That is a good idea.
I could include satisfaction with the player into the equation.

This way, the player may counterbalance some temporary difficulty she may have (like not having resources to build the chapel the citizens want).

Satisfaction with the payer would increase when the player helps the NPC by doing some side quest the NPC requests. Maybe, even all NPCs would get a little bit more satisfied with the player each time the player helps any one.

I like this concept as it would differentiate the player that cares for the citizens from the player that just mechanically builds up the city.

What do you mean by the farmer being the only on to trade.

Not sure what you mean.

The farmer theeq mentioned was just an example.

This "No NPCs enacting their trade (with the possible exception of the farmer, as I already have it [video])"from the first post.

Oh!...
The Sawyer will go inside a building in the morning and when he leaves at the end of the day there will be fewer logs and more planks in the community warehouse.
But if you go inside the sawmill, you will not see the NPC cutting logs into planks.
By that I mean that creating animations to fit the NPCs' activities is not a requirement.
The same way, we will not have the meshes for the tools and equipment used in the sawmill or any other shop.

Unless, of course, there are animators and modelers willing to create them, which would be cool.

The http://npcwithjobs.com/ project has some animations and I will ask permission to use them.

It's mods like this, Real Time Settler, NPCs Jobs, and Indy Bank that make me love gamesas games so very much.
For satisfaction, would it be possible to code a separate reputation score for the ES town? I'm assuming that nothing you do on the mainland has any effect, here. This could lead to some very interesting possibilities. For example: let's say you're a notorious murderer on the mainland. The people in the ES have never heard of this, maybe you could build an entirely different reputation with them as a benevolent and model citizen?

Second point, was it ever established whether there would be a mayor-figure or the player in charge of the city? Or could it be either? Power struggles could be interesting for an add-on later on.

Thirdly, what about guild halls? Maybe not necessarily quests, but at least some presence of organized labor. Maybe a delegation from the fighter's guild comes to start a new chapter (this could be really fun if they player is the Guild Leader, maybe they sent them?). Or, if we want to keep the town COMPLETELY separate, perhaps groups of similar workers just want to set up a guild for themselves? Example being a blacksmith guild where they gather weekly or something similar. Guilds could be incorporated into the economy a few ways that I can think of. Maybe guild members make more expensive goods, but they are higher quality. Perhaps the guild leader is dissatisfied with how the town is run and so they go on strike? Or maybe guilds host celebrations periodically? A trader;s guild could bring in more imported goods or increase exports, as well.

1: Yes. The idea is to keep the two worlds isolated as much as possible.
I am not that familiar with the way the game handles fame/infamy to be confident that being a bad guy in mainland will not influence the game behavior while in the island (it is the same game after all), but I will try to keep the isolation as much as I can.

2: No. The mod main storyline has not been established yet. I favor the idea of having the player running everything. My only concern is if it would grow boring after some time, in which case, depending on technical feasibility, some kind of automation would be in order and a mayor/administrator/minister may be needed.
As you say, an internal struggle for power might be a nice add-on.

3: The presence of vanilla guilds has been suggested and may or may not happen, depending on which suggestions we decide to implement.
Local guilds is an interesting concept but the way I am planning it, except for the raw material extraction (food, wood, stone and ore), there will be only one NPC of each trade, not enough to create a guild.
Along the same line of thoughts, an alternative that has been discussed is to group the NPCs in factions and have some faction-related quests that would satisfy/dissatisfy NPCs in the faction as a group.

"State of the Mod" time:

I've just finished the scripts for the core of the engine (!!?)

Meaning: I already have scripts for the mod 'mechanics':
- Hiring NPCs
- Creating facilities
- Matching NPCs and facilities (the newly hired farmer will find and take possession of a previously created farm.
- NPCs satisfaction algorithm
- Facilities consuming raw materials in the morning
- Facilities producing products at the end of the day, based on the satisfaction of the NPC running it.
- Facility upgrades
- NPC upgrades (social level)

It also means that I have nothing visual to show. At the moment, the scripts are completely virtual and are not dependent on the game world.

But it also means that, with a few hotkeys for hiring NPCs and creating facilities, I can play/simulate the whole 'game mechanics' from beginning to end. I will spend some time exercising the scripts and fine tuning the many variables in order to get a good balanced game (mechanics-wise, I mean).

So, script-wise, we already have:
- The game mechanics
- The NPC control engine (http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1060697-wipz-npc-ace-npc-advanced-control-engine/)
- The building positioning engine (http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097627-relzqquix-construction-suit/)

Still missing: a way to work around the pathgrid vs. new buildings problem. (at least three possible solutions conceived)


I hope that, by the end of the month, I will start asking you to join the team and help with whatever modding skills you may have.

