Design: Civilizations

[QES]

I really like these nomads but I see a problem, if they routinely get batches of settlers I imagine most players will rebuild a disbanded city and send the others off, not very nomadic.

I have two possible solutions:

Fistly you could cut down the power of cities for them, each population increase could have a chance of spawning a free military unit rather than actual population.

Secondly they could have a trait for their leaders, "nomadic" that means that the land around their cities slowly turns to deserts forcing them to keep moving.

Finally you mention captured cities, I sereously doubt nomads would EVER try to hold a city, instead they would either pillage or rase it.
how exactly are they going to keep a city loyal through the ages if they wonder off in a few years.

These are all very well thought out. I just want to say that. The initial problem was one i've been chewing on..so let me give you my responce.

Let me start by saying that "putting another city" exactly where you had one, doesnt surprize me, it would make sense that a small portion of the clan would stay behind, but since you have settlers (and not population) most of your population would indeed be nomadic.

Firstly) I'd like to leave the control up to the player. Instead of "randomly spawning a random military unit," growing your city would be intentional so that your "reward" for resettling would be greater. I said in an earlier post that these nomads would have a higher than normal penalty (on a sliding scale) for unhappiness in relation to city size. A size 4 city might be content, but a size 8 city might want to slit your throught. Plus the goal is to ACTUALLY constantly delete and recreate cities, not merely "suggest" nomadic behavior.

Secondly) Having land turn into desert crossed my mind too, except then the question becomes "what are they doing to the land that destroys it?" The answer could be herding cattle and sheep, but, it strikes me that creating wastelands is more of a quality for evil and necromantic civs in a Fantasy setting. After all "environmentalism" isnt really the issue here. And While a "trait" might be interesting, i think its best to keep it to a civ, since its more containable that way.

Finally) This is a very good point. But I'm thinking of the game in terms of pre-vassal states that is coming out in warlords. The occupation of the cities isnt so much about owning them, as it is subjugating them and milking them for what their worth. I agree Razing the cities seems like the most likely action civs would take. But it could also make a GREAT bartering tool. Give someone back their city in exchange for a pact of alligence, resources, or an agreement to allow passage through lands, etc.

I hope my responces are reasonable,
-Qes

 

[SchpailsMan]

Nomadic camps are not the most healthy places in the world. You could have them randomly generate wastelands around their cities when becoming unhealthy (which would happen rather fast for lack of healthy oriented buildings). They could either ressettle before they have started to damage their surroundings (micromanagement ? might be...), or let them pollute the land for a while and, when it just doesn't get viable enough, have them go somewhere else. Then the player would still have the choice or moving or staying, but also have a good motivation for NOT staying too long, unless they have found a very nice spot and are willing to unsettle/ressettle periodically just to keep it.

Btw, using actual pollution instead of desert-spawning sounds better to me, because THAT would give a real incentive to flee (a few desert squares really don't hurt, especially for the Malakim who would turn them to their advantage, anyway you can always Spring them back to productivity).

(just my 2cts)

 

[QES]

Nomadic camps are not the most healthy places in the world. You could have them randomly generate wastelands around their cities when becoming unhealthy (which would happen rather fast for lack of healthy oriented buildings). They could either ressettle before they have started to damage their surroundings (micromanagement ? might be...), or let them pollute the land for a while and, when it just doesn't get viable enough, have them go somewhere else. Then the player would still have the choice or moving or staying, but also have a good motivation for NOT staying too long, unless they have found a very nice spot and are willing to unsettle/ressettle periodically just to keep it.

Btw, using actual pollution instead of desert-spawning sounds better to me, because THAT would give a real incentive to flee (a few desert squares really don't hurt, especially for the Malakim who would turn them to their advantage, anyway you can always Spring them back to productivity).

