To start off, yes this idea was heavily influenced by many years of playing civ, civ type games and strategy games altogether. To the point, So far I have come up with basic trivial platform ideas that revamp the idea of civ game modeling using means of representation to simulate a steady time experience. The first thoughts occured to me when I was homeless and obseving the societies around me. I simply thought back to the years of elementary school when I was to ignorant to pay attention and reevaluated some thoughts based on 6th grade history text covering early man kind. All together the ideas rushed to me, adopted from the civ call to power model, you have 4 types of mainstream workers, laborers, scientists, entertainers and merchants. Thinking back to the class pyrimids of egypt I reinterpreted these thoughts to paint a platform of: Workers-the higher level acheivers of finer specialized skill and/or trade: Produce, sell, expand. Labororers:Gather, ship, service/prepare. At the higher end of the pyramid:Officials-Manage, represent, govern. Levels of laborers: Farmers-Gather food via stock-tending and crop-harvesting. Fishermen-Gather food via sea faring. Hunters-Gather food viahunting(duh) Gatherers-Gather food via foraging(1 more duh) Miners-Gather hard and vast minerals via minning. Foresters-Gather organic earths via lumber mining. Mersinarry-Highers for multiple jobs(shipping, packing, receiving storing ect...)The gap filler. Levels of workers: Merchants-sells/promotes/invests in material/products/services. Entertainers-The most unique for entertainment, luxury, leisure, learning and advancing from a theatrical point of veiw. Artisans-Crafters, workers, producers of seviced raw materials for demanded consumption. Engineers-Builds and improves, the constructors and architechts. Scientists-experimenting, advancing, teaching. The thinkers and improvers as well as teachers. Levels of officials: Dignitary-Officer for study and observation/inspection for the nation(internal affairs/watch dog). Also representative and part of the assembly for constitutions and parlimentary systems. Office-The enforcer of the laws and regulations layed down by the general government.(Police/guards). Diplomat-Head of official observationand investigation of other nations. Stays at homeland offices. Emmisarry-Official diplomatic representative sent out to stay for long periods of time or indeffinately with other nations to establish and take up an embassy. Ambassidor-Official diplomatic representative sent out to meet with other national representatives for a short term of discussion/negotiation. Each class requires set skills of ability(say a qualified ambassidor in the middle ages requires {on a scale from 1-10 that upgrades with each passing age as it becomes inherant} a literary skill of 7, a conduct skill of 10, analyzation skill of 6, and a speach craft skill of 10). These skills measure the quality and efficiency of the entire society and how it functions. All these skill mantenence needs can be met with automation of managing your civ from a growing basis of generality and mass affect. SO as your civ grows, so will your managing technique. Right now I have the platform for traites and skills as follows: Skills- Worker:construction/crafting/creation- Taking away: Carving-The use of carving is to take away from an object for a befitting purpose. Sculpting-Sculpting is taking away to leave a bare form. Sheething-cutting through something, cutting off to define an end for befitting form. Sheering-to cut away or strip from the outside-in to leave a bare form. Bringing together: Molding-condensifying to bring about a form. Casting- bringing together for connection and definition. Smelting-combining different elements to improve and/or diversify structural integrity. Forging-Refining, purifying and servicing to bring about the utmost strength of a finished structure. Weaving-widdling together a soft yet flexible bond for durability and quality. Sewing-placing together for a befitting solution to finalize a straucture. For managing skills it is: Literary- Process of mapping out the situation in uniform understanding. Speachcraft-Process of communicating sucessfully(clear and distinguished). Conduct-Process of utilizing combined skills to display charicter and influence favorand/or understanding. Analyzation-Process of collaboration through observation and experience, to advance and teach to others. Physical skills are: Sustaintion- To stand ground to experience at the moment direction. Evasion-To eveade for pure avoidance or distant negotiation. Redirection-To augment greater responding directorial control for control of or rechanelling of at the moment direction. Illusion-To deceive the at the moment direction into alure. Mental skills: Form-approach,strategy, over all idea. Pattern-model, method, improvosation. Texture-Technique, adaptation, refinement. Contrast-veiw, origin of perspective. Focus-Drive, goal, desire. All skills are interplayable and your citizens amount to different efficiencies carving the diverse paths of society all the way through. All the skills basical derive from the physical mental charicteristics of each citizen and all jobs or tasks are skill focused for efficiency simulating what bare traits people use to make their skills become strengths. And the cycle goes, most laborers look to their basic physical skills to make their work. Workers use a mixed focus of all both namely structure skills tho. ANd government officials look to the management skills to keep control and well....manage their empire. There is one thing tho, A citizen can learn all of these things it's just all about what else is going on in the game, which is turn and tiled based by the way. And as far as meter breakers go, many monuses may occur, GREAT people, grea city, region nation. All kinds of stuff. And now to the point, it is a symetrical model I have exprimenting implimenting to create a basis geared on idealogies from direct representaion by wording and and the open values they hold pertaining to all aspects of different faces(trade, government, war-fare, diplomacy) and hoping people can read into that idea and see where I'm going. That's basically it for now as I am very tired. I hope you liked it so far and please feel free to shed feed back and questions. I'd be happy to communicate my ideas.

