Hunter/Gathering Nomadic start at Game Open project

@AIAndy, How exactly do you see your nomadic units start working? Currently the unit accumulates stuff but how does it use it for research or building things? I have outlined a number of promotions for nomad units to "build" some are just military promotions that help the unit survive. Others are designed to increase the amount of a stuff gathered, the storage of said stuff or the work range of where you accumulate stuff from.

naturally all of this should have been discussed before the tech tree was adjusted. In fact it would have probably have been better as a C2C mod first to try things out.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

@AIAndy, How exactly do you see your nomadic units start working? Currently the unit accumulates stuff but how does it use it for research or building things? I have outlined a number of promotions for nomad units to "build" some are just military promotions that help the unit survive. Others are designed to increase the amount of a stuff gathered, the storage of said stuff or the work range of where you accumulate stuff from.

naturally all of this should have been discussed before the tech tree was adjusted. In fact it would have probably have been better as a C2C mod first to try things out.

Click to expand...

The unit in the demo has three exemplary outcome missions for that. One that costs lore and fruit and produces beakers and two that cost fruit, hunts and material and produce a unit (currently they only show up as possible actions when you can actually use it but it is on the todo list to show it grayed out when you are only missing the costs).
Similar you can have outcome missions that apply promotions.

The idea is that you move around and gather stuff while planning your movement in a way that keeps your gathering fitting to what you want to produce.

AIAndy said:

The unit in the demo has three exemplary outcome missions for that. One that costs lore and fruit and produces beakers and two that cost fruit, hunts and material and produce a unit (currently they only show up as possible actions when you can actually use it but it is on the todo list to show it grayed out when you are only missing the costs).
Similar you can have outcome missions that apply promotions.

The idea is that you move around and gather stuff while planning your movement in a way that keeps your gathering fitting to what you want to produce.

Click to expand...

So what we need on the interface is something that shows

The current method of defining costs per tech may be a bit of a problem. Would it be possible to use the research cost of the tech and convert that to the nomadic resources. Similarly for the unit cost of units. EG a base conversion rate for the unit to research and production? We would then only need to define promotions.

That way it should be possible to use existing stuff to determine what units can be built and what technologies can be studied.

I will look at adding in to your demo some of the current promotions I have done. That way I can tell you what other tags we may need...

When can we play at being Nomads, i.e. when will we get a Nomad unit on game start? With all the new techs I'm not wanting to start a new game until I can be nomadic from start.

Cheers.

BlueGenie said:

When can we play at being Nomads, i.e. when will we get a Nomad unit on game start? With all the new techs I'm not wanting to start a new game until I can be nomadic from start.

Cheers.

Click to expand...

It sort of is there but only as a demo so far and you can only do 4 things or so with it. It does need people to play a small game with it to see how it goes and what else is needed.

How do I do that then? Will a new game get me with Nomad Units and unable to settle a city right away?
Last time I tried it I could settle a city straight away.

Cheers

Dancing Hoskuld said:

So what we need on the interface is something that shows
- how much of each (fruit, hunt, material and lore) you have collected by the unit, perhaps with a maximum amount you can currently have.
- how much you will get from the near by plots if you mover there

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Both the unit and the plots show the amount of nomadic properties they currently have on mouseover.

- area you can collect from
- how close you are to being ale to do one or more things (would mean icons would be partially greyed)

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Yes, definitely on my list to add the greyed out buttons.

The current method of defining costs per tech may be a bit of a problem. Would it be possible to use the research cost of the tech and convert that to the nomadic resources. Similarly for the unit cost of units. EG a base conversion rate for the unit to research and production? We would then only need to define promotions.

That way it should be possible to use existing stuff to determine what units can be built and what technologies can be studied.

Click to expand...

The current idea with the techs was to just use the normal tech tree to select what you want to research and the lore+food to beakers conversion to do the actual research.

In the case of units I am still a bit unsure. I'd say at least some units should use up more or less material compared to the other nomadic resources which an automatic conversion would not be able to do.
On the other hand entering them all manual as outcome missions would be very verbose.
One option would be to enter a base cost for each unit class (recon, defense, ...) and then scale it by the unit production cost.


@BlueGenie: It is a simple tech demo, not really playable (nor intended to be played and only for the very beginning). So I did not remove the settle ability.

Hmm. Well, it only works if playing solo then, without AI players, as they will settle ASAP. Also means there's no comparing to see how the AI is doing.

Cheers

BlueGenie said:

Hmm. Well, it only works if playing solo then, without AI players, as they will settle ASAP. Also means there's no comparing to see how the AI is doing.

Cheers

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That is to be expected as there is no AI written for that yet. The nomad start is to be a main focus in one of the next development cycles.

Oh. Next. Oh. *goes of to sulk*

Cheers

@BlueGenie we still need people to play with the unit for a few turns to help point out stuff that is needed and so we can get a start on what should be in the AI.

AIAndy said:

Both the unit and the plots show the amount of nomadic properties they currently have on mouseover.


Yes, definitely on my list to add the greyed out buttons.


The current idea with the techs was to just use the normal tech tree to select what you want to research and the lore+food to beakers conversion to do the actual research.

In the case of units I am still a bit unsure. I'd say at least some units should use up more or less material compared to the other nomadic resources which an automatic conversion would not be able to do.
On the other hand entering them all manual as outcome missions would be very verbose.
One option would be to enter a base cost for each unit class (recon, defense, ...) and then scale it by the unit production cost.


@BlueGenie: It is a simple tech demo, not really playable (nor intended to be played and only for the very beginning). So I did not remove the settle ability.

Click to expand...

OK, I as not as clear as I meant to be.

On the main screen at the top there are currently 3 bars Research, Great General and Great Person. Can we something like that for the nomad units? Knowing how close you are to the total you can store may affect what you use up rater than waste. Naturally if the hover says you have x of a maximum y then that will do.

Can research be continuous? IE rather than a button which says "do research" can we set aside an amount per turn from collecting into research. Sort of like the current science %.

OK, I admit it, I want the nomadic units to be as easy to see what they are doing as a city.

Since strategyonly would like a new game play mechanism for prehistoric era..

Relics

Do u guys remember the Artifacts and Relics of Age of empires? Maybe we can introduce collectible AND capture relics in from Prehistoric era to Medieval era(that are indestructible), and grant special bonuses to as long as its in the capital city of its captor..

Similar to the Artifacts system in Sins of a Solar Empire 4x game, everyone will receive a message of its location when its brought to the city.

There are rumors a powerful relics exists in the world that will grant great powers if discovered.

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when captured..

A powerful relic that grant great powers has been rumored to be in the [civilization] city of [city]. Our religious guides believe it may be dangerous if it fell in the wrong hands, and would like us to go to WAR and claim it as our own.

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This relic can grant a temporary culture boost to the Civilization that has it currently captured.

Blue Fire
Prehistoric
Appears with Controlled Fire
33%+ Culture to ALL Cities If Located in Capital City
Obsolete When 75% of Cultures Enter Ancient Era

Elixer of Life
Ancient
Appears with Sacrifice Cult
33%+ Culture to ALL Cities If Located in Capital City
[COLOR]33%+ Culture If Located in Capital City [/COLOR]
Obsolete When 75% of Cultures Enter Medieval Era

The relic will be in a random location near the most possible center of all civilizations..

Gameplay

This will encourage exploration in the prehistoric era and when captured by a civilization a sense of urgency to stop them from having it..

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Please repost in this topic.

Also next time use the search button. There is a good chance that your ideas have already been posted.

copied from svn discussion.

1:

strategyonly said:

Back in those day, really did anything change that much, heck no, so really its what really happened, but in a game setting as such (C2C) it does tend to get a little boring, no offense to anyone.
So i guess what i am trying to say "we" as modders have to come up with a way better solution with the PreH Era, for gameplay.

Click to expand...

I still recommend an Ice Age Start.
It could be implemented with a focus on a retreating ice age with glaciers changing using the fall from heaven retreating ice script.

It should also follow the documented historical changes of sea line adjustment using approximate maps of sea level changes since so many cultures on coastlines were affected.
- Heck they are sure of some neolithic structures in the Great Lakes, off the coast of Egypt, England and France to the west, Malta, the Red Sea, and the North Sea, as well as the great flood of the black sea which could be a major random event. All these were documented in human times since 20,000 b.c.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

National Geographic's proof
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/

the History Channel's proof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URPaMGjnCvU

http://phys.org/news/2012-03-coral-links-ice-ancient-mega.html

It is the age of early exploration where everything was a mystery to mankind,
I think some random behavior for the scattered tribes of mankind should be added. Barbarian nomads, like moving goody huts. I think Migration patterns for tribes, and why not herds/flocks of animals would spice things up. And why not find a way to add some simple fractal weather fronts if possible? (weather had such an impact on survivability of mankind, droughts - heck Ethiopia and Arabia, and even the North Sahara desert were fertile in early human history) Epic random events could make the start exciting for a lonely band of humans trying to make their way. Why not flooding coastlines?

moved from svn discussion

2:

strategyonly said:

Some really good ideas here, i like it, but alas to implement it, might be a hard undertaking??

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Could you try to to use the Fall from Heaven mod script to randomly fluctuate the changing of glaciers/ glacial terrain using actual documented glacial maps from 20,000 b.c to 8,000 b.c.? I know Kevinman4400 claims to have completely integrated it in his World History Mod / Accurate World Map (already done) which he wants to polish up in his limited time before releasing.

I think there was a mini-age in 14,000 b.c. or so. For fun it wouldn't have to be perfect, it could be tweaked and simulated with similar linear fractal scripting used for the map scripts. Just a line formula with terrain changes like global warming that retreat and advance randomly turn to turn with the direction following approximate coverage. Coastlines also could follow that script, Global warming is a similar change, correct?

C2C could start off in a epic way,
1. released from a protected valley surrounded by glaciers
2. flooded from their homeland (black sea flood for example)
3. leaving the grassland due to drought. (sahara / africa / middle east)
4. change in sea level forces them inland from the coast.
5. release of water flooding from natural dams from glacial melt motivates your people to move.
These are exciting ways detailed in neat articles all over the internet. I love this stuff. Great stories.

Then the nomadic tribes could be pointed in an exciting way.

1. Nomadically migrating for food, following mammoths, looking for new sources of food (exciting discovery), and like the game:

seven cities of gold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Cities_of_Gold_(video_game)

- discovering areas of wonder, great canyons, hot springs, swamps, great trees, even finding new seas or herds of animals triggering events. (you have discovered the mouth of a great river) event is pictured in the wikipedia article.
This is why I loved Seven Cities of Gold so much when i was young, exploring the land, and discovering events. We have to make them exciting and want to find the next one. I suggest starting a thread just to discuss ideas make features exciting and fun. They could be easily forgotten and rediscovered until oral tradition and writing changes them from myths.

Animals/tribes could using a patrolling random script for migration patterns.

2. Myths of oral tradition: resources, lands, natural features, giants, gods, and events (not just animals) could spice things up. All of nature is a mystery. Who knows what exciting superstitions could scare and motivate people and other tribes. As they are repeated in later eras, the text could be changed to have a more modern/ educated view of events.

Here is a possible new event:
- a scary predator or imagined god (or appeasement) causes your tribe to migrate one tile in a direction, or sacrifice a population point, or attack a nearby unit (that they maybe shouldn't have).

2. Chased by predators or hunted by other human tribes, Neaderthal, Denisovans, Flores Man (hobbits). Can some of these moving barbarian tribes be peaceful and just trade?

3. Exploration. A focus on fun Exploration with survival a powerful control, not a hassle.
Exploration should be as fun as the when Columbus had the tools to find new continents and lands. Discovery should be dressed up to be fun (not to much though). When things are new they are exciting. Fads, events, new ideas (memes, yes I said it) spreading create hysteria, excitement and reactions throughout history.

4. Breathing, living world. More random units in scarce abundance, wanderers, missionaries, explorers. More random factor adding to flex Ai's building habits. Even more random events, at fluctuating random intervals, to spice it up. Changing temp coastlines. Fires burning out forests, and regrowth. Flooding to spice up land changes. Flocks and still herds moving in natural areas (around food source domestication).

Oh and non-player cities could be destroyed or moved by Rare events. Even if people don't think it is popular to have Their city have a random chance to be destroyed once per game. It could still be displaced

5. Weather: I really really think weather fronts and patterns should be a major thread project to try to get working. Weather affects history so much in a meaningful trend way.
Have I said weather enough?? Weather is a boon / blessing to help crops, can stop armies cold in their tracks, and even cause cities to resettle to new locations. It moves empires, kills units, and affects history in a profound meaningful way. It is a major missing feature in C2C. Gradual changing weather trends are strategic factors. The Sahara and the Middle East dried up in human times. Whole civilizations were readjusted for climatic reasons. Please please show weather some love. Pop-up, temp terrains anyone? Chained events? Weather mini-multi-map overlap?

Seasonal changes, when turns become yearly or less, would be interesting. Bad summer, exceptionally cold winter, extra rainy season (or seasons), season of tornados or floods, raining forty days, etc. Year of drought could use global warming script, or map color change. Fall could be simple coloring of tree terrain. Tree drought could be yellowed/brown trees.

Just love to spice it up a little, and color the C2C gameplay different from other mods. These could be simple changes at first, discussed first, and could be worked on slowly per version, and rolled out as wished. Always a good idea for threads to be started.
~"Every journey starts with a single step" -unknown.

Al right. I just tested Nomad start out again and it's not worth even testing with it CTD'ing as much as it does. There's a few things I've considered when playing though:

1. Animals. Once they start spawning, especially on Eternity, there's a huge gap between when the world gets dangerous for your Band of Homo Sapience until you can build units able to survive regularly against animals. Your Band can survive if lucky against the str3 ones but should not be the first choice to defend really. I think anyone would rather lose their Stone Thrower or Wanderer than their Band.
Having to, or rather needing to, keep moving to pick up the juicy resources with your Band also means there'll be no Fortifying units to gain the +25% bonus, which just alleviates this problem.
Possible Solution: While a civ is a Nomad Civ maybe Animals should not even be aggressive. After all they aren't settled and thus not threatening the local wildlife and environment as much as a settled nation does.

2. In a real Nomad setting no permanent buildings should become available until after the nation is able to settle it's first village, or at least not go obsolete before being able to build it. This goes doubly for Wonders. As a nomad I was seeing my chance at getting Cave Dwelling being shot to bits when considering the odds that I'd have Ritualism way before settling my first village.

Well, those two things, and the CTD's means it's hard if not impossible to test it out as it stands now. Unfortunately.

Cheers

BlueGenie said:

Al right. I just tested Nomad start out again and it's not worth even testing with it CTD'ing as much as it does. There's a few things I've considered when playing though:

1. Animals. Once they start spawning, especially on Eternity, there's a huge gap between when the world gets dangerous for your Band of Homo Sapience until you can build units able to survive regularly against animals. Your Band can survive if lucky against the str3 ones but should not be the first choice to defend really. I think anyone would rather lose their Stone Thrower or Wanderer than their Band.
Having to, or rather needing to, keep moving to pick up the juicy resources with your Band also means there'll be no Fortifying units to gain the +25% bonus, which just alleviates this problem.
Possible Solution: While a civ is a Nomad Civ maybe Animals should not even be aggressive. After all they aren't settled and thus not threatening the local wildlife and environment as much as a settled nation does.

2. In a real Nomad setting no permanent buildings should become available until after the nation is able to settle it's first village, or at least not go obsolete before being able to build it. This goes doubly for Wonders. As a nomad I was seeing my chance at getting Cave Dwelling being shot to bits when considering the odds that I'd have Ritualism way before settling my first village.

Well, those two things, and the CTD's means it's hard if not impossible to test it out as it stands now. Unfortunately.

Cheers

Click to expand...

My view is that the nomad units should only be able to build other nomad units plus a limited number of recon and hunter units.

Instead of having units like the stone thrower the band builds "promotions" which are equivalent of havine a stack with the stone thrower and the band in it. This will require changes to combat and AI. Each band can have multiple stone thrower "promotions" with each being upgraded as time tech and resources make available.

So you start with one unit/stack which has the stone thrower and band in it. As you move around you gather stuff and build a second stone thrower plus a wanderer and a "companion wanderer". The first goes out and explores the other stays with the band. When it settles the promotions are converted into units. Thereis a similar mechanism for buildings.

Killing animals needs to add stuff to your band in a similar way to how it does for cities. Herd animals should be added as "promotions" though I would suggest only one riding and one food herd (mob or flock) per nomad unit.

When a new nomad unit is built the herd animals automatically get added to the new unit but the unit promotions get split between the old and new unit. Some building promotions would also automatically be given to the new unit if the building unit has it eg fire stick promotion (equivalent to the fire pit building).

Some wonders need to become special landmark features for which there can only be one eg Stonehenge.

