The problem with that is that there is nothing stopping the more advanced states from keeping their tech lead over Europe. IMO there ought to be a clear difference in the resistance a player - be it AI or person - experiences when trying to revolutionize the way things are done in eg. the Asian subcontinent compared to doing the same in Europe. Something must be stopping them. Assuming a non-specified conservative element in arbitrarily defined zones makes it possible to set the stage for an age dominated by Europe. Otherwise you'd have to find specific things, eg. the closing of the doors of the itjihad in the Muslim world or the stress on tradition and stability at all costs in China.
New technology group mechanics
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Here's where I disagree. While it is possible to mitigate the innate penalty, you simply can't overcome it (maybe save for the Eastern Europeans). We give Europeans the benefit of the doubt and encourage their dominance because historically they developed the means to dominate commerce, colonization, warfare, and politics. My point is that we should use those same factors to promote, not predetermine, European dominance. As I said before, this isn't really about changing westernization, but instead about creating a tech system with a real sense of progression. The other benefit, as I've mentioned a few times, is that this system isn't determined solely by geography and culture, and thus if China follows the same path as the Europeans, doing things like long distance trading, exploration, and colonization, then they might begin to experience technological benefits just as the Europeans did. Note that I'm not saying that this should be common, encouraged, or easy, just that it should be possible.
I wonder if it would be at all possible to try and mod in this system into EU3 as a sort of proof of concept?
Its probably impossible to set up tech spread through trade in that game, isn't it?
Its probably impossible to set up tech spread through trade in that game, isn't it?
Changing tech groups via event is possible. You would just have to think carefully about what circumstances you would want countries to change tech group forwards and backwards.
To me Europe was advancing faster (starting behind, but catching up and then overtaking) already in 1400.
Economic historians have looked into this a lot more than me though, and there is one graph I bumped into comparing GDP per person in various regions over time (the graph is titled "the world until 1800"). GDP per person is normalised, adjusted for inflation and basically made comparable, and so that represents production technology.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-world-after-jesus-in-4-slides/258762/
He doesn't have data for 1400, but in there you can see that by 1500 Western Europe is both ahead of the other reagons, and is also increasing much faster.
The data behind the graphs comes from this pdf http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/HS-8_2003.pdf - page 22 (or 262).
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Honestly, I don't think there should be tech groups at all. I think the innovative-narrowminded slider represented this well enough.
Europe needs to go its fast developing route- with Poland having a chance in the 1400s.
Other nations need to be limited but not crippled. They should have the chance through European contact, trade, and reform to Westernize and be a rival power.
Other nations need to be limited but not crippled. They should have the chance through European contact, trade, and reform to Westernize and be a rival power.
If there is certain event triggers, I imagine it is possible to make event that gives technology bonuses to nations that draw trade income towards themselves (so European trade nations gets the bonus, while China that is more of provider of trade doesn't.)
I was thinking about how this might be handled a bit better, and I thought that maybe a good way of testing it would be to simply have all tech groups at 100% efficiency, and then have like four modifiers that set what level of development they're at: stagnant (40%), developing (80%), enlightened (100%), and industrialized (120%). Set the Muslims and Chinese to developing with a tech advantage over Europe, everywhere else to stagnant, and then set up events to make nations slowly turn into the next level if there are other nations in their tech group that are (with it happening much faster if they're neighbors or on sliders) and events that let Europe go up the tree as it did historically just to test out the idea.
Oh, also disable Westernization.
Oh, also disable Westernization.
Europe was not in any way or fashion stagnant at the game start. Start from 11th century.
-Crusades, huge transfers of knowlege to Europe.
-Trade with east asia was already there, look at Venice.
-Eastern knowlege were already taking root.
There was a plague(that, by the way was also brought from east), but Europe was essentially catching up with east from 11 century, and by 1500s it did in most terms, and went forward.
The infrastructure and society that was developing faster than east was already there by the time EU starts.
-Crusades, huge transfers of knowlege to Europe.
-Trade with east asia was already there, look at Venice.
-Eastern knowlege were already taking root.
There was a plague(that, by the way was also brought from east), but Europe was essentially catching up with east from 11 century, and by 1500s it did in most terms, and went forward.
