Expansion and Settlement in Clash

[Simon Loverix]

- their progeny spread whereever their AI takes them.
- these peoples should adopt lifestyles and develop civilisations appropriate for their environment - rather than having stereotypical predispositions
-Whether or not it remains a city for long depends on if people move to it and how viable the location is to be a city

The above remarks from yellowdaddy and alms66 are confirming that Clash is still on the right track to become an immersive and believable game.

Regarding the initial population (at Dawn - 10,000 BC) I think that every populated square should have a different ethnicity. After 10,000 BC the population will grow if possible; if it becomes high (eg. 10000 in one tile (or other surface unit)) there will be either migration (affecting the disposition of ethnicities towards each other) or the forming of a government, in which event the Player is offerred to take control of it. He will be offered to do so as long as he does not yet control one.

(Ethnicity is a sense of identity determined by language, style, etc. which are essentially elements that will not play a role in the game. So the name alone is sufficient to define an ethnicity. Though any population group does have other attributes (religion, culture).
We can use existing names and their historical descendants, but how will we determine the descendants of ethnicities who historically were the last in the row? Picking a random, not-yet-existing one from the same group? Yellowdaddy?)

Nomads:
Nomadic "civs" could not exist without the support of settled civs (trade or pillage). Nomadic peoples without regular civ support did not have any significant influence.
The Amorrite nomads in the Arabian desert at the time of Babylon sought employment in the cities for a sizable amount of time. The ruling class in many cities was Amorrite, and they regularly invoked their bloodties to demand military support from the nomadic population. They were really part of the Mesopotamian civilization, but the amount of political control by the central governments was extremely limited, especially in comparison to the regular city and farmland population (Akkadian and Sumerian, mostly).

Therefore I suggest that we are clear in the future about what we mean by the term "civilization": a political structure (nation, empire, city-state) or a culture (ethnicity)?

Back to nomads: The "military unit" solution for nomads is ok, since their position and military potential is important. To be consistent, traders should be modelled as units too, since their position is also important. Furthermore, nomads frequently functioned as traders and traders frequently had military escorts (silver fleet etc.).
The question is: will we model ALL traders and nomads by units? or will we still have a general category of population that will be assigned to trade routes or larger territories, and only large and well-organized bands as units (one could transform into the other of course)?

When will they be created? If a tile near an existing political structure becomes overpopulated, an third alternative to individual migration and forming a government will be creating a nomadic unit. That unit will need to seek its own subsistence, the AI determines how (pillage, conquer, settle, migrate.. for all or a part of the unit).

This solves the question: We will not need to create any additional special population and government for the nomadic areas, any surplus will be taken care of in one of the three above ways.

[LDiCesare]

I think the isCity thing is a good proposal. Still, if there is no city, or if the current square is becoming a desert, people will move to somewhere else, wherever that be. However, moving towards cities would be good, including cities held by other civs but friendly to one's ethnicity.

[Martin the Dane]

I like the idea that cities can form without the player placing them, but do we want to have a proximity rule for cities, so that cities will not form within a certain distance from an existing city, or if they do do we want that new city to become a suburb of the old city.

And how do we model the fact that cikties have been known to move over time, so that the downtown area of a city becomes a suburb or even a satelite of the new downtown area.

Finally I think it should be possible to switch off the automatic city formation, either as part of a scenario, or throug "legislations" (the player determines that within his borders only planned cities will occur - that's basically the case in pressent day Denmark)

[alms66]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I think the isCity thing is a good proposal. Still, if there is no city, or if the current square is becoming a desert, people will move to somewhere else, wherever that be. However, moving towards cities would be good, including cities held by other civs but friendly to one's ethnicity.

To handle the no city situation (I should have said this earlier, but neglected it), the capital of the province should always be considered a city, even if people don't really want to live there, or it isn't an optimal location. Obviously if the tile is becoming desert people will move elsewhere, if it's available, and this is one of those things that would affect the viability of the tile.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Martin the Dane
I like the idea that cities can form without the player placing them, but do we want to have a proximity rule for cities, so that cities will not form within a certain distance from an existing city, or if they do do we want that new city to become a suburb of the old city.

And how do we model the fact that cikties have been known to move over time, so that the downtown area of a city becomes a suburb or even a satelite of the new downtown area.

Finally I think it should be possible to switch off the automatic city formation, either as part of a scenario, or throug "legislations" (the player determines that within his borders only planned cities will occur - that's basically the case in pressent day Denmark)

I don't think we should include some kind of proximity rule. After all, at the current Clash scale, cities would literally exist side by side. Also, at the current scale, suburbs would be within the tile the city is in, not on the surrounding tiles, so your second paragraph doesn't apply, if I remember my scales correctly.

I hadn't even thought of it, but you're absolutely right about turning automatic formation off. Though, this should probably be tied to a tech, such as Urban Planning or something that occurs in, approximately, Greek/Alexander times. Before then, I know of no examples of "planned cities," though there may have been some.

[Martin the Dane]

Regarding scale and proximity rule: We have been talking about having varying scales on tiles, so the actual size of a tile can be set in the scenario file. If we do this we schould add a proximity factor, that by default is 0 meaning cities can form/be placed in neighbouring tiles.

[Gary Thomas]

A city in Clash is a generalised concept. Although we give them names, for verisimilitude, such as Rome, the actual intent is to indicate that a square is urbanised. It may have several cities. Where I live, not a heavily urbanised country, there is at least one 100km x 100km area with about ten cities.

Thus, proximity is not an issue, no matter what the scale, a square is urbanised or it is not.

The issue of proximity may arise when we move to polygons (I am impressed with myself, I said when, not if) but I would hope that by that time we will have a more sophisticated population spread model.

