Fabula Terra Development Thread

Personally I believe that Indonesia should be part of Oceania. This would give us a more balanced continental size range, since Asia is already way bigger than anything else, especially Australia, the smallest continent in the world (except maybe Antarctica, but that only has the Penguin Confederacy [which would be AWESOME!!! to play]).

And yet, that sentence still does not break the rules of English grammer, while this one ironically does (never begin a sentence with "and").

East and West works, so long as New Zealand is Polynesian.

This is how I think ME should be divided (revised):

map1.gif

If any of this is completely insane, or if you want to join the petition to add the Penguin Confederacy, please post to that effect. And if you can recruit more people to the Fabula Terra cause, especially programmers, again please do.

P.S. Could someone explain to me how to put a signature on my posts? I've got absolutely no clue.
 
oceania1.jpg

I think this is how Oceania is. Tell me if I screwed up. Just imagine Poly- and Micronesia. I couldn't find a good map.
 
Indonesia can be part of Oceania. The most important island in it is going to be Java I think regardless. That might then give something for the West Oceania for civs. I would not break down any region though into 3 to begin with IMO. If 3 it will just make it harder to find civs I think for each sub-region.

How about Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia in the West Oceania? And the rest of Oceania being the East. New Zealand and Hawaii in the East for example.

The Middle East I think we should stick with 2 sub-regions. The map is never going to be large enough I think to display more than 2 civs and have city-states in the Middle East when displaying the whole world. If it can get larger through time and start with just the area around you it makes sense to have more.

The other thing I need to explain is with these regions. The sub-regions are just step one. After that they expand into 2 more possibilities. For example....

Middle East
------North---One civilization from this area and multiple city-states
-----------West
-----------East
------South---One civilization from this area and multiple city-states
-----------North
-----------South

There will be more options I mean available. This is just for the beginning, but I am thinking only the sub-regions have one civilization. So if you play the Canaanites for example you would have Assur as a city state. So if it sounds bad maybe we should make more sub-regions, but too many crowded together will be bad I think.

Now as for separate scenarios with a bigger map of an area then we are talking about something else. Of course we should have more civs in play if we had a map of the Middle East. Well just let me know.
 
Okay here is my map idea. Just tell me what anyone disagrees with.

attachment.php


Edit: Forgot North America sub-regions
 
Looks good for the most part. Might have to change things at a later date. So now what?
 
Well mechanics I want to look at more when we get the game but.....

I want to make some uniqueness to each of the regions in the tech tree. When you are playing a civ in the game you will have only techs for the region. In Civ4 it was done with a tech channels modification I forgot the guy's name at the moment.

It was done by adding a channel for each tech and each civilization has a channel. For example Rome could have channel 1 and the a Roman Republic tech would have channel 1. Only things display on the GUI of the tech tree that match your civ's channel.

This will mean duplicate techs in many cases. Like the wheel say for Egypt or Babylon. There will be a wheel tech on channel 2 and there will be a wheel tech on channel 3. The other good part is we can customize even the wheel on each channel if we would like to. So anyway if anyone wants to layout tech suggestions based on Civ4 we could.

The other thing I think you should only see techs for your era because one you can not see the future and two you may change your civ. Each era I am thinking will have paths you go down on the tech tree to determine what civ choices you have in the next era. There should also be techs that you can select that give you a possible advantage that are available only in a particular era. These would slow down the speed you move through techs because they could very likely be dead end techs. Like for example a unique weapon. The point is I would like something to make the player decide should I be better in this era or should I move on, and if you are better against the rest of civs in a given era I would like to see a bonus applied to the next era.

Anyway that is general idea I would like to see. Other mechanics can be added, but at this point we do not know what we can do either way.
 
Hey johny, finally I have below the result of my searching for East south America's civilizations.

As far as I understand it, Sambaquis are not a people but a cultural phenomenon of fisher tribes who had theses things called Sambaquis, which were at the same time a place for cooking, burials and shelter, and could get so big as to be considered small wonders. I could be wrong though as I'm basing that on what I found in my limited research. In tupi sambaqui is samba (shellfish) + ki (heap).
But one important bit is that they were most probably not done by the tupi-guarani, since they are dated between 8k and 2k years ago. They are most likely from the Humaitá.

