Regions, Population and Improvements - model ver. 0.3

[amjayee]

Region, Population and Improvements - model ver. 0.3

Note! This is an unfinished draft!

This is my attempt to create the system for modeling and building the human world; regions, population and improvements. This model has many aspects what I think will be characteristic for all our models; it has some very general ideas from civ, mostly it is completely new and unseen anywhere else, and it has lots of realistic features though great compromises have been made in favor of gameplay. I think this model will give the player lots of fun and interesting things to do, without restricting us to model the world realistically in other models. This model is the most basic aspect of the game, along with the map, so please pay attention to it and help to refine it and correct the possible mistakes. This is in no way final.

Also this is more a collection of ideas for the future model than a finished model. Many things need better declaration and fleshing out. But the version number is 0.3, so it indicates lots of things are yet to be done. I intentionally stepped over 0.2, because I think the progress has been larger than only one tenth. Also I think version 0.2 has been created in the thread of the version 0.1, but it was never published as its own model.

Please note!

This model is far from finished - even far from the version 0.3. I have been reading through the old population thread, and will add the things discussed there, but haven't finished that yet. Also in many places, especially population, I have lots to add. Just because this has already taken quite much time, I thought that it would be good to show you my work in progress so you can have an idea of what I have in mind, and possibly get some new ideas from it. Please tell me if you think something can be done better. I will update this model later, when I get it finished; though every time I have said this earlier I haven't done it. There's hoping this time I will. Also this rough draft is quite messy, and might not give the best vision of the future model, but I hope it's of use. Anyway, share all ideas with us, please!

Definitions:

Region = the basic unit of government; region is an area of land. It and its people are governed by a single authority, which is in turn responsible for a higher level authority. Region is a supergroup; depending on the status of the region within the empire and the way it's governed, the regions can be states, provinces, colonies, protectorates etc.

Population = a group of people living in a specified area, usually a region. Population contains all people living in the particular area, and classifies them with different properties to model the behavior of the people in the game situations.

Improvement = a human-made structure or a group of structures which improves the land it is built on. The improvements in GGS are specifically region improvements; they are built in map screen, within the area of a region.

Regions:

In the game, region is defined as an area of land controlled and governed by a capital city of that region. Player starts the game by choosing the location for his capital within a defined area, the land inherited from the ancestors of his people. There will be also other cities in the region, but capital city is the one that controls the land and people.

Player fights to increase the land area of his people, thus enlarging the region. Basically this is done by "conquering" tiles - adding them to the region, possibly by military power. Also as the player keeps building his region, its area grows, if there is free space for that. To be able to hold the acquired land, though, is a completely different matter. It requires military control (especially if the conquered land has got population), possibly building some roads and other things etc. Your tech level and region infrastructure (roads etc.) decides how large the regions can be without causing trouble.

So, region would be much like the city radius of civ2. There are many important differences, though. The region is basically considered as the city radius of the capital city, but there would be also other cities in the region, and all cities would be the same; this is explained in the Improvements section later. Also the region can have any shape and its area is limited by some factors, but can be theoretically as large as you like. Further, the player would improve the region by building improvements, but these work differently from civ2 improvements. This is explained later. So, basically the region idea is the same as city of civ2, but greatly enhanced, without losing the simple and attractive gameplay of civ. This fulfills quite well the philosophy I mentioned in the beginning of this text; we take the best ideas from earlier games, then we take the demands of realism we have created for ourselves. Then we combine both of these, making compromises as necessary, without sacrificing too much of neither. I think this is quite well achieved here, but I'm biased. Please be my judges.

I think it might be possible to have primitive people, by having regions without cities - so, only land areas with people on them - So they are not organized, thus simple to handle. Basically the land would have many tribes from the same "nationality" that work independently, but could evolve into a real civilization. This way, we could have nomadic and hunter-gatherer tribes quite easily... but we'll see.

Population:

This is the most unfinished section. The class stuff is missing, like also most population statistics... it has currently only some general things.

Population symbolises the people of one region. There could also be statistical populations for the civilization's population. Basically the population object holds info about the statistical properties of the people in that area. People would be categorized in several ways; first of all, there would be urban population and rural population. Urban people live in cities, and rural outside cities.

