City progress and procedurally generated encounters on local map

random picture of a catman

NPC roles, subgroups and city feature.

Subgroups? It is tree-like structure, like:

City ==> Noble family ==> guards, servants and workers.

They are an alternative to private property, so mundane citizens wouldn't sell you stuff from nearby shop an prevent servants to sell their bosses' stuff. 
Even then, they were eager to sell you shop signs of their neighbor's shop. I have fixed that, of course. 
Combined with NPC roles, subgroup ended to be to be easy way to handle city population. I mean I can track every single creature, except for vagrants, from very first group of a city. This mechanic is to be expanded to handle quest or track players actions.

But! The most important goal is to create lively looking city.
As I mentioned before, you should be able to play full game without leaving a city.

Good example is “Arcanum”.

I have set a priority plan for city development:

Top priority items include places you as a player interact the most: shops.

Yes, yes. I see what you did here! Buying and selling stuff!

Weapons (melee and ranged), armour and general store for the rest.

Second priority: Quest locations;

Quest givers like “that NPC with exclamation mark”.

And the Third is decoration.  

Includes places that don’t affect gameplay, at least right after implementation, but create atmosphere. Theatres (or musicians meet ups), special shops (like bookstores or fish markets), schools, houses of spiritual guides, forums, groves,
Okay, I have already added parks, but it was done to test item distribution algorithm.

^_^

Of course, I have few small tasks to be done in between.
For example I have to ad BIG ‘leave local map’ button when you come to ancient lift or tunnel location instead of mystery requirement to press enter.

When I am done with at least halve of city features list I will have very tasty tasks “additional features for character” and “procedurally generated encounters on local map”.

“Additional features for character” is very easy to understand. More features for the God of Features!

While “procedurally generated encounters on local map” are a bit more complicated.

I am not going to invent a bicycle if say that huge maps need encounter to be interesting to play. At best - dynamic encounters.

Well. It is fun to meet a giant roach. Sort of.

Fun to meet a necromutant. Yeah, a bit.

It is much better to meet roach fighting necromutants. (it happens rather regularly)

So, I have decided to expand this feature uncontrollably.

I’ll make list of potential encounter. Game selects from 1 to # variants and puts them together in different combinations. Idea is very simple, but can lead us to completely amazing results.
For example our game selected 3 civilians near campfire, 4 guards patrol and necromutant horde of 10 monsters.

It could be interesting on it is own already, but placing it results to different outcome.
For example:
civilians surrounded by mutants, guards aside: guards trying to save doomed civilians.

Civilians and guards near campfire, mutants aside: necromutants attacking guarded camp.
Add couple of pack snails and we have caravan attacked by monsters.
Replace civilians by bandits and we have very odd situation and so on.

As a Player I want Towns to look more like actual towns.

User Story: As a Player I want Towns to look more like actual towns.

 

This is the first step of Town and City generation routines. You can understand from one glance that this City is far from been completely generated.
Central districts have only two types of features - villa and ancient lift. It understandably not enough.

Outskirt districts have no special features at all and the cheapest districts, near wall have nothing at all. City wall doesn't have gates and so on.

Even then it is a huge step forward comparing to older towns.
I want to devote next week to development of city-life gameplay, so you can find activities without leaving town at all.
To achieve it I have to do a lot, but let's prepare 'first mile' features list:

1. Subgroups.
Creatures may be a member of a big group like city and a smaller one, for example: manor, villa, shop, guild, workshop etc.
This feature should be expanded, like group maybe owner of other groups. For example Villa group (read group leader) owns 2 workshop group, 1 tavern group and 6 house groups. It can lead us to interesting stories about wealthy families  or guild influence politics.

