Hierarchies

Keyin · 2019-12-07 01:23:30

Not so sure about those ranks, because you might end up with an empire of just eight people vs a count with fifteen people below them.

Spoonwood wrote:

And why would Tarr, Pein, Alec, or any other advanced, experienced player be in a subordinate role at 3, when they probably have more of a clue as to what the town needs than the less experienced player over them in the imposed and ARTIFICAL hierarchy? The advanced experienced player would rationally dissent, or have to fake that the player over time in the hierarchy had a clue. But, then such a player would become an exile and worthy of death or have to lie. And then the lineage is likely even more doomed, there's fewer experienced players around to deal with inter-family violence since some would rationally dissent or get exiled NOT by their own choice, fewer people would be around to be capable of handling town issues, and more inter-family violence would happen.

All hierarchies are artificial. The reason they don't really form in OHOL is there isn't enough time to jockey for position. A veteran could peel off followers from a bad ruler and launch a coup. An overtly tyrannical monarch won't last, and by nature of hierarchies being mostly based on age, the noob monarch above the veteran is probably going to be dead soon and the veteran can step in and take over meritocraticly by having the most support from the town.

Last edited by Keyin (2019-12-07 01:23:50)

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-07 01:24:22

I repeat, having no leader does NOT make you exiled.

You are only seen as exiled if someone exiles you, and only seen as exiled by multiple people if the person who exiles you has followers.

I'm thinking about "exile" and "nomad" as two different states.

Ugg... but the visual marking stuff is really driving me nuts. I just can't imagine this game where every person has a rank displayed, even if it is in a cohesive, cartoon way (like chevrons). You'd need to see the ranks of everyone above you and everyone below you too. Screenshots of a village would look like screen shots of an army lineup.

So I think I might leave the visual marking thing up to the players as an emergent thing. Crows, feathers in hats, certain colors of clothing, etc.

The only thing you really need to see is Exile visually, and then the rest you will assess via mouse-over

COUNT JOSEPH GARDNER
DUKE TYSON LANDS

Another question: how does an exiled person learn that they are exiled?

I guess all of this stuff could have DING messages too.

Like:

DING: TYSON LANDS IS NOW YOUR DUKE

DING: DUKE TYSON LANDS IS DEAD

DING: DUKE TYSON LANDS EXILED YOU

Problem is if your Baron joins a Count, then you might get a Duke and King in the same instant.... maybe there needs a way for those messages to be spaced out.

Another question: If your Duke dies, what is your relationship to the King? You are suddenly Dukeless.

If you follow a King directly, instead of through a Baron-Count-Duke chain, what are you? Is he your King or your Baron?

"I follow no Nobles. My allegiance is directly to the King himself."

Shortcut to Duke? Get one follower, then follow the King directly.

What if you follow him solo as a Baron, and then later a Duke follows him, making him King?

When a Baron's last follower dies, is he no longer a Baron?

If people at the bottom of the tree die, can an King go from being a King to a Duke?

Kinrany · 2019-12-07 02:00:44

jasonrohrer wrote:

Green mark.... this is a point where I struggle. I'm trying to keep the UI in the game from looking too UI-ish, with things hovering over people's heads and stuff. It's supposed to look like a cohesive cartoon.
Mousing over someone to see their Friend or Exile or nobility status is easy enough.
But that doesn't give you an at-a-glance assessment of someone.
Maybe just the exile status needs to stand out visually, because that will be more rare? Could be as simple as a black X on their body or clothing.

Colored speech bubbles? Red for exiles, white for neutrals, green for friends, yellow for leaders, blue for followers?

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, I think there's a difference between being exiled and not following someone. A visitor from a different land isn't exiled, yet.

Yes, exiled and neutral should definitely be different. Players should know if they can recruit someone.

jasonrohrer wrote:

So if you say, "I FOLLOW MYSELF," then you have no leader, but you're not exiled. You could still get exiled by one more more people, though.

This would allow becoming free every time people with knives leave, without leaving any trace. I think instead you should have to talk to the leader and ask them to free you. Or to ask their leader to become their follower, etc.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm also thinking about rankings, like these:

Maybe the rank should depend on the total number of people under you, and not just on it's depth? This would also prevent grandmothers from automatically being Countesses. (Although I think it makes sense for old people to get titles by default. That's basically elders, right?)

Keyin wrote:

In this case wouldn't the best thing to do is change who you serve to be the oldest person around?

Changing the leader to someone who isn't your leader's leader should probably be prohibited too, for the same reason

Wuatduhf wrote:

That would maybe help to keep the flow of the game "Tribal" in the early sequence, and slowly transforms into "monarchic" in the sense that has been discussed in this Topic so far.

Well, even the most primitive tribes have hierarchy. I think this transition will happen naturally: the true king will always wear the crown because he can.

Spoonwood wrote:

Any experienced player will get penalized thus by some ignorant 1st or 2nd game player who just likes bossing people around. It's certainly not meritocratic with inheritance.

Any experienced player will kill the noob king and the guard, take the crown and force the dukes to pledge their allegiance.

I think you're trying to convince Jason that this thread is a good idea because that's the only way tyranny will possibly work

Kinrany · 2019-12-07 02:08:38

jasonrohrer wrote:

Another question: If your Duke dies, what is your relationship to the King? You are suddenly Dukeless.

A couple options:

1. Name a successor. Your followers will become their followers. Can be a problem if you name someone who isn't in the same tree at all.
2. Your followers become your leader's followers.

Edit: I might have misunderstood the question...

Another, completely out there idea is that you could in theory loan your followers to your other followers, and be able to get them back. Borrowed vs owned power.

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-12-07 02:10:16)

Wuatduhf · 2019-12-07 02:12:21

Could we maybe get...a different SFX from *DING* regarding Hierarchies?

Punkypal · 2019-12-07 02:13:56

I was thinking of something like a MAYOR. You'd have to build a building to serve as a town hall. You can then have some sort of election. The one with most votes is mayor. May can do things like list tasks for people to do. Like, I could see a list of who is doing what. No name listed as the town cook? OK I can do that. Once I die, my name automatically goes away and someone else can sign up for cook.

or

Mayor just assigns you a job. You don't have to do it, but if you do the assigned job maybe you see increased productivity. If you are assigned cook and you light an oven, it stays hot twice as long. If Mayor makes you a woodcutter, a tree you chop produces more wood, or your axe wears out slower. You don't have to do the job given, but if you do, you do it better.

Anyway, just ideas. Being a mayor, maybe is a way to automatically be reborn in a town. Or maybe a mayor loses all tool slots. They can't do anything, they have to delegate, but there can be a way for them to live way past 60 years. Get someone to sacrifice their life, you un-age whatever amount they had left? That would be an interesting dynamic.

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-07 02:24:58

I'm tempted to explore this in a very simple, bare-bones way at first, just to see what people do with it.

Three new spoken verbs:

I FOLLOW YOU (or name)
I FOLLOW MYSELF
I EXILE YOU (or name)

Mouse over leader to see their LEADER status. Maybe DOUBLE LEADER to show anyone further above you that you didn't follow directly (or maybe TRIPLE LEADER, QUADRA LEADER, etc.)

Mouse over a follower to see their FOLLOWER status.

Mouse over to see an exiled person's status (exiled by you or a leader above you).

When born, you inherit your mother's leader, if any.

Change leaders whenever you want, but you can't follow someone who sees you as exiled.

No successors, complications, etc.

With that simplified implementation in place, I can gauge how fervently people are using this system, and flesh it out more if warranted.

NiGB0 · 2019-12-07 02:35:33

I think the best option is a system where Eve choose her heir, then her heir choose another one. So all people will want to be the new leader/King/Emperor/etc, but to be that they must be good players.
If a leader becomes a tyrant the people of the family can remove him from his title, saying "Our leader has to be overthrown" then the people should say "I agree with you/X" and the next in the line of succesion will be the new leader.

The leader can't be killed, if the leader is a woman she will have fertility bonus, if the leader is a man he will give fertility bonus to his sisters or closest relatives. When the people remove the leader, the person will lose all his bonuses.

Kinrany · 2019-12-07 02:39:24

Hmm, I'd prefer to make sure that the minimal implementation will be beneficial as a tool against griefing, at least in theory. This was a fundamental assumption behind the whole idea. (As a consequence, being a follower is beneficial.)

Would you also see a FRIEND status when you and the other person have the same root?

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-12-07 02:44:15)

Toxolotl · 2019-12-07 02:42:18

If people kill each other over crowns that mean nothing imagine what they will do with this.

Monarchies dont just happen. They usually form around wealth. Specifically withheld wealth and resources controlled by a minority.

I think a system like this would be interesting but i could see it turning a bit lord of the fliesy. I like to think of the current system as a bit of a communist anarchy. No one owns anything no one rules anyone the people belong to the town and the town belongs to the people.

I find it quite beautiful and i honestly think its highly successful in the scheme of societies. Imagine a society where they could go 120 years without a single murder. It does get a bit boring though when its the only societal structure used imo.

