is then how is that solved? Since it makes handling technology in any part of the world separate from Europe essentially impossible, and no one here seems to be interested in working out a way to effectively model the New World until that is addressed.

Would another tech group help out? Manipulation of the tech levels, and expected completion years?

I suppose one can look into the geopolitical and sociological issues that have led to the rise of European rationalism but that can be incredibly hard to model. For one, I'd say the Innovative slider should be much more important (if it still exists). For another, the presence of maritime trade should also influence technological development since it drives the development of astronomy and physics.

Much higher slow limits and have manufactories boost tech more.

I'm not sure that really helps, since it is the neighbor bonuses that really gives the European nations, primarily from the HRE. (and other small states in Europe)

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I was thinking about it, and maybe it would be best to do away with tech groups entirely, and have technological spread happen through neighbors and trade partners. It was after all primarily the heavy trading nations that supplied most of the technological developments during this time period (other then warfare). Then add a bunch of reformation and innovation modifiers that you can gain for your nation as time goes by, and use those to get the Europeans to catch up with the rest of the world, and then surpass it. When another nation wants to Westernize, they adopt those bonus modifiers and put extensive efforts into gaining key parts of European trade so that they can direct as much tech diffusion as possible towards themselves.

The next step would be to rework the tech levels, and what parts of the world start at what levels. I think the first thing we should do here is change it so that the expected level of completion for technologies isn't based on what Europe's most advanced nation had at the time, but what the world's most advanced nation had at that time. Then put in a few levels behind that, so that we can effectively model any places that weren't at that level yet.

There should also be issues with decadence and so on, that reduce innovation (i.e. Spain).

So not only can your nations be given modifiers that speed up your technological development, but you will also accrue negative modifiers over time if you don't put effort into innovating. That sound fair?

That sounds reasonable. In the end, as George Box has famously said: all models are wrong, but some are useful. It remains to be seen how EU4 simulates the progression of technology across the world without hardcoded limitations.

Missed this post. If I were to model it and try to stick to EU3's general mechanics, then I might have different tech groups within tech groups. So there would be a "Western", "Western Renaissance", "Western Enlightenment". Then you could also have a "Chinese", "Chinese Renaissance", and "Chinese Enlightenment". Each could offer a better research rate and change as the game goes on. This actually has a few interesting benefits over the current model.

First, the tech group change is vertical, meaning that sharing between groups is limited. This means that a Chinese group nation that bumps up a level doesn't automatically discover the entire Middle East or become technologically equal to Muslims nations in just a few months.

Second, it offers some interesting options in terms of change. In Europe you have small, innovative traders that can push Europe into the Renaissance group. The Chinese group may not have this and thus would not quickly jump up to that group. You could, like in vanilla EU3, allow them to make the leap to the Chinese Renaissance group through interaction with Europeans or if they, like the Europeans, manage to achieve similar conditions that allowed Europe to jump ahead in the first place. So, it's a bit more dynamic in that respect.

Third, it would still allow us to make the basic differentiation between groups, so that the Aztecs aren't equal to Europe but still aren't having their tech defined solely by Europe. This eliminates a lot of the need to do direct comparisons between things, which means we no longer have to say that "Chinese Renaissance" needs to be exactly equal to "Western Renaissance", only that the conditions to make that advancement need to be similar.

So the basic level represents the approximate level of development for societies that are largely stagnant, such as the Western world during the European dark ages. One for fairly rapid technological development, such as the Muslims in those European dark ages, and the later European Renaissance. Finally, one for nations within a Scientific revolution or age of enlightenment, which is what the Europeans attain towards late game. At the same time, you can get modifiers while within a technological group that either boost technological rater, or stagnate it depending on national policies, and whether or not your ruler is putting in efforts to promote innovation.

You should be able to move up to another category through heavy trading with another nation that is a higher category, or by sending an expedition to a nation that is. It is much easier to send these expeditions to nations that are nearby, and are of the same religion. Of course, tolerance also helps. There should also be a fair bit of tension for when a ruler decides to adopt or accept incoming thoughts and ideas, with both stability and prestige costs. Especially if they're a part of the catholic church.