More to the drive.
To break this model down a little more, I'm basically working from an angel of defining connections.

You start off with a small band of people around a fire hut, in the game. (You, your few spear throwers, and common settlers). Your citizens start off with predefined mental skills.

Form-approach,strategy, over all idea.

Pattern-model, method, improvosation.

Texture-Technique, adaptation, refinement.

Contrast-veiw, origin of perspective.

Focus-Drive, goal, desire.

The citizens can be immediately deployed to do various tasks at your desire.
The sciences or "technologies", resembling from prehistory to stone age era, all star off with are:
Hunting
Hafting
Bonemolding
Carving
Foraging
Twining
Using these survival skills pertaining to environmental surroundings, trades and meter surpassed skill levels, opens up learning curves into new techs, from routine survival method.

So say you send a settler to forage from a brush forrest.
First of all, the settler takes on a female graphic display, and starts foraging. Depending on where a player starts in a random map, usually dictates the random yet generalized mental skill starting points.

Keeping in mind that coastal/lowlands- aids in extra contrast to mentality and sustaintion to physicallity.

If inland/highland-aids in evasion to physicality and form to mentality.
Now,

If you start out in open feilds/grasslands/plains, the major points would be Mental traites- form and pattern.
Physical traites-redirection and illusion.

If open feilds/prairies/badlands:then Mental traites-pattern and focus.
Physical traites-Redirection and evasion.

If forrest/jungle: then mental skills texture and focus.
Physical-Sustaintion and redirection.

Finally in mountainous/hilly regions it's: Mental traites-texture and contrast.
Physical traits-Sustainsion and redirection.

Now just to say, an efficient forager/gathering( which requires the trait-sustaintion, redirection, pattern and focus), by stone age standerds wouldn't need to be meter breaking as technology is not exactly rocket science and populational deman is low.
To keep it short, traites are of the citizens to refine skills, which can be used upon a multitude of jobs sharring common pattern of similar technique and are deemed as trades. Thats the builder model. THe chick forages say, wildberries from bushes. She brings this back to the tile where the spear throwers(male) are storing the hunting wins. They eat meat and berries. Soon there is a desire to change or broaden diet. Now she and her girlmates use sticks to dig for root vegetables. The early forms of wood working are now being summoned. You already have hafting, twining and carving. These soon become hedging and a cast method. hedging to replace hafting, increasing the output of production, and casting, to begin sling making which soon becomes(bow crafting, raft making, plank sewing, falconry.....ect.)

Also the manner in terms of efficiency, wholeness of purity and fashion of relavance in which these advances are discovered all make a strctural basis of over all technological efficiency. Sounds complex, but really all this means is the standerd levels of the discoverers, will be known as teaching standerds, andtechs ar e representitives the create their own tecchs, and then only major representation techs appear on the main line advancement agenda. Sort of simulating tech ammendings and major biproduct or side effect results.
ie-twining + molding = weaving(weaving is unlocked. A simple discovery.

