The bigger biomes idea

FounderOne · 2018-06-20 10:26:21

You could make the biomes Hugh, so wandering by foot takes 1/4 - 1/2 of your life to reach another Biome and wander back.

With horses it's faster and the higher you go in the tech the faster it will be.

Make the edge of a Biome almost empty of food sources.
So you could still settle on 3 or 4 bioms crushing together, but only with higher tech and steady maintenance of your food production.

Sure there will be eve suicides just to get in the favor Region, but if the regions are almost balanced equally no one needs to do it, since they can stay and travel later on.

Also basic stuff like walls should look different in different bioms. So if you come in that desert town you will see a desert looking city, same for the other bioms. So not only the Biome changes, but the whole environment.

I just think the implementation is a hugh thing to accomplish. Not only do you need more and different sprites/recipes, change spawn algorithm, change the sice of the bioms optimal, but you need to balance them almost equally.

This is pretty time consuming, but it will bring new aspects to ohol that a lot of people are missing.

pein · 2018-06-20 10:45:18

it can be good to be a better biome, you can balance it, and the meta shifts

havent seen big savannas lately, if you would add a water source and some animals, a crop that would grow only in savanna, people would try it

you only add one category each week, so you dont need to rebalance all, yet

Verte · 2018-06-20 11:00:36

jasonrohrer wrote:

What kind of needs?

Art !
Every village, every tribe could gather around a totem of some sort.
Maybe ice sculpture in toundra, ceramic in swamps, wood in grasslands, stone in badlands, rabbit bones totem in prairies, carved dead trees in desert...
We need food for the soul, expression of our identity ! So totems and tree carving should be a thing, leaving free space for personalisation (like we have the different types of crowns). The stone totem in badlands could either become wolf statue, or bear, or ironman, etc.

Another very satisfying thing is landart. I already enjoy placing things in an aesthetic maner around rose bushes for instance. More ornamental plants and objects would be welcome.

TrustyWay · 2018-06-20 11:33:05

Lol verte, art have been remove with decay and titles non explored to be wipe.

I am glade we finally hear me about huge biomes

Christoffer · 2018-06-20 12:10:16

The same people who baby suicide today would continue to do so, but I don’t think the rest of us would start to do it. For me it seems that the reasons people enjoy the game today, would be strengthened. The shared challenge and the small groups bonding to survive is there, but there are also more possibilities for interesting play further up in the civilizations.

The idea of seasons is interesting (if they last for many years that is), but there is no reason to go there until the content is sufficient for each biome/season.

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 12:25:28

jasonrohrer wrote:

I've avoided doing this mostly because of a duplication of work issue. If I have 6 biomes, this essentially means 6 primitive tech trees that can be explored in relative isolation.

procedural generation :0

But now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm seeing another huge problem:
One biome WILL be the best one. The optimal one. The preferred one.
People currently wander around until they find the best intersection of biomes and resources (desert near the swamp or whatever) and start their village there.
You're saying that making biomes bigger would prevent this, and therefore each biome would need to be survivable on its own.
But what would force someone to settle/stay in their spawn biome? I could make them so big that you'd never make it out in one lifetime.... so you couldn't "nomad" your way out.
But wouldn't Eve just keep suiciding until she spawns in the preferred biome?
Why would anyone start in the arctic if they didn't have to? Just for the challenge?

Accurate.

Biomes could have unique things. Like Eve statues made of different materials.
If you want your descendants to eventually build an obsidian statue with your name on it, you'll have to settle in the volcano biome even though it's harder.
The choice of biome is essentially a single player game. Children can't affect the choice, and the absolute tech level is more important for them anyway. It's like RPGs that get away with terrible balance because players just ignore the degenerate strategies.

layers of biomes would be better though

Valences42 · 2018-06-20 12:42:49

I like the larger biomes. I like the proposed idea that each biome should be able to sustain life independent of the other biomes. However, I have an alarm bell going off in my brain regarding crops...