If we are using EU3 mechanics to model this, we almost need to remove the neighbor bonuses, and instead implement something to only boost tech gain between direct neighbors, so as to prevent the multitude of minors in Germany and Italy from boosting other Europeans that aren't doing tech development up to parity by virtue of that alone. Then find some way to model gaining tech from trading at a location, or helping nations that are far below the others within their tech, but who're actively trying to get up to the same level do so.

If this is in EU4 mechanics, this is a bit harder to do unless monarch points aren't what you use to gain another level of technology directly. There has to be some sort of over time propagation of tech between locations, or at least of tech groups/tech costs. Plus we have to make sure that the early tech ceiling isn't based on what Europe had at the time, and base it on what the most advanced part of the world had at the time. You can still use points to speed up tech development, but it is really expensive if you aren't adapting tech form somewhere else.

Since the game start in EU4 is 1444, that means that the Renaissance is setting up shop in Italy, and is about to start slowly starting to move into the rest of Europe. I think 1450 is likely around the time were the Renaissance has taken full hold in Italy. By 1500 the Spanish and Portuguese are now part of it, and land technology is at least on parity with the Muslims, while ship building is ahead. From what I can tell from some quick skimming of wikipedia, Germany and Poland are in the Renaissance by 1520, France by 1530, and England by 1550. It looks like there was also a Renaissance that sprang up from the Netherlands in that same time period, and they actually pushed themselves into that level of new thinking before much of the other parts of Europe, they had it around 1480. I don't see much info on Scandinavia, but based on the spread for other places, I'd guess it would be some time between 1510-1560.

If the base cost of all technologies is 400 monarch points, what would be a reasonable boost in cost for nations not yet in the Renaissance? Let's say Europe starts at tech level 1 across the board, while the Muslims have tech level 2, and are already considered a part of the Renaissance. China has tech level two as well, but isn't in the Renaissance (so they don't advance as fast). The Ottomans then face an event for technological stagnation when they reach the height of their power, so that the Muslims can start to fall behind the Europeans. Mind you, it would still be possible for the Ottomans to overcome this malus, and then become a part of the age of Enlightenment. Just as the Europeans used the Muslims to get out of their stagnation.

The big question now is how does a nation go up from one tech group to another if it either doesn't exist, or there is no way for them to get into contact with them?

For the first part I assume you're talking about nations that might revolt away or something like that, correct? If so, simply setting flags would work. If a nation revolts away, let's say Tirol, then the game simply fire an event that checks the conditions of their existence and then assigns the correct technology group. If it's already the Enlightenment era and there is nothing about their nation that would prevent them from being there, then that's the group they would be placed in. This is actually pretty easy to do in EU3 already.

As for the second part I assume you're talking about isolated nations like in the New World or Africa? If that's the question, then we do run into a problem of sorts. If anything, especially for the New World, I would simply deny them a self-sufficient means of advancing. If you look at the conditions already discussed that might bump a state up a technological level, namely a more advanced neighbor, trading with foreigners, and simply reaching a later date, then we shouldn't expect them to fulfill any of those conditions under normal circumstances. Maybe at a crucial moment of contact, but not for extended periods of time.

I'd say being in contact does not necessarily mean there will be an efficient transfer of ideas. A major factor is the reactionary mindset of people, which can be quite forbidding when the ideas are held by people who are considered hostile, foreign, and potentially destablizing. For instance, the Manchurian establishment in China largely forbade the adoption of foreign ideas. Similarly, the Japanese came very close to shutting those ideas and would have if the first Meiji Emperor lost the civil war.

My opinion is that the Renaissance had spread throughout Europe due to some form of cultural common ground that exist between the Germanic Europeans as well as the intense competition that exist between them.

All right, but what about the Europeans? How do they start to reach the age of enlightenment? I don't think it should just be based on an event that happens around a certain date that gives it to Europe just by virtue of them being Europeans. A good system for a nation moving up to the next tech level should be something that can happen to any nation, just with this happening naturally and much more easily to Europeans on the grounds of what actually lead to it happening in Europe rather then it just being because it was Europe.

I think the barrier could be represented by both religious tolerance, and policies related to technological stagnation/advancement and isolationism/expansionism. How strong the reactionary movements could easily depend on those very things, possibly effecting the costs of doing so, as well as the negative impacts.