(just my 2cts)

If its possible, could it be made true that you may not put a city on "fallout" or "pollution" or whatever its called? In that case, resettlement could necessitate that the citysqure (it was on) becomes automatically poluted. In this, youd be forced to AT LEAST move one square away to settle down again. This would continue to move as land was used. I'd like it, but only if it's minimal, and forces gradual shifts. The natural explosion of settlers will produce quite a bit of "nomadisism" naturally.
-Qes

 

[QES]

I was thinking on the very beginning of the Jahbrohnai. And since they've a capital, its a problem if they want to expand. Since "resettlement" replaces the settler, one would have to abandon the capitol initially to start early-game expansion. I've four possible solutions.

1) Instead of ANY supporting units, the Jahbrohnai player is given a starting settler, and a regular settler. But no other units. This would mean they'd have to build those inital units before getting to the buisness of expanding. Also, then the capitol could be prevented from "resettling" - but this would negate a general premise of 100% nomadic.

2) A relationship between the "capital" and "starting settlers" could be established. WHen the Capital city "resettles" it creates a "starter settler" with one of its population points. This starter settler should then automatically set up the capital in the next city it creates.

3) The capital building itself would allow for the production of settlers. Therefore, the only city that could produce settlers (and not resettle) would be the capital.

4) Make the capital building really cheap, and FORCE the civ to actually rebuild it every time they "resettle" their capital. - This does make a lot of sense, plus it would allow for a very fluid civilization.

Thoughts?
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

I've always loved the idea of nomads in civ, so i'll tell you what i came up with when i used to think about it.

No cities. At all. Adding cities complicates what could be easier.
No settlers. You don't need settlers if you don't settle, and nomads are nomads, not settlers.
Instead of settlers have a nomad unit. Let the nomad unit look like the Hippus settler (hey, maybe even make the hippus this nomad civ), as it's settlers on horses with 3 movement (3 movement to start, but a combat unit so it can defend itself).
Let nomads "Camp" in any tile. Camping is like building an improvement (takes a few turns, based on the tiles food yield and game speed) but in the end doesn't create an improvement, instead it creates an additional nomad.
Strictly no maintenance fees (no city maintenance obviously, but no unit cost either, maybe a civic called Nomadic that doesn't allow city building/owning but gives -100% unit maintenance costs).

So at this point, you have Nomad units that are mobile and can self replicate given enough time for the land they have access too.

Upgrading your nomads to better nomads.
Let's say nomads start with 3 strength and 3 movement.
You want to upgrade them, so you "Camp" on a resource like Copper. After you finish camping there the original nomads and the new nomad unit are upgraded to 4 strength and look like they're carrying copper weapons.
You want to upgrade them further, so you "Camp" on Iron (note they'd need copper to properly work iron, so only copper upgraded nomads could take advantage of iron). After you finish camping you get two nomads with 6 strength.
Mithril increases the strength even further (say 10 or 11).
Elephants to increases movement to 4.
Camping gold or gems to add to their gold total.
Not sure about other resources, maybe mana nodes to learn magic.

Capturing enemy cities and workers. Mostly pillage, partially human capture, you get some workers from cities as well. The workers are considered nomads now as well, except they haven't their own horses yet, and are generally weak (1 movement and 1 strength). They will need to camp a horse resource to improve their movement to 3. They will need to camp a animal resource and a forest tile to gain an extra 1 strength each (either wood weapons like spears or bone weapons and leather/skins for armour) to match the original nomads.


Anyways, thats what I was thinking about nomads when i tried to think it all through before.
They'd be true nomads, never settling or building cities, only relaxing in a spot for a few years and not in huge numbers (only one nomad could camp a tile, others could be present, but they couldn't camp their as well without doubling the time for both).
They wouldn't have to worry about techs so much, instead relying on what they find in terms of resources (allow them to see all resources from the start).
Maybe give them a hero like Magnadine who can convert bested barbarians to their side.
They'd usually be in a state of war with others (so they can move more freely), open borders would be nice, but they have no borders to call their own and other AI civs might reject such agreements.
They'd live off the land (but not in some land destroying way.. cities destroy more lands then any natives could ever pretend to have), but not in a grandoise way (one tile temporary camping).
All their units could engage in a war, leaving nothing behind (nice mongol hordes type of thing, invading enemies and pillaging).

