Hi everyone!

Time to implement raiding and interband rivalry in my caveman simulator.

and i'm not sure what to do.

i've done the research and figured out how it really worked, but i'm still not sure what to do.

you'd have bands of cavemen, and they'd have good or bad relations with each other. they could raid each other for supplies, mates, slaves, etc. but killing would be somewhat rare, for fear of retribution. but on occasion, a band might be wiped out.

in the game, the player controls a band, similar to a household in the sims, or a PC and sqauddie NPCs in a shooter. the player can tab between band members at anytime.

non-player bands are either friendly or hostile. friendlies only become hostile if you attack. hostiles never become friendly.

if you kill all the hostiles at a cave or rock shelter, you clear it out. if you kill or drive away all hostile at a hut, you clear it out, and can take it over or demolish it.

taking of prisoners will be implemented. it was at one point already then turned off.

hostile raids on player caves, rock shelters, and huts (CRH's) are already modeled. if there's a player band member nearby, it triggers an hostile encounter. if not, there's a chance they take over (cave, rock shelter) or demolish (hut) your shelter, and you lose your stuff, depending on how well your shelter is camouflaged.

this is whats in the game so far.

i'm thinking one should be able to form alliances with friendly bands, and that hostiles should likewise form alliances, leading to tribes and nation states, and inter-tribal warfare.

any ideas?

why no way for hostiles to become friendly? there should also be levels of relations, with giving of gifts(food, shelter, slaves) and performing actions(quests, attacking enemies, attacking allies) to increase the friendliness/hatred of the different bands.

as well as actions that raise your relations with one band while reducing them for another: like raiding a known shelter of one band for the other band to take over.

another thing going along the lines of tribes and nations having power struggles between different bands within the tribe/nation with inter tribe rivalries and alliances.

each band should have their own motivations, beyond survival. and give quests based on those motivations.

maybe you encounter a band that's main motivation is expansion and they are more likely to raid others to increase their area. or even grow hostile the more you expand in their direction.

Yeah the first thing that jumped out at me was moneal's question: Why no ability to make enemy tribes friendly? If you need for there to always be some threat it would seem that animals could fill that role nicely. But if I'm playing a game where I'm encouraged not to kill but there are groups I can't even work to ally with I think I'm going to favor killing them just to get them out of the way.

Have you thought of inter-clan rivalries being moderated by formalized tribal competitions? It might go well with a non-violent (or at least non-murder) angle. The vibe I get is sort of a Clan of the Cave Bear summer or winter Gathering where tribes could trade goods, test their mettle, duel and even settle grudges, steal wives, etc. It would give you a meta-game goal to reach for as you play I imagine (especially if you could lose tribe members peacefully or gain them). Maybe this level of diplomacy could evolve officially and become something like the Icelandic Althing, where the most powerful leaders would meet to officially settle disputes and dispense justice. I can see this having Civilization / Alpha Centauri gameplay where you try to not only thrive but become influential enough to control the caveman equivalent of the United Nations.

While the concept appears original, I remember attending a seminar that glossed over a topic that you might feel relevant:

The "caveman theme", although strong and largely unused, it also one of the less appealing as a PLAYER.

The psychological reasoning behind this is that no one really wants to pretend they are an unevolved being (I'm really summarizing this here, but I suggest you have a look around).

A number of games have initially started from caveman-like themes and somewhat stretched out a bit to avoid making this allusion in the end (Dwarf fortress for example is very early human development centric, but it suddenly makes sense when put in the context of dwarves).

I'm not saying you should avoid using this theme, as I said earlier, I find it particularly interesting/original, but if I can drop one single bit of advice, I would definitely not play the immersion card here. The fact you get to manage a clan for example distanciate you from this and this is a good point. Perhaps it can help you make further decisions in that trend.

why no way for hostiles to become friendly? there should also be levels of relations, with giving of gifts(food, shelter, slaves) and performing actions(quests, attacking enemies, attacking allies) to increase the friendliness/hatred of the different bands.

yes, i'm thinking that simply having good guys and bad guys is too simplistic a model.

really there should just be other cavemen, who can range from friendly to hostile.

each band should have their own motivations, beyond survival. and give quests based on those motivations.

maybe you encounter a band that's main motivation is expansion and they are more likely to raid others to increase their area. or even grow hostile the more you expand in their direction.

hmm... thats an interesting one. thats taking it to another level. similar to the politics engine which drove campaign generators, which in turn drove mission generators in my star trek flight sim.

we've had this whole backstory thing and stringing quests together realistically plaguing the design of the quest gen for the game

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/638940-types-of-quests/

motivations might be the missing link.

Have you thought of inter-clan rivalries being moderated by formalized tribal competitions? It might go well with a non-violent (or at least non-murder) angle. The vibe I get is sort of a Clan of the Cave Bear summer or winter Gathering where tribes could trade goods, test their mettle, duel and even settle grudges, steal wives, etc.

yes, i've been leaning in this direction. perhaps not on a multi-band scale, but the same idea when two bands gather together.

I can see this having Civilization / Alpha Centauri gameplay where you try to not only thrive but become influential enough to control the caveman equivalent of the United Nations.

LOL i love that one!

your mentioning of the Althing is right on the money. the caveman version would just be on a smaller and more primitive scale.

this topic has actually spread to three related threads.

here are the other two...

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/641211-rpg-whats-left-once-youre-high-level/

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/638940-types-of-quests/

I'm not saying you should avoid using this theme, as I said earlier, I find it particularly interesting/original, but if I can drop one single bit of advice, I would definitely not play the immersion card here. The fact you get to manage a clan for example distanciate you from this and this is a good point. Perhaps it can help you make further decisions in that trend.

this is a little different from you typical "caveman" game.

this is what it was REALLY like.

you're not a "caveman", you're a fully developed homo sapien, just like you and me.

you are the baddest mo fo to ever come down the evolutionary pike, and are destined to rule the planet, exterminating countless other species in the process (50 of which i model).

it started as a D&D type game in a paleolithic setting. it has since evolved into a VR paleo-world. this version is pretty much 100% realistic and authentic, all backed up by scientific evidence. over 3 major versions i've spent about 6 years on the game, almost two of which was nothing but research (when was the net invented? and stuff like that).

To somewhat resound the sentiments of the previous posts, this seems rather simple in concept to solve.

Everything that you are at a basic level outlining currently has been exhaustively explored in many simulator games in the past.

For my two-cents, I would actually suggest looking at the Total War or Romance of the Three Kingdoms series', as the political war and social war involved was well done and is conceptually sounding close to the atmosphere of tension that you are looking for to create - instead of simply that of civilization which is not intense on every moment of political and warfare progression due to its interest in working a very long "evolutionary" track, rather than a localized period of simulation.

Because of that, I suggest these two period simulators which focus primarily on war and political alliances.

I also agree with moneal regarding the oddity of not being able to become friends with enemies; that is a rather crucial human behavior of societies.

Because of that, I suggest these two period simulators which focus primarily on war and political alliances.

hmm, the high level game in total war. yes an excellent politics war game. I'm a big fan of the series myself. I'll have to take a closer look at that.

I also agree with moneal regarding the oddity of not being able to become friends with enemies; that is a rather crucial human behavior of societies.

I've already started changing this, which has let to the questions: