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[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I’ve spent most of this week URRing, which has been a nice break (I’m waiting on a lot of PhD feedback from my supervisors, so rather than twiddle my thumbs, it made sense to get some coding done). Hoping to start full-time year at the end of this month, or possibly the very start of next month, depending on how fast I’m able to move house. In the mean time I’ve been working partly this week on finishing off religions for this next release, but mostly on cities. As a whole I’m past the 3/4 mark on 0.6 (after which no release will ever be this large) and there isn’t that much which needs finishing off. The largest part of what still needs doing is city centre generation and military district generation which I haven’t even touched yet, and then a large number of smaller things – improving market generation, finishing off hunter-gatherer settlements, a few issues with world/map generation, etc. Docks are going to be closed this release since they require integration with a number of other factors – the movement of ships, ships docking (so handling multi-tile “creatures”), departure/trading schedules, etc – so they will appear probably in 0.9, as I don’t want to code part of them, leave it for half a year, and then come back and have to figure out how the hell it all works. Anyway, this week’s stuff:

Firstly, I added a lot of variation to religions based on the discussions in the previous blog post. Religions now have four special factors, and some religions will have none, one, or all four of these factors. These are a unique feature (festival, pilgrimage, animal sacrifice, etc), an exclusion (a particular type of weapon they consider heretical and cannot be used if you worship them), the punishment for leaving that religion (none, excommunication, open hostility), and then a list of other religions, if any, that they consider heretical, and whose believers they are hostile to. Here’s an example from the in-game encyclopedia:



Aside from that, the major thing I’ve worked on this week is the city exploration screen. If you’re on the world map and you move into a city, the screen changes from this:



…into this:



…which is quite a complex screen when you first see it, but there’s a lot of information that needs to be stuffed in there without compromising on clarity (as much as possible). It displays the nature of each district (the characters in the corners, [, $, 1, etc), whether you are currently in it (displayed by a lighter shading, the @ symbol, and the arrows on the edge of the screen), and most importantly, the cost for entering that district. This is the first aspect of the strategy layer of the game and the use of the player’s time and resources. The cost is shown in this picture in the nation’s currency – some nations only have a single currency, whilst others have two levels of currency like most real-world coinages. The “this city is not populated” message will only be there until coinage and NPCs are implemented, of course, but I thought it was important to be clear for 0.6 on this point.



The sidebar display a load of information about the city. The top text will describe your relationship with that nation, and therefore whether you are given discounts or charged extra for movement, and below that how much of the appropriate currency you have. Movement within your capital is totally free, however, as is any nation you are closely allied with. Then it tells you what district you’re in, and lists all the buildings you know of within that district. All districts within your home city will start explored, whilst you will be able to purchase maps to other cities, or ask for directions to specific buildings when exploring abroad. For the next release or two currencies are not implemented so your movement will be free, but in either 0.8 or 0.9 currencies, and currency exchanges, will appear. I’m looking forward to generating the images for the currencies too, as there’s a very cool selection of possible coins in there.

Other stuff:

- All castles, graveyards, crypts (below either graveyards or cathedrals in theocratic nations), taverns, arenas, jails, theatres and asylums now have full (and pretty awesome) name generators. Fancy visiting Blackwish Bastion, Whispering Orchard Necropolis, the Sepulcher of the Golden Bones, the Tankard and Dragon, Boneblade Fighting Pit, Slate Palisade Lockup, the Theatre of the Choleric Faces, or the Tranquil Gate Sanitarium?

- Some cities which don’t have enough roads going into them now gain extra gates so that you can always access them from various directions, and these are shown on the world map.

- Player stats have been updated to reflect the upcoming combat mechanics – you now possess strength, dexterity, endurance, perception, finesse, and marksmanship, two of which will determine your skill with each of the six types of weapon (slashing, long, heavy, short, bows/crossbows, and gunpowder).

- Marshland is fully implemented and hunter-gatherer settlements, towns and city districts all generate correctly on them, allowing for pools of marsh water without jeopardizing pathfinding.

- An early draft of religion-spread mechanics has been implemented; any civ that believes in “Religious Freedom” as their policy will have the religions from all neighbouring civilizations reflected, including those they neighbour with a colony, rather than their main body of land. This then determines which buildings spawn in religious districts, and they are described in the city view screen appropriately – “a Stupa of the Six of the Leaves”, “a Church of Her of the Mountain”, “a Chapel of The Thousand Divines”, etc etc.

