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[Aqizzar]

I have a little skill when it comes to basic models, so I wrote up a little excel sheet here to deal with population growth calculations.

I've subsumed all aspects of breeding into a single score of Breeding Ability (I wrote a longer sheet that took into account life expectancy, breeding ages and litter size, but it was unnecessary and I ran into a stumbling block at gestation periods, so I went for the simpler abstraction).  This generates a raw growth figure (roughly equivalent to 10% or current pop per BP) which is then modified by food avilability, predation, disease, civic provisions (shelters, nurseries etc) and other factors, then finally fate (a d100 roll).  Fate and avilability of food have the greatest weight, followed by predation, disease, other events and civic provisions in that order.  Full details are within the excel spreadsheet itself.

If you like, I can add a battle simulation sheet to it as well.  Colony success/failure can probably be determined by a simple d100 roll modded by civic advances.

Damn man, that's great.  It's not exactly what I had in mind (of course what I had in mind can charitably be described as nebulous), but I can't thank you enough for doing all that hard work for me.  I've written too many responses to bother implementing it this turn, but I will for next time once I come up with some starting population numbers.

I'll have to look over it more later today and PM you with some commentary, but one thing I notice right now is - Is the Final Growth number what's applied to the total population of a tile?  Because even the example Shrike would be growing by half-again every turn.  I can see populations exploding out of all proportion in a few turns.  Perhaps Raw Growth should be scaled down, or given less weight?  PM me with minutia, I'll have some questions about how to actually use the thing (I don't think I've ever actually run Excel before).  I've also got some slightly different rules for predation defense in mind, I'll send that too.

General note to everyone - Just me and a1s have to post (no pressure).  I have more responses to write up - takes about an hour or so per person with the way I work.  Hopefully, I'll have it up late tonight/early AM.

[Iituem]

Aye, numbers are meant to explode to a certain degree.  Because of the way food is set up in the calculation, they level out long before they reach the hypothetical maximum that food in a region can support.  Bonuses for being far below the food limit and penalties for getting closer to it.

I also updated it to include a battle simulator, on the little tab marked 'Battles'.

Additionally updated with an Examples tab and a worked explanation of equilibrium in long-term biological systems (yes, trust the biologist to do that).  Breeding rate allows one to colonise areas faster, it does not necessarily allow one to colonise better.  Overcolonisation of an area will lead to cycles of steady growth followed by 'lean' years (or 'outright famine' years if you're Chibor).  Perhaps people might consider investment in granaries against this sort of misfortune?


Oh, and a bit of advice to Penguin.

Spread.  Spread far, spread wide, because if we use this your lean years are going to hurt.  On the bright side, you'll be able to colonise areas ridiculously quickly.

[Tuv]

So, if I'm reading that correctly... then my Umgran would have incredibly low growth, (which they do!) but would have lean years be so light, that it would barely affect growth as a total? And that is assuming that they reach their max sustainable population food-wise, before I can evolve them to be more efficient... Slow but Steady?

[Iituem]

Actually, I ran a couple more sims and Umgran were still getting weirdly steep peaks and valleys, so I've adjusted the gradient on Food values to account for tenths of food consumption rather than fifths.  It runs quite a bit smoother for everyone now.

Edit:  Amusingly, in one of the sims the Shrike actually settled at a perfectly sustained population of 50625 every turn (birth rate = death rate).  This is without the variation imposed by dice rolling, however.  I'm beginning to suspect some sort of Logan's Run style population control in that situation.

Also accounted for missile/melee weaponry in the Battles section.  In a Missile/Melee confrontation, missiles get one free attack before full combat starts, after which both sides must use melee weapons.

[Tuv]

The math part of it melts my brain... But I really like the way it calculates. It seems very appropriate... Besides, even IF the chibor out-number me 20 to 1... wee acidic rocks? We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

[Duke 2.0]

 When it gets to the mid-levels, can I have my Shrike start fires and/or melt softer metals with their electric shock? I would imagine it would effect fire-making/Metallurgy rolls. I mean, it would be prety mundane if level 50 would be around what we can do in the modern times. Perhaps Humans could be the level... 35-40? Thus an easier sense of scale.

[Iituem]

I have this terrifying image, now, of Shrike cults where several of them gather in a ring and summon up a thunderstorm.

[Nilocy]

Asheron, what exactly will your deity be able to do for the Nevon worshippers? Set stuff on fire I hope, and smelt me some metal!

[a1s]

comments and such:

a1s, if you want your fifth space back I'll allow that too.

yes, please.

