Unit Creation Modeled as Population Growth

Heaven · 2002-03-29T13:08:48

Age of Kings had peons of diverse gender, so let''s take that and run with it... Male peon and female peon chop some wood. The peons then take said wood and begin construction on a small house, room for four (they plan ahead). Construction complete, they move in, entering the structure and disappearing from sight. A brief amount of time passes and the two emerge, again able to perform regular peon functions. Over time the female graphic would change slightly, indicating her being with child. Nothing major, just a few pixels. Consequently the female peon would then become slower and less effective at purely physical tasks (i.e., chopping wood, mining metal, building, etc.) and she would tend to hang around her dwelling (or town hall) more frequently. When the equivalent of 9 months game time has passed, but possibly varying for different races - e.g., orcs may have a significantly lower gestation period while elves may take longer, the female peon''s onscreen representation changes, now showing her holding a small baby peon. Again, her ability to perform physical tasks would be severely impaired, possibly even non-existent (can''t imagine chopping wood or mining with a baby in my arms). Orcs could perhaps be given special treatment by allowing them to be Indian/Eskimo like in that their babies are attached to their backs, freeing their hands. After additional time passes the baby peon''s representation would change such that eventually the mother peon''s icon becomes a pair: her holding her toddler''s hand. She still moves slowly and has difficulty performing physical tasks however. Later still the two would become separate units, the mother reverting to her original fully functional self, and the toddler becoming a "child unit". The child would have VERY simple AI, simply following it''s mother around. Optionally, a "nurse maid" could be assigned to the dwelling. This would be a unit trained to basically baby sit, freeing the mother from having to tote around an infant or lead around a toddler. This would only be practical in a design that implemented varying degrees of ability. Say each peon had attributes such as strength and speed. Those peons under your control who were slow and weak could thus be assigned as nurse maids, or other less physical tasks such as gathering food or tending crops (as opposed to planting or harvesting which would be more physical). This would free the stronger, faster peons to perform more demanding tasks like chopping wood or planting and harvesting. Let''s go over it again to sum up. Male and female peons pair up inside a dwelling for a brief bit. For various reasons pairing up will only be allowed inside a dwelling (even if it''s just a two person tent or lean to built from gathered sticks). The female peon may or may not become pregnant. Later, the female peon seeks the nearest dwelling (preferrably her own) and attempts to have the child. Midwife units would be handy at this point. There is of course a chance the child would die, and also a chance the female peon would die during childbirth. The chance would be modified by the degree of care received as well as the surroundings (birthing a child in a tent vs. birthing a child in a castle, while it''s raining outside). Assuming success the female peon gains an infant attachment, and after a while a toddler attachment, both of which can be left in a dwelling with a nurse maid. The toddler attachment finally becomes an independent child unit, which of course gradually grows into a male or female peon. I don''t know about you, but simply adding the above in place of Town Halls and Barracks would be simply amazing. It would open up so many possibilities it''s not even funny. Think enemy raids where they kill women (mothers) and children. Conversely, think of an Attack Setting where you prohibit your troops from killing women and children. Think of the vengeance you''d desire to retribute upon your adversary who killed your children. How to train soldiers? Simple. Instead of a Barracks pumping out swordsmen, axemen, bowmen, etc., you would have a Smith who would produce swords, axes, and bows, and leather, chain or plate armor. Peons would then be able to enter the building containing the weapons or armor (which would be objects like bags of gold or blocks of stone, able to be carried about and stockpiled) and "suit up" in whatever format you desired. Click on peon. Click on Outfit icon. Click on Medium Sword and then click on the armory. Peon then enters armory and outfits himself with Sword + Chain (medium armor; light would be leather and heavy, plate). You could have icons for Sword, Axe, Bow and Light, Medium, and Heavy. Depressable buttons actually, so you could combine them. Then you could band-select 20 peons, select Heavy, select Axe, and then click on the armory and all 20 peons would line up, outfitting themselves with axes and plate. Simple combinations producing near endless variations. And finally, think of the excitement of building up your town, person by person, family by family. From scratch if the scenario so dictated (i.e., Adam & Eve Scenario ). Eugenics could be modeled as well, where if you micro-managed enough you could combine strong and fast peons with each other to produce, generally speaking, strong and fast children. And for the record, I will NOT let the player play the numbers. You will have no idea your peon has a 15 strength and 35 hit points, only that the peon is Strong, Able, or Weak and Healthy or Frail (for example). So many possibilities. Now it''s your turn. Please let me know what you think. Care, Chris Rasmus Florida, USA RTS Engine in Development http://www.knology.net/~heaven Jesus is LORD!

