Should the Far East start with higher military tech?

[unmerged(10128)]

I might be a little concerned regarding interaction between China and the West, if only in the Portuguese case.

It has happened to me to reach the Far East with Portugal with relatively low land technology, and if China and other nations were given a very large edge in the beginning, it might affect the way Portugal interacts with them. Not that Portugal should be trying to fight China (at least the way I play it), but I don't think encounters between Far East nations and the first European colonial powers should be dismissed off-hand. I don't think it would be much of a problem, or very unrealistic, but that depends on their advancement rates, and I haven't looked into those. Just something to bear in mind.

if thats the case, then we need to be concerned about tweaking the rate of advance rather than the accurate tech level at the start.

did you mean you reach far east with relatively low land tech compared with China only, or compared with all SE asian nations?

 

[unmerged(9404)]

Is there any way to modify the tech costs from level to level, or are they hard-coded? Can it be done without making agceep installation more difficult?

Look at
the economy FAQ Though the exact formula doesn't seem correct with the latest beta, the principle is still correct. The base cost of a tech is the difference between the date of the to be researched tech and the current tech (date can be found in the land.csv).


Is it really necessary to up the land tech that much, 4 is a lot, with the current techs thats a head start of 46 years. Against whom did China and Mongolia use this higher tech? Against each other? than Norrefeldts proposal seems good enough.

Remember that by the time the europeans come in -late 1500s- they should have superior tech levels (~level 18) compared to China (level 12?). China should be able to hold the europeans off by having a much higher manpower pool and having a nearby recruitment area. For me thats whats important.




And BTW I'm firmly opposed to changing the first two techlevels for pagans only till some extensive testing has been conducted on how it affects the tech level of other coutnries. Pushing the dates for level 3/4/5 will make those horrible expensive.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Sun Zi:
I can;t remember offhand either, though i do remember you mentioning it as well as several times you and others mentioning there were cannons on some of Zheng He's ships. Also the japanese used gunpowder with simple rockets, basically for the same manner as light artillery.

 

[Norrefeldt]

I absolutely do not think China should start at 4. They advance too fast as is, and will be providing the China group neighbour bonus for most of the game.

As to China vs Europe, I think it's not important. I'd guess the Chinese were a little better, but so what. By the time there can possibly be any interaction Europeans will be at a higher tech.
If technology means doctrine and 'training' the Mongols were certainly much more advanced than any Europeans.

Neighbour bonus in the china group is pretty miserable as is. I don't see that it's really a problem. If the Mongols get to 11 by 1600 we have problems, but I can't see how that can happen.

The relative land technology of the Ottomans or English and the Mongols or Chinese makes no difference in the game. What is "correct" is entirely subjective. In terms of doctrine the mongols were very advanced. The whole point of the Mongol tech was to ensure that they would be a real pain for China for a very long time. The tech can be justified from a historical point of view. I don't see such a big problem.

Seems to be several people having that view: "We don't know, it doesn't matter, so just set the tech to whatever..." If that's the genaral view I won't go against it. Training should be reflected in Quality (an advanced state can have low quality troops), doctrine should be reflected, and is accorcing to the names of the levels, to tech.

Also the japanese used gunpowder with simple rockets, basically for the same manner as light artillery.

What kind of rockets? Military or pyrotechnics? The difference is big since the difficult part was casting strong enough cannons.

i didn't say that was an argument in favour. coz i dont see anything to argue against.

...

anyway, IMO, at least theres no reason why you cannot say the technology in the Far East during that period (a few centuries earlier) is superior to europe.

I'm not the one asking for a change and the burden of proof are on the proposers for a change.

actually the idea was not just to have Mongol 5 and China 4 for land tech, but a general increase in the far east, such as Korea 4, Japan 2, Dai Viet 2, Chagatai 2, the rest of far east except east indies around 1. That is of course more because "it was really the case" than for any other reason.