So let's get to the meat. The most important tribes have an asterisk (*).
*Humaitá - circa 5300 BC, while other source says 4600 BC
Umbu - c. 4700 BC
Ananatuba - c. 1500 up until 500 BC
Jê - c. 1000 BC
*Marajoara - c. 150 AD - between 0 AD and 1000 AD more generally they were at their best, but they started developing from hunter-gatherers to ceramists around 3000 BC. so that could be used too. They probably had contact with more developed civilizations due to the Marajó island being up there almost in central america, from whom they'd have learned ceramics and agriculture.
Itararé - c. 500 AD
*Tupi-guarani - c. 500 AD
Kuhikugu - c. 500 up until 1550 AD - an Amazon civilation which built villages and big cities, and were not harmed by the early colonialists for being deep into the forest

Santarém is a region, their most predominant tribe being Tapajós, we could use that instead. But I don't have precise info on their timeframe, still they could be used for colonial era and a bit before that. Though the ceramics from Tapajós are legendary and dated as early as 5000 BC, an american arquelogist named Anna Roosevelt disputes that they were work of Tapajós, rather being from an earlier culture (we could call it all Tapajós surely enough, though).

Although I haven't found much info on them, I took a liking for the Mbaya-Guaicurus, which after contact with europeans assimilated fully the horse and offered perhaps the biggest resistance deep into brazilian territory. They raided not only rival tribes but colonial settlements, and were for a long time thought 'invincible'. Classically portrayed as side-riding their horses, so the enemy would mistake their approach for a band of wild horses (not sure that'd work out so well but it's romantic :D). See link for picture.
http://www.overmundo.com.br/overblog/os-guaicuru-os-indios-cavaleiros-ainda-vivem
http://www.ajbonito.com.br/index.php?idcanal=235
May be a fun resistance option to offer at the dawn of colonization, 1500-1600 AD

Tupi-guarani definitely take after Humaitá.
Also Vieira and *Taquara existed between Humaitá and Tupi-guarani, thus I'd put them in the 4000-0 BC timewindow, if they're needed.

Though tupi and guarani are different cultures and are indeed the most known brazilian indigenous cultures, they are almost always treated as a single entity historically, bundling together actual hundreds of cultures over the last couple thousand years.

Please let me know if the tribes and civilizations above are enough, or if it's lacking a specific time frame or era.

I'm posting my sources below, so when it's time to develop the unique tech trees I can refer to these links for that kind of information.
http://www.historiamais.com/primeiroshabitantes.htm
http://www.paraty.tur.br/historia/povosprehistoricos.php
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambaqui
http://www.itaucultural.org.br/arqueologia/pt/tempo/marajoara/index.html
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/História_pré-colonial_do_Brasil
http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesqui...on=com_content&view=article&id=675&Itemid=188
 
Hey johny, finally I have below the result of my searching for East south America's civilizations.

As far as I understand it, Sambaquis are not a people but a cultural phenomenon of fisher tribes who had theses things called Sambaquis, which were at the same time a place for cooking, burials and shelter, and could get so big as to be considered small wonders. I could be wrong though as I'm basing that on what I found in my limited research. In tupi sambaqui is samba (shellfish) + ki (heap).
But one important bit is that they were most probably not done by the tupi-guarani, since they are dated between 8k and 2k years ago. They are most likely from the Humaitá.

So let's get to the meat. The most important tribes have an asterisk (*).
*Humaitá - circa 7300 years ago, while other source says 6600 y.a.
Umbu - c. 6700 y.a.
Ananatuba - c. 3500 up until 2500 y.a.
Jê - c. 3000 y.a.
*Marajoara - c. 1800 y.a. - between 2000 and 1000 more generally they were at their best, but they started developing from hunter-gatherers to ceramists around 5000 y.a. so that could be used too. They probably had contact with more developed civilizations due to the Marajó island being up there almost in central america, from whom they'd have learned ceramics and agriculture.
Itararé - c. 1500 y.a.
*Tupi-guarani - c. 1500 y.a.
Kuhikugu - c. 1500 up until 400 y.a. - an Amazon civilation which built villages and big cities, and were not harmed by the early colonialists for being deep into the forest

Santarém is a region, their most predominant tribe being Tapajós, we could use that instead. But I don't have precise info on their timeframe, still they could be used for colonial era and a bit before that. Though the ceramics from Tapajós are legendary and dated as early as 7000 y.a., an american arquelogist named Anna Roosevelt disputes that they were work of Tapajós, rather being from an earlier culture (we could call it all Tapajós surely enough, though).