2. Creature roles.
Something like RPG "professions", but profession is too narrow meaning. I don't think that "profession" includes Hobbo or Lord, but "role" works fine.
Right now all Human beings are just humans, survivors of the Frontier. Not for long.
Every single role will have:
a.AI setting that will override creature AI settings. So 'guard' will engage the melee, but 'maid' will try to flee. Shopkeeper will try to stay at the shop etc.
b. Item flags. Guards gonna wear helms, bullet-vests and armed with big guns and heavy melee weapons, gentlemen wear top hats,  tailsuts and armed with canes or sword-canes, hobos wear rugs and chip bandanas, armed with  bare hands, sticks or stones.
c. Name. Obvious. You can see that %Person% is a shopkeeper and not a bandit leader.

List of must have city roles:
a. City watch.
b. Nobility.
c. Workers.
d. Servants.
e. Shopkeepers.
f.  Lowlifes and vagrants.
g. Entertainers.


3. City features.
As I mentioned before, cities need different features, including, but limiting to:
a. Markets, fairs, kiosks.
b. Shops.
c. Tavernas and meet-halls.
d. Villas and mansions.
e. Major house or magistrate.
f. Guard posts and prisons.
g. poor huts and wealthy houses.
h. Warehouses.
i. Graveyards.
j. City gates.
k. Workshops and factories.
l.  Parks and gardens.
m. Cultural buildings (theaters, arenas etc).
n. Military building (not guards' buildings; barracks, training ground).
o. "Rogue" buildings. Dens disguised by normal locations.
p. Radio.
q. Scientific buildings. Labs and inventors.
r. City decorations and utilities (statues, bins, benches, flower gardens, wells).

All feature should have different building styles and signs (when it is acceptable).

4. Map objects upgrade.
Map objects right now are mere named location. They should be expanded and do these jobs:
a. Game should be able to get map coordinates from object.
b. Object could be linked to a group.
c. Object may have different polices. Like restrictions to enter. "Don't dare to enter %lords name% mansion, trespasser!".

5. Player's basic reputation.
Game should keep records of players actions to allow NPC to react properly.
This task needs  research.

Portion of future Epic user stories

It is a collection of future Epic User Stories for our Trello page, their purpose is to help us to achieve our Epic goal:

Create living simulation of underground postapocaliptic world with a steampunk flavor.

Player should be able to take any role in this society from explore and warrior to builder, shopkeeper or beggar.  

==

Towns and Cities.

As a player I want to have access to various activities without leaving town or traveling between towns. I can play game for hours without living city border. (quests, crafts, trades, mobsters, temple and corporate stuff etc)

So, I want towns to have..

I want towns to have different houses consisting from more than one room.

I can meet real home owner. Home owner wants me to respect his or her privacy and property;

I want towns to have shops based on town size and resources.

Smaller towns and homestead would have one general store and / or one specified shop.
When big cities may have even shop district.

I expect general stores to sell different stuff from all categories of items by reselling it without real production.

Special shops would be built near specified workshops.

I want to see:

Smithy - melee weapons and smithy tools;

Apothecary - chemicals and solutions;

Inventor’s shops  - cogwheels, springs, steam engines and other mechanical stuff;

Leatherworker and cobbler – armours, and leather cloth,  boots;

Clothier – cloth;

Gunsmith – firearms, bullets and tools for guns;

Baker, Butcher, winemaker – foods and drinks.

Snailmaster – sells pack snails.

As a player I want to buy or setup my own business in any of theirs categories. Run my own shop, hire and fire workers. Also, I want a competition from competitors.

I want towns to have Taverns and halls (Also they should exist on their own near roads).

I want to buy food and drinks in Taverns, gamble and chat to locals.

Towns should have law enforcement, that will do more job except  killing random necromutants.

Law enforcement keeps records of crimes (including mine).
From one hand they will not attack me on sight if I have stolen a spoon, but from other hand they have to understand 2+2 and be suspicious about me if thievery spree starts right after my arrival.  

Towns should send patrols to fight necromutants and ruffians.

I want towns and locations to keep reputation of other eternities (including me).

