Meneth's Systems #1

[TuCoT]

It seems the DotS will not just about new map, factions and units. It will be more than expected!

Great script systems Meneth. +rep

[Space_Ed]

Concerning the average life expectancy:

I took a class on medieval Europe, and the professor had written his own books on the subject matter. One of the main issues he had with "mainstream" history was that it failed to distinguish between what health was like in medieval towns and cities, compared to villages and farms. Anyway, his main point on that was that in reality, the terrible hygiene in cities and large towns would indeed lower life expectancy, but that was normally only so for the common man. Also, people in towns, villages, farms, etc. did really live pretty healthy lives, barring the onset of plagues, injuries and death in childbirth. I fact, just because we "live longer" today does not mean we are any healthier. When you take in to account that an apple from 100 years ago had 20 times the amount of nutrients of one today, and you expound that to all agricultural products, you find that people had access to better food in the past. We just have better medicine and antibiotics, but being alive is not the same as being healthy. Ask the average modern North American to put on armor and fight a battle at 55 years of age. I think we can all imagine the results.

The point is, a script that kills people off between the ages of 30-50 would not be very historical.

Woah woah woah!

I took a class on medieval Europe, and the professor had written his own books on the subject matter.

Great. Most of my professors have written books and published articles but I don't assume they are correct in everything they say.

Saying you took a class on medieval europe doesn't qualify you to generalise about fundamental aspects of medieval life.

the terrible hygiene in cities and large towns would indeed lower life expectancy, but that was normally only so for the common man.

As Ross said, the ruling classes would have suffered from an extremely wide range of diseases too.

I fact, just because we "live longer" today does not mean we are any healthier.

Yes it does.

When you take in to account that an apple from 100 years ago had 20 times the amount of nutrients of one today, and you expound that to all agricultural products, you find that people had access to better food in the past.

Ah, and here we come to the best part of your post. Where did you pull this from? 20 times the amount of nutrients? What is your source for this? Do these extra nutrients include the by-products of rot? Maggots? I really don't know what you are basing this on. Let's say that you are right and that apples then had "20 times the amount of nutrients" of a modern apple... you then assume that this was the case for all other agricultural products...

EDIT: I just noticed you mean apples from 100 years ago... so you are assuming that these apples from 100 years ago would be of similar quality to apples from 900 years ago? That is an extremely precarious assumption.

Better access to food in the medieval ages?

I don't think they had supermarkets with an enormous abundance of food from every corner of the globe in the medieval ages. People generally don't starve to death in Europe these days...

Ask the average modern North American to put on armor and fight a battle at 55 years of age. I think we can all imagine the results.

Yeah fat obese Americans attempting to put on armour and fight. Yeah that would be hilarious... Anyway if there was a need for them to do it due to a modern day feudal system then they would train their whole lives for it just like knights did back in the day. Then the modern average American would certainly be far better off than their medieval counterparts due to their improved diet and healthcare (assuming they have insurance that is ).

Anyway your point is ridiculous and all the evidence shows that it was much more difficult to live a healthy life in medieval europe than today.

[mynameisowen]

Woah woah woah!



Great. Most of my professors have written books and published articles but I don't assume they are correct in everything they say.

Saying you took a class on medieval europe doesn't qualify you to generalise about fundamental aspects of medieval life.



As Ross said, the ruling classes would have suffered from an extremely wide range of diseases too.



Yes it does.



Ah, and here we come to the best part of your post. Where did you pull this from? 20 times the amount of nutrients? What is your source for this? Do these extra nutrients include the by-products of rot? Maggots? I really don't know what you are basing this on. Let's say that you are right and that apples then had "20 times the amount of nutrients" of a modern apple... you then assume that this was the case for all other agricultural products...

EDIT: I just noticed you mean apples from 100 years ago... so you are assuming that these apples from 100 years ago would be of similar quality to apples from 900 years ago? That is an extremely precarious assumption.

Better access to food in the medieval ages?