Exactly. I'm not really arguing against the Mongols having higher tech if China have it (not that it's needed to make them beat China since DP settings is what counts). I'm asking for proof of the general raising of Far Eastern land techs, as the title says.

if thats the case, then we need to be concerned about tweaking the rate of advance rather than the accurate tech level at the start.

IMO we should first firmly establish a tech lead, either by sources of by a overwhelming majority here. Then we can start tweaking tech level advances. But then we have to look at the entire period. Raising Far Eastern techs and slowing their advance might lead to a good result 16th c, but will it still be correct in the beginning of 19th c?

 

[unmerged(10128)]

Is there any way to modify the tech costs from level to level, or are they hard-coded? Can it be done without making agceep installation more difficult?

i think u do that by changing the average date for next in land.csv

Is it really necessary to up the land tech that much, 4 is a lot, with the current techs thats a head start of 46 years. Against whom did China and Mongolia use this higher tech? Against each other? than Norrefeldts proposal seems good enough.

No Europen power used their tech against China either. if thats the argument then it certainly goes against the idea that "We should only give higher tech if that was really the case!" that Norrefeldt is arguing for. 46 years ahead is not really a lot anyway i dont think. I played China quite often and the cost for researching the first few techs is like 10 times less than the tech level afterwards. that is probably because of the loss of neigbour bonus.

Sun Zi:
I can;t remember offhand either, though i do remember you mentioning it as well as several times you and others mentioning there were cannons on some of Zheng He's ships. Also the japanese used gunpowder with simple rockets, basically for the same manner as light artillery.

yea, it's not in the standard threads (AGCEEP Far East, AGC China, EEP China). i remember it was not that long ago that I translated a passage from a historical classical book about Chinese gunpowder weapons... oh well

 

[unmerged(10128)]

I'm not the one asking for a change and the burden of proof are on the proposers for a change.

well, if you dont trust the several people who are saying that they have heard discussions about it in various places and there is general agreement or those who are actually advocating it themselves (e.g. MKJ, myself, doktarr, Jinnai are the ones i can think of off the top of my head), then you need to wait until someone unbury the discussion and the proof given in those threads. it's not as if nobody has asked about the change before or no proposers of change has ever discussed this with anyone. it's the fact that the proposers of changed have already discussed the topic in various threads ages ago and you want us to unbury the proof for you.

Exactly. I'm not really arguing against the Mongols having higher tech if China have it (not that it's needed to make them beat China since DP settings is what counts). I'm asking for proof of the general raising of Far Eastern land techs, as the title says.

again, i'll need to look thru the whole forum to find where it is, or i'll need to find all the evidence that i used again (most of the time needs translation). either of these take time. if you're willing to wait, i m happy to find it.

IMO we should first firmly establish a tech lead, either by sources of by a overwhelming majority here. Then we can start tweaking tech level advances. But then we have to look at the entire period. Raising Far Eastern techs and slowing their advance might lead to a good result 16th c, but will it still be correct in the beginning of 19th c?

probably yes. mil tech did not advance very fast through 16th to 18th C.

 

[Norrefeldt]

I can do some research myself. Was it here or in EEP or in AGC?

 

[unmerged(10128)]

i think it is definitely mentioned in AGC, might have also talked about it in EEP. there should be somewhere where i talked to jinnai about use of gunpoweder in the far east and that was not that long ago so i think that passage is actually somewhere in this forum.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

anyway, IMO, at least theres no reason why you cannot say the technology in the Far East during that period (a few centuries earlier) is superior to europe.

i fact i think the middle east should also start off slightly higher than europe.

actually the idea was not just to have Mongol 5 and China 4 for land tech, but a general increase in the far east, such as Korea 4, Japan 2, Dai Viet 2, Chagatai 2, the rest of far east except east indies around 1. That is of course more because "it was really the case" than for any other reason.

I certainly do not agree with this. To me the tech level is about doctrine, and I don't think there is any convincing evidence one way or the other about who was more advanced. As such I think it makes sense to let sleeping dogs lie. Small tech differences aren't possible at the low techs because the base costs are so very high.