The infrastructure and society that was developing faster than east was already there by the time EU starts.
my main issue with tech is simply that once the europeans hit 1500 or so, only the ottoman military can fight them. I had a game as morocco a while back, got north africa tried to push into iberia. I had 3 quality if iremember right and example. Battle of where-ever, 20000(me) v 13000 (dastardly spanish), me 14000 casaulties, them 6000 and i had the better general too. Annoying how inferoir the rest of the worlds army get. Maybe make generals influence army preformance more than baseline soldier stats? Also id think if you were fighting a european nation that had better tech than you, you'd tech up ridicolously fast(maybe increase the land tech bonus if you're fighting a westernized nation).
Then there is the issue of nations transporting 15000 soldiers across oceans at 1500 but thats for another 90 page or so long thread
edit: and then there is poor poland and hungary.....
Then there is the issue of nations transporting 15000 soldiers across oceans at 1500 but thats for another 90 page or so long thread
edit: and then there is poor poland and hungary.....
Following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, the plagues and famines, and the failures of the crusading movements, most of Europe rolled back from its development in the High Middle Ages. Contact and trade with the East became increasingly hard and more often through middlemen. Population and output decline drastically, resulting in economic and social consequences as well. Europe was left fairly isolated, devastated, and unstable. The developments we normally associate with the Renaissance era, namely the evolution of gunpowder weapons, the emergence of long distance trade and colonization, and the influx of knowledge from new lands, all work against that setback. They all also have parallels in earlier societies outside of Europe. Thus to reflect these developments relative to each other, it makes some sense to bring Europe into the Renaissance era at the beginning of the game, because, as you said, it was largely catching up in most respects and eventually would push ahead by the Enlightenment.
well, tech has to influence european vs european significantly, so no wonder that Europe vs rest is a steamroll.
It is an issue of scaling, more than anything else. The only way to make Europe vs Europe not just a number decide everything, while the Europe vs world not a steamroll is to make scaling nonlinear.
Can be made by kind-of-sort-of thing, that if one side has more than X (say 5) levels of tech advantage, it will get the malus, let`s call it tactic&equipment mismatch malus, so having more than X levels of tech advantage is less impactfull per level than first X tech level disadvantage.
How are Poland&Hungary poor? They are perfectly capable with good innovation slider. Then, either vesternisation, or PU, or partition by countries that westernised at right time.
Mongols are conected how exactly?
Trade with east always was thrugh middle man.
How exactly did the plague rolled back scolars, and other advances taken from east during crusades?
How exactly did the agregation of wealth in hands of the remaining nobles hurt?
What you say is absolutely incorect. Europe was not left any more isolated. Just because the Ottomans got controll over middle east.
It is true that renessiance would have happen in 13th century if not for plague, but plague did not roll back anything, it just delayed things.
Plague did not roll back knowlege. Plague did not roll back social structure, in fact it advanced it.
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i guess i meant poor AI when they control them. Hungary usually gets devoured by trollhemia and austria then poland gets partionied, by the time they can westernize they're usually gone. Offcourse if im playing either one of them im fine.
The Mongols facilitated a great deal of stability over the Silk Road, allowing trade to move uninterrupted from the Far East to the Mediterranean. Their downfall meant that mixture of Turkish tribes, hostile Muslims, and the isolationist Ming dynasty stood in the way of Europeans and the goods they wanted.
The need for trade to travel through more states and across more geographic areas meant that more effort and more people were involved in the process of trade, which thus made it less valuable. This is one of the reasons that the Iberians wanted a direct route, not a route that involved Muslim traders and Italian merchants.
The plagues decreased the total population, especially in cities. You see a decline in the labor force. You see less surplus goods. Income shrinks. There's a reason that the Renaissance starts and takes hold in places like Italy, because the urbanized and rich environment could support investment in new ideas, arts, and sciences.
Social unrest creates turmoil. When a large portion of the labor force disappears, their value skyrockets. Nobles now have to contend with peasants demanding more pay and more rights. When the nobles refused, we ended up with various rebellions, many reflecting social and religious unrest amongst the lower classes. This paved the way for the end of the feudal system.
