The Evolving Society Mod

[JediWelder]

Qquix, That is the best discription yet. I might add that keeping a balance would also promote growth.For example: Industrial meaning a farm or a saw-mill will produce goods,but also require homes for the employees to live in.Well they can`t ALL live on the farm.Residential areas will need to be established.Commercial areas as well to sell the goods that are produced.So Industrial/commercial/residential factions will all have sidequests that need to be done in order to grow.Well I say,set them all in conflict,make the PC choose a side. Do you want BIG industry? Do this for us against them.Add some drama.

Quest: Only one river on this island.Industrial faction wants it to power the many sawmills along both sides.Commercial faction wants the river to move trade goods to port with giant barges.Residential faction wants the river for it`s high value homes all along the river bank.So the Industrial faction will pay the PC to shipwreck a barge.And the Commercial faction will pay the PC to smash the dam.And the Residential faction will pay the PC to crash a barge into a sawmill.

[myssypingviini]

Now I'm new to this, but I've been loocking trough some of the posts and it all sound very interesting.

To the topic: I was thinking about the house that the player would be rewarded with in the end (or at somepoint) and I don't think a big massive castle would be to good. 'Cuz when the town prospers and grows some walls might be built for better protection. And that itself would act as a fort/castle so the player should probbably live in something like a mansion (still a big one tought as he is the ruler, but smaller then a castle/fort)

Anyway that's just my perspective on it, as of all the house-mods I've tried I always find castles so "soules" and "cold" (besides I always get lost...).

[QQuix]

JediWelder,

The house requirement is already implemented: an NPC will only join the community if there is a house for him/her. If I get to implement NPC levels, he/she may even require a house compatible with his/her level. The Mod Prototype has a Residential area in town. I have not decided yet whether it will be one house for each or they will share.

 

And yes, besides the previously mentioned possibility of deciding with faction to satisfy first, there should be also situations where the player decision will result in some getting happy and some getting angry, like in your river quest. The player would have to consider how much he needs to satisfy one faction versus if he can afford to dissatisfy the other(s). He may also decide to stall them for awhile.

 

Myssypingviini,

I have not worked on this yet, but I certainly plan to have a player home. Most likely as the great prize if the player makes the community grow past a certain level.

I am seriously considering a Villa. By Villa I mean [ideally] an area, in a high plateau, overlooking the city, with gardens and several buildings, each with a purpose, e.g., living area, library, armory, servants quarters, etc.

Being modular, I can make it so the player 'earns' each module at given levels of community growth.

[TheCalliton]

heres a thought

How about its a once prosperouse island plauged by ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES! and vampires, and you clear it out, and over time make it your own through a series of quests that you get a special doohickey for someone in return for

cattle

housing

crops (seeds)

ect...

[myssypingviini]

The Villa idee' sounds good, and remindes me of the old roman villas in e.g. Pompei, with diffrent rooms/houses linked by closed and open corridors trough different gardens and even sewer systems.

 

But mainly I was also thinking about the walls that probably are going to be built at somepoint around the town or maybe even in the town. And the truth is that unlike most walls in Oblivion medevial walls were built a bit sloping. They were thicker on the bottom and "sloped" upwards. This made the walls more stabile and reinforced the most important part: the bottom (trough which the enemy tried to brake). It also helpt to make some of the possible stones and other projectiles fired from e.g. catapults bounce away.

[apocalypse1138]

The walls sloping make alot of sence, and I think zombies could be a usable idea. Just have a rogue necromancer raising your dead villagers as zombies, something to that effect.

[Slawter500]

Hi, I haven't read the entire thread so sorry if i post something already posted.

 

Maybe your decisions on resources could affect the island

 

For example

 

If there were 3 main areas like say-Mining,Hunting,Fishing

 

You can focus on one, If you focused on hunting then people are happy, because they aren't hungry, But if you did say mining most profits would go to you, so the people are less happy.

 

Maybe their could be different groups of people on the island, i.e Enviromentalists, They dont like hunting because its hurting the wildlife, Where as your hunters are happy because they get payed, Or say you start trading links then the more indegenous people are disgruntled because they perfer to fend for themselves, but the more merchanty types are happy.

 

If you like those ideas they could be expanded upon.

 

Also maybe you had to prepare to for the weather, Do you gather crops as winter approaches, or water for the coming summer, Make a bad decision and people like you less, Maybe as your island gains popularity a powerful mage who predicts weather comes to the island.

 

Hope you like the ideas and sorry if they were said before.

[juderodney]

Depending on the situation, you could also put up a wooden wall. instead of a stone one. However, using the walls already provided by the game would be a lot less resource intensive.

[myssypingviini]

That's true, and there are a few very good resources for wooden walls/fences that could be used specially in the beginning or before the PC starts to mine rock or something. Altought in the end the settlement/village/town has probbably grown alot and become very fancy (including the PCs house) so ordinary "game walls" could look a bit out of place. But it is of course something that could be a bit hard to do.... So it's up to QQuinx or any other modder to do it if they deem it's worth the effort.

 

P.S. I'm tempted to add that it would be historicly a bit more accuret, but as placing Oblivion on a exact place in our timeline is more or less impossible, so I wont say it (sraight walls were used but not so often in big and rich/important cities, like e.g. Acre (in the Holy Land)).

[QQuix]

calliton, thanks, . . . well you do seem to like ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES. Lol

 

About the Villa, the idea came from a roman villa thread posted by forsaken_epicentre here

 

About the walls: I am not a modeler, so I am planning on using only vanilla meshes. I am still not sure if there will be walls at all. I am working on a way to allow the player to position the main city anywhere on the island. Not sure I can do it, but, if it works, it may not be possible to have walls around the city. If the city is fixed to a predetermined spot, walls may be possible. In this case, the walls would follow the general building level idea: starting with a simple, cheap one and upgrading it as the community provides the necessary resources.

 

 

Slawter500 mentioning the weather, crops and seasons raises a subject that has not been discussed yet and is, actually, my major uncertainty with this mod: the time span for the whole mod.

 

Making an empty, wild island become a full community with a town and a few villages should (realistically) take years or, at least, many months.

On the other hand, I don't think it will be possible to create so many activities (side quests and such) to keep the player busy all that time.

One alternative would be to make things happen faster (like plant in the morning, a crop in the afternoon), so the mod could be finished in a few game weeks (very unrealistic).

Or should I consider that the player would come to the island, do/decide a few things, then go do other quests from other mods and return every once in a while to check things out and put the island back on track? It seems to me that this approach would break immersion and reduce the player 'commitment' with the island'.

 

I would very much appreciate your thoughts about this issue. How do you imagine a mod like this? As an uninterrupted sequence of events? Or something you would keep coming back every once in a while? Or something else?