One Hour One Life Forums

I've posted an official suggestion now, if you like the idea please upvote on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OneLifeSuggest … gic_races/

 @Jason
 
I think the idea is awesome! I love inter-town politics. But I think the method is off. The way it is implemented will just create a three-eve meta. Since the goal is town trade not forcing all players to adopt a mixed town approach I think you have to change the method to achieve the goal.

* The first thing you need for successful trade is a shared map, this was more possible during the rift update, however the rift had it's problems as well. In-order for a town to specialize in something you really need multiple towns all of which know of each-others existence and that fight/share the same set of resources.
* The next thing you need is a strong sense of internal identity. If a town is going to own/specialize in certain resources that other towns don't have. Citizens of Town A need to understand that they are citizens of town A and not citizens of town B. Otherwise you're back to the three eve solution where everyone gets together to circumvent the distinctions.
* Finally, you need a good reason to trade. Right now war and theft are better options. (Although that's not all bad, war and theft are interesting dynamics in their own right if controlled for).
 
 
I suggest the following ideas in light of the above dynamics:

A city is formed by crafting and placing a city stone. (A city stone placed very close to another one will crumble)
A family citizenship is formed by crafting and placing a family stone in very close proximity to the city stone. Each family taking residence in the city has their own family stone.

If Annie Walker was born too far away from any stone she will be known as:
Annie Walker the Barbarian.

If Annie Walker born in reasonable proximity to the city stone will be known as:

Annie Walker Citizen of [City Name] if she has a 'Walker' family stone near the city stone at birth.
Annie Walker Outlaw of [City Name] if her family doesn't have a family stone near the city stone at birth. Because her family hasn't been accepted by the community.
Annie Walker Vegabond of [City Name] if she was an outlaw, barbarian, or tramp and is pardoned by leadership. Vegabonds are are like citizens that weren't citizens at birth. Thus a lower class.

If Annie Walker no longer wants to be a member of a city-state: (“I am wandering”). Another city-state’s leadership can then make her a vagabond.
While she is a tramp she would be known as Annie Walker the tramp.

Rational: Instead of making things race based, why not make them city-state based so we need some sort of city-state identity. Because families often cross pollinate it's not enough to rely on family name alone.
 
PEACE/ENEMY is based on citizenship rather than family.

* Peace is formed when two city-states exchange peace stones. Peace stones are placed in very close proximity to a City Stone.

* Members (vagabonds and citizens) of a City-state that aren’t at peace view the other vagabonds and citizens as enemies. Opposite for peace. A Vagabond has the same diplomacy as a citizen.

* Outlaws are always enemies with everyone except other members of their family AND city-state.

* Barbarians and tramps are always enemies with everyone except close family And who are also barbarians/tramps.

Rational: Right now the war/peace is so unused that it doesn't supply enough information on whether a stranger is in bad or good graces of town. By starting out as enemy, you force players to choose to be trading partners (peace stones) or friends (mixed families living in the same town by family stones).
 
Killing of an enemy has a much lower cooldown and the victim dies much faster.
Rational: The reason for the long cooldown and the agonizing death is so that the community can ascertain what happened and communicate to whether such an action was good or bad. They can then remedy the solution by healing the victim or killing the perpetrator.

However, you want the opposite effect for enemies. The long an enemy lives the more it seems like murder and less like killing. You want players to buy into the meta that friends are good and enemies are bad, thus you need to distinguish between the two. Additionally, I noticed how annoying the cooldown was on raiding other towns when the object clearly was to kill and not facilitate a discussion of why.

This also stops the three-eve meta-problem, because city stones aren’t available at eve, other families are a threat until civ develops to that point.
  
Now that we’ve established the proper infrastructure for trade we can start to consider why it might work. Because peace stones are being used, if a city-state wants to keep the peace they can’t continually steal or kill or the other nation will destroy the stone and they will be enemies again.
 
Ways to encourage trade: Social Glue

City-state government specialization: Force a city-state to choose / randomly assign a government specification. It doesn’t matter how the government runs as long as everyone knows who the leaders are. Coups, Rebellions and takeovers by nearby city-states should all be possible but need to be controlled for so governments have some staying power.

Religion (down the road): Another staple of social glue, from sacrificing your first born son to marriage, honor of Gods and what not should be fun. Religion gives us rules and rituals to live by in town. This will help some players get out of the ‘meta rut’ and explore a little.
Randomly assigning / generating religions would be very fun. Side note, playing as a deity would be fun and a real treat as well. Wars will be fought with or without religion but religious wars tell great stories. (OHOL is all about the grand narrative).

Concentrate resources so that one or two cities can control them: If all the horses in the nearest 2k of the map are in one area someone will build a town nearby and control the supply. Giving horses as lifespan will ensure that the market doesn’t get saturated.

Why is this better than saying only black people can make horse carts? Because the dynamics will be more interesting. The answer will either be war or trade, if the item is scarce, otherwise a who-cares that they are capturing our horses approach will develop.

Stratify your society: Depending on government type, you might need a king, queen ect but this should be chosen from royalty not peasanty. But beyond royalty vs peasants you really need players to make choices that limit other choices that’s the point behind the skill cap.
Rather than having a player choose their own, I think having a mom / leader choose would be much more entertaining in the long run. Many players never learn something because they get stuck in the same meta. Saying ‘you are farmer’, ‘you are baker’, ‘you are blacksmith’, ‘ you are royalty’, or ‘you are warrior’ would be much nicer. This game is part parenting and parents should mold their kids. Parents could assign their kids roles, and leaders could override/assign as well (under 8 or so). Players that weren't assigned a profession would be known as 'vagrant' and would have one extra wild slot but no specials.

Players would be able to use all of the skills in their profession for ‘free’. plus 1-3 wildcards based on fitness. Barbarians wouldn’t have professions but would have broad access to beginning tools but restricted access to later ones, they wouldn’t have any wildcard slots, this would allow for rapid growth as eve ect. before civ has formed.
Royalty/Leaership wouldn’t have any laborer skills (other than wildcard) but would have a status boon and be in line for leadership positions. (or any special leadership tools). Leaders who were selected  rather than birth right royalty class (by coup, tribal or democratic government type) would lose their old profession but keep the wild skills. Elders would also lose their skills but be known as an 'elder' and can spend their last minutes passing on wisdom and information. (and eating berries of-course)

So now we would have “Farmer | Annie Walker, Citizen of D.C. | At Peace”.
 
Finally, as city-states grow, they can eventually grow to become an empire state and control other city states with a vessel stone placed nearby. Citizens of an empire replace the city state name with the empire state name (although it still exist internally in the case that the vassal stone is removed or the empire stone is destroyed). Thus Annie Walker is now
“Butcher | Annie Walker, Citizen of USA Empire | Enemy”
Finally the Map:
Keep the maze spawn system you have now but modify it. Instead of treating the nodes as individual eves, treat them as clusters of eves. Those who spawn in those clusters have a local rift (selectively enforced to those spawned inside but inapplicable/invisible to those spawned outside of it. Over time the rift grows bigger and is eventually dissolved. The system should sometimes place new eves in old but thriving clusters to keep things interesting. This happened when the rift bugged out and it was good for the game I think.
Between the clusters the space would be huge (1500 tiles or so). This would allow access to older civilizations over time after some cities have settled and the rift has disappeared.

Ofcourse @Jason this is just one way to tackle the problem the TL:DR is that you can't have civ trade without meeting the above goals (first part) and this is just one way to build up enough infrastructure to do it.