Escalating / dampening feedback in AH

[Max Sinister]

These are two terms used in hard science like cybernetics, but we can use them for AH as well. Which AFAIK no one has done before. At least, not using these terms.

(Often they're called "positive / negative feedback", but since it's not about the usual meaning as in "good/competent" and "bad/evil", I prefer if people use the terms as stated in the topic.)

So what does this have to do with AH? After thinking about it, the problem with many scenarios is that people think only escalating feedback existed. As in: "Country X conquers parts of country Y, giving X more men and resources, so they can conquer even more..." Obviously wrong, otherwise some conqueror of history would've ended up being ruler of the world already.

This is where dampening feedback comes in. Which works more like this:

Country X conquers parts of country Y -> country X has to leave some troops in the conquered territory, having fewer available for the actual fighting

Country X conquers parts of country Y -> people of Y start to join the partisans, binding even more troops of X

Country X conquers parts of country Y -> other countries worry about X, become more friendly towards Y

Of course, this opens the question how to judge how escalation and dampening work together. Seems to be both a science and an art...

[575]

If peoples don't know about the real world they will automatically to - give them Tiger tanks or Abrams or some other like shit and its a world conquest!

AH should really be a learning process where Your feedback contain the obstacles to Your wild dream!

Dampening is an obvious to me - certainly not to everybody else. Not saying that I'm and artist or scientist just trying to use what I know and learned in life to a large degree from the interactions with people.

In a way it is like Logistics - if You aren't aware of those restrictions You just go on an impossible rampage because "I have Tiger tanks!"

[Max Sinister]

Good you understand this. There's also an easier explanation: Imagine an arctic island with only two bigger animal species, rabbits and foxes.

The influence of rabbits to foxes is escalating: The more rabbits, the more foxes, and vice versa.
But the influence of foxes on rabbits is dampening: The more foxes, the fewer rabbits, and again the other way round.

This is another case of dampening feedback:
Country X conquers parts of country Y -> The logistics for the support of X's fighting troops become harder and harder to solve. More time, fuel, men needed, which will lack elsewhere.

Feel free to extend the list.

[575]

Jun 1, 2024 22:29:21 GMT Max Sinister said:

Good you understand this. There's also an easier explanation: Imagine an arctic island with only two bigger animal species, rabbits and foxes.

The influence of rabbits to foxes is escalating: The more rabbits, the more foxes, and vice versa.
But the influence of foxes on rabbits is dampening: The more foxes, the fewer rabbits, and again the other way round.

This is another case of dampening feedback:
Country X conquers parts of country Y -> The logistics for the support of X's fighting troops become harder and harder to solve. More time, fuel, men needed, which will lack elsewhere.

Feel free to extend the list.

Sun TZU knew this. Military officers know as they are taught Sun TZU. Politicians - meh!

[stevep]

Jun 2, 2024 8:17:38 GMT 575 said:

Jun 1, 2024 22:29:21 GMT Max Sinister said:

Good you understand this. There's also an easier explanation: Imagine an arctic island with only two bigger animal species, rabbits and foxes.

The influence of rabbits to foxes is escalating: The more rabbits, the more foxes, and vice versa.
But the influence of foxes on rabbits is dampening: The more foxes, the fewer rabbits, and again the other way round.

This is another case of dampening feedback:
Country X conquers parts of country Y -> The logistics for the support of X's fighting troops become harder and harder to solve. More time, fuel, men needed, which will lack elsewhere.

Feel free to extend the list.

Sun TZU knew this. Military officers know as they are taught Sun TZU. Politicians - meh!

  To be fair I think most politicians tend to avoid war.  In modern tomes and developed states anyway.  Its very bloody expensive and even if they have no clear electorate they need to appeal to it can be very costly in human terms which can led to unrest.  They might bluster and pose but its generally just not in their own interests to actually start a shooting war.  You really need someone with the mentality of a street thug or who's a raving lunatic to be that eager to start a war.

  Also I can see exceptions to your statement above.  Were the leaders of the military and navy in imperial Japan taught Sun Tzu as if so they don't seem to have listened at all.  Also while politician leaders and public opinion, along with some autocratic monarchs played major roles in triggering WWI a lot of the military, most famously in Germany seem to been eager as well.

  A lot of politicians are self serving idiots who do a hell of a lot of damage to their countries and societies but that tends to make them avoid war.  You can see the paranoia about 'escalation' in Ukraine and how its led to so much additional suffering for the Ukrainians as a classic example here with the limited aid and limits on what they can do with it.

  One thing that occurs to me with the problem in the modern age is that most computer games involving wars tend to push this myth.  You conquer a province and while there might be problems for a while winning loyalty, which can be done in a number of ways depending on the game you tend very quickly to gain additional resources in terms of manpower, wealth and raw materials and generally due to AI weaknesses only your nation gets rolling it can fairly quickly become a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. 

[575]

Jun 2, 2024 9:37:17 GMT stevep said:

Jun 2, 2024 8:17:38 GMT 575 said:

Sun TZU knew this. Military officers know as they are taught Sun TZU. Politicians - meh!

