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[Vattic]

I wasn't questioning your central point, just some of the detail and mostly only out of curiosity.

I'm also of two minds about "factory floor" versus "great man" for technology progression. On the one hand I see the prior as more realistic, but the later as  better material for storytelling which I think is the ultimate goal of DF. It need not be a choice of course as it would make sense for a seafaring culture to end up with great men of the sea.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 I may be wrong, but I don't understand why tech in df needs to accurately represent tech of some real world period. The fact that tech orchards (I think that was what you called them) will be added (as opposed to the more linear trees that are in more game-y games like civ) sort of proves that historical accuracy is (to a point) not all that important. And anyways, df is a fantasy game .

[NW_Kohaku]

I may be wrong, but I don't understand why tech in df needs to accurately represent tech of some real world period. The fact that tech orchards (I think that was what you called them) will be added (as opposed to the more linear trees that are in more game-y games like civ) sort of proves that historical accuracy is (to a point) not all that important. And anyways, df is a fantasy game .

Just take a second to stop and note how confused it is to claim that we shouldn't "accurately represent tech" by having "linear trees that are in more game-y games".  So, "game-y" means "accurately representing the real world" now?

Having the capacity to learn different technologies at different rates actually is realistic.  It's simply avoiding technological determinism that says all technologies must be learned in a specific order. 

The Mesoamerican cultures, for example, had nearly no metallurgy of note, (outside of some gold for jewelry,) whereas the Europeans saw metallurgy as so critical they named the early system of "ages" after which metals were in prominent use by the dominant empires of the time. 

And honestly, if anything, I am (and have been for years) arguing most specifically against the bog-standard Civilization model, which was, itself, mostly just a more complicated version of Risk, rather than an attempt at accurate history.  (Although nobody seems to remember that...) I'm not particularly looking towards tech trees with anticipation of any sort, but at least want to avoid some of the more annoying varieties, where people have been proposing things like making glassblowing disabled from the start of the game until you have a "tech tree advancement" by sitting a dwarf at a desk and putting "research" on repeat for several years. 

Rather, if there's to be any technology trees to climb, there needs to be some saner additions to the game that make technology levels actually worth having, and better ways of actually achieving those things.

A "factory floor" model of technology would mean, for example, that "research" on metallurgy is performed via smelting lots of things.  Maybe eventually, you learn a technique to smelt a new alloy after gaining enough "civilization experience points" to gain a smelting technology level.  Compare this to just having to send dwarves off to sit in a "laboratory" drinking your beer and just sitting their digesting your prepared meals while eventually excreting a technology upgrade, and you have the difference in what those models actually mean in play. 

[Vattic]

I don't think he was suggesting that a linear tech tree would be more realistic. He just contrasted the tech tree we'll be getting to the kind you get in other games. I suspect the reason he says the orchard style tech tree proves that historical accuracy is not the main aim is because it could lead to worlds where period appropriate technologies would not be available.

Funnily enough glassblowing is one of the technologies I wouldn't mind not always seeing at the start of a world. I agree though that many of the technologies are properly ancient and should be available from the start. I know people have suggested having the game start with technology similar to that of the stone age and have the civs move toward the cutoff technologically, but I was under the impression Toady had no plans for this.

I may be wrong, but I don't understand why tech in df needs to accurately represent tech of some real world period. The fact that tech orchards (I think that was what you called them) will be added (as opposed to the more linear trees that are in more game-y games like civ) sort of proves that historical accuracy is (to a point) not all that important. And anyways, df is a fantasy game.

As for why the technology in DF needs to accurately represent that of a specific real world period: It need not and doesn't. Toady has decided on a cutoff for thematic reasons. A cutoff he has broken a number of times also for thematic reasons.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

I don't think he was suggesting that a linear tech tree would be more realistic. He just contrasted the tech tree we'll be getting to the kind you get in other games. I suspect the reason he says the orchard style tech tree proves that historical accuracy is not the main aim is because it could lead to worlds where period appropriate technologies would not be available.

Funnily enough glassblowing is one of the technologies I wouldn't mind not always seeing at the start of a world. I agree though that many of the technologies are properly ancient and should be available from the start. I know people have suggested having the game start with technology similar to that of the stone age and have the civs move toward the cutoff technologically, but I was under the impression Toady had no plans for this.

I may be wrong, but I don't understand why tech in df needs to accurately represent tech of some real world period. The fact that tech orchards (I think that was what you called them) will be added (as opposed to the more linear trees that are in more game-y games like civ) sort of proves that historical accuracy is (to a point) not all that important. And anyways, df is a fantasy game.

As for why the technology in DF needs to accurately represent that of a specific real world period: It need not and doesn't. Toady has decided on a cutoff for thematic reasons. A cutoff he has broken a number of times also for thematic reasons.

