Better diseases simulation has been unlocked!

Official Updates
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Hi all!
The paypal campaign in the website has just unlocked the “better diseases” goal.
We want to thank you all again for trusting the project and make this happen!

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Reaching this goal means that at some point we will research and add to the game nicely simulated diseases and associated game-play. We are sure this will open very interesting scenarios in the game, from small breaks to large epidemics causing migrations.
What would you like to see in the game related to this?

Next goal would allow us to hire a full time senior programmer.
With only ten days left to finish the campaign we know its very difficult to make it. While this would certainly make development faster, not reaching it is not a deal breaker. We just will need more time to develop all promised features. With time we are sure we will be able to grow the team.

Next goals like the one unveiled -irrigation-, are steps towards the big Bronze Age expansion goal.
Yet there may be another opportunity to reach those ones, we will let the campaign resting and focus in development. We still have a lot of work to do before the beta launch.

Again
Thanks a lot!

Uncasual Games team

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Yeepeee!!!

There was an hagiographic documentary on the French TV this evening. Basically uninteresting, save on one point, which was a perfect timing: in a Neolithic lake in Djibouti/Ethiopia most skeletons had their spinal column blocked (meaning: severe pain when becoming older) and something like a ball at the end of their teeth. This was due to the lake water, which they probably ingested when cooking, drinking, eating lake fishes etc. and which gave them far too much fluoride. This illness seems to be called fluorosis.

You know me, I thought a bit about that with gameplay in mind: probably this would not be as spectacular as “a good plague” in game, but this could create interesting situations: e.g. a guy coming to trade say your citizens “What’s your troubles coming from, people?” The shaman, the chief, the faithful could all have possible and various explanations, that the player could explore. Until eating food coming from other places than the on-map lake or river offers more variety and make the trouble disappear, and would be an incentive for trade with neighboring settlements.

And probably other illness could be made this way also, to have more variety than one plague with red pustules and one plague with black pustules?

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I realy would like to see some different diseases and plagues, like a “flu outbreak” who reduces productivity of my tribe, only can be healed with some sort of herbs or you will have some victims to this plague

Maybe some people are healthier than others, they have more resistance against diseases or old and young people are more vulnerable

Sry for my english, a german guy trys his best…

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I think a good idea would be sickness due to nutrition. In Life is Feudal: Forest Village, each food type has its own vitamines, and a lack of them can start a sickness in the villagers.

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To be completely honest, this is the goal that I was less looking forward to, but this may be because of how poor disease gameplay turns out to be in other management games. In the games I’ve played (Anno series, Grand Ages series, Banished, Cities Skylines), the disease is always fatal and can go two ways:

  1. Either you build a hospital/apothecary/doctor’s office and nobody gets sick, ever
  2. Or you build said buildings after the disease outbreak, people visit them and become healthy

This of course is the better outcome, if you don’t have enough ressources to build the hospital or you can’t recruit doctors for some reason, you see your population completely wiped out or drop at a ridiculous level, uncapable of getting your settlement on the right track, which is the most frustrating thing of all: it’s not game over, but if you keep playing the game is not going to be fun for quite a long playtime (looking at you, Banished).

Maybe what could be infered in some way is where the plague is from, deteriorate relations with the settlements the disease comes from, ban immigration or overly defend your settlement for fear of the illness…
Maybe on the contrary you happen to know another tribe has a remedy, so you go visit them and they help you (out of kindness if you have good relations or payment if they don’t like you that much).
The spread could be linked to the environment the virus/bacteria are from: is the disease transmited by blood (sexual relations, accidents, childbirth), by saliva, by sheer contact ? Is it in the air, in the water your people drink, in the food they eat, carried by your livestock ?

On a side note, could lice, fleas and other parasites (on animals as well !) be considered as these “better” diseases with simulated spread and AI reaction to them ?

Do with these ideas as you wish :slight_smile: My main fear is that disease managements get too complex and/or difficult, mostly because of my bad experiences with previous games, because it supposes a huge stop in your city building experience. There’s another idea: maybe a disease could be less harsh, and just something to slow down your progression. Potent enough to make you take interest in solving this situation but not punitive enough to wipe out your settlement all at once.

