Family genetics and fatherhood

DestinyCall · 2019-12-01 04:58:05

The recent biome specialization have lead to an increased need for mixed towns in order to advance up the tech tree and gain access to all parts of the game world. Access to a variety of skin tones is very important now. Rather than focusing on the trade opportunities, I think it is worth looking at what we can do with mixed family towns themselves.

I think it opens up an interesting possibilty for introducing genetics, marriage, and fatherhood into OHOL.

Currently, babies come from the sky and only retain connection to their mother. Males are reproductive dead-ends. I'd like to see that change. First, there would need to be a mechanic for "marrying" between families. A simple text command, spoken by two consenting adults would do the trick. It could work like war/peace, forming a "partnership" between the two speakers. Once you are married, assuming the partners are male/female and from different families, the woman gains a chance to have babies with the father's skin tone. There could be other positive effects from marriage, but this is a big one. It adds a new way for families to co-mingle. I don't know exactly how languages work in this game, but if the baby could speak both languages, that would be another solid bonus to inter-marrying. Alternatively, the child would speak the mother's language and need to learn the father's. The child's biome specialty would be linked to skin tone, like it is now.

This would give a new purpose to wandering men who find distant villages and a reason for men to care for specific children in a village.

....

Now, if you want to really kick it up a notch ... let's talk genetics!

With the introduction of fatherhood comes the potential for real genetics, with traits passed from both parents. There are many interesting ways this could be utilized in-game, but let's just focus on skin tone.

There are four skin tones in the game right now, let's call them Coffee (dark brown), Chocolate (light brown), Vanilla (blonde/brunette pale), and Ginger (red-headed pale).

Inheritance of these traits could be handled using two genes (or more ... but why not keep things simple?). Let's call the first trait "darkness" and label the gene with the letter D. The darkness gene controls skin pigmentation level. Capital D = lots of pigment. Lowercase d = very little pigment.

Each person gets two copies of this gene, one from their mother and one from their father. This gene expresses with partial dominance. Therefore, a person born with a genotype DD will be coffee-colored. They produce lots of pigment. A person with genotype Dd would be chocolate-colored. They make some pigment, but not as much. And a person with genotype dd would be born vanilla-colored. They don't make very much pigment at all, so their skin is pale.

The ginger trait would be handled by a different gene. We'll use the letter G for this gene. Capital G = non-ginger, lowercase g = ginger! This gene expresses with complete dominance - you are either a ginger ... or you are not. Gingerness is a recessive trait, so if a person has GG or Gg genotypes, they will be non-ginger and their skin tone is decided by the Darkness gene. But if a person has gg genotype, they will be born as a Ginger. This will mask the person's Darkness gene, preventing it from expressing.

Here are all the possible geneotypes/phenotypes:

Coffee:
DDGG
DDGg

Chocolate:
DdGG
DdGg

Vanilla:
ddGG
ddGg

Ginger:
DDgg
Ddgg
ddgg

From a practical standpoint, this means that if two gingers (gg) marry and have kids, all the kids will be ginger (gg). The same is true for two coffees (DD) or two vanillas (dd). All their kids will be coffee or vanilla respectively, unless both parents carry recessive ginger genes (Gg). However, if a chocolate (Dd) marries another chocolate (Dd), things will be more interesting. Most of the kids will be chocolate (Dd), but they might also have darker kids (DD) or lighter kids (dd) and maybe even some ginger kids (gg).

When a coffee (DD) and a vanilla (dd) get married, their kids will all be chocolate colored (Dd) - a perfect blend of the parents. A coffee (DD) and chocolate (Dd) couple will have an equal chance at producing coffee or chocolate kids. Likewise, vanilla (dd) and chocolate (Dd) couples will produce a mix of vanilla and chocolate kids. Keep in mind, however, if both parents carry hidden ginger genes (Gg), they have a small chance of having a ginger kid (gg) and some of their non-ginger kids will also carry hidden ginger genes (Gg).

Lastly, if a ginger (gg) marries a non-ginger (GG), all the kids will be non-ginger. However, the kids will ALL carry hidden ginger genes (Gg), so their grandkids might be ginger. If a non-ginger with a hidden ginger gene (Gg) marries a ginger (gg), some of their kids will be ginger and other will be non-ginger that also have a hidden ginger gene and the potential for future ginger children.

....

In terms of gameplay, this means that if you are in a single family town, you will still need to search for other families so you can find the right type of people to help your family advance. Marrying into another family gives you access to greater genetic diversity and a wider range of possible offspring. And most interesting ... you might not need to find all four flavors in the same lifetime. Genes can be shared and passed down through generations. Your family could change over time, depending on who you marry and how successful you are at surviving and passing your genes on to the next generation.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-12-01 05:40:06)

karltown_veteran · 2019-12-01 15:09:26

*literally made a thread on exactly that

Spiegel · 2019-12-01 16:44:21

karltown_veteran wrote:

*literally made a thread on exactly that

The more threads the merrier! This is interesting.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-01 17:36:20

karltown_veteran wrote:

*literally made a thread on exactly that

Your thread got me thinking about the possibilities. I made a separate thread so I wouldn't fill your thread with my semi-coherent ramblings on hypothetical ginger genetics.

