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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes sure. Today we would say “double agent”. 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.
“totally absurd”…? Someone must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Generations of city-building games prove you completely wrong. The ability to move from one city to another, by completing “scenarios” or “missions”, is quite established. In a game like Zeus: Master of Olympus, you could build a certain city, but discover that you are lacking an important resource. So you set out to build a small colony. Once the colony is thriving, you would move back to your main city. This, of course, is ruled by scripts and campaign rules, not the player’s whim. However, developing the system further, so as to allow a player to stop building city A, and instead found a new city, B, and after a few years return to city A, would not be very difficult. To call this anything else than city-building, I should say, is absurd.
This being said, I do not see such a mechanic as very important. The classical games were very simple in their mechanic, so what was possible then, would, as the developer writes here, not be work with Ancient Cities, it’s too large, too complex, to simulate not only your own site, but also ten more of them. Anyway, I am perfectly fine with just ruling my main city, which will surely require hundreds of hours of game-play While @tschuschi is right in that games like Banished offer very little content after you’ve established a proper settlement, I believe that the developers will offer such depth, and such a width of choices, as to create much greater possibilities to keep playing. The already mentioned thread about political and cultural progression contains a lot of interesting stuff in that field. From the responses @UncasualGames has given in here though, and in other places, it is clear that they intend to recreate the very successful model of the classical city-building games:
there are cities, tribes, villages and other sites out there, on the world map
as your tribe and village grows, and learn more, they explore and discover more of the world map
your tribe can interact with those sites on the world map, depending on distance, geography, knowledge, technology and other factors.
all sites will be unique, some quite similar to you, some very foreign. Some friendly, some hostile.
there will be trade, conflict, negotiations, diplomacy, migration, espionage and other mechanics, connecting your village to the other sites.
because your tribe will be tiny and your people without knowledge in the first version of the game, set in the Neolithicum, we will see very little of the above mentioned points. But they will come in time, with expansions. Neither late, nor early, but precisely when the developers want it to…
So, [quote=“Grigor, post:21, topic:2849”]
However, developing the system further, so as to allow a player to stop building city A, and instead found a new city, B, and after a few years return to city A, would not be very difficult.
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I think, you are saying just like simcity 2013 game. Remember that it was super flopped. But , cities skylines is more popular till now. Because it is really city building game in modern time. There are no concept about allowing the player from one city A to another city B and then return to city A like simcity 2013.
Pharaoh, Caesar III, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, Children of the Nile… Simcity 4 has already been mentioned in a similar thread, and even has the different “cities” visible on the same map, seamlessly connected to each other. There are many more examples of games that allow you to build a city, go on with building another one, and then return to your old city, and interact with the new one. That Simcity (5) was a miserable failure is irrelevant. Check your facts.
Please think again about your own statement.
Modern city - Neolithic village. (!)
Would not you agree that fits the complexity of a complete Neolithic continent into a modern metropolis?
Already a Tropico simulates a complete people within 40 years. And that would not work without external influences after 15 years.
It remains to be seen how exciting the simulation will be by the engine. I am very anxious myself. Nevertheless, a course of action will have to arise. Eventually some parts of the initially simulated features will go into the background and create (computing) space for calculations that are necessary in this phase. Quite simply, because the player would not perceive them or even annoy them.
Your right with the sea shell trade, but they were not the result of a trading route like we imagine, but more like a transmission of goods between generations and different groups. It could be a good idea, but to respect the context, the sea shell could be the result of neighbour exanges resultant to diplomaty (relationship).
Fallout 4 shows that your “home base” can have only a certain size. Going above that you get a warning bar that goes from yellow to red warning you that you are creating a problem for the game. Computer resources are being deminised.
Are you sure there were no such things as trade routes?. Ötzi the Iceman was killed far from any place you would expect to find a village (Alps). We may never know if was trading, traveling, hunting, or otherwise, but his location does imply traveling.
There is also the Obsidian trade in the middle east (and this one is not a transmission of goods but a real trade route : http://www.archatlas.org/ObsidianRoutes/ObsidianRoutes.php) which start in the late-Pleistocene with few axial routes (and only limited circulation) to a more reticulated network (by 7000BC) with important traffic.
Hummm… Sorry but, let me doubt about the credibility of your source. I avoide this type of page, even if there is the name of a researcher at the top, this is not the direct source. And this is exagerate to talk about important traffic…
No they where not travelling at all ! (Sarcasm) Come on, by trade route like we imagine I mean, the modern conception of. Don’t forget that we are speculating to much on many things.
We may have a different idea of terms, then. I thought you meant semi-organized trade. For example, every other spring, a guy from the village to the North arrives with things he traded the previous summer from another guy from farther north, etc.
Did you even read about history of theories in archaeology ? I recommend you and everybody who want to learn about theorical and practical mistakes in archaeology sinces the last centuries to read Bruce Trigger. You will understand that we are actually in post-processuals theories who recommend archeologists to always keep in mine that human societies are not predictable. We can’t speculate on everything and say that it was like this because it’s logic or because this the way it’s work. Each periods have their paradigm, and we are actually in a paradigm when we speculate on evething when we think about the past. Please Lotus, be carful about the difference between historical fiction and concrete theories about the past.
For starters, please remember that not everyone is an archaeologist and this is not an academic forum. Denoted, speculative forays of conjecture are perfectly in place in such a place. Additionally, please do not confuse fiction with de facto fantasy. Just because the fictional people are made up does not mean the setting is intrinsically wrong, nor should one expect to be looked down upon by such bias.
When I speculate, I try to always qualify it as speculation. Additionally, the fact that we cannot know something for certain does not preclude supposition or even hypothesis. If we were to discount these tools, we could never know anything but pure facts, abandoning our imaginative process. There’s nothing wrong with an attempt at understanding our past using various comparative sources and extrapolation, so long as it is made clear that this is what you’re doing versus statement of fact. I am unsure of archaeologists are limited in such a fashion, but I would hope not.
Remember that even a “concrete theory” has a basis in informed conjecture, which formed a hypothesis, which was then supported by facts (as with most science). As we have seen many times before, even the strongest of these can change as new information arises. An example might be the original belief of avian exclamation at Catalhoyuk. Upon reading the logs from dozens of burials (I spent hundreds of hours reading their excellent data!), it became apparent to me that the hypothesis of avian exclamation did not in fact match with the data. Upon contacting the Catalhoyuk project, I was informed by none other than Professor Hodder that, “Our current work shows that in fact bodies were not left out to be defleshed by vultures; the bodies were buried with their flesh on and intact.”
Very interesting I’m glad you understand what I wanted to say to all of us ! And the reason why I respond like this to some comments is because I criticize of lot (as an analyst). But we have also to criticize ourself (auto-reflection) ! And this is not personally against all of you. We have to debate if we want to learn something, this is science
If you say so. After all you are an archeologist student so your data and knowledge on the subject are better than mine. So I guess important trade really start with the Bronze Age (with an increasing gradient in the late neolithic).
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I’m glad you understand what I wanted to say to all of us ! And the reason why I respond like this to some comments is because I criticize of lot (as an analyst). But we have also to criticize ourself (auto-reflection) ! And this is not personally against all of you. We have to debate if we want to learn something, this is science 