Then, people would have nationalities; this is the civilization to which the people feel to belong. Conquered people usually preserve their national identity for a long time. Also people would have religious affiliations. Finally, people would be classified according to their work and social status. Each combination of these can form a group, which fights for something; how groups work, belongs to the government model.

People would have also some general properties, that decide their productivity and reproductive rate. These would include things like age groups (0-10 years old, 10-20 years old etc.), workhours, nutrition, efficiency etc... I will work on these later

Then how should we store this data? My idea is, that we have a list of objects. For each combination of nationality and religion, we would add an object to the list. Each object would then have the total amount of people in it, and the amount (or percentage) of people in each social class/profession. Also in the population object would be stored the total amount of people in the whole population, and the the total amount of people in each social class. Then what about rural and urban people? Should we have a simple figure with the amount (or percentage) of people in each, or should we store the class etc. data for both? This area is the one that needs most discussion right now, since it is a little fuzzy for me. The general properties listed above, would be stored once for the whole population, because we can assume that those would be much the same for every group in the region. Though some properties could be useful to store for each group; this way we could model oppressive actions towards some group. For example, some group could be paid less for their work, or they could be demanded longer workhours. I think this system would allow quite well the group system proposed by VetLegion, though I won't touch that in this model; it belongs to the government model. I wish for some discussion on this matter, since it's the most unfinished aspect of it rith now.

For each map tile, we would store the amount of people living on it. This feature has been debated a lot, but I think it is so vital for many things in the game, including production, diseases, and warfare, that it should be added. Though if we come to conclusion, that it is too much, we can live without it. But let me explain this.

The largest downside from this idea is, that it will consume lots of memory; with 2 bytes per tile, we could have only 65000 people per tile, so we could not have very big cities. 4 bytes is the next option, which would give us 4 billion people per tile, which would be waste of space. 4 bytes per tile with a million tiles would mean 4 megabytes only for storing the amount of people in each tile; and, most tiles would be uninhabited for all game (ocean tiles for example) so this would waste lots of memory. But I have an idea to reduce the memory needed. It is possible to make a system, where we have three tile types in population terms: uninhabited tiles, for which we would not store the population amount, rural tiles, for which we could use 2 bytes, and urban tiles, for which we could use 4 bytes to store the population amount. But would about 65000 people be enough for rural tiles? I don't know, but it should be fine for us. We could of course decide, that the tiles with more people than that are always urban.

Another problem in this idea is, how to inhabit the tiles with people. It could be really complex, and use lots of cpu time, if we want too much realism. So, I suggest that we use this system similarly to civ2 system, where workers were working the tiles and producing stuff. No, please don't freak out just yet - this idea in civ was ingenious, and quite realistic; people live in tiles and produce stuff in our world, too. We would just make that idea better. Instead of having only one population "unit" in each tile, we would have the real amount of people. Player would build improvements, that allow production of things; that would create employment for the people, and they would "move" to the tile, if there is no better work available elsewhere. So player would _not_ move the people around like in civ2, they would move on their own. Also there would not be a city radius, but the people could be anywhere within the region area, which could have any shape and (almost) any size. A system similar to this would be needed anyway to handle the production, so this way we can hit two or more targets with one shot.

Immigration: this is quite significant thing. Without it, it would not be very profitable to create new regions, since people multiply quite slowly. Basically there would be two kinds of migrations: inside each region, and between regions. Inside regions, people move between tiles in search for work, land or food. This would be quite simple to do, completely automatic and also quite logical. Immigration between regions is a more difficult matter. Basically we would have some (small) percentage of the people, that would like to move to another region. This percentage depends on how crowded their home region is, how much food is available, how much work is available, and what the tech level is. Some people of those would decide to stay in their original region after all; the others would move most preferably to other nearby regions of the same civilization; then farther away; then to closely related, nearby civilizations (if such thing is modeled); then to foreign civilizations. Everything depends also on how freely the target region allows the people to migrate in, and how willignly the source region will allow the people to go. But this is quite straightforward, it just needs some balancing.

Improvements:

Earlier civ games had city improvements and tile improvements. In our game the region is the basic unit, and they cover a large area of map, with several cities. So, in our game, we would have region improvements. They would be human-made structures, or groups of structures, which the player would order to be built and which his people would build to him, much like the city improvements in civ2; so, settlers would not be used. Instead, the player places the structure on the map, which starts a building project; this creates employment for his people. If there are workers available, they will start building the structure. The more people he can get to build it, the faster it would be built, though there would be an upper limit for each project, of course. Player could also force his people to build, or bring slaves to build it, but basically the people would work on their own.

Capital city of a region is the basic improvement. In the beginning of the game, the player chooses the location for his capital city, and it is built like other structures. To get more regions, the player needs to order the building of a new capital city somewhere on the map. For it to be built, some people will need to be willing to become settlers; they would move from their homes to a new area to build a new region. So, basically the game situation decides when the players can claim new areas of land; low on food, employment, living space etc. Of course the player could force the people to move, but that might also have its downsides.

There would be many cities in the region, all cities would be the same; tiles with urban population. Their improvements would decide how they work, and they would just produce stuff for the regional stockpile. Usually those cities would be created automatically around important player-made improvements, but the player could also build cities on his own, if he decides; those would be special improvements. The region capital city would have a special improvement, which would give a special position for it, but basically also it would be like all the other cities.

It might be a good idea to have "hit points" for the improvements, so they could be damaged by military attacks or lack of upkeep. About upkeep, each structure would require certain amount of workforce, resources and money to keep it in good shape. If the upkeep is not adequate, it will start to "recieve damage"; when the amount of hitpoints reaches a level which can be preserved with the current level of upkeep, it will settle down. Upkeep will also create employment for your people.

The "City" improvements could be called infrastructure, which would have a level on it. It will decide, how many people can live in the city comfortably. Building a certain level of infrastructure would create certain amount of employment. Also upkeeping it would employ the people. Cities could also have hitpoints, which would tell, how badly damaged the infrastructure is - damage would not decrease the amount of infrastructure. This would be useful especially in the modern times, when bombers can seriously damage the city's activity. Mostly the building of better infrastructure would be automatic, but of course the player would need to fund that.

A special kind of improvement could be "production capability". Instead of building factories or manufacturing plants, we would build production capability, which would include facilities to produce things and the necessary infrastructure for it. The capability would be an improvement, which has a level attached to it, quite like infrastructure with cities. The level of this improvement would decide, how much work would be available for laborers, and how much things can be produced. If we want to be extra fancy, we could have many kinds of production capabilities; basically for war machine industry. So, we could have "aircraft production capability" in a city, and you could go and bomb the capabilities of your enemy, to fight for air superiority! This might be an important strategical element in warfare, and we would not need very many of these capabilities, but we can live without it and have only one, if you think it's too much. "Production capabilities" would of course always have a city around them; so, cities would be the centers of production. Notice that the production capabilities don't necessarily mean factories; they can be also artisan workshops and such, so this is not only modern world improvement.

Another improvement with a level could be "energy production". It would work much like other kinds of production, and would be a key aspect in modern world.

So, basically my idea is, that about everything that the player builds on the map is improvements; they would be "building blocks" of the human world. What blocks there are, decides how the region works. Cities would not be like in civ2; they would be tiles with urban population. They would have an "infrastructure" improvement. They could also have other improvements, like production capability. Region capitals could have some kind of special improvement, like office buildings for housing the bureaucracies of the region. Also this could have a level to decide how heavy bureaucracies the region has, partly deciding how large the region can be. This system would be simple to do, simple to handle, and it would add quite high level of player involvement, though it would be easy to automate most things in it.

Here is a list of improvements I think should be there:

-farming areas or farming capabilities
-fishing -"-
-mining capabilities
-cities/infrastructure
-bureaucracies (kinda like the palace of civ2)
-temple/cathedral etc. (only the largest structures, really significant sanctuaries)
-perhaps a region-wide religious system could be built and upkept?
-academies and universities; these are significant, would work differently than civ2 ones
-perhaps large libraries in ancient times.
-in modern world perhaps a regional public library system could be built and upkept?
-perhaps also a public school system?
-roads (leading from point A to point B instead from being tile improvements)
-canals (likewise)
-dams, basins, large hydro plants
-large monuments, perhaps like wonders
-colosseums, theatres etc. could also be regional systems?
-water supply systems likewise? (aqueducts, reservoirs etc.)
-power supply systems likewise?
-military bases, garrisons, barracks, fortifications, naval and air bases

So, most improvements would be structures that would be shown on map as small icons in appropriate tiles. Each one would have hitpoint value, also perhaps an "armor value" deciding how difficult it is to cause damage to it with military actions, and some would have a level attached to them. There could be some improvements that would not be shown on map, but instead they would be regional systems. Basically only the largest structures would be on the map. Military bases could perhaps be constructed from pieces; they could be combined from a set of fortifications, accommodation room, training areas, radar systems, supply systems, storage space, defensive armament etc.

