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[Leatra]

I just thought of something.
You should give settlements traits or some kind of sliders which dictates what you can do or what consequences actions in a city will have.
Like, in a high corruption settlement a bandit can sell their stolen goods without any uncomfortable questions asked.
Or in a theocratic city state you can easily recruit believers for a cause or another.

I like all these ideas! I'm still thinking about how civilizations are going to be defined, and I'm thinking along very similar lines to this. Pick a random series of traits for each civilization (with, at least, traits that match up) and then go from there. Obviously you won't get Elves who hate the environment, or dwarves who don't care the least for metalwork, but there should still be a lot of variation in the kinds of things you said - religiosity, corruption, militarism, traditionalism, expansionism, foreign relations, population demographics, etc etc . It would obviously affect what civs form alliances and wage war, too. Then once the game starts, let you find one you agree with to join; or if none, join one close, and try and influence it in the direction you want...

I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious. Stuff like that. Sounds awesome!

Don't forget forms of government too. Monarchism, democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy, anarchism, etc.

By the way, will we have strategic options when it comes to rivers? Like using archers to attack from one side to the opposite side.

[Ivefan]

I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious.

On this i guess there is a need for abstraction, else all the different kinds of social structures would need a lot of planning, analyzing and coding.
Consider this; A commercial settlement depends on other settlements to develop, thus the other settlements need to be generated first as the C.Set would probably be developed on a crossroads between other cities that do trade and have desirable resources.
Basically, unless abstracted, every city would need to examine the available resources, such as minerals, fertile ground, forests, strategical value.
How did it develop? Serfdom, slavery, freemen? Mercantile or free trade?

Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious.

Depending on URR's take on gods(divine dictating vs clergy politics), unless a theocracy wishes to expand and conquer, they rarely engage in hostile activities unless theres unrest at home. Whats better than a holy war for eternal glory to help those pesky plebs forget about the high taxes?
And i assume that this is a standard fantasy world, meaning that a science attribute is rather mislabeling. Technological advance would be to have sewers, aquaducts, irrigation and such things, rather than the Christianity vs free thinkers that you seem to envision.

URR, If you have time and interest, i suggest reading Malazan books of the fallen series by Stephen erikson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Erikson
Its a good source for ideas.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious. Stuff like that. Sounds awesome!

Don't forget forms of government too. Monarchism, democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy, anarchism, etc.

By the way, will we have strategic options when it comes to rivers? Like using archers to attack from one side to the opposite side.

Exactly what you said in the first paragraph is what I'm after . Cities will declare war based on species, gaining resources, gaining land, whatever. Different governmental system - some will be more suited to particular species, but it will otherwise be relatively random which each city/civilization ends up with (though there should be ways to subvert that system...). Oh, yes - when a battle starts, you can lay out your troops, and as a basic tactic, sticking your archers on one side of a river is a great way to protect them and let them deal damage freely. Hills also offer obvious advantages! Depending on the size of your force, how effective a commander you are, whether you're taken by surprise or not, etc, you have a certain period of time to tell your forces where to deploy to at the start of a battle. Similarly, once in battle, you can give orders to your archers to stay safe (though they will probably do that of their own accord, too).

On this i guess there is a need for abstraction, else all the different kinds of social structures would need a lot of planning, analyzing and coding.
Consider this; A commercial settlement depends on other settlements to develop, thus the other settlements need to be generated first as the C.Set would probably be developed on a crossroads between other cities that do trade and have desirable resources.
Basically, unless abstracted, every city would need to examine the available resources, such as minerals, fertile ground, forests, strategical value.
How did it develop? Serfdom, slavery, freemen? Mercantile or free trade?

Hmmm. I see what you mean. I'm not sure how resources are going to work yet; I don't want anything AoE-esque, where you need to (or need to be in a city that does it for you) gather wood, iron, etc - but at the same time, there obviously needs to be a limit on the amount of tempered steel you can make weapons from. I suspect I will end up deploying a resources system, but one that is primarily under-the-hood, and the player only has interaction at the 'output' end - setting mining priorities, etc. But I think cities will appear in locations that are good in terms of rivers, food, etc, and then they will *develop* according to the military etc resources nearby.

Depending on URR's take on gods(divine dictating vs clergy politics), unless a theocracy wishes to expand and conquer, they rarely engage in hostile activities unless theres unrest at home. Whats better than a holy war for eternal glory to help those pesky plebs forget about the high taxes?
And i assume that this is a standard fantasy world, meaning that a science attribute is rather mislabeling. Technological advance would be to have sewers, aquaducts, irrigation and such things, rather than the Christianity vs free thinkers that you seem to envision.

URR, If you have time and interest, i suggest reading Malazan books of the fallen series by Stephen erikson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Erikson
Its a good source for ideas.

Yeah - while I do intend to include gods, I'm not sure how they'll connect to cities yet. We'll have to see. As you say, technology is more 'development' than 'science', but I don't want a totally static/uchronian fantasy world either. I have heard of those, actually - I'll let you know if I find time to give them a look ! I probably read about a book a week (either fiction/non), but I've already got a gigantic backlog of books on my shelves as it is

In the mean time, I'm building up to a big screenshot update on the 26th; will include currents in rivers, and forests, and all kinds of stuff not shown in the http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/19/the-case-of-the-penrose-river-2/ screenshot!