 Yeah, what I meant is by accurate isn't realistic tech progression, but accurately recreating the tech progression in the (usually western) world. For example, in civ 5, when you discover gunpowder, it's usually around the same time as when you discover other Renaissance tech, because that's (not really, but whatever) when it was discovered in Europe. With the tech orchard, that I see as made up of tech trees that correspond each to a material, tech progression would be more realistic, but you would probably have a very different experience due to having completely different items, especially if it's used in worldgen.

[Vattic]

I think that is part of the intent; Each world being unique in terms of which innovations the various civs have discovered. Humans are even randomised in terms of the topics each of their civs will have a tendency to research (some humans civs won't research at all).

From what I gather each individual tree within the orchard will have a broad topic like geography, history, or engineering rather than be based on a material. At first none of them will relate to the jobs dwarves currently carry out. I suspect the trees will eventually have branches for specific industries, or specific materials. Some innovations will require innovations from other areas before they can be researched.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

I think that is part of the intent; Each world being unique in terms of which innovations the various civs have discovered. Humans are even randomised in terms of the topics each of their civs will have a tendency to research (some humans civs won't research at all).

From what I gather each individual tree within the orchard will have a broad topic like geography, history, or engineering rather than be based on a material. At first none of them will relate to the jobs dwarves currently carry out. I suspect the trees will eventually have branches for specific industries, or specific materials. Some innovations will require innovations from other areas before they can be researched.

 As for what the trees will contain, I think the best idea would be to have multiple types of trees to reflect the multiple uses of science. Practical applications could be reflected by having trees representing a material and made up of properties, and then the worldgen or dwarves with an invention labor/skill would make stuff up through procedural generation and the properties known to their civ. More theoretical sciences such as the ones you suggested might rather affect religion, world view, and the actions of the government.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, I said this in some of the previous topics on the same subject, but what we could have, as one topic, is differing levels of metallurgy. 

That is, dwarves right now seem to have more modern blast furnace methods of steelmaking, and produce "pure" steel of modern quality. 

Instead, we might have a "base-level" wrought iron, crude steel, wootz steel, damascus steel, and dwarven steel. (The last of which having the properties that are associated with current steel.)

Once we get the capacity to properly make items out of more than one material, armors could similarly evolve, starting with the likes of scale or lamellar armor and four-in-one mail, up through six-in-one mail and splint mail, to eight-in-one mail and field plate.  Even leather and cloth armors were improved through different hardening techniques. 

We could have crossbows that diverge in their composition for providing either faster reload rates or heavier impact, with pull-lever-crossbows and repeater crossbows being faster, and windlass or cranequin crossbows or arbalests providing heavier firepower at the cost of speed.  Recurve crossbows can add velocity regardless of loading method.  Compound crossbows could be constructed to allow for greater total power, at the cost of requiring stronger dwarves to operate, or requiring a slower winding method.

All of these could largely just be evolutions.  (Nobody wore scale once they knew how to make field plate.)

These don't have to be all military, of course, music and poetry and such are fully capable of "evolving", although there aren't as practical a set of results to show for such things.

Ceramics, as well, is the source of technological progress, with porcelain being far more difficult to produce than this game gives it credit for.  (I made a longish suggestion on the topic before it was actually put in the game.  Porcelain actually needs temperatures hotter than magma to be properly produced, and was responsible for Europe largely sending nearly all its precious metals along the silk road to obtain all the porcelain they could possibly get.  Porcelain probably should require special forges which are powered to spin fans that provide the proper high airflow to burn enough charcoal to properly make porcelain.)

The main problem with these is that there is no particularly good reason to bother with such things, especially as there is no reason to bother with high-value luxury goods when simple food roasts or bins of cloth are generally worth more money than you can ever spend. (Hence the whole "Class Warfare" thread built to solve that very problem...)

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

Well, I said this in some of the previous topics on the same subject, but what we could have, as one topic, is differing levels of metallurgy. 

That is, dwarves right now seem to have more modern blast furnace methods of steelmaking, and produce "pure" steel of modern quality. 

Instead, we might have a "base-level" wrought iron, crude steel, wootz steel, damascus steel, and dwarven steel. (The last of which having the properties that are associated with current steel.)

Once we get the capacity to properly make items out of more than one material, armors could similarly evolve, starting with the likes of scale or lamellar armor and four-in-one mail, up through six-in-one mail and splint mail, to eight-in-one mail and field plate.  Even leather and cloth armors were improved through different hardening techniques. 

We could have crossbows that diverge in their composition for providing either faster reload rates or heavier impact, with pull-lever-crossbows and repeater crossbows being faster, and windlass or cranequin crossbows or arbalests providing heavier firepower at the cost of speed.  Recurve crossbows can add velocity regardless of loading method.  Compound crossbows could be constructed to allow for greater total power, at the cost of requiring stronger dwarves to operate, or requiring a slower winding method.