Although I haven't found much info on them, I took a liking for the Mbaya-Guaicurus, which after contact with europeans assimilated fully the horse and offered perhaps the biggest resistance deep into brazilian territory. They raided not only rival tribes but colonial settlements, and were for a long time thought 'invincible'. Classically portrayed as side-riding their horses, so the enemy would mistake their approach for a band of wild horses (not sure that'd work out so well but it's romantic :D). See link for picture.
http://www.overmundo.com.br/overblog/os-guaicuru-os-indios-cavaleiros-ainda-vivem
http://www.ajbonito.com.br/index.php?idcanal=235
May be a fun resistance option to offer at the dawn of colonization, 1500-1600 a.d.

Tupi-guarani definitely take after Humaitá.
Also Vieira and Taquara existed between Humaitá and Tupi-guarani, thus I'd put them in the 6000-2000 years ago timewindow, if they're needed.

Though tupi and guarani are different cultures and are indeed the most known brazilian indigenous cultures, they are almost always treated as a single entity historically, bundling together actual hundreds of cultures over the last couple thousand years.

Please let me know if the tribes and civilizations above are enough, or if it's lacking a specific time frame or era.

I'm posting my sources below, so when it's time to develop the unique tech trees I can refer to these links for that kind of information.
http://www.historiamais.com/primeiroshabitantes.htm
http://www.paraty.tur.br/historia/povosprehistoricos.php
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambaqui
http://www.itaucultural.org.br/arqueologia/pt/tempo/marajoara/index.html
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/História_pré-colonial_do_Brasil
http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesqui...on=com_content&view=article&id=675&Itemid=188

Thank you:goodjob:

This helps a lot. That may be enough. I need to look at it all again. And yes if you find anything of particular interest it can be used. Thanks again.
 
Cool! I've just edited my post so the years are all BC/AD, much clearer to understand. It's actually good that you have the whole post quoted in 'years ago' though, I originally used that cause that's how all my sources provided it, but when converting to BC/AD I most times simply subtracted 2000, though 1950 is actually the reference in 'years ago'.
 
Ok now I looked a little bit more....(these name for metal eras are just to understand the time we will need to make new names for the eras in each region)

I know this is not perfect but I would like to hear your opinion.

----Copper--Humaitá(East South America)
--------Bronze--Umbu(Coastal)
------------Iron--Tupi-guarani(North)
------------Iron--Itararé(South)
--------Bronze--Ananatuba(Amazon)
------------Iron--Kuhikugu(Upper)
------------Iron--Marajoara(Lower)

Now for later groups we could start adding the colonial era into these regions perhaps. Anyway tell me if it sounds bad.

P.S. It might be better to have a different name for Tupi-guarani and then later have the Tupi and Guarani appear in the next era. If you can find some name that represents the culture for the North Coastal regions it would help. Thanks again.
 
These links might help. Just needed I guess some words to get a good search.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/rsw/undergrad/cetl/ejournal/issues/volume3issue1/riris/

http://books.google.com/books?id=59...#v=onepage&q=prehistory of the pampas&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=O3...CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Parana-Pampean&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=yZ...onepage&q=prehistory pampas argentina&f=false

----Copper--Humaitá(East South America)
--------Bronze--Umbu(Coastal)
------------Iron--Tupi-guarani(North)
----------------Antiquity--Tupi
----------------Antiquity--Mbaya-Guaicurus
------------Iron--Taquara/Itararé(South)
----------------Antiquity--Mapuche
----------------Antiquity--Toba
--------Bronze--Ananatuba(Amazon)
------------Iron--Kuhikugu(Upper)
----------------Antiquity--???
----------------Antiquity--???
------------Iron--Marajoara(Lower)
----------------Antiquity--???
----------------Antiquity--???

Well let me know what you think. The Taquara/Itararé culture is usually now associated with the Jê if I understand correctly.

Edit: Changed Botocudo to Toba
 
Oh yeah, when doing my research I just knew I should shoot for google books but I got lazy :D
Now I've actually seached a bit and found a 'pop-arqueology' book on Brazil's major ebook seller that I'm just about to jump into, I guess it's still some time before we have to have it all down, right? Regardless I'm getting curious about this book called "Brazil before the brazilians: the prehistory of our country", it's a period that fascinates me and I oughta do it book-length justice instead of just web research (and it's far more pleasing too). It helps that it's from the currently most active brazilian arqueologist, or so says the webstore.

Edit: Also take a look at this article, might have something (I checked the third mirror)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=&oi=books&cluster=7034164484078597861
Don't have time to read it today but will take a look as soon as possible.
 
Ugh darn you all, i was trying to not re-install civ 4 but i got to go play some Ryhes and fall. Btw, i vaguely remember that the Romans had ballistas and some speculate (source history channel lol) that some Roman scientists were playing around with steam power and they could very well harness that power if they didn't fall. Would be interesting to see if they had a bonus to the tech line to machinery and steam power. W/e though, this would be really interesting when it comes out.
 
