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Malachi Lemont
2013-05-23, 09:56 AM
I was thinking of creating a nation game where you start from scratch, at the beginning of agriculture, and slowly build a nation turn by turn. It would be kind of like Sid Meier's Civilization games, although not as complex and with more fluff. But I need some help deciding on the rules. I don't want them to be too strict, but I want them to give enough structure to keep the game moving.

I was thinking each turn could represent a historical era, maybe about 100 years. We could either play through all the way to modern times, continue into the future, or we could stop at the middle ages and have a fantasy world. If we do go fantasy, I want it to be strict no-magic middle ages. The emphasis of this game is to create believable cultures and a rich history of how they intertwine.

Each turn would break down into 3 main areas.

Politics - What type of government do you have? Is it stable or on the verge of revolution? If you have a monarchy, you can describe the dynastic succession. If you have a democracy, how are elections run and are they fair? Or even better, invent your own system of government, as long as it works.

Economy - What natural resources are found in your area? The map should give a few guidelines based on biomes, but there's still plenty of room to be inventive. Are there new plants and animals that don't exist on earth? Or just good old sheep and cattle? How does trade work? Describe the hierarchy or caste system, if there is one.

Culture - Have any new religions been founded? What beliefs are held sacred? What rituals are widely practiced? What is the greatest crime? What do people love the most? Is the culture uniform or diverse? How do natives treat people from other cultures? How are women treated differently from men?

Oh, and just so you can visualize it, here's a quick and dirty map:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/conworld/images/b/b1/Smallworld.png


Let me know what you think. Please direct me to any games similar to this one so I can study their rules and see if they worked or not. Thanks!


dark brown = mountains (Q = 3)
beige = desert (Q = 2)
light green-brown = steppe (Q = 5)
bright yellow-green = tropical savanna (Q = 6)
dark blue-green = tropical rain forest (Q = 4)
regular green = temperate forest (Q = 10)
golden brown = Mediterranean (Q = 8)
purple = tundra (Q = 1)
white = ice cap (Q = 0)

Grinner
2013-05-23, 10:18 AM
I was thinking each turn could represent a historical era, maybe about 100 years. We could either play through all the way to modern times, continue into the future, or we could stop at the middle ages and have a fantasy world. If we do go fantasy, I want it to be strict no-magic middle ages. The emphasis of this game is to create believable cultures and a rich history of how they intertwine.

That's difficult. Magic is strongly rooted in religion, and religion is a cornerstone of human history.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-23, 10:23 AM
Or should I say "magic-light?"

Like you said, religion is definitely a cornerstone of human history - no doubt about that, which is why I want to include it. And plenty of people - including me - believe in miracles. But by magic, I don't mean the occasional miracle, I mean complex spell classes and battlemages and fire dragons and all of that. That I will not have.

Do you think anyone would want to play this game? How can I make it more appealing?

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-23, 12:30 PM
But by magic, I don't mean the occasional miracle, I mean complex spell classes and battlemages and fire dragons and all of that. That I will not have.

Do you think anyone would want to play this game? How can I make it more appealing?

I'd play it. I'd play the crap outta it.

Are you using dice for this new system?

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-23, 01:34 PM
I'd play it. I'd play the crap outta it.

Are you using dice for this new system?

I'm pleased to hear that. And yes, there will be dice, but like I said, I'll need help working out the rules.

So here I go brainstorming: we could have stats for each civilization, such as:

Total Population, rounded to the thousand.
Population of Largest City
Number of Cities with more than 5,000 people
Size of Professional Military
Size of Conscripted Military
Subdivisions of the Nation (states, lordships, etc.)
Land Area (round to 1000 sq. miles)
Avg. food per citizen.
Total state wealth
Birth /death rate

We don't have to include all of these. These are just thoughts. Each player's stats would change due to both player action or chance events (both involving dice rolls.) Any suggestions?

Omnicrat
2013-05-23, 04:58 PM
A tribe would be lucky to have a few hundred people, let alone 1000. The number its rounded to should change based on the civilization level, whatever you decide those are.

Also, armed citizenry should probably be a stat. And tech level of X. General level of military technology, agricultural tech level,, stuff like that.

Will there be NPC nations? If not, will there be dozens of players?

I look forward to playing in a game of this once the rules are finalized.

I'm sorry I'm not being more constructive right now, I'm very sleepy.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-23, 07:15 PM
You're right. We should start out small with only a few hundred people.

I saw that GURPS has a nice way of quantifying tech levels. I changed things around a little, but it's basically the same. It's not a perfect system, but here goes:

1: Paleolithic (hunter gatherer)
2: Neolithic (agriculture)
3: Bronze Age (horses and writing)
4: Iron Age (cities and catapults)
5: Age of Steel (knights and castles)
6: Renaissance (gunpowder and printing)
7: Industrial Age (steamboats and rifles)
8: Mechanical Age (railroads and telegraphs)
9: Nuclear Age (radio, machine guns, planes)
10: Digital Age (television and computers)


If we want fantasy (which I would enjoy) we'll stop at level 5. But if we want a totally realistic portrait of history, we'll continue to level 10.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-23, 07:57 PM
So here I go brainstorming: we could have stats for each civilization, such as:

Total Population, rounded to the thousand.
Population of Largest City
Number of Cities with more than 5,000 people
Size of Professional Military
Size of Conscripted Military
Subdivisions of the Nation (states, lordships, etc.)
Land Area (round to 1000 sq. miles)
Avg. food per citizen.
Total state wealth
Birth /death rate

We don't have to include all of these. These are just thoughts. Each player's stats would change due to both player action or chance events (both involving dice rolls.) Any suggestions?

I would suggest a set of major and minor stats:

Major Attributes:

Population (obvious, like Strength)
Happiness (divide Pop by this to see pop growth, like Constitution)
Bureaucracy (like Initiative/Dexterity)
Influence (like Charisma, determines non-militant power)
Military (tech lvl + modifiers like Society, Gov't type, etc)
Economy (wealth level + action points)

Lesser Attributes

Gov't Type (like Race, modifies bureaucracy, influence)
Tech Level (Character Level, modifies military, economy)
Worship (modifies Happiness)
Imports/Exports (modifies economy)

Looking at this, I think the GM needs a substantial list/deck of events and situations to deal to the players. Social upheavals, economic boons and busts, religious fervor, political scandals, and the all-important Change of Epoch that heralds new events, techs and whatnot. A very hands-on game.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-23, 08:49 PM
I like your ideas, Ninjadeadbeard

EDIT:

Originally, I wrote a really long post with a hundred or so variables describing every aspect of the civilization. The computed deleted it, which is probably a good thing. Instead of using math formulas, I want to describe my ideas in words. Let the formulas come later.

One way of looking at it: here could be three f attributes: The Economic, The Military, and the Social.

The Economy would depend on how many resources you gather from the available land, how much people consume each turn, how high your taxes are, and what exports you sell, and what imports you buy.

The Military would depend mostly on army size, navy size, and army skill. I would want the cost to depend more on size than skill, so as to encourage small, professional armies instead of huge hordes. Also, having huge hordes will decrease your tax-paying population and hurt the economy. They will only be useful if they can conquer enormous amounts of resource-rich land.