All of these could largely just be evolutions.  (Nobody wore scale once they knew how to make field plate.)

These don't have to be all military, of course, music and poetry and such are fully capable of "evolving", although there aren't as practical a set of results to show for such things.

Ceramics, as well, is the source of technological progress, with porcelain being far more difficult to produce than this game gives it credit for.  (I made a longish suggestion on the topic before it was actually put in the game.  Porcelain actually needs temperatures hotter than magma to be properly produced, and was responsible for Europe largely sending nearly all its precious metals along the silk road to obtain all the porcelain they could possibly get.  Porcelain probably should require special forges which are powered to spin fans that provide the proper high airflow to burn enough charcoal to properly make porcelain.)

The main problem with these is that there is no particularly good reason to bother with such things, especially as there is no reason to bother with high-value luxury goods when simple food roasts or bins of cloth are generally worth more money than you can ever spend. (Hence the whole "Class Warfare" thread built to solve that very problem...)

 I'm not sure if this was part of your suggestion, but I think a good way of implementing it would be to have tech groups instead of tech trees, composed of techs that would be discovered depending on circumstance. For example, a dwarf would be assigned to a certain tech group (pottery, to use your example) and then depending on their mastery of the appropriate skill(s), resources available and other techs known to the race/civ/fort to create a new tech. If for example the race/civ/fort has efficient enough furnace techs, and access to the right materials, the dwarf might discover porcelain.

 Another thing that I think is important is how tech is stored. Instead of just being stored in the game file, the known techs could be stored in books (which I heard were being worked on) and individuals. Also, the person doing an activity requiring a tech must know it. So if everyone who knows about a given tech dies and the books (or maybe even engravings, statues and artifacts) that contain it are destroyed, the fort can no longer (to use the example I used above) produce porcelain, unless it is rediscovered or brought by migrants, merchants, enemies or diplomats.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'm not sure if this was part of your suggestion, but I think a good way of implementing it would be to have tech groups instead of tech trees, composed of techs that would be discovered depending on circumstance. For example, a dwarf would be assigned to a certain tech group (pottery, to use your example) and then depending on their mastery of the appropriate skill(s), resources available and other techs known to the race/civ/fort to create a new tech. If for example the race/civ/fort has efficient enough furnace techs, and access to the right materials, the dwarf might discover porcelain.

 Another thing that I think is important is how tech is stored. Instead of just being stored in the game file, the known techs could be stored in books (which I heard were being worked on) and individuals. Also, the person doing an activity requiring a tech must know it. So if everyone who knows about a given tech dies and the books (or maybe even engravings, statues and artifacts) that contain it are destroyed, the fort can no longer (to use the example I used above) produce porcelain, unless it is rediscovered or brought by migrants, merchants, enemies or diplomats.

People understood ceramics beforehand.  The thing was, they had this stuff for clay, but it wouldn't fire properly without having a really hot kiln. 

There's a reason that they say you can judge the wealth of a Chinese dynasty at a given period by the ceramics they were producing in that period.  Porcelain, properly fired, cost obscene resources to make.  It took clear-cutting forests to give the charcoal to fire those kilns, and those lumberjacks and charcoal makers needed feeding and housing and pay. 

The fans were developed as the need to produce hotter and hotter fires arose, which came about as porcelain became one of the great exports of China.  (There's a reason it's called "fine china".) Europe went to the lengths of developing themselves into globe-spanning naval powers just to reach China by sea when the Silk Roads were closed down by the Muslims after the sack of Constantinople/Istanbul.  Presumably, it started with attempts to fire them like more normal stoneware, but it didn't manage to achieve ideal hardness, and they found that the hotter the kiln, the better the porcelain was, so there was a drive to produce hotter and hotter kilns. More advanced fans were developed as ways to produce airflow that helped keep the burning charcoal hot.  Billows were not ideal, as they did not produce an even airflow.  The rotary box fan they ultimately devised was not unlike the sorts of rotary fans we use now, and could provide a constant airflow as long as it was powered, allowing for a constant, controlled burn and thus constant temperature.  (Porcelain fired TOO hot becomes brittle and may shatter.)

Again, I posit this sort of thing is generally best simulated by just having a "civilization ceramics tech", not unlike the animal taming familiarity system, where a civilization gains experience with use of certain groups of technologies.  The more ceramics your fort fires, the more ceramics tech experience it earns, and eventually, it gains the capacity to make new types of ceramics after gaining enough experience with the old types.  (Which, again, is "discovering technology on the factory floor".) 

It's also easy for players to understand, and works basically similarly to the way that training legendaries works, anyway.