  To be fair I think most politicians tend to avoid war.  In modern tomes and developed states anyway.  Its very bloody expensive and even if they have no clear electorate they need to appeal to it can be very costly in human terms which can led to unrest.  They might bluster and pose but its generally just not in their own interests to actually start a shooting war.  You really need someone with the mentality of a street thug or who's a raving lunatic to be that eager to start a war.

  Also I can see exceptions to your statement above.  Were the leaders of the military and navy in imperial Japan taught Sun Tzu as if so they don't seem to have listened at all.  Also while politician leaders and public opinion, along with some autocratic monarchs played major roles in triggering WWI a lot of the military, most famously in Germany seem to been eager as well.

  A lot of politicians are self serving idiots who do a hell of a lot of damage to their countries and societies but that tends to make them avoid war.  You can see the paranoia about 'escalation' in Ukraine and how its led to so much additional suffering for the Ukrainians as a classic example here with the limited aid and limits on what they can do with it.

  One thing that occurs to me with the problem in the modern age is that most computer games involving wars tend to push this myth.  You conquer a province and while there might be problems for a while winning loyalty, which can be done in a number of ways depending on the game you tend very quickly to gain additional resources in terms of manpower, wealth and raw materials and generally due to AI weaknesses only your nation gets rolling it can fairly quickly become a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. 

Well I wasn't exclusively thinking of politicians regarding war but more generally - which You did nicely sort out. And yes they tend to avoid war as any other costly scheme which would topple their government!

After all politicians - which I have alluded to several times - have a narrow timeframe under which they operate - like next elections! Don't rock the boat too much as You steer it You might want to be at least an oarsman in the next.

Agree on PC games - very much prevalent on some other AH site. Civilization have that wonderful (!) possibility of your new conquest that it may revolt or actually rejoin its former nation which also may happen if you place a city too close to another player - mainly so it that have better stats. I always if needing to do so undertake rapid Cultural development to avoid such - don't always work.

[stevep]

Jun 2, 2024 12:11:49 GMT 575 said:

Jun 2, 2024 9:37:17 GMT stevep said:

  To be fair I think most politicians tend to avoid war.  In modern tomes and developed states anyway.  Its very bloody expensive and even if they have no clear electorate they need to appeal to it can be very costly in human terms which can led to unrest.  They might bluster and pose but its generally just not in their own interests to actually start a shooting war.  You really need someone with the mentality of a street thug or who's a raving lunatic to be that eager to start a war.

  Also I can see exceptions to your statement above.  Were the leaders of the military and navy in imperial Japan taught Sun Tzu as if so they don't seem to have listened at all.  Also while politician leaders and public opinion, along with some autocratic monarchs played major roles in triggering WWI a lot of the military, most famously in Germany seem to been eager as well.

  A lot of politicians are self serving idiots who do a hell of a lot of damage to their countries and societies but that tends to make them avoid war.  You can see the paranoia about 'escalation' in Ukraine and how its led to so much additional suffering for the Ukrainians as a classic example here with the limited aid and limits on what they can do with it.

  One thing that occurs to me with the problem in the modern age is that most computer games involving wars tend to push this myth.  You conquer a province and while there might be problems for a while winning loyalty, which can be done in a number of ways depending on the game you tend very quickly to gain additional resources in terms of manpower, wealth and raw materials and generally due to AI weaknesses only your nation gets rolling it can fairly quickly become a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. 

Well I wasn't exclusively thinking of politicians regarding war but more generally - which You did nicely sort out. And yes they tend to avoid war as any other costly scheme which would topple their government!

After all politicians - which I have alluded to several times - have a narrow timeframe under which they operate - like next elections! Don't rock the boat too much as You steer it You might want to be at least an oarsman in the next.

Agree on PC games - very much prevalent on some other AH site. Civilization have that wonderful (!) possibility of your new conquest that it may revolt or actually rejoin its former nation which also may happen if you place a city too close to another player - mainly so it that have better stats. I always if needing to do so undertake rapid Cultural development to avoid such - don't always work.

  i think the key thing might be the fact this applies mostly to modern politicians with a dependency on the electorate.  Those who do not, who have often gained power by non-democratic means are too often less responsible.

  In terms of games I'm more familiar with some of the early Total war games and their spin offs, which tend to have issues with culture and with popularity but an experience player can overcome them to a degree.  [For instance in Medieval II total war, after about a century of game play Egypt and most of the Levant is now Catholic - as culture in the game is based on religion, Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim - and no one in France, N Italy or western Germany have any issues with an English monarch ruling them].

  Another game I've played - Arsenal of Democracy, a HOI2 spin off does have a lot of complexities for control of conquered areas and unrest.  You get only about 10% of the manpower, industrial production and resources as well.  However they have a massive out in that if you release such conquered territories as a puppet they get the full allocations and are loyal allies.  In a multi-player group I've played with in the past that means that by the time the war comes - as the game starts in 1936 - much of the British empire is independent and pumping resources into Britain - as you get excesses over a certain level of storage of the various resources types.  Similarly Germany and Japan rapidly release many conquered areas which means the latter has a significantly more powerful China allied to it - since a puppet inherits the tech of the ruling nation when released.  Even more farcical it means that when Japan conquers Australia and New Zealand - which again happens frequently in the variant the group uses they quickly become faithful allies despite all the cultural and racial differences.