- I fixed a bug causing towns to generate large circles of road in the middle of the ocean.

[Retropunch]

Fantastic! I love the city exploration screen. I was wondering how you'd make it manageable for the player to get round these huge cities, and that should certainly help!

As usual, a critical comment:
I love the special factors of religions, but I feel that exclusions feel a bit game-y. All the other factors are quite deep and in fitting with their real world counterparts, but weapon exclusions seem a bit too 'rpg' and so sort of out of place. Obviously religions should have their conducts and related sins, but perhaps exclusions could be widened?

It's difficult for me to make suggestions as I'm unsure what gameplay mechanics are going in which could then be made into conducts (and weapons could be one of them), but I can imagine things like not allowing the player to wear types of fabric, or using wooden items. Secondly, I'd like to think some religions have tiered levels of 'sin', so some may dislike the use of wooden items, but HATE the use of wooden weapons.

[Nighthawk]

I like all of it. Even the weapon exclusions. While I do agree it feels game-y, when it comes down to it, URR is a game. Implementing religions with limitations attached opens up some really interesting playstyle options and even challenges that yield rewards. Think about it: if you want an awesome sword, join a religion like the one in the screenie up there. Do the stuff that makes them happy, avoid using bows, and eventually some high priest fellow may hand you an epic weapon. From there, you're free to leave the religion and join another, since there is no serious penalty for doing so.

I like it a lot.

[Man of Paper]

I dunno about the no serious penalty thing. Apostates and heretics are often seen as worse than non-believers. To the point of getting executed for it. I wouldn't want to run into a group from a religion I became a fixture for then turned my back on.

[Retropunch]

I do think weapon exclusions have a place, I just don't like the idea of all/most religions having weapon exclusions as a major factor in religion, as that just seems a bit flat somehow. I can imagine other exclusions like 'humble travellers - not allowing the player to travel by lavish means' or certain materials being banned or whatever which could add a lot more flavour. Some could have no hard exclusions/conducts, and instead just be about following general rules.

There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?

[Neonivek]

That whole "religions are all the same" aspect comes pretty much exclusively from Dungeons and Dragons.

Which I have to say as far as "religions" are concerned is probably one of the worst in fiction. The mythologies in dnd are interesting but the religions are cartoony or non-existent most of the time.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Thanks for the awesome ideas/comments everyone:

Fantastic! I love the city exploration screen. I was wondering how you'd make it manageable for the player to get round these huge cities, and that should certainly help!

As usual, a critical comment:
I love the special factors of religions, but I feel that exclusions feel a bit game-y. All the other factors are quite deep and in fitting with their real world counterparts, but weapon exclusions seem a bit too 'rpg' and so sort of out of place. Obviously religions should have their conducts and related sins, but perhaps exclusions could be widened?

It's difficult for me to make suggestions as I'm unsure what gameplay mechanics are going in which could then be made into conducts (and weapons could be one of them), but I can imagine things like not allowing the player to wear types of fabric, or using wooden items. Secondly, I'd like to think some religions have tiered levels of 'sin', so some may dislike the use of wooden items, but HATE the use of wooden weapons.

Ha, yeah. So was I...

I mean, cities are deliberately massive. The Skyrim nonsense of "this is the capital city of ten thousand km2 of land, and it has TEN UNIQUE NPCS yet a thousand guards" just won't do. I love the Assassin's Creed cities which are bustling with life, but I need a sensible way for you to negotiate these. That screen is part of it, but there are many other parts - NPCs will give you detailed directions, you can buy maps, and only certain parts of any given city will be relevant to you at any given point. I'm also working on adding some significant clarity to some districts, especially market districts. I like how they looked in the images I showed a while back, but walking around them is a little unclear. It needs to be more apparent what the shops are and where they are.

Anyway. I take your point re: game-y-ness (and I always appreciate critique), but in this instance I think it works ok. I agree that there could be more exclusions though - currently there are slashing/long/heavy/short/bows/crossbows/archery/pistols/rifles/gunpowder/grenades, I think, is the entire set. However, tiered issues (or tiered punishments?) is a very interesting idea, and I quite like it. X-strikes-and-you're-out. More thoughts on this in my reply to your latter message!

