Hunter/Gathering Nomadic start at Game Open project

Thunderbrd

C2C War Dog
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That would be awesome if you could get it to work even if its done from scratch. I was thinking it could work like this ...

1. Start out with Band of Homo Sapiens (and default military units).

2. Band of Homo sapiens can make a "Nomadic Camp". The camp can choose to research techs, train units, pick up and move or turn into a city.

3. Upon discovering Nomadic Lifestyle you can build "Nomads" can also build "Nomadic Camps" but these cannot turn into a city like the Band of Homo Sapiens one could.

Thus allowing you to claim more territory and resources before you can build more cities. Also these camps would not count against the city limit since they are "camps" and not real cities.

What do you think?

I think we need a new thread.

I'll consider what you've said, then return with some more thoughts. In the meantime, who else would like to chime in with some ideas and considerations for this concept of starting not with a tribe and thus a city but with the beginning of the game being encapsulated by a traveling base camp concept for the first portion of the Prehistoric era? How do YOU think this could/should work? I have a fairly well thought out concept to express here but want to hear what others think first.
 
I'm all for it, provided that these four conditions are met:

Firstly, and most obviously, the Nomadic Camp unit from that mod whose name is too hilarious for me to repeat here needs to be converted into C2C. Shouldn't be too hard, given the track record strategyonly has had with converting his own work. Has the author of that mod given permission for it to be used?

Secondly, that these camps be national units, for similar reasons to city limits. This should, if at all possible, be disabled by the same option that disables city limits. My suggestions would be to start off with one, then having the following technologies raise the limit correspondingly, each by one;
Tribalism
Chiefdom
Livestock Domestication
Agriculture
The Wheel

Researching the Stirrup would replace the limit with whatever the player's default civics set as city limits.

Thirdly, that Sedentary Lifestyle render the player unable to build Nomadic Camps. It should be fully possible for players to skip that technology and build a mobile society akin to that of the Mongols, Huns or even the Gypsies.

Fourthly, that the Nomadic trait grant bonuses for usage of Nomadic Camps. Ideally, so should the culture buildings for nomadic civilizations.
 
@Thunderbrd

Well the nomadic camp in RoH was like a pseudo city that could not produce buildings or wealth/science/culture. By making them mobile should allow you to better pick your starting location. You also would be able to move if you did not like your first choice (if you did not choose to permanently settle).

We would just have to teach the AI to use the settle option or you would never have another civ around.

@Praetyre

johny smith (creator of RoH) said ...

I am not modding now, but was browsing around. I have not played Civ 4 for ages. I am way to busy in school right now to mod.

He seemed interested in C2C, but I am not sure if there is any permission. On a side note I have seem a similar thing done in the The History of Three Kingdoms mod.

Spoiler :


EDIT:
Fourthly, that the Nomadic trait grant bonuses for usage of Nomadic Camps. Ideally, so should the culture buildings for nomadic civilizations.

Perhaps rather than nomadic trait limiting the unit perhaps they can just have it longer say still can make them after sedentary lifestyle or even get a bonus nomad at the beginning of the game or even able to make the unit cheaper and.or faster.

In short I do not think the unit should be limited to the nomadic trait. But enhanced by the trait.

On a side note I would hope that some day we can apply the Dynamic Trait System and building nomad units could push your traits more to the nomadic side of the scale.
 
Where did I say it should limit their usage? I think any and all civs should be able to use Nomadic Camps before discovery Sedentary Lifestyle, while the Nomadic leader trait should make camps more powerful and give the player a greater incentive to use them.
 
I like the idea of a dynamic trait system personally, and, what if you made a civic for nomad that is the base civic for Society instead of tribal, and then give a small bonus to nomads at the start I would say, but make it better as time passes if they have the nomadic trait, that way they can use the trait without it essentially losing its core idea, but it won't give them an overwhelming advantage at the start.
 
Where did I say it should limit their usage? I think any and all civs should be able to use Nomadic Camps before discovery Sedentary Lifestyle, while the Nomadic leader trait should make camps more powerful and give the player a greater incentive to use them.

Oops! I must have had a brain-fart moment. :faint: Sorry about that.
 
If your going to make a unit like this I think you need it to gain specific unquie promotions. That way you can customize nomadic camps. Instead of xp granting them it can build the promotions as tents or teepees something... that or specialists join the camp. You should also be able to fuse/canablize capture camp tents with promotions you don't have. You don't capture the camp, instead get a specialist that can graft on to the camp as a promotion. Also could allow it to fuse animal units you can make herds for... though only one per camp.

I saw something already in the mod that treats forts like cities for somethings... this nomad camp unit sounds like its a moble fort that can harvest resources.
 
Nomads sound like fun, but to me it appears that there are some really tricky aspects. If I understand well, there are currently 2 concepts considered: one (1) where nomadic camps are mainly used in the early game to extend the amount of controlled terrain without building a city, and one (2) where playing with nomadic camps is a long-lasting alternative to the sedentary life style with its cities.

The first (extending terrain without building a city) seriously weakens or even nullifies the effect of one of the really good concepts which was added to the mod relatively recently: the limit on cities by government civic. In the early game this mechanic is a gem in ensuring that civilizations develop at a more equal pace and can cover a roughly equal amount of land. Instead of just production determining the early expansion, tech is dictating the pace too now by gradually allowing more cities as chiefdoms, despotisms and kingdoms become possible. The merit of this mechanism is what it does for the rest of the game: creating balance and an interesting struggle. The perfect game - at least for me, but I imagine it works the same for others - is one in which it's not already clear in the ancient or medieval era who's going to win, but one in which the competition stays interesting until the end. From a meta-game view of things: with many aspects of this mod favouring the advanced/strong already (and thereby increasing the gap between civs instead of making them equal and interesting opponents) it would be a loss if the few balancing mechanics get de-powered. I love newly added things to play with, but balance of power seems to be a key element which ranks higher than having more stuff for the sake of more stuff.