I exercised the mechanics and they seem sound.

I simulated the whole process from zero to a full community by means of an automatic script (a very crude AI algorithm) that decides which building is best to be built/upgraded at any given day in order to keep the population happy and productive and, then, 'fast forward' to the next day (as I said, it is all virtual, atm)

The system hired 20+ NPCs, built a work facility and a house for each and every one of them. Atm, there are 4 extraction facilities (farms, quarries, logging sites and mines), 3 processing shops (sawmill, brickworks and foundry), 4 service facilities (barracks, religion, health and lodging) and, of course, houses.

All facilities may be upgraded up to 3 times (e.g. none >> chapel >> church >> cathedral) and NPCs 'level up' with time, requiring better services, houses and work places (or else their productivity drops).

Many more facility types may be added, but I think I'd better work on having something 'material' to show to the hundreds of volunteers that will step forward to join the team.

worm82075 kindly agreed to host the team's public and private forums at http://thewormhole.nfshost.com/forum/index.php.
I will let you know when the setup is ready.

I am glad to announce that the mod concept proved technically feasible and we are ready to go to the next phase and start developing the mod itself.

I say "we" because the first thing in the order of business is inviting you gals and guys to help me build this mod.

The team forums have been just set up at http://thewormhole.nfshost.com/forum/index.php and if you are willing to work with the team, just present yourself in the http://thewormhole.nfshost.com/forum/index.php/topic,2347.0.html.

I could create a working mod with what I already have, but it would be interesting only for the city-builder kind of player and dull for everybody else. So we need to make it more 'colorful' by adding an interesting storyline and challenging side quests.
The side quests will be the main tool for the player balancing the development of the community, as the result of these quests will increase or decrease the satisfaction of the population, individually or by groups.

As I mentioned in the first post (wow, it has been 2 years already) I can handle the scripting part of it, but I need help with the other aspects of modding, both on the creative and technical sides of it. There are already a lot of creative suggestions in this and other mod forums, so I suppose most of the work to be done is related to discussing, choosing and creating the side quests. New ideas and suggestion will always be welcome, of course.

As I see it in my lack of experience with large mods and team work, the initial composition of the team should be like this:

'Must's:
Project Technical Leader - I need someone knowledgeable and experienced with the technical part of ESPs and ESMs, external tools and all the aspects of putting together the bits and pieces generated by team members.
Quest developers - more than one, to split the work of developing the many foreseeable side quests.
Dialog developers - one or more, I suppose
Scripter - me

'Nice to have's
Moddelers - although this mod can be done using just vanilla meshes, it would be great to have a few custom meshes as well.
Interior decorators - Again, it would be great if we had some customized interiors for some of the facilities we will have in the mod, like the sawmill or the hospital.
NPC creators - same as above
Resource prospectors - to suggest modder resources that would fit the requirements that will pop up along the way.
Beta testers - probably will become a 'must' in the later phases

We won't need landscapers, because the island was offered by the "NPC With Jobs" project and I want to keep it as is, as a homage to the original creators and as respect for their work. Besides, it is perfect for this mod, as it has specialized regions fit for the planned extraction facilities (farms, quarries, mines and lumber sites).

Anyway, regardless of your modding skills, if you are willing to work I am sure you can help in some way.

Hope to see you there.

I would, as said, be happy to join the team as a Quest Designer, and perhaps a Resource Prospector as well. (As after working on Vikings, I've become familiar with most of the resources found on the Nexus^^)

Welcome to the team. I noticed you already posted there.

Forgive the ignorance, but is there a separate thread for this mod, now?

Here, this is the only one. (there is a http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=83048)

After I opened the http://thewormhole.nfshost.com/forum/index.php/board,311.0.html), I kind of neglected updating the mod status here. Quite unfair . . . so let me bring you guys up to date:


I did release a pre-Alpha version for the team, but then I realized it was still not much in it to raise the team eyebrows and, consequently, I realized I needed to beef it up a bit in order to get the team to use it, get the feeling and, then, get inspiration for starting working on side quests and stuff.

Current status: these are already developed and in the mod:
- The landscape - 95% (needs a few touches here and there)
- The production system - 100%
- The satisfaction system - 100%
- The effects of satisfaction on production - 100% (may need some fine tuning along the way)
- The buildings placement, upgrading and repositioning - 90% (still have to remove the pathgrid nodes from beneath the buildings.