Social Factors would include political influence, crime, birth and death rates, and overall happiness, which would stem from the above factors as well as consumption and taxes. Also, a certain amount of excess wealth would have to be spent to advance to the next tech level. Tech levels will make things more expensive but they will increase your resources at a faster rate. Relative to income, technology makes things cheaper, including armies, so the standard of living rises.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 01:23 PM
Another thought: Maybe each nation could have its land area and population divided into urban and rural. Rural does not mean wilderness, just agricultural non-city land. It could have a maximum density of maybe 60 people/sq. mile, while urban could have as many as 500 people/sq. mile (not sure if this is a reasonable estimate. I need to check the real world data.)

Anyway, as the nations advance through the tech levels, they would gain more excess resources and be able to have a higher urban population. To simplify things, we could say that the rural population produces resources, while the urban population is available for military, science, and construction projects. Sometimes we forget that most of the population has to be farmers, regardless of whether we're at war or peace. What do you think?

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 04:07 PM
Basically, I want to have the minimum amount of rules necessary to keep the game moving in a linear direction and keep people from being unsure what to do. Other than that, I'm counting on the players to embellish the game by telling the stories of their nations.

Here are examples of economic variables and how they fit together

P = Population
TL = Tech Level
Q = Quality of Land (scale of 1 to 10)
LA = Land Area (RA = Rural Area, UA = Urban Area)
RG = Resource Gain = P * RA * Q * 5^(TL)
TPP = Tax Paying Population
TR = Tax Rate
FR = Food Ration
MP = Market Price
Ex = Exports
Im = Imports
E = Other Expenses
B = Balance = (TPP*TR/100) + MP*(Ex - Im) - FR*P - E

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 04:19 PM
I really like what you are doing, just a few things I would change.

1) Do not have one universal tech level: This is not how the world works. You do not get all of the aspects of technology at once. Something like a more fluid Civ tech tree would be good, with a few jumping off point that require a Great Thinker, or something. A roman invented the steam engine, after all, but it was never put into common use due to the problem with it being better than slaves (and then what do you do with the slaves?).

So, if you get a great thinker in the classical period, you could use him to open the industrialization tree (steam engines) or the Philosophy tree (something, not sure what yet) or have him automatically discover an advancement or two in trees which are already unlocked, increasing the overall progression to the next technological age.

And, like in the real world, there would be problems with classical era civilizations suddenly having steam power. Namely, what do you do with the now superfluous (and incredibly large) slave population? This could destabilize your culture in ways that you just can't come back from.

Also, with the more fluid and less linear progression of technology, you have some civilizations getting the steam engine at the classical level, while others don't. Yes, that gives a large bonus to industrial power, but it also causes many social problems. And, once the concept is first put into practice, neighboring cultures (who are most in the same era) can find out about your steam engines and reverse engineer them at a fraction of the cost of inventing steam engines themselves.

Concepts such as liberty and human rights should be very easy to discover, the Persians had human rights 2000 years before the magna carta.



The rate of turns should change as civilizations advance: Just like how the number populations get rounded by increases over time, so should how many years a turn is. This means that multiple actions can be taken early game in a single turn which might take multiple turns in the later game, such as social change, but for the most part how many actions can be taken a turn will be static, but the turns to years ratio will change.

This should only happen with certain technology, like the wheel, horse back riding, and telegraph. Any technology that increases one civilizations ability to communicate with and/or travel to any location within and without its borders should cause the turns to years ratio to shrink.



Why does fantasy have to cap at medieval technology?: Your definition of fantasy seems to be a world where the technological and social level stops at the medieval. That is very far from the truth. I am further confused for your desire to not have magic in any "fantasy" setting. What, exactly, is fantastic about it?

note: If fantasy has a tech cap, then I do not want this to be a fantasy system.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 04:33 PM
Then it's decided. No tech cap - we'll try to make this a realistic timeline, not fantasy. That being said, things don't have to progress in the same order they did in any real world culture - as long as it sort of makes sense. I like your idea about the fluid tech tree, but I'm not sure how to implement it. I don't what to have as many different techs as the civ games.

Maybe I could reduce the number of eras to 5 instead of 10, and have 3 or 4 available techs for each era. You spend tech points to unlock each era, and you can skip over certain parts of the tech tree entirely. For example, you might develop vaccines and discover genetic coding, but never invent gunpowder.

In the early stages, it would be more or less linear, but the technology would branch out more and more as we get farther down the tech tree. I'll keep working on it. Still, I want to avoid anything that will make this game too much of a burden to play. I plan on creating a huge spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's data, and I'm willing to take on a lot, but I don't want to go overboard.

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 04:40 PM
Basically, I want to have the minimum amount of rules necessary to keep the game moving in a linear direction and keep people from being unsure what to do. Other than that, I'm counting on the players to embellish the game by telling the stories of their nations.

Here are examples of economic variables and how they fit together

P = Population
TL = Tech Level
Q = Quality of Land (scale of 1 to 10)
LA = Land Area (RA = Rural Area, UA = Urban Area)
RG = Resource Gain = P * RA * Q * 5^(TL)
TPP = Tax Paying Population
TR = Tax Rate
FR = Food Ration
MP = Market Price
Ex = Exports
Im = Imports
E = Other Expenses
B = Balance = (TPP*TR/100) + MP*(Ex - Im) - FR*P - E

How are Land Quality and Market price fixed values? What does tax rate, market price, resource gain, and quality of land even mean?

Should different land have different resources, which are randomly determined upon survey? Shouldn't different things be taxed at different rates? What if one is using a taxless system?

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 04:52 PM
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There should be different resources in different areas. I was only trying to give a bare bones introduction to what the rules might look like. Since I don't want to have an endless number of resources how about 3 main ones:

Food:

Materials: Wood, stone, bronze, iron, steel, concrete

Combustibles: Wood, coal, oil, natural gas, gunpowder, nuclear reactions? (not sure where this fits in)

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 05:03 PM
Then it's decided. No tech cap - we'll try to make this a realistic timeline, not fantasy. That being said, things don't have to progress in the same order they did in any real world culture - as long as it sort of makes sense. I like your idea about the fluid tech tree, but I'm not sure how to implement it. I don't what to have as many different techs as the civ games.

Maybe I could reduce the number of eras to 5 instead of 10, and have 3 or 4 available techs for each era. You spend tech points to unlock each era, and you can skip over certain parts of the tech tree entirely. For example, you might develop vaccines and discover genetic coding, but never invent gunpowder.

In the early stages, it would be more or less linear, but the technology would branch out more and more as we get farther down the tech tree. I'll keep working on it. Still, I want to avoid anything that will make this game too much of a burden to play. I plan on creating a huge spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's data, and I'm willing to take on a lot, but I don't want to go overboard.

Something where you can make technologies better by investing more points into them would be good. It would be both reflective of reality and leave you with very few techs.

The techs, off the top of my head, could be: Agriculture, Horticulture, Chemistry, Physics, Steam Power, Computers, Telecomunication (this would be everything from telegraph to the internet over phone lines), Astronomy, Rocketry, Medicine, Radio (this would include television), Medicine (from herbal remedies to aspirin to vaccination to neurosurgery), Electrical Power, Machinery, and probably a few other things.

Each tech has up to 5 advancements per era it is a part of. At each era advancement, there could be a scientific boom, in which all techs below the current era (that have had their paths opened) gain one advancement?

There should probably also be a concept tree. It would have stuff like Scholars, Liberty, Authoritarianism, Democracy, human rights, assembly line, duty, justice, and more stuff like this.

While you would have to work to gain a neighbors technological discoveries, you would have to work to NOT have your neighbors concepts enter your civilization.

