I suppose it will be boring for players that only want battles, the same way battle mods are boring for players that don't like them.

This mod will be focused on player decisions. Make the right decisions and you succeed. Make the wrong ones and your community goes down the drain.

The main reason for military forces and structures are the same as for building hospitals, churches, houses and everything else: that is what the people want! And happy people work harder, getting you to your objective faster: Riches . . . Power . . . a magnificent Villa . . . and whatever other rewards I may include at the end.

Funny you should mention this now - I am about half way through working out the maths for a scripted projectile - one that can bounce off statics. Adding in gravity and a constant of restitution is quite easy after the rest. I will get the script written in a week or so, and I'll need to do some testing on it too, but I'm pretty sure it will work. I'll send you a copy when it's done, I mean you've helped me enough with scripts in the CS forum to deserve it!

Hey, that would be cool.
No hurry, thou. I still have a long way to go (months) before I start adding the pirates.

For the record (and a kind of progress report), I would like to mention the release of a beta version of my "http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097627-relzqquix-construction-suit/" mod.

As I say in that thread, it is a step toward The Evolving Society, as it was developed to allow the player to create/reposition buildings here.

Feedback about the interface is welcome.

A few quick ideas. Forgive me if something similar has been previously mentioned; I didn't want to read through all seven pages of posts.

After the PC attains sufficient notoriety, by (for example) rising to leadership in a guild, becoming the Arena Champion, becoming the Champion of Cyrodiil, or simply getting up a high fame/infamy score, a whole lot of people suddenly start demanding the player's attention. Or rather, simply start following the player around. Like the Annoying Fan.

The player meets someone who proposes a solution: A nice, simple vacation to a nice, empty island. The player agrees, sooner or later. Choose transport mechanism of choice, and the player arrives at the island.

There they find a run-down house, and have the opportunity to fix the place up a bit, run off the local monsters, etc. Player does so, still enjoying the vacation, and the simple work with tangible results. A travelling merchant may stop by, or a fellow adventurer, and the player has the opportunity to host them and maybe do some questing shenanigans.

Not long after, people begin showing up. They followed you after all! Or rather, some new folks heard you'd come to settle the island. They came too, thinking that you would make it a great place to settle, believing (at some level) that you were the lucky charm who would make their settlement successful. You can hardly get rid of them (well, you could, but they just keep coming for a while), so you reluctantly acquire neighbors, all of whom are convinced (despite your protests) that you are their leader. They come to you with problems, and you solve them because you'd feel bad otherwise. They come to you with dilemmas, and you help them out. Eventually you wind up full-out managing the place (or, at a minimum, finding appropriate managers to delegate to). A self-appointed mayor may even step forward, but get frustrated that the townspeople always take your opinion of things over his.

One more thing. I understand the logic you expressed early in the thread about how the town's population etc. might vary while you're out, which also means it might shrink. I think, though, that this could become really frustrating for some players (me) if it prevented them (me) from (my) usual free-form experience of Oblivion.

One plausible solution: I think it's reasonable that you could hire managers for various tasks or regions on the island, and that the competence of your managers would determine whether the island grew or shrank while you were elsewhere. No manager could grow a town past a certain size, set by that manager's competence, nor shrink it past a certain size, again depending on the manager's competence. The managers' respective competencies might influence the growth of the entire island: Hire an incompetent farming manager, nobody has enough food, no part of the island can grow. Get a glut of food, however, and room for growth is enabled. The populations of mining and lumbering departments would fluctuate accordingly.

This could fit reasonably into the mechanics as I understand them so far if you required that (1) The town reach certain landmarks of success before each manager becomes available (which would require the player to participate in the city building game) and (2) The player then does some quest (minor or otherwise) to either gain the manager's cooperation or train an already cooperating citizen.

Asterai

Interesting. Simple, light and kinda funny. Added to the possibilities.

As for the island evolution while the player is out, your suggestion looks like a good compromise: the player will have to earn the number of days he may stay out of the island without bad side effects. The better the managers, the longer the player may stay out.

