Does it remind me of “Cultures” and “Knights and Merchants”?
I actually liked a lot to see in the videos, how the villagers lie on the floor near a fire and sleep. These videos gave me the idea of more animations, routines for the idle/free time.
Villagers that simply sit down for a while a campfire and do nothing else, can spur the imagination of a player like me.
Just let citizens pause sometimes, sit or stand next to each other or facing each other, for maybe 10 seconds. this gives the entire setting the illusion of a society, of people communicating …
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This is already planed, in a way that is not just a “fake”.
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This is amazing 
Thank you for the information
So I was bored and started up an old game. Age of Empires 3. And got some nice inspiration from that game. In that game you have small village/camp like building of natives you can build a trade post to get some of their troops etc. well I saw some nice idle animations in there that could help with the idle animations for this game. For instance you have children playing on a fence trying to stand on the fence for as long as they could and also someone drying some leather on a rack. maybe the devs can take a look at the game for some more inspiration
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Animations of children playing, definitely. Also, like it has been suggested somewhere, scaring away birds from the fields or doing smaller chores for the tribe like watching over other children, cleaning, bathing, climbing trees, (this is probably really hard to animate properly,) being lectured by adults, mimicking adults and their work, gathering small fruits, occasionally tending the fire maybe. These animations don’t need to have a large impact on the in-game economy, by the way.
Some of these animations also work for adults…
Oh, geez, I am just dreaming up stuff 
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Iʻll agree that violence against children is a bit intense, even if it is a movie or game (fake). But if they’re based on history/facts you canʻt leave them out. There were many cases in what is now known as “North America”, where the “Americans” would wait for the native men to go out hunting & then slaughter all the women & children in the village before the men returned. Without the women & children, the future of the tribe, the clan/tribe faded away. Allowing the “Americans” to take the area. This lead to retaliation & further battles/wars which all contributed to their history as we know it. & this has happened in Europe as well. (I’m sure our history buffs would know the names of a few occasions)
For me, growing up with my cousins (my aunt had 9 kids & i’m the only child) we would always be up to something. Running here & there, playing, getting into trouble, fighting… it’s very nostalgic. I think it would be fun to watch kids doing random activities in game. So if there could be some kind of middle ground, like maybe there could be a setting to turn gore on/off like many other games do. Maybe the children could run for the trees, & depending on how badly the town was destroyed, it would determine how many children (& adults) survived.
I can understand not having graphic images towards children in game, but to remove children completely because people want to turn a blind eye/ignore a sensitive topic, isn’t right.
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No sure what the Devs will do, but one idea floated was to have the children run away during a battle. They would “run off” into the woods and a portion would return based on the survivors of the tribe. This provides the realism of having children and losing them, but without violence.
As for women, they might be inclined to fight if the need arose. Depends on the women and the culture.
There is an entire Gender Roles - Female Warriors/Defenders topic for that, however.
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That’s a good middle ground i feel.
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To be honest, I think that children should be allowed a role in the daily tasks. Until very recent times in the Western World, children had a role to play in every farm: until 6 or 7 they had to keep the sheeps or cows in the fields, then could work on more complicated tasks, until reaching the age of manhood, when they married and founded another family and another house.
Probably this should happen also to the few lucky ones that managed to grow old: seeing them in the village would be a nice thing also, helping by craftsmanship, instructing children by telling them stories, debating between themselves on the “good old days” to try to define if it was best when they still had no fishnets before X got the idea to make them.
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Having citizens idling was already in Tropico I think, especially with kids playing about. Albeit not very convincingly, considering the graphics of those days. Later iterations improved it. I also remember that kids couldn’t be killed, like other citizens, who you could always bribe, imprison, execute and so forth… And if the two parents of a child were killed or disappeared, the child automatically disappeared too, kind of like @lotus253 suggests. I would suggest something like that too, for our squeamish modern sensibilities. As soon as something bad starts happening, kids disappear, hide?
@Dernwine: All of the classic historical city building games, like Pharaoh, Caesar III, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, and Children of the Nile, had festivals and other kinds of events. In Pharaoh, citizens and entertainers and priests would gather around the “festival square”. In Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, there would be a New Year’s parade going through the city. In Zeus: Master of Olympus, there were several different annual games, like the Pythian Games or Isthmic Games, and of course the Olympic Games. Different kinds of entertainers from your city would compete, and possibly win. If they did, your city would be happier, and you could build a monument to remember the occasion. It would be great if we could improve this, maybe select a venue, maybe invite other tribes, as you say.
I know that in the game Dwarf Fortress, idling helps not only spread knowledge, but also strengthen social ties between different dwarves, a bit like @Elfryc describes it. Older tribesmen should surely become elders too, residing in a special large hut, offering sage advice 
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I remember Stronghold, there were little too many children … and they always played at the place, where you wanted to build a building urgently …
It might also be exciting if families with children were temporarily less powerful, but can compensate for this deficit more than a certain age of children.
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It’s important to have children if the goal is a Neolithic simulation. Not only are children an important part of humanity, but they also likely served important roles within Society. Who else will scare the birds from the fields?
Neolithic child from Sri Lanka. She has rare blue eyes and wears a topaz Crystal around her neck.
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This may seem a bit weired, but it is important. The need to go to the toilet, maybe just an animation of the person standing/crouching behind a tree, or just taking a crap in the forest.
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Hear, hear! One of the reasons Western civilisation holds the Romans in such high regard is their ability to deal with “just taking a crap”. Cleanliness is a basic tenet of civilisation, which surely must be at the centre of a game called Ancient Cities. We might not be able to build aqueducts, but surely establish a proper “shit hole”, army style, outside of camp, for our tribesmen to perform animations above…
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Hunter training, cooking, urinating on someone’s tent for comedy. Children running amok. The occasional mother disciplining her child. Young hunters processing their kill under the watchful eyes of their parents/ teacher. Scuffles between men, combat training. Sex, slaughtering animals, repairing a home, repairing tools, making new tools, carrying resources, tent to tent, maintaining a fire pit, creating another firepit. Smoking ye Ole peace pipe. Carving wood.
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And by not doing so brings on diseases. I have not read anything on that subject regarding the Neolithic area and wonder how they control diseases we know of sanitation, proper hand washing and so on.
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Pit holes and trenches are usually found near Neolithic houses or settlements.
That was probably their main sanitation system.
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Cool, thank you.
Dear all,
I’m probably a bit late to this discussion but I’d like to stress my support for this idea!
Quite frankly, this idea of people just enjoying themselves is rare to simulations. When I remember correctly from some anthropological books, studies about humans in uncontacted societies revealed that they work around 6 hours per day (if interested I can research the source.) This would leave lots of leisure time. And even we “modern” humans work rarely more than 8h a day. I would like to draw a distinction here between being (and idling?) at work and actually focused work. Yet most simulations have the all obedient, all time ready human.
Thanks y’all for this great discussion!
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