Even if you do not make it so that a Great Thinker is required to open new technologies, they should be the only way to have concepts first discovered.

Also, is the player their nations government, or some type of mystical spirit of the nation, like in Civ games?

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 05:09 PM
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There should be different resources in different areas. I was only trying to give a bare bones introduction to what the rules might look like. Since I don't want to have an endless number of resources how about 3 main ones:

Food:

Materials: Wood, stone, bronze, iron, steel, concrete

Combustibles: Wood, coal, oil, natural gas, gunpowder, nuclear reactions? (not sure where this fits in)

That's good. I would add Hydro (for water mills and eventual hydro electric dams), make nuclear its own, and add lighter than air gas deposits (air ships! :smallbiggrin:)

The number value would then represent the quantity and quality of the materials, which goes down over time with use as a source. That is, unless it is a manufactured sources, like ethanol or concrete.

Double post, I know, but you're probably typing your response to my previous right now and might miss this if I just edit it in.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 05:37 PM
Also, is the player their nations government, or some type of mystical spirit of the nation, like in Civ games?

I'd say the mystical spirit thing. You act as the government, but you're also the historian describing what goes on in the lives of everyday people. I know we're borrowing a lot of concepts from the civ games, which is great, but here's the main difference: I want this game to focus on individual people: historical figures that bring history to life. Stats and tech trees are great, but what is history without the personalities of Cleopatra, Henry VIII, and Albert Einstein? (Don't ask why I chose these three examples, it was totally random.) And not just political figures, but musicians and athletes and everyone else who brings together a civilization.

Although I do want there to be stats and formulas, I want them to be a tool for creating this fictional world, not a barrier to wall us in. If that's not too much to ask.

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 05:49 PM
I'd say the mystical spirit thing. You act as the government, but you're also the historian describing what goes on in the lives of everyday people. I know we're borrowing a lot of concepts from the civ games, which is great, but here's the main difference: I want this game to focus on individual people: historical figures that bring history to life. Stats and tech trees are great, but what is history without the personalities of Cleopatra, Henry VIII, and Albert Einstein? (Don't ask why I chose these three examples, it was totally random.) And not just political figures, but musicians and athletes and everyone else who brings together a civilization.

Although I do want there to be stats and formulas, I want them to be a tool for creating this fictional world, not a barrier to wall us in. If that's not too much to ask.

No, I think that's great. That is how the game should be, but those people should spawn (relatively) randomly and get special bonuses and impact the rules of the game, not just the story. If you just leave concepts and most applications of technology free-form, then you will get unrealistic nonsensical jumps and changes, if not outright impossible things, like a dozen Einsteins at once and a utopian society at the dawn of man.

Each society should get a handful of great people once a generation, and they can change where they choose to live in most cases. Remember that Einstein was a german jew. The US gained many great scientist from the axis powers because we offered freedom where they offered tyranny. Bribery should also be a means of great person acquisition.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-24, 09:34 PM
That's a great observation about Einstein. I like the idea that a culture with more freedom and a higher standard of living will attract more "great people" than a military dictatorship. This should be a key point in the game.

You also make a good point that game mechanics need to be well-defined. I'll continue working on formulas and resource charts. Also, how do you think the map should work? Should there be squares or hexes so that land will be measurable? Should I use territories with natural borders (rivers and mountains)? Or should it just be a free-form map? Map games are kind of hard to run on this kind of forum, but it's also hard to do a nation game without some aspect of mapping. And I do love maps, so I'd be willing to run a map game, if people would play it. What do you think?

Omnicrat
2013-05-24, 10:34 PM
I'm too sleepy to give a more in-depth post, but basically hexes for the small-scale and free-form mapping for the large. Border disputes should be a thing.

Something else to note is that if a military dictatorship is locked down enough, it can keep its great people and work them to the bone. Also, you will get some great people in the free places who really like tyranny. Most likely not many, but the option should be there.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-25, 11:49 AM
I'm still puzzling over a lot of your ideas, but one thing I could figure out would be the timeline. Like you said, as communications increase, the time intervals of each turn should get smaller. So here's a basic calendar we could use. I think the suffix YG for "Year of the Gods" would be cool, but we could also use "OC" for "Old Calendar" or SB "Since the Beginning" or anything else you think of. While it's true that ancient cultures in different parts of the world would not use the same calendar, a universal timeline makes events easier to describe. So here's one way of breaking down 4000 years of history into gradually smaller increments.

Turn 1: 1 -1000 YG
Turn 2: 1000 -1800 YG
Turn 3: 1800 - 2400 YG
Turn 4: 2400 - 2750 YG
Turn 5: 2750 - 3000 YG
Turn 6: 3000 - 3200 YG
Turn 7: 3200 - 3350 YG
Turn 8: 3350 - 3480 YG
Turn 9: 3480 - 3600 YG
Turn 10: 3600 - 3700 YG
Turn 11: 3700 - 3780 YG
Turn 12: 3780 - 3850 YG
Turn 13: 3850 - 3900 YG
Turn 14: 3900 - 3940 YG
Turn 15: 3940 - 3970 YG
Turn 16: 3970 - 4000 YG

Each turn could have new techs available, but you wouldn't have to necessarily research the techs in order. If we spend 3 days on each turn, which seems to me like the fastest we could go, we've got a reasonable 48-day game, not too long, but not too short either.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-25, 12:29 PM
Here's how we might divide nations into different types of government, based on three factors:

Legitimacy of Power
1. Heredity
2. Religion
3. Wealth
4. Military Coup
5. Restricted Election
6. Open Election

Degree of Economic Control
1. Communism
2. Socialism
3. Moderate Capitalism
4. Liberal Capitalism

Degree of Social Political Control
1. Totalitarian
2. Authoritarian
3. Moderate
4. Libertarian

So the code for a libertarian socialist theocracy would be 2-2-4, and a totalitarian liberal capitalist military junta would be 4-4-1.

The code for anarchy is 0-0-0, and can only exist for 1 turn before a default government is put in place (usually some sort of military junta.) If you're in anarchy for 2 turns, you're out of the game.

Do you think this could work?

Omnicrat
2013-05-25, 12:50 PM
I was thinking the Years to Turns ratio could change based upon tech, something like people with the tech get double AP and all AP costs are doubled. Probably more complex than straight doubling each time, but something like that.

As for government, what if I want drugs to be legal, but speech is controlled? What if there is a council of nobles, a council of state representatives, and a direct democracy aspect? What if I want to have the state run some means of production, and not give any of that to the general public, but in stead have no taxation on the free market because of it?

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-25, 01:53 PM
Those are all great ideas, Omnicrat. The nuances of government policy should definitely be mentioned, and they would make for great role-play. However, I think we should try to narrow down government to a group of easily-definable forms. For example, the country you mentioned that has lax drug laws but lots of restrictions on speech would probably fall under "Authoritarian" on the social scale. On the economic scale, it might be "Liberal Capitalism" or perhaps "Moderate Capitalism."

As for your other example, multi-branch governments are great. They add complexity to the decisions you have to make. But I still think you should try to classify it into one category for "legitimacy of power" for stats purposes. Who has the most power? The nobles who inherit their status, the elected representatives, or the everyday citizens? Who votes? Who gets to count the votes? If more than half the adult population is allowed to vote, it's probably an "open election" (category 6). If less than half, it's a "restricted election." Even the most democratic of countries can still elect a dictator, but that's for you to decide.

I might revise the list of governments to make it a little more clear-cut, but I'd like to keep the basic premise with a finite number of available government types rather than infinite free-form governments. Otherwise, like you said, we will get "nonsensical jumps and changes."

Thanks for all your cooperation on this project. I hope we can get some other people involved.

Omnicrat
2013-05-25, 02:57 PM
You make a valid point about someone wanting a government system that doesn't work in your mind, but does in theirs, so there should be restrictions as you say, but I cannot help but dislike the categories you selected. That two widely different systems would fall into the same category with the same results doesn't feel right.

How about more general categories, and the the specifics determine the value in that category?

The categories could be, off the top of my head...

Religious Freedom: 1 is an enforced theocracy or forced atheism or something like that, 10 is total religious freedom in which you can worship the demon cults of hate and murder if you want.

Personal Freedom: 1 is you have to do what job the government tells you and eat your government approved meals, 10 is you can do literally anything that does not restrict the freedoms of another.

Public Freedom: 1 is you have no freedom of speech and must wear your government issued uniform outside but not necessarily in your own home, 10 is you can do anything in public you are allowed to do in private.

Free Enterprise: 1 is its illegal to sell anything to anyone for any reason without a government license, 10 is letting everyone sell everything (even other peoples intellectual property) for personal gain.

State Enterprise: 1 is the government has no means of production and provides no services beyond those necessary to run a nation (laws and diplomacy), 10 is the government controls every type of means of production and provides every possible service

(note: State and Free Enterprise are not mutually exclusive. One can have everything available from both the state and the private sector if they so choose)

Citizen Involvement: 1 is a monarchy or military dictatorship in which the views of the people are not even considered with regard to policy, 10 is a direct democracy where the people are the only means of governance.

maybe a few more stats like respect, fear, and love to round out how people feel about their government?

edit: The citizen involvement also helps with situations like the wises rules or the smartest.

edit 2: You'll also probably get more interest once you run a game of this. People are less interested in rule-building than they are in playing.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-25, 08:59 PM
Your categories sound great. I'll definitely use that system for government. Thank you.

Omnicrat
2013-05-25, 11:10 PM
edit: Happy to help! :smallbiggrin:

Also, about your map, unless you want little to no player interaction with other players for the first few turns (which is probably a good thing for the first turn, maybe two) then you probably only want two or three continental masses.

Also, DC (for Dawn of Civilization) might be good for that calender.

edit: Alright, I'm going to assume 5 general eras (Primal, Classical, Medieval, Industrial, Technological) and try to work out a basic outline for techs as I think could work.

A general synopsis and reminder of my idea: Techs do not progress linearly, though they can have a prerequisite or two, but can be discovered at the earliest sensical time for them to be discovered. I'm also reducing the number of tiers and making the specifics just as free-form as the specifics of a government system, but the mechanics are the same regardless.

All mechanical bonuses, where provided, are just to give a basic idea for what I think it should provide mechanically.

I'm getting sleepy, so I'll probably just go through primal tonight.

Primal

Agriculture I
Your civilization now has the basic ability to irrigate and tend to crops
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical bonus: +1 to land quality with regard to food

Metal Working I
Your civilization now has access to copper sources and has the knowledge of what to do with it.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 military, +1 culture if concepts of sculpture or jewelry have been unlocked

Animal Husbandry I
Your civilization now has basic domestication techniques.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 military, +1 food

Construction I
Your civilization now has the ability to create sturdy permanent structures.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 culture the concept of aesthetics has been unlocked, +1 action points per turn



That's all I've got for now. I didn't put the wheel in because its so simple I felt it fit better as a concept than a technology.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-26, 03:37 AM
maybe a few more stats like respect, fear, and love to round out how people feel about their government?

The Machiavellian Three have always served me well: Love, Fear, Hatred. Love and Fear are both things you'd want, though preferably Love alone. Hatred leads to rebellion and strife between the people and the government.

Love should be a Population Morale boost, while Fear is some sort of Law/Order bonus. More spontaneous works/actions from your people when they love you, more law-minding people when they fear you. Going by this model, you attract more Great People with Love than with Fear or Hatred, but Fear benefits domestic as well as foreign relations.

Thoughts?

Omnicrat
2013-05-26, 10:22 AM
The Machiavellian Three have always served me well: Love, Fear, Hatred. Love and Fear are both things you'd want, though preferably Love alone. Hatred leads to rebellion and strife between the people and the government.

Love should be a Population Morale boost, while Fear is some sort of Law/Order bonus. More spontaneous works/actions from your people when they love you, more law-minding people when they fear you. Going by this model, you attract more Great People with Love than with Fear or Hatred, but Fear benefits domestic as well as foreign relations.

Thoughts?

I like it, generally speaking. I am not sure how fear benefits foreign relations, though.

Johel
2013-05-26, 12:19 PM
The Machiavellian Three have always served me well: Love, Fear, Hatred. Love and Fear are both things you'd want, though preferably Love alone. Hatred leads to rebellion and strife between the people and the government.

Love should be a Population Morale boost, while Fear is some sort of Law/Order bonus. More spontaneous works/actions from your people when they love you, more law-minding people when they fear you. Going by this model, you attract more Great People with Love than with Fear or Hatred, but Fear benefits domestic as well as foreign relations.

Thoughts?

I think it is very good.

1 "Fear" generates 2 "Order"
1 "Love" generates 2 "Happiness" + 1 "Order"
1 "Hate" negates 1 "Order" + 1 "Happiness"

Happiness affects the economy, culture, science, ect...
Order must be positive to avoid revolts.

Some actions could generate a large amount of both Fear and Hate.
Both would only last for some time but Hate would last longer.
So it could be advantageous on the short term to be ruthless as an emergency measure.
This would generate a lot of Order, allowing to hold a territory/population long enough for other measures to take effect and generate Love.
Or at least long enough for other sources of Hate to be dealt with.
But a constant policy of ruthlessness would result in pilling Hate and therefor a snowball-effect of various malus and, eventually, revolts.

Each troop could generate 1 "Fear" without generating Hate.
But since troops cost money to maintain, it wouldn't be possible to apply this policy on the scale of the whole empire.
This is still a viable strategy if combined with "Love"

In diplomacy, that would be more complex to represent.
I can hate somebody and not be afraid of him but still deal with him simply because I need his goods.
I'll try to make him pay a lot for each favor he asks but in the end, if I need what he has, I'll say yes.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-26, 12:39 PM
Omnicrat, the tech tree is looking great. I also like the ideas about diplomacy. Meanwhile, I think I'll keep working on the map and the geographic concepts of the game. I would agree that this map has too many isolated landmasses. However, we could resolve that by having players start on 1 or 2 of the continents and leaving the others "closed" until colonization.

Here's a reprint of the map just for reference. I haven't made any changes yet.


http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/conworld/images/b/b1/Smallworld.png


I think continents 2, 6, and 7 would be good candidates for the birthplace of civilization. Continent 2 would be especially good since it offers so much room to spread out, but I should probably make the climate there a little more diverse. With Continent 6, although there is not as much good farmland, we could have lots of intrigue formed by the great mountain range to the south and the desert in the north. Also, the southwestern islands would make a great place for a seafaring culture!

If you want I can make a huge, fully-detailed hex map of the whole world, or I can just make mini hex-maps as we go along. I was thinking the continents would remain nameless until someone claims them for civilization. Ok?

