Hey! You already mentioned Rimworld which uses a similar thing under the hood. But that is the only game that uses it in such a detail, that I can think of right now. Bigger 4X games use it on a more global scale as dismay between races or nations.
Implementing it should be quite straight forward. An individual gets the stats you want them to have and you track the "healthbar" of those stats on the individual. You could then add a lookup table to each individual storing the relation to other individuals like:
John: I hate him
Lisa: She is okay
Frank: I love him
Be aware that every individual will have a relation to e ery other known individual this way and that these feelings do not need to be symmetric. Jake might love Frank but Frank does not have to feel the same way.
If e vryone knows each other that makes NxN relations where N is the number of individuals. So 1000 individuals would need 1 mio data sets.
But that is still manageable. So you could just browse through your relation map on wach character and decide if this will influence the chars behavior. Like a really strong hate or love might directly determine what the char will do next but more neutral feelings to someone might not affect their behavior at all.
Actions between individuals will then change their social stats, health bars and their relation.
That's what came to my mind.
>If e vryone knows each other that makes NxN relations where N is the number of individuals. So 1000 individuals would need 1 mio data sets.
I have no plans to exceed more than 100 colonists at once, and i Think 10'000 relation score should be manageable. However if I end up doing that, I think i would rather go for a faction model, where each colonist would join 1 or more factions, and then it will be the factions that have relations with each other and not the individual colonists,
>Implementing it should be quite straight forward. An individual gets the stats you want them to have and you track the "healthbar" of those stats on the individual. You could then add a lookup table to each individual storing the relation to other individuals like:
I agree, I dont think the code implementation will be that hard to implement, rather the design-wise aspects, on that stats should the colonists have, and what should determine an outcome of a social interaction.
>Actions between individuals will then change their social stats, health bars and their relation.
My idea then is to make a single function that takes all emotion and personality states and stats into account, and then spits out an outcome event, that changes the interactors views of one another and their rank in the Social Hierarchy of the community.
That sounds solid. It will save computations and still have enough impact on the individuals. However if you use factions instead of individuals you can never have a Romwo and Juliet scenario where the factions are at war but individuals fall in love despite of that. But I guess that is completely okay.
There was a card game that did something like this where instead of attacking with physical attacks it was like, different types of arguments but I forget what it was called. You were a bounty hunter on an alien planet or something I think
Edit: IT WAS GRIFTLANDS
https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/
https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/chemistry-of-the-human-element/
The thing to understand is if you want this kind of Complex Relationships and Social Interactions, there is no current good solutions for that.
At the basic level you have the Character Internal and Emotional State and how that Changes and is Impacted by the actions of other characters.
You can have something like Princess Maker Training and Jobs System that increases that Character's Skills that can be furthered transformed into a desire for Status,Wealth and Power, and will Change their Relationship within the Social Hierarchy.
How does Beliefs, Ideology and Personality transform into Drives, Goals and a Cause they act upon?
How do you implement Sins, Wretchedness, Corruption and Betrayal that is a inherent source of conflict as well as humanity?
>[https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/](https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/)
>
>https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/chemistry-of-the-human-element/
Thank you for the links, I will read through those.
>At the basic level you have the Character Internal and Emotional State and how that Changes and is Impacted by the actions of other characters.
Im more or less aligned with your thoughts. So far I have an emotion state for each character together with some personality stats(and ideology), and relation stats towards every other character.
My idea then is just to make a single function that takes all those states and stats into account, and then spits out an outcome event, that changes the interactors views of one another and their rank in the Social Hierarchy of the community.
>How does Beliefs, Ideology and Personality transform into Drives, Goals and a Cause they act upon?
Yes is probably the core of my Question, How to go about and actually make such a system, that can be easily expanded? My first thought is a general desire lookup, where all possibel desires are stored, then each will be evaluated with the personality of the character and that or those with the highest evaluation scores will be picked?
> Yes is probably the core of my Question, How to go about and actually make such a system, that can be easily expanded? My first thought is a general desire lookup, where all possibel desires are stored, then each will be evaluated with the personality of the character and that or those with the highest evaluation scores will be picked?
There is not much development here so there is no known solution.
From my observation it's very hard to get Characters to Act because their Agency doesn't have much if an effect.
For Communism and Capitalism Ideology to exist you first need to have the Means of Production and Economy Simulated in the game to a degree of depth that it can differentiate between the two.
How are characters going to fight for Communism if it can't even exist in the game since it's just some abstract number?
At best you will have High School Drama where Character cat fight based on their Relationships, Likes and Dislikes for basically no reason.
I think you need some Parameters that are already part of the Game Simulation and Gameplay that you can Tweak that you can then turn into Beliefs and Ideology, since what they are fighting for would just mean Tweaking that Parameter one way or the other and have Consequence based on that.
I also thought about Characters as Interface and Game Functions. Like how in Crusader Kings you have a Assassinate Button that is a major part of the game, but what if you need an actual Assassin that you build a Relationships with and Train in their Skills in order to use that Function? What other parts of interface and game can be turned into characters? Crafting? Research?
Star Dynasties (which I worked on) was a grand strategy game in the style of CK2, but covered some of the same ground as you're thinking about. Each character liked or disliked every other character that they knew about.
What was particularly nice was that players could see exactly why these opinions had been formed: when you moused over another character you got a popup listing all of the events between your two characters that hadn't yet "faded away" (eg. snubbing someone at dinner would last a turn or two, but traumatising your child would last many years). You'd also see other bonuses/maluses (mostly based on their traits).
One other nice touch was that the final section was "How much do my friends or enemies like/dislike this person?" This wasn't too important when all was said and done, but it meant that if a you did something truly horrific to a family member, that could ripple through the whole court and make lots of other people dislike you further.