I like all of it. Even the weapon exclusions. While I do agree it feels game-y, when it comes down to it, URR is a game. Implementing religions with limitations attached opens up some really interesting playstyle options and even challenges that yield rewards. Think about it: if you want an awesome sword, join a religion like the one in the screenie up there. Do the stuff that makes them happy, avoid using bows, and eventually some high priest fellow may hand you an epic weapon. From there, you're free to leave the religion and join another, since there is no serious penalty for doing so.

I like it a lot.

^ this is very much my thinking. Do you want to worship a religion that wants you to kill their foes and rewards you with maps but won't let you use heavy weapons, or one that wants you to bring back maps of foreign lands, bars the use of gunpowder weapons, but will reward you with valuable healing items? Etc etc. Your latter sentences about "using" and then discarding religions is exactly my idea, especially since they integrate with other aspects of the game. Say you find a religion like that - a reward you want and some objective that will be simple to achieve. But - is there a religious building nearby that you can visit? Are there other religions which will hate you if you worship them? Does the thing they ban seriously affect you? Even religions with no penalties cannot be rejoined after leaving, I've decided, so you want to ponder how long you want to hang around in one before leaving for another (if that's what you decide to do). As ever, playtesting balancing is needed for severity of punishments, ease of changing, etc etc.

I dunno about the no serious penalty thing. Apostates and heretics are often seen as worse than non-believers. To the point of getting executed for it. I wouldn't want to run into a group from a religion I became a fixture for then turned my back on.

Hmm, that's a good point. As below, maybe I need a broader range of punishments? Perhaps another could be that if you leave the religion, that civ's homeland will charge you more for district movement, maybe? But yeah, if you leave a religion that doesn't like those who leave, you should be aiming to avoid them in the future. I like the idea that as a playthrough progresses, everyone starts broadly neutral, but the more you play, the more allies you build and the stronger your character becomes, but the more enemies you also rack up...

I do think weapon exclusions have a place, I just don't like the idea of all/most religions having weapon exclusions as a major factor in religion, as that just seems a bit flat somehow. I can imagine other exclusions like 'humble travellers - not allowing the player to travel by lavish means' or certain materials being banned or whatever which could add a lot more flavour. Some could have no hard exclusions/conducts, and instead just be about following general rules.

There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?

I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!

More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...

You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.

1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.

2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."

3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.

I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

That whole "religions are all the same" aspect comes pretty much exclusively from Dungeons and Dragons.

Which I have to say as far as "religions" are concerned is probably one of the worst in fiction. The mythologies in dnd are interesting but the religions are cartoony or non-existent most of the time.

Interesting - can you say a bit more about this? I know little-to-nothing about how religions are depicted in DnD, and I had no idea they were so simplistic!

[Putnam]

I'm gonna be frank and say that I mostly still follow this topic for the pretty pictures.

Then again, given that this game doesn't really technically have graphics, that's really damn impressive.

[Scoops Novel]

The more ridiculous religions should be treated as such in game. If a poor island nation has a religion that bans ocean travel and swords,  they shouldn't be much more then a cult if that. It would just be incredibly gamey if i saw many people signing on for the "lolwut" religions. I also second option 3.

[Retropunch]

I do think weapon exclusions have a place, I just don't like the idea of all/most religions having weapon exclusions as a major factor in religion, as that just seems a bit flat somehow. I can imagine other exclusions like 'humble travellers - not allowing the player to travel by lavish means' or certain materials being banned or whatever which could add a lot more flavour. Some could have no hard exclusions/conducts, and instead just be about following general rules.

There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?

I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!

More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...

You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.

1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.

2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."

3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.

I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The 'No omnipotence' one sounds pretty much impossible to make work in a meaningful way - best case scenario you'd be encouraging the player to do massive amounts of inventory swapping.

I can imagine a version of the second one where using the item/committing the infraction whilst in 'civilized spheres' may lead to you losing favour with your religion (again, I think a gradient system is a must). Defining 'civilized' spheres may be difficult, but I imagine that at some point you'll want to show (or at least have behind the scenes) the spheres of influence of different ruling groups/religions, so it could be tied to that.

This might lead to interesting gameplay if there were different gradients of civilization. You could have a good chance of avoiding losing favour with a religion in a semi-uncivilized area so you might risk committing an infraction, but you'd probably not dare do anything in very civilized areas. This could alternatively (and more excitingly) be tied to areas of religious influence - committing infractions far outside your religions (and possibly similar religions (think CoE<->Catholic)) influence would be a lot less risky.