Hey johny, shouldn't Marajoara be upper amazon? Not sure I understand the archeological division, but check this map for where the Marajó island is located:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...&sa=N&biw=1920&bih=963&tbs=isch:1&um=1&itbs=1
As with so many examples in history, tiny places can become amazingly superior and cultured compared to their neighbours :)

Ugh darn you all, i was trying to not re-install civ 4 but i got to go play some Ryhes and fall. Btw, i vaguely remember that the Romans had ballistas and some speculate (source history channel lol) that some Roman scientists were playing around with steam power and they could very well harness that power if they didn't fall. Would be interesting to see if they had a bonus to the tech line to machinery and steam power. W/e though, this would be really interesting when it comes out.

Those 'what ifs' are the most amazing to me. I think some unexpected paths would be great in the mod. What does "w/e" stand for, out of curiosity?
 
Hey johny, shouldn't Marajoara be upper amazon? Not sure I understand the archeological division, but check this map for where the Marajó island is located:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...&sa=N&biw=1920&bih=963&tbs=isch:1&um=1&itbs=1
As with so many examples in history, tiny places can become amazingly superior and cultured compared to their neighbours :)

I am thinking lower as in the Amazon River(where it drains). It can be the other way around if easier and use the jungle instead for orientation.

I made some sections in the forums for each of the sub-regions if anyone wants to go in more detail. It probably would be easier than just one thread.

http://fabulaterra.dreamhosters.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=10

"What if's" is what this mod will be all about. Steam power though of course we would need not to just jump to trains if Rome had it. There would need to be first some less major steam power inventions and then later a possible full blown industrial revolution.
 
Maybe we should start looking for era names next for different regions. It would make it sound better.

I am thinking this at least for the Americas.

Earliest beginning times.
Paleo-Indian--------Neolithic
Archaic-------------Copper
Formative-----------Bronze
Classic--------------Iron
Post-Classic---------Antiquity

Latest beginnings times.
Paleo-Indian--------Dark
Archaic-------------Middle
Formative-----------Bronze
Classic--------------Renaissance
Post-Classic---------Discovery

So you could begin the American civilizations at any point in this time frame based on what the players choosing to scale regions.

7500 BC Neolithic
4300 BC Copper
2700 BC Bronze
1100 BC Iron
300 BC Antiquity
500 AD Dark

The times are just estimates. If you begin as a European civ and begin the Dark Ages for example then Mesoamerica could begin at the same time for example. The times are just there for the average beginning time.

I need to look at other regions next.
 
Okay, I think this mod is going to be great, but I have some concerns about the larger picture here. I'm at a disadvantage because I never played the Ryhes and Fall mod so maybe theres something im not picking up. I get the concepts of splitting the earth map into cultural areas etc, but I am confused about how a civ will change over different time periods. Does it just change its name and visual look only or is something about the actual civilization change immediately when the time periods switch? If there is some type of actual change, is it immediate or over a certain number of turns? How does this effect the current/immediate gameplay, trades, alliances, unit placements etc? Also, I dont understand how the game works on a basic level in terms of keeping the concept of alternative history in play if you are forcing changes?

Please explain. I know i may be behind the curve here but I find that with any project, in order for the designer to keep focus on the overall goals, he has to be able to clearly explain his vision to a complete outsider in a concise manner. Otherwise the basic large scale concepts get lost when delving into the heavy details.

Thanks for any enlightenment on these questions.
 
Thought this was a great idea quoting GeneralX:

"One feature I would really like is the ability to make a loan of gold to another Civ. There would need to be an interest rate (5%, 10%?), a payment period (10 turns, 20 turns, variable and negotiable) and some sort of security (a city, a resource, a change in alliances, a couple of units etc.). I get frustrated when I have lots of gold and I'm spending it like crazy but can't use it to create an income stream or 'buy off' other Civs. In the reverse, I might need a loan to finish off a piece of infrastructure I need quickly."

RQRose:

"Obviously some balances would have to be performed, but I think this would greatly improve the depth of strategies in the game without over complicating it. Loans, made available with banking, would allow civs to face some of the problems we face today. A civ goes to war but can't afford the shipping costs and the money spent on extra food to support bigger manufacturing cities, not to mention maintenance costs on units, so they borrow from a friendly civ. They lose the war, and end up less 3 cities. Their currency producing capabilities are severely diminished, so they're far in debt with that friendly civ. The loaning civ asks for a city for compensation, but the already bruised civ refuses, and another war starts."
 
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