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Heaven March 21, 2002 01:46 PM

33 comments, last by Heaven 22 years ago

Ecthelion

124

March 28, 2002 04:12 PM

IMO large technological advances like medicine or equality of sexes dont fit into tolkiensque fantasy worlds, which are typically quite static. Leave research to futuristic RTS games.

>Actually, disease was one of the biggest factors.

My sources seem to disagree, but Id love to read more about this, got any links? Anyway during medieval times you cant do much about disease, so food remains the most important variable factor.

Heaven, a great source on medieval economy (~1000AD England to be exact) is Regia Anglorums Wichamstow-village. It contains loads of information about different crafts and production of weapons, tools and other items.

[edited by - Ecthelion on March 28, 2002 5:18:10 PM]

Oluseyi

2,123

March 28, 2002 10:19 PM

quote:Original post by Heaven
As far as the details are concerned, you seem contrary. You say that you want a game that lets you play at your level, but then you''ve pointed out that having as much detail as I''ve planned will be detrimental to gameplay. If the details aren''t forced on you (and I think I''ve explained that they will not be), then how would that be bad?

I think the opposing objectives (not methods) will be the problem. Most games today like to present you with "alternate paths", but the objectives remain identical - or at least very similar. With your game, one side plays with the objective of building while the other plays with the objective of tearing down. Balancing these will be interesting.

When I speak of "my level of detail", I mean being able to play as Secretary of Defense, Field Commander, Brigadier, Colonel or Captain - from national defense coordination to local skirmish leader, and to be able to rise through the ranks. In line with an old thread on delegation, you might even be able to "zoom in" from your high-level strategic position to take control of the point man in a critical manouver, yet continue to receive high-level tactical feedback - a sort of unfair advantage, but which you must use effectively.

Your ideas are very interesting, though - don''t get me wrong. It''s just not really my thing. Keep them coming, however; they''re worth listening to.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

solinear

145

March 28, 2002 11:12 PM

quote:Anyway during medieval times you cant do much about disease, so food remains the most important variable factor.

Medieval problems were a result of the loss of knowledge. This is a problem that many people seem to forget about that. While the Greek/Roman societies did not fully understand the human body as we do today, but they well understood cause/effect. The Holy Roman church basically got rid of any societal activities that they viewed as ''unholy'' (such as the bathhouses), regardless of the the actual purpose they served. They then declared that basically they were the source of all knowledge. Effect? People got sick more often, diseases flourished and it didn''t get any better until when? Until Luther and the other priests broke off from the holy church and went their own ways, thus diminishing the church''s sway over the sciences. The medieval plagues were pretty much limited to the European continent. The other continents were relatively unscathed by these epidemics. As a matter of fact, outside of Europe, there really were no ''dark ages''.

Now that doesn''t mean that disease wasn''t prevalent still, just that it was rediculously so for the Europeans.

However, my point wasn''t that epidemics were the problem, disease was. When you got sick with anything vaguely serious, 75% chance that was it, you were dead.

quote:My sources seem to disagree, but Id love to read more about this, got any links?

I really wish I could link you to my college courses, from Religion and It''s Impact on Society to the general history courses. I''ll see if I can''t hunt down some stuff for you though.

