I am designing an expansive economy system for a space trading game / faction based In the process of defining the economy, I am working on making a set of personality factors. These factors affect the prices and behavior of a society as a whole. Each planet has a set of societies that also interact with each other, until a point of equilibrium. Militant Ecological Productivity Religion Humanitarian Technology Artistic Egocentricity Although, some of the factors seem to be opposite, they are not for instance high eco and tech mean that the tech will be in favor of eco based technology high religion and high humanitarian would suggest a benevolent religon where as a high religion and low humanitarian would suggest a cult. and so on I would like to probe your minds for any additions / comments regarding the set of personality factors Edited by - ZenGeneral on December 23, 2001 3:41:46 AM

I''ve been playing with a similar idea for awhile now, and drawing inspiration from games like Alpha Centauri and Master of Orion (in terms of race / species personality types).

Something that might be cool to consider would be:

Major goals that factions could work towards. This might allow you to distinguish between two otherwise generic civilizations or factions that have the same personality types. For instance, two Benevolent Religious societies could have diametrically opposed goals, and instead of cooperating would create conflict and shifting alliances (though maybe not as aggressively as a warlike society).

Unique strategies / operations / tactics / agents: You best exhibit your personality and beliefs through your actions. I think in many cases it''s the unique quirks that make a society memorable (Vulcan logic; Kzinti pride; Vorlon mysteriousness; Wookie shaggyness, etc.) I think that if you create generic categories for personality for all of your factions, you may want to consider a few points that are exceptional, that no other species / faction / civilization gets to have.


As for other factors:

Law / Crime - Regime, or Al Capone gansterland?
Interventionist - Meddle or "Prime Directive?"
Commerce - Protectionist (tariffs) or Libertarian
Exploration - Stay at home or explore the universe?

While it can be fun to create a bunch of stats for worldbuilding, btw, I''d just like to add a word of caution: Try to tie the stats as closely as possible with things the player will directly experience in the game . Its a lot better when the Ecological or Artistic stat actually means something, rather than being just an emotionless number.




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Just waiting for the mothership...

The player will not really need the stats since the stats a) are dynamic, and b) used simply to describe the behavior of society. The behavior is used to calculate their aggression, tolerance, and such. The behaviors of themselves and their neighbors determine the basic prices for commodities.

For instance a peaceful society has an aggressive neighbor, the peaceful society will raise the desire for the defensive commodity/production value

A aggressive society with an aggressive neighbor will want more weapons. Sell them enough weapons, war will break out until a new equilibrium. War can be good or bad for the trader, depending on how the war effects the behavior