How would you see the Band with unit promotions survive the first onslaught of animals if running Aggressive Barbarians, or even just meeting a few 4+ str animals early on? Would each promotion be removed before the Band died, starting with unit promotions and then Herd promotions, not counting building promotions?
If not a fluke unlucky roll could end the game completely for you, even at 99+% chance to survive.
I don't mind tough but I'd rather not have the whole game survivability based on chance.

What would happen to Culture from portable buildings? The Band spreading it's culture along the path it takes? I'd not mind that as long as it started on a negative value. Would mean the area one has been in most one gets up to second ring and more easier. After all it's a measurement of how well one know said land.
How to do that though, via Property or normal Culture remains to be seen, if it's even possible without having positive culture points all over the place as that wreaks havoc with Realistic Culture Spread.

Cheers

BlueGenie said:

How would you see the Band with unit promotions survive the first onslaught of animals if running Aggressive Barbarians, or even just meeting a few 4+ str animals early on? Would each promotion be removed before the Band died, starting with unit promotions and then Herd promotions, not counting building promotions?
If not a fluke unlucky roll could end the game completely for you, even at 99+% chance to survive.
I don't mind tough but I'd rather not have the whole game survivability based on chance.

What would happen to Culture from portable buildings? The Band spreading it's culture along the path it takes? I'd not mind that as long as it started on a negative value. Would mean the area one has been in most one gets up to second ring and more easier. After all it's a measurement of how well one know said land.
How to do that though, via Property or normal Culture remains to be seen, if it's even possible without having positive culture points all over the place as that wreaks havoc with Realistic Culture Spread.

Cheers

Click to expand...

I am 1200km from my computer so all I can do is make notes on ideas. I currently have two pages of them sitting here waiting for me to put them in. The whole nomad thing needs to be different and viable at least until the Renaissance.

Random notes:-
- All nomad units get defensive bonuses as if they were fortified unless they attack.
- millitary promotions need to act like a unit in the stack so that the promotion gets promotions? or teh XP gose to the band which can also get "normal" promotions which apply to all "units" in the stack.
- there needs to be some equivalence between food/hammers/commerce and the stuff nomads have.
- gatherers are also promotions in the stack but increase the rate of gathering and terrain modification.
- there needs to be some equivalent to population and culture for noman units.
- can animal herds have a migration path?
- can nomads and Nomadic Indigenous Peoples follow these paths also?
- should there be nomadic barbarians?
- if a nomad follows a herd does teh herd become part of the nomad as if captured by a hunter?

- terrain improvements some terrain improvements make sense for nomads Stonehenge and Tidal Pools are two examples. Meeting point may be another, eg where the bands get together to swap young as husbands/wives.

- can we trade treaties with nomads? normal trade of x resource is OK but maybe "Respect migration path." could be another.

- Gathering of resources on plot depends on population, number of gathereres, tech, storage promotions and gathering promotions.

- A population one nomadic unit only collects from the plot it is on. A pop 2 collects from the plot it it is on plus 1/8th of the second tier. Pop 3 gets 2/8 from the second tier and so on.

- Base return from a plot should be reflected in the herd(s) as is the storage.

- Major migrations due to disaster - flood, volcanoe, famine - across water if have raft or better tech. Ie don't need to build rafts at this point...

- Special gathering camps for resources outside/beside the normal migration route for the nomad. Similar to idea for fishing grounds far outside cultural borders.

- growth - can build a new unit as is current or if population goes above "maximum"for the unit a new smaller nomad unit is created just like population growth in cities.

- movement 1 plot per turn. +1 with food herd, +1 with riding herd, +1 with stirrup and so on.

To promote the actual nomadity of nomads, the land they are harvesting should get depleted over time forcing the nomads to move on or risk territory going to pot. Much like in modern Mongolia where idiots learned that tending a herd of goat/sheep is profitable and have set up permenent dwellings on the winter feeding lands. Said land are visably turning into a desert from depletion. Its bad enough that you could do timelapse photography and show it as a video. The actual nomads are incensed.

This mechanic can also be used to enforce supply lines for armies. Run the avaiable rsources out and the land quality degrades. If the land can't handle the strain the units on the tile start taking enviromental damage from starvation and infighting, plus any actual terrain damage. Permenent improvements let the land support more. Line of sight on a unit determines its gathering range.