This system would make the cities the centers of production and government, and they could also be made centers of trade, but that doesn't belong to this model. But, the importance of all cities would be made secondary to the importance of the region. Cities would have some level of individuality, and they would produce things for upkeeping their own city and preserving their own lifestyle, but they would be subordinate to the region, and would produce things also for the common stockpile. So I think this system would solve most problems presented about regions and population, and it would also achieve all the goals set for it. It would be quite realistic, give lots of freedom for the creation of other models basing on it, and would have quite good gameplay. But that's what I think, please give me your opinions of it.

[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited January 18, 2001).]

[The Joker]

I wonder why noone has posted here yet...

But I will.

I actually agree a lot with the things presented here. All that I do not agree with I will comment here:

quote: So, in our game, we would have region improvements. They would be human-made structures, or groups of structures, which the player would order to be built and which his people would build to him, much like the city improvements in civ2; so, settlers would not be used. Instead, the player places the structure on the map, which starts a building project; this creates employment for his people.

I have said before that I dislike the idea of building hex by hex improvements in a large scale. Yes, roads and military improvements can be done this way, but I think that virtually everything else should not. A large, modern civ would have perhabs 20 regions, each of which might be 1000 hexes. I don't want to build farms on each of my 20,000 hexes. And no, the possibility of putting the work into the hands of an advisor wont make people use it.

I also think the idea of using both money, workforce and raw materials for everything the player builds is too complicated. Yes, everything is required. But why not just have it function on the open marketplace. If a player wants something he is told of a projected price, dependant of the price of the pro factors required for the project. Then, if some thing costs 100 labour the player will just become a demander of labour, and buy it on the free market. The same with the other things. This means that the price may vary a little. But it also means that in a normal, open economy, the player doesn't have to worry about labour and raw materials when he builds things. He just has to see if he has the money for it.

And city infrastructure should also be built by the people. Not the roads, but the buildings. And these are what really decides how many people can live in a city. So the wealthier people are the more people can comfortably live in the city.

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[The Joker]

Oh yeah. This means that I don't agree with your list of improvements either. I just think that replacing it all with a regional and national system of budgets would make it less time consuming and free playing time for funnier tasks.

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[chrispie]

Well, I do think that there needs to be 'external' improvements, like farms and mines. With such big regions to control they'd have to be very easy to place, maybe even 'paint' them onto the map. C'mon, who here doesn't like the thought of admiring his mighty iron mines or seeing his vast tracts of farmland -he- built?

I think that Jokers system could be applied to the more internal of improvements, like religious buildings, education systems etc...as I don't think that any government ever would concern themselves with individual buildings, but would concern themselves with major projects like mines.

As for the tile system, I'm not sure I understood that amjayee...how do you propose we have 3 tile types? How would we know what type a tile is without it having at least 2 bits to tell it what type it is?

I think in terms of map size, each 1mb won't be a particular problem, and of course it can be compressed very well (as it's simple blocks of data) for sending over networks and being saved to disk. Personally I think we'll need several mb for the whole data set, even for empty maps...which won't be so big a problem in the future anyway.

Thinking in terms of game play time, each tile would need at the absolute least;

1. who owns it (1 byte would give 255 players, and 1 no-owner)
2. terrain type (possibly 1 byte, with some tweaking)
3. population (no idea of size, more than 1 for sure though)
4. external improvements and other stuff
[This message has been edited by chrispie (edited January 21, 2001).]

[amjayee]

I agree with Joker with that I got a little over-enthusiastic with the improvements. We should perhaps cut down on the list. But I agree with Chris that we need something to build; one of the greatest pleasures in civ2 (at least for me and Chris ) was to build things and watch the empire grow and improve. We cannot lose that, or our game turns into a spreadsheet program. There needs to be things to build, and you must be able to see your country improve.

