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[MDFification]

I have a brief idea. Essentially, it would be allowing civs to be allowed to settle in multiple biomes in the entity raw, but instead of picking one the civ in question instead randomly selects one biome and is restricted to it. This allows a single entity to generate civs localized to specific biomes, which could be integrated into further cultural deviation once development has progressed further IRL. E.g. You'd wind up with a human civilization localized entirely to marshes, utilizing only materials found in that biome, and that civ only colonizes further marshes close enough to it.
This'd create some political geography that makes a bit of sense (a culture is restricted to the area it's learned to colonize) and add some flavor to the game (civs only use materials from their biome, etc).

It'd be an excellent starting point for implementing more flavour-generating developments later down the line, for example random languages for each civ, conflicts between civs of the same entity, etc.

[GavJ]

This doesn't seem very realistic to me. If it's the same species, there's nothing that would FORCE them to be so selective and opposite somebody else of the same species. You could learn to adapt to a new environment almost as much as the next guy in a couple generations.

As a system with differently weighted preferences that shift slowly? Sure, that'd be cool. Ironclad restrictions, merrr..


Also, major issue: if civ A is always in marshes only, civ B is always in deserts only, then they can't have meaningful wars, really, because they can't occupy each others' sites. It would also imply that if they're that incapable of learning to live somewhere else, they'd be unlikely to run caravans there either. In general, it implies less interaction.

[SixOfSpades]

Well, if it adds flavor and some meaningful differences between the civs, I'm willing to overlook a little lack of realism. Besides, he has a point: Consider the Arctic, the Arabian desert, the Amazon basin, the Serengeti, and the Himalayas. All are populated, and have been for millennia. But translocate a group from any one of those locations to any of the others, and they'll all be dead within days.

With that said, cross-biome wars and trading caravans are still possibilities: Just ask the Vikings, Chinese, Romans, and Arabs. It's a nice place to visit/trade/plunder, but you don't have to live there.

True, some "in-your-native-biome-only" rules would be absolutely crippling, like a human civ that happened to land on a Mountain, which means no trees. Ever. And they probably can't get stone, either, so sucks to be them. I wouldn't take the rule THAT far. But since the "flavor" of each civ would only show up in what the caravans brought, I see no reason why the plants, animals, and garments they have for sale shouldn't reflect a certain culture & lifestyle. This "culture shock" would be especially noticeable if one's fort could be visited by multiple civs of a given race, which is another change that I'd like to see.

[MDFification]

Also, major issue: if civ A is always in marshes only, civ B is always in deserts only, then they can't have meaningful wars, really, because they can't occupy each others' sites. It would also imply that if they're that incapable of learning to live somewhere else, they'd be unlikely to run caravans there either. In general, it implies less interaction.

The civs should be able to occupy sites of other civs, I agree. Forgot to add that to the OP.

The main idea behind this (other than flavour adding with material usage) is that currently civs of the same entity generally overlap in territory and never interact with eachother anyway. Hopefully further down the line further interactions between civs of the same type can be implemented, but meaningful borders following geography could easily be implemented first.

There would of course have to be checks to keep civs from being placed in areas they can't feasible gather resources in - but maybe using this to spawn some civs restricted to lower technologies (different metals, mostly) as poorer nations/barbarians would be something that would add additional flavour.

[GavJ]

Current noninteraction is due to not being auto hostile and either it being impossible to declare war or rare due to shared ethics. Biome shouldnt matter now. If anything it increases chance of interaction by seeding them near each other.

[IndigoFenix]

Well, this is kind of the point of the entity system in the first place - a civilization has particular biome preferences, ethics, social structure, technology, etc.  If you want to model swamp-dwellers, glacier-dwellers, plains-dwellers, druids, nomads, empires, and others, you could just add new entities that use the same species.  Members of one entity may settle in the site of another entity, and since they are the same species, the migrations between them should be more-or-less fluid.

[GavJ]

Well, this is kind of the point of the entity system in the first place - a civilization has particular biome preferences, ethics, social structure, technology, etc.  If you want to model swamp-dwellers, glacier-dwellers, plains-dwellers, druids, nomads, empires, and others, you could just add new entities that use the same species.  Members of one entity may settle in the site of another entity, and since they are the same species, the migrations between them should be more-or-less fluid.

This is a really good suggestion that does better than the OP even wanted. I endorse doing this. It will accomplish all the biome stuff and actually make them declare war, and you can set up biome specific ethics that seem fun to you, etc.

[Chevaleresse]

How about this:

Entity A has biome tokens for everything except oceans.
Civilization X of Entity A settles in, say, a desert. Civ X's desert happens to be bordered by a taiga and a mountain range (It's a cold desert). Therefore, Civ X will build many large desert settlements, but will also build smaller settlements in any accessible taiga and mountains. They'll also build the occasional outpost or hamlet in any biome.

Civ Y of Entity A starts in a tropical rainforest that borders a marsh and mountains. Civ Y prefers the rainforest but will try to settle marshes and mountains, contacting Civ X and possibly going to war.

[Orange Wizard]

This could be vastly simplified by having some kind of a region claims system. An entity claims a region in a similar manner to site claims, and wars can be fought over that region.
Then give people biome preferences, some kind of "desire to expand", and adjust what regions are likely to be claimed by a given leader to fit their preferences.

[GavJ]

How about this:

Entity A has biome tokens for everything except oceans.
Civilization X of Entity A settles in, say, a desert. Civ X's desert happens to be bordered by a taiga and a mountain range (It's a cold desert). Therefore, Civ X will build many large desert settlements, but will also build smaller settlements in any accessible taiga and mountains. They'll also build the occasional outpost or hamlet in any biome.

Civ Y of Entity A starts in a tropical rainforest that borders a marsh and mountains. Civ Y prefers the rainforest but will try to settle marshes and mountains, contacting Civ X and possibly going to war.

This stuff is possible by making them all separate entities. You already have options to give entities "preferred" versus "tolerated" biomes.

An entity claims a region in a similar manner to site claims, and wars can be fought over that region.

That's not really how the world works, though? Boundaries change all the time, whereas this implies that, say, France will always be France, as in the same chunk of the same sized land, and just maybe owned by different people. But in actuality, the top 10% might get taken over but not the rest, etc.

There are also logistical concerns here. What if a starting area is tiny, like 4 world tiles of desert, and that's all they're allowed to live on. The "region" would have to be just 4 tiles, and that civilization is now completely screwed.  OR alternatively, regions are a mostly fixed size, but that would have to mean that the region has the desert + a forest + a taiga + blah blah, which is not what the OP is asking for, because it wouldn't be restricting the civ by biome.

I think what he wants (reasonably) is a civilization that might colonize, say, three disconnected from each other deserts in a row but not the space in between. Which, as cleverly pointed out above, you can do by making a 1-civ entity that can only colonize deserts, then another entity that only colonizes something else, etc. in the same species.

[Orange Wizard]

I'm talking about the sub-biomes with names like the Swamp of Infidelity and the Jungles of Murdering. In-game, these regions aren't very big. I can cross one in a day or so in adventure mode, depending on the size.
It's certainly not a perfect system. But it makes things simpler, and simple is good. Usually.