The start and spread of civilization.

I read the wiki and a bunch of topics, but I haven't seen this particular thing talked about yet. I apologize if it has.

How will the dawn and spread of civilization be handled? Will one tribe form the first nation, then citizens branch off on their own to form other nations? Will multiple tribes across the continent(s) spring up on their own time? Is it possible for more than one creature to obtain sapience and then have a world containing different nations with different sapient creatures running them?

Yeah, this should be discussed.

So, this is markedly dependent on what algorithms we can come up with, but my thoughts are as follows.

We should definitely try to have the player's nation, which would be a small tribe at first, spawn first, and then immediately spawn a number of other tribes in the surrounding area. If they are in a similar environment to the player's nation, they will spawn with a similar culture. The further away the nations spawn, and the more different the surrounding area, the more different the cultures can be. This will need to be tempered with the long term effects geography has on cultures, such as fostering unity and stagnation or competition and conflict.

Tenebrarum wrote:

We should definitely try to have the player's nation, which would be a small tribe at first, spawn first, and then immediately spawn a number of other tribes in the surrounding area. If they are in a similar environment to the player's nation, they will spawn with a similar culture. The further away the nations spawn, and the more different the surrounding area, the more different the cultures can be. This will need to be tempered with the long term effects geography has on cultures, such as fostering unity and stagnation or competition and conflict.

We could have some sort of control through aware stage, that stops the NPC nations/tribes/family packs from advancing past the player. After the nation has gained a footing and is larger than a family group, then we can ease the restrictions back a bit and let them progress faster than (or in different areas to) the player.

Should we have different difficulty levels? I was thinking we could put the restriction on the AI in easy mode. On normal, we could allow the AI to advance past the player; but put penalties on the AI's research if they get too far past the player scientifically. On hard, no restrictions or penalties whatsoever. That's why it's "hard".

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

We should definitely try to have the player's nation, which would be a small tribe at first, spawn first, and then immediately spawn a number of other tribes in the surrounding area. If they are in a similar environment to the player's nation, they will spawn with a similar culture. The further away the nations spawn, and the more different the surrounding area, the more different the cultures can be. This will need to be tempered with the long term effects geography has on cultures, such as fostering unity and stagnation or competition and conflict.

We could have some sort of control through aware stage, that stops the NPC nations/tribes/family packs from advancing past the player. After the nation has gained a footing and is larger than a family group, then we can ease the restrictions back a bit and let them progress faster than (or in different areas to) the player.

Sounds good. We could of course, turn this off if the player wants a challenge.

~sciocont wrote:

Sounds good. We could of course, turn this off if the player wants a challenge.

QFT

And what about my cultural similarity idea?

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Sounds good. We could of course, turn this off if the player wants a challenge.

QFT

And what about my cultural similarity idea?

That sounds rly good too. Perhaps a sort of "spill" algorithm from the players starting point would be helpful. Their "culture" can spread like a liquid across terrain, and the further away (and the thinner the liquid) the more different the culture. Of course this liquid is all figurative, and shouldn't be displayed on screen. But that's how i'd like to see the mechanic work.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Sounds good. We could of course, turn this off if the player wants a challenge.

QFT

And what about my cultural similarity idea?

That sounds rly good too. Perhaps a sort of "spill" algorithm from the players starting point would be helpful. Their "culture" can spread like a liquid across terrain, and the further away (and the thinner the liquid) the more different the culture. Of course this liquid is all figurative, and shouldn't be displayed on screen. But that's how i'd like to see the mechanic work.

Exactly. Unfortunately, It'd need multiple algorithms. Culture cannot be summed into a code as simple as our pseudo-DNA.

Since a culture ingame is just a combination of values for many different variables, we could spill different variables in different patterns.

~sciocont wrote:

Since a culture ingame is just a combination of values for many different variables, we could spill different variables in different patterns.

Sciocont comes in.

Lays down the logic.

Leaves.

Problem solved.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Sciocont comes in.

Lays down the logic.

Leaves.

Problem solved.

Like a boss.

Which is good, cause he is one.

Anyway, I think I should make a thread on the severity to which Arbitrary Mechanics need to effect us.

Tenebrarum wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Sciocont comes in.

Lays down the logic.

Leaves.

Problem solved.

Like a boss.

Which is good, cause he is one.

Anyway, I think I should make a thread on the severity to which Arbitrary Mechanics need to effect us.

I Belgiuming love you guys.