For their leaders traits, I'd suggest Raider and scorched earth. That way they all start with commando (makes sense that they could use enemy roads too), be good at pillaging, and couldn't take over cities without coding specifically for their race.

 

[QES]

I've always loved the idea of nomads in civ, so i'll tell you what i came up with when i used to think about it.

No cities. At all. Adding cities complicates what could be easier.
No settlers. You don't need settlers if you don't settle, and nomads are nomads, not settlers.
Instead of settlers have a nomad unit. Let the nomad unit look like the Hippus settler (hey, maybe even make the hippus this nomad civ), as it's settlers on horses with 3 movement (3 movement to start, but a combat unit so it can defend itself).
Let nomads "Camp" in any tile. Camping is like building an improvement (takes a few turns, based on the tiles food yield and game speed) but in the end doesn't create an improvement, instead it creates an additional nomad.
Strictly no maintenance fees (no city maintenance obviously, but no unit cost either, maybe a civic called Nomadic that doesn't allow city building/owning but gives -100% unit maintenance costs).

So at this point, you have Nomad units that are mobile and can self replicate given enough time for the land they have access too.

Upgrading your nomads to better nomads.
Let's say nomads start with 3 strength and 3 movement.
You want to upgrade them, so you "Camp" on a resource like Copper. After you finish camping there the original nomads and the new nomad unit are upgraded to 4 strength and look like they're carrying copper weapons.
You want to upgrade them further, so you "Camp" on Iron (note they'd need copper to properly work iron, so only copper upgraded nomads could take advantage of iron). After you finish camping you get two nomads with 6 strength.
Mithril increases the strength even further (say 10 or 11).
Elephants to increases movement to 4.
Camping gold or gems to add to their gold total.
Not sure about other resources, maybe mana nodes to learn magic.

Capturing enemy cities and workers. Mostly pillage, partially human capture, you get some workers from cities as well. The workers are considered nomads now as well, except they haven't their own horses yet, and are generally weak (1 movement and 1 strength). They will need to camp a horse resource to improve their movement to 3. They will need to camp a animal resource and a forest tile to gain an extra 1 strength each (either wood weapons like spears or bone weapons and leather/skins for armour) to match the original nomads.


Anyways, thats what I was thinking about nomads when i tried to think it all through before.
They'd be true nomads, never settling or building cities, only relaxing in a spot for a few years and not in huge numbers (only one nomad could camp a tile, others could be present, but they couldn't camp their as well without doubling the time for both).
They wouldn't have to worry about techs so much, instead relying on what they find in terms of resources (allow them to see all resources from the start).
Maybe give them a hero like Magnadine who can convert bested barbarians to their side.
They'd usually be in a state of war with others (so they can move more freely), open borders would be nice, but they have no borders to call their own and other AI civs might reject such agreements.
They'd live off the land (but not in some land destroying way.. cities destroy more lands then any natives could ever pretend to have), but not in a grandoise way (one tile temporary camping).
All their units could engage in a war, leaving nothing behind (nice mongol hordes type of thing, invading enemies and pillaging).

For their leaders traits, I'd suggest Raider and scorched earth. That way they all start with commando (makes sense that they could use enemy roads too), be good at pillaging, and couldn't take over cities without coding specifically for their race.

You have some interesting ideas, but there are a few gaps id like you to fill in for my understanding.

One, if you never build cities, then there is never any income, and because there is never any income, there is NEVER any trade or diplomacy. Diplomacy is a large part of the game, is this really a good idea?

Two, if every unit is a nomad, how does combat work? Yes they get higher and higher strength, but they're all basically the same unit. If what your controling is merely a ton of virtually identical units, it doesnt make for a very compelling "empire building" game.

They'd never produce culture - how could they have a culture victory? This is ok if military conquering is their only option, but then all you have is a wandering army that grows.

Eliminating Technology elimnates some of the "fun" of the game. People like feeling more advanced, they like the feeling of "oo now i can use magic" or "haha, now i have war chariots" is it really wise to eliminate this part of the game?

