Idea: Town Buffs

The_Anabaptist · 2020-02-20 11:16:04

If the crux of the game is: people are impermanent, but the town (civ) is eternal, then there should be more mechanics that encourage the growth / permanence of towns.

Town Buffs:
Include more complex specialty buildings / wonders (things that take time to build, like the bell tower) that once constructed add some kind of bonus or unlockable invisible resource within a large radius of the structure. Make it so the radius of these buildings can't overlap, so that one city can't have them all.

This would encourage more than one large town.
It would provide a mechanism to either encourage transport of goods between the towns, or raiding of them for said goods.
It might increase conflict if: you discovered the neighboring town was ahead of you on a certain project, then what might you do to slow them down?
It would be a good excuse to dump the current biome restrictions, if some of the current resources were made part of the hidden / unlockable set.

The_Anabaptist

Wuatduhf · 2020-02-20 12:46:44

Towns survive through generations; the city itself should not be attributed to maintaining any kind of 'power' because the 'power' itself needs to be rendered to the inhabitants of that location and remain in their control.

When Jason agreed to add the Hierarchies feature to the game, I think that this was the right step towards being able to give that kind of multi-generational control to the players as the first step in a line of 'building blocks' to creating the societal structure the game needs in the mid- to late-game meta.

I still believe in principle that Biome Restrictions needs to go, but only because of the way it was implemented (removing rather than improving). I'm not going to lump the mechanic together with Hierarchies, though, and I would argue the same for this thread too, because they do not directly impact one another.

Lava · 2020-02-20 15:38:24

I would people are too lazy and don’t give a fuck enough to use hierarchies normally, this is why it’s purely rp.

The_Anabaptist · 2020-02-20 17:18:57

Wuatduhf wrote:

Towns survive through generations; the city itself should not be attributed to maintaining any kind of 'power' because the 'power' itself needs to be rendered to the inhabitants of that location and remain in their control.
When Jason agreed to add the Hierarchies feature to the game, I think that this was the right step towards being able to give that kind of multi-generational control to the players as the first step in a line of 'building blocks' to creating the societal structure the game needs in the mid- to late-game meta.
I still believe in principle that Biome Restrictions needs to go, but only because of the way it was implemented (removing rather than improving). I'm not going to lump the mechanic together with Hierarchies, though, and I would argue the same for this thread too, because they do not directly impact one another.

I don't think the two ideas have to be mutually exclusive.
As individuals lead to family trees and then to tribes and nations (hierarchies), it would make sense that villages lead to towns and then to cities.

IRL city centers provide things that rural communities simply cannot. Attribute it to cities allowing for individual specialization, or to higher tech, the results are evident everywhere.

If different towns can compete to build unique structures, it leads to families that take pride in their community. It gives kings the desire to issue an order to everyone to collect "x" of "y" resource so that we can get "z" built. It gives the neighboring king the desire to issue a command to raid the neighboring town and take all the "y" resource from them before the "z" gets built and renders their own attempt to build "z" invalid.

The_Anabaptist

Wuatduhf · 2020-02-20 20:34:26

Lava wrote:

I would people are too lazy and don’t give a fuck enough to use hierarchies normally, this is why it’s purely rp.

That's more of a cultural/knowledge hurdle than one that can never be overcome.

If players were always inherently lazy, you wouldn't even see people make tons of belltowers, or wineries.

Player knowledge only advances when people demonstrate "good" ideas and see them constantly in life after life after life. People didn't 'get' society right away; it took a lot of collaboration between various tribes of people wanting to make things and to keep expanding on things and needing to constantly re-organize how they operated between one-another.

Wuatduhf · 2020-02-20 20:53:38

I disagree, Ana.

Almost a year ago, Jason had a post about a video where a guy talks about technologies of older civilizations being lost to time.