[Sergius]

I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!

More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...

You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.

1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.

2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."

3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.

I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.

Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.

[coolio678]

Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.

Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.

The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.

[Leatra]

Hey, your first fan here It's been a long time but I was checking your blog silently once every few months. I'm delighted the way the project is going. It's amazing you made this much progress even though you had a PhD to deal with.

Hmm, that's a good point. As below, maybe I need a broader range of punishments?

Different religions should have different ways to deal with heretics. At least for the sake of variety, just throwing some brainstorming ideas:

I think killing on sight is the most apparent one.

Ignoring: Believers of the religion are not supposed to interact with you. They'll treat you like a ghost without any sings of active aggression, but they'll defend themselves if you attack them. Ignored tend to try to make living in the slums part of the city. Since they usually turn to stealing to get by (and caught easily) their numbers are low.

Confession: Believers of the religion will try to capture you, and after they got you imprisoned, they'll try to get a confession out of you and unless you say how sinful your act was and plead for mercy from one true God (or true many gods), they'll torture you until you die from your wounds. After you confess, they'll hang you/burn you alive/bring out the firing squad/force you to hara-kiri/slit your neck so your heretical-but-confessed soul will reach the merciful God.

Marking: If the heretic is captured, he/she will face the punishment of marking. This can be something as small as a tattoo on the face, or a removed body part. Those who are marked are treated as the lowest social circle in the hierarchy, worse than slaves. Those who are marked should have trouble with hiding their identities depending on the mark.

Exile: You won't be allowed to enter settlements where this religion is the state religion.

Removal of the tongue: You will spread your heretical lies no more.

Some religions might have a combination of punishments. Like ignoring and marking, so people will know who to ignore, rather than being omnipotent about it.

some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!

Awesome idea, and it reflects reality too. One of Islam's virtues is (or used to be?) modesty. Being flashy, wearing too many jewelries, making big donations without hiding your name, and building giant mosques which are so richly decorated that could buy an entire city is (was?) very frowned upon.

You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.

1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.

2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."

3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.

I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Number 3 might be difficult to code. Not that I know anything about coding.

If anybody saw your heretical act and got away with that. He could report it to a priest, but then you'd have to deal with several variables. Maybe the player wants to bribe the witness, send assassins after him, try to locate him, try to convince the witness to shut up as soon as the witness sees him, etc. Or maybe the witness wouldn't want to report the player because of good relations with the player, or maybe he isn't that religious himself to care about it. It would open up a lot of possibilities, none of them sound easy to code. If you place to many limitations to keep things under control, it will still feel gamey.

The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.

Hmm, I wonder how noble families will be implemented. Will we see Game of Thrones style politics and intrigue?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I'm gonna be frank and say that I mostly still follow this topic for the pretty pictures.

Then again, given that this game doesn't really technically have graphics, that's really damn impressive.

I am very comfortable with this .

The more ridiculous religions should be treated as such in game. If a poor island nation has a religion that bans ocean travel and swords,  they shouldn't be much more then a cult if that. It would just be incredibly gamey if i saw many people signing on for the "lolwut" religions. I also second option 3.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. This is an interesting thought, but I feel that make things a little too deterministic, and reduce some decisions. If the only popular religions are those which are "good", it seems like that would seriously limit the decision-making of choosing what religion to sign on with. I mean, I can think of some real-world religions with some very restrictive of very "extreme" beliefs (from an outside perspective) that have massive uptake, so I actually don't think it would be all that realistic, either!

The 'No omnipotence' one sounds pretty much impossible to make work in a meaningful way - best case scenario you'd be encouraging the player to do massive amounts of inventory swapping.

I can imagine a version of the second one where using the item/committing the infraction whilst in 'civilized spheres' may lead to you losing favour with your religion (again, I think a gradient system is a must). Defining 'civilized' spheres may be difficult, but I imagine that at some point you'll want to show (or at least have behind the scenes) the spheres of influence of different ruling groups/religions, so it could be tied to that.

This might lead to interesting gameplay if there were different gradients of civilization. You could have a good chance of avoiding losing favour with a religion in a semi-uncivilized area so you might risk committing an infraction, but you'd probably not dare do anything in very civilized areas. This could alternatively (and more excitingly) be tied to areas of religious influence - committing infractions far outside your religions (and possibly similar religions (think CoE<->Catholic)) influence would be a lot less risky.