I don't think they had supermarkets with an enormous abundance of food from every corner of the globe in the medieval ages. People generally don't starve to death in Europe these days...



Yeah fat obese Americans attempting to put on armour and fight. Yeah that would be hilarious... Anyway if there was a need for them to do it due to a modern day feudal system then they would train their whole lives for it just like knights did back in the day. Then the modern average American would certainly be far better off than their medieval counterparts due to their improved diet and healthcare (assuming they have insurance that is ).

Anyway your point is ridiculous and all the evidence shows that it was much more difficult to live a healthy life in medieval europe than today.

You are comparing the average commoner nowaday to a king/emperor from then. I have no doubt in my mind that they were a lot healthier than the majority of us. Food was indeed more nutritous, supermaket crap thats been halfway around the globe has nothing on something grown in your backgarden. This is obvious. Kings and queens did have access to good food and enough of it.

It is very true that common people back then had horrid life expectancies but the nobility lived far superior lives. Disease was widespread but famine was not for the nobility. They had all the food and exercise they could need.

This example is off the top of my head:- Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39. All three were emperors and so had access to the best of the best. All three spent their lives campaining. I cannot imagine a modern man training, marching, fighting, riding, not to mention the stresses of running an empire, and not to mention sustaining injuries, and falling ill, that could live to the ages above. They might have been lucky, but I doubt it. Their relatively long lives come from them living healthy lives, i.e. looking after their bodies and eating and exercising enough.

The modern average american has no reason to don suit of armor and chop people up but they did, and that is what we are comparing.

Im sorry but I feel I have to stick up for this guy. Flaming him for a stating his opinion isnt cool. You guys are doing a great job on this mod but interesting debates make ideas thrive. We know you've done your research but you guys dont open anything up for debate. If its decided by you then it goes in the mod, fair enough your making it, but dont expect averyone to agree.

[Meneth]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"
Seems pretty consistent with the ~50-year average lifespan we're going for, no?
Many diseases also leave permanent damage, especially when not treated properly. Therefore a slow gradual reduction in health makes sense.
Also, do note as I've currently coded the aging trait system, the first small debuff only comes at 36 at the earliest. It's more likely to come around 37-39. A general with the first level of the OldAge trait will still be viable both for combat and as a governor. It's only until at decade or two later that the penalties get so severe as to make up for experience.

[mynameisowen]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"
Seems pretty consistent with the ~50-year average lifespan we're going for, no?
Many diseases also leave permanent damage, especially when not treated properly. Therefore a slow gradual reduction in health makes sense.
Also, do note as I've currently coded the aging trait system, the first small debuff only comes at 36 at the earliest. It's more likely to come around 37-39. A general with the first level of the OldAge trait will still be viable both for combat and as a governor. It's only until at decade or two later that the penalties get so severe as to make up for experience.

I'm not questioning your decisions meneth they're great and I think it will work well, the example (even though it was off the top of my head) was to show that the nobility could and did live to relatively respectable ages. The slow degradation in health is a great feature to implement.

I'm critisizing the post above for ridiculing another user without reason.

[sumskilz]

I think it is quite likely that the medieval nobility, especially around the Mediterranean, ate a considerably healthier diet than the average North American today. The question is whether that plus increased exercise would have been enough to offset the issues of health related to disease without access to modern medical technology.

Here's an article on nutrition in the early medieval period, the main difference between then and the period covered by DotS is an increase in the efficiency of cultivation methods meaning greater abundance of the previously available foods.

[Space_Ed]

I think we all seem to agree that the ruling classes probably ate relatively well. I think it is quite easy to argue that they ate more healthily than a lot of modern day US citizens. Especially in the mediterranean as Skilz says.

I also think everyone seems to be in agreement that the majority of people in the medieval ages probably had it pretty terribly so I don't think there is a huge amount of disagreement amongst us about this issue.

[sumskilz]

Well even though I understand what Annatar was getting at, this particular part was worth criticizing:

When you take in to account that an apple from 100 years ago had 20 times the amount of nutrients of one today, and you expound that to all agricultural products, you find that people had access to better food in the past.

It's true that modern efforts in agriculture have been more focused on producing fruit that have the durability to handle transportation and will look nice in the supermarket which sometimes comes at a moderate cost to nutrition value (and taste). It's also true that the longer produce spends being transported, the fewer nutrients it will have at the time of consumption, but to say 20 times is ridiculous. Even the medieval nobility didn't have better access to food than the average person in Europe or North America today. We have better access, but a lot of people still choose to eat relatively empty calorie processed foods which the medieval nobility wouldn't have had access to (nor would they have been exposed to as many environmental toxins). Then again, they didn't have antibiotics either.

EDIT:

I also think everyone seems to be in agreement that the majority of people in the medieval ages probably had it pretty terribly so I don't think there is a huge amount of disagreement amongst us about this issue.

By our standards yes, but some recent research has shown that this view has been exaggerated a bit like the concept of "the dark ages".

[napoleonic]

how exactly duels being done? my guess is that the game will just spawn a message saying a duel has happened between character a & b, with a being the winner.

1. is my assumption correct?
2. how will the game keep track on where the characters are? I mean it must be weird if suddenly there's a duel between 2 generals that are separated 5000 miles and one of them are currently inside a boat in the middle of the sea? lol
3. what exactly the bonus and penalty from the duels?

indirectly with question number 3, wouldn't our generals will somehow have bleak futures and quickly becomes worthless especially since you implement such limiting systems when generals comes to 30?

and with that, so we only have 10 years to use a generals? tell me again how many turn/year this mod have?

[Meneth]

1. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically what the player will see, yeah. I won't go into detail right now, though.
2. There'll be no long-distance duels.
3. The current alpha values aren't final, so cannot make any concrete statements on this, sorry.
4. We'll make sure the character is still useful after a duel, just less useful.
5. Generals come of age at 21. The first level of the OldAge trait can only be triggered after age 36. That gives a minimum of 15 years (30 turns) before getting any disadvantages at all. The first few levels won't make a general useless, so most generals should be usable well into their 40s at least.

[ByzantineCaesar]

"Alexios Komnemus died aged 62 his son Ioannes Died aged 55, his son Manuel died aged 39"

That was the question that I was just about to ask. Is life expectancy higher for the Eastern factions than for Europe? Regarding your statement, John II indeed died aged 55 but that was a hunting accident in Cilicia. He would have probably lived until ~1150. Now what surprises me is Manuel's age. He died aged 70, in 1180. I suppose you are talking about the firstborn of John II, Alexius Komnenos, who died in 1142, aged 36?

[Meneth]

I was quoting some other guy. Ask him, not me.
As to different life expectancies: sadly that's not possible, due to the age limits being global. My old age system will likely be somewhat slowed down for Eastern factions, though.

[ByzantineCaesar]

I was quoting some other guy. Ask him, not me.

Oops, sorry. I hadn't noticed it.

mynameisowen, would you mind to give an explanation?

As to different life expectancies: sadly that's not possible, due to the age limits being global. My old age system will likely be somewhat slowed down for Eastern factions, though.

Ok.

Anyway, +rep for your work.

[Hengest]

mynameisowen you've got some good points, but I think as you seem to say if I understand you right, the game can't really allow us to represent things in specific variable details.

Even if we generalise and say that aristos had better food, medical care and healthier athletic lifestyles -they were also more like to run into an arrow like William Rufus or bleed to death from having a hand partially sliced through with a sword, or even better getting a nasty case of squashed insides (like my Dad last year) when his horse capsized and he fell underneath it as it rolled over. Not fatal now, but back then a fall from a horse (pretty common for a knight I reckon) would not have led to 6 months with their legs in traction- if your bones are mashed, you saw the bleeders off!!

