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Town communication

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#1

Greetings

I’ve been wondering if there will be contact between playermade cities. Not meant as in online (even though that would be awesome), but cities you’ve created yourself.
So if you have spent a long time on building a big settlement, but then create a new one. will those settlement exist in the same gameworld?
I think it could be a good thing. It could be resemble the system in Simcity, where cities can trade and exchange alle kinds of resources and services. In Simcity you can share a policeforce (which isnt really fitting for the neolithic age), in Ancient Cities, bigger setlements could provide advanced tools and protection in exchange for food.

That’s just an idea of mine, i would love ideas and sugestions, so please comment!
PS sorry if theres any broken english, it isn’t my first language.

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#2

We got the same idea :slight_smile: : Bronze Age DLC
World Map

From what the dev said, a world map (with different player settlements) won’t be in the base game but there is hope for the Bronze age dlc.

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#3

Oh yeah, cool!
Didn’t see that, but i said basicly all the things you said.
thanks for the link :smile:

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#4

Would the other city continue to advance while you’re building a new city? If not, I could see some issues with realism. As you concentrate on building up one city, you neglect the other and all of a sudden it’s not as advanced. So there might be a see-saw effect as you move back and forth between cities.

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#5

That does make sense, but the developers did talk about automaticly expanding houses. You could ad that to basic elements of the game, like making new farms, and other buildings that are detrimental to surviving.
But that does seem quite advanced, so your proberbly right.

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#6

I’m sure it would be easy to implement a option for this, “Allow player-made cities development: Yes / No”. Maybe a third option, or levels :stuck_out_tongue: I would want the computer to “take care” of my city, but not like… remake it completely :stuck_out_tongue:

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#7

I would however, on the topic at hand, really appreciate if the developers would include some function in the game, similar to the games I referred to in similar topics, through which the communication with other cities would depend on the technology and geography at hand. It it takes months or weeks to send an emissary to a certain city, negotiating with them, or even ruling them, should be more difficult (but not impossible!) than if they were closer. Having roads, horses, a network of inns, and other things, would play an important role. But just as the thread about roads suggests, it may take quite a while before we have roads, or can afford them, or have the funds to establish coaching houses :wink:

Roaming tribes and bands of criminals on the roads? Hindering trade? Behooving you to send out squads to destroy them? Storms and winter ices making sea travel impossible? Impassable mountain chains that make, for example, the areas to the north and south well-known, but east - unknown? There should be terra incognita, and a sort of organic “fog of war”. If your traders and emissaries visit a certain neighbouring city all the time, you should have a updated knowledge on that city. But if you only communicate with a city once a year, and it’s far away… how can you know what really goes on there? It might have been sacked, destroyed? Or they might be marching towards you with an army…?

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#8

The current plan is that the player only manages his own city. The player represents the political power in charge of that city, always: Even if the current chief departs with a raid, the player keeps in the city as the temporal rular until the chief returns.

Other cities can be interacted, eventually even dominated but not in the Neolithic (This is also connected with the history vs gameplay thread we are going to open soon).
The player cant move to the city maps of other cities. That would create serious technical issues because the simulation for the city map is so heavy, that we cant afford to simulate other maps in such detail at the same time.

Every travel around the global map is planned to cost time, and the information available in that map is needed to have reached the city first, so news are not instant and the global map will be not a true representation of the actual state of the world. For instance, a raid can be defeated somewhere in the map, and a messenger can return to the city with that news… or a enemy raid in response can be the first news that the raid was a disaster, just like it was.

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Raiding/Trading/Decay
#9

with a spy disguised as a dealer …? :wink:

Then the player plays something like a manager? Of course, also goes, but I find the approach of @Grigor more exciting[quote=“Grigor, post:6, topic:2849”]
I’m sure it would be easy to implement a option for this, “Allow player-made cities development: Yes / No”. Maybe a third option, or levels :stuck_out_tongue: I would want the computer to “take care” of my city, but not like… remake it completely
[/quote]
And now, let us think a little further. If it is quite exciting, the engine observes how clever we proceed in our first city - e.g. Available resources of a terrain 100 - of which players have used 74.
We assume the player is also the boss (personified), he is surrounded by other NPC’s who watch him. Some will start at some time to start a new settlement. The boss (player) looks for the terrain and now has the choice: a) he takes care of the basic structure for a while, or b) the engine allows the NPC’s to “level” 74% himself. Possibly with a small deduction of 10%, so that the player has an incentive.

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#10

Not sure what do you mean with “manager”.
The player takes the role of whom is leading the city in every moment, the boss, if you want to use that name.
It is not an abstract role.

The problem is the simulation of this. Because players of course would want to switch from one city to the another.
And that would be cool, indeed. But the game works in real time, so it doesn’t matter if something is visible or not, it has to be simulated internally. Other map cities that you can switch to means thousands of more items to be simulated: every vegetal in each map, animals, citizens, weather… everything. You would need a supercomputer for that.
If that switch is not available, other cities can be simulated with approximations. That’s the main reason behind that decision, at least for now. Remember we are a small team with tight timeframe and small budget.