I am currently working (a bit every day) on adjusting the NPC ACE engine to this mod (actually, keeping the ACE concept, but rebuilding and improving the scripts).

When I finish this part, I will release another alpha version for the team, now, besides building and upgrading the buildings, the city and the villages will come alive with NPCs going back and forth from home, to work, to the inn/church/etc.

= = = = = = = = = = =

But I have a question for the readers here: I already mentioned that I don't like the name "The Evolving Society". Although It does give an idea of what the mod is about, I would say that the mod is more about Development than Evolution and more related to a Community that a Society. But "The Developing Community" is, decisively, a bad name, imo.

So, I will rename it sooner or later.
I like some words that would fit as part of a new name. Words like "Ruler" and "Realm"
But I like Latin words, so I came up with a few mod names I liked: Rex Dominium (Realm of the King) and Ludius Dominium (Player's Realm).

And, finally, my favorite: VOX POPULI (Voice of the people)
Besides being a known Latin aphorism and having a good impact (from a marketing point of view), it fits very nicely to the concept of the mod, as, to succeed in this mod, you have to listen to the voice of your subjects and do things to keep them happy and productive.

So the question is: How do you like this name?

Civilisation IV?

Hehe! Just kidding, actually I never played any Civilisation game.


Looks like you have gone quite far in development. I'm off to check the wormhole.

This mod has come a looooong way Kudos to you for working on it over the years. I have one question though - How are you handling the AI scripts, given script processing mostly depends on the player's proximity to the object-reference ? Got low-level processing turned on or something ?

Actually, the Civ series inspired me to start this project. I like the so called strategy games a lot.


As for the AI, packages are given to NPCs one at a time, based on the NPC daily schedule: wake up, have breakfast, go to work, lunch, dinner, drink at the bar, go to the theater (if one is built), etc. This is done to all NPCs, from a global point of view, not related to the player proximity.

I (sort of) created a mid level/high level processing of my own: all NPC actions have a tentative time limit and if the player is not around when the time is up, the controlling script just forces the completion of the current action and moves on to the next action.

Better with an example:
Let's say the player stays in the main city for the day
At 7AM one of the farmers in a far village (unloaded cell, no low level processing) wakes up and must go to work (this means an action script called "GoToWork" takes over the control of the farmer.
The script adds a Travel package to the NPC and sets a limit of, say, 15 game minutes to complete the package.
Since the NPC is in "No low level processing", probably nothing will happen.
When the time is up, the script checks where the player is.
If the player is around the NPC, the script just gives some more time for the travel package to complete.
If not around, the script places the NPC at the destination by MoveTo or, in case the player is at the destination cell, by forcing the NPC to activate the door leading to that cell, so it will look like the NPC is just arriving.

There is also a planned 'low level processing' where the AI packages are not even added to the NPC. No MoveTo either. The NPC life will become completely virtual, with his states being just data in arrays. Nevertheless, he still has a life. He works, produces, sleeps, gets happy or unhappy, accumulates wealth etc. This mode will be used when the player leaves the island for a while.

Quick status report:

When I started adapting NPC ACE for this mod, I hopped I could do it without the actual building interiors, as I knew that including the interiors would need a lot of work.
Unfortunately, I got to a point where I needed them, so I took some time to go after then.

It took me almost a month, but I've just finished mapping 297 Interiors for the 131 building types the player may add to the island.

Mapping the interiors means I now have the relative XYZ positions, XYZ angles and scale of the 43,356 objects that go inside those interiors. And I also have mapped the 712 doors that connect them to the exterior and to one another.

Now, let's work on dynamically creating those interiors . . .

And this mod is, now, officially renamed VOX POPULI.

(but I will keep the thread with the original name for a while longer)

I like Vox Populi, personally.
I like the sound of this more and more. Also, are there actually entertainment buildings like theatres and such? How do they affect the population?

Hi, theeq, thanks for the feed back.

Yes, there will be entertainement (mostly because I already have it > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vROUU6I5XEE).

As is the case with the other types of 'facilities', I plan on having three levels of entertainment: street entertainers, some middle level, small theater (vaudeville, maybe?) and an upper class kind (circus?).

At some point, the lower class population will want some entertainment and will get dissatisfied (and less efficient) if the player (ruler) does not provide it. When the player hires some street players, the citizens will be happy (and be more productive). After some time part of that population will rise to middle class and, after a while, will require the second level of entertainment and the cycle repeats. And repeats again when some turn upper class.

That theatre is so nice!