Okay, I've been reading over this (a feat in and of itself, as no one can throw up walls of text like kohaku...) and while all the stuff that's been posted looks good so far, i have two questions about stuff that hasn't quite been posted.
The first is about the inherent differences between dwarves, and our only historical race of reference (I.E. Humans). Dwarves behave very differently than we do, and i'm wondering how that's going to affect politics and the system of government. For exmaple, for humans, the feudal system is based on land and it's ownership. The king gives land to his barons, barons rent it to lords, ect. For dwarves, who live underground, that sort of thing will have to be handled VERY differently, and i'm wondering how you plan to do that.
The second is a question of options. Do you want players to have a CHOICE in what kind of government their fort or civ has. For instance, what if i want to run my fortress as a republic, roman style? Or perhaps a straight up dictatorship, do what the overlord says, or face the hammer. How would that be handled, and how would one go about changing the government of a fort or civ that already exists. Will revolution and secession be possible. That sort of thing.
Well, thank you for challenging the feat. It takes some building to construct those walls, as well. It's the sort of work for late nights, when my restless morning mind has gone into the focused stares of the half-asleep, and half-driven.
I actually split this post in two for length, so as to keep it more manageable. The next post is on government types and how the player controls which one they develop. (The noble tree and government types.)
At a certain level, I do think the current system of just plain being prompted, "do you want a noble", however, is kind of the way to go. Beyond that, however, I think a setup that is reactive to your playstyle and the context of your fort (like starting scenarios) is best.
I'd say more, but I'm going to just put it in the next major post, anyway.
Because it doesn't really fit in anywhere else, though, I've been playing some other games recently, in between spats of writing, as a means of priming the creative pump, looking for good ideas to swipe.
I've been playing Patrician III, a game I nabbed over a Steam sale a couple years ago ($2 on sale, and it's at only $5 regular price - worth a try if you're at all interested in the genre), and only now started playing.
The game is at once pretty simple, but actually very subtle with some complex mechanics under the hood.
On the surface, it's a naval trading game like the old Uncharted Waters/New Horizons games, but where you just sit in an office the whole time and tell other people to sail your ships for you. Typical trading game mechanics - buy low, sell high, each town has specialties where they manufacture 4-6 out of 15 or so goods, and need to import the rest.
The difference is, you actually have a large degree of control over the towns, themselves. Trade with them so that their needs are supplied, and their surpluses are sold for a profit, and their economy improves, which brings more people into town, which increases their demand for goods, which increases the amount of goods you can sell them in a go around for a high enough price to be worth trading.
As you build up cash, you can build your own workshops in the town, which not only lets you get goods directly at a stable price, but also employs the town's working classes, which further improves the economy in the region, and you can build and own townhouses for your workers to rent out rooms.
You can then build improvements that you "donate" to the town in your name. This doesn't profit you directly, but it improves your good name, and it improves the economy further to have infrastructure spending on the roads and wells.
The more and more of a town that you wind up either owning or having your name carved upon as you donated it as a civil work, the more power and influence you have in town until you can get yourself declared Lord Mayor, and eventual Alderman of the whole merchant guild over the Hanseatic League.
Basically, it's all a matter of just keeping the wheels of commerce spinning ever faster and making a profit on every spin of the wheel.
At the same time, there are a dozen or two other rival trading companies, all doing their own thing, building their own industries, and potentially helping you by also building up the economy in their own way, even as they slice out a share for themselves.
Also of note, this game has a low/middle/high class system, as well - Low class citizens only buy cheap goods, but buy in bulk, eating up grain, beer, fish, and timber mostly, but also a little leather, cloth, whale oil, and pottery. The rich, meanwhile, consume meat, wine, furs, iron goods, honey, and spices. The middle classes consume a little of everything but the highest-end goods like spices and furs.
Each class has its own happiness meter, and can riot or vacate the city when they are dissatisfied, such as when they cannot have the foods of their price range available. Each class has its own housing types, as well, and the balance of who moves in is based upon how you are satisfying those basics.
The lower classes do the work in your facotry, but aren't very profitable customers. The rich do no work for you, but they are the customers for the high-profit goods you make your living supplying.
Steam is completely changing the way I play games - I used to play games for hundreds of hours and tried to find every last thing I could find while exploring a game for all its content. Now, I buy games for $2 and play for just a few hours, just to get a grasp of what basic concepts the games use and what unique gimmicks they can cram in. It's a real sampler platter.
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Topic: Class Warfare: Internal politics, scaling difficulty, and personalities (Read 65014 times)