Another biome specialization idea

jasonrohrer · 2019-04-27 06:02:17

The idea here is that everyone would be brought MUCH closer together, so you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a prairie person if you needed one. This is the main goal, eventually, one way or another. Getting people closer so there's more interaction. Spreading Eves out is a temporary measure.

Also, the idea is not about "clay products" from swamp people, but only about the core, natural resources. You just can't harvest clay. You just can't rope a horse. You just can't hunt a mouflon. But if someone comes to your village with a basket full of clay, you can make stuff with it.

Basic survival is currently possible in green + swamp. So I guess there would have to be a green water source added. But beyond that, I don't think anything would need to be added, assuming that everyone had full knowledge of natural resources in green. Oh, except you can't carry water without an ingredient from prairie (rabbit) or swamp (clay bowl). I dunno... might be interesting if you had to trade right away, as part of the Eve process.

Regarding "where you're born," I guess I didn't mean you could just walk into the swamp to have a swamp baby. I meant where Eve is from. She's a swamp Eve, the whole family is swamp people forever.

Regarding other "softer" forms of specialization (like you get good at making red dresses or whatever), it seems to me that this is already there in a non-explicit way. Once you have the infrastructure in place to make one red dress (dye bath ready to go), you might as well make a bunch of them, right? This is true of many different things in the game. When potting, you generally make more bowls than you currently need, because it saves kindling. When forging, you generally make a stockpile of iron because it saves charcoal. That's specialization right there.

The "one special recipe per tribe" is also an interesting idea, and along the same lines. Though.... trading that one thing, or that one handful of things, doesn't seem like quite enough.

And in terms of "forcing" trade vs "letting it happen," on an abbreviated timescale, a bunch of things need to be abbreviated.

In real life, local trade mostly happens because of long-term capital development. It took you YEARS to get this farm up and running, and now that it's going, you're the only one in town with strawberries. It would take someone else years to catch up to you, and instead of doing that, they'd rather trade with you.

Hard to have things in the game take long enough to develop that local trade becomes worth it while also not being so long that you die before it's done. Holy crap! You have a kiln? Can you make some pots for me? (It would be faster for me to make my own kiln than to even ask you that question.)

Some kind of in-built special knowledge is "short hand" for "long term capital development," just like property fences are a shorthand for "homesteading by consensus."

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-04-27 06:12:47

I told you, if you DO add eve specialities you would see something good. HOWEVER I dont think you need to biome lock people.

I am eve blank..I choose to blank
What ever is chosen is now given a bonus or rare item only that profession can make. Or both.

You'll see the same affect without changing the complete scheme of thing.

Last edited by Grim_Arbiter (2019-04-27 06:15:38)

Dodge · 2019-04-27 06:19:43

Professions would make much more sense, than having locked biomes that you cant get to, and having huge biomes wouldn't neccessarly promote trade but just more travelling instead.

But if only some people can make some objects then these objects become rare hence have value for trading.

There could be different tiers of difficulty, like everyone could make a hat but trying to make a backpack as a baker or farmer for example would have a risk to lose skins or the needle and thread, and the more advanced clothing couldn't be made by anyone but the tailor.

A smith trying to bake would only get one pie per wheat/dough as an experienced baker could get 5-6 pies out of one dough and only an experienced cook could make more elaborate recipes.

Everyone could skin a rabbit but a hunter/gatherer coud get more skin per rabbit and a smith could risk losing the skin since he's not experienced and might cut trought the skin and make it unusable.

This would allow for all sorts of trading, everyone would have their own home/working place and would go to the town center to trade their goods or establish trading connections like the hunter or sheperd with the tailor.

And it wouldnt be an obligation either, you could be the public baker and not expect anything in return or do a 50/50 where you bake a basic ammount of pies for the village but trade a bigger stock with someone.

But basically having buffs and unique recipes for specialisations

And nerfs or non access to certain recipes for someone from another specialisation, for example a smith trying to bake

Some basic recipes would be accessible to everyone and wouldn't count as any specialisation

Eve's would have access to the whole techtree but couldn't specialize in anything

By limiting the access and nerfing some recipes for someone not specialised, you make objects rare which gives them value for trading.