Barbarians will be a major problem. As early game, (at least in FFH) one could be utterly destroyed (or set back) by an unfortunate barbarian encounter. Considering how powerful hill giants and spiders are, the fact that there are no cultureal boarders to keep them at bay means your units would be under constant attack, and while this could mean lots of xp, i suspect it would mean the death of the units. THere would never be city bonuses or culture bonuses, or any way to keep your units safe. Plus, since the concept is generally exponential (1 unit makes 2, 2 units make 4, 4 make 8, etc.) if you suffered causalties early on, your progress would be ******** significantly.

I admire the unique method of designing "nomadisism" but i think we have to maintain the nomad's civ (whatever they turn out to be) as still functionally an empire, and one has to "build upon that empire" in this "empire building" game.

-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

There'd be income (in fact i was worried there'd be nothing to use it for) from pillaging, goody huts, or gold/gem camping. But as you mentioned, they could use the gold they acquire for trading. They could also gain gold from diplomacy (having no borders of their own, and a militant based structure, they could surround an enemies city early on demanding gold or tech), or maybe buy technologies from others.

The idea of them being all the same unit doesn't make sense to me, as each time you upgraded them they could change appearance (before they get horses or weapons they just look like workers; each upgrade could make them look different).

As for magic, they could potentially learn magic from mana nodes (camping an unworked node could give them sorcery, camping an ancient temple could give them divine), and either gain promotions in magic as they choose after that, or even gain them through camping worked nodes (invade someones land just to steal their magic).

Cultural victory isn't everything, they also couldn't get Tower Mastery victory, or domination victory, or religious victory. It'd all be about winning the test of time or through conquest, but hey, they're nomads.

Give them a vs. animals bonus like hunters and they'll do fine (and it makes sense for a group that spends all their time in the wild travelling). I think they'd have as much chance as a city considering they'd provide more targets and be better than the 2 strength warriors everyone else starts with. Could even have the barb trait, though I doubt they'd need it.


All in all, i think it'd be a blast and really capture nomadism (having cities equals not nomads). Roaming around and upgrading them and replicating to stand the test of time would prove interesting i imagine. Nomads do not build empires as such. My only concern is the AI, but if they could be taught to just use the camp ability then it'd be evolution style. Any worries of rapid expansion could be fixed with adjusted time for duplication, nomadism as a civic giving a set amount of free units instead of no unit maintenance, or increased time for duplication based on the stength of the unit (duplicating stronger more advanced ones would take longer), or simply make the replicated one start as a basic one with 1 strength 2 movement. But really, the duplication shouldn't be a worry, what with werewolves roaming around that replicate faster than anything that could ever be produced.

Edit Added:
Other options could include each nomad adding 1 trade, or making the trade yield of the place their camping add to their trade. For culture (if thats some sort of necessity) they could have the consecrate (like the spell, which i haven't used, but which adds that players culture to the surrounding tiles?) ability and add culture at their choosing; or do the consecrate ability on death of a nomad, kind of like native burial grounds, that is to say, they object to others in the lands of their dead, but consider the rest of the world fair game for all to travel through). So many options, and I think its really conflictual if they have cities so I wanna see nomads without them.

Another option for tech, allow nomads to construct Tribal Villages (sacrifice a nomad unit for it), that takes a long time to build (in the mean time its a camp or some such) and once it becomes a tribal village anyone can get it and it acts like a normal tribal village (basically the idea is the nomads you sacrificed for it settled down and started workin on whatever, be it gold production, a work force, or plans to create a settler to go and make a real city, or researching technology, and hence explaining where tribal villages come from, why they give the rewards they do). Others could get to them first as well, and they'd take as long to build as makes sense (perhaps the length of time it takes for that game setting to typically research a tech). There's the chance they'll be destroyed (while in camp phase building up) by barbs as they pillage it.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Sounds vaguely like the warlords Mongol campaign. Have to see how that works. I think it might be better to have a capital as well, making access to diplomacy and religion possible.
Hmm, then that sounds like extreme Kuriotates--smaller, mobil settlements, and only one city. Advantage is the super quick units and free upgrades?
Maybe they could have an early, gold-costing convert ability.