Agreed: re: No Omni, I'm definitely leaning heavily away from that one - I hadn't considered the inventory repercussions, but that's definitely true. Now, this gradient idea - that I really like a lot. Civs with that religion could count as ominpotent over errors, civs which border a civ with the religion could be partly omin, and other civs you can do whatever the heck you want and nobody would know. That could be a very clear/explicit three-level thing for the player to understand, I think. I need to add a religion overlay to the world map, so maybe something like "Religious Presence", "Religion Spreading" and "No Religious Presence"? I realize a three-part tiering of this isn't very nuanced, but could work really well with making clear when your infractions will/won't be known. So in the spreading areas, would it be something like "Wielding a forbidden weapon is a 50% chance of discovery"? Or maybe for each X turns you spend in that territory, you have a Y% chance of your religion hearing about it? Or some other method?

Hmm. And maybe each infraction loses one rank whilst doing stuff your religion wants gains a rank. I quite like this idea - the higher up a rank you've gone, the more you can do unacceptable things before your religion kicks you out. There are probably going to be around 5-6 ranks for a religion, so each of those could tolerate one infracton?

Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.

Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.

This is an interesting idea, though I think I may go with the infractions and rejection one, rather than "internalizing" the player's issues. Especially since I expect the player to switch between religions throughout the game (much more so than DCSS, for instance). As for renown/notoriety, I've been thinking for a long while about how exactly this should work, and there's a hundred different models going through my head at the moment. Global, national, individuals, I'm not sure what "scale" I should model who knows about who, and so forth. Of course, there are other "extremes" I could go with that - maybe everyone instantly knows who you are, or only NPCs you've met before know who you are. Those would be very clear to the player, though as with all the others, I need to think through all the repercussions.

The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.

^ ja. For that reason your civ will start out fully-explored, for example. But yeah, it may be hard to be a nobody, which might lean towards a system akin to the religion thing - further from your civ, the fewer people know you. I'll have settled on something once we get to NPCs (0.8, I'm finishing up 0.6 now), but I think all these models have definite strengths and weaknesses.

Lots

Hello Leatra! Welcome back to the thread, as it were. Glad you like how things are progressing, and thanks, I *really* appreciate that re: PhD. As I mentioned somewhere (here? blog? I forget) I'm doing > 50% of my time on URR at the moment, since I'm at the stage of PhD of just sending my work back and forth between me and my supervisors and waiting for feedback, which always leaves breaks of 4/5/6/7 days, vs. only 1/2/3 days of work each time I get some comments back.

Anyway, thanks for this list of other punishments. It's awesome. I think ignoring/excommunication could be two levels, one where they will rarely talk to you, will trade but give high prices, and one where they refuse any contact (and as you say, defend themselves). Confession, I like it, so they actively try to capture you, not kill you. Marking is also very cool (and... ties into something I have planned very, VERY well), but might overlap with ideas I have for denoting slaves. I could have some other punishments - for instance, branding is down as something a civ might choose for marking slaves, but I could use maybe cutting off an ear, or similar, if that religion gets a hold of you. Exile: I like it. Removal of tongue: wooooooooooooooooooooah. If that happened to the player... that would certainly be a very extreme change. No conversations allowed, but you could still trade by holding up coins. That's crazy, but I'm a big fan of very bold, game-changing things in game design, so I'm not going to rule it out, actually. Could also have punishments to remove an eye (smaller FOV?), remove a hand (can only wield one thing)... those would be extreme, but they'd be damned interesting, and things that you'd want to *seriously* avoid, as there's no way to undo 'em.

Ah, good call re: modesty, that could be another way to express that one if I can't think of a good wording for "poverty is a virtue". Agreed re: #3, I'm leaning towards #2 even more so currently, but some model as I mentioned in one of these other replies, where there are regions where you are guaranteed to have your infraction known, regions where your chance of being known rises the longer you infract (or each time? Again, want to prevent exploitable behaviour), and regions where you can do whatever you want and your home religion won't know.

I hope so! Right now each family has a mansion in the upper-class housing district of their capital civ, and you (this release) will start just outside your manor. In 0.7 (probably) you'll start within your manor!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Update after 5 minute consideration: I'm putting in the hand/eye/tongue punishments. Hell yes.