by Lothaudus » Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:44 pm loftar wrote:It is quite enticing to have several cultures represented ingame, indeed, but I hope that such things can be made to come rather as a consequence of player action and/or localization of natural resources.
One of the biggest parts of culture is clothing. A Roman Legionnaire stood out from a Greek Hoplite because whether Shields were round or rectangular, they still provided basic defensive advantages and disadvantages that affected combat. Whatever the armour was made out of or looked like, it generally provided similar defensive bonuses. One was not "clearly" better than the other. Organisation and skill played the largest part in combat. Someone who was well trained in the one method would have been an ample match for the other.
If you want different cultures, then the simplest way is to remove all bonuses. For example, when I'm cooking, can you guess which type of hat I might be wearing? Do you think most of my people wear Bear Capes and Bear Talismans because they like the look and sex appeal? And how come everyone I meet is wearing a backpack?
In the "real world", you don't wear a Chef's Hat because it boosts your stats. You wear it purely as a 'cultural thing'. A sharp pointy Bronze Sword is just as likely to kill you as a Sharp Axe or a Hammer, depending on what you've been trained with. Someone who is well-trained with a Double-Handed Sword could easily match someone trained with only a one-handed one. The minute you make differences in them, you lose the culture war. If there's one way that's faster and better at killing than another (so much faster and better that any other way is seen as a disadvantage), one weapon that does more damage, then everyone will move to get those items and everyone without those items will be at a disadvantage game-wise.
Make clothing purely a cosmetic affair so that people can wear jaunty hats or coloured pants or pretty shirts. Give all armour very similar base values. Of course different styles would be made out of different resources and those values would still be reliant on the quality of those resources. The only issue with that being that the minute something is 'easier' to increase in Q than another, you've created a potential disadvantage.
... and add in a range of different styles. Want to have a Bronze Helmet? Well, which style would you like? Knock yourself out and give us 5 or 10 to choose from. Do we want a jaunty red coloured bit on top or a blue? Maybe that's how we'll tell our Generals apart from the troops. I'll be the guy wearing the red cape with the lion on the back, Zulu Group will go in wearing Blue Robes... Now how about a Chef's Hat? Maybe there are a few different types and styles and maybe they're even made out of different materials. But they'd all give the same base value boosts, depending on the Q of their materials and crafting skills.
... but the minute the 'Red Cape' boosts your Strength and the 'Blue Robe' boosts your Farming skill, you know exactly which type everyone will wear and when.
loftar wrote:It is my hope that the next generation of the map generator can make much larger "climate zones" than the current one, so that some resources can be very widely separated, and so that we can build resource trees on top of them that make the area determine in large parts what clothing/tools/weapons/&c. are available to players, and that cultures can spring from such things, as well as from new dimensions of character specialization.
Cool. Given my people's need to digest endless quantities of foods lest they starve (God forbid they try and actually get a days work in), we'll probably be based in the sunnier climates where food is more easily harvested and grown. We'll just setup a village in the Northern Snow Covered Mountains though and just hirdport people there when we need those resources.
Distance is a blessing and a curse.