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#11

Your concept is totally absurd. It is a city builder game. Not a war game. I will make and control my city, it is very interesting. Why will i visit another city? It is just meaningless.

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#12

It is more for the bronze age period : a strategic map of the area cut in 1-10km² squares and you can have a big town with palace and temples on one square and resources specific villages in the squares around (and you manage the trade route on the strategic map). Because realistically speaking resource are not all on the same 10km² map.

Hence severals player cities is not only for war but also for trade and strategic goods (it is not that absurd :wink:)

If you play the Anno Serie there is a good comparaison to make : sometime you have to colonize an small island far from your territory because it is the only place where you can find a specific resource. It add extra depth to the game because you have to hold a thought spot and maintain the connnection (and not only an easy place with a lot of farming/hunting aera). Like I said in this post : Bronze Age DLC it is a bit like simcity4 regional map (which is a great city builder by the way)

However I am well aware it is CPU hungry…:computer: :hourglass_flowing_sand:…:hourglass:

But as time go on cities become more and linked together so something have to be made.

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#13

You r absolutely right.Trading option is availabe towards bronze era. But, i think, there is no “trading of goods” option in history of neolithic era. Because first release of this game is fully covered the neolithic era.

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#14

I am not 100% certain but in late neolithic there is evidences of “jewellery” trade (like sea shell nearlace).
On stragetic resource level I think that flint, obsidian and yew were exchange (again not 100% certain).

However I agree that the scale was a lot smaller than in Bronze age, so an itinerant merchant (a bit like in Banished) could do the job. And it is a late game mechanic.

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#15

Maybe I had misunderstood.[quote=“UncasualGames, post:8, topic:2849”]
Even if the current chief departs with a raid, the player keeps in the city as the temporal rular until the chief returns.
[/quote]
This sounded like, there is the person / figure of a leader (NPC) and the player who sent this NPC. After that, the player has no influence on this NPC. He follows his own routine. The player “managed” meanwhile the village, but is no figure in the game. (similar to Stronghold Kingdoms) (?)[quote=“UncasualGames, post:10, topic:2849”]
If that switch is not available, other cities can be simulated with approximations. That’s the main reason behind that decision, at least for now. Remember we are a small team with tight timeframe and small budget.
[/quote]
Full understanding. Let the time work for you, sure there is a solution, it must be found. I can remember, that this problem was similar to Warhorse with his “Kingdom come Deliverence”. Base is the Cry-Engine and Roberts has implemented there for “Star-Citizens” ( also Cry-E) an interesting tool. Concerns invisible / visible area and simulation of the persistent world in the background.

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#16

Mhh…In Neolitic … for how long? Even in Banished there is much more to do and yet it becomes monotonous. Let us not forget that new knowledge does not fall from heaven and man needs an incentive to develop. This is not just a city simulator but also a population / civilization simulator.

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#17

I totally agree with @UncasualGames game making the choice of reason. I prefer a working game with limited features than a 100% fantasied game trying to be both a Banished-like, Totalwar-like anything-like that just doesn’t work.

Banished is essentially lacking any form of contact with the outside work, aside of several issues like the dangers of the world this is set it (raids, animals, etc.)
This won’t be the case here: dealing with your 10(?) starting citizens and growing them to 50 should be quite a long hard work I guess. Meaning: this should be fun to try to survive any form of raid, plague, drought, flooding, etc.

[quote=“tschuschi, post:9, topic:2849, full:true”]

with a spy disguised as a dealer …? :wink:[/quote]

Really, there’s no need for that. Just think you’re dealing with villages having only a few houses and families in Neolithic, not full towns. Just sending anybody there is enough to have information on the number of people living there and how many houses they have. There is no barracks, no secret weapon or something similar.

Besides, in many ancient cultures the merchants were allowed to trade without being considered as spies: this was in the common interest of every party, and it was considered fair that they may report anything they saw in foreign territories if their hometown asked any information.

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#18

I see it more like the rulers of KQ, but in AC you play as the guy who takes control of the city, family or not. That guy of course manages the city. There is still much to do in this area, so don’t take anything of this like settled in stone yet.

Our not visible world is already being simulated on the background, of course. But that background simulation also eats CPU. If we would need to simulate the city map, and also other cities to the same level, so everything remains coherent when switching or interacting… players would need a few nasa computers linked together to move that.
City simulation on Civilization is extremely simple compared with AC map simulation, where each living thing is being simulated.
This doesn’t mean is not going to be other cities, or even subsidiare cities in the future, but those will be managed from the outside.

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#19

I think you have to test it as it feels in the game. Your engine makes me very curious. But I also have doubts whether you have made too much of a lot of details, which are only insignificant or hardly noticeable in the game. As I said, try makes wise.

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#20

Yes sure. Today we would say “double agent”. :wink: The benefit and damage of information is always in the eye of the viewer. People are neither today nor were at all times"dear". As the population grows, there will have to be more and more competition for resources since they are finite.
Peaceful exchange would be wonderful, of course. But how did reality look like? As long as there was enough for everyone, no problem. But after a plague among goats / sheep … or after the fire of a reserve camp … and the harvest in this region was very bad because of the rainy summer …
I Do not think, that solidarity went so far, that they are starved voluntary.

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