a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Hello, new forum member and new player with roughly 75 hours in just the last week lol, I have quickly grown to really like this game, both as a survival game, a life sim, and a society simulator.
The last one in that list is what this suggestion relates to most, and stems from a discussion I started on the discord when trying to think about features that should (hopefully, you never know) be on the easier side while also being high impact to gameplay diversity:
Primitive Government's / Leadership Type Diversity
By that I just mean have variety in the way leadership and property is distributed.
Leadership seems to mostly be concerned with titles, delivering orders, exiling evil-doers, (and potentially property?)
I believe we can have four distinct types of leadership, I will split these up into four categories: Nobility, Tribe, Democracy, and Anarchy.
All four of these can be chosen by an Eve at the start by simply saying "We are a (Monarchy/Tribe/Democracy/Anarchy)" it can also be changed by any leader at any time, although once changed it can't be changed again in that characters lifetime. If no type is picked it defaults to a tribe.
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Monarchy
Would represent the most authoritarian leadership type, it would be a strict matriarchy with a queen that passes down matrilineally to the first born daughter or other next of kin (pretty much only ending up with a king if that's the only option) the next heir would have the title princess or prince, other kids would not have those titles.
This leadership type would be able to make orders as normal but can kill any ally without exiling them. And anyone who owns property following a queen automatically revokes their property rights to give to the queen. So the queen owns all property of her allies.
Tribe (Default)
Would represent the most vanilla leadership type and what an eve family defaults too if they don't pick one specifically. It picks a leader from all allies based on who has the highest gene score, and can be manually granted to another player before death. The leader can be man or woman, titled chief or chieftess.
This leadership type would be able to make orders but have to exile someone to kill them as normal. Property is kept by all the original owners unless no owner is found in which case it goes to the tribal leader.
Democracy
Would be the most socially active type of leadership. The leader is elected in a 1-2 minute voting period after the previous leader leaves. Voting is not required but the person who gets the most votes becomes the new leader for life or until they type "I retire". If there is a tie it picks the person with the highest gene score. The current leader can't decide the next leader. Leader is called the president or mayor.
This leadership type can make orders and exile as normal, but have no priority on property in the family which will always go to next of kin of whoever owned it or just disappear outright.
Anarchy
Would be either it's own leadership type where anyone and everyone can make orders and exile however they wish, or simply a way to disband all allies by declaring anarchy leaving everything as every man for themselves. If it's its own government type then all property owned by the allies is allowed to be opened by all allies. But if it is not then property just follows normal next of kin rules.
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This would not have any asset additions or changes, it would be a purely leadership update that changes titles and the way leadership functions and is passed down. I think it would have good mechanical purpose in giving players agency and diversity on how they want their families to be run, further deepening the dynamics of this society simulator, and it would also allow roleplay opportunity and make being born into different towns at different times feel more distinct and interesting.
Depending on the way leadership and property works it may not be super easy, it is definitely an overhaul, but one that I think could make for a pretty big update title and greatly increase diversity combined with different racial families and town layouts. Lemme know what everyone else thinks.
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The game had some form of anarchy for a while. There didn't exist allies, leaders, or posses. Also, no possibility of running away before getting killed (no 'growl'). The result?
Some people would get killed over trivial things. You used some board to make a bucket, when someone else wanted to make (purely decorative) wood flooring? Stab. You had a backpack that someone else wanted? Stab. Killing over small matters, when anyone could do it, was not good.
There also existed pein-style killing. Someone like pein would believe someone doing the wrong thing. Like watering too many berry bushes or the wrong berry bushes. Stab. Maybe some of that could get justified. But also, pein admitted he had a temper. Hard to figure out when such killing made sense and didn't. Then pein would get stabbed by some idiot also! Yea, it didn't work out well.
Then there were the new players and they still something like "HOW KILL". These days they mostly look funny and/or some experienced player kills them after getting exiled, or they give up on killing (which they should!) or go play something else, since this isn't a game about killing people just because killing exists in it. It isn't a "kill or be killed" type of game. It's a "multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building" The new player saying "HOW KILL" was extremely far from playing consistently with such a concept.
Then there were new players who would figure out killing quickly. You can see one in the video here at about 2:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGrYoBzqOU His cousin was just putting berries into a bowl. And got shot dead. The mother even predicted that would do such. Those people didn't stop to think "huh... maybe I shouldn't try to kill for no reason in this game". They just victimized their cousin trying to pick berries. It was not a good experience trying to help out or do something and getting shot like that.
I also remember getting shot by my own daughter twice (and I mean playing with random people... playing low pop with friends is different.). I think both times it was just me and her. I remember seeing one making a bow, and I try to assume she plans to hunt a turkey. Nope, I get shot dead.
And it wasn't like PvP games. In PvP games, both players compete for some goal, and thus both have reason to kill. But, in OHOL, it would usually be one person wants to kill without any in-game reason to do so. And the other person doesn't want to kill, or would only kill for defensive purposes. The first person has the goal of killing. The second person has the goal of trying to make a better society or build stuff or parent or something constructive.
So, based on what I've seen, NO, anarchy would not be a good idea for this game. It already had anarchy, and it was a bloody, boney mess. And left plenty of *victims* who correctly felt unhappy with a game that didn't fit it's advertisement, because of jerks and idiots.
I do feel skeptical that democracy wouldn't work, because of the time issue. Also, I don't know that democracy would work better. I mean, genetic score tied to leadership, at least in general keeps out people who want basically want to victimize others, because they can.
I don't see any reason to change the current system, because it doesn't suffer from deficiencies.
And finally, anyone wanting something like the danger of the old days, can use '/unfollow' command at any age, refuse to run away if targeted, and thus they become as vulnerable as they were in the old days to getting shot when picking berries.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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