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Early Dev / An early modern sociopolitical simulation
« on: April 17, 2017, 09:03:57 PM »
TL;DR: here are some generated maps, which is the only thing I'm showing for now.
What it will be about?
I'm mainly inspired by two DF games, namely (of course) Dwarf Fortress and Daggerfall, maybe also Paradox games like Europa Universalis and well, me being a History B.A. (What I'll describe reminds me a little of Bay 12's Liberal Crime Squad, but I'm not that familiar with it.) The setting is mostly historical (1608 I believe?) but there may be some fantastical elements (like "horrific abominations from underground").
You shouldn't get to be a typical video game "hero" in this game. You can act bold and heroically if you want, but one-man armies should be impossible. Instead, you will have to learn to be a part of social structure of early modern Europe. To accomplish big goals, you have to organize people to help you in what you want to do: either as your serfs, supporters or companions.
The estate you were born into matters and determines what the society will let you do. But the game by itself shouldn't enforce that. For example, the law forbids noblemen engaging in trade or crafts. Technically you can do that, but people will start to despise you and eventually a court decision can kick you out of nobility. Society expects noblemen to fight in army and do politics. As a peasant, you should theoretically farm land for your lord, but you can also flee and become a bandit. Or, if you're lucky, strike a deal with your lord that you will rob people (or trade) and give him a share.
But all this should be ultimately changable. I want it to be possible in the game to do peasant uprisings and even completely dismantle feudalism, but this should be extremely, extremely hard and probably require some serious bloodbaths and propaganda. Well, almost like in real life.
Mechanics: bloody wars & epic speeches
I devised a relatively simple, but strategic way of representing all public assemblies: local conventions of nobility, town municipalities, the parliament, courts, parties of soldiers/bandits and so on. The game will be heavy on that kind of politics. I want a (modifiable) legal system functioning in the country. Also, we'll have a couple of wars going on, which means some focus on warfare and guerrilla.
It will be very important how your character is perceived by others. It is, to a large extent, based on some special statistics. Probably they will be Honor, Might, Love and Effectiveness. Of course, you won't be able to max them all out. For example in order to be effective, you sometimes have to do some dishonorable things that people won't love you for.
While the setting is roughly historical, randomness will be far-reaching. For example, the stat effects of each ~20 of ethnic identities and ~10 of religions will be randomized. I hope to have interesting emergent outcomes. Or a mess, but that's fine!
Cold reality of coding :]
Now, it is clear that this is one of those monumental simulationist endeavors. I will see how far I will get, but at some point (if the project survives) I would probably want to make it more of a team effort. I write the logic in Common Lisp (which is great) and currently use voxeljs as my graphical engine, but I'm not that commited to the latter. Many things I leave to figure out later.
Here are some "global" maps of the game area: [LINK].
I do have some issues with those maps. They still feel a little not enough big and detailed to me. Probably I will force that mountains can't be too populous. Also I'm not sure if wacky rivers are more of a bug or of a feature.
More details (including the title) will come when they'll come
What it will be about?
I'm mainly inspired by two DF games, namely (of course) Dwarf Fortress and Daggerfall, maybe also Paradox games like Europa Universalis and well, me being a History B.A. (What I'll describe reminds me a little of Bay 12's Liberal Crime Squad, but I'm not that familiar with it.) The setting is mostly historical (1608 I believe?) but there may be some fantastical elements (like "horrific abominations from underground").
You shouldn't get to be a typical video game "hero" in this game. You can act bold and heroically if you want, but one-man armies should be impossible. Instead, you will have to learn to be a part of social structure of early modern Europe. To accomplish big goals, you have to organize people to help you in what you want to do: either as your serfs, supporters or companions.
The estate you were born into matters and determines what the society will let you do. But the game by itself shouldn't enforce that. For example, the law forbids noblemen engaging in trade or crafts. Technically you can do that, but people will start to despise you and eventually a court decision can kick you out of nobility. Society expects noblemen to fight in army and do politics. As a peasant, you should theoretically farm land for your lord, but you can also flee and become a bandit. Or, if you're lucky, strike a deal with your lord that you will rob people (or trade) and give him a share.
But all this should be ultimately changable. I want it to be possible in the game to do peasant uprisings and even completely dismantle feudalism, but this should be extremely, extremely hard and probably require some serious bloodbaths and propaganda. Well, almost like in real life.
Mechanics: bloody wars & epic speeches
I devised a relatively simple, but strategic way of representing all public assemblies: local conventions of nobility, town municipalities, the parliament, courts, parties of soldiers/bandits and so on. The game will be heavy on that kind of politics. I want a (modifiable) legal system functioning in the country. Also, we'll have a couple of wars going on, which means some focus on warfare and guerrilla.
It will be very important how your character is perceived by others. It is, to a large extent, based on some special statistics. Probably they will be Honor, Might, Love and Effectiveness. Of course, you won't be able to max them all out. For example in order to be effective, you sometimes have to do some dishonorable things that people won't love you for.
While the setting is roughly historical, randomness will be far-reaching. For example, the stat effects of each ~20 of ethnic identities and ~10 of religions will be randomized. I hope to have interesting emergent outcomes. Or a mess, but that's fine!
Cold reality of coding :]
Now, it is clear that this is one of those monumental simulationist endeavors. I will see how far I will get, but at some point (if the project survives) I would probably want to make it more of a team effort. I write the logic in Common Lisp (which is great) and currently use voxeljs as my graphical engine, but I'm not that commited to the latter. Many things I leave to figure out later.
Here are some "global" maps of the game area: [LINK].
I do have some issues with those maps. They still feel a little not enough big and detailed to me. Probably I will force that mountains can't be too populous. Also I'm not sure if wacky rivers are more of a bug or of a feature.
More details (including the title) will come when they'll come