Hunting + bonemolding= forging An example that unlocks a main representative tech skill that will forever drive society in that fashion of use.(forging unlocked)

Then short term mutual growers from combination.
Clay molding + carving =sculpture
sculpture + forging= pottery

pottery + sculpture= concrete

concrete = plank sewing = construction A base pattern in harmonistic regeneration evolves from ideal similarities.

And then theres amending the same thing.
Clay molding + foraging= cultivation(cledging)

Constructing + cultivation= ammended cultivation( cultivation2, irrigation).
This is the idea the new tech discoveries ammend the ways other techs are impllimented to certain points and levels. These are but a few examples just reenacting the developements that showed to have happened so long ago in our world, just in different ways.

Now, enough of that speile, the bnext thing on my mind is governemnt, parlimentary, and constitution.
It's this simple, the people are like highly potential employees that help you nation grow behind the influences and enforcement of the few top officials you make your staff out of.
Choosing governments is nothing more than basing the focuses of how you want to govern the population and what they do. There are guide rail choices, though you can deeply disect and reconstruct using in word commands like the actions, skills, trades, traites.......all sorts of things like a civilapedia. Simply see what the people are bitching about or promoting and make rules, laws or regulations that either promote something with these models.
Positive rienforcement, negative rienforcment, capitol punishment, national reward. It's simply yesing or no or both to death the topics you present in the boxes to form an ammendmant. If it is of a perminant governing model, it is a constituion. If a ratifyable or ammendable addative, an ammendment, if a series of regulatory laws and codes, and their method of enforcement, it's a parlimentary doctrine.

The guide rail choices-

Tyranny, ran by you leading your military control band and people on the basis of war, and brute force diplomacy. If you do not keep up with this model of play for a certain number of turns(as is with any aspect of the game, called the test of time summoning), your people will revolt(no real details needed, do the math they saw weakness and rose against repression the end.)

Despotism-Is actually living by the marketing and religifying of war. War is the apparatic, aural patriotic influence.(war good production must be leading output, acts of honerability are an anal retentivelevels of seriousness.)

Feudalistic-Trade is the base value of rule. The city with the greatest amount of trade for merchants to sell, knights to be satisfied and people to be content, makes the head capitol.(If cities revolt or your capitol is bested or moved without your doing, you must fight to regain it. All cities unfortunately out of that cities influence reach join the movement. All cities out of the traitor cities influence reach and in yours, stay with you, you lose the toss up.

The rest is -You must be getting bored,
Aristocracy, monarchy, theocracy, anarchy, republic, communism, democracy, fascism, economacy, fundamentalism and virtual anarchy. Feel free to ask.

That said, now let's move on to diplomacy and trade/economics and some gameplay

Using the model from earlier disscusion, you can send out hunters through square spaces(that are just tiles with 9 smaller district representing suares within. Movement costs are now a matter of district coverage.
Anyway, if you move your hunters into the same square being occupied by another civ, Flags will appear agnologing recognition and, after a turn shift, If the computor player advances to the next or middle district closer, this means their willing to prepare tea and biscuits. Not really but you can match that move and a diplomacy screen fires up. You can do various things, enguage in conversation over culture, origins(shows land area not cities), locations(shows cities), heritage, techs, trade and skills(current apllication technique that each party is or was most recently involved in.)ie hunting
This is a polite conversative process that is a method of exchaning actual archivable info that can be used for intelligence. You may do this in polite, indulgent(selfless), crafty(deceptive), harsh, or demanding state. (Given history and pattern calls upon the test of time thing again that each nation will hold accountable towards the way they veiw you in accordance with the way you conduct your civ diplomatically.) You can politely, harshly or demand skip straite to business, Forfeiting the ability of boosting disposition by intrigue of conversing, to get business dealt with quickly.
Or
You can offer to demonstrate,(allow them to gain experience through observation the skill of choice). or offer to step aside and observe.
Or
You can withdraw, or finaly, engage.