The second (nomad lifestyle being a long-lasting alternative to sedentary lifestyle) raises the problem of having to match nomadic progress with the entire existing tech tree for sedentary civs, to increase their power parallel with sedentary developments like libraries, granaries, everything, to have them remain a reasonable alternative to sedentary lifestyle. Letting them simply build the same buildings defeats the purpose of having nomads, of course. The options seem to do either that or to accept that nomad civs will be fodder-civs which will be destroyed in the course of the game (but no player would probably play them, then). Lastly, walking the middle road by having them convert at some point to sedentary lifestyle raises the problem of their new towns being fresh and empty of buildings (since converting to cities with lots of buildings makes no sense at all) - no competition for the civs with towns which have been building buildings since prehistory.

Of course, one could opt to introduce an enforced nomadic era for all civs, before being able to build a first city. That'd give no balancing problems, but it sounds like a lot of effort and revising the already existing stuff.

(by the way, I don't intend to play Mr. Negative Sucky Asshat Who Doesn't Program But Only Moans. Just really liked the mod you guys make and spent lots of hours already exploring it, finding that one of its Achilles' heels from a meta-game perspective seems to be exactly that - its ability to maintain the balance of powers.Would love to see more mechanisms favouring the weaker civs to keep them active participants with a meaning in the game, to make the mod even more enjoyable. And sorry for the post getting this long :) )
 
@Zaga

I personally was seeing them as a supplement to cities. They would never replace founding cities since they would be less powerful. You could not build buildings in them and all you could really do with them in either build units or claim more land. I would also think they should either have a limit or be expensive to make or both.

If you take a nomadic empire like the Huns or Mongols they had huge empires but it was extremely hard to maintain and in those empires there were very few cities. Ones like say the Plains Indians were very mobile and moved around not claiming any land. I could see this done as well if you move your Nomadic Camp around the map.

In fact perhaps nomadic camps should expire after so many turns before you would have to move. Something to represent using up all your local resources. However such a feature would take some advanced programing to do.
 
I have some strong ideas here, mind you... and I'll be back over the next few days to flesh them out in full for you guys and to let you know what holes I'd need filled in the modding efforts to be able to make it all happen.
 
@Zaga

I personally was seeing them as a supplement to cities. They would never replace founding cities since they would be less powerful. You could not build buildings in them and all you could really do with them in either build units or claim more land. I would also think they should either have a limit or be expensive to make or both.

If you take a nomadic empire like the Huns or Mongols they had huge empires but it was extremely hard to maintain and in those empires there were very few cities. Ones like say the Plains Indians were very mobile and moved around not claiming any land. I could see this done as well if you move your Nomadic Camp around the map.

In fact perhaps nomadic camps should expire after so many turns before you would have to move. Something to represent using up all your local resources. However such a feature would take some advanced programing to do.
why not making them to be able to build few units like stables
 
Pity you can't base it of promotions instead of buildings.

The alternative is to allow the nomadic camp to upgrade to a different type of nomadic camp. Eg nomadic camp settles somewhere for a while and when it moves off again it is a nomadic camp with horse whisperer (trainer).
 
I was thinking nomadic camps should have a limited selection of buildings for these very reasons. I'd be happy to provide a guesstimate list if anyone's interested.
 
I cant remember all of what i used to have in one of my "older" mods, but it then was just called a "camp." And once you settled it, it would every so often give you a horse_archer(s) as units for protection, but again that was over two years ago, when i did something like that.
 
Ok I have an updated idea.

Nomad -> Settler -> And so on ...
Nomad -> Horse Nomad -> Nomad Biker
Nomad -> Camel Nomad -> Nomad Biker

Nomadic Lifestyle = Nomad
Horseback Riding = Horse Nomad
Camel Domestication = Camel Nomad
Motorized Transportation = Nomad Biker

Each level up on the Nomad upgrade chain gives better results when "camped" on a resource. Perhaps even have the "Nomadic Camp" give special units that can only be produced from them.
 
What about this (a mixture of some of the ideas mentioned in this thread):
Your starting band cannot settle but whenever it fortifies it starts to gather and hunt the surrounding land. That adds a part of those resources to a global pool for the player but weakens the land which reduces the amount of yields of that land until it recovers (like 25% reduction per turn, 2% recovery per turn if not used) causing a drive to move around. From the global pool the band can then produce units (mainly with production) or upgrade itself (mainly with food).
Once it reaches a certain level and a certain tech, it can settle.
After a certain tech level it can also produce small bands (limited number) and units that can hunt/gather from the land themselves but with a smaller radius (using production and food).
Food and production from animal kills are added to the global pool until you build your first city. You can still build small bands even in your city until they become obsolete but they can only build units that have a nomadic food and production cost defined.
No cultural borders until the first city is built.

Main mechanics:
  • Units can be flagged to be able to build nomadic units up to level X
  • Units can be flagged to have a nomadic build food and production cost, a nomadic level and maybe some other requirements
  • Units can be flagged to be able to gather/hunt the surrounding land in a specified radius
  • Unit upgrades can have a food and production cost from the global player pool
  • Plots have a gather/hunt state that recovers with time

That can then be extended with a lot more after some time like a combination with retreating ice that uncovers more and more area or getting promotions to the band from one of your units killing certain animals or gathering from a bonus or ...
 
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