No one mentionned the Settlers serie of game? That''s more or less what you have there..

no... its not like settlers, settlers is along the lines of resource mangement. Resource mangemnt would be a factor but not the primary focus. If you want to compare it to something think "rise of nations" only different... Since it wouldn''t focus primarly on unit building, because well you can''t build units

But you can build new settlements and expand your civilizations... Expansion would defently be a factor, perhaps I''ll inculude a commodity system similar to Advanced civilization.

I wonder if that would work, if each settlement can build one commodity, of each commidty level. Furthur the maxium commidety level available to civilization is equal to the amount of settlements. So if you have three settlements, you could produce 3 level 1 commodites, 2 level 2 commodites, 1 level 3 commodity...


Commodites would be used for..... um, building things, for example horsemen would require horses.

Would that work at all? Or would something like that just get in the way?

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

The interface is going to be unwieldy if it''s anything like a standard RTS.

Youd need to keep track of every villager manually and assign him/her to the most appropriate job (if someone is strong, assign him/her to mining. There are classes? So someone must be low-class and strong to be a miner). You probably will need to assign marriages manually, lest you get some undesirable characteristics in the children. If you don''t provide a mechanism for this, player''s will try it anyway, such as ordering a man and a woman out into the middle of nowhere until they get married.

I''d suggest some sort of "job offer" where you set the minimum characteristics, and the closest qualified applicants with nothing else to do get the assignment automatically.

If you''re going to have classes/castes, you need to think of the various ways these have been defined throughout history. In India, caste comes from occupation, and you automatically have the occupation your parents had (and also their caste). In Rome, the classes were barbarians, slaves, soldiers, citizens, and among citizens, there were additional classes that were not hereditary, although barbarians, slaves, and citizens are hereditary classes. One could buy citizenship for an exorbitant fee. In Japan, the classes were defined by occupation: Merchant, farmer, artisan, samurai. These were also mostly hereditary, although some occupations, such as priest, did not fall within the hierarchy. In Europe, there were peasants and nobles, and a small class of merchants and artisans. In some cultures, you were the class of your father, and marriage is permitted between classes. In some, you were not permitted between classes. In some, you were the class of your father or mother, whichever is lower. Sometimes, these rules mixed, even within a culture.

So you need some way whereby one''s occupation and/or class become hereditary, and some way to differentiate between the two. You need some way for a patriarchy or matriarchy to form, such that the father''s or mother''s class is passed to the children. You need some way for a patriarchy or matriarchy *not* to form, so that class is passed down from either father or mother, whichever is either higher or lower.


How far are you going to take this into history? I think this sort of game would become quite unwieldy sometime in bronze age.

You have to make choices....

ESPECIALLY if you want it to go trough ages..

"Great my tanners are getting good. Oh damn no need for tanners anymore. I need Civil Engineers now."

The interface will be cluttered enough to choke a whale.

You could build other settlements in Settlers... And there was war... and ressource management was a big thing in it yes. But if you plan having tanners... then that''s pretty in depth ressource mangaement.

And the games probably will be too long for a quick multiplayer skirmish, so no one''ll want to play.

You might be abnle to pull an addictive, if time-consuming, single player game tough.

flarelocke:
I was thinking about the unassigned villagers. I figured I use simple system, you could do assign them manualy by click on the villager and then on the job. Or automatically by click on the building then pressing the added villager button in the building panel, which would choose a villager from the unassagined villager pool.

as far as classes go at present I''m thinking that they wouldn''t be a set thing in the game, more a reflection of the people in your civilization. So there would be no restrictions placed by classes a villager can do any job, provided they have high enough education for that job. Classes would really just be the division of labour in your civiliation. I''d probably have diffrent sprites to show what kind of job a villager is doing.
I''m also thinking of giving villagers some automany in the work place, for instance an unemplyed villager notices that food levels are running low and that a field is untended so they walk over and start working the field. Also culture would play a role in assingning jobs,for instance under captilisim they governemnt has very little control on the choice of peoples occupation, so the villagers would organize themselves and work whereever they are most suited.

as far as timeline I was figuring it go from the stone age to the present day.

xMcBainx:
Tanners where just an example, that I can up with off the top of my head. For instance in RTS games you build lumber mills to increase wood production. I was think along the same lines, For instance if you have a working mill your food production increases. Obviously though as you go through ages new commodites become important and others are not. For instance tanners would be need to make leather armor, which would make your soldiers tougher. Just like in any other RTS, game of course once you reach the middle ages, leather armor is less important since you can build metal armor which is far stronger. Players would just phase out there tanners over time as they become less important. For instance if you once you have good argriculture why bother having villagers assigned to hunting?

I don''t think it would be to time consuming to play since most of the work would be done automatically. Afterall once you build a mill and assigner villagers to work the mill you don''t have to do anything more with the mill.

But I agree that making the interface simple will be vital to keeping the game flowing quickly. It has to simple enough that any command can be done with a button and a mouse click. With the standard task being done with just a mouse click. But also allow for more advanced control for the players who want it.

So that if you want a rifleman, you just click on the the armory and press train rifleman, but also allow you to have a specific villager become that rifleman.
I''d need a system where the player has control over the amount of micromangement they want to do. Some player will want to control all their villagers manually will other will want to focus more imporant things and let the villagers handle themselves. Another way I might be able to this is work resource sliders. If you click on your village center, you can adjust all your resource aquistion with a quick mouse click on a slider, need more food click food to max and villagers who where gathering other resources will start gathering food.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

Battle Realms.

Villagers automatically pop out of a certain building periodically. I think the number of houses you have built increases this rate. These villagers can then be assigned to construct buildings, gather resources, or train somewhere. When you put a peasent on a barracks or whatever then they become a warrior. Warriors can then be trained at a more advanced building to become an even better unit, and so on.

The first part of your description sounded much like "Baldies".

The micromanagement does sounds quite daunting.

I would almost want to rule at a region-level rather than controlling the individual people. Whether you educate tanners or miners probably depends only on the local resources available. That''s why folks in Kansas eat more beef and potatoes, and folks on coastal areas eat more fish. (slightly askew analogy, but...)

Probably in the early game you would want person-level control, but in the endgame, you''d have millions of people, and no way to possibly control each city. Maybe each "epoch" has its own level of control? (allowing micromanagement, but supporting higher levels)


Another thought: what if you played in phases? The problem with realtime is that while you''re focused on making sure you have enough tanners, your military is stagnating, and vice versa. You could go generations without noticing a problem was happening. When war breaks out, all your attention is on the military. In a true government there would also be people working on the home front, rationing, keeping morale up, training, etc. Instead, maybe you play a realtime year out of each generation. That way you could avoid some of the tedium of "wait around for those blasted villagers to get educated", and (hopefully) have enough time to reach everyone. Battles might be odd, though. Not sure how phases would work out.


From your section on birth and death rates: "Also once you become sufficiently advanced you are able to develop immigration which mean people from other civilizations may join yours. You are also able to augment your work force with slavery by enslaving enemy villagers. "

Actually, this is a problem I have with all these civilization games. Usually it''s too simplified: you own a city or you don''t. You own a resource/land or not. But in reality, borders tend to be hazy. Where does your tribe end and the next begin? Immigration is always occurring. Particularly at the small tribe level, where you need the genetic diversity to stay alive.


I like the idea of the different styles of epochs.