It was primarily about the issue of meta-game knowledge on how people instantly rushed his Tech Tree and made him regret saying he could make content faster than people could make progress through it. These were my thoughts then:

Wuatduhf wrote:

To condense everything down from what Jason said, and what Wio said, this is what I think on the subject:
It is impossible to avoid the 'meta' picking up on how these specialized technologies would work.
OHOL's tech tree is fine as it is. Procedurally generating a new one is only going to add information overload similar to how languages are painful to attempt to decode when there are hundreds of variations that you're constantly having to re-learn every hour.
The only logical way to add specialized technology without it being easily meta'd is by not removing existing tech, but adding new, advanced versions of what we already have.
- Special tech has a 'random % chance' every time you successfully interact w/ a structure. It would mirror accidental discovery.
- Every time a player successfully interacts w/ a Kiln, Newcomen, Iron Vein, etc., they could have a 0.001% (1 out of 100,000) chance to learn the superior version of the technology they were interacting with. (A lightbulb w/ sound effect could appear above their head the moment that happens)
- When that happens, that specific player has unlocked the specialized technology, infrastructure, etc. They have until Old Age (or other means of death) to try and build the superior version of that tech. Ideally, they would be upgrading the tech structure the village currently has. (upgrading the forge, upgrading the Newcomen, etc.)
The special technology would be attached to the individual to build, but is not restricted on use. No one else "learns" how it was built, per se, but they are able to interact with the advanced technology and use it for as long as the technology survives.
The technology survives until all family lineages that were aware of it die off. The technology can be known to multiple family lineages, as long as they are in its presence when it is being used.
- Once all lineages have died, the upgraded tech decays until either the normal version or a "dillapidated" version of itself, no longer able to be used or removed.

My opinion on it has shifted only slightly; I think it should just be a single lineage again, rather than all lineages that are able to come into contact with said thing. That way, each family is going to eventually have the potential to make their own specialized tech for themselves.

Also, since families systematically die within about 7 days due to server restarts, I think the technologies may need to have semi-permanence for some time after the lineage that made it has vanished. Probably a death timer from inactivity, or perhaps just a new 'layer' of decay that follows an object no matter how much it transitions.

Ultimately, it's still a game mechanic that's based on the people crafting it, and not the town itself being upgraded based on a mechanic that will quickly be meta-gamed for the "best possible upgrade".

Lava · 2020-02-20 22:21:47

Wuatduhf wrote:

Lava wrote:
I would people are too lazy and don’t give a fuck enough to use hierarchies normally, this is why it’s purely rp.
That's more of a cultural/knowledge hurdle than one that can never be overcome.
If players were always inherently lazy, you wouldn't even see people make tons of belltowers, or wineries.

Player knowledge only advances when people demonstrate "good" ideas and see them constantly in life after life after life. People didn't 'get' society right away; it took a lot of collaboration between various tribes of people wanting to make things and to keep expanding on things and needing to constantly re-organize how they operated between one-another.

No, bell towers and wineries are made by veterans, actual good players who are very few and in between the game. Trade needs to be done by normies who really can’t do shit and are lazy. Vets have better things to do then practice useless trade and since there’s not many of them trade won’t be maintained therefore making it useless.

pein · 2020-02-20 22:35:34

well it has to be either area buff or map buff, which would mean that the map should be smaller, one map per family would work

it's an interesting question, ow you would give power to players in an online game
but it's surely wrong when people spend half a life to beg for a rank then fuck around telling them stupid stuff
veterans work hard and know what to do, but won't have time to beg for ranks

cities should worth more and have an identity

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-02-20 11:16:04

Idea: Town Buffs

#2 2020-02-20 12:46:44

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#3 2020-02-20 15:38:24

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#4 2020-02-20 17:18:57

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#5 2020-02-20 20:34:26

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#6 2020-02-20 20:53:38

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#7 2020-02-20 22:21:47

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

#8 2020-02-20 22:35:34

Re: Idea: Town Buffs

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