Well, just to expand on some of the stuff you've already said, we have number of things that could work as potential triggers or modifiers, namely:

-The year (it should get more likely as time goes on)
-Tech levels (a highly advanced nation should be pushing closer to the Enlightenment)
-Exploration (You've already explained this)
-Global Trade (Just like anywhere else, the diffusion of information and ideas from elsewhere can fuel change)
-NI's (At least in EU3 terms things like Scientific Revolution and tolerance ideas might be good factors)
-Advisors (Philosophers and Natural Scientists would be important)
-The number of universities (or just manufactories)
-Form of government (This is a little iffy, but would probably work)
-Ruler skill (Think of men like Friedrich the Great)

There are other things, but these could definitely work as a basis. I think France is a good candidate for the Enlightenment's starting place, and they fit a good number of these categories. Once they've made the technological shift, they'd quicken its spread to "Western Renaissance" nations. From there we can get results that would allow Prussia, a state that doesn't fit too many of those categories, to still embrace the Enlightenment like it did historically. It's just very unlikely that they'll be the starting point for it. This means of change could work on a fairly universal level. If you play as Ming and conquer bits of India and somehow sail east to the Americas and set up shop, you'd be in the same boat as the Europeans were historically. It's very clearly a hypothetical, but it certainly makes some sense from a gameplay perspective if we're talking about this sort of technological system.

For government an Absolute Monarchy should offer bonuses to kick it off like in France, indeed it being an absolute monarchy was part of why the had the intellectual freedom to develop their ideas.

Getting this system in place and making it make the most sense and work best can only be accomplished by expanding on the ideas presented, and by working together using both cooperation and critique.

Well around 1444, historically the Ming were funding huge trading/tribute gathering expeditions around the Indian Ocean. However, a new emperor that took the throne decided that it would be a better idea to stop doing that, and put the resources that they use to put into those massive fleets of ships instead into making a giant wall to protect them from nomads on the steeps and pursue isolationism. That's what lead to the Chinese stagnation.

Had the Chinese not pursued isolationism, it would not be too much of a stretch for them to have been a part of the age of enlightenment. They might have in fact been the instigators, if their sailors were inspired to do their own exploring, possibly after making contact with European explorers.

The Netherlands and English also make for good candidates for starting the age of enlightenment. Many of the big thinkers of the time came from those places. Speaking of which, I think having those big thinkers (but possibly under different names) spawning the biggest of the new ideas that character the age of Enlightenment would be good ways of measuring how close a tech group is to pushing into it. Having philosophical works like Ethics and The Social Contract slowly getting released over time by either universities or advisers, along with major advancements in science like the creation of physics. Once all of these ideas have been developed, the nation that developed the most of them, and still maintains the upper level of tech in that group, goes into the age of enlightenment and begins to propagate that throughout the tech group.

So it is proposed that Ming is kind of in the "same boat" as the Europeans historically if it engaged in the game of colonialism. However, one of the things that struck me when I spoke to a fellow Chinaman at work (he has a Ph.D in Computer Science, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything) months ago is that the traditional Chinese school of thought is based on feeling rather than rationalism. OTOH, one of the fundamental heritage that drove the Enlightenment was the Latin and Greek style of learning and rational thought, which is also a fundamental ingredient I believe the Chinese lacked for the most part.

As a personal opinion, I believe all that proposal for Far-Eastern Renaissance (for China and Japan) is, for the most part, very far-fetched fantasy (more far-fetched the BYZ reconquering Roman Empire). It's best reserved for longer-time scale and more abstract games like Civilization 5 where little primitive like Incans and Aztecs get to invent the wheel and, you know, discover industrialism.

Comrade, near the end of the Ming dynasty traditional Confucian thought was being heavily challenged and reason was increasingly focused on. By 1600 China was on a cultural path strongly resembling pre-industrial Europe.

As for sailing, I noticed that as you get further and further along Europe's history, their focus of sailing as a means of seeking wealth slowly shifted towards the pursuit of new discoveries and ideas. The artwork and philosophy seems to support this as well, with lots of map work and detail. The question is, is this a cause of the age of enlightenment, or a result of it?

effect not cause.

Why would you say that is the case?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Okay, I think I got the discussion transferred.

