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[axiomsofdominion]

I've played a wide variety of games since I was a kid and something I always wanted to play was a very genre blending RPG with a living world.

I am a big fan of games like Majesty 1, King Of Dragon Pass, Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom, Dominions 4, Hinterland, Patrician 3, Academagia, Grim Dawn, Morrowind, and so forth.

I've searched quite a bit for a game that has elements of some or all of these games, among others.

Basically a game where you play a Character with a very deep and complex RPG system, which has a world where other Characters engage in actions, and you can do a variety of things like Learn Magic, become a Military Officer, lead a Kingdom, engage Trade as a merchant, and have detailed and meaningful relationships with other characters. Friends, allies, spouses, maybe with enough strategy in the mix you could have noble or merchant houses with decades to centuries long alliances. Maybe you could start and run a magical school or w/e. Basically integrate RPG or Sim games into a living world, most likely a strategy or management game.

I know you would be sacrificing stuff like, probably, a hand-crafted world and fancy, potentially voiced, dialogue, as well as cutscenes or good visual novel art. Because obviously that stuff can't work in an emergent game.

I know about stuff like Long Live The Queen and Crusader Kings but LLTQ, or Academagia, have a very constrained and static world. Crusader Kings is very history focused and that constrains it in a lot of ways, especially regarding fantasy stuff, even if there are some good mods. Plus the character interactions are extremely limited and shallow. In a Sim or Visual Novel with game data when you throw a feast you could actually organized a feast. The CK series is really just hit button for widespread opinion modifier and maybe a few tacked on events without many choices or decisions.

I'd love recommendations but I suspect there are not many potential ones which is why I tagged this as discussion over recommendation. I'd also like to if people have any detailed thoughts or daydreams about this kind of game and such so I didn't think that qualified for question.

I think you'd have to make various tradeoffs to get something like this and I wonder which different ones people prefer.

Like, maybe you have to simplify trade and not having actual isometric/3d city-building maps or walkable rpg maps. Or maybe you have a very simplified world that is only a few countries in size so that character interactions can be more detailed.

Something like Academagia is much more menu based and you might only really have character portraits for art and no complex dialogue. And do you lean into emergent interactions more or take Academagia/LLTQ style pre-scripted "Adventures/Paths/Events"?

As an example because people always suggest CK games:

Think of like what Tobbzn did with the Way Of Kings mod with the courting system. But the whole game would be like that and maybe turn the crank a few more turns passed the courting sim. It doesn't quite get there because it is limited by the modding system.

Like when you throw a feast you don't actually throw a feast. Pick food, pick decorations, entertainment, do you want a tournament? Maybe a ball? Why not both? When you have a religious event how much does that actually differ from the feast mechanics?

Can you pick who eats at the high table vs in general? You don't have different social occasions or different activities at occasions, like the ball or the tourney or a reception, but if you did you probably couldn't specify particular characters being invited to specific activities.

There's no social calender in the game. So like in a fantasy novel you might have year feasts or holidays or festivals. A tournament circuit. You never have to decide in CK2 or 3 which social occasion to go to if 2 fall in the same day or week. Each given feast is functionally identical.

Of course a lot of this isn't possible because CK games like all Clausewitz games are real time, rather than turn based.

[gomez]

This sounds like what I thought Guild II was going to be when I bought it. Also there is a game being made that has a post on here its called *URR or something like that. It sounds similar to what you describe.

*Stealth edit I remembered the name of the game. Ultima Ratio Regum.

[Il Palazzo]

The vibe here makes me think of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series - the more RPG-focused iterations, at least.

[axiomsofdominion]

This sounds like what I thought Guild II was going to be when I bought it. Also there is a game being made that has a post on here its called *URR or something like that. It sounds similar to what you describe.

*Stealth edit I remembered the name of the game. Ultima Ratio Regum.

I guess URR sort of contains many of the elements I listed, though it wasn't really what I was thinking of. Is an interesting game for sure.

[EuchreJack]

Mount & Blade series, especially with mods, comes to mind.

Time scale is an issue with a lot of games.  They usually spend too long on one character, so that running a dynasty either takes forever or massive tragedy.

[axiomsofdominion]

Mount & Blade series, especially with mods, comes to mind.

Time scale is an issue with a lot of games.  They usually spend too long on one character, so that running a dynasty either takes forever or massive tragedy.

What are the character interactions like? And can you do big social occasions?

[EuchreJack]

You can stab them?
There are parties, and you can kidnap marry a lady of one of the various lords.

It's basically a ride&slash war sim with some character diplomacy thrown into it.
It's FUN.