Training should be reflected in Quality (an advanced state can have low quality troops), doctrine should be reflected, and is accorcing to the names of the levels, to tech.

And I've never said anything about training, just that the Mongols had very effective doctrine

Sun Zi:
I can;t remember offhand either, though i do remember you mentioning it as well as several times you and others mentioning there were cannons on some of Zheng He's ships. Also the japanese used gunpowder with simple rockets, basically for the same manner as light artillery.

And I'm almost certain that nothing was discussed about how this affected doctrine. Fine, so Zheng He had cannons on his ships. What did he do with them? I know very well what da Gama did with his cannons - he set about using his military efficiency to dominate sea trade in the Indian Ocean. Having cannon means nothing - the Europeans had had cannons since the 1300's but hadn't figured out how to use them effectively.

IMO we should first firmly establish a tech lead, either by sources of by a overwhelming majority here. Then we can start tweaking tech level advances. But then we have to look at the entire period. Raising Far Eastern techs and slowing their advance might lead to a good result 16th c, but will it still be correct in the beginning of 19th c?

How is that even possible? And why does it matter whether the techs were "really" higher or lower? What matters is the relative techs of countries that are likely to fight one another. If we start with a gradiant for East to west we are encouraging Middle Eastern Countries to conquer European ones, Indian countries to conquer Middle Eastern ones, and SE Asian countries to conquer Indian ones. Why?

I'm not the one asking for a change and the burden of proof are on the proposers for a change.

And this is the rub. There has been absolutely no proof presented at all. Not a shred. For the Mongols this is not such a bad thing. We know that they can't really fight anyone except the Manchus and the Chinese, and it is reasonable to expect that their higher tech won't cause them to do anything too ahistorical. We know that China will get to tech 5 quite quickly, so the neighbour bonus is definitely not a big deal. It still ought to be shown that giving them this tech doesn't mess things up royally, but it isn't such a radical change.

For a China that starts at tech 4 there are no such restraints. China can readily fight a large number of countries, and is pretty much guaranteed to be driving the neighbour bonus for the entire China tech group. Where is the proof that jumping them 3 tech levels won't cause all sort of problems?

If you believe that this won't mess up the game entirely you need to run some tests and prove it. This is what the 'burden of proof' means.

well, if you dont trust the several people who are saying that they have heard discussions about it in various places and there is general agreement or those who are actually advocating it themselves (e.g. MKJ, myself, doktarr, Jinnai are the ones i can think of off the top of my head), then you need to wait until someone unbury the discussion and the proof given in those threads. it's not as if nobody has asked about the change before or no proposers of change has ever discussed this with anyone. it's the fact that the proposers of changed have already discussed the topic in various threads ages ago and you want us to unbury the proof for you.

Which is entirely irrelevent. People who want to cite old discussions to justify changing something ought to be able to dig up those discussions themselves. Old discussions should always be subject to revision, and the argument that "the discussion is out there, several us remember it, so you need to go find it" is, to say the least, unwelcoming to people who haven't been around here forever, or who don't spend the ridiculous amount of time on this forum that some of us do. And it's quite besides the point, the burden of proof remains on those who want to change a system that works reasonably well right now. This change has indeed been discussed before, and I, for one have consistently opposed it before.

 

[Norrefeldt]

Pardon me Isaac Brock and Sun_Zi_36, I edited a bit to much and quoted IB for the training sentence, it was from SZ36.

I agre with your points IB. But I see no reason to raise the Mongols 0.4 in moral by giving them a 1-5 tech lead, when they have 1.04 moral lead from DP already. More then enough to do the job of pestering China.
But if it makes a lot of a people happy I can live with it, since it wont affect anyone else than China. Of course in SP you can run down and conquer China and get a substantial advantage in tech, but is a very minor problem.

 

[doktarr]

Look at
the economy FAQ Though the exact formula doesn't seem correct with the latest beta, the principle is still correct. The base cost of a tech is the difference between the date of the to be researched tech and the current tech (date can be found in the land.csv).