[Ivefan]

Hmmm. I see what you mean. I'm not sure how resources are going to work yet; I don't want anything AoE-esque, where you need to (or need to be in a city that does it for you) gather wood, iron, etc - but at the same time, there obviously needs to be a limit on the amount of tempered steel you can make weapons from. I suspect I will end up deploying a resources system, but one that is primarily under-the-hood, and the player only has interaction at the 'output' end - setting mining priorities, etc. But I think cities will appear in locations that are good in terms of rivers, food, etc, and then they will *develop* according to the military etc resources nearby.

Unless is a oppressive slave city, workforce allocation is not that flexible. Generally you would have an average with its ups and downs due to poor harvests, accidents or similar events.
When generating the world, you should allocate resources to regions with variables such as total amount, recovery rate(water & forest, max possible yield per time unit. A quality score between 1-5 (for unusable, poor, average, good, perfect) to determine trade value and desirability. This would reflect, for example, a marsh wood with fragile wood thats not worth using.
You could also add supernatural traits to the resource such as sentient forests, nature spirits infested waterfalls or leviathan occupied lakes.
Right now i can only think of the more obvious resources; Forest, minerals, water(lake, river, ground water, springs and oases) and arable land.
When all city sites has been designated, it should check the adjacent ones and examine their resources to determine imports and exports. Say that only one city in the region has abundant arable land, then this city would probably expand its agricultural industry to sell food to the nearby cities as long as those has something that the farmtown wants/needs and this would in turn increase the population growth potential of the trade partner.
TL;DL Every city should end up with the following resource variables; extraction amount and potential, city consumption(local and trade agreements) and excess(what you can buy as an outsider)

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Unless is a oppressive slave city, workforce allocation is not that flexible. Generally you would have an average with its ups and downs due to poor harvests, accidents or similar events.
When generating the world, you should allocate resources to regions with variables such as total amount, recovery rate(water & forest, max possible yield per time unit. A quality score between 1-5 (for unusable, poor, average, good, perfect) to determine trade value and desirability. This would reflect, for example, a marsh wood with fragile wood thats not worth using.
You could also add supernatural traits to the resource such as sentient forests, nature spirits infested waterfalls or leviathan occupied lakes.
Right now i can only think of the more obvious resources; Forest, minerals, water(lake, river, ground water, springs and oases) and arable land.
When all city sites has been designated, it should check the adjacent ones and examine their resources to determine imports and exports. Say that only one city in the region has abundant arable land, then this city would probably expand its agricultural industry to sell food to the nearby cities as long as those has something that the farmtown wants/needs and this would in turn increase the population growth potential of the trade partner.
TL;DL Every city should end up with the following resource variables; extraction amount and potential, city consumption(local and trade agreements) and excess(what you can buy as an outsider)

Very interesting thoughts. I am going to have some areas with a creature (or creature camp) that obviously limits the ability of the nearby city to use its resources (until you, or another army, clear it out). I definitely agree on arable land and fresh water; I'm composing a quick list of things like iron, copper, bronze etc, that have clear military use; marble and stone for construction; gold for wealth generation; etc. As cities only appear in areas with sufficient resources, any city is at least going to have stone and wood and construction, and something to make weapons from, as a bare minimum. I'm going to get a very basic version of this system going for the alpha to get ruins spawning in the right places - these ruins, of course, will in later builds no longer be ruins any more. I really like the inter-city trading; caravans are actually a pretty early NPC priority, both for the player to trade with, and for cities to trade between themselves, allowing an easy point of attack when trying to starve an empire out, or similar!

Also merry christmas all, and winter screenshot update coming tomorrow!

[shaihulud]

merry xmas to you too!!! this project just sounds too good to be truth

[Ivefan]

marble and stone for construction; gold for wealth generation

Marble is also wealth rather than common construction material and either go for precious resources as a common term or include silver, gold and gems(sub-categorized or not).

As cities only appear in areas with sufficient resources, any city is at least going to have stone and wood and construction, and something to make weapons from, as a bare minimum.

Humans(your fantasy civilizations is what you make of em) is adaptive, as long as there's water and food they can be almost anywhere, so its just building materials that is a qualifier for settlements.
Bare minimums;
One construction material; Wood, Clay or Stone.
Water.
Source of food; Herds, Agriculture or fishing.

Also consider two rounds of settlement generation, Old settlements that had all requirements from the start, and new settlements that traded for the necessities but have an abundance of other resources or a special resource.

Weapon materials is anything from bone and stone to copper and steel. Simply consider that any currently existing city would either had materials from the start or would have traded for it to stay competitive. If they had not, they would have been conquered.

caravans are actually a pretty early NPC priority, both for the player to trade with, and for cities to trade between themselves, allowing an easy point of attack when trying to starve an empire out, or similar!

