About terrain, resources, economy

[amitourlo]

NOT FINISHED

I agree with the facts that:
- citizens want always more than they have (if something better exists)
- the cost varies in accordance with the demand and supply. It determines the scarcety, the luxury of a resource.

but I disagree with the fact that
- demand changes when people get used to what they previously had.
Indeed, this is right only if other products are susceptible to act as substitutes and bring something better. The demand will then be divided between the 2 concurrent products.
- they wont eat only what is more productive.
During centuries people have eaten the same cereals because they didn't know other ones. They were on earth only to prepare their live in the beyond. The food was not their first priority. To avoid famines, they produced only the most productive products

I recognise that due to rare resources (luxury resources), resources cannot be represented only in the first level of the pyramid. Extremly rare (high cost too) resources contributes to high level of the pyramid.

So I will explain the pyramid again.

Each citizen has proper needs, which can be divided into groups.

The first group corresponds to living (natural) needs, all resources present on the map of Civ IV which are EXTREMLY COMMON for the citizen, with the 3 levels of manufacturation.

The second group corresponds to the family, the health and the activity of the citizen in the society, (have a "nice" job, plenty of children, health,...) but the resources which are COMMON for the citizen too.

The third group corresponds to the membership, culture, RELIGION, sport, spare time group activities, but the resources which are RARE too....

The fourth level corresponds to the self development, education, art, creativity, spare time lonesome activities, but the resources which are EXTREMLY RARE too.

Each citizen must fullfill its needs in order to be happy.
But
- some citizens have only primary needs. They only want to eat to be happy. They are jovial fellows with exceptionnal good morale. So, once they have completed the first level, they are happy and even if they have needs in others groups too, they will be happy anyway.(class 1 citizens)
- some citizens will be happy once the 1st and 2nd levels completed: (class 2 citizens)
- some citizens will be happy once the first 3 levels completed: (class 3 citizens)
- some citizens will be happy once the 4 levels completed: (class 4 citizens)

How to determine the character of each citizen ?
A gaussian law for example:
about 15% of people are in class 1 and 4
about 35% of people are in class 2 and 3

How to detemine the influence of one resource?
As I said, one resource can bring food, clothes, utils, materials, munitions, weapons with 3 levels of manufacturation. The cost of one resource depends on its scarcity(demand/supply). Rare products will affect more the happiness of your citizens because they are located in the highest degrees of the pyramid. They are more difficult to access.


How to determine the proportions of each parameter?
Happiness depends on
- age (we can distinguish 3 ages (before having a job, employee and pensioner)
- nationality of the citizen vs nationality of its city and of the civilization
- governments,
- resources (essential resources, rare resources...)
- family (births, deaths, relations...),
- health (diseases, wars...) ,
- money (job, purchasing power...),
- spare time activities : culture and sport (buildings (colosseum, stadium...), ...)
- safety, justice, liberty
- religion (building...)
- war
It is consequently difficult to determine a simple formula to determine hapiness.

[Trifna]

Ok...

So you proposed that Civ4 get an Exel sheet with all those given to the player?? Please, you need to say HOW it would be in the game, not only WHAT you would like to see included. Otherwise, it's still not a game and it's only a proposed feature without any explanation of how it'd work in-game. It's just "this is how I believe it is in society".

A good example:

Each citizen has proper needs, which can be divided into groups.

Do you mean we should get 32 million bars indicating each citizen's mood?... Say HOW it is to be in-game. Example: "You get 4 bars, each indicating the average % of fulfilment of this need among citizens" (or something)

some citizens will be happy once the 1st and 2nd levels completed

Some citizens? Any?? How do you expect this to be in-game?

Happiness depends on
- governments,
- resources (
- family(births, deaths...),
- health (diseases, wars...) ,
- money (job, purchasing power...),
- spare time activities (buildings (colosseum, stadium...), ...).

How do you expect this to be in-game? Do you see the average player checking how much spare time and money his citizens have? The average player would not look at 7 bars indicating 7 aspects to then calculate his policies. How can spare time and pocket money can be included in-game?


From what you established of "what exists in society", it could become about 100 different in-game models.

[amitourlo]

First of all, I wrote in the first line that my previous post was not finished and you can see there are some blanks in it. (I would never have sent its post, I will never do it again) Indeed I try to do another excel sheet about hapiness but it is difficult and I had not the time to finish it.

Then, I want to precise that I count on the intelligence, logic mind of my readers to expand my ideas. Naturally that is evidence that there won't be 32 Millions bars! Im not stupid and you are not stupid too. You had already concluded that a citizen represents in fact a group of citizens like in other Civ. For my excel sheet, I wanted to prouve that my system works. And you know, when you have a huge number of cities or units (for example 400 tanks or 100 cities) in Civ 3, it is already a bit an Excel sheet in the F2 and F3 screens !
You ask me a lot of questions about HOW to do the things. I understand you perfectly: I know it would be easier if I had already all done and brought the solution completed. It would be wonderful but I can't do it alone: it is difficult to propose large modifications in such a game without a team around me to help me. I would appreciate if you suggested me constructive solutions rather than How, How, How

And you are interested in the Maslow pyramid but this is not the only think of my initial document. I don't know how the other Civilizations are programmed so it is not easy to create a new system, believe me and trust me.

Lastly, I am not a profesionnal programmer.
I like to waste my time by thinking about improving a game, not about tiping the source code. I'm not an informatician.

[Max Sinister]

Would you include religion into your concept too? if yes: Why do people want it? My answer: If they're unhappy. What causes unhappiness? And so on.

[amitourlo]

Religion is a very difficult problem in our world. It has always led to wars. I think it is impossible to treat Religion with a realistic manner in the game. It is too dangerous. Firaxis and developpers could be easely sued for that if there was the slightest problem. Safety is born of caution even if it would considerably improve the game incorporating a good system of religion.

Why do people want Religion ?
For me, it is not only for unhappiness. It is beacause they have fear of death. It is my personnal feeling so I prefer not to developp that.
However I consider that Religion is influencing the happiness: that seems logical.

What causes happiness ?
All the needs of people are not fulfilled.

[Trifna]

amitourlo: I understand that you cannot do everything, but the problem is that all this is sticking on "How it works in a society" without going further on "How it would be implemented in the game". The idea of incorporating Maslow in a ressource system can potentially bring something interesting, but not if it stays to "How it works in a society". Often, we already know how things work in a society, and it wont make it to the game because it is not straight-forward model to do so to start with anyway. If you want to discuss of bringing something to the game, you can show how you'd do it. With simply something "that could be implemented", well everyone would get everything implemented but that doesn't mean they would develop someone else's idea into a model.

And there is no need for a complete team for that. In fact, it's the opposite: The team comes when puting so many people's energy in looks fruitfull to them. All these "HOW" is what I generally discuss on these boards. In fact, you did the part that most would not touch: the hardest part of starting to demonstrate it on reality with figures and so on. Generally, one does it do this extent only if it is worth their energy and necessary to support their model.

All the "HOW" are the part generally discussed here. How would the player deal with this? Are you talking of having 20 ressources all independant? Or is it 4 "ressources types" with 4 sliders? Or is it mutating 10 ressources in new "types"? Your system can become lots of different things; so if YOU believe you have a point there, show us how it would be something in the game. Otherwise, it is a bit like "I would like more spying included. Here is the proof that there is spying in this world. Could you modelize this?" It does not bring more from which to modelize, and most posters will probably go on with their own posts rather than adopting others'.

Otherwise, I will only remember "Yep, Maslow is an interesting concept in reality." and maybe some day I'll have an idea about Maslow and post my own conception and modelization of it. There are lots of interesting things to incorporate: the point is often less about "demonstrating that they exist in reality" than to show it can be modelized. My first post on Apolyton was over 10 Microsoft Word pages: I just included my ideas of each sub-section of Civ, thinking it could continue within the List and be discussed. Use? Pointless, the List was closed by then and it was not adapted to discussion. In your case, my impression is that most would not put their time to modelize your idea when they have their own.

Cheers
Trifna (Which finds the idea of Maslow in history interesting, but as one of the 10 001 concepts to be explored. Thinking about it may be useful in the future... In the meantime, we're at the same point, and modelizing takes time and is taken on exams' currency: time )