The other issue is that the nobility in the game engine represents different cultures, periods and factions in different scenarios such as war, peace, plague, famine, campaign etc and on top of that the nobility in a single decade in a single country all doing the same thing would still encompass various lifestyles- lesser barons would not have the same health or life expentancy as a king. But the game engine has to have a single life expentancy rate for ALL characters throughout the campaign. So finding an average between all that arse is no easy task. I have over 9 GBs of word documents on my PC, 4 private forums and dozens of internet nerds with access to their own university libraries all backing up a lot of our info. (Sometimes Ed just ignores them though and puts synth music in the campaign).

With ALL these variables factored into the equation, Meneth working with research came up with some pretty fair figures. It wasn't just Meneth pulling it out of his arse either- but its the culmination of over a 100 guys (some of whom were educated with degrees, books and even read some Osprey comics) arguing for 4 years about whether all the characters in the game should whether in 1080 or 1450 be allowed to die at 65 of 70...pulling out of the arses and having a collective rummage through the brown goo of internet geekery.

So trust me, in this context- the Dominion team are pretty confident lads, because we know how anal we all are, we have really tried each other's patience (well Ed has certainly tested mine)- so we are happy with the end product. I am sure that when you give the game a go, finally- then you'll agree that the representation of this and that are all kosher.

[mynameisowen]

That was the question that I was just about to ask. Is life expectancy higher for the Eastern factions than for Europe? Regarding your statement, John II indeed died aged 55 but that was a hunting accident in Cilicia. He would have probably lived until ~1150. Now what surprises me is Manuel's age. He died aged 70, in 1180. I suppose you are talking about the firstborn of John II, Alexius Komnenos, who died in 1142, aged 36?

Ah yes, he did indeed die in 1180, his reign was 36 years but yeah sorry about that . These guys then are a good example of how nobility could, but not necessarily would, live to pretty old age. Living in the "queen of cities" for most your life I'm sure does wonders for your health .

@ Hross, I appreciate your response and I have respect for the research you guys have done, im certain it vastly outclasses what I know on the subject. As I said before I think meneths systems are great and its a shame we cant properly represent they vast difference in life expectancies through the engine. Eastern factions were for some time so much more advanced than the northen european ones...

@Meneth when you said "my aging system will likely be slowed down for the eastern factions" what did you mean??

[Hengest]

Yeah these are the kinds of issues we tend to bump into on a regular basis- as you say the difference between Muslim medicine and say, Icelandic medicine. Life expentancies being effected by that. On the other hand, Muslim nobles were much more warlike than you're average Icelandic fisherman and yet it's likely the Muslims would have lived much longer on average. So one of the things we can do is to give the characters a trait 'hit' where their health drops after each battle- representing their wounds etc. I think what Meneth meant was that there are ways such as through traits that certain cultures or factions or even character types can receive 'help' to counter some of the likelihoods of sudden death or more importantly- handicap illnesses.

[Meneth]

@Meneth when you said "my aging system will likely be slowed down for the eastern factions" what did you mean??

Currently the OldAge trait goes up a level on average every 5 years. It would be possible to make it go up slower for Eastern factions, meaning they wouldn't become severely disadvantaged by age as early as Europeans.

[jazstl]

Just Beautyfull.

[Samariten]

Very interesting kutgw

[k/t]

I agree with Annatar, and Space_Ed is a rude windbag. The fact that people supposedly live longer absolutely does not mean they are healthier. People in the past didn't have allergies, autism, ADD, cancer, MS, Parkinson's, ALS, migraines, and heart attacks all the time. A guy kept alive by machines until the age of 90 is hardly healthy.

3 people are hardly statistically significant. Archimedes died at at least 75, Nerva at 67, and Antoninus Pius at 74. As you can see, people back then lived a long time.

Still, people died for all kinds of reasons, just like now, so I don't mind that script, if there are tons of generals. It's just gonna suck grooming one for a while just to have him die.

What movie is the clip from?