 

[unmerged(139685)]

I'd say that the culture groups ought to influence the propensity of nations to innovate. This could take the form of a straight Power Points penalty to obtain a tech, or just making the AI more reluctant to do so. But in the latter case the player would just ignore it and develop ahistorically, so the penalty would be better. Of course there ought to be bonuses on other stuff, so the nations with those cultures will have other things to do (tempting them to spend their PP elsewhere...). These bonuses and penalties can be derived from typical hindrances present in that culture, eg. frowning upon naturalism and a tendency to place on book above all others in muslim cultures, stressing the importance of stability and tradition in Chinese culture, etc.

Another aspect is that these cultures can get appropriate events that mirror the resistance of their society to innovation. Catholics get papal bans, inquisition and excommunications, Eastern European cultures could have nobles protest when their subjects gain some freedoms, peasants could protest attempts to monetize the economy, merchants can protest lifting of their privileges, etc. etc.

 

[mattkunz]

I think the problem with portraying technological progress in eu is, that the economies of countries are hardly dealt with. There are only four things, that influence the level of manufacturing in a province, population, which isn't doesn't have a working mechanic, manufacturies, i.e. government spending - we already had government spending defining technology in eu3-, the tech level itself, and which trade good is produced, also something that is set in stone...

I think the new trade mechanic is great, but isn't enough to represent how some region like the Netherlands became urbanized, with thriving preindustrial manufacturing.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

As a quick summary of the above discussion. We thought that:
1) There needs to be a trade diffusion mechanic that works beyond technology groups, who you're trading with and direct neighbors ala CK2 would be much better ways of doing this then EU3's neighbor bonus.
2) Rather then making each tech group have a set level of technology growth rate, all nations should be a part of a group that determines things like troupe types and map knowledge, and a second one that only determines tech speed. Possible levels of this tech speed could be: stagnant, renaissance, enlightened, and industrialized. Europe should start as stagnant, but be moving into renaissance, while the Muslims and Chinese should already be renaissance.
3) Nations can move up in major tech groups through either an innovation period developed out of advisers and universities, by trading with nations that are in a higher group, by being a part of a major cultural group (like the Western world) that includes nations that are in a higher group, or by having a ruler go off to study the better system and try to improve their nation using the other as a model.
3) In addition to the overall level of development in a nation at a given time, there is also lesser modifiers that can speed up or slow down tech progress, as well as the diffusion of tech into the nation.

 

[Fawr]

Its always great when someone posts their half of an argument out of another thread without the other side.

Very interesting read for those interested,
The Military Revolution Debate

What about articles like this one which suggest that in land tech the Hapsburgs/Italians/French military tech crossed over the ottomans in tech in the 1520's. Thats roughly the same as in EU3 (depending on how many levels ahead you think the better Ottoman troops are worth until land tech 17).

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Its always great when someone posts their half of an argument out of another thread without the other side.

I'm pretty sure I posted everything that directly related to the discussion of technology...

The whole point of this topic was to continue that discussion, so I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on what is right or wrong in this.

What about articles like this one which suggest that in land tech the Hapsburgs/Italians/French military tech crossed over the ottomans in tech in the 1520's. Thats roughly the same as in EU3 (depending on how many levels ahead you think the better Ottoman troops are worth until land tech 17).

I'm not sure if this wouldn't be effectively modeled using this system. By around 1500, Italy, France, and Austria should have caught up to the Ottomans, having finished going through the tech group boost and gained the tech diffusion. I'm pretty sure that advantages that they built up after that weren't terribly huge over the Ottomans until the enlightenment. They didn't start to stagnate until around mid 17th century, and that wasn't caused by their tech slow start bonus suddenly running out.

 

[Fawr]

I'm pretty sure I posted everything that directly related to the discussion of technology...

You need to read more than the last 2 pages... That link I posted comes from the New world thread, and certainly pertains to the discussion at hand.

I'm not sure if this wouldn't be effectively modeled using this system. By around 1500, Italy, France, and Austria should have caught up to the Ottomans, having finished going through the tech group boost and gained the tech diffusion. I'm pretty sure that advantages that they built up after that weren't terribly huge over the Ottomans until the enlightenment. They didn't start to stagnate until around mid 17th century, and that wasn't caused by their tech slow start bonus suddenly running out.

Read the link, it makes a convincing case about the Ottomans v the Hapsburgs, and I think generalises it well.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

You need to read more than the last 2 pages... That link I posted comes from the New world thread, and certainly pertains to the discussion at hand.