Without the Mongol Empire or other willing parties, Europeans had no direct access to the trade routes they desperately wanted to use. Europe is geographically and politically separated by various Mongol and Turkic tribes, hostile Muslim states, the pirates and Muslims of North Africa, and the daunting fact that Africa was not easily rounded. This is what pushes Portugal and later Spain west and south into the seas.
Perhaps you're more correct in wording, but the idea still stands. The earlier Renaissance never fully blossomed because a handful of natural and political factors brought it to a close.
It did roll back the advancement of knowledge and it did roll back social structures. They advanced in the wake of these disasters, not due to them.
That sounds good, but its not consistent with the facts. By 1500 Western Europe was already significantly more productive than the rest of the world and was on average growing much faster too. The productivity of workers in Western Europe has been estimated to grow from about $400 per person per year in 1000 to about $771 in 1500 (in 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars). That may not sound like much growth per year, but it was much higher than China ($450 to $600), Japan ($425 to $500) or Eastern Europe ($400 to $500) in the same time period.
I make no claim about the source, but it certainly doesn't tell us too much. The earlier Renaissance that is being referred to happens in the 12th and 13th centuries and is quickly declining by the beginning of the 14th century. Then we end up with nearly a century of warfare, social unrest, famines, and plagues. Then in the late 14th century things start to pick up again in Italy and by the end of the 15th century the Renaissance begins to spread to the rest of Europe. Your source simply covers too much time to tell us anything specific. Also, it would be interesting to understand how that productivity is established, given the different types and methods of agriculture, not to mention the differences in prices for agricultural goods.
I agree that the methods were interesting, I've been looking into that side of things myself. Given the problems with getting data it looks like he has taken different methods for different areas, depending on what data is available.
Personally I like the idea that we aren't just looking at a short period of time, that we are looking at the long run. In a short period of time random elements can hide the underlying pattern. Just look at the stock market, in one day the market can go up or down significantly, but people still think the full year numbers are useful when looking at long term trends. Technology growth is the ultimate in long term trends, so thats why I think the long term trend is useful here.
But if you wanted a play through of the game to accuratly simulate historical tech growth you would know you have it right when by 1500 Western Europe is both ahead of the rest of the world in productivity and increasing faster. At 1400 the data is sort of silent, but to get to where you need to be by 1500 you either need high productivity and moderate growth or moderate productivity and high growth (relative to the rest of the world), or some combination between the two.
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Yes, that's always a tricky matter in historical economic comparisons. Looking back, I noticed too that you didn't specify agricultural productivity either, so I wonder if that's the entirety of the values or perhaps if other forms of output are considered as well.
I can understand that. Especially when looking at "eras" and "ages" it certainly is a matter of long term thinking. I was only pointing out that that 500 year span starts before the first "renaissance" gets into swing, includes it, includes its end, includes the disastrous period that follows, includes the rebounding Renaissance in Italy, and finally includes its spread to most of Europe. That's a lot to include in your figures that isn't specific to the century or so I was discussing, so it's a bit hard to drawing any particular from that.
Well, as I said, I think it would be best to start Italy off as a "Renaissance" tech level part of Europe while the rest is largely "Medieval" or whatever title could be agreed upon. Then, due to their Italian neighbors and other factors, move the rest of Europe up to the Renaissance group in the late 15th and early 16th century. That should begin to pull them ahead and then when they hit the Enlightenment that lead could be firmly cemented.
Yeah, if the start date is 1399, like EU3, then all of Europe would be stagnant/pre-renaissance, but if you start at 1440, then I'd set Genoa and maybe Venice to developing. Then have events trigger the Enlightenment in France or the Netherlands ~1700, and finally industrialization in England in ~1820.
Once you've figured out a good system for getting the spread to function right, one could rewrite the trigger events that trigger going up to the next level, or getting a the next level from another part of the world and try to get the two to produce the same result in nearly all hands off games.
Once you've figured out a good system for getting the spread to function right, one could rewrite the trigger events that trigger going up to the next level, or getting a the next level from another part of the world and try to get the two to produce the same result in nearly all hands off games.