In making this mod I’ve struggled a bit to understand exactly what institutions are meant to represent and thus how they fit into the larger question of technology innovation and wanted to share my musings on the subject in the hopes that they might spark a larger discussion.

Let’s start with the facts:

What are institutions?
According to Paradox, “Institutions are fundamental advances in civilization and are the primary determinant of technology cost.”
In game terms technology is structured so that, “Each country belongs to a technology group” and, “Each tech group has a modifier to technology cost that represents the pace of innovation (or lack thereof) in that part of the globe in history, as well as determining what level of technology it starts the game with in 1444.”

Technology is, then, an innovation, a change that is researched and implemented. Institutions are the larger processes at work in a society which shape the efficiency and scope of those innovations.

Or put another way, a technology is a thing, an end product. An institution is a framework, a system, a set of ideas that specifically has a role in influencing technological innovation.

That sounds ok, but I think the edges of the two concepts can be quite a bit blurry. Science advances as today’s researchers “stand on the shoulders of giants,” employing the technology of yesterday to fuel new discoveries. At some point don’t individual, or groups of, discoveries become institutions? The synthesis of many discrete advances come together to provide a new framework for understanding the subject or allow a radical leap forward. Sometimes then, technology can be elevated to the status of an institution.

In planning Institutions Reworked, I’ve tried to stick to this general model. Institutions in the mod are meant to represent forces which shape innovation on a system-wide level. Some of them are collections of individual technological advances which fuse together to become something more.

What I haven’t done is really go through the vanilla technologies in the game to better separate what does and does not qualify as a technology vs an institution. I think there is probably room for improvement there.

I suggest a adding sliding bar as there are so mant institutionions that they begin to go off the screen in certain situations.

@Jack Beanstalk
I don't think you can switch between object classes. That would require some code in the "back end" to which we don't have access.

Originally posted by user12343:

@Jack Beanstalk
I don't think you can switch between object classes. That would require some code in the "back end" to which we don't have access.

Ah, it's okay. Thanks for responding though! The mod has been great so far!

@Yonest
Thanks for your thoughts. I really appreciate you taking the time. I hope to have a larger discussion about these ideas.

I had the same thought originally about different institutions for different cultures/regions etc.
Unfortunatly I can't get around the fact that institution penalties apply equally to everyone.
So if there is a specific Muslim tech advance, for example, everyone else will get the penalty.
I would really want a way around this prior to introducing.

I have heard similar thoughts on the style of warfare, specifically with regard to standing armies. No doubt this was a significant trend, but I would argue that it did not have a significant effect on technological advancement.

Your point about bureaucracy is well taken. There are significant logical gaps in some of the earlier institutions. In that case it may be more of an innovation which appeared in many places independently (a capability not reflected in mod mechanics at present).

There is somethign to seperation of church and state. I think some of that idea is captured for me in the humanism instituion. To me this signifies reduced reliance on religious dogma and increased use of reason to figure out what is and isn't real/true/effective in the world.

I like your point about unrest. The code is hardwired to accept some sort of money payment (I have reduced it to the minimum) and will not readily accept other penalties. But I think where I could bring this into play is in the Reformed Technology advancement. What do you think about this: for each new reform passed on the way to a Reformed Technology Group, there is a chance of spawning rebels and/or unrest in certain provinces.

@Yonest
Maybe something like 30% chance that xxx reactionary rebels spawn in one province. I don't know, just spitballing numbers.

There's a good bit hardcoded in institutions (of course there is a lot that is modable, and that is what makes the game so great)