Regions

[Jackard]

Idea for the next world - add another filter for mapgen, for differing climes. This hopefully promotes diversity/trade: make these regions rather large and have them affect many things - what terrain there is, the wildlife you come across, which crops grow best there, what fish/wines/cheeses you get, how weather affects the area. Each region should be visually distinctive so there is no guesswork involved as to which you are in. Dividing weather by region allows for something like seasons without punishing new players.

Four major terrains per region:

MIDLANDS
These are the warm and abundant lands that new players spawn in.
Crops: Carrot, Flax, Grapes, Hemp, Onion, Poppy, Pumpkin, Tea, Wheat
Wildlife: Ants, Auroch, Boar, Cock, Dragonfly, Fox, Hare, Hen, Ladybug, Moth, Rat, Toad
Storms: Rain (good)

• █ rocky: Mudflat
  ██ grass: Grass/Heath
  ██ swamp: Swamp/Fen
  █ forest: Broadleaf

HIGHLANDS
Cold and harsh wilderness wherein many dangerous creatures might be found.
Crops: Carrot, Onion, Hemp, Tea, Wheat
Wildlife: Bear, Deer, Eagle, Hare, Mouflon, Rat, Toad, Wolf
Storms: Snow (bad)

• █ rocky: Mountain
  █ grass: Moor
  █ swamp: Bog
  █ forest: Taiga

MISCELLANEOUS

• █ deeps
  █ shallows
  █ shore

This only uses existing content for now, to make things easier to implement. If devs add terrain you could work a third region into this, lowlands maybe, but any more than that would be muddying the system.

Regions would solve the early game problem of spawning characters in terrain where they can't really progress that well, like coniferous forest.

[loftar]

Using a spawn-friendly terrain region is interesting; I hadn't thought of it that way. My original idea was to simply make the regions different, without one being easier to live in than another. That will remain, but adding a spawn-friendly region is probably a good idea on top of that.

First problem to solve is of course to make a better map generator, though. :)

[Jackard]

ps. The base speed for carts should be crawl for snow and walk otherwise.

My original idea was to simply make the regions different, without one being easier to live in than another. That will remain, but adding a spawn-friendly region is probably a good idea on top of that.

Huh?

[niltrias]

Im liking the general drift here, but I would like a bit more diversity. Maybe 4 terrain types, crops grow best in 1, slow in 2 others, and not at all in the 4th? Also, give newbies an option of which region type they want to spawn in, with the most forgiving being the default?

And perhaps each regions would be S-grid in size? That would make the map gen a bit easier, as it would just have to roll a die quickly to determine which of the 4 map generators would be used to generate any given new Sgrid...possibly weighted towards the most forgiving region type.

[Potjeh]

Sounds great. I'd also like to see a coastal region.

It ought to have a fair deal of easily available food (crabs, seashells of some kind, a lot of berries on shore) and respawning low-q lumber (driftwood), but be ill suited for agriculture (no wheat or most other crops). IIRC it was you, Jackard, that suggested spawning newbies on beaches. This way they'd have an easy starting region that would stay fairly settlement free since it's not really prime settlement territory.

It could also serve a double purpose as a specialist settlement terrain, not only for fishing and whaling, but also for growing some unique trees (citruses, olives), herbs (thyme, rosemary) or even crops (can't think of any atm). The lack of wheat and availability of exotic cooking ingredients would go well with the whole regionalised goods goal.

[Jackard]

Sounds great. I'd also like to see a coastal region. It ought to have a fair deal of easily available food (crabs, seashells of some kind, a lot of berries on shore) and respawning low-q lumber (driftwood), but be ill suited for agriculture (no wheat or most other crops). IIRC it was you, Jackard, that suggested spawning newbies on beaches. This way they'd have an easy starting region that would stay fairly settlement free since it's not really prime settlement territory.

Yea, the idea was to have them wash up on shore. (So, spawning on Sand only)

But another entire region (changing the above Lowlands to Midlands and swapping some terrain around) would require more terrain than we currently have - each region should be visually distinctive so there is no guesswork involved as to which you are in.

Im liking the general drift here, but I would like a bit more diversity. Maybe 4 region types, crops grow best in 1, slow in 2 others, and not at all in the 4th? Also, give newbies an option of which region type they want to spawn in, with the most forgiving being the default? And perhaps each regions would be S-grid in size? That would make the map gen a bit easier, as it would just have to roll a die quickly to determine which of the 4 map generators would be used to generate any given new Sgrid...possibly weighted towards the most forgiving region type.

if you make that many, that large, then players are going to have trouble leaving the ones they dislike or trading with other regions. Unless we get more terrain its probably best to keep it simple and easy to understand with only two regions

[Potjeh]

I was thinking that karst should be base terrain for the coastal region. I'm sure devs were planning to add 2-3 new terrain types with the next reset anyway.

[Jackard]

could be cool, especially if it had a lot of caves

crops grow best in 1, slow in 2 others, and not at all in the 4th?

that is very boring (and arbitrary?) system, especially if you make regions as large as you were considering

Also, give newbies an option of which region type they want to spawn in

I dont like the sound of this, either. That is a pretty important choice to be making before understanding how the game works, remember that devs are avoiding ways you can screw your character up during creation. Also remember that hearth secrets will still be around for players that really want to start elsewhere.

[niltrias]

crops grow best in 1, slow in 2 others, and not at all in the 4th?

that is very boring (and arbitrary?) system, especially if you make regions as large as you were considering

Its a lot less boring than a simple binary system in which crops either can or cannot be grown. It allows a specialty, an impossibility, and a decision of trading for difficult-to-grow crops, or trying to develop them yourself. The large region idea was specifically geared towards making local trade networks a key point, as mentioned previously; it is not terrible difficult to port 1/2 an Sgrid away even for a relative newbie. Trade towns and inns on the borders of S grids could become more common.

Also, give newbies an option of which region type they want to spawn in

I dont like the sound of this, either. That is a pretty important choice to be making before understanding how the game works, remember that devs are avoiding ways you can screw your character up during creation. Also remember that hearth secrets will still be around for players that really want to start elsewhere.

That is true, which is why I stipulated that the default would be the easiest biome. On the other hand, default swimming off has not stopped swimming deaths, so maybe it should not be possible. That was sort of an afterthought to my post anyway.

[Jackard]

yea honestly default is not going to help here, if there is a way to fuck up your guy people are going to stumble into it

(especially if it is something completely unintuitive like drowning instantly)