Religious war, racial war, economic war, class war, iconoclasm and war over aesthetic movements, international finance: a game that is built on top of an "agent based simulation."
This is very good. However, you could add a few more factions to reflect the different facets of society, such as scholars or merchants. Also, to make it a bit more realistic, you could bring peasants’ motivation more in line with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You say that they love freedom more than security, but people in pre-democratic times seemed to be interested in peace and stability first and foremost, especially since it’s the basis of everything else. Another thing is that just like no player is completely knocked out of the game, you could make the win condition whoever has the highest loyalty or some other score at the end of the game rather than holding land or achieving a goal for ten minutes. As for the game itself, no simulation is perfect, but one way to make it more realistic is to have it take place in the present day and make it more of a city builder like Sim City instead of Age of Empires. Here’s an interesting article about if politics were more like Dungeons & Dragons:
Thank you for this. I'll try to answer everything you mentioned:
1. scholars and merchants. These classes should emerge organically in an agent-based-simulation. Profit maximizing should lead the peasants to invest in profitable ventures, but then tragedy will leave some families devastated and poor. The division of wealth should emerge organically. The tendency should be towards a concentration of wealth, save where accident, circumstance, or government policy offsets the concentration. The peasants also want education for their children, therefore there is money for schools, therefore there are incentives for some to become teachers (scholars). But if I have to hardcode any of these classes then I've failed to get the simulation correct.
2. About freedom and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, keep in mind two of the freedoms I list are about the need to find high-wage work, which is in keeping with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And the freedom to marry is fairly fundamental. No one wants to be a slave and no one wants to be raped.
3. "As for the game itself, no simulation is perfect, but one way to make it more realistic is to have it take place in the present day" -- excellent point. My actual plan is to use the agent based simulation as a game engine to power multiple games. If all goes well, and I have the money to build this further, then I would build games in different eras, with minor tweaks to the engine, but with the core idea being a game built on top of an agent based simulation.
Thank you for all of the feedback, I welcome more.
This is very good. However, you could add a few more factions to reflect the different facets of society, such as scholars or merchants. Also, to make it a bit more realistic, you could bring peasants’ motivation more in line with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You say that they love freedom more than security, but people in pre-democratic times seemed to be interested in peace and stability first and foremost, especially since it’s the basis of everything else. Another thing is that just like no player is completely knocked out of the game, you could make the win condition whoever has the highest loyalty or some other score at the end of the game rather than holding land or achieving a goal for ten minutes. As for the game itself, no simulation is perfect, but one way to make it more realistic is to have it take place in the present day and make it more of a city builder like Sim City instead of Age of Empires. Here’s an interesting article about if politics were more like Dungeons & Dragons:
https://radicalcentrism.org/2025/01/11/demos-dictats-realigning-dd-for-modern-american-politics/
Thank you for this. I'll try to answer everything you mentioned:
1. scholars and merchants. These classes should emerge organically in an agent-based-simulation. Profit maximizing should lead the peasants to invest in profitable ventures, but then tragedy will leave some families devastated and poor. The division of wealth should emerge organically. The tendency should be towards a concentration of wealth, save where accident, circumstance, or government policy offsets the concentration. The peasants also want education for their children, therefore there is money for schools, therefore there are incentives for some to become teachers (scholars). But if I have to hardcode any of these classes then I've failed to get the simulation correct.
2. About freedom and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, keep in mind two of the freedoms I list are about the need to find high-wage work, which is in keeping with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And the freedom to marry is fairly fundamental. No one wants to be a slave and no one wants to be raped.
3. "As for the game itself, no simulation is perfect, but one way to make it more realistic is to have it take place in the present day" -- excellent point. My actual plan is to use the agent based simulation as a game engine to power multiple games. If all goes well, and I have the money to build this further, then I would build games in different eras, with minor tweaks to the engine, but with the core idea being a game built on top of an agent based simulation.
Thank you for all of the feedback, I welcome more.
I forgot to mention this website:
https://www.nationstates.net/
Fantastic. I've been trying to play more war/strategy/nation games like this, as a kind of market research for myself.