I was aware of the date factor, but I wasn't sure whether there was a hard-coded factor that made some techs cheaper.

If the FAQ ia fundamentally accurate, then what's all the fuss about? We can make land tech 6, 7, 8, and 9 very expensive by changing the dates in land.csv. We have to modify land.csv anyway if we want to use techs 0 and 1 to model primitive societies. That way, nations will reach the critical land 9 at about the same time as usual, but we'll get a little more diversity in initial starting techs, which should be nice.

Is it really necessary to up the land tech that much, 4 is a lot, with the current techs thats a head start of 46 years. Against whom did China and Mongolia use this higher tech? Against each other? than Norrefeldts proposal seems good enough.

Well, China also did pretty well against other nations in the area (Korea and Dai Viet most notably). But I'd agree that they don't need a tech lead to pull that off. I'm supporting this change more because I think it's realistic - the idea that every nation in the known world had the same land tech in 1419 is pretty absurd.

Remember that by the time the europeans come in -late 1500s- they should have superior tech levels (~level 18) compared to China (level 12?). China should be able to hold the europeans off by having a much higher manpower pool and having a nearby recruitment area. For me thats whats important.

Well, the tech groups should ensure that that happens. I agree that that is crucial, and if changes along these lines prevent that, then the idea should be scrapped.

And BTW I'm firmly opposed to changing the first two techlevels for pagans only till some extensive testing has been conducted on how it affects the tech level of other coutnries. Pushing the dates for level 3/4/5 will make those horrible expensive.

Again, we can just modify the dates in land.csv to make the path from tech 3 to tech 9 as smooth as we like. Right?

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Again, we can just modify the dates in land.csv to make the path from tech 3 to tech 9 as smooth as we like. Right?

Are you sure that the game won't crash if, for instance, the date for land tech 9 is later than the date for land tech 10? I have no idea.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

Which is entirely irrelevent. People who want to cite old discussions to justify changing something ought to be able to dig up those discussions themselves. Old discussions should always be subject to revision, and the argument that "the discussion is out there, several us remember it, so you need to go find it" is, to say the least, unwelcoming to people who haven't been around here forever, or who don't spend the ridiculous amount of time on this forum that some of us do. And it's quite besides the point, the burden of proof remains on those who want to change a system that works reasonably well right now. This change has indeed been discussed before, and I, for one have consistently opposed it before.

which is to make this whole thread irrelevant. i m not the one who brought up the discussion here. if u want to revisit old discussion you bring it up and revisit it. i never said i want this implemented immediately in the next patch. And that is obviously the reason why i am not providing the evidence now. if you dont want it implemented now then just dont implement it. why should I provide evidence at a time when i dont even want to implement it yet?

i disagree that tech level is about doctrine. and the question of doctrine is not related to the question "what did he do with them?", so i m puzzled why u are asking the question. tech level is about tech, it's about the things used to improve fighting. China had doctrines about military strategy tactics etc developed over thousands of years. but as soon as europe develops rifles, artillery etc having the doctrines matters little. IMO doctrine is more related to DP.

 

[Norrefeldt]

which is to make this whole thread irrelevant. i m not the one who brought up the discussion here. if u want to revisit old discussion you bring it up and revisit it. i never said i want this implemented immediately in the next patch. And that is obviously the reason why i am not providing the evidence now. if you dont want it implemented now then just dont implement it. why should I provide evidence at a time when i dont even want to implement it yet?

You gave the impression that it was already decided upon and only partly implemented, in the case of Mongolia.

i disagree that tech level is about doctrine. and the question of doctrine is not related to the question "what did he do with them?", so i m puzzled why u are asking the question. tech level is about tech, it's about the things used to improve fighting. China had doctrines about military strategy tactics etc developed over thousands of years. but as soon as europe develops rifles, artillery etc having the doctrines matters little. IMO doctrine is more related to DP.