Sorry, but you seem to have posted that long before I joined the conversation in the New World thread and brought up changing the tech group systems. I didn't think that it had already been going on.

I'm afraid I don't have the time right now to be reading such an extensive article. Nor do I really have time to go over a lot of pages of old posts that are mostly people just bickering back and forth. I wanted to avoid that and actually try and work out a good system without that. Do you have some suggestions on what you think would be a better set of mechanics?

 

[Talq]

Pretending that European tech is stagnant at game start is a fail right there (seriously, take some time out to think about the choice of start time - why don't paradox pick 1200, or 900, or 600 as their start time?).

Understanding why Europeans advanced faster from 1500 to 1800 (or even to 1915) is something that a few historians have grappled with, with arguably unsatisfactory results. That said, the fact that no other country achieved it during the EU period (Japan's modernization postdated it) despite a number of those countries (eg the Ottomans) being acutely aware where it was leading suggests it was very, very hard. Your construction trivialises that.

You are also going to run into the basic everybody knows to modernise quickly because the benefits outweigh the costs problem.

I may possibly have not read every detail of your wall of quotes. Don't expect many to.

Aside: the New world discussion thread is somewhat of a car crash. It was a car crash on page 6. As a monument to argumentation in its many forms its...ok, as a source of illumination not so much.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

All of the things I've looked into say that Europe was not the technological leader of the world in anything at all other then ship building at 1500. Large parts of it were still more or less stagnant in the fifteenth century. This is not the case in Italy, and primarily in the merchant republics of Venice and Genoa. They are actively trading with the Muslim world and through it, are getting the texts from Greece and Rome that the Muslims preserved. They're also adapting the other advances developed outside of Europe in the intervening time, such as Arabic math and Chinese gunpowder. Many argue that the fall of Constantinople and the thinkers who lived there moving West to Italy is also one of the primary contributors to this sharing of knowledge.

This spawned a new age of thinking for the Western world, and this slowly spread North and West over a very long time period. From what I can tell, it easily took 50 years for the effects to reach France, and nearly a hundred to affect England.

The goal of this system is to model that to the best of our abilities, and to also model technological diffusion to other parts of the world (which unquestionably happened). At the 1444 game start, many of the Italian states should be either already into the Renaissance, or just about to go into it. This then spreads to the rest of Europe over a long period of time, and the whole of Europe should be by no means equal in technological ability during it.

 

[Seli]

All of the things I've looked into say that Europe was not the technological leader of the world in anything at all other then ship building at 1500. Large parts of it were still more or less stagnant in the fifteenth century. This is not the case in Italy, and primarily in the merchant republics of Venice and Genoa. They are actively trading with the Muslim world and through it, are getting the texts from Greece and Rome that the Muslims preserved. They're also adapting the other advances developed outside of Europe in the intervening time, such as Arabic math and Chinese gunpowder. Many argue that the fall of Constantinople and the thinkers who lived there moving West to Italy is also one of the primary contributors to this sharing of knowledge.

This spawned a new age of thinking for the Western world, and this slowly spread North and West over a very long time period. From what I can tell, it easily took 50 years for the effects to reach France, and nearly a hundred to affect England.

The goal of this system is to model that to the best of our abilities, and to also model technological diffusion to other parts of the world (which unquestionably happened). At the 1444 game start, many of the Italian states should be either already into the Renaissance, or just about to go into it. This then spreads to the rest of Europe over a long period of time, and the whole of Europe should be by no means equal in technological ability during it.

You really should have read the whole new world thread , most of your points have been discussed there before

You seem to be mixing up two things that the EU games tend to separate, development level and innovativeness. The former at the start of the game is already lower in Europe than in a some other areas in the old world, the latter is represented in the tech groups as a simplified summary of society. It is those properties of society that are hard and disruptive to change as is modelled in the westernisation events (although tech groups and 'westernisation' have undergone unknown updates for EU4).

In my eyes a model that tries to do away with tech groups completely, or makes it a smooth process to change tech groups is worse than what we had in EU3. Yes, the model used in the EU games is simplified, but at the same time robust enough to approximate trends over a 400 year period. Switching to a pure diffusion/innovation model would destroy the robustness, and ignore the underlying aspects of societies.

Also from a gameplay perspective the level of control in EU seems about right, while the CK diffusion model works fine there, and the specific inventions in Vic are appropriate in that game. But that might just be years of exposure talking.