Sounds good, although it will depend on how complex the management of the island will become. I mean, it may get too complex creating the code to replace the player decisions. The easy way is, of course, the island kind of freezing while the player is out (which may well be the option for the first version).

Thanks

QQuix we have faith that you can do it that beta you had for us was pretty fun even though it was just a script for the town growth

(Thanks, Jaden.)

A quick 'state of the mod' report:

Last month I decided to start the main mod engine from scratch, since the there has been a lot of script language improvements since the first prototype.
I have most of the economy algorithms figured out and will start scripting them soon.

Since I have a very powerful tool to controls the NPCs (NPC ACE- no modesty here) I will give the NPCs some intelligence and their decisions will drive the mod, as opposed to my initial idea of a big-brother-like approach that would see things from a macroeconomic point of view.
Either way, theoretically, the final result from the player point of view should be the same.

But this new approach spawned a few ideas, the most significant being:
As you know, we will have upgradable houses, shops and other facilities. The initial idea was that the player, based on available resources, decided which one to upgrade at any given time.
I am seriously toying with the idea of the NPCs deciding it themselves. In other words: NPCs would make money from their trade and, when dissatisfied with their house or workplace, would buy the necessary materials and upgrade it themselves.
The idea of NPCs making money also raises some nice possibilities: successful NPCs may get rich and may want to hire employees to work in their shops. Upper and middle class NPCs may want to marry. Rich, married NPCs may want to have servants in the house.
Kind of a teaser, but it seems doable.

Back to the ground . . . next steps:
Finish writing the main mod engine (mostly production, satisfaction and service facilities algorithms)

Then I will start two activities in parallel: (1) [finally] decide on the storyline and side quests and (2) start looking for a team to help me with the things I don't really know much about.

So, if you like to do any part of the modding business, please consider joining the TES team when the time comes (October? November?)

Ah, sounds wonderful. This seems to be coming along nicely. I can't wait to see your engine in action.

If NPCs can do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8pyOP0VQI, it will be outstanding as it is apparently what Bethesda intended to do with the so-called "Radiant AI".


I remember WhoGuru likes to write a lot of story.

- deleted double post -

NPC-Ace is an alternate way to determine the Ai packages the NPCs will run. Instead of the vanilla top-to-bottom approach, AI packages will be executed based on scripted decisions. Theoretically, you can have a decision algorithm as complex as you want.
But vanilla AI packages are still used to controls each particular NPC action, which does impose some limitations.



- - - -

I wrote this as a reply to a post elsewhere and I think it came out as a good, short description of the present general idea of this mod, so I reproduce it here:


I would say that the main focus is the ‘Evolving’ part if the mod: to present the player the challenge of turning an empty island into a flourishing capital city and a few peripheral villages.

Half of the mod derives from that:
- To build a city you need materials, both raw and manufactured
- To have materials you need extracting/producing facilities
- The facilities need skilled NPCs to run them
- NPCs need houses, which need more materials
- NPCs also have needs for supporting services (health, education, security etc)
- Supporting services need more NPCs
- which need houses and workplaces
. . . and so forth . . .

All the houses and facilities will be upgradable at least twice: from level 1 to level 3, e.g. lower >> middle >> upper class houses, chapel to church to cathedral etc.

We might say that the other half of the mod is focused on the NPCs: their satisfaction and their productivity. Happy NPCs produce more than unhappy ones, so it is the player's job to keep them happy (or the 'Evolving' part of the mod will suffer the consequences).

NPC satisfaction drops constantly: at arrival, an NPC is happy to sleep on bedrolls under the skies, but, day by day, his satisfaction drops a bit as he longs for a small house roof over his head. When the player decides to build him a house, his satisfaction boosts up again. Then the cycle repeats until he gets his house upgraded to a middle class house. And then again to get an upper class upgrade.

In other words: as NPCs get more sophisticated, they demand more and better houses, facilities and services.

The player, like a plate spinning circus artist, must keep thing in balance and not let any plate fall (or any NPC getting so dissatisfied to the point of leaving the community).

