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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:46:53 GMT -5
I hear that each character has his or her own name. With cities of 1000 people or more that means there is a huge database of names on tap. Are these made up or real names? Default character names are based on actual ancient Egyptian names and words, modified a little to fit the context of our game (to be gender-neutral, for example). We might have sneaked a few familiar names into the list, but they aren't obvious or numerous. Since the renaming feature is included, we expect that many players will personalize their citizens' names, rendering our traditional cleverness in this area less important. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:48:10 GMT -5
In the old games people had problems with maintaining their housing at specific levels and losing their population when the housing level dropped. Will this be the case in CotN? There isn't evolution- a Pottery shop doesn't change into a better home, for example. A successful pottery shop does appear nicer, but there's a limit on how wealthy a potter can become, simply because pottery isn't that valuable. However, there is migration, so the family that's working at Pottery can climb the social and economic ladder by migrating to a better career. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:49:54 GMT -5
So there won't be buildings for architects and firemen as in Pharaoh? Yep, those aren't really appropriate for the society. (The C3 style architect that is. CotN does have educated architect-types to oversee the construction of monuments and such.) It seems like you don't have to deal with the old problem of unemployment in CotN. You do, but it's portrayed different. If, for example, a shopkeeper doesn't have enough customers to survice, he'll often resort to living and begging on the street. What about slaves? They were supposedly common in Egypt. Would a vagrant be taken as a slave? Slaves are one of those interesting questions about ancient egypt. The amount and prevalence of slaves varies widely depending on the era, and experts don't always agree on how common they were within the era. Some accepted generalities are that many slaves were captured foreign soldiers, who were mostly used in mining and projects far from cities, and that most large projects like the pyramids were built by peasants, not slaves. CotN doesn't have any slaves. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:51:31 GMT -5
What sorts of limits or controls on your city will CotN use in regards to city size and industrial production? It is difficult to support people far from the Nile. That doesn't mean you can't do it, however the methods you use are different. In other games, you may overbuild your distribution network. You don't have that same system in CotN. Instead, you do other things that optimize the distance the potter family has to go to get clay verses the distance someone has to go to shop for pottery. You can adjust the number of pottery shops you have working. Now, the pottery shop may not be fully efficient, making the full amount of pots it has the potential to. This isn't a critical failure though. What it means is that you'll need more pottery shops to supply the pots needed, and you'll probably need to be extra sure the potter's family has the services (health, worship) it desires nearby . A lot of things influence a person's happiness, it usually takes a few failures to drive a person off, so you can compensate for lower income by making sure all the other needs are taken care of. To summarize, to solve this problem you manage the people differently rather than distribution. Come to think of it, this statement is the answer to half the questions I'm getting. edit: The other part of the answer is the game is much less about the transport of raw materials and finished goods around the map. It's not really the critical path you're assuming- it's rather robust actually. That's not to say it doesn't matter, it's more that if the shop is near its raw materials, it works better. Being far away is within its abilities to survive. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:53:07 GMT -5
Where do the immigrants to your city come from? Do they just appear and move into some neutral housing waiting for jobs? I like how that describes migration, with the clarification that your Nome (the region where you are building) starts with bunches of Villagers in 'neutral housing plots'. They are the unemployed peasants of the area, whom you are trying to coax to live and work in your city. There's a pretty neat migration system- much more organic than the old City Building Series. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:54:50 GMT -5
According to the info we have already, the player will be more or less confined to his capital city for the duration of four or more periods, but we can select which city we want to build at the start of each period. Yes, that's it. The number of periods isn't set yet though. Basically, at the start of a period (Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, Archaic, would be examples) you pick a capital location from a set of choices. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:56:53 GMT -5