It's all up to you, however you want to do it.

Ofcourse, the other party may engage or withdrw altogether and persuit is an intrusive yet not necessarily war condoning action. (Governments and traites greatly define these moments.)All basically a structural darwinism that constantly reevaluates itself in code around the same base platform.

Now about trade. Trade goods are many and quite plentiful with refining gathering methods. All goods make something or a veriety of somethings(products).
Mainly the foods and harvest goods are general and easy to recognize. You ofcourse have the five basic groups.
Yet they are broken down a little more to be law abiding specific as well as trade specific, while able to either isolate to a specific resource or in a general class.
Things like cattle, poultrey, horses, pigs, sheep and wild cattle are the meat, and/or multi value stock livestock. Animals can be added to production/merchant operations and units(mining, construction, shipping, leisure or entertainment, sales, ect.)to augment the output of that part of your civ. There is also no limit except that of your harvest capabilities.
Next you have stock like, fish, water mamals(whales, dolphines), crustations and big fish(sharks and squids).
These are the high end value foods and greatest source of rare hide, ivory and oils shedders.

Last but not least, you have crops and produce.
Broken down as so,
Root fruits(sweet harvest)
apples, plums, tomatoes, squashes, oranges, pineapples, cocnuts, strawberies, cherries, cranberries, olives and grapes, chillies, and peppers.

(starch harves)
Cucumbers, peanuts, potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips, and yams.

(Root veggies)
carrots, onnions, garlic, cabbage, beets, raddishes, beans, broccoli, and green sprouts.

And then ofcourse there's the berrie bushes, which are the net smallest form of food production.

Grains- wheat, barly, rice, oats, sugarcane, hops, coco, corn.

And for some cash crops is-cotton, tobacco, hemp, dies, silks and fibers, veg oil crops, and incense, coffee, tea.

Fishery harvest structures can raise(aside from livestock cashing resources) sea weeds, corrals, and water elements(mercury, salt, pearls ect.)


Now for all you lumberjack/woodsman/forester type.
Forrests grow as so:
Desiduous masses-Oak, chestnut, mapple, ash, cherry, beach, teek, palm, tullip and bamboo.

Connifers-Spruce, pine, ruberus, and willow. (I'm not well informed with carniffers.)

Evergreens are the mixed coverage of both types growing.

Now, deciduous harvest is good for hardwood and construction/lumber working suppliment as well as scrap forraging(fruits nuts, flowers.

Connifer harvest is the base of refined goods such as paper, waxes, dies, saps, resins and residues. Paper, plastices, non-metalic composite and synthetic materials come frome connifer forrest lands, as well as ruber and fine fibers for weaving(twining) and sewing.

Form mixing both types can produce various alchemaic and medicinal goods, and some composite early age products like composite bow.

Now for the real stoners and metal heads:
Stones and hard earth materials are indeed a scattered and varios property that defines our planetary structure and stability. To make it short, the resource grid may look something like this.

Small deposites
Grasslands- sandstone, sulfur, coal, flint, shale, formica, saltpeter..

Badlands-obsidian, oil, plutonium, marble, saltpeter, flint, limestone.

Forrests-flint, coal, formica, sulfur, obsidian, silver, gold.

Jungle-jade, coal, ebony, ivory, turkoise.

Ideal deposits

Rocky dunes-sandstone, marble, shale, flint, limestone. Zinc, nickel, tin.

Hills-formica, flint, obsidian, ebony, iron, marble, limestone, granite, silver, gold.

Desert-sandstone, diamond, limestones, obsidian, silver, gold.

Mountains-granite, marble, shale, formica, sulfur, saphire, diamond, ruby, emeral, copper, iron, nickel, tin, zinc, alum, plutonium, silver, gold.

Polar town- iron, nickel, alum, tin, plutonium, granite, sulfur, diamond and, mercury.

Could you sum up what you're trying to achieve? It's tempting to reel off a long list of skills and features and technologies that you want to cram into the game but I didn't see a good concise description of the gameplay. I'm far more interested in the rules and aims of the game than in what resources come from a jungle area.