But the player will need to consider other aspects of the decision: suppose the sawyer is unhappy because the city does not have religious services, not even a chapel, and the smith is unhappy with the security aspect of the city. Supposing there is building materials for just one, should the player build a chapel (and hire a priest) or a barracks (and hire more guards)? It will depend, of course, on which product is needed the most at the moment: boards and planks from the sawyer or metal parts from the smith.

With the right decisions to increase general and particular satisfactions, the player counteracts the natural decrease in satisfaction due to increasing demands from the community.

Well, this is the general idea.
There is A LOT of other details and possibilities that I've been discussing with the mod community since 2008 in the three mod forums.

Are most of these features already done?

Most of what I described above is part of the new 'engine' I have started from scratch recently. I plan to have this done in October.
The building creation/positioning/replacement is done.
The NPC controls system is done, but, as a framework, it needs to be adapted to this mod (a 1-2 month work)
The island is done (from the NPC with Jobs project)

What still has to be done is the quest development for the main storyline and side quests, including all the necessary dialogs. For this, I will need help and, in October, I will invite the community to help me here.

I have watched this for such a long time, The whole concept is just extremely appealing to me, it was actually this mod which made me start the RTS-O mod I worked on (AI was just to heavy so it didn't work out)
But you have done such a good job, I really really really look forward to this!

As some feedback: I read that you wrote something like you would be able to upgrade every house to upper-class or so. Its okay if you do it, but I don't think it would be realistic if a simple farmer would be able to live in an upper-class house.
That way money would loose its value since it would no longer be worth having an educated job or hard job
Just a thought but keep up the good job QQuix

You are right.
I am considering a pyramidal social structure, so there will be a limited number of upper class NPSs (10-20%), several middle class NPCs (30-40%) and the remaining 50% of the population being lower class. Not sure how this will work with the satisfaction part of the mod, thou.

A farmer should be the very first NPC the player should hire, as the population growth depends on food surplus.
The odds are that the first NPCs that the player hires are the ones that will become the upper class, so the odds are that we will have at least one rich farmer.

Man, I can't believe I just heard of this mod. It sounds fantastic. This is exactly the kind of thing I think Oblivion needs - something managerial with player responsibility and thought. :goodjob:

Yes that was what I was thinking of, a feudal society, like in the middleages of Europe
But atleast, if you make one(or more) rich farmer, wouldn't it be more possible if he also "evolved" in society, like he became the "master" of other farmers so he in the end, as an upper class citizen, did no work in the fields, but worked as an employe for the lower class farmers?

This mod sounds really nice. Any approximate date of launch ( month, year, anything )?

Loving the concept behind this WIP, just want to pass on my appreciation, of the thought and detail your obviously putting into this. It does sound like something I would download and happily sit and convince my self of my managerial skills .

In any society, corruption is a major player, and would it be possible to include a chance of this to happen, it could also be a source for a quest/storyline at a stage that requires a moral choice in your mod, as with real life, dealing with issues is all part of management and while your dealing with that other duties tend to get left, making it a time based issue, could lead to frantic choices, and semi permanent NPC states of satisfaction. Which in turn effects it's community and it's economy. I realise this could be problematic to get to work well, however it is just an idea.

As is making the island weapon free (any weapon that is in hand that causes damage), and a permanent silence effect, this could also stem from a central area, that could have a story/quest line associated with it, either protecting it from sabotage and raid party that follows, or regular maintenance or the population decide to put down their picks, etc and decide that their problems can be solved using other methods, causing an anarchy state. Repairing the central Emmiter of Calm, becomes the players main quest from the resources at hand, of course no resources, means more trouble and harder to get back to a more manageable society once fixed, and may also mean that the player has to source the resources from the main land, longer that takes the bigger the problem becomes.