Personally I like civilizations developing organically in the game but I do like the idea of having some *optional* structures to guide people into the societies they choose. I worry though that the proposed system would serve more as a nuisance/distraction than a structure that aids in creating a dynamic society.

Players are likely going to gravitate towards the most efficient system so how would monarchies or any government system be balanced in order to make them a competitive option?

I imagine the player base would be split between those who want the monarchies and those who dont. There would be constant battles of people trying to establish monarchies and those trying to tear them down.

That being said it could be really interesting but could easily turn into mayhem similar to the war sword update. But that all depends on how it would be implemented.

Last edited by Toxolotl (2019-12-07 02:47:57)

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-07 03:08:57

Oh, yeah Kinrany, I guess you would see that... not sure if FRIEND is the right word... maybe ALLY or some other word?

I suppose that, for the sake of griefer marking, the black X thing (on the body, above clothes---but hard to see on dark skin, hmm...). Or maybe black speech bubbles are enough. The interesting thing is that you won't see your own black speech bubble (only people who have you exiled will see it).

So maybe mousing over them would say EXILED.

And if you are exiled, mousing over someone from the kingdom that exiled you would say... FOE or something.

DarkDrak · 2019-12-07 03:22:18

jasonrohrer wrote:

Another question: how does an exiled person learn that they are exiled?

If you implement a visual mark on the exiled people, then having a scar suddenly appear on their body will probably make them realize their new status

jasonrohrer wrote:

Another question: If your Duke dies, what is your relationship to the King? You are suddenly Dukeless.
If you follow a King directly, instead of through a Baron-Count-Duke chain, what are you? Is he your King or your Baron?
"I follow no Nobles. My allegiance is directly to the King himself."
Shortcut to Duke? Get one follower, then follow the King directly.

What if you follow him solo as a Baron, and then later a Duke follows him, making him King?
When a Baron's last follower dies, is he no longer a Baron?
If people at the bottom of the tree die, can an King go from being a King to a Duke?

Imo, a person's social status should be only influenced by the social statuses of people who follow him.
examples:
Peasant Bob following Paesant Mark will make Mark a Baron
- If Bob dies before Mark and Mark has no more followers, Mark's status remains that of a Baron 'cause he had a paesant's trust.
If Paesant Bob follows a King, the king doesnt get downgraded to Baron, because he still has had a Duke's trust, nor does Bob get a promotion 'cause he still has nobody under him. He's just a paesant following a king.

Alternatively it could be determined by the number of people following you, but, regardless, the ranks should be "unlockable" and stay "unlocked" once they are reached.

Like, the hierarchy should determine how trustable a person is in the villege. If a baron is a trusted guy, then the count is a trusted^2 guy and so on.

The real problem, imo, is that nearly nobody's gonna run around the town to see who the most productive player is, so they can elect them a king. Instead people are gonna annoy others to get followers and be kings themselves and we'll, not only see a great decrease in the working population of a villege, but will also probably get stuck with people who just became kings for the sake of becoming kings and have no idea what to do as one. And, as always, the veterans will be too busy keeping the place together to bother overthrowing the sloth, unless he actively greifs the place.

I see this as an interesting meccanic on paper, that will, however, end up bringing lots of genocide, drama and famine, which is kinda ok in more advanced towns i guess, but could be a bit too rough on starting towns.

If you're gonna implement it anyways, pls, eventually let kings have the power of elders, with removal notices and permanent ink by the age of 20. So they can move that sheep pen and write down some laws.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:32:59

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm tempted to explore this in a very simple, bare-bones way at first, just to see what people do with it.
Three new spoken verbs:
I FOLLOW YOU (or name)
I FOLLOW MYSELF
I EXILE YOU (or name)
Mouse over leader to see their LEADER status. Maybe DOUBLE LEADER to show anyone further above you that you didn't follow directly (or maybe TRIPLE LEADER, QUADRA LEADER, etc.)
Mouse over a follower to see their FOLLOWER status.
Mouse over to see an exiled person's status (exiled by you or a leader above you).
When born, you inherit your mother's leader, if any.
Change leaders whenever you want, but you can't follow someone who sees you as exiled.