If the people fend for themselves and meet their own needs what can make a city fall apart? Lack of food is still the big one. People will find food on their own, so they don't starve to death. That doesn't mean they are happy about it- if they get unhappy enough about their situation, they're likely to leave your employ, after all, you giving them good, nutritious food is a big reason they are working for you. Foraging also has the direct effect that the person is not doing productive work for you. So the consequences of no food are: loss of productivity, possible civil unrest, emigration, and decreased health. Will Chidren of the Nile be easier or more difficult than Pharaoh? It's different, it's hard to compare the two. Definitely plenty of new challenges to overcome. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:58:21 GMT -5
Chris Beatrice is the President and Director of Development of Tilted Mill. What is the general method of industrial production and distribution used in CotN? Ok, here you go: As in ancient Egypt (and probably most ancient civilizations), in CotN the most humble crafts are not dependent on, nor do they benefit from any mass-harvesting operations, or from having workers dedicated solely to providing raw materials. In fact, in ancient Egypt the common crafts we've chosen (linen weaving, pottery, mat and basket making) were generally carried out as "side businesses" by peasant women, who were really farmers. We have separated all occupations for playability and clarity, but still these common shopkeepers can really be thought of as entrepreneurial peasants. The way to boost their production, as it were, is to make the craftwoman's life easy. Make sure she doesn't get sick a lot, and if she does there's a medical facility nearby; make sure she can get her shopping done easily, etc. As Tony pointed out, a lot of emphasis and concern in this thread has been placed on these humble folks. Yes, your city is dependent on them and yes this would make it difficult to build a prosperous city hundreds of miles away from the Nile - but that's why the Egyptions historically and in CotN didn't / don't live far away from the Nile. To the issue of increasing production specifically, a very important point has been missed here. Once again, the question, or should I say the concern is very well-targeted, but the nature of the functionality and "solution" does not reflect the nature of CotN (and one of the things we think is cool about it!). Luxury shopkeepers *do* benefit from fine raw materials, which your government harvests and imports for their use. So you harvest gold, gems, etc.; or import exotic minerals, then the city's jewelers, perfumers and so on not only *pay you* for these things, but they don't have to spend any time harvesting AND the items they make sell for a lot more (so they make more "money") AND these items last longer so consumers don't need to go shopping so much. These benefits are based on the value and variety of the materials that go into the finished item. Very simply, your pumping better and better raw materials into the city benefits everyone, and "optimizes" production. You can see that it's not entirely accurate to say it simply "maximizes production", because though the jeweler does increase production (not having to spend time harvesting), he also increases the value of what he's producing. You can look at this the other way around: you use laborers and traders to supply raw materials to the city's luxury shops, but (or and) if you don't they can still function and scrape by making cheaper wares from materials readily available in the natural environment. This is a good example of one of the many fail safes integrated into the game. If you fail to provide that harvester or importer, the shop still functions, just not as well. -Chris |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 15:59:48 GMT -5
In Pharaoh, the pyramids took a very long time to construct, even though each sledge delivering stone blocks to the construction site actually delivered more than just the four that was depicted upon it as it left the storageyard. The pyramids in CotN are huge and will such a muliplier system be used for blocks in pyramid construction? Yes, that's it. There is a steady, everyday stream of people and stone going to the pyramid. But showing a few million individual blocks move might take a few weeks, hence the block multiplication. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:02:23 GMT -5
We are all familiar with Hollywood's version of hundreds of men pulling sledges of huge stone blocks to the site of the pyramid, yet the screenshots of CotN show only a few men pulling the stone. Actually, 100 men pulling most blocks isn't necessarily historical. Mark Lehner and NOVA did some experiments not long ago on it: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyrami...e/builders.htmlQuote: And in a NOVA experiment we found that 12 men could pull a 1.5 ton block over a slick surface with great ease The average block size at pyramids at Giza were 2.5 tons, so call it 20 men to pull one of those. |
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:04:10 GMT -5
What are some of the other monuments we can build?
[quote author="Tony Leier of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
Giant statues of yourself thoughout the city, along with obelisks and stele praising your virtues and accomplishments seems a good alternate. It's good to be the Pharaoh.[/quote]
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:05:34 GMT -5
Adam Carriuolo is one of the Tilted Mill team artists. There is some archaelogical research showing that many of the great monuments and temples, etc. were highly decoratively painted. We see in your screen shot of the Sphinx that you seem to honor that theory, but doesn't that face look a little wrong? It's amorphic or elongated and doesn't look like the same proportions of the real Sphinx.