Caravans is more important to the small time bandit or warlord than the would-be conqueror. Starving a city while not actively sieging it would be to lay waste to farmlands.
Which makes me think of another point, that is crop cycles and harvest time when the farmers bring their yield to the city.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Marble is also wealth rather than common construction material and either go for precious resources as a common term or include silver, gold and gems(sub-categorized or not).

Humans(your fantasy civilizations is what you make of em) is adaptive, as long as there's water and food they can be almost anywhere, so its just building materials that is a qualifier for settlements.
Bare minimums;
One construction material; Wood, Clay or Stone.
Water.
Source of food; Herds, Agriculture or fishing.

Also consider two rounds of settlement generation, Old settlements that had all requirements from the start, and new settlements that traded for the necessities but have an abundance of other resources or a special resource.

Weapon materials is anything from bone and stone to copper and steel. Simply consider that any currently existing city would either had materials from the start or would have traded for it to stay competitive. If they had not, they would have been conquered.

Caravans is more important to the small time bandit or warlord than the would-be conqueror. Starving a city while not actively sieging it would be to lay waste to farmlands.
Which makes me think of another point, that is crop cycles and harvest time when the farmers bring their yield to the city.

I've set up a very quick test system today - cities need to spawn near fresh water; near wood and stone for construction; within range of copper, tin OR iron; and then within range of one of a bunch of other, varied factors (like no monsters nearby, a nearby shrine, nearby gold, near a coast, etc). I'm still working on food, but I guess that'll become clearer once I populate the world with peaceful animals like horses etc.

Interesting old settlement/new settlement idea - like the new ones only appear once an empire is well-established, and really wants to found a city next to a large deposit of gold, say, or next to a particularly vital shrine?

Oh, yeah, caravans are more for weakening production than for starving, but again, this is all in the future. I think after the initial alpha, if I can get a few villages making use of nearby resources, that would be great. Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one... thanks for all the great ideas, anyway . I quickly put in resources this morning, as I say, and I'll probably start thinking about wild animals (for the initial alpha) very soon, and those will have an effect on city generation...

[Nighthawk]

Is building small structures and possibly houses on one's lonesome going to be a possibility? It would be interesting to survive alone in the wild, with the wooden shack you constructed yourself.
Oh, and if you construct a few small houses, will it be possible for them to be populated by traveling caravans?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Is building small structures and possibly houses on one's lonesome going to be a possibility? It would be interesting to survive alone in the wild, with the wooden shack you constructed yourself.
Oh, and if you construct a few small houses, will it be possible for them to be populated by traveling caravans?

Ah, these are questions I have been pondering. You will, in the very first alpha in a few months, be able to set up camp, light a campfire, and similar. When you are in an army, those in charge of the army will deploy tents, fires, etc - similarly, if you lead them, you'll be able to set up and deploy your camp when you make base during a longer march. I think I will likely allow some basics of construction beyond that, but not many - especially as the focus is on large armies, I'm more interested in encampments and fortifications than small areas for the player, but we'll have to see what makes sense!

In the mean time, I've gone back a bit and added a heightmap in, properly, to the world map. This is enabling hills, more interesting coastlines, and all kinds of other funky stuff.

For instance, a comparison of the same area on the minimap looks like this:



I've uploaded a load of new screenshots and looks at the world in today's devblog entry @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/26/winter-screenshot-update/ - how does everyone think it's looking?

[trees]

Looks great! Very excited to get to (eventually) play this, hehe.

[Ivefan]

Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one...

I guess you'll abstract the farming so that no specific type of crop is selected which means that the harvest time should be averaged over a time.
Say that crops is harvested and delivered during all of autumn. Although i've forgotten how to to the math for it and the name in English, Take the total crops yield, spread it out over all of autumn starting and finishing with a low yield while it peaks during mid-autumn.
Well, This is just for a temperate climate area, which means that if you're going to implement tropical or warm climates you're going to have to increase the harvest time and yield due to multiple harvests.

thanks for all the great ideas, anyway .

I'm full of ideas and inspiration, I just dont have an outlet.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Looks great! Very excited to get to (eventually) play this, hehe.

Haha, thanks - I'm still pretty confident about the schedule I posted on the blog last week

Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one...

I guess you'll abstract the farming so that no specific type of crop is selected which means that the harvest time should be averaged over a time.
Say that crops is harvested and delivered during all of autumn. Although i've forgotten how to to the math for it and the name in English, Take the total crops yield, spread it out over all of autumn starting and finishing with a low yield while it peaks during mid-autumn.
Well, This is just for a temperate climate area, which means that if you're going to implement tropical or warm climates you're going to have to increase the harvest time and yield due to multiple harvests.

thanks for all the great ideas, anyway .

I'm full of ideas and inspiration, I just dont have an outlet.

Yes, I guess something like that. I'd like to get cities storing grain, eventually, so that you can send forces to destroy it, etc, as another method of weakening a city pre-siege. Well, do keep them coming, I'm eager to incorporate peoples' ideas into URR wherever possible!

[justinlee999]

Oh God my favourite things all in one game...

yipeee

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Oh God my favourite things all in one game...

yipeee

Haha - my initial planning was basically "What would be cool/interesting/awesome in a game?" and I'm proceeding from there