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[Clownmite]

I found the paper in response to a post I made in the roguelikes subreddit a while ago. I've been hoping a game makes use of it but I decided that if nobody else was going to do it, I might as well try...

I think the reason lots of roguelikes in Python have been popping up is because it's an easy-to-use language, is compatible with a great a free roguelike library (libtcod), and has an excellent crash-course tutorial written for using libtcod with python: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod . That tutorial was responsible for me understanding how to put a game together and the original code in my game is based off of that (and lots of it still is).

[lemmily]

Well I'm glad you kept it, it's going to be hugely useful for me I think. Up to now I've had a handful of vague articles on implementing game economies and a guess about supply & demand - I got stuck at the point where I realised that it depend son price, which depends on supply & demand. Baffled. ha!

I had a guess it might be that, it seems many many people have used that as a start point! I did it myself I almost scrapped the actionscript and rewrote it in python, but then I realised there was still a tonne of stuff in Python I didn't understand. so it was safer to stay

The tutorial definitely helped me in understanding how to better put a game together - also the use of component-like structures. I wish I'd done it before I started my project!

This is one part of my project in progress ->

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

so land map is left, and then the right is trying to be temperature map, still in progress I haven't sorted water yet. and the lower altitude the warmer.. so deep ocean is kinda warm.

[Clownmite]

What kind of stuff in Python don't you understand? The tutorial does a pretty good job explaining the basics of just about everything you need. Python's also great because it has lots of modules that can do many common tasks.

Your project looks good so far, I do a similar thing for temperature, actually. I just realized my oceans must be very warm too since I haven't treated them separately, but I'm not too concerned. I think I'm weighting distance from the equator a lot more than height for temperature change. That part of my code is a complete mess, but it generates decent enough worlds for me to do testing in for now.

[lemmily]

What kind of stuff in Python don't you understand?

it was more the organisation of the code - I didn't manage to quite understand how to make separate files for the classes. I really didn't like the "work in one file" approach. I also couldn't find an environment that worked as well as flashDevelop does for actionscript - what do you use?
I only spent a very short time looking for the separate file thing and I'm still quite happy with actionscript atm though. I was just envious of the easy way they do things like the message/menu functions. I definitely want to have a go in the future, but I'm settled on AS3 for now.

I think I'm weighting distance from the equator a lot more than height for temperature change.

Yeah I was trying to do that with a gradient, but it wasn't working very well! I've just gone back to it now, and well, breaking stuff .

[Glloyd]

PTW, this looks great. Any plans to post an alpha?

[Clownmite]

it was more the organisation of the code - I didn't manage to quite understand how to make separate files for the classes. I really didn't like the "work in one file" approach. I also couldn't find an environment that worked as well as flashDevelop does for actionscript - what do you use?
I only spent a very short time looking for the separate file thing and I'm still quite happy with actionscript atm though. I was just envious of the easy way they do things like the message/menu functions. I definitely want to have a go in the future, but I'm settled on AS3 for now.

Actually it's really easy to have separate files in Python. Have one file contain classes, variables, or functions that you're going to use, and then on your other file use import [filename] - the same way you'd import a built-in module.

PTW, this looks great. Any plans to post an alpha?

Thanks! Yeah, as soon as I can get a minimum of interesting things going on, I'll try to release something for people to play around with. I'm planning on making it really easy to modify the economy too, so that I can have people add in their own stuff. Should be interesting to see what happens.


I've been thinking some more about population, labor, and government. Right now, I'm going to say each raw resource gatherer (farmer, miner, etc) represents 100 people, and each specialist (blacksmith, clothier) represents 20 people. The government eventually will be able to pull some raw resource gatherers away from their jobs for large construction projects, and for conscription into an army. The government also takes half of what each resource gatherer produces, and a little from each caravan bringing raw resources.

I modeled a really simple form of consumption. If any of the agents in the economy simulation go too long without food in their inventories, they'll starve. I'll eventually make them try to emigrate if they can leave the city, but they won't have much of a choice if the city is under siege. However, in my current tests, a lot of people are starving even with a food surplus - which tells me they're either not adjusting their prices correctly, or they're filling up their inventories to the point where they can't hold any food.

[Glloyd]

I've been thinking some more about population, labor, and government. Right now, I'm going to say each raw resource gatherer (farmer, miner, etc) represents 100 people, and each specialist (blacksmith, clothier) represents 20 people. The government eventually will be able to pull some raw resource gatherers away from their jobs for large construction projects, and for conscription into an army. The government also takes half of what each resource gatherer produces, and a little from each caravan bringing raw resources.