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-26, 08:45 PM
In diplomacy, that would be more complex to represent.
I can hate somebody and not be afraid of him but still deal with him simply because I need his goods.
I'll try to make him pay a lot for each favor he asks but in the end, if I need what he has, I'll say yes.

Think of it this way: If you "Love" another nation, you'll be willing to help them out, even at a loss to yourself (Britain and America's "Close Friendship"). If you fear a nation's power, you're more likely to just go along with whatever they want to a point, but you wouldn't come to their defense if they were in a weakened position (Rome and its client kingdoms). But if you fear them, it doesn't matter what sort of treaties and deals are in place; you will come to blows eventually (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia).

Hatred basically works like a hit to Diplomacy Skill in this case. There's a certain point where you will simply not put up with another nation's crap, regardless of trade or whatever.

Example: Country A is a Theocratic Kitocracy (rule by Judges). Due to wise leadership, the nation has +Love, a minimum of Fear, and -Hatred. It's neighbor, Country B, is an Oligarchic Republic (like Rome, a landed aristocracy rules everything). B has almost 0 Love, but +Fear and ++Hatred. Most of their population outside of the capital is under brutal martial law. But they control the largest reserve of Unobtanium in the world. A has to trade with B for it, and they essentially have to take 20 (or whatever) to get the deal through due to the hefty penalties from their hatred toward B. But if B continues to use +Fear/Hate tactics to maintain control, A can't bring themselves to continue making deals and agreements with B. Certain "concessions" from B lessen the penalties, but eventually A has had enough. A state of war is declared, and A starts arming rebellions in B's territory. B's populace has +++Hate by this point, and most of it revolts, joining the invaders.


Omnicrat, the tech tree is looking great. I also like the ideas about diplomacy. Meanwhile, I think I'll keep working on the map and the geographic concepts of the game. I would agree that this map has too many isolated landmasses. However, we could resolve that by having players start on 1 or 2 of the continents and leaving the others "closed" until colonization.

The only problem I can see with the map is a lack of a large landmass. Large creatures/people form on large landmasses, where there is room for it. Also, civilization in the Near East spread due to there being so much land East to West, allowing similar plants to flourish along the major belt of early civilization. Same goes for large land animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs, as well as beasts of burden. Civilization in America didn't take off for forever because it's a very long landmass north to south, which hindered the spread of unifying foods/animals.

I think there needs to be one landmass stretching somewhat latitudely, or at least a cluster of continents close enough for pre-sailing civilizations to reach. Colonization/Age of Sailing Tech simply increases the reach of most ships so that they can reach further landmasses (unless you're Polynese :smallwink:, in which case range is of no concern).


If you want I can make a huge, fully-detailed hex map of the whole world, or I can just make mini hex-maps as we go along. I was thinking the continents would remain nameless until someone claims them for civilization. Ok?

What you could do is break up the landmasses into "Territories" based partly on terrain and the like, more or less like Risk as opposed to hexes. It makes things more personable when a Player is trying to reclaim the lush Mountainland forests from a hated enemy, as opposed to Desert_Hex_#012C.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-26, 09:24 PM
I had the exact same thought about the map. I tried to work out how a hex map might work, but I decided it was too much, so I switched to a square grid, but I decided that just didn't seem right, and I ditched the whole concept of a grid. Let's definitely use territories instead, like in Risk. It feels more natural.

I'll start working on a new map. I'll also have larger continents with more room to spread out. It will be up here soon. Thanks for all the good work. I'm thinking of making a wiki for the background information, so I can post large images and everything can be organized nicely. Do you have an account on Wikia? If not, you should sign up, so you can help work on the wiki. We'll still do all our discussion here, though.

Oh, and I guess if I'm going to make territories, I've decided to let go the idea of letting people name the world as we go along. We should just name everything before it starts. That way we can say, "I'm invading France," instead of "I'm invading that hexagon-shaped region to the southwest."

That being said, unless you guys object, I'll probably take the liberty of coming up with some funky, but pronounceable names, for territories. As for the name of the world itself, I sort of want it to start with a D and be easy to pronounce, but still somewhat exotic looking. How about....

Dunra? Dunrik? Dunika? Dornika? Dondrika? Dorderro? Something along those lines. Thanks.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-26, 09:33 PM
Dunra? Dunrik? Dunika? Dornika? Dondrika? Dorderro? Something along those lines. Thanks.

Dunil. Dunella. Della. Drao. Duro. Duka. Dreia?

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-26, 09:55 PM
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll go with Durona. It's Portuguese for "tough guy" - according to some sketchy web translator. What it actually means is irrelevant. It sounds cool. Durona. I'll be making the Durona wiki soon, once I get the main map finished.

Omnicrat
2013-05-26, 10:05 PM
Too sleepy to continue the tech tree tonight, sorry. Should have it done in a day or two, though. Then I'll work on the basics of concepts.

If you want to go with regions, you could have them start with logical natural borders, but no names, and let players re-draw map lines later if they need to, and select names for everything still.

Even if you don't like the redraw borders idea (which I do a lot), you could still leave region names up to the first who discover them. Because why not?

Also, the hate/love/fear stuff looks good so far. I don't think fear and hate should be so tied together, however. Many oppressive nations are, or have been, feared by their general populace, but not necessarily hated. Look at the USSR for a clear example of this. Also, oppressive regimes can manage max love, max fear, and no hate. For the only real world example of this I am aware of, see North Korea. Seriously, NK is an Orwellian distopia. Its scary.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-26, 10:25 PM
Yes. I decided to compromise. I named the continents and the planet, but not the individual regions. There are just too many of them! I think I'll at least number them, temporarily, until we start naming them, just so that I'll be able to refer to the regions on the wiki.

Thanks for all the hard work everyone!

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-26, 10:26 PM
Too sleepy to continue the tech tree tonight, sorry. Should have it done in a day or two, though. Then I'll work on the basics of concepts.

If you want to go with regions, you could have them start with logical natural borders, but no names, and let players re-draw map lines later if they need to, and select names for everything still.

Even if you don't like the redraw borders idea (which I do a lot), you could still leave region names up to the first who discover them. Because why not?

Also, the hate/love/fear stuff looks good so far. I don't think fear and hate should be so tied together, however. Many oppressive nations are, or have been, feared by their general populace, but not necessarily hated. Look at the USSR for a clear example of this. Also, oppressive regimes can manage max love, max fear, and no hate. For the only real world example of this I am aware of, see North Korea. Seriously, NK is an Orwellian distopia. Its scary.

Let's dial back the (modern) RL political a tad.

But I see what you mean. I didn't mean to imply Fear and hatred were at all related, but I'm not sure they aren't. People who live in fear of their overlords can also be made to hate them, and by similar policies. It's simply a matter of which is stronger, the hate or the fear. More Fear, and the oppressed will fall in line. More hatred, and they might just damn the consequences.

The aim for a Fear-based gov't is to have the people fear the lash, but only hate it a little. More fear balances out the hate. A Love-based government would have the opposite trouble; they wouldn't have to deal with uprisings, but couldn't necessarily control/direct their citizens effectively without alienating them.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-26, 11:06 PM
All right. The wiki is up. So any rules we decide to finalize, we can place there. Although anything on the wiki can still be up for debate. I decided to start with the atlas part of the wiki, but it's also going to serve as a manual for diplomacy, tech, and everything else we decide to include in the game. So if you decide on a perfect way to handle diplomacy, or religion, or any game concept, be sure to post it on there. Thanks.

http://durona.wikia.com/wiki/Durona_Wiki

Johel
2013-05-27, 12:57 PM
From the Wiki :

The population of Durona changes rapidly as technology progresses, and plays a large part in the game dynamics. At the Dawn of Civilization, the population of Durona was 50 million people.