It''s really suprising how different everything was in the rest of the world from 500CE -> ~1400CE. The Romans took quantum leaps ahead of everyone from 200BCE to 500CE and basically all that fell apart and everyone else spent the next 500-800 years catching back up. Many of the world''s societies never did. The Chinese were really the society that forged ahead of Europe for a time, but by then the holy church was in decline and science was again taking hold (Renaissance).

Heaven

601

Author

March 29, 2002 01:11 AM

quote:Original post by solinear
That implies that a family can only raise one child at a time. We all know that more often a family will continue to have children around 1.5-3 years apart.

Man, what was I thinking? I completely forgot about that fact, and instead was absentmindedly focused on the initial 11 minute hump. After the hump, you''re right, successive kids from the initial family pair will mature every 40 seconds (40 week gestation). However, the firstborn pair from this initial family will not produce adult peons until 11 minutes after their maturation. So if we extrapolated until THEIR first child (base time+11 minutes to get initial family''s first child+40 seconds to get second child+40 seconds to get this second pair''s first child+11 minutes for this child to mature) we come up with 23 minutes 20 seconds. During this time, but after the first 11 minute hump the initial family would have [theoretically] produced 12 m 20 s divided by 40 s mature peons. This is because after they had their first child, they kept having another newborn every 40 seconds. 12 m 20 s = 19 mature peons from the first family by the time their firstborn pair has their firstborn child. And if my math is wrong, excuse me. It''s 1:03 AM.

I''ll end up making charts later, of course. (don''t worry, not to post!) Perhaps a program to plot it out.

But yeah, population should rise a lot faster than I initially thought. Good!

quote:No, what I meant is that as females gain more knowledge, they start to focus on other goals than having a family. They wait longer before marrying and have fewer children when they do.

Bah! A woman''s place is in the home.

quote:If you want, you could put in an advancement called ''feminine resurgence'' that would lower population expansion but increase the productivity of the actual population, representing the increased contribution by females.

Egads man! Rather, I''ll include an advancement called Feminine Subjugation, which will increase the populaiton expansion while increasing overall productivity by the simple addition of more manpower! Mu hah hah. Note: tongue in cheek here peoples.

quote:How upset are you going to be when you just started the game and after pushing out one puppy your *only* female dies? Factor out stillbirths and the mother dying during childbirth unless you want to start with a larger population.

What about alternatives? If your only peon''s wife dies, there could be neutral parties with female peons he could then marry. Heck, you could try and steal you a wife from said neutral party. In allied games your ally could send you a wife. Heh heh.

You''re correct though. I might want to implement some kind of transparent check that makes sure the birthing mom isn''t the last of her race.

Thanks!

Florida, USA
Current Project
Jesus is LORD!

solinear

145

March 29, 2002 01:08 PM

quote:I''ll include an advancement called Feminine Subjugation

Wouldn''t that basically be the default setting?

Of course, that might not be a half bad option. Some players could choose to have an initial setting of female dominant society (much like the majority of Mesopotamian and Celtic cultures had in earlier prehistoric societies). They would advance faster initially, but have low birth rates, then when the female subjugation kicks in, they get a higher birth rate and the people that are born will benefit from those advances. I''m starting to think of this as a societal study more than a game, but that''s because I''m not playing, I''m advising.

quote:What about alternatives?

Too slow. In any game like this, you can pretty much kiss your butt good-bye if you end up with not enough population growth, particularly early on.

I think that the best solution might be to implement a % still birth, 20 second delay between pregnancies, increasing % of mother death during birthing, starting at 4% and increasing by half for every pregnancy up to a maximum of 50% (4, 6, 9, 14, 21, 31, 46, 50, 50). Also start with an initial population of 4 adult pairs. This way you can get it all in without completely screwing someone for a chance maternal death early on. It will also avoid the huge population eplosion that can be caused by a complete lack of mitigating factors. While increasing population will increase your int base and bring about schools, libraries and such to develop medicine, you can counter that by having diseases become more devastating mattering on population density of an area.

Unit Creation Modeled as Population Growth

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Unit Creation Modeled as Population Growth

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