I like this. So there'll be some sort of division of labor happening within the nations. Will we then see some sort of societal pyramid with blacksmiths and clothiers having more apparent wealth then farmers and miners? And what about everyone's favourite: Nobles. How will they be represented within this game in terms of population. Maybe if a specialist is twenty, then a noble (could be a catch-all including aristocratic land owners as well as administrative nobles) could be something like 2 or 3?

[Clownmite]

I like this. So there'll be some sort of division of labor happening within the nations. Will we then see some sort of societal pyramid with blacksmiths and clothiers having more apparent wealth then farmers and miners? And what about everyone's favourite: Nobles. How will they be represented within this game in terms of population. Maybe if a specialist is twenty, then a noble (could be a catch-all including aristocratic land owners as well as administrative nobles) could be something like 2 or 3?

Well, right now, each "agent" has a certain amount of gold, which is the amount of money they have earned, and they can of course go bankrupt. So the amount of money blacksmiths etc have is based on the actual supply and demand within the town, and how good that particular agent is at guessing the prices to buy and sell things at. Right now I have some farmers doing very well in towns where the demand for food is higher, whereas in other towns with lots and lots of farmers, many are barely scraping by. But the same can be said for other types of agents - clothiers, etc. So hopefully, yes, the specialists will come out on top, but it's fairly unstable right now.

As for nobles, at that level, I'll be having individual people. Right now the game generates some historical figures for each civilization including some generic nobles, but in the future, it will also add in nobles once an economic agent reaches a particular wealth. Merchants are also represented as individuals.

[Mephansteras]

That brings up an interesting point about nobility: In many cultures, it tended to be warriors and generals who ended up as nobility. Few cultures had merchant nobility, although of course it still happened. You also have the issue that most nobility were the major land-owners, so most farming was done on their lands and they got the majority of the benefit from that.

You may also need to figure out where you want your balance-point of Farmers to Townsfolk to be. In the Middle Ages, it was about 90% farmers. Other time periods had different percentages, but for pretty much any pre-industrial age that super-high number of farmers to anything else is going to be the norm.

[GalenEvil]

This might help a little with some details. It's geared a little more towards Online games IIRC, but the advice should be scalable to Offline games as well. It's is rather word dense but there is a lot of explanation about how to give a realistic balance to this sort of game.

[Glloyd]

You may also need to figure out where you want your balance-point of Farmers to Townsfolk to be. In the Middle Ages, it was about 90% farmers. Other time periods had different percentages, but for pretty much any pre-industrial age that super-high number of farmers to anything else is going to be the norm.

I agree, if you are going for a Medieval (or Classical/Ancient) setting, there should be much more farmers than there are specialists, as there wasn't enough of a food surplus to sustain large city populations, so ideally most towns could have many farmers, but only a minor food surplus.

 

That brings up an interesting point about nobility: In many cultures, it tended to be warriors and generals who ended up as nobility. Few cultures had merchant nobility, although of course it still happened. You also have the issue that most nobility were the major land-owners, so most farming was done on their lands and they got the majority of the benefit from that.

Indeed, merchant nobility only really florished later in history, with the exceptions being merchant republics such as Venice or Genoa. But within larger empires such as the Romans, you did see some merchant nobility, while the vast majority were land owners, who did control a large amount of the agriculture. But on top of that, to stick with Rome here, a large amount of farmers were free retired soldiers who were given large tracts of land in newly conquered regions. In regards to the first part of the quote, what wat that old saying? "The first king was a lucky soldier" or something along those lines... Will we be seeing that represented in this game? And, as an addition to that, will we see discontented generals [i.e. Julius Caeser (to further stick with the Rome example)] come back from campaigning with an army of loyal soldiers and seize power from the current ruler?

[Clownmite]

That brings up an interesting point about nobility: In many cultures, it tended to be warriors and generals who ended up as nobility. Few cultures had merchant nobility, although of course it still happened. You also have the issue that most nobility were the major land-owners, so most farming was done on their lands and they got the majority of the benefit from that.

You may also need to figure out where you want your balance-point of Farmers to Townsfolk to be. In the Middle Ages, it was about 90% farmers. Other time periods had different percentages, but for pretty much any pre-industrial age that super-high number of farmers to anything else is going to be the norm.

Merchants will only be considered nobles once they reach a certain amount of wealth, just like anyone else. They'll be represented as individuals, not necessarily as nobility. Other figures will be individually represented too - bandit leaders, adventurers, high priests...

And yes, I am planning on making everyone mostly farmers. The problem though is that in order for the current economy simulation to work, there needs to be a little bit of competition, so I'll need at least a few units of 100 miners, clay gatherers, etc. Right now about 800 farmers can support a city of 3500, so there will definitely be lots of tweaking going forward.