Well, then check this out,

Growth
Housing-citizen count, citizen qualities, employment, and land values.
houses- maintanence, valueation, influences, contentment.

maintanence=stock share, environment, basic needs
valuence=enrionment, influences, potential, structure
influences= military, martial law, enforcement, representaion, culture, advancement
contentment=environment, leisure, luxuries

All improvements are set to be built on a starnderd game input basis. This standerd can be tailored in terms of size and materials used to make structures of insane size, large or small in any of the 3 dimensions. As well the structural layout in total may also be tailored. The poin of tailoring size is to house more people.
Each tile represents 9 districts. I chose to make each district a total of 100 acres. 1 citizen takes up .01% of an acre in game terms.

( ) = optional, material/material means choice of or altogether as otional(resource rich or not to bright)
Housing styles-
Tent- 1 person skin/hide shelter
Yurt-3 person skin/hide/fur shelter
Shack-4 personhedged timbers, grasses, skins/hides/furs shelter
Shantee-4 personFalconed timbers, fibers, grasses
Pabolo- mudstone/claymold, sewn lumbers
Bunk- sewn stone and lumber
Adobe- molded stone/masonry
Hobbito- sewn lumbers/paneling/shingeling
Maner- sewn lumber, panneling/shingeling, tiling
Commons- masonry, sewn lumber,metal, tiling
Caseda-concrete, shigeling, tiling
Cabin- sewn lumber, metal, grasses/fibers
Gothic- masonry, sewn sculpturic sone, metal, glass
Cathaic-concrete, sewn metal, sculprturic stone, tiling, glass
Rennaisanic-sewn (sculpturic)stone/masonry/lumber, glass, tiling
Victorian- sewn lumber, panneling, shingeling, tarring, tiling, glass
Suburban/Urban- sewn metal, lumber, masonry,dry wall, shingeling, tarring, panneling, tilling, plumbing, electrical
Apartment8people/heicienda20people/condo50people-Concrete, sewn metal/stone/masonry/dry wall, lumber, panneling, tilling, tarring, plumbing, electrical
Mansion-all and any.4 people

Citizen terms and space:
First off, back to the efficiency of citizens(aside from how much matrial aid they require from stock share to stay content with basic needs), also depends how much room they require to stay content from minimal overcrowding efects(which can be treated withother things like overloaded basic material needs, luxuries, leisure, enforcement influence).

As long as a citizen is idle, no matter what the potential, the citizen will only ever require 2 square paces.
Now, in oreder of explain that, the world is made up of tiles. These tiles however, represent large masses of land that are diced down into districts, 9 to be exact, and these districts are made up of dashes which are in turn made up of paces. Paces are the casual step sizes of citizens taken will walking about. and everything is squared obviously.
There are 60 paces to a dash. 20 dashes to a league. 5 leagues to a district. That makes 18,000 square paces per tile.
As an active citizen grows, so to does the desire of greater spacing for comfort, and the ability to cover more land. Efficiency level 2 citizens require 4 square paces and can treck two tiles per turn.
Level 3 desire 9 square paces and can treck 2 tiles.
Level 4 desire 16 SL. and treck 3 tiles.
Level 5 desire 25 SL. and treck 3 tiles.
Level 6 desire 36 SL. and treck 4 tiles.
Level 7 desire49 SL. and treck 4 tiles.
Level 8 desire 64 SL. and treck 5 tiles.
Level 9 desire 81 SL and treck 5 tiles.
The honerable level ten people Desire 100 SL. And can treck 7 tiles.
Being able to treck tiles is a basis of total coverage of open grounds. Altitude related obstacles different variations of the pace percentage based on the individuals familiarality with that type of terrain. Due to obvious level oriented representation, the level goes down 1 to 1 to 2 to 2 ect. districts that can be covered. High specialty full blown level ten purist all meter breaking people only ever get 1 district movement loss, even when hauling max loads of wight.