A smith trying to make himself a backpack could take him a lifetime, with all the skins he loses in the process but the hunter/gatherer would already have a big stack of skins ready to trade, so the smith would have a much bigger interest trading and saving a lot of time instead of hunting himself.

There could be a lot of different buffs and nerfs that could balance the proffessions and if it's done well trading could have a very important place in the game.

Dodge · 2019-04-27 06:25:35

An experienced farmer getting 2-3 stalks per milkweed

Dodge · 2019-04-27 06:53:29

If you bring everyone close together but some cant get clay others cant plant seeds others cant trap rabbits etc

It will probably end up in a huge mess where all the different families will group together and survive by contributing to the same village, you think when they are starving early game they will have time to trade?

"Trade me rabbit for the clay we need bellows QUICK!!!!" *starving sound playing* *bones crumbling on the floor*

"Welp the last swamp person is dead, rip that whole area"

"30 people died because for some reason only people born in a swamp know what clay is, and humans cant learn from experience and watching others or sharing information"

Dodge · 2019-04-27 07:11:24

jasonrohrer wrote:

Regarding other "softer" forms of specialization (like you get good at making red dresses or whatever), it seems to me that this is already there in a non-explicit way. Once you have the infrastructure in place to make one red dress (dye bath ready to go), you might as well make a bunch of them, right? This is true of many different things in the game. When potting, you generally make more bowls than you currently need, because it saves kindling. When forging, you generally make a stockpile of iron because it saves charcoal. That's specialization right there.

In that example i was saying that only an experienced tailor COULD make a red dress, that recipe wouldnt be accessible to anyone else that isn't an experienced tailor.

The infrastructure wouldn't matter, making a bunch of them or only one is irrelevant since they would all belong to the tailor ready to trade and since the red dress recipe is only accessible to an experienced tailor it becomes a rare object.

I'm talking about an actual specialisation system made into the game, where if you start forging enough you become a smith and that is your proffession for the rest of this life, the more you smith the more you gain experience or levels

But these levels of experience would be in the game system like a title

Beginner smith
Intermediate smith
Experienced smith
Advanced smith
Expert smith

The more you do the more you learn, the more your experience goes up, different levels of proffession give different perks like access to unique recipes and more probabilities to be more efficient, like an Expert smith could have a 30% chance to get 2 iron per iron ore but an intermediate only 5% chance and someone not in the proffession like a baker could risk losing the iron ore and get no iron ingot.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-04-27 07:13:43)

Dodge · 2019-04-27 07:27:15

The idea is to make a distinction between the player and the character he plays, even if me as a player i know how to make all the smithing recipes and the diesel engine parts.

Why would my character know this?

Im born as a baby, it's a whole new life.

Why should my character, a small child, know how to make parts for a diesel engine?

These things come with experience and if in this life i decide to become an engineer and start doing different engineering things i gain experience and eventually i learn (unlock recipes) to make a diesel engine.

Same for every other profession, an engineer wouldnt be very good at making clothes so he trades to get these clothes.

By balancing the professions, levels, accessible recipes, profession buffs and non profession nerfs it could make trading an essential part of the game, a smith trying to farm milkweed would probably lose half his crops and get a low ammount of stalks from it, so trading with the farmer that would get a 100% success rate on planting and get more stalks per milkweed would be much more efficient and time saving than trying to do it yourself as a non professional in that field.

Psykout · 2019-04-27 09:05:50

With how much has been said already, and how little might be read, this might fall on deaf ears...

What you (Jason) are desiring out of your game, we want (speculative) to deliver on. The problem is though, it can not be forced. As soon as the "rules (code)" says thats how it should happen, the emotion behind the action withers. It's not about creating a system that checks all the boxes, its about making a system that doesn't even know what should be a box. Wars, Colonies, Trade, Migration.... They are all possible in your engine, but none of them will happen if you try to make them happen. All you can do, fittingly so, is plant the seeds, and see what the plant wants to do. Every time you bring one of these ideas to the table I am filled with both excitement, and sadness. Excitement because you view your work as alive, organic and fluid. Sadness because whats left after throwing darts are great ideas, but are barely plausible without drastic overhauls.