This might help a little with some details. It's geared a little more towards Online games IIRC, but the advice should be scalable to Offline games as well. It's is rather word dense but there is a lot of explanation about how to give a realistic balance to this sort of game.

Thanks, that looks interesting. If anyone else has any other relevant articles (especially dealing with how ancient economies functioned) I'm all ears.

In regards to the first part of the quote, what wat that old saying? "The first king was a lucky soldier" or something along those lines... Will we be seeing that represented in this game? And, as an addition to that, will we see discontented generals [i.e. Julius Caeser (to further stick with the Rome example)] come back from campaigning with an army of loyal soldiers and seize power from the current ruler?

I'm really interested in simulating growth of civilizations from hunter-gatherers. But for now, they just kind of pop into existence, kings and all (or occasionally, a senate). One of the things I'd really like to do, if I ever get this far, is do an evolution simulation to populate wildlife and sapients. But first I need to get a playable groundwork for everything else...

And yes, I'm definitely going to allow the possibility that generals install themselves as dictator.

[GalenEvil]

If I can get my simulation up and running in a reasonable time (hopefully within the next two months) I'll share my NPC Life simulation stuff. It will ideally have only individuals as entities, and the articles I linked are definitely helping it along. I don't have a specific timeperiod for them though, it's more of a simulation of a smallish group of entities entering a tract of land (it can support about probably about 10-20 sq miles currently) and making due with what they have available. I can get up to about 50 thousand or so entities moving around and then the population starts dying off rapidly from starvation I guess...

[Neonivek]

Ability to play as an adventurer, governor, or head of state

I am going to be honest because not saying this has been kinda killing me.

I kinda prefered the idea that the "Adventurer" mode wouldn't be included. Mostly because there is so much you could do with the other modes were it not trying to intigrate them all.

Thats it. Please ignore that, it is just something I had to say for sanity.

Mostly I am interested in seeing a fantasy roguelike that is actually more focused on politics, intrigue, economics, and all that jazz instead of the usual clash and bash.

"Ohh Govenor with the new palace we have created a dragon seems to have pearched itself in the new royal bedroom. What should we do?"
Govenor: "Let it be, it seems we have a new dragon palace. We shall start negotiations in the morning"

---

Edit: Whoops this might not be fantasy >_< I am mixing projects up AHH!

[Clownmite]

If I can get my simulation up and running in a reasonable time (hopefully within the next two months) I'll share my NPC Life simulation stuff. It will ideally have only individuals as entities, and the articles I linked are definitely helping it along. I don't have a specific timeperiod for them though, it's more of a simulation of a smallish group of entities entering a tract of land (it can support about probably about 10-20 sq miles currently) and making due with what they have available. I can get up to about 50 thousand or so entities moving around and then the population starts dying off rapidly from starvation I guess...

Sounds interesting. I'm always interested in simulation types of stuff.

I kinda prefered the idea that the "Adventurer" mode wouldn't be included. Mostly because there is so much you could do with the other modes were it not trying to intigrate them all.
...
Mostly I am interested in seeing a fantasy roguelike that is actually more focused on politics, intrigue, economics, and all that jazz instead of the usual clash and bash.

I've never played a roguelike before (unless you count DF), or any fantasy RPGs because I can't get into the focus on character stats or the static worlds. So, while I guess this will be considered a roguelike (procedural generation, simple graphics, punishing) it will be more focused on the light simulation aspects. I've wanted to be able to run amok in a world that a) has interesting things going on whether or not I'm there to witness them, and b) will react to whatever shenanigans I come up with. Ideally it will be as much of a story generator as it is a game, much like DF.



I was just about ready to re-add some armies but I got thinking about governments a bit. Currently I have 2 "levels" of government - 1 for city level and 1 for state level. I'm thinking it will be much simpler just to make 1 level of government, the city, but let that government be subservient to others if they get conquered or whatever. I think it will both be simpler to set up for me, and also give the game more of a "city-states" kind of feel that I'm going for. Eventually I'd allow the government at the top of the food chain to enforce a certain government structure to those under them. Thoughts?

Armies should be interesting because a standing army will take food to upkeep every turn, so you'll want a core standing army followed by levies that you raise in times of war. Of course, raising levies means that you need to provide food for them, and it also means your economy will take a hit, especially if they get killed or captured and can't return to work for you. I think I have a simple way to capture this dynamic without things getting to ridiculous levels of simulation. The first pass of armies is going to be extremely rough; probably not too much better than the "50/50 chance of winning a battle no matter the army size" that I've been relying on before. Eventually I'd like armies to have unique units and compositions based on culture.