[Cruxador]

From what I gather each individual tree within the orchard will have a broad topic like geography, history, or engineering rather than be based on a material. At first none of them will relate to the jobs dwarves currently carry out. I suspect the trees will eventually have branches for specific industries, or specific materials. Some innovations will require innovations from other areas before they can be researched.

That's still overstating the importance of trees. Things have their prerequisites but consider that Toady compared it to a grassland in the same breath as an orchard. Most techs aren't that deep, it's just a matter of what prerequisites there are.

Again, I posit this sort of thing is generally best simulated by just having a "civilization ceramics tech", not unlike the animal taming familiarity system, where a civilization gains experience with use of certain groups of technologies.  The more ceramics your fort fires, the more ceramics tech experience it earns, and eventually, it gains the capacity to make new types of ceramics after gaining enough experience with the old types.  (Which, again, is "discovering technology on the factory floor".) 

Well right now the way it works, from Toady's descriptions, is that if you have a scholar with relevant skills he'll find the appropriate technological advancement pretty quick, especially if you give him underlings. Since those skills come into play, it seems like a bit of a hybrid between factory floor and research-based, which seems fine to me.  Nothing is in play that actually effects the factory floor yet or for next release, but when it is you'll be able to turn your legendary potter into a leader and innovator in the field of pottery instead of/in addition to producing great pots. Perhaps at some point when actual labors are related to tech known, it will be possible to make discoveries without being designated as a particularly scholastic individual, but that seems like it would be more of an effect on management than on game flow.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well right now the way it works, from Toady's descriptions, is that if you have a scholar with relevant skills he'll find the appropriate technological advancement pretty quick, especially if you give him underlings.

This is, pretty much, the worst possible way to handle the whole concept, and is obviously just more of the plague of Sid Meyer's Civilization's Risk-style gameplay mechanics infecting how people actually view the advancement of technology... 

This basically suggests that the best way for someone to understand how to make a better thing is to stop actually making things, and sit around in your jammies not doing anything until lightning strikes.  It also suggests that a fortress which gets a high-leveled migrant in a skill you don't use is likely to be quickly leaping forwards in technologies they don't want or use, since they might as well let them sit back and generate "Research Points".

I mean, every time I see something like the kingdom with the most shipbuilding technology in the game being a landlocked country in a game like Crusader Kings, I have to gnash my teeth...  It's because they divorce the need to actually use, test, experiment, or be pushed by necessity from the results of "innovation", and a pathological fixation upon only the theoretical. 

[Cruxador]

Well right now the way it works, from Toady's descriptions, is that if you have a scholar with relevant skills he'll find the appropriate technological advancement pretty quick, especially if you give him underlings.

This is, pretty much, the worst possible way to handle the whole concept, and is obviously just more of the plague of Sid Meyer's Civilization's Risk-style gameplay mechanics infecting how people actually view the advancement of technology...

You're giving the impression that you don't actually understand any of this. DF's tech bears no resemblance to the tech in Sid Meier's games, and Risk doesn't even have technological advancement in the first place.

This basically suggests that the best way for someone to understand how to make a better thing is to stop actually making things, and sit around in your jammies not doing anything until lightning strikes.

No, it suggests that someone who excels in a trade needs to whip out the drawing board to design new tech. A worker needing time to put his ideas together (and then share them as a hard copy) isn't unrealistic. If he just worked all day making identical pots and then lightning struck and suddenly he's just magically propagated the procedure for making some totally different pots, that would be far less realistic.

It also suggests that a fortress which gets a high-leveled migrant in a skill you don't use is likely to be quickly leaping forwards in technologies they don't want or use, since they might as well let them sit back and generate "Research Points".

There are no research points and there never were. Yes, you could have a migrant work on new tech too, but if you don't want the technology that his skill would allow, why would you have him study and develop the theory of his trade instead of just training him into a new one?

I mean, every time I see something like the kingdom with the most shipbuilding technology in the game being a landlocked country in a game like Crusader Kings, I have to gnash my teeth...  It's because they divorce the need to actually use, test, experiment, or be pushed by necessity from the results of "innovation", and a pathological fixation upon only the theoretical.

It's just fine for you to have opinions on the systems of other games, but considering that this is a system with no relation to the DF system as described by Toady, it seems like the sort of discussion that ought to be on the lower forums, not here.

[NW_Kohaku]

stuff

So, you completely misunderstand someone's argument, but argue against it, anyway?

[Cruxador]

So, you completely misunderstand someone's argument, but argue against it, anyway?

If you have an argument that has any connection with reality, you're going to have to rephrase it since it was lost amidst paragraphs that either make assumptions of what DF's system will be that are run counter to what Toady has said, or have no relationship to DF at all.