I have a little skill when it comes to basic models, so I wrote up a little excel sheet here to deal with population growth calculations.

in the old games it was announced that the hexes had their populations capped by the availability of food (an odd figure of 100'000 per food point was given. odd because of how different all the species are, both specifically in size and just in general), so if you could somehow incorporate that (as a curve), that would be great. If not, then we can just assume these are the rules of this game.

the turn:

Bigtwig had what you would call a scientific mindset, he had earlier turned down an opportunity to become a junior *Smartstalk*, to join the scouts, and see for himself the strange creatures of the north. And now this hasty decision seemed to be paying off- yesterday they caught a live Jhiar'd (known a *bugPlant*, as they seemed to posses simple civilized structure, like real *Plantwe*) worker in the forest they were staking out, and he would not cease to be amazed by it. First of all the silly creature seemed to communicate using vibrations, a medium that was so easily distorted in absence of hard soil, that could be one of the reasons these creature haven't developed a proper civilization, the other being that they lacked roots, and had to forage for food all the time. They also seemed to create large structures out of soil, no doubt to deny criminals sunlight, and in frighteningly large quantities. *bugPlants* had developed the stick on their own, but it's not very sharp and possessed a flat stone on the end, which Bigtwig guessed was for throwing, however loosening the stone (which came fastened for transportation) took far too much time in combat conditions, so he designed an improved version for the consideration of the *Smartstalks* at home. The final discovery didn't seem quite important to Bigtwig, but he mentioned it anyway- *bugPlants* would talk to an invisible creature that seemed to be responsible for magma eruptions, and general cunning, they couldn't sense if the creature was listening (as they would do this quie often and nothing ever happened), but from what they say it's very powerful.

The Plantwe of U25 try moving to higher hills, where they throw any fungus patches down the slopes, having been born there the local Plantwe are very reluctant to give up their homes. (BTW there were some large animals who defended the Plantwe from attack there, I'm assuming they were killed by the fungus too?)

The cult of the *birdsmellNot* was slowly going downhill, lacking any clear proofs of their ideas (less thean a thousand remained, most of them from the old generation)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Plantwe continue their study of the Jhiar'd
Fight fungus in U25
develop a ranged weapon (a very simple sling-like thing that is hard to reload, but becomes a pointy stick after use)
...and that's about it.

[Aqizzar]

When it gets to the mid-levels, can I have my Shrike start fires and/or melt softer metals with their electric shock? I would imagine it would effect fire-making/Metallurgy rolls. I mean, it would be prety mundane if level 50 would be around what we can do in the modern times. Perhaps Humans could be the level... 35-40? Thus an easier sense of scale.

I have this terrifying image, now, of Shrike cults where several of them gather in a ring and summon up a thunderstorm.

Asheron, what exactly will your deity be able to do for the Nevon worshippers? Set stuff on fire I hope, and smelt me some metal!

I like all of these ideas.  Duke - I'll count Metallurgy as a separate ability, but include the electric ability (probably reduced) to metal-related actions.  I'm not exactly sure why it would work (controlled flat shorts I guess), but it's stylish enough that I'll go with it.

Consider that a general rule - if something sounds really cool, I'll probably find a way to allow it.

I'll try to write up what I can (pretty much finished actually, but I want to post turns all at once), but I've got some classwork to do.  The only real stumbling block now is I have to think up and write my own turn.  Because of the flaky way I work, it takes a while to write these things, but it's coming along fine.

On that note, I'd like to make a humble request as your GM.  This isn't a rule, but if everyone could limit themselves to three general actions a turn, that'd be super.

[Nilocy]

Just read your post a1s, like your style. But if it was a worker/warrior/pioneer/mother you captured they won't be able to use the vibrations. Thats left to the bigger Heads. And theres very little chance of capturing a Head cause they're usually so busy hiding from other Heads that they'll never come out of the nurseries. So you can't really get this from a captured bug tbh. But you'd prolly hear them coming from the bug colonies. Sorry to nit-pick, but in the interest of RP i thought i should point it out

Three turns sound fair enough for me, i was wondering when you'd impose a rule like that
Oh yeah, I was just reading the first post and I think we should decide on the planet name now. Players should list a series of entries here, and then we can have a mini vote on it... ok?
Entries:
1. Hazoor. (Name of the Jhiar'd earth. Only reasonable to assume they'd call the planet after their own land.) [Nilocy]
2. Orbisterrarum [a1s]
3.
...
Just list them in your next posts or what ever.

[a1s]

*landWholeness*!

seriously though, isn't it called Pangaea?

[Tuv]

Pangaea isn't the name of a specific place, but the name of a geographic pattern... Any planet with only one solid mass of land could be said to have a pangaea.

Pan- as a prefix is derived from the Greek παν which means 'of everything', 'all' or 'involving all members' of a group.

Gaea, meaning Earth in Ancient Greek

so Pangaea just means "off everything earth, or all earth, or with a bit of semantics "One Earth""

Imo just call it Terra (for earth) or Sol (for sun) or even more cheesy sounding... Terra-Sol (One sun, One earth)

[a1s]

all-earth... That sounds like quite a good name for a homeworld...
"Orbisterrarum", or something.

[Nonanonymous]

Imo just call it Terra (for earth) or Sol (for sun) or even more cheesy sounding... Terra-Sol (One sun, One earth)

Tuv, this is a binary system.  One star is a conventional class G (Like our Sun), and the other is green, only noticeable during eclipses, and expedites evolution.