[quote author="Adam Carriuolo of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
For what it's worth folks, according to my research the Great Sphinx was painted. Whether it was painted when it was built or later I don't know. I believe most Egyptian monuments were also colored to some degree.
As to the other comments about the appropriateness of its appearance, they are noted and appreciated.[/quote]
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:08:44 GMT -5
Ken Parker gives us some idea of what to expect in terms of audio and speech in the game:
[quote author="Ken Paker of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
CotN contains an enormous volume of character speech. Although most of it is contextual, only a fraction is actually informative, so you can safely turn speech off without missing any important feedback. Speech is mainly there to amuse and entertain, because (1) so many players turn game sounds off so quickly, and because (2) we wouldn't want to penalize the hearing impaired, and because (3) putting game feedback in people's mouths quickly starts to sound stilted. Those who do choose to keep voices turned on will be rewarded with enough interactive snippets to entertain you for a good long time, while those of you who would rather listen to your collection of Metallica MP3s won't miss anything.[/quote]
[quote author="Ken Parker of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
At the risk of being a tease, CotN's speech engine is something new and different. I'm unaware of any other game that has used speech in quite the same way. We've put a lot of effort into speech, and most of you will be delighted by the result.[/quote]
[quote author="Ken Parker of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
CotN will include a substantial amount of character speech.
[/quote]
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:10:16 GMT -5
In Caesar III we had english accents for the character speaking parts. Will there be any sort of accents used for CotN?
[quote author="Ken Parker of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
Purely for the record, C3 was designed by David Lester, who was British, as were lead programmer Simon Bradbury and a few other team members. Impressions had a British office at that time, and the voices were recorded in England...so you see, the English accents in C3 were authentic. Since neither British nor American accents were historically true, I think David went with British because historical games always sell better in Europe than in the US, and he felt that Europeans would find the English accents more familiar. But I might not remember that 100 percent accurately -- it was a long time ago.
David left Imp many years ago to found Firefly Studios, and Imp gradually lost its English influence. Here at TM, we keep one British programmer around as our mascot.
I don't know what Keith (Zizza) intends to do about accents in CotN.
[/quote]
What about it Keith?
[quote author="Keith Zizza of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072]
All I can tell you is, the voices will definitely have a middle eastern flavor, and that there will be a lot of them... [/quote]
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Post by Keith Heitmann on Sept 8, 2004 16:13:49 GMT -5
Keith Zizza is the music director for CotN. The music in Pharaoh was quite extensive, 39 tracks in all, will there be something similar for CotN coming our way? Many of us really enjoy your work and listen to those tunes outside of the game. [quote author="Keith Zizza of Tilted Mill" link=[board=cotn&thread=1094655072&start=0#0 date=1094655072] Ahh, go on… … …I mean go ON and ON! Seriously though, thank you for all the generous praise. It’s been (and will be) an honor and pleasure to work with the most talented people in the business, here at Tilted Mill. And of course, talking to you in the Forum! To the other Keith: nice name you have there. And I love the jukebox… but you know, it’s about time for an update! This is the first soundtrack I’ve done for a City Builder in three years, and it’s coming soon. Someone else commented about having full-length tunes in the game; if by “full-length” you mean an average of 3-4 minutes each, then you’re in luck – all of them except for “Welcome” fit this category. Some of them are even longer than 4 minutes each. As for the CD request, I’ve wanted to create one for some time now. I’m sure if there’s enough interest, we’ll be able to do it! There are always a few tunes that for one reason or another don’t make it into the game (space issues, differences in style, etc) but these are just the kind of tunes that are fun to put in a compilation. Nice meeting everyone and talk to you soon, -Keith Z [/quote] Moderator note: That other "Keith" is yours truly. The musicbox site he refers to is the Children of the Nile Musicbox. |
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