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[Silverionmox]

I think technological progress ought to be limited, if at all present. We ought to change on cultural and racial differences, changes, migrations, flows of ideas, trends, religions, fads on one hand, and personal progress and excellence of individuals on the other hand. The latter gives much better stories. The first keeps things changing and interesting without necessitating the extra constraints on the game that a technological evolution would necessitate (balancing, predetermining much of the evolution of a game).

[Andeerz]

What I mean by technological progress might be compatible with what I think you mean, Silverionmox.  It wouldn't be like some tech tree/research points allocation bullcrap.  It would simply be a logical extension of what is proposed in the current thread.

What I envision as technological progression would involve modeling the "flow of ideas" you mention.  It would involve treating ideas and knowledge as commodities a lot like how the current thread by counting suggests how to treat physical commodities.  They wouldn't be represented the same way as other commodities like ore, crafts, and the like are, but would still be resources required for certain things to happen.  For example, a settlement near a rich copper deposit would not be able to exploit it and make a copper industry without having people in the settlement who know how to obtain the ore, process it, and make stuff out of it.  This knowledge of how to do the stuff could be imported (via immigrants or hiring someone or sending someone out to learn how to do this stuff and come back) or learned (which could be modeled somehow...). The knowledge is just as important as having the physical commodities necessary to exploit copper, like the right tools and other logistical factors.  The effects of how knowledge is distributed and travels during world gen would affect civs and stuff in much the same way as how physical resources are distributed and travel during world gen, and would ultimately affect what technologies and industries are available and prevalent wherever, whenever.   

I hope I make sense!

As for how I think knowledge could be represented, gained, transferred, and lost: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46550.msg1120942#msg1120942 and http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=62629.msg1492239#msg1492239

How to attach value to knowledge in the game would be rather tricky, though...

EDIT: Now that I think some more... technological progression/evolution would already be modeled in large part with the suggestions already in place by counting; technology evolves as a function of what economic resources are available, and leaving out modeling of knowledge would not remove modeling of technological progression/evolution.  Leaving out modeling of knowledge would just leave out one more economic resource from the overall economic model.  But I think that this is a very important economic resource to model, not just for "technological progression's" sake.

As an example of the importance of knowledge as an economic resource, think about what guilds did in real life; controlling educational capital and secrets in addition to controlling physical resources.  A very huge part of the economic importance of guilds was providing training and the like as well as job security in exchange for stuff.  This is how guilds became powerful political and economic forces throughout the middle ages and the rennaissance.  The dissemination of the knowledge and training they could provide greatly affected the economic activities of medieval nations/cities/states/whatever. 

Some other cool things modeling of knowledge as a commodity include libraries having a compelling, non-contrived reason for existing in the game and physical recording of records into actual objects (books) which could greatly affect progression of world gen by acting as tangible, long-lived repositories of valuable economic knowledge. As with the guild example above, apprenticeship/education could become an actual economic activity that matters.  Also, things like trading for (or stealing of) valuable secrets (like the location of valuable ore deposits or troop movements, or treasure, or trade secrets) could happen.  Cool things like this are why I suggest this.