Hey! You already mentioned Rimworld which uses a similar thing under the hood. But that is the only game that uses it in such a detail, that I can think of right now. Bigger 4X games use it on a more global scale as dismay between races or nations. Implementing it should be quite straight forward. An individual gets the stats you want them to have and you track the "healthbar" of those stats on the individual. You could then add a lookup table to each individual storing the relation to other individuals like: John: I hate him Lisa: She is okay Frank: I love him Be aware that every individual will have a relation to e ery other known individual this way and that these feelings do not need to be symmetric. Jake might love Frank but Frank does not have to feel the same way. If e vryone knows each other that makes NxN relations where N is the number of individuals. So 1000 individuals would need 1 mio data sets. But that is still manageable. So you could just browse through your relation map on wach character and decide if this will influence the chars behavior. Like a really strong hate or love might directly determine what the char will do next but more neutral feelings to someone might not affect their behavior at all. Actions between individuals will then change their social stats, health bars and their relation. That's what came to my mind.
>If e vryone knows each other that makes NxN relations where N is the number of individuals. So 1000 individuals would need 1 mio data sets. I have no plans to exceed more than 100 colonists at once, and i Think 10'000 relation score should be manageable. However if I end up doing that, I think i would rather go for a faction model, where each colonist would join 1 or more factions, and then it will be the factions that have relations with each other and not the individual colonists, >Implementing it should be quite straight forward. An individual gets the stats you want them to have and you track the "healthbar" of those stats on the individual. You could then add a lookup table to each individual storing the relation to other individuals like: I agree, I dont think the code implementation will be that hard to implement, rather the design-wise aspects, on that stats should the colonists have, and what should determine an outcome of a social interaction. >Actions between individuals will then change their social stats, health bars and their relation. My idea then is to make a single function that takes all emotion and personality states and stats into account, and then spits out an outcome event, that changes the interactors views of one another and their rank in the Social Hierarchy of the community.
That sounds solid. It will save computations and still have enough impact on the individuals. However if you use factions instead of individuals you can never have a Romwo and Juliet scenario where the factions are at war but individuals fall in love despite of that. But I guess that is completely okay.
There was a card game that did something like this where instead of attacking with physical attacks it was like, different types of arguments but I forget what it was called. You were a bounty hunter on an alien planet or something I think Edit: IT WAS GRIFTLANDS
>IT WAS GRIFTLANDS Thank you, I will look into that
https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/ https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/chemistry-of-the-human-element/ The thing to understand is if you want this kind of Complex Relationships and Social Interactions, there is no current good solutions for that. At the basic level you have the Character Internal and Emotional State and how that Changes and is Impacted by the actions of other characters. You can have something like Princess Maker Training and Jobs System that increases that Character's Skills that can be furthered transformed into a desire for Status,Wealth and Power, and will Change their Relationship within the Social Hierarchy. How does Beliefs, Ideology and Personality transform into Drives, Goals and a Cause they act upon? How do you implement Sins, Wretchedness, Corruption and Betrayal that is a inherent source of conflict as well as humanity?
>[https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/](https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/resolving-conflicts-interlude-verbal-combat/) > >https://esotericgame.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/chemistry-of-the-human-element/ Thank you for the links, I will read through those. >At the basic level you have the Character Internal and Emotional State and how that Changes and is Impacted by the actions of other characters. Im more or less aligned with your thoughts. So far I have an emotion state for each character together with some personality stats(and ideology), and relation stats towards every other character. My idea then is just to make a single function that takes all those states and stats into account, and then spits out an outcome event, that changes the interactors views of one another and their rank in the Social Hierarchy of the community. >How does Beliefs, Ideology and Personality transform into Drives, Goals and a Cause they act upon? Yes is probably the core of my Question, How to go about and actually make such a system, that can be easily expanded? My first thought is a general desire lookup, where all possibel desires are stored, then each will be evaluated with the personality of the character and that or those with the highest evaluation scores will be picked?
> Yes is probably the core of my Question, How to go about and actually make such a system, that can be easily expanded? My first thought is a general desire lookup, where all possibel desires are stored, then each will be evaluated with the personality of the character and that or those with the highest evaluation scores will be picked? There is not much development here so there is no known solution. From my observation it's very hard to get Characters to Act because their Agency doesn't have much if an effect. For Communism and Capitalism Ideology to exist you first need to have the Means of Production and Economy Simulated in the game to a degree of depth that it can differentiate between the two. How are characters going to fight for Communism if it can't even exist in the game since it's just some abstract number? At best you will have High School Drama where Character cat fight based on their Relationships, Likes and Dislikes for basically no reason. I think you need some Parameters that are already part of the Game Simulation and Gameplay that you can Tweak that you can then turn into Beliefs and Ideology, since what they are fighting for would just mean Tweaking that Parameter one way or the other and have Consequence based on that. I also thought about Characters as Interface and Game Functions. Like how in Crusader Kings you have a Assassinate Button that is a major part of the game, but what if you need an actual Assassin that you build a Relationships with and Train in their Skills in order to use that Function? What other parts of interface and game can be turned into characters? Crafting? Research?
Star Dynasties (which I worked on) was a grand strategy game in the style of CK2, but covered some of the same ground as you're thinking about. Each character liked or disliked every other character that they knew about. What was particularly nice was that players could see exactly why these opinions had been formed: when you moused over another character you got a popup listing all of the events between your two characters that hadn't yet "faded away" (eg. snubbing someone at dinner would last a turn or two, but traumatising your child would last many years). You'd also see other bonuses/maluses (mostly based on their traits). One other nice touch was that the final section was "How much do my friends or enemies like/dislike this person?" This wasn't too important when all was said and done, but it meant that if a you did something truly horrific to a family member, that could ripple through the whole court and make lots of other people dislike you further.