Huh? I can't even spell "IFOLLOWYOU" until I'm 9. And it's 11 if I need the spaces. "I FOLLOW NO ONE" is later.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:36:06

NiGB0 wrote:

"Our leader has to be overthrown"

Can't say that at 21. Old enough to fight in a war (really, the "draft" age in OHOL would be when a player can use a weapon), but not old enough to vote.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:37:32

Keyin wrote:

All hierarchies are artificial. The reason they don't really form in OHOL is there isn't enough time to jockey for position. A veteran could peel off followers from a bad ruler and launch a coup. An overtly tyrannical monarch won't last, and by nature of hierarchies being mostly based on age, the noob monarch above the veteran is probably going to be dead soon and the veteran can step in and take over meritocraticly by having the most support from the town.

Hirearchies built on a foundation of knowledge or ability are not artificial. The hierarchy of major league baseball players over minor league players, for example, is not artificial. Teacher-student hierarchies are not artificial either.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:43:23

Toxolotl wrote:

If people kill each other over crowns that mean nothing imagine what they will do with this.

It will make things worse. Formalizing the monarch position in this way will only make the roleplaying crown wearers, who rarely benefit towns, more powerful. And that means more uselessness.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:49:48

Kinrany wrote:

Any experienced player will kill the noob king and the guard, take the crown and force the dukes to pledge their allegiance.

No. The noob player will sometimes be a queen, and the last fertile female in town or one of the last two and the other fertile female dies to a wolf or boar or because she has to go afk because of real life issues. It's often bad enough when such a person is a griefer. But, a griefer with a formalized power behind her is even worse.

Kinrany wrote:

I think you're trying to convince Jason that this thread is a good idea because that's the only way tyranny will possibly work

If you seriously think that, you haven't understood a single sentence I've posed in this thread.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 03:58:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

You are only seen as exiled if someone exiles you, and only seen as exiled by multiple people if the person who exiles you has followers.
I'm thinking about "exile" and "nomad" as two different states.

But you said that such could be inherited.

jasonrohrer wrote:

In terms of bootstrapping, or people forgetting to use this feature, these relationships could be inherited. If your mother follows Bob, you follow him too by default.

But, then someone will be exiled when they didn't even seek such any sort of relationship to begin with.

And griefers WOULD use exiling people to try to destroy towns. Griefers would have more power to destroy towns, because griefers that can lie well can succeed, and such a system would make lying easier. The griefer would only need to find the tiniest mistake or misinterpretation of an instruction. Worse, they could deliberately give ambiguous instructions, exile someone, and then the town is less likely to survive, because of the resulting intra-family violence.

Again, the whole system would result in more intra-family violence. And that means fewer people playing for the sake of their lineages. It's a terrible, rotten, disgusting idea.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-07 04:23:13

Since these are royal titles, why not visually mark out the leaders using crowns? They already exist in the game and would make it easier to locate the leader(s).

Gold crowns could be made by anyone who finds enough gold. It is a rare natural resource and the necessary first step to establish a monarchy. Gold could be moved to badlands to allow all races to form kingdoms. Whomever wears the crown becomes the king for the rest of their life. Silver crowns can only be made by a living king/queen and will determine his Dukes. Bronze crowns can only be made by Dukes and determine his Counts and so on.

Crowns can only be made by royals, but they can be melted down and destroyed by anyone, including the current crown bearer. So if you decide you don't want to be king, you can hand your crown over to someone else, so they will inherit the title when you die ... or you could melt it down, so there is no more king. Also, silver crowns can be made by the king to reward loyal followers or divide up territory or whatever. But a king does not need to make silver crowns. He can be followed directly by commoners if he doesn't feel like having dukes or other royalty in his court.

Commoners can only follow a royal (or start their own kingdom with a new gold crown). Commoners cannot follow each other. Only royals can exile someone and it only applies to people who are below them in the hierarchy. No one can exile a king ... but you can kill him to take his crown! You inherit your mother's leader and royalty naturally follows the king. You can choose to unfollow a king at any time or decide to follow a different king.

The owner of the crown is established by wearing it for the first time and visible on the crown, like with property gates. A crown can be given to another person, stolen, or picked up and worn after the original bearer dies. The original bearer must be dead to inherit the royal title. Wearing a living person's crown has no effect, beyond looking cool - and providing a decoy for assassination attempts. If you want a particular person to have your title, you should give them your crown before you die so they will be the first to wear it after your demise.

For each person beneath a leader, the leader's max pip bar increases by one pip, up to a max of five bonus pips. This allows you to feast like a true king. Additional followers don't increase your hunger bar, but they would provide a buffer in case some of your followers die or unfollowed you.

Everyone in a kingdom gains a small movement bonus, similar to the posse buff. It gets larger as the number of people in the group grows bigger. At higher numbers, it tapers off so it doesn't get too absurd even in a large kingdom. This bonus is applied to everyone from king down to the commoners, so joining a large kingdom is superior to being part of a small kingdom, due to this buff And being a royal with multiple followers is better than being a regular commoner, due to the follower buff.

...

Of course, this update would kick off a bunch of Game of Thrones style murder sprees and tons of drama. Pretty sure people would just spend their time killing each other to secure the crown instead of leading the village to a brighter future. But hey ... maybe some kings will end up worthy of the title. I strongly encourage someone to assign themselves the job of court scribe and document all the shenanigans for posterity.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-12-07 04:30:39)

pein · 2019-12-07 04:23:29

Cheryl-Tunt-You_re-Not-My-Supervisor_9c54a3e4-8bbb-4c8d-b0d8-72fcbca6069f_600x.png

Legs · 2019-12-07 04:35:08

pein wrote:

you're not my supervisor

This really says everything. The idiots already organize against useful players sometimes. Having a structure to empower them would only reinforce this. A king never does any work in his life. He roleplays for sixty minutes. The important things are getting done by busy people that don't have time to participate in a popularity contest. I'd make a point to assassinate every king on principle.

Keyin · 2019-12-07 04:41:00

Legs wrote:

pein wrote:
you're not my supervisor
This really says everything. The idiots already organize against useful players sometimes. Having a structure to empower them would only reinforce this. A king never does any work in his life. He roleplays for sixty minutes. The important things are getting done by busy people that don't have time to participate in a popularity contest. I'd make a point to assassinate every king on principle.

But a busy person could easily become top of the hierarchy. People see you working really hard to make the village run and choose to follow you/trust you.

Most of the time person at the top will end up being a hard working old person.

wondible · 2019-12-07 05:46:04

At times it seemed good to keep the knife in good hands. But that means spending a lot time wandering around town watching other players, trying to figure out who is working hard to find a good 'heir'.

Once, I was a princess. I think my adoptive queen spent at least a quarter of her/my life talking about process of succession, the appropriate crowns for princess/queen and their time of passing. When I was finally queen, I tried to make the best of it by acting as manager, looking around at the condition of things and asking people to work on important things. It didn't work very well; the town was in bad shape, and I wasn't doing anything directly to help. My only surviving daughter was acting suspicious, so there was no succession. Which is probably just as well, given how well I did as queen.

Point being, this takes a lot of time. Having labels so that trust can be communicated without telling each and every person might be good, but building trust can take a lifetime in this game. Perhaps as something appropriate to larger towns - where people keep saying it gets boring - fussing about titles would give them something to do.

eajorstad · 2019-12-07 05:59:50

Spoonwood wrote:

Hirearchies built on a foundation of knowledge or ability are not artificial. The hierarchy of major league baseball players over minor league players, for example, is not artificial. Teacher-student hierarchies are not artificial either.

Exactly.

Do hierarchies have to be an actual game mechanic??? Why can't they be implemented in a RP sense if people want? It's bad enough we have a forced game mechanic preventing players from obtaining resources.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 06:16:33

Keyin wrote:

Legs wrote:
pein wrote:
you're not my supervisor
This really says everything. The idiots already organize against useful players sometimes. Having a structure to empower them would only reinforce this. A king never does any work in his life. He roleplays for sixty minutes. The important things are getting done by busy people that don't have time to participate in a popularity contest. I'd make a point to assassinate every king on principle.
But a busy person could easily become top of the hierarchy. People see you working really hard to make the village run and choose to follow you/trust you.
Most of the time person at the top will end up being a hard working old person.

Please watch some of Alec's videos on Twitch or if/when he streams in the future sometime. Here's an example video I watched the other day, most of what I saw was in the life starting around 1:01: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/516665984 To summarize, first he spends his boyhood with a basket out gathering rope. He makes his own basket out of town for that and leaves that basket in town. Then he completes a cart from a sledge (oftentimes players have to make their own cart from scratch or ask for help doing such). He doesn't take baskets with him. He makes four baskets out of town, and gets 12 ropes. Later he makes a (property fence, meaning it's kind of rushed, but it's better than not having one for sure) cow pen and gets the cow himself and feeds it. He also helps to get the cow pen set up to really work out well. Later in his life he ends up making maps. This is just one example of what an experienced player's life looks like. It doesn't cover what Eve camps are like. Doing an engine or oil rig. Cooking a bunch for the family. Or mass composting. Or farming a bunch of crops (and trying to get a useful diversity of crops).

I don't see any evidence that Alec or any other experienced player would have time to roleplay king.

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