[axiomsofdominion]

You can stab them?
There are parties, and you can kidnap marry a lady of one of the various lords.

It's basically a ride&slash war sim with some character diplomacy thrown into it.
It's FUN.

I followed it years ago when it first came out but then I was into EVE and irl politics for several years so I imagine it is quite different from when I was engaged.

[EuchreJack]

You can stab them?
There are parties, and you can kidnap marry a lady of one of the various lords.

It's basically a ride&slash war sim with some character diplomacy thrown into it.
It's FUN.

I followed it years ago when it first came out but then I was into EVE and irl politics for several years so I imagine it is quite different from when I was engaged.

Uh, not so much....

Bannerlord has the most of that sort of stuff though, and it's still in development.

But good sir, you haven't lived until you've hacked a peasant from horseback, or shot a peasant from horseback, or lanced a peasant from horseback.

Or been a peasant just trying to survive (mods let you play AS the faction troops, with upgrade to better equipment)

[axiomsofdominion]

So it turns out that the game most useful to me to study is actually Kudos 2 from Cliffski and Positech. I did not see that coming but a game industry guy I talk to on discord suggested it. Actually shocked that Cliffski made a mid 20s 90s-2000s millenial life simulator. Far cry from GSB or Democracy 2.

[EuchreJack]

But still, play Mount & Blade to relax.  I mean, I was skeptical.  But it really scratched an itch.
Well, maybe get it on sale.  I'd say its worth the price tag, but it usually goes on sale.  I'd suggest Warband currently.  It has more features but isn't the overpriced memory hog of Bannerlord.

[bateau-de-coal]

Many games tried (are trying) to be the one game "of RPG with living world", including DF itself. I remember Toady said they originally only planned adventure mode, and fortress mode served as a background simulation for the world where adv.mode took place.

[axiomsofdominion]

Many games tried (are trying) to be the one game "of RPG with living world", including DF itself. I remember Toady said they originally only planned adventure mode, and fortress mode served as a background simulation for the world where adv.mode took place.

The thing is you gotta cut. You can't have it all right? So if you mix city building, rpg, visual novel, and strategy sim, you have to decide what goes. So IMO you cut scripted dialogue and visuals from visual novels/social sims, so you basically end up with Kudos 2, but obviously with a fantasy setting not 1990s NYC/LA, city building you cut the city maps and just keep buildings and resource chains, RPGs you also cut the walking world and just have like those text/menu RPGs like Battleon from the early 2000s, maybe with less mediocre neopets style graphics, just hald decent icons, strategy sim you move to character focus, drop the stat block minmaxing, make sure it is turn based cause real time won't work for performance. Everything is procedural.

DF sorta does this except it keeps the ascii and later icon based world. Which is probably the most reasonable thing. Low impact graphics that aren't too fancy. But even adventure mode has some limitations and the game loses some of the advantages of turn based and has some minor performance issues. But Toady does it right to some degree. Some of his choices don't work well for me personally and I'd rather have maps, more panelly menus, and "locations" rather than the ascii/icon world. But from a design perspective he did what you need to do to make a genre blend work.

[bateau-de-coal]

From my experience of making a game, one difficulty of making a living world is the balance between being versatile, being robust, and not straining an ordinary home computer too much. To make it interesting, the player should be able to leave some impact on the world, and the impact should persist for sometime. This is to make the world versatile. Meanwhile, the player, as a mere individual in the world, not some destined main character, shouldn't easily change the world in any fundamental way. This is to make the world resistant to player-induced damage, to make it robust. Finally, even if the dev has thought of everything, the average home computer that runs it should be able to handle the computing. I agree with you about the advantage of text/menu. They're more efficient than ascii, and even more so than pixel/3D.

[axiomsofdominion]

From my experience of making a game, one difficulty of making a living world is the balance between being versatile, being robust, and not straining an ordinary home computer too much. To make it interesting, the player should be able to leave some impact on the world, and the impact should persist for sometime. This is to make the world versatile. Meanwhile, the player, as a mere individual in the world, not some destined main character, shouldn't easily change the world in any fundamental way. This is to make the world resistant to player-induced damage, to make it robust. Finally, even if the dev has thought of everything, the average home computer that runs it should be able to handle the computing. I agree with you about the advantage of text/menu. They're more efficient than ascii, and even more so than pixel/3D.

Home computers are pretty stronk these days. Strategy sims are for turbo nerds so you expect them to have a decent PC. Mine is almost 10 years old but still pretty good. Can play all the modern games. Well unless they require Windows 10. Windows 7 forever.