Also another point; the player might have 20 regions in the end, but he would always start with only 1. Also he would build his regions gradually over thousands of turns, so it would not get very tedious, I think. At least if we make the system easy.

Yes, player doesn't need to worry about the worforce - and material costs. At least usually. He would just tell to build something, and the people build. If they don't have the resources, they will tell you. I just mentioned that to make it clear. Those things would be handled by the economy system as you said.

Also I agree that the people would build the infrastructure and such. But; I think the infrastructure should be represented on the map with an icon just as other improvements; why? This way it could get damaged in wars. Also generally I think that the people would build most of the improvements (always, the player doesn't have the chance to change that) but the structures would be shown on the map for the player to admire, and so they could be damaged in wars. Take universities and cathedrals for example. The player would just budget some money in religion and education. With that money the people would build the regional religious and education "systems" that are not represented on the map. In some occasions, the people might want to build a large temple or university. The player could define, that the people have to ask him for confirmation in these situations, or they could build those freely. Or, the player might have the chance to ask the people to build a university, but nothing more. The same with most other structures, too.

[The Joker]

Yes, I agree with that. Big things can be player build, smaller ones would be handled via a budget system. I just feared that we would be drawing cathedrals on to the map (Shudder ).

Roads, railroads, military improvements, watering systems, mines of all kinds and a few other things could be mapbased.

And I agree with amjayee that putting things on the map not only makes it damageable in wartime, but also gives the game a nice feel, and a sence that you are actually doing something in the game.

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[amjayee]

Nice!

Good to see some agreement. I will make some corrections and focusing for the model.

[ElmoTheElk]

I read the whole topic last night in bed (amjayee's first post was 6 printed pages long!) and I can comment to it now:

I mostly agree with Amjayee. All the things represented here looks pretty much as I had in mind. Only thing is the improvements.

I think we shouldn't graphicly display all the improvements, but only the big ones. However, they are there! So let's say you have:

Major region impovements: Large improvements like roads, 'wonders', dams, canals andy important buildings and they are diplyed on the map with a little graphic.

Minor region improvements: Improvements like universities, hydro plant, military bases and much more who are not displayed on the map graphicly, but which are still there (viewable in other screens).

I just have to come up with a better name for those...

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I like the idea of having settlers/workers improving the land, and having that improvement go to the city of their origin. Part of the fun of games like this is the management of the terrain, of designing your own realm. If this should not be done by units, but rather by ordering an amount of labor, that's fine. Available labor could easily be calculated based upon a city or region's population. So many people are needed to farm, so many to create basic items, so many to administer, etc. Population beyond whatever you decide to consider minimal to a city's upkeep could be banked as available labor and spent as the wise ruler sees fit. Wanna build a gigantic pyramid for yourself? Great, but you do so at the expense of building a fishing fleet, a road, or anything else. All civs were able to call up excess people, once there was enough food production to support them. Priests, warriors, scribes, masons, you name it. Also, be realistic about how many people an area can hold. A rural landscape will only hold so many people, no matter how fertile. Once urbanized, it produces a diminishing amount of food. Cities are, in reality, huge sinks for food. In return, of course, they cough up large volumes of goods. Urbanizing terrain should account for this.

[The Joker]

It is nice that most of us agree that regions are better than cities (at least I think so). But there are still great bugs in the region model (like reducing social tensions just by changing some borders) that we need to fix. Any suggestions on how to do that?

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"My whole cheerleading career has been a lie."
- Bring it on

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

Regions are not better then cities!
We are getting confused in linguistics here

What difference is between a region and a capital city and a city and its radious? None, its the same thing.

I am putting accent of importance of cities, because without it capital city, region practicaly does not exist because one can not administrate it.

Also, the region without an administrative center can not even become a region. People on tile X and tile Y belong to region Z because they pay taxes, go trade, riot, etc in its capital city.

The reationship between region and city (for regions with multiple cities) is unclear. What functionality does city have? etc.

Also, relieving tensions by changing region borders should be impossible. You should be able to affect economy with it, and perhaps create some social activity, but you should not be able to ease social tensions. This makes more and more sure that population should not be handled at region level, but at empire one.

[chrispie]

Ok, just for once I thought about regions!