 

[QES]

There'd be income (in fact i was worried there'd be nothing to use it for) from pillaging, goody huts, or gold/gem camping. But as you mentioned, they could use the gold they acquire for trading. They could also gain gold from diplomacy (having no borders of their own, and a militant based structure, they could surround an enemies city early on demanding gold or tech), or maybe buy technologies from others.

The idea of them being all the same unit doesn't make sense to me, as each time you upgraded them they could change appearance (before they get horses or weapons they just look like workers; each upgrade could make them look different).

As for magic, they could potentially learn magic from mana nodes (camping an unworked node could give them sorcery, camping an ancient temple could give them divine), and either gain promotions in magic as they choose after that, or even gain them through camping worked nodes (invade someones land just to steal their magic).

Cultural victory isn't everything, they also couldn't get Tower Mastery victory, or domination victory, or religious victory. It'd all be about winning the test of time or through conquest, but hey, they're nomads.

Give them a vs. animals bonus like hunters and they'll do fine (and it makes sense for a group that spends all their time in the wild travelling). I think they'd have as much chance as a city considering they'd provide more targets and be better than the 2 strength warriors everyone else starts with. Could even have the barb trait, though I doubt they'd need it.


All in all, i think it'd be a blast and really capture nomadism (having cities equals not nomads). Roaming around and upgrading them and replicating to stand the test of time would prove interesting i imagine. Nomads do not build empires as such. My only concern is the AI, but if they could be taught to just use the camp ability then it'd be evolution style. Any worries of rapid expansion could be fixed with adjusted time for duplication, nomadism as a civic giving a set amount of free units instead of no unit maintenance, or increased time for duplication based on the stength of the unit (duplicating stronger more advanced ones would take longer), or simply make the replicated one start as a basic one with 1 strength 2 movement. But really, the duplication shouldn't be a worry, what with werewolves roaming around that replicate faster than anything that could ever be produced.

Edit Added:
Other options could include each nomad adding 1 trade, or making the trade yield of the place their camping add to their trade. For culture (if thats some sort of necessity) they could have the consecrate (like the spell, which i haven't used, but which adds that players culutre to the surrounding tiles?) ability and add culture at their choosing. So many options, I just think its really conflictual if they have cities.

Another option for tech, allow nomads to construct Tribal Villages (sacrifice a nomad unit for it), that takes a long time to build (in the mean time its a camp or some such) and once it becomes a tribal village anyone can get it and it acts like a normal tribal village (basically the idea is the nomads you sacrificed for it settled down and started workin on whatever, be it gold production, a work force, or plans to create a settler to go and make a real city, or researching technology, and hence explaining where tribal villages come from, why they give the rewards they do). Others could get to them first as well, and they'd take as long to build as makes sense (perhaps the length of time it takes for that game setting to typically research a tech). There's the chance they'll be destroyed (while in camp phase building up) by barbs as they pillage it.

These are good points....i just dont think you can get rid of cities entirely in "civilization" which is why i was advocating a Squat and move idea. Then again, maybe nomads just arnt possible/pluasible in a civ situation. A "nomadic" civilzation the way you describe it would be very agressive, and if i ever saw it, i would know that war was inevitable (because they've no other chance for victory, and their not earning any kind of points.)

The biggest thing is the AI. You pointed this out, but i dont have a clue how youd get the ai to "upgrade" units through travel. At least with my version, all they do is make a resettlement building when its time to build a settler (like they do), and then move their groups of settlers to wherever they want. (This still would take some tweaking as the AI goes for optimal placement, which, with the Jahbrohnai, all you need is to plop them somewhere, ANYWHERE.) And i dont know if the AI would plop a city in enemy territory, even if it could. Maybe, they do seem strangely 'landhoggish'.

-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

No matter what you're gonna have AI problems, but my model is kind of like the werewolves, and I'll tell you, I doubt there's special AI for werewolves, but when it comes to self replication, evolution shines through and keeps them alive (I give a werewolf to my AI allies and they start unleashing hell on our enemies better than even I can).

If they had the worker mentality and considered all lands to be within their borders, then they'd replicate just fine and even upgrade often (as workers favour resources over non-resources).

 

[QES]

No matter what you're gonna have AI problems, but my model is kind of like the werewolves, and I'll tell you, I doubt there's special AI for werewolves, but when it comes to self replication, evolution shines through and keeps them alive (I give a werewolf to my AI allies and they start unleashing hell on our enemies better than even I can).

If they had the worker mentality and considered all lands to be within their borders, then they'd replicate just fine and even upgrade often (as workers favour resources over non-resources).

Thats a good point about the worker-mentality. But the problem then is that maybe they'd not attack anything, just..keep growing....*shudders*

And your right about the werewolves...well other than that evolution bit, i never got to disect a werewolf in biology class. ..Not that i now of, maybe a wererabbit.

Anyway, i think your idea would make an AWESOME minor civ, but im not sure how 'fun' it would be to play....would you enjoy the same process over and over? I mean all it would be is upgrade/attack/upgrade. No empire at all.
-Qes

EDIT: IT reminds me of other minor civ types...minor civs are minor civs for various reasons, sometime the civ is too powerful and therefore intended only to function as a challange, othertimes its a game mechanic quirk that is interesting but not terribly playable.

 

[Sureshot]

I'd play them all the time!

Having cities makes me feel to bound down, I wanna roam! (without worrying about war at home)

If they're too tough, all that needs doing is making their units cost cost gold per turn, and give them a set amount of free units (through a civic maybe, like Military state which gives free units that increases over time). (I wrote that in one of my posts, but i understand they're long and maybe not completely straight forward)

 

[QES]

I'd play them all the time!

Having cities makes me feel to bound down, I wanna roam! (without worrying about war at home)

If they're too tough, all that needs doing is making their units cost cost gold per turn, and give them a set amount of free units (through a civic maybe, like Military state which gives free units that increases over time).

Or just a trait (which function like civics but are unchangeable once the game starts).

Maybe other than upgrading your units could have other options on tiles. Like on mana nodes they could produce research for the civ, if on a money maker they could get gold directly. And with no maintenance costs, these are purely positive bonuses. Then you could require technology to progress to different levels of development and "nomad unit" types. Also, you could make it so that each resource provided some feature as well, like mabye reagents give the "magic resistant" promotion with their str increase. Or something.
-Qes

p.s.
Its interesting, i'm just hesitant.

 

[Sureshot]

Ya, all the things you said would be perfect (though theyd have to have all resources revealed to them from the start, though i'd don't see a huge problem with that, as they'd be very familiar with the land even if they didn't know how to use iron yet for example).

Tying their research to mana nodes would make them kinda spiritual like, which would be neat.

About the worker mentality, and getting them to attack as well, if i remember correctly, Chalid was working on doing just that but for Adepts (who were to be able to build nodes).

 

[QES]

Ya, all the things you said would be perfect (though theyd have to have all resources revealed to them from the start, though i'd don't see a huge problem with that, as they'd be very familiar with the land even if they didn't know how to use iron yet for example).

Tying their research to mana nodes would make them kinda spiritual like, which would be neat.

About the worker mentality, and getting them to attack as well, if i remember correctly, Chalid was working on doing just that but for Adepts (who were to be able to build nodes).

Hm, good to know about the workers.
Just so you know, even though i like your idea, i prefer mine . Not CAUSE its mine, just cause......well i like cities. But i still want nomads....see, im a greedy pig and i want it all. Oink oink baby.

On your nomads - Maybe they dont need every resource in the beginning, just the ability to research off basic lands. Maybe some of the nomads are astetic, and if they "upgrade" in desert (and ONLY desert) tiles, they can go into "reflection/meditation" and come out with research.

Since this civ doesnt have ANY kind of production, im ok with them making good on tiles that by all rights are supposed to be void of purpose.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

Ah, good idea. Though as a starting tech I'd say they need Animal Husbandry since they'd already have horses (and as such should be able to horse [i verbed a noun!] a new nomad thats horseless [like one captured from a city])..

