Living Villages v1a

[Ken_Oh]

While working on an entirely different project, I realized that I could use part of it as a simple game function in versus multiplayer.

Living Villages gives each side on a random multiplayer map 3 starting villages, each with stats of Population, Food and Gold. These change from round to round, depending on many factors like how much grassland around it can be cultivated, whether or not there is enough food for the villagers, how close the farms are to water and looting/pillaging actions by players. Plus, if a village maxes out in terms of population and food, it will found another village nearby.

Rather than being captured for a side, the villages stay part of the original side they started on. Any unit that stays on a village at the end of the round will take the gold stores for that side and will consume 2 food (that's what heals the unit). If a unit is on a village that belongs to a non-allied side, it will also drive-out/kill 3 population. If the population for a village ever drops below 1, either by starvation or being pillaged, the terrain will change back to grassland and the village will be replaced by a destroyed village image.

Other boring details:
-Each refresh and production happens after the last player has taken their turn
-For every Pop, 1 adjacent hex of farm can be cultivated, up to the number of open grassland hexes
-1 hex of farmland yields 2 Food, except if the village is 2 hexes away from water or swamp, for which each hex produced 4 Food
-Each Pop consumes 1 Food every round
-If there is a shortage of Food, the Pop is reduced to the Food number before consumption.
-After consumption but before production, Food spoils at a rate of 1:4 rounded down
-After consumption and spoilage but before production, Food is converted to Gold 1:4 rounded down plus 1 (added the +1 in there just to give more cash flow to the game)
-If the Food produced is greater than the current Pop, then the Pop will grow by 1

The point of this is to do something simply because it would be just a little more than what I have and it might be fun. I'm not expecting this to be really balanced (it's on randomly generated maps and chance means alot when villages expand), but it might change gameplay around to where you should act a little more offensively.

If there are suggestions, I'll take any but I can't guarantee that I'm going to put too much more into it. However, if anyone wants to take it in any direction they want, please feel free.

[Grand Marshal Aditya]

Nice idea though balance-challenged by nature...

I would suggest that it changes every turn in a discreet cycle that makes sure everyone has a fair shot and 15 gold in a village is too much...

How about a City or something in the center that gives a ton of gold?

[appleide]

Is that my CIV map?

[Ken_Oh]

Aditya: I did have a storehouse in the middle where all the villages would then grow from, but scrapped it since it's too far away from Wesnoth's current independent village system. Rather, I do plan, for my grand project, to have different types of villages (farming, foresting, mining, industrial, etc.). About the 15 Gold thing, you'll see in my boring details above that the village simply gained that much over a long time of saving.

apple: Admittedly, it is plenty similar to you Civ game, except vastly different in gameplay since there isn't any micro management. That's really the point, to have a village system that the player can interact with, but doesn't have to build itself.