My opinion is this;

Player starts with 1 region, several tile's in size (1 tile is surely too limiting)

The player then expands this region with conquest or settling of tiles.

Once the region is of x number of tiles the player can split it into 2 regions...if he doesn't split it, the bigger it get's, the harder it is to keep control of.

Also, player's could probably be able to combine two regions but within certain limitations.

So, typically the trick would be to make 'perfect' sized regions, if they are too big they are too hard to control and if they are too small, then duplication (of administration) causes ineffeciency.

I think this makes more sense and is easier for us to manage than giving the player 100% ability to just resize and reorder his regions...

go on then, flame me

And Cities;

Player's need cities/towns/villages in order to collect resources and taxes from his regions. Without them he has no centralised control over a region, so it is effectively useless to him in terms of economics. The player would need to designate a capital 'location' i.e city/town/village. This would be where all the resources are taken, and 'things' built. Also to collect resources from a tile, the player would need to have a village/town/city within x number of tiles of it, cities can obviously reach further that towns or villages so collect more resources for the region. Maybe also if a city has a road connection to the region capital, it could collect more resources, or just be generally better at collecting them...i.e faster or lose less along the way.

Regions and Cities;

A city can change regions but only in the sense of a new region being created by splitting a region into two. I'm not sure yet how you'd handle someone taking control of a city within someone else's region though...Though maybe for simplicity the loss of the capital would also mean the loss of the Region. For that to work we'd need to make it expensive to move the region capital obviously, otherwise you'd just keep moving it when the other player gets close to it.

[The Joker]

The difference, Vet, lies in functionality, dynamics and flexibility. A city and its radius means regions can't be changed, all regions have the same size and the whole system is very static.

Regions with dynamic borders and capitals means you can have a large region somewhere, where that fits, and a small one elsewhere. Or you could have a region that did not just have a round shape. Plus we can have much, much more realism, since several cities within each region is possible.

You are right about cities being needed to govern anything, though.

And population being handled at an empire level: Yes, it should be that as well. But empire level is in fact worse (in some sence) than region level. The point of handling pop at a regional level would be to allow a large minority centered in one part of your empire (maybe because the player has previously conquored another civ), and thereby let them revolt there. This has tremendous importance, and is one of the most basic things in the game. If we just do it at a national level there would be no information about where the minorities live, and this would make revolts much less cool.

Actually handling pop at a regional level is only because doing it at a hex level is unrealistic. We need as much info as possible about where people live, so we can have them revolt there, and have the player stationing troops in the area to avoid it.


And Chris,
I think it would make sence to start the game with the player rising as the leader of a civ just when it has become one. This means that the player would only control the very small area that the civ is on - the 50 km hex.

But it would be possible to get more hexes very early in the game, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I just like the realism thing, and I think it gives a cool feeling to start at the very beginning.

Of cause if the player chooses not to start the game right at the beginning he could start with a larger, more advanced civ.

When this is said I actually agree with the rest you said about regions. Freedom, but with some restrictions is the key.

Conquest of regions:
I have said this before. I think that it should be possible for a unit to conquor everything within it's action range (that's not the right word, but I can't remember that right now) by using a turn (or less than a turn) on doing that, as long as no serious resistance (like units and fortified cities) exists in that area. Furthermore, when a regions capital is conquored the region should go into unrest mode, at which the owner could not make a new capital for some turns, and nothing would be produced in the region really. This would make the region even easier to conquor.

I just don't like the idea of getting the whole region just by conquoring the capital. In many cases that would be the case, but not always.

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"My whole cheerleading career has been a lie."
- Bring it on

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

lol, chrispie, I can see myself chasing some region capital in circles, no thanks

Agreed with what you said. I think region managment should be really fun that way.

I like the idea of loosing a region if a capital falls. If they are a basic game unit then they should be split under very limited set of conditions.

If you can conquer tile by tile and city by city then you need to store info on tile level or city level. If you do store info on city level, then region should only be used for trade and economy interaction, but pop and military should be done at city level, or tile level.

[chrispie]

Hmmm, but the obvious problem is if we start with a populated world, but only store the race information on a region basis, how do we store the race info of people who don't start in a civ? The only way I see to do it is to start with some preset regions, that is where people live, as well as the starting civ's first region too..of course that's wonderfully conterversial...hehe go on...anyone got a better idea? God I hope so...