Randomname · 2019-12-01 22:35:54

I also posted a sort of similar idea in this thread

Randomname wrote:

I know it has been requested many times, however with the new update comes a slightly different spin.
We need to find other families and once we have them, we need them to breed more children of their race. However maybe the white ladies have all the children leaving the browns, blacks and gingers extinct. What if however simply the presence of other races gives a slight chance perhaps 10% of different race children i.e. white ladies popping out ginger kids. Those kids would have their mum's language but their "fathers" biome speciality. Realistically if they all live together chances are some of them would get together.
To further this idea what if two people of different races (mm, ff or mf) both said "I wed Insert NameHere" or if next to each other "I wed you" then if one of the pair was female then they would get a 50% of either of their parents race. If it was two males then no special fertility but still fun role play. This of course would be limited to adults, no underage weddings.

fug · 2019-12-02 02:17:19

Dads aren't allowed due to creepy rape uncles/incest/yadda yadda.

Regardless how a father figure could complete the family unit or make males feel more useful the trolls ruin it for everyone.

I'm not even sure how hard it would be to implement something related to this but keeping it simple would be best.

Mom holding baby phrases:

You are the Dad (closest male)
_____ is your father (specific male)
You are not my baby (remove baby to allow for adoption by other moms/dad)
_____ is your mother (specific female)

Then do regular disowning names for fathers

You are not my son/daughter (disowns closest related child)
You are my son/daughter (adopts held child)
I am not your dad (held child)
_____ is your mother (specific mother)
_____ is your father (specific father)

Just make it where players can deny/remove themselves from being labeled someones father/mother if they don't want to be and allow others to fill that gap if that's what they want.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-02 05:54:33

fug wrote:

Dads aren't allowed due to creepy rape uncles/incest/yadda yadda.

This isn't really an issue if fatherhood is only possible between No Relations. We already need to find people in different families to play the game properly right now, so you should have a source for marriage candidates any time you encounter a new village. Allowing adults who are in a different family to marry is completely normal and socially acceptable in the real world. Nothing weird or taboo about it.

Keyin · 2019-12-02 06:39:12

DestinyCall wrote:

This isn't really an issue if fatherhood is only possible between No Relations. We already need to find people in different families to play the game properly right now, so you should have a source for marriage candidates any time you encounter a new village. Allowing adults who are in a different family to marry is completely normal and socially acceptable in the real world. Nothing weird or taboo about it.

The problem there is it doesn't take long for everyone in a village to be related. With four families, everyone is a cousin after two generations. The system would rely on constant new families. family A,B,C, and D become familes AB AC AD BC BD and CD. Another generation and they're all ABCD.
Also, fug has a good point. Imagine being the only guy with a rare phenotype all your rapey town mates come after you to be their child's father... Families would start dying out again by no fault of their own unless sky babies were still the default.

Some other problems I have with the particular example you give of DDGG/ddgg is chocolates would be inheritly hybrids. They will be prone to birthing vanillas and coffees half the time. Also, coffees having ginger babies would be pretty weird.
better would be standard AABBCC and aabbcc or even just AABB and aabb

like in picture, coffees could stabilize to AAbb or aaBB and chocolates would never birth gingers.

Though in general I do support fathers, there is still the question of not only languages, but war/peace(whose side are you on?),My family owns this, etc.

Ideally I hope the game returns one day to the one-Eve concept. Only one family which diverges into many, one language diverging into many, etc though that is much easier said than done.

Returning to the % chance of a neighboring skintone baby would be nice, though 1/20 like it was before seems too high to me...

Last edited by Keyin (2019-12-02 06:40:55)

DestinyCall · 2019-12-02 09:13:08

Keyin wrote:

Some other problems I have with the particular example you give of DDGG/ddgg is chocolates would be inheritly hybrids. They will be prone to birthing vanillas and coffees half the time. Also, coffees having ginger babies would be pretty weird.

Red hair is a recessive trait in real life, so it is relatively accurate. The problem is that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes to make skin tones and hair/eye color in real humans.

I considered having Ginger be a sub-set of Vanilla - so it would only express if your darkness gene was also minimally expressed. But that would mean that the only viable ginger genotype would be ddgg. That would be very limiting and would make gingers too rare, I think.