 

[Dafool]

You seem to be mixing up two things that the EU games tend to separate, development level and innovativeness. The former at the start of the game is already lower in Europe than in a some other areas in the old world, the latter is represented in the tech groups as a simplified summary of society. It is those properties of society that are hard and disruptive to change as is modelled in the westernisation events (although tech groups and 'westernisation' have undergone unknown updates for EU4).

Part of the problem is that development and innovation are strongly tied, but in EU3 they were kept fairly separate. It really doesn't make much sense the most innovative Muslim nation, one that might have colonies across the globe and merchants everywhere, is still inherently less developed than Gotland. Similarly, it's very odd that westernization, a process that changes your "development" is tied directly to innovation when no other feature does. Essentially, EU3 handled this dichotomy very strangely.

In my eyes a model that tries to do away with tech groups completely, or makes it a smooth process to change tech groups is worse than what we had in EU3. Yes, the model used in the EU games is simplified, but at the same time robust enough to approximate trends over a 400 year period. Switching to a pure diffusion/innovation model would destroy the robustness, and ignore the underlying aspects of societies.

I said it in the other thread, but this would probably only work if EU3 covered 100-200 years. The problem is that in EU3 Europe's development in 1399 was assumed to be the same as in 1821. I'm all for recognizing the trend towards European technological superiority throughout this period, but it was a trend that emerged during this period. It was not a linear process, but the current tech system does model it that way. Having a progression through levels of development not only fits Europe's history fairly well, but it also has the added benefit of keeping levels of development separated by tech group, so that a Chinese nation that achieves an Enlightenment era level of technology doesn't just become "European" over night.

 

[Seli]

Part of the problem is that development and innovation are strongly tied, but in EU3 they were kept fairly separate. It really doesn't make much sense the most innovative Muslim nation, one that might have colonies across the globe and merchants everywhere, is still inherently less developed than Gotland. Similarly, it's very odd that westernization, a process that changes your "development" is tied directly to innovation when no other feature does. Essentially, EU3 handled this dichotomy very strangely.

But to me at least it makes perfect sense that a Muslim country can be a trading nation, owning colonies, having a high technology level, and still be less innovative and slower to adapt to new technologies than Gotland. To me this dichtomy is handled perfectly fine. The level of technology a nation attains is in no way correlated to the ease it can adapt/develop new technologies, which seems a proper way to handle development.

I said it in the other thread, but this would probably only work if EU3 covered 100-200 years. The problem is that in EU3 Europe's development in 1399 was assumed to be the same as in 1821. I'm all for recognizing the trend towards European technological superiority throughout this period, but it was a trend that emerged during this period. It was not a linear process, but the current tech system does model it that way. Having a progression through levels of development not only fits Europe's history fairly well, but it also has the added benefit of keeping levels of development separated by tech group, so that a Chinese nation that achieves an Enlightenment era level of technology doesn't just become "European" over night.

This would be the case if tech levels were linear, which they most certainly weren't in EU3. So there always was a fudge factor to tune the speed of innovation (if still linked to the historical pathways).

 

[chatnoir17]

How about giving the same tech speed for all countries and then change the speed with phased modifiers instead of uniformed negative modifiers? F.e. +10% for some religions like protestants, +5% for being multiregional etc. It works also for EU3, and looks like the system of Magna Mundi, but with positive modifiers (personally I don't like the style using too many negative modifiers).

 

[TheDarkMaster]

But to me at least it makes perfect sense that a Muslim country can be a trading nation, owning colonies, having a high technology level, and still be less innovative and slower to adapt to new technologies than Gotland. To me this dichtomy is handled perfectly fine. The level of technology a nation attains is in no way correlated to the ease it can adapt/develop new technologies, which seems a proper way to handle development.

If this is a system that you think works perfectly right, but what do you think should be a good way of determining what level of adaption a nation is current at, and how to determine how it changes. Also a means for modeling stagnation and great advancement.

 

[Eh up me duck]

The current tech system is fine. You can select any aspect of the game and demand that it receives more special attention and more complexity, tech is no different.

Or I'm just an unreformed marxist and see no value to anything other than wealth and the means of production.