[Max Sinister]

Yeah, we might indeed need more games which actually consider this.

[Max Sinister]

Thinking about it: "Civilization" is such a game. Sure, they already have corruption which becomes worse the farther you're away from the capital. So much that building huge empires becomes plain impossible in Civ 3. But I think there might be room for improvement...

[575]

Jun 8, 2024 17:53:12 GMT Max Sinister said:

Thinking about it: "Civilization" is such a game. Sure, they already have corruption which becomes worse the farther you're away from the capital. So much that building huge empires becomes plain impossible in Civ 3. But I think there might be room for improvement...

Civilization 4 is my choice though 1 and 2 is ok too. Didn't like the design of map and movement in 3 so never really played it.

Its 4 that have the effects built in of possible flipping of a conquered city back to its original player though if You build one too close to other empires you run the rist of it rebelling unless you serve to care for the inhabitants with religion and/or culture to tie it closer.

I have once lost a city to Barbarians only in a few turns see it rebel and joining my empire!

Huge empires are a possible in Civ 4 but you need to care for the citizens and look out for neighbours getting designs on you.

[stevep]

Jun 8, 2024 21:42:03 GMT 575 said:

Jun 8, 2024 17:53:12 GMT Max Sinister said:

Thinking about it: "Civilization" is such a game. Sure, they already have corruption which becomes worse the farther you're away from the capital. So much that building huge empires becomes plain impossible in Civ 3. But I think there might be room for improvement...

Civilization 4 is my choice though 1 and 2 is ok too. Didn't like the design of map and movement in 3 so never really played it.

Its 4 that have the effects built in of possible flipping of a conquered city back to its original player though if You build one too close to other empires you run the rist of it rebelling unless you serve to care for the inhabitants with religion and/or culture to tie it closer.

I have once lost a city to Barbarians only in a few turns see it rebel and joining my empire!

Huge empires are a possible in Civ 4 but you need to care for the citizens and look out for neighbours getting designs on you.

  I must admit I haven't played Civ for a  long while.  Played v2 for a long time until it became obsolete as my system developed then I was busy with other games so it was a while before I looked for a new version of Civ and it was so alien to what I was familiar with and with no clear guidance I never got back into it.

[575]

Jun 8, 2024 22:12:40 GMT stevep said:

Jun 8, 2024 21:42:03 GMT 575 said:

Civilization 4 is my choice though 1 and 2 is ok too. Didn't like the design of map and movement in 3 so never really played it.

Its 4 that have the effects built in of possible flipping of a conquered city back to its original player though if You build one too close to other empires you run the rist of it rebelling unless you serve to care for the inhabitants with religion and/or culture to tie it closer.

I have once lost a city to Barbarians only in a few turns see it rebel and joining my empire!

Huge empires are a possible in Civ 4 but you need to care for the citizens and look out for neighbours getting designs on you.

  I must admit I haven't played Civ for a  long while.  Played v2 for a long time until it became obsolete as my system developed then I was busy with other games so it was a while before I looked for a new version of Civ and it was so alien to what I was familiar with and with no clear guidance I never got back into it.

Seems You stumbled upon Civ 3 - really different design and especially movement of units and lack of intro. Civ 4 actually have a tutorial which immediately had me playing.

I've kept an old WinXP pc just for old games

I really loved the Wonders and Advisors movies in Civ 2 - real movies for the Wonders and good one's too. The Military advisor once You were doing well - getting drunk was just hilarious!

In Civ 4 wonders have been made into cartoons and advisors are just oversight diagrams also cartoonish. It works and is possible to close. Never did that in Civ 2 - it was just too aestetic and pleasing to watch.

[Max Sinister]

Back to topic: Because most people don't get this phenomenon, we have too much of linear thinking. Along the line "If some army at some place can move X kilometers in Y weeks, it should be able to move 2*X kilometers in 2*Y weeks". But nope.

This happens in both AH and, worse, RL. Not only regarding armies.

Somehow I suspect that a certain "Führer" was thinking like this. If Rommel could move over 1000 km from Bengasi to El Alamein, why are the last 100 km to Alexandria such a problem?

[Max Sinister]

Since I don't want to bump year-old threads, I'll give you this link instead: Linearity and Amplification in Alternate History

[Max Sinister]

*bump*

Since I'm currently working on the submarine war in "How Many Sixes":

This is also some example of non-linearity. Sure, more subs will sink more ships - but if X subs sink Y ships, that doesn't mean that 2*X subs will sink 2*Y ships. You have to think about it: Sub commanders will rather attack the easy targets, the low-hanging fruits first. Ships which have lost their convoy and such. Which means: The new subs will have to attack either smaller, less valuable ships; or have to go farther to find them, which means it takes more time to sink the same number of ships; or those which have better defense, raising the chance they will sink instead. The Law of Diminishing Returns in full effect...

(To make things even more confusing, sometimes the whole might be more than the sum of its parts. Five subs which form a wolfpack are stronger than five subs each fighting on its own.)