I disagree with you. Military doctrine is crucial. Many of the great military inventions were a change in doctrine, like Gustav II Adolf's reforms. We cannot show this with a scale of ten in Quality, since we would either hit the roof early or get very big increments.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

I disagree with you. Military doctrine is crucial. Many of the great military inventions were a change in doctrine, like Gustav II Adolf's reforms. We cannot show this with a scale of ten in Quality, since we would either hit the roof early or get very big increments.

well, then you are applying the experience of europe to the rest of the world. from the rest of the world point of view it's the weapons that matter, and that view should probably apply to the lower techs. in fact i disagree with the theory that inventions comes because of change in doctrine. i think it's the other way around, inventions gives rise to the opportunity to change the doctrine. those who change the doctrine are able to sieze the advantage of new inventions. when new invention comes old doctrine is again rendered obsolete. In other words doctrines adapt to physical inventions. but some would classify doctrines themselves as intangible inventions.

You gave the impression that it was already decided upon and only partly implemented, in the case of Mongolia.

yes, it was agreed as far as i know, thats why i felt at ease to implement it for mongolia as HC member in the merger. for other nations it's not implemented so of course everyone is free to revisit the discussions if they wish.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

i disagree that tech level is about doctrine. and the question of doctrine is not related to the question "what did he do with them?", so i m puzzled why u are asking the question. tech level is about tech, it's about the things used to improve fighting. China had doctrines about military strategy tactics etc developed over thousands of years. but as soon as europe develops rifles, artillery etc having the doctrines matters little. IMO doctrine is more related to DP.

Rifles are pretty much irrelevent if you choose to line up you troops three deep and use volley fire, and both sides did in the early part of the US civil war. Arquebuses only became important in the last decade of the 15th century when the Spanish worked out how to use them to stop cavalry and infantry. Having a technology is fundamentally different from changing the way you manage and fight your army to use that technology effectively.

And the Chinese military doctrine probably was more advanced than the European in 1419. They certainly had a better udnerstanding of tactics. But it wasn't China that invented volley fire in the 16th century. It was Europe and Japan.

 

[Norrefeldt]

I think it's both ways. Sometimes doctrine is driving the development of warfare, sometimes it's technological breakthroughs. The reforms of Gustavus Adolphus were to a very large extent a new doctrine with weaponry available all over Europe. More recent examples are the change in doctrine of Germany in end of WW1 when infiltration tactics were developed on the West front and also the different use of tanks in the early stages of WW2 gave very different results. Logistics have always been very important to warfare and for long periods it was to a very large extent a question of doctrine rather than technology.

 

[unmerged(10128)]

Rifles are pretty much irrelevent if you choose to line up you troops three deep and use volley fire, and both sides did in the early part of the US civil war. Arquebuses only became important in the last decade of the 15th century when the Spanish worked out how to use them to stop cavalry and infantry. Having a technology is fundamentally different from changing the way you manage and fight your army to use that technology effectively.

And the Chinese military doctrine probably was more advanced than the European in 1419. They certainly had a better udnerstanding of tactics. But it wasn't China that invented volley fire in the 16th century. It was Europe and Japan.

i agree with this, but that hardly have application to the assessment of tech levels at the start of the game. military doctrines still didint go thru any revolution or substantial changes at this point in time. it is later in the game that doctrines becomes more important.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Yea, but even if you did use doctrine only china would have a higher level than the rest of europe. But its not entirely doctrine nor is it entirely technological advances. Its a combination of the 2, with the earlier ones focusing more on the advances and the later more on doctrine.
I mean it would be only a tech level of 2 over europe (if 0 and 1 are for primitives) which is certainly within reason. But Japan should have higher level than most of the rest of the world for land at the start if we use doctrine or technology. Don't worry about them advancing though...they don't know enough countries to have the threshold needed in the hardocded section to not get tech growth penalty.

 

[Norrefeldt]

I guess any adjustment of tech levels has to wait till someones get the time and energy to collect firm proof of a tech advantage. I'll see if that book Jinnai mentioned is available here.