Kaveh · 2019-12-02 10:57:59

fug wrote:

Mom holding baby phrases:
You are not my baby (remove baby to allow for adoption by other moms/dad)
_____ is your mother (specific female)

I really dislike the idea of just being able to say 'you're not my baby' or similar and therefore not being responsible for the kid. Adoption sure (I mean it happens already with peeps ditchin their kids by the fire), but I think it should be clear that someone is still the biological mother. Otherwise people would abandon their kids without going thru the effort of finding someone to take care of the kid.

I'd rather just have the mother who adopts a baby say 'I am your mother' and the game then saying 'adoptive mother' or something next to the name, while not changing anything about the birth mother.

Gogo · 2019-12-02 13:54:24

I'm back to the game from a break! This topic means race update is still an issue?

Griefers would mate with fathers from other races to end their own.

Last edited by Gogo (2019-12-02 13:54:33)

pein · 2019-12-03 00:14:52

I support fatherhood if it has a practical value

I still think that we should be able to control birth a bit

eat this wild onion, get no kids for 5 minutes, second time would work for 3 min then it wouldn't work

eat this burdock, have boosted fertility for 5 minutes, 3 then 0

this would boost gen 3-4 when you can afford kids, then would be more and more effort to get there

but technology would allow to make some medicine that helps same way but it's more expensive

fatherhood also could help same way, you get married then do some hugs and get more babies for a while

random is not fully good, you would never want a baby in bad times and would want more in good times

often a city could feed 15 kids but you get none and new eve camps gen 3-4 steal all the babies.

it's better to bring babies where people want it

of course not unlimited, you would need to build a tent, then upgrade each time to increase the cap in a radius around town, that's why I had the town centre and town totem ideas so we could have buffs and nerfs city-wide for various activities

if population is a resource, then just one thing needs to be done: make people useful. now with tool limits, they are somewhat useful if they can do the tools you don't, one girl cut the boards and disks and the city became better, I had to get sheep and built adobe pen so I used up stakes, bow, shovel, axe and lasso (died before I could use it) so they had to help

but we need more processes where the time is the resource not gathering and using it, cause that goes fast. a long process of making stuff out of barely anything so their time is something that gets you a small buff. Get water from a swamp, get a leaf from badlands, make a tea, buff heat. People need to explore, gather, do it before decays, helps veterans too.

karltown_veteran · 2019-12-03 12:39:40

Gogo wrote:

Griefers would mate with fathers from other races to end their own.

Griefers aren’t the only female living in the town. And griefers could’ve just feed bbs to snakes if they wanted to end a line that way. Plus the idea would be that bbs would come out part(1/3?) of time days race, part mom part mixed. If anyone did that it would be white moms who wanted their kids to be able to have a special biome advantage.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-04 15:04:54

Here's an interesting twist on my original idea. Instead of applying genetics only on the individual level, let's look at genetics on the population level.

I was thinking about Eves. What geneotype/phenotypes should be available to the very first women? My initial thinking was that Eves would be a random assortment of phenotypes, like they are right now. Perhaps an Eve could be ANY geneotype, selected at random. But that level of randomization is a problem in practice. We just do not have enough unique families to support full randomization, because we would always be running out of certain flavors. We see this happening right now, when we only have four families and two or three skintones. Even when we have six or seven unique families, they are too far apart to find everyone they need. One of my goals behind adding a genetics mechanic into the game would be to facilitate family mixing and sharing of important traits. But it isn't going to work if you need ginger genes but you can't find a ginger village. Even if you force the game to produce a new Eve with the "missing" flavor, there is no guarantee that her family is going to survive long enough to be found by another village. If they end up settling too far away, the odds of being discovered by anyone else is very remote. This is exactly the situation we are currently facing in-game with the non-genetic model.

Then I had an idea ... instead of having each Eve start out as the progenitor of her own race (black, brown, white, ginger), every Eve could start with the potential for ALL races, thanks to the power of genetics! She is the mother of millions. She is the All Woman. She is DdGg. With this genotype, all Eves would be phenotypically "brown" and have access to the jungle speciality biome from the beginning. Inner-family marriage would be disabled, so all children would carry the same genetics and they would also be brown. But eventually, they might meet a new family. Another village of brown people who are also DdGg - the descendants of a different Eve. And this is a very special moment, because it will change both families forever.

Since they are both brown, neither family will have language specialists to help translate. They will need to overcome the language barrier as best they can to communicate, without access to wine. The mutual goal of both peoples will be to form peace, because once the two families are at peace with each other ... that's when the real magic happens. Peace will act as a "marriage" between two villages. When a mother gives birth, if she is unwed, her sky baby is given a random genetic contribution from an anonymous father. The genetics of this "sky father" is selected from living males in any families that the mother's village has encountered and managed to forge a peaceful relationship. In this way, every mother in the village would benefit from a peace treaty. If your family has no peace treaties or if the other village dies out, sky babies are born without a "father" contribution - their genes are identical to their mother.