It is important to realize that Clash is a game, not an exact, detailed simulation of the the real world. Unless a rule or feature makes a noticeable contribution to the game it should be discarded.

Cheers

[Martin the Dane]

Ok you win! I can se that when we talk urbanizaion of a tile proximity rules have no value. There is one thing I wonder about though: what happends to siges and combat if there are no defined city/cities in the square? Do we have fortified possitions in stead?

Another thought: will urbanization be a boolean or a percentage?

[Gary Thomas]

what happends to siges and combat if there are no defined city/cities in the square? Do we have fortified possitions in stead?

You don't besiege a city - you besiege fortifications, which may, of course, be city walls.

I am not sure of the present situation with regard to fortifications. I assume that a square is fortified in the same way that it might be urbanised.

Another thought: will urbanization be a boolean or a percentage?

It will probably be an index, that is, open ended at the upper end.

Of course I would prefer to implement polygons, so cities and fortifications are real geographic locations.

Cheers

[Martin the Dane]

Of course I would prefer to implement polygons, so cities and fortifications are real geographic locations.

Sounds great, more realistic, and would allow really huge fortifications like the chinese wall, or roman field fortifications.

[Lord God Jinnai]

For spawned cities via trade, again as i said 2 routes need not cross, merely atleast 3 points have a centerpoint that is conicent for meeting.

FE a farming community, a mining community and a fishing community all like at opposite ends of a trianglular piece of land (we are considering here the distance is great enough that another community/city would be viable, ie moving from farming to mining to fishing and back to farming communities takes a signifigant amounf of time). While there is only 1 trade route (or 3 non-intersecting ones depending on how you look at it) a city could still well form at a ceterpoint between the 3 communities. It isn't guaranteed and isn't as likely as 2+ trade routes crossing, but its more likely than if 2 or fewer communites existed.

Also what about dealing with destroyed and lost cities?

[alms66]

LGJ,

My initial post on this subject, was pretty much a "spur of the moment" type thing. It isn't extremely well thought out and has room for improvement. I just felt it was better than what is currently done, so I posted it for discussion. I'm sure in implementation we can do better, though I don't have any immediate proposals for the questions you pose.

[LDiCesare]

I am not sure of the present situation with regard to fortifications. I assume that a square is fortified in the same way that it might be urbanised.

Fortifications can be built in any square. It would actually be better if fortifications were considered as a 'square in a square', with no economy of its own, so the sieging forces would control the rest of the square, but as soon as they'd leave, the besieged would conquer the square back (Dominions II does something like this).

[yellowdaddy]

after having read alms66 posts following my last one, and Simon Loverix...

Alms66:

Essentially what I'd like to see is "urban sprawl" - cities of a range of shapes and sizes - to represent this graphically, I have proposed making settlements collections of tiny buildings with a direct correlation to the population number - 1 house = 1000, 2 houses = 2000 and so on (or along those lines - changing as building technology allows higher densities).

The point is to get the feel of "scattered villages", which is a very accurate way of showing (rural) population for nations for most of their history.

there could be a range of small buildings for different styles, periods, and even functions, and being so small, they will be less faff to draw .

The thing is, I don't feel comfortable with the word "city" - it makes me think of modern metropolises.
I don't think it's realistic for a ruler to order the construction of a large metropolis - a small settlement, yes; a port, a fort, a trading post... and then it grows mostly organically and automatically, with some ruler input.

I previously proposed 4 levels of settlement:
1 Scattered Villages (basic low density habitation)
2 Town (medium density habitation)
3 City (inbetween a very big town and very small metropolis!?)
4 Metropolis (very high density habitation with skyscrapers)

Trade should automatically allow settlement to pop up like weeds in the garden, whereever there is a resource to be traded and a transport connection - you could have a "spice island" no roads at all, just boats - or lunar trade in iridium, no boats or roads, just spaceships, a lunar mine and space port! or even trade in information - just satellites beaming data back, which could form a trade commodity of data or a service; focussing on how many roads there are is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope to me.

Nomadism is surely a technology - in the "Social Infrastructure" research area - tribes could research pastoral, desert or jungle or arctic nomadism, there are skills and equipment associated it, so it should be a technology not a trait. (that's predispositionalism! racism really)

---

Likewise, I don't like the term "Civilisation" or "Empire", I want to be more egalitarian and developmental - using the terms "People" then "Tribe" then "Nation", which i feel also more accurately reflects history.

A Nation is a more modern concept, where language or religion can be enough to define a separate state.
A Tribe correlates with a Roman type Empire/Civilisation - the Romans were simply an extremly powerful Tribe who controlled other Tribes through a Social Infrastructure technology called an Empire.
A "People" correlates with very early civilisations like in the middle east or mesoamerica... states are largely religious with power radiating from a religious centre like Angkor Wat.

+++
Simon:

with regard to having every square populated with a different ethnicity - it's just not remotely realistic. there'll be a lot less initial peoples than squares for a kick off.
even in 10,000BC, there aren't enough people on the planet to do that. Tribes are usually only a few thousand in number even 2,000 years ago - the romans wrote about large barbarian tribes as being 20,000 in number at the biggest, most were smaller.
And you're not even taking account of terrain type.
The very idea that you could have all continents' squares populated by a patchwork of completely unrelated groups runs right against the grain of the notion of a historically accurate game. racially, culturally, and linguistically related groups should tend to be near each other - or at least spread in a way which suggests a path of general migration.

on traders - if you use units, isn't going to have the potential to get very busy? i feel you'll only need a unit if you were moving large numbers of a sector (commercial, religious etc..) of population from A to B.