In regards to this specific topic, big biomes will never work until each biome has its own tech path that is balanced to the other paths. There would need to be a liveable path up to the specialization of the biome. If looking at rubber, than ANY and ALL camps starting off from EVE standards would need to be able to tech to making producing rubber, otherwise trade is out the window. It's no longer a we have this, you have that, its a you have this and I can access it and you cant, so if I could.... We have seen how this has played out with resources like gold and oil in our past, not especially pleasant. Later game all civs would plateau until they had access to things outside of their biome, but getting to that point would take legwork. If the biome can't support themselves to a surplus of a resource then why ever trade? Not only would a badlands town need a way to feed their entire populace without needing lots of water or soil, they'd need to be able to make enough say iron, to want to give that up for essentially compost materials.

Gamers are "lazy" people. They will find the most efficient way to do something, rather than simply the way they were told to do it. Until it's efficient to separate towns, that after what the first two hours of the town existing, all towns weren't the same with a different coat of paint. We will never trade. We will never war, we will never share. We will survive. Because that's the only thing you have given us to do. That line about people with hammers seeing everything as nails, starting to make more sense.

Tarr · 2019-04-27 09:31:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

Basic survival is currently possible in green + swamp. So I guess there would have to be a green water source added. But beyond that, I don't think anything would need to be added, assuming that everyone had full knowledge of natural resources in green. Oh, except you can't carry water without an ingredient from prairie (rabbit) or swamp (clay bowl). I dunno... might be interesting if you had to trade right away, as part of the Eve process."

I think it's frankly ridiculous to think any of the bad biomes would have people wanting to play with them in the early game especially if you didn't add anything to them what so ever.

Who wants to play banana gatherer for the first hour? Arctic people AND desert people have basically nothing to do at the start of the game either (arctic people can at least gather seal skins I guess.) These biomes would without a doubt be suicide city as you get stuck with only the ability to do stuff in the green biome as you have no choice but to just farm until late game as your biomes do NOTHING for you what so ever in the early game.

Arctic can't fish due to needing roses for fishing rod and can't shrimp until sheep era so that leaves them with collecting seal skins and rocks...
Desert has half the rubber making process and a slowly renewable food source, plus some rocks for making roads...
Jungle can't do anything but collect bananas as rubber making isn't all in the jungle and requires steel...

Do you not see the problem with basically having useless biome people? Or are they expected to just sort of stand around for their entire lives waiting for the other biome people to get their ass in gear? Half the biomes aren't really fleshed out enough to be their own things, with badlands probably not being really fleshed out to do much itself. This leaves us with prairie and swamps to actually have people doing stuff that could be considered fun or worthwhile.

It's stuff like this that makes me think you're just trying to force something without thinking it through at all.

Tarr · 2019-04-27 10:05:54

This also doesn't account for someone in your general area being a troll. Oops, someone shot the only swamp person so now everyone has to suicide and completely restart. Well I guess we can curse them... oh wait.

So what exactly happens when one group dies off? Does everyone in the area basically have to suicide or be stuck in some sort of limbo? "Haha, oops badlands guy got bit, guess the iron tech tree is dead." Is everyone just sort of expected to run off into the wilderness in hopes of finding more badlands people?

Also seeds for plants really have to be distributed better if this idea comes to light. Arctic, jungle, swamp, badlands, deserts all only have access to gooseberries, onions, and potatoes... (jungle has peppers and tomatoes but those are useless, badlands have cabbage which can't be used without salt.)

The more I think about this the worse I think this idea gets in my head.

Buggy · 2019-04-27 10:45:17

This just doesn't sound fun. Relying on other players in game is already a coin flip whether they will help or not. Also if everyone in your family can only do a couple of things well that is all everyone will do. Have you ever tried hunting rabbits if two people are there hunting already? (It is really annoying) Being forced to do one task all life would ruin the game for me, the variety of things I can do in game is what keeps it interesting.

In order to start a super basic eve camp you missed that we also need wheat or reeds for baskets for the soil. Carrying thing one by one back to camp would be really annoying as well.

CatX · 2019-04-27 11:03:52

How about adding just one water source in the center of all biomes (except swamps, leave them as is)?

Eves might not choose to live there. But once a city is up and running, it would make it simple for Eve's descendants to expand to nearby areas.
It would be worth it to have a small town in rabbit biome, since clothes decay and rabbits respawn.
If mines respawned as well, that too might be a good place for a small outpost that could grow into something bigger.
Same with snow, if seals respawned.

Last edited by CatX (2019-04-27 11:04:00)

Tarr · 2019-04-27 11:13:58

CatX wrote:

How about adding just one water source in the center of all biomes (except swamps, leave them as is)?
Eves might not choose to live there. But once a city is up and running, it would make it simple for Eve's descendants to expand to nearby areas.
It would be worth it to have a small town in rabbit biome, since clothes decay and rabbits respawn.
If mines respawned as well, that too might be a good place for a small outpost that could grow into something bigger.
Same with snow, if seals respawned.

As Buggy pointed out only two biomes have basket making materials so giving other biomes water doesn't allow them to farm. Funny enough as well the basket biomes are the only ones able to make items to water crops with (water skins + bowls) so none of the biomes can actually just do anything without access to swamp or prairie people.

Also Jason would have to either absolutely ramp up soil pit spawns or everyone and their mother would need to set up camp together in the middle of the green biome, otherwise no one would have enough soil to make 6 camps worth of food sources.

CatX · 2019-04-27 11:21:36

I'm not suggesting this as a way to fix the "different kinds of people"-idea.
I'm just suggesting it as a way to get people to spread out a little.
So - game as is, but with a little water in the center of each biome, where people can build deep wells or pumps.
It wouldn't give towns from the get-go, but it would enable outposts in every biome.

Last edited by CatX (2019-04-27 13:24:21)

Dodge · 2019-04-27 11:51:21

It would also make the game a lot more interesting if the probability system added in game of chance https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4363, was combined with the professions/specializations

Every action in the game that is related to a profession could be a lottery game and give a random outcome

For example a novice hunter/trapper would have a probability to lose the skin when skinning a rabbit or the rabbit could escape when trying to trap it, but with experience and becoming better the intermediate trapper would catch the rabbit each time and even have a 5% chance to catch two rabbits, and an expert trapper would have a 30% chance to catch two rabbits.

Everyone could still do every professions, but since a life is limited to 60 minutes it would be impossible to be expert or even skilled at everything and would be much less efficient than specializing.

seth · 2019-04-27 14:37:47

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe you can tell someone's home biome by looking at them, based on race.

I absolutely love where this is going!

What I see today in our world, is that people don't really value difference, at best they merely "tolerate" it. And there's a sense that differences shouldn't be discussed because they are shameful or bad. So we move towards a merely "tolerant" society.

Of course, when people have a close connection with "their people" they don't see it as a shameful thing at all, in fact, they often derive power from the strengths of that people.

And "tolerance" is of course the wrong word to use about something that is powerful and valuable.

If the game begins to incorporate the idea that from birth you have unique skills that only your people can do, then the logical outcome is not a monochromatic, tolerant society, but a rich, vibrant one.

This doesn't seem like an easy thing to pull off, but it sounds totally aligned with the goals in the game. Just being a part of these forum posts makes me feel like I'm re-discovering the creation of modern civilization, but with the restriction of hour timelines, and the complexity of how to compress huge ideas into small, obvious game concepts..

Good stuff. Eager to see how this proceeds.

Buggy · 2019-04-27 15:06:07

What if instead of restricting what each separate city can do you make some late game tech that requires working together with another city. Like each belltower completed at least 1000k away from another bell tower gives half of a blueprint for something cool(like robots or lazer guns). Trade might happen naturally as we would want to help other cities grow to the point where this blueprint event happens. Also war might happen naturally if only one of the towns can keep the complete recipe. This is late game stuff though. As was said before the early game is already pretty good. Making drastic changes will wreck that balance and the temperature changes have already made being an eve a lot harder.

saxo · 2019-04-27 16:18:07

Maybe we could combine the experience and biome specialization ideas such that you unlock biome-specific activities by spending time there. Ie. you need to have spend x number of minutes/years in prairie to unlock the ability to notice and hunt rabbits. This would mean that villages located in certain biomes will have a tendency to specialize while at the same time being flexible enough to allow people to do any activity (eventually).

CatX · 2019-04-27 16:22:45

saxo wrote:

Ie. you need to have spend x number of minutes/years in prairie to unlock the ability to notice and hunt rabbits.

That would doom all Eve towns...

But maybe some later tech could be reliant on people spending time in a biome. Or on stuff being built in the biome.

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