Since everyone is initially the descendant of an Eve with the genotype DdGg, the first generation after peace has been established is filled with possibilities. This combination of genetics DgGg x DgGg has the potential to give the village children of every possible flavor. Your child might be the village's first dark skinned baby. Or she might be the village's new translator. Or the very first ginger. Or ... he might be another brown baby. You never know. It is a genetic lottery. And those first couple of generations after peace has been established will be very interesting times in both villages. You will likely have a mix of colors appearing - chocolate would be the most common flavor and vanilla will be the least common, but everyone will probably make an appearance eventually and have an important role to play in the future of the village.

Over time, genetic drift may result in your village losing its diversity. You might eventually end up losing all your ginger genes (g) or running out of the darkest genes (D), so you stop having coffee babies completely. If you run out of d genes, you will no longer have vanillas, but you also can't have chocolate. Keeping a perfect balance between the flavors will be challenging and the natural tendency will trend back toward a single color over time, especially if your sister village dies out or loses diversity first.

At this point, your village will reach a potential crisis point. There will be a pressing need to find a new village and form a new peace treaty so you can expand your gene pool and infuse your village with new potential. I think this idea could really work, both as a way to encourage players to think on a village/family level and also as a way to significantly simplify finding the necessary diversity to allow your village to thrive long-term. Instead of needing to find three or four different villages within the first twenty four hours in order to unlock higher tech options and new resources, your village will only needs to find ONE other village initially. Then more villages the longer it stays alive. I think this also makes it much easier to balance the different specialty biomes, since you can focus on making jungle the "starter biome" for all Eves and let desert/artic remain focused on more late-game tech advancement. Almost all villages will retain access to jungle, but some villages will not have access to desert or artic for a long time, even after encountering another village and getting access to wider genetic diversity.

Regarding fatherhood .... Individual marriage should ALSO be possible under this system. If a mother finds someone that they desire to be the father of their children, they can mutually agree to marry. In order for the marriage to have any effect, the father would need to be a member of an unrelated family, but they would not need to be at peace. In fact, they might even be at war (star-crossed lovers!). This might be a good idea, if a man is wandering far from his home village when he encounters a new tribe, but he is not yet old enough to forge peace. Marriage has two effects - it allows a woman to benefit from the unique genetic contribution of a specific man ... AND it lets the man identify his children. Sky children have no fathers, but the children of a married woman will be labeled as "Son" or "Daughter" to her husband. The children keep the mother's last name and place in her family tree. In the husband's family tree, it indicates who he was married to during his life and any children that came from the marriage, but the children and grandchildren remain in the mother's family, from the perspective of war/peace, language, and lineage-tracking. This means that having a husband (or being a husband) is largely cosmetic - you could just stick with sky babies or ignore children in favor of working hard for the village as a whole. But if you want more control over what happens with your genes, marriage lets you take charge a little bit and fosters the building of connections with other players.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-12-04 16:02:06)

Gogo · 2019-12-04 16:39:29

I didn't think about it before, but today I was riding to bell town and I had many fertile females in family, so if I had kids I would have sons, right? Not many chances to spread my genes there.

And for fatherhood I will keep it in cartoon style, no complex genes, your child after mating will have his father's skin.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-04 17:10:43

Gogo wrote:

I didn't think about it before, but today I was riding to bell town and I had many fertile females in family, so if I had kids I would have sons, right? Not many chances to spread my genes there.
And for fatherhood I will keep it in cartoon style, no complex genes, your child after mating will have his father's skin.

As I understand it, when your female population is low, you are guaranteed girl babies. When you have an adequate supply of girls, gender distribution is randomized. So you have equal chance of girls or boys.

In practice, this can lead to you having a bunch of girls when you are young, then having a bunch of boys toward the end. But you are not forced to have only boys. It is RNG-based.

The bigger issue is time and distance. By the time you reach a distant bell town, you may be too old to bear children or have only a few minutes to find a husband. It is pretty dicey.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-12-01 04:58:05

Family genetics and fatherhood

#2 2019-12-01 15:09:26

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#3 2019-12-01 16:44:21

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#4 2019-12-01 17:36:20

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#5 2019-12-01 22:35:54

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#6 2019-12-02 02:17:19

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#7 2019-12-02 05:54:33

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#8 2019-12-02 06:39:12

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#9 2019-12-02 09:13:08

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#10 2019-12-02 10:57:59

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#11 2019-12-02 13:54:24

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#12 2019-12-03 00:14:52

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#13 2019-12-03 12:39:40

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#14 2019-12-04 15:04:54

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#15 2019-12-04 16:39:29

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

#16 2019-12-04 17:10:43

Re: Family genetics and fatherhood

Board footer