So 50.000 (!) starting tribes for 68 territories ?

Well, at least there will be plenty of interactions for the players to go through.
And this solves any diversity issues.

But this might get a tad crowded during the first few turns.
What with each territories having an average of 735 tribes.

Food for the brain :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates
Basically, without agriculture, 15 millions is considered the upper limit.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-27, 02:15 PM
You make a good point about population. We'll start with a nice round 10 million for a hunter-gatherer world. Then as soon as we invent agriculture, which will be in the first 3 turns for sure, the population will start rapidly increasing.

10 million people on 57 million sq. miles of land - about 1 person every 5.7 miles.
Averaged among the 68 land territories, it comes out to about 147,000 people per territory. Of course, this is definitely not a uniform distribution, nor are all the territories the same size. I'll change the wiki and try to figure out some rough estimates for each territory's starting population. Thanks for the help.

FLHerne
2013-05-27, 02:20 PM
You might get some ideas from this game (http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=65419) (and the preceding one with the same rules) that I've been playing in on another forum.:smallsmile:
It's not quite the same idea (in particular, it's a lot less rules/numbers-centric than your concept), but pretty close in some areas.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-27, 02:39 PM
I took a look at the map and it looks great. I wish I had known about this game earlier so I could join. I'll be sure to look at some more of the rules to get an idea of where we're going with this one. Keep me updated. Thanks.

Omnicrat
2013-05-30, 01:42 AM
Primal

Agriculture I
Your civilization now has the basic ability to irrigate and tend to crops
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical bonus: +1 to land quality with regard to food

Metal Working I
Your civilization now has access to copper sources and has the knowledge of what to do with it.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 military, +1 culture if concepts of sculpture or jewelry have been unlocked

Animal Husbandry I
Your civilization now has basic domestication techniques.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 military, +1 food

Construction I
Your civilization now has the ability to create sturdy permanent structures.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 culture the concept of aesthetics has been unlocked, +1 action points per turn

Sorry its been a few days. I've been sleepy and doing stuff with my family. Once I finish the tech "tree", I'll start working on concepts.

So, continuing with primal...

Sailing I
Your civilization understands how to build boats, but not how to traverse oceans.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: ability to use coasts and lakes and rivers for resource gathering, +1 culture, +1 action points per turn, allows movement across coasts and lakes and rives.

Astronomy I
Your civilization paid attention to the stars, moon, and sun, and have learned how to predict their movements.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +1 Culture, +1 action points per turn (due to calenders)

Classical

Agriculture II
Your civilization now has a general understanding of irrigation techniques and crop breeding.
Prerequisite: Agriculture I
Mechanical bonus: +2 to land quality with regard to food

Metal Working II
Your civilization now has access to Iron sources and has the knowledge of what to do with it.
Prerequisite: Metal Working I
Mechanical Bonus: +2 military

Animal Husbandry II
Your civilization now has basic domestication techniques, including the ability to ride larger animals, such as horses and dromedaries.
Prerequisite: Animal Husbandry I
Mechanical Bonus: +2 military, +2 food, +2 action points per turn

Construction II
Your civilization now has the ability to create larger permanent structures.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +2 culture the concept of aesthetics has been unlocked, +2 action points per turn

Sailing II
Your civilization has developed techniques for traveling the seas, even if your ships are not as sturdy as the could be
Prerequisite: Sailing I
Mechanical Bonus: ability to use oceans for resource gathering, +2 culture, +2 action points per turn, allows movement across oceans

Astronomy II
Your civilization paid attention to the stars, moon, and sun, and have learned how to predict their movements.
Prerequisite: None
Mechanical Bonus: +2 Culture

Machinery I
Your civilization has discovered the wonder of geared mechanisms!
Prerequisite: Metalworking I
Mechanical Bonus: +2 action points per turn, +2 culture with concept of puppetry, +2 food (mills)

Clockwork Computing
Your civilization has figured out how to create computational devices with clockwork!
Prerequisite: Machinery I
Mechanical Bonus: +2 action points per turn, +2 research

Alright, I'm going to keep putting this off till I get too tired to keep working on it because I'm doing stuff with family and friends mostly. If you are all okay with waiting a week or two for me to complete this outline, that's fine. If someone wants to provide their take on it, that's fine too.

New idea for concepts, they get a level from 1 to 5 of how easily they spread, 1 being the hardest and 5 being the easiest.

Also, I'm pretty sure roll playing games are going to be a concept...

Also, I'm pretty sure the human population on earth before the agricultural revolution was only 5 million, and that was with humans on every continent.

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-30, 11:49 AM
Thanks, Omnicrat. You're the best. I'm sure we'll have this game finished before too long.
I have a question about the tech tree. Do you have to complete everything in the Primal age before you move on to the Classical? Or do you just have to have the prerequisite?

Also, I was wondering if social "inventions" like religious ritual and democracy would be included in the tech tree, or if they would have to be unlocked separately. Maybe each civilization could invent its own religion - which could either be exclusive or evangelical - and converting another country to that religion would require lots of culture / action points but would greatly improve your diplomacy with that nation. Also, you can choose whether to be accepting or intolerant of other religions.

So. Have we decided what the major resources/attributes are? Should we just use food as the universal resource, or have other resources like fuel and building materials? As for attributes, so far we seem to have: Population, Culture, and Action Points - everything else seems to stem from there. Are there any other core attributes that I'm missing?

We should make a list of things you can do by spending action points, and how much each costs. Let's say 5 is the starting number of action points per turn, but it increases as the game does.

1 AP: Settle Unclaimed Land (must have at least 1 settler per sq. mile)
2 AP: Convert Rural to Urban (1 sq. mile)
2 AP: Build Army (1% of population)
1 AP: Upgrade Army
2 AP: Collect Taxes
2 AP: Create / Change Regional Government
2 AP: Engage in trade
3 AP: Invade enemy territory
4 AP: Found Religion
5 AP: Create / Change National Government
2 AP: Nationalize Religion
6 AP: Convert other nation to religion
5 AP: Build Wonder / Monument

I'll add some more to this later. Feel free to suggest any changes or additions. Thanks.







Oh. And.. "Role playing games are going to be a concept." I like this.

Omnicrat
2013-05-30, 04:55 PM
Thanks, Omnicrat. You're the best. I'm sure we'll have this game finished before too long.
I have a question about the tech tree. Do you have to complete everything in the Primal age before you move on to the Classical? Or do you just have to have the prerequisite?

Also, I was wondering if social "inventions" like religious ritual and democracy would be included in the tech tree, or if they would have to be unlocked separately. Maybe each civilization could invent its own religion - which could either be exclusive or evangelical - and converting another country to that religion would require lots of culture / action points but would greatly improve your diplomacy with that nation. Also, you can choose whether to be accepting or intolerant of other religions.

So. Have we decided what the major resources/attributes are? Should we just use food as the universal resource, or have other resources like fuel and building materials? As for attributes, so far we seem to have: Population, Culture, and Action Points - everything else seems to stem from there. Are there any other core attributes that I'm missing?

