Thanks. I could use the help. I have an enormous amount of project note and research which I have in Google Docs and I've yet to transfer to CivFanatics or the GitHub site.
https://github.com/carlosfhernandez/civ5-prehistoric
Essentially, any detailed research and game planning would be fantastic. I supposed I should organize the notes a little and add them here so that anyone can start helping out. I'd prefer GitHub since it has the perfect collaborative system (it's GitHub!) and a wiki but Fanatics will work just as well as a summary spot. Please send me your suggestions and gameplay experiences!
I already have something very similar in my v0.3alpha-experimental mod.
The concept is that there were NO SETTLEMENTS. Man was fairly nomadic. Thus I've created a "
Great Leader unit type" which acts as your "home base". The units (tribe) follows him/her as they provide bonuses like a settlement. Leaders can be improved and follow different improvement paths.
The huge problem I have is that the death of this leader ends the game. Some may like this type of difficulty and others may not, so I may add the option of death of a leader resetting their improvements. The other problem is getting the AI to work properly. That is the most difficult part since it is a NEW type of behavior. Death of Great Leaders for AI is handled differently (more on that in my Google Docs).
Settle Units ("
Found" attribute in the game core) have a progression like you mentioned.
Since
settlingrequires a
settlement, the first
Settle unit is called a "
Tribe Split" which actually will reduce your current
settlement (
tribe settlement) by -1. This is very costly at the beginning but reflects the problems of splitting you tribe and going off and settling somewhere else.
They are also very limited (e.g. 1 movement). "Leader" traits or certain
Buildings will provide a bonus to them like
+1 Movement or removing the
-1 Population penalty.
I'd like to explore this more. The gameplay could become a little too powerful unless it is very hard to claim that hex.
The first settlement, the tribe settlement, only has two hexes, the center one where the settlement is located and one more.
Please send me more ideas and how you think this could work -- the hex claiming -- and keep the game somewhat balanced.
This is a wonderful idea I hadn't thought of. I could make it so that the earliest forms of communication (one of the techs) could eliminate this permanent hostility.
I'll explore more. In reality, I am not sure if different "tribes" were all hostile towards each other so I may have to limit that.
Thanks for the suggestions!!