Back to the growth point, a house supports a citizen or colloection of citizens, and it all comes down to meeting basic needs to stream a steady growth situation(growth spurs from efficiency percentage).
Yet again does the ability to surpass this come as if the conditions are really well, growth can be as good as bacteria(doubles every turn). However ofcourse that means more to manage, and if to many mistakes, a very large and angry mob at your doorstep. That's all I basically got for now. I've bin up for over 30 hours thinking bout this stuff, I'm gonna pass out and I'll be back latter. Hope to get some replies.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
When you're dealing with Civ-scale games, it's very freakin' difficult to isolate it down to different areas. But that's what you'll need to do.

Consider this:

What are you doing that Civ hasn't already done? And what areas are you ignoring that Civ does?

Why should I play your game over Civ?

What aesthetic end do you wish to achieve? That is, having finished playing this game, I will walk away with what feeling? (For Civ, I walk away with the feeling to nurturing an empire over 4000 years and smashing my rivals. You need the same encapsulation, in one sentence, to help focus this).

The action palette and variants you listed don't, at this point, help you. Keep them for yourself, most definitely, and save them for later, because they're going to form the first major wall you hit after design: Art assets (you want X character animations, but can only afford Y artists, etc.).

Tile and world size: This needs an abstraction. Even hardcore Civ enthusiasts aren't going to manage tens of thousands of tiles, nor want to move troops over them, nor develop them. Consider sacrificing volume for achieving the correct aesthetic.

Best of luck!

Ok, good idea and thanz for the input.
For starters,

What are you doing that Civ hasn't already done?

I am aiming to make the gameplay a more broadened and realistic experience. From my point of veiw I'm trying to make the eye candy-wysiwyg feeling expanded to match the level of game play concept. As far as I see it, games today are perhaps a little to over driven with graphics and not enough purpose to back them up, Im trying to connect the ultimate net of meanings do to the desires of a highly impressionable audience of consumers that love the drive of winning(in this theme ie history rehashing, god like command of human evolution), and hunger for life like action(strategy, tactology, relations mocking.) I'm trying to knock in the additive meanings to these and change the way it is represented.
What I'm doing that civ hasn't, is remodling the platform concept from just tossing units around, poping up out of structures to build/take over more, or destroy others.
To the execution of, People harvest their own growth rate, by exploiting the land and building structures to help them, driven by skill and inturn attribute.
As far as manging thousands of tiles or whatever it was you were trying to say. This is a scale model idea based on my immagination. In text terms, (again for the realistic eye candy experience) it will be a massively large displayed world theme. In context of actual interface and the way the "labor" and "war" model is displayed, will ultimately be highly similar in fashion with civ games.
To explain, adopting the picture in picture idea from empire earth 2, on the main interface you'll just see tiles. Whatever is developed on or occupies these tiles(buildings, people, native ambience-forrest/grassland/mountain)will also be displayed. If there is a high volume of natural concentration, then an icon will also be there indicating that. ANd ofcourse other states that represent a downbreakable meaning. IT's geared to have people thinking down lines automating a bit a thought pattern so that tho the game may be real work, it's mainly automatic and fluidly paced out for a fun experience. You can lead a game in so many directions to accomplish the main idea(to win and get a great score), or just for scenario role playing as never berore acheived in scale of ability by civ modeling. Some things need to go beyond representation. Scince they can't (to avoid ruining the game), I'll give it a go.
IN the smaller picture will be the break down. If you click either 1 of the 9 districts on the tile, that district will be enlarged in focus on the smaller map and you can zoom in on the main screen if you wish. ANd hence this breaks down all the way to veiw dash map. It all comes into focus when that is the size of detail pertaining to any choice or situation that should arise during your gameplay.

And what areas are you ignoring that Civ does?