We should make a list of things you can do by spending action points, and how much each costs. Let's say 5 is the starting number of action points per turn, but it increases as the game does.

1 AP: Settle Unclaimed Land (must have at least 1 settler per sq. mile)
2 AP: Convert Rural to Urban (1 sq. mile)
2 AP: Build Army (1% of population)
1 AP: Upgrade Army
2 AP: Collect Taxes
2 AP: Create / Change Regional Government
2 AP: Engage in trade
3 AP: Invade enemy territory
4 AP: Found Religion
5 AP: Create / Change National Government
2 AP: Nationalize Religion
6 AP: Convert other nation to religion
5 AP: Build Wonder / Monument

I'll add some more to this later. Feel free to suggest any changes or additions. Thanks.







Oh. And.. "Role playing games are going to be a concept." I like this.

Edit: finished

I just woke up and my sister is going to spend the night at a friends house, so I may actually get the tree done tonight! Probably not, based on how I've been doing, but maybe!

Well, religion predates civilization by about 10000 years, if I remember correctly. The first religious building that still exists (its in Turkey) was built before any form of permanent settlement. I THINK concepts like democracy should be just that, concepts.

You can research anything you meet the prerequisites for (Polynesians went straight for Sailing II) but later era techs require more research to get done.

If you want turn 1 to be 800 years, which it was if I recall, starting AP should probably be a fair deal higher.

Also, how do you differentiate a natural growth and change of government from a reform? Slow change over time should not cost any AP.

Also, the initial government should be the same basic thing for everyone, I think. Chiefdoms all around! We just have to figure out what that is mechanically. 5s in every stat? You can naturally move one stat by 1 point each turn, any more costs AP?

I feel like you should have build volunteer army and build conscript army and build volunteer/conscript defensive force. Defensive forces require less AP, but generate hate if used offensively. Conscription coasts less AP, but generates hate. Maybe volunteerism is a concept? Is that too basic for a concept?

I feel like wonders/monuments shouldn't coast so much AP, but instead require a great person to work on them. I also feel like you should get more great people early in the game. (edit- a later post I already made has my newest opinion on this)

I think the resource groups should be food, constructive, lighter-than-air gas deposits, combustibles, and nuclear. There should be a survey action, which costs AP, that can be performed to randomly determine each resource other than food in a given region. Food is determined upon discovering a region. Also some basic resources, like trees (for constructive and combustible) and sand (for constructive if a civilization has construction II [glass]).

Also, unless you want very little interesting stuff to get done mechanically, I recommend that you double the starting AP or take stuff like establish trade and collect taxes out.

I think that's everything...

Grimsage Matt
2013-05-30, 06:09 PM
Looking at this, I want to make a Troll Empire that will never research agriculture or animal husbandry. Instead, we will form sound enviromental policies and have a small but effecient population.

Besides, ever read Homoids? Good book.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-30, 06:16 PM
Also, how do you differentiate a natural growth and change of government from a reform? Slow change over time should not cost any AP.

I feel like you should have build volunteer army and build conscript army and build volunteer/conscript defensive force. Defensive forces require less AP, but generate hate if used offensively. Conscription coasts less AP, but generates hate. Maybe volunteerism is a concept? Is that too basic for a concept?

I feel like this is a bit too...in depth. Simplification is not the enemy.


I feel like wonders/monuments shouldn't coast so much AP, but instead require a great person to work on them. I also feel like you should get more great people early in the game.

1. Religion should be a World Statistic that can be influenced to some degree by a nation of great power, but as it is can be seen as just another resource as opposed to a "complication", or "character" in its own right.
2. Wonders and Monuments should cost a great deal of AP (AP also needs more solid system, must look at soon), otherwise there'd be a thousand Great Walls and Pyramids and Hanging Gardens everywhere. They are rare for many reasons, one of them being a massive investment of resources towards something that has no practical value outside of prestige and/or intimidation.
3. Why would there be more Great People in the early game than late? I can name a thousand Great People from the last 500 years. I can name a thousand more from the combined 1500 years before that, and I might be able to get another thousand from the whole of human experience before even that. Most Great People have been lost to history. Entire nations have been lost. Give the later eons some credit. We are incredibly awesome, humans. We are Superior!

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-30, 09:03 PM
I think Great People should appear randomly but (somewhat) proportionally to population size. In the early stages, you'd have fewer, but more as the world becomes more densely populated. Here's how it might work:

Population 100: 50% Chance of a Great Person
Population 1000: 1 Great Person with a possible 2nd.
P = 10,000: 2 - 4 Great People
P = 100,000: 4 - 6 Great People
P = 1,000,000: 6 - 8 Great People
P = 10,000,000: 8 - 10 Great People
P = 100,000,000: 10 - 12 Great People
P = 1,000,000,000: 12 Great People (Maximum)

Great People will fall into one of 4 Categories: Military, Religious, Cultural, or Scientific. Each of these will generate additional action points to be used in that category. Great People do not cost action points to create - they simply appear.

Great People can be appointed to governmental positions for an even higher cultural boost. This, however, requires action points depending on your type of government. Leaders, in this game, usually start out as Great People, even though Great People do not always make great leaders!

Leadership:
Elect Leader, 1 AP if already in a republic
Seize the Throne, 2 AP in an autocracy, 3 in oligarchy, 4 in republic
Set up Colonial / State Leader: 1 AP

On an unrelated note:
Here's a vague overview of how imperialism might work. When one nation conquers a territory of another nation, they must institute a new government to keep the conquered people under control. The conquered player is not out of the came, but he will have decreased wealth, most likely. However, he might have a bonus to action points for "motivation" caused by hatred of the oppressor. Revolutions against a more powerful invader should not be easy in this game, but they should be possible. What do you think?

Omnicrat
2013-05-30, 09:12 PM
As a note, I'm still working on that post. I just got distracted by food and other stuff.


I feel like this is a bit too...in depth. Simplification is not the enemy.

How is it too in-depth? If anything, its the least specific version one could have while still providing variety. Its only 4 different ways to make an army. And it should be easier to make an impressed army than a volunteer force.


1. Religion should be a World Statistic that can be influenced to some degree by a nation of great power, but as it is can be seen as just another resource as opposed to a "complication", or "character" in its own right.
2. Wonders and Monuments should cost a great deal of AP (AP also needs more solid system, must look at soon), otherwise there'd be a thousand Great Walls and Pyramids and Hanging Gardens everywhere. They are rare for many reasons, one of them being a massive investment of resources towards something that has no practical value outside of prestige and/or intimidation.
3. Why would there be more Great People in the early game than late? I can name a thousand Great People from the last 500 years. I can name a thousand more from the combined 1500 years before that, and I might be able to get another thousand from the whole of human experience before even that. Most Great People have been lost to history. Entire nations have been lost. Give the later eons some credit. We are incredibly awesome, humans. We are Superior!

1) Eh, I don't know about world-static, though I'm not sure I'm 100 on what that means. Perhaps a mix of DM controled/influenced and player influenced?
2) Hm... a fair point. Mine was that the concept of wonders should, at least at first, come from a great person. This assumes we want wonders to have some sort of mechanical effect. It takes special inspiration to do something new in a grand and innovative way, but once someone did it once another can reproduce it. These reproduction have the same mechanical effect, but not the same social effect. That is to say, they reproduce the unique mechanical effect, but not the standard of a wonder. The standard being a bonus to love, fear, great people, and/or something like that.
3) Because earlier game has years go by faster, and I think the rate of great people should be static with regard to years, but affected by other factors.