If the biomes are larger and it it takes about 30% of your life to nomad to your favorite biome, I feel that it would be way less cruel to make it so certain crops have an affinity for certain biomes, not 'wheat can ONLY grow in savanna'.

if domestic wheat can ONLY grow in savanna, we are going to be even more screwed as Eves. You send your 15 year old kid out to find wheat seeds and never see them again...

I instead propose that domesticated wheat would have an affinity for savanna. For example, wheat farmed in the forest only gives one sheaf (like it normally does right now). However, wheat farmed in savanna could have a 25% chance of giving two sheaves upon harvesting.

Also, a side note: What would replace the home marker recipe in the other biomes? Are there going to be lots of saplings everywhere, regardless of biome type?

Anshin · 2018-06-20 13:01:33

At first I was going to say " Wouldn't bigger biomes prevent trade?" but then I realized that trade is something that should come with higher tech. Perhaps horses, but definitely a reason for PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES!

Bigger biomes are the key to future tech

Lotus · 2018-06-20 16:15:17

TheRedBug wrote:

Hey guys, for the arctic upgrade (cus why not)
Rope + needle = fishing line
Fishing line + straight shaft = fishing pole
Fishing pole + ice hole = fishing pole + 1 minute = fish
Different kind of fish would bring up the food bonus, such as a potato and half baked potato gives you each a bonus, every kind of pie gives you a bonus, so we'd have like cooked salmon would give you one bonus, cooked sardine would give you a bonus, etc.

Worm + Fishing Pole = Baited Fishing Pole
Baited Fishing Pole + Ice Hole + 10 Seconds = Fish

Izzytok · 2018-06-20 16:45:11

I think bigger biomes, that contain the necesities for primitive life, but contain only components of higher tier tech, is the best, most natural way to vary up the villages and promote trade.

The fear of Eve suicide is understandable, but honestly, it happens now aswell. I've had multiple games where I'd spawn to an Eve that'd pick me up, run a few screens with me and just say: "sorry bad spot" and die.

I've also had a fun game, where I was the eve. I was looking for a good spot but then the kids came. I set up a camp in a VERY (by current meta standards) bad spot near some rabbits, spent some time making snares and preparing a pack and a few clothes, while eating from the nearby green biome and wild carrots. It was a kind of taste of what life could be like in the prairie if it was viable, but I couldn't advance tech there, the food had practically run out by the time we left, and it just wasn't sustainable. When my boy was old enough, he grabbed a basket of cooked rabbits, I grabbed my daughter and we ran towards at least a place that had food at best a pretty standard location for a permanent camp (ponds and desert).

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 20:55:16

Kinrarny can you explain what you mean by procedural generation in this context?

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 21:24:47

The lazy way is to simply make everything random.
~10^5 items, each being just a number plus a sprite generated based on that number and the map seed. Every combination of two items has a 0.01 chance to be a valid crafting recipe, with outputs being random too. ~5 biome categories, each category having ~5 biomes. Each tile belongs to one biome in each category, ~5 biomes per tile total. Each biome has a random list of ~10 naturally occuring items that spawn only once.
Items would also need other random properties, like food value, but that's it.

The scope of the problem seems to be roughly that of Minecraft's terrain generation: I think they keep tweaking it even now.
For example, items could also be separated into categories: natural resources, tools, food, metals, plants, animals, etc.
Items could also have an additional energy value, 0-10, to make sure there is no perpetual motion. Crafting would either produce or consume energy based on inputs and outputs.

Maybe I should just make a prototype. Three days until ProcJam is over...

Christoffer · 2018-06-20 22:03:09

Hmm, not sure I like the idea of procedural generation in OHOL. No offense, Kinrany. One of the major selling points for me is the personal attention to detail that Jason is putting into this game. That every little item and transition is hand made.

Also, from a game building PoV, it’s very appealing to be able to make so large improvements without having to change the game mechanics.

I will keep an open mind, but I’m not sold on procedural crafting. I just don’t think it would remain OHOL anymore with a change like that.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 22:11:50

So it would be possible for the procgen to come up with a recipe like curved shaft + rabbit hole = escaped riding horse? I don't see that as a selling point. I must be misunderstanding.

hihibanana · 2018-06-20 22:56:26

I think this is an amazing idea with enough resources. However, if there aren't enough resources, perhaps everyone should spawn in a grass biome?

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 23:55:09

Flintstone, Uncle Gus, neither am I! I'm 80% sure it would be overkill for the main game. But it might be viable as a mod.

It's possible to generate sprites based on hand drawn parts, so some of the charm of the game can be preserved.
It's also possible to mix generated items and recipes with normal ones. Fantastic randomized plants and animals, fantastic ores, but normal tools.
It might be possible to generate item names based on ingredients or biomes, so that they're not total gibberish. Probably really hard.

YAHG · 2018-06-21 00:22:54

Kinrany wrote:

Flintstone, Uncle Gus, neither am I! I'm 80% sure it would be overkill for the main game. But it might be viable as a mod.
It's possible to generate sprites based on hand drawn parts, so some of the charm of the game can be preserved.
It's also possible to mix generated items and recipes with normal ones. Fantastic randomized plants and animals, fantastic ores, but normal tools.
It might be possible to generate item names based on ingredients or biomes, so that they're not total gibberish. Probably really hard.

They do it in Dwarf Fortress.

Kinrany · 2018-06-21 18:32:18

Wait, what? What do you mean?

YAHG · 2018-06-21 18:36:55

Kinrany wrote:

Wait, what? What do you mean?

It generates mythical metals with I assume bounded properties that are used mostly by angels and demons.

I don't think it currently supports finding them in the ground though.

It does generate demons and forgotten beasts as well as various evil weather effects (like rain that might make you go blind
or turn you into a zombie husk or might heal you or whatever).

Kinrany · 2018-06-21 21:42:08

Oh. I assume those metals do not differ from each other qualitatively? That's a much easier problem since they can be simply plugged into an existing hardcoded system that generates names based on a template like "%METAL_NAME% %ITEM_TYPE_NAME%", e.g. "unobtanium shield"

Last edited by Kinrany (2018-06-21 21:43:08)

Rebel · 2018-06-21 22:13:49

Narr the idea silly, you should probs focus on resources based in each biome and making players have to travel or trade of those resources.
I love the idea of larger biomes, hate the idea of being able to survive in all biomes.

could lead to cool things working out like..
(using salt as an example)
You have the main town and a "Salt town" both are apart of the same family.
The salt town is located near a snow biome for fast access to ice water. and the main town is a medium walk area (due to larger biomes)
Main town sends a few sons to work a salt town.
Salt town produces salt and swaps it for food from the main town.
(The dream, reality it probs wont work for many reasons but you know, having fun with imagination)

I hate the idea of being able to live in any biome as its not true, you can't live in every biome, or well at least prosper. Snow and desert biomes should be more deadly, the cold and heat should really affect people.

Swamps I feel are just kinda pointless when people say swamp they mean water, so whats the point in having a biome for one reason, just for the sake of having multiple biomes?
I feel like rivers and oceans would be a better and more realistic way of doing so but this basically destroys your current work and stops the whole "Water tech tree".
the only biome that should also be livable is hearthland (rabbit land) which all that takes is just adding branches their trees and spawning items there. maybe a different type of berry bush but that's about it.

from a technical point of view, you won't need to add x6 more items, you just need to make "reskins" of the base resources EG the ice biome may have, I don't know, dead roots that when put together makes a thread for example. You don't have to make a whole new tech tree for each biome like you are saying.

YAHG · 2018-06-21 22:14:18

Kinrany wrote:

Oh. I assume those metals do not differ from each other qualitatively? That's a much easier problem since they can be simply plugged into an existing hardcoded system that generates names based on a template like "%METAL_NAME% %ITEM_TYPE_NAME%", e.g. "unobtanium shield"

Nah I think they do but I don't have the !SCIENCE!. They can also have status effects
and syndromes like damage to wereducks or causing vampirism or whatever it is
bounded by.

I made a race of Otorock people from the legend of zelda in that game complete with different types of stone skin (with the physical properties of the stones) for different sex based castes as well as all 8 arms and the ability to spit rocks.

That game is fucking insane on the details you can do. Otorock adventurers are sick as fuck since I can wield 8 weapons at once <3

Booklat1 · 2018-09-06 12:34:04

I disagree with op's main idea of making all biomes liveable by itself but agree with everything else. I think no biome should sustain progressing civs alone. Having more biomes adds not only for early tech trees but for rare resources in need of scouting and trading for, all of which will be more effectively spread through the map. I've gone at length about it at other posts but i think the main argument for more biomes and then more early resources on them is making the even run interesting for more experienced players on the long run.

I also disagree with Jason that we'll always end up settling in the best biome or not settling. People think about mid and late games when settling, if anything it'll allow for more interesting choices when choosing where to base your civ.

boggers · 2018-09-07 02:34:21

I don't like the idea of larger biomes with every biome being survivable, it has a very poor ratio of dev effort vs reward.

I do like the idea of more biomes being a little more viable for settlement though. eg, long straight shafts can also be obtained from spruce trees in ice biome, milkweed also grows in swamps, but most of all water sources other than swamp ponds.

Oceans, lakes and rivers really needs to happen IMO, to add uniqueness to areas, to create the need for bridges and boats, and also so that additional water sources mean we aren't always tied to the same intersection of swamp/green/desert biomes.

Something to think about with scale... If Earth was without oceans and impassable areas so you could just walk in a straight line forever, and you walked at 5 km/hr, 8 hours a day every day, you could do about 20 laps of the globe in 60 years. Scaled that for OHOL time, being about 500,000 faster, that translates to a walking distance of only 40 meters between north and south pole.

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-18 04:08:21

(Not sure if this thread is still relevant, but I think the idea is still viable and is a good one, so I'm commenting.)

jasonrohrer wrote:

I've avoided doing this mostly because of a duplication of work issue. If I have 6 biomes, this essentially means 6 primitive tech trees that can be explored in relative isolation.
But now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm seeing another huge problem:
One biome WILL be the best one. The optimal one. The preferred one.
People currently wander around until they find the best intersection of biomes and resources (desert near the swamp or whatever) and start their village there.
[..]
Why would anyone start in the arctic if they didn't have to? Just for the challenge?

In part for the challenge, and in part for the variety. If there were six (or seven? Jungle!) biomes, each capable of supporting an Eve start-up and with a feasible path towards township, and each large enough to make finding the perfect combination of biome borders infeasible and/or annoying, then I think people would absolutely enjoy trying to make it work in each of the seven biomes - even if some of them were obviously easier than others.

Currently, people search for "the best" starting location because certain features are so important right now that anything else is very nearly unviable. And the game doesn't provide any indication that players should consider alternate starting locations. There is a continuum of bad-location -> meh-location -> good-location, so naturally people will view "starting location selection" as a skill to be exercised and will attempt to choose a spot as high on the continuum as possible. Whereas making each biome separately viable would provide seven discrete choices; seven different levels each to be attempted and conquered. And starting-location-selection will still be a skill, you'll simply exercise it within each biome using different criteria, rather than across all biomes using a single criteria as is done today.

You'd be turning OHOL into seven different variants of OHOL, with seven times the number of tech paths to master in the early game. That would be great, but it may or may not be worth all the effort that it would take to create those paths. That was your first problem with this suggestion, and it's valid. But your second problem - that people would avoid all but the best biome - is, I think, not a problem at all.

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