On the note of starting techs, I think Lanun still don't have fishing to start, and thats a necessity for them!

The cities thing really bothers me, what I'd rather see in something like that (that is, something that more reflects your wants and ideas) is a civ that can em/im-migrate. Like, they could build emmigrants that take away 1 population and can sacrifice themselves to add 1 population to a city. It's not nomadic as such, just allows more inter city travel. Like if you had a war you could evacuate most of your danger border cities to safer places, or do the opposite in hopes of increasing production to those cities to prepare. Or if your capital is growing too large you could emmigrate some of them to new lands (or a "new world" ). Or possibly gift them to favoured allies to help them grow.

Possibly just make a civic that allows that (something like a labor or health care civic maybe, not sure). So you just set yourself to Migration and you can build emmigrants.

 

[QES]

Ah, good idea. Though as a starting tech I'd say they need Animal Husbandry since they'd already have horses (and as such should be able to horse [i verbed a noun!] a new nomad thats horseless [like one captured from a city])..

On the note of starting techs, I think Lanun still don't have fishing to start, and thats a necessity for them!

The cities thing really bothers me, what I'd rather see in something like that (that is, something that more reflects your wants and ideas) is a civ that can em/im-migrate. Like, they could build emmigrants that take away 1 population and can sacrifice themselves to add 1 population to a city. It's not nomadic as such, just allows more inter city travel. Like if you had a war you could evacuate most of your danger border cities to safer places, or do the opposite in hopes of increasing production to those cities to prepare. Or if your capital is growing too large you could emmigrate some of them to new lands (or a "new world" ). Or possibly gift them to favoured allies to help them grow.

Possibly just make a civic that allows that (something like a labor or health care civic maybe, not sure). So you just set yourself to Migration and you can build emmigrants.

Im still hopeful that i can blend the ideas.....in fact i dont want the settlers of the jahbrohnai to be able to join other cities, i want them to "expand". In fact, these are "expansionists" in a very real way. You want more cities, you lose your city, and your going to have to make a LOT more. No mere population movement.

The notion of cities is also because often nomads are nomadic, not because they dont settle somewhere, but because its not permanent. They can form large encampments that last a long time, years and years. But eventually they'll move on. WHich is why i like my "resettlement" idea.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

Ah, I meant them as settlers (so they could start their own cities) that took away population on creation (and had 0 build time) but could also add to other cities.
The AI could prolly handle them (just make them considered a building that will give +1 health - the idea being if they need health they're too big and some should emmigrate).

The concept of homelands and some cities that stay seems more like you've just got some people emmigrating around (and settling new lands) more than nomads, nomads might commonly camp in an area, but they wouldn't start building walls and libraries.

 

[QES]

Ah, I meant them as settlers (so they could start their own cities) that took away population on creation (and had 0 build time) but could also add to other cities.
The AI could prolly handle them (just make them considered a building that will give +1 health - the idea being if they need health they're too big and some should emmigrate).

The concept of homelands and some cities that stay seems more like you've just got some people emmigrating around (and settling new lands) more than nomads, nomads might commonly camp in an area, but they wouldn't start building walls and libraries.

Well no, i dont suspect they'd build libraries and walls. But then i figured the Jahbrohnai would have a very exclusive and completely different set of buildings at their disposal than normal civs. They'd be cheap unit trainers, one time benefits, and culture buildings. Amung anything else clever that people could come up with.

The fact that they're cities would mean that the AI wouldnt have to be monkey'ed with TOO much. And players could feel like they still had some sort of "solid ground" on which to base their decicions.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

Just doesn't feel nomady, seems like there'd always be cities around, and big ones at that. Having borders and yields means theyre working the land centric to their cities, and grants them dominion over all that within their borders (no barbarians spawning there, no animals entering), they'd treat other civs borders like they don't exist while maintaining their own solid borders (i know i'd be pissed if a civ snuck into my borders and built a city in my lands - AI's already build super fast and take all the good lands).