Omnicrat
2013-05-30, 09:33 PM
I think Great People should appear randomly but (somewhat) proportionally to population size. In the early stages, you'd have fewer, but more as the world becomes more densely populated. Here's how it might work:

Population 100: 50% Chance of a Great Person
Population 1000: 1 Great Person with a possible 2nd.
P = 10,000: 2 - 4 Great People
P = 100,000: 4 - 6 Great People
P = 1,000,000: 6 - 8 Great People
P = 10,000,000: 8 - 10 Great People
P = 100,000,000: 10 - 12 Great People
P = 1,000,000,000: 12 Great People (Maximum)

Great People will fall into one of 4 Categories: Military, Religious, Cultural, or Scientific. Each of these will generate additional action points to be used in that category. Great People do not cost action points to create - they simply appear.

Great People can be appointed to governmental positions for an even higher cultural boost. This, however, requires action points depending on your type of government. Leaders, in this game, usually start out as Great People, even though Great People do not always make great leaders!

Leadership:
Elect Leader, 1 AP if already in a republic
Seize the Throne, 2 AP in an autocracy, 3 in oligarchy, 4 in republic
Set up Colonial / State Leader: 1 AP

On an unrelated note:
Here's a vague overview of how imperialism might work. When one nation conquers a territory of another nation, they must institute a new government to keep the conquered people under control. The conquered player is not out of the came, but he will have decreased wealth, most likely. However, he might have a bonus to action points for "motivation" caused by hatred of the oppressor. Revolutions against a more powerful invader should not be easy in this game, but they should be possible. What do you think?

I like those population restrictions, but are they per-turn? Per generation? If they are per-turn, then we have the problem of it taking longer year-wise to generate great people for no good reason.

Also, if you remember, we were using a much more free-form government system. I would be surprised if people used things so close to basic real-world governments. Personally, I plan on trying my hand at a council of philosopher kings. The AP costs should probably be based more on citizen involvement than how governments are stylized. More AP for too high citizen involvement as well as too low. Some exceptions if you are specifically a military dictatorship, rule by the smartest, or something like that.

How conquering nations works is good. Its not like conquered nations are never liberated.

Also, I feel like we should... I forget. I got distracted by TV and forgot. Shoot. It was a good idea.

edit: finished my earlier edit

Malachi Lemont
2013-05-30, 11:18 PM
Well, I was thinking per-turn, but I seem to have forgotten about the whole year compression thing. I'll have to come up with a better formula to fix that.

And I do realize we're using the freeform government method. You're right about AP being based on citizen involvement - which can be anywhere along a scale.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-05-31, 04:14 AM
I think Great People should appear randomly but (somewhat) proportionally to population size. In the early stages, you'd have fewer, but more as the world becomes more densely populated. Here's how it might work:

Just as a suggestion, you could also leave the appearance of a Great Person up to chance (beginning of turn, roll to spawn a GP!), but allow some nations an "emergency reserve" of Great People should their luck run dry for too long.

Ex: Tamaland rolls 10 on a D10 at the beginning of their turn, spawning Alexander the Great (++military bonus), while Hoddesia rolled a 1 on theirs. Hoddesia only has 1 Reserve Great Person, and now has to decide whether to play their trump card now or hold off until another crisis emerges.


On an unrelated note:
Here's a vague overview of how imperialism might work. When one nation conquers a territory of another nation, they must institute a new government to keep the conquered people under control. The conquered player is not out of the came, but he will have decreased wealth, most likely. However, he might have a bonus to action points for "motivation" caused by hatred of the oppressor. Revolutions against a more powerful invader should not be easy in this game, but they should be possible. What do you think?

Hm. Perhaps it would be better to view imperialism as a similar beast to diplomacy, except one party is obviously at the mercy of the other. If a player is conquered (and doesn't just roll up a new state) their conqueror may offer one of several peace terms: Pillage, Enslavement, Occupation, Vassal, Constitution.

Pillage: The player has basically stated his people's desire to fight to the death. He gets a handful of extra troops out of this (armed villagers, peasants, and what military forces weren't already defeated by now), and settles in for a siege. However way conflict resolution works, the end result is either a Pyrrhic victory for the player, or Conquest, and the population reduced to 1/4th its size. Pillagers take the majority of a pillaged nation's wealth.

Enslavement: Some nations will instead choose to enslave 1/2 the population. This provides a cheap labor force, as well as a population bump (players should decide if they are using Roman Slavery or American Slavery rules).

Occupation: You surrendered, your gov't is disbanded, and the new regime is running things using military force and fear. If the player doesn't reroll, they may retain a single province as a rebel faction (all previous diplomatic relations ended, only 1/5th military remaining max, bonus to loyalty among the people). This province is fragile, but it gives a chance for a comeback.

Vassal: You have been allowed to retain power, but it is a hollow shell of what you once wielded. The conquering force imposes cruel economic/cultural/military penalties to you, but your sovereignty is intact, with the exception of 1/2 your remaining land being Occupied.

Constitution: No bargains, no nothing. While you may rebel, the conquerors have simply annexed your country. There is no legal distinction between your old home and their newest acquisition. Only the flags have changed, and sometimes an occupied people may be mollified by such mercy.


How is it too in-depth? If anything, its the least specific version one could have while still providing variety. Its only 4 different ways to make an army. And it should be easier to make an impressed army than a volunteer force.

I may have misinterpreted you before. Nevertheless, I believe it can be simplified to Standing Army, Reserves, National Guard, and then these can be modified by moving up the Military Tech Tree (Professional>Citizen>Conscripts>Levies>Peasants).


1) Eh, I don't know about world-static, though I'm not sure I'm 100 on what that means. Perhaps a mix of DM controled/influenced and player influenced?
2) Hm... a fair point. Mine was that the concept of wonders should, at least at first, come from a great person. This assumes we want wonders to have some sort of mechanical effect. It takes special inspiration to do something new in a grand and innovative way, but once someone did it once another can reproduce it. These reproduction have the same mechanical effect, but not the same social effect. That is to say, they reproduce the unique mechanical effect, but not the standard of a wonder. The standard being a bonus to love, fear, great people, and/or something like that.
3) Because earlier game has years go by faster, and I think the rate of great people should be static with regard to years, but affected by other factors.

1. Basically. Starting a religion is doable, but for the most part the formation/worship of a religion is out of player's hands to a degree.
2. Sort of a "First Come, First Served" thing. I like it. Being the first has a Greater Benefit beyond the normal ones. I would keep Wonders separate from Great People, but GPs could speed up construction or something.
3. I didn't think of that. Perhaps you're right.


Also, if you remember, we were using a much more free-form government system. I would be surprised if people used things so close to basic real-world governments. Personally, I plan on trying my hand at a council of philosopher kings. The AP costs should probably be based more on citizen involvement than how governments are stylized. More AP for too high citizen involvement as well as too low. Some exceptions if you are specifically a military dictatorship, rule by the smartest, or something like that.

I agree with this. Except, didn't we say something about having Bureaucracy as a nation stat or something? That should modify the effects of Gov't type. A Dictator may be able to more swiftly make decisions on things normally, but if his Civil Servant force doesn't implement his orders well or on time, what good is that? Likewise, even the most backlogged Democracy could be kept running by a dedicated civil service.