Also another idea perhaps might be interesting, and I'm trying to keep in mind that you stated you don't wish it to be influenced or to influenced main Cyrodil, but I feel that as it is a part of the world a little influence is needed, so idea I have is for how well the player develops, and manages the society has a direct link to fame/infamy and makes that variable more fluid. Thus as you become more famous for handling your island it has a slight bearing to disposition to you, or visa versa.

I hope these ideas are not to far fetched for your mod, and keep to the essence of your vision. But as I said they are ideas only , and I wish you luck in making this massive project. It is at this time I wish I could be of use in actually helping, rather than just commenting enthusiastically, however I haven't tried my hand at any mod making for Oblivion, and my knowledge is very limited in this regard. I have made addons for other games, so I am capable, just Oblivion daunts me abit that being said I am itching to learn the more I play this game again after seeing how the community has grown and the standards that have been achieved. So perhaps soon, I'll be able to seriously offer help if needed.

Any working NPC will accumulate experience points over time and eventually go up one step in the class system (it there is room in the next class)

I am considering (not sure it will make it into the first version) that when an NPC makes it into the upper class, he/she would hire employees to do the hard work. (Maybe having employees should be a requirement to enter the upper class?).

So, a farmer would start lower class with a small farm, upgrade is farm to medium size, become middle class, upgrade the farm to large size, hire employee(s) and maybe, become upper class (not necessarily in this order).

For the raw material production (food, wood, metal and stone), the community will need several facilities of the same kind.

So, you are suggesting that, when the time comes and the community needs a second farm, instead of the player hiring a new farmer, the first farmer would hire an employee and open a 'branch' of his farm business creating a second farm ran by the hired NPC?
I like it. I will keep it in mind.
This way, the first farmer, miner, lumberjack and quarryman would have the monopoly of their respective trades.



Probably first semester 2011.
Whether it will be February or June will depend on how many people will volunteer to work on the many side quests necessary to keep the player interest in the island.
If I accept only half the suggestions collected for almost two years in the three WIP threads, it will be A LOT of work.




Thanks for the suggestions; they will be considered, of course.
Corruption is an interesting concept for including in the main engine. I will keep it in mind.



Welcome to the community. I hope you enjoy modding Oblivion.

Your idea about the inhibitants gaining experence points is really nice!

The thing about your npcs hiring other npcs also has some problems, because I think the player could fell left out, if he/she didn't had a choice, whether or not the npc hired workers, so I think the player should somehow interact with this.

Another idea, Have you thought about how transporting the materials would go? I know you probably just use some variables, but if you implement transportation of goods, then you would have a new worker faction

For Parks, try 'Recreation'.

You have a point.
I could make the NPC, at a certain point, start 'desiring' an employee and his satisfaction would fall until the player hires and assigns a new NPC to that 'boss'
Same thing goes for house servants and spouses (although it would be kind of kinky if the player had to choose spouses for everybody . . . or would it be fun??)

On the other hand, micro managing all employees, house upgrades, workplace upgrades, may also get boring.

I guess we should go with one of the options and see how it feels in the first test runs.





I am not planning on implementing any visual indication of materials going back and forth or even in the shops. I may have some if I have some spare time at the end of the development.

But I have just released some scripts to have horses pulling carts (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20878) and I also have some unfinished work on moving ships along a path.
So, I am planning on a transportation service: Level 1 would be a simple wooden cart to travel from village to village, Level 2 would be some kind of carriage and Level 3 would be a ship service.




Good suggestion.
I had plans for 'Entertainment' as I already have a theater developed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vROUU6I5XEE).

But Recreation would also be a good service.
Any suggestions on what would the levels be?
Like Level 1 = 1 park, Level 2 = 2 parks, Level 3 = 3 parks?
Or Level 1 = park, Level 2 = ??, Level 3 = ?? (Public Baths, maybe?)

Just had a thought with the citizens growing more dissatisfied. Is there going to be a measure for respect they give you as leader/founder/whatever? I personally like the idea of a sort of blanket level of respect they give you with the growth of the city - you built it up this far, you've earned their trust. It could be kind of annoying to work hard to make the prosperous city and then have the farmer who's benefited the most from you start getting really snotty.