 

[Seli]

If this is a system that you think works perfectly right, but what do you think should be a good way of determining what level of adaption a nation is current at, and how to determine how it changes. Also a means for modeling stagnation and great advancement.

Going by what we know. The level at technology a nation is currently at is determined by a level in a linear sequence. Changes in this level (only upward as far as we are aware) are limited in speed by the number of appropriate monarch points needed. The amount needed is modified by tech group, but the speed at which a nations gains monarch points is determined by monarch and advisers. The first are as far as we know so far random, the latter are limited by available money and perhaps by culture group. So a nation intent at innovation can focus on that.

To me that seems like a nice system. Absolute level determined at scenario start, slope (innovativeness, tech speed, whatever name you want to give it) partly innate but influencable by a (competent) player or AI.

 

[Dafool]

To me that seems like a nice system. Absolute level determined at scenario start, slope (innovativeness, tech speed, whatever name you want to give it) partly innate but influencable by a (competent) player or AI.

I have a problem with the "innate but influenceable" part. In EU3 the only real way to overcome the "innate" penalty was to westernize. Competence really didn't have a lot to do with it. That hypothetical Muslim state that is colonizing and trading just like the Europeans could never advance on its own. It would always have to westernize first. Now one could argue that pushing sliders around to increase innovation leads to freedom from those innate penalties through westernization. This makes sense. However, westernization itself doesn't. Not only was that phenomenon nonexistent during this era, but it also happens very strangely, with the state gliding through various tech groups along the way.

So what am I getting at? Well, we already have an interesting basis in EU3. Contact and innovation allow permanent increases in a nation's technological outlook. What's interesting to think about though, and what I've essentially proposed, is that we can instead expand the process to all states instead of limiting it to just westernization. This gives us two great benefits: It allows us to model Europe's rise as a process rather than a predefined bonus and it also allows a nation to advance without becoming technologically identical and equal to the Europeans. Such a change would not need to entail technological gains for the RotW, and indeed should not really encourage it, but it would allow Europe to follow its historical path and become dominant through exploration, trade, and innovation, while not inherently denying that same possibility to other nations if they should somehow achieve similar results.

 

[Seli]

I have a problem with the "innate but influenceable" part. In EU3 the only real way to overcome the "innate" penalty was to westernize. Competence really didn't have a lot to do with it. That hypothetical Muslim state that is colonizing and trading just like the Europeans could never advance on its own. It would always have to westernize first. Now one could argue that pushing sliders around to increase innovation leads to freedom from those innate penalties through westernization. This makes sense. However, westernization itself doesn't. Not only was that phenomenon nonexistent during this era, but it also happens very strangely, with the state gliding through various tech groups along the way.

So what am I getting at? Well, we already have an interesting basis in EU3. Contact and innovation allow permanent increases in a nation's technological outlook. What's interesting to think about though, and what I've essentially proposed, is that we can instead expand the process to all states instead of limiting it to just westernization. This gives us two great benefits: It allows us to model Europe's rise as a process rather than a predefined bonus and it also allows a nation to advance without becoming technologically identical and equal to the Europeans. Such a change would not need to entail technological gains for the RotW, and indeed should not really encourage it, but it would allow Europe to follow its historical path and become dominant through exploration, trade, and innovation, while not inherently denying that same possibility to other nations if they should somehow achieve similar results.

But even in EU3 non-western nations can improve, grow and innovate. it is just a lot more difficult for them then for western nations. It really seems your only problem with the EU3 system is the name westernisation, and a bit that contact with a more developed nation is usually needed to improve innovativeness. Would there have been other pathways to technological development, that is to say in context of EU3 not westernisation but something else? Perhaps, but they did not really show up in history, so a overly simplified model with isolated slowly innovating or static for another reason nations at one end, and western European nations at the other captures most historical development in this period.

The issue is in my opinion -and this is something I have said before in the the other threads- that the 'innate' properties are the complex systems that at the moment even sociologists and historians don't understand and don't agree on. I would image it is the complex interaction between amongst other factors literacy, education, freedom, repression, career options, law, social structure. And changing those is equivalent to adapting disruptive technologies, and that will change the societies these changes appear in. And if those changes appear piecemeal, as in the EU3 system, it makes sense. Larger changes would probably destroy a nation, or would be useless as introducing modern European cars in a nation without the roadsystem and infrastructure they were designed for.