Generally, I'm not trying, and trying not to ignore anything, if by ignore you mean leave for representaion cut out, then that'd apply to what I see as to much detail, meaning going to deep with what every citizen is doing at one time and things like that. Or say minor actions based on exact weigt and measurement(ship sailing patterns, tool repairs, machine malfuctions, metearology, nuclear fallout spread.
These are the kinds of things i am leaving to the art of each players imagination as they may unfold, in any circumstance. I do in fact understand that trying to cover to much is not the path to interest in gamming.
If you do, there is no room for imagination because then all you know is it's just one big pattern and thinking of anything in terms like that is a big turn off.
Yet I'm still poised to make this game a more graded form of controle playing. Another good point of what I'm doing that civ hasn't is, the government model and over all controle.
Like I stated before, in civ the peolpe are yours only open to be victims of direct contact with others. IN this game model, your citizens learn of things from the spread regulatory feature, as part of the education influence aspect. These influence mix and drive certain attributes and skills. Do to the make up of any one citizen, They will havest a choice meter in what they desire. Once this meter hits a certain point, or as it grows. The situation of mental drive becomes more serious and becomes can become a growing physical matter. THo as I also stated in previous posts, the game is made by design that there is alot of auto run and automation that get's unleashed with evey action. Many overides and reevaluations. The point of gameplay and the idea opf the control model is spreading that aura of auto run or as simulated(culture/heritage) and fix it by tweaking it by using the citizens.
With the government aspects, the citizens now recognize a base term of doing things and an ultimate drive. So now the narrowing or focus process is unleashed and the aims and actions of your population are more centered towards the pathing method employed by gpvernment. After that you use bills, amendments, tarrifs and laws to regulate and tailor specific aims to acheive systems to use for growing key parts of your nation.

Why should I play your game over Civ?

When and if I'm done, you may answer that ypur self.

What aesthetic end do you wish to achieve? That is, having finished playing this game, I will walk away with what feeling? (For Civ, I walk away with the feeling to nurturing an empire over 4000 years and smashing my rivals. You need the same encapsulation, in one sentence, to help focus this).

To be frank, do to the level of realism I'm aiming for here, you may walk away feeling like you don't need to finnish life anymore, you could die a happy man. lol

To be honest, you may gain a different point of veiw on all of life in general, and may have a more defined respect for the realm of possibility still out there. HOnestly like I said, many people may feel different things, but most of all, you will most like feel you don't need civ any more.

According to my dad, who has many(+20) years experience in programming, just the tile aspect alone, the game requires plus 7 billion terra bytes of memory, to define a map world.
The world is basically made up of tiles. And the smallest base tile is reffered to as a pace(step), That can only ever be occupied by one object, and have a ground type with properties.
There are 60 paces in a dash.
20 dashes in a league.
5 leagues in a district.
and three districts to a tile.
Then square all the numbers.
Using 8 bit integers and instead of using a map with 1000 by 1000 tiles of districts.
Just use 256 districts squared to make the map smaller. I was wondering if any one might be able to relate to that or shed insight. My programming skills and experience include getting to about the third chapter in java and using java applets, until I said fuk it. I'd like to get back into programming, to develope it as a skill.

Why do you need such fine-grained detail for terrain? Do you really need to know about 'paces' in a Civ-like game? Won't people get bored to hell of micromanaging such a large amount of land? Anyway, there's no reason why it needs to take 7 terabytes of data. It's all down to how you choose to represent it. If you want a more detailed answer than that, you'll need to phrase a more descriptive question on the game programming forum.

Look at a city builder game like Children of the Nile

http://www.immortalcities.com/cotn/

It has a little more than a dozen 'inhabitant' roles (and building types)
and a bunch of 'monuments' and cosmetic props.

The interaction between those roles is not overly flexible (player has to 'balance' the game to play). It still requires substantial micro management to get a stable city economy running. It basicly simulates 1 city with fairly flat interdependancy patterns. The 'inhabitants' do have some self regulating/survival behaviors that prevent immediate catastrophic collapse if the game situation is destabalized.

Yet getting the game out for a small game company still had problems -- it was released with significant bugs (required patches almost immediately to fix many bugs just in the tutorial scenarios).

You propose a system at least magnitudes more complex just within a 'city' and even more if you are to simulate a 'civ' type empire.

Players will only put up with so much tedium, and self regulating behaviors are
extrememly hard to make self stabalizing.