It should be Civilization-like relations model like:

We caught you stealing -10;

You killed a lot of necromutants around town +15;

You sold artifact at our town. We appreciate it! + 10;

You own small property in our town. +5

You have made nasty deeds against our foes. We like it! +5.

Total: +25 (warm)

I should be able to find small jobs in town. Some of them are not very heroic.

For the relations with other eternities it would be decided during world generation.

I may expect to be attacked by law enforcements if  wear cloth associated with other eternity they hate.

I want towns to be source of different quests I can solve to get fame, coins or food, if am really desperate and it is really tiny quest.

City watch (law enforcement) should set prizes for necromutants around town if mana wind is strong enough.

Good bonuses should attracts bounty hunters that will not be in town for long.

Big enough towns should have Magistrate.

Magistrate should keep records of people and their lives. Also they should give ‘political’ quests and other various tasks for you to do. They will pay you for cartography achievements.

As player I want to meet interesting people with a history, fears and stories.

People may tell me their stories or refuse if they find me repulsive or unfriendly.

I may gain friendship of people by doing stuff they find good for them. Both for specified persons or whole eternity.

Builder:
I should be able to build house, shed or even manor. Yes, building.

These objects should be properly registered as map objects or even global map objects.

I want to assign a role for this building except for my ‘hero’s lair’.

I may want to build, for example, a workshop, hire people and start working as a smith there.

Wealth:

Making a fortune should be useful for me.

I want to buy interesting items. Especially I want to have a market, maybe black market, of great and rare and utterly expensive good.

I want to hire people to do tasks for me or assign my own quests for NPC.

I should be able to give bribes to people and get their favor or they may refuse it they hate me enough or find it disgusting.

I want to purchase property, hire someone to create property, including monuments in my honor or the honor of my cat.

I want to make crazy things with my wealth, like building ruby houses.

I want to donate my money to development of cities, towns or homesteads.

I want to use my money to corner local economy and buyout towns!

Exploration and explorers:

Mana fluctuation may occur opening rifts to different locations. Even if they close in some period of time it will reopen later.
Because of this local governments pay you good coins for exploring it and bringing back artifacts from these “lagoons”.   

Once you find a lagoon entrance you can enter it and travel there. Your entrance may occasionally close and you will have to find a new one.
With enough skill you may understand when it will close or keep it open for longer period.

‘Lagoons’ are strange locations completely perverted by wild mana.

Novice adventure:

As a novice adventure I want to have a chance to join a guild of adventurers and seek their guidance and help.

World Generation

I want game to create world with a history starting from Exodus (moment when people fled to Catacombs) instead of just placing them.

I want to see and read history of fist conquer of the frontier, met historical locations or monuments.

Underground rivers

I want to find and explore underground rivers and lakes.

Exploring water needs special equipment.

Very specific loot can be found underwater.

Bridges and ferries.

Mana wind

I want mana to be dangerous contamination agent.
It will affect necromutants activity, so they will rise in bigger numbers and be more aggressive.

It have to contaminate living beings giving them strange changes and effects.
Towns should be built in calm places, while interesting locations maybe have high mana level.
I want equipment to help me with mana contamination (like suits).

Mana should contaminate trees (huge mushrooms) turning them into flesh hunting monsters.

Trees:

I want more use of trees (huge mushrooms).

Traps:
I want to experience traps, both natural like quicksand and made by living creatures (sapient and not).

Farms:

They grow food and shepherd snails and roaches.

I want to steal fruits from farms or grow them.

Necromutants

I want them to be a blight of world of Fallen instead of just mobs.

They shouldn’t be constantly aggressive, but if mana level is low they may just wander around without purpose.

Mana they drop should be very contaminating. It should change the look of the level in period of time.

Ruffians

Small groups of villains. They shouldn’t be always aggressive towards player (For example, by default they would be semi-neutral, don’t attacking player inside their camps).
Player should be able to take villain role, lead the band or wipe them.

Villains offer quests that usually bring disorder and chaos to ‘civilized’ towns.