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If they want to simulate the plague, then I’d ask for them to make it realistic. So there isn’t a 100% chance of death. And not everyone will get sick. Have some people develop immunity and/or resistance. And then let them pass that immunity down with their offspring. But that’s probably going way too in-depth.

Apart from that, I really like Gal2’s ideas.

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droughts ? pestilence ?

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Which means not only what diseases you would like to see, but also what game mechanics would you like to see implemented.

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Generally go with @Gal2. On the other hand, I would find a strand of development medicine essential. Herbology and anatomy learning to surgery could make a certain appeal. Is probably realistic too.
Bringing an injured person into the village, a bit of excitement and then the “first aid”, that would certainly look good. Maybe also the topic “birth / obstetrics” could enrich the village life. Inclusive of a small party …?

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Let’s not forget about trepanation ! :wink:

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… and the dental problems that are also increasing with increasing plant nutrition. Abrasion, tooth decay, etc.
I think, however, that in-game maladies tend to have a real entertainment value with a very small group at the beginning. In the later stages, I think more of job descriptions, much later of science and schools. Presumably, “little or no illness” will be a reward for having medical care installed in his village.

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Maybe you’ve missed it, but there’s also been this article about a trepanation test made on a cow skull:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23914-1#author-information

The original source is in English, which is quite easy.

To my great surprise, I always thought if confronted to such a case I’d try to punch the skull to make the job as fast as possible. But (maybe after several tests?) it seems they scraped the skull. This means they had to open the skin and flesh, have a sufficient area of bone being made visible, then start scraping, and scraping, and scraping, and scraping again until the bone is pierced.

Realism DLC? :fearful:

(also this one is necessary: :exploding_head:)

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Practice makes perfect - so to speak … BRRR.:smirk: But somehow and sometime it must have started. Anyway, our ancestors were not troubled by scruples. “Come, we’ll open a hole and see what’s underneath …”:hammer_and_wrench: From handyman to brain surgeon.

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For diseases I’d like to see a good selectionnof early diseas, mid game diseases and then late game diseases as your civilization grows so dondiseases.

Smallpox would be nice early game fit. Veriola Virus having a high mortality rate. First recorded case of the veriola virus is from Egypt, Ramses V.

Tuberculosis predates early human setlments, great fit for the early game and persists throughout the rest of the game. Any form of sanitation would help reduce the infectivity rate.

Influenza has been around for over 6,000 years and would also fit with the early settlements. Though due to the adaptive nature have it be weak one year and strong at random years.

Typhoid would be a mid to late game issue where sanitation issues arise. Contaminated food and water would be a great means of transmition.

Pneumatic plague or Yersinia pestis maybe a late game disease as earliest account for it is around 540 AD.

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You can introduce new mechanics such as:

  • infectictios due accident or combat wounds which are not well cured
  • differents infection ways such as dirt, decomposing remains or ponds where bacillus grow
  • broken bones
  • food poisoning due rotten food
  • poisoning due certain animals and plants
  • freezing in winter
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I like the poisoning idea. Perhaps individuals who work as food gatherers would occasionally gather poisonous/harmful food items when they are inexperienced/low ability. If their ability is high the chance of this occurring is significantly reduced.

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I want to see “bleeding” to cure maladies lol

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How about this for a scenario:
person accidentally gets hole in skull, slight brain injury causes personality change (for the better maybe in this case) so somebody deduces that trapped demons were released through the hole. So next time someone has a psychotic incident, or otherwise misbehaves, they give it a try. After all, it might work as often as not - like some modern psychiatric treatments!

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That would just be trepanning wouldn’t it? It was used during neolithic times and I think up until relatively recently so that would be an accurate treatment for some things. Although it does have a high mortality rate…

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macabre, but not unthinkable. Whether these “tests” took place until the Neolithic or were already completed, no idea. In 8000 years is much time for all sorts of experiments … :smirk: