How will aging of people work?

I imagine being able to warp time would be enough. Turning this into something akin to Ceasar or a mini-game with checklist goals sounds even less immersive (albeit still fun) for a game that’s attempting to be a civilization builder.

I think it depends on the intended timescale for each map. So if a 3 km map can be depleted in 100 years and you can accelerate time to 12 min/year, that’s 20 hours of gameplay per map, so it would require at least 4 months of gameplay to span 5,000 years. I’ve probably accomplished less playing SimCity and still had a great time!

I see Ancient Cities as more of an immersion into an historical experience than a race-to-the-end kind of game. I created a YouTube series of Banished with the Colonial Charter mod and got 100 episodes out of it. I’d like to be able to do the same with Ancient Cities. That being said, while a game pace of one year per one year of aging would enhance immersion, it would also limit appeal as only a few would have the patience to continue playing or watching. As well, offsetting that with too fast-paced of a year breaks the immersion we are hoping the game will create.

I think the best way to satisfy most would be an option to choose how many years the population ages per game year, say a range of 1 to 5 years per cycle. This way a year (4-season cycle) can still be long enough to satisfy, but the player can choose how much age progression occurs based on their patience level and attention span.

Adding to this, I’d like to see this type of setting replace the concept of “speeding up the game.” Rather than hit 10-speed and little tribals start running around the scene like they’ve all had too much sugar, how about a constant game speed altered by choosing (in the Options menu) the number of years each cycle will represent? This way the game will always be played as it was intended, with all the animations looking realistic, yet the generations can go by at the pace the player is comfortable.

Any thoughts?

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Hi Noble, nice to see you around here :wink:

We have something like this in our minds.
Still need to try it in the game and see how it works. Right now years are long, but I would like then even a bit longer, so you can really have that “winter is coming” feeling or running out of supplies and praying for an early spring.
That means that a year cant be a year if we want to play with different generations.

The game works with xN speeds, though. Playing every day at real time can take a while only watching people walking and doing stuff. Real time IS real time and it would end being boring. Of course nobody forces you to speed up, so you can go real time if you want. But we are building fast speed in a way that it feels like those beautiful and relaxing time lapses videos where you look the clouds shadows and lighting changing along the day. That’s the goal, and that is why we are embracing the day night cycle too. Let’s see how much we can move towards that goal for the first release.

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Unfortunately the best compromise might be to divorce the aging of the citizens and the cycle of seasons. So… have one year of seasons represent 4-5 years of game time? It’s not the ideal solution, but it enables the kind of “get ready for the winter” gameplay that you guys seem to want, while not forcing the town to develop at a incredibly slow rate.

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@Dernwine In a game everything is a balance between realism and gameplay. When the two collide a choice must be done and 99% of the time the gameplay win and it is a good thing. This is a game with high realism intention but it is still a game. Never sacrifice gameplay to realism if it hurt your game playbility (and it hurt me to say that…).

In the end it will hurt your project too. Less engaging game meam less player which meam less money hence less good historical expansions. So it is important to balance correctly.

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I just want to add some references to my previous comment. Enjoy !:wink:


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Agreed.

Think it will depend on several factors.
How much self-initiative will the NPCs develop? What will they do themselves, without instruction by the player. Or, alternatively, the player can pretend what to do in the empties …?
As detailed, e.g. The fall of a tree can be observed, the construction of a hut, a hunting scene etc …

As the game progresses and more complex scenarios, the micromanagement becomes easily annoying. Here, perhaps, a deliberately balanced time-advance helps?

When dialogues, diplomacy, trade, and war take place, there is a time-lag for life’s continuation, but not too much change. Particularly annoying if the player would have intervened, but he was not offered any opportunity because he was at that time on a 2-day hunting or a battle.

for @Sargon :wink:
Denke, es wird auf mehrere Faktoren ankommen.
Wieviel Eigeninitiative werden die NPC´s entwickeln? Was werden sie selbst tun, ohne Anweisung durch den Spieler. Oder, alternativ, der Spieler kann vorgeben, was sie in den Leerzeiten tun sollen…?
Wie detailiert soll z.B. das fällen eines Baumes zu beobachten sein, der Bau einer Hütte, eine Jagd-szene etc…

Mit fortschreitendem Spiel und komplexeren Szenarien wird das micromanagement leicht lästig. Hier hilft vielleicht ein fein ausbalancierter Zeitvorlauf?

Wenn Dialoge, Diplomatie, Handel und Krieg stattfinden sorgt umgekehrt eine Zeitbremse dafür, dass zwar das Leben weitergeht, aber nicht zu große Veränderungen stattfanden. Besonders ärgerlich, wenn der Spieler hätte eingreifen wollen, aber er keine Möglichkeit geboten bekam, weil er zu dieser Zeit auf einer 2-Tages-Jagd oder einer Schlacht war.

Spannendes Thema.

For the first release at least player will not be able to leave the city map.
The game will notify you events. If some event is important the game will also force x1 time speed by itself. This way you will not miss important opportunities.

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I happen to know for a fact that Sargon doesn’t speak German. :stuck_out_tongue:
I think what is important to note as well is that there won’t be an first person control view (what I think you refer to as Egoperspecitve). Which means that hunting will probably be a lot more automated than in something like Forest Village.

That does not, but he will perhaps translate my bad English again :grin:[quote=“Dernwine, post:18, topic:1050”]
Which means that hunting will probably be a lot more automated than in something like Forest Village.
[/quote]
Have something feared, but the hope dies last …
By some thing the player wants to shine in the group, Age of Empire was yesterday …

Sag das noch mahl auf Deustch, das englische macht kein sinn.

Hey out of interest does anyone have any idea how many generations the average game will last?

Hey, aus Interesse, hat jemand eine Ahnung, wie viele Generationen das durchschnittliche Spiel dauert?

HAHA ne ich meinte sag :
Have something feared, but the hope dies last …
By some thing the player wants to shine in the group, Age of Empire was yesterday …
auf deutsch.
Sorry the second bit was unrelated.

:grin:
Habe so etwas befĂźrchtet, aber die Hoffnung stirbt ja (bekanntlich) zuletzt
Dachte, mit irgend etwas will sich der Spieler in der Gruppe ja aufwerten (toller Jäger z.B.)
Wird also ähnlich wie Age of Empire, aber das war doch gestern…

“I was worried about something like that, but hope (as they say) dies last.
I thought, the player might want to improve something in the group (make a really good hunter eg)
It would be similar to Age of Empires, although that was a old game.”

That being said you couldn’t take control of people in AoE nor improve their performance with anything but universal upgrades via tech…

Not even us know that at this moment :wink:

Citizens search for works that fit them well, so usually good hunters will pick hunting task. There is no need for you to improve that manually. You just can improve the conditions that lead people to focus in one aspect or another. But they improve and learn by themselves about what they are doing if the conditions for that learning or improvement are met.

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This was more related to the ego perspective.
In AoE you put 10 woodcutter off and the chop wood, until you send it somewhere else.
Elsewhere, it was said you’re playing Aeneas, a “hero”. He would have to do something better than say: you are a lumberjack … :wink:

Not quite true, you will never play the role of Aeneas. AlainTD was just using him as an example of a migration that happened in the Bronze Age to justify the Game mechanic of starting the player off as a migrating tribes in the Bronze Age.

Das ist nicht ganz richtig. Man wird nie als ein held wie Aeneas spielen. AlainTD hat ihn nur als beispiel von eine Voelkerwanderung in der Bronzezeit benutzt damit er die spielentscheidung den spieler als nomadischen volk in der bronzezeit zu begruenden kann.