The Evolving Society Mod

[MarkInMKUK]

Hi QQuix,

 

Good to see you are still working on the mod - I had a hardware-induced hiatus of a couple of years duration and only got back to Oblivion a few weeks ago. Look forward to play-testing alphas ... <hint, hint>

[QQuix]

Welcome back, Mark.

 

Thanks for your continuing interest. Hope I will not disappoint you and the guys still around.

[MarkInMKUK]

Don't worrk - I'll be here (barring more electromechanical mishaps). I'm busy reading up on the evolution of timber-framed houses in the UK, how they developed in architectural techniques over the years, and also boning up on "support jobs" - including the collection of dog droppings and human urine for various processes that ought to exist in a "full" mod - given that they haven't even seen fit to include a garderobe in the castles, let alone sinks and toilets in the dwellings, they might be a challenge to add. Of course, the water in the sewer systems has to come from SOMEWHERE - and there are no roadside gratings....

[Clusterone666]

Glad to see this mod still being worked on! Can't wait to play the finished product!

[QQuix]

Thanks for your interest.

 

You guys posting something every once in a while does help during those periods when motivation falters.

[MarkInMKUK]

Itinerant traders.

 

One characteristic of an "evolving society" is going to be the lack of support for a full-time tradesman in many trades - such as pot/pan repair, blacksmith, woodturner (bodger), charcoal burner, etc. Many of these trades were performed by itinerants, who would arrive, set up shop, trade for a few days, and move on. You would also get itinerant bards (and maybe other entertainers), food/goods traders (hunters/fur traders, and fish-traders if inland), and gypsy-types. Saves on the need for buildings, just a village green area and a pitched tent & campfire would often suffice. Also allows for bringing in news of the outside world events, or quests, or whatever.

 

So ... maybe a good starting point would be (like Riverwood) to have an area on the outskirts of a village that shows signs of being an occasional campsite (cold campfire area, maybe a bedroll, signs of having been cleared), and for itinerants to set up their trading pitch at that point of nearby (a bodger might need a local sapling or two to make a lather, some traders might need a parking area for a wagon, etc). (I know I've seen proof-of-concept wagons for Oblivion ages back - no idea whether they ever got used though)

Edited May 31, 2014 by MarkInMKUK

[QQuix]

There will be some . . .

 

The idea is that the original 3 outcasts that survive with the player specialize in producing the 3 things that they need to start their new life: food, wood and stone.

Later on, they must move to farther areas more suited to their trades (farmer to fertile lands, etc)

 

As they move farther, they must come to trade in the main city. They will use carts for that.

 

Maybe you mean this video. I created the code for this concept in 2010 just to use it here, as I say above.

 

Later on, we may add other trades, like the ones you mention, to give more ambiance to the region.

[MarkInMKUK]

Yes, that's one of the ones I remember, there was also one with rotating wheels on the cart.

 

Another itinerant group might be a small troupe of mummers - actors - maybe putting on a play about the assassination of the Emperor, or (if you've done the main quest) the result of the game. Bards - there are already Bard mods out there, but with so few songs. Maybe you could post on the rec.music.filk newsgroup to find people who could provide voice+guitar pseudo folk some recordings for a mod - "Sir Jock of the Sword" springs to mind as being FAR better than the ones in Skyrim.

 

When it comes to characters, I might be able to do a couple of voiceovers. Natural accent - British Home Counties (like BBC Standard but not-so-posh), but I can manage a couple of rural accents too, and in a couple of distinctly different voices (doddery old wheezing geezer is a speciality!)

Edited May 31, 2014 by MarkInMKUK

[MarkInMKUK]

This was recently posted - New Animations for Day-to-day Activities - looks potentially useful

[MarkInMKUK]

Warning - I've been thinking again :smile:

 

Thoughts on the mod start. When you initially start the mod, you mention there's yourself plus an agriculturist/farmer/herbalist, a stonemason and a carpenter/woodsman. I think you might find a different mix more useful (I'm ignoring your own area of specialisation, which may cover one of the other areas anyway):

 

Try an agriculturist (flora specialist), a hunter/fisher (fauna specialist) and a handyman (building specialist).

 

Reasoning? Initially you have nothing, apart from wreckage and driftwood, plus whatever hand tools you have and the surrounding unmaintained area. You will need an agriculturist to identify safe plants to eat, a hunter to get protein/fight off predators, and a handyman to construct the dwellings / start to build infrastructure. Having both a stone specialist and a wood specialist is unnecessary at the start, you won't be working in stone for quite some while and you can import a mason later. Wood you'll need PDQ so a woodsman makes more sense.

 

Once you have someplace to live and a foraging routine set up, so food and shelter are covered, THEN it's time to start with agriculture (I suggest Qarl's harvest might be a useful pre-requisite mod too). Once ground is cleared, and planted, plants take time to mature, so the agriculture can only slowly replace foraging. Initially it'll be the handyman creating shovels/rakes/hoes/whatever, and building irrigation tanks, then an "all hands" session to plant up crops, and then wait. However, there will also be defending the crops (the local wildlife will see "free food") and choosing where/what to plant. Starting on a (presumed sandy) beach, the soil will be crap and you may get one, poor crop. Clearing forest or grassland will give more fertile soil and better yields, but will involve more prep work.

 

Animals - look around the world to see what people have managed to domesticate. You don't have horses or cattle automatically, so you may end up breeding deer to give a meat source. That may mean fencing in forest areas instead of clearing more conventional pastures. Ploughing is a pain without draft animals, so the animations for crop making will change once a horse or cattle can be imported later - until then it's manual digging. dibbing out plants, and probably manually watering them (incidentally, horses require a horse collar to plough, cattle require a yoke. Different windpipe positions. I've never seen a deer used as a draft animal. Elephants, pygmy hippos or tapirs are your own best guess!)

 

Crop rotation. Especially while trying to grow on poor soil, you're going to get worse yields the second year with the same crop in the same place. Rotate on a 3/4 year cycle - the usual rule for a full rotation is Legume (peas/beans) > Root crop (potatoes) > Fruit crop (Strawberries) > Leaf crop (cabbages), possibly with a fallow period. I'd suggest clearing land, then a year of grazing animals to drop fertilizer, then starting crops. Also compost (collect grass / cuttings and put in heap, then leave to "cook" for a few months)? Herbs like comfrey would traditionally be used to enhance the quality of the compost. There's also manure - pigs in particular convert almost anything organic into fertiliser.

 

Of course, making the mod playable means that real growing cycles will have to be compressed. Even in tropical settings with no seasonal growth variation, you are unlikely to get more than 3 crops in a year. It goes against the original mod a bit, but how about starting off on the site of an abandoned colony? You'll have a series of "gone wild" crops to get you started then, and possibly previously-domesticated animals in the vicinity, maybe also repairable buildings to give you a foundation.

 

Edit: I finally found the Vox Populi forum so will be joining there later on. Meanwhile, you'd mentioned the need to "force" the layout of the original site / main city - maybe rebuilding on the foundations of an old town to set the "logical places" for certain buildings would be a good idea. You could maybe have buildings with the same foundation footprints where it didn't matter which alternative was chosen, and have unique footprints for unique buildings. re-using existing stable foundations makes sense in real world terms.

Edited June 1, 2014 by MarkInMKUK